microsoft word 117-751-1 (1).docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.117 envisioning public scholarship for our time models for higher education researchers book review christine harrington, phd associate professor and co-coordinator new jersey city univeristy charrington1@njcu.edu kezar, a., drivalas, y., & kitchen, j. a. envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers. sterling, va: stylus publishing, 2018, 242 pp. paperback. $32.50 isbn 9781620367766; e-book. $25.99 isbn 9781620367780 envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers is an excellent resource for ed.d. program faculty and administrators who are committed to developing scholarly practitioners. doctoral students will benefit from having this book as required reading in their initial research course as it describes the value of scholarship and the significant impact various forms of public scholarship can make in terms of social justice and equity. kezar et al. (2018) promote activism by sharing numerous examples of public scholarship, including their own, and outlining several paths for how researchers can engage in public scholarship to impact policy and practice in higher education. this book is organized into three main sections. in the first section, the authors describe the context for public scholarship. in the second section, approaches to public scholarship are shared and in the third section, the focus is on encouraging and learning public scholarship. in part one, the authors emphasize the primary premise of the book which is that researchers need to consider ways to share their research in accessible ways to broader audiences. kezar et al. (2018) note that: we as scholars have an inherent responsibility to inform public debates on key policy and practice issues that affect education. it is not enough for those in the field to simply produce research. because we are the ones who examine the issues in methodologically rigorous and ethical ways, we therefore have the responsibility to bring our findings to those forums wherein the public good is debated. we also have a responsibility to be actors in that public sphere. (p. 9) to assist readers with understanding the broad context of public scholarship, kezar shares her personal journey with becoming a public scholar, and identifies numerous types of public scholarship such as media, local and national organization partnerships, and policy forums. many of the challenges and ethical issues related to this work are addressed. for example, it is noted that the reward structure for faculty is focused almost exclusively on publishing peer-reviewed journal articles and presenting at professional conferences. engaging in public scholarship may not be rewarded and because of politics and power issues, negative consequences may even occur. kezar recognizes that pubic scholarship may be riskier for faculty who do not have or have limited privilege in our society. this is an extremely important point -so important that it would have been helpful for this issue to be further explored. faculty using this book will want to have deeper conversations with their doctoral students about the potential negative consequences of being a public scholar and how to navigate the politics in academia. an entire chapter is devoted to ethical mindfulness, which is of particular value given this is unchartered territory for many scholars. readers are challenged to think about their ethical and moral obligation to engage in public scholarship as kezar et al. (2018) indicated in the following quote, “i do not want us to consider this to be just another form of scholarship, but instead i suggest that everyone is obligated to the public good and to being a public scholar” (p. 36). section two of this book highlights numerous approaches to public scholarship. my doctoral students were especially moved by the chapters in this section. through rich examples, kezar et al. (2018) brought to life ways that doctoral students, faculty, and administrators can really make a dif33 harrington ference by using research for the public good. readers are challenged to think about how scholars can work collaboratively with policy and legal partners and to also inform the wider public audience through forums such as social media and the arts. powerful examples of how researchers informed national movements such as black data matter are shared. one example of research activism related to black data matter came after school districts were closing when michael brown, a black teenager, was killed in ferguson, missouri. the authors were concerned about the impact of fergusonflorissant school district closure on the black children in that district and as a result, the authors engaged in “a rapid response effort to answer several questions and publicly report our findings” (p. 67). an infographic illustrating that black children would be more negatively impacted by the school closure than white children was developed and shared widely. this real-world example of activism can serve as a model for ed.d. programs. faculty and doctoral students can identify ways that data can inform and impact local and national movements. although many ed.d. programs encourage students to focus on problems of practice within their educational setting, faculty and coordinators of doctoral programs may want to also encourage students to address problems of practice that extend beyond their home institution and have the potential to impact social justice and equity in a broader way. because data and related accessible documents such as infographics will be needed quickly in these situations, the best place to develop these skills while also making a difference may be in a research course focused on action research or improvement science. instead of learning research skills in isolation, this approach would give students the opportunity to develop skills while engaging in public scholarship. students will likely be inspired by these experiences and may opt to address problems of practice at a more macro-level for the dissertation. kezar et al. (2018) skillfully address how public scholarship impacts equity throughout the book, but articulate some particularly powerful messages about these connections in the social media chapter. in addition to discussing how sharing scholarship via social media platforms such as twitter, facebook, and linkedin increases access to many audiences that would not otherwise be privy to research, the positive impact on the professional growth and development for faculty and administrators in higher education is also emphasized. for example, the authors note that: social media also provides an intellectual and professional community that is often not available for scholars of color, particularly those with limited social capital and formal connections. the ivory tower can often be a lonely place for faculty of color. (p. 141) the authors emphasize how professionals can gain a sense of belonging to a community of scholars through social media. although negative and sometimes hostile responses were identified as a challenge of using social media as a public scholarship platform, these issues need to be more deeply explored. faculty using this book may need to explore additional resources that provide models of public scholarship via social media and will also want to help students learn how to professionally handle negative and sometimes antagonistic responses as the book does not provide detailed support in this area. the third section is particularly valuable to ed.d. faculty and coordinators of doctoral programs as it focuses on how to prepare graduate students to be public scholars as well. ed.d. faculty and coordinators are challenged to review curriculum and determine how disseminating research and writing for a wider, more public audience can be incorporated into graduate course work. rather than only developing academic writing skills needed for publication in peer-reviewed journals, faculty can also require doctoral students to create more accessible products for the public. for example, students can be encouraged to write blogs, policy briefs, and executive summaries. kezar et al. (2018) also perceive it is critical that as faculty we model this work, noting, “it is important for graduate students to see community-engaged scholars at work” (p. 184). they also emphasize how public scholarship can take on different shapes and sizes throughout one’s career. faculty are encouraged to partner with local and national organizations and encourage doctoral students to conduct and share research that will shape policies and practices. the authors hope that readers: …are able to engage in public scholarship by altering how they teach writing in their graduate courses, adding community members to research teams, involving and aligning themselves with current social movements, working in partnership with policy organizations, or taking another approach that best suits their research. (p. 219) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.117 34 envisioning public scholarship for our time overall, envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers is an inspiring fresh look at how scholars can use their talents for the greater good. it challenges faculty, administrators, and students to become an activist through public scholarship. the rich, meaningful examples shared throughout the book are sure to provide readers with many suggestions and ideas about how to engage in public scholarship. two areas that were addressed, but need further attention, are how can colleges and universities modify reward structures so that public scholarship is highly valued, and what strategies will assist faculty and students who face challenges when shifting toward a more public scholarship framework. i would strongly recommend that faculty use this as a primary text in the first research course in doctoral programs, especially programs committed to the scholarly practitioner framework. envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers is a perfect fit for cped influenced programs that have a strong commitment to social justice and equity issues. the call to action for public scholarship and related strategies outlined in this book align well to the mission of ed.d. programs that aim to develop scholarly practitioners. to develop public scholars, ed.d. faculty have two primary tasks. first, faculty need to make the case for public scholarship. as ed.d. faculty help students understand how ed.d. programs differ from traditional ph.d. programs, emphasizing the skills needed by practitioners, they can empower students to see how the skills they will learn throughout the program will position them to be public scholars and activists. assigning this book is an excellent first step at creating a sense of urgency and obligation for students to use research skills to make a difference. in my class, students worked in small groups and created brief presentations for their classmates on the different chapters. a meaningful and moving online discussion about the various faces of public scholarship then took place. the second task of ed.d. faculty is to assist students with developing the skills needed to be an effective public scholar. according to the authors, this requires students to write in different genres for different audiences and peer-review processes that include individuals outside of academia. writing for the public is different from academic writing. students will need practice in both arenas. teaching students how to present data visually using infographics will also be important. in the scholarly practitioner class that i am teaching this semester, the final project is a blog on the problem of practice identified. in addition to requiring students to engage in peer-review process with classmates, students were also encouraged to share their draft blog with friends and colleagues outside of academia. for most students, this is their first experience writing for a public audience but they are embracing the opportunity and some are even seeking out ways to share their final blog publicly. faculty and students who read this book will undoubtedly be moved and compelled to engage in public scholarship. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.117 35 microsoft word 74 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 48 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.74 problems of practice as stance edmund ‘ted’ hamann, phd university of nebraska-lincoln ehamann2@unl.edu guy trainin, phd university of nebraska-lincoln gtrainin2@unl.edu abstract this piece describes a steadily changing, teacher leadership-oriented, cped-affiliated, education doctorate (edd) program that is housed in a department of curriculum and instruction. it situates the program design in relation to four key concepts—epistemology, praxis, efficacy, and iterative processes—while highlighting cped’s core stance that the voice of the professional practitioner needs to be inserted into discussion of educational change, not as the target of policy, nor the object of research, but rather as a coequal partner in a research/policy/ practice triad in which practitioner insights related to context are key for the viability of educational efforts. keywords: epistemology, praxis, efficacy, iterative introduction shortly after the creation of the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped), which sought (and seeks) to distinguish the education doctorate, or edd, from the doctorate of philosophy in education, or phd, cped articulated six principles of program design. the sixth principle is “emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d., guiding principles for program design section, para. 6). this is a different and more applied role than the traditional emphasis of university research to generate new knowledge. this different emphasis comes with its own inevitable paradox—we are telling practitioners (who are also our edd students) that they offer a unique and crucial perspective that should inform educational praxis—i.e., that they already bring crucial expertise—but also that they must honor the traditional orientations of the university to acquire credentials establishing their expertise. in the words of cochran-smith and lytle (2009): the knowledge needed for teachers to teach well and to enhance students’ learning opportunities and life chances [can]not be generated solely by researchers who were centrally positioned outside of schools and classrooms and imported for implementation and use inside the schools. (p. vii) yet we are also telling our practitioner inquirers that, for policymakers and researchers to heed their voices, they should acquire advanced credentials taught not as embedded professional development, but rather as advanced university coursework (i.e., by us). they should be heeded, but only with our support and attending to at least some of our institutions’ academic trappings. our goal here is to describe how our cohort-based cped program, now in its fifth iteration, illuminates how the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge can be embedded in design and intentionally pursued, but we start with the caveat above because we have found that an absence of understanding of principle six by various stakeholders has been one of the most significant challenges to our program. although we gain nothing by “naming names” (and thus will not), we have faculty colleagues both within our department and elsewhere in the university who we have found resist the idea of practitioner inquiry. early on with our first cohort, for example, we had an external doctoral committee member who was adamant that our student could not study her own professional environment to take on a “problem of practice” because clearly she was an interested party in relation to that environment. instead, that committee member required her to find another similar site to her own workplace and to conduct her dissertation research there. this committee member’s insistence did not derail the completion of a viable dissertation, but it did distort the program design. it meant our student needed to convey lessons from a nearby site (with which she had less stake) to bring them back to her own. we use the term “less stake” advisedly in the last sentence, because it is not the same as “no stake”. for verisimilitude purposes, our student went to a neighboring district to the one where she worked. while she did not have direct professional responsibilities in that setting, the reason she was able to arrange a study there is because she knew colleagues there, had attended professional development activities with them, and shared paperwork if/when students had moved from her jurisdiction to theirs. so she did have a stake in remaining in their good graces. none of her accommodations were “bad”, nor “indefensible”, but they are a problems of practice as stance impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.74 49 reminder that a committee member’s expectation of disinterested research conditions was unachieved (and likely unachievable). wolcott (1992) reminds us that the very act of deciding to study one thing versus another inserts interest. he notes this is not a fatal flaw, just a factor that needs to be made explicit to readers so that those readers can account for it. to make a further point, we want educators to be interested, to care about the well-being of their students and colleagues. it follows that from at least the first half of the term “practitioner-researcher” we are expecting cpeders to be interested rather than disinterested parties. cped doctoral students are interested parties cped students are interested parties in relation to various problems of practice and usually that interest ties to their professional responsibilities as practitioners. that interest is both inevitable and a virtue as, going back to cochran-smith and lytle (2009), it creates a perspective too readily overlooked in traditional education research. we expect practitioners to be advocates—to worry about the students in their charge, or the parents with whom they collaborate on the creation of individualized education plans, or the teachers for whom they are curriculum coordinator, etc.—but in our experience it is not inevitable that our fellow university faculty colleagues who could contribute to cped will concur with this stance. our cped program starts with recruitment, proceeds with early induction (including orientation into a cohort), and continues with each participant crafting a “roadmap to candidacy” that asks them to articulate: (a) biographically how they came to a particular problem of practice, (b) how they tie that problem to educational theory (i.e., a “stance” [cochran-smith & lytle, 2009] or “posture” [wolcott, 1992]), (c) how methodologically they might proceed to gain insight into that problem of practice to inform new or transformed practice, and (d) how they tie their inquiry into a larger area of emphasis (e.g., language, literacy, and culture; stem [science, technology, engineering, and math] education; or social analysis, educational policy, and reform). with the roadmap to candidacy doubling as the written comprehensive exam, our cped students then start to work on a dissertation of practice. during recruitment and then during early course activities that, among other tasks, try to build a sense of belonging to a cohort, we constantly highlight to the cped students that it is because they are practitioners that they are good candidates for an edd. furthermore, we emphasize (and they quickly see) how their classmates share the challenges of juggling family and full-time job responsibilities with the ambition of wanting to attain advanced degrees. four words course syllabi connect our program’s operation to the more abstract language of the sixth principle. for example, the “challenges and opportunities” introductory course (which spans cpeders first two semesters) starts by identifying four words that define the program: “epistemology, praxis, efficacy, and iterative” (“iterative” replaced the word “reflection” used with our first cohort). we clarify that “epistemology” describes the study of what constitutes knowing and that professional knowledge is obviously a centrally relevant kind of knowing. the term “praxis”, in turn, is intentionally a little different than just practice; the word highlights practice that is informed by theory. thus it ties in purpose and intentionality. it invokes practice that is not just action, not just doing it because “you’re supposed to do it”, but rather professionally informed action in which the practitioner (i.e., the cped doctoral student) can articulate why they are doing what they are doing. “efficacy” is a reminder that educational practice is supposed to create/produce something. phrased as a question, how do cped practitioners know that what they are doing is accomplishing what they are setting out to do? this raises the specter of things like external assessments, observation protocols, and the like (and these fit), but, like praxis, it also presumes the practitioner’s capability at articulating what counts, what success looks like. finally, the term “iterative”, which references going back to do things again and again, echoes the rhythms of school—teaching third grade last year, this year, and next year—but also introduces the idea of design research, that in each iteration things are modestly adapted and retooled based on how prior renderings were and were not efficacious. other principles we also propose that the “generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge” (i.e., the sixth principle) partially encompasses the third and fifth cped principles, with the use of professional knowledge overlapping with “demonstrate collaboration and communication skills” (from the third principle) and the generation and transformation of professional knowledge emerging from the task of developing “a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic inquiry” (from the fifth principle; cped, n.d., guiding principles for program design section, para. 5). so our cped program intentionally illuminates how our programmatic practice is grounded in collaboration and communication and how it continuously connects theory and practice. following mcdermott (1977) and others (e.g., hamann & reeves, 2012), our cped design notes that both universal and contextual dynamics affect what students do and how they fare at school. it follows that what expert practitioners should do—in hamann and reeves’ words, the “necessarily in situ decision making that is characteristic of teaching” (p. 97)—is not only “what always works.” appropriate instruction is the combination of what works and what works here, with the latter crucial and particularly visible to practitioners, but harder for external researchers to access. experiment-control logics (what the founding director of the federal institute for educational sciences called “the gold standard” of education research [hamann, 2003, p. 442]) can yield interesting insights that can inform educational practice, but they can never provide all of the needed insight as to what should happen. we would not need teachers if what should happen in a classroom could be fully defined by universalism-oriented research, but good teachers know that effective instruction is transactional, that it includes knowledge not just of students (generically) but of these students (particularly). good teachers translate, and adapt and supplement what is generally effective to what is effective here and for now. if cped’s raison d’etre is to help advanced practitioners take on problems of practice, then it follows that we need to promote and honor an epistemology that accounts for the in situ knowledge that is part of good practice. while our program focuses on teacher leadership, it is not hard to imagine modest substitutions for a few words above and making similar claims about education administrators negotiating a similar conjunction of broadly true knowledge and wisdom that applies “this time” to “this situation.” hamann & trainin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.74 50 turning to the next word—praxis—then is not much of a shift. if praxis references theory-informed practice, or purposeful practice, it follows that praxis emerges from the epistemologically inclusive frame that accounts for both the universal and the particular. one of the key advocates of relating the idea of praxis to pedagogy was paulo freire (1970), the brazilian educator and theorist, whose core premise for adult literacy instruction (his early career task) was that learners needed to “know the word to know the world” (p. 87), with the working premise that the words learners needed to know varied according to their particular circumstances. each learner needed words to describe their own necessarily autobiographic circumstances and the words necessary to advocate for changing those circumstances in an emancipatory fashion. thus praxis also embeds the particular, or contextual, but beyond that, as freire’s term emancipatory foreshadows, it connects to cped’s first principle which promises that program design “is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, n.d., guiding principles for program design section, para. 1). both praxis and epistemology put cped at odds (at least partially) with dominant educational policy currents. while the rigor and ambition of the standards movement has much to recommend it, that movement is intrinsically generic—here is what everyone needs—and thus incomplete. as a book that we have all of our cped enrollees read attests (see proefriedt’s high expectations [2008]), the standards movement does not attend to what a specific learner wants to learn (which may vary from another learner with different interests), nor, in freirian (1970) sense, what a particular learner needs to learn (per the premise that because circumstances vary, what will be emancipatory also varies). we know that our program exists at a historical moment in which our effort to help practitioners assert and hone their expertise coexists with an opposite impulse to ‘teacher proof’ curricula and pedagogy. our program design rejects the drive to “teacher proof” curricula because such efforts reject the logic of praxis—that practitioners should be able to adapt practice for theoretically defensible purposes that respond to the immediate circumstances of an educational environment. this leads to consideration of the third word, efficacy—what “counts” as an effective practice environment— and perhaps the most important premise of cped, i.e., what constitutes the “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” or principle six. practitioners as experts counting the perspectives of practitioners as “expert”, as worth attending to, which we think cped does, then has key and disruptive implications for a more traditional imagining of the roles of education research and the university in relation to educational policy and practice. the university is not supposed to tell skilled practitioners what they should do. however, that does not mean there is no role for the university (why would cped exist if there was no role?). cped offers a place for practitioners to learn the languages of research and policy, in a sense to remain practitioners but concurrently become more than practitioners. through a cohort approach it allows practitioners to network with other practitioners who also are identifying and taking on problems of practice, with the premise that “even as others’ problems are different from mine i can learn from their strategizing and enacting.” ultimately we find ourselves using the language of “design research” (bannan-ritland, 2003; design-based research collective, 2003). this describes how our program has iteratively transformed over its five (and counting) renderings and how we want cped participants to pursue their own problems of practice. applying a design research lens to our program design has included logistic as well as theoretical dimensions. as an example of the former, we have come to realize that while state department of education (sde) personnel would be an attractive population for our program, our dependence on the seasonality of schooling (and the availability of summer for intensive coursework) runs counter to sde employees’ need to concentrate their work activities in the summer. so summer is a poor time to enroll sde employees. as a more theoretical example, we have come to learn which of our faculty colleagues in our department and across the university are willing to embrace cped’s emphasis on transformation (i.e., application of inquiry to one’s site of practice) and which others cannot get past the idea that research should be positivistic and disinterested (both stances that conflict with practitioner’s practitioner responsibilities). honoring the principles of cped means challenging and changing how at least one corner of the university operates. references bannan-ritland, b., (2003). the role of design in research: the integrative learning design framework. educational researcher, 32(1), 21–24. carnegie program on the education doctorate (n.d.). about us. retrieved from: http://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/aboutus cochran-smith, m. & lytle, s. l., (2009). inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation. new york, ny: teachers college press design-based research collective, (2003). design-based research: an emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. educational researcher, 32(1), 5-8. freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: continuum hamann, e. t., (2003). reflections on the field: imagining the future of the anthropology of education if we take laura nader seriously. anthropology and education quarterly, 34(4), 438-449. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/43/ hamann, e. t., & reeves, j. (2012). accessing high-quality instructional strategies. in t. timar & j. maxwell-jolly (eds.), narrowing the achievement gap: perspectives and strategies for challenging times (pp. 95-110). cambridge, ma: harvard education press. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/134 mcdermott, r. (1977). social relations as contexts for learning in school. harvard educational review 47(2), 198-213. proefriedt, w. (2008). high expectations: the cultural roots of standards reform in american education. new york, ny: teachers college press. wolcott, h. (1992). posturing in qualitative inquiry. in m. lecompte, w. millroy, & j. preissle (eds.), the handbook of qualitative research in education (pp. 3-52). san diego, ca: academic press. document4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 45 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.40 international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates book review jacqueline hawkins, edd university of houston jhawkins@uh.edu storey, v. a. (ed.). (2016). international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. 288 pages. hardback $79.99, ebook $30.45. isbn 978-1-137-52706-6 a review of international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond by storey (2016) is important to stakeholders who want to learn about doctoral education and how faculty, institutions, and government policies around the world have responded to changes in the edd across various disciplines. the design of professional practice doctorates is complex and complicated work. storey puts that work on a global stage and engages with her co-authors as critical friends who describe, analyze, and dissect their doctorates of practice in their respective disciplines. this is done with an eye to understanding and improving professional practice doctorates and addressing the positive societal and economic impacts they can generate. this unique book would be useful for faculty and administrators at doctorate-granting institutions, particularly carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) member institutions, who are designing new edd programs; reclaiming, reframing, and redesigning current edd programs; and trying to figure out what is working and how. storey and her colleagues present a plethora of well-documented information and sources that nurture the reader with a space to think and a sense of belonging to a grander enterprise. we become an integral part of a global community of scholars who can help to transform doctoral education and document that transformation. bottom line—storey has edited a distinctive book that gives us hope that we can design and redesign doctorates of practice. storey (2016) has the lived-experiences of designing and directing professional leadership edds for both private and public universities in the united states and leading in schools in the united kingdom. she has both extensive scholarship in the design, implementation, and adjustment of doctorates of practice and has organized and attended international conferences related to doctoral education. these activities have connected storey to professionals in australia, canada, england, ireland, new zealand, israel, and the united states who join her as critical friends in the overall work of designing doctorates and as co-authors in this book. chapters provide readers with a wealth of information about the proliferation of programs, the differentiation of the doctorate across disciplines, the variety of both content and format of the edd, an understanding of the numbers of graduates and program trends, and the policies and politics that underpin many programs. these dominant themes have been linked to research, policy, and practice; can expand our understanding of the current global market and what our colleagues have done; can provide us with potential program differentiators and blueprints with which we can evaluate our own institutional progress; and can help us to customize programs to meet the needs of our respective community of stakeholders. authors have provided extensive sources for their work and have included supporting documentation from theory, research, policy, and practice. while it is clear that transformation within their programs continues to be a work in progress, storey and her colleagues have provided the reader with a wide-range of dominant themes of contemporary interest that are highlighted in this review. for example, themes respond to some of our prevalent questions and include: how can we facilitate program change?; what have others done to adjust content and format to relate to a profession?; and, how many students are enrolled, in which subjects, and how successful are the programs? most themes cut across various chapters and will be highlighted next. program change from the outset, storey (2016) expands our horizon and contextualizes the history, magnitude, and global scale of professional doctorates. initially, we learn that professional practice doctorates have a relatively brief history of 50+ years. the evolution of doctoral programs in europe, australasia, and the united states demonstrates that programs are, in general, more similar than different. many programs struggle through an identity crisis where the value of knowledge creation versus knowledge incorporation endures as an essential tension; most programs grapple with relevance to practice; and, all programs have a goal of improving practice—we learn that we are not alone in our challenges and that many before us have something to contribute to our solutions. hawkins impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.40 46 a differentiating strength of the book is the use of critical friendship theory (cft) as a tool to help us to change programs— cft is front and center throughout. storey and reardon (2016) set the tone of the book in chapter one by linking doctoral programs with the needs of society and economic outcomes. essentially, societal needs (and by extension global economies) should drive the content of programs and should become the critical friends of the academy— the survival of doctoral programs may be determined by their value in a 21st century economy. from this vantage point, they differentiate the more classic knowledge creation (i.e., where doctoral candidates may be far removed from practice; e.g., a phd candidate) from knowledge incorporation (i.e., where the doctoral candidate is steeped in practice; e.g., an edd candidate). they teach us that our doctoral programs must evolve in ways that increase their relevance, rigor, and connections to our respective stakeholders and must help to build capacity and expand economies. an overarching theme of the book is the role of being a member of a “critical friend group” (cfg). specifically, how we can use the cft process to learn to trust each other and work together as faculty to transform doctoral education. while this volume relies heavily on cft to drive program change, it is not a guide to the acquisition and use of cft. to achieve this level of facility, faculty members and institutions likely will need to supplement their change process with cft training, templates, and professional development. some of the most specific program change information is provided by researchers in australia and new zealand. mpofu (2016) details the history of policy reforms and government reports, their connection to economic priorities and workforce needs, and how they have driven an increase in professional doctorates in medicine and psychology. he differentiates the phd as engaging in original and independent research from the edd where candidates either conduct research that contributes to practice or engage in applied independent research. his work provides a fine-grain analysis of australia’s programs to include: admission criteria, professional recognition, requirements (research, coursework, clinical experiences), and length (three to five years). malloch (2016) complements mpofu by describing three evolutionary generations of doctoral work in australia that have resulted in the current model of a doctorate that links the university with both professional practice and change while situating each doctoral student at the center of selfdirecting their learning. maxwell’s (2016) trends in doctoral education over three decades should caution us to focus our own efforts. after an initial increase in the number of edds earned in australia in the 1990s, programs have seen decreasing numbers in the past decade. these results are attributed to funding changes, greater flexibility within recent phd programs, and declines in the influence of edds. in general, the detail with which program change information is provided is a strength of this work and the authors specify methods that can be replicated across the globe. these blueprints for change provide us some of the process measures we need to evaluate our own programs. however, most programs have not as yet dealt in sufficient manner with the impact of program graduates on the various professions. program format and link to profession throughout the book, many elements are linked to informal and formal evaluation studies that help us to understand how well various program formatting features have worked. international attributions of why programs have evolved to their current status are often informed by politics, policy, and context. authors describe why external turbulence has precipitated internal changes to doctorates of practice. frequently these are related to industry demands, retaining relevance, and adjusting to future needs. content, delivery formats, design elements, experiences, and dissertations in practice provide the reader with a rich panoply of options for consideration in the design/redesign process. rich case studies and extensive descriptive analyses detail both the thought processes and the decision-steps that were involved in determining the extent to which professional practice doctorates meet the demand for professional leaders who have the skills and dispositions to change outcomes. smythe, rolfe, and larmer (2016) provide a bold conceptualization (and actualization in health fields) of the program revisions necessary to support practitioners to become changeagents, in their respective professions, with edds. in taking an applied process approach to problem solving they empower practitioners with the tools to solve the variety of challenges that face them daily. doctoral programs become safe havens for thinking, learning, and embarking on ways to improve practice; faculty members focus on their (and their university’s) contribution to a community; and, ultimately, the benefits from research/scholarship to various education fields that can follow. the redesign efforts of hawkes and taylor (2016) further illustrate the importance of practice. they begin by embracing the extensive professional knowledge of their edd candidates and describe how candidates in the united kingdom needed a structure that developed their research skills and advanced their careers. their program options are tailored to the professional work-life of their students. specifically, weekend-university, week-long blocks, greater infusion of technology tools, and a reconceptualization of degree phases have resulted from discussions and feedback from students, faculty, and staff. while it may feel that these changes involve turning the traditional academy on its head, their valuable work engages the current professional capacity of their students, enhances the skills of caring professionals whose research products change lives, and can support both a university’s relevance within a community and the practical viability of its research contributions. the challenge to those of us in the profession will likely involve our own ability to recognize that we are not experts in all fields and that we have much to learn from those whose professional skills can complement our own research skills. role release and professional development opportunities for faculty constitute some of what likely must happen for institutions to compete successfully in a global market of professional doctorates. program enrollments, disciplines, and successes the number of programs and the number of students enrolled in those programs have tended to rise in the past two decades. more than half of the doctoral degree awarding institutions in australia now offer the edd, the number of programs in the united kingdom has increased from 109 in 1998 to 308 in 2009, while cped institutions in the united states have grown from 25 to 80+ institutions in a decade (maxwell, 2016). student enrollments in the programs are more challenging to determine. some report enrollments of eight while others compile the total enrollment in an entire country’s programs (e.g., 2,228 students enrolled in doctoral programs in the united kingdom in 2009). disciplines represented range widely from international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.40 47 healthcare (psychology, nursing, and medicine), education (educational psychology, educational leadership, and teaching and learning), art and design or technology, to business and work-based learning. successes in the various programs tend to be broadly defined. some report graduate numbers and general time to degree. some describe the links of programs to professions, but concrete examples are rarely presented. the information provided is a good starting point for a more systematic compilation of programs, admissions, enrollments, and graduation rates. a census of programs would be helpful to combat the inherent challenges in the various sampling criteria that are evident here. the breadth of disciplines attests to the demand for edd programs by professionals. however, a caveat is the lack of professional standards, likely challenges with the number of supervisors with professional experience, variety in supervision models, and the on-going relevance of programs to communities and economies. the need for continual revision and redesign in changing times is evident. overall, the main ideas and major objectives of the book are accomplished well. storey (2016) and her colleagues continue a valuable global conversation about professional practice doctorates and make a meaningful contribution to improved preparation of education doctorates. a strength of the book is the many authors who have been willing to describe their programs, share their evaluation outcomes, and discuss their challenges—they have indeed become our critical friends. on the whole, it is too early to determine whether or not these recommendations contribute solutions to the puzzle that is doctoral education, however, early indicators from research studies, policy briefs, and evaluation studies support storey and her colleagues’ contention that this is a viable path to pursue. an overall weakness of the book is the lack of research on the impact of the graduates of professional practice doctorates. specifically, do the students who graduate from new or redesigned programs align with society’s needs and generate economic impact? what is their ability to transform research into action that meets the needs of prospective employers (and society) and demonstrate improvements in practice? it would behoove us to set forth that evaluation plan now to ensure that the changes we make to the edd produce professionals who can provide new perspectives that help society adapt well to the ever-increasing pace of change in the 21st century. in closing, this book should prompt us each to ask: why should my program change?; what are the drivers for change in my respective contexts and communities?; what elements are essential to my success?; what needs to occur to ensure that success?; and, how do i document and demonstrate the success of my program? on a national level we can engage in similar conversations: how do we tell the story of our program reclamation and innovation over the past 10 years?; and, how do we use that information to engage with others in an improvement science process that continues to transform the preparation of professional practice doctorates? both lessons learned and the rich experiences from international institutions, that have implemented and evaluated their respective programs for decades, can inform institutions that are designing, developing, implementing, or re-designing a program. we too can add to the discourse; we too can add to critical friendship theory and practice. references hawkes, d., & taylor, s., (2016). redesigning the edd at ucl institute of education: thoughts of the incoming edd program leaders. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 115-125). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. malloch, m., (2016). trends in doctoral education in australia. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 63-78). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. maxwell, t.w., (2016). australian edds: at a crossroad? in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 79-98). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. mpofu, c., (2016). professional doctorates in psychology and medicine in new zealand and australia: context of development and characteristics. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 63-78). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. smythe, e., rolfe, g., & larmer, p., (2016). learning to think in the corporate university: developing a doctorate of practice. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 99113). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. storey, v.a. & reardon, r.m., (2016). critical friends and the evolving terminal degree. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates: applying the critical friends approach to the edd and beyond (pp. 9-21). basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. microsoft word vasudeva vf.docx this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.47 articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  international  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   1 adapted from the 2017 cped convening presentation reflections and new directions on cped’s 10th anniversary ash vasudeva carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching vasudeva@carnegiefoundation.org inspired by the theme for the summer 2017 cped convening – reclaiming to innovating – i would like to offer some reflections on the organization’s work to date and suggest possible new directions for the future. this year marks the 10th year anniversary of the organization. while it would be presumptuous for me to talk about its rich history and accomplishment – luminaries such as lee shulman and david imig are far more capable than me in this regard –i do want to reflect on the profound changes that have taken place over the last ten years – and ponder with you the opportunities that await this group as you consider the decade ahead. after all, a lot does happen in 10 years. for example, ten years ago this november, my wife pamela and i welcomed our son keshav into the world. we had no idea what life would be like with an infant – after all it’s the utter cluelessness of parents-to-be which perpetuates the human race – and we had even less of an idea of who he was going to become over time. fast forward 10 years and we have a much better sense of keshav’s temperament, his personality, his strengths and his challenges. for now, his biggest challenge is his little brother, ishaan – who transforms from best friend to fiercest rival seemingly 10-20 times per day. everyday. but more importantly, as parents, pam and i feel more prepared to survive – and even thrive – during the next 10 years because of what we’ve learned during the first 10. and i have no doubt that cped is in a similar and probably slightly better place. after all, unlike our family, the cped family is still growing – i’d like give a big shout-out to the 22 new partners who joined this past year – testament to the ambitious and vibrant work of your network. when pam and i got the itch to grow the family last year, we thought about it long and hard and settled for a dog. let the scoreboard read: cped 110 – vasudeva family 4. five if you include waffles. of course, scoreboards tell you only part of the story. watching our family grow over the last decade raises a question that i believe is a relevant for cped organizationally as it is for me personally. the question that i want to pose to you all today is: what is the family story you want to tell 10 years from now? when you look back at what cped has accomplished over the past decade – what is it you want to be known for in the coming decade? what obstacles will you have surmounted? which challenges will you make progress on? what legacy will you leave for your successors, and inevitably, what dilemmas will you leave behind? just what is the story you want to tell? the story of cped’s next decade – the one that begins this summer and that you and your teams will be writing about through the work you do and the actions you take – does not begin with a blank slate. rather, it builds on a verse crafted during cped’s first 10 years. jill perry and david imig (2016), writing in the cped journal, impacting education, reveal a critical theme over this time: while a plethora of programs have come in and out of schools of education, many without leaving a trace, cped has successfully enabled positive change in an infamously resistant sector. what enables cped to impact the designs of member’s education doctorate programs, sustain itself over time, and continue to attract new institutions of higher education into the fold? perry and imig (2016) cite a federally-sponsored study to suggest at least three reasons: • first, cped itself became a source of interest among other programs – you can imagine deans of noncped institutions huddling together like rival cliques of middle schoolers, asking themselves “what exactly is cped up to and are we missing out?” • second, cped members not only talked about change during their meetings, they also facilitated and supported change back on their campuses; and • third, the network – the relations, provocations and inspirations that connect your teams together - proved to be important to the work of individual member campuses. and yet, while cped’s future story builds on this strong foundation it is also bedeviled by equally vexing challenges. perry and imig (2016) remind us of the critiques of graduate schools of education raised by arthur levine in 2007 and earlier by harry judge in 1982 that continue to resonate and reverberate and in policy discourse inside and outside of higher education. of the two, levine is more blunt: “the edd should be eliminated”, he writes, “as it is “unnecessary for any job in school administration and creates a meaningless and burdensome obstacle to people who want to enter senior levels of school leadership” (p. 68). he adds this optimistic note: [in education] “credentials have come to overshadow competence” (levine, 2005, p. 68). compared to levine, judge (who hails from england) offers a critique couched in classic british reserve. he notes that u.s. graduate schools of education emulate the scholarly activities -and the scholarship -of the social sciences and that they appear to abhor having anything to do with the practical needs of schools and schooling (judge, 1982). now, it’s important to acknowledge that it is precisely these kinds of critiques that inspired the formation of cped and that this organization is particularly well-equipped to address them. but it is also important to recognize that broad skepticism about the use, utility and value of graduate schools of education are alive and well vasudeva impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.47 2 today, and if anything, the critiques of them are sharper and more widely held than when judge and levine published their commentaries. which leads me to a question that i hope we will ask ourselves today, which is: are cped’s existing strategies, approaches and structures sufficient to achieve the goals you have for the organization and your individual campuses over the next decade? or put differently: is what got you here today enough to get you where we want to go tomorrow? to help answer that question, i’d like to put aside levine’s critique for a moment – which to my 2017-ear sounds more like an early-morning tweet from a dyspeptic ex-business executive – “edd programs. shut ‘em down…sad.” instead, i’d like focus on the two issued raised by judge (1982): 1. our tendency to emulate traditional forms of academic research and scholarship; and 2. our tendency to less-than adequately address the pressing needs of practitioners in schools and school systems – particularly those related to equitable opportunities and outcomes. the two issues are related and speak to longstanding challenges of productively integrating research and practice. they also represent entry points into the discussion about how the methods and approaches of improvement science enacted through networked improvement communities (nics), might build-on and extend cped’s work over the next decade. specifically, how might improvement science and nics be part of re-thinking and re-tooling the preparation of education leaders in ways that are grounded in and consistent with the goals, values and history of cped? how might these approaches provide new opportunities to advance our field’s problem-solving capacity and make progress toward our equity goals? what i’d like to suggest to you today is that an improvement lens can help sharpen and focus the work of researchers on the practical problems of practitioners, and when done well, advances equity in ways that either group would struggle to accomplish alone. i’ll illustrate this with three dilemmas where the best intentions and contributions of research can go slightly askew when played out in the landscape of schools and school systems. i refer to the three dilemmas as: • the effect size fallacy • high infidelity • the individual vs. the collective the effect size fallacy think of three prefixes that have become part of the education lexicon over the last 15 years; scientifically-based, research-based, and evidence-based. the terms are widely used to describe programs and policies designed and tested to deliver school and systems improvement. and overall, this has been a positive trend – after all who of us doesn’t believe that evidence is a critical companion to intuition – one that keeps us honest in the face of our all-toohuman biases, assumptions and tendency to generalize on the basis of personal experience. but, as anthony bryk, president of the carnegie foundation, mentions in a keynote presentation at the 2017 carnegie summit, our attention to treatment effects often focuses on the overall average effect instead of the variability of effects across different contexts. he cites the reading recovery literacy program as an example. the average effect size of reading recovery from its most recent i3 evaluation is .7 – an impressively large figure for an educational intervention. but this part of the story – the average effect typically overshadows an equally important part of the story: the variability of effects found across schools (bryk, 2017). it’s this variability – how and why something works in specific settings and what we can learn from that experience to pursue and promote effectiveness at scale – that tends to get lost in the ways we educate leaders about what it means to be evidence-based. one result of this is a generation of educators who are savvy enough to do some comparison shopping as they think about programs they may wish to adopt – which one as bigger effect size? – but perhaps not equally well equipped to understand the leadership strategies and instructional supports it takes to produce positive outcomes in their particular contexts. at the bill and melinda gates foundation, where i spent nearly seven years prior to coming to carnegie – i witnessed this problem play out at the highest levels. as a member of the foundation’s research and data team, i helped develop and design a series of quasi-experimental studies of literacy and math reforms being supported by the foundation. over the course of multiple years, the studies produced a raft of findings about contexts, conditions, and variables that impacted high quality implementation. but in the end, what folks inside and outside the foundation tended to fixate on was you guessed it – the effect size. tongue-in-cheek i say that i was lucky that the effect sizes were positive or else my time there may have been a little bit shorter! the integration of improvement science into the education doctorate curriculum could help educational leaders deeply examine – and do something about the variability of performance across settings. this would support systems improvement and build new knowledge about how leaders can work to support quality outcomes reliably at scale. this i think could be one important theme for cped’s story over the next decade. high infidelity the focus on variability of performance is a useful contrast to the conventional way that variation gets addressed in many educational research studies. it’s not that our field doesn’t attend to variation now, it’s that we do it in ways that can be a little selfserving. let me explain. another well-established phrase that has accompanied the shift to research-based efforts in education is “fidelity of implementation.” i don’t need to tell this audience about the ubiquity and utility of the term. fidelity of implementation is used to give practitioners helpful guidance about the steps needed to enact a particular reform or intervention as the designers intended. while the concept of fidelity of implementation is useful – it’s also insufficient. fidelity measures in of themselves do little to help practitioners achieve success in their schools and school systems, and in fact, may provide a false sense of precision around the complex pathways and processes that support improved outcomes. one problem with the term is that it can be used to render judgment on practitioners while absolving designers and researchers of shared responsibility for disparate results. get good outcomes? credit research-based design. results not up to snuff? not our problem – it was simply insufficient fidelity on the part of, guess who – that’s right, the practitioners. not only does this concept reify the asymmetrical power relations between researchers and practitioners – we figure it out adapted from the 2017 cped convening presentation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.47 3 solutions and they keep messing things up – it can also be selfserving fiction. consider the study of reading recovery that i referenced earlier. it turns out the fidelity of implementation measures used in the study were only loosely coupled to the outcome measures. in many cases reading recovery works well and some places it doesn’t but in both instances we’re still struggling to understand why. and it’s not education alone that stumbles in its treatment of implementation. in his book “good strategy / bad strategy,” ucla business school professor, richard rumelt (2011) cites implementation – he uses the slightly more morbid term “execution” – as the most common lament corporate executives have about their organizations. he cites one executive who said: “we have a sophisticated strategy process, but there is a huge problem of execution. we almost always fall short of the goals we set for ourselves” (rumelt, 2011, p. 6). rumelt’s droll response to the executive gets right to the point. if your strategy results in failure most of the time – just how good was it to begin with? here’s where i think improvement science can help. improvement science can help extend the educational research base into the mechanisms and processes that reside within systems. drawing from the fidelity of implementation concept, improvement science attends to adaptive integration – the way that work, people, and resources are organized, sequenced and operate together. understanding when combinations and pathways come together to produce desired outcomes – and just as important, when they don’t – is fundamental knowledge for educational leaders seeking to build high-reliability organizations. when done well, the outcome of this work is more than an implementation checklist. it is a way of developing the skills, mindsets, and orientations of people – and the capacity within systems -to address three fundamental questions about the work they are doing to make schools and districts better. the three improvement questions are: 1. what is the specific problem you’re trying to solve? 2. what’s your theory and how does it reflect an understanding of the system you’re working in? 3. how do you know when a change is an improvement? building the capacity to address these improvement questions – within our own institutions and more importantly in the field – is a promising path and a potential new direction in solving enduring and endemic problems of practice in education. and if, by working shoulder to shoulder with practitioners in the systems you serve, you all develop the next generation of education leaders capable of routinely asking and answering these questions, then i think cped’s next chapter – the one you’re writing over the next ten years – has the potential to be a blockbuster. thus far, i’ve talked about how improvement science can address two common dilemmas at the interface of research and practice. building on our use of effect sizes and fidelity of implementation measures, improvement science orients us to work more closely with practitioners inside of systems to better understand variability and apply this knowledge to adaptively integrate researchbased efforts within their own settings. i believe this approach can extend the reach, expand the utility and increase the impact of education schools, like those in cped, that are committed to solving persistent problems of practice. the third dilemma that i’d like to focus on today involves the relative contributions of individual actors versus groups of people working together. networked improvement communities, or nics, are designed to magnify the strengths of improvement science through the power of collective action. in this way, nics reflect recent shifts in scientific discovery and advancement that could benefit and accelerate the work of educational researchers and practitioners. this third dilemma is: the individual versus the collective. albert einstein is probably the most iconic figure of science – and arguably the single greatest contributor to our understanding of the universe. other approaches to discovery engage far more people than either a solitary scholar or multiple scholars in a single laboratory. putting einstein aside, for he really is an outlier, i ask you: which approach is more likely to help us solve the enormous equity challenges that confront our schools and our nation? let’s start by examining how astronomers are tackling the biggest challenges in their field – like the structure and functioning of black holes. over the last three years astronomers have detected at least three black-hole mash-ups that have helped confirm einstein’s theories of the universe while expanding the scientific knowledge base. but unlike scientific discovery in the 20th century, science in the 21st century is a team sport. figure 1 demonstrates just the first page of authors from the paper describing the astrophysical implications of the black-hole merger. it continues, and continues, and continues, painting a picture of how scientists are collaborating to advance understanding their field. vasudeva impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.47 4 figure 1. sample of authorship on a scientific study can we organize ourselves to do the same? i believe we can and i believe that networked improvement communities can help us get there. nics marry the social relations of networks with the scientific discipline of improvement science to accelerate not just individual learning but the field’s collective capacity to learn and improve. most importantly, nics can be powerful tools for taking on the field’s biggest equity challenges. in 2008, when the carnegie foundation was exploring the use of improvement science in education, the national problem that we couldn’t turn away from was the failure rates in developmental mathematics courses offered in community colleges. typically, just 5% of students enrolled in developmental mathematics earn a math credit within one year, and 80% of these students don’t succeed after three years. the 400,000 students whose education pathway is cut short by developmental mathematics are more than the entire k-12 enrollment in at least 18 states. i don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that developmental mathematics is where the aspirations of america’s most diverse students by race, class, age, and ethnicity – often go to die. carnegie launched the developmental mathematics nic with over 30 institutions committed to solving a common problem – getting more students to succeed in developmental mathematics and credit-bearing math courses. rather than starting with solutions – a new program, a new curriculum – the process focused on how students experienced the system, where failure was most acute, and where the biggest drop-offs in enrollment occurred. this approach – developed hand-in-glove with community college faculty and students – created change packages that were tested and refined through plan do study act (pdsa) cycles. the most promising changes were retained and others were not. this work focused less on rolling out a single big new reform idea than identifying key levers for improvement and quickly testing how best to move them. the results were impressive. the mathematics pathways work – which now includes over 60 community colleges – has improved the rate for which students receive mathematics credit from 5% to over 50%. it has been an equity-driver in one of america’s most important educational vehicles for opportunity and upward mobility. how might graduate schools of education adapt the nic concept to the work of developing leaders for the field? the equity challenges facing k-12 school systems are no less daunting than in community colleges – and as persistent and pervasive. might there be ways of creating networked improvement communities that work together to solve, or at least make progress toward solving – one or adapted from the 2017 cped convening presentation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.47 5 more of these equity challenges? how might this approach help build capacity in the field and develop a generation of leaders with a fundamental approach and set of skills that helps them solve the inevitable challenges that await them in the field? this direction i believe, is not only consistent with cped’s accomplishments over the first decade, it’s consistent with organization’s guiding principles that: • focus on questions of equity • bring about solutions to complex problems of practice; and • develop a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge. of course, only you can judge whether the opportunity to integrate improvement science and networked improvement communities into the work of cped makes sense as you author the organization’s next chapter. and as you consider the family-story you want to tell over the next decade, i hope you consider whether and how an inter-stellar mash-up of improvement science, nics and edd programs could help reclaim, proclaim, and exclaim cped as the field’s cutting-edge innovator in leadership preparation. ten years from now when we look back on the new chapter of work that you are just now beginning to write, i’m confident that cped’s family story will be one that the entire field will find worth reading – and emulating. good luck in the work ahead and thank you for your time today. about ash vasudeva, phd ash vasudeva is vice president of strategic initiatives, where he oversees the carnegie foundation’s policy and communications efforts to build the field’s capacity for improvement research and networked improvement communities. prior to joining carnegie, vasudeva was a senior program officer at the bill & melinda gates foundation, where he focused on supporting school systems to implement college and career ready standards and strengthen educator effectiveness systems. previously, vasudeva was co-executive director of stanford university’s school redesign network, where he developed the leads network (leadership for equity and accountability in districts and schools), which enabled superintendents and their cabinets to collaborate on systems-reforms with faculty from stanford’s school of education, school of business, and school of design (d. school). vasudeva taught science at pasadena high school and entered the field through teach for america. he received his bachelor of science degree from carnegie mellon university and his doctorate from the university of california, los angeles. references bryk, a. (2017). redressing inequities: an aspiration in search of a method. keynote address at the carnegie summit. san francisco 2017. retrieved: https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/04/carnegie_bryk_summit_2017_keynote.pdf carnegie foundation (2017). how a networked improvement community improved success rates for struggling college math students. stanford: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. retrieved:https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/howa-networked-improvement-community-improved-success-rates-forstruggling-college-math-students/ judge h. (1982). american graduate schools of education: a view from abroad. ford foundation: new york, ny. levine, a. (2005). educating school leaders. the education schools project: new york, ny. perry, j.a., & imig, d.g. (2016). what do we mean by impact? impacting education: journal on transforming education. 1(1). rumelt, r. (2011). good strategy/bad strategy: the difference and why it matters. random house publishing: new york, ny. microsoft word 109-758-1 word n.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 predicting edd applicant potential using structured behavioral interviews during the application process laurie a. kimbrel, edd assistant professor university of west georgia lkimbrel@westga.edu mary alice varga, phd associate professor university of west georgia maryv@westga.edu abstract this essay describes the work of faculty at a public university in the southeast to align their application process with cped principles through the addition of structured behavioral interviews. their work was grounded in the premise that redefinition of the ed. d. program to focus on the successful preparation of scholarly practitioners also requires a redefinition of the type of student who is initially identified and admitted to the program. a structured interview was added to the application process as a tool to gather data to accurately predict the likelihood of student success in the program and as a leader of change in schools. selection science literature guided the development of the interview with questions aligned to essential student attributes. although the interview questions and process are still evolving, data from the initial administration suggests that the interview has promise as a useful element of the candidate selection process. keywords: structured behavioral interviews, ed.d. application process, predictive interviews, ed.d. program improvement introduction as colleges of education work to refine their doctorate in educational leadership (ed.d) programs to align with the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped) principles, attention typically focuses on updating coursework and the dissertation process to ensure rigor and relevance. this work, while essential, may be insufficient if we truly desire to achieve the shared vision of preparing educational leaders who are scholarly practitioners, ready to meet the complex challenges of the 21st century. refining the ed.d. to focus specifically on the effective preparation of scholarly practitioners also requires a redefinition of the type of student who is most likely to benefit from such a program and, consequently, how the applicants most likely to achieve success are identified and admitted. if we embrace the assumption that ed.d. programs are unique, rather than less rigorous versions of ph.d. programs, then relying on our traditional ph.d. program admission processes may no longer be sufficient. the ed.d. program in school improvement at university of west georgia has a school improvement focus, yet when faculty examined the admission process the program, they expressed concern that decisions based solely on the review of written materials may not provide sufficient evidence that applicants have the potential to identify problems of practice and to use research to solve those problems. faculty concerns stemmed from perceptions that students experience difficulty connecting their dissertation proposals to school improvement initiatives, despite coaching and instruction. admission selection the program receives approximately 100 applicants annually, and yet only 16-18 students are typically admitted. given this acceptance rate, making the best admission decisions possible is of the utmost importance. in order to ensure that the most appropriate applicants are selected for admission to the school improvement ed.d program at the (name of university), the faculty posed the following question: how can we use selection science research to create an ed.d. application process that will accurately predict the potential of each student for success in a program designed for practitionerresearchers focused on school improvement? examination of application process to answer this question, the school improvement program faculty began with an examination of the existing application process. potential students are required to submit an on-line application as well as gre scores, three letters of recommendation, vitae, official transcripts, and a short essay detailing personal goals related to school improvement. completed applications are initially screened for minimum gpas and gre scores, and then qualifying applications are sent for additional review by research and education leadership faculty members. given the school improvement focus of the program, faculty review applications to determine if potential students are in a position to identify and implement change 27 kimbrel & varga impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 initiatives; understand the basic concepts of school improvement; and have the academic capacity and persistence to complete rigorous coursework and a dissertation. faculty feedback is used to assemble a list of finalists, who then complete an unstructured, conversational phone interview with the program director. this brief interview addresses questions that arise in the application review but do not include a formal or consistent set of questions. final admission decisions are based on the totality of the information gathered and reviewed. faculty review of the admission process resulted in the agreement that existing components of the process should remain; however, elements to more accurately assess student writing ability and potential to engage in school improvement activities would increase our ability to identify the best applicants. to assess student writing ability, the decision was made to add a requirement that applicants submit a professional writing sample and scores for the writing portion of the gre. the faculty were aware of the disagreement regarding the degree of correlation between gre scores and academic success. the educational testing service (ets) has found that gre scores have only a moderate correlation with first year grade point averages and that critical skills associated with academic and professional competence are not measured by the assessment (ets, 1998). given these limitations, the professional writing sample was also added to assess a previous work product and to determine what candidates identified as their best-written work. to assess student potential to identify and solve problems of practice related to school improvement, faculty committed to the creation of a structured behavioral interview process designed to measure the attributes necessary for success in the ed.d. program and as a leader of school improvement. the structured behavioral interview as a predictive measure of success the conversational interview has been a widely used tool to make employment decisions for over a century, and as such, there has been a great deal of study of its effectiveness for predicting future job-related success (levashina et al., 2014). the interview remains popular despite the findings from decades of selection science literature, which has reported that traditional conversational interviews are often predictive of little more than an applicant's appearance, manners, and likability (buckley, norris, & wiese, 2000). the lack of predictive ability of conversational interviews has been reported to be a result of a variety of factors including, interviewers who do not agree among themselves about what types of questions should be asked and how interviewee responses should be evaluated (judge, higgins, & cable, 2000). other research has found that interviews are susceptible to interviewer bias and the impact of factors such as race, gender, age, and appearance, which are the primary determinants of the successful applicant (de kock & hauptfleisch, 2018; nadler, lowery, grebinoski, & jones, 2014; segrest purkiss, perrewe, gillespie, mayes & ferris, 2006). furthermore, traditional interviews can be problematic. interviewers can control the outcome by talking for the majority of the interview, asking questions that are not meaningful, and by conveying their opinions of the applicant’s responses through their own verbal and non-verbal responses (delli & vera, 2003). interviewers can also focus on unrelated issues, including the appearance of the interviewee (friedman, 2014). the addition of elements of structure in the employment interview process can reduce bias and inconsistency (moore, 2017). twelve meta-analyses conducted from 1988 through 1995 found strong evidence that structured interviews predict success more consistently than unstructured interviews (levashina et al., 2014). conway, jako, and goodman (1995) used meta-analysis of 111 studies to demonstrate the reliability of interviews, in terms of the extent to which the questions asked actually measure necessary job skills. results indicated that reliability varies widely depending on the format of the interview. they found that the average reliability of unstructured individual interviews was 0.37, but reliability increases to .59 for individual structured interviews. if we use cohen’s (1988) conventions, where bivariate correlations of .10. .30, and .50 represent small, medium, and large effect sizes, respectively, the addition of structure moves interviews to the highly reliable category. a meta-analysis by lavashina et al. (2014) identified six essential elements of the structured interview: 1. job analysis used to create questions. 2. identical questions asked of each applicant. 3. behavioral question format focused on situational questions based on past behavior. 4. individual answers rated with a predetermined scale. 5. presence of anchor answers. 6. trained interviewers. structured behavioral interview development faculty at the university of west georgia were purposeful in their decision to use selection science research regarding structured employment interviews to create a customized interview protocol and questions aligned with the qualities necessary for student success in the school improvement ed.d. program and as a school improvement leader. the development process was guided by the six elements of structured interviews, as identified by levashina et al. (2014). attributes related to ed.d success the structured interview development process begins with an analysis to determine the essential skills required for success in a given position. the faculty addressed this step by conducting a brief literature review to identify the attributes essential for success in an ed.d. program. unfortunately, no published studies outline specific pre-requisite attributes necessary for success in practitioner-based education programs. the faculty then searched for attributes of successful students identified by other edd programs on their websites or in their program literature. faculty focused on program materials from universities and colleges who are members of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). an extensive list of attributes was assembled from approximately ten cped member programs. faculty members then discussed the list and narrowed it to pre-requisite attributes they believed were related explicitly to success in the (name of university) online ed.d. focused on school improvement. attributes or behaviors that could be improved through participation in the program were not considered at this early stage of interview development, although this might become a consideration in the future. individual attributes were then categorized into broad classifications, as indicated in table 1. 28 predicting ed.d. applicant potential using structured behavioral interviews during the application process impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 table 1. attributes of an effective school improvement ed.d. student doctoral student attributes school improvement leader attributes practitioner-researcher attributes online learner attributes effective time management skilled writer flexible optimistic persistent motivated organized curious self-advocate self-disciplined coachable ethical analytical creative purpose commitment/passion critical thinker/ problem solver curious effective communicator collaborative optimistic persistent researcher self-efficacy ethical analytical creative curious effective communicator effective communicator social presence engagement self-disciplined motivated organized once the list of attributes was finalized and prioritized, the faculty collaborated to identify essential attributes that would be measured using a structured interview for each applicant. faculty members worked together to write operational definitions for each of the essential attributes. the definitions were written to focus on descriptions of optimal behaviors necessary for either school improvement leadership or success in a fully on-line doctorate program. table 2 lists the operational definitions for essential attributes. table 2. operational definitions of essential attributes attribute operational definition purpose this student knows that schools are in a constant state of development and never loses focus on the need to continually strive for significant improvement within their system. this person has a willingness to take action on approaches that improve the effectiveness of schools in terms of equitable outcomes for students. commitment/passion this student has a mission of service to others and is committed to the development of teachers and staff. they keep a focus on the students and works as a partner with parents and community members. collaborative this student actively seeks to understand the perspectives of others, seeks to align the work of team members to talents and strengths, requests input from those whom decisions will impact. coachable this student not only accepts but actively seeks feedback that is then utilized to continue to improve their performance and as well as that of their team. time management/ organization this student can multi-task, break long term projects down into manageable pieces, and make deadlines through the application of specific organizational strategies. persistent this student views obstacles as a part of any process and as surmountable. he or she has effective strategies to work through difficult circumstances. 29 kimbrel & varga impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 optimistic this student is positive about their work and has ways of encouraging others to do their best. also, he or she has high expectations for self and others. flexible this student remains open to change, admits mistakes and rectifies them, adapts to new circumstances, accepts alternate perspectives. problem solver this student identifies problems through the examination of data or evidence, uses research, best practice, and literature to arrive at logical, sound, and objective decisions. he or she ultimately wants schools to be accountable for student development and growth. ethical this student has personal values that are clearly defined and is willing to behave in a manner that demonstrates their sense of purpose. they are willing to tactfully speak out when necessary and confront inappropriate actions or behaviors of others. he or she can remain firm on personal values, even in the face of criticism. motivated this student continues to grow as a professional and has demonstrated that their ongoing learning benefits their school, colleagues, and students. interview protocol development the work of levashina, et al. (2014) guided interview question development. one interview question was developed to align with each of the 11 essential attributes, and an additional question was added to assess the capability of applicants to learn in an online setting. questions were developed according to research-based best practices for structured interviews. all questions were behavioral in nature and designed to uncover the presence of the attribute by asking applicants to describe how they have responded in the past or may respond in the future to specific situations. this focus on behavior allowed the interviewers to determine if there was a connection between stated applicant values and the ability to operationalize those values in their everyday professional practice. a rating scale for the interview was developed after all questions were written. each interviewee's response could be scored two, one, or zero. target answers based on the operational definitions were developed for each question and assigned a score of two. answers that approached but did not meet the target were assigned a score of one, and a negative or contrary answer was scored as a zero. a perfect score for the 12-question interview was 24, and the lowest possible score was zero. see table 3 for an example of an interview question and rating scale. table 3. sample interview question for the attribute of persistence the program director and a faculty member with a background in selection science research and practical field experience designing structured interviews developed interview procedures. procedures reflected recommendations from selection science literature so that every interviewee would have a similar experience. for example, procedures were implemented to reduce bias from factors such as the appearance of the applicant. all interviews were conducted on the gotomeeting platform using audio-only. the faculty developed an interview script to ensure all interviewees would have the same experience: this interview is designed so that you can express your beliefs and behaviors as an education professional and graduate student. we are interested in hearing about the essence of your beliefs and behaviors without much detail. if there is not enough information in your response, we will ask you to tell us more. when we think that we are ready to move on, we will interject a new question. although this may feel somewhat awkward, please do not be worried if this occurs! in addition, we will not be able to interpret a question for you, since it is your interpretation of the question that is most important to us. you may ask to have a question repeated if necessary. there are a total of 12 questions, and the interview should take about 15 minutes. the program director and the faculty member with expertise in structured interviews conducted the interviews together. the program director had reviewed written applications, and the other faculty member had not. the interviewers scored each interview independently and then compared and discussed results to establish inter-rater reliability. structured interview implementation students currently enrolled in the (name of university) school improvement ed.d. program were contacted via e-mail to seek volunteers to participate in a pilot of the structured interview process. the program director and faculty member with expertise in structured interviews conducted four pilot interviews with students using the briefly describe a project that you led that did not go as planned. how did you resolve the situation? (2) accurately determined barriers or issues, created a plan to address, the project was completed satisfactorily (1) created a plan, but it was not specifically aligned with the barriers, the project completed. (2) blame others, project abandoned 30 predicting ed.d. applicant potential using structured behavioral interviews during the application process impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 established process and questions.. students who participated in the pilot interviews also had the opportunity to share feedback regarding how the process felt from the perspective of an interviewee. feedback from students was generally positive, but in response to their ideas, small changes were made to the wording of three questions to increase clarity. one line was also added in the directions to reinforce that being interrupted by the interviewer was a normal part of the process and should not be interpreted as a negative sign. structured interviews with 20 school improvement ed.d. program applicants were conducted during february 2019. each interview was limited to 30–40 minutes, and the interview protocol was strictly followed to ensure that each applicant had a similar experience. interviewers gently interrupted to ask the next question in cases where interviewees gave extremely long answers. this strategy ensured that all interviews remained in the 30–40-minute timeframe. as planned, all interviews were audio only with no video and recorded so that interviewers could review the data as they established inter-rater reliability. data from one interview was omitted due to the applicant’s decision to defer admission to the following year. final admission decisions were ultimately made by the program director who considered feedback from the faculty review of written applications and to a lesser extent, the results from the structured interview. given that the interview is still considered to be in a pilot phase, no candidate was denied admission based on interview performance alone. in the near future, program faculty will work together to determine the weight and importance of each application component. as changes to the application process were discussed, consideration was given to the cped principle of social justice. faculty members were mindful that changes must enhance and not impede the admission of a diverse group of ed.d. students who work in settings that serve the most vulnerable k-12 students. preliminary findings when examining all applicant response scores, the average score was 16.89 out of a possible 24 points. the 14 applicants who were offered admission to the program obtained a higher average score of 18.06. cohen’s kappa was run to determine if there was agreement between the two interviewers on whether the applicant effectively communicated a connection between their stated values and the ability to operationalize those values in their everyday professional practice. altman’s (1999) guidelines were used to determine the strength of agreement as poor (<0.20), fair (0.210.40), moderate (0.41-0.60), good (0.61-0.80) or very good (0.811.00). there was moderate agreement between the two interviewers’ ratings, kappa = .542, p < .0001. when examining the relationship between applicant behavioral interview scores and programmatic success, grade point averages (gpas) of the 14 accepted students achieved during their first semester in the program were examined. the average gpa after the first semester was 3.93. gpas for each student and their corresponding interview score are listed in table 4. table 4. student grade point averages and interview scores student grade point average interview score a 4 21 b 4 20 c 4 20 d 3.5 20 e 4 19 f 4 19 g 4 18 h 4 18 i 3.5 18 j 4 17 k 4 17 l 4 16 m 4 15 n 4 14 attempts at examining a relationship between interview scores and gpa were made; however, the data violated the assumption of a monotonic relationship between the two variables. since this is required to run a spearman correlation, the relationship could not be statistically analyzed. faculty recognize that gpa is only one limited measure of student success. work is in progress to determine what other measures of program success will be used as we continue to refine and use the structured interview as a component of the application process. ultimately, the percentage of students who complete the program in three, four, and five years will become important measures of student success. dissertations in this program are required to focus on identifying and solving a problem of practice through action research or program improvement, and so successful defense will be a measure of effectiveness in the area of school improvement. next steps school improvement faculty at (name of university) recognize that the development and the first round of implementation of the structured behavioral interview process was only the first step in a long-term project. several important actions are being taken to strengthen both the interview questions and the protocol. a presentation was made at the june 2019 cped convening to solicit feedback of faculty members from colleges and universities who have also committed to the cped principles. the feedback from this group focused on ideas to strengthen questions to align more closely with the attributes they seek to measure. interview questions will be revised to consider their feedback and the performance of applicants during the first round of implementation. any question that resulted in uniformly high or low scores will be examined by faculty to consider if the question presents an opportunity for applicants to differentiate themselves from one another. the revised interview questions will 31 kimbrel & varga impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.109 remain aligned to the same essential attributes and will be used in the spring 2020 admission process. concerns relating to diversity were not found with the initial use of the structured interview. the ed.d. program is in a fortunate position to receive a diverse pool of applicants each year. of the 14 students who were interviewed and offered admission, approximately 30% (n = 4) identified as african american/black or hispanic. admitted applicants who identified as males represented 20% (n = 3) of the group. these numbers are consistent with the demographics of applicants who are admitted to the program over the past four years. faculty at (name of university) will compare the structured interview results with measures of student success in the program including gpa, successful completion of coursework, and successful completion of the program including the dissertation, in order to establish if the structured interview is a predictive tool and enhances the ability of faculty to admit the students to the ed.d. program who are most likely to experience success. ultimately, the value of the structured interview is dependent on the alignment of the essential attributes as listed in table 1, the operational definitions as listed in table 2 and the structured interview questions. as more interview data is gathered and analyzed, adjustments will be made to improve this alignment and to ensure that the interview measures the attributes as they are defined. (name of university) faculty are also committed to a collaborative relationship with their colleagues in other cped aligned ed.d. programs and as such, are willing to share the interview protocol and questions upon request. references altman, d. g. (1991). practical statistics for medical research. london: chapman and hall. buckley, r. m., norris, a.c., & wiese, d. s. (2000). a brief history of the selection interview: may the next 100 years be more fruitful. journal of management history, 6(3), 113126. https://doi.org/10.1108/eum0000000005329 chambers, b.a. (2015). acing the interview. collector, 81(1), 32-33. retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&authtype=ip,shib& db=edb&an=108892454&site=eds-live&scope=site cohen j. (1988). statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). hillsdale, nj: erlbaum. conway, j.m, jako, r.a., & goodman, d.f. (1995). a meta-analysis of interrater and internal consistency reliability of selection interviews. journal of applied psychology, 80, 565-579. https://doi.org/10.1037/e518362013-291 dekock, f.s., & hauptfleisch, d.b. (2018). reducing racial similarity bias in interviews by increasing structure: a quasi-experimental using multilevel analysis. international perspectives in psychology: research, practice, consultation, 7(3), 137-15. https://doi.org/10.1037/ipp0000091 deli, d.a., & vera, e.m. (2003). psychological and contextual influences on the teacher selection interview: a model for future research. journal of personnel evaluation in education, 17(2), 137-218. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:peev.0000032425.42878.f3 educational testing service. (1998). gre guide to the use of scores, 19981999. princeton, nj. friedman, r. (2014). the best place to work. new york, ny: penguinrandom house publishing. judge, t.a., higgins, c.a., & cable, d.m. (2000). the employment interview: a review of recent research and recommendations for future research. human management review, (10)4, 383-406. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1053-4822(00)00033-4 levashina, j., hartwell, c. j., morgeson, f. p., & campion, m.a. (2014). the structured employment interview: narrative and quantitative review of the research literature. personnel psychology, (67)1, 241-293. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12052 moore, d. a. (2017). how to improve the accuracy and reduce the cost of personnel selection. california management review, (60)1, 8-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008125617725288 nadler, j.t., lowery, m.r., grebinoski, j., & jones, r.g. (2014). adverse discrimination in employment interviews: reducing effects of sexual orientation bias with accountability. psychology of sexual orientation and gender diversity, 1(4), 480488. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000079 schmidt, f.l. & hunter, j.e. (1998). the validity and unity of selection and methods in personnel psychology: practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. psychological bulletin, 124 (2), 262274. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.124.2.262 seagrest purkiss, s.l., perrewe, p.l., gillespie, t.l., mayes, b.t., & ferris, g.r. (2006). implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 101(2), 152-167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.06.005 32 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.160 adult learners, remote learning, and the covid pandemic: restructuring education doctorate courses in crisis linsay demartino illinois state university lademar@ilstu.edu abstract this essay serves as the narrative of an early career assistant professor as they recall their struggles, vulnerabilities, and insecurities while navigating the need to shift their educational leadership doctoral students to emergency remote learning amid a global pandemic. using the foundations of transformational experiences for adult learners, the need to sustain the students’ communities of practice, and positive school leadership, the author develops and executes their action plan to meet the needs of their adult learners and support them in the online environment during the covid-19 crisis. by applying this framework as practicing edd scholars, we serve as a model for future directions in the teaching spaces of the education doctorate by bridging the gap between theory and practice in our higher education teaching spaces. keywords educational doctorate, covid-19, adult learners, communities of practice, positive school leadership on march 11, 2020, the world health organization (who) determined the covid-19 outbreak was classified as a world-wide pandemic. the director-general of the who stated, “we cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough...all countries can still change the course of this pandemic...detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response” (world health organization [who], 2020a). in mid-march, officials in the united states (u.s.) reported more than 10,750 confirmed cases of the covid-19 viral disease and over 150 deaths. all fifty states reported cases, yet massive outbreaks were confined to only a few states, including new york, washington, and california (dwyer, 2020). governor andrew cuomo of new york state, who arguably will become the most vocal of state-level politicians calling for more federal aid in combatting covid-19, reported a u.s. navy hospital ship was preparing to deploy to new york harbor to support medical centers in new york city that were facing a surge of patients (dwyer, 2020). not even a week later, governor cuomo reported the new york state infection rate was doubling every three days (chappell, 2020). at the same time, illinois governor j. b. pritzker issued a “stay-at-home” order limiting residents to visiting only grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and to take walks outside (chicago tribune staff, 2020). this is the narrative from mid-march to early may of an early career assistant professor as they recall their struggles, vulnerabilities, and insecurities while navigating the need to shift their educational leadership doctoral students to remote learning amid a global pandemic. this essay begins with the author’s journaling of their experiences and transitions to literature on transformational experiences for adult learners (kasworm & bowles, 2010; mezirow, 2000), the need to sustain the students’ communities of practice (wenger-trayner & wenger-trayner, 2015), and positive school leadership (kutsyuruba & walker, 2015; stefkovich & shapiro, 2003). next, based on these frameworks, the author shares their process for supporting the needs of their adult learners in the online environment during the onset of the covid crisis. finally, the author concludes with implications for future practice, where they suggest practicing edd scholars apply similar frameworks as we prepare our educational leaders to become well-equipped scholarly practitioners. in this way, we serve as models for future directions in the teaching spaces of the education doctorate by bridging the gap between theory and practice in our higher education teaching spaces. the first month (in pandemic times) my partner was away the second week in march during my spring break meeting for his low residency course. when we spoke, he told me about his new students, their promising works of fiction, and his successful writing salon. in return, i grumbled about the massive lightning storms and loss of electricity for the first two evenings he was away. meanwhile, my father in new york state, called me regularly to check in on me. he constantly reminded me to watch the news which i tried to avoid. nevertheless, those pesky news app notifications on the growing covid-19 crisis infiltrated my eyes, ears, and mind. on thursday, my partner returned home. by that time, my covid-19 anxieties were skyrocketing. the world health organization (who) (2020b) reported 125,260 cases and 4,613 deaths worldwide from covid-19. in the united states (u.s.), there were 987 cases and 29 deaths. we talked about the situation, considered my father’s advice, and deliberated our next steps to prepare our small family for the onset of the virus. because we were http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:lademar@ilstu.edu adult learners, remote learning, and the covid pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.160 12 in a privileged situation, we placed an order at our local big box store. toilet paper, tissues, disinfectant wipes and spray, water, and some canned goods were ready for us to pick up the next day. stay-at-home order: directive to transition to remote learning after we unloaded our supplies and arranged them in our basement make-shift pantry, i checked my email. the university president sent out an email to all personnel saying that we would not return to campus on monday. the university was extending spring break for another week, into the third week of march, and students were strongly discouraged from returning to campus. during this extended time, teaching faculty members and staff personnel were directed to shift all classes to remote learning for a march 23rd launch date. no other information was provided. with this directive, i went into full panic mode. i was confused and overly anxious. these emotions were activating my insecurities, in hyper speed. with these overwhelming feelings, i immediately thought of the television series, star trek: picard. in the most recent episode, in a desperate act to make sense of her new reality, soji, the synthetic daughter of data, usurped control of the ship navigating through a borg wormhole. following this unconventional and dangerous transit, picard and the crew arrived at soji's home world, coppelius. i was desperate, like soji, to make sense of what was happening. i was new to my position, this university, and this city. because i was in my first year as an assistant professor, i was unfamiliar with many of the support services at the university. i knew even less about services in the community, and other vulnerability questions surged through my mind. most importantly, because i doubted my own ability to navigate a pandemic, i was floundering in an unfamiliar wormhole, as i questioned my ability to best support my doctoral students. at this time, i experienced what i imagine most other people were experiencing, as well. for better or for worse, i withdrew. i binged the new season of ozark to get away from the reality of pandemic times as i journeyed into a world of money laundering, shady political moves, and some major turf issues. i ate pizza, lots of pizza (and not the good kind), coupled with an adult beverage or two. when my binge was complete and my stomach was full, i still did not have a solution for how to best serve my students. after the weekend passed, i struggled to get back on track to consider my possibilities for transitioning my doctoral students to remote learning. since i needed support, i spoke to my trusted colleagues. some of my colleagues were still reeling, but others were pushing forward. after their caring and humble words, they shared their visions and strategies for remote learning. in addition, i explored new social media networks created to support those in my field. for example, i became members of several facebook groups, such as higher ed learning collective, qualitative research in education, and i should be writing. these networks became a valuable resource for me, as well. i was inspired by the informative posts about supporting students in our unprecedented times and helpful strategies to ease the transition to remote learning in crisis. through the conversations with my colleagues and the insights i gained from my membership in social media groups, my confidence increased. with this foundation, i started to reflect on my former research projects. i considered my past interviews and observations of the school leaders in my studies. moreover, i contemplated how these current educational leaders, existing as adult learners in a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) space, could inform my actions in our current crisis. as a result, i considered transformational experiences for adult learners, communities of practice, and positive school leadership (psl) frameworks as they seemed to be the most fitting to my current situation. three theoretical frameworks that influenced course revision efforts transformational experiences for adult learners in postgraduate programs most college students experience transformational learning while attending an institution of higher education (kasworm & bowles, 2010; mezirow, 1991; 2000). according to mezirow (2000), transformational learning is defined as “the process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning schemes, habits of mind, mindsets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective, so that they may generate beliefs and opinions” (p. 8). then, these transformed beliefs and opinions are justified and guide students’ future actions. although not the only framework for learning, transformative learning is built on the assumption that adult learners carry with them an abundance of experiences which serve as the foundation of their assumptions (stevens et al., 2010). then, to be truly transformative, students must engage in a critical self-examination of their assumptions and beliefs as interpreted by the learner (stevens et al., 2010). as a result of critical thinking, reflective discourse, and actionable change (stevens et al., 2010), adult learners use these transformational experiences to build new perspectives for their personal and/or professional lives (mezirow, 1991). further, whether students have a perspective transformation or are engaged in transformational learning, students (re)imagine their sense of self and their social roles with a different lens (mezirow, 1991). in a postgraduate program, students (re)examine their fundamental beliefs, desires, and values and how these relate to their mission in life (kasworm & bowles, 2010). as they unlearn old perspectives and process new learning, students consider their role using a larger community perspective. for example, in the doctoral classroom, the justice-based frameworks used in my classes notably transform my students’ ways of thinking about educational leadership as an opportunity for more equitable and sustainable outcomes for their students, families, and community. communities of practice in graduate school, when students bond and form a group with shared concerns, problems, passion, and advanced learning, a community of practice is formed (wenger-trayner, & wengertrayner, 2015). these bonds within their community of practice are informally created to share knowledge, solve problems, and support each other (wenger, 1998). these communities of practice become vital for student learning, support, and persistence through their programs. communities of practice vary in size and scope. these can form in programs, departments, throughout the university, or across several institutions of higher education. they can be recognizable or discreet. wenger-trayner and wenger-trayner (2015) refer to three demartino impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.160 13 structural elements of communities of practice: the domain, the community, and the practice. the domain is the tie that binds communities of practice together. serving as the domain of knowledge, the common interests, topics, and problems establish the legitimized foundation for the community of practice. the community constitutes the regular participants in the community of practice. moreover, participants in the community, interact regularly to share ideas and collectively learn and lead together. notably, these consistent, voluntary interactions build solidarity through trust and commitment. finally, the practice is a collective way of behaving, positioning ways of thinking, and setting up ethical grounding with shared resources, such as frameworks, tools, and best practices. for example, in the current situation, the practices included cped cohorts working collaboratively on content resources, like shared readings enriched by dialogue, course embedded fieldwork, and guidance for their professional practice. in sum, graduate students may seek transformative experiences and form communities of practice to share knowledge, develop expertise, and offer support to one another. to best serve my transformative, community-based students, i needed to adopt a familiar leadership framework to guide my actions with respect to instruction and support of students during the onset of the pandemic. based on these needs, i chose positive school leadership (psl) to provide support and build relationships between teachers (or professors, in this case) and students. positive school leadership by rejecting the top-down, managerial approaches to leadership, educational leadership methods shift to more collaborative approaches (sergiovanni, 1994). these leadership alternatives incorporate authentic participation, value contributions offered among roles, and value relationships built within the institution. psl is one of these alternatives, which embraces a concern for the wellness of their community by supporting teachers and students beyond the bounded nature of managerial leadership (demartino, 2021). to generate individual and group growth, positive school leaders seek to connect, inspire, and encourage others in their community (murphy & louis, 2018). like communities of practice, psl works from the perspective of viewing schools as communities (demartino, 2021). thus, instead of viewing leadership as one of managing organizations, psl works by setting up and maintaining trusting relationships and consistently practicing care in schools. building and maintaining trust building trust is essential for school leaders to build common goals. nevertheless, building trust in educational institutions tends not to be a priority in many schools and universities. in fact, many institutions create gatekeepers and other barriers resulting in growing distrust among members of their community. by comparison, proponents of psl embrace the idea that leaders promote trust within their greater communities (noonan et al., 2008). psl emphasizes building and maintaining trust with the community as necessary for moral agency and ethical decisionmaking within the institution (kutsyuruba &walker, 2015). five aspects for building trust in school communities are benevolence, or the feelings of caring and vulnerability; honesty and integrity; openness; reliability, or the predictability of leadership behaviors; and competence, the ability to perform appropriate leadership tasks (noonan et al., 2008). by modeling trust, school leaders are normalizing trust in their respective communities. one way to preserve trust with the greater community is to promote these relationships by practicing care. practicing caring in educational institutions caring in schools cultivates the sense of community in educational institutions (author, 2020; noddings, 2013). because caring is rewarding both for the leader and the rest of the school community, positive school leaders nurture their relationships by drawing upon their moral standards. first, leaders must be motivated by care and practice caring in all matters. accordingly, marshall, patterson, rogers, and steele (1996) described the practice of caring as a “moral touchstone ... [involving] fidelity to relationships with others that is based [on] more than just personal liking or regard … [and emphasizing the] responsibility to others rather than to rights and rules” (pp. 277-278). next, leaders must promote caring in their communities. stefkovich and shapiro (2003) indicate the need for leaders, in post-secondary communities of care, to guide others with concern and prioritize connectedness among members. this cultivation of caring begins with leaders and transforms into something bigger than the leaders when caring is extended to and through the greater community. an action plan: capitalizing on transformational experiences, communities of practice, and positive school leadership during a crisis after processing what i knew about graduate students’ experiences and positive school leadership, i wanted to personify a school leader with the ability to inspire transformational actions centered on trust and acts of caring. first, i wrestled with my own feelings of trust and care as my personal issues with showing vulnerability appeared. i wanted to be open, reliable, and competent, but i was hesitant and insecure. after deep reflection, i crafted an email of support to my students. in the email, i responded to our current crisis by recognizing that it was okay not to be okay, acknowledged their need to enact professional and personal obligations from their homes, and encouraged them to prioritize what was most important, and not worry, if the class was of secondary importance at this time. we are in this together first, i wanted to reassure my students that it is okay not to be okay. it was okay to cry. it was okay not to be perfect. it was okay to ‘just get by.’ as their professor, i wanted to share my struggles in solidarity with my students. i was honest and vulnerable with them. i told them the truth. i was day-to-day. some days were good, some were productive, some were sad, and some were just chaotic. this became the foundation for our bond of trust through our shared crisis. next, i explained my understanding of their extraordinary circumstances. if they were not working with a skeleton crew at their schools, i understood most of them were transitioning to professional and personal obligations in the home. this meant working at home with partners, spouses, children, roommates, extended family, friends, and pets. they were juggling work, family, and school. all of adult learners, remote learning, and the covid pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.160 14 this in the middle of a pandemic. i was standing there with them and we were going to get through this. finally, in my email, i stressed the importance of taking time for themselves and their families over the weekend. i reminded them our classes would resume on monday. we would review changes to our syllabus and shift to asynchronous, remote learning. i concluded my email by listing my weekend activities, a virtual home safari with the cincinnati zoo and botanical garden, a phone call to my parents, streaming one of my favorite bands on instagram live, bingeing a new series on netflix, and playing my partner in a heated monopoly match. it was important for me to humanize our shared experiences as we moved into our forced remote learning environment. our shift to remote learning to respect our shared challenges, i transitioned our course to asynchronous learning, cut any unnecessary material and assignments, and conducted weekly virtual office hours. our asynchronous learning modules were limited. we had few online discussions and case studies due in the next 6 weeks, but we needed to finish our state-mandated, course-embedded fieldwork projects. because i knew these were the standards they would be tested on for professional certification, these projects could not be sacrificed. by dropping unneeded work, they were able to focus on these projects and the competencies, which were to be developed. although we transitioned to an asynchronous design, i embedded weekly contact in the form of virtual office hours. these were set up on a continuous basis for the rest of the course and held during the first half hour of their regularly scheduled class. the first meeting was mandatory as i walked them through our updated syllabus. all the others were voluntary and open for drop-ins. these remaining office hours were a designated time for any questions or clarifications on the remaining projects. some were just as i described, whereas others were a time to talk through how we were feeling and coping. they were informal and a well needed break for all of us. i needed that social time just as much as my students. i am so thankful to them. in sum, this process was difficult and not seamless, to say the least. i wanted to be the leader who practiced trust and caring in my actions, but vulnerability almost got the best of me. it took deep reflection, many conversations with my colleagues, and support from my new social media groups. rinse and repeat. and another, rinse and repeat. yet, in the end, taking inspiration from theory, including transformational experiences, communities of practice, and psl, as applied to my practice, we all managed to survive in this new way of learning. implications for the education doctorate as i reflected on own my narrative as a university professor, i continued to reexamine the gap between idealistic theory and the real-world practice in k-12 schools and classrooms. contributing to this theory-to-practice gap, my first concern was the divisive language we use to describe college and university work and work in k-12 schools. as such, college or university work comes from the “ivory tower,” whereas the work in k-12 occurs “in the trenches” (ketter & stoffel, 2008). these sentiments are both alienating and reductive as they mirror class differences. these popular terms depict college and university professors as privileged sages and k12 professionals as “foot soldiers [who] are taking the risks and doing the grunt work” (ketter & stoffel, 2008, p. 129). as college and university professors, we must critically reflect on the use of this language to dismantle the power differences associated with these popular terms. second, as professors in cped programs, the cped framework and the guiding principles are available as a resource to inform our work in order to better prepare scholarly practitioners by bridging the gap between theory and practice in our teaching spaces. in this narrative, the author applied the literature and theory of transformational experiences, communities of practice, and psl to guide their response to the abrupt shift to remote learning at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. these frameworks served as beacons for the author to reevaluate their graduate students’ experiences by recognizing the programming was potentially transformational allowing students to (re)imagine their sense of self and their social roles with a different lens and grounding themselves in their communities of practice while they relied on each other for support through the program. then, by adopting psl in their actions, the author attempted to personify a positive school leader with the ability to inspire transformational actions centered on trust and acts of caring. in sum, as scholars teaching in cped spaces, we should follow the cped framework and the guiding principles by basing our decision making and actions on the premise of authentically preparing our educational leaders to become well-equipped scholarly practitioners. as we support the development of scholarly practitioners by asking students to construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference and integrating both practical and research knowledge, we must do the same. in this way, we serve as models by bridging the gap between theory and practice in our cped teaching and learning spaces. references demartino, l. (2021). accents of positive school leadership: applying a community framework in educational spaces. in s. cherkowski, b. kutsyuruba, & k. walker (eds.), positive leadership for flourishing schools. information age publishing. chappell, b. (2020, march 24). coronavirus: new york infection rate is “doubling about every 3 days,” cuomo says. npr. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-liveupdates/2020/03/24/820891370/coronavirus-n-y-infection-rate-isdoubling-about-every-3-days-cuomo-says chicago tribune staff. (2020, march 20). coronavirus in illinois updates: here’s what happened march 20 with covid-19 in the chicago area. chicago tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ctcoronavirus-pandemic-chicago-illinois-news-20200320fdctizo64fdqpeoldclt45ei74-story.html dwyer, c. 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(1996). caring as career: an alternative perspective for educational administration. educational administration quarterly, 32(2), 271-294. mezirow, j. (1991). transformative dimensions of adult learning. jossey-bass. mezirow, j. (2000). learning as transformation: critical perspectives on a theory in progress. jossey-bass. murphy, j. f., & louis, k. s. (2018). positive school leadership: building capacity and strengthening relationships. teachers college press. noddings, n. (2013). caring: a relational approach to ethics and moral education. university of california press. noonan, b., walker, k., & kutsyuruba, b. (2008). trust in the contemporary principalship. canadian journal of educational administration and policy, 85, 1-17. sergiovanni, t. j. (1994). organizations or communities: changing the metaphor changes the theory. educational administration quarterly, 30(2), 214-226. stefkovich, j. a., & shapiro, j. p. 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(2020b, march 12). coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) situation report – 52. https://www.who.int/docs/defaultsource/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200312-sitrep-52-covid19.pdf?sfvrsn=e2bfc9c0_4 https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2014.915061 https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48203-7_6 https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48203-7_6 https://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/07-brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf https://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/07-brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf https://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/07-brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/interactive-timeline#event-16 https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/interactive-timeline#event-16 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200312-sitrep-52-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=e2bfc9c0_4 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200312-sitrep-52-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=e2bfc9c0_4 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200312-sitrep-52-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=e2bfc9c0_4 linsay demartino illinois state university the first month (in pandemic times) stay-at-home order: directive to transition to remote learning three theoretical frameworks that influenced course revision efforts transformational experiences for adult learners in postgraduate programs communities of practice positive school leadership building and maintaining trust practicing caring in educational institutions an action plan: capitalizing on transformational experiences, communities of practice, and positive school leadership during a crisis we are in this together our shift to remote learning implications for the education doctorate references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 48 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.106 the dissertation clinic: supporting doctoral students’ research methods training in an online edd program carey borkoski johns hopkins university cborkoski@jhu.edu camille bryant johns hopkins university cbryan16@jhu.edu christine eith johns hopkins university ceith@jhu.edu abstract “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, 2009). the johns hopkins university edd attracts diverse learners with varying experiences with statistics and research methods. these experiences coupled with becoming doctoral students often contributes to high levels of reported anxiety and low confidence related to these topics. evidence also suggests that this anxiety may contribute to higher rates of attrition in online doctoral programs. understanding the importance and value of acknowledging our students’ needs, differences, and worries around methods and statistics and recognizing that intentionally working with students in these areas can mitigate this anxiety, the methods faculty in this edd program set out to create a forum for students, faculty, and advisors to call on for matters related to methods, statistics, and data analysis. this essay offers a description of the dissertation clinic, implementation of the clinic and the services offered, as well as next steps and future considerations. keywords research methods, student anxiety, student attrition, dissertation clinic the doctor of education (edd) program within the school of education at johns hopkins university is an online program that aims to “prepare an exceptional corps of practitioner scholars, both nationally and internationally…www.education.jhu.edu. the online program began in august 2013 and currently enrolls over 200 students from across the globe. over the past eight years, the program has graduated 137 students with over 30 on track to graduate in 2021. tables 1 offers a snapshot of current enrollments and graduates. students work in settings that include k-12, higher education, and forand non-profit organizations. while over half of our current and graduated students work in k-12 educational settings, the program has experienced a steady increase in individuals from higher education and the for-profit world. higher education students comprise over 35% of our current enrollments with for-profit sector representing just under 10% of students. the program is comprised of five specializations including mind, brain, and teaching, entrepreneurial leadership in education, urban leadership, instructional design and online teaching and learning, and technology integration k-16. during the three-year program, students must complete 90 hours (36 coming from their master’s or post-master’s program) that include core courses and elective courses within their specialization. the core courses include three research methods courses, four foundations in education courses, and four required electives based on the student’s specialization. the remaining credits come from elective courses. as a member of the carnegie project of the education doctorate, the program prepares students as practitioner-scholars through coursework and the completion of an applied dissertation. the applied dissertation requires that students examine a problem of practice (pop) within their organization. initially, students examine literature to understand potential drivers of the problem using a systems approach. further, they explore and determine which factors are most salient within their context through an empirical study. once complete, students explore literature on interventions that have addressed the salient factors found from their empirical study and develop an intervention using this understanding. students then examine the intervention to determine the scope of implementation, fidelity, and the extent to which the intervention addressed contributing factors related to the intervention. to prepare students, most of whom come into this program with little to no experience with research methods or statistics, for the two http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ the dissertation clinic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.106 49 empirical investigations of the pop (i.e., needs assessment, and intervention study), students take three research methods courses. the first and third courses include dissertation components, supporting the completion of two chapters of the dissertation. the first course aims to support student learning for an empirical investigation of potential contributing factors of their pop. the third course aims to support student learning to examine the implementation and influence of the intervention on the factors related to the pop. while the second research methods course does not have a dissertation component, it is equally important as it prepares students to analyze data related to their dissertation research. literature review “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (carnegie project on the education doctorate, n.d., para. 4). this preparation includes the integration of practical and theoretical knowledge to address educational problems of practice. the past several decades have seen doctoral enrollments increase by 60% coupled with 40-60% attrition in residential programs and 10 to 20% higher rates for online doctoral programs (rockinson-szapkiw, spaulding, & spaulding, 2016). doctoral programs are challenged to effectively educate the growing number and diversity of students. students in practice-based doctoral programs enter with wellconstructed professional identities and knowledge but when faced with new academic experiences, report feeling uneasy, less confident, and threats to their established professional identity (mawson & abbott, 2017). one source of this strain comes from the high levels of anxiety around statistics and methods reported by graduate students (onwuegbuzie, 2004). “anxiety is a tense unsettling anticipation of a threatening but formless event; a feeling of uneasy suspense” (rachman, 1998, p. 3). williams (2013), schacht and stewart (1990), and onwuegbuzie and wilson (2003) suggested that graduate students report high levels of anxiety around statistics and student achievement, performance and self-perception are affected by the reported level of anxiety. further, devaney (2010) found a significant difference in the self-reported anxiety of graduate students in education taking an online statistics course compared to their counterparts taking the same course in person. this anxiety contributes to students’ perceived levels of creativity and intellectual and academic abilities (williams, 2013), and can manifest in psychological and physical ways such as depression, worry, frustration, worry, muscle tension, and headaches (onwuegbuzie et al., 2003). factors contributing to statistics anxiety include minimal training in math, late introduction to statistics and quantitative analysis, fear of failure, and perfectionism (pan & tang, 2004). onwuegbuzie and wilson (2000) offered three categories of anxiety: situational which refers to experiences with math and research; dispositional or confidence with math and statistics, and personal (i.e., demographics). further, anxiety around statistics and methods for graduate students is negatively related to performance in statistics and methods courses (zanakis & valenza, 1997), selfefficacy (blalock, 1987), and program completion (onwuegbuzie, 1997). while some research evidence suggests that the students’ own uncertainty about and worry contribute to the anxiety around statistics and methods (williams, 2013), instructors can do a lot to mitigate the anxiety that students feel. instructors who encourage students, acknowledge and talk about the reported anxiety, cultivate cooperative learning, and focus on the process of learning rather than the outcomes can contribute to lower levels of reported anxiety (wilson & onwuegbuzie, 2001). wilson and onwuegbuzie, in a study with 70 doctoral students, found that working individually created more stress than group work, and instructor encouragement and peer support inand outside of the course helped reduce student anxiety. pan and tang (2004) also suggest that integrating humor, real-world application, and instructor’s attending to student anxiety including an orientation letter prior to the start of the course to defuse some of the feelings, flexible and extended office hours, and a midsemester survey to check-in with students (and incorporate feedback), all contribute to lower levels of anxiety. pan and tang’s study provided evidence that eliminating mechanisms that would result in worries over failure and providing effective scaffolding like application-oriented problems, essay writing to help students learn to explain the procedures and results to a layperson, and critiquing journal articles shifted students’ focus away from fears over outcomes towards the process of learning and being successful. the johns hopkins university edd attracts diverse learners with varying experiences with statistics and research methods. this varied experience coupled with becoming doctoral students often contributes to high levels of reported anxiety and low confidence related to research knowledge and skills. understanding the importance and value of acknowledging our students’ needs, differences, and worries around methods and statistics and recognizing that intentionally working with students in these areas can mitigate this anxiety, the methods faculty in the edd program set out to create a forum for students, faculty, and advisors to call on for matters related to methods, statistics, and data analysis. the following offers a description of the dissertation clinic, implementation of the clinic and the services offered, as well as next steps and future considerations. dissertation clinic the dissertation clinic was developed based on various student needs including foundational methods and statistics concepts, as identified by the three lead methods faculty of the edd program. methods instructors were inundated with supporting individual student research projects for the dissertation studies. further, students’ advisers had difficulty supporting students’ methods chapters for the applied dissertation. given these challenges, we recognized a need for an explicit map of the research methods goals, skills, and competencies for student learning and resources outside of coursework to guide students’ learning of methods concepts. as such, three lead methods faculty within the program developed a model to address these needs. the process for the design of the dissertation clinic was iterative. initially, we used office hours, a shared methods resource site within a learning management system, and a few online synchronous presentations and video tutorials to support students and advisers. further, during the first year of the clinic, we began developing a list of research methods goals, skills, and competencies to align with the methods course sequence. however, over time, the clinic grew to include workshops, introductory statistics concepts tutorials, and the development of six research methods orientation modules, for continued support. borkoski, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.106 50 implementation of the dissertation clinic early on, the dissertation clinic included help desk-like support where students could call or email with questions or requests for help on specific areas of their methods and data work but over time, the methods faculty, with feedback from faculty, advisors, and students, developed and integrated structures and services beyond the help desk to accommodate the needs of our edd students and faculty. this section offers a brief introduction to some of those elements. office hours to support students and advisers, the methods faculty have office hours where students receive just-in-time help. depending on the nature of the question, the faculty make decisions about how to direct students based on the expertise of the dissertation clinic faculty. for example, two faculty members conduct primarily quantitative research, while the other conducts research across all three research paradigms. over the course of three years, we have held n = 149 appointments with students and advisers. in addition, we have logged 129.15 meeting hours from june 2016-june 2019. the types of support and their frequency are described in table 1. support during office hours include helping students with quantitative data analysis, formulating and refining research questions, identifying appropriate research designs, and data interpretation, to name a few. resource site the faculty for the dissertation clinic created a blackboard site to house a variety of methods resources to support students and faculty. the site includes 45 references for books and articles on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. these resources include content such as data analysis and collection, validity and reliability, trustworthiness, and writing up findings. the site also contains faculty developed short video tutorials and synch sessions on topics such as inputting data into spss, descriptive statistics, performing a t-test, and inductive and deductive coding. introductory statistics topic tutorials the statistics tutorials were designed to focus on introductory statistics concepts that serve as a self-paced “course” for students who need a stronger foundation in statistics. as such, a sequence of topics was developed to build students’ statistics vocabulary, introduce them to key terms, and provide an opportunity for them to apply basic analysis approaches through guided exercises. research methods orientation modules in order to support students prior to entering the program full time, the dissertation clinic faculty developed six modules to support students’ methods knowledge. students must complete six orientation research methods modules the summer before entering the program. these modules include videos, readings, quizzes, and discussions. the modules were designed to introduce each incoming cohort to methods terminology that can be applied to their dissertation research. the module topics include 1) the language of research, 2) theoretical and conceptual frameworks, 3) researcher responsibility, 4) measurement, 5) formulating research questions, and 6) basic statistics. table 1. frequency of call type by academic year f (%) type of call ay 2016-2107 (23.9 hours) type of call (36.08 hours) ay 2016-2107 (69.17 hours) problem of practice 4 (11.8%) 2 (3.6%) 0 (0%) research questions 0 (0%) 4 (7.3%) 7 (7.0%) research design 0 (0%) 2 (3.6%) 5 (5.0%) sampling 1 (2.9%) 1(1.8%) 0 (0.0%) data collection 2 (5.9%) 7 (12.7%) 9 (9.0%) data management 4 (11.8%) 1 (1.8%) 10 (10.0%) spss 3 (8.8%) 4 (7.3%) 11 (11.0%) data analysis 14 (41.2%) 19 (34.5%) 29 (29.0%) data interpretation 0 (0%) 4 (7.3%) 0 (0%) data presentation 2 (5.9%) 4 (7.3%) 3 (3.0%) write-up 0 (0%) 2 (3.6%) 7 (7.0%) general feedback 3 (8.8%) 5 (9.1%) 7 (7.0%) irb 1 (2.9%) 0 (0%) 12 (12.0%) total 34 55 100 the dissertation clinic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.106 51 figure 1. frequency of dissertation clinic support topics during office hours workshops the dissertation clinic workshops began in february 2018 with students taking their first research methods course and continued with subsequent courses and the newer cohort. faculty held 8-10 workshop sessions, with up to 6 students. since its inception, the dissertation clinic has provided n = 36 workshop sessions that has supported n = 141 students in the edd program. the workshop topics are aligned with the content of the methods courses to allow students to workshop their work prior to writing formal papers in their classes. a list of topics is presented in table 2. during the workshops, students present their work and receive feedback from their peers and the workshop facilitator. for example, during the workshop on developing research questions for their needs-assessment, each student had 10-12 minutes to present their research topic, one or two research questions and receive feedback. these sessions were recorded and provided to students in that session as a resource. in another example, students participating in the qualitative analysis workshop were provided with a short narrative prior to our meeting which they analyzed independently prior to the workshop. during the workshop, students shared their codes, themes, and conclusions and received input from their peers and the workshop facilitator. the research methods team the research methods faculty in the edd designed and implemented the structures and services previously outlined to address the needs of our students and faculty. based on our own experiences as educators and a review of the literature, the dissertation clinic represented a way to both attend to student anxiety about methods and statistics and provide students with active learning opportunities (onwuegbuzie & wilson, 2001). the three methods faculty who run the dissertation clinic hold regular and as-needed office hours and hold workshops and summer orientation sessions to support and prepare as well as manage our students’ expectations with respect to methods and statistics training and program competencies. in terms of instructional practices, we have also worked hard to build a series of research methods courses (including online research method for entering students) that include relevant, practice-oriented activities and discussions (pan & tang, 2004). for example, a year ago as we worked on a redevelopment of our methods and analysis course, we decided to have students examine, analyze, and interpret data collected from our own students during our summer residency. students, with the help of their group and instructor, analyze and write about data that has immediate and practical application to our own doctoral program. moreover, the dissertation clinic, throughout the year, offers methods workshops geared towards where the students are in their studies. working with their peers and the instructor contributes to increased confidence in their own ability and may also lead to lower anxiety around methods and statistics (pan & tang, 2004). finally, we regularly administer informal surveys to our students and collect other feedback from the edd community in order to continually examine our community needs and implement changes towards improvement (christie, inkelas, & lemire, 2017). we are confident that while there is always more to do, we are making progress and providing appropriate and effective support. efforts like this dissertation clinic only work well when leadership and faculty themselves willingly invest the time and effort necessary to create these kinds of communities. the research methods faculty, with the support of the edd program and school of education leadership, work well together, meet regularly, continually collect formative data and are open to collegial feedback. we also prepare an annual progress report for the program and school and continually review the work we do in the clinic to make sure we are changing with the diverse needs of our students and faculty. conclusion as evidenced in the literature, becoming a doctoral student represents a significant transitional moment that includes stress and self-doubt. studying statistics, methods, and data analysis on this journey also contributes to this anxiety which may lead to higher rates of attrition. moreover, researchers found that this high level of anxiety dampened student creativity and intellectual abilities (williams, 2013). these feelings of stress are amplified for students taking an online statistics and methods courses compared to taking this course in-person (devaney, 2010). doctoral programs structures, like this dissertation clinic, represent a way to attend to the needs and worries of our students. it is one opportunity to provide scaffolding and mitigate the stress of doctoral studies and courses like research methods. cped aims to prepare faculty and students to be stewards of the profession and part of this stewardship requires programs, faculty, and supports to reflect the diverse needs, interests, and goals of our students. this dissertation clinic is one step in this direction. it addresses students’ needs for flexibility in office hours, ways to check-in with faculty about worries and skill development, and provides scaffolding and other resources to address their course work and research needs. future research as we continue to design and update our structures and services, we will continue to collect data so that we may report out to our edd community regarding the improvement process, the rationale for changes, and issues that emerge and how we address these. with the clinic in place, we also hope now to turn our sights on research aimed at evaluating outcomes related to student success in the program but also their progress towards successfully completing program milestones including oral comprehensive exams and the dissertation proposal and final defense. our edd program is also borkoski, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.106 52 currently in the process of starting the development of a writing clinic based, in part, on some of the work we have done with our students around research methods. we hope that others will consider our model for supporting their students and share their experiences with the larger community so we may all learn from our trials and successes. references blalock, h. m. (1987). some general goals in teaching statistics. teaching sociology, 15(2), 164-172. christie, c. a., inkelas, m. & lemire, s. (2017). improvement science in evaluation: methods and uses. john wiley & sons, inc. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (n.d.). the cped framework. retrieved from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework devaney, t. a. (2010). anxiety and attitude of graduate students in on-campus vs. online statistics courses. journal of statistics education, 18(1), 1-15. doi:10.1080/10691898.2010.11889472 mawson, k., & abbott, i. (2017). supervising the professional doctoral student: less process and progress, more peripheral participation and personal identity. management in education, 31(4), 187-193. onwuegbuzie, a. j. (1997). writing a research proposal: the role of library anxiety, statistics anxiety, and composition anxiety. library and information science research, 19(1), 5-33. onwuegbuzie, a. j., & wilson, v. a. (2000, november). statistics anxiety: nature, etiology, antecedents, effects, and treatments: a comprehensive review of the literature. paper presented at the annual meeting of the mid-south educational research association, lexington, ky. onwuegbuzie, a.j. & wilson, v. a. (2003). statistics anxiety: nature, etiology, antecedents, effects, and treatments--a comprehensive review of the literature. teaching in higher education, 8(2), 195-209. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356251032000052447 onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2004). academic procrastination and statistics anxiety. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 29, 3-19. pan, w., & tang, m. (2004). examining the effectiveness of innovative instructional methods on reducing statistics anxiety for graduate students in the social sciences. journal of instructional psychology, 31, 149-159. rachman, s. (1998). anxiety. psychology press ltd. rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., spaulding, l. s., & spaulding, m. t. (2016). identifying significant integration and institutional factors that predict online doctoral persistence. the internet and higher education, 31, 101112. schacht, s., & stewart, b. j. (1990). what's funny about statistics? a technique for reducing student anxiety. teaching sociology, 18(1), 5256. williams, a. s. (2013). worry, intolerance of uncertainty, and statistics anxiety. statistics education research journal, 12(1). wilson, v. a., & onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2001). increasing and decreasing anxiety: a study of doctoral students in education research courses (ed459214). eric. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed459214 zanakis, s. h. & valenza, e. r. (1997). student attitude and anxiety in business statistics. journal of education for business, 73(1), 10-16. carey borkoski johns hopkins university camille bryant johns hopkins university (1) christine eith johns hopkins university (2) literature review dissertation clinic implementation of the dissertation clinic office hours resource site introductory statistics topic tutorials research methods orientation modules workshops the research methods team conclusion future research references microsoft word 70 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 doctoral program in education leadership redesign: utilizing a multicriteria framework miriam d. ezzani, edd university of north texas miriam.ezzani@unt.edu noelle a. paufler, phd university of north texas noelle.paufler@unt.edu abstract the development of educational leaders, who have a profound influence in shaping a culture of organizational learning; ethical community engagement; advocacy for diversity, equity and inclusion; and theory to practice solutions, is the aim of redesign efforts in one educational leadership (edle) program in the united states. these ideas, grounded in a multicriteria framework, are reified in the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) principles and design concepts and reinforced by the university council for educational administration (ucea) criteria. yet, right from the beginning, faculty struggled with ideological differences and logistical challenges. without the dean and department chair’s collaborative, visionary leadership and support of key faculty, efforts to redesign the program would have been stifled. we argue that the multicriteria framework, underscoring the importance of collaborative leadership, is the cornerstone of the education doctorate program redesign. the article’s contributions are intended to inform the planning, implementation, and evaluation of this program redesign and its impact. keywords: carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), collaborative leadership, educational leadership program redesign, program implementation and evaluation, university council for educational administration (ucea) introduction this article provides the impetus for innovative change in an educational leadership (edle) program at a large, researchintensive university, based on a multicriteria framework and evidentiary data demonstrating preliminary successes—despite logistical challenges and ideological differences among faculty. a multicriteria framework based on the university council for educational administration (ucea, 2012) criteria and the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) principles and design concepts (cped, 2009) offered the will and the means for redesign, respectively. the dean of the college of education, collaboratively with the department chair, assumed a leadership role in challenging faculty in the edle program to strive toward an effective education doctorate program, which would yield exceptional scholar practitioners and national prominence. due to ideological differences among faculty in the program, structures and supports were leveraged to plan, implement, and evaluate a successful and impactful redesign of the doctoral program in educational leadership. background in an effort to support students in the edle program, the dean at the time recommended a two-pronged approach—to become institutional members of both cped and ucea. in october 2011, the dean submitted a letter of application to ucea with the prospect of beginning the process for full institutional membership. upon review by ucea, the edle program, housed in the department of teacher education and administration (te&a; university of north texas, 2017a) was deemed not ready for full membership and asked to submit a five-year improvement plan in preparation for future reconsideration. for the next three years, the edle program, with limited faculty, initially completed a few items on the improvement plan, and several items remained uncompleted while program faculty turned their attention to the master’s program with declining enrollment of less than 16 students. after a one-year planning period, the edle program successfully launched an accelerated online master’s program which experienced unexpectedly rapid growth in student enrollment, due in large part to its student-centered approach, high quality course design, and targeted marketing plan. the master’s program increased in enrollment from 16 students in the first semester to more than 45 students by the end of the year. currently in its fourth year, the master’s program has close to 400 students. the successful redesign of the master’s provided a more robust program to prepare educational leaders in the surrounding districts, and the foundation for the doctoral program redesign by aligning the master’s degree with edle core values and beliefs and the college and university vision and mission. a sequence of aligned graduate doctoral program in educational leadership redesign: utilizing a multicriteria framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 12 degree programs in educational leadership was also a requirement for full ucea membership. in 2014, the dean urged edle faculty to refocus their efforts on the pending tasks on the ucea improvement plan with careful consideration given to the cped principles for program design. the faculty aimed to develop a solid working model of the edle program, which included: master of education, doctor of education, and doctor of philosophy in educational leadership (young, 2006). the will to redesign the doctoral programs to gain full ucea membership was contingent upon complete engagement, which included attending and serving on committees at the biannual cped convenings and the annual ucea conventions. based on the collective learnings from the experiences of other cped institutions, the edle faculty representative facilitated a program retreat in spring 2015. the edle faculty began a self-study to articulate the program’s core values and beliefs based on the cped principles, and to examine the alignment between graduate courses and the 11 criterion distinguishing programs for full ucea membership (ucea, 2012). in a collaborative process, faculty developed the program’s core values and beliefs to reflect the needs of the profession, the social justice vision of the university and the department, and cped principles. the four core values and beliefs are: (a) lead learning organizations; (b) engage ethically with the community; (c) advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and (d) develop theory to practice solutions (university of north texas, 2017b). most of the faculty aimed to make an impact, challenge the traditional model, and increase the effectiveness of its doctoral preparation of educational leaders (amrein-beardsley et al., 2012; cosner, tozer, zavitkovsky, & whalen, 2015; perry & imig, 2016; walker, golde, jones, bueschel, & hutchings, 2009). conceptual framework the program redesign was guided by a multicriteria framework based on the cped principles and design concepts and reinforced by the ucea criteria. the collaborative efforts of the dean, department chair, and key program faculty played a pivotal role in the redesign as part of the process for obtaining full ucea membership. figure 1 demonstrates the relationship between the above constructs in the educational leadership doctoral program redesign efforts. figure 1. conceptual framework for educational leadership doctoral program redesign. to that end, the planning ensued with the alignment of the edle program’s core values and beliefs, cped principles and design concepts, and ucea criteria which is provided in table 1. specific attention was paid to the first cped principle, which “is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice,” in the development of the program core values and beliefs (cped, n.d., para. 7). program redesign the cped principles served as the underpinnings of the edle program redesign and the conduit toward fulfilling the 11 ucea criterion and gaining full membership. components of the redesign include: the cohort model (barnett, basom, yerkes, & norris, 2000; darling-hammond, lapointe, meyerson, orr, & cohen, 2007; davis & darling-hammond, 2013), degree plans which distinguish between the education doctorate (edd) and doctor of philosophy (phd) in educational leadership (shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006), blended delivery model, course development and redesign, course sequence, which allows for a scaffolded approach to the dissertation writing process (cped, 2017; peterson, 2017). in conjunction with the planning of the redesign was the creation of a superintendent advisory council (one of the ucea criterion), comprised of 20 superintendents from nearby districts, who served as partners and collaborators in the redesign process and continue to provide feedback on program design, implementation, and evaluation of outcomes (e.g. student recruitment, retention, and ontime graduation; orr, 2011). thus, since 2015 the faculty have intentionally worked to implement the program redesign through a collaborative effort with informal (key faculty) and formal leadership structures (dean and chair), respectively (kezar & lester, 2011). as part of the cohort delivery model, as of 2016, four cohorts with a total of 65 students have begun, with the first cohort anticipated to graduate in 2019. ongoing efforts in semiannual faculty retreats led by faculty continue to evaluate the program based on desired outcomes and to refine the program to address student needs (perry, 2014). the impact of this program is being measured based on student recruitment, retention, and on-time graduation. cped principles the six cped principles informing the redesign process of the education doctorate reflect the profile of the scholarly practitioner. the first principle “is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, n.d., para. 7). this principle is reflected in the department of te&a vision, the edle program’s core values and beliefs, and in the course development and redesign. specifically, the department of te&a vision states: “we aspire to be internationally recognized for developing visionary educators who provide leadership, promote social justice, and effectively educate learners” (unt, 2017a, para. 3). the second, third, and fourth edle program core values and beliefs (i.e., engaging ethically with the community; advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and developing theory to practice solutions) directly reflect this principle and are reinforced in the content of the courses taught, specifically focused on issues of ethics and social justice. not everyone was on board with a social justice emphasis, however. a few expressed a belief that social justice was “old school.” equity minded faculty leveraged the university and departmental vision to reinforce the ezzani & paufler impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 13 table 1. alignment of the program’s core values and beliefs with cped principles and ucea criteria edle program core values and beliefs cped principles (2009) ucea criteria (2012) lead learning organizations • collaborative learning in complex problems of practice • content from research literature and applied experiences of faculty • pedagogical strategies prepare students for the challenges of leading schools and districts • school district leaders serve as adjunct faculty • blended class format that allows students to examine problems of practice that are applicable to their settings using real world data from schools they serve is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. preparation program involves full-time faculty members whose appointments are in the department in which educational leaders are educated and who exhibit excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service in educational leadership. a majority of educational leadership coursework must be taught by these full-time faculty members. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. evidence that the program makes use of an advisory board of educational leadership stakeholders and involves leadership practitioners in program planning, teaching, and field internships. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. preparation program engages in ongoing programmatic evaluation and enhancement. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. faculty participates in the development, delivery, and evaluation of systematic and highquality professional development programs for educational leaders, in cooperation with appropriate professional associations and other educational and social agencies. engage ethically with the community • courses focus on issues of ethics and social justice • students progress through cohorts of collaborative diverse groups to examine real world problems • a 20-member superintendent advisory council from nearby districts serves as a partner in collaboration and redesign provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. preparation program engages in collaborative relationships with other universities, school districts, professional associations, and other appropriate agencies (a) to promote diversity within the preparation program and the field; (b) to generate sites for clinical study, field residency, and applied research; and (c) for other purposes as explained by the applicant. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. develop and maintain systematic efforts to assist all students in professional placement and career advancement. advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion • four core courses of the program reflect importance of working with diverse populations • courses require students to investigate diverse student populations with equity • students focus on equitable teaching and learning in k-12 classrooms is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. faculty members identify, develop, and promote relevant knowledge of best practices focused on the essential problems of schooling, leadership and administration. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. preparation program includes concentrated periods of study and supervised clinical practice in settings that give leadership candidates an opportunity to work with diverse groups of students and teachers. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. preparation program is characterized by systematic, written recruitment and admission plans that rely on multiple sources of evidence and shows deliberate efforts to attract applicants who demonstrate leadership potential, with particular attention given to increasing diversity within the program. develop theory to practice solutions • students learn from research literature and applied experiences of faculty • pedagogical strategies to prepare students with the challenges of leading schools • embedded dissertation process of examining problems of practice • faculty collaborate yearly to examine syllabi and reexamine rigor and impact of the program is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. preparation program is (a) conceptually coherent and clearly aligned with quality leadership standards and (b) informed by current research and scholarship on the essential problems of schooling, leadership, and administration. in particular, applicants should demonstrate how the content of the preparation program addresses problems of practice including leadership for student learning and diversity. also, evidence should be provided to demonstrate that the processes of the preparation program are based on adult learning principles. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. developed and maintained systematic efforts to assist all students in professional placement and career advancement. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. preparation program offers regular professional development for program faculty to enhance their skills in leadership preparation, research, research utilization, and other content areas. doctoral program in educational leadership redesign: utilizing a multicriteria framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 14 need for the inclusion of social justice in alignment to this cped principle. the first core value and belief (i.e., leading learning organizations) also indirectly reflects this principle by emphasizing the need for collaborative learning in solving complex problems of practice. a scholarly practitioner is prepared to lead in complex settings which include urban, rural, and suburban districts with changing demographics. education doctoral programs that reflect the second principle “prepare leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals” (cped, n.d., para. 7). this principle is evident in a number of courses in the program. students learn content from the research literature and through the applied experiences of faculty (all of whom have experience as former practitioners) and sitting superintendents who serve as adjunct faculty. additionally, pedagogical strategies such as fieldwork, teaching strategies, hands-on learning, and data-driven decision making prepare students to grapple with the challenges of leading schools and districts with rapidly changing demographics. faculty again were divided on the importance of emphasizing administrative and management courses at the expense of courses that would prepare students to better serve the needs of diverse populations. faculty who desired an emphasis on the latter proposed the removal of two business courses and the addition of a course in ethics and social justice as well as a policy course. as a result of the philosophical divide, faculty compromised by removing one of the two business courses and combining the ethics, social justice, and policy into one new course. as a result, graduates are better prepared to serve in leadership positions, in terms of how they engage with the educators and students in their schools and with the community at large. as a catalyst to actualize the third cped principle, the program “provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships” (cped, n.d., para. 7). faculty deliberately redesigned the program to ensure students progressed through their coursework in cohorts. cohorts include culturally and geographically diverse groups of students with varied personal and professional experiences. courses are designed to allow them to collaborate and communicate with each other on projects that examine real problems of practice in settings that involve relationship building and partnerships with their community stakeholders. as one of the first changes made in the program design, faculty proposed that the cultural foundations course be a required rather than an elective course on the degree plan. as was later seen with the addition of the ethics, social justice, and policy course, this change prompted resistance. with this change, the four core courses, which includes the cultural foundation course, on the degree plan reflect the importance of collaboration and communication skills, especially in working with diverse communities. edle students are “provide[d] field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions” (cped, n.d., para. 7). this fourth cped principle challenges students to apply course learning in context, examine local problems through multiple perspectives, and develop solutions that make a difference in the lives of those they serve. in this program, faculty designed course content and assignments which require students to investigate situations centered on underserved and marginalized student populations with an equity minded focus. students are encouraged to elicit the perspectives of district administrators, school leaders, teachers, parents, and students to empower them into action. faculty deliberately redesigned courses to shift from a teacher-centered to studentcentered approach by delivering courses in a blended format (i.e., face-to-face and online) which respects students’ professional commitments and allows them to examine problems of practice that are applicable to their settings. this means that students examined problems in small groups using real data from the schools and districts in which they serve. students graduating with an education doctorate are expected to demonstrate the edle program’s fourth core value and belief of “developing theory to practice solutions.” commensurate with the fifth cped principle, students need to be “grounded in and develop(s) a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry” (cped, n.d., para. 7). as part of the redesign, faculty attempted to reach consensus on the sequence of courses. some of the faculty believed that the core courses, which were closely aligned with the program’s core values and beliefs, should be the students’ first learning experience in the program. other faculty believed that the courses leading to superintendent certification should be first in the course sequence to serve as a marketing tool to attract doctoral students. based on the challenges of recruitment at the time, faculty decided to organize the courses beginning with the superintendent certification. after two years of implementing the redesigned course sequence and with the first cohort nearing the completion of their coursework, faculty are reevaluating several specific aspects of student experiences based on formative data collection occurring in formal and informal settings (small group discussion, whole group discussions during class, individual communications, and student evaluations). for example, the students indicated that the placement of core courses that expose students to the theoretical underpinnings of educational leadership should occur in year one. in the spirit of continuous improvement, faculty have changed the course sequence for the incoming fifth cohort. it was discovered that some students completed the superintendent certification courses and then dropped out of the doctoral program. this fifth cohort and those thereafter will be introduced to theoretical and research methods courses during their first year and the superintendency courses will be sprinkled in throughout the program and offered online as a value added to students seeking district positions in the future. introducing core courses in year one will help students engage in systematic inquiry and make theory to practice connections earlier in their doctoral program. as another example, the revised course sequence now involves writing chapters one and two of the dissertation in different core courses during the same semester. for the working professional, this maximizes the opportunity to read, think, and write critically about a problem of practice in the context of the existing literature. scholarly practitioners should be prepared to actualize their learning. the sixth cped principle “emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d., para. 7). the opportunities for students to address problems of practice in their various courses gives them the confidence to focus on a dissertation topic that has the potential to effect positive change in their setting and contribute meaningfully to the field. in order to improve students’ experiences, faculty were tasked with evaluating and increasing the level of rigor across courses, specifically to ensure that students engage in scholarly reading and writing. a good number of courses already include the ezzani & paufler impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 15 exposure to scholarship that prepares students to produce a highquality dissertation in practice. annual faculty retreats provide opportunities to collaboratively examine course syllabi and continue to identify ways to not only increase rigor but also generative impact. having already redesigned a critical mass of courses, faculty continue to develop and revise courses to assure relevance and incorporation of the core values and beliefs. the faculty relied on the cped principles to develop the program’s core values and beliefs; to design courses centered around ethics, equity, and social justice; and to help graduates lead in complex settings, develop skills of collaboration and communication to work in diverse communities, apply course learning to analyze and solve problems of practice, and integrate practice and research knowledge to engage in systematic inquiry. whereas the cped principles guide the professional doctorate in education, the cped design concepts define program components that support the development of scholarly practitioners. cped design concepts the six cped design concepts determine program components that foster the development of effective educational leaders. the design concepts, in their totality, are intended to scaffold thinking and learning in preparation for the final outcome, a dissertation examining a problem of practice. at the forefront, edle faculty in this program sought to increase student retention and ontime graduation for students who are working professionals, while meeting their ethical obligation to produce extraordinary educational leaders. by embedding 60% of the dissertation writing process in the coursework, students are challenged to think about the end goal of their program in year one. the design concepts support students in achieving this goal. in the first three design concepts, students prepare by gathering the knowledge and skills to engage in dissertation research. the first cped design concept requires “scholarly practitioner[s] [to] blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (cped, n.d., para. 9). in their coursework, students select and investigate concerns centered on issues of equity and social justice in the literature, and subsequently, identify the gap in existing literature. they learn how to identify a problem, structure the purpose of a study, and frame questions by which to examine the problem. per the second design concept, “signature pedagogy is a set of practices used to prepare scholarly practitioners for all aspects of their professional work” (cped, n.d., para. 9). students are focused on the work of teaching and learning which is happening in the k-12 classroom from an equity lens. faculty help students develop a mindset that anchors them to engage in “a set of practices” that keep k-12 students at the forefront through culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogical strategies. by means of the third design concept, “inquiry as practice is the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice. by using various research, theories, and professional wisdom, scholarly practitioners design innovative solutions to address the problems of practice” (cped, n.d., para. 9). as an avenue to engage students in inquiry, they develop quantitative and qualitative research skills throughout their coursework. faculty agree that this component is still problematic in that students learn research skills from faculty in other departments who do not have an educational leadership background. this disconnects research methodology from their problem of practice. for the most part, the program is designed to embed the dissertation process through the first three design concepts. the latter three design concepts help students fulfill the requirements of the dissertation by conducting their research study. in the fourth design concept, “laboratories of practice are settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other” (cped, n.d., para. 9). students bring their expertise to bear on a problem of practice in their setting. this design concept is established in the program by fostering camaraderie between faculty and students through semiannual small group advisement. this generates opportunities for students who work in similar settings to more easily share and collaborate as teams in data collection and analysis. in tandem and as part of the fifth design concept, a “problem of practice is a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioners; addressing the issue has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, n.d., para. 9). students better understand their problem of practice and discover solutions that can inform change to positively impact k-12 educators and students. finally, the sixth design concept encapsulates the “dissertation in practice [that] is a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (cped, n.d., para. 9). a scholarly practitioner is capable of developing theory to practice solutions (the program’s fourth core value). the faculty believe that the end goal of a professional doctorate in education is to serve their local communities by providing them with thoughtful and caring educational leaders. these six design concepts provide the foundation for the carnegieinfluenced redesign which made the program worthy of full institutional membership in ucea. it is important to note that due to the ideological differences among faculty, the fourth core value and belief, theory to practice solutions, is the only value that does not always embed the first cped principle framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. discussion and recommendations initially in 2011 and at the behest of the then-current dean, the edle faculty were charged with undergoing a carnegie-influenced program redesign for the purpose of improving the preparation of educational leaders and to merit full institutional membership in ucea. the dean considered the accomplishment of these tasks as a marker of success not only for the program and department but for the college and university. over the past six years, edle faculty partnered with district superintendents to conceptualize, develop, implement and evaluate a carnegie-influenced redesign plan. right from the beginning, faculty struggled with ideological differences and logistical challenges. to some extent, changing what had been done previously was interpreted as delegitimizing the goals, values, and efforts of long-standing faculty as well as destabilizing the existing structure. without the vision, support, and collaborative leadership of the dean and the department chair, and the informal leadership of faculty, efforts to redesign the program would have been squelched (lester, 2009). in retrospect, existing and new faculty moved the work forward by distinguishing between the edd and phd (shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006) in terms of number of credit hours required and course content, introducing a blended delivery format in a cohort model, developing and redesigning courses and the course sequence, and scaffolding the approach to the dissertation writing doctoral program in educational leadership redesign: utilizing a multicriteria framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.70 16 process. all of these efforts combined were introduced in the program’s marketing strategy to recruit high-quality working professionals committed to earning an education doctorate. partnerships with district superintendents were a conduit to attracting cohorts of students, often from the same district, who currently hold or seek to advance in leadership positions to allow them to make substantive change in their organization. this model promotes student retention by fostering professional and collegial support as they advance through the program. although the first cohort of students will not graduate until 2019, preliminary recruitment and retention data have been used to evaluate the program’s impact and suggest positive outcomes thus far. the outcomes of the carnegie-influenced program redesign were recognized early on through full institutional membership in ucea. other measures of success include increased interest in the program and higher rates of retention, which all indicate the potential for more students to graduate on time. as part of recruitment efforts, faculty held informational sessions at district offices and invited each district superintendent to attend. as a result of strategic marketing efforts, three cohorts of 21, 14, and eight students, respectively, were successfully recruited across different satellite sites in the first year (2016). an additional cohort of 20 students started at one of the sites in 2017, and recruitment and admission efforts are underway for the fifth and sixth cohorts at two sites to begin in fall 2018. more than 70 prospective students have attended informational sessions for this admission cycle. this reflects a significant increase in interest over previous years, due primarily to stronger district partnerships and word of mouth. thus far in terms of retention, at least 80% of the students in each existing cohort have followed the degree plan and course sequence. the first three cohorts of 45 students are currently completing their final courses and are expected to graduate in 2019. based on lessons learned, the impetus for the carnegieinfluenced program redesign is anchored in the fact that professional organizations (cped and ucea) provide models for best practices in educational leadership preparation. first and foremost, the dean’s commitment to and edle faculty involvement in the semiannual cped convenings were critical. candid discussions with other cped institutions provided faculty with the strengths and challenges of redesign. second, faculty engagement through full-day retreats and monthly meetings provided the time for strategic planning, thoughtful implementation, evaluation and refinement, and problem solving. these annual and monthly events ensure continuous improvement focused on student success in the program and a direct impact on the k-12 communities they serve. third, faculty reflected on the progress of the program redesign, in part by recently preparing the cped member program report and engaging in the ucea inspire surveys (ucea, 2013). recognizing the importance of collecting data to evaluate program outcomes, faculty are currently developing a study to examine the experiences of students in the program before the redesign and those of students admitted in the ucea/cped-influenced cohort model. edle faculty believe that the multicriteria framework, which inspired intense involvement and program membership in cped and ucea, respectively, have significantly improved the reputation of the program and exponentially increased interest in it. just as significant is the collaborative, visionary leadership of the dean and the department chair in the success of the redesign (lester, 2009). the program is now better situated to influence educational leadership preparation in the field at local, state, and national levels. references amrein-beardsley, a., zambo, d., moore, d. w., buss, r. r., perry, n. j., painter, s. r.,…puckett, k. s. (2012). graduates respond to an innovative educational doctorate program. journal of research on leadership education, 7(1), 98-122. barnett, b. g., basom, m. r., yerkes, d. m., & norris, c. j. (2000). cohorts in educational leadership programs: benefits, difficulties, and the potential for developing school leaders. educational administration quarterly, 36, 255-292. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (n.d.). guiding principles for program design. retrieved from http://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/aboutus carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2009, october). development of the cped working principles. retrieved from http://www.cpedinitiative.org/default.asp?page=historyprinciples carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). carnegie project on the education doctorate for member institutions and faculty page. retrieved from www.cpedinitative.org cosner, s., tozer, s. zavitkovsky, p., & whalen, s. p. (2015). cultivating exemplary school leadership preparation at a research intensive university. journal of research on leadership education, 10(1), 11-38. darling-hammond, l., lapointe, m., meyerson, d., orr, m. t., & cohen, c. (2007). preparing school leaders for a changing world: lessons from exemplary leadership development programs. stanford, ca: stanford university. davis, s., & darling-hammond, l. (2012). innovative principal preparation programs: what works and how we know. planning and changing, 43(12), 25-45. kezar, a., & lester, j. (2011). enhancing campus capacity for leadership: an examination of grassroots leaders in higher education. stanford, ca: stanford university press. lester, j. (2009). organizing higher education for collaboration: a guide for campus leaders. san francisco, ca: john wiley & sons. orr, m. t. (2011). pipeline to preparation to advancement: graduates experiences in, through, and beyond leadership preparation. educational administration quarterly, 47, 114-172. perry, j. (2014). changing schools of education through grassroots faculty-led change. innovative higher education, 39(2), 155-168. perry, j. a., & imig, d. g. (2016). what do we mean by impact? impacting education: journal on transforming education, 1(1), 1-3. retrieved from https://impactinged.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/impactinged/article/view/26 peterson, d. s. (2017). preparing scholarly practitioners: redesigning the edd to reflect cped principles. impacting education: journal on transforming education, 2(1), 1-8. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189x035003025 university council for educational administration (ucea). (2013). center for the evaluation of educational leadership preparation and practice. charlottesville, va: author. retrieved from http://edleaderprepucea.squarespace.com/survey-suite-overview/ university council for educational administration (ucea). (2012). institutional and program quality criteria: guidance for master’s and doctoral programs in educational leadership. retrieved from http://3fl71l2qoj4l3y6ep2tqpwra.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/uceaprogramcriteria.pdf university of north texas. (2017a). department of teacher education and administration. retrieved from https://www.coe.unt.edu/teachereducation-and-administration university of north texas. (2017b). donald a. buchholz doctoral program in educational leadership. retrieved from https://www.coe.unt.edu/teacher-education-and-administration/graduateprograms/educational-leadership-doctoral-programs walker, g. e., golde, c. m., jones, l., bueschel, a. c., & hutchings, p. (2009). the formation of scholars: rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century (vol. 11). san francisco, ca: john wiley & sons. young, m. (2006). the med, edd and phd in educational leadership. ucea review, 45(2), 6-9. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 impact and inclusion: transforming an edd program into a crucible for systems change antoinette m. ryan central connecticut state university amryan@ccsu.edu sheldon watson central connecticut state university watsonshl@ccsu.edu abstract this article shares insights from a review of dissertations produced by students in an edd program in educational leadership at a public university in connecticut. program curriculum and learning experiences, built upon a social justice platform, prepare students to engage in scholarship and action to improve educational systems. however, retaining students’ focus on designing capstone projects that explore and seek to mitigate systemic injustice has been an ongoing challenge. to understand more about the impact of the edd program’s vision of developing students’ capacities for systems transformation and social justice, program faculty conducted a document analysis of dissertations produced in the 15 years from program inception to the present, examining themes and trends that emerge from the focus areas, research questions, and research methods applied in dissertations. document analysis revealed that, while earlier student dissertations tended to be more aligned with the educational policy cycle than with the program’s focus on social justice, more recent dissertations demonstrate a shift toward a stronger social justice orientation. as a member of the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped) since 2018, this university’s edd program engages in ongoing redesign to maximize impact on the field and to cultivate activism among program graduates who will lead systemic transformation in education. a conceptual framework for transcendent third-order change cultivating systems leadership that transcends the limits of current paradigms and action, fosters collaborative engagement, and provides coherent structures for collaborative impact is the foundation for this redesign. keywords social justice, edd curriculum, systems transformation, third-order change leadership, collaborative engagement, collaborative impact central connecticut state university (ccsu) is connecticut’s oldest publicly funded university. from its earliest years as a normal school, then as a teaching college, to its present as a comprehensive public university, ccsu has espoused a vision that values the creation of connections and partnerships with communities throughout the state. in addition to providing affordable access to degree programs, ccsu brands itself as a provider of intellectual resources, service, and support for helping communities address urgent or emergent economic, social, and cultural issues. the tiny state of connecticut is a microcosm of the demographic and societal landscape of the u.s., with shared borders between suburban communities that possess great wealth and urban and rural communities besieged by systemic injustices. the greatest challenges of our society including racism, meritocracy, socioeconomic/opportunity disparities, intolerance, and prejudices of all kinds exist in each of connecticut’s 169 cities and towns, alongside the potential and capacity within those communities to create change in pursuit of a more just and thriving society. ccsu, situated in the heart of connecticut, in an urban center both teeming with cultural wealth and struggling against economic challenges, has in many ways recognized and accepted its role as a hub, to nurture its increasingly diverse student population and by extension their communities. it is against this backdrop that ccsu’s graduate programming in education leadership emerged several decades ago with an enhanced vision for creating leaders to promote social justice in schools and districts. in particular, the more recently developed edd program in educational leadership was built upon a social justice platform, with curriculum and learning experiences designed to illuminate the pressing urgencies of educational systems that do not serve, but rather oppress, students and communities. however, in the complianceand standards-driven accountability era that has influenced practitioners and school districts since the inception of the edd program, retaining students’ focus on research and projects designed to examine social justice issues and to explore ways to mitigate injustice has been an ongoing challenge. the edd in educational leadership program at central connecticut state university (ccsu) has been serving cohorts of pk-12 doctoral candidates since 2002. higher education http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:amryan@ccsu.edu mailto:watsonshl@ccsu.edu impact and inclusion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 12 administration (hea) candidates have now been included since 2016 in separate cohorts. over 150 educators now hold the doctorate of practice degree from ccsu, and the first hea graduates will don their regalia during the 2019-2020 academic year. graduates have pursued the degree as a stepping stone to becoming school administrators at all levels, including superintendents, teacher leaders, and university faculty members. as a member of the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped) since 2018, ccsu has launched an ongoing redesign of its program to maximize impact on the field. a primary goal of this redesign is to cultivate greater activism among program graduates to lead systemic change within education. the initial motivation for bringing an activist orientation to this program was grounded primarily in an intentional orientation toward social justice and promoting equity for marginalized groups. this orientation still exists as a driver of content in the program, and curriculum continues to be evaluated in regard to these outcomes. however, over the last several years, the activist agenda of the program has turned toward broad-based systems change, grounded in an expanded lens of what educational leadership needs to be in today’s world. current crises (e.g. climate change, growing social inequality, threats to democracy, a global epidemic of loneliness and depression, etc.), and the inability of traditional educational systems to display an agile response, demand bold new approaches. introduction from its inception, the edd program at ccsu has been focused on developing transformational school leaders (burns, 1978; leithwood & jantzi, 2000). exactly what defines a transformational leader has been debatable. one of the most common monikers applied to a transformational leader, however, is that of change agent. transformational leadership is generally regarded as the capacity to facilitate change in organizational behavior and culture; within educational settings, such change is oriented toward achieving goals that improve outcomes for students. this is casually thought of as challenging the status quo and inspiring new ways of seeing and being among organizational members. within the context of the discipline of educational leadership, transformational leadership has also been often associated with leadership informed by social justice objectives (e.g. larson & murtadha, 2002). within the ccsu edd program, transformative adult learning theory (mezirow, 1991) has been a focal design principle to achieve this objective. students are presented with learning experiences that challenge existing preconceptions and require the reintegration of their knowledge of practice with insights from scholarship. the cohort-based model provides a supportive chrysalis for these transformations, as the challenges become shared experiences. results have been mixed. from a values-based perspective, in which the need for deep change is a moral and ethical imperative (scharmer & kaufner, 2013), the program has not achieved results significant enough to shift the educational status quo in local districts and schools in a manner that significantly challenges the surrounding systemic context of education. change is often incremental and at the level of improvement of current processes, rather than deep shifts in vision, intention, or systems. this form of change has continued ultimately to serve the system as it is, if not in fact intensifying the system through the intensive enabling of top-down accountability regimes. as a review of the research topics that students have pursued in their dissertations demonstrates, relatively few edd candidates have investigated topics or problems of practice related to social justice, equity, or structural oppression in their own schools or districts, or at the level of state policies that perpetuate injustice. often, dissertation topics have aligned more with the demands of the neoliberal policy cycle that has controlled the attention, concern, and vision of educational leaders for nearly 40 years (tyack & cuban, 1997). still, program graduates have become successful leaders, who have brought some elements of transformational leadership to their practice. ccsu’s edd program leadership and faculty have re-oriented the vision and intention of the program to be more explicit about its commitment to a new, and deeper, level of fundamental change that has the potential to address the burgeoning needs that are present: namely, a transcendent third order of change (bartunek & moch, 1987) as opposed to the conventional first and second orders of change often discussed in the best practice literature within the discipline of educational leadership. if graduates of the edd program are to engage in the generative work of social justice, with the clear intention to create change in education so as to change society, transformational second order of change (watzlawick, et al., 1974/2001) will not be a sufficient end goal. second order change fails to address the core foundations and underlying assumptions of the existing system of public education. systems change that occurs is confined to nodes within the system (e.g. implementing a new program within a school or district). the analysis that follows, based upon a review of the dissertations completed from 2005 through 2019, confirms this point. third-order change, with its focus on shifting entrenched social systems through ongoing critique of paradigms and structures, provides an important new concept for encouraging new directions for students pursing a dissertation-in-practice, which is a more intentional application of research to a problem of practice (shulman, et al, 2006; storey & maughan, 2016). through preparation for pursuit of third-order change in curricular and research experiences, edd candidates may engage in a capstone experience that is not only transformational, but transcendent in its intention and outcomes, situating their research into problems of practice as collaborative engagements within the communities most affected by systemic injustices, toward the creation of solutions. scope and purpose this article shares findings that are part of an emergent process of developmental evaluation (patton, 2011) of ccsu’s edd program, initiated by a review of dissertation topics in comparison to defined program learning outcomes. developmental evaluation offers a bridge of support and monitoring of ongoing evolution and changes in complex, dynamic systems (such as education), provoked by the impetus toward innovation. from a systemic perspective, developmental evaluation monitors and evaluates innovation in context, providing data and information to change agents who seek to adapt systems and respond to impacts and events that occur in real time (patton, 2011). from the time of the first ccsu edd cohort’s establishment to the present, the curriculum and learning experiences constructed by the edd program leadership have largely been influenced by both the vision and mission of the program itself as one that fosters the development of leaders who understand and can create more socially-just systems, and by the need to respond to changing educational landscapes. ongoing developmental evaluation in our edd program has invited a form of ryan & watson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 13 double-loop learning (argyris & schon, 1978) in action, with a parallel process in which we seek to understand the underlying norms and beliefs systems both within the program itself as well as in the contexts in which our students operate, as a means toward advancing the program’s commitment to preparing leaders who can create more socially-just educational practices, environments, and systems amid the increasingly urgent need for change in the complex realities of educational systems and society. the review of dissertations that were produced during the last 15 years by students in the edd program in educational leadership at ccsu included collection of data on: topical foci; research questions; and, conceptual/theoretical frameworks. the conclusion, that program outcomes provide evidence of transformational leadership, but often in service of the status quo, offers a baseline for the subsequent and ongoing development in the evolution of the program toward transcendent, activist leadership outcomes. key concepts that inform this approach are systems leadership (senge, et al., 2015), collaborative engagement (longo & gibson, 2016), and collective impact (kania & kramer, 2011) and, ultimately, third order change (bartunek & moch, 1987). this framework is discussed following the analysis of dissertations. using these concepts as a foundation, the ccsu edd program faculty are engaged in a recursive process of exploring the application of the ccsu edd program principles in context. in beginning the process of developmental evaluation (patton, 2011) we seek to examine the adaptive capacity of the edd program, collecting data on student capstones and innovation in systems, and incorporating and respecting the context of stakeholders in a holistic evaluation of the program and student products. the authors share a framework for program design and outcomes as it continues to emerge from their own self-study. background the first guiding principle for edd program design articulated by the cped organization is that “the professional doctorate in education is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, n.d.). the problem with implementing this principle is that transformational leadership tends to produce responses to complex problems of practice, as opposed to solutions. this is because the underlying system that created such problems in the first place tends to remain unchanged. yet transformational leadership is often the best outcome one can hope for from a preparation program unless it is explicitly framed around systems change. genuine solutions to complex problems require a fundamental paradigm shift and accompanying change to systems themselves. as tyack and cuban (1997) have argued, the cycle of perpetual change associated with the history of school reform in the united states has contributed to very little actual substantive change to the underlying foundations of the system. contemporary school improvement discussions frequently call for second order change as a goal of educational leadership and reform. two orders, or levels, of change lie at the center of this conceptualization (watzlawick et. al, 1974). first order change is associated with the introduction of known solutions to known problems, with such solutions requiring fairly minimal changes in behavior on the part of participants. second order change, alternatively, involves more fundamental change to an activity, process, or behavior of participants. typically, second order change involves the introduction of new perspectives or paradigms. findings of our developmental evaluation, however, suggest that new ways of doing things are overwhelmingly implemented within the existing structures of the system-as-it-is. the dissertations, topics, and conceptual frameworks we reviewed produced research that was primarily consistent with dominant narratives of prevailing policy cycles and mainstream best practice. thus, the degree of change such “reforms” can achieve is limited and often unsustainable. what we see, in effect, are islands of transformation surrounded by an ocean of status quo realities associated with an underlying system that is highly resistant to change. method to support the ongoing development of our edd program toward advancing its vision of developing educational leaders who are willing and able to engage in transformation of systems for greater equity and justice, we conducted a review of ccsu edd dissertations produced by students from the edd program’s inception in 2005 through the most recent available in 2019. specifically, the review of dissertations sought to explore the ways in which notions of transformational leadership and social justice, espoused in the edd program vision, influenced the focus areas, research questions, and research methods applied in dissertations. all 120 dissertations present in the ccsu edd dissertation archives were reviewed, and the researchers collected data from the studies’ introductory chapters and methods, applying a grounded theory approach to determine codes and categories among the sections reviewed. in the initial review of program dissertations, analysis of the introductions and research questions revealed categories around which these dissertations’ research centered, in the following areas:  student achievement and/or school improvement (primarily identified through outcomes on standardized assessments and other measures, such as graduation rates)  teacher practice, including: preparation, induction, professional development, instructional strategies, and content or instructional proficiency  leadership, including: instructional leadership; leadership attributes; approaches to leadership or leadership style  capacity and culture, including: collectiveand selfefficacy  diversity, equity and social justice issues a review of research methods employed in the studies indicated a substantial preference among students for mixed methods case study designs, with 76 approaching their research design using surveys, test data (primarily standardized tests, when exploring achievement) and interviews. nearly a quarter of students (27 of 120) used exclusively quantitative methods, while the remaining 17 studies used exclusively qualitative methods. it is worth noting that, among the studies that focused on student achievement, school improvement, and/or assessments of the effectiveness of programs designed for specialized student supports, student researchers used primarily quantitative approaches in data collection and analysis. impact and inclusion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 14 findings in the data collected from 120 submitted dissertations, from the inaugural edd cohort that published in 2005 to early 2019, several trends emerged among the research topics the program’s doctoral students explored. first, dissertation foci reveal three distinct, chronologically-segmented “eras” among program cohorts that emerged: 2005-2009; 2010-2014; and 2015-present. additionally, two “pivot” years (specifically, 2010 and 2015) demonstrated shifts in topics or focus areas that typified or anticipated the trends of the next era. for example, during the first five years (2005-2009) of ccsu’s edd program’s existence, at a time when the requirements of the no child left behind act ([nclb], 2003) had become solidified in schools, edd students demonstrated significant interest in student achievement and school-based reform (with 18 of 47 dissertations focused on student achievement as defined by standardized test outcomes), as well as studies of teacher practice and teacher induction (20 of 47 dissertations), while only one dissertation directly addressed diversity or social justice issues. during the second era (2010-2014), there was an emergence of interest in issues related to supporting diversity and social justice (four of 50 dissertations). in 2010-14, as policy requirements for test-based accountability, standardization, and educator evaluation affected virtually every aspect of teaching and administration in schools, a significant number of dissertations (13 of 50) focused on issues related to developing or assessing capacity among school staff or students and culture (including selfand collective efficacy). in addition, there was an increase in the orientation of dissertation foci that turned the lens on students’ experiences and student empowerment. for example, rather than studying the effects of literacy or math programming on student achievement (which were the research foci of many dissertations in 2005-2009), studies in this second era focused on such topics as student empowerment in democratic schools, the needs of underperforming white males, and student employment and extra-curricular activity participation. unlike earlier student achievement studies in 2005-2009, which focused on instructional practices and interventions and used metrics such as standardized tests, the more recent dissertation, particularly those completed in 2013-14, often situated students’ experiences (e.g., with homework, self-efficacy, and racial isolation), at the center of the research focus. finally, from 2015 to the present, dissertation research demonstrated a shift toward a stronger social justice orientation. seven of 31 dissertations examined issues related to race, multicultural education, and gender identification. dissertations focused on teachers examined the preparation of new teachers in high-poverty schools, experiences of black male teachers, the role of race and culture in teachers’ lives, and teaching for intercultural competence. dissertations focused on leadership explored such topics as the processes of school and community partnerships, the experiences of black female administrators in predominantly white districts, and perceptions of self and professional learning needs among leaders of “failing” schools and districts. during this era, topics such as ecojustice and sustainability, social media, and experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming youth appeared for the first time in program history. discussion the review of edd program dissertations at ccsu reveals that trends in the educational policy cycle have coincided with the choice of students’ dissertation topics/research foci, intentions, and methodologies. the analysis of the data also provides some important reflections for the transformation of the edd program, including the evolution of the purpose, preparation for, and structure of the dissertation, setting the stage for the process of creating social innovation through dissertation research. additionally, the review creates a platform for further inquiry into the transformational effects of dissertation projects in practice, on schools/districts where they took place and on practitioners conducting them. a crucial aspect of transforming the program and evaluating its progress involves collaborative engagement with community stakeholders to address persistent challenges and measure impact within the changing contexts in which we do our work. the developmental evaluation process that this dissertation analysis initiates illuminates the distance between our program principles and enactment of them in student work, as we continue to learn from and with our students and community partners. from this analysis, the development of a conceptual framework for cultivating transcendent leadership emerges, through program coherence and creation of structures and intentional next-steps for supporting the edd program goal of building the capacity of graduates to engage educational systems in transcendent third-order change. a system change framework the current crises facing education, as well as the modern world, require full-scale systems change (scharmer & kaufner, 2013). we suggest that even the oft-espoused holy grail of second order change, as promoted within the school improvement canon (e.g. marzano, et al., 2005), is insufficient to achieve such change. in fact, such change may amplify the very same factors that are hastening system decline in education; essentially, they may reinforce the status quo. third order change (bartunek & moch, 1987), an overlooked conceptualization of change that supports the co-creation of new organizational realities, is what is required to achieve systems change at the level that is necessary. third order change requires leadership that supports an organization in transcending the limits of current paradigms of viewing options for action; namely, third order change is transconceptual in nature and involves authentic escape from the status quo. according to bartunek and moch, the transconceptual element of third order change involves empowering members of organizations to grasp not only the operative organizational paradigm that is at work in their environment, but to then go one step further and understand that there are multiple alternative paradigms that can be brought to bear at any time. this discernment of multiple realities allows for multiframe thinking and more agile approaches to problem finding and solving. however, labeling the type of change we need is not the hard part. actually, achieving third order change is the challenge of our time in many sectors. facilitating such change requires a powerful toolkit for action and for grasping the dimensions of what one is acting upon. what is required is a whole new level of organizational learning. recent strategies and concepts associated with systems leadership (senge et al., 2015), collaborative engagement (longo & gibson, 2016), and collective impact (kania & kramer, 2011) provide ryan & watson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 15 a promising roadmap to building capacity for third order change through multi-stakeholder organizational learning. first, systems leadership involves developing capacity to see the larger system for what it is, facilitating reflective and generative conversation among stakeholders, and moving the focus of stakeholders from reactive to proactive actions (senge et al., 2015). being able to discern the larger system at work, and the relationship between parts and the whole, allows stakeholders to identify leverage points for intervening with the system (meadows, 2008; stroh, 2015). for edd candidates, developing skills in organizational systems diagnosis (heifetz, et al., 2009) may help in shifting their improvement focus from optimizing the system through business as usual reforms (hassan, 2014), toward more substantive innovation. the concept of leverage points offers a way to pinpoint specific areas for significant impact and experimentation, as opposed to the daunting task of conceptualizing full-scale systems change (stroh, 2015). knowledge of the larger system at work creates possibility that even minor changes can lead to outcomes with broad ripple effects. next, the collective impact model (kania & kramer, 2011) suggests that five conditions must be met to achieve success in systems change via the collective action of diverse stakeholders: 1) a common agenda is developed; 2) shared measurement systems are identified; 3) mutually reinforcing activities are developed; 4) continuous communication is present; and 5) underlying support structures are developed to support taking change to scale and achieving sustainability. education is rife with reforms that come and go with limited time spans, with the underlying system regressing back to its previous state when pressure or resources are lifted (tyack & cuban, 1997). the collective impact model is a framework of process and structure for taking the insights of adaptive systems leadership focused on leverage points and building a sustainable organizational infrastructure around it. it also offers opportunities to build in aspects of accountability, assessment, alignment and coherence (kania & kramer, 2011); all desirable qualities of the existing systems we already operate within. thus, the collective impact model may provide a bridge between the status quo and what comes next. systems leadership efforts must promote interdependence to be effective (hassan, 2014). the intrinsic value of engagement with diverse stakeholders, and how to go about doing it, must be an embedded component of an edd program with learning outcomes centered on advocacy and activism. collaborative engagement (longo & gibson, 2016) is a model from the literature on community engagement in higher education that we apply to change leadership activity in pk-12 organizational systems. the essential argument of this model is that deep systems change requires proactive, ongoing engagement with diverse stakeholders to identify new pathways to achieving common goals and shared ownership of social knowledge (martin & crossland, 2017). adaptation and innovation, accomplished through collection action, is the objective of this approach. systems tend to be highly resilient to change due to the presence of balancing and reinforcing feedback loops of both factors and actors in the system (stroh, 2015). bringing together diverse stakeholders serves as a mechanism to more easily identify such feedback loops and correct or disrupt them as necessary. through this lens, the change agent becomes only as influential as the change coalition they can assemble. for doctoral students, the shared experience of the cohort model helps bring this concept to life, as the individual agency of each student is powerfully influenced by the conjoint agency of the group. the next step is to translate that vision of interdependence to the field and to the work of assembling diverse stakeholders to tackle complex problems impacting youth and education. in the ccsu edd program, this framework influences much of the learning experience in educational leadership. among the critical perspectives we apply is that, in moving from transformational to transcendent leadership, we are aware of the potential of edd programming and curriculum to either unwittingly exacerbate inequitable, harmful systems, or to intentionally, and from an awareness-based perspective, transcend traditional modes of creation, and with community partners, co-creation, of approaches in educational leadership that spark innovation. developmental evaluation processes assist us in this effort. cohort coursework and field-based activities are focused on developing systems thinking and mapping skills. doctoral candidates critique their own role in maintaining and reproducing a system that does not produce the overall results anyone wants. students engage with external stakeholders to gather unique perspectives and to hear marginalized voices. they learn strategies and concepts from improvement science (bryk, et al., 2015) in order to identify leverage points for intervening in the system through rapid prototyping of innovative practices. perhaps most importantly, they learn about themselves and about truly engaging with others to do the work of change. these leadership skills recognize that third order change starts on the inside, but that when it radiates out to encompass more and more individuals it can lead to turning a system into something fundamentally different than it was before. program faculty are not left out of this process. a team of faculty have recently formed their own innovative work team and joined a cohort of 300 teams from around the world to participate in u.lab.2x, a multi-local collaborative learning journey facilitated by systems change experts from the presencing institute and grounded in the theory u (scharmer, 2018) model of individual and group learning. through this work, the ccsu edd faculty are modeling theory u and u.lab.2x strategies in classroom practice and are developing their own model of multi-stakeholder engagement “hubs.” hub members – which include educators from a variety of organizations, students, community service providers and organizers collaborate to generate new approaches for addressing persistent, seemingly intractable, issues (e.g. systemic marginalization of students of color) that can then be applied in the local field of public education, in the form of innovative, systems-based solutions to catalyze change. developmental evaluation processes offer hub strategists opportunities to use data from implementations in real time, to facilitate insights regarding the efficacy of such innovations, and to adapt responses to shifting dynamics. in doing so, and in enacting their own activism in the field, faculty will then be even more prepared to help cultivate such skills in the next wave of educational leaders. the time has come for everyone to become an activist. education can adapt, transcend its current limitations, and play a key role in building capacity to support such action. references argyris, c., & schon, d. (1978). organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. addison-wesley. bartunek, j. m., & moch, m. k. (1987). first-order, second-order, and thirdorder change and organization development interventions: a cognitive approach. the journal of applied behavioral science, 23(4), 483–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/002188638702300404 https://doi.org/10.1177/002188638702300404 impact and inclusion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.123 16 bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. burns, j. m. (1978). leadership. harper and row. hassan, z. (2014). the social labs revolution: a new approach to solving our most complex challenges. berrett-koehler publishers, inc. heifetz, r., grashow, a., & linsky, m. (2009). the practice of adaptive leadership: tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. harvard business press. kania, j., & kramer, m. (2011, winter). collective impact. stanford social innovation review. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact. larson, c., & murtadha, k. (2002). leadership for social justice. in j. murphy (ed.), the educational leadership challenge: redefining leadership for the 21st century. university of chicago press. leithwood, k. and jantzi, d. (2000). the effects of transformational leadership on organizational conditions and student engagement with school. journal of educational administration, 38(2), 112129. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230010320064 longo, n. v., & gibson, c. m. (2016). collaborative engagement: the future of teaching and learning in higher education. in m. a. post, e. ward, n. v. longo, and j. saltmarsh (eds.), publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education (pp. 61-75). stylus publishing. martin, l., & crossland, s. (2017). competencies community engagement professionals need for faculty development. in l.d. dostillo (ed.), the community engagement professional in higher education: a competency model for an emerging field (pp.161-178). campus compact. marzano, r., waters, t, mcnulty, b.a. (2005). school leadership that works: from research to results. association for supervision and curriculum development (ascd). meadows, d. h. (2008). thinking in systems: a primer. chelsea green publishing. mezirow, j. (1991). transformative dimensions of adult learning. jossey-bass. no child left behind (nclb) act of 2001, 20 u.s.c.a. § 6301 et seq. (west 2003) patton, m.q. (2011). developmental evaluation: applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and use. guilford press. scharmer, o. (2018). the essentials of theory u: core principles and applications. berrett-koehler publishers, inc. scharmer, o., & kaufner, k. (2013). leading from the emerging future: from ego-system to eco-system economies. berrett-koehler publishers. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorate: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(2), 25–32. senge, p., hamilton, h., & kania, j. (2015, winter). the dawn of system leadership. stanford social innovation review. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_dawn_of_system_leadership storey v.a., & maughan b.d. (2016) dissertation in practice: reconceptualizing the nature and role of the practitioner-scholar. in v.a. storey (ed.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates. palgrave macmillan. stroh, d.p. (2015). systems thinking for social change: a practical guide to solving complex problems, avoiding unintended consequences, and achieving lasting results. chelsea green publishing. tyack, d., & cuban, l. (1997). tinkering toward utopia. jossey-bass. watzlawick, p., weakland, j. h., & fisch, r. (1974/2011). change: problem formation and problem resolution. w. w. norton & co. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230010320064 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_dawn_of_system_leadership antoinette m. ryan central connecticut state university amryan@ccsu.edu sheldon watson central connecticut state university (1) introduction scope and purpose background method findings discussion a system change framework references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 4 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts ray buss, phd mary fulton teachers college arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu james g. allen, edd college of education northern kentucky university allenj4@nku.edu abstract in this essay, we discuss leader scholar communities (lscs), which have proven to be helpful in supporting students’ dissertation in practice (dip) efforts in several cped-guided programs. we have organized this essay around four important topics including (a) describing a theoretical framework that serves as the foundation for lscs, (b) providing a rationale for using lscs, (c) illustrating how lscs have been implemented to support students’ dip efforts in our edd programs, and (d) exploring the benefits and limitations of lscs. we have also presented research information about graduates’ perceptions of lscs. we concluded by presenting some questions others might wish to contemplate as they consider the use of lscs to support their students’ dip efforts. keywords reducing doctoral attrition; leader scholar communities; dissertation in practice; communities of practice in this essay, we described leader scholar communities (lscs) and how they have been used to support edd students as they developed, implemented, and completed their dissertations in practice (dip) in two cped-guided programs. briefly, lscs were groups of students and faculty members who worked together during the last two years of the program to ensure students made timely progress with respect to developing the dip proposal, implementing the dip including collecting and analyzing the data, and writing the final version of the dip. we have organized this essay around four important topics including (a) describing a theoretical framework that served as the foundation for lscs, (b) providing a rationale for using lscs, (c) illustrating how lscs have been implemented to support students’ dip efforts in our edd programs, and (d) exploring the benefits and limitations of lscs. theoretical frameworkcommunities of practice etienne wenger’s (1998; wenger et al., 2002) communities of practice (cop) framework has served as the theoretical framework for lscs. wenger et al. (2002) suggested cop were defined by three elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original). we have described these concepts more fully in the next sections. wenger et al. (2002) suggested, “the domain of a cop creates a common ground and sense of common identity …. the domain inspires members to contribute and participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions” (p. 27-28, italics in original). for example, in the current context, the domain for the lsc were tasks related to the dip including designing it, writing a proposal, implementing an intervention and collecting data, analyzing data, and writing and defending the final version of the dip. in addition, the domain included the logistical matters associated with the dip such as selecting and engaging committee members, completing the comprehensive examination, holding the proposal and dissertation defenses, and so on. with respect to community, wenger et al. (2002) claimed, “the community creates the social fabric of learning. a strong community fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust” (p. 28). thus, the community was a collaborative entity where participants willingly interacted with one another and developed relationships that facilitated and supported the dip process. specifically, students shared information and ideas about their problems of practice, research methods, and other dip processes; and capitalized on opportunities in which they supported each other academically and emotionally. “the practice is a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories, and documents that community members share. … the domain denotes the topic… [whereas] the practice is the specific knowledge the community develops, shares, and http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ buss & allen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 5 maintains” (wenger et al., 2002, p. 29, italics in original). thus, the practice component of the cop consisted of the various ideas, tools, information, and so on needed to complete the dip, which the community shared formally, as they met together in the lsc and informally, as they connected with one another outside of the organized sessions. in the current context, practice included knowledge about research design and implementation, data collection and analyses, logistical information and guidelines for the dip, and so on. in wenger’s (1998) earlier work on cop, he focused on how participation in a cop influenced identity. for example, in the current context, students’ participation in an lsc aided in molding their identities as graduate student, scholarly practitioner, and educational researching professional, an educational researcher focused on solving problems in their workplace settings (bourner, bowden, & laing, 2001) among other identities. because wenger viewed identity as something that was constantly being (re)negotiated within a cop or in other settings, we have viewed the lsc as playing a fundamental role in shaping edd students’ identity and behavior as scholarly practitioners during the dissertation process and afterward. thus, wenger’s (1998; wenger et al., 2002) cop framework guided implementation of lscs. moreover, the cop framework was a natural extension of the cohort group process, which students had experienced as they participated in the first year of their edd programs. the problem of completing the edd attrition has been a crucial concern in doctoral programs (lovitts, 2001; walker et al., 2008). for many years, attrition from phd programs has been around 50% or slightly higher (bowen & rudenstine, 1992; cassuto, 2013; council of graduate schools, 2008; lovitts, 2001). attrition costs manifested themselves in two ways. of course, there were financial costs to the individual and to the institution. nevertheless, the more noteworthy cost has been to the individual. as lovitts (2001) maintained, “the most important reason to be concerned about graduate student attrition is that it can ruin individuals’ lives” (p. 6). various factors such as program area, funding, gender, ethnicity, and integration into the program have affected attrition. with regard to these factors, ali and kohun (2006, 2007) and lovitts (2001) found the extent to which students were integrated with peers and faculty members into a program played a critical role in retention and completion. quite naturally, concerns about attrition led us to consider the following questions as we designed and implemented edd programs at our two institutions. ‘how can we best support students as they develop, implement, and complete their dip?’ and ‘how can we work effectively with edd students to avoid having allbut-dissertation (abd) participants in our programs?’ we anticipated these questions were also of primary concern to faculty members at other cped-guided colleges and schools of education. evidence from the october 2017 cped convening supported that conjecture as over 35 of us considered these matters during a learning exchange on leader scholar communities (buss & allen, 2017). because of that substantial interest among cped members, we decided to write this essay on our use of leader scholar communities (lscs), logistical matters with respect to lscs, and the benefits and ‘costs’ of their use. rationale for leader scholar communities first, we wanted to avoid the problem of social isolation, which has plagued many students who have completed coursework and who were then ‘on their own’ to complete the dissertation. students typically perceived they had strong support during the coursework phase of their doctoral study. by comparison, students frequently have felt isolated and on their own during the dissertation phase of their programs, which typically has been much less structured than coursework (ali & kohun, 2006, 2007; lovitts, 2001; walker et al., 2008). to combat isolation during the dissertation stage of study, ali and kohun (2007) proposed using three strategies that included (a) providing structure for the dissertation work, (b) employing a collaborative approach to the dissertation, and (c) engaging in faceto-face communication. as noted below in the next section and in the discussions of the leader scholar communities in action, we have provided greater structure, capitalized on collaborative efforts, and afforded opportunities for students to connect regularly with other students, faculty members, and their programs. second, our efforts in developing the lscs have also been guided by the cped framework including the third cped guiding principle—building partnerships; the fifth—integrating practical and research knowledge; and the sixth—emphasizing use of professional knowledge and practice, which have been discussed more fully below; and the cped program design concept of signature pedagogy. notably, the lsc has been and continues to be a signature pedagogy in our programs. shulman (2005) suggested signature pedagogies were disciplinary approaches such as cases in law or rounds in medicine, which were then directly applicable in professional practice. in the current context, signature pedagogies included action research, lscs, and so on used in doctoral programs that were also appropriate for use in workplace situations after doctoral study. specifically, lscs as used in our programs represented the kind of professional communities within which our students have been/will be required to work as they influence their workplace settings. moreover, use of lscs has been consistent with several cped principles. with respect to the third cped principle, students used collaboration and communication skills to build partnerships, which were effectively used during the program, the lsc, and which will be necessary in their professional practices afterward. moreover, lsc meetings afforded opportunities for members to develop professional knowledge that integrated practical and research knowledge, the fifth cped principle, as they pondered theories and shared practical, professional knowledge with one another during the lsc meetings and used this information as they developed, implemented, and wrote their dips. finally, lscs supported students’ efforts to effect transformations in their workplaces as they considered and combined professional knowledge and practice, the sixth cped principle, while they designed and implemented their dips. leader scholar communities in action lscs defined in detail recall earlier we stated lscs were groups of students and faculty members who worked together during the last two years of the program to ensure students made timely progress with respect to developing the dip proposal, implementing the dip including collecting and analyzing the data, and writing the final version of the dip. in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state leader scholar communities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 6 university, lscs typically have been composed of six to seven students and one faculty member. the faculty member served as chair of all the dips for these students and facilitated their dip efforts. students came with their own problems of practice (pops) from their workplace settings; thus, faculty members viewed students as experts with regard to their settings, their pops, and the potential intervention they considered with respect to their pop. notably, faculty members and peers have honored this knowledge in the lscs. the faculty member has contributed methodological, research, and writing expertise to enhance and support students’ dip efforts and mentored students throughout the process. in the college of education and human services at northern kentucky university, lscs have been organized a bit differently. two faculty members worked as a team in co-leading and coadvising an lsc with five to six students whom we called learning associates. this term denoted the democratic context in which our learners and program faculty came together—mutually teaching and learning together. much like arizona state university, faculty members served as experts in action research, scholarly literature and writing, and the learning associates applied organizational and leadership expertise to their problems of practice as the dips were developed and implemented. logistics and lscs with respect to logistical aspects of lscs, we have provided information about two matters—forming lscs and scheduling of lsc meetings. first, in terms of forming lscs at arizona state university, we have created diverse lscs by mixing students from k-12, higher education, and other disciplinary areas. we have found these groups to be complementary in terms of interest and needs, which students have appreciated as well. we have also formed lscs to ensure students with various writing abilities have been distributed across the lscs. the lscs have been constituted at the end of the first year of the program when students were moving into dip proposal development and writing. at northern kentucky university, lscs were formed at the beginning of the second year of the three-year program. since the beginning of our program 10 years ago, we have formed a variety of lscs from transdisciplinary groups—a mix of higher education leaders, pk-12 school administrators, healthcare educators, and so on—to homogenous groups based on similar job roles or problems of practice. prior to the formation of lscs, we sought input from learning associates and faculty members to determine the best approach to forming lscs for each particular cohort. second, at arizona state university, lscs usually have met every other week for about three months to support students’ initial efforts, then once a month for the last two months of the first semester of their second year. during these last two months, students also met individually with their lsc chairs to advance their work. during the second semester, typically three group meetings were held to ensure continuity with respect to sustaining the sense of community established in the lscs. these meetings made students aware of the logistics and assignments relevant to the semester. subsequently, we held individual meetings to meet the needs of students, which culminated in their oral comprehensive examinations and defenses of their dip proposals. during the third semester of the lsc, students were collecting their dip data and initiating analysis of the data, so two group meetings were held to re-establish the supportive aspects of the lsc and then individual meetings were held with students to meet their needs. in the final semester when students completed writing and defending their dips, we followed the same process. at northern kentucky university, similar logistical processes have been employed with some slight variations. lscs were scheduled to meet approximately once a month, typically during the regularly scheduled once-a-month weekend class meetings within the second year of the program. in this way, learning associates were already on campus, which eased the scheduling challenges for busy practitioners. between the monthly meetings, learning associates often scheduled face-to-face and in a few instances virtual writing sessions with each other to develop components of their dips in preparation for their next lsc meeting. in the third year, after completion of course work and comprehensive examinations, lsc meetings and collaborative writing sessions kept the dip front and center in a mutually supportive environment during what has traditionally been an unstructured time in doctoral work. we met with learning associates on an as-needed basis in individual meetings. content at arizona state university, content of the lsc meetings has been quite diverse and included, for example, updates by students on their progress with respect to dip efforts. additionally, lsc meeting content has included logistical matters such as recruitment of second and third committee members, filing appropriate forms, timelines for submission of writing, and so on. with respect to substantive content, lsc meetings have included discussions of theories, research methods, data analysis procedures, and other content appropriate for students who were developing, implementing, analyzing, and writing their dips. faculty members embedded similar content within the northern kentucky university program. in conjunction with lsc meetings during the spring of year two, learning associates took a three-credithour ‘dissertation seminar’ course designed to provide additional content and support as they fully developed their dissertation proposals. requirements of this course included the development of the research methodology for the dip, research ethics, time management, and navigating the dissertation project. lsc faculty members regularly communicated with the instructor of this course to connect fully the learning experiences in the course to the efforts being conducted in lscs. after the dissertation seminar, lscs continued to meet and provide on-going support and feedback on dissertation proposals. as learning associates transitioned to conducting their action research for the dip, lscs continued to meet once a month and mutually supported one another between meetings by continuing to schedule regular writing sessions. general tasks general tasks conducted in the lscs included (a) reviewing and completing program requirements for the dip, (b) reviewing and completing graduate school matters, (c) scheduling defenses, and (d) irb processes. for example, students completed appropriate paper work such as an electronic program of study, and paperwork for dip proposal defenses, dip final defenses, irb materials, and so on. buss & allen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 7 tasks related to completing the dip we included a separate section on tasks related to completing the dip to illustrate how we have used lscs to assist students in their dip efforts. for example, at northern kentucky university, the initial task procedures included a topic approval process where the student consulted with and then presented an action research topic to the lsc faculty members for approval. as the precursor to the dissertation proposal, learning associates constructed a brief preliminary proposal based on their responses to the following questions: 1. who are you? a brief personal biography is appropriate. 2. what is the work place, agency, or group the research would involve? what is your role in that organization? 3. what is your proposed topic? why is this a significant problem/issue in the workplace, agency, or group, which involve them in your research? 4. how is your proposed topic related to educational leadership? 5. how is your proposed topic related to action research? lsc faculty members reviewed and approved learning associates’ topics prior to allowing learning associates move forward with developing a dip proposal. following the approval of the topic, at northern kentucky university, in consultation with the two faculty members of the lsc, each learning associate nominated and selected a third committee member who brought an outside perspective to the dip research. the third member was typically a practitioner with a terminal degree from outside of the program who was familiar with the context and/or setting of the dip. by comparison, at arizona state university students and their chair collaborated to select, recruit, and secure second and third committee members. the second committee member was a university faculty member who had expertise in the content of the dissertation, whereas the third committee member who also had a terminal degree was from the community, was familiar with the context or setting of the dissertation, and brought a practitioner’s perspective to the dissertation committee. as students moved forward in developing their dip proposals, they constructed the proposals in sections, by chapter, and received feedback from their peers, detailed feedback from their chairs, and from committee members. students, chairs, and committee members engaged in a similar process for the development of the final written dip. in table 1, details have been provided about the sequencing of the tasks involved in step three of the dip process as well as the concomitant collaborative, review and feedback procedures afforded by the lsc. table 1. steps in the dissertation in practice and how leader scholar communities support those steps steps in the dip process specific actions related to dip conducted in the lsc 1. action research topic approval (northern kentucky university only) • learning associate submits topic for approval to faculty members 2. selecting external committee members • discuss process and review forms including template letter 3. developing the dip proposal • develop/revise research questions to guide dip • develop/write context for the project and purpose of the action research dip proposal • develop/write theoretical perspectives and research guiding the project of the dip proposal • develop/write method of the dip proposal • read/discuss previous ‘model’ dips • share and then refine research questions based on peer and then lsc chair feedback • by specified deadline dates, share and then revise dip proposal components based on peer and then lsc chair feedback • group sessions and later individual sessions afforded students with optimal opportunities for interaction and feedback • committee feedback 4. conducting the dip proposal defense and the comprehensive examination • preparation of dip proposal defense with presentation to lsc peers who provide feedback, then proposal defense • chair and committee feedback 5. implementing the dip study • group sessions to share progress, challenges, and resolutions with peer and lsc chair feedback 6. analyzing quantitative and qualitative data • group and then individual sessions with the lsc chair as appropriate 7. completing culminating work • writing of findings/results of the dip • writing of discussion of the dip • by specified deadline dates, share and then revise findings/results and discussion based on peer and then lsc chair feedback • committee feedback 8. defending the final dip • preparation of dip defense with presentation to lsc peers who provide feedback prior to actual defense • chair & committee feedback leader scholar communities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 8 first, to obtain a general understanding of developing the dip proposal, students in the lsc have read and discussed ‘model’ dips written by graduates of the program. as part of developing the dip proposal, students developed or revised their research questions that guided the dip by sharing and then refining their research questions based on peer and then lsc chair feedback. next, students tackled the task of developing and writing about the context for the project and purpose of the action research dip. this document was due by a specified date, which allowed for peer review and comment and subsequent revision prior to submission to the lsc chair who provided thorough edits and comments. students followed these same processes of peer review and comment, revision, submission to the lsc chair, and receipt of the chair’s edits and comments for the theoretical perspectives and research guiding the project, chapter 2, and the method, chapter 3, of the dip proposal. in table 1, we have provided additional details about conducting the dip proposal defense and comprehensive examination, implementing the dip, and so on as part of the dip process along with the respective, concurrent actions taken in the lsc to support the dip process. a note about lscs for online students faculty members had concerns about whether the program could effectively implement lscs online as we moved to adding online students to our program at arizona state university. we have now implemented the lscs with online students for the past twoand-one-half years and have found the process to be similar to those procedures used in the face-to-face setting. after trying several different video conferencing tools, we have found zoom to be effective for these online lsc meetings. the cost of a license for the year was quite reasonable. with respect to outcomes, the results of these online lscs have been on par with those attained in the previous face-to-face version of the program (craig mertler, personal communication, nov. 15, 2017). in fact, some students in the online lscs met before or after the scheduled online meeting with their chairs to initiate or continue the discussion of content, logistical issues, and so on that were to be covered/were covered in the lsc meeting (craig mertler, personal communication, nov. 15, 2017). these actions, both formal with the chair and informal with peers, attested to the power of the cop framework in fostering a community among online lsc participants. benefits of lscs lscs produced several important benefits. first, using lscs has provided for high completion rates. for example, at arizona state university over 88% of those admitted to our program have completed it in three years and 93% in four years. in fact, the largest attrition has occurred in the first two semesters of the program prior to when students became members of an lsc. at northern kentucky university, the program attained similar results with 70% of students graduating in three years and 91% in four years. moreover, using lscs has minimized the number of abd students in the programs, which was a concern of all program faculty members. these completion rates were well above those typical of most doctoral programs, which have shown completion rates at about 50% (bowen & rudenstine, 1992; council of graduate schools, 2008; lovitts, 2001). second, by using lscs during the dip phase of the programs, we have minimized or eliminated isolation, which ali and kohun (2006, 2007) claimed was a major issue with respect to students completing programs. recall, these authors suggested providing structure, affording collaborative efforts, and offering face-to-face involvement were critical to combating isolation. in this respect, lscs provided opportunities to effectively deal with all three of these matters. specifically. lscs have provided greater structure for carrying out the various efforts that are required to design, conduct, gather and analyze data, and complete the dip. group and individual meetings, specific content for the dip and its processes, and clear tasks have been components of the lscs that established greater structure for students working on their dip. additionally, lscs fostered collaboration and maximized student-to-facultymember cooperation. similarly, the lscs provided affordances for face-to-face engagement with faculty members and student peers that facilitated the conduct of the dip and its associated processes. third, lscs provided a variety of benefits to students. we asked recent graduates at arizona state university about their perceptions of lscs using a semi-structured interview. examples of questions were, “how has your lsc affected you,” “what were the functions of your lsc,” “what were the benefits of participating in your lsc,” and “how could the lsc be strengthened?” results indicated recent graduates viewed lscs as being beneficial. they described lscs as being helpful in several ways by (a) providing a sounding board, a place for sharing ideas and obtaining feedback, (b) serving as an accountability group, and (c) offering academic and emotional support. note: all names are pseudonyms. graduates appreciated the lsc as a sounding board. kim claimed, “it [lsc] provided friendships that made it easy to ask questions. and it alleviated some stress.” in addition, alexa valued the reviews by peers when she said, “[there were] so many opportunities to have some other people looking at my work.” in terms of sharing ideas, caroline appreciated this aspect of the lsc when she said, “to meet and talk through things with other people because you live so much or your dissertation inside your own head. the ability to get feedback and a different perspective was really helpful.” kim described sharing ideas as an important function of the lsc when she said, “we got together to discuss and kind of say out loud what our thought process was. so, we presented … our research design … our literature … and our intervention.” another sylvia noted the lsc afforded support “by just being there to bounce ideas off of …. i also felt there was a peer there to help you with some revision or reviewing your writing if needed.” later, sylvia added, “i thought [what] was valuable was being able to present ideas to other people.” alexa noted, “it was really helpful to have a smaller group to be able to throw ideas around with. … we would present information to each other ... and then … critique each other.” other responses reflected the notion that lscs offered a way to foster accountability for their work. for example, holly mentioned, “i think more than anything accountability … having the accountability of times on the calendar with people i trusted and cared about … and having that time together … [and] with goals was really helpful and motivating.” linda described the helpfulness of the lsc in the following way, “i think it helped me finish on time. ….i think without the lsc, i could see where people would get off track … or get confused or frustrated. … it kept us focused.” sylvia added the lsc served “to just kind of keep me on track and keep me accountable … making sure i’m getting things done.” buss & allen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 9 with respect to academic and emotional support, graduates offered many comments. for example, holly stated, “and the support was i think more emotional than anything. they were great academic supports, but really it was a personal support of ‘you can do it.’” linda described how the lsc members came together to provide support when she said, “we started to lean on each other for support.” caroline described how informal support in the lsc was important to her when she stated, “the formal meetings were great, but for those of us who lived … [closer] together, we would meet [between lsc meetings] to … talk about where our projects were, so the informal aspects of the lsc were really helpful.” sylvia said, “i think regular contact after the formal coursework was completed was important … [it created] that feeling of going back to class and keeping your focus on school.” when describing others in her lsc, alexa said, “they were going through a similar process … so, it was kind of comforting to know that you weren’t the only one.” later, alexa noted, “they [lsc members] were always really encouraging. … we wanted to see each other succeed … so, [we did] whatever we could do to reach out and help each other.” moreover, holly said, “we were in constant communication …. they [lsc members] were my number one supporters and critical friends so we could bounce idea off of and hold each other accountable.” similarly, linda indicated the lsc was “a great support mechanism. …. the group of students that were with me formed a little network and a close community where i felt i could reach out to them.” additionally, caroline suggested, “the benefits were really getting external feedback, working together on everyone’s projects, and getting the experience of defending or working through problems together.” graduates made several suggestions about strengthening the lscs. several graduates indicated grouping students differently in lscs might be beneficial to students. for example, alexa indicated most peers in her lsc were in pk-12, but there were some students from higher education. at both institutions, students came from a wide range of professions including pk-12, higher education, nonprofit organizations, nursing, and so on. thus, more homogenous grouping by educational context might have been more helpful. sylvia offered there should be “more consistency across lscs” because expectations varied by lsc chair. kim suggested faculty members should consider geographic location more fully so that it would be easier for members to gather informally (although others did as noted previously). implications from lsc data taken together, it is clear graduates believe they benefit from participating in lscs (see also amrein-beardsley et al., 2012; olson & clark, 2009). respondents indicate lscs serve as sounding boards, function as accountability groups, offer feedback, and provide academic and emotional support as they engage in their dip efforts. respondents are advocates for lscs and claim they are beneficial. as lovitts (2001) notes, academic and social integration into a ‘community’ are critical for student success in doctoral programs. moreover, lscs are aligned with several of the cped principles. thus, lscs reinforce and afford opportunities directly benefitting students during the program and afterward. for example, the third cped principle stipulates that students employ collaboration and communication skills to build partnerships. lscs foster these skills during the program for ongoing use afterward as graduates continue to develop their professional practices in their workplace settings. additionally, lsc meetings provide opportunities for students to integrate practical and research knowledge as they share professional practice knowledge and consider theoretical perspectives, the fifth cped principle. with respect to the sixth cped principle, lscs provide situations in which students consider how they might create transformative changes in their workplace settings as they consider and combine professional knowledge and practice. critique of lscs first, faculty members must evaluate the use of lscs relative to other advising and mentoring programs during the dip phase of study in an edd program. for example, what is the cost/benefit ratio for lscs as compared to some other program that may already be implemented? in an evaluation of competing programs, faculty members must consider issues such as completion rates, faculty members’ time, degree of complexity of lscs as compared to the other approach(es), and so on. second, if lscs are being used in a program, careful consideration must be given to the ways in which lscs are formed and the benefits and costs of creating specific types of lscs. for example, can greater benefits be achieved by creating homogeneous lsc groups that include only students from pk-12 in separate lscs and students from higher education settings in other lscs? alternatively, could greater benefits be attained by grouping students into the same lscs who are working on similar problems? by comparison, would heterogeneous lscs be useful? thus, the costs (and benefits) of forming lscs in specific ways should be carefully considered to maximize outcomes for students in the lsc. in the interviews, graduates note some of these concerns about optimizing benefits for students in lsc formation. future research and practice in some final thoughts, we consider two important matters. the first deals with research about lscs. the second matter is concerned with using lscs in practice. with respect to research, there are several aspects of lscs that warrant additional inquiry. for example, what are the effects of heterogeneous as compared to homogeneous grouping by background (pk-12 vs. higher education vs. other)? can enhanced outcomes be attained when students are grouped into lscs based on the same or similar topic(s)? in another line of inquiry, researchers might consider further, what are the benefits of lscs? with respect to practice and based on the information presented, there appears to be much that recommends the use of lscs as a means to support edd students’ dip efforts. for those considering the use of lscs, the following questions appear to be quite relevant. do the benefits of using lscs including increasing graduation rates (eliminating abds); completing programs in timely ways; overcoming isolation; providing academic and emotional support; and offering affordances to meet several cped guiding principles outweigh the financial, psychological, and personal costs? is financial support or some ‘work around’ available in the college? is administrative support accessible? is faculty member support attainable? if so, then use of lscs may be a productive way to leader scholar communities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.id 10 support edd students’ dip efforts as we have found at our institutions. references ali, a., & kohun, f. (2006). dealing with isolation feelings at is doctoral programs. international journal of doctoral studies, 1, 21-33. retrieved from http://ijds.org/volume1/ijdsv1p021-033ali13.pdf ali, a, & kohun, f. (2007). dealing with social isolation to minimize doctoral attrition—a four stage framework. international journal of doctoral studies, 2. 33-49. retrieved from http://www.ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p033-049ali28.pdf amrein-beardsley, a., zambo, d., moore, d. w., buss, r. r., perry, n. j., painter, s. r., carlson, d. l., foulger, t. s., olson, k., & puckett, k. s. (2012). graduates respond to an innovative educational doctorate program. journal of research on leadership education, 7(1), 98-122. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775112440630bourner, t., bowden, r., & laing, s. (2001). professional doctorates in england. studies in higher education, 26(1), 65-83. bowen, w. g., & rudenstine, n. l, (1992). in pursuit of the phd. princeton university press. buss, r., r., & allen, j. (2017, october). leader scholar communities support students’ dissertation in practice efforts. learning exchange presented at the october convening of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), oakland, ca. cassuto, l. (2013, july). ph.d. attrition: how much is too much? the chronicle of higher education. retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/phd-attrition-how-much-is/140045 council of graduate schools. (2008). ph.d. completion and attrition: analysis of baseline program data from the ph.d. completion project. author. lovitts, b. e. (2001). leaving the ivory tower: the causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. rowman & littlefield. olson, k., & clark, c. m. (2009). a signature pedagogy in education: the leader-scholar community. educational researcher, 38, 216-221. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. walker, g. e., golde, c. m., jones, l., bueschel, a. c., & hutchings, p. (2008). the formation of scholars: rethinking doctoral education for the twentyfirst century. jossey-bass. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge university press. wenger, e., mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. harvard business school press. http://ijds.org/volume1/ijdsv1p021-033ali13.pdf http://www.ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p033-049ali28.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1942775112440630 https://www.chronicle.com/article/phd-attrition-how-much-is/140045 leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts ray buss, phd mary fulton teachers college arizona state university james g. allen, edd college of education northern kentucky university theoretical frameworkcommunities of practice the problem of completing the edd rationale for leader scholar communities leader scholar communities in action lscs defined in detail logistics and lscs content general tasks tasks related to completing the dip a note about lscs for online students benefits of lscs implications from lsc data critique of lscs future research and practice references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you tiffany karalis noel university at buffalo, the state university of new york tbkarali@buffalo.edu julie gorlewski university at buffalo, the state university of new york jgorlews@buffalo.edu erin kearney university at buffalo, the state university of new york ekearney@buffalo.edu abstract this essay describes the context, mission, guiding principles, signature pedagogies, curriculum, and anticipated benefits and limitations of our newly designed edd in learning and teaching in social contexts. as we prepare to launch our new program (pending approval), our key development efforts are focused on implementing leading-edge coursework centering on problems of practice through a blend of online interactions and applied, real-world experiences. our primary objective is to equip scholar-practitioners with the expertise to initiate and sustain systematic approaches to transformative and justice-oriented improvement within their local educational communities, both during and following their time in the program. keywords: program redesign, problems of practice, systematic approaches, justice-oriented, activism reimagining our doctoral programs with today’s expansive access to distance learning, also considered learning that takes place partially or entirely over the internet, online course delivery provides users the flexibility to complete degree programs outside the constraints of time and place (chaney, 2001; gilbert, 2015; u.s. department of education, 2010). in the united states (u.s.), where 85.8% of males and 66.5% of females work more than 40 hours per week (u.s. bureau of labor statistics, 2015), it is understandable that 48% of today’s students are enrolled in fully online degree programs (allen & seaman, 2017), which allow them to complete coursework requirements alongside a myriad of responsibilities. correspondingly, for over a decade, universities in the u.s. have observed a dramatic growth of students who enroll in online courses (halupa & bollinger, 2013). between fall 2008 and fall 2009, the u.s. observed a 21% increase in the number of students who were enrolled in online courses, which indicated that approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course (allen & seaman, 2011). by 2010, the u.s. observed an additional 10% increase, which indicated that approximately 31% of students in higher education were enrolled in at least one online course an ever-increasing growth rate that was not expected to taper off in the foreseeable future (allen & seaman, 2011). in 2017, the national center for education statistics reported that 33.7% of students in higher education were enrolled in online courses, which indicated that approximately 6.7 million students were enrolled in at least one online course (snyder, de brey, & dillow, 2019). given the exponential growth of online students in the u.s., a reality that was observable in our online curriculum, instruction, and the science of learning phd program at university at buffalo, we determined that the addition of a fully online edd program would offer current and prospective students an accessible and flexible opportunity for working professionals to earn an education doctorate. in the 15 years since arthur levine’s (2005) call to abolish the doctor of education degree, researchers such as shulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006) as well as the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) consortium, which includes over 100 accredited institutions of higher education, have been working to reclaim the professional doctorate through dialogue, experimentation, critical feedback, and evaluation. furthermore, with the ever-increasing demand for distance learning programs, many institutions now offer online edd program options that deliver leading-edge content knowledge and research methods through a blend of online interactions and applied, real-world experiences to honor the local educational context of each student. furthermore, in order to identify and address barriers to educational opportunity, institutions of higher education must take ownership of the ways in which academic cultural practices promote systemic inequities. as educational opportunities grow, the need for online programs that are http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ file:///c:/users/stephanie/downloads/tbkarali@buffalo.edu file:///c:/users/stephanie/downloads/jgorlews@buffalo.edu file:///c:/users/stephanie/downloads/ekearney@buffalo.edu smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 4 responsive to an increasingly diverse student population must be balanced with an emphasis on maintaining excellence. as we sought to reimagine our curriculum, instruction, and the science of learning phd programs, we aimed to reciprocally develop equity and excellence within the curriculum to better align with our graduate school of education’s mission: with a focus on local-to-global impact, the graduate school of education is an inclusive community engaged in groundbreaking research and teaching across education, human development and information science that improves educational, social and economic opportunities for individuals and communities. this required us to engage in multidimensional analysis related to the career goals of students, their learning needs, our own institutional norms, and disciplinary standards in the field. all of these dimensions were intentionally aligned with a commitment to activism toward equity and justice. consistent with our mission as a public institution, faculty in the department of learning and instruction (lai) in the graduate school of education at university at buffalo were united in the effort to expand opportunities while maintaining the high standards expected of an american association of universities (aau) institution. we learned that this necessitated an approach to reform that was genuinely dialogic. to transform toward justice, we needed to be willing to examine and transform our own ways of thinking and acting. we needed to be in deeper dialogue with our current students in order to gain a sense of what activism would mean in their local contexts. through survey data collection and conversations with current phd students, we found that many students with full-time work responsibilities and the need for distance learning flexibility sought an applied alternative to primarily theoretical phd programs. in response to students’ feedback, the department applied for and secured institutional membership with cped, appointed a new director of doctoral studies, and collaborated to design a new edd program during the 2019-20 academic year. context for designing a new edd program as educational scholars, we approached program revisions from a research perspective, with the overarching goal of addressing this query: how can a doctoral program in a public institution unify equity and excellence? sub-questions included the following: • how do students describe their experiences in our current curriculum, instruction, and the science of learning (cisl) phd program? • in what ways do our current cisl phd align with departmental commitment to equity and justice? • how do students describe the overall quality of the coursework they have taken in our current cisl phd program? • what are the desired careers students hope to pursue immediately following their graduation? • how can curriculum maximize flexibility while ensuring that foundational courses in two broad fields, curriculum and instruction and learning sciences, are offered? • how can we ensure that students have access to a broad range of methods courses, while also providing the depth necessary to equip them with research expertise? within our department of learning and instruction, most doctoral students are enrolled in the cisl phd program, which was established in 2013. while both on-campus and online options are available, the vast majority of students are enrolled in the fully online version. in may of 2019, a survey was sent out to all—approximately 250—doctoral students in the department. of the one-third of students who responded, 60.5% were currently enrolled in the cisl online program, 65.4% held part-time student status, and 67.5% held full-time jobs in addition to pursuing their phd. when asked to rate elements of the doctoral program on a scale of importance, less than 40% of students said that earning a career in academia was important to them, and more than 60% of students said that applying what they learn in their workplace and local communities was of utmost importance to them. finally, when introduced to the idea of a new edd program focused on impacting educational problems of practice and field-focused research, student responses were enthusiastic: even with a phd, some of us are not interested in faculty/research pathways in the traditional sense. we have jobs, families, and responsibilities...it’s encouraging to learn that a new edd will be added to the offerings. i am very interested in the edd option...i am interested in quantitative research or classroom action research. i strongly agree that having an edd program would direct more practice-oriented folks in a more productive direction for everyone. i have such a good feeling about this transition, and i feel like a weight has been lifted. i spend so much time helping students “learn how to learn” and mentoring other educators, that this edd seems like the perfect fit for me. during a department meeting in may of 2019, we reviewed our program completion data, coupled with students’ feedback surrounding their experiences in the cisl on-campus and online programs. our findings indicated that many cisl online students were registering for only 3 credits per semester, if they registered at all, and the graduation rate was lower than we had anticipated, precisely because students were moving so slowly through the program. many of our cisl online students are full-time working professionals who do not intend to pursue the professoriate; rather, many of them chose to pursue the doctorate to advance in their current positions and/or open up new opportunities to design strategies to impact problems of educational practice. as such, we identified the need to offer our students an applied, professional doctorate geared toward preparing scholar-practitioners to use evidence-based practices to challenge inequity and solve problems that education leaders face on a daily basis. this realization led to the design of our forthcoming edd program in learning and teaching in social contexts, as well as our membership with cped. program design as previously mentioned, through survey data collection and conversations with students, we realized that many of our cisl online students’ professional backgrounds and career goals suggested that they might be better suited for a doctoral program that would allow them to collaborate across school, academic, and karalis noel, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 5 community boundaries to “blend their practical wisdom with their professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (cped, 2010, para. 9). since our existing edd program in elementary education was receiving few applications in comparison to our multidisciplinary phd program in cisl, we identified the need for a new program that would accommodate the coursework and experiential pursuits of a wider audience, as well as offer our cisl online students an applied alternative to a theoryoriented degree designed for aspiring researchers and academics. as such, the proposal for a newly designed edd in learning and teaching in social contexts was born. mission as part of our design process, it was imperative to articulate a learning and teaching in social contexts edd program mission for our current phd students interested in transitioning, as well as the competitive external candidates we may wish to admit upon final approval of the program. when we introduced the idea of a new edd program in addition to our existing phd programs during department meetings and one-on-one conversations in the spring of 2019, we learned that faculty and students felt unclear about the distinguishable differences between a phd and edd. as a result, we decided that our mission should emphasize the edd’s practical focus on developing transformational leaders who design strategies to impact problems of practice. accordingly, we wanted to assert that the edd/phd distinction is based on the primary focus of the degree and does not suggest that problems of practice are disconnected from the application of theory. ultimately, we established the following learning and teaching in social contexts edd program mission: designed within an actionable, justice-focused framework, university at buffalo’s doctor of education in learning and teaching in social contexts blends contemporary theory and practice across synergistic learning experiences to produce the next generation of educational professionals dedicated to addressing emergent problems of practice. cped framework following our institution’s acceptance to the cped consortium, during the summer of 2019, the dean of the graduate school of education, our department chair, several senior faculty members in the departments of learning and instruction and educational leadership and policy, and a newly-appointed director of doctoral studies attended the june cped convening. although we brought ideas about our program’s design, our interactions with experienced cped members and an improved understanding of cped’s seven guiding principles provided us with the resources and cornerstones of our program’s identity to ensure a methodical, rigorous, and leading-edge program blueprint. aligned with cped’s guiding principles (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2009) and grounded in practice that emphasizes direct, vigorous action to generate educational change, our new edd program: • is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to design strategies to impact complex problems of practice. • prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. • provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. • provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to design meaningful strategies. • is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. • emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. in relation to our new edd’s learning outcomes, our program will graduate scholar-practitioners who have demonstrated the ability to: (1) identify, contextualize, and propose strategies to impact problems of practice in varied educational contexts; (2) cultivate and sustain effective, inclusive, and justice-oriented educational communities; (3) disseminate research that serves to resolve critical educational problems; (4) demonstrate an understanding of the importance of equity and justice in shaping their approach(es) to solving problems of educational practice; and (5) apply critical inquiry to and through varied laboratories of practice. improvement science in education prior to joining cped, we were unfamiliar with improvement science, or continuous improvement, as an approach to study and improve education programs and processes (bryk, gomez, grunow, & lemahieu, 2017). through our interactions with experienced cped members and collaborative exploration of research and resources focused on improvement science, we began to understand its role in systems thinking, or how we see the system of complex organizational problems. while thinking about the relationship between improvement science and activism, it was critical to consider how this intersecting framework would shape our new edd program’s coursework and practicum experiences, especially while students focus their problems of practice. as we brainstormed what the content, conversations, and practical experiences might look like, we drew connections to students’ systems thinking represented in tinkler, tinkler, jagla, and strait (2016): the path to navigating through and grappling with my own intersectionality of identity and privilege has allowed me to acknowledge the ways in which individuals, including myself, work as part of the oppressive system, while continuing to question and understand the ways in which the system oppresses its people...this recognition is necessary if one is to ever work toward social change. (p. 77) in the example [in the preceding paragraph], the student recognizes that they have a choice to make—if they choose to ignore their structural privileges, they are complicit in a system of inequality that privileges some at the expense of others. furthermore, embedded within these narrative accounts is an emerging view that allowing oneself to exist with complacency in a system that attributes privilege to some over others will foreclose social change. (p. 77) smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 6 therefore, with a focus on double-loop learning, a critical feature of continuous improvement, our students will use theories of action – that is, the delivery models for theories of change – to expand their analytical frame and explicitly identify and challenge their own underlying assumptions and beliefs (argyris, 1976). by using double-loop learning, an educational concept and process that teaches reflexivity, students will shift their focus from direct problem solving, and instead learn to examine their problems of practice from different angles and test holistic, wide-ranging changes (argyris & schon, 1978). throughout the process, students will use city, elmore, fiarman, teitel, and lachman’s (2018) networked approach to improving teaching and learning by developing and testing theories of action that: • align intended theory with the realities of work within an educational organization. • connect strategy to the actions and relationships critical to effective instruction and student learning. • identify the mutual dependencies required to carry out complex improvement work. • are grounded in research and/or evidence-based practice. • begin with a statement of a causal relationship between what i/we do and what constitutes a productive result in the organization. • prioritize high-leverage practices for achievement and equity. • are powerful enough to transform programs and practices. as a collaborative, relational, and transformative process that is equally shaped by the underlying theoretical perspectives and values with which we approach the pedagogical design of learning, network learning requires pervasive signature pedagogies that bridge theory and practice (hodgson, mcconnell, & dirckinck-holmfeld, 2012). signature pedagogies to support students in their development and testing of theories of action, our program’s signature pedagogies, or “the types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions”, include three dimensions: surface structure, deep structure, and implicit structure (shulman, 2005, p. 52). while surface structures consist of concrete, operational acts of teaching and learning, showing and demonstrating, and questioning and answering; deep structures reflect a set of assumptions about how to best impart a body of knowledge and know-how (shulman, 2005). the implicit structure includes “a moral dimension that comprises a set of beliefs about professional attitudes, values, and dispositions” (shulman, 2005, p. 55). throughout the program, faculty will mentor doctoral students through coursework and applied research experiences using a signature pedagogy comprised of three components: collaborative, inquiry-based learning; equity-driven, field-based research; and generative, transformative leadership (see table 1 for additional details). table 1. three-component signature pedagogy component scholar-practitioner development place in program collaborative, inquiry-based learning inquiry as a teaching method seeks to develop inquirers and use curiosity as motivators leading to learning through personal engagement (justice, rice, roy, hudspith, & jenkins, 2009). inquiry promotes the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge through reflection and dialogue about existing ideals of justice and equity (lynn & smith-maddox, 2007). stage 1: coursework centering on a problem of practice (pop) interdisciplinary courses prepare students to define and address pops. equity-driven, field-based research equity-minded practitioners: (1) use data and critical analysis to uncover patterns of inequity in student outcomes; (2) are race-conscious and consider the contemporary and historical context of exclusionary practices in america’s institutions of higher education; (3) take personal and institutional responsibility for their students’ outcomes and critically examine their own practices; (4) recognize and understand that inequalities are perpetuated and compounded by the interplay of institutional structures, policies, and practices that are within their control; and (5) are accountable to and take responsibility for closing student opportunity gaps (usc center for urban education, 2020). stage 2: design and research methods for improving education in combination with stage 1, methods courses enable students to develop practice-based proposals and initiate opportunities for change in educational contexts. generative, transformative leadership transformative leadership begins with questions of justice and democracy; in practice, educational leaders create inclusive and equitable opportunities that yield generative impacts on learning environments (shields, 2010). transformative leadership links education and educational leadership with the wider social context within which it is embedded; therefore, transformative leadership and stage 3: dissertation in practice (dip) in combination with stages 1 and 2, students develop a dip or public statement of doctoral quality research, that demonstrates scholarly rigor and practitioner relevance. karalis noel, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 7 leadership for inclusive and socially just learning environments are inextricably related (shields, 2010). promoting activism through curriculum as dedicated members of cped, we are committed to aligning our new program with the consortium’s guiding principles to support quality, rigorous practitioner preparation while honoring the local context of our students’ communities. focused by a lens of justice and an improvement science framework, our new program is designed to empower and equip students to lead proactive and responsive systemic change using problem-solving approaches centered on continuous inquiry and learning. throughout our three cross-cutting program stages – (1) coursework centering on a problem of practice; (2) design and research methods for educational improvement; (3) dissertation in practice – students will harness their own transformative power to conduct applied research to unique problems of practice in their communities (figure 1). our students will employ justice-driven methods derived from iterative inquiry cycles to advocate for diversity and equitable educational practices beyond paradigmatic lines such as race, gender, and sexual orientation inclusivity; they will move beyond knowledge consumption to knowledge production and champion diversity in educational practice as difference in approach, attitude, and perspective. figure 1. cross-cutting program stages and experiences throughout the program, students will engage in collaborative, inquiry-based coursework centering on problems of practice and equity-driven, field-based research experiences. adapted from fellow cped institutions’ program literature and models (e.g., florida state university), students’ rigorous preparation will culminate in a dissertation in practice (dip) designed to yield generative impacts and demonstrate each scholar-practitioner’s commitment to transformative leadership within and across educational contexts. chapter 1 of the dip will provide a clear articulation of the problem of practice, explanations of the purpose and significance of the study, a description of the study site(s), and research question(s) that are evidently connected to the purpose statement. in their development of chapter 1, through a lens of equity and justice, students will identify and define a problem of practice using collaborative inquiry, as well as address one or more cultural dimensions of power that are influenced by the proposed problem of practice. smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 8 similar to a review of literature, chapter 2 will provide a background analysis of previous research related to the problem of practice. while chapter 2 is expected to begin with a broader analysis of the educational landscape in which the problem of practice is situated, it will also include a description of the study context that connects to a rationale for proposed research and addresses inequitable power structures between communities. ultimately, chapter 2 will demonstrate how the problem of practice is informed by: (1) social theories and epistemological frameworks; (2) a critical review of data through multidisciplinary lenses; and (3) a critical review of data across community boundaries. chapter 3 is the dip version of a traditional methodology chapter; that is, the investigative approach designed to answer the research question(s). chapter 3 will include information that informs questions such as: which methodological approach(es) were used?; who and/or what were the data sources and how and/or why were they selected?; which method(s) of data collection were used?; how were data analyzed?; how were methodological choices evaluated and justified? in their development of chapter 3, students will defend their use of a design for action that is: (1) situated within theoretical and empirical antecedents; (2) creates generative opportunities for change; (3) seeks to confront and transform status quo practices; and (4) advocates for educational equity in the service of learners. lastly, chapter 4 will provide a focused summary of the entire dip, including study findings, implications, recommendations for future research, and a dissemination plan that describes how the research will be shared to promote generative impacts and transformative leadership across educational contexts. upon completion of chapter 4, students will have argued compellingly that their research: (1) leverages opportunities for the aims of educational improvement; (2) supports the establishment and advancement of networked improvement communities; and (3) addresses a moral, ethical, and political vision that advocates for equity and justice within and across milieus of teaching and learning. an overview of the program exam stages and dip chapter expectations is provided in table 2. table 2. overview of exam stages and dissertation in practice chapters exam stage required components expected completion date prequalifying paper 10-page essay problem of practice statement description of context draft research questions defense of 10-page essay evaluated by advising faculty end of spring 1 (year 1) summer 2 week 4 qualifying paper dip chapters 1 & 2 drafts chapter 1: pop statement, purpose, research questions chapter 2: background analysis (or review of literature) 2-page methodology overview fall 2 week 4 fall 2 week 4 proposal defense dip chapters 1 & 2 summary dip chapter 3 draft pre-recorded 20-minute presentation of dip chapter 3 chapter 3: investigative approach (or methodology) projected timeline for dip draft completion organized in consultation with advising faculty synchronous oral defense of items 1-4 evaluated by advising faculty complete items 1-5 by end of spring 2 (year 2) dissertation in practice dip chapter 1: pop statement, purpose, research questions dip chapter 2: background analysis (or review of literature) dip chapter 3: investigative approach (or methodology) dip chapter 4: findings, implications, recommendations, dissemination plan complete drafts of items 1-4 by spring 3 week 4 dissertation in practice defense dip chapter 4 summary pre-recorded 20-minute presentation of dip chapter 4 executive summary of dip projected timeline for dip completion includes revisions recommended by advising faculty organized in consultation with advising faculty synchronous oral defense of items 1-4 final drafts of items 1-5 by end of spring 3 (year 3) karalis noel, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 9 anticipated benefits and limitations of our model a key benefit of our model is that the university at buffalo recruits students from diverse educational settings, including fields such as nursing, nutrition, and counseling; in addition to more traditional k-12 and post-secondary educational contexts. despite their wide-ranging fields, our students share a common commitment to learning and serving as transformational leaders. since our program structure allows completion in three full years of part-time study, including summer-term enrollment, our model will accommodate the needs of working professionals through customized learning plans, structured timelines, and an online delivery format. conversely, a potential limitation of our model is its fully online format. faculty who are coordinating and teaching within the program will be responsible for cultivating a collaborative, transcultural community for edd students. as with all fully online learning initiatives, building relationships presents particular challenges. lessons learned prompted by the needs of our students and doctoral-level program goals of our department, our program redesign received unanimous support from department faculty, chair, and the dean of the graduate school of education. rather than limit our program to students who are interested in elementary education, our new program in learning and teaching in social contexts will attract and welcome students from wide-ranging educational disciplines and contexts. furthermore, with the addition of cped’s guiding principles, students will graduate from our new edd program with justice-focused knowledge, professionalism, and expertise to initiate and sustain improvement efforts that reduce educational inequities. throughout the redesign process, we learned that continuous improvement is best informed by dialogue with all stakeholders across multiple contexts including, but not limited to: students, faculty, post-graduation career interests and opportunities, and the fields – in our case, curriculum and instruction and learning sciences. lessons learned from our current doctoral students and our experiences with advising and teaching in the cisl phd program allowed us to identify the need and opportunity to balance the instrumental versus exploratory orientation of our new edd program. now, with a clearer understanding of their practice-focused research interests and the careers that some of our current doctoral students and prospective edd candidates are aspiring towards, we are wellpositioned to launch an edd program that is responsive to our students’ academic and vocational pursuits. in addition to foregrounding our edd’s learning outcomes in cped’s guiding principles and equipping our students with the competencies necessary to re(enter) educational contexts as scholar-practitioners, our new program will offer working professionals the flexibility to complete the edd through a part-time, fully online delivery model. with hopes of attracting and enrolling students from global contexts and wide-ranging educational disciplines through our cohort model, our students will be equipped with the methodological knowledge to advocate for justice, equity, and diversity in educational settings. with the support of our students and colleagues, as well as the knowledge gleaned from our membership with cped, we are ready and eager to prepare the next generation of education activists who will enrich and vitalize our interdisciplinary department. recommendations based on lessons learned, our new edd program is grounded in the fact that professional consortiums like cped provide a model for evidence-based practices to scholar-practitioner preparation. therefore, in order to sustain an edd program’s commitment to quality, rigorous practitioner preparation, we recommend the following: 1. conducting a regular program review and revision process that includes multiple stakeholders and maintains a justicefocused orientation. ensuring that the review process is consistent and inclusive serves dual purposes. it promotes aspirations toward excellence and removes barriers associated with organizational change. further, when criteria and practices related to review are grounded in principles rooted in justice, program revisions will necessarily reflect this commitment. 2. centering program outcomes and assessments on equity and justice as defined by multiple stakeholders. review and revision processes cannot be simply overlaid onto existing programs. to be effective, reorientation toward equity and justice must be built into program outcomes, course objectives, and students and program assessments. this endeavor requires collaboration among stakeholders to be initial and ongoing. that is, it involves careful consideration of the program at the outset, as well as continuous efforts to engage diverse stakeholder groups to critically evaluate program goals and outcomes. 3. organizing and sustaining a student-faculty advisory board to learn about students’ ongoing program needs and expectations as well as emerging trends. resource allocation is a window into values. to see what matters, look for where time, money, and resources human and otherwise are dedicated. without oversight, it can be easy for administrative considerations to overshadow the most noble intentions. a student-faculty advisory board can extend the perspective of oversight and help to assure that opportunity, equity, and justice retain primacy in program development, implementation, and evaluation. 4. establishing a culture of collaborative professionalism prior to admission, throughout the three-year program, and as a sustaining professional network post-graduation. developing a culture of collaborative professionalism requires sustained attention from recruitment through admission, as well as beyond program completion. clarity of purpose with respect to a commitment to equity and justice must be established prior to admission and supported throughout program coursework. tenets of collaborative professionalism can be upheld by including collaborative activities as part of the application process, and by scaffolding application materials to be educative with respect to the program. in short, the application experience can mirror the culture and mission of the program. the lessons and recommendations, like any learning experience, are multidimensional, recursive, and mutually smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.112 10 informative. they are context-dependent and informed by the stakeholders who inhabit their learning communities. while justice is ultimately aspirational, as long as injustice exists, educators have an obligation to be transformational, and to prepare activists committed to constructing a future that is more just than the present. references allen, i. e, & seaman, j. 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(2020, january 9). equity mindedness. retrieved from https://cue.usc.edu/about/equity/equity-mindedness/ microsoft word 100-757-2.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 approaching edd program redesign as a problem of practice lesley f leach, phd associate dean of research and innovation tarleton state university leach@tarleton.edu juanita m reyes assistant professor tarleton state university jreyes@tarleton.edu credence baker associate professor & associate graduate dean tarleton state university cbaker@tarleton.edu ryan glaman assistant professor, doctoral program coordinator tarleton state university glaman@tarleton.edu jordan m barkley associate provost & associate vp for academic administration tarleton state university jbarkley@tarleton.edu don m beach regents professor tarleton state university beach@tarleton.edu j russell higham associate professor tarleton state university higham@tarleton.edu kimberly rynearson professor & interim dean tarleton state university rynearson@tarleton.edu mark weber associate professor tarleton state university weber@tarleton.edu tod allen farmer associate professor tarleton state university farmer@tarleton.edu randall bowden professor & department head tarleton state university rbowden@tarleton.edu jesse brock doctoral fellow tarleton state university sw_jbrock@tarleton.edu phillis bunch doctoral fellow tarleton state university sw_bunch@tarleton.edu abstract as members of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), universities across the united states are restructuring edd programs to better prepare professional practitioners with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge needed to improve the educational environments that they serve. the hallmark of these programs is often the dissertation in practice, a scholarly investigation within which students define a problem of practice and then systematically test solutions to that problem. in this study, we investigate the experiences of university faculty participating in the redesign of an educational leadership edd program who approach the redesign as a problem of practice. root causes of identified program issues are presented in addition to the changes implemented in the redesigned program to improve upon the problem of practice. keywords: problem of practice; edd program redesign; faculty introduction education doctorate programs have recently received renewed attention as institutions have worked to clearly differentiate edd programs from phd programs. the attention has likely stemmed in part from a provocative, scathing critique of professional preparation of educational practitioners by shulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006), in which the authors called for schools of education to clearly define the edd or “risk becoming increasingly impotent in carrying out their primary mission the advancement of 7 approaching edd program redesign as a problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 knowledge and the preparation of quality practitioners” (p. 25). edd programs are intended to prepare individuals for administrative leadership positions in education (e.g., superintendents, curriculum coordinators, higher education administrators), whereas phd programs are intended to prepare academic researchers and faculty members (everson, 2006; shulman, et al., 2006). with strikingly different purposes, the evolving historical similarity of phd and edd programs was perplexing with the edd often simply defined “by subtraction” from the more weighty requirements of the phd and often regarded as a “ph.d.-lite” (shulman et al., 2006, p. 27). carnegie project on the education doctorate in response to the call for reform, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) was launched in 2007 with the mission to work with institutions to transform edd programs. sponsored by the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, cped initially partnered with 25 member institutions. cped has since partnered with over 100 institutions to redesign their edd programs to prepare educational leaders who can “name, frame, and solve” (cped, n.d., para. 9) educational problems (cped, n.d.). rather than generate a strict redesign standard that would apply to all partner institutions, cped honored the uniqueness of institutions’ local contexts by advancing a framework that institutions could use as “building blocks” (hoffman & perry, 2016, p. 17) to design components to achieve specific program aims. the framework was built around the definition of edd – a degree that “prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, n.d., para. 6). the framework’s guiding principles and design concepts for program development put the definition into action by broadly conceptualizing what programs should do to prepare practitioners. central to edd program design is the idea of the development of students as scholarly practitioners and stewards of the practice who can systematically identify and solve (or improve upon) educational problems in their local contexts (perry, 2016a; perry, 2016b). programs seek to develop scholarly practitioners who can effectively bridge scholarship and practice – specifically in designing solutions to problems of practice through critical examination and application of findings from the literature (archbald, 2008; shulman et al. 2006; willis, inman, & valenti, 2010). cped-influenced programs also honor the knowledge and skills that practitioners with established backgrounds in educational leadership bring to the process of identifying and solving problems of practice. programs seek to further develop that practical wisdom in students to become stewards of the practice who generate new knowledge, conserve and preserve the evolution of the field to this point, and to transform the discipline based on new knowledge, skills, and dispositions (golde, 2006; perry, 2016b). programs often require evidence of the development of students as scholarly practitioners and stewards of the practice in several ways, with the most notable being the dissertation in practice. like a traditional dissertation, a dissertation in practice is a scholarly investigation of an educational phenomenon; however, unlike a traditional dissertation for which theoretical issues are often studied, the dissertation in practice is one in which students are expected to identify problems of practice within their respective educational environments and then systematically test potential solutions to those problems (storey, caskey, hesbol, marshall, maughan, & dolan, 2015). through systematic investigations of problems of practice in the edd coursework, cped programs seek to build capacity in students to avoid the “adopt, attack, abandon cycle” (rohanna, 2017, p. 65) common to educational administration, in which school leaders respond to issues through anecdotal understanding of the issue and responses based solely on practitioner knowledge and instinct. instead, cped-influenced programs seek to develop leaders who can effectively merge theory, research, and professional wisdom to solve particular problems of practice. tarleton state university edd program redesign as new inductees into the carnegie project on the education doctorate consortium in 2017, a group of educational leadership doctoral program faculty at tarleton state who also serve as the faculty authors on this paper, undertook a program redesign to better prepare practitioners to serve their particular educational constituencies. prior to beginning the redesign process, it occurred to the faculty that we were undertaking the same type of actionoriented problem-solving process that we sought to facilitate with students; in other words, redesigning the educational leadership doctoral program became our problem of practice. we undertook the process of identifying the root causes of the problem of practice and facilitating solutions in the manner that we eventually expect students to work through their dissertations in practice in the redesigned program. by experiencing the process ourselves, the faculty aimed to be able to determine what would best facilitate the process with students and resolve any issues that arose before the redesigned program was officially implemented. the purpose of this study was to document the initial stages of faculty’s process of redesigning the program approaching it as a problem of practice. although we intend to explicate the results of the redesigned program once implemented, this paper will focus on problem of practice identification and subsequent planning to improve upon the problem of practice. although we have not yet implemented the redesigned program, we present results of our planning process to assist faculty who may undertake similar redesign processes and to add to the growing body of knowledge concerning the movement to create programs that differentiate the preparation of edd students from phd students. we present the results of our planning, however, fully anticipating that implementation will expose the need for changes and revisions. as such, we consider this a first iteration in what will be a continuously evolving program plan. we caution readers to approach the article with this in mind, considering that they may find more gratification in learning about the process we undertook rather than the initial product we created. root cause analysis of problem of practice the process of problem of practice identification is not a simple task because it involves identifying root causes of a problem rather than superficially identifying symptoms that are most often more readily observable. identifying root causes goes beyond surfacelevel assumptions via a deeper examination of the systemic reasoning behind an observed issue (preuss, 2003). consider, for example, an educational issue such as secondary students’ 8 leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 difficulties in achieving objectives in algebra i courses. on the surface, one might conclude that students’ difficulties in passing algebra i courses is the problem, but a deeper examination of why students exhibit difficulties passing algebra i courses could uncover more systemic issues that contribute to students’ difficulties with algebra i, including but not limited to teachers’ lack of preparation to teach algebra i courses, curricular choices by districts or campuses that do not reflect best practice, and/or lack of financial resources to support students’ investigations of mathematics. in this example, the surface-level assumption of the students’ failures in algebra i did not effectively represent the root causes that would likely need to be addressed to positively impact students’ achievement in algebra i courses. and, any improvements based on the limited understanding of the problem would not be expected to be as effective as improvements that were designed to address the root cause(s) of the problem. the empirical methods familiar to most faculty are not designed to elicit root causes of problems; thus, we looked elsewhere for methods to investigate root causes of our problem of practice. we employed the root cause analysis method similar to processes used in business (recker, rosemann, idulska, & green, 2009), engineering, manufacturing, and healthcare (see e.g., joint commission on accreditation of healthcare organizations, 2017; williams, 2001) to identify the underlying factors that may contribute to the issues identified within the program. the structure of the study did not follow the traditional study design expected with empirical methodologies, but rather an inductive root cause analysis informed by empirical data. the six-step process we used to investigate and identify the problem of practice is detailed in figure 1, for which we first (a) identified the ideal condition of the program, then (b) identified the current condition, and (c) considered the gap between the two. the final steps involved (d) considering perspectives on the gap, (e) distilling root causes, and (f) identifying strategies for improvement (preuss, 2003). note that several of the steps naturally occurred together and will be presented accordingly in this paper. figure 1. root cause analysis process used to explicate the problem of practice. process adapted from preuss (2003). identify ideal condition since it began in 2003, the tarleton state university educational leadership edd program has admitted cohorts of approximately 10-30 students across 2-3 campus locations each year. after anecdotally observing increasing times to degree completion and students’ perceived lack of relevancy of the dissertation process to their work as educational leaders, faculty began discussing how to make the program more relevant and useful to students. we explored various sources and learned of the movement to reframe edd programs led by the carnegie project on the education doctorate. we found that cped’s guiding principles and framework fit our purposes well, and we began to explore what that would look like for tarleton state educational leadership doctoral students. after many discussions, we agreed upon the following mission and vision for the program, which summarizes our ideal state. the program mission is to graduate learning leaders who use inquiry to improve professional practice with the goal of preparing educational leaders who use theory and practice to improve education by engaging multiple and diverse perspectives and building leadership capacity in themselves and others. simply stated, we seek to grow leaders who can effectively use inquiry to improve practice in educational contexts. edd graduates will become scholarly leaders who will navigate, critically respond to, and influence educational contexts by: • engaging in inquiry driven by theory, professional knowledge, and practice to transform educational organizations (related to cped guiding principle 5, 6); • making evidence-based decisions that guide change and address problems of practice (related to cped guiding principle 1, 4); • engaging in the assessment of educational outcomes as part of a continuous improvement process (related to cped guiding principle 5); • understanding and advocating for change and social justice in educational settings (related to cped guiding principle 1); • garnering resources to accomplish organizational goals and objectives to proactively impact education and the greater community (related to cped guiding principle 3); • understanding and applying multiple leadership and organizational perspectives (related to cped guiding principle 6); • understanding political climates and policy implications to inform actions for educational success (related to cped guiding principle 2, 6); and collaborating and communicating with stakeholders to build partnerships with diverse communities (related to cped guiding principle 2, 3). identify current condition, explain gap, and consider perspectives on gap we collected data from a total of 68 program stakeholders including faculty, students, and alumni to identify the current condition of the program in an effort to explain the gap between the current and ideal program. data were collected from faculty (n=8) via written interviews, and data were collected from students and alumni (n=60) via an online, anonymous survey. identify ideal condition identify current condition identify gap between ideal and current conditions consider perspectives on gap distill root causes from common themes identify strategies for improvement 9 approaching edd program redesign as a problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 faculty participants all eight faculty participants were program faculty with interests in making program changes to better serve students’ needs, and all served as coauthors on this paper. note, however, that not all coauthors served as study participants. the faculty’s personal doctoral experiences were largely different than the edd program in educational leadership in which they teach. five (63%) of the eight program faculty graduated with a doctoral degree in educational leadership or closely related field. the remaining three (38%) faculty graduated with doctor of philosophy degrees in varied disciplines including applied technology and performance improvement, educational research, and experimental psychology. differences in the preparation of faculty and the program that they are working to redesign are worthy of note; potential biases are acknowledged, but also seen as perspectives that could strengthen the identification of the gap between the ideal and current conditions and the program redesign in general. only one (13% of n=8) of the faculty members completed a cohort-based program, and four (50% of n=8) of the eight participants indicated that dissertation work was largely an individual exercise. faculty were asked in a set of written interview questions to describe the current condition of the tarleton state educational leadership edd program by identifying strengths and limitations of the current program. constant comparison was used to explore and categorize the responses into emergent themes using word processing and spreadsheet software. rather than isolate themes by strengths and limitations, we integrated the two as would naturally occur when one considers aspects of program design. in all, faculty’s perspectives comprised several themes including coursework, student-centered culture, faculty characteristics, and resource allocation. table 1. faculty participants’ gender and doctoral degree faculty member gender doctoral degree program no. of years as a program faculty a male edd educational leadership 1 b male phd higher education 10 c female phd applied technology and performance improvement 1 d male phd foundations and leadership 15 e female phd experimental psychology 3 f male edd educational leadership 3 g female edd educational leadership 2 h female phd educational research 6 coursework faculty cited particular aspects of the coursework as strengths and others as limitations. three (38% of n=8) faculty mentioned the program curriculum emphasis on applying theory to practice, citing the “early historical and theoretical foundations in educational leadership…that subsequently assist/benefit professional practice” as a strength. most faculty felt that the program has a “great balance of theory and practicality,” although one faculty member commented that “pragmatism sometimes [gives] way to idealism.” one faculty member commented that, “although the idea of theory to practice is explored within the program coursework, more ought to be done to help students explicitly link theory to practice to help encourage the systematic exploration of educational problems and the testing of solutions.” the faculty member further commented that in the current coursework, “students are quick to jump to anecdotal diagnoses of 10 leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 educational problems and form knee-jerk solutions; we need to teach [students] how to use theory and literature to explore solutions that may be unfamiliar, but ultimately ones that may be more effective.” also related to coursework, four (50% of n=8) faculty commented that the course objectives are not purposefully connected, particularly to the dissertation expectations. one faculty member posited that the disconnect between course content and dissertation has in part contributed to negative results of program outcomes, such as increased students’ times to degree completion. three (38% of n=8) faculty cited the role that the research preparation and mentorship (or lack thereof) played a role in students’ readiness and abilities to complete the dissertation. one faculty member commented that, “many students seem to be surprised to be at the dissertation stage. they don’t seem to possess the skills and knowledge to conduct sound independent research.” the faculty member went on to suggest that students “might benefit [from changing the coursework to have students] conduct a small independent research study at a midpoint in their program.” at two points in the edd program, students are required to travel on trips to supplement coursework experiences. three (38% of n=8) faculty cited the trips as strengths of the program. one faculty commented that the trips broaden students’ perspectives through the opportunity to speak with k-20 practitioners in contexts outside of their own. another faculty member referenced the required trips as interesting exercises, but ones that were not always directly connected to student or program objectives, with the implication that the issue may further the disconnect between course expectations and program outcomes. despite the program’s limitations, five (63% of n=8) faculty credited the coursework for broadening students’ perspectives and challenging them to think in new ways about the “prevailing questions surrounding their profession.” however, one faculty member commented that the program is “dated” and needs to be updated to “apply to today’s leaders,” possibly indicating that the questions in the profession may not be the ones that are currently addressed. resource allocation naturally, the program must have resources to operate, including but not limited to the human resources of faculty and support staff as well as financial resources to carry out program activities. faculty participants noted that the “strong” and “experienced [and] caring” faculty are hampered in their abilities to interact with students in meaningful ways when asked to work on a limited budget and teach courses at three different locations. one faculty member commented that “spreading faculty among three distinct geographic region increases program delivery costs, limits faculty productivity due to travel, and negatively impacts faculty member’s ability to become highly involved with any of the three locations and associated students.” another faculty member cited the increasing “faculty: student ratio and dissertation workload” as a concern related to resource allocation, particularly because as another faculty member pointed out, we “operate on a limited budget with an organizational culture that has had a historical focus on undergraduate education.” the focus on undergraduate education has likely caused institutional administrators to think of the doctoral program similar to undergraduate education in terms of course numbers and loads. similarly, a faculty member commented that we “exist in an environment of constant expected growth (number of students)…yet our faculty numbers remain static.” limited resources also present a challenge as courses cannot always be taught by tenure-track faculty, and using adjuncts as instructors can lead to misalignment of the intended coursework and coursework delivery. one faculty member commented that the “inconsistent expectations for student work among the full-time faculty and adjunct faculty” was problematic and caused student complaints, with the rigor of adjunct-led courses sometimes lacking. student-centered culture the tarleton state university vision as the “premier studentfocused university in texas and beyond” (tarleton state, n.d.) is, according to faculty, pervasive in the educational leadership doctor of education program. faculty cited the “close student-faculty interactions” and “experienced caring faculty” that “care about students progressing through the program” as positive factors in the program design. one faculty member also mentioned the opportunity for students to “partner with faculty on scholarly endeavors” as a positive point of the program. student participants although interesting and informative, faculty perspectives offer only one perspective on the current condition of the educational leadership edd program, with students’ perspectives potentially providing a more complete picture. we conducted a qualitative survey to examine students' attitudes toward the tarleton state edd in educational leadership program. our goal was to identify students’ perspectives of the current program and learn about ways the program could be improved through the cped redesign process from a student perspective. to do so, we conducted an online survey using qualtrics online survey software. all alumni and current students were invited to participate in the survey (283 participants invited). overall, 60 alumni and current students responded to the survey resulting in a 21% response rate. see table 2 for the sample’s demographic information. overall, the sample was relatively diverse in terms of student/alumnus status, gender, and age, but less so in terms of ethnicity with 58% of participants indicating their ethnicity as caucasian. it should be noted, however, that students in the current program are primarily caucasian, so results can be viewed as generally representative of the student population. 11 approaching edd program redesign as a problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 table 2. demographic characteristics of student sample (n=60). n % current student or alumnus current student alumnus no response 29 25 6 48.3 41.7 10.0 gender female male no response 26 18 16 43.3 30.0 26.7 age 25-33 years 35-44 years 45-54 years 55-64 years no response 7 15 20 3 15 11.7 25.0 33.3 5.0 25.0 race black or african-american white other no response 8 35 3 14 13.3 58.3 5.0 23.3 the student survey featured questions about various topics pertaining to the educational leadership edd program, such as inquiring about which factors made students choose to attend tarleton state's edd program, which courses were most meaningful to students in their roles as educational leaders, the out-of-course experiences (e.g., program-related trips), as well as soliciting suggestions to help improve the program in the future. students responded to these questions by providing qualitative textual data. data were analyzed for consistent themes similar to the analysis of faculty responses. several themes pertinent to the edd program's current and desired future state were detected upon data analysis including the program’s cohort-based model, hybrid course delivery model, course schedule, meaningful coursework, and out-of-course experiences. as part of the survey, students were also asked what suggestions they might have for future courses, topics, and out-of-course experiences to incorporate into the redesigned educational leadership program. respondents offered several consistent themes as part of their feedback including more emphasis on higher education leadership and more exposure to research. cohort-based model thirty-seven (62% of n=60) students consistently reported that the current program’s cohort model was a positive aspect of the program. the cohort model helped students to develop professional and personal relationships with colleagues as well as to provide students with a peer support network. peers also served as a source of accountability and helped motivate students to succeed in and complete the program. hybrid course delivery model for the purpose of this study, the hybrid delivery model was defined as a course with both face-to-face and online components. eighteen (30% of n=60) students indicated that they appreciated the 12 leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 hybrid course delivery model because it allowed for flexibility in scheduling for those with full-time jobs and/or families. students stated that the online component of the classes was convenient in terms of scheduling and course access. however, the face-to-face component allowed for more personal interactions with professors and fellow students that are not achievable in an exclusively online environment. for example, one student reported: the hybrid delivery model provided by tarleton state was ideal for my busy lifestyle. the blackboard platform was easy to use and i could sign on anytime of day. the face to face portion of the program provided me the opportunity to interact with my cohort members and the professor. this combination of delivery method is one of the main reasons i was able to successfully complete this program. as a single parent, every minute counts! night and weekend course schedule thirty-five (58% of n=60) students reported that the night and weekend course schedule accommodated those who worked fulltime and had families. the response to this element of the current program was similar to the student response to the hybrid course model element. out-of-course experiences the current program features two trips as part of out-of-course experiences. one is a trip to washington, d.c., giving students an opportunity to see educational policy-making in action; the other is a trip to various school districts in southern texas, exposing students to schools facing different issues and offering diverse perspectives regarding education practice. students generally regarded these trips as highly informative experiences that stimulated good bonding experiences for the cohort members. one student noted: the trip down south as part of our diversity institute was extremely beneficial!!! being able to see inner city schools in houston isd and schools on the border (both urban and rural) provided perspective and insight that i would have never obtained without that trip. i draw from that experience regularly. it was a very enlightening trip that expanded my understanding of the struggles and successes of schools unlike those in which i have been associated. i learned more from that trip than any other experience in the program. increased emphasis on higher education leadership students were asked “what suggestions do you have for future course(s) or course topic(s) in the program?” in response to this inquiry, seven (12% of n=60) students indicated they would have appreciated more emphasis on higher education materials. in its current state, the edd program attempts to balance k-12and higher education-oriented materials. through the program revision, it may be beneficial to focus more on topics more relevant to educational leaders in higher education. increased exposure to qualitative and mixedmethods research methodologically, the current edd program is highly quantitatively focused, incorporating coursework on quantitative methodology and data analysis techniques, with relatively limited discussion of qualitative or mixed methods research. because problem solving for educational leaders may involve leveraging and potentially mixing both quantitative and qualitative methods (archbald, 2014), the redesigned edd program likely should incorporate a more balanced approach to discussing research methodology as suggested by two (3% of n=60) of student participants. incorporate dissertation into coursework throughout program in its current state, the tarleton state university edd program requires that students first complete all their coursework, and then, upon passing all their classes and qualifying examinations, they may work on their dissertations. as the cped edd model involves using the dissertation as a mechanism to examine a persistent problem of practice (the carnegie project on the education doctorate, n.d.), it may be beneficial to incorporate the dissertation process into earlier coursework so that students have the opportunity to more thoroughly study their respective problem of practice and therefore become better equipped to examine that problem as part of their dissertation. exposure to more local legislation, practitioners, and perspectives as previously mentioned, the current program features several out-of-course experiences, including trips to washington, d.c. and southern texas. although these trips expose students to a variety of perspectives in the field of education, several survey respondents indicated that exposure to more local practitioners and their perspectives, such as via travel to other local school districts, would yield greater insight into the issues educational leaders must face and address in a more local context. furthermore, several students suggested that a trip to the texas state capital in austin would provide useful insight into the workings of state-level legislation. overall, although student feedback suggested that out-of-classroom experiences were beneficial to their development as educational leaders, it may be prudent to modify the nature of these out-ofcourse experiences as part of the redesigned edd program to better meet students’ needs. distill root causes from common themes and identify strategies for improvement the edd redesign was initially spurred by undesirable program outcomes including students’ increasing times to degree completion and a perceived lack of relevancy between coursework and the dissertation process to students’ work as educational leaders. from our analysis of student and faculty perspectives on the current condition of the program and the gap between the current and ideal conditions, we have identified a set of root causes of the identified issues. note that many of the root causes naturally mirror suggestions for improvement by faculty and students, and as a result have previously been discussed in detail. rather than discuss the root causes again, in this section, we present the root causes alongside the strategies for improvement that were included in the redesigned program to improve upon the particular root cause. we also identify components from the current program that were viewed as strengths (i.e., not part of the problem of practice) that were subsequently retained in the redesigned program. root causes several root causes were identified; they included the lack of connection of the dissertation to coursework, the restricted presentation of research methodologies, and limited emphasis on 13 approaching edd program redesign as a problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 higher education coursework. to improve upon these issues, we considered three strategies for improvement: (a) explicitly connecting coursework with the dissertation process, (b) offering a balanced presentation of research methodologies, and (c) increasing the emphasis on higher education coursework. improvement strategies based on the findings were incorporated into the redesigned program are discussed below. connecting coursework with the dissertation to improve upon the perceived lack of connection between dissertation and coursework, the redesigned program will explicitly incorporate the dissertation process into coursework from the outset of the program instead of leaving it to the end as in the current program. the faculty identified milestones for dissertation progress that involve students explicating the root causes of the problem of practice by the end of year 1, formally proposing the dissertation study by the end of year 2, and defending the completed dissertation by the end of year 3. the student would be guided in the dissertation study by faculty committees; in the first year, a council of chairs comprised of all potential dissertation chairs would review the students’ dissertation progress and offer feedback, after which the student would work with a smaller committee of three to four faculty members to complete the dissertation in years 2 and 3. coursework was selected to coincide with dissertation milestones to scaffold students through the process of completing the dissertation with the necessary knowledge and skills. for instance, students will consider the theory(ies) underlying their problem of practice while participating in the models and theories of educational leadership course and will consider data collection methods related to their identified problem of practice in the investigating problems of practice in the educational leadership course. courses were intentionally placed in a sequence to provide the necessary knowledge and skills related to dissertation completion to help students make consistent progress. and, with consistent progress, one can likely expect shortened times to degree and greater completion rates by students. faculty also chose to incorporate a scholar-practitioner based format for the dissertation as an option for students to increase the relevancy of the work to students’ practice as educational leaders. the scholar-practitioner format option will comprise two products— one aimed at disseminating work to academic scholars and the other aimed at practitioners. the two products include: (a) a manuscript detailing the results of the dissertation study that would be suitable for publication in a scholarly journal and (b) an artifact suitable for practitioner audiences such as a white paper or presentation to a school board. students will have the option to format the dissertation in five chapters if they so choose. balanced presentation of research methodologies given the varied nature of studies involving problems of practice (archbald, 2014), faculty chose to educate students on a wider variety of research approaches than was presented in the current program. in the redesigned program, students will complete a five-course inquiry sequence (15 semester credit hours) that will integrate quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies within each course. students will begin their first semester (year 1) with the scholarly process in educational leadership course that will teach them how to critically read academic literature and write in the same form; students will begin to conceive of possible problems of practice for their dissertation study in this course. the second inquiry course, research design and critical analysis, will provide students a broad overview of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methodologies and introduce them to the concept of research ethics. the third course, investigating problems of practice in educational leadership, will introduce students to data collection methods and challenge them to consider how they will investigate the root causes of their problems of practice. the final two courses in the inquiry sequence, data analysis and advanced data analysis, will occur in year 3 when data analysis skills are needed to complete the dissertation. the first of the two courses, data analysis, will provide students with introductory quantitative and qualitative analyses that they will use as a foundation to learn about advanced analyses needed to complete their dissertation work in advanced data analysis. also included in program expectations will be yearly presentations of dissertation-related work by students at a practitioner research exchange. this out-of-course experience will be helpful in providing students with the accountability needed to make the expected progress in the identified timeline, but also for promoting students’ work to internal and external audiences. increased emphasis on higher education leadership faculty elected to broaden the concentration options to two in the redesigned program—(a) early childhood – 12th (ec-12) education leadership and (b) higher education leadership to address the lack of emphasis on higher education noted by students and faculty. ec-12 and higher education students will take separate concentration courses (15 semester credit hours), but will progress through the core courses together. the combination of ec-12 and higher education students in the core courses will deepen students’ understanding of key leadership competencies through the introduction of varied perspectives related to the issues based on the practical wisdom and experience that students bring to the program. current program components retained in redesign program in explicating the problem of practice, several components of the current program were identified as strengths that were retained in the redesigned program, although each was revised slightly to better meet students’ needs. they included the cohort model, course delivery and scheduling, and out-of-course experiences. the components are detailed below. cohort model the redesigned program will retain the cohort model of delivery that was identified by both students and faculty as a strength of the current program. research also supports the positive impact that cohorts can have on students’ success, including shortened times to degree completion and increased completion rates (barnett & muse, 1993; burnett, 1999; dorn, papalewis, & brown, 1995) as well as in developing stronger interpersonal relationships among students and faculty (browne-ferrigno & muth, 2003; dorn, papalewis, & brown, 1995). so that ec-12 and higher education students may benefit from the others’ expertise in general education leadership principles, we elected to integrate the two groups of students in the core courses and break them out only for the courses particular to the concentrations; in other words, cohorts will comprise both students in the ec-12 and higher education concentrations. when students break out into concentration courses, however, they will have the 14 leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.100 opportunity to work with students in that same concentration from other cohorts, which will help to further their expertise in the identified concentration and broaden the students’ network within their chosen concentration. course delivery and scheduling the hybrid delivery of courses will be retained in the redesigned program as well as the scheduling of courses on nights and weekends. online components offer the benefits of convenience with the face-to-face meetings helping to build and sustain relationships among students and faculty. out-of-course experiences to increase students’ perspectives of educational environments beyond their own, the redesigned program will retain the expectation that students will participate an out-of-course experience, but the number will be limited to one in the redesigned program and the students will be able to choose the experience that best meets their respective needs. students will be expected to reflect and draw from those experiences within coursework and possibly the dissertation. conclusion faculty anticipate that the strategies employed to improve upon the identified root causes of program issues in combination with components retained from the current program will help achieve the mission of the redesigned program—to build “learning leaders who use inquiry to improve professional practice”. it is through this sustained use of inquiry in the students’ practice as educational leaders that we believe systemic, broad educational improvements can be achieved. the exercise of approaching redesign as a problem of practice offered faculty critical knowledge concerning the gap between the ideal and current condition of the program as well as experience with the process of problem identification prior to facilitating the process with students. by approaching the program redesign as a problem of practice, as faculty, we sought to model the commitment to continuous improvement that we seek to build in students while also learning from the process ourselves. references archbald, d. 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(2010). completing a professional practice dissertation: a guide for doctoral students and faculty. charlotte, nc: information age publishing. 15 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 1 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 1 problems of practice: a document analysis of education doctorate dissertations john c. gillham, edd the university of findlay gillham@findlay.edu nicole v. williams, phd the university of findlay williamsn1@findlay.edu gwynne rife, phd the university of findlay rife@findlay.edu kara k. parker, edd the university of findlay kara.parker@findlay.edu abstract the purpose of this study was to learn how education doctorate students create the problems of practice researched in their dissertations, and the potential impact of their research on their local contexts to enhance the generation of knowledge. three research questions guided this study: 1) how do education doctorate students derive their problems of practice?, 2) what is the nature of the problems of practice that the students have studied?, and 3) what are the reported impacts the study of problems of practice has on doctoral students’ local contexts? to answer these questions, the researchers conducted a document analysis of 19 dissertations. student dissertations included a diverse set of problems of practice largely determined by their professional roles. the findings indicate a need for further refinement of the concept of a problem of practice and how the education doctorate program and their candidates employ the concept of a problem of practice in their dissertations and how this impacts local contexts. furthermore, the nature of their problems of practice researched through the dissertation contributed to the perceived impact on the local context of the author. keywords: education doctorate, dissertations, problems of practice according to the national science foundation’s national center for science and engineering statistics (2016), 5,153 doctoral degrees in education (9.4% of the total number of doctoral degrees) were conferred in the united states (u.s.). distinct from the doctor of philosophy (phd), schulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006) noted that the doctor of education (edd), “intended as preparation for managerial and administrative leadership in education, focuses on preparing practitioners—from principals to curriculum specialists, to teacher–educators, to evaluators—who can use existing knowledge to solve educational problems” (p. 26). the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) further posits that “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge and for the stewardship of the profession” (definition of the education doctorate section, n.d.a, para. 1). in an era of increasingly complex contexts and issues facing educational leaders, the application, generation, and stewardship of the scholarpractitioner knowledge and skills attained through the professional doctorate in education is even more necessary. however, in practice there continues to be “a blurring of boundaries” (schulman et al., 2006, p. 26) between the two degrees, phd and edd, and very little difference between the two programs. from its inception, there has been little to distinguish the edd dissertation from the phd dissertation (cremin, 1978, in perry, 2012). in the early 1990’s, 98% of all college of education deans with edd and phd programs, reported that dissertations were the culminating experience of their terminal degrees (osguthorpe & wong, 1993). in the years since, an emerging body of research has begun to question the appropriateness of a traditional dissertation for practitioner doctoral programs (e.g., andrews & grogan, 2005; deering, 1998; grogan & andrews, 2002; levine, 2005; malen & prestine, 2005; murphy & vriesenga, 2005; osguthorpe & wong, 1993; shulman et al., 2006; toma, 2002; townsend, 2002). in opposition to a uniform dissertation for phd and edd students, hoffman and perry (2016) argued in favor of the distinction between traditional dissertations for practitioner doctoral programs in that “conceptualizing and addressing problems of practice requires a much different skillset than in a traditional dissertation” (p. 22). for example, hochbein and perry (2013) posited that scholarpractitioners utilize three habits of inquiry (decipher, debate, and gillham, williams, rife, and parker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 2 design) to solve their own problems of practice. a central focus of these habits is to utilize the body of research in the field and apply it to a real-world context. schulman et al. (2006) proposed a professional practice doctorate, a doctoral degree for the practitioner without a dissertation “but with substantive professional assessments at the end” (p. 29). they suggested the culminating experience might include a laboratory of practice, a demonstration of the ability to critically analyze research and an infusion of skills to conduct research and assessment to guide practice. similarly, archbald (2008) called for a practitioner doctoral thesis with a distinctive form that should be a part of the institution’s goal to socialize and train effective school leaders. he suggested that an acceptable alternative to the traditional dissertation could be a “distinctive practitioner doctoral thesis” that must include four qualities: 1) developmental efficacy, 2) community benefit, 3) stewardship of doctoral values, and 4) distinctiveness of design (p. 707). much like schulman et al. (2006), archbald (2008) described the need for a problem-based thesis in which “the doctoral candidate identifies and defines a significant problem within his or her organization, collects decision-oriented information, analyzes the problem thoroughly, and develops a feasible plan to solve the problem (p. 714). cped, a consortium of over 100 universities working together to redesign the edd degree, proposed a dissertation in practice as the new model for the culminating project for the degree. the dissertation in practice is “a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (cped, n.d.a, para. 6). cped does not insist upon a single, specific format but provides members with several models and guidelines for the dissertations in practice, including action research, policy analysis, evaluation, modified manuscript model, and group dissertations. as more institutions join the consortium, it is not unreasonable to assume that more forms of the dissertation in practice will emerge. statement of the problem as education doctorate programs continue to explore alternative dissertations to employ problems of practice, the need for further research has emerged to determine how students in these programs define, understand the nature of, and identify the impact on local contexts of their problem of practice research. the purpose of the study was to learn how students in a doctor of education (edd) program, who were predominately employed as educators in the p-12 schools, identified the problems of practice researched in their dissertations, and the potential impact of their research on their local contexts to enhance the generation of knowledge. the following research questions were used to guide this study: 1. how do education doctorate students derive their problems of practice? 2. what is the nature of the problems of practice that the students have studied? 3. what are the reported impacts the study of problems of practice has on doctoral students’ local contexts? review of the literature since the inception of the doctorate in education in 1920, experts have sought to exam and differentiate the phd and the edd (e.g., anderson, 1983; gilbert, ballati, turner, & whitehouse, 2004; kot & hendel, 2012; kumar & dawson, 2012; levine, 2005; mowbray & halse, 2010; osguthorpe & wong, 1993; shulman et al., 2006; tennant, 2004; wergin, 2011). it has been argued that phd programs prepare individuals to generate knowledge and advance theory (bowen & rudenstine, 1992; golde, 2007; golde & walker, 2006). although discrepancies in the literature exist, most contemporary researchers agree that the edd emphasizes the importance of the practitioner in the scientist-practitioner model of research, with two key factors distinguishing it from the phd: the audience and the learning objectives (wergin, 2011). in contrast, scholars have suggested that edd programs are predominantly designed to address practitioner challenges that apply to community practice and, in turn, guide system change with evidence, arguments, and values (e.g., archbald, 2008; kumar & dawson, 2012; maxwell, 2009; willis, inman, & valenti, 2010). disputing both claims, others have suggested that there are no authentic differences between programs, and have called for the elimination of one, or both degrees (e.g., clifford & guthrie, 1988; deering, 1998; levine, 2005). to evaluate the differences between the phd and edd, nelson and coorough (1994) grouped and analyzed 1,000 phd and 1,000 edd dissertations by educational content area, and determined that phd dissertations were more research oriented, whereas edd dissertations were more oriented to the educational practitioner. similarly, a study by walker and haley-mize (2012) compared research design, statistics, target population, and significance of results of phd and edd dissertations in the content area of special education. no differences were found in the type of degree by gender or applicability of results. however, significant differences were identified on the variables of research design, statistics, target populations, significance of results, age of participants, and exceptionality category. whereas phd dissertations were found to focus on theories of research, edd dissertations were found to focus on theories of practice. problems of practice dissertations the application of practitioner knowledge in a highereducational context was once referred to as theories of action (argyris, 1982). today, however, the concept guiding education doctorate dissertation practices is known as problem of practice (city, elmore, fiarman, & teitel, 2009). problem of practice dissertations have been described by educational experts as applying questions of pragmatic importance intended to improve educational practice and provide applicable contexts (e.g., archbald, 2008; belzer & ryan, 2013; maxwell, 2009; nelson & coorough, 2006; willis et al., 2010; zambo, 2011). literature has emphasized that problem of practice research combines data and dialogue to create practical solutions (e.g., city et al., 2009). in order to integrate research with practice, furman (2012) recommended that edd programs begin to close the gap by training graduate students in the principles of action research and guide dissertation topics to action. such an approach is supported by the findings of onwuegbuzie and dickinson (2006), who identified 27 positive outcomes associated with this method. they found that dissertations providing analytical and conceptual awareness of research applications may lead to more meaningful educational change. consequentially, practitioners who use action research guide the practice of the future. the functionality and practicality of problem of practice dissertations were also highlighted by dagenais, problems of practice: a document analysis of education doctorate dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 3 lysenko, abrami, bernard, ramde, & janosz (2012). in a thorough review of the literature examining the use of research by practitioners, dagenais et al. found that the use of research-based information is rarely significant in the current educational practice. however, this problem provides an opportunity for edd programs in preparing their students. problem of practice dissertations may allow students to contextually imbed the knowledge transfer process from researcher to practitioner. to address the evolution of problem of practice dissertations, belzer and ryan (2013) reported that edd programs began by focusing on simply improving learning opportunities through research and have evolved into using inquiry, evaluation, and implementation to understand and change current educational conditions. consequently, when edd students competently pursue topics intended to promote change from challenge, their work reaps community benefits that have potential to solve local and specific problems, rather than simply spawn generalized findings and focus on future research applications (archbald, 2008). guiding the shift towards practical application of research for practitioner benefit is cped. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) cped is a consortium of over 100 schools and colleges of education that seeks to transform and restructure the edd. it has become the first action-oriented effort in the u. s. aimed at changing the meaning and design of the education doctorate (hochbein & perry, 2013). according to cped (2017) it was essential to develop a framework for edd programs that “supports creating quality, rigorous practitioner preparation while honoring the local context of each member institution” (p. 1). the cped framework consists of a definition of the edd, a set of guiding principles for program development, and a set of design-concepts. in an effort to determine transferability and application at a university level, several studies have examined the cped framework, problems of practice, and the faculty and students directly impacted by cped. in order to test the functionality and application of these principles at the university level, zambo, zambo, buss, perry, and williams (2014) collected opinions from 296 participants at 14 cped institutions using an online survey. the study investigated why students and graduates chose to pursue an edd, what and how they learned, how they viewed themselves, and whether they perceived their programs to be aligned with the cped principles. most participants agreed that their university programs were aligned with cped principles, and pursuing of their degree helped them meet professional goals and develop as scholarly practitioners. similarly, a study by ma, dana, adams, and kennedy (2017) analyzed 28 dissertations produced by edd graduates in order to understand how students derive problems of practice and what impact their studies had on local contexts. the researchers discovered that problems of practice were derived from doctoral students’ felt difficulties and real-world dilemmas. the dissertations evaluated were found to primarily focus on supporting marginalized students or groups, increasing the quality of educator professional development, and supporting novices’ entry into the profession. furthermore, the study provided guidelines to assist edd students in deriving problems of practice aligned with the six cped guiding principles. rather than adopting a set of exhaustive standards, cped has developed six guiding principles as a framework for its members’ programs. according to cped (the framework, n.d.b. para. 4) the doctorate of education: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. although dissertations aligned with the cped principles promote real-world change and educational improvement, ensuring that edd programs effectively implement cped guiding principles and design concepts is important. in response to consortium members’ concerns, members of the 2007 cped dissertation in practice awards committee conducted an action research study to examine the format and design of dissertations in practice submitted at 25 redesigned colleges/schools of education (storey et al., 2015). through analysis of online survey results, interviews, and analyses of dissertations in practice; it was determined that few changes occurred in dissertations after the redesign, despite evidence of change in the dissertation in practice process. researchers concluded that dissertation submissions lacked clear evidence of impact on practice, and implications for generative solutions at the local and broad context were unclear. these results indicated a further need for rigor and consistency across edd programs implementing problem of practice research. methods as a new member of cped, researchers who work as faculty in a doctor of education program sought to understand how their students derived problems of practice and what impact their studies had on local contexts (ma et al., 2017). three research questions guided this study: 1) how do education doctorate students derive their problems of practice?, 2) what is the nature of the problems of practice that the students have studied?, and 3) what are the reported impacts the study of problems of practice have on doctoral students’ local contexts? research design to answer these questions, the researchers conducted a qualitative document analysis of 19 dissertations from the doctor of education program graduates. according to bowen (2009), document analysis is the “systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents both printed and electronic material” (p. 27). for the purpose of this study, it was necessary to solely rely on the dissertations as the data source to answer the research questions. gillham, williams, rife, and parker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 4 document analysis provided the researchers with the opportunity to replicate the study of ma et al. (2017), in which they analyzed 28 dissertations produced by doctorate of education students to learn how they derived their problems of practice, and what impact their studies had on local contexts. according to bowen (2009), the benefits of document analysis also include high efficiency, availability, cost effectiveness, stability, exactness, coverage, and lack of obtrusiveness and reactivity. setting this study was conducted in a private mid-western university with a total enrollment of approximately 3,800 students in 2017-18. the mission of the university is to prepare students for to have successful careers as well as meaningful personal lives. the mission of the doctor of education program includes preparing educational leaders who are strategic, critically examine policy, practice, and decision making, and develop expertise in a particular subject through scholarly research. the program requires students to conduct independent research that reflects a practical application of a relevant issue and contributes to the profession. during the program, students solve diverse problems using strategic thinking and organizational skills, apply content knowledge and skills in an ethical manner to influence and enhance performance within organizations, and embrace diversity as essential to organizational success, team building, and community partnerships. the doctor of education program in this study admits an average of 20 students per year, who are predominately p-12 public school employees: superintendents, administrators, and teachers. the doctor of education program of focus in this study is offered entirely online, with the exception of a three-day face-to-face annual summer institute. graduates students in the program are required to complete 60 credit hours of core, research, and elective courses with an option to choose elective courses from two concentrations: teaching and learning and superintendent licensure. they are also required to write a traditional five-chapter dissertation. one of the unique features of the doctorate of education program is that the creation of the dissertation is embedded in the research courses. the researchers in this study included the chair of advanced professional programs in the college of education, the chair of the doctorate of education program, a faculty member in the doctorate of education program, and a student in the doctorate of education program. three of the researchers were faculty members who serve on dissertation committees and one researcher was a student in her last semester in the edd program. the graduating student who participated in the research had her dissertation examined in the study, also making her a subject of the research. each of the contributing researchers was selected due to his/her unique perspective of the program and the dissertation. the chair of advanced professional programs in the college of education was selected due to her extensive history and expertise with the university. she had been with the university for more than 20 years at the time of the study. she also helped in the development of the doctorate of education program. she currently serves as a doctorate of education program dissertation chair and committee member. the chair of the doctorate of education program has only been with the university for two years however he provides the leadership and guidance for the program and serves as a dissertation chair and committee member. the faculty member in the doctorate of education program has been with the university for seven years and teaches the final course in the program in which the students create presentations and publications from their dissertations. she also serves as a dissertation chair and committee member. finally, the student in the doctorate of education program was in her final course of the program when the study was conducted. she has since successfully graduated. she serves as a leader of school psychology in a regional educational service center administer by the state education agency. data source the data source in this study included the 19 dissertations completed by the graduates of the education doctorate program in 2017 and 2018. the dissertations followed the same programrequired dissertation template (a faculty-developed apa-formatted list of the appropriate dissertation chapter sections and brief descriptions of these sections), and ranged in page length from 88 to 220 pages with an average length of 138.25 pages. of the 19 dissertations included in the study, there were six qualitative dissertations, nine quantitative dissertations, and four mixed methods dissertations. the authors of the 19 dissertations analyzed in this study were from a variety of professional roles including principal, professor, teacher, school psychologist, school improvement consult, school counselor, superintendent, director of secondary education, and gifted coordinator (see table 1). the majority of the analyzed data was located in the purpose of the study in chapter one and the results and conclusions in chapter five. the dissertations were completed prior to the education doctorate program’s initiation into cped. data analysis to begin the document analysis, a pilot study was conducted in which the researchers independently reviewed the studentresearcher’s dissertations and completed a dissertation summary chart for each dissertation. the dissertation summary chart developed by the researchers included the following information: title, author, professional role, problem origin (felt difficulty or realworld dilemma) (ma et al., 2017), problem statement, impact, and alignment to the cped six guiding principles. through the pilot study, the researchers learned that they were all in agreement in respect to the problem statement and impact. in part, the researchers wanted to determine the degree to which their students’ work conformed to the cped six guiding principles prior to participation in cped. however, it was determined that further clarification on the cped six guiding principles was needed before they could reach agreement and include the six principles on the summary chart. therefore, the dissertation summary chart was revised to include only the title, author, professional role, problem origin, problem statement, and impact. in addition, the researchers learned that it was important for them to include the rationale for the problem of origin determination. thus, an additional category title problem origin rationale was added to the dissertation summary chart. 5 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 5 table 1: dissertation title, author, and author professional role title author professional role teacher perceptions of the ceiling effect with gifted students and the impact on teacher value-added scores and teacher evaluation billings gifted coordinator parental involvement in the digital age:
examining parental access to student web portals in grades 7-12 bocian administrator the effectiveness of the ohio school leadership institute denecker superintendent effects of teacher evaluation on teacher job satisfaction in ohio downing educational supervisor a study of pre-service teacher efficacy during a phonics field experience eichner adjunct instructor does school discipline style make a difference? haselman superintendent identity crisis: a comparison of stakeholder perceptions regarding k-12 educational mission hlasko superintendent the impact on teaching and learning of the one-to-ohio laptop initiative at the ayersville local schools hug administrator thinking about teaching: does mentoring a student teacher cause a cooperating teacher to be more reflective? laverick university faculty gender differences in the homework preferences of students with low self-regulation lee teacher relationships of stakeholder perceptions of school climate morse teacher impact of academic and nonacademic support structures on third grade reading achievement peugeot special education administrator college aspirations to completed applications: a study of intentional high school practices designed to increase post-secondary enrollment riepenhoff administrator examining the efficacy of multiple intelligence-based pedagogical approaches on males in elementary mathematics roush teacher predicting ohio principals’ intentions and practices toward state evaluation-based professional growth plans using the theory of planned behavior schooler principal school-sponsored athletic participation and the impact on student achievement at the high school level selgo principal the impact of social networks on the coming-out process for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals walters-powell university faculty factors influencing reading growth in online k-2 students wotring principal once the pilot study was complete, the researchers independently reviewed the 19 dissertations and completed the dissertation summary chart for each of them. as the ma et al. (2017) study revealed, bowen (2009) recommends document analysis include a combination of content analysis and thematic analysis. the dissertation summary chart included the necessary categories by which the dissertations underwent an initial content analysis as the information in the dissertation summary chart was organized by the research questions. the researchers then conducted a more complex thematic analysis for each category aligned with the research questions to determine patterns of emerging codes and themes in the data (bowen, 2009). results research question one to answer the first research question (how do education doctorate students derive their problems of practice?), an initial analysis of the dissertations was conducted, and the researchers determined that there was interpretation in understanding a problem of practice as a felt difficulty or a real world dilemma. according to ma et al. (2007), a felt difficulty is a “deep concern or dissatisfaction upon which the practitioner felt an urge to take action” (p. 15), whereas a real world dilemma is a: …situation an educational practitioner faced where he/she had to navigate existing tensions to improve their work… a definitive problem students set out to positively impact or resolve, these were problems situated in larger educational policy and procedures that created dilemmas for educators in their daily work. (p.16) in the current study, an example of a problem of practice derived from a felt difficulty was a doctoral student working as a teacher educator who noticed how a phonics field experience for teacher candidates impacted their self-efficacy. another example was a doctoral student employed as a teacher who identified a difference between girls and boys in their homework preferences. an example of a problem of practice derived from a real world dilemma was a doctoral student working as a gifted coordinator who witnessed the impact of the ceiling effect on teacher and students. despite the variability in interpretation in understanding a problem of practice as a real world dilemma or a felt difficulty by the researchers, there was a majority consensus for more than half of the dissertations: four real world dilemma problems of practice and six felt difficulty problems of practice (see table 2). the four real world dilemma problems of practice included the dissertations on gifted students, school discipline, one-to-one laptops, and mentor teacher reflection. the six felt difficulty problems of practice included the dissertations on pre-service teacher efficacy, homework and gender, elementary males and math, athletic participation, social media and lgb students, and elementary online reading. there was only one dissertation in which all four researchers agreed on the type of problem of practice, felt difficulty: the dissertation on pre-service teacher efficacy. the researchers learned that the graduate students did not use the term problem of practice to identify their dissertation studies despite the fact that they were problems of practice. the graduate students also did not identify their studies as real world dilemmas or felt difficulty. however, the doctor of education program faculty only recently joined cped and became familiar with this terminology. therefore, it was not expected that students would identify their work using these terms. however, the researchers wanted to assess their gillham, williams, rife, and parker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 6 students’ work to determine if these concepts already existed prior to the program’s involvement with cped. the researchers’ perceptions of the problem of practices as a real world dilemma or a felt difficulty appeared to be impacted by the professional role of the researcher. for example, the chair of advanced professional programs in the college of education has a background, education, and expertise in the hard sciences. her more positivist paradigm, with its conception of objective, knowable truth, perhaps influenced her perception that 11 out of the 19 dissertations were real world dilemma problems of practice. the faculty member in the doctorate of education program has a background, education, and expertise in the social sciences. her more postmodern paradigm, with a conception of truth as being relative and individually constructed, perhaps influenced her perception that 16 out of the 19 dissertations were felt difficulty problems of practice. the chair of the doctor of education program was a bit more mixed in his perceptions of the problems of practice as was the student in the doctor of education program. although the concepts of real world dilemmas and felt difficulties appeared to be well-defined, the lens of each researcher tended to guide their interpretation of these concepts in practice. regardless, the researchers learned through the document analysis that the education doctorate students derived their problem of practice predominantly through felt difficulties more so than real world dilemmas. research question two the initial analysis of the second research question (what is the nature of the problems of practice that the students have studied?), revealed the nature of the problems of practice to be somewhat diverse (see table 2). the majority of the problems of practice investigated appeared to be guided by the graduate student’s professional role. for example, the three graduate students whose professional role was a teacher studied aspects of the classroom: homework preferences, school climate, and pedagogical approaches. the three graduate students whose professional role was in post-secondary education researched undergraduate students: pre-service teachers and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (lgb) students. the majority of the graduate students whose professional role was a superintendent or administrator studied a variety of problems of practice related to educational leadership. in the dissertation titled, the effectiveness of the ohio school leadership institute, the doctoral student clearly identified his professional role and how it informed the problem of practice he researched: this researcher served in administration as a high school principal for eight years and has spent nearly a decade as a school district superintendent. during the 2012-2013 academic year, this researcher had the opportunity of being selected as one of 30 superintendents across the state of ohio to participate in the ohio school leadership institute, sponsored (and funded) by the buckeye association of school administrators (basa). many of the graduate students acknowledged not only their professional role and how it guided their problem of practice study but also how their professional role could bias the study. this was addressed by most graduate students in their section on researcher bias in the first chapter. for example, in the dissertation titled, the impact of social networks on the coming-out process for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals, the graduate student explained her researcher bias as it relates to her professional roles: the investigator has a background in social work, which provides a deeper awareness of the long-term issues created by a lack of support from family, peers, education, spirituality, and great community on an individual that already is considered at-risk… the researcher identifies as a professor of social work and advisor to the gay straight alliance, both of which provide a vast amount of exposure to working with these individuals, which could then lead to unintentional stereotyping of participants. this statement of researcher bias is representative of many of the graduate students’ recognition and acknowledgment of their professional role and the impact on the problem of practice dissertation. however, researcher bias was not a factor in the analysis for this study. research question three the third research question that guided this study (what are the reported impacts the study of problems of practice has on doctoral students’ local contexts?) directly connected to the scholarly significance of this study. through this study, the researchers found the type of problem of practice researched through the education doctorate dissertation contributed to the perceived impact on the local context of the author. however, the authors of the dissertations reported only the perceived impacts on the local context as opposed to the reality of impact on the local context. doctoral students were not required to report an implementation plan or to file a follow-up impact report. rather, the researchers analyzed the potential impact as it were framed in the dissertation’s implications and recommendations. the perceived reported impacts were on gifted students, students in p-12 schools (7), superintendents and administrators, teachers (2), teacher candidates, educational stakeholders, teachers and students, mentor teachers, schools, underrepresented students, and lgb students. the researchers noticed a lack of specificity in the dissertations related to how the authors’ perceived their dissertation study would impact the local context. for example, in the study on principals’ intentions and practices related to evaluation-based professional development growth plans, the author wrote “the significance of this study is that it dispels the widely held myth that educators already know how to help teachers improve; and the research based for what actually helps teachers improve is extremely thin.” more depth and description was needed by the dissertation author to determine how she perceived the significance of her research as stated above impacts the field of teacher evaluation in both a local context and in terms of generalizability. problems of practice: a document analysis of education doctorate dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 7 table 2. perception of dissertation problem of practice by researcher topic chair of ad pro chair of doc faculty member student gifted students real world felt difficulty real world real world parental involvement real world felt difficulty felt difficulty real world superintendent leadership pd real world felt difficulty felt difficulty real world teacher evaluation felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world pre-service teacher efficacy felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty school discipline real world real world felt difficulty real world educational mission felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world one-to-one laptops real world real world real world felt difficulty mentor teacher reflection real world real world real world felt difficulty homework and gender real world felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty school climate real world felt difficulty felt difficulty real world support structures felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world post-secondary enrollment felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world elementary males and math real world felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty teacher evaluation pd felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world athletic participation real world felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty counselor evaluation felt difficulty real world felt difficulty real world social media and lgbt real world felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty elementary online reading felt difficulty felt difficulty felt difficulty real world discussion, implications and recommendations the purpose of this study was to learn how education doctorate students, who were predominately current educators in the p-12 schools, created the problems of practice researched in their dissertations and the potential impact of their research on their local contexts. in respect to the first research question, the researchers’ learned through the document analysis that the education doctorate students derived their problems of practice predominantly through felt difficulties more so than real world dilemmas. however, the researchers determined that there was immense interpretation in understanding whether a problem of practice is either a real world dilemma or a felt difficulty. there was only one dissertation that all four researchers agreed on the type of problem of practice: the dissertation on pre-service teacher efficacy. the initial findings indicate a need for further refinement of the concept of a problem of practice and how education doctorate programs and their candidates employ the concept of a problem of practice in their dissertations studies and how this impacts local contexts. ma et al. (2017) stated: …the students’ work settings serve as a laboratory of practice (shulman 2006) and course assignments require students to apply what they learn in coursework immediately in their local contexts, often collecting and analyzing data to reflect on the ways what they are learning in coursework translates into their practice. (p. 11) in addition, these researchers described how the students in their program are required to create a dissertation prospectus that outlines how the student’s dissertation research addresses a problem of practice in their local context. the intentional identification and purposeful inclusion of the graduate students’ local context as a setting to investigate a problem of practice throughout the program coursework and key assessments is necessary to help them understand their dissertations as problems of practice to take action in their local contexts. the problems of practice revealed through the document analysis of the dissertations in this study revealed immense variety (see table 2). in their study, ma et al. (2017) identified three clear themes that emerged from the dissertation problems of practice: 1) supporting marginalized students or group, 2) increasing the quality of educator professional development, and 3) supporting novices’ entry into the profession. in the current study, the researchers were unable to determine clear themes in the problems of practice. instead, the analyses of the dissertation revealed a diverse study of problems of practice in the field of education. with the inclusion of identification and purposeful inclusion of the graduate students’ local context as a setting to investigate a problem of practice throughout the program coursework and key assessments, the researchers hypothesize this could perhaps narrow the focus of the problems of practice. this is a potential investigation for future research. finally, the authors of the dissertations in this study reported only the perceived impacts on the local context as opposed to the reality of impact on the local context. the researchers noticed a lack of specificity in the dissertations related to how the authors’ perceived their dissertation study would impact the local context. doctoral students were not required to report an implementation plan or to file a follow-up impact report. rather, the researchers analyzed the potential impact as it were framed in the dissertation’s implications and recommendations. ma et al. (2017) reported five themes of impact based on their dissertation document analysis: 1) advancing/changing researchers’ practice and beliefs, 2) promoting communication and collaboration, 3) strengthening/informing policy, 4) supporting student learning, and 5) fostering colleagues’ learning. with the inclusion of identification and purposeful inclusion of the graduate students’ local context as a setting to investigate a problem of practice throughout the program coursework and key assessments, the researchers hypothesize this could perhaps provide a much stronger understanding of how the graduate students dissertation study will impact their local context. this is another potential investigation for future research. gillham, williams, rife, and parker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.85 8 in conclusion, the researchers learned through the document analysis of the education doctorate dissertations that while the graduate students in the program study problems of practice, a much greater emphasis needs to be placed on the four principles identified by ma et al. (2017): 1. problems of practice are deeply embedded in the students’ professional practice or context. 2. problems of practice emanate from felt difficulties and real world dilemmas students face as they work as educational practitioners. 3. problems of practice align with contemporary, critical issues in education explicated in the literature, such as creating more equitable schooling experiences for all children. 4. problems of practice hold personal significance for the students’ developing professional identity as a practitioner scholar (p. 23). we look forward to further research on how these principles will guide our program and students in the true search for solutions to the problems of practice they encounter daily in their lived experiences as practitioner scholars. specifically, the researchers look forward to learning more about cped’s six guiding principles and how to incorporate them into our program. the researchers hope to develop signature pedagogies that will empower scholarlypractitioners who can make an impact on their local context. references anderson, d. g. 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(2014). seven years after the call: students’ and graduates’ perceptions of the reenvisioned ed.d.. innovative higher education, 39(1), 123-137. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 8 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 strategies for promoting evidence use through the education doctorate william a. firestone rutgers university wilfires@gmail.com andrew s. leland southern illinois university aleland519@gmail.com abstract one goal of the education doctorate is to prepare educational leaders who can use research-based evidence to solve complex problems related to education and improve lives. we recently completed a mixed methods study of four edd programs that showed the kinds of experiences that encourage their graduates to use evidence. this paper uses qualitative data from the study to describe in more detail the strategies these programs used to promote evidence use. these strategies helped students develop skills in finding, assessing, and doing research; applying research; and working with others to use research. they ranged in size from the kinds of inclass activities professors used to help students collectively process what they were learning to the coordinated set of assignments spread across three years to help students turn a work-related issue into a research problem while designing and conducting their capstone doctoral project. keywords doctoral programs, leadership curriculum, leadership knowledge and skills, leadership program design, university programs, qualitative research methods educational leaders are the key brokers of evidence to their institutions (daft & becker, 1978; daly, et al., 2014; neal, et al., 2015). yet, they often find research confusing and jargon filled (penuel et al., 2018). when they do not understand data analysis or lack the knowledge and networks to access research, they may adopt practices with questionable evidentiary support (coburn & turner, 2011; farley-ripple, 2012). several strategies have been tried to facilitate educational leaders’ use of evidence, including early federally funded dissemination programs (lagemann, 2000) and modern interest in improvement science (bryk, et al., 2015). academic preparation is another tool. the edd should be ideal for helping leaders learn to use evidence because most students are currently educational leaders who, by job responsibility or inclination, are well placed to help colleagues learn about and, when appropriate, act on evidence. the edd curriculum is supposed to help students understand and assess different kinds of evidence as well as think about how to apply evidence to practical education problems. moreover, principles of the cped framework include that the professional doctorate in education:  prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.  is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. (carnegie project on the education doctorate, n.d., para. 5). yet, the education doctorate has been criticized for neither adequately developing leaders’ research skills or giving them necessary scholarly habits of mind (prestine & malen, 2005; shulman, et al., 2006) nor preparing leaders for the hurly-burly of practice (murphy, 2007). improving edd programs often requires attention to redesign, experiment, and evaluation, in order to “bring the education doctorates for practice and scholarship in better alignment with their professional and disciplinary analogs (shulman et al., 2006, p. 30). findings from recent studies provide some insight for such alignment, particularly in developing practically oriented research skills, such as connecting coursework to practice (cosner et al., 2015; honig & donaldson walsh, 2019), encouraging and often requiring students to address a problem in their workplace as part of their capstone projects (buss & zambo, 2016; honig & donaldson walsh, 2019), and contextualizing workplace problems within a broader body of research (belzer & ryan, 2013). in addition to these authentic learning experiences, research has also captured mechanisms that help students learn about research including methods courses that are inquiry based (bengston et al., 2016); coursework that develops specific skills in finding, assessing, and understanding research (firestone, perry, leland, & mckeon, 2021); about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9448-3274 strategies for promoting evidence use impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 9 as well as hands-on research experiences embedded throughout coursework (osterman et al., 2014). despite the insight that these studies have provided, few of these studies have examined the extent to which edd programs influence graduates’ capacities to understand and use research in their work. a recent exception to this trend is a mixed methods study we conducted that included a survey of edd graduates. this research provides evidence that the edd can influence its graduates when it provides methodological training experience grounded in students’ everyday work experience as well as strong social bonding (firestone, louis, perry, leland, & mckeon, 2020)1. however, the previous study lacked guidance about how edd programs aspiring to better prepare leaders might use this research to modify their own programs. to address that issue, this paper turns to the study’s qualitative data which suggest that edd programs helped their students develop abilities in three areas: research skills, application skills, and social skills. these categories emerged from our analysis of each program. the research skills are central to what is taught at the doctoral level and would seem to be fundamental to using research. they are part of what is meant by scholarly habits of mind (prestine & malen, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). application skills reflect in part what is different about the work of researchers and leaders who use evidence to solve place-specific problems. it is why various kinds of research users are often so concerned to ensure that findings are generated in settings like the user’s own (weiss & bucuvalas, 1980). social skills are required if leaders are to be effective research brokers (daly, et al., 2014; honig & donaldson, 2019) and by the nature of educational decision making where so many decisions require reaching consensus after considerable teaching and learning, politicking and persuasion (nutley, et al., 2007; penuel et al, 2018). the remainder of the paper describes our study methods before describing how the programs addressed each of these areas in turn. methods for the qualitative portion of this mixed methods study, we adopted a multiple-case design (yin, 2018). the programs studied were broadly distributed across the country. three ran programs that were largely face-to-face but that included some online instruction. with the one program that had separate face-to-face and online cohorts, we only report on the face-to-face component. two required students to complete relatively conventional, individual dissertations; two required group dissertations. all had redesigned their edd programs in keeping with cped principles—some in the late 2000s and some more recently. we visited each site to learn about its operation and how it was perceived by participants. actual visits were made by the lead author and another member of the research team. before and after the visit, the team collected information from its website and available 1 a copy of this paper can be obtained from the first author at wilfires@gmail.com. documents, including program handbooks, course syllabi, and sample dissertations. visits lasted two to four days to allow for both interviews and observation. table 1 provides details about program characteristics and data collection. the faculty interviewed in each program were the bulk of its core instructors. because students came to the programs from widely distributed work places, they were recruited by program directors to represent the first-, second-, and third-year cohorts. the interviews included a number of criticisms as well as descriptive and complimentary observations. table 1. case study program characteristics and data arizona state portland state michigan state boston college dissertation type individual individual group group year adopted current program 2007 2010 2010 2013 program enrollment 190 91 70 68 faculty interviews 7 6 9 7 administrator interviews 1 1 2 1 current student interviews 7 6 8 6 class observations 2 4 2 2 interviews ranged from 45 minutes to an hour, were guided by semi-structured interview guides (kvale, 2008; patton, 2002) and were audio recorded. faculty and administrator interviews addressed the program’s history, the individual’s vision for the program and of evidence use, how the person taught students to understand and use evidence as well as other program goals during coursework, how the person worked with dissertation students, and interactions with peers and students. questions for students focused on their background, experience with and reaction to their course work and their dissertations, and interactions with faculty and fellow students. interview guides triangulated the views of students with faculty and administrators. our twoto three-day site visits were scheduled to maximize opportunities to observe courses and other student-faculty interactions. researchers attended two to four, face-to-face evening and weekend class sessions that included group data analysis activities, debates, and jigsaws as well as lectures. access to work with dissertation students was more limited, but at one visit, we observed morning meetings where dissertation groups—with input from faculty—organized and analyzed recently collected field data. we documented all observations with extensive field notes. we entered field notes, program documents, and interviews in dedoose, a platform for analyzing qualitative data. we began our analysis by focusing on select data from two institutions, to which we applied a set of broadly defined codes that we developed out of the conceptual framework that guided the larger study—namely drawn from studies on research evidence use (e.g., weiss & bucuvalas, 1980), situated learning (lave & wenger, 1991), communities of practice (wenger, 1998), and prior research on edd programs (e.g., honig & donaldson walsh, 2019). throughout this initial coding process, we met bi-weekly to engage in procedures for inter-rater reliability, allowing us to define codes and refine them into parent and child codes. once in agreement, we applied the coding scheme to all data sources, reduced codes to patterns and themes, and created thematic memos that were shared with each other for continued refinement and understanding. firestone & leland impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 10 we then developed within-case reports of each site to a common outline (yin, 2018) organized around program history, mission, program features, and participation patterns. these reports were shared with the respective program, which provided for member-checking and allowed us to ask specific clarifying questions. during this process, we received permission to use institution names in subsequent presentations and publications. upon completion of all case reports, we analyzed for cross-cutting themes and several emerged around strategies that programs used to promote evidence use. findings we present our findings by focusing on three skills areas that all four programs emphasized in developing students’ capacities to use research evidence. the first, research skills, includes how all programs taught students to find and understand research, as well as the ways in which these learning experiences provided the foundations for students to be able to do research. the second, application skills, addresses skills developed in doing research in more depth, particularly in how programs prepared students to apply research skills in identifying a problem in their workplace, gathering and analyzing data, and determining the practical implications to find possible solutions. the third, social skills, shows how program structures and classroom interactions presented several opportunities for students to use research in communication, collaboration, and persuasion. research skills through their programs, edd students developed research skills or how to find, understand, and do research. a number of courses provided students with learning experiences on different methodological approaches to conducting research. these learning experiences occurred primarily in research methods classes much like those found in many social science doctoral programs and began with activities for students to collect and gather studies. learning to find research was relatively simple, but foreign to people whose work demands do not regularly challenge them to locate empirical studies. thus, early courses in several programs provided students with formal opportunities to understand how and where to find research. in some programs, students met with a librarian or watched a university-recorded video lesson to learn about different electronic search tools. in others, class meetings in early courses focused on introducing students to these skills. in addition to learning how to find studies, research methods courses allowed students to learn about the principles of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. lectures, course meetings, and online response posts contributed to an understanding of the fundamentals of these approaches, while conventional exercises focused on the utility of different techniques. one such exercise included the design of instruments and collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. a qualitative methods class in one program, for example, assigned students to perform several steps of qualitative analysis from transcribing interviews to conducting an initial data analysis and developing coding scheme. then, according to the syllabus, students created a data gathering report, allowing them to document their experiences and reflect on how the gathering and analysis process “unfolded over the [term].” in another program, students constructed and piloted survey instruments to deepen their understanding of descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as to use this information to revise their instruments. literature reviews were another exercise that developed students’ understanding of research. students conducted literature reviews throughout their coursework, or as one professor stated, “they get a lot of experience in terms of how to read research articles, how to summarize research articles, how to synthesize and analyze themes from research articles.” these assignments served multiple purposes in developing students’ research skills. for instance, they helped students construct conceptual frameworks for what would become the focus of their capstone projects and ultimately understand how this process contributes to gaining knowledge about a given topic. moreover, the fact that these assignments existed in multiple courses allowed students to build upon previous iterations of literature reviews and contributed to students’ depth of knowledge. second, literature reviews helped students develop the necessary skills needed in organizing studies. for example, one professor taught her students to approach literature reviews similar to binning excerpts in analyzing qualitative research (miles & huberman, 1994), in which students would organize research according to a set of criteria such as similar findings or methods used to examine a topic. in other programs, instructors gave assignments that asked students to search for their own documents and start an account with an online reference manager like refworks, endnote or mendeley and fill it with references to the documents they found. the use of such software not only helped students with organizing studies, but also with learning how to logistically look across multiple studies. one student noted: i think comfort wise i started utilizing some software, so i could store things in a more logistical way. i was making, i assumed, more sense of the research because i was able to organize it in a better way to go back to it and learning how to utilize research so if i read something in an article that i felt contradicted what i thought it was gonna say, i knew how to kind of label that so i knew i could go back to that. if i read something that was spot on, i could pick that out to the point where you also start to ... a couple of the instructors have called it, ‘you're in conversation with the research.’ a student in another program similarly emphasized their training on examining the literature through the use of software—in this case as it developed their capacity to connect prior research to problems that they observed in their working contexts, saying: even though i've always been a thinker, it's thinking in a different way, and more expansively and i think very quickly trains you to search the literature, that it's very literature based and rooted and how that connects to your daily work. finally, the use of literature reviews allowed faculty to help students engage in critical discussion on the credibility of sources. at the simplest level, as one professor noted, “they usually learn that journal articles are more favorable.” beyond that, the use of literature reviews served as useful modes of instruction for students to identify the strengths and limitations of different methodological approaches, how to critique a research article, and how to frame research through prior studies. an instructor at one program highlighted this process: strategies for promoting evidence use impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 11 and so, i ask them to go into the literature and find -first i have them to find five sources, and then they realize that they don't know what different sources are. and so, we talk about what different sources are and how do you evaluate the credibility of the source, and where do you go in the articles themselves to evaluate the methods? to look at whatever potential bias there might be of the person who's writing it. the development of students’ research skills was not siloed to methods courses. that is, all four programs provided numerous opportunities for students to learn how to critique research in substantive coursework. often the mechanism for this is a mix of reading and class discussion. one professor described how she had students read piaget’s theory of stages of development. through class discussion, she helped students see that all the research subjects studied were members of the dominant culture and used a critical theory perspective to point out the sampling bias of that approach. another professor used the idea of causal stories (stone, 1989) to critique study design. as students read quantitative articles, he had them pick out methodological aspects designed to give the study credibility--whether it be a sampling strategy, analysis choice or measurement instrument--and have them assess why it might make the study believable and to whom. doing research also had a place in substantive coursework. in some cases, programs contextualized the process of understanding methods through courses in which students needed to draw from their workplaces to gather and analyze research. opportunities like these most often occurred in data-informed decision making courses. one program also embedded data analysis in a course on human resources where one of the primary objectives was to develop students’ capacities to make evidence-based decisions around staffing. the professor of that course noted: i turned that course into a research course about human resources [hr], and the students engage in many research projects focused on hr. again, the focus there is to bridge, we try and learn what people think of when they talk about human resources, but a lot of what we're doing is looking at staffing data. and thinking about how we might make evidence-based decisions around staffing, by looking at that data. as this example also shows, the contextualized application of data analysis also served as a key component in helping students develop research skills, which existed across all four programs. the next section details how programs accomplished these tasks. application skills while research instruction is largely similar to what is found in many social science doctoral programs such as learning about methodological approaches, teaching students how to apply such approaches to improve their contexts is not. programs often taught application skills by adjusting how they taught research skills to better help students employ those skills to use evidence. they did so by having students collect and analyze data (and sometimes share results of those analyses) in their own work settings or settings like theirs. although some application skills were developed through discrete activities, what was notable was that the individual dissertation programs in particular developed an overarching strategy to help students link all their doctoral work to application issues through the problem of practice (pop) while group dissertation programs embedded opportunities to apply research skills in course activities. individual dissertation programs the pop began before students entered. students were expected to describe their pop--typically from their own workplace-in their application to the program and were only selected if their description of the pop was judged to be adequate. however, faculty only took this initial description as a starting point. course work was designed to help students develop their pops, formulate them into researchable problems, and acquire the skills to conduct a study to address the problem. a student’s dissertation would be that study. presumably the study results could be used to address the studied problem although that would take place after graduation. the pop became the laboratory of practice comparable to the residency clinical setting in medical school. we note two main themes in how the pop was used to help students learn to apply research to practical problems while maintaining a high level of motivation among practice-oriented students. the first was finding a workable problem. especially in one program, faculty did not assume that students had a clear understanding of what their problem really was. as one professor noted, “when you come in and you have a pop, the only things that you’re sure of right now is that you have a problem with it. you don’t know if anybody else in your workplace thinks that's a problem.” what the student understood to be the problem might not be the most effective way to understand the problem to ameliorate the situation. one way to address this situation was to have students conduct reconnaissance beyond their additional assumptions to get a broader understanding of the situation in their own workplace including perceptions of others. this school required students to conduct and write up such reconnaissance. this reconnaissance was captured as an initial “cycle of action research” intended to help a student better understand the pragmatics of a problem. in this program, later cycles of action research would be used to pilot instruments and an intervention to address the problem. these activities combined learning about research methods with refining the ultimate pop in a way that helped students understand how to use research to address practical problems more generally. for instance, assessing instrument validity became, in part, an exercise in assessing the fit with the local context. an instructor who taught instrument development as part of quantitative methods insisted that part of assessing instrument validity was sharing a new questionnaire with critical friends on site to get their perceptions of it. related to the challenge of defining the pop in a practical manner was avoiding solutionitis (bryk et al., 2015). in both individual-dissertation programs, faculty warned students not to settle on a solution to their pop in the form of a specific intervention before they had a clear idea of what the underlying problem was. in addition to conducting further reconnaissance to understand a pop, students used existing research to refine and clarify it. such use of research was the second theme. a substantial amount of this work took place through writing the dissertation proposal and course assignments that led up to it. these assignments were often centrally specified. that is, a program would agree on the writing tasks for each course so they would be assigned regardless of the instructor. how assignments were interpreted would depend somewhat on the professor, however. they varied somewhat in how firestone & leland impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 12 they suggested using past research to clarify their understanding of their problem. according to one: …[i] get a lot of questions about what's the right theory?... i talk to them a lot about... evaluating what... people have said about the theory in that sense. it's not maybe a discussion of evaluating what their data specifically is, but does it feel like it's concrete…. does it feel like it helps you explain the situation? does it feel like it helps you ask research questions that feel true to what you want to think about in that context? it should be noted that the courses provided opportunities to apply research to more than one’s own problem. most provided opportunities for students to discuss their problems with their peers. in the process, they learned about other people’s problems and practiced applying the literature they were learning about to a variety of issues. in addition, some individual-dissertation programs designed the dissertation qualifying examination as proposal preparation activity that helped students learn to use research literature to clarify a practical problem. one program had a very elaborate examination at the end of the first year. it tested how well students could use what they had learned in early courses to clarify their pops. as a student explained: you have section a... it's identifying our problem of practice. section b… everything is all about the problem...but looking at it from the learning theories. section c, looking at it from the organizational and leadership theories. section d, looking at it from the policy and politics theory. this examination was scaffolded in two ways. first, the firstyear courses on the three areas mentioned in the quote above were all designed to help students prepare for it, as well as the dissertation proposal. students had numerous opportunities in these courses to write short papers where they synthesized course readings and related literature in a way that clarified some aspect of their research problem. second, the qualifying paper had a scoring rubric that was distributed in advance. it specified that papers would be scored on how well they analyzed a problem of practice using the literature from those three areas and specified what constituted a good analysis. group dissertation where programs pointed students towards a group dissertation rather than a pop dissertation, other strategies were used to help students learn to conduct applied research. one program required students to take a “problem of practice” course. according to the professor, the goal of the course was to give students experience “us[ing] the literature to actually inform how you attack that problem of practice?” in addition to finding and reading relevant literature, students learned to apply some implementation science tools for diagnosing issues and sometimes collected data to clarify the issue. by the end of the course, according to the professor, “the goal is that they will leave… with a whole intervention laid out that they can begin to put in place.” other courses provided students with opportunities to conduct research to address real problems, often with real users of the results. in the human resources course mentioned above, students spent most of the summer collectively analyzing personnel data from one district. at the end of the course, they would present both an oral and a written report to the superintendent who provided the information. both group dissertation programs had students conduct equity audits (skrla et al., 2004). in these audits a district examines data to assess both the equity of outcomes for various groups of students and of the services that they receive to identify modifications to increase equity of outcomes across groups. when conducting such audits, students would identify an equity issue in a specific school or district, collect and analyze relevant data and report back to decision makers. in one program, the equity audit was an assignment in a course on social justice. in the other it was a joint assignment for simultaneously taught courses on social justice and “data and decisions.” this course, the main opportunity for students to learn about quantitative methods, focused on a variety of applied problems. when students doing equity audits were decision makers, they might spend some time after the course was over working on the issue. one district administrator told how after finishing a coursebased equity audit he worked with high school teachers to change prerequisites for ap courses so enrollments would better represent the minority population of the school. while group dissertations were almost never a pop in one student’s workplace, they always addressed practical problems. this was in keeping with faculty understanding of their programs’ missions which focused on inculcating a “social justice mission” in their graduates, preparing school administrators, and, as one said “is to really prepare school leaders, both at the building level as well as the district level, and state level for that matter, to attack pressing problems of practice.” students had to reach consensus on the problem the group would address, but because members of these groups were and aspired to be educational leaders, the problems they chose were always practical. these took different forms in the two programs. one required students to do a district case study. while the problem the case study addressed was always defined by the students, the process of requesting permission and data collection generated local interest so the dissertation group was required to debrief with relevant officials in written and oral form after the analysis was completed. the other program allowed teams greater freedom in study design. we identified dissertations where a team would  conduct and study parallel interventions in each member’s district,  conduct a state-level policy study and--in addition to the dissertation--present a report to a relevant state-level audience, and  conduct design research that culminated in the development of a product useful for a specific purpose. thus, while approaches to learning to apply research were more diverse in the group dissertation programs, instructive models were clearly provided. social skills in addition to research and application skills, students developed skills in negotiating the social dynamics of interacting and collaborating with others—particularly in using research evidence to make informed decisions about changes to practices and policies in p-20 education. this emphasis was deeply embedded in all four programs, beginning with overall goals and objectives for students to strengthen partnerships and build relationships with various strategies for promoting evidence use impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 13 stakeholders. program handbooks and promotional materials, for example, highlighted intended outcomes for students in their programs to lead organizational change and community advancement through collaborative action. in addition to these materials, faculty understood collaboration as a cornerstone for each program. for example, a faculty member at one program noted that “i think that our goal is to provide students a really intensive experience with collaboration. there’s the big focus on our program on distributed leadership and what that looks like in practice.” a professor at another program similarly said, “we want [students] to be leaders, we want them to be collaborators, we want them to be i think innovators in terms of practice.” operationally, developing students’ capacities to effectively collaborate with others occurred in three ways: understanding forms of meaningful and constructive feedback and engaging in in-class group activities and group assignments. student participation was a critical component in nearly all courses, and course syllabi outlined a number of parameters for what instructors believed would be most effective in interacting and collaborating with other students. one course, for example, described participation as: not just... offering your ideas in class. it also means that you have demonstrated the ability to listen carefully to others’ ideas, respond to others’ ideas (as in discussion), and to monitor your own talking in relation to the others in class. this means that you are aware of when you have talked more than others and give others an opportunity to present their ideas. syllabi in other courses similarly identified that students were expected to be “actively listening and sharing in the discussion and activities,” as well as asking students to move beyond statements such as “i agree,” “i liked what you said,” and “yes that’s correct” when interacting with peers. one class observation captured an instructor unpacking student conversations—particularly around the use of “should”—when discussing implications. field notes documented, “instructor said, ‘listen to yourself and your classmates use the word should. what does that shut down or allow?’” in-class activities consisted of fishbowls, turn-pair-shares, thinkaloud activities, and the use of critical friends that appeared to exist regularly in their respective classes. fishbowl strategies, for example, asked students to engage in structured discussions on issues in view of their classmates by carefully listening and actively presenting ideas to each other. although ways to structure fishbowls vary, one particular syllabus captured how the strategy would develop students’ skills in collaboration and communication, noting that it would help students “to share connections, topics you are engaged in/struggling with, and questions you have.” the use of critical friends also emphasized engagement with peers, where students were expected to, as another syllabus indicated, “submit the channel you used to connect (facebook, linkedin, google alerts, discussion boards, e-mail, phone call, etc.), who you connected with (a group or individuals), and a summary of your interactions thus far.” although slightly different in their formats, each approach used to facilitate engagement and participation encouraged students to make meaning of information in small group formats before returning to whole-group discussions with an entire class. classroom observations captured the extent to which discussions and small-group work supported each program’s dedication to community-building and providing beginning spaces for collective learning opportunities. for example, one class structure allowed students to meet in small groups, workshop their assignment on communicating with families, use class-based readings to justify and evaluate their assignments, and talk with other small groups when reporting out. field notes from a class at another institution also captured the extent to which one instructor’s constructivist approach to teaching and learning pivoted on in-class group work: basically, we saw three [activities] this session: a quick ice-breaker where small groups introduced themselves to each other and then reported out on themselves to the whole class; one where groups had to construct minilectures for their peers on [learning] theorists; and one where different groups were assigned a learning tool. in addition to in-class activities, group projects offered students a number of opportunities to learn and develop some of the necessary skills for interacting and collaborating with others. these included group presentations and cycles of peer feedback on various assignments. they also included larger projects--including case studies, policy analysis assignments, and equity audits--that similarly challenged groups to analyze a particular task, topic, or problem collectively. although all institutions included group assignments to some extent, they were even more present in institutions in which students completed group capstone projects. as an instructor from one institution noted, the use of group equity audits helped as a “kind of rehearsal for them working together as a research team.” this instructor described further the types of collective tasks in which students engage: as part of the semester-long project of doing equity audits, they have to go out and they have to collect data in the district so there's study. they have to interview people, they have to look at demographic data, they have to download [state test] data from the state websites and analyze where the gaps are and so on. students similarly noted the benefits of working on major group assignments, especially in developing their skills to work with others. one student discussed: i think i worked with everybody in some arena and so it's nice to have worked on various projects with various people. they've done a lot to sort of say [...] they're pulling a group together, "okay, switch it up.” now you have to work with this group or consider working with each other here." it's been nice to get to know people through that as well. another student noted that, “every course required us to do some work in groups. i think it improved my leadership skills, again in working with different groups of people and towards that goal.” as both students explain, faculty intentionally challenged students to work in different groups throughout the program, an approach that helped students develop the collaborative skills that are important to effective leadership. in addition to collaboration, some programs emphasized persuasive skills, particularly in using research evidence in decisionmaking processes. one way in which this occurred was conceptually, that is by critically unpacking the components of a persuasive argument. for example, in helping students learn how to critique research, the instructor who introduced causal stories, (stone, 1989) simultaneously challenged them to connect pieces of evidence to support one causal story over another based on research and/or data. through this process, students learned firestone & leland impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 14 valuable skills in persuasion, particularly in how to communicate a story to various stakeholders. as one student explained: the data can be taken and looked at in many different ways. that's been a big conversation as well. not only how to delineate good data from bad data but then also using that data to tell the story that you want to tell. and making sure, again, that if you take this approach, your story might look a little bit different than if you take this approach, but it's all from the same data, it's how you frame it, how you explain it, those types of things. in some programs, opportunities to report data to stakeholders enriched their skills in persuasion and decision-making. the instructor of one course, for example, leveraged relationships with neighboring local districts for a project in which students analyzed data from an assigned district and presented their findings back to the district. this approach was also a primary component of one program’s group capstone project, in which students reported their findings to the schools and/or districts in which they conducted fieldwork by way of formal presentations and a written executive summary that became part of their written capstones. discussion and conclusion the focus of this paper on four edd programs deepens and expands our understanding of mechanisms that promote practically oriented research skills. as our findings demonstrate, all four programs were committed to developing students’ capacity to use evidence in several areas. they were not only focused on the fundamentals of research (e.g., finding, assessing, and understanding), but also included a number of learning experiences around the application and communication of research. these programmatic and instructional components not only underscore cped’s principles in constructing, applying, and integrating knowledge, they also serve as productive and meaningful approaches to connecting research and practice, developing students’ scholarly habits of mind, and influencing leaders to become more knowledgeable brokers of evidence in p-20 education. in the section that follows, we draw upon prior research to discuss some of these approaches in greater detail and conclude with implications for practice. multiple uses of research students learned about different qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods techniques; strengths and limitations to different techniques; as well as how to find research and assess credibility. what was noticeable about the four edd programs, however, was that the development of those skills served as a foundation for students to move beyond a simple “research-for-problem-solving” paradigm and instead, learn about “the multiple functions that research can serve” (weiss & bucuvalas, 1980, p. 312). for instance, each program emphasized using research evidence to deepen one’s understanding of a particular issue in p-20 education (i.e., through shifts in attitudes or conceptually framing the issue), as well as to identify and suggest possible solutions to an issue through changes in policy and practice. similar to what belzer and ryan (2013) found in students’ use of evidence to contextualize their dissertation topics in prior research, these four programs indicate a strong connection between coursework (e.g., research skills, theory) and practice that promoted students’ understanding and use of research. in addition to using research to deepen students’ understanding of a particular issue, some programs provided opportunities for students to develop skills in communicating evidence to stakeholders. each program’s emphasis on collaboration and collective learning contributed to developing these skills through group projects, discussion-based classes, some noticeable constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, and one program’s use of causal stories (stone, 1989). as students learned through these experiences and interactions, effective communication requires some depth of understanding of research, policy, and practice to help persuade others in decision-making processes. although the development of students’ social skills was prominent in coursework, most programs did not formally integrate those skills into the capstone project beyond creating a chapter on implications and recommendations—a limitation of edd capstone projects similarly identified by honig and donaldson (2019). an exception to this included one program’s requirement that students formally present their findings to the schools and districts in which they conducted their studies. integrating skills development throughout coursework and milestones cosner et al. (2015), bengston et al. (2016), and honig & donaldson (2019) reminded us of the importance of connecting coursework to practice in developing scholarly-informed practitioners and p-20 brokers of evidence. our findings expand these notions further, particularly in relation to how all four programs prepared their students to understand and use research. similar to what bengston et al. (2016) argued to be useful, the programs in the current study positioned research skills development throughout coursework. students learned about the fundamentals of research in their methods classes, but they continued to deepen their understanding of content, credibility, and practical uses of research in substantive coursework on leadership, policy, and law, to name a few examples. in short, opportunities to develop the various skills in research (including applications of and communication) occurred throughout nearly all courses and continued as students completed their capstone projects. in addition, one hallmark of all four programs was that they engaged students in the process of designing and conducting research well before they began their capstone projects. for institutions with individual projects, these endeavors were centered on the pop, which ultimately became the main focal point of helping students develop their research skills throughout coursework while leading to their qualifying exams and capstone projects. institutions with group dissertation projects certainly encouraged students to identify practical research problems, but the development of their research skills occurred primarily through course assignments and other major projects throughout the program (e.g., equity audits, district case studies). regardless of approach, the process of doing research occurred throughout coursework in a way that highlights how programs in previous research have used cycles of inquiry (cosner et al., 2015) and action research (buss & zambo, 2016; osterman et al., 2013). as these studies indicated and as our findings support, the process of doing research early on in programs provides students with learning experiences to understand some of the fundamentals of research that they could then apply and develop strategies for promoting evidence use impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.154 15 further as coursework progressed. once students reach their capstone projects, and ultimately after they graduate, students will be better equipped to use these skills to identify problems and possible solutions in p-20 environments. from research to assessment for improvement in this article, we used yin’s (2018) multiple case study approach to explore how four edd programs developed students’ skills in accessing, understanding, assessing, applying, and communicating evidence. this method helped us identify the approaches these programs used to promote multiple uses of evidence among their graduates. we conclude by reflecting on how our methods could help inform actionable recommendations for specific edd programs and offer two suggestions to consider when evaluating and making changes to a specific program. a number of scholars have suggested the use of a continuous improvement model for leadership-preparation programs to collaboratively examine their practices and outcomes (e.g., cosner, 2019; honig & donaldson, 2019). while we did not use this model, we echo cosner’s (2019) sentiments that this model values the use of multiple data sources to understand program effectiveness and program impact. one such data source is interviews, which could complement the use of course evaluations that are typically used to gain student input. through our interviews, we learned about the experiences and perspectives of both students and faculty members—an approach that could highlight specific instructional practices that are effective for student learning. in addition, a review of course syllabi and program documents (e.g., handbooks, marketing materials) provided information for how programs developed student knowledge and skills around research. having access to these data sources allowed us to identify course objectives, pedagogical approaches, and major assignments and projects. moreover, through this process, we were able to examine how individual courses connected to each other within a given program, as well as how individual course objectives aligned with each program’s overall goals. such curriculum mapping would not only provide programs with additional data sources to analyze but could also be valuable in understanding a program’s scope and sequence of coursework and milestones. more generally, we urge edd faculty to use their knowledge of research to assess their own processes to improve their students’ use of evidence. references belzer, a., & ryan, s. 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(2012). research use in school district central office decision making: a case study. educational management administration & leadership, 40(6), 786-806. doi:10.1177/1741143212456912 firestone, w. a., perry, j. a., leland, a. s., & mckeon, r. t. (2021). teaching research and data use in the education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 16(1), 81-102. doi:10.1177/1942775119872231 firestone, w. a., louis, k. s., perry, j. a., leland, a. & mckeon, r. (2020). teaching evidence use to educational leaders: the ed.d.'s contribution. aera annual meeting, april, 2020 online. honig, m. i., & donaldson walsh, e. (2019). learning to lead the learning of leaders: the evolution of the university of washington’s education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 14(1), 51-73. doi:10.1177/1942775118819673 kvale, s. (2008). doing interviews. sage. lagemann, e. c. 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(2018). case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.). sage. about:blank about:blank impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice william a. firestone rutgers university andrew s. leland southern illinois university methods findings research skills application skills individual dissertation programs group dissertation social skills discussion and conclusion multiple uses of research integrating skills development throughout coursework and milestones from research to assessment for improvement references this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.26 articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. what do we mean by impact? jill a. perry, phd editor-in-chief, ie executive director, cped david g. imig, phd chairman, cped board of directors abstract a history of change efforts by philanthropic agencies and government organizations directed at graduate schools of education has not produced long-term or sustained changes in their form and function. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), however, has been able to demonstrate that external change efforts can result in change in schools of education when bottom-up efforts are combined with top-down support. such change is an important "impact" of cped. in this short essay, the cped executive director and chairman of the board provide an overview of cped's impact and then challenge authors and reader to help cped further extend the definition of impact as it related to all aspects of the education doctorate. introduction harry judges’ american graduate schools of education: a view from abroad (1982) remains a seminal work on understanding the challenge of change for professional schools of education in the us. judge wrote of the emulation of scholarly endeavors in the social sciences and the abhorrence of anything having to do with schools and schooling; he wondered at the separation of schools of education from neighboring schools and the absence of attention to practical problems encountered by graduates of these programs. in the nearly thirty-five years since judge wrote his little book on behalf of the ford foundation, many would contend that little has changed. many graduate schools of education remain resilient to change and impenetrable to new ideas. a history of change efforts by philanthropic agencies and government organizations directed at graduate schools of education (gses) has not produced long-term or sustained changes in their form and function. from the commonwealth fund teacher training initiatives in the late 1920s to the efforts of the ford foundation in arkansas in the 1950s, from the federal government’s intervention through the national teacher corps in the 1960s and 70s to the carnegie corporation’s teachers for a new era in the early 2000s, change has been illusive when it comes to transforming gses. the holmes group (later the holmes partnership) and the national network for educational reform, the carnegie foundation’s delta project and other philanthropic initiatives have largely failed to produce enduring results. hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested by federal and state agencies over the course of the past century with little to show for those investments in terms of lasting impact. while some will argue that fundamental changes have occurred – in scholarly methodologies and the addition of new areas of concentration (particularly having to do with students living in poverty), a focus on school and the addition of policy in their offerings – few would argue that gses are much different from those described by professor judge. yes, there are some school-university partnerships and curricula efforts, expanded clinical experiences and new teaching strategies, revamped candidate recruitment and comprehensive “placement and support” schemes, altered faculty appointment and promotion efforts and the expanded use of technologies – but these changes have been slow to be adopted and remain isolated at far too few gses. given faculty workloads and scholarly expectations, service commitments and advisement responsibilities, the identification of new ideas is often difficult to realize. the purpose of impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice (ie) is to identify promising practices for gses and to then both understand what makes change so difficult to achieve and to highlight successful efforts for change that has had an impact – with a particular focus on the adoption of a new model for doctoral education in education. cped as change given this history of change efforts, it is not surprising that many foundations and government programs have been skeptical of funding new initiatives for education schools. several years ago we were told by the fipse (fund for the improvement of postsecondary education) program officer (a former college provost, department chair and long-time faculty member) that “change in large educational organizations – like gses is generally not funded by government agencies because change is not believed to be poshttp://cpedinitiative.org/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://upress.pitt.edu/ perry, imig impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.26 sible.” this comment surprised us greatly. we were at our first meeting after being awarded $700,000 to study how the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) was changing gses at twentyone member universities. the program officer highlighted several examples of organizational change that he described as “failures.” this was at a time when several large philanthropic foundations had announced their decisions to no longer fund gses and we were seeking support from the us department of education. we were convinced that he was predicting we too would fail in our efforts when suddenly his expression changed and he commented, “your project is the first i have seen in my tenure at the department of ed that is working… because the change effort is coming from the bottom – it is focused on enabling faculty to understand and design, test and implement an innovation whose time has come – and to do so in partnership with lots of peers.” he went on to explain that he predicted our success because of the unique nature of cped as a collaboration of education faculty and education school deans working together across a wide variety of gses to distinguish the edd as a practitioner degree (perry, 2015; perry & imig, 2008). this model contrasted sharply, he explained, with those of other change efforts by professional organizations that relied on top-down strategies that largely excluded faculty. the fipse grant enabled the cped consortium to raise and study the questions: what changes had been made and what was the impact on doctoral preparation at member universities? the oxford english dictionary defines the word impact as: the effect or influence of one person, thing, or action, on another. today, cped encompasses all aspects of this definition as an innovation that is action-oriented, led by faculty and supported by university administrators, with the goal of improving the edd for professional practice preparation (perry, 2014). its impact lies in innovations in the assignment of faculty and the recruitment of students, the design of programs and the reliance on guiding principles, the adoption of new research methodologies and mentoring structures, and partnering with pk-12 schools (and other learning organizations), creating new funding models and considering new capstones. the evaluation design had to be as ambitious because cped’s original gse members were from an array of colleges and universities across the us. exploring ways to evaluate just how programs had changed and what impact the cped initiative had was the challenge. we utilized rogers’ diffusion of innovation model as a guide because his elements of diffusion offered a lens for understanding change within a complex social system such as graduate schools of education. rogers (1995) defines diffusion as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system” (p. 10). the diffusion process involves four elements—the innovation, the communication channels used, the time taken from introduction to implementation, and the social system into which the innovation is introduced. these elements helped cped researchers understand if and how institutions viewed cped’s principles and design-concepts as innovative and if edd programs changed as a result of this framework. was cped having an impact? looking across data from twenty-one gses, researchers discovered that cped had had an impact at institutional, programmatic and individual levels. at the institutional level, changes happened in terms of program policies, types of faculty positions and in a general understanding of the edd degree (perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015). cped offered gses a means to address the confusion between the purpose and role of the edd and phd degrees, improve enrollment and graduation rates, change degree structures including time to degree, dissertation and advising formats, and to hire more clinical faculty. programs changed in terms of purpose and goals, types of research preparation, reliance on cohort models and group dissertations. additionally, these changes impacted local context by addressing the leadership preparation needs of pk-16 administrators as well as faculty advising and teaching structures. the data overwhelmingly showed that in the early years of cped, member institutions made great progress in rethinking and redesigning their education doctorate and, as a result, impacted the way gses considered doctoral preparation for practitioners. as part of the fipse study, an independent evaluator was tasked with evaluating the aims of the project. data and comments from this evaluation (crowe, 2013) also validated cped’s impact by suggesting three important implications of the overall cped initiative: first, the initiative itself—through project leaders, graduate assistants, and others—was influential as a source of interest in doctoral program changes across the country. secondly, initiative leaders did more than talk about the cped work—campus leaders indicated they also provided important information and technical assistance that facilitated the work at individual universities. and finally, the network of cped institutions proved important to the work of individual member campuses. this combination of central and distributed leadership offers a broad lesson for promoting change in higher education: peer-to-peer support is more effective, under the umbrella of initiative leadership, and central leadership functions best when it also enables initiative members to work with each other. a challenge in 2007, former teachers college, columbia university president arthur levine outlined six disincentives that he maintained would prevent schools of education from ever making the distinction between the edd and phd degrees or redesigning doctoral degree programs to accommodate the distinct and different purposes of those degrees. his sixth point made the claim, “politics and inertia [will] inhibit schools of education from change.” while levine’s point may have reflected the status quo at the time, we have seen cped challenge this claim as many member gses in cped are changing. for example, crowe (2013) observed several necessary conditions that have allowed cped to be a catalyst. first, that it takes a “combination of central and distributed leadership” to realize change; and second, cped offers something unique— a network of “peer-topeer” faculty members and leaders who are both charged and resourced to make such change. cped has demonstrated that external change efforts can result in change in schools of education – but only under the conditions described above. this is one example of what impacting education seeks to demonstrate. as cped continues to grow and learn and the edd continues to change and improve across more and more schools of education, we hope to see a variety of examples of impact presented in the virtual pages of ie. we envision demonstrations of how the practitioner degree impacts graduates who practice in schools and colleges, how faculty members are impacted in terms of their own practices, and how the field of education, including higher education, changes as a result of more scholarly practitioner leaders. and to continue in the collaborative nature that was the foundation on which cped evolved, we invite our authors and readers to help us expand our understanding of impact. we issue the following challenge to our authors, reviewers, and readers. we challenge you to make ie into an outlet for studies of change by gses – particularly as they relate to the edd and its im what do we mean by impact? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.26 pact on practitioner practices and successes. study and inform, evaluate and communicate, assess and measure, gather data and examine every aspect of programmatic change in edd programs. offer evidence and learning that helps us understand the best ways to prepare practitioners to be able to address the educational challenges of the 21st century. make ie the place where ideas and avenues for collaborative program design are shared across institutional contexts. help all gse faculty members learn strategies for building and implementing programs in their own contexts. provide synthesized ‘ways of doing’ – ideas that translate to actions and strengthen the skills of faculty in gses to design better edd programs. make ie the place where practitioner authors write about the impact their education doctoral experience has had on their professional practice. and make ie the place where books that meaningfully contribute to the development of theory, policy and practice for the improved preparation of pk-20 educational leaders in education doctorate programs are reviewed. offer ie as the avenue for demonstrating that gses can change and impact a variety of educational settings through the appropriate and rigorous preparation of high-skilled leaders and practitioners who know how to address seemingly intractable problems in practice. provide evidence and examples of these program graduates in action and the ways in which they utilize their scholarly practitioner skills to be change agents. by accepting this challenge to expand our understanding of what impact means in terms of redesigning professional preparation, help gses “reclaim” (shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006) the education doctorate and make it the degree of choice for practitioners who want to transform the field of education (cgs, 2007). references council of graduate schools (cgs) (2007). cgs taskforce report on the professional doctorate. washington: council of graduate schools crowe, e. (2013) redesigning the professional doctorate in education: year 3 fipse evaluation report. washington, dc: author. judge, h. (1982) american graduate schools of education: a view from abroad. new york:ford foundation levine, a. (2007). educating researchers. new york, ny: the education schools project. perry, j.a., zambo, d. & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education, journal of school public relations. vol 36. winter. perry, j.a. (2015) the carnegie project on the education doctorate, change: the magazine of higher learning, 47:3, 56-61 perry, j.a. (2014). changing schools of education through grassroots facultyled change. innovation in higher education 39(2) pp.155-168 perry, j.a. & imig, d. (2008). a steward of practice in education. change: the magazine of higher learning, november/december rogers, e.m. (1995). diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). new york, ny: the free press. shulman, l. s., golde, c.m., bueschel, a.c., & garabedian, k.j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 43 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.158 supporting postsecondary faculty transition to rapid online teaching & learning michelle e. bartlett north carolina state university mebartle@ncsu.edu carrol l. warren north carolina state university clwarren@ncsu.edu diane d. chapman north carolina state university ddchapma@ncsu.edu abstract north carolina postsecondary faculty, similar to faculty around the world, who prepared their spring 2020 semester courses for face-to-face delivery, were required to quickly transition to rapid online teaching and learning (rotl). this transition was expected within a short time frame, often one to two weeks, and for many faculty members, both time and resources to incorporate design practices found in high-quality online courses were limited. faculty members demonstrated great determination and grit as they shifted to remote teaching and learning with a focus on the student success, even while feeling overwhelmed and disrupted themselves. researchers examined two faculty-support programs designed to assist with the shift to online teaching during the covid-19 crisis: one at a research-intensive, land-grant university and another for faculty at 58 community colleges, some of whom are enrolled in a cped ed.d. program. lessons learned and thoughts on planning for future semesters are examined. keywords rapid online teaching & learning, quick transition, covid-19, faculty support introduction faculty schedules for the spring 2020 semester were interrupted with the expectation that courses were shifting to an online delivery in a matter of days. preparation for online course delivery requires time and tools in order to be considered as a highquality online learning environment (hodges et al., 2020). faculty members, including those who are also students in cped graduate programs, spent countless hours shifting content from the seated classroom to a rapid online teaching and learning (rotl) virtual space in order to keep students progressing through the semester. this paper provides an overview of projects created by faculty scholars who teach and provide leadership in a cped program to support both university and community college educators during the rapid online transition to remote teaching. supporting faculty at a four-year, researchintensive university trending in the literature, academic continuity remains relevant compared to when it was first highlighted in research (day, 2015; regehr, et al., 2017). at the faculty level, specific plans for academic continuity was yet to be realized to the full extent possible. administrators at various levels previously discussed continuity planning for the year, but it was never implemented at the faculty level. the time and energy needed to prepare a continuity plan always seemed like something that could be postponed. covid-19 changed that pattern of thinking when what seemed like overnight, all instruction transitioned to remote delivery. the speed of the change caught faculty and administrators off guard. the faculty members generally fell into three groups, one group were http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:mebartle@ncsu.edu mailto:clwarren@ncsu.edu mailto:ddchapma@ncsu.edu supporting postsecondary faculty transition to rapid online teaching & learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.158 44 experienced at online teaching or they used instructional technologies on a regular basis, another group consisted of faculty members who used instructional technologies in teaching on occasion, and the third group was comprised of those who seldom or never used instructional technology. north carolina state university’s (nc state’s) centralized faculty development professionals met regularly to develop multifaceted approaches toward trying to meet the needs of faculty in all groups. the first task was to develop an online website to help faculty with the transition to remote instruction. at this point, faculty members were being asked to have a plan completed in three weeks; however, the target kept moving and what started out as a plan for the future soon turned into a plan for the present time. the keep teaching website at nc state was designed and developed over a weekend through the tireless work of individuals from all over the campus. to reduce the time needed for deploying the site, the team searched for existing sites to replicate. permission was obtained from indiana university to replicate their site. one important addition to the resource developed for nc state is the inclusion of a template that faculty could use to submit their continuity plans to their department heads. this template can be downloaded in a variety of formats and helps faculty develop their continuity plans through answering a series of questions; however, a static, asynchronous website would not be enough to get through this emergency. synchronous webinars were delivered over zoom to help faculty create their continuity plans. similar to the keep teaching website, the keep teaching webinars were collaborative offerings between several centralized units that included an office of faculty development, the instructional technology unit, distance education and learning technology applications (delta), and the nc state libraries in addition to many individuals from around campus. these hour-long webinars walked faculty through each part of the continuity plan template with the goal of leaving with a rough draft of a continuity plan. the webinars focused on answering questions about communicating with students, distributing course materials, delivering lectures, fostering communication between students, collecting assignments, and assessing student learning. additionally, webinars featuring experts from outside the university, were developed for the faculty. two book authors, whose work was relevant to online instruction, were contracted to present hour-long webinars focused on responding to teaching and learning during the crisis. one webinar focused on universal design for learning and the other on student bandwidth issues. to address faculty and staff well-being during this crisis, a recurring program called mindful mondays was established and has received rave reviews from faculty and staff. ongoing and frequent communication was the key to getting through the initial crisis. to aid in communication efforts, the final part of the first phase of responding to the move to remote instruction was the creation of a blog designed to get information out to faculty in an informal and expedient way. the faculty focus blog focuses on helping faculty just in time. blog posts have included topics related to implementing classroom assessment techniques, moving away from proctored exams, using grading rubrics, building community online, presenting to classes, and surviving the shift online. the posts are written by faculty development experts and faculty. data collection nearly 900 instructors responded nc state’s survey regarding their experiences regarding instructional continuity and the transition to online instruction during the spring 2020 covid-19 pandemic. the survey highlighted some issues, but also gave insight to how well the university did in meeting initial needs. four-year university faculty data overview one interesting finding was that 68% of instructors reported less than two years of experience with online instruction, with the majority of all respondents having no online teaching experience (thornton, et al., 2020). the instructors continued to have major concerns for their students. for example, one participant stated: my own internet is slow under neighborhood-overuse conditions, and many students have it even worse. one student drive into town each day, to work from his car in a parking lot. we do not have a public-utility-internet system that is strong enough to make internet-delivered classes universally accessible. even with high percentages of instructors with limited online teaching experience, 64% reported being somewhat or very comfortable with online instruction prior to the transition. significant gains in preparedness were realized in deepening skills in instructional technologies and through adopting new student engagement strategies. labs and course hand-offs continued to leave instructors feeling unprepared. instructors were clear about what helped them make the transition, citing reliable universitysupported technologies such as moodle and zoom, peers and college it personnel who were sought out for one-on-one help, and pan-university units such as the campus faculty development units and libraries (thornton, 2020). it was difficult to know what information was getting onto faculty hands. as one faculty member participant said: i know the university sent a ton of information to help, but it felt like too much, i was swimming through emails and videos just to find one small piece of information. i found it faster and easier to turn to a colleague who had online teaching experience. in the future, messaging about resources needs to be better coordinated. all units on campus were affected by the covid-19 crisis and have responded in their own ways. for example, almost all colleges have implemented some sort of faculty support networks or programs where faculty support each other. the experience confirms that faculty development in times of crisis cannot be handled by a few centralized units. now, more than ever, success relies on harnessing the expertise and knowledge from the entire university. https://provost.ncsu.edu/faculty-resources/keep-teaching/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_t_zdmp1-n-9kzlin6xs8skzrerc0hp0q7yv1mfbahe/copy https://ncsu.zoom.us/rec/play/vjukjr-h-jm3g93htasdc_z-w43uj6qs0hqe-kejzuu2bnhwnllyyljba-wzvnkbsuixa58wcxg3_wto?starttime=1584115574000 https://ofd.ncsu.edu/events-and-programs/mindful-mondays/ https://ofdblog.wordpress.ncsu.edu/ diane d. chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.158 45 rotl program supporting faculty at north carolina community colleges faculty scholars, who provide leadership and coordination to ed.d. students in a cped program, made the decision to commit to serving their community college colleagues by providing instructional design skills and years of online teaching and course design experience to help support the transition from face-to-face courses to online delivery. the partnership between the university and supporting the state’s community colleges had already been established through the flagship doctoral program aimed at creating a pipeline for the next generation of community college executive leaders. with the mission to partner with the state’s community colleges, utilizing decades of online instructional design expertise, the rotl program was launched by two faculty scholars who designed and delivered a webinar designated to helping community college faculty with the quick transition to online teaching and learning. the initial webinar was offered in march of 2020 on three separate dates with over 180 faculty members registering and attending. this level of interest led to the creation of the rotl program that connected with 55 of the state’s 58 community colleges, offering webinars, individual and group coaching, and the creation of short videos aimed at assisting faculty. expert coaches were hired from around the country with expertise in various learning management systems (lms) such as moodle, blackboard, canvas, and sakai. coaches helped faculty members new to online learning understand fundamental online design and tools for engaging students. coaches also assisted seasoned online instructors with the workload of transitioning content online. short videos were housed and shared from a newly created youtube channel, with over 540 views of the videos in three months. making way for the transfer of knowledge process, covid-19 supported a revitalization of stakeholder relationships, representative of the community partnership model (doorneweert, 2014; white et al., 2019). even when not compounded by a quick timeline, transitioning to online teaching and learning requires a large amount of time and resources, such as access to technology and stable internet connection (chen, 2007; zhao, et al., 2005; stone, 2017; riedling, 2020). the rotl program aimed to assist faculty members learn ways to connect their students to course content, peers, instructors, and the community in online learning environments. beyond placing content online, instructors needed to support students, new to online learning, with the ability to successfully maneuver through online classes. while maintaining a focus on student engagement and utilizing limited resources was not a new concept for faculty (warren & bartlett, 2019), it became evident that they were willing to expand their skill set to meet the needs of their students. further, faculty members worked to remove barriers to student success by providing flexibility in assignment due dates or asynchronous options. data collection for rotl transition program community college faculty perceptions were gathered from webinar evaluation forms, help requests, and coaching evaluations during the rotl transition program. faculty communicated other feedback through emails to team members and follow-up phone conversations. data was not collected for research purposes but to best help community college faculty through the transition to online teaching and learning. faculty perceptions of the rotl transition program of the community college faculty members that worked with the program’s coaches individually and/or participated in departmental training sessions, several gave feedback of how the program impacted them. coaching goals were twofold: (a) help those that were new to online teaching and (b) be extra hands for seasoned online instructors who had not prepped for online teaching that particular semester. the assessment of the rotl program was critical to the framework moving forward and participant feedback contributed to the evolving delivery of the services. faculty members newer to online teaching were given the skills needed to transition which helped relay nerves of the upcoming shift as seen in the following faculty quotes, “i will be teaching virtually and <coach name> helped me every step of the way.” and “i am sure that i will reach out again due to my trying to successfully adjust to the move from the classroom to the on-line environment without so much anxiety.” more seasoned faculty members were helped by having extra hands to put content online, “...the only thing i could use help with at this point is man-power.” further, faculty members were help strategies to help beyond the rotl, “i will incorporate the information and tips in my daily online instructional practices [to] improve the existing course.”, “<coach name> give me some great ideas on how to engage with my students…”, and “this information provided me with new insights and assistance regarding my current and future online coursework. i feel better prepared to teach online.” faculty also reported wanting to encourage peers to take part in the program as well, “i was humbled by the level and amount of assistance i received. i have already recommended this to my colleagues in my academic division. i hope they take advantage of it.” and “<coach name> was great, i am thrilled this resource was made available to me! i’ve been sharing her insight with my other teacher friends. i feel confident and ready for this new challenge.” an existing challenge, exacerbated by covid-19, is professional development for faculty and staff around digital literacy (adam-turner & burnett, 2018) and access to digital platforms in rural areas (adam-turner & burnett, 2018; bailey, et al., 2015). panic-gogy, coined by kamenetz (2020), described feelings of faculty’s initial reaction to transitioning classes online, mid-semester. faculty showed remarkable grit, working extra hours and remaining determined to focus on their students’ success. faculty members remained intent on lifting their students through the tough time often while experiencing the same burdens themselves. as the semester progressed, they seemed to shift from ‘panic’ to ‘vitality’, defined by https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucxh-fyzd1gbvow5vqtnu0ba supporting postsecondary faculty transition to rapid online teaching & learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.158 46 dictionary.com (2020), is “exuberant...mental vigor...capacity for survival...”. vitality, combined with andragogy, the guidelines of educating adults (pratt, 1993), creates a term the researchers designate as “vita-gogy” (vitality + andragogy). lessons learned faculty member concerns about transitioning to online teaching and learning under time pressure is covered in this section. additionally, researchers share insights on findings around technology issues for faculty and students and continuity planning. faculty transition concerns faculty concerns that were addressed through webinars included, how to transition online, eadvising, and ways to communicate with students online. assistance was provided through individual coaching for a variety of topics, such as, setting up a zoom, recording lectures, structuring the online course, and converting materials to a digital format. larger problems such as managing an online presence, talking with mid-level leaders around communication and crucial conversations, and thinking through the process of delivering a truck driving training program online were tackled through group coaching. short videos were created and shared for smaller technical solutions, such as embedding a video into an lms, using web-conferencing tools, and managing active learning tools. figure 1. types of help requested: create a short video, one-onone coaching, and group coaching as seen in figure 1, the type of help most requested by the north carolina community college faculty is the creation of a short video (48.9%), then one-on-one coaching (31.9%), and lastly group coaching (19.1%). problems that required brainstorming or solution finding centered around requests for ferpa training, communication regarding future semesters from administrators, and how to handle student cheating in online environments. technology issues for students and faculty many students and a surprising number of faculty members at both the 4-year and 2-year colleges, reported having issues with access to high-speed internet at home, access to technology devices, and often found themselves sharing technology devices with other family members working from home and children learning remotely. students struggled with finding quiet places to complete coursework while confined to their living space, often with other family members or roommates. a large number of students reported struggling with accessing course content and writing papers using their smartphones when they did not have access to technology devices. both instructors and students mentioned issues with synchronous issues. academic continuity moving forward now that postsecondary education has experienced the speed with which education can be disrupted, crisis situations must regularly be anticipated before they arise. the continuity plans developed by nc state faculty were in response to covid-19. as such, the plans relied heavily on remote instruction assuming broadbased access to sophisticated technologies. however, this may not be the reality in the next disruption. faculty members must plan now for how they will respond for different scenarios such as weather incidents where student and faculty access to the internet and other technologies is limited (regehr et al., 2017). community colleges, who serve as engines for social mobility for surrounding communities, serve both non-traditional and underserved students (dougherty et al., 2017). in both community college and university settings, students often struggle with job, food, or housing insecurities that impede academic progress and create further challenges for completion (dougherty et al., 2017; goldrickrab, 2010; seidman, 2005).throughout the pandemic, community colleges provided continuity support to students in the form of resources, assignment revisions, increased help desk hours, and support for access to technology and devices and will continue in their role of serving the community. the virtual delivery of higher education courses shifted successfully because of the innovative ideas that emerged and the desire to keep students engaged. conclusion faculty at both the research-intensive land-grant university and the state community colleges were extremely student centered and remained focused on their students’ success throughout the semester. faculty often chose to push forward and lift their students, even while maneuvering themselves through stresses such as fear of pandemic exposure, partners working from home, financial and job insecurity, distance from loved ones, and children learning at home. faculty reached out for assistance, joined with other faculty and coaches to create support communities, shared resources, and brainstormed solutions to quickly adapt their teaching practices. references adam-turner, n., & burnett, d. d. (2018). leadership perspectives of digital learning and digital literacy adoption at rural community colleges. the community college enterprise, 24(2), 21-48. https://www.schoolcraft.edu/cce/24.2.21-48.pdf bailey, t. r., jaggars, s. s., & jenkins, d. (2015). redesigning america’s community colleges: a clearer path to student success. harvard university press. chen, s-j. (2007). instructional design strategies for intensive online courses: an objectivistconstructivist blended approach. journal of interactive online learning, 6(1). http://pdf.aminer.org/000/270/261/online_learning_support_in_constructi vist_environments.pdf https://provost.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pdf-form-version-nc-state-course-continuity-plan_-instructor-worksheet.pdf https://www.schoolcraft.edu/cce/24.2.21-48.pdf http://pdf.aminer.org/000/270/261/online_learning_support_in_constructivist_environments.pdf http://pdf.aminer.org/000/270/261/online_learning_support_in_constructivist_environments.pdf diane d. chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.158 47 day, t. (2015) academic continuity: staying true to teaching values and objectives in the face of course interruptions. teaching and learning inquiry, 3(1), 75-89. doi :https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.3.1.75 dictionary.com. (n.d.). vitality. in dictionary.com. retrieved august 20th 2020, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vitality doorneweert, b. (2014, october 17). the partnership canvas. partnership design. https://valuechaingeneration.com/2014/10/17/the-partnershipcanvas/ dougherty, k. j., lahr, h., & morest, v. s. (2017). reforming the american community college: promising changes and their challenges (ccrc working paper no. 98). community college research center, teachers college, columbia university website: https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/reforming-americancommunity-college-promising-changes-challenges.pdf goldrick-rab, s. (2010). challenges and opportunities for improving community college student success. review of educational research, 80(3), 437-469. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310370163 hodges, c., moore, s., lockee, b., trust, t., & bond, a. (2020, march 27). the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. educause review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/thedifference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning kamenetz, a. (2020, march 19). ‘panic-gogy’: teaching online classes during the coronavirus pandemic. npr. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817885991/panic-gogy-teaching-onlineclasses-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic pratt, d. d. (1993). andragogy after twenty-five years. new directions for adult and continuing education, 57(57), 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.36719935704 regehr, c., nelson, s., & hildyard, a. (2017). academic continuity planning in higher education. journal of business continuity & emergency planning, 11(1), 73–84. riedling, a. m. (2020). distance education: the technology–what you need to know to succeed, an overview. aace review (formerly aace journal), 18(1), 8-13. seidman, a. (ed.). (2005). college student retention: formula for student success. praeger. stone, c. (2017). opportunity through online learning: improving student access, participation and success in higher education. perth: the national centre for student equity in higher education (ncsehe), curtin university. thornton, c. (2020). insights from survey of spring 2020 instructors of record: preparedness for the transition to online instruction (full report). north carolina state university. executive summary available at https://provost.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/spring-2020instructor-survey-results-executive-summary.pdf thornton, c., chapman, d. & stewart k. (2020, december). insights from spring 2020: preparedness for transitioning to online instruction. lilly online conference (recorded presentation), november 30-december 5, 2020. warren, c., & bartlett, m. (2019, june 23). creative strategies to support student engagement while expanding resources. [conference proceedings]. distance learning administration 2019 annual conference, jekyll island, ga, united states. white, g. r. t, cicmil, s., upadhyah, a., subramanian, n., kumar, v., & dwivedi, a. (2019). the soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises: an exploratory study to understand process improvement. production planning & control, 30(10-12), 907-918, doi:10.1080/09537287.2019.1582098 zhao, y., lei, j., yan, b., lai, c., & tan, h. s. (2005). what makes the difference? a practical analysis of research on the effectiveness of distance education. teachers college record, 107(8), 1836. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.3.1.75 https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vitality https://valuechaingeneration.com/2014/10/17/the-partnership-canvas/ https://valuechaingeneration.com/2014/10/17/the-partnership-canvas/ https://valuechaingeneration.com/2014/10/17/the-partnership-canvas/ https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/reforming-american-community-college-promising-changes-challenges.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/reforming-american-community-college-promising-changes-challenges.pdf https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0034654310370163 https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817885991/panic-gogy-teaching-online-classes-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817885991/panic-gogy-teaching-online-classes-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.36719935704 https://provost.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/spring-2020https://provost.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/spring-2020https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2019.1582098 michelle e. bartlett north carolina state university carrol l. warren north carolina state university diane d. chapman north carolina state university introduction supporting faculty at a four-year, research-intensive university data collection four-year university faculty data overview rotl program supporting faculty at north carolina community colleges data collection for rotl transition program faculty perceptions of the rotl transition program lessons learned faculty transition concerns technology issues for students and faculty academic continuity moving forward conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 33 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.119 listening to and crafting stories: cultivating activism in online doctoral students carey borkoski johns hopkins university cborkoski@jhu.edu brianne roos loyola university maryland bhiggins@loyola.edu abstract the johns hopkins university (jhu) online edd program prepares students as scholar-practitioners who become leaders and agents of change across educational contexts. advocating for equity and social justice requires our students to not only immerse themselves in the relevant literature and learn the traditional skills of applied research but to master the art of communication through a sort of storytelling. storytelling, in this sense, represents a means to gather and analyze data and understand and integrate diverse perspectives to engage and persuade relevant stakeholders (moezzi et al., 2017). johns hopkins’ first-year edd programming and coursework emphasize the use of deficit-free language to understand people and problems, value the consideration of diverse perspectives, and structure students’ inquiry with a systems-approaches to explore contextual problems using a mixed methods research paradigm. together, the program's approach to student learning and practice-oriented courses and dissertation research contribute to training scholar-practitioners as activists who ask relevant questions, draw on multiple perspectives to craft potential solutions, adapt to a variety of contexts and circumstances, engage with diverse stakeholders, reflect on their own assumptions, and admit to and learn from mistakes throughout the process. through a detailed accounting and examination of the jhu onboarding features and processes, particular course content and assignments, as well as the interplay of these elements, this paper will demonstrate how attending to language, perspective taking, context, and research inquiry support the development of scholar-practitioners as activists. keywords communication through storytelling, deficit-free language, systems-approach, activist inquiry the johns hopkins university (jhu) online edd program prepares students as scholar-practitioners who become leaders and agents of change across educational contexts including k-12, higher education, and other education-related sectors. advocating for equity and social justice requires our students to not only immerse themselves in the relevant literature and learn the traditional dispositions, skills, and knowledge of trained researchers, but also to master the art of communication through a powerful tool, named storytelling. traditional research training might include an understanding of research methods paradigms, approaches to collecting and analyzing different sources of data, and effectively disseminating those findings. storytelling, as suggested, combines traditional research approaches with intentional understanding and the integration of diverse perspectives to engage and persuade relevant stakeholders (moezzi et al., 2017). in this paper, we will explore how doctoral student program onboarding and first-year coursework contribute to the development of edd students as activists. while students in this edd program are known as scholarpractitioners, it would also be accurate to suggest that these students are trained similarly to what warren et al. (2016) refer to as community-engaged scholars. in this capacity, students work with families, teachers, districts, schools, and students to identify and address important education problems. training these scholars requires a unique and different set of skills, knowledge, and dispositions than the traditional ph.d. student. for example, warren et al. (2016) explain that this countercultural approach requires students to cultivate a community that values the students’ whole selves, build horizontal relationships, attend to their own identity, tell evidence-informed stories, and develop identities that include community-engaged scholarship. jhu edd students graduate with a mix of traditional and nontraditional approaches to research methodology, ready to craft and share convincing stories of complex problems in education that lead to action through intentional intervention. more specifically, our students become education activists capable of integrating their knowledge of research methods with storytelling skills to investigate, understand, and disseminate http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ listening to and crafting stories impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.119 34 complex problems of practice (pop) through an examination of the literature and analysis of relevant evidence, including quantitative data and the lived experiences of people in their education contexts. onboarding doctoral students are not necessarily protest-organizing and rally-attending activists, but jacoby (2017) suggests that these scholar-practitioners activists take many forms and engage in a variety of activities, such as critical reflection and compromise, which contribute to both identifying, interrogating, and addressing problems found in their institution. our edd students bring with them a wealth of practitioner knowledge, and they learn how integrate their contextual understanding with their new knowledge and training to identify and address real and complex problems in education, and look towards implementing change by engaging with stakeholders, rather than at stakeholders. the first-year edd curriculum emphasizes the knowledge and application of traditional research methods paradigms with a focus on mixed methods, structured inquiry through a systems-approach, the use of deficit-free language, many ways of knowing (hartman, 1990), and the consideration of diverse perspectives to explore contextual problems. the program includes traditional coursework, dissertation research, and a recently added formal, first-year onboarding process. together, these approaches and strategies transition incoming students into scholar-practitioners prepared to address the myriad of educational challenges, beginning with their own pop. onboarding is described in corporate literature as part of the process of integrating employees into the culture of an organization (i.e., organizational socialization) to facilitate their success in a new position (bauer et al., 2007). holmes et al. (2016) suggest a similar process of onboarding online doctoral students, with explicit attention to the culture of the program, including procedures, practices, and beliefs. this onboarding process at jhu begins upon students’ acceptance to the program and extends through the first year of the three-year program. onboarding includes synchronous and asynchronous engagement, with attention to community-building, perspective-taking, and deficit-free language that prepares students for deep engagement with coursework, dissertation research, and education activism. each cohort of doctoral students is assigned a faculty member as their cohort lead, and a teaching assistant (ta) who came from an earlier cohort. one of the first onboarding goals that both the cohort lead and ta establish is a culture of inclusion and respect among the cohort members in the hopes of promoting engagement with the students’ own team and community participants. mertens (2007) suggests that inclusion and continuous assessment of identity and power are critical for transformative research. during the onboarding process, students share their perspectives on various aspects of online learning in preparation for online doctoral studies. for example, the faculty lead for the cohort asks students about anticipated areas of comfort and challenges in the program, and responds to questions including time management, efficacy using technology, course content, and the embedded dissertation model. students then begin to consider the perspectives of various stakeholders based on their pop during onboarding meetings. the cohort lead asks questions such as: "what do you think your students' parents would say about the problem?" and "how do you think your superintendent might view the problem?" to encourage an alternative point of view. these alternative viewpoints set the stage for student activism as they will need to engage with a variety of stakeholders (stufflebeam, 2003) when dissertation work transitions from problem-focused to intervention-focused during the second year of the program. throughout the first year of the program, students learn to describe their proposed pops using deficit-free language. additionally, students are asked to bring their whole selves to this process as a means to interact and participate in authentic ways. the program does not ask students to assimilate or fit into a particular culture determined by faculty members’ research interests. rather, students bring their own relevant and contextual problems to the program and they actively work to contribute to and shape their own learning experiences and communities around the problem. part of this process includes attending to, naming, and celebrating the skills and knowledge that students already have when they enter the program using deficit-free language. as an example, some doctoral students dwell on what they do not bring to the program (e.g., research experience, statistical expertise); that is, students focus on what they lack. the cohort lead and ta work, very early, to change this story to focus on students’ current assets and contributions as scholar-practitioners with unique perspectives. being new to research does not negate the expertise that students bring to the program, and students are called on to participate using their contextual expertise regularly in onboarding activities and coursework. shifting students’ mindsets from what they lack to what they bring may, in turn, help to shift their perspectives on participants, research contexts, and their articulated pop. shifting perspectives just as many students arrive to the program describing themselves as lacking research knowledge and skills, students also tend to describe their pop related to a factor that is lacking. for example, a student may describe their own students as having a lack of motivation or their fellow teachers as lacking skills to effectively integrate technology in their classrooms. during the onboarding process, students identify and expand their perspective on their position by participating a strengths-based appreciative inquiry approach and related activities (cooperrider & whitney, 2000) to acknowledge and build on their expertise as scholarpractitioners. similarly, the faculty lead for the cohort facilitates small group workshops in which students describe their pop using deficit free language by considering what is happening in their contexts, as opposed to what is not happening. workshops involve challenging students to discuss their pop by considering the following questions: 1. what is the problem? 2. what is bothering you in your context that lead you to this problem? 3. why does it matter? 4. how would you describe the problem based on what you see? warren et al. (2016) suggest students’ lived experiences of an education problem provide necessary depth to a research project and also reveal a student researcher’s identity related to the problem. the workshops begin to shed light on students’ perspectives as single perspectives on the problem and include questions about the specific contexts in which students work, with borkoski and roos impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.119 35 inquiry about what makes the situation a problem from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives. as students participate in workshops to develop their pop, they also engage in perspective-taking on their own edd learning experiences. in the context of this discussion of training education activists with a combination of traditional and nontraditional approaches, the edd coursework focuses on the traditional training found in first-year courses for doctoral students. our course instructors rely on a systems approach to examining problems of practice, engage with diverse literature to understand and define their research problems, and train students in research methods and the application of these approaches to the students’ own work. through course readings, synchronous and asynchronous discussions, and a variety of assignments, students learn the requisite knowledge and skills of a researcher. however, while the emphasis of the coursework is on the more traditional dispositions of researchers, such as literature synthesis, research methods, academic writing, and data analyses, students also continue to explore the value of working with and in a community, diverse perspectives and data sources, and revisit their identity as they investigate their pop with their instructors, advisors, and peers. these paths of exploration may be considered contrary to the more formal phd. for example, edd faculty intentionally model the use of deficit-free language during synchronous sessions and in writing through discussion posts and feedback on students' written work. additionally, students' course assignments and literature reviews are informed by multiple diverse perspectives on their pop, including historical, sociological, anthropological, and economic standpoints. students learn about how each discipline applies to education and then apply the disciplinary perspectives to their own pop. consideration of multidisciplinary perspectives on education problems and their own pop primes students to use a systems approach in their research because students are getting accustomed to looking at problems through perspectives beyond their own. a systems approach provides a structure for students and requires them to consider diverse perspectives about both their own edd journeys and their research focus. students are introduced to several systems frameworks such as ecological systems theory (bronfenbrenner, 1994) and improvement science (bryk et al., 2015) to learn about how systems thinking frames inquiry into problems. students construct concept maps to display their systems and begin to cast a wide net to learn about a broad range of factors that contribute to their pop. oftentimes students enter the program with strong and well-informed, but somewhat narrow ideas about the factors contributing to their pop. applying systems theories and improvement science concepts to problems in papers, synchronous and asynchronous discussion, and through graphic depiction helps students to recognize the contribution of multiple and varied disciplines and the range of factors that contribute to problems in education. as concept maps expand, describing a problem using deficit-free language gradually becomes more natural as the contributing factors are illustrated and the problem emerges as not what is lacking, but rather what is occurring in a particular context. cultivating storytellers students enter the research methods course with multidisciplinary perspectives of their pop and an understanding of the “complex networks of many interacting variables” relevant to their research (cabrera & cabrera, 2015, p.12). the first assignment in the initial research methods course asks students to complete an observation of their own contexts. students look at their schools, offices, or classrooms with the perspective of a researcher and they begin to demonstrate that their perceived problem of practice is indeed a problem and that it exists in context. faculty feedback on students’ observations guides students to recognize biases and encourages them to question assumptions that may or may not align with the reality of their contexts. the observation assignment and subsequent research methods work with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods of inquiry to systematically guide students from thinking as practitioners to thinking as practitioner-scholars whose work is to empirically examine a problem with an open mind, rather than with confirmation bias. students’ perspectives are broadened as they learn and apply methods of scholarly inquiry, continuing the process of transitioning from practitioners to practitioner-scholars. research methods coursework emphasizes the mixed methods paradigm as a pragmatic research approach that capitalizes on the relative strengths of quantitative and qualitative inquiry by coupling measurable survey data with contextual accounts of participants’ lived experiences (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004), thus continuing to prioritize multiple perspectives. the edd curriculum integrates traditional research methods training with opportunities to learn how to effectively synthesize literature, articulate research findings, and use meaningful storytelling to convey their research to diverse audiences. clark and rossiter (2008) suggest storytelling is a way to “make sense of chaos” so that elements of the problem come together through linkages to stakeholders’ actual experiences (p. 62). students are uniquely positioned to learn about perspectives, opinions, and facts different from their own views on the problem. their own perspectives may be challenged but listening and empathizing with diverse stakeholders is valuable (hendriks et al., 2019) because shared experiences and connections across diverse stakeholders allow people to think creatively about solutions to problems and to envision a different future. like edd students who arrive at the program with a problem articulated from their own perspectives, vygotsky (1978) asserts that people first draw on their own experiences, then expand on those experiences to include others' experiences using imagination (arroyo, 2017). the edd program cultivates student creativity and imagination through community building, scholarly dialogue, the development of data literacy skills, research methods and design, critical reading of relevant literature, and scholarly discourse. together, these become the storytelling tools of emerging education activists. the combination of program features contributes to cultivating doctoral students who finish their first year having fully considered their identified pop and potential mechanisms by which to address this contextual problem. early onboarding that includes a vibrant student learning community allows for exploration and discourse of difficult topics and perspectives. with these first onboarding experiences, students enter their first doctoral courses with a changed mindset ready to examine their pop with a new set of questions and perspectives. finally, while much of the coursework focuses on the traditional approaches to research, the coursework and the instructors also make space for conversations and work that reinforces the important features introduced and examined during the onboarding. for example, students learn about reflexivity and member checking (guba, 1981) to continually check in with themselves to make sure they consider their own biases and the voices of participants. listening to and crafting stories impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.119 36 moreover, the program encourages students to consider a mixed methods approach to their dissertation research and mertens (2018) described mixed methods as a transformative approach to address complex problems that involve multiple stakeholders. she also proposed a value branch of inquiry in which researchers use mixed methods, with a focus on qualitative inquiry, to discover the realities that various stakeholders construct around a problem. using a mixed method paradigm asks students to develop a comprehensive perspective and plan for their problem of practice by adopting and practicing research inquiries that reflect respect, inclusivity, and the multiple realities of their stakeholders. conclusion the symbiosis between first-year coursework and the onboarding programming contributes to furthering student development as scholar-practitioners. throughout the first year, edd students learn how to tell the compelling stories of an education pop by understanding diverse views, integrating stakeholder voices, and crafting solutions to support social justice and equity. students ask relevant questions, draw on multiple perspectives to craft potential solutions, adapt to a variety of contexts and circumstances, engage with diverse stakeholders, reflect on their own assumptions, and admit to and learn from mistakes throughout the process. intentional onboarding programming and first-year coursework focused on diverse perspectives, systems approaches, deficit-free language, and mixed methods inquiry set the stage for first-year online doctoral students to transition from practitioner-expert novice-scholars to wellinformed scholar-practitioners who aspire to educational activism. references arroyo, k. k. (2017). creative policymaking: taking the lessons of creative placemaking to scale. artivate: a journal of entrepreneurship in the arts, 6, 58–72. bauer, t. n., bodner, t., erdogan, b., truxillo, d. m., & tucker, j. s. (2007). newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: a metaanalytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. journal of applied psychology, 92(3), 707-721. https://doi.org/10.1037/00219010.92.3.707 bronfenbrenner, u. (1994). ecology models of human development. in t. n. postlewaite & husen, t. (eds.), international encyclopedia of education (2nd ed., vol. 3, pp. 1643-1647). elsevier. bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard educational press. cabrera, d., & cabrera, l. (2015). systems thinking made simple: new hope for solving wicked problems. odyssean press. clark, m. c., & rossiter, m. (2008). narrative learning in adulthood. new directions for adult and continuing education, 119, 61-70. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.306 cooperrider, d. l., & whitney, d. (2000). a positive revolution in change: appreciative inquiry. in d. l. cooperrider, p. f. sorensen, jr., d. whitney, and t. f. yaeger (eds.), appreciative inquiry: rethinking human organization toward a positive theory of change (pp. 3–27). stipes publishing. guba, e. g. (1981). criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries. educational technology research and development, 29, 75– 91. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 hartman, a. (1990). many ways of knowing. social work, 35, 3-4. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/35.1.3 hendriks, c. m., ercan, s. a., & duus, s. (2019). listening in polarised controversies: a study of listening practices in the public sphere. policy sciences, 52, 137-151. holmes, b., willis, k., & woods, e. (2016). strategic onboarding of online doctoral students: creating a pathway to academic persistence. asian journal of social sciences and management studies, 3(2), 136-139. jacoby, b. (2017). the new student activism: support students as agents of social change. journal of college and character, 18, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587x.2016.1260479 johnson, r. b., & onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2004). mixed methods research: a research paradigm whose time has come. educational researcher, 33, 14–26. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x033007014 mertens, d. (2007). transformative paradigm: mixed methods and social justice. journal of mixed methods research. 1. 212-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689807302811. mertens, d. m. (2018). mixed methods design in evaluation. thousand oaks: sage. moezzi, m., janda, k. b., & rotmann, s. (2017). using stories, narratives, and storytelling in energy and climate change research. energy research & social science, 31, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.034 stufflebeam, d. l. (2003). the cipp model for evaluation. in d. l. stufflebeam & t. kellaghan (eds.), the international handbook of evaluation (pp. 31– 61). kluwer academic publishers. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. harvard university press. warren, m. r., park, s. o., & tieken, m. c. (2016). the formation of community-engaged scholars: a collaborative approach to doctoral training in education research. harvard educational review, 86, 233260. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.86.2.233 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 https://doi.org/10.1080/2194587x.2016.1260479 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.034 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766777 listening to and crafting stories: cultivating activism in online doctoral students carey borkoski johns hopkins university brianne roos loyola university maryland onboarding shifting perspectives cultivating storytellers conclusion references microsoft word hesbol vf.docx new  articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  united  states  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.37 design-based school improvement a practical guide for educational leaders kristina hesbol university of denver kristina.hesbol@du.edu rick mintrop: design-based school improvement: a practical guide for education leaders. cambridge, ma: harvard educational press, 2016. 280pp. paperback: $33.00 isbn 978-1612509020 abstract design-based school improvement offers a unique alternative to traditional school improvement literature by introducing design thinking to the school improvement process. this book is an exceptional and practical guide for educational leaders whose goals center on generating equity-informed solutions to persistent problems of practice. this innovative process frames a conversation differently about leading improvement, not only change, in today’s schools. grounded in organizational change research, the book is a welcome roadmap for a systemic improvement process that engages a variety of constituents. it challenges leadership teams to identify “wicked” and persistent problems of practice, those with potential for resolution within a specific timeframe. anyone who has engaged in the implementation of a paradigmatically different process would attest to that being easier said than done. mintrop’s groundbreaking approach provides concrete support for transformative leaders who want to use such a significant and innovative approach to improve schools, addressing the core challenges of equity and resulting in improved learning outcomes for every student. keywords school improvement, design thinking, equity, improvement science, actionable problem of practice for decades, educational reformers have relied on traditional scientific approaches to attempt to improve teaching and learning. each reform promised to be the long-awaited answer to the constellation of complex challenges found in today’s american public schools, but the result has been predictably myopic, first-order change. rick mintrop’s compelling book, design-based school improvement: a practical guide for educational leaders (2016) offers a thoughtful alternative, as a paradigm-shifting contribution to the school improvement literature. it is designed to “work the dialectic” (cochran-lytle & smith, 2009), the purported gulf between the role of practice and the role of scholarship. seldom does a book present such opportunity for deep and broad impact on the field as this one. it is a practical guide for leaders who value school improvement grounded in equity, and whose goals center on generating equity-informed solutions to persistent problems of practice. supported by more than ten years of experience leading design development projects as the founding director of the doctoral program in the leadership for educational equity program (leep) at the university of california berkeley, mintrop provides the reader with an innovative process that frames a conversation differently about leading not only change, but also improvement in today’s schools. throughout the book, he draws an unambiguous distinction between change and improvement. in this book, mintrop relies on a sociocultural perspective to reframe school improvement as a complex and persistent problem of practice, as anyone who has engaged in the messy process understands. he invites school leaders to think deeply about their complex educational contexts. one of the distinctive approaches offered by this book is the guidance to consider which urgent problems can be addressed with a locally implemented solution hesbol impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.37 54 within a specified time frame of a design development study. readers are encouraged to contemplate which problems of practice are appropriate to take on in their own contexts. mintrop suggests that most of these are ill-structured and complex, and must go through a process to be framed and defined, spending energy only on what he refers to as “wicked problems” for which no conventional solution exists. design-based school improvement guides the reader to identify structural barriers that create inequities, to promote deep and equitable change that supports access to high quality, to use best instructional practices for every learner, and to support teachers to include multiple perspectives in their pedagogy (kose, 2007; marshall & oliva, 2010; shields, 2010; theoharis, 2007). by positioning school improvement as a complex and persistent problem of practice, as opposed to a linear series of procedural steps, school improvement teams act as transformative agents of social change (kumaravadivelu, 2003). understanding the problem using “practitioner research and applied theory as tools for change” (perry, 2016, p. 200) provides school teams with a focus that not only addresses the identified problem, but also builds capacity for solving problems that will be identified in the future. design thinking is foundational to this approach, because it is a process in which cycles of iterative, evidence-based inquiry yield designs that are co-created, as opposed to decades of school improvement models that are imposed on people. mintrop concentrates attention on identifying problems of practice, addressing them, as well as co-constructing solutions for them. he defines a co-constructed problem of practice (perry & imig, 2008; perry, 2016) as a problem for which a remedy is urgently sought that can be locally implemented (p. 23). elements of improvement science are integrated throughout this volume, including those described by bryk, gomez, grunow, & lemahieu (2015) in learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. particularly notable is the discussion about drivers to leverage change, a process that yields significant contextual impact which has been traditionally foreign to educators. mintrop asserts that the importance, understanding, and application of design-based school improvement for educational leaders are at the core of an effective school improvement process. context-specific design steps offer both practitioners and scholars a novel and iterative approach to improving both process and impact, that is being used with increasing frequency to create meaningful improvement in an array of educational contexts. design thinking is the signature pedagogy at leep, linking an actionable problem to an intervention, and it serves as the interstitial space that supports mintrop’s school improvement process. an unambiguous theme focused of equity-oriented instructional leadership to improve schools (brown, 2006, marshall & oliva, 2010, mckenzie, skrla, & scheurich, 2006; zambo & isai, 2013) is threaded throughout the book. grounded in the foundational work of such forerunners of design-based thinking as ideo pioneers tim brown and tom and dave kelley (brown, 2012), mintrop’s work translates the major ideas of design thinking and applies them to practical design knowledge to improve schools. the author describes a boundary spanning process, integrating elements of design thinking with focused attention on confronting data. he designed this book with an introduction, four parts, and an appendix. each section is balanced with what he calls “theoretical excursions”, linking narratives from practice with design-based innovation, where the experiential accounts of both problem-solving and design-based work of an elementary school principal, a middle school principal, a high school principal, and a district assistant superintendent are presented. each leader faces design challenges that we follow as readers, as the elements of design-based school improvement are applied. these field-based, experiential narrative scenarios of four school and district leaders show the application of abstract concepts into practice. their co-created design-based studies are small-scale, but make a difference for equitable student learning outcomes in their schools using the plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycle (deming, 1986). the final section of each chapter provides practical advice for principals and other educational leaders who want to learn more about engaging in equity-framed instructional leadership. former berkeley doctoral students mahua baral, liz zumpe, and john hall make contributions throughout this volume, expanding on identifying the problem, developing a theory of action, and implementing and iterating interventions. anyone who has engaged in the implementation of a paradigmatically different (kuhn, 1969) process would attest to that being easier said than done. mintrop’s exceptional ground-breaking ap design based school improvement impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.37 55 proach provides a guide for transformative leaders who want to improve schools, addressing the core challenges of equity. the foundation of this book is built on a rich description of theory, including organizational change and improvement science. mintrop invites the reader to consider unconventional approaches that result in innovative learning improvement for every student. he emphasizes a clear distinction between change and improvement (zambo & isai, 2013), guiding the reader to focus on strategies that actually improve student learning outcomes. design-based school improvement suggests that all successful improvement is the result of context sensitivity. design-based school improvement contributes to the scholarly and applied literature, as well as to our practical understanding of using improvement science and design thinking methods to lead the systemic improvement of learning outcomes. as similar problems of practice are identified and innovative interventions are generated and successfully applied, networked improvement communities (bryk, gomez, grunow, & lemahieu, 2015) can emerge, collecting and sharing data to improve learning outcomes. while the process is highly contextualized, the identification of wicked problems of practice is ultimately finite. thus, this book serves as a guide for developing inclusive, democratic communities of practice (wenger, 1998). mintrop offers a thoughtful alternative to mainstream school improvement literature. designbased school improvement is a highly pragmatic book that includes both theoretical frameworks and practical guidance for educational leaders, from the classroom to the board room, who are engaged in the complex task of equity-oriented instructional leadership. the strategies outlined in this boundary spanning book provide innovative while pragmatic support to educators across the field, including teachers, principals, superintendents, board members, and university leadership preparation faculty members who are engaged in redesigning the preparation of leaders and systems that guide improved learning outcomes for every student. references brown, k. m. (2006). leadership for social justice and equity: evaluating a transformative framework and andragogy. educational administration quarterly, 42(5), 700-745. brown, t. (2012, november 19). design thinking: 5 inspiring social design pioneers. retrieved from https://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=lpbylbgzw&paged=18 bryk, a.s., gomez, l.m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p.g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. cambridge, ma: harvard education press. cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s.l. (2011). commentary: changing perspectives on practitioner research. learning landscapes, 4(2), 1723. deming, w.e. (1986). out of the crisis. cambridge, ma: mit center for advanced engineering study. kose, b. w. (2007). principal leadership for social justice: uncovering the content of teacher professional development. journal of school leadership, 17(3), 276-312. kuhn, t. (1969). the structure of scientific revolution. chicago: the university of chicago press. kumaravadivelu, b. (2003). beyond methods: macrostrategies for language teaching. new haven: yale university press. marshall, c., & oliva, m. (2010). leadership for social justice: making revolutions in education. ny: allyn & bacon. mckenzie, k.b., skrla, l., & scheurich, j.j. (2006). preparing instructional leaders for social justice. journal of school leadership, 16(2), 158-170. perry, j.a., & imig, d.g. (2008). a stewardship of practice in education. change. 40, 42-48. perry, j.a. (2016). the scholarly practitioner as steward of the practice. in valerie a. storey & author (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation development and research methods (300-313). hershey, pa: igi global. shields, c.m. (2010). transformative leadership: working for equity in diverse contexts. educational administration quarterly (46)4, 558-589. theoharis, g. (2007). social justice educational leaders and resistance: toward a theory of social justice leadership. educational administration quarterly, 43(2), 221-258. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. new york: cambridge university press, 1998 zambo, d. & isai, s. (2012). action research and the educational doctorate: new promises and visions. journal of research on leadership education, 8(1), 97-112. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 53 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.182 the improvement science dissertation in practice book review jacqueline hawkins university of houston jhawkins@uh.edu monica l. martens university of houston mlmarten@central.uh.edu jill alexa perry, debby zambo and robert crow: the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. maine: myers education press, 2020. 180 pp. paperback: $29.95 isbn 9781975503208 keywords improvement science, dissertation in practice the authors begin by contextualizing the continual refinement of education doctorate (edd) programs, in designing a professional practice doctorate (chapter 1). specifically, the focus is on those programs that have been connected to the council of graduate schools (cgs) and, more recently, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). the authors’ historical discussion makes it clear that there has been institutional disagreement about what to call the “dissertation,” how to structure it, and how to differentiate it from a phd experience. over time, general consensus was reached on central tenets. the final product should: address a problem of practice (pop); be applied in nature; and, be developed throughout the doctoral program, rather than after completion of coursework. during the past decade, these tenets have generated a diverse collection of final products from edd programs that reflects the needs of students in their roles as scholar-practitioners. as a result, these products also have led to program redesigns to better support students’ varied goals. the cped tenets, as well as cped members’ guiding principles for program design, co-occurred with development of the carnegie foundation’s six core principles of improvement. the authors’ cross-lacing of cped and improvement science (is) principles provides the foundation for the balance of this book that focuses on the improvement science dissertation in practice (isdip). the book describes an evolutionary sequence of the research experience for students conducting an isdip. thus, the book is helpful to faculty who are new to guiding the isdip experience for a graduate student. it is also a pragmatic text for faculty in edd programs that are undergoing redesign. finally, it is a resource for students who are beginning their isdip experience and learning about applied research. the next chapter leads us into this process. it is aptly called new mindsets and a new dissertation frame (chapter 2). unlike a phd dissertation, the focus of an isdip will not directly mirror the work of a major professor. rather, the focus is on the challenges that doctoral students face in their daily work. this distinction should be discussed in the first semester of the doctoral program and form the backdrop of visualizing an applied research experience. as students progress during subsequent semesters, they continue to identify and hone their own actionable problems of practice (chapter 3) and are encouraged to focus on a specific usercentered aspect. they evaluate the feasibility of their studies with faculty. students also develop the skills necessary to become more strategic change agents. faculty are focused on practice and the creation of change agent graduates from their programs. consequently, the reviewing the literature: a critical skill (chapter 4) involves both scholarly and practitioner-based educational resources that inform and frame the problem. this supports the development of a theory of improvement. students begin to connect components that will effect change and guide their analyses in their isdips. they also begin to distinguish themselves as having a unique point of view on a problem of practice. driver diagrams and a theory of improvement (chapter 5) explains how faculty can help students to organize components, prioritize actions, and make their thinking processes explicit. in combination with chapter 6, we foresee these chapters as frequently consulted texts because of the procedures and tools offered. developing improvement measures (chapter 6) engages scholars in determining the types of measures that are applicable to their research questions. outcome, driver, process, and balancemeasures each perform a function within implementation studies. determining when to engage which measure under what circumstances is key to the successful completion of an isdip. additionally, this chapter supports faculty to develop alternative course content. specifically, alternative options in relation to traditional research methods are discussed, while attending to the importance of maintaining the rigor and discipline of the profession. then, in testing the theory/change and final write-up (chapter 7) students and faculty are guided in mapping out the phases of the pop research to produce the various facets (e.g., chapters) for their isdip. this experience prepares students to http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9117-2315 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3270-7871 hawkins & martens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.182 54 adhere to a process. it also enables them to be more successful change agents after graduation. the book ends with implications: challenges and lessons learned (chapter 8) in which recognition of the speed of change (or lack thereof) in higher education is highlighted and the work of faculty who are redesigning programs in cped-influenced institutions is discussed. many of those redesigns begin with the end goals in mind. this has the effect of prioritizing admission. specifically, programs are backwards mapping from the dissertations to the admissions process—from admitting students who already identify with a problem of practice and helping engage them in improvement science techniques throughout the program. redesign also helps faculty to better align coursework with isdips, which in turn supports students to generating components of the isdip throughout coursework and practical experiences. for whom is this book most helpful? the authors provide it as a guide for faculty, committee members, and students. as a faculty member who leads a cped-influenced edd program, i can wholeheartedly attest to the book’s value to all those individuals. as our programs, coursework, and research expectations focus more on improvement science and user-centered problems of practice, we are often tasked with adjusting our thinking as faculty members— from a self-determined research agenda to an outward-facing response to the needs of practicing educators. this adjustment has occurred relatively quickly, given the reputation of universities being slow to change; it is helpful to have a text that provides both the rationale for the adjustments and a blueprint from which programmatic change can be generated. moreover, we often supplement doctoral committees with both faculty members who are accustomed to the phd process and outside members who are in practice. this is beneficial to the student and often necessary in edd programs with few full-time faculty. these outside members would benefit from this book that puts edd research into perspective and explains the urgency to address problems of practice. for some this is a different approach to research. with this book we can proactively reduce misunderstandings about the approach, relevance, and rigor of the isdip. by extension, we can better engage non edd faculty in practitioner-based research, cross-disciplinary approaches, and grant-funded projects that are improvement science-based. from a student perspective, the book is a map for their edd experience and a future resource after graduation. specifically, this is not only a volume that students will use in response to problems of practice during their program, it is a volume that they will likely use to respond to problems of practice throughout their career. while in our program, students have commented on the utility of the text and where it might be consulted in their studies. the chapter components, examples, and tools are relevant for their daily work. we also see an additional audience—that of administrators and deans, superintendents and principals, and directors of educational non-profits and organizations. as with our doctoral students, they will find the concepts and tools useful in managing change projects, especially as the is approach probably was not taught when they were in college. when should the book be introduced to students? we recommend reading the book at the beginning of the program or the semester before entry to help them develop an overview of the process, which is described in a conversational manner with appropriate context. this helps them to understand why we practice certain activities in a specific order to become better improvement science practitioners. students will still struggle, such as when defining their pop. however, this book places that struggle in the context of a process and with an awareness of various program components. also, once students understand the process, they can connect their course assignments more fully. this may play a role in moderating the learning process and de-emphasize a rush towards the end. concerning the book’s resources, process steps, examples, and tools are valuable features that exemplify the components of an isdip. they are evident in every chapter, forming a predictable and reassuring narrative. faculty and students will consult them often. process steps help the reader to work toward the goal of completing a project—not only the isdip but any professional endeavor. the graphic organizer examples help the reader to see their new knowledge within a visual structure. graphic organizers are supported with the text-based examples that can increase understanding. template tools help the reader to hone their skills in organizing their problem of practice. the chapter summaries and guided questions help the reader to gauge their knowledge and generate discussion in class. our students have appreciated how the book explicitly connects assignments based on improvement science to their final product, the isdip. concerning challenges, the authors discuss the essential tension between the dual roles of being a practitioner invested in the success of an intervention and that of the impartial researcher. the authors clarify research positionality for students in edd programs. likewise, power and privilege in improvement work are addressed. we recommend that faculty raise awareness of these challenges early, especially when reading chapter 2, which sets up discussion about the mindset of edd research. another challenge for faculty and students concerns the plando-study-act (pdsa) cycle that is a central principle in is research. students in edd programs are diverse in backgrounds, job positions, positionality in a workplace hierarchy, and job longevity. sometimes these aspects change during their time in the program. it is our experience that few candidates can conduct a full pdsa cycle for their isdip, for reasons that are beyond their control and ours. the ideally situated student, as presented in the comparison of suitability for a phd program versus an edd program, does not occur commonly. many edd students need the degree to obtain the type of influence that would enable them to complete pdsa cycle research. so what does this mean for development of a research project? the dilemma can be mitigated by devising projects that situate the student in a part of the pdsa cycle and/or embark on qualitative or quantitative research that serves an inquiry that is based in is (e.g., content analysis, project design, or program evaluation). as a result, students will develop essential habits and professional competencies of an improvement science practitioner and leader. in fact, we can learn a great deal from students’ experiences about how they adapt research projects during the program to fit their professional goals and the requirements of the degree. often these stories are shared informally or at cped conferences by recent graduates. we suggest that this book be used to extend that conversation and engage faculty about the variety of doctoral work that can be accomplished and situated within pdsa cycles and an is framework. perhaps a subsequent book is needed that connects vignettes of student and faculty experiences in authentic idsip situations to each chapter. did the process go as anticipated and the improvement science dissertation in practice book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.182 55 what adjustments were made, for example? additional stories from our graduates and faculty would benefit us all. in summary, the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students, provides a unique addition to the information available for those engaged in isdips. the format is easily accessible; the breadth of the process steps, examples, and tools support both faculty, committee members, and students to deliver improved research products. consequently, this work has the potential to improve outcomes in practice. the book can be used as an introductory text for the first class in a program, a reference text for other courses, and a tool to support the design and development of the isdip. additionally, it is a valuable resource for faculty new to the isdip process, especially in established edd programs. it has been recommended to the faculty in our program, and we are incorporating the text into our reading list for students. it is clear already that the guide has helped them to become more organized, think more deeply about their current and future work, and engage better in collaborative action. the simplicity of the use of the six-step process as a frame for the isdip, and the practical examples, provide all stakeholders with a sense of hope that these projects can be done and done well. jacqueline hawkins university of houston monica l. martens university of houston (1) jill alexa perry, debby zambo and robert crow: the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. maine: myers education press, 2020. 180 pp. paperback: $29.95 isbn 9781975503208 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 25 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 doctoral students living, leading, and learning during a pandemic debra bukko csu stanislaus dbukko@csustan.edu jaskaran dhesi csu stanislaus jdhesi@csustan.edu abstract purpose: the purpose of this study was to understand the impact of covid-19 on doctoral students’ personal, professional, and academic roles and factors contributing to their persistence during the pandemic. research methods: the researchers engaged in qualitative research at a california state university cpedinspired ed.d. program, using semi-structured interviews, document analysis and a focus group. data were analyzed through the cped mentoring and advising framework, transformative learning theory, and selfauthorship theory. results: three themes emerged: a convergence of roles within home and virtual spaces, leading in a complex and uncertain time, and caring relationships encourage persistence. implications: participants experienced increased self-awareness and development of cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dimensions of self. relationships between cohort members and with faculty were integral to student persistence during a time of significant change and uncertainty. recommendations for practice within ed.d. programs and for future research are offered. keywords education doctorate, transformative learning, self-authorship, mentoring, cohort engaging in an educational leadership doctoral program is a significant undertaking. accomplished working professionals experience knowledge construction and deconstruction as well as critical reflection and meaning making that may prompt them to question long-held beliefs and professional practices (collay & cooper, 2008; cunningham, 2018; stevens-long et al., 2012). this experience creates disorientation in the most stable contexts. instability emerged in march 2020 when california’s governor and the state’s public health officer issued the covid-19 stay at home order (exec. order no. n-33-20, 2020) mandating all californians stay in their residences unless meeting essential needs or performing essential work. this created a dramatic change in how individuals live, work, and study. as a result of covid-19 and the california stay at home order, ed.d. scholars transitioned from face-to-face to virtual learning spaces. as professionals, they led educational communities through a similar transition, rapidly adapting policies and practices in unprecedented and uncertain circumstances. further compounding the complexity, doctoral students became teachers as their children engaged in distance learning. despite pervasive challenges created by the pandemic, students persisted in their pursuit of an education doctorate. the purpose of this study was to understand the ways doctoral students were impacted by and responded to the academic, professional, and personal challenges created by the covid-19 pandemic. we also sought to understand experiences influential to their academic persistence. literature review doctoral studies provide rich opportunities for knowledge creation, critical reflection, self-awareness, and social capital development for working professionals. in ed.d. programs, scholarpractitioners learn about foundations of education, policies, and practices to challenge and transform those foundations and to use research to understand and to innovate in complex educational institutions (burnard et al., 2018; cped, 2020; perry, 2015; wergin, 2011). a professional doctorate in education facilitates knowledge acquisition and development of the “habits of hand, heart and mind” (perry, 2015, p. 59) needed to transform educational practice. in ed.d. programs, scholars experience disorienting dilemmas and transformative learning (collay & cooper, 2008; cunningham, 2018) as they develop cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:dbukko@csustan.edu mailto:jdhesi@csustan.edu doctoral students living, leading, and learning during a pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 26 dimensions of self (baxter magolda, 2008). throughout the process, scholar-practitioners build on their knowledge and lived experiences, co-create knowledge with others, and lead to improve educational experiences and outcomes in their institutions (buss et al, 2017; george, 2017; perry, 2015; porfilio et al., 2019). this integration of scholarship and practice is supported by the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) and is recommended by wergin and alexandre (2016) who argue for doctoral programs that promote collaborative integration of professional expertise, organizational rather than individual excellence, and a focus on problem-solving rather than conflict avoidance. an integrated approach requires an ed.d. program structure designed to both challenge and support students (cped, 2020; pratt et al., 2015; wergin & alexandre, 2016). support systems include a cohort model and mentoring that honors student and faculty knowledge and experience (cped, 2020; perry, 2015). a review of literature related to ed.d. program components is synthesized into subsections examining leadership identity development, agency in learning and leadership, pedagogy, a cohort model structure, and mentoring. the literature review concludes with subsections on the theoretical frameworks of transformative learning and self-authorship. leaders in learning communities as working professionals, ed.d. students are leaders who may not have conceptualized their identities as researchers and scholars (chapman, 2017; hall & burns, 2009). central to the professional doctorate experience is a “pedagogic model that infuses theory with practice and supports students’ intellectual and professional development as reflective learners, practitioners, and scholars” (wergin & alexandre, 2016, p. 235). unlike graduate programs in which faculty knowledge is prioritized over that of students, this model features an intentional and integrated focus on shared learning, critical reflection, and examination of assumptions (perry, 2015; pratt et al., 2015; scott et al., 2004; wergin & alexandre, 2016). knowledge and skill development is framed in environments characterized by situated learning (brown et al., 1989) in which habits of mind are developed within a community of practice (baxter magolda, 2009; cranton, 2016; pratt et al., 2015). these learning communities include active and inquiry-based learner-centered experiences in which students engage in knowledge acquisition and application in real-world contexts (perry, 2015; scott et al., 2004). such inquiry-based shared learning takes place within student cohorts and creates opportunities for agentic development as learning experiences intersect academic, personal, and professional spaces (pratt et al., 2015). the learning impact extends beyond professional practice and into an individual’s sense of self and relationships with others (scott et al., 2004; webber, 2017; wellington & sikes, 2006). agentic development critical reflection and examination of assumptions and beliefs during the ed.d. journey impact students’ sense of self (burnard et al., 2018; scott et al., 2004; webber, 2017; wellington & sikes, 2006). individuals’ professional and personal identities may be challenged and transformed as they construct knowledge of educational concepts and theories and become critically aware of perceptions of self and others (pratt et al., 2015; scott et al., 2004). recognizing that identity “constantly evolves in the face of the everchanging challenges with which we are presented” (cunningham, 2018, p. 67), intentional use of pedagogy to shape students’ evolving selves is important (baxter magolda, 2009; pratt et al., 2015). learning experiences that promote examination of personal beliefs and professional practices may cause tension for some individuals (baxter magolda, 2008; burnard et al., 2018; cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000; webber, 2017). a pedagogy utilizing dimensions of both transformative learning theory (cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000) and self-authorship theory (baxter magolda, 2008) may create disorienting dilemmas that place students at a crossroads in their thinking and sense of self as leaders and learners. pedagogical design, shared learning through a cohort model, and mentoring and advising are three ed.d. program components which serve to facilitate the transformation from leader to scholar-practitioner (cped, 2020). pedagogy pedagogical approaches that engage students in development of a sense of community and belonging and that foster connections between program learning and professional practice support agentic development (burnard et al., 2018; pratt et al., 2015; scott et al., 2004; webber, 2017). a pedagogy that facilitates development of a “coherent identity” (baxter magolda, 2008, p. 269) supports individuals in facing challenges with confidence they can make decisions and take action in ways that capitalize on their capacity to think critically, collaborate productively, and balance competing demands in their personal and professional lives (baxter magolda, 2009). through such a pedagogical approach, individuals develop their capacity to recognize multiple perspectives, balance internal and external forces on thinking and meaning making, and clarify their leadership philosophy (collay & cooper, 2008). cohort model the cohort model provides ed.d. scholars a community of practice that may reduce feelings of isolation while also facilitating cognitive development through co-constructing knowledge with others (klenowski et al., 2011; wenger, 1998). as a social construct, the cohort model provides a framework which fosters interdependence and upon which pedagogical practices engage students in developing meaning, community, practice, and identity (collay & cooper, 2008; wenger, 1998). in this model students develop a sense of self as both unique individuals but also a member of an interdependent community that extends beyond doctoral program coursework. students’ academic, personal, and professional learning are dynamic and relational and members support one another through shared understanding, insight, advice and problem-solving (klenowski et al., 2011; wenger, 1998). support within a cohort is augmented through mentoring. mentoring literature documents the importance of mentoring in graduate education, especially for first generation and students of color (brunsma, et al., 2017; bukko et al., 2019; rudolph, et al., 2015; sedlacek et al., 2007). mentoring in cped inspired programs is reciprocal with both student and mentor bringing expertise and knowledge to the relationship (perry, 2015). the cped mentoring framework is one built on the premise that responsive and mutually bukko and dhesi impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 27 respectful mentoring fosters dynamic learning and individual development. inclusive of peer support and provided by multiple rather than assigned faculty, mentoring is flexible and responsive to individuals’ unique needs and circumstances (cped, 2020). this model may counter the disorientation created during transformative learning experiences. transformative learning transformative experiences create dissonance as students become increasingly aware of socio-cultural realities, their own beliefs and assumptions, and their capacity as scholar-practitioners to lead change in educational institutions (cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000). “transformative learning shapes people. individuals experiencing transformation are different afterward, in ways both they and others can recognize” (clark, 1993, p. 47). learning to understand and to act on our own knowledge and beliefs rather than to follow those “uncritically assimilated from others” (mezirow, 2000, p. 8) is imperative in this transformation. faculty awareness of students “at the edge of their knowing” (taylor, 2007, p. 183) fosters critical reflection, dialogue, and engagement among knowledge coconstructors. during such learning experiences students construct epistemological knowledge regarding how they view the world, interpersonal knowledge in how they view relationships with others, and intrapersonal knowledge, becoming more deeply aware of how they view themselves (cranton, 2016; kegan, 1994; mezirow, 2000). these three dimensions are integral to students’ self-authorship. self-authorship baxter magolda (2009) identified the connection between transformative learning and self-authorship based on a 22-year longitudinal study investigating adult learning and development. three themes emerged from this study: trusting the internal voice (how they react to realities), building an internal foundation (purpose and beliefs that inform reactions), and securing internal commitments (living their internal foundation). baxter magolda (2009) found that “transformative learning required a shift from uncritical acceptance of external authority to critical analysis grounded in internal authority” (p. 2). when engaged in a disorienting dilemma, individuals find themselves at a crossroads or in transition moments during which they may struggle to reconcile their internal beliefs with external voices (baxter magolda, 2008; kegan, 1994). those who navigate these transitions in ways that challenge dependence on authority and “coordinate, integrate, act upon, or invent internal values, beliefs, and convictions” (kegan, 1994, p. 185) achieve a sense of personal authority kegan (1994) termed self-authorship. the cped mentoring framework, transformative learning theory (cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000) and self-authorship theory (baxter magolda, 2008, 2009) guided development of this empirical research and provided frames through which data were analyzed and interpreted. research methods context the ed.d. program at central university (pseudonym) is a three-year, cohort-based, face-to-face program. graduates describe their doctoral experience as a time of rigorous learning and high levels of personalized faculty, staff, and fellow student support (bukko et al., 2019). students are p-20 working professionals who engage in foundational coursework in year one, p-12 and community college/higher education specialization courses in year two, and capstone/dissertation research in year three. to date, 121 students in ten cohorts have completed the doctoral degree and are serving as p-20 educational leaders throughout the region. in march of 2020, the program pivoted from in-person to synchronous virtual classes using zoom. faculty and students adapted processes and program events with a focus on maintaining the interactive and face-to-face nature of coursework, mentoring, and socialization events using the zoom platform. during the summer term, participants completed a year two specialization course, their written qualifying examination, and began the literature review for their capstone/dissertation research. during data collection, students were enrolled in a fall course and worked independently with their dissertation chair to further develop the literature review. with a focus on the disorienting dilemma of the covid-19 pandemic, the researchers sought to understand the covid-19 impact on students’ academic, professional, and personal experiences and to explore the ways in which ed.d. program components or experiences may have influenced their persistence in the doctoral program. participants qualitative research was used to gather the perspectives of ed.d. students taking a penultimate year one course when the program pivoted to virtual spaces due to covid-19. this methodology allowed for participant interpretation and attribution of meaning to their lived experiences (merriam & tisdell, 2016). all cohort members were invited to participate in the study, and the final sample included 10 participants, 7 of whom identify as female and three who identify as male. participants describe themselves as identifying with one of 6 different ethnicities, half speak 2 or more languages, and 4 have lived in countries outside of the united states. participant ages range from 34 to 46 and 8 are parents of school age children; in addition, 4 provide financial and emotional support for parents and extended family. half of the participants are first generation students with neither parent or guardian completing a community college or four-year degree. participants are all working professionals, serving in p-20 educational institutions as teachers, counselors/advisors, administrators, and staff. data collection primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews via zoom. interviews included open and indirect questions which prompted students to share their academic, professional, and personal experiences before and after the advent of covid-19 (merriam & tisdell, 2016). participants were also asked questions which generated descriptions of challenges and points of celebration related to their courses, with cohort members, with faculty, and as individuals in their professional and personal contexts. secondary data were drawn from the students’ written qualifying examination (wqe) submissions. the wqe was assigned before the advent of covid-19 and serves as a program doctoral students living, leading, and learning during a pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 28 assessment to determine students’ readiness for advancement to candidacy. in addition, the prompt was designed to assess program effectiveness and areas for growth. the wqe includes one part in which students reflect upon their experience and development as scholar-practitioners. through exploration of theories, concepts, and development of habits of mind during their first year in the ed.d. program, students were asked to respond specifically to the question, “what type of scholar-practitioner am i becoming through my participation in the ed.d. program?” students submitted their written reflections before the semi-structured interviews were conducted. data from the interviews and written reflections were then analyzed and initial findings were developed. initial findings were presented to participants in a focus group session. the three data sources, interviews, document analysis, and focus group, allowed for triangulation, member checking, further theme exploration, and served as a resource to corroborate or refute initial findings (merriam & tisdell, 2016). data analysis researchers engaged in reflexivity and collaborative coding throughout data collection and analysis, individually and collaboratively articulating and examining assumptions and dispositions regarding the research and interpretations (miles et al., 2019). to look for data that may support alternate findings and to reduce bias impact, a researcher familiar with the topic and who works outside of the ed.d. program provided peer examination of raw data and assessed plausibility of findings (merriam & tisdell, 2016). data collected during semi-structured interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis and open coding (braun & clarke, 2006), using the cped mentoring framework, transformative learning theory (cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000) and self-authorship (baxter magolda, 2008). written qualifying examination (wqe) selfreflections were analyzed for latent and manifest meaning using document and thematic analysis (bowen, 2009) as well as codes derived from interview analysis, open coding, and the lenses of selfauthorship and transformative learning. to ensure internal validity, excerpts that best exemplified each theme were selected and presented to participants in a focus group to provide respondent validation (merriam & tisdell, 2016). findings three themes emerged during this study: a convergence of individual, professional, and academic roles within home and virtual spaces, leading in a complex and uncertain time, and relationships encourage persistence. theme 1: living, working, and learning from home the disorienting convergence of previously distinct roles into one lived space emerged as a significant impact for every participant. within one week, participants pivoted to working and learning from home. even though these accomplished working professionals possessed knowledge developed from life, work, and graduate level learning, their new reality challenged perceptions of themselves, their work, and their doctoral studies. this was captured clearly by one participant who shared: i think of myself as very linear. i do this, then i do this, then i do this and this will get me this. so that hasn't changed because there's still an end goal of what this doctorate program is. but the value of the program has changed, the value of my life, the value of my relationships, the value of my stress level. everything is just so new and unprecedented and not normal. every day is different and just sort of feels like the world is crumbling and there's just scary things happening all the time. this disorientation emerged in three sub themes related to living and working in a single space, energy and focus, and silver linings. all aspects of life in one space before covid-19, participants indicated life was more compartmentalized; after, they struggled to differentiate the parts of their lives as they became accustomed to living, working, and learning in one space. while their days and roles were previously defined by distinct home, work, and school spaces, many noted that home has now become the space for “all things in my life”. one individual illustrated this when sharing: i've always been pretty good about separating. in terms of, okay, now i'm at work and when i'm at work, i'm focused on work. and now i'm at school, i'm going to focus on school. come home and focus on the kids. but now, it's kind of all convoluted because i'll have my son in one room doing school online, i'll have myself working on zoom and then i've got my own studies, all kinds of things, just kind of going on simultaneously. working, studying, and living in the same space with family created feelings of being “overwhelmed”, particularly for those with children. “i feel i have to be with them since i am home. before [covid-19] i was a mom when i was home and an employee at work. now i am both at the same time, in the same place.” while participants at first believed this role convergence would be short term, the number of covid-19 cases continued to climb. six months after the stay at home order, participants realized what they thought would be a short-term situation has become a long-term reality: we're learning every day that it seems this is a long-term thing. at first i felt like i was going to be okay with this because it would only last for a little bit. and now it feels like, no, this is becoming the norm. and so you have to totally readjust how you organize yourself in all parts of your life. the role convergence and the reality of living, working, and learning during a pandemic directly impacted participants’ physical, mental, and emotional capacity. energy and focus: compounded stress and deprivation the pandemic impact made it difficult for participants to maintain energy and focus. while none had tested positive for covid-19, some struggled with health concerns requiring medical intervention. navigating the health care system during a pandemic was challenging and also created fear of contracting covid-19 as they sought treatment. it also created anxiety and uncertainty about their future in the doctoral program: when i had a health scare i thought, this is it. i will have to quit this program. i won't be able to finish it, and i really want to finish it. bukko and dhesi impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 29 but i said, is it worth it to push myself and focus on that? then the family and my partner’s lost job ... i mean, all of this i was going through, and it was just … just so much. physical health concerns were compounded for those faced with economic impact as they or their partners experienced job loss. this economic uncertainty emerged as a stressor for several participants as budget cuts and organizational changes make them question employment stability. in addition to the health and economic impact, participants also expressed feelings of deprivation due to not being able to see family, friends, coworkers, and fellow doctoral students. celebrations were cancelled and restrictions on outdoor experiences created feelings of being “trapped” in their homes. this resulted in lost energy and focus in their professional and academic work. one participant shared, “i found myself saying, i know i'm supposed to be working on this, but i just can’t right now". every participant shared this stress which was magnified by the pain experienced by others. emotional labor participants identified two sources of emotional labor. the first emerged in their work context. these leaders listened to teachers, students, and colleagues express frustrations and personal challenges. one participant articulated a reality echoed by others when explaining: i hear a lot of stress from everyone. and sometimes when they tell me what they're going through, and their parents being sick, and their family members dying because of covid, and that they can’t teach online or help their kids and work, it's really stressful on me too because i feel like i need to be there for them. at some point, some days i was like, i just can't today. i just can't because it's just too much. i need a mental break. several participants described this emotional labor as traumatic and impacting their ability to sleep, to focus, and to interact with others. a second source of emotional labor arose from the rapidly changing circumstances in participants’ professional lives. leaders were challenged to create and then recreate new policies and practices as circumstances evolved: it is exhausting to create and recreate over and over. what made me more exhausted is the emotional weight of that. because you know you're responsible for thousands of students and making sure that they're taken care of. so, every decision you make, you're weighing the welfare of the community and it's heavy. it's exhausting. every participant described the physical and emotional exhaustion experienced as they worked extended hours in challenging circumstances to respond to “the world being turned upside down.” this created disequilibrium that further contributed to stress and feelings of deprivation. feeling out of balance increased emotional labor and limitations on physical activities created a feeling of lost balance in the physical, mental, and social aspects of life. those who previously would have restored energy by hiking, shopping, and going to lunch with friends no longer had those outlets. one participant described the reality experienced by many: each role, student, professional, parent, spouse, all of that has been changed because of covid. just the fact that you don't get to leave the house. i mean, my family doesn't leave. my kids are at home all day on zoom doing distance learning. my wife is teaching from home. so, i get home at the end of the day and i have three people looking at me like, oh good, someone else is here to entertain us because we're bored to tears. so, there is a need to take care of them socially and emotionally instead of taking care of myself. during the pandemic, participants recognized practices they valued but had taken for granted before the shift to working from home. “i'm realizing i lost things i really enjoy that i didn't even realize i lost at first like the little cognitive and physical breaks to move from a meeting on one part of campus to another.” participants’ feelings of isolation and deprivation as an impact of the covid-19 stay at home restriction was exacerbated by the shift to virtual platforms and the “zoom fatigue of one meeting after another”. self-awareness of the deprivation they attribute to both emotional labor and the restricted engagement with others manifested in a commitment to self-care. self-awareness and commitment to self-care the covid-19 impact created physical and emotional challenges. participants’ responses to these challenges revealed increased awareness of and commitment to physical and mental health needs. self-awareness. several participants reported exhaustion, anxiety, and insomnia that prompted physician or therapist visits. one participant shared the realization, “that i am trying to squeeze all three roles into an eight-hour day, which is physically impossible.” another realized the importance of staying connected with friends. while social interactions occurred spontaneously when they were able to work or study on campus, several articulated the need to be purposeful in reaching out to friends: “i realized it's harder to connect with people. i have to really make it a focus of mine to say, ‘okay, right now i'm going to spend 20 minutes and i'm going to call a friend.’” in addition to intentional efforts to create positive connections, several participants explained they have reduced exposure to social and news media to protect their mental and emotional health: i would hear the news and it would make me so mad. i've just realized recently that it's okay for me to step away from that, to not hear that and to choose what i allow to invade my mind. i think it's good to be educated and knowledgeable about what's going on and you just don't want to live in your own little bubble, but there's also something powerful about saying, "not right now," or, "i don't need that. this is enough." every participant discussed realizations they need to find balance and that mental energy is limited and needs restoration. their increased self-awareness resulted in participants taking steps to control their exposure and response to stress. commitment to self-care. several participants recognized the importance of “reminding myself to take care of me. a lot of us want to take care of our students because they come first. but if you can't help yourself, you can't help the students.” they also recognized the need to eat well and to exercise regularly, committing to daily walking, meditation, or yoga. they are striving to “balance it all even though covid has made it tough.” recognizing the doctoral students living, leading, and learning during a pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 30 importance of self-awareness and self-care has helped participants to identify positives within the turmoil. silver linings although participants identified challenges emerging from covid-19, they also identified positive impacts of their changed circumstances. in terms of self and family, they recognize the privilege of working from home and reducing family exposure to covid-19. they also valued “savings” and “extra time” previously spent commuting to work and class. most notably, participants identified the potential for meaningful educational reform: this long-term disaster gives us the opportunity to make changes we've always needed to make to close the gaps between the haves and the have nots, to fix so much of what’s wrong in our system. normal is gone. no more excuses. we have to change. citing educational reform as a motivation for pursuing a doctorate, participants recognized both the challenges and the opportunities emerging from the covid-19 impact. while they value this rare opportunity for sweeping reform, they also recognize the challenge of educational leadership in an uncertain time. theme 2: leadership in a new normal leadership in their professional contexts during covid-19 was described as mentally and physically exhausting. this was attributed to the rapid shift from in person to virtual educational services and adaptation of leadership practices. throughout this process, participants reflected on leadership complexity and their evolving leadership identity as they connected ed.d. program learning to problems of practice in their professional context. rapid changes in a complex system the most significant challenge in participants’ professional lives was the need to “blow everything up and rebuild it without hurting people”. this complexity was illustrated through an analogy: “when a machine breaks, you just have to replace or fix the part that is broken. we are inventing a new machine and the parts are human beings”. participants recognized “the nature of organizational life is changing at every level” and described the need for examining and revising policies and practices. they were tasked with safely providing meals and basic services to school dependent students, shifting from paper to electronic document processing, providing technology and support for employees to work remotely, and helping faculty as they learned to teach both synchronously and asynchronously. “there is no part of my job that has been untouched” was a common refrain. as participants pivoted in their professional practice, they recognized the “changing nature of our work as leaders” and realized the ongoing impact of covid-19 requires a “whole different type of leadership to help others stay motivated and engaged in this important work”. participants explained that six months after the initial impact, the need for adaptive leadership continues because “this covid reality changes hour by hour, then day by day, week by week. next week we may be back to day by day. we have to be ready for anything.” being in a state of constant change, participants realized an evolution in leadership understanding and practice. evolving leadership practices while feeling overwhelmed continues for many, participants recognize they “continue to bounce back and adapt” as leaders. several acknowledged that while before covid-19 they could “walk down the hall and check in with staff” they must now be intentional in when and how they interact with those they lead. leaders recognized that “building trust is more important than ever before” and realize how they communicate and interact during unstable times, “sets the tone others will build upon.” participants articulated the need to resist a default reaction to “add more” and instead lead others through reconceptualizing the work they are doing with student needs at the center of decision making. this common feeling was illustrated by one participant who shared: knowing that students tend to come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, i consider how they are affected by issues with internet or wifi access, housing or lack of, crowded homes, lack of basic needs, and mental health. these factors have to be considered when thinking about all services, including grading practices, financial aid, assigning work, accessing zoom, and supporting them emotionally and academically. aware of the “threat of deficit thinking to creating equity”, participants argued that covid-19 “made so many oppressive systems apparent”. balancing student needs, those of faculty and staff, and their own mental and physical exhaustion, participants recognized the importance of staying flexible yet also true to their individual motivations and leadership philosophies. they consistently identified a need to understand themselves as vital to being an effective leader. connecting leadership and learning as leaders during rapid and complex change, these scholarpractitioners described an evolving sense of self and leadership identity. all participants cited reforming educational systems as integral to their leadership sense of purpose. one described a sentiment expressed by all as, “my end goal is to be an effective leader who collaborates to create unique solutions that help students acquire and internalize knowledge as empowered individuals.” participants recognize deficit thinking and are “passionate about developing educational systems that are designed to uplift and not oppress.” they referenced specific program learning and their development of a deeper understanding of what it means to be a scholar-practitioner to achieve their leadership goals. one participant expressed this understanding as, “being attuned to new knowledge that is being constructed and using it to be an agent of change.” across all data sources, participants revealed critical reflection as central to understanding the ways their leadership practices and self-perception have evolved. they cited self-reflection as integral to “understanding oneself and evolving in my habits of mind.” many attributed positive changes to post covid-19 connections made between workplace challenges, ed.d. program learning, and the support they receive from peers and faculty. theme 3: relationships encourage persistence the challenges posed by the impact of covid-19 on educational leaders have been significant with ripple effects extending into personal and professional lives. despite this, participants persist in their doctoral studies, successfully completing bukko and dhesi impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 31 year one coursework, the written qualifying examination, and initial work on the capstone/dissertation literature review. examination of possible reasons for this persistence revealed the importance of relationships and support as ed.d. candidates develop their scholar identity. same but different when asked to describe their ed.d. program experience before the advent of covid-19, participants most often used the terms engaging, rigorous, intellectually stimulating, and communal. they indicated appreciation for the “safe place to engage in critical conversations” as one motivator for taking on the challenge of pursuing doctoral studies. one participant described class sessions and program faculty as, “where i find my people, the people who see the need for change like i do yet we also challenge one another in how we see the world.” participants indicated these descriptors remained consistent in the covid-19 reality, explaining that “by shifting to synchronous zoom classes, we still have a safe place to learn and engage in real time.” they also described changes in their program experience, including a need for more self-reflection, increased comradery with cohort members, and feeling listened to and supported. while participants described being overwhelmed at times and that the level of academic expectations remained high, they also cited the support and the opportunity to explore a challenging experience with other leaders as a reason for continuing their studies. all for one and one for all a shared disorienting experience with increased support was identified as integral to participants’ commitment to continuing their pursuit of a doctoral degree. participants shared that when they questioned whether they should continue in the program, peer and faculty encouragement gave them “resolve”, describing connections with the program as a safe haven: “this program is providing a safe space where i'm home with a nurturing family”, “i'm learning and i'm growing”, and “i think in a way the pandemic created space to learn and grow.” strengthened connections among students and between students and faculty have emerged despite the shift from in person to learning from home. cohort community increased collaborative connections outside of class sessions was identified by participants as a source of “motivation, support, and a desire to learn from one another.” describing their cohort peers as individuals who “genuinely care about each other” and “people who won’t let me give up”, participants articulated a synergy that arises from the fact that “we all come from different walks of life; we add so much to one another”. feeling safe being vulnerable removed barriers when students struggled to make sense of their reading, to solve a professional problem, and to write when they were exhausted. one participant attributed her growth as a thinker, letting go of the fear of others seeing her struggle: “i feel safe saying, "okay, what does that mean? what are we supposed to do? i don't understand this. help now.” another shared: we have informal zoom sessions regularly. we’ll come in and we'll just kind of commiserate, how are you doing, what are you struggling with, this and that? it's anything, non-program related, program related. and then we say, okay, we're going to work on this, work on whatever you want to work on for an hour. and we'll check back in, in an hour. it's giving that focused time to really, truly connect. multiple participants described these shared times as “healing” and “encouraging”. several indicated, “i can’t quit. it would let my peers down and we’ve done so much to support one another in this crazy time.” this sense of shared responsibility and support extended beyond the student to student relationship to that of student and faculty. faculty commitment and care when asked to describe relationships with faculty before and after covid-19, all participants indicated the level of care and commitment for student learning and persistence was high before covid-19 and had increased afterward. they describe their program experience as “humanistic”, “nurturing, “focused on high expectations”, and inclusive of “personalized support”. while students were at first concerned with what would happen during a shift to remote learning, they consistently agree that faculty have “risen to the challenge” and maintained the interactive learning environment during class sessions. in addition to learning and leveraging technology tools, faculty have actively solicited input and have asked, “what do you need” and adapted learning activities to include that input. faculty also “recognized the real problem of zoom fatigue” and created learning activities that also include “screen breaks” and “found different ways for us to engage”. in addition, participants expressed appreciation for faculty acknowledgement of the “learning from home” reality: i love it when professors have reminded everyone that there's kids in the background because i have had craziness with kids and childcare. i am so thankful that professors don’t mind seeing kids because my daughter was crying once and then later she was on screen making funny faces. participants expressed that while faculty and students are no longer meeting in a physical space, the commitment to maintaining the rigor and relevance of learning has remained constant. prevalent in the data was a belief that faculty understand the challenges students are experiencing and are committed to supporting them. in addition to being responsive to students’ learning needs, participants shared an appreciation for the level of care faculty extend. examples include faculty members regularly sharing messages of encouragement via email, text messages, and phone calls. one participant shared, “they see we are human, and we need support to stay in the program.” others noted the rapid response students receive to questions and requests for help. “the fast responses are even more important now because everything is so uncertain. i feel like i am important to them, even when they are impacted by all of this, too.” a personal connection and continuous message of belief in and support for students was cited as instrumental in their decision to continue in their pursuit of a doctoral degree. discussion the novel coronavirus impacts health and societal systems (dubey et al., 2020; exec. order no. n-33-20, 2020; horesh & brown, 2020; nicola et al., 2020; qiu et al., 2020). the disorientation of living, working, and learning from home creates psycho-social impact that early studies indicate may adversely impact physical and doctoral students living, leading, and learning during a pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.167 32 psychological well-being (dubey et al., 2020; horesh & brown, 2020; qiu et al., 2020). these impacts were evidenced in this study examining the covid-19 impact on students in an educational leadership doctoral program. findings indicate participants were challenged by the convergence of their personal, professional, and academic roles into one lived space. this created stress, feelings of deprivation, and emotional labor as scholar-practitioners endeavored to meet professional challenges, maintain their scholarship, and care for families and themselves. learning to lead and develop their scholarpractitioner identity in unprecedented circumstances provided disorienting crossroads moments. ed.d. program learning and support from cohort members and faculty contributed to increased confidence and commitment to their profession and to their pursuit of the doctorate. analysis of these findings reveal an intersection of transformative learning, self-authorship, and mentorship as integral to participants’ reactions to the disorientation caused by the covid19 impact and to their persistence in the doctoral program. the disorienting shift from distinct to converged roles created a crossroads moment. they experienced transformative learning as individuals, scholars, and leaders as they struggled to find balance, to construct meaning in unprecedented and uncertain circumstances, and to critically reflect upon their assumptions and actions as scholar-practitioners (cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000). cognitively, they drew upon funds of knowledge developed from lived experiences in their personal and professional contexts as well as their doctoral program learning (baxter magolda, 2008). they critically assessed and reflected on their habits of mind (cranton, 2016) and engaged in meaning making (baxter magolda, 2008) as they created and recreated educational systems and practices in response to the “new normal” of distance learning. drawing on support from faculty and cohort mentors, participants mutually engaged in shared learning and sought critical feedback as they worked to meet rigorous academic standards and to understand and resolve professional problems of practice (cped, 2020). interpersonally, participants engaged with cohort members and faculty, seeking diverse perspectives as they worked to understand their knowledge and internal beliefs in response to external demands (baxter magolda, 2008; cranton, 2016; mezirow, 2000). while some briefly considered dropping out of the doctoral program, they persisted, relying on authentic relationships and critical friendships with others to fuel their commitment to the profession, themselves, and their academic endeavors (cped, 2020). intrapersonally, scholar-practitioners attained a deeper understanding of self. they recognized the negative impact of covid-19 conditions to their emotional and physical health and drew upon internal foundations to enact agency by reducing exposure to stress and increasing attention to self-care. this agency and internal sense of self helped them to regulate and interpret reactions to experiences and external forces (baxter magolda, 2008). participants attributed growth in self-perception to the safe and supportive learning environment during classes and in relationships with faculty and cohort members (cped, 2020). covid-19 created an immediate impact on the lived cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal experiences of participants in this study. the ripple effects of this impact revealed ed.d. program components which students identified as factors that supported their persistence in the program. the following recommendations are centered in the students’ identification of transformative pedagogy, a student-centered environment characterized by rigor with care and support, and multi-faceted mentoring as ed.d. program components that foster persistence. recommendations for practice in ed.d programs webber (2017) contends “that the role of care is part of the academy’s duty” (p. 163). findings from this research support this contention, and we offer the following recommendations for fostering development of ed.d. student agency and self-authorship. construct transformative learning experiences that place students at a crossroads in which they are prompted to question the nature of reality. such pedagogical approaches challenge thinking and require critical reflection and critical self-assessment; this facilitates development of the cognitive dimension (baxter magolda, 2009; pratt et al., 2015). support interpersonal development by creating mutually respectful and engaging environments in which students form critical friendships with one another and with faculty. such environments validate a learner’s capacity to know, situate learning in learners’ experiences, and allow for mutual knowledge creation (baxter magolda, 1998, 2009; cunningham, 2018; pratt et al., 2015). develop systems that nurture mentoring relationships between students within a cohort model and encourage student mentoring relationships with multiple faculty members. integrating mentoring throughout the ed.d. program experience affirms the value of adult learners’ 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(2016). differentiation and integration: managing the paradox in doctoral education. in emerging directions in doctoral education (vol. 6, pp. 225-242). emerald group publishing limited. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.570431 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7162753/ https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1040712 https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/33/2/e100213 https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2017.1363812 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 debra bukko csu stanislaus jaskaran dhesi csu stanislaus literature review leaders in learning communities agentic development pedagogy cohort model mentoring transformative learning self-authorship research methods context participants data collection data analysis findings theme 1: living, working, and learning from home all aspects of life in one space energy and focus: compounded stress and deprivation emotional labor feeling out of balance self-awareness and commitment to self-care self-awareness. several participants reported exhaustion, anxiety, and insomnia that prompted physician or therapist visits. one participant shared the realization, “that i am trying to squeeze all three roles into an eight-hour day, which is physical... self-awareness. several participants reported exhaustion, anxiety, and insomnia that prompted physician or therapist visits. one participant shared the realization, “that i am trying to squeeze all three roles into an eight-hour day, which is physical... commitment to self-care. several participants recognized the importance of “reminding myself to take care of me. a lot of us want to take care of our students because they come first. but if you can't help yourself, you can't help the students.” they ... commitment to self-care. several participants recognized the importance of “reminding myself to take care of me. a lot of us want to take care of our students because they come first. but if you can't help yourself, you can't help the students.” they ... silver linings although participants identified challenges emerging from covid-19, they also identified positive impacts of their changed circumstances. in terms of self and family, they recognize the privilege of working from home and reducing family exposure to co... theme 2: leadership in a new normal rapid changes in a complex system evolving leadership practices connecting leadership and learning theme 3: relationships encourage persistence same but different all for one and one for all cohort community faculty commitment and care discussion recommendations for practice in ed.d programs recommendation for research references microsoft word 92-756-1.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 examining doctoral student development of a researcher identity using the draw a researcher test micki m. caskey, phd professor and doctoral program director portland state university caskeym@pdx.edu dannelle d. stevens, phd professor emerita portland state university stevensd@pdx.edu marie yeo english teacher yuga elementary school mariejolie4u@gmail.com abstract with a core identity as working professionals, education doctoral students struggle with seeing themselves as researchers. because research is essential in a doctoral program, the sooner doctoral students include researcher as an identity, the smoother and more successful their journey will be. to support doctoral student researcher identity development, we focused on scaffolding and embedding academic writing experiences in the first year seminar in a u.s. doctoral program. the purpose of this study was to describe and explain doctoral students’ development of a researcher identity as measured by the draw-a-researcher test (dart). in the fall and spring, we collected drawings (dart) and narrative reflections from nine students. we created a five-dimension dart scoring guide. in the fall, the drawings revealed students’ uncertainty about the agency (ability to make changes) and the research process dimensions; in the spring, however, the drawings showed students’ clearer understanding of these two dimensions. in the narrative reflections, students noted the influence of writing expectations and experiences on their role identity as researchers. implications, as measured by the dart, are that an embedded writing support model seems to assure the development of doctoral students’ core identity as researchers during the first year of the program. keywords: education doctorate (edd), doctoral students, draw-a-researcher test, researchers, identity, scholarly practitioners, visual data introduction as the sugar maple trees shook off their golden leaves in the fall, our new cohort of education doctoral students stepped into their first research seminar. none took a typical path of moving seamlessly from their bachelors’ and masters’ degrees to a doctoral program. instead all came from the world of working professionals. among them were a high school science teacher, a middle school social studies teacher, a university student services coordinator, an adjunct faculty member in teacher education, a director of special education, a mentor in a police academy as well as three international students: a korean elementary school teacher, a korean college language teacher, and a college chinese english language teacher. as seminar leaders over the first two years of the program, our job was to guide this diverse group of doctoral students along the path to have the tools, skills, and dispositions to design and conduct a research project. those who study doctoral education have asserted that the doctorate is as much about developing an identity as a researcher as it is about being a knowledgeable consumer of research (colbeck, 2008; green, 2005). in fact, colbeck (2008) acknowledged that developing an identity as a researcher is “an essential task for a doctoral student” (p. 9). according to mantai (2015), “in becoming a researcher, [doctoral] candidates need to ‘negotiate new identities and reconceptualize themselves both as people and professionals’ (hall & burns, 2009, p. 1) in addition to acquiring research skills” (p. 636). thus, researcher identity is a central developmental challenge for students. yet, what does it mean to have an “identity”? burke (2003a) suggested that having an identity is “to be who one is” (p. 1). he asserted that an individual has multiple identities across the life span that include social, role, and personal aspects (burke, 2003b). those identities explain current behavior and predict future behavior. researcher identity is certainly one of those multiple identities that has a powerful influence over one’s approach and resilience toward 16 caskey, stevens, yeo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 conducting research. because identities develop over time, it seems fruitful to track researcher identity development— not just at a one point in time but over time—for doctoral students who seek to complete a heavily research-infused task: a dissertation. conceptual framework to explore doctoral students’ perceptions and the development as researchers, we used identity as a conceptual framework. in erikson’s (1968) classical theory of psychosocial development, people experience stages of development over their life span. one of these stages is identity vs. identity confusion. movement across this stage, according to erikson, is a “turning point”—“a crucial period of increased vulnerability and heightened potential” (p. 96). it is when people develop a sense of inner identity and an identity within the society because identity is a fluid construct over a lifetime. in addition, he recognized that identity is not a static construct: it changes over time as the individual has a variety of life experiences. in more recent years, scholars elaborated the concept of identity. based on a systematic review of literature, gee (2000) summarized and classified multiple ways to view identity. gee’s seminal work legitimized a broader and more nuanced study of identity that added to erickson’s initial conceptualizations. similarly, burke (2003b) asserted that an individual has multiple identities across the life span that include social, role, and personal aspects. adding to the identity discourse, sfard and prusak (2005) defined identity “as a set of reifying, significant, endorsable stories about a person” (p. 14), consisting of actual identity (e.g., “i am a student,” “i am a good person”) and designated identity (e.g., “i want to be a teacher,” “i need to be a better person”). offering a different perspective, flum and kaplan (2012) viewed “identity is an integrative concept and it is developed in the space between the individual and the social context” (p. 244). scholars have tussled back and forth, not about the value of using identity as a construct to understand human behavior, but about how to define it. what we glean from this body of work is that identity is multifaceted, and includes social, personal, and role aspects. our education doctoral students are working professionals who have a variety of identities. they possess highly developed identities including personal identities (e.g., political party or religious affiliation), social identities (e.g., parents, daughters) and role identities (e.g., teachers, principals). we are interested specifically in role identity—how people occupy a role and incorporate that role into themselves including the “expectations associated with that role and its performance” (stets & burke, 2000, p. 225). for this reason, and given our interest in fostering researcher identity, we focused on understanding the development of doctoral students’ role identities as researchers. literature review education doctoral students enter their programs with success in a profession, such as a teacher, p-12 school administrator, or higher education administrator. while these doctoral students possess skills and knowledge related to success in their professions, many have limited background in or experience with research (brew, boud, & namgung, 2011; murakami-ramalho, militello, & piert, 2013; zambo, buss, & zambo, 2013). in some cases, these students have completed a teacher work sample or another competency-based assessment of their teaching or administrative performance but not a thesis or research project that is a typical requirement of traditional master’s degree program. gardner (2008) pointed out doctoral students might not be adequately prepared for the transition from student to researcher. therefore, some education doctoral students may start their doctoral degree program with an understandably underdeveloped sense of researchers in general and educational researchers, specifically. in other cases, even for those who may have completed a traditional masters’ degree or even undergraduate thesis with a research component, these experiences may have been several years ago and do not represent the level and depth of skill required for doctoral research. because many education doctoral students lack experience in conducting research or have conducted it a long time ago and under less demanding conditions, they may not feel competent in research and, therefore, have not developed an identity as a researcher. according to taylor (2007), though experts in their profession, doctoral students often feel the tension of seeing themselves as novices in the research world. murakami-ramalho et al. (2013) found that the expectation of developing a researcher identity lead doctoral students to feel quite concerned about becoming a researcher. others have also found that many students find significant challenges with the expectation that they conduct research (colbeck, 2008; mcalpine, 2012; mcalpine & amundsen, 2009). yet, in the carnegie project on the education doctorate (2019), an established consortium of education doctoral programs to which we belong, students are expected to become researchers— scholarly practitioners who read, write, conduct and apply research to their professional practice. nevertheless, their initial images of researchers might include superficial stereotypical perceptions about research and researchers. building on their identity of accomplished practitioners when entering a doctoral program, education doctoral students need to develop an identity as researchers. where and how can they develop the identity as researchers? can doctoral programs play an active role in promoting researcher identity development? according to zambo et al. (2013), doctoral programs can support the doctoral students’ development as researchers, that is, scholarly practitioners who conduct research. however, supporting doctoral students is not simple. jazvac-martek (2009) argued that the process by which student identity as researchers develop is complex. they asserted, “the academic identity [including researcher identity] that develops through the doctoral journey represents a dynamic configuration of elements that are simultaneously internal, or psychological and developmental, and external, involving the social and disciplinary” (p. 253). like all identity development, when doctoral students begin to see themselves as researchers, it influences their current and future behavior as well as their interpretations of behavior (jazvac-martek, 2009). doctoral students’ identity as researchers helps them take a more active role in their academic journey (sinclair, barnacle, & cuthbert, 2014). yet, jazvac-martek (2009) noted the relationship between doctoral students’ program experiences and emerging identities as scholars and researchers has not been “a central focus in research on the doctorate” (p. 253). therefore, we still have much to learn from programs that attend to doctoral student researcher identity development. exploring the experiences and reflections of doctoral students may lead to a greater understanding of what programs can do to further doctoral students’ researcher identity. our assumption is that the sooner that doctoral students develop an 17 examining doctoral student development of a researcher identity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 identity as a researcher, the more successful they will be in their edd programs and beyond. purpose of study as noted previously, the purpose of this study was to describe and explain educational doctoral students’ development of a researcher identity during the first year of their program as measured by the draw-a-researcher test (dart). we considered the program assignments and experiences that may have influenced education doctoral student development as researchers. to guide our investigation, we used the following research questions: 1. what do doctoral students’ images and reflections indicate about their identity development as researchers? 2. what experiences do doctoral students indicate contributed to the development of researcher identity? research methods researchers have studied the development of identity over time within specific disciplines and with a variety of methods. for instance, tonso (2006) examined the development of an engineer identity using ethnographic methods that include participant observations, field notes, and individual interviews. with regard to doctoral education, several researchers investigated the development of identity among doctoral students using methods such as surveys, focus groups, logs, and interviews (jazvac-martek, 2009; mantai, 2015; mcalpine & amundsen, 2009; mcalpine, jazvac-martek, & hopwood, 2009; sinclair et al. 2014; zambo et al., 2013). while all of these methods have provided valuable data, we wanted to explore the use of visual data to capture student development of a researcher identity. visual data might have the advantage of tapping an inner, richer, and deeper understanding of what it means to be a researcher. following the extensive work on the draw-a-scientist test, finson (2009) helped to explain the theory underlying the development of images in our heads. he clarified: the theory providing the underpinnings of using drawings to derive data about individual’s perceptions of scientists is relatively straightforward. we develop ideas about things, or form concepts about them, sometimes with very little factual information. as we gain more information, our conceptions become more sophisticated as we assimilate it [sic] into our mental schema. (p. 64) we reasoned that our students did not have much factual information about the complexities of being a researcher. we sensed that the development of a researcher identity would involve a change in students’ mental schema of researchers that could be exhibited in their drawings of researchers. thus, we collected our doctoral students’ hand-drawn images of researchers at the beginning and end of their first year in the program. at the end of the first year, we also collected their narrative reflections on these two images. given the importance of doctoral students’ identity as researchers and the gap in research on how students actually develop that identity, we chose a well-established but not typical method of assessing student perceptions of themselves as researchers based on the work with the draw-a-scientist test. we based the rationale for the data collection task, draw-a-researcher (dart), on the pioneering work of chambers (1983) who examined school children’s stereotypical views of scientists through drawings. chambers based his rationale on goodenough’s (1926) work with the draw-a-man test that assessed the psychological state of the person making the drawing. chambers (1983) and finson (2009) extended the implications from the draw-a-man test to focus mostly on the children’s drawings of scientists. following goodenough, they argued that the drawings offer significant data about children’s mental images and ideas without limiting their responses to verbal or written data. finson (2009) further explained, “…if we approach those drawings with a purpose and protocol, then, we have visual data” (p. 59). he asserted that having a purpose and a protocol changes the focus from a mere drawing to visual data that can be analyzed to derive meaning. our work extends the work on using drawings as visual data. much of the previous work examined children’s conceptions of scientists (finson, 2002; finson, pedersen, & thomas, 2006). others used drawings to understand children’s conceptions of engineers (capobianco, diefes-dux, mena, & weller, 2011; capobianco & mena, 2013; knight & cunningham, 2004) and perceptions of reading (zambo, 2006). researchers have used versions of the draw-a-scientist test with adults to examine (a) preservice teachers’ views of scientists (miele, 2014; milford & tippett, 2013), (b) teachers view of teachers teaching (sinclair, szabo, redmond-sanogo, & sennette, 2013), (c) mathematics teachers’ views (utley & showalter, 2007), and engineering students’ views of engineers (singer, foutz, navarro, & thompson, 2015). in addition, miele (2014) collected preand post-drawings to note changes in images over time. sinclair et al. (2013) used a modified draw-a-scientist test asking preservice and inservice teachers to draw a teacher teaching. the teachers were asked to reflect on their images of teachers with a checklist as to whether it was teachercentered, student-centered, or in between. next, they discussed what their drawings meant about their own views of teaching. thus, the drawings can be used with adults as a self-reflective tool. based on finson’s (2009) theory, people’s mental schema change over time as they have more experiences; therefore, people’s mental images and drawings should change with experience. in the following sections, we provide a description of the context, participants, data collection process, the draw-a-research test, and data analyses. context the context for this study was a large comprehensive urban university (28,000 students) in the united states. the school of education faculty designed the educational doctoral program for working professionals to guide students in becoming scholarly practitioners. the faculty aligned the program with the working principles of carnegie project for the education doctorate (2019), a consortium of universities and colleges that gather together to discuss and refine programs that offer an education doctorate (edd). our four-year doctoral program admitted students in groups by specialization area (e.g., curriculum and instruction or educational leadership). our group was limited to a broad range of educators with a curriculum and instruction rather than an educational administration background. in our doctoral program, students attended courses and seminars on friday evening and saturdays in a hybrid format, half the classes online and the other half face-to-face. on saturdays during the first year of the four-year program, the cohort completed three of the six core courses (i.e., learning theories, organizational 18 caskey, stevens, yeo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 leadership theories, policy and political theories). in the second year, the students completed three other courses (research paradigms, qualitative methods, quantitative methods). in addition, on friday nights, students were divided into two learning communities and participated in seminars that met for four hours, four times a term (fall, winter, spring). for this exploratory study, we examined the seminar experiences of our learning community (n = 9) during the first year of the program. intentionally creating a student learning community—a community of practice (wenger, 1998) —was one of the program’s signature pedagogies (shulman, 2005). we were the advisors and instructors of the friday night seminar learning community, and we focused this investigation on these doctoral students. the design of the academic writing program within our seminar was based on recent literature about academic writing. as dicksonswift, james, kippen, verrinder, & ward (2009) noted “a research culture is a writing culture. if we are to build a research culture then we have to see writing as central to that process” (p. 229). we selected modeling, coaching, and scaffolding as our seminar teaching methods to support student engagement and to encourage students to tap and adapt their experiences as working professionals to this new challenge. a key feature of the seminar was the opportunity for students to learn and practice the intentional use of academic writing strategies (see table 1) to develop their writing and thinking abilities related to doing research, and therefore, adopting a new identity as researchers. table 1. alignment of student writing objectives and research-based strategies student writing objective research based strategies for each objective understand and practice the underlying structures of academic writing build confidence in using your own experience and voice set up your writing environment for focus, accountability, and momentum rhetorical structures (author, 2019; graff & birkenstein, 2010) purpose statements (goodson 2013) key sentences (gray, 2010) freewriting (elbow, 1973) focused freewriting (steven & cooper, 2009) keeping a journal (steven & cooper, 2009) goal setting chart (silvia, 2007) writing groups (aitchison & guerin, 2014; lee & boud, 2003; maher, fallucca, & mulhern-halasz, 2013) we taught students to apply these research-based writing strategies to their course assignments to make the connection between doing research and writing about research. examples of the research-related assignments from the seminar include: • drafting and submitting an institutional review board application for a mini-research project prior to dissertation research; • presenting the results of the mini-research project in a poster session within the seminar; • writing the core paper qualifying exam. participants the participants were nine doctoral students in the edd. while this doctoral cohort had 12 members, during the analysis we excluded students who did not have a complete set of drawings and related narratives. thus, the participants were seven women and two men. as noted in the introduction, their disciplinary interests and experiences as educators varied considerably including multicultural education, heritage language education, secondary education, and higher education. of the nine participants, three were full time, international students whose primary language was not english; the other six held professional positions in p-12 education or higher education. our participants’ experience with research during their master’s degrees was disparate and ranged from completion of a teacher work sample to a thesis or an action research project. data collection and the draw-a-researcher test we conducted the draw-a-researcher test during a 10-month period in the first year of the doctoral program. before collecting data, we secured institutional review board (irb) approval to describe and explain participants’ experiences in the doctoral program as well as their perceptions of themselves as aspiring researchers. because decades of research showed that that the draw-a-scientist test hand-drawn images reflect a person’s deeply held beliefs (finson, 2002), we adapted the draw-a-scientist test (chambers, 1983) and created a draw-a-researcher test. our goal 19 examining doctoral student development of a researcher identity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 was to capture out student’s deeply held beliefs about researchers through their hand-drawn images. we gave each student a blank sheet of paper, provided colored pencils, and said, “draw a researcher.” we did not say, “draw yourself as a researcher.” we had the students complete these same steps, twice: once in september at the very beginning of the program, and again in their last class seminar in june at the end of their first year. in the june seminar, after doctoral students were asked to “draw a researcher,” we gave them their first drawing from september as well as another sheet of paper and asked them to write a narrative to address these questions: what do you see across the two drawings? what are the differences? why do you think the drawings changed? then, we collected both draw-aresearcher drawings and their narrative reflections for analysis. data analysis after de-identifying all of the drawings and looking across both the fall and spring drawings, we first noticed a great variety of overall images from metaphors (e.g., farmer in a field, octopus, sea turtle, juggler) to cartoons (e.g., a person with three eyes and six legs) to realistic drawings (e.g., researcher in library). this variety of responses seemed to indicate that the doctoral students responded to the prompt to “draw a researcher” with what came to mind. thus, we felt confident that their drawings were representative of their mental schema of a researcher at that time. as for our more in-depth analysis, we had three data sets related to the drawings: (a) a dart drawing from the first meeting of the fall seminar, (b) a dart drawing from june at the end of their first year, and (c) a reflective narrative the doctoral students wrote in june when comparing their two drawings. after transcribing the narratives, we began to think about ways the drawings captured the idea of researcher identity. we reviewed farland-smith’s (2012) draw-a-scientist test rubric and found it to be more general than others had used. previous draw-a-scientist work focused on singular traits like wearing glasses, frizzy hair, lab coat, that is, artifacts that seemed to indicate the respondents’ image of a scientist (finson, 2002). farland-smith, however, assessed her drawings with specific dimensions like appearance (what a scientist looks like), location (where a scientist works) and activity (what a scientist does). in light of farland-smith’s work with rubrics, we designed a tool—a scoring guide—for analyzing our doctoral students’ dart drawings with specific dimensions like artifacts and setting as well as conceptual dimensions including metaphor, agency, and the research process that seemed to be part of a researcher identity. based on multiple reviews of the drawings and multiple readings of the narrative responses, we developed the scoring guide. we identified five dimensions: artifacts, setting, metaphor, agency, and research process. to clarify our use and the meaning of these dimensions, we defined them as follows: • artifacts are objects characteristically associated with research or the research process. • setting is a place or time where a researcher does his or her work. • metaphor is an image or word that represents an idea or process. • “agency refers to the thoughts and actions taken by people that express their individual power” (cole, 2019, para 1). • research process is a set of interrelated or interactive steps or stages that lead to an end goal with these dimension descriptions in mind, we proceeded with our analysis of the researcher drawings looking for visual evidence of these dimensions within each specific drawing. subsequently, we analyzed the narrative data in which students’ expressed their views of how their two drawings had changed over time. the analysis of these narratives extended our understanding of the students’ drawings and their mental schemas of themselves as researchers. results in this section, we share the results of analyzing the participants’ drawings with our newly developed dart scoring guide. then, we present our analysis of the participants’ narrative responses. analysis of draw-a-researcher drawings to analyze our students’ draw-a-researcher drawings, we developed a scoring guide (rubric) with five dimensions (i.e., artifacts, setting, metaphor, agency, research process). using the scoring guide, we—the three raters—coded each drawing independently, and then, compared our coding. during our discussion, we considered and resolved the minor differences in our codes and agreed upon a code for each drawing. in the next paragraphs, we describe our findings by dimension. artifacts. while we assumed that the drawings would include typical artifacts of doing research, we were surprised by the changes in the sheer number of artifacts from fall to spring. across all drawings, our analysis showed a decrease in the number of specific artifacts (e.g., books, computers, desks, pens) from the fall (pre) to the spring (post). in the fall, nine students included 34 artifacts in their researcher drawings with a range of 1 artifact to 8 artifacts per drawing. however, in the spring, the nine students’ drawings had only 18 total artifacts with four drawings having 0 artifacts and the others ranging from 1 to 6 artifacts. comparing the change in the number of artifacts from fall to spring, the students drew fewer artifacts—explicit tools of a researcher after being in the program for one year. setting. we expected students to draw specific sites where an education researcher would conduct his or her research (e.g., library, school). the majority of students did not depict typical settings for conducting research. looking across both sets of drawings (fall and spring), only three drawings showed typical settings for research such as a classroom, home office, library, and office. in eight of the 18 drawings the settings were unclear or vague. seven drawings portrayed metaphors (e.g., farming) or depicted a metaphor in some way (e.g., farm). metaphor. given the number of student drawings with metaphors, we added metaphor as a dimension in our scoring guide. we noted an increase in the use of metaphors from fall to spring. in the fall, two drawings used metaphors and two other drawings had metaphoric elements (can we give an example here?). in the spring, six drawings depicted metaphors and three drawings included 20 caskey, stevens, yeo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 metaphoric elements. the spring drawings included a diverse set of metaphors (e.g., farmer tending an orchard, farmer plowing a field, sea turtle floating in a sea). agency. by the aforementioned definition, “agency” speaks to an individual’s thoughts and actions that represent their power. for this dimension, we found an increase in the number of actions (e.g., collaborating, observing, working) that represent the person’s influence or thoughts from fall to spring. in the fall, seven of nine drawings did not illustrate a person engaged in a specific task. these fall drawings portrayed only one person engaged in an illdefined task, and one drawing included several people engaged in different tasks. in spring, eight of nine drawings showed people engaged in specific tasks (e.g., farmer tending an orchard, farmer plowing a field, woman reflecting on the research process as a series of bubbles in her head). the spring drawings revealed more action—more thoughts—and more agency than in the fall. research process. as with some of the other dimensions, we noted a change in drawings about the research process from fall to spring. for example, one student’s fall drawing showed a person with a big heart. then, in the spring, the same student drew a farmer tending an orchard by watering the trees (i.e., conducting the literature review) and fertilizing the trees (i.e., reading and writing) to produce healthy fruit. similarly, another student’s fall drawing depicted the researcher as having six legs in motion, three eyes, and two hats. in the spring, the student’s drawing showed a juggler in the process of juggling the specific tasks of a researcher (e.g., reading and writing, analyzing data). another student had two scenes in the fall, a classroom and a person at a computer. his spring drawing was a concept map with an array of x number of aspects of doing research radiating from the center. not surprisingly given their completion of the first year in the doctoral program, the students’ spring drawings seemed to reveal a greater understanding of the complex, iterative, and interactive nature of the research process. summary of draw-a-researcher drawings from the results of our analysis, we noted several differences between the fall and spring drawings. we found a significant decrease in specific artifacts in the spring. this finding may indicate that by the spring, the students had internalized the artifacts associated with conducting research (e.g., computer, books, pens) and had become aware of the greater complexity of the research process. with regard to setting, their drawings revealed both typical places (e.g., library) as well as metaphorical places (e.g., farm) for conducting research. their drawings seemed to suggest that research entails more than the artifacts or the setting; the researcher needs to be actively involved (agency) in conducting research as well as understanding the many aspects of the research process. the use of metaphors to describe the work of a researcher seems to indicate that students could map the complexities of doing research to a task that might be more familiar to them. what did we learn about the draw-a-researcher test? our scoring guide seemed to capture key dimensions of researcher identity. the artifacts and setting dimensions helped us to evaluate student conceptions of the context in which research is conducted. the three dimensions of metaphor, agency, and research process were critical in furthering our identification of the specific thoughts and actions that contribute to the development of a researcher identity. these three dimensions illustrate the dynamic nature of being a researcher. participants’ narrative responses about their drawings in their narratives about the two drawings, our participants’ perceptions of researchers changed over time. they described their initial drawings (pre-) as general, and their second drawings (post-) as more concrete and explicit. from fall to spring, their ideas about researchers’ work became more nuanced and revealed their awareness of the multifaceted nature of being a researcher. 21 examining doctoral student development of a researcher identity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 figure 1. diane’s preand postdrawings for the draw-a-researcher test after examining her preand postdrawings (see figure 1), diana expressed: in the first drawing, my multiple feet [were] going in different directions, which means an uncertainty about research. however, one year later, i drew one path to go—even though there are obstacles along the road. now, the direction is much clearer, and i am realistic about obstacles. she added, “the path (in the doctoral program) is no longer just to dissertation as i realize that is only a part of it.” when comparing the preand post-drawings, we noted that participants also developed more specific and realistic images of researchers. for example, in the fall, mary viewed a researcher as one who is highly intelligent and a know-all scholar. at the end of the first year, she described a researcher as an ordinary farmer in a field (see figure 2). 22 caskey, stevens, yeo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 figure 2. mary’s preand post-drawings for the draw-a-researcher test in her own words, mary wrote: in the beginning of my program, my drawing was a know-all master teacher who knows everything, who gives wonderful instruction to students. now, my drawing is a farmer in a field who is humble, honest, working constantly for a good harvest. she also noted, “i drew researcher as someone who is a super intelligent woman. in my second drawing, the image changed into a farmer in an apple orchard.” in her narrative reflection, mary shared: i have changed my perspectives on why i do research. i have begun to think about how my research can contribute [to] a society that i belong to. i transformed my goal as a researcher from ‘academic study’ to ‘contribution to society.’ this is an example of how students developed a deeper knowledge about research and doctoral work; they have confidence and believe they are now more capable of conducting research. our students’ narratives revealed their keen awareness of the changes they experienced in the first year of their edd program. for instance, lily offered insights into her own growth, sharing: i notice that i become more practical now. from the first drawing i can see that i regard a researcher as someone capable of a lot of things he can teach; he’s inquisitive all the time with a magnifier in hand, he’s exploring. but there’s a lot of uncertainly there. in the second drawing. i find that i’m more focused. a farmer is working in the field. in this reflection, lily referenced her use of a metaphor to characterize her certainty and clearer focus at the end of the first year. with regard to the collaborative nature of research, lynn reflected: “i see research and writing as part of that research as a collaborative process. this is completely different from fall term in my drawing where the researcher is in isolation.” the questions are driving her research. perhaps the artifacts, though important, are more integrated into the complex process of doing research now (e.g., apa, irb). being a researcher is more than just having the tools, you have to know how to use them in the process of doing the work. in a similar way, mike disclosed his changed view of researchers, “[the] (b)efore [drawing] represented a very narcissistic ‘me-focused’ image… ‘after’[drawing] hopefully represents a more community-centered collaborative paradigm.” lynn and mark’s reflections exemplified what we found when coding the drawings: an increased awareness of agency, as exemplified by collaboration. in this study, the edd program appeared to influence our edd students’ perceptions mental schemas of researchers. in their written reflections, they noted that courses and seminars helped to bring them clearer understandings of research and the researcher role. as sara expressed: at the beginning, it was vague and [i] did not know how to start... but taking core classes, things are clearer than before. now i have a clear understanding of a researcher and his duties. i can see positive changes. in this case, sara stated explicitly what we saw evidenced in the drawings—a greater grasp of the research process. our students also referenced experiences (e.g., preparing an irb proposal, conducing a mini-research project, writing a comprehensive paper) 23 examining doctoral student development of a researcher identity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 that were supportive and prompted more realistic understandings of being a researcher. for example, mark mused: i think there’s more emphasis now on production than there was in the fall. i have more knowledge (the metaphor of more books in the background), so now it’s time to do something with it rather than just acquire. it makes sense that the emphasis has changed as that’s where i am at. i am certainly still acquiring information, but i am to a point where i have to put the core paper [comprehensive paper] out there now. production is what’s important. taken collectively, these narrative reflections helped us to hear our students’ voices and gain an appreciation of their journey to develop a researcher identity. in addition, it seems that our doctoral students understood more about the complexity of doing research as well as the steps needed to navigate that complexity. some students acknowledged that doing research has a broader potential benefit to the society as a whole. limitations we acknowledge a number of research limitations including the small sample size and possible researcher bias. regarding the sample size, only nine doctoral students completed two dart drawings and a narrative reflection comparing their drawing (i.e., a complete data set). of the three students who did not complete two drawings, two students joined the seminar in winter term, and one student missed the last seminar. we acknowledge that the missing data may have influenced our analysis and findings; however, we suggest that complete data sets were imperative for studying developmental change. as noted, our aim was to describe and explain our students’ development of a researcher identity during their doctoral program using a new measure, the dart. while the data set is small, the use of this kind of visual data in understanding identity development is unique and may offer other researchers a new lens by which to explore doctoral student identity development. another limitation of this study is the potential to introduce researcher bias in the data collection and analysis process. specifically, a power differential existed between us (i.e., researchers) and the participants. we attempted to mitigate this bias by using the least obtrusive data collection process (creswell, 2014)—in this case, the dart and narrative reflections. these two tasks were in keeping with other seminar activities our doctoral students completed during the first year of their program. as researchers, we may have also introduced bias when analyzing the data. we may have seen what we wanted to see (merriam & tisdell, 2016). to address this limitation, we analyzed the dart drawings and reflective narrative independently. then, we compared, discussed, and resolved any differences in our individual analyses. while researcher bias may still have influenced our analysis and findings, we contend that our approach may have helped us to mitigate researcher bias. conclusion we acknowledge a number of research limitations including the small sample size and possible researcher bias. regarding the sample size, only nine doctoral students completed two dart drawings and a narrative reflections comparing their drawing (i.e., a complete data set). of the three students who did not complete two drawings, two students joined the seminar in winter term, and one student missed the last seminar. we acknowledge that the missing data may have influenced our analysis and findings; however, we suggest that complete data sets were imperative for studying developmental change. as noted, our aim was to describe and explain our students’ development of a researcher identity during their doctoral program using a new measure, the dart. while the data set is small, the use of this kind of visual data in understanding identity development is unique and may offer other researchers a new lens by which to explore doctoral student identity development. summary of findings we contend that our investigation adds to the knowledge base about doctoral students’ development of a researcher identity in two ways. first, in the narratives about their drawings, students mentioned the fact that our writing model (an irb proposal, a miniresearch project, and a poster session about their project) seemed to lead to greater agency and a more complex understanding of the research process and navigation of that complexity. furthermore, our intentional use of strategies in the seminars improved students’ academic writing, which in turn, seemed to contribute to their sense of agency in approaching the many writing tasks associated with research. second, the dart offers a unique and parsimonious way of investigating doctoral student identity development as researchers. building on prior research (e.g., finson, 2002, farland-smith, 2012) and our multiple reviews of data (i.e., researcher drawings and reflective narratives), we developed and defined the five dimensions of the dart scoring guide: artifacts, setting, metaphor, agency, and the research process. the artifacts and setting dimensions helped us to examine student conceptions of the context in which research is conducted. in addition, using metaphor, agency, and the research process dimensions, we could evaluate student drawings regarding their mental schemas about research: what is it, how do you do it, and what are the results of doing research. our findings suggest that the dart and dart scoring guide could be worthwhile tools for measuring doctoral students’ development of a researcher identity. significance our results may shed new light on the use of hand-drawn images for collecting data about people’s perceptions—in this case doctoral students’ perceptions—and how these are changed through experience. for decades, researchers have collected drawings from children and adults to gain insight into psychological states (goodenough, 1926), stereotypes (chambers, 1983; miele, 2014; milford & tippett, 2013), and mental images or ideas (capobianco et al., 2011; capobianco & mena, 2013; finson, 2009; knight & cunningham, 2004). we argue that our study adds to the growing body of research indicating that people’s mental images or schemas change over time as they have more experiences. our methodology was a tool for data collection that seems to be a robust and trustworthy way of examining identity development. implications findings from our investigation also complement those of earlier studies regarding doctoral student identity development (colbeck, 2008; mcalpine, 2012; mcalpine & amundsen, 2009; sinclair et al., 2013; zambo et al., 2013). our study has implications for 24 caskey, stevens, yeo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.92 understanding the various dimensions of doctoral students’ identity development. in particular, we are curious about the dimension of agency and how it affects doctoral students’ identity as researchers. we contend that our work contributes to existing knowledge of doctoral student agency (mcalpine & amundsen, 2009). specifically, our results showed a connection between the doctoral pedagogies (i.e., research-based strategies) and doctoral students’ agency. as instructors and advisors (i.e., supervisors), we encouraged, modeled, and provided opportunities for student agency. our results align with mcalpine and amundsen’s (2009) findings about supervisors’ modeling and affirming student agency. we remain interested in the dimension of agency as it holds implications for our pedagogical practice. recommendations for future research the findings also pointed to potential connections among our use of research-informed writing strategies, research-focused assignments, and the development of researcher identity. this study, therefore, raised important future research questions including (a) which research-based strategies fostered the connection between academic writing and research? and (b) what other doctoral program features (e.g., cohorts) might influence how doctoral students develop a researcher identity? a natural progression of this study would be further research using the dart and dart scoring guide with doctoral students. suggestions for further research include replicating this study (a) with additional cohorts of students in the same edd program, and (b) with edd students at cped-influenced edd programs. another possibility would be using the dart and dart scoring guide with doctoral students in phd programs. beyond replication, another suggestion would be to extend the time (e.g., two years) between the first and the second administration of dart. future research might delve more deeply into each of the dart scoring guide dimensions (i.e., artifacts, setting, metaphor, agency, research process) related to the development a researcher identity. recommendations for practice based on the findings of our study, we offer the following recommendations for future practice. first and foremost, doctoral program instructors and advisors need to consider the intentional use of research-based strategies (see table 1) to support doctoral students’ academic writing. we assert that writing is thinking. through writing, students clarify their thinking. we contend that linking a set of writing strategies to key research-focused assignments may contribute to doctoral students’ development of researcher identity. second, doctoral programs need to continue to explore the role of a community of practice in doctoral student identity development. our students worked in a cohort as well as small writing groups (3-4 people) that supported each person’s thinking and writing. they participated in variety of seminar activities under the guidance of two seminar leaders over the year. finally, we strongly suggest that instructors dissect key elements of the research process (e.g., doing a mini-research project, submitting an institutional review board application) to give students the opportunity to practice and obtain feedback on their work before they tackle their dissertation proposal. in conclusion, we know that our diverse group of working professionals adopted identities as researchers early in their doctoral program. seeing themselves as researchers was one key step toward completion of the doctoral degree. in fact, all of the students in this study except one completed the doctoral program in four years. of course, the students had other experiences with different instructors and advisors in the subsequent years; yet, we believe building a researcher identity early in the program is the solid foundation that doctoral students need. references aitchison, c., & guerin, c. 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(2009). a non‐residential alternative to off campus writers’ retreats for academics. journal of further and higher education, 33(3), 229–239. doi.org/10.1080/03098770903026156 elbow, p. (1973). writing without teachers. new york, ny: oxford university press. erikson, e. h. (1968). identity: youth and crisis. new york, ny: norton. farland-smith, d. (2012). development and field test of the modified raw-ascientist test and the draw-a-scientist rubric. school science and mathematics, 112(2), 109–116. finson, k. d. (2002). drawing a scientist: what we do and do not know after fifty years of drawings. school science & mathematics, 102, 335-45. finson, k. d. (2009). what drawings reveal about perceptions of scientists: visual data operationally defined. in j. e. pedersen & k. d. finson (eds.), visual data: understanding and applying visual data to research in education (pp. 59–77). rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. finson, k. d., pedersen, j., & thomas, j. 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(2007). learning to become researching professionals: the case of the doctorate of education. international journal of teaching & learning in higher education, 19, 154–166. tonso, k. (2006). student engineers and engineer identity: campus engineer identities as figured world. cultural studies of science education, 1, 272–307. utley, j., & showalter, b. (2007). preservice elementary teachers’ visual images of themselves as mathematics teachers. focus on learning problems in mathematics, 29(3), 1–15. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. new york, ny: cambridge university press. zambo, d. (2006). using thought-bubble pictures to assess students’ feelings about reading. reading teacher, 59(8), 798–803. doi.org/10.1598/rt.59.8.7 zambo, d., buss, r. r., & zambo, r. (2013). uncovering the identities of students and graduates in a cped-influenced edd program. studies in higher education, 40(2), 1–20. doi:10.1080/03075079.2013.823932 26 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 10 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.102 o. 1 an online doctorate for researching professionals emma abruzzo phd student university of pittsburgh eta9@pitt.edu kumar, s., & dawson, k. (2018). an online doctorate for researching professionals. athabasca university press. 214 pp. paperback: $43.95. isbn 978-177199-207-7. in their new book an online doctorate for researching professionals, kumar and dawson (2018) detail the lessons they learned from implementing and executing an online edd program at university of florida. this book is a compilation of all that they have learned, with the aim of helping program leaders and higher education professors at other institutions to develop or improve their own online edd programs for working professionals. i recommend this book for any faculty member or institution possessing the goal of developing or improving an online edd program. kumar and dawson (2018) present their model for online professional doctorate programs and offer guidance for other program leaders of online edd programs. their stated goals in implementing the online ed.d. program at university of florida were: …to create an online doctoral program that would enable candidates to build an online community of inquiry, to engage in critical discourse within a specific discipline and/or in an interdisciplinary setting, to learn from and with experts and peers, and to generate knowledge based on existing and original research. (p. 5) building on seminal works such as the theory and practice of online learning (anderson, 2008), handbook of distance education (moore, 2013), online distance education: toward a research agenda (zawacki-richter & anderson, 2014), and distance education: a system view of online learning (moore & kearsley, 2012), kumar and dawson (2018) share their insight from research surrounding the implementation of an online edd, key points of discussion, nuances, and pitfalls of designing online programs. the book is organized into three parts: part i: theoretical foundations and design, part ii: implementation, and part iii: ensuring and evaluating quality. each part provides an important contribution to the field about the purpose and practicality of implementing an online edd program. i will examine the contributions and challenges of each part. in part i, the focus is on developing the idea that online professional doctorates are important and valuable. the authors provide a background of the history; characteristics; and theory, research, and practice of the edd. they claim that “it is not only possible but, in our opinion, preferable for a professional doctorate that combines theory, research, and practice to be offered using the online medium” (p. 19). the authors advocate for an online edd , not as a less prestigious option, but as ideal for certain graduate students. the authors offer key considerations for those who are considering starting an online edd program, such as defining a purpose or goal, identifying prospective learners, identifying existing and needed resources, and involving stakeholders. these are valuable for the intended audience, faculty members and institutions, because they provide a starting point for the complicated process of starting a new program. additionally, they provide learning theories for program theoretical foundations. edd students at university of florida are expected to combine practice with theory so they are encouraged to bring that mindset into their coursework. one of the strongest components of an online doctorate for researching professionals is its attention to the small details of how the university of florida’s program functions in relation to the larger suggestions for the development of any online edd program. the authors provide a detailed description of the required coursework and the sequence of courses at their institution, revealing overarching considerations when designing curriculum. this section provides valuable information on what to do in an online edd program, but only vaguely touches on how they have adapted and overcome obstacles, painting the process in a very rosy light. for example, the authors note that students from certain professional contexts such as private corporations or the military had challenges with the structure of the program requiring sharing with peers. however, they failed to provide information about how these challenges were addressed. in part ii: implementation, the authors detail how an online program can foster inquiry communities and scholarly thinking, and how to mentor and guide students throughout the program and in their dissertation phase. there is a focus on community building and the need to provide a safe space for students to engage with each other. socialization is an important consideration both before the dissertation phase and during. online programs require a different type of socialization than that of their on-campus counterparts. the goal of the online community is to foster spaces for this meaningful reflection. this part provides faculty members with guiding principles for assisting and mentoring students throughout the dissertation process as well. these guiding principles mirror those of other doctoral programs; however, their implementation in online programs is quite different and merits the detailed descriptions provided in this book. the authors present desirable guideline for online edd programs based on some of the challenges and pitfalls the university of florida has encountered (pp. 130-133). they describe narrow and definitive guidelines for how to implement an online program. the http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ an online doctorate for researching professionals impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 4 no. 1 (2019) doi 10.5195/ie.2019.102 11 book sometimes struggles to differentiate from that which applies to all online programs and concrete details of one online program. there are some liberties taken at certain points in assuming, for example, that all programs will follow a cohort model and basing guidelines on that assumption. however, assuming some agency on the part of the reader, the audience is able to pick and choose applicable program components. part iii: ensuring and evaluating quality focuses on how to maintain quality in online edd programs as well as how to identify the impact of program content and design. the authors provide a quality scorecard tool that can be applied to other institutions and programs. additionally, they detail lists of methods for assessing programs ranging from faculty interviews to facebook interaction surveys (pp. 142-143). after defining what impact means in a specific context, it can be measured using both quantitative and qualitative methods. the authors suggest implementing a similar data collection strategy as they employ at university of florida, which is laid out year-by-year. all of these methods are described in detail with specific examples of implementation provided (pp. 172-176). the authors suggest that readers can assess their own online edd programs using the same methods that were used in the development of this book in analyzing the university of florida’s online edd program. in order to collect the data for their writing, the authors had to evaluate their program. they did so using interviews, surveys, focus groups, and primary source analysis. they were able to analyze the data collected from these multiple methods to then change and adapt their program as well as to highlight the important aspects of an online edd program. the authors noted, “based on the data we have collected during our research on the uf edd edtech... we strongly recommend the use of a cohort model and a consistent focus on community building for a successful online professional doctorate” (p. 71). therefore, it is through their own data collection and analysis, that they provided suggestions to other institutions for methods to use in assessing online edd programs. i highly recommended this book to any person or institution considering implementing an online edd program or an online component in an on-campus edd program. i also recommend it to anyone interested in improving their online edd program or any online higher education program. it is an informative book filled with rich examples directly from the experiences of the authors. this program does, however, focus primarily on the findings from one program within one institution, so it will not provide a wealth of information on different approaches to online edd programs. therefore, not all of the information will be universally applicable or equally useful. with that limitation comes an occasional absence of acknowledgment that there may be structural and philosophical differences between this program and others. that being said, kumar and dawson (2018) provide broad and rich suggestions and examples in a comprehensive book that all institutions designing or improving an online edd would, at least in part, find extremely useful. references anderson, t. (ed.). (2008). the theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.). edmonton, ab: athabasca university press. moore, m. g. (ed.). (2013). handbook of distance education (3rd ed.). new york, ny: routledge. moore, m. g., & kearsley, g. (2012). distance education: a systems view of online learning. belmont, ca: wadsworth, cengage learning. zawacki-richter, o., & anderson, t. (eds.). (2014). online distance education: towards a research agenda. edmonton, ab: athabasca university. . microsoft word kochhar-bryant vf.doc 6 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  international  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   symbiotic space exploring the nexus of rigor, problems of practice and implementation carol a. kochhar-bryant the george washington university kochhar@gwu.edu abstract across the united states, doctoral programs in education are in deep reflection about their purpose, content, and expected outcomes for graduates. many are in the throes of redesign and testing to better differentiate between two pathways to the doctorate—one for scholars preparing for research and academic roles and one for scholar-practitioners who wish to focus on problems of practice and implementation. this paper explores a major source of challenge among faculty as they engineer both research-oriented and practitioner-oriented degrees, and that is the interconnections among the constructs of rigor, problems of practice, and implementation. the paper examines the tension between the “gold standard” of random assignment studies and causal inferences, and the more recent frames of inquiry in which research is translated to practice through shared pathways that engage multiple stakeholders. several questions are explored: are “rigor” and “relevance” opposing constructs? what is rigor and should there be a new standard for scholars navigating within a symbiotic space – the arena in which they seek to impact highly complex social problems within authentic field-based settings? is rigor subjective, or can it be measured? these questions are examined within the context of implementation science and through the lens of the lived experience of education faculty who find themselves in a creative crucible as they navigate the redesign process. key words: rigor, relevance, symbiotic space, problem of practice, implementation science, redesign introduction the so-called dichotomy between research and practice is a common theme in the field of education. doctoral programs in education in the u.s. and around the world are in deep reflection about their purpose, content, and expected outcomes for graduates. many are in active redesign and testing to better differentiate between two pathways to the doctorate—one for scholars preparing for research and academic roles and one for scholar-practitioners who wish to focus on problems of practice and implementation (reardon & shakeshaft, 2013; walker et al., 2009; zambo et al., 2014; zusman, 2013). programs, enrollments, and degrees in new professionalpractice doctoral fields have bourgeoned over the past decade, adding over 500 programs with more than 10,000 degrees awarded in 2011-12 and 35,000-40,000 students enrolled (6% of all u.s. doctoral degrees) (zusman, 2013). our experience navigating the dual implementation of both a professional practice doctorate and a new phd program within the environment of traditional edd degrees presents an opportunity for close examination of the construct of “rigor” within each program structure. it may be instructive to others in similar situations. how faculty communicate, debate, and cooperate to resolve the collateral tensions represents a primary challenge as practitioner-oriented doctoral programs expand. the carnegie project and our participation the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) is an organization dedicated to ensuring high-quality edd programs. for 10 years it has explored the purpose and nature of the doctorate in education and encouraged alternatives to the traditional dissertation (e.g., the “dissertation in practice”). doctoral programs concerned about relevance and impact are based on a set of principles aimed at graduating scholars who can integrate theory and practice as well as address critical problems of practice. six working principles were established by cped member institutions to ensure excellence in educational doctorate preparation programs. according to the principles, the professional doctorate in education: (1) is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice; (2) prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities; (3) provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships; (4) provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions; (5) is grounded in and develops a professional symbiotic space impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 7 knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge and links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry; and (6) emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2009). over the past three years, in the graduate school of education and human development, our faculty participation with the carnegie project on the education doctorate has stimulated an appraisal of our edd programs—the intellectual content, rigor, and relevance to our consumers as they prepare to face the dominant challenges in education today in the u.s. and internationally. outcomes of our participation in the carnegie project a faculty learning community was formed in 2013 to identify core features of effective doctoral programs and to work toward purposeful transformation as we rethink the foundations of our programs. such transformation has not meant reinvention for the sake of change, but rather faculty recognized the need to nurture a new generation of courageous transformative scholars who could translate research and impact practice. they realized that new standards of rigor needed to be defined for those working within a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) space between the university and the field—“transformative” scholars who are change agents seeking to impact highly complex social problems within authentic field-based settings. we currently offer two doctoral degrees, the doctorate in education (edd) and the doctor of philosophy (phd). edd degrees can be obtained in several subfields, including educational leadership, education policy, higher education administration, human and organizational learning, curriculum and pedagogy, and special education. phd degrees are offered in education and in counseling. a research-focused phd program in education has recently been approved and a faculty-launch committee formed to implement the program. features of the phd program include a modified admission process for applicants, a research course sequence that differs between the edd and phd and research apprenticeships that begin in the first semester of the program. frameworks for a third degree—the professional practice doctorate (ppd)—are under development in education policy, educational leadership, special education, and higher education administration. these programs are characterized by a shorter yet intense program and field-based apprenticeships in which scholarpractitioners draw on their coursework to define and examine significant problems of practice. capstone projects are designed to be of direct benefit in impacting a school system, organization, governmental agency, or community organization. dimensions of culture change as faculty navigate the redesign, they have begun to experience a wholesale culture change that includes aspects of faculty work, behavior, values, and attitudes. first, faculty expressed concern about whether resources would be shifted away from the edd degrees (or new ppds) to the phd program, as the latter would admit only full-time students who rely on full fellowships. the phd program was long fought for over a three-year period, and therefore stakes are high for its success. it is important that faculty and the finance director of the department or unit closely observe the patterns of change in resource distribution among the programs in the subsequent years, with attention to issues of equity and the sustainability of both types of programs. second, the redesign of academic programs in a school of education challenges well-established ideology and traditions of many faculty. for example, for faculty who have deep-seated beliefs that the phd is appropriate only for those aiming for careers in research and academia, advanced research courses and extensive research apprenticeships are viewed as a central part of the program and the program is expected to take 5 years or longer. other faculty are interested in advancing the development of the professional-practice doctorate designed for applied research, field-based apprenticeships that prepare students for leadership roles, and can be completed in 3-1/2 years. it was vital to the success of the ppd to support those faculty members who were excited by alternative models and willing to work together to create new programs. they came to represent a new “force” within the school and were encouraged by the dean and academic leadership. third, balance in teaching, research, and advising loads are a paramount concern in an environment with both phd and practitioner-based edds or ppd. phd programs tend to have smaller cohorts than the ppd programs. however the ppd is equally as intensive, as faculty load is increased by time spent mentoring students as they create projects of impact, guiding them as they negotiate with partner schools or organizations, and closely supporting their work with stakeholders in the field. a major source of cultural dissonance, however, occurs as faculty works to ensure rigor in the curriculum, the field experiences, and the dissertation within the two programs. the constructs of rigor and the problem of practice rigor vs. relevance relevance for practice and for implementation of research have also become an important criteria for rigor. regardless of how technically sound research projects are, if they do not address issues or questions of concern to practitioners and policymakers, it is unlikely that the research will be used (bradford, 2015). however, despite considerable focus on the research-to-practice gap and on identifying evidence-based practices as a means to bridge it, there is little evidence that suggests that the gap has been meaningfully narrowed (cook & odom, 2013). the implementation of research, therefore, becomes an important focus for understanding the problem. fixsen et al. (2005) defined implementation broadly as‘‘activities designed to put into practice an activity or program“ (p. 5). in the inaugural issue of implementation science, eccles and mittman (2006) defined implementation science as “the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice“ (p. 1). evidence-based practices were required to be supported by multiple, high-quality, experimental or quasi-experimental studies demonstrating that the practice has a meaningful impact on subjects (e.g., student outcomes) (odom, 2005). however, implementation and translation of research findings to practice—“wicked problems,” according to fixsen, blase, duda, naoom, and van dyke (2009)—represent the most perplexing aspects of evidence-based practices. implementation conditions are always in flux and engage multiple layers of infrastructure of a system that has been referred to as “contested spaces,” in which key stakeholders can either support or obstruct transformation (gutiérrez & vossoughi, 2010; penuel & spillane, 2014). gutiérrez and penuel (2014), therefore, argue for a reconceptualization of rigor that requires sustained, direct, and systematic documentation of what takes place inside programs in order to document how systems being stu kochhar-bryant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 8 died change and adapt interventions in their interactions with each other in relation to their dynamic local contexts. rigor, problems of practice, and implementation science the aim of the educational sciences reform act in 2002 was to call for scientifically based research that would “apply rigorous, systematic, and objective methodology to obtain reliable and valid knowledge relevant to education activities and programs” (pub. l. no. 107-279, p. 116). however, the field continued to express concern about the narrow set of criteria used to define “rigor,” and the establishment of a “scientific culture” that relied primarily on the “gold standard” random assignment studies of program effects as the remedy for the failures of education research to offer credible guidance for policy and practice (gutiérrez & penuel, 2014). at the time, erickson and gutiérrez (2002) argued that rigor in studies that aimed to draw causal inferences about policies, programs, and practices required in-depth qualitative research—an understanding of the why, how, and under what conditions programs and policies work, including the following: • sustained, direct, and systematic documentation of what happens inside programs • how individuals under study (e.g., students and teachers) change and adapt to interventions in interaction with each other in relation to their local contexts • a focus on persistent problems of practice examined within the context of their development • attention to ecological resources and constraints (gutiérrez & penuel, 2014) as a result, the institute for education sciences (ies) began research programs that focused on problems of practice and for which relevance for practice and policy was an explicit criterion for judging the quality of research proposals (easton, 2013). examples of these programs include continuous improvement research in education and the researcher-practitioner partnership in education research. these programs were not intended to promote translation of research to practice in a unidirectional manner, but rather through a more reciprocal pathway (easton, 2013). criteria for judging the “relevance” of research proposals were required to include the following: • documentation that the problem of focus is perceived by multiple stakeholders to be significant, persistent, and worthy of investigation • evidence provided by researchers that they have engaged in a process to negotiate the focus of their joint work and which documents how participation in the process was structured to include diverse education stakeholders • specific methods for bringing relevant stakeholders together and deliberating about the problems that can and should be addressed through research and development • engaging the multiple layers of a system’s infrastructure that have accumulated over time (contested spaces) so that they can support rather than obstruct transformation (gutiérrez & vossoughi, 2010; penuel & spillane, 2014) these criteria include important aspects such as ‘problems worthy of investigation,’ ‘multiple stakeholders,’ ‘negotiating the focus,’ ‘participation in the process,’ ‘deliberation about problems,’ and ‘engaging layers of infrastructure. following gutiérrez and vossoughi (2010), rigorous and consequential study of efficacy of educational interventions involved sustained first-hand observation, sharing in the action and cognition of practitioners, studying side-by-side in symbiotic space, and being jointly engaged in work to transform systems. these conditions are more likely to produce sensitive and robust measurement and ecologically valid accounts of institutional change. educational interventions have been viewed as contested spaces that are filled with tension and resistance from a range of stakeholders. supporting and engaging more diverse stakeholders in defining the focus of research and development requires that researchers rethink the nature of educational interventions. approaches to interventions can be viewed as dialectical systems that are subject to revisions, disruptions, and contradictions (gutierrez & vissoughi, 2010). therefore, research into the “social life of interventions” demands more open-ended, socially embedded studies that involve mutual engagement, and the identification of contradictions within and across the levels of the system under study. the contested spaces, then, become symbiotic spaces. recommendations related to standards of rigor and impact in doctoral programs differences of opinion about research preparation the definition of ‘rigor’ as a key standard for innovative ppd programs actually encompasses a set of transformative developmental skills that reach beyond the aims and capacities of most traditional research oriented programs. these transformative skills enable scholars to harness their creativity to solve crucial and highly complex social problems. transformative programs create transformative scholars who can redraw or expand the boundaries of practice and policy because they have developed the commitment and identity of a change agent, are guided by a powerful vision of the future, and can translate that vision into reality regardless of the environment (nisan & pekarsky, 2009). transformative scholars envision, in the field of education, that which has never been, and they do whatever it takes to make it happen. in short, they are prepared for high-impact action in the world. rigor and the phd in recent years, academics have debated the value of the edd and considered plans to improve it, and to raise its stature to that of the phd (basu, 2012), or to offer both degrees. university program redesigners tend to distinguish the degrees by candidates’ role aspirations, but do not attempt to define ‘rigor’ in relation to the two degrees. for example, in 2012, harvard university eliminated the edd which it had offered for 90 years and replaced it with a phd the academic dean, hiro yoshikawa, explained that the edd program was already a research-based degree, and so to eliminate the confusion between the two degrees they moved to the phd for those preparing for research roles. the edd was replaced by a shorter, practice-based program designed for those preparing for leadership in education. the goal was to equate such a degree with other professional degrees rather than with the phd. the rossier school of education, university of southern california, distinguishes the phd program (a 44-month program) as “research-oriented,” whereas the edd programs (32-33 months) are directed toward educational “practice” and the application of theory and research. the edd is considered equal in rigor but different in symbiotic space impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 9 substance from the phd (usc, 2017). the phd student is typically a person who (a) anticipates a faculty career or an area of practice that demands research expertise, (b) is excited by theory and conceptual analysis, and (c) intends to participate in research and has the potential for primarily advancing the theory in the field rather than implementing its practice. the edd student is a person who (a) is planning to work in the field as a practitioner, (b) is particularly interested in developing new practical or technological capabilities, and (c) is interested in research that emphasizes development, evaluation, or field-based projects (usc, 2017). concerns about creating and sustaining rigor represented the greatest challenge for the quality and coexistence of the two programs. a review by the current author of the content and requirements of 25 phd programs yielded the following criteria by which quality of the programs is judged: intensity of coursework; high level of critical thinking; a common domain of knowledge in the discipline that all students should master; advanced knowledge of the research methodologies of the discipline; original research contributions that build on current research available in the field of study; and the stature of the journal or other media for publications. requirements in these programs for candidates who complete a doctoral degree, either the phd or the edd (in the 20 programs that offered both), should demonstrate the following skills: • broad and advanced knowledge within the discipline • successful use of a range of methodologies of the discipline • independent performance of original or applied research • effective communication, written and oral • performance as a professional in the discipline the crucible of implementation: rigor and laboratories of practice definitions of rigor and program quality require re-imagination in the context of authentic field-based settings. the previous discussion about the meaning of rigor and relevance leads to other questions that are equally as provocative in the context of program design and expectations for candidate performance. can a practitioner-oriented program achieve the same level of “rigor” as a traditional research doctoral program or should the construct be redefined? does “rigor” encompass a special set of skills that are linked with problem solving and field impact? program “rigor” as defined within a practitioneroriented program affects matters of program status and value, faculty identity, student identity, student performance expectations and experiences, program content, and distribution of resources. cped held a discussion about this topic in its november 2012 ucea meeting in pittsburgh, offering the following observation because the professional practice doctorate in education prepares graduates to engage in a type of work fundamentally different from a research-heavy phd, cped asserts that the standards for the two degrees should display strikingly different definitions of excellence and quality. reframing the question of what constitutes rigor, based on a criterion unique to the edd, rather than a standard borrowed from the phd offers an important opportunity for the development and longevity of a true professional practice degree in education. to that end, perhaps we should be asking: what is the impact of our programs? (perry, 2012) other discussants suggested that quality be defined as the degree of impact our programs have on the profession we serve. the challenge is, however, to reach consensus on how quality should be defined and how impact should be determined and measured in terms of the leadership performance of our graduates. several dimensions of quality and rigor can be defined as core elements of “laboratories of practice” and authentic field-based settings (shulman, 2005) in which theory and practice inform and enrich each other and allow students to address complex problems of policy and practice. a vignette: research reciprocity and impact the following vignette illustrates the process of interweaving professional and personal development through the curriculum, experiential activities, development experiences, and dissertation. this vignette reflects the development and dissertation work of the current author’s recent doctoral graduate. the choice. angela h. had examined several doctoral programs that offered phds. however, she was concerned about a “traditional” program, in which she may have to fit into existing research orthodoxy and faculty agendas rather than forge her unique path. as a school psychologist, she believed that research should be conducted in collaboration with the “researched” and in real-world settings. she was inspired by the idea of embedding her research in the professional community of which she was a part and creating a context for shared inquiry. when she was interviewed for the program, she was asked, “how do you want to make a difference in the world?” she had never been asked this question and was intrigued by the idea of having the freedom to envision what had never been and then do whatever it took to make it happen. faculty knew that angela was self-motivated, inspired, and committed, and could be guided to translate her vision to practice. the preparation. angela was well prepared for the dissertation stage as a result of her coursework and related development experiences. her program plan combined courses in special education leadership, systemic change and consultation, qualitative and quantitative research tools, legal issues and public policy, preparation for the professorship, and coursework that bridged neuroscience with child development and education. she had also participated in two field-based research internships under the direction of faculty leaders. each student was required to examine a topic of interest related to a specific population of individuals with particular neurodevelopmental disorders requiring educational interventions. the requirements for the student’s project portfolio included information related to prevalence and incidence data, assessment approach, social profile (e.g., a picture of the social conditions for the population in terms of access to education, technology, economic wellbeing and employment, postsecondary education, and independent living), an individual case example, overview of research, implications for educational research, and recommendations for further research. for example, one of the projects engaged her, along with other doctoral students, in collaborative exploration of the neuroscience of attachment disorders in adolescents. the team provided a history of reactive attachment disorder (rad), diagnostic criteria, definitions, and behavioral manifestations and symptomatology. they distinguished among different types of rad, closely examined the dsm-iv classifications, and critically examined underlying theories of rad, particularly those of bowlby (1983), ainsworth (1978), and blount-mathews and hartenstein (2005). a compelling exemplar case study captured not only the behavioral manifestations, but also the impact on the family and on schools attended. they provided available prevalence and incidence data and explained the limits of research literature on the subject. definitions of rad by the american psychiatric association, world health organization, centers for kochhar-bryant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 10 disease control, and administration on children, youth and families were presented. the team presented a review of the social conditions for the population, addressing factors such as self-concept and mental health, success in employment and postsecondary education, independent living, and community participation. outcome data on the population of children were compared with that of children without the disorder. a framework was provided for understanding rad, including impacts of early care-giving and brain development; effects of trauma and abuse on self-regulation, communication, and cognition; and psychobiological relationships. the team discussed emerging efforts to understand the role that early negative experiences have on the neural system and brain structures, aspects of early brain development, stress responses, and neurobiology and neurotransmitters. they also addressed interacting neurobiological systems (sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, limbic system), genetic predispositions, and temperament. the project closed with the framing of important research questions, with examples of emerging and promising research on the topic. a summary was provided on what is known about the effects of rad on cognition and learning, the challenges to educating children and youth with the disorder, and identified interventions in practice with the population. an important part of this kind of project is the practice of “assumption hunting” (brandenburg, 2008), in which students examine the complexity of a problem as well as the beliefs and assumptions at its root. the grounding assumptions of contemporary interventions were critically analyzed in the light of new neuroscience knowledge (e.g., limitations in effectiveness of medications) and recommendations were made. another important element of the project was the hunting of former theories of change associated with previous interventions into the problem. while the team concluded that the disorder is “entirely preventable,” their course professor queried whether enough is known to date to be certain that attachment disruptions would not occur even in healthy caregiver relationships. during this team project, angela was challenged to think deeply about the kind of impact she wanted to prepare for and create. mentoring for impact. angela’s program included mentoring and guided processes in which students clarified their personal and professional identity, examined their motivations for their commitment to change, and reflected on the importance of culture and diversity in their decisions and actions. angela spoke about her concern with the rising number of older children with math disabilities and attentional problems, and wanted to design an intervention that she could test. doctoral programs that design for impact require intensive faculty time devoted to advising the student, guiding the study design, and coaching for the negotiation of the field-based project implementation. angela viewed the dissertation as an opportunity to design and measure an intervention with a population of children for whom she and school professionals were concerned. she also hoped that a successful intervention could be replicated in the future with a larger population in her school district. she wanted to achieve a goal greater than that of individual personal and professional development—to in fact transform her commitment to relevance and impact in her work. she and her peer cohort had become aware that they had stepped outside the narrow band of advancing their selfinterests as scholars and had embraced the transformative scholars’ doctrine: impact the world and work deeply in the community. in summary, angela was oriented early to a critical interrogation of her beliefs as well as of current practices. she strengthened her ability to express her values and talents and thus to actualize her identity as a skilled professional. she reflected on the personal and professional transformations that contributed to her identity as a change agent and on the value-commitments that guided her actions. finally, she learned what it meant to construct a theory of change that was grounded in an understanding of the history of previous interventions into the problem of interest. the dissertation: rigor and relevance. angela’s dissertation is titled the effectiveness of computerized working memory training on math achievement and other transfer effects in children with adhd and math difficulties (heishman, 2015). as a school psychologist in rural pennsylvania, she was aware that children with learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) struggle daily and are at risk for poor long-term outcomes. she was interested in emerging evidence suggesting that working memory (wm) may improve by adaptive computerized working memory training. she enlisted 23 school-aged children (11 females), from the 5th grade to the 12th grade, who had both math difficulties and adhd to participate in a quasi-experimental, repeatedmeasures study in a school to investigate transfer effects of working memory training (cogmed rm) on math achievement, fluid reasoning, and memory and learning tasks. as part of a pilot, the cogmed progress indicator (cpi) was used to measure transfer effects on working memory, following directions, and math challenge throughout the training. cogmed working memory training is a softwarebased program reported to improve working memory and designed for children and adolescents. it combines cognitive neuroscience with computer game design and professional support for teachers. standardized instruments were administered at baseline and at 4 weeks and 4 months post-interventions. teachers and students completed the conners-3 to assess adhd and teachers completed the behavior rating inventory of executive function (brief) to measure executive functioning. the cogmed coach discussed with parents and students the concept of working memory, how it impacts academics and functioning in daily life, and how cogmed working training works. statistically significant improvement on the cpi was found on the following-directions tasks, and on indices measuring verbal memory, visual memory, verbal working memory, symbolic working memory, attention/concentration, working memory, general memory, and fluid reasoning 4 weeks post-intervention. statistically significant differences were also found at the 4-month follow-up period in math fluency, applied problems, and math calculation. working memory, inhibition, organization, and the behavior rating index scales of the brief were found to be statistically significant at the 4-month posttest, and adhd showed significant improvement. angela concluded that the results were very promising, though additional research was needed to address the limitations of the study. angela knew from the beginning that her research needed to be relevant to those in the research environment. in the initial stage of her research she identified shared interests with the school community and engaged multiple stakeholders in her research design and its implementation, including her participants and their families. she worked with teachers and school administrators to identify what they needed and expected from her research and learned of their interest in using the results of her study to improve instruction with students and to integrate the practices into the curriculum. she also asked parents and teachers what they believed needed to be explored and how they might contribute to the study. symbiotic space impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 11 lessons about relevance and stakeholder perspectives. acting on the ethic of relevance and reciprocity, angela considered how the different groups in the study would use the work. she explored cultural issues that might shape the perspectives on the problems of children with adhd and math difficulties. she asked the parents, teachers, and administrators what they were interested in seeing as a result of their participation, and she provided a thorough report of processes and results. this report resulted in the development of additional professional development materials for teachers, and recommendations for wider use of the cogmed instructional strategies. angela worked continuously to adjust her study to ensure that she was exploring questions that were relevant and important to the community she was studying. in the process, she became an advocate for the student participants and their families. collaboration and reciprocity meant viewing research as a relational endeavor— asking questions that mattered to the community and engaging them in interpreting the meaning and the results. lessons about reciprocity in research. the notion of reciprocity regarding the dissertation elicited provocative questions from angela about who owns a research project. her advisor reframed her more general questions as follows: if the research is contextual, engages multiple stakeholders, is dependent upon these relationships, and the interpretation is context-sensitive, then who ultimately owns the work (kochhar-bryant, 2016)? she concluded from the question that it is not a dichotomy between the researcher and the researched, but it is both-and. she also learned that the dissertation in practice that embraces reciprocity leads education researchers to a broader conceptualization of evidence, one that expands the transformative potential of collective work (trainor & bouchard, 2013). reflecting on barriers and threats in the process. angela reflected on many challenges and barriers in the process of preparing for and negotiating the research project in an authentic setting. echoing schein (2004), she learned that for a culture to effectively change within an organization, the staff not only had to learn something new, but also had to “unlearn” something. angela also realized that for transformative change to occur there needed to be “disconfirming data” that suggested the inadequacy of former strategies. it was important that she gathered and presented that data. third, angela learned that the school culture was perpetuated through a process of socialization that involved the transmission of values and information. it was, therefore, important to ensure that the senior staff received continued training to be able to communicate and reinforce these concepts effectively with new staff (van maanen & schein, 1979). angela came to understand that the perfect reform initiative does not exist and that the focus on reform distracts educational leaders from focusing on the school culture and the elements of that culture that must be understood and nurtured for the reform to succeed (ross, 2010). fourth, angela noted several factors that may have affected the outcomes of the behavioral checklists. one factor in particular that may have affected teachers’ observations of students’ behaviors may have been the excessive demands placed upon them that essentially led to a negative school climate. teachers reported feeling overwhelmed during the school year in which the research study was conducted, particularly with changes in the teacher evaluation system whereby their students’ performance on standardized assessments could affect their ratings. additionally, teachers expressed concerns about pending changes taking place in the curriculum due to requirements to meet common core standards. adding to these new demands, teachers were faced with changes in the assessment of their students, and they expressed some concern about students participating in computerized interventions during the resource period in the day instead of receiving additional homework support. these stressors on teachers may have produced negative attitudes affecting the ratings. in other words, bias against the participants’ involvement in the computerized working-memory training program needed to be considered, particularly as the teachers were well aware of the training program. it is plausible to think they were resentful as they were further frustrated by a system that gave them less autonomy in how they structured their lessons and met the needs of their students. a fifth serious threat to the successful implementation of the initiative was the inadequate time for planning, sharing information, and working through implementation problems. finally, the shrinking pool of financial resources available for staff training and for implementation required creative thinking about sustaining the project through alternative funding. lessons about bridging knowledge across disciplines. angela raised an important concern that many stakeholders in education are unaware of the knowledge from in the field of neuroscience explaining the learning processes involved in reading, writing, and mathematics. they could be at risk of employing instructional practices and using expensive materials that are not appropriately addressing the developmental needs of many of the students in the classroom. this is of particular concern when working with struggling learners who may have specific cognitive deficits that contribute to their inefficiency in learning. by not considering the neurodiversity that exists among learners, educators could clearly miss opportunities to make significant changes in young people’s lives. one of the strengths of this research, as well as others on computerized working-memory training, is that it provides additional translational research through the examination of cognitive underpinnings linked with learning and tests whether specific targeted interventions may lead to improvements in neuropsychological processes and academic skills of struggling students. angela asserted that probably the most important group of stakeholders that needed to be aware of the research connecting the fields of neuroscience and education were teachers. one of the most powerful concepts that teachers should understand is that the brain is malleable, and not fixed as many educators were once trained to believe. angela had reviewed the research on the plasticity of the brain and the discovery that reducing the negative effects of certain variables, such as poverty and stress, can improve specific cognitive processes that directly impact school performance. therefore, she surmised, translating this knowledge to teachers may help them to feel more empowered about their crucial role in shaping young children’s current and future neuropsychological development. summary and conclusions: comparison of the phd and ppd in rigor and relevance a quantitative phd study on working memory the following summary of a quantitative dissertation study by southard (2014) is presented here as a comparison with the previous study in order to discuss distinctions between the criteria for rigor and the construct of relevance between the phd and ppd programs. the southard quantitative study investigated the relationships among working memory, creativity (measured as divergent thinking and creative achievement), and nonverbal intelligence. the study also examined the roles of working memory and intelligence in the creative process. in order to examine this, participants were evaluat kochhar-bryant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 12 ed using a variety of cognitive tasks that included the alternative uses test, the consequences task, the creative achievement questionnaire, the alloway working memory assessment, and the matrix test from the wechsler abbreviated scale of intelligence. the sample for this study consisted of 166 students enrolled at the university of north florida. of the students in our sample 29 were freshmen, 21 were sophomores, 65 were juniors, and 51 were seniors. a large portion of our sample (42.77%) were between 18 and 20 years old, 30.72% were between 21 and 23 years old, 9.64% were ages 24–26, and 15.66% were 27 or older. the majority, 53.61%, of the participants’ ethnicity was caucasian; 18.07% were african american, 13.25% were hispanic, 7.23% were asian/pacific islander, and 7.83% identified their ethnicity as other. the results of this study indicate that verbal working memory was related to divergent thinking over and beyond intelligence and creative achievement (southard, 2014). standards for rigor in the scientific process many academicians equate good (i.e., rigorous) research with a positivist perspective and recommend an emphasis on quantitative skills and methods (torff, 2011), proposing a hierarchy of data collection and analysis techniques, some more “rigorous” than others. for example, doctoral programs funded by the institute for educational sciences (2008) to increase the supply of researchers in education give preference to rigorous education research preparation for the conduct of efficacy and scale-up trials. ies refers to the “methodological superiority of randomized trials for drawing causal claims in areas in which outcomes are affected by many variables” (pg.10). the national academies of science (2002) concludes that nonrandomized studies are weaker in their ability to establish causation than are randomized field trials (national research council, 2002). the practice of scientific research—whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method—demands that the researcher’s work be intellectually rigorous, accurate on all points, ethical, and dispassionately executed (bradford, 2015). rigor in quantitative research is judged by how narrow, concise, and objective the design and analysis techniques are and how strictly the rules have been adhered to and applied to all decisions (ies, 2008). the steps involved in the scientific process vary slightly depending upon the field; the following is an outline of the general approach: • make an observation or observations. • ask questions about the observations and gather information. • form a hypothesis—a tentative description of what's been observed and predictions based on that observation. • test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced. • analyze the data and draw conclusions; accept or reject the hypothesis or modify hypothesis as necessary. • reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observations and theory (bradford, 2015; kantrowitz, 2014). however, there are differences of opinion about what the preparation should look like for doctoral students. rigor and the problem of practice dissertation kantrowitz (2014) argues that researchers need to be cautious about making claims that some data collection or analysis techniques are “more rigorous” than others, and furthermore, that researchers should stop associating standards and rigor only with confirmatory and hypothesis-driven research. she also advises caution when claiming that fixed standards are needed for particular methodological techniques. methodological techniques share a common set of properties but their power lies in the ability to adapt a specific research technique to different research contexts (kantrowitz, 2014). standards of rigor can be established for exploratory and descriptive research. problems of practice—of implementation and translation of research findings to practice—have been referred to as “wicked problems” (fixsen et al., 2009). they represent complex problems that occur in implementation conditions (“contested spaces”) that are in flux and that engage multiple layers of infrastructure of a system where various stakeholders can either support or obstruct transformation (gutiérrez & vossoughi, 2010; penuel & spillane, 2014). such conditions require a set of skills in the researcher that enables him or her to engage in a process with diverse stakeholders to define the problem of focus as being significant, persistent, and worthy of investigation. a reconceptualization of rigor for studies in these conditions requires sustained, direct, and systematic documentation of what takes place inside programs to document how systems being studied change and adapt interventions in interaction with each other in relation to their dynamic local contexts. scientific rigor associated with qualitative research (nonexperimental) is defined as being open to the data, scrupulously adhering to a specific philosophical perspective, and thoroughness in collecting data (guba, 1981). it is also judged by the logic of the emerging theory and whether the findings are contributing to what is already known about the phenomenon under study. criteria for rigor and trustworthiness of the data included the following: • truth value / credibility of the study: degree to which the researcher has established confidence in the truth of the findings for the subjects and the context in which the study was undertaken • applicability: degree to which the findings can be applied to other contexts, settings, or groups • consistency: extent to which the findings would be consistent if inquiry were replicated with the same subjects or similar context • neutrality: degree to which the findings are a function of the subjects/informats and condition of the research and not of other biases, motivations, and perspectives (lincoln & guba,1986) ensuring a standard of rigor within a problem of practice dissertation requires that the program provide candidates with the following: 1. an opportunity to envision solutions to significant problems within the symbiotic space between the university and the stakeholder community 2. challenging opportunities to express one’s values and talents, and thus to actualize one’s identity as a skilled professional 3. opportunities to define and reflect on personal and professional transformations that contribute to one’s identity as a change agent, and commitment to a larger community impact symbiotic space impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.25 13 4. an opportunity to construct a theory of change that is grounded in theory and understanding of the history of previous interventions into the problem in the past; 5. an opportunity to develop a sense of mastering a challenging situation and, through this, to feel a sense of responsibility for future outcomes 6. the challenge of exercising leadership for social change through professional and applied research activities that result in appreciable improvements on processes, policies, or social conditions within the community, particularly for vulnerable populations 7. opportunities to use data to understand the effects of innovation, and ability to gather, organize, judge, and analyze situations, literature, and data through a critical lens (shulman, 2005) 8. the shaping of a perspective that views cultural and linguistic diversity as an asset 9. mentoring that engenders a sense of deep commitment to a research problem that is compelling for the individual and for the community or organization in which it occurs the dissertation, therefore, is viewed as having the aim of achieving a goal that is much greater than the individual’s personal and professional development. rather, it becomes an instrument for transformative development within the research context, and for the shaping of both a personal and a shared identity for change and a commitment to making a difference or effecting a change. the shared, negotiated process becomes an enriching aspect of the dissertation for the researcher and his or her relationship with the researched. departing from the model of ‘get the data and run, the researcher develops a reciprocal relationship (fine, weis, weseen, & wong, 2003; trainor & bouchard, 2013; zigo, 2001), ensuring that the subjects benefit from the study. closing with several practitioner-oriented doctoral programs in embryonic stages, along with the concurrent implementation of a new phd, our faculty are navigating the tensions of past practices and behavioral and value sets, and the demands of a new conceptual frame. they are faced with disquieting issues related to the balance of resources among programs, equity in the balance of faculty load, challenges to program traditions, threats to faculty and student identities, and dynamic standards of rigor. high-impact projects are rigorous, powerful, inspiring, bold, and often dramatic. deliberate and sustained efforts within and outside the academic unit to promote understanding and positive communication about ppd contributions and expectations for candidates can add abundant reputational value to the institution. references 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(1979). toward of theory of organizational socialization. research in organizational behavior, 1, 209–264. walker, g., golde, c., jones, l., bueschel, a., & hutchings, p. (2009). the formation of scholars: rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century. new york: wiley & sons. zambo, r., zambo, d., buss, r. r., perry, j. a., & williams, t. r. (2014). seven years after the call: students’ and graduates’ perceptions of the re-envisioned edd. innovative higher education (39)2, 123–137. zigo, d. (2001). rethinking reciprocity: collaboration in labor as a path toward equalizing power in classroom research. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 14(3), 351–365. zusman, a. (2013). degrees of change: how new kinds of professional doctorates are changing higher education institutions. research and occasional paper series, cshe 8-13. center for studies in higher education. berkeley, ca: university of california. microsoft word schuster vf.docx new  articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  united  states  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.34 the edd and the scholarly practitioner the cped path maximilian t. schuster university of pittsburgh mts31@pitt.edu perry, j. a. (ed.). (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. charlotte, nc: information age publishing. 234 pp. paperback: $45.99. isbn: 978-168123-541-7. this volume, edited by jill alexa perry, delivers a framework for edd restructuring from the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), a collective of 100+ colleges and universities in the united states, canada, and new zealand that is focused on preparing scholarly practitioners through a reimagined, yet flexible edd framework. the framework presented is altogether utile, theoretical, and practical, and perry’s volume provides a cohesive path for transformative edd reform. the text tackles tensions that have long existed between phd and edd education and outlines ways in which an edd curriculum can be redesigned to prepare scholarly practitioners for transformational leadership roles within education. the volume’s thoughtful consideration of the depth of issues that surround edd reform allow the cped framework to be transferable to multiple institutional contexts, which strengthens its utility for multiple audiences. this volume contains 13 chapters with an introductory chapter by the volume editor that describes transformational leadership approaches in cped-influenced edd programs that develop scholarly practitioners. the first section, tools for considering edd program redesign, makes manageable the process for reimagining an edd program. specifically, the section proposes reflexive questions for program faculty to consider, strategies for leveraging leadership to support programmatic changes, and curricular tools for program redesign. the second section, highlights from cpedinfluenced programs, handily considers the successes of cped institutions mostly related to their implementation of the reconsidered dissertation of practice. the final section, in their own words— experiences of scholarly practitioners, uniquely explores through cped-influenced edd graduates’ voices the dissertation of practice’s influence on graduates’ development as scholarly practitioners. throughout the volume are details and examples of signature pedagogical techniques unique to the cped framework. these examples are supported by cped data and rich qualitative examples that highlight instances where the cped framework created effective laboratories of practice for edd students. for example, chapter 9, the role of research courses, by belzer, axelrod, benedict, jakubik, rosen and olcay presents two sets of datasets from cped institutions that demonstrate the utility of the realigned methodology courses. located within the first section, chapter 4, building and sustaining a learning cohort, by browne-ferrigno and maughan is especially worth highlighting because it provides an essential and unique overview of the cped-influenced learning cohort model that promotes peer collaboration and cooperative learning. this signature pedagogy maintains soundness and the chapter authors aptly outline generative strategies that produce successful outcomes as well as expected obstacles to cohort implementation. chapter 5, mentoring students in cped-influenced doctoral programs, by ewbank is, likewise, noteworthy because of its description of mediating faculty engagement through sustained and integrative mentoring relationships. for cped-influenced programs, these effective relationships occur before, during, and beyond a student’s enrollment in an edd program. combined with other key curricular designs detailed later in the text, such as offering practical research courses and producing a dissertation of practice, these chapters contribute to a unified framework that is neither static nor fixed. instead, the framework’s adhesion to core cped principles allow its specific implementation to remain fluid and flexible in order to meet the demands of individual institutions’ contexts. the edd and the scholarly practitioner impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.34 57 the second section of this volume provides examples of the cped framework, focusing heavily on dissertations reimagined as actionable research to practice projects. these projects intend to prepare scholarly practitioners through the development of new knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are harnessed through creative curricular designs and meaningful final products. this section envisions edd dissertations as the combination of rigorous research, timely problems of practice, and students’ academic and professional interests. chapter 11, the single-district dissertation, by hochbein serves as a section exemplar by explaining how several edd students at a cpedinfluenced program utilized their dissertations to bridge research and practice. in particular, these students investigated increases in their school district’s statewide math testing and concluded the mechanism that drove the growth of those results. their projects illustrate how dissertations of practice can reduce the distance between theory and practice. these chapters highlight practices from successful cped edd programs, blending theoretical and practical aspects, to sketch a blueprint for a revitalized edd dissertation process. the volume concludes with several accounts of the experiences and perspectives of scholarly practitioners who completed a cped-influenced edd. these chapters not only provide a refreshing student perspective that connects to previous chapters, but they also detail the ways in which these students experienced the signature pedagogies of their programs. this section heavily focuses on students’ dissertation experiences, underscoring how action research dissertations aid in preparing scholarly practitioners. this section’s almost exclusive focus on students’ dissertation experiences does, however, leave the reader yearning for more depth about students’ other experiences with their cohorts, faculty mentoring relationships, and research methods courses. overall, this volume provides a veritable path for edd reform and redesign at the institutional and programmatic levels. presenting theoretical and practical evidence through rich qualitative data provides edd program faculty and administrators with actionable steps aimed at transforming their programs to develop scholarly practitioners. perhaps most helpful, this volume presents a framework for edd reform; it is not a stringent manual. it considers and tackles contentious issues and tensions between the edd and phd, while describing core principles that found cped-influenced doctoral programs. the principles, considered alongside these tensions, make the process of edd curriculum reform more tangible. the framework’s transferability and adaptability to different institutional contexts serves as its ultimate strength. while this text engages in a timely and relevant discussion about the edd, several critiques exist. at times, the qualitative data presented serves more descriptive rather than analytical purposes, relying on demonstrating examples instead of undertaking critical interrogation. at other times, implications derived from data are best suited for an institution already within cped instead of an institution beginning reform efforts. finally, the findings described in several chapters are not compared to non-cped edd programs, potentially dampening support for cped-influenced edds. despite these critiques, the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path provides an instructive and practicable guide for institutions and edd programs to begin this necessary journey in order to prepare scholarly practitioners for the transformational leadership that our education systems greatly deserve. microsoft word george vf.docx new  articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  united  states  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education phillis george department of leadership and counselor education plgeorge@olemiss.edu abstract evaluative in nature, this article includes an initial examination of a doctoral program uniquely designed to prepare higher education administrators and practitioners to be socially just and equity-minded leaders. the program emphasizes the integration of equity, social justice, and ethics into professional practice. as such, this article utilizes a social justice, leadership framework. originally designed in 2006 by colleen capper, george theoharis, and james sebastian to prepare secondary administrators for social justice leadership, the framework assists with the enclosed evaluation of a program that prepares postsecondary administrators for social justice leadership. the article delineates the effectiveness of the program’s implementation and the extent to which the program’s goals, curriculum, and pedagogy align with components of the framework. the program has been chosen because of its commitment to addressing socio-economic and educational attainment disparities in higher education through the focused teaching and professional development of academic and student affairs personnel. keywords social justice, higher education, edd higher education is currently undergoing a change, as social and restorative justice issues are working their way to the academic core. within this climate, institutions are responding to a clarion call to address socio-economic and educational attainment disparities by attending to systemic issues of limited access and inequitable practices that impede student success (bowen & mcpherson, 2016). the end goal is to eliminate persistent attainment and achievement gaps among all student demographics. as they begin this work, colleges and universities of various settings, types, and sizes are learning they lack the required infrastructure (e.g., curricula, pedagogy, and assessments) and resources (both human and monetary) to meaningfully take on equity challenges regarding college access, persistence, and completion (bok, 2006). arguably, this incomplete infrastructure has existed for some time, as institutions have made limited systemic, effort to substantively address the aforementioned equity issues (tinto, 1993, 2012). this persistent inaction and inattentiveness across the higher education landscape can be, and has been, viewed by many as ethically egregious and neglectful (bok, 2006). disconcertingly, in the current performance-based, funding environment, primacy is given to increased output relating to college completion; yet, the equity disparities concerning access and student success have become even more pronounced and societally problematic (hillman, tandberg, & gross, 2014; rabovsky, 2012; tandberg & hillman, 2014; tandberg, hillman, & barakat, 2015; volkwein & tandberg, 2008). consequently, institutions are being held more accountable for taking an active role in mediating inequity on their campuses (berg, 2010; dickert-conlin & rubenstein, 2007; taylor, beck, lahey, & froyd, 2017). in particular, they are asked to make visible the critical and operational linkages that exist between their espoused and enacted goals of equity and excellence in access and student success. as an embodied collective, higher education institutions are increasingly encouraged to not only honor their equity commitment (i.e., to college access) but also improve access to high quality learning, while adhering to an ever-growing and unrelenting push toward timely degree completion (complete college america, 2013). although not mutually exclusive, in the current higher education landscape, the latter (i.e., degree completion) seemingly serves as the ultimate accountability measure and indicator of student success (braxton, doyle, hartley, hirschy, jones, & mclendon, 2014; seidman, 2012; tinto, 2012). in elevating the role and importance of degree completion, an inherent tension is exposed between institutional accountability and improvement concerning equity and excellence in college access and student success. according to ewell (2009), “accountability requires the entity held accountable to demonstrate, with evidence, conformity with an established standard of process or outcome” (p. 7). in relating this definition to today’s higher education landscape, timely degree completion becomes an “established standard of process or outcome” for which higher education “entities” or colleges and universities are held accountable (ewell, 2009, p. 7). ewell (2009) further states, “the associated [accountability] incentive for that entity is to look as good as possible, regardless of the underlying performance” (p. 7). in contrast, ewell (2009) describes improvement as “entailing an opposite set of incentives” whereby “deficiencies in performance must be faithfully detected and reported so they can be acted upon” (p. 7). in relating these incentive-based descriptions of george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 42 accountability and improvement to 21st century higher education, equity challenges, there is great irony because the accountability incentive (i.e., to improve completion rates) rivals and, in many ways, eclipses institutional incentives to improve and address underlying deficiencies in more expansive equity performance measures concerning access and student success. given this dueling reality, how do institutions reconcile increased calls of accountability regarding college completion with improvement efforts, so as not to undermine their ability to develop more complete, effective, and equitable infrastructures that support increased college access and student success for all? improvement relates to “the underlying performance” of an institution using a variety of indicators, not just degree completion (e.g., student learning, student engagement, student motivation, academic and self-efficacy, etc.) (ewell, 2009, p. 7). it is assumed that improving underlying performance measures serves as a useful means to address systemic issues of inequity in higher education. by focusing on these measures (which are all encompassing), the hope is that colleges and universities will be able to comprehensively solve their equity challenges and better respond to societal needs and demands for increased access and student success, while holding themselves to an even greater standard of accountability (i.e., increases in college completion rates for all student demographics). so, how will institutions accomplish these equity goals? also, who among institutional officials will be charged with doing the heavy lifting to realize the aforementioned improvement and accountability outcomes? the short answer entails an institutional reliance on intermediate and senior-level administrators or practitioners who are charged with overseeing curricular and co-curricular programming designed to promote college student learning, development, and (ultimately) success. a more nuanced answer concerns the provision of focused teaching and targeted, professional development for academic and student affairs personnel, so that they might possess the requisite knowledge and skills needed to develop and sustain the institutional foci of accountability and improvement in access and student success. the enclosed article promotes the idea that the referenced knowledge-base and skill set should include (at the very least) an understanding of social justice leadership and equity mindedness (bensimon, 2007; dowd & bensimon, 2015), with both serving as a unique lens through which administrators can view and perfect their work in upholding institutional accountability and improvement efforts. equity-mindedness is defined as “the perspective or mode of thinking exhibited by practitioners who call attention to patterns of inequity in [college] student outcomes” (center for urban education, university of southern california, n.d., para. 1). this mindset prompts practitioners to question whether their personal and/or institutional practices are inequitable and exclusionary (center for urban education, university of southern california, n.d.). building on that definition, social justice leadership is defined here as the intentional manner in which higher education administrators and practitioners “make issues of race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other historically and currently marginalizing conditions in the united states central to their advocacy, leadership, practice, and vision” (theoharis, 2007, p. 223). evaluative in nature, this article includes an initial examination of a doctoral program uniquely designed to prepare higher education administrators and practitioners to be socially just and equity-minded leaders who are focused on “addressing and eliminating marginalization” in higher education (theoharis, 2007, p. 223). more specifically, the program emphasizes the integration of equity, social justice, and ethics into professional practice. from a programmatic and evaluative perspective, equity focuses on eliminating disparities in higher educational outcomes (i.e., student success and college completion), regardless of one’s identity, orientation, or background (center for urban education, university of southern california, n.d.). equity is not to be confused with equality, which “refers to the social ideal that society regards and treats its citizens as equals and that benefits…should be distributed equally” (nelson, creagh, & clarke, 2012, p. 4). equity, within the current analysis, moves beyond the provision of equal opportunities for college access and focuses more on student outcomes—namely college retention and completion—for historically underrepresented and marginalized collegians (center for urban education, university of southern california, n.d.). within this analytic and evaluative context, social justice refers to intentional actions, policies, and decisions (e.g., of administrators, practitioners, institutions, or policy makers) that are designed to eradicate social disparities and promote equity and inclusivity. the degree to which those actions, policies, and decisions adhere to informal and formal, socially agreed upon principles that respect the value, identity, and worth of all individuals ultimately determines the ethical nature of any socially just practice or set of practices. this article relies upon these working definitions of equity, social justice, and ethics and pairs them with a social justice leadership framework to delineate the effectiveness of the program’s implementation and the extent to which the program’s goals, curriculum, and pedagogy align with components of the framework. to be clear, the program has been chosen because it attempts to address socio-economic and educational attainment disparities in higher education by working with the very professionals tasked with leading the charge. defining the roles of equity, social justice, and ethics in leadership equity from a higher educational professional standpoint, the question of how to equitably, justly, and ethically carry out this complex task with constrained budgets as well as inadequate infrastructural and human resources is daunting. there is arguably a great need for more professionals who are proficient and mindful in their efforts to seamlessly integrate social justice and ethics into their practice, while promoting equity in institutional accountability and improvement outcomes. for some time now, researchers, practitioners, and policy analysts have sought to address this need on the secondary end of the educational continuum (brown, 2006; dantley & tillman, 2006; mckenzie et al., 2008; theoharis, 2007); however, the need for more professionals with the ability “to transform [postsecondary] schools into equitable contexts focused on social justice” has persisted (guerra, nelson, jacobs, & yamamura, 2013, p. 128). without such individuals, efforts to promote greater college access, success, and completion could potentially be undermined, thus reinforcing institutional deficiencies and ineffectiveness in achieving educational parity. ideally, there would already be an ample supply—indeed, an overflow—of higher education administrators and practitioners in possession of the professional mindedness and commitment to equity, social justice, and ethics needed to affect positive change across institutional types. since this is not yet the case, there is great justification for the toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 43 development of doctoral programs uniquely designed to populate the profession with more individuals (i.e., administrators and practitioners) who uphold and value equity as the intentional provision of multifaceted and robust opportunities for equal access and success for all student demographics in higher education, most especially historically underrepresented and socio-economically disadvantaged students (bensimon, 2007; dowd & bensimon, 2015). social justice the hope is that these individuals, as a result of their preparation, would understand and make administrative meaning of the fact that for far too long, underrepresented and marginalized students have experienced limited returns on their educational investments due to a complex labyrinth of systems and processes uniquely designed to disadvantage them in their higher educational pursuits (bowen, chingos, & mcpherson, 2009). further, these individuals would be willing to act on their in-depth understanding of the persistent and long-lasting consequences of educational inequity. their enhanced, professional awareness would presumably lead to direct engagement in advocacy work designed to develop and sustain more equitable flows of higher educational access, opportunity, and attainment. by engaging in this focused work, individuals would (i.e., by the nature and scope of their professional actions) promote socially just principles, thus forming—be it intentionally or unintentionally—the basis and strong foundation for social justice leadership. ethics within the confines of this article, social justice leadership is operationalized as the fair and proper administration of higher education systems, processes, and policies that recognize and value all persons as equals without discrimination or prejudicial treatment. in adhering to this operationalized conceptualization, individuals would affirm and adopt a core philosophy of fairness or code of ethics that would ultimately shape and influence their administrative decisions and actions. the greatest beneficiary of this professional adherence would be college and university students, as they would then have an inexhaustible, designated, and trained group of social justice leaders continuously advocating on their behalf to ensure equity and excellence in college access, success, and completion. this is the vision with which the current article was first conceived. the goal was and is to identify and evaluate a doctoral program that prepares higher education administrators and practitioners for social justice leadership. an employed social justice and literary framework initially designed for secondary education doctoral leadership programs, the critical framework utilized within this article was created in 2006 by colleen capper, george theoharis, and james sebastian and first previewed in an original article—aptly titled, “toward a framework for preparing leaders for social justice.” arguably a visionary framework in the past and even more so in the present, this conceptual tool was designed to intentionally prepare secondary education administrators for effective, social justice leadership. specifically, it provided secondary administration programs with a working conceptualization of the preparatory process by focusing on seven domains—which the authors argued that if properly addressed will maximize the learning goals and help fully realize the potential of leadership for social justice among education doctoral students (capper, theoharis, & sebastian, 2006, p. 221). as shown in appendix a, the horizontal dimension of the framework includes four very active domains: (1) emotional safety for risk taking, (2) critical consciousness, (3) focused knowledge, and (4) a practical skill set regarding social justice leadership. in order to achieve and sustain the aforementioned, the vertical dimension delineates three required components of an administrative preparatory program (i.e., for social justice leadership): (1) relevant curriculum, (2) critical pedagogy, and (3) ongoing, programmatic assessment. the framework is employed within the current analysis to suit the preparatory and professional development needs of higher education administration doctoral students. although there are seven referenced domains, the very first domain (i.e., emotional safety for risk taking) is active across all domains. capper et al. (2006) acknowledge that students cannot fully invest themselves in the critical work required to become social justice leaders if the learning environment is not emotionally and intellectually safe (p. 212). as such, this domain is presumed to be an omnipresent constant within the program, and therefore appears in the upper left corner of the chart (see appendix a). it is important to note that much of the research in higher education administration regarding social justice leadership is bifurcated. one core research focus includes civic engagement, community outreach, and service-learning as a social justice and improvement platform. this body of research is very studentcentered and community-oriented and is generally comprised of three themes: (a) reciprocity embedded within strategic, universitycommunity collaborations (carlton, whiting, bradford, hyjer dyk, & vail, 2009; thompson, 2003); (b) civic engagement and its influence on college access and success (cress, burack, giles, elkins, & stevens, 2010; simonet, 2008); and (c) the influence of servicelearning on student engagement (caruso, bowen, & adams-dunford, 2006). while important regarding its’ contributions to the discipline and field of practice, this body of research does not contribute as meaningfully to the current analysis—which focuses on the preparation of higher education professionals and administrators for social justice leadership. there is, however, a second body of research that is more applicable. studies included in this latter research strand focus indirectly on transforming higher education leadership preparation by concentrating holistically on higher education leadership and embedded opportunities for social justice practice. these studies focus almost entirely on promoting (a) diversity leadership (asumah & nagel, 2014; asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016; guerra & pazey, 2016; kotter, 1990; mor barak, 2014; northouse, 2013; olsen & martins, 2012; rost, 1991) and (b) inclusive excellence (williams, berger, & mcclendon, 2005). to be clear, there are a host of studies that focus on social justice issues in higher education, but this particular body of research speaks to a unique set of knowledge, skills, employed strategies, principles, and beliefs that inform the work of the selected doctoral program. diversity leadership there is a critical distinction between diversity management and diversity leadership (asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016; kotter, 1990; rost, 1991). diversity management has an overriding focus on george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 44 maintaining order regarding an organization’s systems and processes (northouse, 2013). maximizing organizational efficiencies becomes a core focus. diversity management in this context is typically one-way, unilateral, and highly simplex (rost, 1991). to the extent that social justice and equity-based decisions contribute to the causes of organizational efficiency and order, diversity management can potentially inform and shape social justice practices in higher education. whether referencing (a) voluntary but deliberate, organizational policies and practices designed to promote diversity and inclusion (mor barak, 2014) or (b) the strategic ordering and placement of diverse human resources to maximize organizational efficiency (olsen & martins, 2012), diversity management— especially from a higher education administrative standpoint—is usually considered to be quite limiting because of a tendency to situate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within a corporate and capital-based framework (asumah & nagel, 2014; asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016). this is problematic because such a framework does not easily lend itself to critical social theory which “views people as subjects, not objects, who are constantly reflecting and acting on the transformation of their world so it can become a more equitable place for all to live” (brown, 2004, p. 85). within this article, critical social theory is applied to a higher education, leadership context. administrators and practitioners reflect and act on transforming colleges and universities into more equitable learning environments for all student demographics. therefore, critical social theory (i.e., through a higher education, administrative lens) is considered an active and ever-contributing component of diversity leadership, which fundamentally differs from diversity management. although seemingly complex, diversity leadership is really quite simple. it “is about redefining and rethinking problems in creative ways and the transformational approaches to overcoming difficult dialogues and raising human consciousness to implement [social justice] goals and policies” (asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016, p. 143). in order to implement and sustain diversity leadership, a paradigm shift is required, so too is institutional adherence and expanded thinking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. while still concerned with organizational efficiency and achieving structured goals, diversity leadership focuses intently on progressive growth and innovation (northouse, 2013) from a multi-level and multistakeholder perspective (rost, 1991). this distinction is important because unidirectional decision-making from a corporate maximization stance is antithetical to the collective thinking and creative problem-solving needed to produce changes and progressive movement within higher education institutions seeking to eradicate educational disparities in college access, success, and completion. diversity leadership in higher education entails an intensely transformational approach to social change efforts relating to educational and socio-economic attainment (asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016). senior officials who take up the mantle of diversity leadership understand and appreciate that their own efforts are critical for role-modeling and helping lead the institutional charge (guerra & pazey, 2016). in truth, there is no real substitute for diversity leadership and its primary role in helping to construct a core and effective philosophy of social justice leadership—which is why diversity leadership helps to inform the current programmatic evaluation. inclusive excellence in addition to diversity leadership, inclusive excellence plays an important role in helping shape an individual’s initial commitment to and operational understanding of social justice leadership. in fact, for the purposes of this evaluative article, these two principles are highly complementary and work in concert. to briefly review, diversity leadership is about creative thinking and transformational problem solving, especially about issues of equity and excellence in higher education. inclusive excellence helps ensure that the aforementioned transformation is long lasting and fully inclusive because of the commitment to enhancing student success and academic achievement, especially for marginalized and historically underrepresented student populations (e.g., ethnic minority, first generation, and socio-economically disadvantaged collegians). as a core principle of social justice leadership, inclusive excellence is comprised of four primary components: (1) a focus on student intellectual and social development; (2) a purposeful development and utilization of organizational resources to enhance student learning; (3) attention to the cultural differences learners bring to the educational experience and that enhance the enterprise; and (4) a welcoming community that engages all of its diversity in the service of student and organizational learning (williams, berger, & mcclendon, 2005, p. vi). there is no mistaking the significance of these active components in ensuring equity, social justice, and ethics in higher education policy and administrative decision-making. to underscore their importance and further their legitimacy, the association of american colleges and universities (aacu) has adopted inclusive excellence (and each of its components) as a guiding principle in the promotion of improved college access, success, and completion. aacu acknowledges that inclusive excellence “is designed to help colleges and universities integrate diversity, equity, and educational quality efforts into their missions and institutional operations” (n.d., para. 1). in fact, higher education administrators seeking to achieve inclusive excellence on their campuses must focus on these components or (restated) “on the ‘big picture’—an academy that systematically leverages diversity for student learning and institutional excellence—and the myriad individual pieces that contribute to that picture” (williams, berger, & mcclendon, 2005, p. v). with so many moving and critical pieces, focused, doctoral preparation for administering higher education programs (both curricular and co-curricular) while upholding the principles of diversity leadership and inclusive excellence is expressly needed—which is why the current evaluation of the selected doctoral program is timely and important. the embedded analysis of the higher education administration doctoral program is predicated on the notion that “the sustainability of inclusive excellence in [higher] education is dependent upon the quality of diversity leadership over and above the corporate style diversity management, which is a linear approach to problem solving” (asumah, nagel, & rosengarten, 2016, p. 141). ultimately, what is being promoted within the selected doctoral program are intentionally redefined, restructured, and non-linear approaches to solving persistent and complex problems of higher education practice that have—for far too long—created and/or perpetuated educational inequities in college access, success, and completion. this article attempts to expand on the (a) referenced principles of diversity leadership and inclusive excellence and (b) related bodies of research that focus on transforming higher educational toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 45 leadership preparation by employing the social justice framework illustrated in appendix a. again, although intended for secondary education leaders, the selected framework affords a unique and much needed opportunity to conceptualize and assess the professional development and preparation of leaders for social justice within a higher education setting. the remaining portions of this article will focus intently on achieving this goal by evaluating the aforementioned program. methods as mentioned, the enclosed discussion of social justice leadership draws on a social justice framework adopted from capper, theoharis, and sebastien (2006) and is contextualized within an evaluative assessment of an emergent doctoral program with an emphasis in higher education administration. as an adherent to the espoused and enacted principles of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped),1 the selected program is highly attentive to issues of equity, social justice, and ethics and seeks to admit college and university professionals—with foci in both academic and student affairs—who desire a practitioner focus in their doctoral studies and who are receptive to a critical social justice approach in their doctoral preparation as well as in their professional practice. given the unique nature of the program and its core mission of developing and cultivating the critical thinking and decision-making skills of higher education professionals through a social justice lens, this article utilizes a social justice framework to assess the overall effectiveness and manner in which the emergent program prepares higher education leaders with a mindfulness toward equity, social justice, and ethics as well as a demonstrated knowledge of how to continually integrate the three into professional practice. in utilizing the framework, emphasis is placed on the program’s implementation. as such, the qualitative application employed within this study is essentially an implementation evaluation. patton (2015) characterizes implementation evaluation as an evaluative process that “documents the extent to which an intervention [program] has been implemented as planned …” (p. 197). he further states that “studying program implementation involves gathering detailed, descriptive information about how an intervention or program operated, or is operating …” (patton, 2015, p. 197). the employed methodology should “be open-ended, discovery oriented, and capable of describing developmental processes and program changes” (patton, 2015, p. 197). these methodological guides are strictly adhered to within the current programmatic evaluation—which entails “case data rich with the details of program content and 1 a consortium of over 80 schools of education committed to improving educational preparatory programs (secondary and postsecondary), cped (http://www.cpedinitiative.org/) adheres to six working principles to prepare leaders for the application of appropriate practices, generation of new and complex funds of knowledge, and effective stewardship of the profession. the first, working principle includes questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to solve complex and persistent problems of educational practice. it is that principle which is substantively addressed within the current analysis. context” as it relates to the development and preparation of social justice leaders in higher education (patton, 2015, p. 198). it is worth noting that because the selected doctoral program is only in its second year of implementation, comprehensive, assessment data is not yet available. therefore, the assessment domain of the employed social justice framework has been excluded from the current implementation evaluation. even so, it is important to note that the assessment of program outcomes is not the focus of this evaluation. patton (2015) is a strong advocate of implementation evaluation prior to evaluating programmatic and/or intervention outcomes. his logic is based on the assumption that “unless a program is operating as designed, there is little reason to expect it to produce the desired outcomes” (patton, 2015, p. 197). the selected program was and is designed to prepare social justice leaders in higher education. this is the desired student outcome, and the program should ultimately be designed and implemented to focus intently on social justice leadership. the current analysis helps determine the effectiveness of the program’s implementation and seamless integration of the adopted, social justice leadership framework into its core curricula and pedagogies. the implementation process is important because “when outcomes are evaluated without knowledge of implementation, the results seldom provide a direction for action because the decision maker lacks information about what produced the observed outcomes (or lack of outcomes)” (patton, 2015, p. 197). the enclosed implementation evaluation has been conducted to help avoid such an oversight. developing a higher education doctoral program for social justice leadership nestled within a larger department of leadership and counselor education that includes two additional, academic programs (educational leadership and counselor education), the selected, academic program2 boasts of four, graduate degree offerings: (1) online master of arts, (2) residential master of arts, (3) residential doctor of philosophy, and (4) hybrid doctor of education. the academic program is comprised of seven—soon to be eight— full-time faculty and a cadre of adjunct instructors with specialized experiences and expertise in higher education administration. the doctor of education (edd)—which is the focus of the current, evaluative analysis—is the most recently developed of all of the graduate degree programs; yet, it is among the fastest growing and largest. now in its second year of implementation, the edd program is comprised of two cohorts. the first cohort includes 47 higher education professionals, and the second includes 25 midand senior-level practitioners. all applicants must hold a master’s degree in higher education administration, student personnel services, or a related field in addition to possessing a minimum of two years of administrative experience in higher education. although seemingly 2 the selected, academic program was recently approved by its state governing board to form a single and separate department, distinct from its current departmental home. the departmental transition is currently underway but will not alter the current degree offerings nor programmatic structure. george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 46 restrictive, the aforementioned requirements for admission help ensure that all applicants (and matriculants) are higher education practitioners, as the purpose of the program is to enhance the critical thinking and decision-making skills of higher education administrators and practitioners using a critical social justice approach. promoting critical consciousness each of the program’s components helps create and define an academic culture that promotes critical consciousness. capper et al. (2006) are strong advocates for the use of curricula “to develop a critical consciousness within future leaders for social justice” (p. 214). that heightened level of consciousness is then manifested through an expanded knowledge of social justice and demonstrated skills in rejecting injustice, inequity, and unethical practices. the aforementioned researchers define critical consciousness “as a deep understanding of power relations and social construction including white privilege, heterosexism, poverty, misogyny, and ethnocentrism” (capper et al., 2006, p. 213). it is that definition which is adopted and operationalized within the program and, therefore, employed within this article. reconciling curriculum and critical consciousness as one of only a handful of cped edd programs with an emphasis in higher education administration, the program (through its 48 credit hour curriculum 3) focuses exclusively on global awareness of persistent and systemic inequities in higher education, recent developments in higher education, advanced policy analysis, and social justice leadership through efficacious and ethical practice. the curriculum is purposefully designed to expose students to issues of limited access and inequitable practices that impede postsecondary student success. this design goal is accomplished via a critical review of recent developments, contemporary issues, and advanced policies in higher education, coupled with an array of core content courses that improve students’ research and analytic proficiency (see appendix b). the degree program culminates with a capstone project based on research focused through the lens of professional practice. inherently applied in nature, the capstone project or dissertation-inpractice (dip) requires students (either individually or as a collective) to address a meaningful problem of practice in any college or university setting (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2016)—large and small, public and private, twoand four-year, research, vocational, teaching, minority serving, and so on. the project is also conducted in consultation with university-community stakeholders that include (among others) higher education practitioners, senior level administrators, policy makers, and researchers. in turn, those stakeholders—who notably have a vested interest in resolving the shared problem of higher education 3 the program requires continuous enrollment of six credit hours for eight consecutive semesters; therefore, it is designed for completion during a three-year period. practice—serve as contributors to and/or members of the dip committee.4 this notion of a shared problem of practice is the ultimate, curricular indication of a programmatic effort to raise consciousness among students about broader perspectives and persistent issues of practice relating to socio-economic and higher educational attainment inequities. in addition to broadening the scope of perspectives that are considered and acknowledged, this social justice preparatory approach helps students (a) understand and fully appreciate the broad (and in some cases conflicting) stakeholder perspectives that exist around a socially pressing issue of practice in higher education and (b) contemplate authentic and socially democratic ways to communicate with and engage those stakeholders in key decision-making processes focused on lasting resolutions. programmatic emphases are placed on the recognition of broad stakeholder perspectives and the democratic engagement of those stakeholders because it is important to highlight varying dynamics of power and privilege among stakeholder groups. in essence, students need to be and are made aware that some stakeholders traditionally possess and assert more power and privilege because of their cultural, social, political, and/or economic capital. making certain that students understand the situational context in which that power and privilege manifests is paramount to the program’s ability to cultivate students’ social justice leadership skills so that they might effectively and consistently resist injustice and ensure the democratic disbursement of power and privilege to all stakeholders at all times, regardless of their traditional standing, thereby creating more equitability. reconciling pedagogy and critical consciousness beyond representation within the curriculum, critical consciousness is fully embodied within the program’s signature pedagogy of applied learning.5 applied learning is “often equated to hands on or practical learning experiences” (harrison, 2006, p. 2). the program’s faculty selected applied learning because of the embedded opportunities to apply leadership theories and social justice principles to complex problems of higher education practice. although somewhat of an oversimplification, the main goal of this preferred pedagogy is to provide edd students with focused problems of practice in higher education, which demonstrate the nuances and perpetuation of inequity in college access, success, and completion, thereby raising student consciousness about persistent inequities and injustices across the higher education 4 the dip committee is extended to additional university-community stakeholders to help and not hinder doctoral students in their endeavors to address persistent and complex problems of higher education practice. as such, students are allowed the freedom and flexibility needed to take risks and fully explore all conceivable resolutions, even if those resolutions challenge normative behavior in higher education administrative practice. 5 while it is true that applied learning is the program’s signature pedagogy, it is not the only pedagogy used by the faculty. collaborative learning is also employed by various faculty members; however, applied learning is used the most frequently by all of the program’s faculty members in each of the courses. toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 47 landscape. to do so, the program utilizes the dip as the optimal, applied learning tool. specifically, the dip is divided into three applied projects that build on each other in complexity and scope. the projects are tackled during pre-determined points in the doctoral program based on content and research methodological exposure. for instance, the first project entails a detailed review of the literature (i.e., pertaining to the chosen higher education issue). edd students commence working on this project during the second semester of their first year of doctoral studies, after completing a methods course that teaches them about models of inquiry and literature reviews. students then enroll in two research methodology courses (qualitative research and advanced statistics) during the fall and spring semesters of their second year. afterwards, they commence working on the second project—which requires the selection of a methodological concentration to assist with the analysis of their chosen problem of practice. the third project begins after students have completed all but one of the core content courses and after they have written and defended their dip prospectus. as a reminder, the dip is literally termed the dissertation in practice. applied in nature, the dip emphasizes unique, complex, and extremely persistent problems of higher education practice that create and/or reinforce disparities in educational and socio-economic attainment. the intended purpose of the dip is to raise students’ consciousness about structural and systemic inequities resulting from ineffective, higher education practices, while also empowering them as administrators and practitioners to remedy those inequities by way of the program’s signature pedagogy (i.e., applied learning). students are made aware when applying that they will be completing an action-oriented and applied capstone project that addresses a persistent problem of higher education practice. therefore, their orientation to administrative activism and social justice leadership begins the moment they express interest in the cped edd program. important lessons concerning critical consciousness are strategically integrated into the program’s informal and formal curriculum even before matriculation. to complement the dip, an additional cadre of applied learning tools are employed and interspersed throughout the program of study (see appendix b). students are asked to complete a number of assignments and engaged activities that (a) awaken them to inequitable and unjust realities permeating the whole of higher education and (b) encourage them to competently seek out lasting remedies: 1. revisioning secondary and postsecondary curricula and co-curricula with more equitable opportunities and resources to encourage student success 2. completing educational and ethno-autobiographies to help identify personal biases, prejudices, and assumptions 3. responding to reflective, group discussion prompts designed to develop and cultivate critical thinking and analytic skills, while promoting important lessons of objectivity, civility, and respect 4. analyzing case studies of higher education practices, opportunities, and lessons concerning effective and ineffective social justice leadership 5. viewing documentaries that address higher educational inequities and injustices 6. listening to higher education administrative speakers, panels, podcasts, interviews, and ted talks that focus on the challenges and opportunities stemming from integrating equity, social justice, and ethics into one’s professional practice 7. conducting career histories by interviewing seasoned, higher education administrators who actively promote and engage in social justice leadership (and have done so for some time) 8. engaging in focused, group discussion on current administrative practices and models (i.e., across institutional types) in addition to higher education policies that impede student success cultivating social justice knowledge if students are to become effective and efficient social justice leaders, they must have a working knowledge of social justice leadership approaches. capper et al. (2006) firmly uphold that “school leaders for social justice need to know about evidence-based practices that can create an equitable school” (p. 213). although their commentary is specific to secondary administrators, there is direct and immediate applicability to postsecondary and continuing education administrators. helping students understand “the positive and equitable effects” of social justice practices is the end goal (capper et al., 2006, p. 213). from a higher education programmatic perspective, the development of specific, equity-based knowledge to accomplish this goal (i.e., decreased disparities in college access, success, and completion) is no small undertaking. it requires deep concentration on the defined curriculum and prescribed pedagogy. reconciling curriculum and social justice knowledge an early examination (i.e., reviews of course sequences, syllabi, descriptions, and textbooks) of the program’s initial curriculum reveals a concentrated focus on social justice and equity issues relating to higher education practice.6 the program works diligently to address—by way of course integration—administrative and practice-based issues of equity. this requires full and unrelenting support from the faculty. it is seemingly understood that no single faculty member is solely responsible for promoting social justice and equity. that responsibility belongs to and is embraced by all program faculty members, regardless of tenure status or eligibility. although, each course is purposefully designed to address issues of power and privilege as well as systemic and structural inequities in higher education (see appendix b), there are two specially designated courses. the first course is offered during the very first semester of the doctoral program and is aptly titled, “recent developments in higher educational practice.” the embedded content affords doctoral students an opportunity to investigate and evaluate recent policy developments and contemporary innovations designed to mediate inequities in college access, student success, and degree completion. the second course, “education and society,” is intentionally offered during the second semester of the 6 as a reminder, the program has only admitted two cohorts, to date. the first cohort is now in the second year of coursework and still has one year of designated coursework to complete. george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 48 first year, as a follow-up to the previous course. it focuses entirely on issues of equity and difference as well as power and privilege among socio-cultural factors and economic trends affecting the organization, process, and equity outcomes of higher education. combined, the designated courses and coordinated faculty efforts help orient doctoral students to social justice and equity issues in higher education. reconciling pedagogy and social justice knowledge the teaching strategies that help students understand and cement their knowledge of the social justice and equity-oriented curriculum are multifold. within the confines of the cped edd program, the individual strategies are left to the discretion of each instructor. it has already been established that applied learning is the program’s signature pedagogy, as it is used the most frequently among all of the program’s faculty members in each of the courses. there are, however, other pedagogies employed by faculty in some (but not all) of the courses. one such pedagogy is collaborative learning. it is predicated on the notion that knowledge is a social construct. the instructional emphasis is always the student, and interacting and performing a focused act of learning are of the utmost importance (barkely, cross, & howell major, 2005; bruffee, 1998). additionally, groups are an integral part of learning, and analyzing and solving problems are considered absolutes (barkely, cross, & howell major, 2005; bruffee, 1998). although collaborative learning is not the signature pedagogy, its general principles are considered meaningful and, therefore, loosely inform the cped edd program. developing social justice skills capper et al. (2006) argue “there are specific skills that [educational] leaders require to enact justice” (p. 213). without question, those skills should enable higher education administrators and student personnel professionals “to put their knowledge and [critical] consciousness into practice” (capper et al., 2006, p. 213). those sentiments are shared among the current program’s instructional faculty. beyond their newfound knowledge and enhanced awareness, the hope is that students enrolled in the cped edd program will walk away with social justice leadership skills, savviness, and expertise. to help ensure these outcomes, program faculty dutifully attend to the curriculum and pedagogy. reconciling curriculum and social justice skills the program upholds the curriculum as a content-specific domain that teaches students how to implement what they have learned, so as to eradicate inequities and injustices in higher education. admittedly, this is no easy task. to assist, the instructional faculty has adopted a very succinct set of analytic guides that clearly outline what students should be able to do (i.e., to address systemic and structural, inequities in higher education) upon completion of the program. the instructional faculty members recognize that more often than not, students initially identify symptoms of social justice and equity-based problems before realizing the underlying problems. to remedy this, they developed the first guide—which assists with problem identification and entails the review of recent and contemporary events and relevant happenings along a historic timeline. this historical review enables students to trace the symptoms to an originating source or to the root of the social justice and equity-based problem of practice. the second guide helps students further contextualize the problem and necessitates the consideration of divergent stakeholder views and perspectives. this includes vulnerable and marginalized stakeholders. the third guide calls for responsive decision-making using an analytic and holistic lens through which students are able to more clearly envision appropriate and lasting solutions. at first glance, these analytic guides may seem overly broad and non-specific to social justice leadership. it is suggested, however, that the guides empower students so they might effectively contextualize the meaning of important policy events and institutional or unit happenings as they relate to an identified problem of higher education practice. in addition, the guides prompt students to recognize diverse stakeholder perspectives at all times, so as to engage in equitable, socially just, and ethical decision-making. finally, the guides encourage students to engage in holistic and informed decision-making when addressing inequities and injustices in higher education. the hope is that by adhering to the guides, students will essentially be able to create socially just and inclusive environments for all higher education stakeholders. further, they will be able to implement comprehensive and long-lasting reform efforts/programs that root out inequities in college access, student success, and college completion. this potentially means strategically addressing issues regarding the lack of diversity and inclusivity among students, faculty, and staff, but it could also mean aggressively tackling persistently polarizing and contentious topics that adversely affect campus climate. seeking out and listening to marginalized, unfavored, and/or forgotten voices could also fall well within students’ realm of administrative responsibility. importantly, these are healthy and expected outcomes, proficiencies, and/or skills, all of which are linked to the program’s use and promotion of the analytic guides for realizing effective, social justice leadership. reconciling pedagogy and social justice skills the cped edd program employs a number of strategies to help students learn how to be socially just administrators. as mentioned, a great deal of discretion is left to the instructional faculty regarding the employed strategy. however, in evaluating the program, there are numerous strategies that stand out. the use of administrative equity and social justice management simulations is one such strategy. faculty members also encourage group discussion of disparate stakeholder views and brainstorming around consensus building strategies. in addition, students are asked to develop a social justice administrative/philosophy statement along with a social justice leadership concept map and/or conceptual rendering that includes evidenced-based practices. as a complement to these activities, faculty assist students in drafting a formal letter of application to a fictional higher education position vacancy listing that requires an operational description of one’s commitment to social justice leadership. opportunities to visit local, regional, national, and international higher education policy entities and institutions that regularly promote social justice initiatives are also made available. although non-exhaustive, these preferred strategies paint a composite portrait of the variety of thoughtful activities, methods, and approaches that are utilized within the program to help students learn the skills needed to become social justice leaders. discussion & implications the current analysis is very unique to cped and higher education practice because it entails an implementation evaluation of a graduate program in higher education administration. unlike their toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 49 secondary counterparts, higher education administration programs in general have no accrediting body and, therefore, are not subjected to external evaluations. there are national associations that are specific to higher education administrative practice and research (e.g., the association for the study of higher education, american educational research association / division j, naspa / student affairs administrators in higher education, the american college personnel association, etc.). however, there is no professional accreditation required for higher education administration programs, nationally or internationally, and the higher education administration program described in this paper is no exception to this extraordinary non-rule.7 even so, the assessed program differs from its higher education counterparts because of its participation in cped. as mentioned, cped is a consortium of over 80 schools of education that seek to reform and innovate the educational doctorate (i.e., both secondary and postsecondary). the selected program was created in an attempt to reenvision the higher education administration doctorate for practitioner scholars to be more applied and useful in everyday, institutional settings. in reenvisioning the doctorate, the research methodological requirements were not relaxed. instead, they were retooled to complement the administrative preparatory purpose of social justice leadership (see appendix b). the latter actually became the sole focus of the selected program’s cped doctorate. the faculty aspired to prepare and develop more critically conscious, knowledgeable, and competent social justice leaders in higher education. to place equity, social justice, and ethics at the center of their core operation was a bold statement, as the stakes were and still are very high. however, even in its early implementation stages, the evaluated program has successfully managed to transform the higher education administration doctorate in a legitimate, highquality, and scholarly manner. in essence, in their attempts to prepare more socially just leaders, the faculty compromised nothing. the rigor and quality that one would expect in more traditional, higher education administration programs is ever present and so too are the expectations for doctoral student excellence in empirical inquiry and analysis. the value that has been added to this newly formatted, doctorate inherently stems from its (a) applied pedagogy and capstone dissertation, (b) expanded definition of institutional stakeholders, and (c) recognition of mutuality in identifying persistent problems of practice. the acknowledgement of an expanded university-community and the need to democratically engage8 all community stakeholders (including those who are considered non-traditional9) in complex decision-making and resolutive processes is made apparent not only 7 it is important to acknowledge this fact because of the embedded opportunities within the current discussion to model to other higher education programs ways to implement social justice leadership preparatory programs and promote specific learning outcomes, like competencies in social justice leadership. 8 democratic engagement implies that the perspectives of all stakeholders are not only acknowledged and respected but hold equal and valued weight. 9 in this case, non-traditional voices include individuals and entities that are traditionally excluded from academia because they lack the requisite credentials and higher education experience. during the completion of the dip but rather throughout the program, with the inclusion of special university-community panels and guest speakers—all of whom focus on pressing, social justice issues related to access and equity in higher education. using capper et al.’s (2006) social justice framework for preparing leaders provides a detailed assessment and extremely robust evaluation of the program’s implementation thus far. because of the domain-specific structure of the framework, the richness of the evaluation truly lies within the explanatory details. no programmatic stone was left unturned, and the resulting analysis revealed a complex and comprehensive programmatic operation that promoted (a) critical consciousness about higher education inequities, (b) theory and evidence-based knowledge about persistent problems in higher education practice, and (c) focused knowledge of how to address the inequities and practice-based problems. each of these components is critical to the programmatic development of social justice leaders in higher education. the implications of these components and others highlighted within the article are far reaching, as they will help shape and (in some cases) redefine phd as well as edd programs in higher education administration. essentially, these components—once made known to the more expansive higher education community outside of the cped consortium—can serve as the beginning of a movement across all higher education administrative preparatory programs (i.e., at the master’s and doctoral level) to pay specialized and continuous attention to the preparation of more socially just leaders and practitioners. what is described here is a ripple effect with seemingly broad ramifications relating to higher education practice and research. conclusion & opportunities for further analysis social justice leadership is not an elusive, administrative ideal. it is, in fact, a tangible reality that has existed for quite some time (i.e., since the inception of higher education). whether through research or practice, there have always been advocates and advocacy movements for social justice in higher education. the most noted and discussed periods of advocacy in academe occurred during the women’s suffrage movement, the progressive era, and the civil rights movement. in fact, the industrial revolution along with the emancipation of the american slaves, the passing of the morril acts and the gi bill, the higher education act, affirmative action, and more recent shifts toward holistic admissions have all helped usher in progressive policies that promote social justice and equity in higher education. so, why is the deliberate preparation of social justice leaders in higher education such a programmatic novelty? this is, of course, a rhetorical question, but it sheds light on one of the most pressing (yet understated) higher education issues of the 21st century. in this age, higher education is quickly shifting to a mass education model— which results in changing student demographics. as student demographics change, so too do student learning and developmental needs. issues of access, accountability, affordability, and attrition are then pushed to the forefront (altbach, gumport, & berdahl, 2011), and colleges and universities must respond in an effective manner while balancing their ever-dwindling budgets. if this sounds like a conundrum, it is because it really is an administrative quagmire. yet, what is perhaps more troubling is the fact that there is no coordinated initiative in higher education george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 50 regarding the strategic preparation and professional development of social justice leaders for 21st century colleges and universities (i.e., external to cped). how can this problem be overlooked for so long? where is the clarion call for reform within higher education administration doctoral programs? why isn’t anyone making the critical linkages between higher education administrative preparatory practices and student success? from an institutionalization perspective, it is not a far reach. in fact, it is a necessary reach for colleges and universities who are serious about addressing systemic and structural inequities concerning access and student success. this article has attempted to answer the previous questions by focusing the analytic and evaluative lens on a higher education administration program that is seeking to break the mold. innovative, exacting, and daring in its efforts, the current cped edd program is attempting to offer solutions rather than staid platitude, such as “this is the way it has always been done.” perhaps that is the problem. doctoral programs cannot innovate without change, and the same is true for higher education as a whole. the time has come to modify administrative behaviors, and the only way to do so is by modifying higher education administrative preparatory programs and curricula. only then will there be a noticeable difference in higher education’s ability to effectively respond to new age challenges and opportunities brought forth in this new century. in closing, there is a great need for more critical analyses and evaluations of existing, higher education administration programs. in general, most programs could benefit from innovation and deliberate retooling. this article describes one such program and its attempts to redesign its core curriculum and pedagogy. more are needed. simply put, there can be no change without focused and concentrated chaos. references altbach, p. g., gumport, p. j., & 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(2003). case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. george impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.29 52 appendix a table a: a framework for preparing social justice, education leaders emotional safety for risk taking critical consciousness knowledge skills curriculum pedagogy assessment note. the first domain in the horizontal dimension (i.e., emotional safety for risky taking) is continuously upheld by the program faculty at the course and program level as well as when working with the university-community stakeholders on a shared problem of practice in higher education. adapted from “toward a framework for preparing leaders for social justice,” by c. capper, g. theoharis, and j. sebastian, 2006, journal of educational administration, 44(3), p. 212. copyright 2006 by the emerald group publishing limited. appendix b table b: edd program of study year one year two year three fall recent developments in higher educational practice models of inquiry & literature review multi-disciplinary perspectives on leadership qualitative research dissertation in practice (6 credit hours; projects 2 & 3) spring education & society dissertation in practice (project 1) advanced policy analysis statistics ii comparative education dissertation in practice (project 3) summer seminar on the learner & learning the professional philosophy institutional research & planning in higher education dissertation in practice (project 2) *comprehensive exam note. students are responsible for fulfilling all course prerequisites if not fulfilled during their master’s degree program. the program of study includes 15 semester hours to work on the dissertation in practice—which is comprised of a scaffolded, capstone project. adapted from “curriculum: doctor of education with an emphasis in higher education,” by the university of mississippi, school of education. copyright 2014 by the university of mississippi. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.149 edd program reform and signature pedagogies for activism yasha jones becton university of south carolina yyjones@mailbox.sc.edu rhonda baynes jeffries university of south carolina rjeffries@sc.edu in the carnegie foundation’s studies of preparations for the professions, we have gone into considerable depth to understand the critical role of signature pedagogies in shaping the character of future practice and in symbolizing the values and hopes of the profession. . . . above all we have found it fruitful to observe closely the pedagogies of the professions in [action]. (shulman, 2005, p. 53) the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) consortium of over 100 colleges and schools of education across the u.s. and canada, regularly and purposefully convenes to collectively explore the effectiveness of the education doctorate to support the professional goals and objectives of educational leaders and administrators. these collaborative sessions facilitate the critique of emerging and premiere doctor of education (edd) programs, and foster the negotiation of educational practice and innovative design across the professional practice of teaching and learning. as professional development opportunities, cped convenings are fertile ground for the growth of resources from member programs’ contributions to the design and redesign of edd programs. with attention to continued improvement -theoretical knowledge that guides the curriculum and instruction of schools and contributes to the policy that governs schools -members from across the consortium are committed to shaping educational outcomes that support practitioners ability to optimally serve learners. the cped framework© in action is one among many consortium benefits that drives the goal of program redesign, and the signature pedagogy design concept is one element of the cped framework© in action that has manifested in edd programs in a variety of ways. olson and clark’s (2009) response to the education doctorate debate that proliferated in the mid-2000s described the use of leader-scholar communities as a signature pedagogy to support the goals of professional educators based on a model utilized at arizona state university. the adaptation of signature pedagogies from related disciplines was suggested as a method for familiarizing students with the existing knowledge base in the field of education as well as orienting them to the cultural norms and disciplinary identities of education scholars (golde, 2007). action research as a methodological design or equity and social justice as a theoretical design have been noted as signature pedagogies that effectively ground the doctoral studies of education practitioners, and create a seamless segue from doctoral candidacy back into the field of practice (buss, zambo, zambo, perry, & williams, 2015). online environments are increasingly favored as in-service education professionals seek high quality doctoral programs that accommodate their demanding schedules. an innovative signature pedagogy in use at east carolina university applied digital storytelling and flip grid, a video-based online discussion forum, in their online edd to highlight the critical nature of maintaining strong relationships that support critical dialogue in this unique learning environment (militello, tredway, & jones, 2019). this special issue of impacting education: journal for transforming professional practice, is entitled, “activating activism: promoting activism within edd programs”. born from the 2019 cped convening held at the university of south carolina, and focusing on interaction and activism in the education doctorate, this issue aimed to expand the conversation on social justice in education and create lasting impact through activism. as shulman (2005) suggested, the contributions to this special issue examine activism as a signature pedagogy in action, and challenge our prevailing conceptions of what activism is and how implementation of this signature pedagogy might be most meaningful. we, becton and jeffries, along with our colleagues, bogiages, currin, d’amico, lilly, and tamim, surveyed the 2019 october convening participants from more than 65 represented cped memberships in an effort to build upon the existing structured pedagogies that guide both new and existing edd programs within the consortium. in an emerging framework for the ed.d. activist, outcomes from this work highlighted two probable sketches of what an edd activist looks like, and how programs might structure their curricula to support the development and sustainment of edd activists in the professional setting. additional articles in this special issue represent diverse ideologies from across the u.s. regarding ways to structure the theoretical underpinnings and practical application of activism in edd programs. in smacktivism: a program redesign so good, you won’t know what hit you, noel, gorlewski, and kearney described the attributes of their newly designed edd program focusing on learning and teaching in social contexts. the authors built the potential program with the intention of compelling their candidates to embrace transformative and justice-oriented fundamentals that will empower them to improve their educational spaces via activism throughout their careers. the power of experiential learning and relationships is paramount in opening up to hard history: activating anti-racism in an immersive edd cohort experience at http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:yyjones@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:rjeffries@sc.edu edd program reform and signature pedagogies for activism impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.149 2 heritage sites in montgomery, alabama by coble, mason, overholser, and gwaltney. this edd program in heritage leadership for sustainability, social justice, and participatory culture at the university of missouri-st. louis helps students through curricular, conversational, and collaborative inquiry to deepen their awareness of discrimination and injustice. students learn specific skills that are transferrable into educational settings and support the direct work of activism. in launching an edd in community college leadership program with activism in mind, another emerging program design is discussed and shared as a model for program development and reform. harrington and melendez covered aspects of program planning in this piece including design and implementation, marketing and recruitment, diversity of cohort building, and orientation to the edd experience as well as the fundamental aspect of social justice and equity as a framework for program design. critical implications focus on the importance of equity as the thread that holds the entire program together and instills the essential nature of the social justice component to activist work. hesbol, bartee, sparkman and amiri examined the impact of activism in rural environments in activism in practice: the influence of a rural school leader’s beliefs and practices in disrupting historical patterns of underachievement in traditionally marginalized students and noted the mutual inclusivity of high achievement at high poverty rural schools when school leaders utilize principles of activism. this study highlights the role of education doctorate programs to influence their students to function as researchers, to influence policy, and to acknowledge the nuanced work of effective educational activists. finally, in taking a stance: teacher researchers’ historical and political positioning, currin challenged the traditional grassroots model of activism and suggested that more conservative methods attempting to reform from within the system might yield more impactful results as opposed to the outcomes that demonstrative, liberal movements have produced in the past. as we continue to observe pedagogies in action in our quest to positively impact educators and educational settings, let us remember that leaving no stone unturned and no method untried provides the best opportunity for success. shulman (2005) reminds us: professional education is not education for understanding alone; it is preparation for accomplished and responsible practice in the service to others…[professional educators] must come to understand in order to act, and they must act in order to serve. (p. 52) references buss, r. r., zambo, r., zambo, d., perry, j. a., & williams, t. r. (2017). faculty members’ responses to implementing re-envisioned edd programs. studies in higher education, 42(9), 1624-1640. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2015.1113951. golde, c. (2007). signature pedagogies in doctoral education: are they adaptable for the preparation of education researchers? educational researcher, 36(6), 344–351 doi: 10.3102/0013189x07308301. militello, m., tredway, l., & jones, k. d. (2019). a reimagined edd: participatory, progressive online pedagogy. in j. keengwe (ed.), handbook of research on blended learning pedagogies and professional development in higher education (pp. 214-243). hershey, pa: igi global. olson, k., & clark, c. (2009). a signature pedagogy in doctoral education: the leader–scholar community. educational researcher, 38(3), 216–221. doi: 10.3102/0013189x09334207. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.163 an unexpected affordance of program design for dissertation writing during covid-19: the embedded dissertation sarah capello judson university sarah.capello@judsonu.edu mellissa gyimah-concepcion judson university mellissa.gyimah-concepcion@judsonu.edu victoria vandover billimack judson university victoria.billimack@judsonu.edu abstract purpose: this paper describes how an embedded dissertation program design feature supported two cohorts of edd dissertators and helped them make consistent progress toward and eventually complete their dissertation milestones during the covid-19 pandemic. specifically, we detail the work, challenges, and results of edd students’ efforts toward their milestones and offer perspectives on the same topics for edd faculty who are teaching dissertation writing courses or supporting dissertators during the covid-19 pandemic. conceptual argument: this paper argues that an existing program design feature, the embedded dissertation, provided unexpected affordances for edd dissertators during the covid-19 pandemic. specifically, it acted as a scaffold for dissertators to make small but consistent steps forward on their dissertation milestones despite the significant challenges they faced both as practitioners and as students during the pandemic. implications for research: in sharing these experiences, we hope to: (a) offer a contribution to the literature on the intersection of program design and dissertation writing, (b) proffer a program design structure that was successful in moving dissertators forward during covid-19, and (c) document the lived experiences of edd dissertators and faculty in this unprecedented, historical moment. keywords education doctorate, dissertation writing, program design, covid-19 introduction edd degree completion rates are notoriously low. while recent research estimates a 40-60% attrition rate for students in traditional doctoral programs (cassuto, 2013; council of graduate schools, 2012; rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019), some studies have found attrition rates of up to 70% for edd students (bowen & rudenstine, 1992; nettles & millett, 2006), and there is evidence that online doctoral programs have even higher attrition rates (bawa, 2016). these rates are startling not only because they are so high, but because there has been an increase in the number of both residential and online edd programs in the past decade. program administrators must ensure that, if they are going to enroll edd students, they are providing pathways and support for students to complete their degrees. encouragingly, edd programs have begun to receive renewed attention stemming from critiques that they provided irrelevant, non-rigorous curriculum, were not differentiated from phd programs, and resulted in low-quality dissertations and large numbers of “all but dissertation” (abd) students (levine, 2005; perry, 2015; schulman et al., 2006). in response to these critiques, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) has led the http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:sarah.capello@judsonu.edu an unexpected affordance of program design for dissertation writing during covid-19: the embedded dissertation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.163 17 charge to reform edd programs and proposed a framework to transform edd education (cped, 2019; perry, 2015). although programmatic variables and student characteristics have both been shown to contribute to edd students’ degree persistence (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019; tinto, 1993), this article focuses on the intersection between program design and dissertation writing, which is an academic competency critical for doctoral student success. despite the dissertation being placed at the end of doctoral programs, many doctoral students need writing support at the dissertation stage (rose & mcclafferty, 2001; salee et al., 2011), which indicates that program coursework and activities are not preparing students well enough for dissertation writing. some programs have attempted to provide additional writing support by teaching academic writing in coursework (rose & mcclafferty, 2001; salee et al., 2011), utilizing peer-review at the dissertation stage (capello, 2020; crossman & kite 2012), and implementing dissertation writing groups (aitchison, 2009; ferguson, 2009; maher et al., 2008). however, if edd completion rates are an indicator of the effectiveness of these writing interventions, then it appears that— even in the best of times—existing efforts to support dissertation writing alone are insufficient to overcome barriers to degree completion. unfortunately, we are existing in difficult times. beginning in march 2020, american post-secondary institutions closed their physical doors and moved many courses to a remote learning format due to the covid-19 pandemic. many states also closed k-12 schools and moved to remote learning, shut down non-essential businesses, and quarantined residents at home. at the time of this writing, there is much uncertainty as to whether and when postsecondary institutions and k-12 schools will resume in-person classes. despite these challenges, it is crucial for edd-granting institutions to continue to provide and even bolster support for edd dissertators (those working on their dissertations) who are at the final, and perhaps most difficult, phase of their programs. in this article, we highlight one strategy an edd program in the midwest is using to provide ongoing support to edd dissertators during the covid-19 pandemic: the embedded dissertation. this program design feature supports dissertators via coursework throughout the dissertation phase of the program. we argue that, despite significant challenges stemming from the covid-19 pandemic, the embedded dissertation design afforded edd students and faculty a structural and social support that bolstered student success in maintaining adequate progress and eventually completing dissertation milestones during the pandemic. in this paper, we first describe the embedded dissertation program design at prairieview college (a pseudonym) and how the covid-19 pandemic affected the institution, edd dissertators, and edd faculty. then, we report the work of three edd faculty who taught dissertation writing courses remotely, the challenges students and faculty faced, and the results of our efforts. we conclude by communicating the significance of this inquiry for edd program administrators and faculty who are interested in restructuring their programs to support dissertation writing. in this article, we remain focused only on edd dissertators and the faculty who were working with them during the spring and summer 2020 semesters as a study of how program design can support dissertation writing during and after a national pandemic. the embedded dissertation at prairieview college the edd program at prairieview college is a 4-year program with a concentration in literacy that primarily attracts k-12 teachers, administrators, literacy specialists, and librarians. the embedded dissertation program design is an attractive and important feature for many of our students. unlike traditional edd programs where students complete coursework and then embark upon their dissertations, students at prairieview complete their dissertation work (e.g., proposal writing, data collection and analysis, dissertation chapter writing and revising) as part of their coursework. broadly speaking, our students write a dissertation proposal in the spring of their second year, defend, revise, and obtain irb approval over the summer, collect data in the fall of the third year, analyze data that spring, then write and revise their full dissertations through the summer. students submit the dissertation to their committees and defend during the fourth year. figure 1 displays the embedded dissertation course structure. figure 1. embedded dissertation course structure year 2 year 3 year 4 fall spring summer fall spring summer fall spring summer edu 100 – write dissertation proposal defend proposal obtain irb approval edu 120– data collection edu 130 & 140 – data analysis edu 150 –draft final dissertation chapters edu 200 – revise and edit dissertation defend dissertation note: all course names are pseudonyms. as figure 1 demonstrates, the embedded dissertation course sequence is comprised of six courses: three writing courses, one data collection course, and two data analysis courses. collectively, we taught the three writing courses during the 2019-2020 academic year. mellissa and sarah taught edu 100, a spring and summer course that met once a month where students finalize their research questions and study designs, write a dissertation proposal, defend their proposals, make any revisions stemming from the proposal defense, and submit institutional review board (irb) applications. we refer to the students who were taking edu 100 at the time of the pandemic as cohort a. we held two in-person meetings with this cohort in february and march 2020 before prairieview moved to remote learning. at the end of the spring semester when we were in full-remote mode, sarah had cohort b, which was a year ahead of cohort a, for edu 150. in this weekly course, cohort b was writing their findings and conclusion chapters stemming from their data analysis, which they completed in earlier courses (edu 130 & 140). after students complete edu 150, they have a full dissertation draft comprised of five chapters: introduction, literature review, methods, findings, and conclusion. at this point, they progress to edu 200, a capello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.163 18 dissertation writing workshop, where students continue to revise and edit their manuscripts. in the summer 2020, vicki and two colleagues taught this course, which met multiple times per week from the beginning of june to mid-july. the embedded dissertation program design has several benefits. first, it supports dissertators at every stage of the dissertation process and provides them consistent access to faculty and cohort members. specifically, it allows for an intellectual space for students to pose questions and work through challenges with instructors and colleagues as well as functioning as a social space for students to share progress and encourage one another. second, it allows faculty to check in with dissertators on a weekly basis and either assures them that students are making adequate progress or allows them to intervene if students are not. in doing so, this structure engenders constant communication between students and faculty during the dissertation writing process, which can be a lonely and frustrating endeavor. as with any program design, the embedded dissertation does have several limitations that should be noted. first, the embedded dissertation timeline limits the type and breadth of study students can conduct. studies with long data collection periods or research that seeks to demonstrate change over time are not a good fit for our program. secondly, students move from one phase of the dissertation process to the next through coursework whether they are ready to progress or not. for example, if a student falls behind when writing her dissertation proposal, she may not be able to begin data collection until late fall. this, by default, puts her out of alignment with the data collection, data analysis, and writing courses that are scheduled to support those endeavors at specific times throughout the year. however, clear communication and guidance on research design from faculty and careful planning and action on the part of the dissertator can alleviate most of these tensions. lastly, course offerings are limited because the courses sequence is designed to move the student through the dissertation process at a steady pace; therefore, there are no electives available for students to explore during the second or third years. this often has ramifications on students’ broader understanding and knowledge of education research and research design outside the purview of their own studies. however, they do become experts in their specific topics and knowledgeable in literacy research, because their work is so streamlined. dissertation writing and teaching during covid-19 in addition to describing the embedded dissertation, in this paper we also explore how the embedded dissertation design resulted in unanticipated affordances for edd students at the dissertation writing stage (rather than the data collection or data analysis stages) and for the faculty teaching the dissertation writing courses during the covid-19 pandemic, primarily because this is the stage students and faculty were in when the pandemic struck. in this section, we discuss the work, the challenges, and the results of dissertation writing and instructing courses on dissertation writing during covid-19 for both edd faculty and students. the work of teaching dissertation writing courses remotely in march 2020, prairieview college closed its physical campuses and moved to remote learning for an indeterminate period. at the time, one cohort of dissertators (cohort a) were taking a dissertation proposal writing class, and another cohort (cohort b) had nearly finished data analysis and were moving toward writing their findings and conclusion chapters. to keep our cohorts moving forward in their respective program timelines, we restructured our class meetings in the following ways. first, we used synchronous teleconferencing software for class and began each session with a 15 minute “check-in” time, which allowed students a social space to share what was happening in their personal and professional lives, thus offering socioemotional support. since our state had quarantined residents at home, these check-in periods offered much needed social interaction for us and our students. second, we scheduled active class time during which we introduced new content through mini lessons, class discussions, readings, short videos, and breakout sessions. thirdly, we allotted significant amounts of class time (2-4 hours, depending on the course) for independent writing and periodic peer review. while students wrote independently, the instructors teleconferenced with each student individually and remained available remotely during the class meeting time to answer any questions that arose during the independent writing time. since the outcomes of the writing courses were to complete a dissertation proposal (cohort a) and write findings and concluding chapters while revising and editing the full dissertation (cohort b), we believed these revised activities and class structures would allow us to meet the stated goals in a remote format. finally, we made ourselves available for teleconferencing outside of class hours, which provided the students with ongoing support and ensured that they were still on track and moving toward their individual and course goals. this was especially important for edu 100, which only met once a month. at the end of that course, mellissa and sarah again met with each student individually via teleconferencing software so that we could discuss their dissertation proposal defenses, any revisions stemming from the defenses, and provide them guidance for their next endeavor: the irb application. vicki and colleagues also met with students individually at the end of edu 200 to discuss elements of their dissertation drafts that needed additional attention before students submitted the drafts to their committees for review. we found it was just as critical to hold these end-of-the-course meetings with students so that we could clarify next steps and ensure no one fell through the cracks. based on student feedback and our own reflections as instructors after the courses ended, we have determined that the objectives were, indeed, met even though we made drastic changes to our course structures. the challenges of dissertation writing and teaching during covid-19 as with many edd students, our dissertators were primarily k12 practitioners. within days of prairieview announcing its move to remote learning, the majority of school districts that employ our students also moved to remote learning. the swiftness of these school closures and the uncertainty of their duration struck our students dramatically. many experienced an extreme amount of stress as pressure built from administrators and parents in their districts to move their classrooms to remote learning platforms quickly. furthermore, many of our students were locked out of their an unexpected affordance of program design for dissertation writing during covid-19: the embedded dissertation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.163 19 schools, could not retrieve books or other materials, and did not have access to office equipment such as printers and scanners at home. similarly, prairieview locked down campus, and dissertators could not access on-campus resources and technology. finally, the library building at prairieview closed, and the state interlibrary loan system partially shut down. dissertators could access digital resources through the library system, but the number of available resources was drastically reduced. the combined result of these realities was that our students were hindered in their dissertation writing progress by an increase in time necessary to fulfill professional responsibilities combined with a lack of access to resources. as the weeks dragged on, our students became noticeably worn down from the demands of their new work, additional responsibilities of homeschooling their own children whose schools had closed, caring for elderly or at-risk family members, and trying to maintain progress on their dissertations. like our students, we were also locked out of our campus buildings, offices, and libraries and could not access our books, materials, office equipment, and supplies necessary for our courses. furthermore, with the swift and sudden move to remote learning, we had to quickly adjust our ongoing courses to a remote format. most of us had little remote teaching experience, were unsure of best instructional practices for remote learning, and did not have time to research them. furthermore, vicki and her co-instructors were adjunct faculty who also worked full-time in k-12 schools and were facing many of the same challenges as their students who were employed in k-12 schools. finally, our check-in times and individual conferences with students often led to students sharing the mental and emotional stress that they had been under. while we appreciated students’ honesty and were thankful they felt comfortable sharing personal experiences and feelings during our check-ins, expressions of student stress made some of us feel as if we had been placed in a role of emotional management (hochschild, 1983/2012). not only were we trying to manage our own stress and emotions during the pandemic, but we became tasked with supporting our students’ socioemotional needs as well. while we embraced the notion that our students felt comfortable with us enough to view us as their support, we quickly realized that we, too, were worn down with the demands of our personal lives, our professional lives, and now the additional, evolving role of teachercounselor—all during a pandemic. dissertator success during covid-19 even with the considerable challenges involved with writing and teaching remotely during the covid-19 pandemic, our students’ completed milestones, and our reflections on our students’ progress during this time suggest positive results for edd dissertators due to the embedded dissertation program design. first, all students in cohort a completed dissertation proposals, defended them, and are, at the time of this writing, on track with their typical fall dissertation activities. similarly, all students in cohort b successfully completed their full dissertation drafts and are currently preparing for their defenses. thus, the dissertators all succeeded in completing the two major goals we had for them at that stage and are currently where they would have been in a more typical year. because of this, we conclude that our dissertators made the same, if not more, progress on their milestones than prior cohorts despite significant personal and professional challenges due to covid-19. we believe this was due to a combination of benefits afforded by remote learning and the embedded dissertation design. for example, because they were not on campus for class, our students were able to write in a setting where they felt comfortable and when they were ready, rather than being forced to write during class time on campus. in prior years, it was common for students to express that they found it difficult to write on campus, and they had regularly asked to leave class early so they could write at home. not having to commute to work or campus also allowed dissertators more time to write. furthermore, vicki found that one-on-one remote conferences with students were more productive and that students asked more focused questions than in previous years. this may have occurred because faculty were able to provide feedback quicker since we were also not commuting to work or campus. thirdly, our synchronous, weekly check-in meetings, peer review sessions, and instructor-student conferencing allowed students a social space to share frustrations and concerns but also to encourage one another. then, moving into asynchronous, independent work time gave students large chunks of time to work on their dissertation proposals and manuscripts. students received more time than they typically would in class to peer review and confer with us, and they seemed to find this incredibly beneficial. most importantly, moving our courses to a remote format allowed for the health and safety of the students, faculty, and staff at prairieview as well as their family, colleagues, and community members. faculty also benefitted from the move to remote instruction since it allowed us to be available to students remotely during independent work time but also allowed us to read and comment on chapters in a comfortable setting when students did not need us. furthermore, a characteristic of the embedded dissertation is a shared workload among faculty, so distributing the work of reading and commenting on many chapters of student writing among multiple instructors helped reduce the workload and avoid faculty burnout, which can be high in normal times (padilla & thompson, 2016), but may have been even more so for doctoral faculty supporting dissertators during the pandemic. finally, the unforeseen reality of forced remote learning opened our eyes to new possibilities for dissertation writing courses. due to our students’ success on their milestones this year and the benefits to students and faculty described previously, we are considering moving our writing courses to a remote or hybrid format permanently. the pandemic has essentially made us more willing to take risks and become more innovative with our instruction. after reflecting on our experiences during forced remote learning,—and since we are still in the midst of the pandemic— we have decided to make a current research methods class hybrid. we are also currently finding ways to engage students when they are not in class, while teaching them valuable information and helping them to apply it to real world situations. for example, in a separate research course mellissa and sarah teach, we have our students doing a virtual tour of the jane addams hull house. we asked them to place themselves in any era pre-civil rights, choose a women’s rights issue they wanted to take up as their research interest and then design a study that they believe would work toward emancipating women. one student wrote in response to the assignment: “it was nice to apply the research learning outside of education topics to see if i really understood it” (personal communication, sept, 2020). we do not think we would have chosen to branch out in this way, had we not had success with remote learning in the previous semester. while some of the positive student outcomes could be attributed to remote learning in general, it is important to note that the embedded dissertation design was the structure upholding dissertator progress in the remote setting. the remote format capello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.163 20 afforded benefits such as time to write in a comfortable setting, but we believe that the coursework and activities required within the embedded dissertation (e.g., turning in assignments, conferring with instructors, revising chapters) were the levers for success. furthermore, the embedded dissertation created a current that swept our students along and kept them moving forward even if they needed an extension on a chapter or if a draft needed more polishing than it might have in a typical year. as a result, the small successes of progressing forward gave dissertators hope and a sense of accomplishment during the stressful early months of the pandemic. these results demonstrate that, while remote learning due to covid-19 presented significant challenges for edd dissertators, the embedded dissertation program design was a successful scaffold in helping them overcome those challenges and did so by providing stability and goals along the way. significance for practice at the time of this writing, edd faculty and students are currently processing the trauma, setbacks, and disappointments caused by the covid-19 pandemic, and the field is in the preliminary stages of leaning about and from the effects of the pandemic on edd students and programs. there is much to be documented, discussed, and learned as we move forward educating edd students in remote and hybrid learning formats. in this paper, we relate how an existing program design helped edd dissertators maintain progress and complete their dissertation milestones and actually resulted in unexpected benefits for edd faculty and students during the pandemic. if our students can complete these milestones to the same degree as prior students during the incredible stress and uncertainty caused by the pandemic, there is much room for hope that the embedded dissertation design can support edd dissertators in more “normal” years. notably, our edd program, which has employed the embedded dissertation design since the onset of the program six years ago, boasts a degree completion rate of over 90%. these outcomes have significant implications for the connection between edd program design and student retention, persistence, and graduation rates. while we realize that programs may not be able to make major, structural changes to their program designs easily or quickly, edd program administrators may want to consider how embedding elements of dissertation writing into coursework and how synchronous social interactions in remote learning could support student persistence and completion at the dissertation stage, especially during the covid-19 or other health pandemics. for years, scholars have been calling for a well-defined and distinct edd degree (levine, 2005; schulman et al., 2006) that is a professional practice doctorate designed to prepare twenty-first century educational leaders rather than a phd-lite degree (perry, 2015; schulman et al., 2006). the covid-19 pandemic may be the disrupting force institutions need to reexamine how their edd program designs are affecting doctoral student persistence and to reimagine innovative program design in these uncertain times. for those interested, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (2019) offers a framework for (re)designing and transforming edd programs to meet the demand for preparing twenty-first century educational leaders. references aitchison, c. (2009). writing groups for doctoral education. studies in higher education, 34(8), 905-916. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902785580 capello, s. a. (2020). leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 8-13. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.110 bawa, p. (2016). retention in online courses: exploring issues and solutions-a literature review. sageopen, 6(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015621777 bowen, w., & rudenstine, n. (1992). in pursuit of the ph.d. princeton university press. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2019). the cped framework. retrieved from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework cassuto, l. (2013). ph.d. attrition: how much is too much? the chronicle of higher education. retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/phdattrition-how-much-is/140045 crossman, j. m., & kite, s. l. (2012). facilitated improved writing among students through directed peer review. active learning in higher education, 13(3), 219-229. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787412452980 council of graduate schools. (2012). attrition and completion. retrieved from http://cgsnet.org/attrition-and-completion ferguson, t. (2009). the ‘write’ skills and more: a thesis writing group for doctoral students. journal of geography in higher education, 33(2), 285297. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260902734968 hochschild, a. (1983/2012). the managed heart: commercialization of human feeling (2nd ed.). university of california press. levine, a. (2005). educating school leaders. the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation. maher, d., seaton, l., mcmullen, c., fitzgerald, t., otsuji, e., & lee, a. (2008). “becoming and being writers”: the experiences of doctoral students in writing groups. studies in continuing education, 30(3), 263275. https://doi.org/10.1080/01580370802439870 nettles, m. t., & millett, c. m. (2006). three magic letters: getting to ph.d. johns hopkins university press. padilla, m. a., & thompson, j. n. (2016). burning out faculty at doctoral research universities. stress and health, 32, 551-558. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2661 perry, j. a. (2015). the carnegie project on the education doctorate. change, the magazine of higher learning, 47(3), 56-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1040712 rockinson-szapkiw, a., holmes, j., & stephens, j. s. (2019). identifying significant personal and program factors that predict online edd students’ program integration. online learning journal, 23(4), 313-335. http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i4.1579 rose, m., & mcclafferty, k. a. (2001). a call for the teaching of writing in graduate education. educational researcher, 30(2), 27-33. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x030002027 salee, m., hallett, r., & tierney, w. (2011). teaching writing in graduate school. college teaching, 59, 66-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2010.511315 schulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 tinto, v. (1993). leaving college: rethinking the causes and cures of candidate attrition (2nd ed.). the university of chicago press. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902785580 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.110 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f2158244015621777 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1469787412452980 https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260902734968 https://doi.org/10.1080/01580370802439870 https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2661 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1040712 http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i4.1579 https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0013189x030002027 https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2010.511315 https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0013189x035003025 sarah capello judson university mellissa gyimah-concepcion judson university victoria vandover billimack judson university introduction the embedded dissertation at prairieview college dissertation writing and teaching during covid-19 the work of teaching dissertation writing courses remotely the challenges of dissertation writing and teaching during covid-19 dissertator success during covid-19 significance for practice references microsoft word strom vf.docx new  articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  united  states  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   15 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.43 centering social justice in edd programs kathryn strom csu east bay kathryn.strom2@csueastbay.edu bradley porfilio csu east bay bradley.porfilio@csueastbay.edu during the past three decades, scholars dedicated to eliminating power differentials and oppression in society have pinpointed three major trends that have influenced the current educational context in the u.s. first, an increasingly neoliberal, or “corporate,” reform movement has applied market-driven principles to educational systems and structures to privatize, standardize, and deregulate them (ford, porfilio, goldstein, 2015; henderson & hursh, 2014; martin & strom, 2015). second, school curriculum has been heavily influenced by an economically-motivated push for “twenty-first century skills” (silva, 2009) to meet job demands of the knowledge economy (cochran-smith & villegas, 2014). third, due to a dramatic diversification of u.s. demographics, the number of foreign-language speakers in the last three decades has nearly tripled (migration policy institute, 2015). a parallel increase in english learners has occurred in classrooms (valdés & castellón, 2011), which has precipitated challenges for providing linguistically and culturally relevant and responsive schooling (lucas & villegas, 2013). these trends are expanding the historically entrenched inequalities on the axes of race, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability that have been systematically perpetuated by our educational institutions (bourdieu, 1973; erevelles, 2000; hooks, 1994; ladson-billings & tate, 1995; hernandez & mckenzie, 2008; milner & lomotey, 2013; weiler, 1988). as schools are increasingly segregated by income, skin color, and language (gándara & aldana, 2014; jacobs, 2013; orfied & frankenberg, 2014), one in four u.s. children live in poverty, while almost another 25% of children in the u.s. live dangerously close to the poverty line—indeed, “more children today are likely to live in families barely able to afford their most basic needs” (“nearly half of american children,” 2016). due to fewer resources provided by the state and federal government and a loss in businesses paying taxes and lowering of poverty values, more and more communities are fighting to keep their public schools from being shuttered (turner, 2016). consequently, preparing teachers and leaders to work toward social justice in schools and communities is crucial. the charge to prepare justice-oriented educators has become even more urgent in the months since the election of donald trump and, indeed, the rise of ethno-nationalist politics across the western world (strom & martin, in press). in the months after the election, incidents of racially or ethnically motivated bullying and other acts have risen in classrooms and schoolyards across the country. in a survey of more than 10,000 educators conducted in the weeks following the election by the southern poverty law center (2017), 90% of educators surveyed reported their school climate had been negatively impacted, and 80% described feelings of heightened anxiety among historically marginalized groups of students. in the same survey, over 2,500 teachers detailed specific incidents involving racially or ethnically charged language, graphics, and assaults, providing comments such as those that follow. one teacher reported, “in over 15 years of teaching high school this is the first year that swastikas are appearing all over school furniture. the day after the election i overheard a student in the hall chanting, ‘white power.’” another commented, “students have told me they no longer need spanish (the subject i teach) since trump is sending all the mexicans back.” an indiana teacher observed, “boys inappropriately grabbing and touching girls, even after they said no (this never happened until after the election).” beyond the schoolhouse walls, hate crimes have also continued to rise in recent months. jewish cemeteries have been desecrated (biryukov, 2017), synagogues and mosques have received death and bomb threats (croft, 2017; levenson & stapleton, 2017), and racially motivated attacks have occurred, such as one that ended in the death of an indian man in kansas after a white man in a bar shot him, shouting, “go back to your country!” (doshi, 2017). given patterns of widening inequalities and increasingly overt forms of hate infiltrating our schools and communities, we contend that all educational preparation programs must be focused on developing leaders who can tackle significant issues of social justice—regardless of setting or student demographic. only in the last decade have scholars in the field of educational leadership begun attend to issues of social justice (e.g., bogotch & shields, 2014; brown, 2004; furman, 2012; theoharis, 2008). as oplatka (2014) notes in his review of 5 decades of scholarship in the field of educational administration, “field members have only commenced to evoke some interest in understanding leadership for social justice that is an antitype for the sort of leadership advocated by neoliberal thoughts” (p. 33). however, the construct of “social justice” itself remains a divisive one in education. as jean marie, brooks, and normore (2009) note, the term has political consequences. many institutions shy away from using the terminology because it is considered too political. some have adopted “softer” language of valuing diversity or inclusion, while others have spurned its use outright, such as the national association of scholars (nas), who in 2006 made the following statement regarding teacher preparation programs: “the nas has had a long-standing concern with the mischief inherent in the use of as ideologically fraught a term as ‘social justice’ in the assessment of students in teacher-training strom & porfillio impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.43 16 programs. the concept is so variable in meaning as necessarily to subject students to the ideological caprices of instructors and programs” (p. 1). the construct of social justice has also proved quite elusive. educational researchers have noted the multitude of definitions of social justice (e.g., bogotch, 2014; harris, 2014; shields, 2014) and its under-theorization (cochran-smith, 2010). we argue, however, that the multiplicitous definitions of social justice is not a negative, but rather a necessary condition, given that different settings require different conceptualizations to address the particular histories and contexts that have produced particular inequalities (bogotch, 2014). we maintain that using the term “social justice” in professional doctorate programs focused on education is an important political act that can be made even more powerful by 1) explicitly defining the way the term is conceived in a particular program and articulating the bodies of theoretical literature from which that definition is constructed (grant & agosto, 2008); and 2) actively connecting that contextual conceptualization of social justice to the ways it informs action in the doctoral program—from initial program development, to coursework, to student advising, to research methods, and to the dissertation process. literature regarding such descriptions of social justice in educational doctorate programs is relatively slim, although scholars are beginning attend to the role of social justice in the edd. for instance, coates and sirakkos (2016), describing the kutztown university teacher education edd program, construct a social justice orientation that builds on the notion of “transformative intellectuals” (giroux, 1988) who are empowered classroom change agents. at the university of missouri, the educational leadership edd program draws on freirean critical pedagogy (freire, 1970) to develop leaders focused on advocacy, transformation, and emancipation. students in the edd program at fielding university are expected to become “scholar activists” taking on both social and ecological justice issues (distefano & tiner-sewell, 2016, p. 103), while northeastern’s program adopts a micro-macro perspective that begins with interrogating the relationship between the self and injustice and moves outward to institutions and broader systems (lohman & ewell, 2016). in addition to defining social justice programmatically, we also must examine the ways that we are enacting our understanding of social justice through all dimensions of the program—curriculum, research methodologies, the dissertation, student supports, admissions, and other edd structures. few works exist examining the ways that “social justice” is put to work, or operationalized, in facets of edd programs like these. those that exist typically focus on the way that their curriculum does or does not prepare leaders to develop social justice orientations or actions (e.g., hay & reedy, 2016; cleaver simmons & fellabaum, 2016). ensuring edd coursework is designed to guide students to understand what causes oppression in schools, communities, and other social contexts is imperative. however, there are a myriad of other elements directors and faculty of edd programs must consider to ensure students become leaders of change and transformation in educational contexts, instead of conformists who unwittingly keep in place the status quo (strom, porfilio & lupinacci, 2016). specifically, the research methodologies the program supports, and the ways connections are made between those approaches and the ways they might be employed for social justice, should be examined. for instance, many edd programs have moved toward action-oriented, participatory, practitioner-based forms of inquiry, including practitioner action research (herr, anderson & nihlen, 2007), critical participatory action research (kemmis, mctaggart, & nixon, 2014), youth participatory action research (cammarota & fine, 2008), and self-study of professional practices (hamilton & pinnegar, 2009; porfilio & strom, 2017). epistemologically, these methods depart sharply from more traditional methods of research, which are based on the positivist ideals of researcher objectivity and distance that still underscore dominant notions of what constitutes “quality” research (carr & kemmis, 1986; kemmis, mctaggart, & nixon, 2014). as such, not only are these methods promising for generating actionable change that responds to particular contexts, but also provides an ethical alternative to positivist models: rather than being a “voice from everywhere... and nowhere” (barad, 2007, p. 376), researchers are accountable for their own agency in the research process and blur the traditional, power-laden, problematic boundary between researcher/researched (fine, 1984). however, unless the ways that these approaches break from the norm—and why those breaks matter—are made explicit, it is entirely possible to use these approaches to conduct projects that perpetuate leadership status quos. another key programmatic focus is to ensure full-time and parttime faculty are hired who hold knowledge of and commitment to social justice in their teaching, research, and work with stakeholders involved in the program. not only must faculty possess the critical insight to recognize how traditional forms of research keep in place unbalanced power relationships in schools and in other social contexts, to engage in self-reflexive analysis of how their own subjectively blocks them from understanding why opportunity gaps continue to plague the u.s educational system, and to dream about the prospect of living in a social world free from hate, hostility and oppression (mclaren, 2005), but must also have the courage necessary to teach others that they must be transparent in their commitment to eliminating social inequalities, environmental degradation, over policing, and militarization harming our world and planet (zinn, 2002). directors of edd programs must also be willing to create professional development opportunities for faculty, administrators, students and community members. these learning activities should hold the potential to ensure the program remains aligned with a social justice focus, more students complete their degrees, critical dialogue surrounding teaching and learning and inquiry projects occurs, and cultural work in communities collectively brings awareness to understanding of what causes oppression and what steps must be taken to dismantle it. edd directors and faculty members must also share their research, instructional designs, coursework, professional development activities, and cultural work in professional venues, such as cped. sharing such resources, experiences, and decisions processes with colleagues only enhances the prospect that a social justice become a concept understood by all stakeholders involved in edd programs, informs developments on edd programs on a micro-level, and informs action in the doctoral program—from initial program development, to coursework, to student advising, to research methods, to dissertation. moreover, faculty and leaders connected with edd programs must be committed to advocating for program supports for faculty as well as students, which are integral in fostering a culture predicated on scholarly inquiry, collective dialogue and shared-decision making. for example, in many edd programs, there is a need for faculty to advocate for providing writing support for first-generation college students, who often lack the cultural capital to write in a scholarly centering social justice in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.43 17 manner. graduate-level academic writing is not often explicitly taught in doctoral programs, which relegates these all-important practices to a form of hidden curriculum (jackson, 1968). considering that doctoral-level academic language is an extension of the linguistic patterns of dominant white culture, failing to support students of color and others from “non-traditional” backgrounds becomes an important issue of social justice. one possibility includes taking inspiration from sociolinguists and systemic functional linguists (e.g., schleppegrell, 2004; derewianka, 2012) and teaching the features of the genres of doctoral level writing (e.g., problem statements, literature reviews, method sections) as an integral part of doctoral education, while simultaneously problematizing and pushing on aspects that have historically excluded marginalized groups. program directors must also advocate for low student-to-faculty ratios, which are instrumental in ensuring students gain the confidence to share their understanding of complex concepts, experiences engaging inquiry activities, and insights of how power shaped by their personal biographies as well as by the biographies of their peers and instructors. these ideas can be turned into actions, as the manuscripts in this issue show. next, we describe the contexts of the issue, focusing on two themes: thinking differently and processes of change in edd programs. framing the issue thinking differently in social justice edd programs the first two pieces in this themed section offer essays describing important shifts and expansions in our understanding of both social justice and leadership in doctoral programs. in his essay, “addressing 21st century challenges in education: an ecocritical conceptual framework toward an ecotistical leadership in education,” john lupinacci writes about the shift from egotistical to eco-tistical leadership—that is, a move away from conceptualizing leadership as an autonomous individual at the top of a human hierarchy and instead promoting a view of leadership as part of a larger, ecological network. lupinacci’s work draws on recent scholarship (e.g., braidotti, 2013; strom & martin, in press) arguing for a deliberate break with western patterns of “commonsense” thinking that force the world into dualisms (human/nature, self/other, man/woman, teacher/student) and position the human as the reference point for the world. this type of human-centric thinking, as lupinacci points out, justifies not only widespread human violence and suffering, but also massive destruction to the world around us. describing the ways that he uses the notion of eco-tistical leadership in his pedagogical work—as well as the ways his edd program focuses on the nexus of social justice and sustainability—lupinacci offers insights for the development of knowledge and practices for learning to lead in relation to others/the world. in a similar vein, in his article “four ways to expand the foundation for cped’s social justice framework,” four arrows provides multiple concrete suggestions for moving from hegemonic, human-centric edd programs to ones that emphasize social, ecological, and economic interrelations. to do so, he offers four key shifts. the first two include expanding notions of social justice to encompass the ecological human-nature continuum and explicitly acknowledging the ways that the knowledge economy is connected to globalization, increasing material inequality, and environmental destruction. he also describes the importance of expanding the social justice focus beyond the university by explicitly connecting the problems of practice studied in p-16 systems to larger injustices in the world. finally, four arrows argues for a more intense focus on research from the beginning of the doctoral journey through community project-based learning, which would allow students to mediate the hierarchical rigidity of the dissertation while pursuing interdisciplinary approaches to significant educational concerns. processes of change: becoming more explicit about social justice in her article, “developing an explicit social justice program design” deborah peterson provides important fodder for faculty and program directors of edd programs who are committed to ensuring cped principle #1, a focus on “equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, 2009), direct their program’s focus. specifically, peterson details how using cped principle #1 positioned faculty, administration, and staff to develop a resigned edd program model. the model became edd faculty and administrators’ guidepost for addressing key social justice concerns, such as improving student retention, ensuring superintendents, directors of curriculum and research, and state and regional educational leaders are equipped to use inquiry to solve problems impacting schools and communities, offering the program to a broader student base and gain new insight on how to best engage local districts as partners. despite the benefits of using cped principles to address key concerns related to social justice, the author concludes the essay by capturing some additional concerns that cropped up during the edd program design and continue to affect the program’s social justice focus. the information is important for those who are committed to addressing social justice concerns in doctoral preparation programs: the council also identified limitations in our model, most of which related to the potential negative impact junior faculty might experience when supporting doctoral students, the resources required to ensure a quality doctoral program, and the possible influence of small doctoral class sizes on our department staffing budget. tenured faculty members were primarily worried that if junior faculty focused on the success of doctoral students, they might not conduct their own research and publications to the extent required for tenure. these concerns were legitimate, as our institution commits substantial resources to the success of junior faculty, and their success rate is a source of institutional pride. in the second essay in this section, “toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education,” phillis george provides important insight for edd faculty and administrators who seek to evaluate whether their edd program’s “goals, curriculum, and pedagogy align with components” “prepares postsecondary administrators for social justice leadership” specifically, her faculty employed colleen capper, george theoharis, and james sebastian’s 2006 model in order to evaluate whether its edd program “uniquely designed to prepare higher education administrators and practitioners to be socially just and equity-minded leaders.” her faculty’s evaluation was also unique because it “entailed an implementation evaluation of a graduate program in higher education administration.” the faculty found they were successful transforming “the higher education administration doctorate in a legitimate, high-quality, and scholarly manner.” moreover, she notes faculty found critical value in three core elements associated with the program: “(a) applied pedagogy and capstone dissertation, (b) expanded definition of institutional strom & porfillio impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.43 18 stakeholders, and (c) recognition of mutuality in identifying persistent problems of practice.” the author provides a clarion call to college and administrative leaders and edd faculty and program directors to provide resources and work collectively to create initiatives in “ higher education regarding the strategic preparation and professional development of social justice leaders for 21st century colleges and universities. we hope the manuscripts in this volume can serve as a launching point for a larger conversation regarding edd preparation for educators to move forward social justice agendas in their local contexts. ultimately, faculty and administrators in edd programs have the responsibility to engage in both thinking differently, and using that thinking to inform all facets of educator preparation, to create a more just world. references barad, k. 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(1988). women teaching for change: gender, class & power. greenwood publishing. microsoft word 69 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach james g. allen, edd northern kentucky university allenj4@nku.edu mark wasicsko, phd northern kentucky university wasicskom1@nku.edu paul j. wirtz, phd northern kentucky university wirtzp1@nku.edu abstract this article describes the theoretical basis, rationale, and pragmatic considerations for intentionally assessing specific dispositions in the admission process for educational leaders in a selective, practitioner/scholar edd program at a regional, comprehensive university. the goal of the admissions process is to select and admit experienced leaders with the high potential to become transformational leaders who move people, organizations, and their broader communities to increasing levels of excellence. this, we believe, can be accomplished by making dispositions one of the selection criteria in the admission of candidates as well as intentionally enhancing dispositional growth throughout the program. five areas are addressed herein: (a) defining dispositions, (b) assessing dispositions, (c) using dispositions as admission criteria, (d) preliminary findings in using the model with doctoral candidates, and (e) correlations with perceived effectiveness of doctoral candidates as leaders. the data presented validates the efficacy of using dispositional measures in program admission decisions. keywords: assessing leader dispositions; edd student admissions; leadership development introduction transformational educational leaders are in high demand especially now with the vacuum created by baby-boomer retirements and accelerated turnover due to increasingly stressful and demanding educational environments. however, this predicament also offers a great opportunity for leadership programs to initiate significant positive transformational change through its graduates if we recruit and admit talented future leaders, help develop them, and then assist them in growing their leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions. one of the recruitment criteria, the authors contend, should be evidence of effective leadership dispositions. in general, we have good research on the strategies and techniques that seem to be associated with effective leadership and yet leaders who can foster transformative change remain the outliers rather than the rule (marzano, waters, & mcnulty, 2005). the element that is frequently missing or underdeveloped in most leadership programs is the intentional integration of the research and practices for assessing and developing leadership dispositions that play a, and maybe even the, primary role in transformational leadership (allen, wasicsko, & chirichello, 2014). most leadership programs shy away from dealing directly with dispositions due to the nature of their definition and measurement. as we shall contend, leadership dispositions are both definable and measurable, and the intentional inclusion of dispositions are necessary conditions for both selecting and preparing leaders who can foster transformational change through their efforts. this article focuses on the use of dispositional assessments in the admissions process of a practitioners’ edd program for experienced leaders. the admissions process described below is one necessary element we employ to create a new type of practitioner-scholar doctorate that prepares leaders to bridge the gulf between the “ivory tower” and “real world.” the expected outcome is leaders who can integrate and apply theory and research in schools and organizations to facilitate transformational growth. this new breed of program, aligned with the guiding principles of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cepd, 2018), is different because it attempts to integrate three equally important elements that are the essential ingredients for transformational practitioner-scholar-leaders: (1) using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 2 knowledge of theory and research, (2) application of best practices or skills, and (3) the dispositions to lead—the human elements that inspire and magnify the first two. framework as a part of our admissions process, we ask applicants, "what is the first thing you remember about the most effective leader with whom you worked?” (allen, wasicsko, and chirichello, 2014, p. 137). typical responses include the human aspects of the leader and the types of personal relationships that were cultivated: “she really enjoyed her work and cared about people.” “he looked for the good in each of us.” “he could get things done and make it fun.” “he believed in me.” “she challenged us.” “she saw us as unique and treated us with respect.” what differentiated the most effective leaders from the rest was that they were successful not only because of what they knew and did but because of who they were that shined through their skills and leadership abilities. and who the leaders were is a product of their humanness or what we call “dispositions.” several theoretical models have undertaken efforts to describe and understand these “human factors.” two of the most popular models are “emotional intelligence” (goleman, 1995; mayer & salovey, 1997; mayer, salovey, & caruso, 2000; salovey & mayer, 1990) and “perceptual (field) psychology” (combs, richards, & richards, 1976; combs & snygg, 1949). due to issues of parsimony, history, instrumentation, and a long (50 years+) research history, the combs (1974) model was adopted as a framework for embedding “dispositions” into the edd program. the framework used for incorporating dispositions into the admissions process is built upon the theory and research pioneered by arthur w. combs (1974), psychologist/educator (1935-1999). the perceptual dispositions model: drills down into the essence of the person; to the attitudes, values, beliefs, or perceptions level of the personality; to the roots of a person’s actions, motivations, and interactions. using this approach allows for a more manageable number of variables to define and measure [four in all], and more predictive value, but with the trade-off of requiring the use of more qualitative assessment measures. (wasicsko, wirtz, & resor, 2009, p. 20) this model was chosen because it is “straightforward and intuitive, easily understood, built upon a strong theoretical and research base, and has proven qualitative measurement tools by which to assess dispositions” (allen, wasicsko, and chirichello, 2014, p. 137). based on the research from combs (combs & snygg, 1949; combes et al., 1969), wasicsko (2007) categorized dispositions into four general areas that differentiate effective from ineffective leaders: 1. perception about self; 2. perceptions about other people; 3. perceptions of purpose; and 4. perceptions of one’s frame of reference. these categories are detailed and defined by allen, wasicsko, and chirichello (2014) as follows: perception of self, as the name implies, focuses on the personhood of the leader. leaders who have positive perceptions of self are confident without being overbearing, identify more readily with others, can see diverse points of view, and display a positive attitude toward life and work. because of a positive sense of self, they tend to be more selftrusting and, thus, less threatened by others; have less difficulty accepting constructive criticism; and can provide others with feedback that is more likely to be non-threatening and, thus, heard. leaders who have positive perception of others see people with whom they work as having the capacity to face up to challenges and be successful when given the opportunity and resources. they demonstrate a belief in others’ ability to find adequate solutions to events in their own lives; display a general belief that all people are valuable, able, and worthy of respect; share responsibilities with others; and share or give away credit for accomplishments. leaders who have high perception of purpose have goals that extend beyond the immediate to broad implications and contexts. they tend to see the big picture and yet have an uncanny ability to be present in the moment. they are committed to life-long learning and mentoring; treat everyone equitably and fairly; avoid being sidetracked by trivia or petty issues; and see work in the larger context of life. they realize that what they do as leaders is more than a mere job but less than a life. finally, leaders who are people-oriented have a frame of reference that recognizes that people, with all their human strengths and frailties, are the valuable human resources through which goals get met rather than cogs in a complex mechanical machine. they understand that, while order, management, mechanics, and details of things and events are necessary, long-term success must be concerned with the human aspects of affairs—the attitudes, feelings, beliefs, and welfare of persons. they understand the importance of maintaining positive relationships with colleagues, and they focus on the human dimensions rather than, or at least in addition to, the “things” associated with the work. (pp. 137138) these dispositions, the authors contend, are a priori elements that, when present in a leader, set the stage for greater transformational change and growth in individuals and organizations. however, they develop slowly and incrementally over the course of a lifetime and are not, in general, quickly, easily, or drastically changed over the relatively short timeframe of a leadership program, hence the need to select for dispositions at admissions and then intentionality plan for and facilitate their growth throughout the leadership program. assessing dispositions the perceptual dispositional model was chosen because it is straightforward, easily understood by students and faculty, and is built upon a strong theoretical and research base. also, it has a readily available, research-based assessment tool that, when used by skilled raters, provides highly valid information that can be used for predictive purposes such as in an admissions process. studies by combs and others used one or more of the perceptual/dispositional scales in figure 1 with highly skilled raters to assess subject dispositions. in these studies, the scales were used allen, wasicsko, & wirtz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 3 to assess subjects’ dispositions in direct observations, interviews, and written vignettes (called human relations incidents) about teaching or helping experiences. in addition to finding significance in differentiating effective from ineffective teachers, a high positive correlation was found among the perceptual factors. for example, a person scoring high on ability to identify with diverse individuals tended to be people rather than thing oriented. this same relationship existed among the other scales, and in virtually no instance did a person rate very high on one factor and very low on another. this led to the hypothesis that in the highly effective person all the traits are integrated and inter-related and, for the sake of parsimony, allows for the use of fewer dimensions for assessing a person’s dispositions without sacrificing validity. this also has implications for developing curricular experiences to positively affect dispositions: experiences that facilitate positive change in any one area may have a corresponding effect on the others. figure 1. perceptual (dispositional) studies: helper effectiveness research from the florida studies in the helping professions (combs et al., 1969). wasicsko (1977b) studied the teachability of the 12 perceptual factors and found that four factors were more rapidly acquired in training sessions. the four factors, one in each area, were: 1. perceptions of self as identified with a broad range of people rather than unidentified. 2. perceptions of others as able to deal with the problems they face rather than unable. 3. perceptions of purpose in terms of larger implications rather than smaller immediate outcomes. 4. a frame of reference that focuses on people concerns rather than things. this subsequently led to the development of self-instructional training materials for the four perceptual/dispositional factors (wasicsko, 1977a, 2005). these four perceptual factors were chosen as the scales for the dispositions construct in the perceptual dispositions model (figure 2). each scale is made up of a pair of definitions on a seven-point likert scale with the effective dispositions on one end (7) and those of ineffective dispositions on the other (1). before using the scales, systematic training and acceptable proficiency must be demonstrated. self-instructional materials and a proficiency test are available for free on the website of the national network for the study of educator dispositions (nnsed, 2018) at www.educatordispositions.org. perceptual orientation c o m bs & s o pe r , 1 96 3 (c ou ns el or s) o 'r o ar k, 1 97 6 (s ch oo l c ou ns el or s) je n n in g s, 1 97 3 (r es id en t a ss is ta nt s) g o o d in g , 1 96 4 (e le m en ta ry t ea ch er s) vo n k, 1 97 0 (in s er vi ce t ea ch er s) br o w n , 1 97 0 (y ou ng e du ca to rs ) ko ff m an , 1 97 5 (c la ss ro om t ea ch er s) as py & b u h le r , 1 97 5 (t ea ch er s) d ed r ic k, 1 97 2 (j r. co lle ge t ea ch er s) u sh er , 1 96 6 (c ol le ge t ea ch er s) d o yl e, 1 96 9 (c ol le ge t ea ch er s) c h o y, 1 96 9 ( c ol le ge t ea ch er s) perception of self identified-unidentified s s s s s s s s ns s able-unable s s s s s ns positive-negative s s s s perception of others able-unable s s s s s s s dependable-undependable s s s s worthy-unworthy s s s s s s s perception of purpose larger-smaller s s s freeing-controlling s s s s s s ns revealing-concealing s s s s s s ns frame of reference people-things s s internal-external s s s s s openness-closedness (to experience) s s s s = significant ns = not significant blank = not tested * definitions used in text using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 4 perceptions of self: identified the teacher/leader feels a oneness with all people. s/he perceives him/herself as deeply and meaningfully related to persons of every description. unidentified the teacher/leader feels generally apart from others. his/her feelings of oneness are restricted to those of similar beliefs. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 perceptions of others: able the teacher/leader sees others as having capacities to deal with their problems. s/he believes others are basically able to find adequate solutions to events in their own lives. unable the teacher/leader sees others as lacking the necessary capacities to deal effectively with their problems. s/he doubts their ability to make their own decisions and run their own lives. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 perceptions of purpose: larger the teacher/leader views events in a broad perspective. his/her goals extend beyond the immediate to larger implications and contexts. smaller the teacher/leader views events in a narrow perspective. his/her purposes focus on immediate and specific goals. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 frame of reference: people the teacher/leader is concerned with the human aspects of affairs. the attitudes, feelings, beliefs, and welfare of persons are prime considerations in his/her thinking. things the teacher/leader is concerned with the impersonal aspects of affairs. questions of order, management, mechanics, and details of things and events are prime considerations in his/her thinking. 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 figure 2. dispositional rating scales. dispositions as admission criteria as one element of the comprehensive admissions process in our edd program, we intentionally assess dispositions of applicants with the goal of selecting and admitting leaders with the high potential to become transformational leaders who can move people, organizations, and their broader communities to increasing levels of success. each admitted candidate becomes a collaborative member of a cohort that functions as a learning and support system of students (we call them “learning associates”) who share responsibility for all the members’ success. since the program graduates are prepared to be community leaders as well as leaders in their organization, their dispositions are a critical consideration. as shall be seen in the data collected and described below, our admissions process successfully identifies and selects candidates possessing the desired qualities. the admissions process applies the perceptual disposition model with a multi-step procedure. the consideration of the candidates’ dispositional qualities begins with reviewing the written application materials then a face-to-face group interview, and, finally, through a review of an on-demand written essay that each applicant is required to compose on the day of the interview. in each instance, the dispositional rating scales (figure 2) are applied by trained faculty assessors to determine if the desired dispositions are evident. before a candidate is offered admission, the faculty members review the entire admissions portfolio to determine if the person has provided evidence of four elements: civic/organizational ambition, leadership trajectory, timing, and the focus of this manuscript—fit (dispositions). application materials within the written application materials, each candidate submits a leadership letter describing her/his experiences and accomplishments. in the letter, applicants describe the reasons for applying to the edd program including their leadership experiences, style, and philosophy; personal and professional goals; and how they imagine they might use the doctoral studies to further their goals and aspirations. in addition to the letter, candidates submit a leadership situation essay where they describe a personally meaningful event in which they served in a formal or informal leadership role. they are asked to address each of the following questions: 1. describe the situation as it occurred at the time. 2. what did you do in that particular situation? 3. how did you feel about the situation at the time you were experiencing it? 4. how do you feel about the situation now? 5. what would you change, if anything? these essays are very telling and cue our trained faculty assessors as to the individual’s perception of self, others, purpose and frame of reference. faculty serving on the admissions review committee are trained and certified in using the dispositional rating scales have interrater reliability over 80%. applicants deemed to have met program admissions criteria including the desired dispositions on their written admissions materials are invited for an interview. a structured group interview format has been deliberately selected for this part of the process. allen, wasicsko, & wirtz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 5 group admissions interview a group interview strategy was designed to elicit more information about applicant dispositions. the group interview typically includes four to five applicants and two to three faculty members. an attempt is made to have at least one more applicant interviewee than faculty interviewer. this approach is used because we are interested not only in the applicants’ answers to the questions but how they listen to and interact with each other. as described briefly above, our program employs a cohort-based model in which all members are both learners and instructors, hence the importance of interpersonal skills. all responses and interactions are assessed by faculty for the content and presentation of their answers as well as an assessment of their dispositions using the dispositional rating scales. following are sample questions that would be asked of each applicant in turn with the following question rotating to the next applicant. a brief description/rationale regarding the dispositions the question is meant to elicit is included. • what is the first characteristic that comes to mind when you think of the best leader with whom you have worked? why? (dispositions: e.g., applicant chooses a characteristic that focuses on people rather than things; articulates how that characteristic made the leader successful; sees the big picture, distributes authority, responsibility, and rewards; positive and up-beat.) • give an example of either a formal or informal successful leadership experience in which you have been involved? (dispositions: the applicant is able to clearly describe a successful leadership experience in which s/he was involved. applicant is enthusiastic about the event, sees the larger implications, realizes that it was a collaborative endeavor, shares accomplishments.) • what are the most important characteristics you possess that will allow you to be successful in a doctoral program? (dispositions: applicant focuses on characteristics that are people oriented rather than thing oriented; demonstrates a desire and ability to build positive relationships with students, faculty, and parents; focuses on helping students be successful.) • what has been the most meaningful leadership experience you have had? (dispositions: applicant focuses on larger implications, involved others and improved their conditions, collaborative.) • what will you do differently to meet the demands of a doctoral program and still have sufficient time and energy to meet your occupational and other obligations? (dispositions: realistic notions about what it takes to be successful, calls upon others for assistance and support.) • describe a situation in which you worked successfully with someone who is racially or culturally different than you. (dispositions: describes diversity experience with good understanding that everyone is 1 the ilsa now has a free, online version available for use by any leadership program that can be found at www.leaderdispositions.org. an individual, everyone has a voice, everyone needs to be heard, everyone is important. identifies with others and is a people person.) • describe a situation in which you were not successful. what happened? what could you have done differently to change the outcome? (dispositions: candidate is able to describe the situation clearly including what he/she did wrong and offers ideas on what could have been done differently to change the outcome. sees the bigger picture, larger viewpoint, and the lesson learned.) • what is the most important leadership strategy you would use to increase "buy-in" and positive outcomes? (dispositions: sharing responsibility and rewards, clearly articulates the outcomes and encourages others to help develop goals and outcomes.) • give us an example of a time you used humor successfully, either to build rapport or diffuse a difficult situation. (dispositions: not taking oneself too seriously—dispositions toward self, relationships with people.) at the conclusion of the interview, applicants complete an ondemand writing exercise in which they respond to questions relating to a published article on leadership. in addition to serving as another measure of dispositions, applicants are assessed on how well they organize and support their thoughts. preliminary findings as part of ongoing program assessment, development, and renewal, faculty review candidate data on multiple measures including those collected during the admissions process. to validate faculty assessment of candidates’ dispositions from admissions, we compare these data with external reviewers’ assessments of all of our learning associates as a part of a 360° evaluation process. our preliminary findings indicate that the admissions process is successfully admitting for the desired leadership dispositions. during the first semester of the program, our learning associates engage in a 360° evaluation process in order to help them continue to grow as leaders. the individual leadership selfassessment (ilsa)1, the instrument used in this process (allen et al., 2014), measures 34 leadership traits/characteristics and 20 dispositions. during their first semester in the program, learning associates complete the ilsa as a self-assessment of their leadership traits and dispositions. additionally, they identify at least ten critical friends (co-workers) who complete the survey instrument about their leadership capacity. during the second year of the program, fellow learning associates (cohort members) complete the ilsa for each member of the cohort. ilsa was designed to collect authentic data from a variety of sources (self, critical friends, and fellow learning associates), to serve as a self-assessment baseline from which growth plans are designed, and to measure growth over time. this process is based on four assumptions: feedback is important for personal and professional growth; most organizations using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 6 fail to provide authentic feedback; research has shown that 360° feedback can lead to improved performance; and there is frequently a gap between a leader’s self-perception and how others see her/him. students receive aggregated feedback on all 54 items comparing their self-assessment with the scores from their critical friends during the first semester in the program. during their second year in the program, they also receive the feedback from their fellow learning associates. these data are used by learning associates to create growth plans and by program faculty for course and program development purposes and to validate our own assessment of candidates’ dispositions from admission. for this article, we are reporting here only the data from the twenty dispositional items (figure 3) from a sample of 74 of our learning associates and 573 of their critical friends. as noted earlier, admitted applicants must receive a score of a 5, 6, or 7 on each perceptual rating scale on the written application materials, the face-to-face group interview, and a written essay. each scale is made up of a pair of definitions on a seven-point likert scale with the effective dispositions on one end (7) and those of ineffective dispositions on the other (1). those candidates scoring below a 5 in any one or more areas are typically not admitted to the program. as part of ongoing program evaluation, we ask ourselves each year if our assessment of candidates’ dispositions at admissions is an accurate or authentic portrait of who our learning associates are as learners and leaders. the 360° data is one measure we use to validate our admissions assessment. perceptions of self 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 identifies positively with others even those who are different than s/he is. always try to see the other person’s point of view. displays a generally positive attitude toward life and work. is accepting of others whose ideas and opinions differ from self. accepts constructive criticism. perceptions of others 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 displays a general belief that all people are valuable, able, and worthy. collaborates positively with others. shares responsibility with others. finds positive things about almost everyone s/he meets. shares credit for accomplishments with others. perceptions of purpose 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 sees the big picture in most situations. treats everyone equitably and fairly. sees work in the larger context of a person’s life. avoids being sidetracked by trivia or petty issues. is committed to life-long learning for self and others. frame of reference 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 primary focus is on the success of the people with whom s/he interacts. balances work and life. builds and maintains positive relationships with colleagues. builds and maintains positive relationships with clients. focuses on the human aspects (rather than things) in most situations. figure 3. dispositional items from the individual leadership self-assessment (ilsa). allen, wasicsko, & wirtz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 7 as noted earlier, learning associates who are admitted to our program are rated highly (typically scoring in the 5-7 range) on dispositional elements by our trained faculty assessors. we compare here, learning associates self-assessments (n=74) with the corresponding data from their critical friends (n=573), and their fellow learning associates (n=74). within the first category, perceptions of self (figure 4), mean ratings range from 4.88 on “accepts constructive criticism” (selfassessment rating) to 6.14 on “displays a generally positive attitude toward life and work” (critical friends’ rating). according to the critical friends and fellow learning associates, our learning associates’ scores fall within the effective dispositions range for perceptions of self as identified with a broad range of people rather than unidentified. all but one of the self-assessment scores falls within this same range. effective leaders’ scores on these questions typically range from 5 to 7 which represents a oneness with all people as opposed to feeling generally apart from others. leaders within the 5 to 7 range are also perceived as deeply and meaningfully related to persons of every description as opposed to his/her feelings of oneness restricted to those of similar beliefs (identified vs. unidentified). figure 4. perceptions of self. self-assessment n=74, critical friends n=573, fellow learning associates n=74. within the second category, perceptions of others (figure 5), a similar pattern occurs and mean ratings range from 5.28 on “finds positive things about almost everyone s/he meets” (self-assessment rating) to 6.23 on “displays a general belief that all people are valuable, able, and worthy” (critical friends rating). according to these data, our learning associates’ scores on all items fall within the effective dispositions range for perceptions of others as able to deal with the problems they face rather than unable. effective leaders’ scores on these questions typically range from 5 to 7 which represents the ability to see others as having capacities to deal with their problems. leaders within the 5 to 7 range are also perceived to believe others are basically able to find adequate solutions to events in their own lives (able vs. unable). using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 8 within the third category, perceptions of purpose (figure 6), mean ratings range from 4.73 on “avoids being sidetracked by trivia or petty issues” (self-assessment rating) to 6.52 on “is committed to life-long learning for self and others” (critical friends rating). according to all but one of these data points, our learning associates’ scores fall within the effective dispositions range for perceptions of purpose in terms of larger implications rather than smaller immediate outcomes. effective leaders’ scores on these questions typically range from 5 to 7 which represents the ability to view events in a broad perspective. leaders within the 5 to 7 range are also perceived to believe his/her goals extend beyond the immediate to larger implications and contexts (larger vs. smaller). figure 6. perceptions of purpose. self-assessment n=74, critical friends n=573, fellow learning associates n=74. figure 5. perceptions of others. self-assessment n=74, critical friends n=573, fellow learning associates n=74. allen, wasicsko, & wirtz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 9 within the fourth and final category, frame of reference (figure 7), mean ratings range from 4.42 on “balances work and life” (selfassessment rating) to 6.19 on “builds/maintains positive relationships with students/clients” (critical friends rating). according to the critical friends and fellow learning associates, our learning associates’ scores fall within the effective dispositions range for frame of reference in terms of a focus on people concerns rather than things. effective leaders’ scores on these questions typically range from 5 to 7 which represents leaders’ concerns with the human aspects of affairs. leaders within the 5 to 7 range are concerned with the attitudes, feelings, beliefs, and welfare of persons which are prime considerations in her/his thinking (people vs. things). figure 7. frame of reference. self-assessment n=74, critical friends n=573, fellow learning associates n=74. as outlined earlier, learning associates who are admitted to our program are rated highly on dispositional elements by our trained faculty assessors. additionally, our learning associates selfassessment ratings correlate positively with the scores from their critical friends and their fellow learning associates as outlined here. in fact, all twenty items within the four perceptual/dispositional factors rated by critical friends and fellow learning associates fall within the effective dispositions range. conclusions after ten years of participating with learning associates in the program, we have seen that the dispositional screening process has been effective in selecting those candidates who demonstrate our desired leadership dispositions. furthermore, we have been able to validate our assessment of their dispositions by correlating entry dispositional assessments with those of our learning associates’ critical friends and their fellow learning associates. in addition to these data, we have observed candidates who commit themselves deeply to civic engagement and have made recognized contributions to their communities through collaborative initiatives and support for nonprofit organizations and other agencies. a required element of the program is that each candidate must select and implement an action research project that impacts their organization or community. our graduates have excelled in this area and have been rewarded with regional and statewide recognition for their competence and commitments. the essential role of assessing dispositions in the admissions process is to admit candidates with greater potential to foster transformational growth in their organizations and communities; and then, in a program designed specifically to grow good managers into transformational leaders, provide experiences that increase the persons’ leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions. assessing applicants’ dispositions throughout the admissions process utilizing the perceptual dispositions model has proved to be an effective method for identifying successful participants who complete the program and, in most cases, move to positions of greater influence. in this article, we described the theoretical basis, rationale, and pragmatic considerations for intentionally assessing specific dispositions in the admission process for educational leaders in a selective, practitioner/scholar edd program at a regional, comprehensive university. the goal of our admissions process is to select and admit experienced leaders with a high potential to become transformational leaders who move people, organizations, and their broader communities to increasing levels of excellence. this, we believe, has been accomplished by making dispositions one of the selection criteria in the admission of candidates as well as intentionally enhancing dispositional growth throughout the program. using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.69 10 references allen, j. g., wasicsko, m. m., & chirichello, m. (2014). the missing link: teaching the dispositions to lead. international journal of educational leadership preparation, 8(1), 135-147. aspy, d. n., & buhler, k. (1975). the effect of teachers’ inferred self-concept upon student achievement. journal of education research, 47, 386-389. brown, r. g. (1970). a study of the perceptual organization of elementary and secondary outstanding young educators (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 7124412). carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2018). retrieved from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ choy, c. (1969). the relationship of college teacher effectiveness to conceptual system and perceptual orientation (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 6919212). combs, a. w. (1974). humanistic goals of education. in i. d. welch, f. richards, & a. c. richards (eds.), educational accountability: a humanistic perspective. (pp. 124-131). san francisco, ca: shields. combs, a. w., richards, a. c., & richards, f. (1976). perceptual psychology: a humanistic approach to the study of persons. new york, ny: harper & row. combs, a. w., & snygg, g. (1949). individual behavior: a perceptual approach to behavior. new york, ny: harper & row. combs, a. w. & soper, d. w. (1963). the self, its derivate terms and research. journal of individual psychology, 14, 64-67. combs, a. w., soper, d. w., gooding, c. t., benton, j. a., dickman, j. f., & usher, r. h. (1969). florida studies in the helping professions. social science monograph #37. gainsville, fl. university of florida press. retrieved from http://fieldpsychtrust.org/newsite/wpcontent/uploads/2013/09/florida_studies.pdf dedrick, c. v. (1972). the relationship between perceptual characteristics and effective teaching at the junior college level (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 7300550). doyle, e. j. (1969). the relationship between college teaching effectiveness and inferred characteristics of the adequate personality (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 7007121). goleman, d. (1995). emotional intelligence. new york, ny: bantam books. gooding, c. t. (1964). an observational analysis of perceptual organization of effective teachers (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 6505983). jennings, g. d. (1973). the relationship between perceptual characteristics and effective advising of university housing para-professional resident assistants. (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of florida, gainesville, florida. koffman, r.g. (1975). a comparison of the perceptual organization of outstanding and randomly selected teachers in ‘open’ and traditional classrooms. (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. 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(1976). a comparison of perceptual characteristics of elected legislators and public school counselors identified as most and least effective (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 7516431). richards, a. c. (ed.) (2010). matters of consequence: selected writings of arthur w. combs, phd. carrollton, ga: a field psych trust publication. salovey, p. & mayer, j. d. (1990). emotional intelligence. imagination, cognition, and personality, 2, 185-211. usher, r. h. (1966). the relationship of perceptions of self, others, and the helping task to certain measures of college faculty effectiveness (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global. (order no. 6713167). vonk, h. g. (1970). the relationship of teacher effectiveness to perception of self and teaching purposes (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of florida, gainesville, florida. wasicsko, m. m. (1977a). a research based teacher selection instrument. retrieved from eric database. (ed193193) wasicsko, m. m. (1977b). improving teacher selection using perceptual inference in the teacher selection process. retrieved from eric database. (ed193195) wasicsko, m.m. (2005). assessing educator dispositions: a perceptual approach. retrieved from the national network for the study of educator dispositions website: http://www.educatordispositions.org wasicsko, m. (2007). defining meaning and applying dispositions in teacher education programs: sixth annual symposium on educator dispositions. highland heights, ky: author. wasicsko, m., wirtz, p. & resor, c. (2009). using dispositions in the teacher admissions process. srate journal 18(2), 19-26. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 21 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.166 collecting dissertation data during covid-19 matthew j. sroka salisbury university msroka1@gulls.salisbury.edu abstract this essay describes my personal experience as a doctoral candidate collecting data for my dissertation during the covid-19 pandemic. after providing the context for my own study, i lay out three main ideas that emerged while collecting data. these main ideas involve including participants in the decision-making process, sharing one another’s challenging contexts to understand and connect, and the importance of teacher learning communities in times of isolation. my essay highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of collecting data during difficult circumstances and discusses the importance of professional learning communities to assist teachers with long-term coping within an unexpected context. keywords dissertation data collection; doctoral student; english teachers; teachers as readers; learning communities; participatory action research introduction on thursday, march 12th, 2020 at 3:20 pm, i received the following message regarding irb approval for my dissertation: this letter serves as notification that protocol #10 entitled, the reading habits of english teachers is approved. best of luck with your research! after months of working on the first three chapters (introduction, literature review, and methodology) of my dissertation, meeting with my committee, making revisions, submitting my proposal to the irb, and making more revisions, i finally received the message i’ve been waiting for stating that my dissertation proposal was “approved”. i was thrilled. i could now finally start collecting data. it felt like the dissertation was just beginning, and i felt fully prepared for what lay ahead. less than an hour after i received the above email, maryland governor larry hogan held a press conference stating that to mitigate the spread of covid-19 all k-12 maryland schools will be closed for two weeks starting march 16th. these two weeks of closed schools turned into the rest of the semester leaving many of my fellow dissertation colleagues frantically trying to puzzle out how to make their project work without actually being in the classroom. a facebook group message soon popped up as my colleagues began collaborating on how to adjust their dissertations to be able to complete their work during these unusual and unnerving circumstances. the message feed included practical concerns about how to conduct classroom observations when schooling had moved to virtual learning, along with anxiety-ridden messages of the unknown future, wondering how long school buildings would be closed and if they could just wait it out, and, understandably, some less nuanced messages expressing total frustration with the near impossible task that now lay ahead of them. i guiltily read the comments but did not contribute to the conversation as my research design did not require any in-person classroom visits and all my data was already designed to be collected electronically. after reading the frantic responses of my peers, i let out an audible sigh of relief with the naive belief that my research would not be affected by the covid-19 pandemic. of course, it quickly became evident that my research was not immune to the effects of covid-19. though the challenges may have been less direct than the difficulties many in my cohort experienced, i started to notice how covid-19 permeated every aspect of my work. my participatory action research study focuses on the reading and teaching lives of five in-service secondary english teachers, including myself. i refer to this group as a professional learning community (plc) (trust et al., 2016). between the time i had recruited research participants and the time i started to conduct my research, the teaching landscape for these five teachers had changed drastically. this newly formed anxiety-ridden context, forced me to ask questions about my research. was i adding to the stress of the teacher participants? in a day full of zoom meetings, is it fair to ask them to participate in one more zoom call? is it fair to ask participants who have spent the entire day on the computer to spend another hour and a half on a video call or to ask them to send me their latest teaching artifacts? moreover, there are questions having to do with my study design. are my research questions still valid in this context? i was assuming a classroom context for the data i was gathering which http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ collecting dissertation data during covid-19 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.166 22 included lesson plans. however, as distance-learning plans are not the types of lessons teachers typically create, are these lessons still a valid form of data? the discussion topics for the group meetings make no mention of online learning or teaching during a pandemic, so should i change the meeting topics or add additional meetings? how much or how little do i address covid-19 in my study? below i lay out three main ideas that emerged as i wrestled with the above questions. i explain how with the participants i transparently discussed ways in which my research might be impacted by covid-19. the results of this transparency led to solving problems together. moreover, the impact of covid-19 on the participants led to this learning community being an important place to feel connected and a source of comfort that they were not alone in facing these challenges. main idea #1including participants in my research problems helped us to solve challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic while also increasing the agency of the participants as they became more invested members of the learning community. my participatory action research (par) design lends itself to including participants’ voices in answering study design questions. herr and anderson (2015) explain that action research, including par “is different in that research participants themselves either are in control of the research or are participants in the design and methodology of the research” (p. 1). with this in mind, i would often bring the participants into the discussions related to navigating this research project in a time of crisis. for example, when i asked about how we would find time to consider all these new emerging topics like teaching online, candice (all names are pseudonyms), a literacy coach in maryland, suggested meeting an additional time to discuss their experiences with online teaching during covid. therefore, instead of meeting six times as a group, the group willingly met seven times. having candice suggest the idea and then having other participants comment, and ultimately agree with her idea to meet a seventh time, illustrates that my participants were taking agency in this study, and it was not just me demanding more of my participants. another example of this community problem solving can be seen when discussing the type of lesson plans participants should submit. i inquired to the group whether it would be better to collect more traditional lesson plans they made when they were still doing in-school instruction or if it would be better to collect their current virtual teaching lesson plans. george, a freshman english teacher in maryland, acknowledged that “my lesson plans right now, don't look a whole lot like my lesson plans in the classroom, especially when it comes to discussing literature”, but george still insisted that we use online lesson plans, even if they were less traditional and thorough than the plans used in the classroom. in our discussion, george went back to our research question that explores how reading lives connect with teaching lives. george said, “if we're looking at reading journals as what we're reading now and then we're using lesson plans for what we've done in the past work, the observations we make are going to include a lot of conjecture”. other participants agreed with george that the lessons should align with their current reading lives, so we decided to collect virtual lesson plans. not only did my participants help to provide a solution to my quandary but by doing so they increased their own agency and commitment within this plc. though the above questions were explicitly discussed in our group meetings, many other covid-related questions answered themselves due to the nature and topic of the study. as i investigated the current reading lives and teaching experiences of teachers occurring during a pandemic, inherently covid-related topics emerged naturally in our conversations and in other forms of data. this is because reading lives and teaching lives are often profoundly affected by personal and national events happening to or around them. reading and teaching lives are not static but are evolving throughout their professional lives (kerkhoff et al., 2020, rubin & land, 2017, scholes, 1998). part of this evolution is based on our observations, discussions, and interactions. a recent study by kerkoff et al. (2020) of pre-service english teachers argues that “reading identity is dynamic and can shift based on interactions with others and with texts” and teachers should “think of reading as something that is developing in themselves as well as their students over a lifetime” (p. 209). within this dynamic, social view of reading, the participants and i examined our own reading lives and discussed how they are impacted by current events. relieved that we were addressing many of my initial covidrelated queries, i still could not help but be nagged by what emerged as my most concerning question: was my study in some way adding to the stress and anxiety of the participants? near the end of my study, it became clear that not only did my study not add to the stress of the participants, but it also became an important place to feel heard and connected. sharing about my own changing roles and contexts and having others share about their changing contexts, allowed our community to understand each other and to better deal with our own circumstances. main idea #2 as participants’ contexts underwent significant changes, sharing these contexts helped us to understand one another and to draw comfort from our similar circumstances. teachers, including the participants in this study, were now being forced out of their classrooms as they worked from home to create a distance-learning program with little to no preparation. this of course was in addition to the general feelings of anxiety emanating from living in a covid-19 world where there were many more unknowns than knowns. amid this chaotic environment, i asked participants if we could hang out and talk about their reading lives. initially, i did not fully understand what i was asking of the participants, and, ultimately, i did not anticipate the power and importance of this learning community. i also did not acknowledge the personal challenges that i had to reckon with in order to conduct my research. like all of us, i currently take on a multitude of roles and identities. along with being a doctoral student and researcher, i am also a high school english teacher. i am the spouse of a registered nurse who works the night shift on a surgical unit at a hospital. additionally, i am the parent of a three-year-old and a one-year-old. covid-19 exponentially increased the stress within all of these roles. on april 29th, 2020 i conducted a google meet with my 11thgrade students to discuss their reading of the narrative of the life of frederick douglass. optimistically attempting to balance roles, i scheduled the meeting for 1:00 to coincide with my children’s naps. matthew j. sroka impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.166 23 simultaneously, my wife was on a zoom call with my three-year-old’s speech pathologist. it was on this date that my three-year-old also decided to stop taking naps. my son, not appreciating my role as a teacher, demanded that i take on my role as a parent as he continually came out of his room seeking my attention. upstairs, i attempted to run my class meeting while taking every chance i could to firmly request that my son go back into his room and take a nap. downstairs, my wife repeatedly muted her conversation to vainly call up to our son to tell him to come down and leave dad alone. though it is unique that it was on this day my son decided to stop taking naps, the larger chaotic nature of teaching and parenting from home with small children is in no way unusual. i also found myself struggling to navigate teaching online. coming up with authentic and engaging lessons, contacting parents of the many disengaged students, giving authentic, individualized feedback, and attempting to encourage students who were all facing their own personal and academic crises became an overwhelming task. of course, my teaching took a backseat to the needs of my family. as covid quickly escalated in maryland, optional surgeries were placed on hold and my wife’s general surgical unit was converted into a covid-only unit, and she was soon working directly with covid patients. the stresses of online teaching, along with caring for my family while my wife worked on the front lines of this pandemic, left me little mental and emotional strength for my dissertation research. my experience was not unique. everyone had his or her own daily challenges to navigate, including the participants in my study. when i asked james, an 8th grade ela teacher in colorado, about his context, he opened by saying, “the first part of my context is i've got a third-grader and a kindergartener at the house, and i believe the kindergartener has cried every day.” he went on to talk about the daily struggles of being a responsible parent and helping his children with their own schoolwork, while also being a responsible and effective teacher. these are experiences james and i share with many other teachers. however, james and i, along with other participants, were able to take comfort in knowing that we were not alone in these challenges. throughout my study, participants referenced the benefits of being part of a community that met regularly to discuss their contexts and experiences. participants did not always agree with one another nor did any of us have the exact same experiences, but we were all coming from a shared space of caring about our teaching and reading lives while facing daunting professional and personal obstacles. participants often discussed how they drew comfort from the commonality of challenges and how they were making sense of these challenges. though the schools and specific roles were different for each teacher, we all faced very similar challenges related to covid and virtual teaching. resulting from these changing contexts, participants also had to overcome that significant challenge of feeling isolated while teaching from home. main idea #3 learning communities can be spaces where people can come together to feel connected in times of isolation. feelings of isolation and lack of professional support emerged as a significant issue facing teachers during covid-19. my own experience witnessed teachers striving to feel connected as covidrelated support facebook groups and group text messages were formed as teachers attempted to reach out to one another during this isolating time. noticing teachers turning towards social media for support, trust et. al., (2020) examined how popular hashtags were being used by teachers during covid-19. the researchers explain, “given their physical isolation, educators turned to social media to interact with peers in ways that might otherwise have occurred at work” (p.156). the researchers then lay out some recommendations for educators, the first being that “teacher educators should aim to create learning spaces and experiences that will holistically support teachers’ cognitive growth, affective well-being, and social needs'' (p.156). though social media is a valuable and convenient tool for connection, it perhaps does not fully satisfy one’s personal and professional social needs. somewhat unintentionally, my dissertation had created a learning community group where teachers did support one another’s “cognitive growth, affective well-being, and social needs.” this plc provided a healthy place where participants could be heard, feel connected, and receive encouragement. examining some of the participants’ responses illustrates that they felt connected and refreshed after in-depth conversations about their reading and teaching lives. in our final interview, george reflected on our learning community, saying that it had “been like a sanity saver at times for me”. george went on to explain, “i think being a teacher is almost kind of lonely. nobody really knows what you’re going through”. for george, our community became a place to feel less isolated in a time where teachers were forced to lose much of their connections with other teachers due to online learning. robert, a 12th grade english teacher in chicago, echoed these same sentiments in his final interview. when asked about the impact of the learning community on his teaching life, he discussed how even though many of these decisions regarding distance learning seemed to be made at the local level, he was surprised and comforted about how school systems were making similar decisions. robert went on to explain, “i think it's very comforting to be with people from around the country who are struggling with the same obvious hurdles we have”. whether it was grading policy, the challenges of using google meet, or the challenge of student engagement, this community turned to one another to be reminded that they were not alone in facing these difficulties. for robert and george, our community became a place of shared experiences where they felt less isolated. looking ahead in our final meeting, james remarked how he did not want the group to end and suggested that even after my dissertation study we keep meeting on a regular basis. every other member of the group quickly agreed with james, and so we intend to keep meeting even after i’m finished collecting data. this desire to continue meeting demonstrates the value that members of the community drew from meeting with one another. when i created this learning community, i knew each of the members, but none of the members knew each other. through the course of our meetings, we grew from colleagues to friends. our group discussed at length reasons for the success of this group. we speculated the reasons by saying we are all english teachers who loved reading, or being from different school systems allowed us to talk freely as we were away from the judgment of co-workers or administrators, or our shared beliefs in reader-centered approaches collecting dissertation data during covid-19 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.166 24 to reading along with student-choice, and the importance of diverse stories. all of these factors certainly helped to connect us, however, i think the most significant factor was that we came together at the very moment when we needed community the most. covid-19 impacted every element of american society and teachers were certainly no exception to this. as teachers will continue to face challenges related to online learning or hybrid learning, my study illustrates the importance of a healthy teacher community in times of crisis. small teacher communities across school systems can be a valuable asset to equip teachers with tools for sustainability and long-term coping within an unexpected context. our learning community provided a venue for teachers to wrestle with their wide-ranging questions from the study’s design, to the challenge of teaching shakespeare online, to wondering how to balance their family and teaching roles, to discussions about why some students would not engage in online learning. when in other situations teachers would perhaps turn to connecting on social media or just left feeling isolated, our learning community provided a healthy space where participants could engage in thoughtful face to face interactions to share about their experiences and feel connected and heard. with the unknown times for teachers that lay ahead, these types of learning communities and healthy spaces may prove invaluable. references herr, k., & anderson, g. l. (2015). the action research dissertation. sage. kerkhoff, s., broere, m., & premont, d. (2020). average and avid: preservice english teachers' reading identities. english teaching: practice & critique, 19, 197-215. rubin, j.c. & land, c.l. (2017), “this is english class”: evolving identities and a literacy teacher’s shifts in practice across figured worlds. teaching and teacher education, 68, 190-199. scholes, r. e. (1998). the rise and fall of english: reconstructing english as a discipline. yale university press. trust, t., krutka, d. g., & carpenter, j. p. (2016). “together we are better”: professional learning networks for teachers. computers & education, 102, 15-34. trust, t., carpenter, j. p., krutka, d. g., & kimmons, r. (2020). #remoteteaching & #remotelearning: educator tweeting during the covid-19 pandemic. journal of technology and teacher education, 28(2), 151-159. matthew j. sroka salisbury university introduction looking ahead references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 20 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.127 taking a stance: teacher researchers’ historical and political positioning elizabeth currin university of south carolina ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu abstract with teacher walkouts and other forms of protest on the rise, edd programs are beginning to frame practitioner-scholars’ work as activism. the purpose of this article is to explore and complicate that trend by interpreting data from oral history interviews with three long-term teacher researchers, alongside shifting historical scholarship on civil rights activism. each participant cites civil rights activism as an inspiration and positions the rise of neoliberal education reform as a backlash to the 1960s that threatens the so-called teacher research movement. however, historians challenge the dominant narrative of the 1960s, highlighting behindthe-scenes conservative activism that did not garner the same media attention as liberal marches and boycotts. consequently, while the participants’ stories offer abundant insight for practitioner-scholars as well as for the teacher educators who guide them, this article ultimately argues edd activists should take a schoolhouse-tostatehouse approach. keywords: activism, teacher research, inquiry as stance, edd programs, oral history as teacher walkouts and other protests generate social electricity and garner media attention, edd programs like mine are beginning to frame the work of practitioner-scholars as activism, a prospect that makes me both curious and cautious. for decades, cochran-smith and lytle (1993, 2009) have emphasized the political nature of practitioner research, especially when driven by an inquiry stance. inquiry stance is cochran-smith and lytle’s (2001) term for intentional, constant exploration of the “webs of social, historical, cultural, and political significance” in everyday classroom dilemmas (p. 50). though teacher research is often described as an empowering movement (brindley & crocco, 2009; kinsler, 2010), we must consider “who is being empowered, by whom, and to what degree” (klehr, 2009, p. 64). indeed, teacher researchers are unlikely to come to teacher research on their own (flessner & klehr, 2016; perrillo, 2016), so we teacher educators should give careful thought to the implications of producing practitioner-scholar-activists. particularly in this era of high-stakes testing, fraught with increasing efforts to control teachers’ time, space, and very identities (buchanan, 2015), there is a fine line between empowering and imposing. this article takes up klehr’s (2009) call to investigate “the direction of the movement” (p. 64), acknowledging the long history of practitioner research and waning optimism for its future (burnaford & hobson, 2001; herr & anderson, 2015; perrillo, 2016). through a series of oral history interviews (yow, 2005) with three long-term teacher researchers, i observed how despite different ages, backgrounds, and professional contexts, each cited civil rights activism as an inspiration. further, they explained the rise of neoliberal education reform as a backlash to the 1960s, expressing considerable doubt about the future of practitioner research. my participants’ narratives hold inherent value for teacher educators, illustrating how an inquiry stance can emerge and endure throughout a professional lifetime. however, this article proposes an alternate reading by troubling the 1960’s schema employed by all three teacher researchers. historians have challenged the dominant narrative of the 1960s, warning us not to ignore the behind-thescenes conservative activism and its long-lasting “political fruits” (hijiya, 2003, p. 206). mcgirr (2001), for example, attributed the “strength and endurance” of 20th-century conservatism to adherents’ simultaneously proactive and reactive approach, a strategy that escaped recognition at the time, though it ultimately eclipsed the more well-known activism of the left (p. 19). consequently, bessner (2019) recently challenged liberal scholars to resist the glamour of the grassroots, committing instead to “working within the strictures of the american political system” (para. 10). similarly, rust and meyers (2007) once urged teacher researchers to move from schoolhouse to statehouse. this article recommends such an approach to edd activists and their teacher educator allies. teacher research: traits, trends, and tribulation teacher research has several analogues, including action research and practitioner inquiry, all of which are rooted in the progressive era (herr & anderson, 2015). regardless of the label, the premise is the same, namely practitioners’ articulating and systematically exploring authentic questions or problems related to their everyday work. in education, from the start, this practice promised “a different vision of the profession” (perrillo, 2016, p. 91). by the end of the 20th century, supporters remained optimistic that http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ file:///c:/users/stephanie/downloads/ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu taking a stance: teacher researchers’ historical and political positioning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.127 21 “the image of teacher as researcher” had transformative potential (burnaford & hobson, 2001, p. 236). the concept of inquiry as stance (cochran-smith & lytle, 2001, 2009) catalyzed the spread of teacher research, reinforcing belief in its capacity to transform the teaching profession (ravitch, 2014). as noted earlier, teacher researchers with an inquiry stance exhibit constant curiosity about everyday classroom dilemmas, which they see as rooted in larger “webs of […] significance” (cochran-smith & lytle, 2001, p. 50). teacher research, scholars contend, thus positions practitioners “as members of a profession whose boundaries extend beyond the schoolhouse” (e.g., bray et al., 2000, p. 77), who are likely, even in retirement, to be “politically active” on students’ behalf (dagenais et al., 2000, p. 102). this was precisely the mission of the teachers network leadership institute (tnli), an outgrowth of the teachers network, which arose in 1979 to address “the noticeable absence of the teachers’ voice in education policy” (rust & meyers, 2007, p. 71). the schoolhouse-to-statehouse initiative, which sought to recruit teacher researchers and train them to share their findings with policymakers, was marginally successful, contributing to “a growing body of research by teachers” (p. 69). nevertheless, tnli ultimately fell short of its political aims. because teacher researchers may be hesitant or unable to pursue publication (klehr, 2009), when they share their work, it is often in practitioner-focused or practitioner-only spaces. in other words, they are “essentially ‘preaching to the choir’” (rust & meyers, 2007, p. 70). arguably, this is the case with many scholarly circles, but in the case of scholarly practitioners, their relative lack of political and institutional power often stymies their ability to act on their own and each other’s findings. moreover, earnest attempts to spread teacher research run the risk of becoming top-down, tainted by the very accountability ethos teacher educators may urge teacher researchers to interrogate (klehr, 2009). edd programs, which invariably operate within institutional constraints and must impose specific requirements on their students, should be especially mindful of this dilemma and sensitive to our role as gatekeepers. though we, too, face structural barriers in our own work, we inherently occupy positions of power over our students. for various reasons, then, teacher researchers are hardpressed to engage in truly political inquiry (charest, 2019), and far too many teachers “wholeheartedly embrace” the neoliberal status quo, with only the rare few “pushing back” (buchanan, 2015, p. 715). while dunn (2018) views teacher attrition as a significant form of resistance, by enlisting long-term teacher researchers with an inquiry stance, i sought a more optimistic route. the case for teacher researchers’ testimonies mirroring scholarship that frames teachers’ memories in a historical way (e.g., blumenreich & rogers, 2016), i used oral history (yow, 2005) to examine the experiences of individual participants as well as to look across their narratives after obtaining approval from the university of florida institutional review board. acknowledging that teacher researchers are born of teacher educators (flessner & klehr, 2016), i solicited recommendations from teacher research scholars. through an initial screening process, i obtained the consent of three participants, who all granted me permission to use their real names. each teacher researcher participated in three semistructured interviews (seidman, 2006), sharing their professional life stories, which i have condensed in this article. given that “stories come from somewhere and go somewhere” (clandinin, 2018, p. 19), the following testimonies are rooted in the 1960s, travel through the 1990s pinnacle of teacher research, and testify to a backlash in the present. this, i argue, has implications for the teacher research movement and for edd activism. cindy ballenger: “a teacher out of the ’60s” cindy point-blank introduced herself as “a teacher out of the ’60s” and recounted her undergraduate years at barnard college in new york city, one of those “hot, exciting places in those days politically.” though cindy had enrolled in the late 1960s without setting foot on campus, her mother had visited and described “leaflets up all over the place for meetings for […] different sorts of causes.” these details promised a more “bohemian” or “multicultural” environment than she had experienced in suburban illinois. after graduation, she got involved with the gi movement in opposition to the vietnam war by working in a “gi coffeehouse” near westover air reserve base, a venue offering legal counseling and other advice for anti-war gis. as a teacher educator, i was struck by how divergent cindy’s narrative was from the typical teacher origin story. she eventually found her way to teaching by taking a job in a massachusetts daycare, inspired, she thinks, by president johnson’s great society campaign as part of the war on poverty. through a series of career moves, by the 1980s, she connected with the brookline teacher researcher seminar (btrs). a group founded by, for, and of teachers, btrs focused on promoting open dialogue about “what wasn’t working” in members’ classrooms, a stark contrast from the dubious what works clearinghouse associated with accountabilityera education (lynch & martin, 2017; pampaka et al., 2016). eventually, though, the group disbanded, and cindy struggled to recreate its magic. she recalls, “it was a better period. […] now it’s hard to get teachers […] to add another meeting. they don’t have time.” pointing to a noticeable ebb in teacher research in the 21st century, cindy suggested, “it’s nice that they’re required in a whole range of programs, some sort of teacher research project, but […] somehow, i don’t get the sense that it sticks.” her experiences with btrs, arguably rooted in her earlier days as an activist, impressed upon her the need for a fire in one’s belly. otherwise, cindy reasoned, teachers might be tempted to play it safe, because inquiring into their challenges and mistakes is deeply uncomfortable, especially now. the accountability climate, according to cindy, causes teachers to feel “overwhelmed.” for example, she pointed to “so many meetings in order to make sure the curriculum is getting done” and suggested having such a full schedule results in “not enough time to think.” when cindy increasingly observed these trends, this “teacher out of the ’60s” ultimately decided to retire. even in retirement, though, cindy continues to work in schools, where her activism manifests in advocacy: it’s almost impossible not to see deficits, […] but now with this testing stuff, i just don’t think there’s any way to resist it unless you’ve got the kind of focus on places where kids take initiative, which is what i mean by the kind of discussion i try to do where kids say what’s on their mind and that can sort of shatter this view of kids being full of deficits. cindy uses these insights to lobby for students’ needs, wielding “story as [a] weapon” to improve teaching and learning by “telling [teachers and administrators] stories about the kids that they don’t see.” this resistance on cindy’s part is but one example of her currin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.127 22 commitment to more equitable education, reflective of her enduring inquiry stance. cindy rejects the idea that wherever there is “a looseness, […] we have to tighten up.” in doing so, she openly challenges the strict and standardized status quo, continuing to engage in inquiry at every opportunity. gail ritchie: “an old liberal softy” like cindy, gail also took a winding path to the classroom, quite literally in the sense that she was an “army brat.” the family’s transience, she believes, actually nurtured her inquiry stance, in part because it brought her into contact with so many different school contexts -including desegregation-era busing -and teaching styles. in high school, for example, she enjoyed learning from a bona fide poetess, “a very quirky […] hippie” with “super-long” hair and “fringy, loose-flowing caftan kind of clothes.” even though she went on to teach much younger students, gail intentionally embraced a similarly “open-ended and differentiated” pedagogy -once she actually answered the call to teaching. after graduating high school at “the height of [the] watergate” era, gail accepted an rotc scholarship to northwestern. she described this time period as “the tail end of the anti-vietnam era” and recalled a lot of “liberal disdain for the military.” in gail’s case, this manifested in the rotc building’s intentionally off-campus location. consequently, she “didn’t really advertise […] or brag about” her involvement with rotc, knowing how her father had been advised to wear civilian garb even when stationed at the pentagon. at the time, her “sorority sisters thought it was really weird […] to be affiliated with the military.” at a recent reunion, however, several of them, out of nowhere, expressed gratitude to gail for her service, which “never would have happened in those days.” instead, she shared, “you’d be more likely to be spit on.” gail suspected their politics have taken a rightward turn, whereas she never fell prey to the specious logic that conflates military service and a conservative voting record, having grown up “on posts and with liberal parents.” owing to the end of the draft, gail reasoned, “times have changed.” over the course of her career, times definitely changed, as gail witnessed a proliferation of “education policies that don’t align with beneficial teaching and learning.” particularly in the wake of no child left behind, she cites a “domino effect of standards’ becoming more rigorous so that kids could be tested against those more rigorous standards.” all too often, this means “one subject at a time, kind of trying to dump knowledge into kids’ heads, which is contrary to what we know about how the brain learns.” like cindy, gail is retired, but that does not prevent her from worrying about “people in the trenches who do understand how people learn but are being forced to act in ways that are contrary to their beliefs and knowledge systems.” gail feels at odds with “who’s in power right now nationally” because she identifies as “an old liberal softy.” she claimed: if i were the secretary of education, i definitely would be approaching it very differently than the current one. […] i would definitely promote an inquiry-based, introspective, ongoing, always curious approach to teaching and learning, and i think researching one’s own practice is an integral part of that. of course, gail is not likely to face a senate confirmation hearing any time soon, and even in her district, she “was never in a powerful enough position” to fully actualize her vision for teacher research and ensure it “hasn’t completely died out.” gail did her level best, including participating in the local teacher researcher network during its “glory days.” subsequent personnel changes and financial hardship destroyed “the final vestige of any kind of support” for teacher research, and though gail had joined the nationwide teachers network leadership institute, it “disbanded […] once the accountability movement really got underway.” even in retirement, she continues to work in schools and advocate for public education, though her political activism is “not to the point of, like, marching in things.” still, gail’s inquiry stance continues to align with her tendency to be “definitely progressive and liberal in viewpoint.” erik shager: “the opposite of scott walker and his ilk” of my three participants, erik shager is the only one without any actual memories of the 1960s, yet he has always felt an ideological kinship with civil rights activists. as an undergraduate, for example, he explored “the history of african-americans in wisconsin” and examined “urban unrest in the ’60s.” he proudly referenced these projects when seeking admission to a graduate program in education. likewise, when he took his first teaching job at an alternative high school, he appreciated how it “arose in the ’60s, out of a […] progressive education kind of philosophy.” he explained, “the first alternative ed. program in madison, city school, was basically taught by a bunch of hippies.” despite being too young to have been a hippie himself, erik has fond memories of working in that context and always felt comfortable “experimenting and trying new things” or “coming up with an idea and running with it.” he knew he would be expected to account for his students’ learning, adding, “you were empowered, but you were also, you know, responsible.” that crucial balance of support and “flexibility to do cool things” was also present in the district’s “action research groups.” erik’s group encouraged him to pursue whatever he was “passionate about” and made him feel as though leaders were interested in his research findings. whenever “some initiative” came teachers’ way, erik would “blend” it with teacher research. in fact, one of his most extensive teacher research projects engaged his students as coresearchers within an existing “social issues unit.” this allowed him to apply his inquiry stance in a way that “fit a lot of what was expected” in terms of state standards. the students explored one set of research questions: “why are students dropping out of high school […] and specifically why are kids of color dropping out at a higher rate?” erik acted as “kind of a facilitator” while simultaneously “researching their research.” to guide his inquiry, he wondered, “when students do these social issues projects […], what’s actually happening as they’re going through that process, and what can we learn from it?” he and his students relished this experience. in his alternative school, erik was somewhat shielded from the initial onslaught of neoliberal education reform, but eventually, it caught up to him. in contrast to the beginning of his career, he now experiences more “oversight” and feels he has “to really massage the benchmarks” to do anything creative. he shared, “the thought of, ‘hey, i’m going to do this action research project, which involves me changing up the curriculum a little bit,’ […] that just wouldn’t happen.” everything feels “more centralized, you know, […] a lot of that […] running the trains on time […] kind of talk.” as elsewhere, “there’s just a little more of that top-down stuff.” this makes erik feel “locked in” and compelled “to teach a certain way.” though he firmly believes alternative education should provide students with unique and taking a stance: teacher researchers’ historical and political positioning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.127 23 differentiated alternatives, he is expected to align his curriculum with that of a similar school in the district. he explained, “pretty much what i’m supposed to do today is the same thing the guy across town is doing.” needless to say, this chafes at erik’s inquiry stance, because he prefers “more of a discussion-based classroom, more inquirybased.” he added, “i’m definitely in my element when i can bounce around and know that kids are connecting on something and working through it on their own, rather than […] ‘sit and get’ kind of stuff.” he dreams of curricular freedom to incorporate his activist interests in the classroom: i would love to do a civil rights class, not just the history of civil rights. it could be something on social movements that would encompass […] stories of people who had to […] use the tools that were […] not always granted in the constitution […] to change society, to ask america to live up to its ideals. given madison, wisconsin’s rich history of social movements, especially those involving students, such a course might “really hook” his students, inviting them to discuss present injustices and serving as a way to “get through some of the cynicism that people have” by showing them how “you can make change…that you really can do it.” unlike cindy and gail, erik has yet to retire, so he has to be more mindful of the expectations for teachers, even when he disagrees. still, as a teacher researcher with an inquiry stance, he remains vigilant and committed to improving for the sake of his students. to him, that means carrying forward the legacy of the civil rights movement, even by taking to the streets, and he is proud to be “the opposite of scott walker and his ilk.” indeed, erik belongs to the union that vociferously challenged act 10, the so-called budget repair bill that effectively “launched a war on labor” through sharp cuts to insurance benefits, pension plans, and collective bargaining rights (strauss, 2018, para. 1). erik decried this ultraconservative tea party “wave” and the ensuing “cutbacks across the board.” he felt he and his like-minded colleagues had “a target on [their] back.” nevertheless, he persisted in the courage of his convictions. he recalls “having to explain to students why you walked out or […] why they had 3 days off. it was great.” for erik, then, being a teacher researcher is inherently compatible with being an education activist. making sense with and of the sixties to oral historians, “how people foresee the future can also influence their presentation of the past” (slim & thomson, 1995, p. 140). as the narratives above attest, my participants all identified a decline in teacher research accompanying the rise of neoliberal education reform, which they understood as a backlash to the 1960s, the very decade that inspired their identities as change agents and, in their view, resonated in their research. their insights echo nichols and cormack’s (2016) argument that the height of teacher research was during the “‘hippy age’ of teaching” (para. 1). conversely, the onset of high-stakes testing and the top-down promotion of evidence-based practice hastened its demise. in spite of efforts throughout the 1960s and 1970s to enact social progress “in schools, and by extension in society” (sugimoto & carter, 2016, p. 21), the 1983 bombshell a nation at risk resulted in a policy preference for excellence over equity (kamenetz, 2018). in other words, neoliberalism’s rise encompassed an intentional rollback of the civil rights era (hall, 2005; hijiya, 2003), which schools experienced acutely. despite or in some cases because of such contextual constraints, cindy, gail, and erik continued to engage in teacher research, identifying problems of practice that invariably contained traces of this backlash. whereas problem has a pejorative connotation in general conversation, for teacher researchers, problematizing is the path to progress, akin to john lewis’s (2018) framing his civil rights activism as “good trouble” (para. 5). lewis’s credo continues to resonate with today’s teacher activists (e.g., egan, 2019; parmenter, 2019), so imagining teacher research as activism is not entirely a conceptual leap. on the other hand, given the enduring stronghold of conservative political power throughout the united states, advocates of teacher research may benefit more from examining the emergence of that stronghold, namely the activities of lewis’s (2018) civil rights era contemporaries who were engaging in trouble of a different sort. rather than reading these teacher researchers’ tales of the bygone glory days in dismay, we can look to the lesser-known narratives of the 1960s for lessons on how to revive the promise of practitioner research. for instance, andrew (1997) challenged the dominant narrative of civil rights activism in the “almost mythic decade” of the 1960s by shifting the scholarly gaze from the left to the right, whose efforts actually “outlasted the decade” (p. 1). chronicling the young americans for freedom as the right’s version of the student nonviolent coordinating committee, he repositioned the reagan revolution as a patient “triumph of organization” (p. 6), suggesting the conservative reforms of the 1980s had decidedly 1960s roots. consequently, “unlike the left, whose organizational energies and spirit seemed to have died by the end of the sixties, the right was just beginning to flex its muscles” (p. 220). likewise, mcgirr (2001) cited the media’s attraction to “the more flamboyant left” to argue such lop-sided coverage “distorted our understanding of american conservatism” (pp. 6-7). to counter that story, she positioned the ascendant right as a successful social movement: locally, mobilization involved the grassroots leaders and rankand-file men and women, the broader ideological waters in which they swam, as well as regional business elites who offered resources and institutional support. at the national level, it involved the formation of an intellectual leadership that sought to give cohesion to the ideas underpinning the movement, as well as a political leadership that offered direction to channel conservative sentiment. (p. 12) hijiya’s (2003) work on this “secret history of the 1960s” argued the right may have been complacent in its obscurity (p. 202). while the counterculture captured the headlines, the counter-counterculture “began their long march through the institutions of society” and ultimately succeeded in “building, capturing, and preserving organizations” (p. 203). this expansion of 1960s scholarship can inform our view of that decade’s legacy. amid the scholarly shift, eynon (1996) encouraged the use of oral history, which could “reveal the roots of activism” and ultimately “provide clues to the legacy of the movements” (pp. 560561). relying on media accounts, as earlier scholars had done, produced “closed narratives in which the story was familiar and the answers known” (p. 562). the right understood the power of story and began crafting “a large-scale tale, a cultural narrative, a vision of what america is and what it should do” (ricci, 2011, p. 4). practitioner-scholars have these skills, so their “small stories [might also] appear, merge, and culminate […in] a sweeping narrative” with currin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.127 24 political power (p. 159). in other words, might edd activism manifest in patient and systematic efforts to achieve and maintain direct influence on education policy? might scholarly practitioners progress from schoolhouse to statehouse? implications for the so-called teacher research movement detecting “a strange absence of teachers’ own testimony” in discussions of education policy, robinson (2019) recently argued, “if you trusted teachers, you would ask them to propose the methods they thought would most improve students’ experiences” (para. 12). in theory, edd programs strive for this ideal, yet teacher researchers’ impact at the “state and/or federal level” (rust & meyers, 2007, p. 80) has yet to be fully actualized. if we desire truly impactful edd activism, we would do well to notice the new right’s patience—and its payoff. as hijiya (2003) argued, “the new left’s power resided in its actions, not its organizations. the new right was different. for conservatives power came through a position, a public office, a job” (p. 206). although each of my participants referenced and relied on the dominant narrative of the 1960s, this lesser-known narrative might provide an ironically instructive model. cindy’s anti-war activism positioned her as “a teacher out of the ’60s.” similarly, gail described herself as “an old liberal softy.” despite being the youngest of the three, erik exhibited a profound interest in civil rights history, which echoes in his willingness to march with fellow union members. thus, all of their stories attest to the “apparently radical” nature of teacher research, the recognition that teachers can “understand, question and change what goes on in classrooms and schools” (klehr, 2009, p. 4). however, perhaps the most radical move a teacher researcher could make would be to take a page from the conservative playbook. indeed, activists must ultimately “channel grass-roots anger toward specific policy goals” (bessner, 2019, para. 17). if edd students - and the teacher educators who guide them -wish to position themselves as activists, they must acknowledge that historically, successful practitioner research has been “neither grassroots nor ad hoc” (perrillo, 2016, p. 93). any discussion of edd activism, therefore, must imagine how practitioner-scholars can infiltrate and transform america’s political institutions. cindy, gail, and erik are living proof that “the stories we tell about the civil rights movement […] shape how we see our own world” (hall, 2005, p. 1239). their stories, in turn, can shape how teachers and teacher educators see and understand teacher research. just as oral histories of the 1960s revealed “the changing ways that activists and others understood the world and their place in it” (eynon, 1996, p. 565), i have sought, through teacher researchers’ testimonies, to broaden our understanding of the teacher research movement, even to the point of wondering whether or not it is a movement. a decade ago, klehr (2009) acknowledged the “exciting” prospect of framing “teacher research as a grassroots, autonomous effort belonging to teachers” and cautioned, “we cannot claim that vision as a reality just yet” (p. 66). teacher research continues to be an attractive and ostensibly empowering concept, although that latter descriptor still necessitates “a broader conversation” (dodman et al., 2017, p. 42). this article, by taking a long view of how teacher researchers position themselves and their work, offers some insight, along with an invitation to keep the conversation going. note the author wishes to thank the university of florida center for the humanities and the public sphere for the rothman doctoral fellowship that made this research possible. references andrew, j. a. 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practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 43 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 an emerging framework for the edd activist yasha j. becton university of south carolina yyjones@mailbox.sc.edu christopher bogiages university of south carolina bogiages@mailbox.sc.edu leigh d’amico university of south carolina damico@mailbox.sc.edu todd lilly university of south carolina lillyt98@mailbox.sc.edu elizabeth currin university of south carolina ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu rhonda jeffries university of south carolina rjeffries@sc.edu suha tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu abstract increasingly, ed.d. programs are challenged to produce graduates with the skills and expertise needed to create and foster change in the various educational environments in which they serve. promoting, and more importantly, preparing the ed.d. activist is a theme that was addressed during the october 2019 convening of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) hosted by the university of south carolina. as part of the opening convening, the u of sc faculty assisted with surveying the more than 65 cped-informed programs in an effort to construct a potential framework to guide both new and existing programs within the consortium. the resulting framework highlights two potential profiles for the ed.d. activist, 12 considerations that programs should examine, four primary outcomes, and five quality indicators. the framework is representative of the data collected from more than 200 participants and provides a broad, but foundational framework for engaging more deeply in the work of promoting activism amongst ed.d. graduates. keywords: activism, graduate students, social justice the authors of this article are faculty members of an online ed.d. program in curriculum studies at an r-1 state university in the southeast united states. aligned with the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) program design principles, our program’s website advertises that the ed.d. “is designed to provide educators with an in-depth knowledge and understanding of social justice in diverse communities and how to… address problems of practice in various academic settings” (“doctor of education curriculum studies: what will i study?”, n.d.). while activism has not been an explicit goal of our program, we are interested in expanding our social justice framework to include a more deliberate and robust focus on activism. this directly relates to our current pursuit to develop a framework for the ed.d. activist. our 100% online program primarily attracts k-12 educators, with a smaller subset of higher education faculty, as well as medical and military personnel. students come from across the country and abroad, readily identifying a host of problems confronting the schools in their respective locales. in south carolina, for example, at least 10,000 teachers risked punitive actions from their school districts to attend a rally at the state capitol to demand action on a wide array of problems they confront daily (schechter, 2019). according to these teachers’ facebook page, approximately 30,000 educators and supporters participate in an online forum to express their frustrations over myriad injustices levied at educators and their students. meanwhile, over 40 ed.d. candidates at our college of education successfully defend their dissertations each year. they define a problem of practice, apply theory, and review the literature. they implement an intervention, collect and analyze data, and posit the implications. they are duly congratulated at the university’s hooding ceremony. they smile and thank their professors for an engaging and eye-opening experience. and then… what? what is expected of them? what do they expect of themselves? in october 2019, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) convened to discuss those very questions. the convening centered on the critical topic of activism, which “is an ambiguous word. it can mean both radical, revolutionary action and nonrevolutionary, community action; action in the service of the nation-state and in opposition to it” (yang, 2016, p. 1). the theme we developed as host for the convening, “interaction & activism in the education doctorate: creating lasting impact,” supported our efforts to examine how our students were actively serving as change agents http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:leach@tarleton.edu mailto:bogiages@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:damico@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:lillyt98@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:rjeffries@sc.edu mailto:tamims@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:tamims@mailbox.sc.edu mailto:tamims@mailbox.sc.edu becton, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 44 within the world. in addition to delving deeper into the impact of our ed.d. program, we also recognized an opportunity, in a much broader context, to stimulate discussion regarding a framework for ed.d. activists among cped-informed degree programs, expanding the existing cped profiles: the disrupters, the change agents, the leaders, the innovators, the teachers, and the collaborators. developing such a framework could benefit various programs within the cped consortium. for new programs, the framework might serve as a foundational tool to identify critical elements resident in ed.d. programs that promote activism and social justice. for more experienced programs, the framework could ensure continuing organizational alignment as it relates to coursework, research practices, and extended learning opportunities. additionally, a framework with input from more than 100 cped-affiliated colleges and universities could serve as a comprehensive blueprint for program evaluation and program development. to this end, the university of south carolina presentation at the convening, “the emerging framework of the ed.d. activist,” focused keenly on defining the construct of an ed.d. activist; exploring the coursework, research, and extended learning opportunities conducive to activism; and identifying methods for monitoring program success and outcomes. the purpose of this article is to continue that conversation. review of literature as we give further consideration to the creation of a framework, our review of literature explores several critical components. we first examine the history of the education doctorate as well as its ongoing transformation. juxtaposed with this history is a discussion of teacher activism with attention to implications for teacher educators. lastly, we explore social justice and how it directly or indirectly relates to activism among scholarly practitioners. building on the history of the education doctorate, as well as the longstanding phenomenon of teacher activism, ed.d. activism must inherently embody social justice aims. history of the education doctorate doctoral programs emerged in the u.s. in the last half of the nineteenth century. they aimed at transmitting and reproducing knowledge within the traditional disciplines of medicine, law, philosophy, and theology. eventually, doctoral studies shifted focus toward critical thinking, creativity, and research. simultaneously, industrial advancements, cultural diversity, and societal changes raised the interest in professional education to meet market needs. the education doctorate expanded access to research-based graduate study and offered new contexts for inquiry around professional practice (archbald, 2011; taysum, 2006). no longer catering to early-career, young adult learners only, professional doctorates opened the way for professional part-time students (archbald, 2011). on the other hand, changes in american society led to increased high school enrollments, reinforcing the need for college educated teachers and giving rise to the education doctorate, the ed.d. (archbald, 2011). ed.d. students are driven by career/professional development or a love for learning (hawkes, 2016), and the ed.d. enables educators to address problems of practice through “research-based and research-driven” principles (taysum, 2006, p. 330), using their expertise and linking theory to practice (hawkes, 2016; taysum, 2006; tupling & outhwaite, 2017). we view the ability of scholarly practitioners to effectively address problems of practice as directly related to the “work” of activism. however, the growing popularity and the proliferation of ed.d. programs (archbald, 2011) come with criticism, bias, and vagueness in differentiation from ph.d. programs. shulman et al. (2006) argued that problems in ed.d. programs are “chronic and crippling” (p. 25). perceived lack of rigor, compacted formats to meet the needs of working students, absence of community of practice, lack of balance between research and practice, and program structure that mimics the ph.d. with requirement subtractions confuse the purpose of the ed.d. and expose it to shortcomings. in an effort to reclaim the education doctorate, as coined by shulman et al. (2006), the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) embarked on redesigning doctoral preparation to meet professional practitioners’ needs, naming the capstone project a dissertation in practice (dip). differentiating it from the traditional five-chapter dissertation, cped proposes a process of fusing professional practice to academic theory by exploring work-based problems that continue beyond graduation through individual inquiry, collaborative inquiry, or a hybrid approach (storey & maughan, 2014). understandably, transformative changes such as those recommended by cped are challenging to program structures (reigeluth, 2019). kennedy, altman, and pizano (2018) recommended a repetitious review process to align program policies and principles. peterson (2017) suggested a tight timeline with a clear mission, identification of future roles for doctoral students, and the use of cped principles for guidance. ezzani and paufler (2018) advised allocating time for faculty collaboration and engagement in the change process. as institutions continue to strive to improve ed.d. programs (e.g. buss, 2018; creighton, 2008; mertler & henriksen, 2018; normore & issa lahera, 2019; peterson, 2017), scholarly practice will ultimately permeate the teaching profession. such permeation is necessary to raise the profile of educators among the general public and, more importantly, among the policymakers who influence the working conditions that give rise to teachers’ problems of practice—as well as to their activism. the history of activism in education teacher activism has a long history and a vibrant present, encompassing resistance to unjust iq tests in the early 20th century (stoskopf, 1999), grassroots efforts that gave rise to head start in the 1960s (hale, 2012), and far-reaching accountability-era protests (brown & stern, 2018). as teachers continue to engage in activism within and beyond the classroom (dunn, 2018; oyler, 2017; picower, 2012), teacher educators have increasingly expressed a responsibility for their programs to foster teacher activists (montaño, et al., 2002; riley & solic, 2017). activism requires “linking citizens together” (stout, 2010, p. 13), yet the connections afforded by 21st-century technologies have also produced so-called slacktivism (neumayer & svensson, 2016). as teacher educators in an online program, we take this concern seriously, turning to cabrera, matias, and montoya’s (2017) call for more forward-thinking scholarship on activism that defines what activism is and can be rather than dwelling on what activists have done. their emphasis on activism rather than activists privileges concrete behavior over variable identity. similarly, kluttz and walter (2018) defined activists as “all persons participating and learning an emerging framework for the edd activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 45 within a social movement” (p. 94), which necessitates specifying which movement. given how ed.d. program participants inhabit dual roles as practitioners and students, establishing a clear and cross-cutting definition of activism is paramount. likewise, we must heed the risks facing “scholar-activists in a neoliberal environment,” striving to model scholar-activism for our students (dunn, 2016, p. 22). cochran-smith (2010), who envisioned teachers as “advocates and activists” (p. 457), insisted they cannot engage in such work alone. thus, the ed.d. activism construct must be precisely defined, socioculturally situated, and intentionally scaffolded. in our view, social justice must comprise the core of that construct. social justice and its relationship to activism ed.d. activists must understand the complexity of human rights education and heed the continuous call to calculate and calibrate transformative spaces where ideological explorations about constitutional rights occur. we expect scholarly practitioners to ultimately advance the rights and privileges of women, children, people of color, immigrants, and members of the lgbtqa community (cianciarulo, 2015; giroux, 2015; spreen et al., 2018). this enduring fight for democratic education continues to emerge across the literature as demands for establishing, institutionalizing, and fully practicing justice and equity in schools in the united states are championed. moreover, effective activist leadership guiding this fight might be realized through a greater reliance on and inclusion of the views, practices, and accomplishments of members of these marginalized groups via cooperative participation (kezar, acuña avilez, drivalas, & wheaton, 2017; king, 2015; ryan & higginbottom, 2017). we need ed.d. activists as educational leaders to push public thinking beyond binary exchanges of right versus wrong, female versus male, other versus white, rich versus poor, other versus cis, along with a plethora of oppositional identities that indicate and reify political power. educational institutions are prime spaces to broaden the narrative about democracy, social justice, and power; however, the primary challenges of changing educational institutions regarding human inequity remain at the forefront of classrooms with instructional leaders (brooks, normore, & wilkinson, 2017; jaquette, 2017; theoharis, 2015). this dilemma is entrenched within the socioeconomic agendas driving the multiple policies that work against a socially just society. indeed, developing educational activists is especially timely with “many marginally democratic countries hav[ing] become increasingly authoritarian and authoritarian, xenophobic populist movements hav[ing] grown strong enough to threaten democracy’s long-term health in several rich, established democracies including . . . the united states” (inglehart, 2018, p. 20). acknowledging that our present path is diametrically opposed to democratic ideals, educators should rightfully be at the center of activist efforts, which is critical needs work in our current political times. positionality the university of south carolina’s ed.d. curriculum studies program was redesigned in 2002 to focus on diversity and again in 2014 to embody a 100% online format. the program emphasizes concerns for equity, social justice, self-knowledge, cultural issues, and human growth and development through a balanced approach consisting of both theory and practice. within the program, students gain an in-depth understanding of theory, history, concepts, techniques, strategies, and issues of diversity in k-12 schools, as well as other social institutions and community settings. the degree program is uniquely designed to facilitate self-reflection that in turn promotes engagement in social justice education. as noted in the introduction, we served as the host institution for the cped 2019 october convening. at this time, our program consisted of 12 full-time faculty members serving approximately 220 students. we took the opportunity to share our tentative ideas about the emerging framework for the ed.d. activist while also eliciting the perspectives of our cped peers, including what specific programmatic frameworks and assessments were in place to ensure the desired outcome. after investigating the profiles provided on the cped website—the disrupters, the change agents, the leaders, the innovators, the teachers, and the collaborators, we saw a need to explicitly identify and articulate the tenets of what we termed the ed.d. activist. theoretical framework examinations of inequity, marginalization, and dissonance in educational settings are critical to the work of the ed.d. activist. ed.d. activists are then positioned to drive the direction of educational governance as they recognize the increasing importance of inclusivity and acknowledge the power they possess to impact equity through policy (dulio, o’brien, & klemanski, 2008; marginson, 2016). doctoral programs focused on activism are able to influence future leaders emerging from the ranks of ed.d. educated instructional leaders. these leaders will ideally possess a working knowledge of structuration theory (giddens, 1984) and apply it toward inclusive goals in instructional settings and through professional development opportunities (burridge, carpenter, cherednichenko, & kruger, 2010). giddens (1979) described the concept of human action with the overt intent to change power dynamics in education and other political spaces as agency, which is elsewhere illustrated as “identities in motion” (buchanan, 2015, p. 714). this concept of agency can be seen as complementary to the notion of an activist in that agents challenge established ways of thinking and behaving or what we think of as structure. the disruption of structure or the space for effective activism called agency is a temporal state enabling transformation to emerge. tural (2017) noted the capacity of structuration theory to support community education agents to respond effectively to the demands of a changing and highly diverse human landscape. ed.d. activists might sustain their work through the use of structuration theory, which further recommends employing a perception that established structure is transient and evolutionary. as such, structures are inevitably replaceable as new intellectual knowledge, practical experience, and personal needs demand change. the cycle of agency and structure is a roadmap to action and meaning construction that continually guides our search for a more socially just experience (jeffries, 2019). as doctoral education continues to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, this theoretical framework offers a roadmap to successfully establish fluid and flexible policies that support continuous explorations of efficacious commitment to social justice (berila, 2015; winklewagner & locks, 2013). frameworks of this nature demand that we surpass simplistic ways of thinking about equity in education and becton, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 46 strive for including diverse perspectives at the multiple decisionmaking spaces where revolutionary change can expand educational opportunities. methodological framework without formal processes for documenting the outcomes associated with activism among our ed.d. graduates, we recognized the need to develop a framework that could 1) describe the characteristics of an ed.d. activist, 2) suggest strategies that promote ed.d. activism, and 3) measure the impact of ed.d. activism among our students and graduates in their local communities. given the emphasis on activism among the members of the cped community (becton et al., 2019), we felt the inclusion of diverse perspectives from the cped community would lead to the development of a more broadly useful framework for ed.d. activism. because we aimed to generate a new understanding of ed.d. activism exclusively from the data collected in this study, we selected grounded theory as our methodological approach (strauss & glaser, 1967). grounded theory, a qualitative research methodology with high regard in the education research community (thomas & james, 2006), is a systematic, flexible, empirical, and creative process of knowledge generation from which the results can be shared, discussed, and in turn, direct future research efforts (coe et al., 2017; morse et al., 2009). we purposefully sampled a homogenous group (patton, 2007) of cped members who attended an interactive, general session presented at a recent convening (cped, 2019). facilitators used the following prompts for breakout sessions, which serve as the research questions for this article: 1. profile of the activist: how would you describe the activist? what attributes, characteristics, and actions reflect the activist? 2. ed.d. program strategies to facilitate/support the activist (or activism): discuss current program strategies including, but not limited to, coursework, culminating work/product (dissertation, project), mentoring, conference attendance, publication opportunities, etc. 3. measuring progress toward ed.d. development/support of the activist: discuss potential outcomes and quality indicators to understand how components of the ed.d. program and the overall ed.d. program are developing and supporting the ed.d. activist. during the breakout sessions, 200+ participants sat at large round tables in groups of 4-8 people. a color-coded version of each prompt was provided, and groups were asked to identify one person to serve as the recorder to reflect the general discussion and ideas generated from the group for each prompt. the questionnaires were collected at the end of the presentation, scanned, digitally transcribed, and organized into three subsets, each aligned with one aspect of our emerging framework. two researchers concurrently but independently reviewed each data subset using a constant comparative method to identify open, axial, and core codes (strauss & corbin, 1990). for each subset, open codes were identified by each researcher individually. in accordance with constant comparative methods, the identification of new codes in subsequent pieces of data led to the reanalysis of previously reviewed pieces of data to ensure new codes were not missed in previously analyzed data (strauss & corbin, 1990). this process continued until the analysis of new pieces of data yielded no new codes, thus achieving saturation (guest, bunce, & johnson, 2006). once individual coding was completed, the researchers discussed their codes to determine consensus. this process was then repeated for the determination of axial codes and themes in the data, as well as for the identification of core codes as needed (strauss & corbin, 1990). discussion and findings the findings from the grounded theory coding approach are presented for each prompt. profile of the activist researchers identified open codes related to attributes, actions, and characteristics of the activist. codes were developed through a constant comparison approach based on the written responses to prompt 1) and its guiding questions: “how would you describe the activist? what attributes, characteristics, and actions reflect the activist?” sentences, phrases, and words from the reporting templates were combined in open coding to ensure representativeness but avoid duplication. table 1 includes the open codes and the axial codes that were developed based on the grouping of open codes. an emerging framework for the edd activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 47 table 1. profile of the activist rather than a clearly-defined profile of an ed.d. activist, what emerged from the responses of more than 65 cped-informed colleges and universities were four themes, represented by the axial codes in table 1. echoing buchanan’s (2015) definition of agency as “identities in motion” (p. 714), these themes transform the “attributes, characteristics, and actions” supplied by our participants into actionoriented nouns. while an ed.d. activist could conceivably exhibit aspects of all four identities, it is also possible to envision four unique ed.d. activists, each representative of one of the axial codes. it bears repeating that this is an emerging framework, and we do not wish to suggest a one-size-fits-all approach. below, we elaborate on each theme. a coalition builder, based on participant feedback, inspires and focuses on bringing people together for a common cause. this requires negotiation skills and the wherewithal to foster collaboration. collaboration results in the forging of something new and stronger than what a single individual or agency can achieve in isolation (kinsella-meier & gala, 2016). the coalition builder has the ability to galvanize forces and build consensus within an organization. another theme in the data suggested an activist is a vocal risktaker, one who gives voice to critical issues and topics and also possesses the courage necessary for activism. indeed, activism often leads to negative consequences experienced by those who stand up to voice concerns, such that “teachers fear the reactions of their principals, principals fear the reactions of their superintendents and communities, and superintendents fear the responses of the school boards and communities” (hoffman, 2009, p. 391). vocal risk-takers juggle competing political, social, and economic forces all while becoming “more confident in resisting the dominant discourses in order to advocate for those typically marginalised and powerless in society” (hoffman, 2009, p. 392). an additional theme evident in the data suggested the ed.d. activist is a visionary leader, always thinking intuitively about how to cultivate a more progressive future. visionary leaders engage in critical reflection to solve authentic problems, exhibiting the kind of vision that is a necessary precursor for organizational change. as mack (2015) argues, vision “serves as a bridge between the present and the future, and it is intentionally aspirational” (p. 10). through inquiry, ed.d. activists exhibit this sort of forward-thinking. the fourth theme in the data characterized the ed.d. activist as a social justice champion, one who can quickly and readily identify the inequities and injustices that may go unnoticed in a particular work environment. continually focused on equity and fairness, social justice champions truly desire to make a difference and recognize how “operationalizations of social justice are constantly evolving and shifting in the same proportion as cultural groups act on their emerging sense of agency” (rodriguez & morrison, 2019, p. 262). open codes axial codes inspirer, empathetic, invested/committed inclusive, negotiation skills action oriented, open-minded coalition builder courage, open to risk strong voices, disrupter vocal risk-taker inquisitive, inquiry mindset leader, problem identifier change oriented, reflective, integrity visionary leader critical, social justice, awareness of inequity, dissatisfaction with current situations, integrity social justice champion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 48 open codes axial codes coursework/focus in coursework social justice, race, reality, poverty, activism for professionals, leadership, multicultural education coursework specific to social justice, multicultural education and/or leadership community leadership, school community policy (education, health) coursework related to or involving the community coursework/focus in coursework (continued) critical literature review, credibility of evidence, problem of practice, action research, practitioner inquiry, ethnography, scholarly narrative, critical participatory action research coursework related to research and/or the dissertation in practice course sequencing evidence-based program design, needs assessment overall course design dissertation or final project require focus in social justice/community social justice related focus for the dissertation student professional/personal goals, action plan required inclusion of student’s career and professional goals dissertation or final project (continued) scholarly narrative, participatory approach, action research, include indigenous sources considerations relative to the research and writing of dissertation promote innovation, symposia to present, approach/findings considerations for dissertation defense or final presentation other institutional inequities ed.d. admission inequities addressing inequity in institutions, policies, methodological approaches, ed.d. programs (faculty and students) other (continued) dissertation requirements (social justice focus) alignment/repetition in course sequence defined and supported dissertation process mentorship leadership opportunities diverse staff and faculty mentoring/supporting students and graduates writing articles/co authorship, methodological philosophies, community study/study abroad scholarly and practitioner inquiry activities table 2. strategies to facilitate/support the activist after the discussion related to the profile of the activist, facilitators asked small groups to discuss how ed.d. programs facilitate or support activism, using prompt 2 and its guiding statement: “discuss current program strategies including, but not limited to, coursework, culminating work/product (dissertation, project), mentoring, conference attendance, publication an emerging framework for the edd activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 49 opportunities, etc.” the same process was used to analyze the written responses related to prompt 2, outlined in table 2. one of the primary findings from this study is that through the feedback of the participants of the october cped convening, we are able to now clearly identify several basic and fundamental strategies that cped-informed ed.d. programs could employ when cultivating an activism focus. beyond providing students with a profile of an activist, colleges and universities must commit to having certain structures and supports in place. the institutions participating in this research identified 12 key areas of consideration noted in table 3. although several of the 12 identified considerations would not be considered unique to ed.d. programs, consideration number 2 is an exception. participants cited a need for potential graduates to have or experience a level of engagement within their community. while the other 11 considerations reflect an academic focus, number 2 speaks more to the ed.d. graduates’ need to connect with people, echoing noddings’s (2004) recommendation to “take on the other’s reality as possibility and begin to feel its reality,” to the point of being “impelled to act as though on [one’s] own behalf, but in reality on behalf of the other” (p. 46). 12 considerations to support the ed.d. activist (not listed in order of priority) 1. coursework specific to social justice, multicultural education and/or leadership 2. coursework related to or involving the community 3. coursework related to research and/or dissertation in practice 4. overall course design 5. social justice related focus for the dissertation 6. inclusion of student’s career and professional goals 7. considerations relative to the research and writing of dissertation 8. considerations for dissertation defense or final presentation 9. addressing inequity in institutions, policies, methodological approaches, ed.d. programs (faculty and students) 10. defined and supported dissertation process 11. mentoring/supporting students and graduates 12. scholarly and practitioner inquiry activities table 3. 12 considerations to support the ed.d. activist along with community connections, the social justice commitments of ed.d. activists can manifest in civic engagement (krings et al., 2015). additionally, it has positive effects on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes (conway et al., 2009). thinking critically about social issues through service learning sparks students’ motivation to act toward social change (kajner, et al., 2013). moreover, reflecting on complex problems, goals, and strategies inspires them to move from problem identification to problem solving in their activism (jacoby, 2017). particularly for teachers, community involvement empowers them to make decisions, lead, learn about community needs, and collaborate toward finding solutions (jarrett & stenhouse, 2011). therefore, community involvement (consideration 2) coupled with coursework specific to social justice, multicultural education, and/or leadership (consideration 1) combine to provide a more distinct and unique picture of an ed.d. activist. measuring progress toward ed.d. development/support of the activist for the final breakout discussion, facilitators moved to prompt 3 and its guiding statement: “discuss potential outcomes and quality indicators to understand how components of the ed.d. program and the overall ed.d. program are developing and supporting the ed.d. activist” is detailed in table 4. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 50 open codes axial codes outcomes dissertation must focus on problem of practice dissertation ideas developed by end up 1st yr with committee members identified develop a dissertation mentoring 1, 2, 3 step processto complete dissertation. as a content analysis of dissertations, to see if they are focused on change, social justice. progress related to dissertation organizational change socially just policies inclusivity improvement continuous quality improvement cycles interventions graduates promoting change within organizations being able to articulate concerning social justice issues growth over time students exemplifying certain characteristics contribute to public discourse in education action orientation graduates’ orientation toward practice identify and address problems of practice in their workplace graduates’ roles in organizations/community a postdoctoral network of edd graduates so they continue to apply activist principles graduates demonstrate leadership after program quality indicators publications policy briefs by students/alumni review of alumni work presentations student’s dispositions external dissertation review analysis of students’ dissertations, publications & other professional writings surveys exit interviews artifacts analysis of student feedback review of ed.d. applications equity ensuring equity within the program table 4. outcomes and quality indicators to measure progress toward the developing activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 51 implications the profile of an ed.d. activist will likely vary from program to program. among the researchers engaged in this study, a lively debate about whether we have uncovered a single profile or multiple profiles impressed upon us the importance of recognizing our conceptualization may differ significantly from faculty in other programs. if so, the implications of this emerging profile likewise differ. with this in mind, we decided to share both a single-profile model of a multi-faceted ed.d. activist and a multi-profile model proposing four distinct kinds of ed.d. activists figure 1. the single profile model the single-profile model based on the themes uncovered by prompt 1, this model incorporates all four themes into one, cohesive profile. this tentative model suggests that each graduate of an ed.d. program may embody all four aspects but to varying degrees. for example, one graduate might see themselves as a skilled coalition builder but a bit reluctant to take large risks. another graduate might feel a deep sense of commitment to others and thus be motivated to contribute to the work of rectifying issues of social justice yet remain somewhat hesitant to take on a leadership role. in other words, each graduate will demonstrate the four aspects to varying degrees based on their unique abilities. programs that desire to have graduates embody this comprehensive model of an ed.d. activist should think critically and strategically about how their ed.d. program will provide the necessary foundation for students to emerge with the complete skill set representative of this model. figure 2. the multi-profile model the multi-profile model some individuals and programs might prefer the multi-profile model, wherein each individual student is afforded the opportunity to identify each distinct profile as an option or a type of leadership that can be embraced within the work of activism. for example, a more introverted leader may aspire to serve as a coalition builder or a visionary leader, drawing on their ability to create harmony and productivity within a group. conversely, this individual may never aspire to serve in the capacity of a vocal risk-taker. from a programmatic standpoint, we further recognize that programs can have a more centralized focus. for example, our program focuses more on the development of a social justice champion, although this model could guide us to reevaluate our program and our intended outcomes to determine whether or not we should focus more attention on the other three profiles. conclusion as ed.d. programs expand and refine their visions and missions around the notion of activism, this framework can and should evolve. the enduring question for programs committed to educational equity and access is whether we focus on developing emerging activists, growing our burgeoning activists, or strengthening our functioning activists. one thing is clear: ed.d. graduates who influence positive and impactful change will use their activist lenses to rightfully justify our next-generation decisions. professional development opportunities with enduring impact, such as ed.d. programs, increase their imprint on the field through their effectual alignment with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). this influential collaborative will continue to provide the space to revise and fine-tune the conceptual knowledge that shapes and defines the ed.d. activist, and the concept of structuration theory can aptly guide the progression of these educator identities and this revolutionary model. this early iteration of the ed.d. activist model (figure 3) should be seen as fluid and evolving in response to the needs of our doctoral scholars, and more importantly, the students whom they serve. becton, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 52 figure 3. cped-informed framework for the ed.d. activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.131 53 references archbald, d. 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university charrington1@njcu.edu john melendez new jersey city university jmelendez@njcu.edu abstract the purpose of this article is to share an example of how an activism framework was used to design and launch a new edd in community college leadership. capper, theoharis, and sebastian’s (2006) framework for preparing leaders for social justice along with the carnegie project for the education doctorate’s (cped) guiding principles and the american association of community college’s ([aacc], 2018) competencies for community college leaders guided program design and implementation. marketing and recruiting efforts aimed at identifying a talented, diverse cohort and on-boarding strategies focused on creating a safe learning environment and a sense of urgency related to social justice and equity are shared. examples of how activism is being emphasized through coursework and plans to nurture activism through experiential learning and the dissertation are also discussed. doctoral programs seeking to promote activism will discover an effective framework and practical examples for this work. keywords: activism, community college leadership, social justice, equity, program launch in 2015, new jersey city university began the design and development of an edd in community college leadership. the program reflects the university’s commitment to empower diverse, underserved, and underrepresented individuals to become change agents, close achievement gaps, and respond to ever-changing, global, 21st century opportunities and challenges. in a short period of time during the 2019 spring semester, the two full-time faculty members in the program modified the program goals and engaged in a redesign process so that the curriculum aligned with the principles shared by cped. all course titles and descriptions were reviewed and numerous modifications and changes were made to strengthen the focus on equity, social justice, and scholarly practice, key cped principles. for example, a course initially titled adult learning and the community college student was revised to promoting equity: teaching and supporting adult diverse learners. as another example, the research course sequence now begins with a course titled the scholarly practitioner, changed from an introduction to inquiry. as peterson (2017) notes, a tight timeline creates a sense of urgency that often leads to desired program changes. access, equity, and opportunity are central to the mission of community colleges. these same values were drivers in the development of the doctoral program in community college leadership that was launched by new jersey city university in 2019. developing community college leaders who are prepared to engage in activism to promote social justice and equity requires intentional program design and implementation. the goals of the ed.d. in community college leadership program are to develop community college leaders who: • use an evidence-based approach to decision making and leadership, with a focus on the goal of increased rates of student completion and success. • promote culturally responsive pedagogical and supportive practices that are grounded in theory and research. • engage in partnerships to champion the mission of the community college and lead various reform efforts aimed at reducing equity gaps. • effectively engage in strategic planning and assessment and clearly communicate vision and data to various stakeholders. these goals served as the guidepost in the recruitment, design, and implementation stages of the program. strategic, intentional actions to attract a diverse cohort of doctoral students committed to social justice were employed. the program goals were also used to drive the design and implementation of the program, including determining on-boarding processes, designing the summer institute, planning and implementing a community college showcase conference, developing curriculum, determining experiential learning opportunities, and defining the dissertation. all elements of the program were designed with the intention to develop scholarly practitioners who have an activist agenda. activists are leaders who champion causes by using their passion and expertise to partner http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:charrington1@njcu.edu file:///j:/ttu/ie%20-%20cped%20journal/activisim%20issue/issue%20i%20-%20copyediting%20files/copyedited/jmelendez@njcu.edu launching an edd in community college leadership program with activism in mind impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 12 with others to effect change. activism within the community college sector is particularly important given the diverse population served. conceptual framework capper et al.’s (2006) framework for preparing leaders for social justice, the aacc’s (2018) competencies for community college leaders, and cped’s(n.d.) guiding principles and design concepts served as a guide for program design and implementation. capper et al.’s (2006) framework describes the qualities, knowledge, and abilities needed by educational leaders in order to effect change, and the strategies that leadership programs can employ to prepare students to be change agents. although this framework was initially designed for k-12 leaders, it can easily be adapted for higher education. george (2017) provided an example of how this framework could be used for the purpose of program evaluation in a higher education doctoral program, describing how an institution reviewed and assessed a newly established edd in higher education administration using key concepts such as critical consciousness from capper et al.’s (2006) framework. capper et al.’s (2006) framework has six key components across two dimensions. the horizontal dimension focuses on the knowledge, beliefs, and actions of school leaders and includes critical consciousness, knowledge, and skills. critical consciousness refers to educator leaders developing an awareness and understanding of the role that power and privilege play in education and society. it also involves empowering individuals to be change agents who address inequities. knowledge and skills refer to possessing the necessary background information and abilities to be an effective leader. capper et al. emphasized the importance of creating an emotionally safe place for students to explore issues of social justice and equity. a safe place is one where students feel valued and respected, and as a result are comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with others. although this framework provides a productive lens centered on social justice, the unique focus of this program on community college leadership required an additional framework that specifically articulated the knowledge and skills needed by community college leaders. the leadership competencies developed by the aacc (2018), therefore, served as the benchmarks for knowledge and skill development. these competencies address the numerous skill areas that community college leaders need to be effective change agents in various leadership positions and include: (1) organizational culture, (2) governance, institutional policy and legislation, (3) student success, (4) institutional leadership, (5) institutional infrastructure, (6) information and analytics, (7) advocacy and mobilizing/motivating others, (8) fundraising and relationship cultivation, (9) communications, (10) collaboration, and (11) personal traits and abilities. the vertical dimension of capper et al.’s (2006) framework focuses on what leader preparation programs need to do to help students develop critical consciousness, knowledge, and skills. curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment are the components of the vertical dimension. in addition to considering all of the aspects of capper et al.’s (2006) framework, cped’s (n.d.) guiding principles and design concepts also served as a guide during program development and implementation. for example, assisting students with developing questions aimed at discovering practitioner solutions related to equity, ethics, and social justice issues, the first guiding principle described by cped, became an overarching focus for the program. starting with pre-admission processes, prospective students heard empowering messages about how their actions as a leader would make a difference in the lives of community college students. empowerment combined with skill development through coursework, experiential learning, and the dissertation will likely result in activist leaders. marketing and recruitment from the outset, as described in the original doctoral program proposal, the program was designed to serve doctoral students from diverse career backgrounds, including full-time and part-time faculty, mid-level managers, and other education professionals aspiring for community college leadership opportunities. the program was also focused on recruiting and supporting doctoral candidates from underrepresented groups who had an activist orientation and an expressed commitment to addressing social justice and equity issues within the community college sector. as articulated by allen, wasicsko, and wirtz (2018), there is a high demand for transformational leaders and our program hoped to contribute by identifying and developing these activist-oriented individuals. to find this target audience, a communication marketing plan was developed. this plan included a variety of outreach activities including email, traditional mail, virtual information sessions, limited social media use, and information sessions held on community college campuses. the two full-time faculty members also leveraged professional networks to identify diverse community college experts and leaders to serve on an advisory board. the 18-member advisory board is comprised of community college presidents, vice presidents, mid-level administrators, state leaders, and community college researchers. to increase the likelihood of attracting diverse doctoral students, special efforts were made to conduct information sessions at community colleges in urban settings as these colleges had a more diverse faculty and staff. the advisory board played a critical role in this process as members assisted with setting up information sessions and helped spread the word about the new program. for example, a president of a local urban community college widely advertised an information session on his campus and as a result, we had over 20 faculty and administrators attend. emphasizing the scholarly practitioner model and the importance of developing leaders at all levels was a particularly important message during the recruitment phase. during online and in-person information sessions, faculty highlighted how the community college leadership program was designed to develop leaders who would act as change agents to move the needle on student success outcomes and close equity gaps. because many prospective students may not necessarily think of themselves as leaders or activists, examples of activism in many different leadership roles and positions were shared. in addition, prospective students were informed of opportunities to develop activist skills through coursework and experiential learning opportunities. the commitment of the faculty to support students throughout all aspects of the program was also emphasized. department faculty followed up with those who attended virtual and in-person information sessions via phone calls, text messages, emails, video conferences, and face-to-face meetings. during these follow-up conversations, faculty emphasized how earning this degree and developing essential leadership skills would position prospective students to positively impact student success in significant ways. harrington & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 13 recruitment efforts were successful. the first cohort consisted of 23 diverse and talented doctoral students. it is important to note that the size of the cohort exceeded expectations outlined in a demand study. the initial cohort size was almost three times the initial enrollment projections. table 1 shows the program’s success in recruiting a diverse cohort. diversity in aspiring leaders is an important component of a program focused on activism and social justice. table 1. cohort 1 demographic profile demographic characteristics n percentage gender female male 17 6 74% 26% professional role faculty (full or part-time) administration/staff k-12 13 8 2 56.5% 34.5% 9% ethnicity/race asian black hispanic white 1 11 3 8 4% 48% 13% 35% developing a safe atmosphere to explore social justice issues a key feature of the capper et al.’s (2006) framework for preparing educational leaders for social justice is developing an atmosphere where students feel safe to explore complex and uncomfortable topics related to equity and social justice. capper et al. noted: for prospective leaders to fully engage with the curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, professors must intentionally create a classroom and program environment and conditions, where students experience a sense of emotional safety that will help them take risks toward social justice ends. (p. 212) this was and continues to be particularly important because of the diversity of the student population. recognizing that students may come from backgrounds where their voices may not have been heard and safety was not a given, several actions were taken to develop a sense of safety and community. for example, faculty modeled the importance of talking about race and ethnicity by frequently bringing up equity issues in conversations and sharing personal and real-world examples. admission process applicants participated in either an in-person or video conference interview with a committee comprised of three educational leadership faculty who reflected the diversity of the interviewees. from a traditional perspective, the development of an interview protocol that supports the selection of students who can articulate their preparation and motivation for doctoral study is a critical element in the admissions process. however, broadening the interview to include a discussion on current issues facing community colleges and asking candidates for suggestions on innovative approaches in meeting the challenge reinforced the activist expectation of the program. as part of the interview process, applicants were asked to write a three to five-page paper to respond to the following prompt: describe an issue facing community colleges today. using a social justice and equity lens, what are some innovative approaches to this challenge? research has found that students who arrive with a commitment to and prior experiences with activism are more likely to engage in activism in the future (dodd & mizrahi, 2017). this opportunity also served as a safe space for conversations about equity and social justice. the committee members validated applicant experiences and ideas and provided encouragement and support related to their goals and actions. because feedback from applicants about the interview process was important as these processes were being implemented for the first time, a survey was conducted. results indicated that applicants were satisfied with the interview process. specifically, on a survey question that asked, “how satisfied were you with the ed.d. in community college interview process?”, 19 of the 20 respondents indicated extremely satisfied and one indicated somewhat satisfied. on-boarding process students admitted to the program received an acceptance letter that communicated the faculty’s belief in their ability to be a change agent. for example, the following was included in the letter: “we are confident that you will add significant value to the learning experience for the entire cohort and have no doubt that you will engage in leadership activities aimed at increasing student success outcomes for community college students.” messages of belief and encouragement continued to be shared with students throughout the program. students were invited to an in-person welcome reception and an online orientation program. both activities were designed to begin launching an edd in community college leadership program with activism in mind impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 14 the doctoral student socialization process and develop a community of learners where students felt safe to take risks and engage in courageous conversations about equity and social justice. during these events, faculty introduced students, highlighting their strengths and diverse backgrounds. several colleagues at this event remarked that this approach, rather than relying exclusively on selfintroductions, communicated that faculty really knew their students well and genuinely valued their diverse backgrounds and experiences. students also had opportunities to share preliminary research interests as well as to describe their professional goals and career aspiration. the efficacy of the onboarding programs was affirmed by student survey responses. table 2 provides survey results related to the usefulness of the onboarding programs. table 2. on-boarding survey responses usefulness of the program in-person welcome reception (n = 18) online orientation (n = 20) extremely useful 78% 70% very useful 17% 25% moderately useful 6% 5% slightly useful 0% 0% not at all useful 0% 0% summer institute this doctoral program is entirely online except for a 4-day institute each summer. one of the primary goals of the first summer institute was to build a sense of community and create a warm, supportive learning environment where students would be willing to get uncomfortable and take risks. toward this end, doctoral students participated in several activities intentionally designed to help them get to know one another and begin conversations about problems of practice, especially problems related to equity and social justice. in addition to traditional icebreakers, students also had numerous opportunities to discuss issues facing community college students. for example, students explored the root causes of problems through fishbone diagram activities and brainstormed possible solutions. fishbone diagrams are visual tools that groups can use to determine potential causes of behavior (american society for quality, 2020). research has shown that this tool can be helpful in identifying solutions aimed to improve school quality (slameto, 2016). students were also asked to do a pecha kucha presentation on a problem of practice and discuss the potential social justice impact. pecha kucha’s are fast-paced, fun, structured presentations where the presenter’s 20 slides auto-advance every 20 seconds (pechakucha, 2020). slides should only consist of an image and perhaps a few words. research has shown that the pecha kucha presentation is connected to improved academic performance and confidence when compared to traditional presentations (oliver & kowalczyk, 2013). faculty modeled this practice on the first day of the institute and students presented on the final day of the institute. another key element of the summer institute was to ensure that students felt supported as they embarked on this educational journey. in addition to faculty support, students also learned about how other professionals such as tutors and librarians could support their learning. faculty were and continue to be extremely accessible to students, providing support and encouragement. at the conclusion of the summer institute, students completed a survey about their experience. results indicated that 100% of cohort 1 (23 students) strongly agreed with the following statement: “the faculty members established a welcoming and inclusive learning environment.” developing critical consciousness, knowledge, and skills through signature pedagogies to develop critical consciousness, knowledge, and skills, faculty relied on four key learning activities: the community college showcase, coursework, experiential learning, and the dissertation in practice. the community college showcase is a conference that is held during summer institutes. the coursework provides students with deep knowledge of community college leadership theories and scholarly practices. a year-long experiential learning component of the program enables students to learn leadership skills while providing a service to a community college. finally, following cped’s guiding principles, the dissertation in practice is focused on providing solutions to problems of practice related to social justice and equity. community college showcase: promoting equity and student success to model and promote activism, faculty coordinators planned and implemented a conference entitled community college showcase: promoting equity and student success. this conference was purposefully called a showcase as the intent was for community college practitioners and leaders to share actions taken to reduce equity gaps and improve student success outcomes. presenters were encouraged to share data illustrating the impact of these actions. the community college showcase was a signature pedagogical learning experience that was held on the second day of the summer institute. it was a free conference for professionals committed to the community college mission of access and success. the level of activism taking place daily on community college campuses was immediately apparent. over 70 high-quality proposals were received, a remarkable number for a first conference. the final program consisted of an impressive array of 23 breakout sessions harrington & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 15 and seven lunch discussions. the two plenary presentations were designed to inspire practitioners and leaders to act. in the morning plenary, michael collins, vice president at jobs for the future, encouraged all participants to lead, regardless of their position. in the closing plenary, paula pando, president of reynolds community college, emphasized the need for action to promote equity. see table 3 for a sample of conference presentation topics. the community college showcase provided doctoral students with an overview of the challenges facing community college students today, especially students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, and numerous models of how leaders were engaging in activism to reduce equity gaps and improve success outcomes. doctoral students served as session moderators and participated in a special lunch session with the plenary speakers. after the conference, students were responsible for following up with participants to thank them for their participation and contributions. this provided students with a networking opportunity as this often led to continued conversations about student success and equity. students also completed a reflective writing assignment that required them to consider how their actions can promote equity and success. table 3. community college showcase sample sessions presentation type presentation title keynote presentations next generation equity: leading from where you are taking action to promote equity featured and breakout presentations (un)stable identities: diversity and inclusion in the community college classroom a conversation with community college leaders lgbtqi+ programming in urban higher education: identifying and confronting community tensions surveying inclusion and equity climate: borough of manhattan community college’s use of charrettes findings from year one the road to equity in education is paved with collaboration and connection strategies for implementing inclusion and equity in the community college classroom first-generation community college students: casting a social safety net to ensure success open the gate: accelerated learning for underserved nontraditional learners underrepresented stem majors the community college showcase also served professionals within the community college sector. community college practitioners and leaders often have very limited funds for professional development and there are few conferences focused exclusively on how to better serve community college students. this free conference enabled over 200 faculty, staff, and administrators from numerous states to learn from and collaborate with national and local leaders. results from the conference survey indicated that the conference participants found the experience valuable. based on survey responses from 80 participants, 70% were extremely satisfied and 26% were somewhat satisfied. ninety-eight percent indicated that they would recommend the conference to a colleague. analysis of the open-ended comments revealed that participants left inspired to act. the following responses are examples of how this conference promoted activism: • it was a great conference. it has kickstarted some radical thinking on our campus. • this was a great opportunity to hear about the status of equity in the community college setting. the workshops provided some good inspiration for ideas and programs to bring back to our home institutions. • there were a number of diverse sessions that appealed to all community college stakeholders (from academic affairs, faculty, and student affairs). i always enjoy it when i am able to meet colleagues from other schools to share ideas and learn from one another. it is always great to hear about the successes and the failures that have occurred which serve as a catalyst to interesting conversations. furthermore, it allows us as professionals to reboot ourselves or get refreshed and get excited (again) on why we do what we do. • the conference allowed me to self-reflect on the work that we are doing in my own college and see how we can better our efforts. it was definitely a call to arms to continue along the path we have decided to approach and continue to advocate for our students and community. i was inspired. cohort 1 doctoral students also left inspired. the following are sample comments from a survey conducted at the end of the summer institute: • so far, i am engaged and inspired to reach heights that i have never thought of before. • the cc showcase was an excellent learning experience that has energized me and transformed my thinking and overall goals. • the cc showcase was a wonderful experience that opened my eyes to the executive level of community college leadership that i had not even known existed. it was informative and allowed for networking with launching an edd in community college leadership program with activism in mind impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 16 high-level leaders. i would have normally never had an opportunity like this. coursework identifying courses that promoted activism was an important part of the program design and development. the cped (n.d.) guiding principles and design concepts served as a useful guide during this process. see table 4 for a list of courses in the ed.d. in community college leadership. table 4. ed.d. in community college leadership program course requirements core courses experiential learning courses research and dissertation courses community colleges: past, present, and future community college leadership institute the scholarly practitioner leadership theory and change management mentoring i educational research i promoting equity: teaching and supporting diverse adult learners experiential learning i educational research ii innovative teaching practices and modalities experiential learning ii dissertation in practice i strategic human resource management mentoring ii dissertation in practice ii curricular and instructional leadership dissertation in practice iii strategic planning, assessment, and innovation student services leadership community college finance critical role of partnerships in community college leadership legal issues, policies, and ethical practices in the community college exposing practitioners to broader policy issues can increase empathy which can, in turn, lead to increased activism (bicower, 2012). toward this end, faculty invited national leaders and community college experts to communicate the sense of urgency for action and the challenges facing community colleges today through numerous synchronous meetings with doctoral students. in addition, faculty provided thought-provoking readings on community college topics that were discussed in the small and large group online forums. dodd and mizrahi (2017) noted that activism can be reinforced through class activities. in the first course entitled community colleges: past, present, and future, students were asked to write a paper from the historical lens of an underserved population. bicower (2012) argued that it is important for students to “develop a political analysis of oppression” in order to become an activist (p. 573). this assignment provided students with the opportunity to explore how well community colleges have been fulfilling their access and success mission from the perspective of people of color, females, students with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups. after students completed this assignment, they then participated in an online discussion where they read the papers submitted by classmates and discussed the history of community colleges through these varied perspectives. another example of activism in coursework comes from the leadership theory and change management course. students worked collaboratively with their peers to respond to case studies that highlighted the challenges encountered by students of color. in the scholarly practitioner class, students conducted four empathy interviews with students and professionals in the field to better understand problems of practices from various perspectives. gallagher and thordarson (2018) emphasized the importance of gaining the perspective of those experiencing problems or challenges. these assignment examples, along with regular reflection activities, illustrate how this program is helping students develop critical consciousness as described by capper et al. (2006). to help students develop essential knowledge and skills needed to be an effective community college leader, faculty required students to engage in several actions. one action was required tutoring. at the community college level, there is a national push to require students to participate in highly effective practices such as advising and tutoring, because the students who need the services the most are often the ones who are least likely to use the services (mangan, 2013; rendôn, 2006). embedded tutoring has been shown to increase student success rates at the undergraduate level (the community college league of california, 2017). because writing challenges have been cited by many colleagues at cped convenings, during the first summer course, community colleges: past, present, and future; all students were required to write a historical perspectives paper and then review this paper with a professional tutor prior to submitting the assignment. harrington & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 17 this provided a way to support all students, especially those who most needed the support without sending messages that could be interpreted as a lack of belief in their ability. instead, it was framed as a supportive intervention for all. reflection responses to this experience illustrated the value of this activity. many students commented that they probably would not have used tutoring if not required to do so and that this was a helpful and supportive component of the class. when students see the value in a resource, they are more likely to use it (nilsen, 2009). faculty also supported students through reviewing draft submissions and providing robust, comprehensive feedback on assignments. students were given opportunities to revise and resubmit their work. this practice emphasizes that learning is a process that takes time and continued effort. public scholarship, which can be defined as sharing research and best practices in accessible ways to broad audiences, has also been emphasized (kezar, drivalas, & kitchen, 2018). most, if not all, courses will provide students with numerous opportunities to develop public scholarship documents such as blogs, policy briefs, and infographics. engaging in public scholarship can also be considered a form of activism (kezar et al., 2018). public scholarship is particularly useful to community college practitioners who may not have the time or other resources to stay abreast of evidence-based practices. delivering research-based content in brief formats that are easy to understand can increase the likelihood that community college practitioners and leaders will make data-informed decisions related to equity and success. experiential learning a year-long experiential learning component will take place in the second year of the program. this is another signature pedagogical learning experience. a service-learning approach will be used. service-learning is defined as learning experiences, projects or placements that enable students to engage in tasks aligned to the learning outcomes of the course or program while benefitting the community (prentice, 2007). in other words, students provide a service to a community organization as part of their overall learning experience and learn relevant skills while doing so. research has shown a connection between student participation in service-learning and civic engagement, suggesting that service-learning is an excellent way to increase activism (e.g., prentice, 2007). community college partners will identify areas where assistance is needed, and students will be matched to colleges based on their interests and career goals. this year, a pilot is underway where two students are providing consulting services to a local community college that is launching a new teaching and learning center. the doctoral students meet with the director of this newly established center to provide guidance and support. the doctoral students have an external mentor who is providing 20 hours of individualized support. during this experience, it is expected that students will develop change management skills that will positively impact student success and reduce equity gaps. this signature learning experience also provides a benefit to community college partners who often do not have funding to bring in outside consultants. having an external perspective often adds significant value to conversations focused on student success and equity. doctoral students will also develop resources and curate related content for their community college partners. dissertation in practice following the cped framework, dissertations in this doctoral program need to focus on implementing and assessing solutions related to identified problems of practice. a program evaluation framework for the dissertation is being used. after investigating a problem of practice, students will need to implement a program, policy, or practice to address this problem and then conduct a program evaluation to determine if the intervention was effective. in some cases, students may conduct a program evaluation of an already existing program. being a part of the cped consortium from the design stage has been advantageous. well-established programs can find it difficult to shift long-established expectations related to the dissertation. for example, peterson (2017) noted that it can be challenging to incorporate practitioner-focused methods such as improvement science into traditional research sequences. as a new program, faculty were able to shift from traditional quantitative and qualitative courses to educational research i and educational research ii. in these courses, quantitative and qualitative methods that support the program evaluation dissertation framework will be emphasized. engaging in research that is grounded in the scholarly practitioner framework through a program evaluation dissertation enables doctoral students to use research as a form of activism. data on which practices are most effective at reducing equity gaps and improving student success is an important part of championing change. it is also critical that data is communicated to practitioners so that evidence-based decisions can be made. in addition to engaging in academic writing, doctoral students are also required to share the results of their dissertation via infographics, executive summaries, or other public-facing documents. kezar et al. (2018) emphasized the importance of scholarly practitioners sharing their findings in accessible formats and platforms for a wide audience in order to have the greatest impact on student success. although the formal dissertation course sequence does not begin until the spring semester of the second year, students began the dissertation journey at the start of the program. at the first summer institute, students explored the root causes of problems of practice through fishbone diagrams and further explored their problem of practice through empathy interviews and a literature review in the fall semester during the scholarly practitioner course. at the end of this course, students were required to submit a blog summarizing what they learned along with a dissertation action plan. an essential part of this plan was for students to identify opportunities for activism related to their problem of practice. opportunities for activism is defined as strategies or interventions that could be implemented to address their identified problem of practice. students were asked the following questions to guide their research contribution to the field: • what problem or issue do practitioners in the field need assistance with addressing? • what are the root causes of this problem? • what are the opportunities for activism related to this problem? • what solution-focused interventions are within your sphere of influence? • what is the potential impact of these interventions in terms of social justice and equity? thus, the research component of the program is also heavily emphasizing activism. it is hoped that the combination of launching an edd in community college leadership program with activism in mind impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 18 conferences, coursework, experiential learning, and research will provide graduates with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to be transformational leaders who tirelessly engage in actions to improve student success outcomes and reduce equity gaps. recommendations faculty who want to launch or re-imagine a doctoral program with activism in mind can benefit from a framework and network. the guiding principles and network provided by cped are an excellent start, but discipline-specific frameworks and partners can also add value. in this example, the aacc core competencies and an advisory board comprised of community college leaders were critical factors. although the curriculum is often the focus of design or redesign efforts, faculty and coordinators will also want to consider how activism can be emphasized during the marketing, recruiting admission, and onboarding stages. creating a sense of urgency around social justice and equity issues in pre-admission processes can motivate and inspire prospective students. messaging that communicates the value of diversity and the need for leaders who reflect the student populations whom they serve can help programs attract a group of talented, diverse students. supporting students as they develop essential skills, such as the example of a required tutoring session, demonstrates a belief in and commitment to aspiring leaders. emphasizing public scholarship and providing students with opportunities to develop these skillsets through assignments such as powerful readings, blogs, and infographics can help doctoral students discover the importance of activism and develop the confidence needed to act. explicitly communicating the various forms of activism demonstrates to students how they will be able to use the research and other practical skills they are developing in the program to address social justice and equity issues. conclusion the launching of this doctoral program with activism in mind was guided by capper et al.’s (2006) framework for preparing leaders for social justice, cped’s guiding principles, and the aacc’s (2018) competencies for community college leaders. messages about the importance of equity and social justice were emphasized during marketing and recruitment efforts and reinforced through onboarding activities and coursework. these experiences combined with the experiential learning and dissertation components of the program will help students develop the skillsets needed to be an activist so that they are ready to lead efforts aimed at improving success rates and reducing equity gaps. it is important to note that challenges were encountered along the way. although launching a program with only two full-time faculty members made it possible to make decisions and enact changes swiftly, designing and launching a program simultaneously with a faculty of two was taxing. fortunately, the university provided coordinator release time so that faculty attention was focused solely on the program. the advisory board has been and continues to be extremely gracious with their time and this has been tremendously valuable. having thought partners for this work, especially partners who are practitioners in the field, enabled the faculty to identify ways to promote activism throughout the program. in addition to capacity issues, another challenge was the lack of models or examples available. faculty were open to ideas presented by cped colleagues such as using a program evaluation framework for the dissertation but because change is much more difficult in established programs, models and resources were limited. having individual conversations with cped members and other professionals and faculty who share similar interests and goals have provided faculty with helpful guidance and support. there is still much work to be done. faculty are currently in the process of developing resources that map out the courses, experiential learning, and dissertation expectations. in addition, faculty are exploring ways to publicly share research and related information that can inspire activism along with examples of activism by current students and faculty. toward this end, a department linkedin page was developed and will be used to showcase the accomplishments of students and faculty, especially as they relate to improving success and reducing equity gaps. as courses are being designed, faculty will continue to use the framework and guiding principles outlined in this article to identify learning tasks and assignments that will inspire students to engage in activism and equip them with the skills to do so. it will also be important to develop an assessment plan that goes beyond traditional success measures and also measures activism. references allen, j. g., wasicsko, m., & wirtz, p. j. (2018). using dispositions in the edd admissions process: a perceptual approach. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(2), 1-10. american association of community colleges (aacc). (aacc2018). aacc competencies for community college leaders. 3rd edition. retrieved from: https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2018/11/aacc2018competencies_111618_final.pdf american society for quality. (2020). fishbone diagram. retrieved from: https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone bicower, b. (2012). teacher activism: enacting a vision for social justice. equity and excellence in education, 45(4), 561-574. capper, c. a., theoharis, g., & sebastian, j. (2006). toward a framework for preparing leaders for social justice. journal of educational administration, 44(3), 209-224. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (n.d.). the cped framework. retrieved from: https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework dodd, s. j., & mizrahi, t. (2017). activism before and after graduate education: perspectives from three cohorts of msw students. journal of social work education, 53(3), 503-519. gallagher, a., & thordarson, k. (2018). design thinking for school leaders: five roles and mindsets that ignite positive change. ascd. george, p. (2017). toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 41-52. kezar, a., drivalas, y., & kitchen, j. a. (2018). envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers. stylus publishing: sterling, va. mangan, k. (2013, october 25). tactics that engage community-college students get few takers, study finds. chronicle of higher education, 60(8), 12. nilsen, h. (2009). influence on student academic behaviour through motivation, self-efficacy and value-expectation: an action research project to improve learning. issues in informing science and information technology, 6, 1-12. oliver, j., & kowalczyk, c. (2013). improving student group marketing presentations: a modified pecha kucha approach. marketing education review, 23(1), 55-58. pechakucha. (2020). visual storytelling that celebrates humanity. retrieved from https://www.pechakucha.com/ https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aacc2018competencies_111618_final.pdf https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aacc2018competencies_111618_final.pdf https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://www.pechakucha.com/ harrington & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.114 19 peterson, d. s. (2017). preparing scholarly practitioners: redesigning the edd to reflect cped principles. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 33-40. prentice, m. (2007). service-learning and civic engagement. academic questions, 20(2), 135-145. rendôn, l. i. (2006). reconceptualizing success for underserved students in higher education. national postsecondary education cooperative. https://nces.ed.gov/npec/pdf/resp_rendon.pdf slameto. (2016). the application of fishbone diagram analysis to improve school quality. dinamika ilmu journal of education, 16(1), 59-74. the community college league of california (2017, september). elevating equity for social mobility: examples of equity-focused practices. https://www.ccleague.org/sites/default/files/images/elevatingequityforsoci almobility_final.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/npec/pdf/resp_rendon.pdf https://www.ccleague.org/sites/default/files/images/elevatingequityforsocialmobility_final.pdf https://www.ccleague.org/sites/default/files/images/elevatingequityforsocialmobility_final.pdf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 37 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 activating activism within the edd: connecting dip research and the community joy howard, ph.d. university of southern indiana joy.howard@usi.edu timberly l. baker, ph.d. arkansas state university tibaker@astate.edu abstract in this paper the co-authors discuss and describe the challenges of community engaged scholarship. using an ongoing long-term project about the school prison nexus as an exemplar, the authors propose ways that edd student dip’s can be connected with the community. lessons learned and implications for other edd programs are shared. keywords dissertation in practice, community-based research, activism, critical race praxis as an instructor of a qualitative research class with students from our community-based educational leadership edd program, i, joy, introduced several different research methodologies including community-based participatory action research (cpar). a student in the class with a strong commitment to social justice asked about how she could use this framing for her dissertation work but reported that she was not presently engaged in any activist projects in the community. i told her that because of ethical, logistical and temporal factors, it would be improbable to take this research approach if she was not already involved in a work-in-progress coming into the program. my response made me consider the tension of trying to engage students in meaningful work within the context of a four-year program (see fine, 2018; laura, 2014; noblit, 2004). the question stuck with me though, and i was troubled by my honest but incomplete answer. in this paper, we as co-authors, discuss a method of engaging edd students in cpar work through their dissertation in practice (dip) projects in an ethical and sustainable way. we offer an example of a long-term project to abolish the school prison nexus in a midwestern community that began in 2018 as a community-based project where dip work could be ethical, useful, and the sustainability of the university-community partnership remains intact after the student researchers finish their programs. in this paper, we consider ways to activate activism in an edd program through building and sustaining a research team of doctoral faculty, students and community activists who are genuinely engaged in the process of activist projects. in our conceptualization of scholarly activism there are several characteristics that are nonnegotiable. that is, academic activism must be (1) validated by the community, (2) sustainable, (3) malleable, and (4) methodologically aligned with the goals and purposes set by the community. we take up these four elements in this paper as we use our scholarly-activist work on racial justice for black children. we offer our project, andhowarethechildren (ahatc), as a work-in-progress example of activism embedded within an edd program. the objective of this research team is to train and mentor edd students through classroom pedagogy and participation as part of a research team. the hope is that these emerging community engaged scholars have an opportunity to complete a dip representative of their desire to do scholarly work that prioritizes justice in and through educational research. through our work with/in a community and intentional network-building process, there are opportunities for a diverse group of edd students to engage in research that celebrates their passion for research while also honoring their connections to community as scholarly practitioners. in this case, some students are already a part of the ethos of the community, for others, they are coming as perceived outsiders. cpar is a process whereby community members and researchers share co-equal roles to work toward equitable outcomes for realworld problems that effect real people who are a part of social institutions and systems. cpar demands genuine partnerships between researchers and community stakeholders in the form of knowledge sharing and measuring outcomes. success of these projects is in/validated by the community. in what follows we first offer a conceptual framework for working with edd students to engage in racial justice work. second, we discuss the methodology of our work including our positionality. third, we provide the context of the work within a midwest city, and finally we discuss lessons learned which includes recommendations of this work for others. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/joy.howard@usi.edu file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/tibaker@astate.edu activating activism within the edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 38 conceptual framework constructing an organizational framework for the work that social justice entails is both daunting and messy, yet it is both essential and necessary. we take on this challenge by discussing the literature that informs our understanding of activism and social justice as it can be implemented in an edd program in general and then more specifically through the dissertation in practice (dip). we then move on to address our praxis, which we frame through critical race praxis (crp) and cpar as these two are intertwined in our implementation of preparing community-based educational leaders through an edd program. we then end the section by discussing our own positionality in this work, as it informs the way we move in this work as researchers, edd faculty, and scholars. review of literature on activism and social justice in the edd in 2017, the impacting education journal published a special issue devoted to issues in education in the 21st century. several authors highlighted an emphasis on social justice in edd programs. there are a few key themes that directly inform the ways that we think about activism in the edd those are: a caution for the disparate ways that social justice and activism are defined in academia, the call for authentic community engagement, and the strength of action research methodologies. social justice as a construct has been taken up by institutions and academicians across the country in disparate and even divisive ways (strom & porfilio, 2017). our framework for social justices is derived primarily from gloria ladson billings (aera, 2015) who interrupts the milieu of interpretations and reorients us to focus on “justice, just justice.” similarly, four arrows (2017) asserts that social justice is “inseparable from ecological justice, sustainability and diversity” (p. 28). in other words, we cannot operate in silos or oversimplify the ways that in/justice plays out in communities, schools, and in the everyday lived experiences of individuals. in this call toward justice, edd programs can play an important role in connecting classroom counter-hegemony to real-world education, including incorporating community project-based learning as part of coursework and even dissertation work (four arrows, 2017). considering this we approach the possibility of social justice being moved into the edd classroom. taking a turn from the status quo of edd programs requires courage, determination and imagination and it demands that academics step outside of the confines of universities and engage in genuine ways with community (four arrows, 2017). as lupinacci (2017) so aptly asserted, this work requires that “educational leaders must aspire to being cultural workers, respected and disciplined researchers, effective and engaging speakers, and must both talkthe-talk and walk-the-walk” (p. 24). engaging with community, forging healthy relationships between universities and local people groups and/or neighborhoods has a long and fraught history that is beyond the scope of this present discussion (see noblit, 2004). while there are plenty of “social justice” efforts made by researchers, programs, and institutions, the execution and results of these efforts often fall short of the mark of justice. lupinacci (2017) warned: it is one thing to say you are committed to social justice and sustainability, but it is another thing entirely to take on addressing, examining, and proposing solutions to inequities in education, society, and the cultural belief systems undergirding the vastly experienced day-to-day violence of oppression and domination of poverty, sexism, racism, ableism, and speciesism. (p. 25) this is a formidable challenge for edd educators to be courageous and committed to social justice and to infuse addressing oppression into both our curriculum and our lives. with this challenge in mind, the question becomes, how do we proceed with both caution and courage? one promising challenge is our teaching and mentorship in the edd context. as faculty charged with the preparation of educational leaders to become well-equipped scholarly practitioners able to meet the educational challenges of the 21st century, we are obligated to “have the courage necessary to teach others that they must be transparent in their commitment to eliminating social inequalities, environmental degradation, over policing, and militarization harming our world and planet” (zinn, 2002 as cited in strom & porfilio, 2017, p. 16). one avenue for activating this instruction and commitment is through the methodologies that we expose our students to in the classroom, and the ways that we model this work through our own scholarly inquiries. we agree with lupinacci (2017) who emphasized community engagement and methods that draw heavily from participatory action research (par) and youth participatory action research (ypar). for us this meant the use of cpar as our framework for engagement. explicitly defining and demonstrating social justice in the context of an edd program is complex. porfilio et al. (2019) addressed preparation of k-16 leaders in education doctorate programs that attempt to operationalize social justice. they offer two case studies of programs, as a way to enter the conversation about operationalizing social justice, rather than offering a template or example of how to do this work. they emphasize the imperative of social justice in edd programs such that in “...today’s socio-historical moment in the us, there are more children than ever living in poverty, public schools are underfunded, and urban communities are fighting to keep their schools open. therefore, it is more critical than ever to prepare teachers and leaders to work for social justice in educational settings” (p. 104). porfilio and co-authors (2019) defined social justice in the context of the edd programs. they continued to discuss the importance of why socially just leaders are needed and what knowledge and skills they need. they determined that programs need: 1. an explicit discussion of a specific social justice stance. 2. to address the tension between coping with current neoliberal trends, such as pressures of accountability systems and systematic defunding of public schools, on the one hand and working to address systemic inequalities on the other. 3. to examine the ways they actually enact the named social justice orientation within their program (i.e. program curriculum). 4. to define through cited research their social justice stance and the programmatic choices that support that definition. (pp. 104-105) the authors continued naming scholars that have essentially “made it clear that educational leadership must be viewed as a transformative cultural practice” (p. 105). ultimately, porfilio et al. (2019) argued that the preparation of socially just educators and leaders must be “framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (porfilio et al., 2019, p.104). we relate to the work of howard & baker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 39 porfilio et al., who “also argue that understandings of social justice must be aligned with the research methodologies that are taught in the doctoral programs” (p.107). our project aims to do this for students making direct connections between their classroom learning and their cpar work as leaders/researchers with community working groups. we operationalize the elusive construct of social justice through our nvw work as we invite community into the process of partnering with researchers to address the concerns of the community. we do this by letting the desires of the community guide the research rather than an a-priori naming of the research goals and questions of research. this ground up approach, as much social justice work requires, means that those that are most impacted by the lack of justice inform the next steps of the research. in doing so the community creates what characteristics of the issue will be examined. addressing social justice as a problem of practice george (2017) discussed the need to examine the characteristics of edd programs that are preparing higher education professionals to have and sustain a social justice orientation. ultimately, george applied the framework developed by capper, theoharis, and sebastian (2006) toward a framework for preparing leaders for social justice as a structure to determine effectiveness and implementation of a social justice edd for higher education professionals. using the capper et al. (2006) framework, george (2017) applied the framework to an unnamed graduate program at an institution that is a part of cped. specifically, george discussed the dip. the dip is of particular interest as it is defined as a capstone project that requires students to “address a meaningful problem of practice” (p. 46). “the project is also conducted in consultation…[with] those stakeholders--who notably have a vested interest in resolving the shared problem...serve as contributors to and/or members of the dip committee” (p. 46). furthermore, george discusses why the dip is undertaken in order to address social justice. the dip allows greater perspective in answering a question as well as helping students to “(a) understand and fully appreciate the broad (and in some cases conflicting) stakeholder perspectives that exist around a socially pressing issue of practice in higher education and (b) contemplate authentic and socially democratic ways to communicate with and engage those stakeholders in key decision-making processes focused on lasting resolutions” (p.46). moreover, the dip is taken up in three stages within the program that the framework is applied to including: 1. a detailed literature review, then after more coursework; 2. a methodological selection is made that makes sense for the analysis of the problem of practice that is chosen; and 3. then they write a prospectus of the research work. as the author stated, “the intended purpose of the dip is to raise student’s consciousness about structural and systematic inequities resulting from ineffective...practices” (p. 47). in our own practice the dip is the capstone form of the students cpar work with community. as previously stated, the work edd students are doing by partnering in community working groups and allowing the community to determine the questions of research that are explored there is “address[ing] a meaningful problem of practice”(george, 2017, p. 46); while simultaneously “...rais[ing] student’s consciousness about structural and systematic inequities resulting from ineffective...practices” (george, 2017, p. 47). this process is an opportunity to create a space where edd students can refine their skills as community engaged scholars, while making practical and productive contributions to bettering their community. demonstrating social justice in an edd has its challenges, yet attempts at doing social justice in an edd will push our field to develop students and research that advances justice. as a result of explicitly defining the development of social justice leaders, social justice can be advanced through edd programs. engaged work and the completion of the dip’s can meet the needs of a doctorate as a capstone and address a problem of practice within a community. the development and implementation of social justice through an edd is possible, and we offer our edition of how we seek to do this. we take up critical race praxis (crp) as a starting point for framing our approach to social justice in our edd programs through the use of a dip. theory: critical race praxis in viewing this work through critical race praxis (crp) one would consider that we must wrestle with the endemic nature of racism (jennings & lynn, 2005) as well as the ways in which race cannot be ignored in the context of cpar and our student’s work. we must also address and eradicate the too common “researcheras-colonizer” in order to move us toward social justice crp and its benefits. we must address a justice condition and through the use of crp as a framework for success in implementing cpar. the following section attempts to frame crp broadly so as to provide an understanding of crp and then more specifically how it helps us to prepare social justice leaders through an edd program. in a 2020 interview with david stovall (crsea, 2020)— academic, community scholar and crp implementor; he discussed four elements of crp; first by defining praxis as “action and reflection in the world in order to change conditions.” stovall offered conceptual concerns, material concerns, performative concerns, and reflexive concerns as the conceptual framework for crp. through these four avenues, educators in partnership with communities, can disrupt attempts to dehumanize and rob people of their right to address injustices in our communities to work toward a justice condition. the conceptual concerns are identified by seeking to build an understanding in order to engage in critical analysis to be able to see the condition and identify folks you can work with to change the condition. material concerns, include accessing both the materials needed and utilizing the networks of individual(s) who can get those materials in order to address adverse conditions. performative concerns are actions( in real time, not the delayed response time common in academia) that use the materials that need to be taken up in response to the critical questions identified in regard to an oppressive condition. performative is also the activities performed that become the assessment of the progress toward addressing the condition. crsea (2020) interview moved on to discuss reflexive concerns which is asking and reflecting on the questions “what have we done that worked well and what do we need to improve that did not go well?” these are the tangible things that are working toward changing the identified human condition. stovall’s discussion of crp provides a framing of the ways in which crp can work at multiple educational levels, yet we apply it to the edd. activating activism within the edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 40 crp theoretically guides our conceptualization of the process and learning that occurs both with graduate students and with the community they are partnering with for the work. we engage crp in a specific way, as we imagine the possibilities of cpar. the dip model allows our graduate students scholarly engagement to take the form of community organizing (i.e., baldridge, 2020; kirshner, 2015), pedagogy in informal learning spaces (baldridge et al., 2017), curricular planning and vision (love, 2014), public scholarship (torre, 2009), leadership practices (horsford, 2012), and spacemaking (i.e. protests, refusals, artistic expression) (douglas & peck, 2013, lysicott, 2014). we visualize crp as the iterative work of applying tenets of critical race theory (ladson-billings & tate, 1995) by reflecting upon and revising curriculum as well as implementing pedagogical and curricular changes in order to build an individual’s capacity to resist racism. our approach to addressing issues of race and justice are intertwined and require a participatory way to critique, reflect and improve outcomes for graduate students and for the populations with whom they work. we as graduate educators are engaging a justice condition, while concurrently teaching, partnering with, and engaging our students in addressing a justice condition. we conceptualize crp as the symbiosis of theory, reflection, and practice (freire, 2000), and more specifically (crsea 2020; stovall, 2006; yamamoto, 1997) as the ways in which we work with our community, graduate students and selves to struggle toward liberation (friere, 2000). as practitioners of crp we view it as moves that “counter systemic, institutional, and individual racism through continual action, reflection and re-inventions of strategies that work against power structures and practices which dehumanize people based on race” (baker & howard 2020, in press). this definition is implemented in our work to address a justice condition, to prepare social justice leaders, and to prepare scholars who can partner with community to address a justice condition. methodology drawing from a critical race praxis framework, we mentor and instruct doctoral students in ways that exemplify activist scholarship. we teach and demonstrate the use of cpar as a methodology. to begin, we draw from warren’s (2018) explanation of critical community engaged scholarship which requires that researchers partner with community, parent, youth, and educator groups to pursue change that is focused on increasing equity and justice in education (oakes & rogers, 2005). further, we agree with johnson (2018) who described community-based participatory research as a process where community members take a co-equal role with trained researchers and professionals in four ways. community members (1) identify and define a problem to be studied, (2) define values and principles that distinguish one way of knowing about the problem from another, (3) generate characteristics of the problem that allow identification of alternative courses of action and attributes by which to assess progress toward an improved state, and (4) define criteria by which one might determine that a new way of doing things generates, or is likely to generate outcomes that represent improvement over the status quo. this approach aligns well with george (2017) who used the language of “consultation of stakeholders” reiterating the need for a connected community approach. as instructors, mentors and lead investigators in the research process, we aim to model and revisit the aforementioned core principles relative to activist scholarship consistently. that is, activism must be: 1. validated by the community, not academia as the “experts” in activismin other words, to whom are you accountable (patel, 2016); 2. long-term, not temporary or predatory as has too often been the trend in academic research; 3. open to new and difficult narratives that redefine research methods, directions, and representation; 4. engaged with diverse methods of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis aligned with the goals and purposes set by community activists. given this understanding, there is a great variety of methods that can be a part of a cpar design in terms of data collection, analysis, and ways to represent findings. the methods should be responsive to the goals and foci of the community to whom we are accountable. in the case of this research team, we have been very clear that the community to whom we are accountable to for the value of our work is black youth and families. position in the work joy. as a white1 activist qualitative researcher who is primarily focused on anti-racism in education, i am always learning, interrogating, and teaching from an in-process perspective. i engage in this work as a motherscholar with three black mixed-race boys whose schooling experiences and educational opportunities are profoundly affected by a racist educational debt (aera, 2015) that remains today. my experiences as a teacher educator and instructor of educational leaders has meant that my pedagogy is informed by the reality that i have and will continue to teach the educators that my sons learn from in school. as a result, i share my own limitations, blindspots, solidarity, and discomforts with my students as a learning opportunity. in my work in the classroom and the community, i am motivated by the hope that it is possible to create learning spaces where black students can thrive. it is with this in mind that i have engaged in the initial stages of planning for, recruiting students to, and teaching in the edd program at the university of southern indiana since 2015, and taking an active role in community organizations in our midwest community that prioritize racial justice in both their missions and actions. timberly. when examining issues of social justice, i am situated as both a participant, learner, and instructor. i identify as one that actively engages in social justice work, as a motherscholar, more specifically i work toward justice for students of color and those identified within special education. the personal of the motherscholar identity means that i do not disconnect my orientation of preparation of leaders from the question, “would i want this person, leading, or teaching in the school my children attend?” “are they a trusted ally of people of color?” as a professor in an edd program i have agency and responsibility to students to prepare them to understand and enact social justice, yet the edd program itself is not set up to easily undertake this endeavor. this disconnect between my personal identity and that of a program that is developed to prepare leaders means that i struggle to enact my social justice orientation more explicitly in my courses. yet my own articulation of work and choices about course content and foci does demonstrate this commitment even if in small ways. previously, i was a member of the faculty at the university of southern indiana (usi) beginning in 2015 and ending in 2017, yet my ties to the howard & baker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 41 community and the work of improving educational outcomes for black youth and families remains situated within our midwestern community. co-researchers and co-conspirators. as co-researchers and personal friends, we have developed a deep trusting relationship as co-teachers, co-authors, and auntie figures to each other’s children. this is important to mention because the depth of our relationship strengthens our ability to work through conflicts that arise as an outgrowth of cpar projects—such as finding common times to meet, agreeing upon project-related tasks, sharing the work load, determining authorship, hosting challenging conversations with community members and/or students, or co-facilitation skills in dynamic community spaces. it is also important because our partnership demonstrated in co-facilitation, co-teaching and coauthorship models for students’ skills and dispositions necessary in cross racial collaborative work that can be strengthened by dissenting opinions, diverse perspectives and mixed methods of data collection and analysis. to illustrate some of the diverse methods used, we later explain our initial reports and why we chose the methods that we did. next, we will discuss the current stage of the process where we are mentoring a team of edd students in the cpar methodologies grounded in critical race praxis (crsea, 2020). finally, we offer possible directions that doctoral students will take with their dip based on the direction of community organizers and activists. community engaged scholarship in a midwestern city a fair amount of contextualization is needed before we can describe the current stage of this project and what we have learned thus far. the project we have named, andhowarethechildren, is based on ongoing community-based research that formally began in 2018. timberly was called upon to compile a quantitative report about the disproportionalities in school discipline by the local commission on the social status of african american males. in a public forum, timberly highlighted some of the major findings that demonstrated clear racial disparities in the areas of suspension, expulsion, and arrests for black and multiracial youth. during this public forum, community leaders and concerned citizens from the black community of this midwestern city voiced the need for community action and responsibility to interrupt these inequities. as a result, joy, who has experience in cpar began a conversation with timberly, members of the commission, and local leaders about the potential for a cpar project to be designed in response to the demand for action. in 2019, with a small grant and an undergraduate research assistant who is actively engaged in the community, we hosted four “community conversations” soliciting the participation of the “families of black and multiracial students in a midwestern city.” these community conversations were hosted at local non-profit organizations in different parts of this city in spring 2019. the focus of these conversations was to discuss the challenges and potential solutions for working toward equitable change. the outcome of these meetings was to identify six specific areas for community action: police in/and schools; community investment; parent involvement; curriculum, pedagogy and faculty of color; mentors; and policies and funding. in fall 2019, joy organized a public forum in the center of the city to issue the report (printed out and highlighted verbally). the aim of these meetings was to attempt to organize working groups (e.g., mentors) for each theme led by a group of diverse community members (each group has at least three members of a leadership team) which included university faculty, retired military veterans, political leaders, clergy, barbers, legal counsel, parents, teachers, and non-profit employees to name a few. in 2020, we have continued to move toward building synergy in and between the working groups. for example, this was demonstrated by a national african american parents day celebration in february at a local black church, the launch of a facebook page with hundreds of followers, the organization of book clubs focused on curriculum and pedagogy supportive of african american students specifically (see lyiscott, 2019; boutte, 2016). at the same time, this network building has been met with very real challenges that are common to all community-based work (e.g., organization, dissenting opinions) but most notably the very real and very novel set of issues related to covid-19. that is the question of—how to engage in community activism in the time of social distancing? one specific example of the disappointment and dissonance that this has caused in the community engaged work is the fact that we had planned a dynamic city-wide “first annual african american children’s literacy festival” (the litfest) on april 12, 2020. due to covid-19, this had to be cancelled. given the financial support promised by institutions that are now in crisis, the intention of including hundreds of individuals in a multi-generational crowd, and the use of buildings and equipment that may be closed indefinitely, the idea of this event happening in the near future is unlikely. these realities, the dynamics, im/possibilities, messiness, disappointments, and collaborative endeavors are all a part of critical praxis. despite these challenges, we respond to lupinacci’s (2017) call to confront dominant perceptions of what currently constitutes leadership and instead “work to (re)constitute toward a leadership that takes serious social justice and sustainability” (p. 26). therefore, with the support of a small grant from the university we are moving forward with a focus on identifying effective strategies for building a community-wide network to destabilize the school prison nexus in a midwestern city. in this current phase, joy secured a small grant that is primarily geared to support the formation of a research team, comprised of five edd students and two co-pi’s (joy and timberly). the grant will also provide some initial start-up funds for incidentals that may come up for different working groups. each edd student was selected based on their research interests relevant to justice in education and demonstrated long-term engagement with the community. the concept is that each research assistant will be assigned to a group that best correlates to their research interest. the research assistant will help to organize and document the goals and action steps of the working groups as an initial function in the larger project. the longterm goal, however, is that the edd students will write a dip that will in/directly correlate to the identified needs of the community in working to destabilize the school prison nexus in a midwestern city. for example, one research assistant (who is also a teacher) is working with the curriculum, pedagogy and faculty of color group and is co-facilitating a book club discussion about culturally sustaining pedagogy with joy. based on themes from community conversations in 2019, there was an identified need to provide focused professional development that specifically supports teachers in developing their skills and knowledge of culturally sustaining pedagogies for black children. given the coalescence of the community and research assistant’s interests, the idea is this student’s dip will be a direct answer to a community need. activating activism within the edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 42 this type of structure of community identified problem and research team response is our conceptualization of social justice in the edd. this looks like cr praxis informed by community questions; framed by cpar as method and dip as one of the products of this work. what we discuss here is no small feat, yet it is necessary to try to address the justice condition through conceptual, material, performative, and reflexive concerns in order to rise to lupinacci’s (2017) challenge. lessons learned stovall’s (crsea, 2020) articulation of critical race praxis that addresses conceptual, material, performative and reflexive concerns as a means of engaging with communities around a justice condition frames the avenues that we have taken in the work as a whole and in guiding our students toward a dip project that is responsive to real needs in the community. in this section, we identify the lessons that we have learned thus far about essential elements for operationalizing this among a research team that includes edd student researchers. a strengths-based approach. a strong ongoing tenant of this work, starting from timberly’s initial report, on disproportionality in suspension, expulsion and arrests, is to take a strengths approach to inform research. this meant as researchers we were honest about our skill set and capacity and did not attempt to cross over into research or community programming outside of our realm of expertise. this is an important navigation of inviting the community in to fill the gaps, while maintaining a clear message of us all working together within our varied strengths to move this work forward. joy, as a qualitative researcher applied her research expertise after timberly had applied her quantitative research expertise, demonstrating and naming for the community that we work within our strengths and invite the community to do the same. the intentionality behind asserting that the role and goal of researchers is to inform the dynamic work that communities are able to do, and not to lead, was liberating. yet, it is an ongoing challenge to decenter one’s self from perceptions of all-encompassing leadership status as university researcher. this essential element is related to the material and reflexive concerns of the community (crsea, 2020). consistent communication with and between working groups to identify who is best positioned to locate resources or speak to particular obstacles is an ongoing process that we assess and re-assess constantly as copi’s and as a leadership team in the network. for example, we consistently ask questions like: who is the best person to speak at a particular event? or, who in the network has access to gatekeepers that make decisions about particular policies? positioning ourselves as having defined limitations in our areas of expertise and skill-sets is an intentional move to model a strengths-based approach with graduate students who are learning to engage in research with/in communities. developing faculty conceptual understanding. to best support students in an activist-oriented dip, it is critical that faculty work together toward common understandings of key concepts that will inform community-based research designs and conceptual frameworks. one important move to intentionally support students in their dip journey at usi was to clearly define and discuss the “community” aspect of community-based leadership program which plays a critical role in informing the scope of a dip in a communitybased educational leadership program. graduate faculty who teach in the edd program, collaborated on a definition for “community” which is informed by both time and space. as a faculty, we agreed that a community can have both shared and contradictory values and attitudes, yet the interconnected nature of a community means that communication, goals, and practices within the group will have direct and/or indirect influences on all of its members. while the concept of community is simultaneously simple yet elusive, as a program we seek to grapple with the complexities of what it might mean to become and remain a community-based educational leader. we prioritized human rights and agreed that equity and justice are the ultimate goal of community-based leadership. to that end, transformational leadership, relevant and grounded in real-world problems drives the work of community-based leaders. this approach is necessarily collaborative and means that leaders must work with and alongside community members to be agents of change so that educational access and excellence is realized in a community in ways that honor diversity of thought and experience. ensuring that all faculty who will serve on dissertation committees have a common conceptual understanding of the diverse yet cohesive nature of community as it pertains to community-based research is related to stovall’s notion of conceptual concerns. in other words, if there is not a common (yet flexible) understanding of what is meant by community and the urgency of activism (which may impact questions around research protocols and timelines for example) among dissertation chairs or committee members, edd students will struggle to find suitable committee members or successfully complete the program. this will for example drastically impact the ways in which conversations about and documents for the institutional review board at an institution are constructed or the ways that faculty will explain and advocate for students with faculty in or outside of their committees or departments. a communal approach to community research. because the primary goals of andhowarethechildren are to effect real change that improve the educational outcomes of black children in a midwestern city, these goals are anything but simple or shortterm. a communal approach to this work is necessary to address what stovall (2020) names as the material and performative concerns of such a project. material because of the limitations of an individual researcher or mentor to speak to all of the methods, skills, theories, or contextual information needed to address the problems of practice, and performative because there must be a consistent check-in between the community and researchers about the priorities, projects and communication resulting from the larger work. racial disparities in school discipline and educational outcomes did not emerge in a vacuum, nor did they begin overnight. therefore, the work to address these injustices must be sustained and dynamic enough to address the rapidly changing social realities that we are living through. for example, while a major focus of the school prison nexus work is about school discipline, since march of 2020 due to the covid-19 crisis, there have been no expulsions or suspensions in a traditional sense. as a result, there must be new questions, explorations and resources to determine the ways in which inequity is present and the methods that we can create as a community to address those things. being a part of a team of researchers and directly answering to community members who inform our inquiries situates future dip to address real-world concerns, rather than individual or irrelevant research projects that could be completed in isolation. given the context of this work as beginning in the community, by the community, the chances of sustained engagement where the university and community can partner in howard & baker impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.162 43 productive ways are increased. one concrete idea is to create written and restated community agreements that are used in working groups in the community (and that include expectations for researchers in the groups such as sharing airtime in conversations, identifying communication preferences for and between meetings) as well as standards of practice and communication among the research team (e.g., what can be shared or published, scheduling expectations for meetings). this communal approach has the potential to maximize learning and ensure that edd students have opportunities to enhance their skills as change agents given that they will learn from their advisor and committee members, other students doing related work on the same larger project, and from community activists who are experts in a variety of areas. conclusion in our conceptualization of scholarly activism, we assert that this work must be validated by the community, sustainable, malleable, and methodologically aligned with the goals and purposes set by the community. we take up activating activism in the edd by providing an example from our ongoing cpar project in a midwestern city about the school prison nexus. we forward that a communal approach to cpar work provides a platform for graduate students to engage in activist work with community that utilizes their growing research skills. this work is not for every faculty member, nor is it for every student. alignment between student’s professional goals, research orientation, life circumstances and commitments to the community must be considered carefully. we recommend a deep and sustained engagement among both faculty and students interested in activist scholarship to consider stovall’s guiding principles for interrogating the conceptual, material, reflexive and performance concerns of the work. although we have identified several lessons that we have learned thus far about the importance of a strengths-based approach, developing faculty’s conceptual understandings and the power of a communal approach to community-based research, there is much to be learned. further work around the institutional challenges of cpar work specific to edd programs, faculty experiences with individual or teams of researchers, the dynamics of community-university partnerships for edd programs, and the types and decisions around presentation of cpar findings within the community would be very important lines of inquiry. in closing, activism and justice is not a short-term goal complete when articles are published or when dissertations are written. activist scholarship is a long-term and ongoing commitment that neither begins nor ends in the university. if edd programs aim to work toward equity goals for educators, students, families and communities, we must push beyond traditional modes of inquiry and build relationships with our students and communities that uphold a shared value in honoring and serving our fellow human beings. references aera. 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(2018). research confronts equity and social justice: building the emerging field of collaborative, community engaged education research. urban education, 53(4), 439-444. yamamoto, e. k. (1997). critical race praxis: race theory and political lawyering practice in post-civil rights america. michigan law review, 821-900. footnote 1the authors use capital black and lowercase white, following dumas (2016) who explains “white is not capitalized in my work because it is nothing but a social construct, and does not describe a group with a common experience or kinship outside of acts of colonization and terror” (p. 13). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kfnht0_ny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kfnht0_ny https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.43 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.43 joy howard, ph.d. university of southern indiana timberly l. baker, ph.d. arkansas state university tibaker@astate.edu conceptual framework review of literature on activism and social justice in the edd addressing social justice as a problem of practice theory: critical race praxis methodology position in the work community engaged scholarship in a midwestern city lessons learned conclusion references footnote microsoft word zambo perry final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 17 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 themed section of impacting education focused on cped’s principle jill a. perry, phd university of pittsburgh executive director cped jill.perry@cpedinitiative.org debby zambo, phd associate director cped debby.zambo@cpedinitiative.org this themed section of impacting education (ie) focuses on the use of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) guiding principles for edd program design. authors in this section are cped writing fellows who have been selected because of their experience around engaging the principles in their program design. to become a fellow each author posed a manuscript around the theme, created a draft version, and came together at the june 2017 convening to align their work with others, provide constructive feedback, and form support groups to ensure manuscript completion and acceptance. the following articles in this section are the result of this year-long process. focusing on cped’s guiding principles for program design offers readers of ie an understanding of the foundation of cped’s framework (to access these go to https://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/aboutus) which over 100 schools of education have now used to redesign their edd programs. these principles were created in a collaborative effort of member faculty (perry, 2016; perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015) to move the consortium away from a prescriptive edd program model, toward a more flexible framework that would make professional practice preparation in education as purposeful, fluid, and meaningful as possible the result of this work was not only the guiding principles for program design but also a movement that has made cped the first action-oriented effort working to distinguish and define the edd as a rigorous and relevant degree for professional practice (perry, 2010, 2012; perry & imig, 2008). in this themed section, manuscripts written by writing fellows show the impact of the principles on their edd programs. to help readers get a grounding into the importance of this work, we provide background into the development of the principles. why guiding principles? in 2006, shulman, golde, beuschel and garabedian suggested, “the extent to which the professional practice doctorate requires a new vision demands a ‘zero-base’ approach to design, without any of the assumptions that characterize the status quo” (p. 28). this idea supported the creation of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and provided the challenge to begin afresh and create a program model that would be adopted across all institutions, much like program models in medical or legal professional preparation. at the june 2009 convening, however, cped faculty expressed strong opposition to a “one-size fits all” program prescription. they claimed programs needed to honor local contexts by supporting the unique preparation needs of regions and the unique circumstances of each university setting. however, all agreed that to advance the edd as a strong and rigorous professional degree, a measure of commonality and quality needed to exist across institutions. together, these members concluded that the development of a set of principles to characterize excellent doctoral preparation would be the best way to support program development across a diverse set of institutions. during the june 2009 convening, a conversation ensued and several statements specific to one of cped’s design concepts (e.g., capstones, signature pedagogies, labs of practice) or to a particularly promising practice, say, admissions (e.g., “expert practitioners should sit on the admissions committee”) were generated. while it was not surprising that initial conversations were focused on smaller program design elements, members eventually saw the need for a broader level discussion. the discussion that ensued focused on developing principles that might govern an entire program (e.g., “build a broad experience base”) rather than a particular practice attached to a particular way of admitting students, proposing capstones, selecting laboratories of practice, etc. development of a set of guiding principles was agreed upon but because the consortium at the time was comprised of three groups: institutions working on programs for those seeking to practice school leadership, those focused on teacher education, and those focused on institutional leadership/higher education, more questions were raised as to if the principles should be specific to program areas or broadly applied to the edd in general. after more discussion, it was concluded that as members worked within their own institutions, their program areas and institutional contexts should certainly influence what was being designed, implemented, and tested. at the conclusion of this discussion, members saw the need to think across areas of concentration. themed section of impacting education focused on cped’s principles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 18 a final point focused on was the purpose of the principles. in june 2009, members used the terms “principles of best practice” and “principles of practice”, but the “practice” to which the participants were referring was the practice related to the implementation of a doctoral program designed to prepare educational practitioners. the term “practice” did not refer to specific practices of professional educators. for that reason, it was proposed that the membership employ a more precise label for the principles. development of the guiding principles as a result of an analysis of “the june 2009 convening principle discussion,” members were asked to bring to the october 2009 convening a set of principles or ideas that guided their home institution edd program development. specifically, members were asked to bring broad statements of principles that would apply to any doctoral program seeking to prepare educational practitioners. after removal of repetitive statements, 35 statements served as the basis for the work. over the course of the three days of the convening, 49 faculty participants representing 24 of the original 25-member institutions worked with the 35 statements that ranged in applicability from specific elements of a program to the edd in general. as members worked, they knew that the resulting cped principles would be aimed at, and judged against, the following criterion: preparing doctoral students who graduate with the potential to transform the professional practice of education. wanting to lessen the number of statements, members were first divided into five groups and asked to narrow them using the following criteria. statements should: 1. cut across all areas of the program—from capstone to courses, and 2. clearly demonstrate why this program is an edd and not a phd. statements that did not meet these criteria were removed. next, the groups identified overarching themes that were represented across the remaining statements. the five groups then combined and narrowed statements into the following themes: 1. social justice and equity 2. inquiry related to problems of practice 3. collaboration 4. multi-disciplinary 5. stewardship statements were then narrowed again utilizing these themes. remaining statements were sorted under the themes resulting in 10 principles. those ten were handed to a subgroup of members who narrowed and word-smithed the list to the current six principles. however, the principles were not the only idea emerging. during this same timeframe, a definition for the edd surfaced from discussions around the principles. together, the work of the october 2009 convening—a new definition of the edd and a set of guiding principles for program design— became the core foundation for the future work of cped. these state: we, the members of cped believe: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.” with this understanding, we have identified the following statements that will focus a research and development agenda to test, refine, and validate principles for the professional doctorate in education. the professional doctorate in education: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation and use of professional knowledge and practice (cped, 2009). these principles were to be adopted and applied to member programs with the hope that their implementation would create better programs and, in the future, allow cped to secure funding to investigate if, and how, the principles changed and improved cped-influenced edd programs. studying the impact of the principles in 2010, cped received a $700,000 u.s. department of education fund for the improvement of post-secondary education (fipse) grant to study how 21 of its original member schools of education changed their edds. specifically, the research project sought to use a multicase analysis to: perry & zambo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 19 1. document and evaluate change in the organizational structures of graduate schools to accommodate new professional practice degrees for school and college leaders. 2. document and evaluate change in the signature learning processes, learning environments, and patterns of engagement of faculty and candidates in edd programs that participate in cped. 3. document and evaluate fidelity to the set of program principles developed in the first three years of the initiative (2007-2009). 4. disseminate lessons learned and best practices for the design and implementation of professional practice degrees to a new cohort of graduate schools of education. a cross-case analysis of 21 cases, conducted and written by 38 cped faculty researchers, revealed the following claims and evidence about the how original cped member institutions were working with the principles. in 2015, perry, zambo & wunder reported findings from the full project. below is an overview of the areas that pertain to the principles. incorporating the principles at the outset of the study, the researchers (perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015) looked to see if cped’s principles were being incorporated into edd designs. from their analysis, they learned that the principles were being incorporated in all 21 programs, but in varying time frames, ways, and with levels of understanding. faculty and deans interviewed at 12 institutions (57%) claimed their programs were based on principle-like ideas and established before, or independent of, development of the principles. this is understandable because the principles were developed as a result of the experimenting with program designs during phase i of the project. even as ideas were being developed, institutions were redesigning their programs. however, even though some programs had been developed with facets of the principles, seven institutions (33%) said they were using the principles in their current design/redesign of their process. next, the researchers wanted to understand how the principles were being implemented. participants from two institutions (9%) said incorporation of the principles was not consciously done, while participants from four institutions (19%) said that incorporation of the principles was achieved through negotiation, dialogue and collegiality. this included having a strong change agent (faculty member) who worked thoughtfully and consciously to incorporate cped’s principles, goals, and design features into their programs. in these cases, faculty met multiple times per year and negotiated ways to infuse cped principles into their programs. participants from three institutions (14%) said cped’s philosophy as articulated in the principles aligned with their own beliefs and this contributed to the ease of incorporating them into their program design and curriculum development. alternatively, participants from four other institutions (19%) said there were challenges incorporating the principles. challenges included perceptions that more could be done, a wanting of a more formal adoption process, and a lack of cohesion as to how different departments talked about and used the principles. additionally, cases revealed that cped principles influenced programmatic information and depending on where a program was in the design/implementation process, this information was used in different ways. forty-eight percent of participants interviewed said the cped principles were most useful in the development of courses and curriculum. whereas, another 24% of participants stated the principles were useful in the creation of a cohort-based edd model even though there is no mention of cohorts in the principles. specifically, participants at 18 institutions (86%) said the principles were used to benchmark their programs. these members used the principles to determine if their redesign efforts were aligned with cped’s vision. to do this, they looked at how the principles were incorporated into their program's outcomes, courses, assignments, syllabi, research, dissertations, cohorts, and learning communities. these same participants noted that the principles were conducive to developing programs based on students’ needs. the cped principles helped faculty: program design • use students’ workplaces as their laboratories of practice • require a capstone focused on a problem of practice • integrate practical and research knowledge (theory and practice) • employ a cohort program model to foster collaboration • emphasize transformation in student thinking to see the bigger picture • create embedded internships teaching • honor the scholarship of teaching • encourage critical thinking among their students about topics of importance like social justice • require cycles of inquiry • support students in finding solutions to problems of practice • enhance student communication skills by using technology and class presentations • focus on how knowledge is constructed and the application of knowledge to make a positive difference in people’s lives • be attentive to the needs of adult learners overall, this early investigation helped cped understand how its member institutions were beginning to utilize the principles in their edd program designs. this learning revealed that the principles were the foundation for cped’s work and because of this, helped shape future convenings and support new members as they joined. themed section of impacting education focused on cped’s principles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 20 understanding more about the principles in 2017, cped launched a major data collection effort across 86 of its members to understand more about what cped-influenced member programs look like and how the cped framework had influenced these institutions, their programs, and the individuals involved with them. as part of this effort, questions were specifically asked about the how the guiding principles were enacted. data were gathered through an online, openand closed-ended survey that was completed by the primary faculty contact (known as the principal investigator) for each member institution. our research questions pertaining to the guiding principles were: 1. how are cped’s principles prominent in program design? 2. how are cped’s principles prominent in pedagogy? 3. how are cped’s principles prominent in graduate outcomes? at this early stage of analysis, 22 of the 86 surveys (26%) have been analyzed and show that the principles have made an impact on these three areas. below is a summary of early findings. preliminary findings research question #1: program design. data from this collection effort show that the principles are being used in program design and redesign efforts with commonalities and differences. at many institutions, mission and vision statements contain ideas and terminology from various principles which are used to design edd programs, their curriculum, and coursework. various principles also affect how students are admitted (cohorts) into programs, where they perform their work (in laboratories of practice), the type of dissertations they write, and the support they receive. cped-influenced programs are not clones of each other, however. members use and interpret the principles based on their particular contexts and students’ needs locally. table 1 contains the ways each of the principles is prominent in program design. table 1. the guiding principles implemented in edd program design principle ways prominent in program design 1 is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. mission statements focused on equity, ethics, and social justice. mission statements translated into courses and what students learn. courses focused on developing leaders who work for empowerment and conduct research ethically. dissertations in practice focused on empowerment, improvement, and change. 2 prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. mission statements focused on making a difference. cohorts provided development and support. selective and varied research/dissertation work useful to practice and aimed at developing leaders who apply literature/research, develop changes, and evaluate the effects of this work on families, organizations, and communities. 3 provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. mission statements focused on collaboration, communication, and partnerships. curriculum (core and research courses) employ internships and field experiences for applied learning. courses and dissertations required students to form partnerships and build communication. 4 provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. mission statements focused on field-based opportunities and the use of multiple frames. courses are selective and varied. cohorts provide support. dissertations used multiple frames to find meaningful solutions. 5 is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. mission statements focused on developing students’ professional knowledge and helping them integrate it with what they learn. coursework used students’ knowledge and is contextualized in practice. courses delivered in ways that meet students’ needs. 6 emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. mission statements focused on knowledge generation. courses strived to develop students’ professional knowledge and leadership capabilities coursework is contextualized in laboratories of practice. dissertations focused on impact, transformation, and the generation of knowledge for practice. research question #2: pedagogy. in terms of pedagogy, data show commonalities and variation in use of the principles. commonalities demonstrate the principles are used to develop pedagogy that is based on students’ needs as adult learners, contextualized in practice, and focused on problems of practice. differences show varied delivery systems, work, and interaction patterns. the principles are influencing pedagogy but being adapted based on faculty’s interpretation. table 2 contains the ways each of the principles play out in program pedagogy. perry & zambo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 21 table 2. the principles in pedagogy principle ways prominent in pedagogy 1 is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. lectures, seminars, discussions, speakers and fieldwork focused on social justice. cooperative and problem-based learning, cycles of research, critical analysis, and constructive feedback are used. 2 prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. lectures, dialogue, and speakers. experiential and collaborative learning. civic engagement projects and fieldwork are used to apply what is learned. 3 provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. lectures, discussions, speakers, questioning, story-telling, and presentations. experiential and cooperative work, and fieldwork used. students interact and communicate with varied leaders. instructional teams model collaboration and ensure consistency. 4 provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. face-to-face, online, in classrooms and in laboratories of practice during the week and on weekends. project based, design-based, collaborative, individual, and group focused. scaffolds learning. applicable and useable for the field. 5 is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. use of case analysis, dialog about theory and practice. modeling and support/scaffolding having students conduct action-oriented incremental (cyclical), systematic research in the field. 6 emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. lectures, speakers, seminars, discussions, and fieldwork. used small and large-group work, analysis of cases, self-assessments/reflection, hands-on-learning, application of emerging technologies, and conflict resolution. students reflect on themselves as leaders. research question #3: graduate outcomes. the principles are prominent in graduate outcomes at various levels (program, courses, assignments, assessments, dissertations) and varied ways. the data indicate that the principles are evident when graduates act as stewards of the profession by thinking systematically, creatively, and reflectively. in this sense, the graduate is now blending their professional knowledge with what they learned in their program, communicating more actively with a scholarly voice, taking on new professional responsibilities, and demonstrating career progression as a result of their program. in these ways, the principles are influencing who graduates become, however this looks different by region and need. table 3 captures these ideas. table 3. the principles in graduate outcomes principle ways prominent in graduate outcomes 1 is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. graduates apply theories and conduct inquiry/research focused on policies and practices aimed at equity, ethics, and social justice. change/impact their contexts through awareness, advocacy, action, stewardship, and leadership aimed at equitable change/improvement. take on new professional responsibilities and demonstrate career progression. 2 prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. graduates influence local and global contexts. generate evidence-based knowledge. build partnerships. act as stewards. commit to their professional development. share what they know. 3 provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. graduates network and build collaborative partnerships with diverse individuals. build and expand partnerships formed during dissertation work. communicate with a scholarly voice in varied ways and to varied individuals. continue to solve problems of practice. 4 provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. graduates assess and use varied theories and to understand problems and design solutions. think systematically. value decision-making drawn from multiple sources. 5 is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. graduates use their professional knowledge to analyze and critique policies, theory, and research. consumers scholarship wisely. use their professional knowledge and what they learn to tackle problems of practice. reflect on how theory, research, and experience influence their leadership. 6 emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. graduates act as scholarly practitioners leaders who think and act with curiosity, inquiry skills, and scholarly competencies, articulate how theory and research has influenced and built their professional knowledge and leadership capabilities, apply evidence to decision making, and use creativity to problem-solve and transform settings. themed section of impacting education focused on cped’s principles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 22 these preliminary finding show that the principles are intertwined in varied ways into program design, pedagogy, and graduate outcomes. but they also show that their use is difficult to capture holistically. early findings are informative, but findings are presented with caution as there is more data to analyze. the principles in action development of the guiding principles was collaborative and since their creation, they have become the foundation for cped’s framework which includes a new definition of the edd, the six guiding principles, and six design concepts. as cped has grown over the last 11 years, its members have investigated the use of the principles in program design, pedagogy, and graduate outcomes. these investigations have shown that the principles are being utilized in many ways within the consortium and at individual member institutions. within the consortium, the guiding principles have provided the basis for cped activities. for example, cped committees have utilized the principles for developing criteria for the dissertation in practice and program of the year awards. as research and information gathering, current efforts reveal the principles are also being used at member institutions in multiple ways. in program design, they are used to establish the goals of edd programs. cped’s design concepts compliment the principles and serve as building blocks for the content of programs or as an evaluation tool for established programs. these facts make cped the first action-oriented effort working to distinguish and define the edd as a rigorous and relevant degree for professional practice. but the work is not over. the goal of this themed section is to learn more deeply from several member institutions the ways in which the cped guiding principles are serving its members’ edd programs. in the first article, problems of practice as stance, edmund ‘ted’ hamann and guy trainin openly, and honestly, describe a steadily changing, teacher leadership-oriented, cped-affiliated edd program housed in a department of curriculum and instruction at the university of nebraska—lincoln. the authors situate the program design in relation to four key concepts—epistemology, praxis, efficacy, and iterative processes and highlight cped’s core stance that the voice of the professional practitioner needs to be inserted into discussion of educational change, not as the target of policy, nor the object of research, but as a coequal partner in a research/policy/ practice triad in which practitioner insights related to context are key for the viability of educational efforts. the authors report the challenges of their change efforts (e.g., committee members, fixed beliefs) as well as their work to develop their program based on students’ voices and needs. the next article, getting to maybe: improving the education doctorate in an era of uncertainty by harriett rasmussen, illuminates the evolutionary nature of knowledge in our society and the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world and argues that because of these, graduate degrees play a critical role our future. in her article, rasmussen argues that our current era of fake news and increasing disdain for academically based assertions places higher education directly in the eye of the current political storm. to her, success of doctoral programs, like the edd, depends on moving thorny problems of practice into their center and developing leaders who use what they learn to work for social injustice. to realize this vision, rasmussen suggests edd programs be redesigned with cped’s principles and a complexity lens focused squarely on problems of practice and cycles of inquiry. the principles guide all aspects of programs, problems bridge the university-practice gap, and cycles help students understand the complexity of real world problems. the manuscript contains several visuals to help the reader understand ideas like these (complex systems, inquiry cycles, and organizational structures that influence and nurture change). this manuscript offers hope for higher education if it will situate its work in the reality of complex systems. this to rasmussen will make a better world. in the third article, redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders: generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice, bartlett, bartlett, dolfi, jaeger and chapman describe the development of a community college executive edd program at north carolina state university. specifically, the article focuses on guiding principle number six and explains how their program prepares leaders for “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice.” the article is focused on the first three courses of the program’s curriculum and how they were innated in the first year the program was offered. to provide understanding and continuous improvement of the program, the article beings in the voice of their students to understand their perspective on the impact of integrating this principle. in the fourth article, facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool, carl fertman describes the efforts being made at the university of pittsburgh to develop scholarly writers. fertman places writing at the center of student development and explains how edd programs that utilize cped’s principles encourage writing that is original, transformative, and significant because it is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice and explains efforts students take to affect the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. in other words, writing, at the university of pittsburgh, is used as a means to develop scholarly thinkers and the squire (standards for quality improvement reporting excellence) guidelines and tidier (template for intervention description and replication checklist and guide) are used as quality standards for the scaffold, the applied inquiry plan (aip) they have developed as a programmatic pathway to guide a dissertation in practice. the manuscript explains the parts of the aip and provides insight faculty need to recognize, consider, and do to develop writers. in the fifth article, how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program, buss takes an all-encompassing approach demonstrating how the principles have influenced all aspects of the arizona state university edd. buss presents the global impact the principles have had on the core aspects of the program—the development of scholarly and influential practitioners, action research, and learner scholar communities as signature pedagogies. buss also describes how the principles have supported the enactment of these three aspects through the curriculum and learning products of the students. the result, he explains, is a program that is continually improved to be more coherent and practitioner-oriented. perry & zambo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.89 23 in the final article, program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as community of practice, philips, geller, and mawritz discuss how their program faculty worked as a learning community to conduct a crosswalk of their program principles, the cped guiding principles and other national and university standards as they prepared for an accreditation process. the process offers an example of how faculty can engage the principles as a means of program assessment and continuous improvement. closing thoughts the authors of each of these pieces are actively engaged in the work of their edd programs and deeply committed to the preparation of practitioners. they demonstrate how the cped guiding principles have allowed their programs to evolve into professional practice doctorates while meeting the local needs of their institution and student populations. our hope in presenting this sampling is to inform a broader community of how cped can serve as a tool for both “reclaiming” (shulman et al., 2006) the edd and continuously improving it so that it serves the needs of those who lead our education systems. references carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2009). working principles for the professional practice doctorate in education. college park, md: author. perry, j. a. (ed.) (2015). the edd and scholarly practitioners: the cped path. charlotte, nc: iap. perry, j. a. (2010). reclaiming the education doctorate: three cases of processes and roles in institutional change (doctoral dissertation). university of maryland, college park. perry, j. a. (2012). what history reveals about the education doctorate. in m. macintyre latta & s. wunder (eds.), placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education: rethinking the policies and practices of the education doctorate (pp. 51-72). charlotte, nc: information age publishing. perry, j. a., & imig, d. g. (2008). a stewardship of practice in education. change, 40(6), 42-48. perry, j. a., zambo, d. & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations, 36, 58-85. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 34 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.168 implementing social justice practices online: lessons learned from teaching and advising dissertations in practice during the covid-19 pandemic karie huchting loyola marymount university khuchtin@lmu.edu rebecca stephenson loyola marymount university rebecca.stephenson@lmu.edu abstract this essay documents the lessons learned from the transition to teaching research methods courses and advising edd doctoral students online due to the covid-19 pandemic. this discussion is set against the backdrop of developing a new fully online edd program in educational leadership for social justice at the institution, wherein the online transition due to covid-19 offered an opportunity to assess effective pedagogy, student community and engagement, and workload expectations. in our analysis of the transition to teaching online, we applied hammond’s (2020) framework, which highlights design elements that promote agency for independent learning. we overlay the realities of teaching and advising adult students who are working full-time and managing home-life responsibilities in addition to pursuing their edd degree. unresolved questions and future directions for the culturally responsive and socially just online education doctorate are explored. keywords social justice education, distance learning, covid-19, edd programs as professors at a cped-affiliated institution, we have taught qualitative and quantitative research methods courses in our fully face-to-face, cohort-based, edd program for the past 10 years. when the university closed the campus in mid-march 2020, we found ourselves transitioning our courses and dissertation advising online. together with our students, who were simultaneously enrolled in doctoral studies while teaching and leading k-12 schools and working as university student affairs practitioners, we were thrust into a place of collective uncertainty: the familiar spaces and routines of school replaced with stopgap solutions for distance learning. these “pandemic pedagogies” differed from previous models for face-toface instruction, online instruction, or blended learning (williamson et al., 2020), and required adjustment to new expectations and activities. this essay will underscore how edd faculty and students adapted to and improved upon pandemic pedagogies. furthermore, this essay will consider how the global pandemic created an opportunity for our program to re-assert a holistic vision for education that uplifts equity, inclusion, and agency—hallmarks of a socially just education—in ways that acknowledge and engage the contemporary context in which we are living. program description the edd program highlighted in this essay focuses on educational leadership for social justice. our definition of social justice is linked to the urban educational context in which we and our students work as well as the university’s identity as a catholic, jesuit institution. the three-year program includes three research methods courses focused on preparing students for subsequent dissertations in practice (dip). these courses cover content including literature searches and academic writing, quantitative, qualitative, and mixedmethod research designs, and techniques for data collection and analysis. during year three of the program, students are required to produce an individual dissertation, focused on a problem of practice, under the guidance of a dissertation committee. in alignment with cped, which encourages high quality, rigorous practitioner preparation with a strong background in educational theory and recent research to inform one’s practice, this program attempts to prepare students for their dip focused on “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, 2019, n.p.). http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ implementing social justice practices online impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.168 35 framework the purpose of this essay is to reflect on the lessons learned from transitioning research methods courses and dissertation advising online during the covid-19 pandemic. while we would argue there is no good time for a global pandemic, the timing of our university’s switch to online instruction (expected to continue through at least summer 2021) and, in particular, the lessons learned about what equitable, inclusive, and student-centered education needs to look like under these conditions, was serendipitous given our plans to launch a fully online edd program in january 2021. the collective uncertainty experienced by faculty and students due to covid-19 provided an opening to re-examine, re-calibrate, and re-imagine what a socially just edd program can and should look like. drawing on the constructivist philosophy that animates our practice in the school of education as well as the jesuit notion of cura personalis (personalized care of the whole person) central to our university mission, our initial approaches to pandemic pedagogies concentrated on co-constructing with students an approach to our work together that met their needs and accommodated their obligations. as most of our students are k-12 educators and school leaders or student affairs professionals in higher education, the amount and intensity of their professional obligations had increased significantly following school closures and stay-at-home orders. in addition, our program’s commitment to recruiting and supporting a diverse cohort—in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, age, professional background, and experience in higher education—means that our students’ contexts and circumstances are also diverse. they live in communities throughout the los angeles area, some of which continue to experience disproportionate rates of covid-19 infections; some are parents of school-aged children and/or caretakers for ageing parents; some were furloughed or laid off from their positions during the spring semester. while we as faculty are accustomed to shaping instruction to meet students’ diverse needs, many of the needs taking the spotlight during the spring semester were new to all of us. in order to understand and guide our instructional and programmatic choices, we turned to hammond’s framework for culturally responsive education (2020) to review the ways in which our online delivery truly embraces culturally responsive techniques. hammond (2020) distinguishes between socially just education, which focuses on cultivating critical consciousness by responding to the social political context, and culturally responsive education, which promotes individual agency and independent learning for students who have been marginalized by building cognitive capacity and challenging dominant narratives (major, 2020). while our program’s curriculum focuses primarily on social justice education, the shift to online learning necessitated our intentional focus on culturally responsive education to address the loss of social and educational structures that typically support our students’ learning. lesson learned teaching methods while the world burns shortly after the campus was closed in response to stay-athome orders, the university launched a set of websites entitled “keep teaching wherever you are” (for faculty) and “keep learning wherever you are” (for students). these sites, created by the university’s information technology services office, provided information on remote teaching and learning, including available trainings, software, and applications, as well as university policies related to online instruction. at first blush, the message to “keep teaching” or “keep learning” regardless of the context in which you found yourself at the start of the pandemic, seems to prioritize continuity over student-centeredness and cultural responsiveness. and, indeed, many of our initial “pandemic pedagogies” were efforts to provide continuity rather than to be culturally responsive. for example, our program places great value on community and supports a vision of a community of scholar-practitioners through a cohort model. during the required distance learning in the spring due to covid-19, we attempted to preserve the face-to-face cohort and communal experience via synchronous online course meetings. it quickly became apparent that replicating the offline experience, in which students take two, two-and-a-half hour classes back-to-back on monday evenings, was neither meeting students’ educational needs nor responding to the trauma we were all experiencing. we recognized that adding lengthy videoconference classes to students’ home-life (i.e., small children, aging parents) and employment responsibilities (i.e., leading schools/districts through covid-19 transitions) was not a preservation of community or “normalcy,” but an unnecessary burden. learning from this experience, we pivoted to emphasizing asynchronous work. drawing upon prior training in instructional design for asynchronous online teaching, we began crafting assignments and instructional materials to scaffold students’ work. among the resources we created were a series of video interviews with colleagues and alumni discussing their area of research and dips, mini video lectures to reinforce content from readings, and small-group assignments designed to foster collaboration and community. the flexibility and personalization facilitated by asynchronous delivery aligns with the promotion of individual agency and independent learning as discussed by hammond (2020). through flexible and individualized asynchronous work, we focused on the idea of teaching/learning “wherever you are,” with “wherever you are” referring not only to our distributed locations but also to students’ cognitive and emotional capacities for learning during this time. additionally, this pivot helped us answer a question that we had asked many times without arriving at an answer: “do students really need to learn research methods now?” given the scale of suffering and injustice related to covid-19, we frequently felt the answer was no; however, culturally responsive education, with its emphasis on accelerating the learning of marginalized students, tells us the correct answer is actually yes. removing students’ opportunity to learn and advance in their program or teaching online using offline techniques, while efficient and possibly necessary during pandemic pedagogies, does not reflect cultural responsiveness. changing instruction to meet students “where they are,” encouraging students to engage with the social context in which they live, while being flexible and accommodating real life, does. for example, rather than teaching statistics synchronously via zoom, how-to videos demonstrating the steps of analyzing data were pre-recorded using screen capture and posted to the online learning platform. students could access the video throughout the week and watch it as many times as needed. students were then tasked with manipulating a provided dataset to practice replicating the steps they had just seen in the video. each week students were asked to watch a new how-to video, demonstrating a new statistical technique, and complete a series of analyses using the provided dataset. students huchting & stephenson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.168 36 commented that the videos provided an opportunity to pause and rewind as needed to grasp the content fully. during the weekly zoom meetings, synchronous time was spent reviewing the correct analyses and checking for understanding. in fact, more time was available to discuss the best ways of communicating findings to an audience, rather than on direct instruction of how-to run the analyses. students appreciated the chance to ask questions and seek clarifying information during the synchronous meetings, indicating that the experience felt more tailored to their needs. these synchronous meetings did not last as long as a traditional 150 minute face-to-face class session because the majority of work had been completed asynchronously prior to the meeting. students expressed appreciation in their course evaluations for treating them “like professionals,” allowing them flexibility to still attend to their home-life and work responsibilities. while creating materials to deliver instruction asynchronously took several hours of work on the part of the professors, pedagogically, one of the benefits of moving direct instruction to predominantly asynchronous delivery was the opportunity to spend synchronous class time checking in about content and navigation of upcoming expected work. these briefer synchronous meetings thus allowed for professors to frontload the subsequent weeks’ worth of work, activate prior knowledge by connecting future expectations to ongoing projects and content, and demonstrate how to navigate the remaining course expectations, including the online platform. most importantly, these briefer synchronous sessions provided an opportunity to check in about students’ well-being. students shared in the end of term course evaluations that they appreciated the chance to “check in” with the professor and with each other. hearing about others’ experiences during the covid-19 pandemic, both with work and with doctoral studies, afforded the cohort an opportunity to maintain a sense of community. in addition to the professor-led direct instruction videos provided online, students were invited to work together in smaller groups and dyads throughout the summer course. for example, one assignment required a group of five randomly assigned students to hold and record a team discussion about course readings. students were instructed to complete the readings and arrange a time to meet with their team to hold the discussion, which they were to record (audio and video) and post to the discussion page in the online learning management platform. students were provided ample time to finish the assignment and discussion prompts were provided to stimulate the conversation and encourage students to connect themes across the readings and to their daily practice. the professors enjoyed “watching” an actual discussion of the readings compared to reading a discussion board post and students enjoyed watching other teams’ discussions. further, professors were easily able to identify challenges with content knowledge based on the discussion, which they were able to clarify thematically during the synchronous course meetings. in fact, questions arose naturally during the team discussions allowing students to offer their responses and understanding, while the professors made note to clarify such questions during synchronous meetings. the students also shared that they sincerely enjoyed the experience of working in smaller groups to discuss material because the assignment afforded them an opportunity to build community in addition to challenge their thinking and extend their understanding. finally, students offered their observation that this activity felt more authentic than posting a written response to a discussion board thread. in another assignment, students were assigned to complete a recorded presentation with a chosen partner. in this activity, students delivered a pre-recorded presentation with visual slides, thereby requiring that the partners plan and work together prior to giving the presentation. presentations were then posted to the class online learning management system and students were required to watch each other’s presentations and provide feedback. students shared how this assignment forced them to really learn the content since they were asked to publicly demonstrate their command of the concepts in a video presentation. valuable synchronous class time was therefore not spent on listening to the presentation live but rather clarifying questions and extending the conversation by highlighting themes across presentations. such examples certainly align with hammond’s notion of promotion of individual agency and independent learning (2020) without sacrificing the sense of community. taken together, the lessons learned about teaching research methods courses online included: (a) continuity is not the only goal: teaching the same class on and offline is ineffective and, more importantly, not responsive to students’ needs; (b) a sense of community can be bolstered by brief but intentional synchronous meetings; and (c) online learning requires maximum flexibility from both faculty and students, which enhances the co-construction of knowledge. feedback from students was gathered via end of term course evaluations and a weekly survey on how the courses were going. feedback suggested that students appreciated the flexibility and professionalism of the asynchronous course delivery. synchronous time was still required in order to promote community and time together but these precious meetings were utilized differently to focus instead on content clarification, check-ins, and community building. thus, the move online due to covid-19 highlighted how the notion of community can look different via distance learning yet still provide a feeling of individualized attention and care via the flexibility provided by asynchronous content delivery. such lessons have implications for the newly designed fully online program where considerations related to creating community will be required for students potentially accessing the program across various time zones. dissertation advising and adjusting the three-year timeline of the edd program results in our doctoral students conducting fieldwork to collect dissertation data during the spring and summer months for their dip. as such, a number of students’ projects were drastically impacted in march of 2020 by school closures and physical distancing required by health officials to curb the spread of covid-19, including students who received approval to conduct field research days before our university—and our entire geographic area—shut down. again, the question of whether students really needed to do this work now arose. however, in order to be responsive to students’ needs—not just immediate needs to adjust the studies, but their need to have the challenges they faced validated—we assisted students in pivoting their plans for data collection to work within new restrictions and to meet new needs within the research contexts. for example, one student, who was planning to conduct an on-campus ethnography involving a specific population of international students not only faced the challenge of the campus closure, but also needed to address the fact that many of her participants left the u.s. and were unable to return. as it became clear that students would not be implementing social justice practices online impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.168 37 returning to campus in the fall, we helped her adjust her study to focus on interviews conducted via videoconference rather than participant observation. while the research will certainly have different outcomes given the methodological changes, this approach responds to the student’s needs as well as the needs of her participants. another student pivoted her youth participatory action research project, planned to be conducted on campus at her place of employment, to instead take place online, requiring her to rethink the ways in which participants would engage and communicate. other students experienced challenges related to recruitment, as communities and populations they intended to include were no longer accessible. finally, one student recognized that the problem of practice she had planned to study was being eclipsed by a new problem of practice—implementing online learning. she completely shifted her project in the early weeks of the pandemic in order to focus on understanding her school’s process for meeting the needs of their students. these examples of dips showcase how dissertations can cultivate critical consciousness, which hammond (2020) asserts is social justice education. this critical consciousness can be even more impactful by engaging in work in ways that are responsive to the social political context—an opportunity covid-19 presented to our doctoral students and faculty. encouraging creativity in data collection procedures further provided students with an opportunity to practice independent learning and agency. meanwhile, faculty were often discussing ways to navigate the social political contexts to assist students with rapid changes to their dissertation topics, data collection procedures, and approval processes. thus, both students and teachers were forced to navigate the social political context together, which we believe led to greater critical consciousness by determining the best process of data collection that addressed the needs of the broader community. we remain hopeful that such lessons learned from navigating dips during the covid-19 pandemic will continue to inform data collection procedures for future students. meanwhile, students in their final year of the program were attempting to graduate in may of 2020 and many were scheduling their dissertation defenses when all activities were moved online due to covid-19. interestingly, while defenses are often viewed by students as nerve-wracking milestones, technological uncertainty on the part of faculty led to feelings of anxiety as well. students, who arguably already were more technologically proficient or learned to navigate technology more quickly in their daily practices as educational professionals, often taught the faculty how to use the technology. a common experience was having students teach the faculty how to use the “breakout room” feature, for example, to allow private dissertation faculty committee deliberations. thus, there was a more communal feeling to the dissertation defenses in the spring of 2020, marked by the shared experience of nerves for both students and faculty, who had to collaborate and assist each other technologically. such experiences flip the traditional power dynamics associated with defenses and challenge the dominant narrative and division between teacher and student. at this stage of the student’s career, especially, such moments should celebrate the students’ transformation into a prosumer of research (toffler, 1980) and demonstrate hammond’s notion of culturally responsive education that promotes agency and challenges the dominant narrative of education. conclusion when the university campus closed in march 2020, our initial pivot to online instruction focused on continuity—fulfilling the mandates to “keep teaching” and “keep learning” despite the unprecedented circumstances presented by covid-19. as we have continued teaching and learning online, however, we have had the opportunity to reimagine education for our edd students in ways that are responsive to the current realities of the social political context and to their individual needs. implications for other edd educators stem from the lessons we learned from shifting instruction and advising online during the pandemic. first, we learned that while continuity is important in terms of offering edd students opportunities to develop critical consciousness through their coursework and research, it is also important to recognize the critical consciousness that develops by living through a crisis such as a global pandemic—particularly when, as we have seen during the covid-19 pandemic, that crisis brings into clear focus issues of systemic injustice. in shifting our focus from continuity to responsiveness, we have seen the value of providing opportunities to share experiences or discuss the impacts students feel as well as those they observe in their practice, adjusting instruction in ways that acknowledge and validate the difficulties of the current moment. second, we learned from our students that a sense of community must be curated in intentional ways, mindful of their greater responsibilities as school leaders and caretakers, while also attending to their doctoral work. edd students in our program are working professionals in the “sandwich generation” (parker & patton, 2013)—simultaneously caring for young children and older parents— who lost the concentrated space and time to singularly focus on doctoral work during dedicated time on campus. the sense of community from their doctoral cohort shifted along with their daily routines, making long synchronous class meetings ineffective. finally, the pandemic created the scenario where we, as faculty, were learning with and from our students, who demonstrated flexibility and creativity in redesigning their dip due to covid-19. by learning together, we saw the traditional notions and power dynamics of education disrupted, offering an opportunity for constructivist education to truly take shape, flattening the power hierarchy often associated with doctoral work. despite (or perhaps because of) the collective uncertainty covid-19 has caused, we have been challenged to craft and test new approaches to studentcentered education that also sets them up to impact practice. these student-centered practices encourage independent learning and agency—skills and dispositions required by social justice leaders beyond the edd degree. indeed, these practices will need to be continually evaluated, as the needs of our students and the social political context are likely to continue to shift. and we will need to continue to monitor how such changes in program pedagogy impact students’ leadership praxis. we remain committed and inspired by the intrinsic motivation demonstrated by our students, who have chosen to continue their doctoral work during the pandemic because they believe in the power of the dip to transform their communities for the better. in conclusion, this reflective essay about our online teaching and advising experiences during covid-19 offered a chance for us to engage the question: what does socially just education in an edd program truly look like? if a socially just education is one that cultivates critical consciousness by responding to the social political huchting & stephenson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.168 38 context (hammond, 2020), then pedagogy that promotes individual agency, independent learning, and cognitive capacity building, mindful of the historical oppression of marginalized communities—or culturally responsive education—offers a method to guide our practice. within an edd program where students are invited to engage problems of practice impacting their educational contexts, culturally responsive pedagogy should offer opportunities for students to challenge dominant narratives and transform their mindsets, encouraging these educational leaders to focus on equitable outcomes for students who have been historically marginalized. thus, culturally responsive pedagogy lends itself to online learning allowing students to cultivate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required to transform educational communities for greater access and equity. this is the hallmark of a socially just education. references carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped]. (2019). the cped framework. http://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/aboutus caverly, d., & macdonald, l. (1999). techtalk: asynchronous distance development education. journal of developmental education, 23(2), 3637. hammond, z. (2020). moving beyond the packet [webinar]. https://crtandthebrain.com/covid19-webinars/ major, a. (2020). how to develop culturally responsive teaching for distance learning. kqed mind/shift. https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55941/howto-develop-culturally-responsive-teaching-for-distance-learning parker, k., & patton, e. (2013). the sandwich generation: rising financial burdens for middle-aged americans. pew research center. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/ paulus, t., myers, c., mixer, s., wyatt, t., lee, d., & lee, j. (2010). for faculty by faculty: a case study of learning to teach online. international journal of nursing education scholarship, 7(1), 1-17. toffler, a. (1980). the third wave. bantam. williamson, b., eynon, r., & potter, j. (2020). pandemic politics, pedagogies and practices: digital technologies and distance education during the coronavirus emergency. learning, media and technology, 45(2), 107114. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1761641 http://www.cpedinitiative.org/page/aboutus https://crtandthebrain.com/covid19-webinars/ https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55941/how-to-develop-culturally-responsive-teaching-for-distance-learning https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55941/how-to-develop-culturally-responsive-teaching-for-distance-learning karie huchting loyola marymount university khuchtin@lmu.edu rebecca stephenson loyola marymount university program description framework lesson learned teaching methods while the world burns dissertation advising and adjusting conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 5 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 pandemic pivots: the impact of a global health crisis on the dissertation in practice cassidy alvarado loyola marymount university cassidy.alvarado@lmu.edu leyda garcia loyola marymount university lgarci84@lion.lmu.edu nikysha gilliam loyola marymount university ngillia1@lion.lmu.edu sydney minckler loyola marymount university sminckle@lion.lmu.edu csilla samay loyola marymount university csilla.samay@lmu.edu abstract five scholarly practitioners in an educational leadership for social justice doctoral program share their intentional, community-minded pivots during a global pandemic that disrupted their dissertations in practice (dip). embodying their ed.d. program’s cped framework (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019), the authors, at varying stages in the dissertation process, sought inventive solutions to covid-19-related challenges that included the development of a new topic and research questions, adjusting study settings and participant pools, and embracing new methodologies to account for virtual-only approaches. although uncertain how the global health crises would impact their dip, by fostering a shared sense of community, the authors became critical friends, supporting each other in their personal, professional, and academic lives. each narrative highlights the potential of oppositional praxis of threading identities of practice, reflection, and research–to respond creatively to the needs of their diverse research communities with compassion, vision, and agility. keywords research pivot, dissertation in practice, community-based research, covid-19 pandemic, critical friend support introduction as scholarly practitioners in the fifteenth cohort of a doctoral program in educational leadership for social justice, we began the spring semester of 2020 preparing for our proposal defenses. with a curriculum grounded in the cped framework, faculty continued to push us to “develop a critical and professional stance with a moral and ethical imperative for equity and social justice” (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). drawing from our own extensive experience as full-time educators, we developed dissertation topics centered on social justice issues, incorporating both theoretical and applied, field-based research methods—a cornerstone of the professional doctorate in education programs. although our problems of practice are unique to our individual professional contexts (our dissertations include domestic and international studies across k-12 and higher education settings), we became critical friends, supporting each other’s work (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). however, in march 2020, covid-19 forced us to pivot—from radical topic and setting changes, to new methodologies and data collection approaches. storey and maughan (2016) note that “the research process should help the practitioner scholars combine research techniques with experiential knowledge and deepen their ability to think about problems and search for practical solutions simultaneously” (p. 225). the pandemic impacted our research at varying stages of the dissertation process, but http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ pandemic pivots: the impact of a global health crisis on the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 6 through a shared sense of community and support for one another’s scholarly and professional journeys, we responded by implementing practical solutions to complex problems that strengthened our capabilities. the following five examples highlight how we, as scholarly practitioners, responded creatively to the needs of our diverse communities through our dissertations in practice (dip). each narrative highlights the potential of oppositional praxis (sandoval, 2000)–of threading identities of practice, reflection, and research–to respond creatively to the needs of diverse communities with compassion, vision, and agility. covid community during the spring semester of my second year in the doctoral program, and after several false starts, my dissertation was finally falling into place. i would investigate how parental participation was impacted by a school district’s transition to digital communication. at the same time, covid-19 began sweeping the world. when schools began to close, my chair and i realized that this topic would need to shift. in the days following the closure, i was overwhelmed by my sense of loneliness due to the lack of interactions with students and other staff members. it was this loneliness and a desire to investigate how others were attempting to recreate the supportive physical school community that propelled me to a new topic. additionally, i was noticing that even with teachers scrambling to create online educational experiences, some of our students, especially those already disengaged from school, were disappearing; i wanted to know why. this is when i pivoted to my new topic of building an eschool community during the emergency covid-19 closure. a student’s sense of belonging at school has been positively linked to higher attendance and i pondered whether this would carry over into the digital realm (frazier et al., 2015; osterman, 2000). since a student’s sense of belonging to a school community can provide a safety net for early detection of mental health issues, and due to the sudden disruption of my students' lives, i was concerned about how this would be affected by emergency distance teaching (frazier et al., 2015; levitt et al., 2007). these concerns, along with my own desire to be a part of a community, drove my research as i raced to complete my proposal for the review committee. i successfully defended my proposal and started data collection in the summer. i reached out to the school community with interview requests and was amazed at how quickly, even eagerly, people responded. i was concerned that conducting interviews with physical distance via the zoom platform, the interviews might be less honest, less illuminating, and less connected. i have been gratefully surprised by the careful consideration given to my questions and the openness of their responses. their willingness to engage with me in this research can be contributed to the community and relationships formed before the closure and maintained once separated. i have been struck by the deep sense of loss the participants express. using a three-part interview protocol, participants discuss the history of what our school community was before the closures, what it was like during the closure, and then reflect on the alterations since the closure. preliminary findings suggest school staff is mourning the loss of student connections built from the daily physical interactions. they discuss handshakes, class discussions, and small moments of comfort that they miss. the teachers are lamenting their lack of skills in the digital classroom; their reduction in becoming a first-year teacher again coupled with the anxiety of the unknown. the technology coach has been alarmed by her loss of boundaries between work and family life. thinking of the poverty present at the school site pre-covid, the school psychologist worried about all the students who had no quiet, safe place to work, especially those in group home placement. parents too expressed their grief. parents of eighth-grade students mourned the end-of-year events, the virtual promotion, and the lack of real goodbyes. several parents cried recounting the loss of the school community and its effects on their children. after many interviews were concluded, the participants desired a debrief conversation to express the emotions unearthed by the interview. overall, the final question of the interview investigates views, thoughts, and concerns about the 2020-2021 school year. every participant shared unique fears and concerns, but each response contained an aspect of uncertainty, a fear of the unknown, and unknowable. these fears, their sadness, and anxiety could be alleviated somewhat by a strong, supportive school community, but unfortunately, that community is still under construction. student voice and agency school communities are microcosms of the larger society. in the previous narrative, the focus was on the impact of the pandemic on an entire school community. the relationships forged within that community were strained by the school’s closure. research, in the form of a case study, opened the door to spaces that helped capture that story while offering a way to reconnect. that is the power of research that answers to communities and thus leverages the production of knowledge to uplift (patel, 2016). my own direct work with immigrant-origin youth has greatly informed how much respect and admiration i have for young people who leave home in search of a better life, in fulfillment of their dreams. the identities of these youth often defy the school system's narrow definitions of who they are. labels such as english learners or newcomers fail to capture their rich and complex identities, their political stances, and their influence on the spaces that seek to educate them. for my study of unaccompanied youth, i wanted to center their epistemology to inform emancipatory educational practices at school sites. i realized that the only way to honor the youth’s complex identities was to include youth as co-researchers. my aim was to engage in research that answered to immigrant youth and was not simply about them. using crt (solorzano & yosso, 2002) and youth participatory action research (ypar, cammarota & fine, 2008) methodologies, the project sought to produce actionable items that could positively impact the school site and other educational agencies. however, by mid-march 2020, the pandemic meant that schools would not reopen for months. this complicated the research project in ways that neither i nor the youth co-researchers could have anticipated. before the school closure, four youth co-researchers were recruited to interview each other, interview other unaccompanied youth, hold a focus group, and review school documents as part of the data collection. due to covid-19, the research project lost a common shared space: the school. the co-researchers were all enrolled in a research course and their class discussions and learning often spilled into our after-school meetings over pizza or chicken wings. the first draft of the interview protocol was created over breakfast in a small cafe where we discussed at length what would help us learn more about the unaccompanied youth identity and their experiences csilla samay impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 7 in school. the conversations we had were often grounded in a theoretical article on crt (solorzano & yosso, 2002). taking those organic and rich discussions to a virtual space appeared to be close to impossible. secondly, student lives were greatly impacted by the pandemic. one of the youth co-researchers became the only source of income for her family. she continued cleaning houses for a few clients that felt safe enough to allow her into their homes. another student traveled to san jose to be with his older brothers. a third student became the babysitter for her nieces as her older brothers looked to save money when their own work hours were reduced. the fourth student had also lost his part-time employment at a car wash. in late spring, i called a virtual meeting just to check in with the group. i was also feeling disconcerted and exhausted from working non-stop. we scheduled a second meeting and decided to rethink our design. as the principal investigator, i designed a deck of google slides to help us organize our zoom meetings and capture our learning. during those first few awkward meetings, the researchers and i realized that the community we had built in a physical space could continue in our virtual space. we agreed to continue our important work through weekly zoom meetings. we opened every meeting with a short meditation to center ourselves and to focus our collective energy back on our project. the study was scaled back to include fewer interviews, no focus group due to scheduling difficulties, and i completed the document analysis. in order to mitigate the difficulty of having virtual interviews, the team decided that we would always start with a check-in before the interview, to re-establish a sense of connection. this part was not recorded. the recording itself required additional creative steps. often, the interview was conducted via a video call. the audio was recorded on the computer to protect the anonymity of the participant. the irb did not include a video recording of the interview. this population of students is highly vulnerable and the team wanted to protect all the participants. for the data analysis, we had to create a shared google drive that contained all the transcripts. i would often share my screen as a way for the team to conduct the first round of analysis. padlets were used to do the initial coding of the data. this allowed the team to collaborate in real-time when needed. virtual, collaborative tools allowed us to continue working together, without having to be in the same physical space. as the co-researchers’ work schedules became more complicated, the team’s ability to meet on a weekly basis dwindled. as the new school year neared i was even busier preparing for a new virtual school year. in spite of all the challenges, the findings of the study yielded rich descriptions of the complicated identities of these immigrantorigin youth. the youth seamlessly navigate across all their identities through what chela sandoval (2000) refers to as differential consciousness, “a cyberspace, where the transcultural, transgendered, transsexual, transnational leaps necessary to the play of effective stratagems of oppositional praxis can begin” (p. 68.8). the essential question for public schools that seek to educate immigrant-origin youth is to consider how their current spaces can be more open and receptive to the voices of these youth. in the midst of a pandemic, scholarly practitioners with a social justice orientation must center their research in a way that is (a) responsive to the contexts under study and (b) leverages the knowledge production of marginalized voices, to foreground research as a liberatory force in education. onward through online interviews similar to my co-authors above, the challenge of building student trust and community in a virtual setting was not limited to k12 spaces. in response to the growing covid-19 crisis, the university where i work moved to online instruction and i began working remotely from home. at this same time, i successfully passed my proposal defense and received irb approval for my exploratory mixed methods study that seeks to understand community college transfer student awareness of nationally competitive awards (ncas), like the benjamin a. gilman scholarship and fulbright u.s. student program. my plan had been to conduct in-person interviews with transfer students from one university. before proceeding with my qualitative interviews, i needed to make some quick-thinking adjustments to account for the abrupt shift to a virtual modality. having confirmed a university site for my interview participant pool, i was eager to begin my data collection. yet, i was concerned that students would be unavailable or unwilling to participate in a 45minute interview, considering they were experiencing abrupt life challenges such as moving back home and transitioning unexpectedly to online instruction. moreover, i worried students would not be as open or honest in an online setting. to my surprise, over thirty transfer students expressed an interest in participating. this led to my first major pivot, conducting ten student interviews instead of my initial plan of five. this proved propitious given that after my interviews, when i was ready to disseminate my newly developed survey, two of my three confirmed sites apologetically withdrew their support, citing covid-19 as the primary factor. however, i knew that increasing the number of participants would not mitigate my concerns about authentic dialogue in an online space. this led to my second pivot in which i reexamined my interviewing approach to account for the new setting. drawing from noddings’ (2013) ethics of care, i sought to “work cooperatively with the student in his struggle toward competence in that world” (p.177), which now included postponed graduations, job losses, and canceled summer internships. i began every interview by thanking them for their participation (galletta & cross, 2013), followed by a question about their well-being. i also wanted to ensure participants felt comfortable with me even though we were communicating through a screen. mann and stewart (2000) expound on the importance of developing an enthusiastic rapport with online interview participants and recommend building trust by being open about the structure and purpose of the research. after my initial wellness check, i provided participants a clear outline of the topics we would discuss and paused for questions throughout. students demonstrated a genuine interest in the study’s focus and not one of the ten participants appeared reserved or reticent during the 45minute interviews. online environments may in fact encourage shy individuals to speak more openly and freely because it’s a “culturally neutral” space in which participants have chosen their physical location to engage in the research (mann & stewart, 2000, p. 201). thus, the virtual format may have actually elicited more thoughtful responses which often included covid-19 as a topic of concern. this led to a third pivot during my qualitative interviews, taking into account the impact of the pandemic on participant responses. given that several of my exemplar ncas, like gilman and fulbright, provide funding for study abroad or international research, it was likely that a student’s interest in these opportunities may be influenced by the global health crisis. because i employed a semipandemic pivots: the impact of a global health crisis on the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 8 structured phenomenological interview protocol, i was able to “rephrase the questions, and make changes according to the interview situation” (galletta & cross, 2013, p. 75). i phrased questions in a way that allowed participants to consider their precovid-19 worldviews, such as when one participant stated that he no longer thought it was possible to study abroad due to the virus. i responded with “yeah, we're in a very unique situation right now. when would you have liked to have gone abroad if everything had worked out?” i leaned into these responses, encouraging participants to explain how their situations may have changed, but also kept the focus on my research questions. ultimately, several participants noted that covid-19 had changed their plans to study or travel abroad. yet, by creating a space that encouraged participants to express these changes, they were able to look beyond the pandemic and most expressed interest in future international opportunities. conducting qualitative interviews during a pandemic led to quick-thinking shifts in both the modality of the interview setting, as well as my questioning method and participant interactions. this led to intense self-reflection about the kind of researcher i want to be. noddings (2013) notes that “the primary aim …of every educational effort must be the maintenance and enhancement of caring” (p.175). i believe this extends to educational research and i have strived to situate caring as a primary characteristic of my dip—especially after covid-19’s unpredictable impact. research left behind i was preparing to defend my dissertation proposal on the experience of muslim international students in the united states when covid-19 hit the united states, turning my plans for defense and research upside down. as i navigated the tremendous disruptions in my personal and professional life, i realized that my research participants were having the same experience and i needed to approach my study with an even greater element of care for them. after two years in my doctoral program, i can confirm the impact of doing a dissertation in practice on social justice in my professional endeavors. i provide leadership to our university’s office supporting international students, and my dissertation work thus far had led me to engage in robust research on student support and rich conversation with students around their need for support and formation of a strong sense of community. in 2019, international students comprised 5.5% of the total us higher education population (institute for international education [iie], 2019); they are among the most heavily monitored populations in the immigration system as their visas require constant reporting of enrollment information. offices that support international students on campus play a critical role in helping students maintain their student visa status, adjust to, and thrive in the american university environment. these offices should be staffed with colleagues who have adequate intercultural and international experiences to be able to understand and relate to the challenges of international students (rao, 2017). as our campus closed, our own international students faced travel restrictions, navigated online courses across time zones, experienced financial challenges, and struggled to stay current on regulations concerning their student visas. public discourse around the relationship between many of their countries and the us added additional layers of tension. past studies have identified international student concerns about the historical and political relationship between their countries and the us, leading to feelings of prejudice against them (sherry et al., 2010). these feelings were heightened by the july 6, 2020 announcement from the us government barring international students from returning to the us if their courses were fully on-line (us immigration and customs enforcement, 2020). through the spring and summer, i provided leadership to my unit in responding to and supporting students and collaborated with senior administrators to join the subsequent and ultimately successful lawsuit filed by several other institutions to rescind the july 6 announcement. i composed communication with students to affirm their value to our institution, working in partnership with senior leaders and colleagues to make sure our international students’ education would not be disrupted as the university decided on a fully online format for fall 2020. faculty were encouraged to develop asynchronous course content, we formed a partnership with the library to assist students overseas in accessing course materials, encouraged our academic resource center to hired tutors to support students from different time zones, and briefed the entire community on how best to support our international students. i worked personally with countless students and families at all hours of the day and evening, and my children’s’ frequent disruption of my video calls seemed to provide them with a measure of comfort, knowing we were all experiencing a major upheaval and were doing the best we could. as most universities in our region began their fall semester entirely online, i realized the need to pivot and change my methodology and plans for data collection. no longer would i have the opportunity to invite participants to join in-person focus groups, nor would i be able to engage in the participant observation my ethnographic methodology required. i created a new plan for a phenomenological study, utilizing individual interviews with our muslim international students, broadening my research questions to capture their individual lived experiences navigating this time of covid-19. in particular, i included questions to explore how they navigated the demands of their courses across time zones in the online environment, their views on the changes to international student visa regulations by the u.s. government, and how they felt the university supported them through these challenging times. as i write this article, i am still working remotely, taking doctoral courses online, and continuing to homeschool my children. i believe that my own students are in a place where they know they are supported and continue to feel a sense of community despite our physical distance. i look forward to moving forward with my research and hope that my findings will include all participants feeling supported, valued, and knowing their institution navigated this time with their best interest in mind. virtual village similar to the study described above, my work also focused on international education. i first became acquainted with senegal high school (a pseudonym) in 2019 when i visited senegal as a fulbright fellow. during my fellowship, i had many opportunities to learn about senegal’s languages and culture and teach lessons with my host teacher. we were invited to many homes for meals and ataya—the traditional tea ceremony of sorts, that usually occurs after lunch or dinner. during my second visit to senegal, i lived in the home of my host teacher and participated in senegalese life as a member of the family. i was thrilled to experience and learn more about senegalese culture and traditions. we traveled to historic sites and important csilla samay impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 9 cities around the country and i taught at the village high school. not only that, but i attended a wedding and a baby naming ceremony in a village situated just off the government road. reconnecting with teachers, administrators, and community members not only reaffirmed my desire to study the school’s learning community but moved me closer to becoming a member of their extended family. i was eager to return a third time to officially begin gathering data. my proposed research design was a case study. i initially wanted to know more about senegal high school, the students, and the people who support them. specifically, i wanted to understand how parents, families, and community members support their children’s education and the factors that empower the parents, families, and communities to act as advocates on the students’ behalf. using a conceptual framework that includes ubuntu (metz, 2007), my research would consist mainly of interviews, observations, and document and artifact analysis. in addition to interviewing parents, family members, and community members, i would also interview teachers and administrators of senegal high school, a total of approximately 20 individuals. when covid-19 began sweeping across the globe, forcing countries to close their borders, i felt that my study was in danger. i was no longer sure that the study would be feasible for my dissertation, but i had come too far to give up. the basis of the research would remain the same, but the methodology would require several pivots, some creativity, collaboration, and trust. the major pivot in my study related to the methodology. first, because i could no longer travel to senegal to physically collect data, i needed the support of a research assistant—someone in senegal who could conduct the interviews, collect documents and artifacts, share the data and debrief with me. i also knew that this task was going to be demanding, and the assistant had to be willing to devote the time to complete the assignment, which would include at least 40 hours. my former host teacher graciously offered to support the study; this researcher assistant completed the necessary training and passed the necessary assessments to participate in research with human subjects. additionally, i would have to incorporate the use of technology wherever possible, to be “present” in the interviews with the participants (matthews & cramer, 2008), and to debrief with my research assistant. as a result, i included a prerecorded video in the interview procedure where i introduced myself, described the nature and purpose of the study, and thanked them for considering participating in the study. this way, the participants would not only have a name but a face associated with the questions that my research assistant would ask. furthermore, because we had time, thanks to the quarantine, my dissertation committee encouraged me to increase the robustness of the study by including student voices. i decided to add student interviews to the data collection to hear students’ perspectives about how their education is supported. this decision, however, added an additional layer of approval and level of scrutiny to my already complicated study. my research protocol would need a full irb review, which meant more waiting. in this time of waiting, however, i had opportunities to consult with my new extended family in senegal to clarify concepts, constructs, and cultural expressions when revising the interview protocol. i had time to work with my colleagues more than 6,000 miles away and rely on others to secure the appropriate permissions to conduct the study. i had time to think and be explicitly clear about the research protocol because my research assistant would be gathering data. i knew that it would be critically important that the interview protocol not only address the research questions but connect to the conceptual framework, without exerting additional effort. ultimately, research in the time of covid-19 has taught me a wealth of lessons that have impacted not only my practice as a researcher but my practice as a classroom teacher as well. this process has taught me the art of practicing patience. i frequently had to revise, rethink, or reconsider methodological approaches, and instead of being stymied by the roadblocks, i learned that there is always a way to get something accomplished. this process has also taught me to look for and celebrate the capital in others (coleman, 1988). i often sought the wisdom and expertise of others so that my study could be approved. and, as much as i cling to the paper and pencil, i have learned that technology can provide practical solutions to challenges that seem daunting. research in the time of covid-19 has become more than just an attempt to conduct an international case study about one school surrounded by several villages and has challenged me to recognize and rely on others’ wisdom, expertise, and various forms of capital every day. implications navigating the dissertation in practice process during a global pandemic led to shifts in research topics and methodologies, as well as to our needs as doctoral students. we relied heavily on our dissertation chairs and program faculty to guide us towards alternative research approaches that would maintain our prepandemic plans as much as possible. for example, when in-person interactions were no longer feasible, faculty recommended replacing observations with document analysis. similarly, when one researcher’s inability to travel to senegal threatened to upend her study, the chair suggested hiring a senegalese research assistant who would conduct the interviews for her. these troubleshooting conversations mostly took place via zoom and email, adding another layer of change during the dissertation process. ultimately, both students and faculty needed to be nimble and adaptable, working together to find quick, creative solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges. scholarly practitioners are strategically positioned to respond to their contexts in ways that are informed by their experiences, knowledge of their communities of practice, and scholarly work. furthermore, we all possess elements of what collins (1991) presents as the ethic of caring, an epistemological dimension used by african american women. elements of this ethic include an emphasis on individual uniqueness which respects human beings as unique beings. all researchers demonstrated a high respect for our participants and the context of our research. the second element of this ethic involves emotions in dialogue, meaning the understanding that emotions and thoughts are inextricably connected and cannot be separated. each researcher created space to hold the emotional toll of the pandemic on our participants and devised ways to include this aspect of the current conditions in pre-interviews or during check-in sessions. the third element of this ethic is empathy. we were empathetic to the difficulties faced by our participants and communities. their high level of empathy is what motivated us to pivot during the pandemic as a means to acknowledge the impact of the pandemic on our scholarly work. finally, there is an element of personal accountability for the knowledge that is being created that is deeply rooted in values and ethics. “neither emotion nor ethics is subordinated to reason. indeed, emotion, ethics and reason are used pandemic pivots: the impact of a global health crisis on the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.165 10 as interconnected, essential components in assessing knowledge claims” (collins, 1991, p. 219). only one of the authors identifies as african american. however, we are all women who come to our scholarly work from a social justice stance that is very much informed by the intersection of our multiple identities—social justice female leaders working in contexts that support marginalized groups. as we embrace the communities for which we work, our identities are steeped in the challenges our students and educational communities face. it is in fact that saturation that informs our liberatory research practices; we all bear witness to the resilience and shared humanity palpable in our 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http://doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800103 https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137527066_13 https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during cassidy alvarado loyola marymount university leyda garcia loyola marymount university nikysha gilliam loyola marymount university sydney minckler loyola marymount university csilla samay loyola marymount university introduction covid community student voice and agency onward through online interviews research left behind virtual village implications references this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. an online cped educational leadership program student perspectives on its value and influence on professional practice kara lasater, ed.d. visiting professor, university of arkansas klasater@uark.edu ed bengtson, ph.d. assistant professor, university of arkansas egbengts@uark.edu maureen murphy-lee graduate assistant, university of arkansas mmurphyl@email.uark.edu abstract this qualitative case study of an online educational doctorate program in educational leadership examined how students perceived the value and influence of their experiences as doctoral students while practicing as full-time school leaders. data were collected using surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews. through ongoing analysis of data, three themes emerged surrounding the concepts of: change in ways of thinking; program presented multiple values; and connections to others. the significance of these findings are discussed in terms of how online doctorate programs can be successful in the eyes of students who participate in them by offering synchronous online delivery, providing applicable content, and developing worthwhile connections between students and faculty. key words: online doctorate programs; cped, impact of educational doctorate; synchronous online delivery introduction recently, the educational leadership (edle) education doctorate (edd) program at university of arkansas underwent two significant changes. first, in 2010 the program transitioned from a traditional face-to-face model to a predominately online model. the new design of the program offered coursework exclusively online but required students to complete three intensive on-campus seminar weekends focusing on leadership and research. the second major program change occurred in 2011 when the edle program joined the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) initiative and started the journey of transformation from a traditional research doctorate to a professional doctorate designed specifically for practitioners in the field. these two significant changes prompted an indepth examination of the program. thus, the purpose of this case study was to examine the experiences of students and their perceived value of the edd program. the increased prevalence of practitioners in doctoral programs necessitates the assurance that online delivery of the educational doctorate is impactful and meaningful. an increasing number of students pursuing doctoral work are practicing professionals (pearson, evans, & mccauley, 2004). the majority of students pursuing a professional doctorate in education are also full-time professionals, and online programs allow these students flexibility and convenience that are not available in traditional face-to-face programs (xu & jaggars, 2013). furthermore, many rural practitioners work in areas in which traditional doctoral programs are not available; thus, online programs allow these practitioners access to doctoral education. understanding student experiences in online doctoral programs is important in the development and maintenance of quality programs that meet the unique needs of practitioners in the field of education. the student experiences portrayed in this study are particularly valuable, as university of arkansas’s edle program is one of the few cped doctoral programs offered online. conceptual framework in 2007, cped was launched to explore, re-design, and promote the edd as a practical and impactful professional doctorate degree. consistent with this purpose, cped has worked to develop signature pedagogies, laboratories of practice, and meaningful capstone experiences for students. at the same time, there has been an increase in the use of online courses and programs. in 2002, less than 10% of higher education students were enrolled in online courses. by 2011, this number had increased to 32% (allen & seaman, 2013). online courses and programs have increased because of the flexibility, convenience, and accessibility associated with online learning (xu & jaggars, 2013). though these advantages to online http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ mailto:klasater@uark.edu mailto:egbengts@uark.edu mailto:mmurphyl@email.uark.edu an online cped educational leadership program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 learning are consistently supported in the literature (burns, 2013; gabriela, welch, & nam, 2012; xu & jaggars, 2013), the effectiveness of online learning is less clear. some research suggests that face-to-face and online courses are comparable in terms of learning outcomes (johnson, aragon, shaik, & palma-rivas, 2000). a metaanalysis published by the u.s. department of education (2010) found that students in online courses performed at least as well as, or moderately better than, students in traditional face-to-face courses, and this advantage was even greater in courses that combined online learning with elements of face-to-face instruction (i.e., blended learning). yet others have found that students perform significantly poorer in online courses than in face-to-face courses (xu & jaggars, 2013). student experiences in online courses and programs also send mixed messages. students have reported feeling a sense of aloneness, anonymity, and trepidation associated with their participation in online programs (reilly, gallagher-lepak, & killion, 2012). they have also identified interaction with instructors and peers as a major challenge to online learning (gabriela, welch, & nam, 2012). according to burns (2013), though students perceive online courses as less effective than face-to-face courses, many still choose to take online courses because of the convenience they offer. students’ sense of belonging in online programs is further complicated by the “part-time” status of many students enrolled in professional doctoral programs (e.g., edd programs). in this context, “part-time” doctoral status refers to students who are enrolled in a doctoral program yet continue to work full-time within their field. though these students are considered “part-time,” they typically maintain a full-time course load that is equivalent to the full-time student. “the crucial aspect of ‘part-timeness’ has very little to do with credits taken. rather, the issue is one of time pressures because of full-time employment, and how these pressures are recognized by both faculty and students” (smith, 2000, p. 362). these pressures are further exacerbated by the many other professional and personal responsibilities “part-time” students assume. gardner and gopaul (2012) examined the experiences of parttime doctoral students enrolled in diverse disciplines from one midsize research university in the u.s. they found that part-time students struggle to balance the intensive and often competing demands of graduate work, full-time employment, and family. students also struggled to gain a sense of belonging as they believed their part-time status inhibited their ability to develop meaningful relationships with peers and faculty, to receive financial support for their continued education, and to engage in a deeper, more meaningful learning experience relative to their full-time peers. despite the challenges of online learning, the convenience, accessibility, and flexibility associated with online courses and programs continues to drive their expansion (burns, 2013; xu & jaggars, 2013). thus, understanding the effectiveness of online programs and student experiences in online programs, particularly those enrolled as part-time doctoral students, is important to the development of quality programs that support the personal, social, and professional development of students. it is further important to understand student experiences in cped programs as signature pedagogies, laboratories of practice, and capstone experiences continue to be discussed, debated, and explored. this study provides a unique examination of student experiences in an online program that adheres to the cped framework. this type of investigation is necessary to understand how cped programs might utilize online formats and ensure that online programs are providing students with a meaningful learning experience that will impact their professional practice. methods case studies are used to examine unique or special situations that might lead to a deeper or richer understanding of a practice or phenomenon (yin, 2009). because this case study sought to examine student perceptions within the program, a qualitative approach was used. the following questions guided the study:  how do current students and alumni describe their experiences in the educational leadership online doctoral program at university of arkansas?  how do current students and alumni perceive the online experience as impacting their professional practice?  how do current students and alumni describe the value of the educational leadership program? case description the case examined in this study is the edle edd program at university of arkansas, a flagship/r1 university. the edd program was designed for students pursuing careers in central office school administration or advanced leadership positions in educational settings. degree requirements for the edd include: completion of courses required for building and district level leadership certification, an additional 21 credit hours primarily focused on research in educational settings, 18 hours of dissertation credit, a minimum grade point average of at least 3.25, and satisfactory completion of all written and oral portions of candidacy examinations and the dissertation. at the time of the study, the edle program was comprised of three fulltime tenure track faculty and two visiting faculty members. since 2010, university of arkansas’s edle program has undergone significant changes. first, the program transitioned to a predominately online program delivery. this change occurred in response to the growing demand from working practitioners for educational doctorates that are flexible, convenient, and accessible – allowing them to complete their advanced degree while maintaining their full-time professional positions. though the edle program moved its coursework online, faculty elected to use collaborate®, an online video software from blackboard® that allows synchronous, real-time class meetings from any location. through the use of collaborate®, faculty members can simulate “real” classroom experiences for students. using video and audio technology, faculty and students can view and hear one another. students can raise their hands by pressing a button, alerting the instructor that they have a question or comment. the use of a whiteboard allows instructors and students to take notes and display power points or screen shots. collaborate® also allows instructors to share and view documents simultaneously with students, and a webtouring tool allows instructors to navigate web browsers with students. a live chat box offers another method of communication during class, and students can also be divided into groups to facilitate small-group discussion. these tools allow more student-student and student-instructor interaction than is often found in traditional online courses. another unique feature of collaborate® is the ability to record and re-watch class sessions. this allows students to revisit class sessions at any point in the semester. though faculty members vary in their use of collaborate® tools (e.g., some faculty hold lasater, bengtson, murphy-lee impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 weekly sessions while others might hold bi-weekly sessions), all instructors use collaborate® to facilitate synchronous course meetings in the online edd program. when the program transitioned online, an on-campus, face-toface seminar was established. the seminars are designed to facilitate interaction between students and faculty and provide students with a sense of belonging on campus. each seminar meets for two intensive days during the fall and spring semesters of students’ major coursework. seminar content varies each semester, but the common thread of the seminars is student-faculty dialogue related to current educational issues and student research. in 2011, the edle program joined cped and underwent its second wave of significant changes. the first major cped-inspired change was related to student research and capstone experiences. historically, the edle edd program required students to complete a traditional dissertation that focused on filling knowledge voids. now, the focus of student research is the systematic investigation of problems directly within students’ fields of practice. though the format of the traditional five-chapter dissertation remains, the purpose has shifted from the generation of new knowledge to solving problems of practice that exist within the field. the problem of practice dissertation requires students to identify and investigate problems within their systems that focus on instructional and/or systemic issues, are directly observable and actionable, connect to broader strategies of improvement, and are high-leverage. the other major cped-inspired change was the sequence and design of research methods courses. a “problems of practice” course was added at the beginning of students’ program of study, a statistical literacy course was added to the course sequence, and a “capstone” course that assists students with proposal development was added at the end of coursework. each change was designed to support students’ investigation of problems of practice and to exemplify cped principles. the transition to a cped program began in 2011, but the changes described above were not fully implemented until the summer of 2014. the 2014 doctoral cohort was the first cohort to participant in the “fully transitioned” cped program – though the program is committed to ongoing reflection and improvement. participant sample all students enrolled in the program since 2010 were invited to participate in the study. the only criterion for exclusion was withdrawal from the program. the final sample included 24 of the 26 students who were enrolled between 2010 and 2014. six of these students also participated in in-depth interviews (see table 1). all students interviewed were serving in building level or district level administration positions representing three midwestern states and one south central state. pseudonyms were used for all individuals. table 1: descriptive data on study participants participant cohort year status at time of interview professional position years of experience in positiona wilma anderson 2014 in classes elementary principal 7 gregory james 2013 abd superintendent 1 victor jennings 2012 abd elementary principal 4 gabriela killebrew 2012 abd assistant superintendent 2 david murdock 2010 graduated associate superintendent 3 harold slocomb 2013 abd assistant elem. principal 1 athis data reflects the number of years that each participant was in the position that they held at that particular level of leadership. for example, gabriela killebrew had been an assistant superintendent for two years, but in two different school systems. the edle edd at university of arkansas only admits 8 – 12 students per cohort. the sample in this study, though relatively small, represents the majority (92%) of students who participated in the online program and thus establishes a strong sense of student experiences within the case. in the original design of the study, we intended to interview two students from each doctoral cohort starting in 2010. attempting to obtain representation from each cohort between 2010 and 2014 was considered important as students in these cohorts were enrolled during the online and cped-inspired changes. however, only six students representing four of the five cohorts volunteered to participate in the in-depth interview. a more robust representation of student experiences would have been possible if students in all cohorts were interviewed. this is considered one limitation to the study. data collection during the initial phase of data collection, participants were asked to complete a brief, online survey related to the perceived value of the edle doctoral program at university of arkansas (appendix a). surveys were distributed to all current and former students in the program between 2010 and 2014. the survey was designed to examine students’ experiences in the program, as well as the perceived value of the program. the study also involved semi-structured, in-depth interviews with students (appendix b). semi-structured interviews ensured that core concepts were discussed yet provided flexibility to pursue emergent concepts. interviewing participants allowed for the collection of rich and substantive data that is necessary for constructing an understanding of the essence of each participant’s experience (roulston, an online cped educational leadership program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 2010; seidman, 2006). the length of interviews varied, ranging from 35 minutes to 2 hours and 20 minutes with an average interview length of 1 hour and 13 minutes. all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. a total of 169 pages of transcripts were produced. to safeguard against feelings of coercion or manipulation, five of the interviews were conducted by a graduate student who was not part of the educational leadership program, but was working as a research assistant on this project. the graduate student engaged in pilot interviewing to gain experience in conducting semi-structured interviews. the sixth interview with david murdock was conducted by one of the educational leadership faculty as a matter of geographic convenience (i.e., both the researcher and the participant lived close together in a neighboring state). since david had graduated prior to the interview and the faculty member conducting the interview had not shared a faculty-to-student relationship with david, it was believed that there would be a minimal sense of coercion involved during the interview. data analysis the research team engaged in a formative, iterative approach to data analysis. this involved an intentionally designed multi-step, iterative process of pre-coding, open coding, analytic memo writing, dialogic engagement, and thematic development (ravitch & carl, 2016). figure 1 illustrates the analytic process of the research team. data analysis commenced upon completion of the first interview and continued throughout the collection of data (ravitch & carl, 2016). figure 1. the data analysis process indicating the sequence of actions taken during the reduction of data. lasater, bengtson, murphy-lee impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 interviews occurred over a five-week period and were transcribed verbatim by research team members. throughout data collection and transcription, the research team engaged in ongoing reflective conversations to discuss and monitor the study. this initial analysis, which involved weekly research team meetings, served as a form of precoding (ravitch & carl, 2016). during the meetings, initial reflections were shared and discussed. in a sense, these brainstorming sessions were oral memos offered for discussion, debate, and synthesis. these ongoing discussions supported the more formal inductive analysis conducted by the three researchers in isolation. each researcher’s coded data was then combined into one document leading to six documents (one for each participant) with multiple coded texts. this led to a second cycle of analysis. the second cycle of analysis involved in-depth examination of commonalities and differences between the researchers’ initial codes. this became the fuel for further discussion among the research team. the team participated in this ongoing process of reflection and debate to “produce an agreed-upon interpretation of the data” (ravitch & carl, 2016, p. 260). a code list was developed leading to the fracturing and expansion of analytic ideas into categories and eventually themes which established the findings of the study. strategies used to establish the trustworthiness of data analysis included investigator triangulation, data triangulation, dialogic engagement, and multiple coding. findings analysis of survey and interview data led to three overlapping themes which represent the essence of shared experiences of students and alumni within the case: students believed the doctoral program led to a change in their thinking; students overwhelmingly perceived the program to have value for multiple reasons, including the program’s rigor, practicality, and design; and, connections to people and campus were important to students as they participated in the program. doctoral program led to a change in student thinking participants reported that they believed participation in the program changed their thinking, including the manner in which they approached problems and made decisions in their professional practice. of the students surveyed, 79% believed that their thinking about their professional practice changed as a result of participation in the program. victor provided a global statement regarding a change in his thinking by offering, “it is just a perception shift of what i’m doing. the way i'm looking at stuff. that's probably the biggest one, it is changes, just changes the way i look at stuff. problems, things like that.” more specific examples provided by students indicated that they often consulted the literature or course materials and experiences when making decisions that would impact their buildings or systems – a practice they did not engage in prior to the program. for example, gregory believed his course experiences changed the way he thought about the work of a superintendent: how i look at things within a school district from a human resources perspective and financial outlook, facilities has been completely transformed. like, i'm, i scare myself sometimes now. the level of scrutiny that i put on decisions that before i was, you know, in the job and before i had the last two or three years of classes, i would have just never thought twice about. david believed he thought differently about problems and approached problem-solving in a new way: i think about “what does the literature say?” those are questions that are popping up in my head that didn’t pop up in my head before. i definitely can read those stats parts of the findings, when you read an article, now i am like, “oh, i think i know what that means” or at least i have a general sense of what they are going to, so i have a better understanding of some of that based on my experience. students further believed they had developed skills to adequately critique the legitimacy and value of empirical research as it related to their professional practice. as an elementary school principal, wilma explained: i am a much more critical reviewer of materials. um, i was telling somebody the other day, there was some data put out in the meeting that i was looking at, and my initial question was “where did that come from?, because i don't think that is right.” knowing that you can make data say lots of different things. i guess that empowerment of being able to say “i don't think that's right, and if it is you're going to have to show me how you got it.” the changed ways of thinking among participants was one of the evolving program outcomes. how to think more deeply about the work of a school leader and how to develop a way of thinking that was out of the norm for students was important to the program. gabriela described how she perceived the program achieved this goal with her: the other thing i believe through the doctoral program has been that push back on well why do you think that way. just because it says we should do that, why? and so, to me, that is the true value of learning is just really thinking deeply about our opinions about what we think are facts to do the very best job. gabriela mentions the “push back” on her thinking as something that the program presented and that she valued in terms of learning at a deeper level. she, like wilma, believed that the development of critical thinking skills was valuable. wilma articulated critical thinking about external information (e.g., data, empirical findings, etc.), while gabriela identified the importance of questioning her own thinking and learning (i.e., asking why she thinks a certain way). both are types of critical thinking that were valued by participants. students perceived multiple values students perceived the program to have value for multiple reasons, including the program’s rigor, practicality, and design. participants believed the program was rigorous and demanded them to think and work differently than they had in previous coursework. they further believed that the “thinking” skills learned through participation in the program could be directly transferred to their professional practice. finally, they valued the program because they had ongoing opportunities to connect to campus, faculty, and other students. an online cped educational leadership program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 rigor according to participants, the perception of online programs is that they are less demanding and intellectually stimulating than traditional face-to-face programs; however, participants believed that the online doctoral program at university of arkansas was rigorous and intellectually demanding. victor expressed this sentiment stating, “i wouldn't say online makes it the easier part. you know some people figure ‘oh it’s online so it has to be easy.’ well no, not really. um, (laughs), that’s definitely not the way it works.” some participants acknowledged that though they expected the program to be work-intensive, they were surprised at the program’s intellectual rigor. gabriela, who had completed her education specialist degree (ed.s.) at south midwest prior to enrolling in the edd program, gave this perspective: the doctorate level classes are a whole different ballgame. um, they are very rigorous, and i, and there is a part of me as i've talked to other people, i guess i, when you've always been a good student, and then you have to really work, sometimes …you're surprised at how much work you have to expend. wilma, the student who experienced the most recent changes in the program, described her internal struggle through the rigorous demands of the program. though she described feelings and experiences that were outside of her “comfort zone,” she ultimately found value in the lessons learned through this struggle: everybody had always told me that the further up you go, the easier it gets. you just have to show up and sit in class, is what i was told about some of, just read the books, write the papers, and you'll be fine. and that changed completely when i started doctorate level classes because' that isn't it at all... but it's made me grow as a person. wilma seemingly valued the program’s culture of learning that provided multiple opportunities for feedback and revision of work which she related to the concept of rigor. while identifying the rigor of the program as somewhat unsettling at first, she reportedly valued the growth she experienced as a result. similar to gabriela’s thoughts presented in the previous finding about having her thinking challenged, wilma suggested that there were times she felt uncomfortable being forced outside of her comfort zone: there's been a lot of times in this program that there's not one answer, and you can't tell me exactly the path to get there. i'm a, i'm a number's person, tell me the formula i that need to get to the answer at the end, and i spent two semesters on qualitative research, and there is not this nice little path. there's like all these side paths, and all this other stuff that you have to travel through. so that, has made, i mean, is that level of uncertainty, and being ok with uncertainty cuz' as leaders, that's really kind of the way it works. wilma’s comments resonate with the edle program’s understanding that today’s educational leader must solve problems and make decisions in highly complex contexts. learning how to deal with the complexity of schools and school systems, and the uncertainty that can be present in the decision-making process, contributed to the rigorous challenge of the program for wilma. though participants found the program challenging, they also believed the program’s rigor made the accomplishment of completing the program more meaningful and personally fulfilling, thus bringing value to their experience. as gregory suggested: …you’re going to be put through the grinder a little bit and you're going to come out changed. you're going to be that type of practitioner that has had to learn to do things the right way to be able to get out and do it in your school district. an appreciation of the program’s rigor was shared by victor when he stated, “it's not like we just showed up and had taken up space and stuff. so i mean, we, yeah, it's going to be worth our time. it's going to feel we accomplished something.” practicality participants further valued the program because of its practicality and relevance to their work as school leaders. specifically, 96% of students completing the survey indicated that the edle doctoral program had a significant impact on their professional practice as educators; 91% believed the program helped them become better problem-solvers in their work settings; 91% believed the program was directly applicable to their current professional positions; and, 100% believed they understood how to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the program to their professional work. the narrative below describes the connection between the program and practice as described by gregory who is a superintendent of a small school system near the university: the things i'm learning with dr. irving right now in statistical literacy for leaders, i'm using it at work. while we're in the class, i'm picking other data that we already have, and i'm using it and it's helping. it's going to add to my success there, but in the end, it's going to change practice in the classroom with our teachers and our kids. and that's the goal that the higher ed. community is trying to do. how we bridge the gap between resources that are on this campus, and actually get them into classrooms. gregory enrolled in the program after its involvement in the cped initiative, and his response reflects the working principle of cped that “emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, 2014). participants found the program evaluation aspect of coursework particularly useful to their work. according to wilma, “the things that you do are valuable… particularly program evaluation. everything i do in there i feel like is stuff i am going to use.” gabriela echoed wilma’s remarks related to program evaluation: …understanding of a high quality evaluation, i think that has helped me a lot…we do such a poor job of evaluation in k-12, we bring in new programs, do we like them, do we think we got good results, but we just don't know how to design a true program evaluation. so, i, i really think that understanding of a high quality evaluation, i think that has helped me a lot. both wilma and gabriela reflected general evidence of the value of the program evaluation course; however, david, who was an assistant superintendent when he was interviewed, shared a specific example of how he was able to apply the content he learned to a real work situation: i was going through [the program] when i was principal. i was in the program evaluation course. we were changing from a basil to a comprehensive literacy model workshop approach, and i used the stuff that we learned in that class. how to evaluate the model, bringing stakeholder groups together. i used one of the models in the book to help do that in my building, lasater, bengtson, murphy-lee impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 and it was great. we walked out of there way stronger than i thought. i applied it right to what i was doing. all three of the above participants found that the course had significant meaning for them as they applied what they learned to practice. the course was designed to augment students’ research skills and abilities in a practical manner. while the course might have informed students’ dissertation work, the focus of the content and delivery was to strengthen practice by looking at actual problems in their schools and systems through a program evaluation lens. this, again, aligns with cped principles that speak to the provision of opportunities to analyze problems and apply a means to develop a viable solution, and “preparing leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference…” (cped, 2014, para. 6). design finally, participants valued the design of the online program – specifically course design and delivery. according to survey responses, 79% of students believed the online delivery of courses in the edle program was effective. this sentiment was expressed by one survey respondent who stated, “i think one challenge is ensuring student engagement when using an online delivery method. that said, most professors were able to do a good job of structuring class sessions in a way that fostered students’ engagement and collaboration.” participants appreciated the online aspect of the program not simply for convenience and accessibility, but also because of the unique learning opportunities it provided. one example of the perceived value of the online program design was the diversity of locations that students came from, as gabriela explained: …we have people from different states in the program, and so while we're talking about something from a south midwest perspective, we had someone from florida, someone from kansas, and someone i think from illinois that all gave their state perspective, which i felt like really added to the discussion… the ability to share ideas outside of one’s immediate context is possible when global access to the program exists. there was also evidence that the synchronous nature of program delivery added value to the richness of discussions, again according to gabriela: i don't feel that we sacrificed discussion online, because i felt like i could still, raise my hand, um, we, you know, in fact what was really neat, you know, we would have a conversation going verbally, and then you know, you'd also have the texting going on where people are you know, typing responses that way… i know that there are online programs where they are not face-to-face, and they are not having discussions. and it's simply turning in work, and work is graded, and i feel like there is, there is a true lack of instruction in those programs. so, um, i think having been involved in a quality online program, i know learning can take place if it's, if it's done correctly. the design of the program also required on-campus experiences which students seemed to value. victor, who was an out-ofstate principal, made this observation: i still have to come and do stuff. so it's not a complete phantom program. it's uh, the seminar stuff, the three times you have to come plus um, you know, defense presentation, so you know it's not like a phantom program. you still have to come, so i think that also lends a little bit of, i want to say, credibility because the program is credible, but it is uh, that adds something to it too. you have to physically be here from time to time, you can't just mail it all in. ultimately, participants valued the program because they had ongoing opportunities to connect to campus, faculty, and other students through synchronous class meetings, seminar weekends, and defenses. according to gregory, “the reality of the online program at the university of arkansas is it's the same quality education that we've always had, it's just a different delivery mode.” connections to people and campus participants consistently indicated that relationships played an important role in their sense of belonging in the online edle program; however, participants varied in their beliefs about the quality of relationships established in the program. most students believed that the synchronous online class meetings allowed them to interact with their peers and instructors in more meaningful ways than other online courses they had taken; however, one student reported feeling isolated throughout his involvement in the program. despite this contradiction, students consistently described their desire to connect to campus, faculty, and other students. relationships with faculty members were specifically discussed by both victor and harold. when asked about strengths of the program, victor responded: they're [faculty members] easy to get along with and communicate with, i mean that’s the number one thing i was looking for, the accessibility of everything. um, and that know if you are going to do this you can’t be ignored. you have to have people willing to talk to you and pay attention to you and all that good stuff. harold compared his experiences in the online doctoral program to his previous experiences in online programs by stating: i just feel like i've gotten more out of this program because maybe it's just the mentality that the professors have… in most of my other programs besides this one, it's been like this deal where get your work done, get your grade, and move on. there's been no relationship building, no you’re our student kind of thing, you know. gregory believed that “networking” was the most professionally valuable aspect of the program, “the networking is number one, even though it's online. now you just know people from a wider range. you've grown your base of support. you have all of these professors, all of these different students you've worked with.” gregory also specifically discussed the close relationships he developed with cohort members throughout the program: they've been great. we've had a lot of fun. we've spent time together outside of class. we help each other get jobs. we proofread each other's papers, and spend extra time trying to pull whoever is struggling at that time through. and we check on each other when people aren't in class for a little bit to see what's going on. they're a pretty dynamic group of people. it's great for me because i can see the older generation, and then together at events we go to in little town, and all of our different trainings and things, that i can tell that these our my people now. like, those are a lot of people you really get excited to see and to be around that you respect because you've gone through the same thing together. an online cped educational leadership program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 though students appreciated the opportunities provided by the online program, they also appreciated the connections to campus that were provided through the seminar weekends and student defenses (i.e., comprehensive exams, proposal and dissertation defense). according to harold, “i mean just coming to campus makes you feel like you're a student still, so i think that this is kind of refreshing every once in a while to do.” wilma also believed that “the seminar time has been enormously valuable, because just the chance for all of us to sit around the same table and see each other face-to-face.” gregory specifically noted how maintaining the seminar component of the program would be important, even as the program expanded to larger geographic locations. “it's great when we get everybody back on campus here to work together in this program, and having that face-to-face component will continue to be an important thing even though you're reaching students from a wider geographic region.” both gregory and david believed the on-campus meetings were so valuable that the program could be improved by requiring additional seminar weekends or scheduled meetings with advisors and committee members. interestingly, the students who spoke the most fervently about the importance of relationships represented two contrasting extremes regarding the quality of relationships established in the program. wilma, the individual who provided the most compelling evidence that strong connections to others were created in the online program, was from the most recent cohort. whereas david, the individual who strongly believed that relationships were missing within the online program, was from the earliest cohort represented in the sample. the contrasting descriptions between the students regarding the quality of relationships in the online program are presented below. wilma, who was interviewed during one of the on-campus seminar sessions offered: i love the fact that i get to see these people. i mean, when we came here, we all, there was no awkwardness, we all know each other, we talk to each other twice a week, every week, you know. and there's, there is a collaborative feel, um, you know, and just today we all sat and talked about how does my job relate to yours, and how can we become better advocates for our kids, and we're building connections there that we didn't build in our previous online classes. we didn't interact like that. so when we interact in class, i guess i really feel like we're building that personal connection….i laughed when i came in and somebody said something about “sit with the family,” and i said “you're all part of my family, i spend a lot of time with you”, but i feel like i'm making connections with those people that is not just a connection for these two years that we're in the program. the connections that i'm making with them will last. wilma’s experiences are in contrast to david’s experience in the original online doctoral cohort. david’s lack of connection to peers, faculty, and campus is illustrated in the passage below: i thought there would be more connectedness between me and my professors or my classmates. and really that wasn't, it was very much in isolation. and that saddened me a little bit because my other courses, other coursework, uh, you're kind of in a cohort of people and you travel course-to-course, seated class to seated class….wasn't super relational with my professors or classmates. i had to be a little bit intentional and seek folks out. while wilma continually reflected on the close connections she maintained with cohort members and faculty, david stated, “i couldn’t even name another person in our cohort.” the contrast between david and wilma’s experiences may suggest that the program has improved its efforts and ability to foster meaningful relationships and connections with students in an online environment since its transition online in 2010. significance results from this study suggest that it is possible to design an edd program in educational leadership that follows the cped principles, provides a meaningful experience for students, and is delivered in an online format. findings suggest that the online cped program has evolved students’ thinking, and the program has value for students for multiple reasons, including the program’s rigor, practicality, and design. however, the practicality of the program was primarily demonstrated in the way in which students’ thinking about their work shifted or evolved throughout the program. students reported that they approached problems in their workplace differently and considered themselves more critical consumers of educational research. on the other hand, students did not necessarily believe the program informed the daily operations of their positions (i.e., the “nuts and bolts” of their positions). participant responses also suggest that students appreciated the convenience and accessibility of the online program, but they further believed that opportunities to connect to campus through synchronous class meetings, seminar weekends, or correspondence with faculty were important to their success. as a flagship institution, university of arkansas’s online edd program offers an opportunity for students to receive a rigorous degree that participants in this study suggest is dynamic and impactful to their practice. we find this significant as it counters the suggestion that online programs at the doctoral level cannot be impactful and do not rise to the standard of doctoral work (see ghezzi, 2007). the critique about online doctorates often centers on their inability to produce students who can publish research articles, which might be true for the ph.d. but not necessarily for the professional doctorate (gill & hoppe, 2009). even as recently as 2011, the legitimacy of a totally online edd was questioned when university of arkansas initially attended the cped phase ii institution meetings. since then, as universities have been under pressure to offer online degrees, the skepticism within cped has lessened. unfortunately, many times online programs are viewed as being the “cash cow” of the university while running great risk of simply churning out degrees or as some refer to as becoming a “diploma mill.” the university of arkansas online edle edd is not a “cash cow” for the college. since the program’s inception, there has been care taken to admit no more than twelve students per cohort, and often times less than twelve are admitted. this is considered significant as the question of whether or not our students’ reported experiences would be possible in a “diploma mill” setting emerges. we assume that our students would not have the same experience, at least not with the same program design as this case represents. participants suggested that accessibility to program faculty was something they found valuable and important to their success. the same level of accessibility might not be possible if the number of students was significantly higher. findings from this study suggest that university of arkansas’s online cped program offers more than job preparation. augmenting instruction of job-specific knowledge, the program teaches students broader, more abstract thinking skills. thus, the program is not training students for positions as principals or superintendents (which lasater, bengtson, murphy-lee impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 arguably would have already occurred in students’ certification programs), but the program is preparing students to think deeper about their work and to be more impactful within their professional positions. these findings are important to edd programs in general, and more specifically to those delivered online, as they continue to consider the design and delivery of doctoral education programs. references allen, i.e., & seaman, j. 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(2013). the impact of online learning on students’ course outcomes: evidence from a large community and technical college system. economics of education review, 37, 46-57. yin, r.k. (2009). how to do case studies. in l. bickman & d.j. rog (eds.), the sage handbook of applied social science research methods (2nd. ed.)(pp.254-282). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. appendix a student survey 1. the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas had a significant impact on my professional practice as an educator. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 2. the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas had a significant impact on my personal development. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 3. the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas helped me become a better problem-solver in my work setting. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 4. the knowledge and skills i gained as a result of participation in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas were directly applicable to my current professional position. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 5. i understood how to apply the knowledge and skills i learned in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas to my professional work. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 6. the way i think about my professional practice as an educator has changed as a result of participation in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 7. the impact of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas on my professional practice is unclear. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 8. i believe the online delivery of courses in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas was effective. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 9. overall, i would describe my experience in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas as positive. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 10. i believe my involvement in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas has benefitted me as a practitioner in the field. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 11. i believe the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas provided me the information necessary to be a competent professional within my field. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 12. i believe the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas prepares students for what to expect in the field. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 13. i would recommend the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas to a friend. strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree uncertain 14. would you be willing to participate in an in-depth, face-to-face or phone interview to further discuss your experiences in the program? if so, please contact maureen murphy-lee at mmurphylee1@gmail.com. your survey responses will remain anonymous. http://cpedinitiative.org/about http://www.aasa.org/schooladministratorarticle.aspx?id=6638 http://www.aasa.org/schooladministratorarticle.aspx?id=6638 an online cped educational leadership program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.8 appendix b student/alumni interview protocol 1. with which cohort did you begin the program? 2. describe your professional experience in education. a. positions held & total years of experience b. current position & years c. degrees & certifications d. additional responsibilities 3. describe your experiences as a graduate student. 4. describe your previous experiences with online courses (prior to the online edle program). a. how did the structure or format of courses offered in the online doctoral program at the university of arkansas compare to the structure or format of other online courses you have taken? b. compare your prior online experiences to your experience in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. c. compare your prior experience in face-to-face graduate courses to your experience in graduate courses in the online edle doctoral program. 5. why did you select the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? a. how do you believe others perceive your online doctorate from the university of arkansas? 6. describe how it made you feel to be involved in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. 7. thinking back to when you were first accepted into the program, compare what you thought at that time your experience would be to what you’ve actually experienced since you have been enrolled. 8. what were your expectations of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? a. (knowledge, skills, content, instructional delivery, mentorship, and research experiences, etc.) 9. compare your expectations of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas with your experiences in the program. 10. describe the challenges you experienced in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. 11. how has the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas impacted your professional practice? a. describe some experiences that demonstrate how the program impacted your practice. 12. what information would you want to share with a prospective student regarding your experiences in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? 13. describe your relationships with faculty in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. 14. describe your relationships with other students in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas. 15. if you had to do it all over again, would you still choose the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? why or why not? 16. what aspects of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas were valuable to you as a professional? 17. what aspects of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas were valuable to you as a person? 18. what aspects of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas provided no value to you as a person or professional? 19. how have you changed as a result of your experience in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? a. provide an example of how the program helped you change in this regard. 20. overall, what do you believe are the strengths of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? 21. overall, what do you believe are the weaknesses of the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? 22. what, if anything, do you believe could have improved your experience in the online edle doctoral program at the university of arkansas? a. if this/these improvement(s) were made, how would it/they add value to the program? document4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 36 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program craig a. mertler, phd mary lou fulton teachers college arizona state university craig.mertler@asu.edu danah henriksen, phd mary lou fulton teachers college arizona state university danah.henriksen@asu.edu abstract this essay describes one institution’s struggle to grow its edd program by adding an equivalent online version of a successful face-to-face program. one of the challenges faced was that of creating a comparable experience for online students to share their ongoing action research, an activity that had long been part of the face-to-face version of the program. an innovative, all-day, virtual doctoral research conference was developed and implemented. we describe our creative rethinking of the original event, towards a new, successful, and fully-online redesigned event. although the event continues to be refined, the inaugural event proved to be a successful solution to the challenge of transferring all components of a face-to-face program over to its online equivalent. feedback from students who participated in the conference is shared, and recommendations for other edd programs is offered. keywords: creative thinking, innovation, action research, online activities, developmental learning introduction (education) cannot limit itself to set contents, techniques and values...but must also promote flexibility, openness for the new, the ability to adapt or see new ways of doing things, and courage in the face of the unexpected, in other words, creativity. (cropley, 2003, p. 136) the need for creativity and innovation in higher education is increasingly part of the broader discourse of education (dill & van vught, 2010). as the field transforms through digital technologies, globalization, and other 21st century changes, there are opportunities to creatively rethink traditional structures of doctoral education— particularly when we expand doctoral learning to online settings (henriksen, mishra, greenhow, cain, & roseth, 2014). in making such contextual shifts, however, we must consider what our doctoral programs do well and what they need. we can then rethink or redesign elements of them in ways that resonate with our existing strengths, while working with the advantages and constraints of emerging contexts. our purpose in writing this essay is twofold. first, we share our experience of creatively rethinking and redesigning an already highly-effective element of the face-to-face education doctorate program at arizona state university. this involved the redesign of a face-to-face doctoral research forum, in which our edd students showcased their research each semester. the redesign of the forum described in this essay was necessary, because of the development of a new online offering of our program. we highlight our rethinking of the conference as creative, not to suggest that it is perfect or game-changing work for the field. rather, we draw on common definitions of creativity (amabile, 1996; zhou & george, 2001), which suggest that positive growth and new construction occurs via anything that is relatively novel and effective, even if only within its own context. sometimes, that context involves sweeping changes of new ideas within a discipline. but as in our example, more often the local creativity and problem-solving we do within our programmatic contexts adds up to big changes that matter for the students we serve. our second purpose is that, while specifics of our example may not fit with every program, we hope the broader principle of creative change and renovation of program elements can serve as motivation to other professional practice doctoral programs to seek new approaches. changing 21st century contexts—while at first potentially challenging and confounding—ultimately offer opportunities to be more innovative and effective, allowing for greater access, equity, and quality within and across programs. we hope some of these elements come through in the case we share here. first, we provide some program context for our example, which we then describe in more detail. creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 37 the contextual setting for more than 10 years, the arizona state university edd program in leadership & innovation has helped educators in arizona who have dreamed of finding a better way to improve their collective practice. a three-year, cohort-based program, our edd program is designed for practicing educator-leaders who work in a range of settings and want to transform their practice and create better learning opportunities for students of all ages, pk-20 and beyond (“edd in leadership & innovation,” 2017). our students enter the program as accomplished teachers, teacher leaders, principals, superintendents, higher education professionals, or leaders in other educational contexts. through coursework, students deepen their abilities to lead change and implement innovative solutions to selfidentified problems of practice in their local educational organizations. action research is a signature pedagogy within our program. during their first term in the program, students learn about the action research process and begin applying it to their own problems of practice. they learn about the nature of action research and ways in which it is similar and different from traditional forms of educational research. they enter our program already having identified a problem of practice (pop), a specific requirement to which they must write in their applications to be admitted to our program. further, they learn how to refine that problem—in the context of an action research approach to investigating or addressing it—during the initial course. they learn skills in explaining the situational context of their pops, how to write research questions specifically designed to help guide their investigations of their pops, and begin to develop preliminary ideas for mixed-methods action research designs to study their pops. students are advised to try to retain the same pop, or variations of it, throughout the program and leading into their dissertations. throughout the program, tied specifically to coursework, students conduct multiple cycles of inquiry through action research, and experience developmental growth with respect to their research skills (buss, 2016). not only do their skills grow developmentally, but so too do the nature and depth of their understanding of their problems of practice. students are required to routinely share their research in a public forum. the culminating requirement is an action research dissertation-in-practice, which typically takes the form of the implementation—and assessment of the effectiveness—of an intervention designed to address the student’s self-identified problem in her or his workplace setting (mertler, buss, & henriksen, 2016). as a cped-influenced program, several of our graduates have won the dissertation in practice of the year award, while others have attained professional recognition, exemplified in state and regional awards. these accomplishments, in addition to a strong completion rate in the face-to-face version (86% completion, and higher for those who complete their first year), has made the program highly successful. during its first decade, the edd program was offered exclusively in a face-to-face format and provided its students with opportunities to present their ongoing cycles of action research in an academic forum. the purpose of these presentations of student research was to give the students experiences in communicating their work in a professional setting. we wanted them to understand the value in sharing their research, engaging in dialogue about it, and gathering feedback from others, at each stage of the process. therefore, twice each year, near the end of each academic semester, students presented their ongoing doctoral research to other members of the program and faculty in a three-hour, in-person, doctoral research forum. the presentations were conducted in direct presentation, roundtable, and poster session formats. over the years, student feedback on the forums was positive, especially in terms of the academic and scholarly growth that students noted that they experienced with each passing year. one of our stated programmatic goals is to help students become “scholarly and influential practitioners.” engaging in action research inquiry is a part of scholarly practice, but to influence others, students must think about how to communicate and disseminate their work. the doctoral research forums allowed them some practice in this, as it required students to craft a concise, clear presentation of their work, communicate it to others, and then engage in dialogue to receive feedback. in the fall of 2015, in addition the maintaining the face-to-face program, we implemented a fully-online version of the program. interest in an online program had been building for years prior, as arizona state university places institutional focus on increasing access to more students, nationally and internationally, specifically through offering more opportunities for online learning. the nature of professional practice doctoral programs is such that they bring methodological research and theoretical tools to practitioners with direct experience and expertise. the gap between theory and practice in education has long been a criticism and ongoing concern of the field (brown, 1966; levine, 2005). professional practice doctoral programs should be positioned to address this gap by training practitioners with the skills for bringing impact to research in practice (perry & imig, 2008; perry, 2016). expanding into online contexts may potentially offer more opportunities to address this gap, by expanding the reach of and access to doctoral-level learning to more diverse practitioners beyond local contexts. however, such practitioners are often constrained by professional demands of location and work schedules. because online learning frees up such locational and schedule restrictions―taking our edd program into online expansion was programmatically seen as an opportunity to our increase access to more practitioners. a year prior to the beginning of the online version, program faculty and administrators formed a curriculum review committee to discuss how the face-to-face coursework might best translate into the new medium. this meant ensuring that all course pairings, as well as specific coursework content―including major assignments and milestone activities―were aligned for quality and access across the program. beyond these curriculum shifts, it was also clear that we needed a substantial change in the format and experiences of the doctoral research forums, as a shift in medium changes the nature of the experience. the transitional dilemma during the 2015-2016 academic year we began admitting two fully-online cohorts per year (in addition to the ongoing once-a-year face-to-face cohort admission). an important caveat was that extensive program design attention would be given to ensure equity in quality of experience and access to resources for students across both modalities of our program. this was an important factor in the decision to move our doctoral research forum into a broader, more inclusive, and fully online forum. mertler and henriksen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 38 since our online modality is still in nascent stages, some aspects are unfolding or developing along the way. as mentioned, faculty and administrators spent the year prior to this (meeting once each month for a full day from september through june), dedicating collaborative time to revising the entire curriculum to ensure that the two co-existing modalities of the edd program were aligned. we were successful in accomplishing this enormous online undertaking, with an initial exception―the face-to-face doctoral research forums. we knew that since these research forums were not specifically attached to courses, their redesign would have to occur after the online version of the program had launched and students had been formally admitted. when the online program first began, these doctoral research forums continued on in the traditional on-campus mode only, which meant that our online students (due to obvious distance/location constraints) did not have the opportunity to participate. during the 2015-2016 academic year, the faculty program committee sought a solution to this programmatic dilemma. we knew that an annual student research presentation opportunity must remain part of the program. both students and faculty viewed the formal sharing of research and communal networking across cohorts as a core strength and essential program element. keeping it within the face-to-face version and not including it in the online version was not an option, due to serious concerns about equity and access across the two modes of the program. doing so would create a misconception that the programs were not identical in scope, sequence, activities, and experiences--that students were in two different programs, rather than all part of one program. because online students in teachers college are not required to come to campus for in official capacity (e.g., any reason tied to courses or program activities), continuing the forum face-to-face only offered opportunities for face-to-face students to participate and engage in professional opportunities, opportunities that online students lacked. thus, there were only two accessible options for the research presentation sessions―a hybrid format or a fully online format. the faculty committee first opted for the hybrid format, believing this would maintain the “feel” of the previous format for those in the face-to-face version of the program, while still providing some access to online students. however, engaging in true creative design and problem solving requires that we acknowledge and work with both the affordances and constraints of any dilemma (norman, 1999). a hybrid version of the program would offer access—but access is not the same as equity in experience. along similar lines, the affordance of hanging on to a perception of face-to-face “feel” not only created cumbersome logistical constraints, but also created a potential inequitable perception of the same activity. with face-to-face students in the room with faculty and each other, there was potential for the perception of online students merely watching a community event rather than participating, while operating from the sidelines. dillard (1989) suggests that creative thinking necessitates a lettinggo of existing ideas or elements that we may be fond of or attached to, especially if they do not serve our design purpose or communicate what we need in the greater scheme of the work. we wanted our students to have an opportunity to all be in the same space. so, the decision was made to pursue a fully online, allinclusive format for both online and face-to-face students, to be named the doctoral research conference. a potential solution and its implementation in creative terms, once any big-picture divergent design decision is made, much of the resultant work then comes down to the craft, details, and logistics of making it happen (cross, 2011; mccloud, 1993). there is no magic potion for this—other than collaboration, patience, and time spent iterating through the details. the faculty committee spent the first six months of the 2016-2017 academic year problem-solving their way through the logistics and format for the conference. we also worked with a third-party provider of online conference services in the planning of the event. one of the largest challenges we faced involved expanding an event in a different modality, while trying to maintain its impact and perceived effectiveness. this required us to be proactive with the design of communication and its guiding purpose. communication and clarity of purpose an initial step was of communication to faculty and students, particularly face-to-face students who were used to—and attached to—the previous incarnations of the program. as in any new creative design endeavor, some users of the existing or previous system were uncomfortable with change (kelley & littman, 2001). a shift toward something new brings uncertainty and reticence, with a tendency to compare and lean back toward the older more established ways (bruce, 1993). for the online students, who did not have prior associations with the conference, the new offering was seen as an exciting and fresh experience. but for some of the more established face-to-face students, there was concern and uncertainty about moving it to a new medium. addressing this concern required the program to engage in several carefully-crafted communications about the rationale for and expectations for the new conference mode and design. one of these communications is included in appendix a, for more detail. we aimed to outline that having this as a face-to-face event was limiting, since we wanted students to have opportunities to connect and network with other professionals across the national and international contexts of the program. we emphasized this as a chance to share experiences and expertise beyond the bounds of local contexts. in our first communication, we were careful to craft an email message (see appendix a) six months prior to the shift, that provided the logistical details (date, time, etc.) and the important, required, participatory nature of the event. it also provided a rationale for why this shift was occurring. this rationale emphasized that a face-toface only approach lost the diverse spread of students and experiences in our program. an online experience had the potential for more of the connection, integration, and networking we wanted to see, and that students could benefit from. we emphasized that we felt we had been missing wonderful opportunities to talk across contexts, localities, states, time zones, and countries, and this new research conference offered students the connections that our diverse and global society expects and deserves. in communicating it as a positive opportunity rather than something they were giving up, we aimed to shore up stronger support and participation. from there, a big piece of the puzzle came back once again to the logistical planning of the setup and structure of the doctoral research conference. creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 39 conference structure and set-up in earlier iterations of the conference, students had presented in roundtables and poster sessions. we knew the new doctoral research conference would have to look different, especially with the number of students presenting. ultimately, the faculty program committee decided to structure the doctoral research conference similar to an all-day, in-person research conference with concurrent sessions held in different breakout rooms. we realized that the physical breakout rooms we had traditionally utilized now had to be operationalized in a virtual space. in some sense, this required a leap of faith, because most of us (while fluent in online teaching) had not engaged in online conferences and it was difficult to mentally visualize what this would look like. we must acknowledge—and still do—that we did and are become/ing a model ourselves in the process. we engaged additional expertise to set this up by hiring a temporary, part-time, assistant planner to help with the technical tasks of interfacing with our conference provider and setting up the breakout rooms. the “rooms” themselves were google hangouts, where all presenters in participatory sessions were present along with other students. all breakout rooms included faculty facilitators who functioned as session chairs. the urls for the google hangout rooms were then embedded as links within an overall conference site interface and program, which could also be accessed by student presenters and faculty moderators (see figure 1). figure 1. user interface for the doctoral research conference, showing the schedule of events realization and implementation beginning in the spring of 2017, the edd program launched its inaugural, 100% virtual doctoral research conference (drc). the drc was held on a saturday in april, beginning at 8:00 am and opened with a keynote address by dr. jill perry, executive director of cped. dr. perry’s keynote address was followed by organized session rooms with multiple presentations and facilitated discussions. the drc then ended at 4:00 pm with a closing note by program director dr. craig mertler. the overall content of the day consisted of three presentation blocks, each consisting of two-hour concurrent breakout sessions organized by student progression through the program. this equated to a concurrent session with students considered to be in their first year, another with students roughly in their second year, and a third with students at various stages of their final year in the program. within each concurrent session, there were as many as eight virtual rooms, with between five and seven student presenters. students who were presenting during different blocks throughout the day were then able to also participate in sessions in other blocks as conference attendees. fifteen faculty members served as presentation room facilitators during the day. over the course of the day, 140 edd students presented their ongoing research during the drc. our overall feeling upon completion of this first major undertaking of the conference, was generally one of success (see a summary of student feedback in the next section following this), mixed with awareness of things we would work on, such as evening out some technical details or tightening up the timeframe and flow of the day. overall though, this new instantiation of the doctoral research conference accomplished our key goals of giving all students in the program an opportunity and a space to present their research (whether in early, pre-proposal, or final dissertation stages), mertler and henriksen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 40 and to interact with, discuss, receive feedback, and answer questions from other asu faculty, peers, and program students. our student feedback was generally positive. despite some of the aforementioned concerns from longer-standing students, there was very little negative concern brought up in post-survey qualitative comments about missing the prior face-to-face conference. we found instead a good deal of excitement, thanks, and positive comments from students (both online and face-to-face) and faculty who were pleased with the experience, and excited about the opportunity to share research, feedback, and ideas more widely. for the first time, students in the program could share ideas and connections beyond their immediate cohort or program modality, and began to see themselves as participants in a wider community of research in practice. students in international contexts like brazil or singapore met and identified research connections, or shared divergent ideas with students in small towns of middle america, or cities like phoenix, new york city, san francisco, and more. the online version of the conference offered many things we hoped for in terms of idea sharing and research connections. it also expanded the program into an international research and learning community. there were a few minor technical bumps throughout the day, but the overall event went off without major quandaries, breakdowns, or serious problems. as anyone who has ever engaged in video conferencing knows, complete avoidance of occasional technical glitches is near impossible. but with planning, the big-picture process tends to go smoothly, and what we gain in the sharing across scales of time and distance is significant. to bring idea-sharing to so many people in one synchronous international event is challenging. yet our first attempt showed us that if we are willing to approach things with a creative mindset via an openness for the new, the results are exciting. beyond this anecdotal evidence (which we do put stock in), our anonymous student feedback on the experience also reified our thinking. student feedback our experience and all informal and anecdotal reactions we noted from both faculty and students trended in a positive direction. but we also felt it was important to capture anonymous feedback, to ensure that our impressions were not out of synch with the perceived reality. we sent out an anonymous survey to capture both formal quantitative and qualitative feedback from all students involved, immediately following the conference. responses were received from 76 (54%) of the 140 student participants. quantitative results we gathered quantitative data in which we asked people to rank their experiences along a 1 5 likert-type scale (with 1 being a most negative score, defined as “far short of expectations,” and 5 being a most positive score, defined as “far exceeded expectations”). we found that the group’s mean scores for each construct of student experience either hovered at or just above a score that “equaled expectations,” or for some constructs clearly “exceeded expectations” (see table 1). while we do not claim these to be perfect measures or ideal scores, we were pleased with having met or exceeded a significant challenge from the outset. our intended aims for the day were met and, beyond that, the students’ perceived experience mostly met to exceeded expectations. there were of course students who emphasized problems, or much room to grow and change—but no first try at a novel or creative endeavor is without that. and this feedback also has us working to keep improving. table 1: frequencies and percentages of response for feedback from students immediately following the 2017 drc item 1 far short of expectations 2 short of expectations 3 equaled expectations 4 exceeded expectations 5 far exceeded expectations mean / mode experiences with the virtual platform 7 (9.2%) 28 (36.8%) 26 (34.2%) 13 (17.1%) 2 (2.6%) 2.67 / 3 experiences as a presenter 4 (5.3%) 12 (15.8%) 37 (48.7%) 21 (27.6%) 2 (2.6%) 3.07 / 3 experiences as an attendee 11 (14.5%) 17 (22.4%) 26 (34.2%) 19 (25.0%) 3 (3.9%) 2.82 / 3 experiences with communications and expectations 5 (6.6%) 13 (17.1%) 21 (27.6%) 27 (35.5%) 10 (13.2%) 3.32 / 3 experiences with the faculty moderators 0 (0.0%) 1 (1.3%) 25 (32.9%) 26 (34.2%) 24 (31.6%) 3.96 / 4 creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 41 qualitative results the qualitative comments we received in an open-ended response portion of the survey helped us to understand student takeaways--and most them were positive. even for the ones that skewed more negatively to identify problems, most students framed comments constructively to offer ideas for improvement. again and again, the comments noted how much they enjoyed making new connections or meeting program peers that they would not have otherwise. for example, we received several pages worth of comments such as: • “i loved being able to hear about the work of other students.” • “i think the networking between cohorts was great. i have already made connections with a couple other students that i think will bear fruit.” • “i loved being able to hear about others research and finding some similarities between my research and others.” • “it was so great to link up with students outside my normal cohort, i recommend diversity such as this in the future as well.” • “loved the opportunity to see what all ed.d. students are working on and the evolution of work between cohorts. it is good to see faces and hear voices.” • “awesome to hear from so many of my fellow doctoral students. it was like a level five network on fire.” many similar comments such as this showed appreciation for the opportunity to learn more about other colleagues and their research, or similarly commented that they felt valued, in being given this opportunity. they noted comments such as: • “i appreciate the attempt to create a more inclusive research forum for our online cohorts. i appreciated hearing from others and what they are researching, but of most value were the questions asked of me very tangible areas of new research were identified!” • “i was very inspired by dr. perry's presentation and her insights. i felt so valued as a member of this program.” • as a new doctoral student, this conference provided me with an opportunity get a better sense of how the work fits together. it also exposed me to more theories used in educational research, e.g. transformative learning theory, applied-use theory, communities of practice theory. • i enjoyed learning about others’ research and discovering areas of interest that we share in our work. this conference was a great springboard for networking. thank you! of course that is not to say that every comment was resoundingly positive. there was also critical feedback. the benefit to this critique is that most of it was phrased constructively, giving us things to work on or think about in the next iteration. for example, most of the comments that were negatively skewed tended to cluster around concerns about having to spend the whole saturday online, or technical blips in google hangouts that caused them to miss something they wanted to see, or a desire to have screen sharing to allow for visuals. some examples can be seen in comments like: • sitting from 7:30am 4:00 pm was way too long. is there a way to offer more rooms with less people in the room so that the overall time is a bit shortened? i really wanted to see different presentations in different rooms so i jumped around, but it’s hard to know the exact timing of presentations...is there was a way to hold everyone to begin and end at set times? • you cannot expect people to do this for 8 hours on a saturday!...i loved hearing about other people's research, but please consider how difficult this time commitment is for working people. • i'm not sure why screen sharing wasn’t allowed. a few speakers rambled, and i suspect that if some of them had a powerpoint to use, they might not have drifted. i understand that it introduces potential technical difficulties, so it's a difficult call. some of the negative or constructive critique echoed similar concerns or suggestions, particularly about the time length. this has given us insights about what we need to change in the next conference iteration for spring 2018. in particular, our program committee is currently working on how to shorten the day’s timeframe, so that students do not need to give up a whole saturday to spend at the computer. doing this is helping us to tighten and improve the schedule structure, so that students can better identify presentations they want to see, based on topic and more specific times. further, we are now reviewing technical alternatives to google hangouts, to reduce technology problems and allow for more screen sharing. given the feedback, in this initial instantiation we felt that we have started to build up a stronger feeling of inclusion and community, particularly in the space between online and face-to-face students. first-year students talked about the benefit of getting to hear more of the hard-won knowledge of dissertation-stage students. the advanced students had a chance to reflect on their time in the program, noting that they liked getting questions from first-year students because it helped them realize how much they have earned in the program. and there was a sense of a globally networked community of friends, colleagues, and peer influencers. students made comments such as: • “i loved that people were able to participate from all over the world.” • “it was neat to see so many different participants in the program and hear about what people are doing all over the country.” • “i enjoyed the opportunity to attend the presentations that interested me around my problem of practice...listening to everyone share their individual studies made me feel confident about my own work. i often wonder if i am doing the right thing and today i felt like i am on the right track.” but perhaps this sense of community and inclusion might be well summed up by this comment from an online student: • “the conference was great, and the greatest part was my cohort members and i coming together in one communication channel to motivate and empower each other during the proceedings. we answered each other’s questions and provided feedback and ended the day feeling motivated and closer as a mertler and henriksen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 42 group. it inspired us to formulate our own community of practice to stay connected and engaged.” what we take away we emphasize we do not suggest this feedback as a strict research methodology, nor do we claim perfect measures or scores. however, this information does tell us that in addressing the challenge of a major rethinking and renovation of an already established program element, we met our goals and did something new and exciting in our context. the comments and reflections of students around the day pointed to their excitement about an innovative endeavor on their behalf, and a chance for new connections, opportunities, collaborations, learning, and growth. among the uncertainties and problems that can happen in any sizable new undertaking, most of the big-picture things went right. a few technical blips happened, but we view such blips as grounds for new learning and growth going forward. speaking to the challenge of creative endeavor, we found that in trying something completely new and unique to our setting, the world did not come crashing down. rather, our students had many positive experiences, and we achieved our own programmatic design goals of enriching the event and expanding into a larger research discourse community. closing comments in this essay, we have highlighted the principle of creative rethinking of existing structures, for emerging changes and new contexts in doctoral education, through an example from our edd in leadership & innovation program at arizona state university. the shift we describe here, moving from an existing research conference structure in a face-to-face setting, to an entirely new structure in a fully-online setting, was a comprehensive change process. it was compelled by the emergent context of a new fully online modality in our program. but our effort really began to move forward when our vision for the conference took a leap from the idea of a hybrid model, into to a fully-online model. from there, the creative process came down to that of crafting this new design, of focusing on logistics and details, and keeping the best interests of our entire population of our design “users” (or the students we serve) at the forefront of our mind. as we have noted, this required us to rethink some of the existing elements, and to let go of some entirely—even those which some face-to-face faculty and students were attached to, such as a “sense of feel” in the on-campus program. such letting go of the old must sometimes happen during a creative rethink in service of the overall design goals. here, our design goals included doing what the program knew to be in the best interests of all students, both face-toface and online. these interests meant increasing opportunities for discussion, collaboration, sharing of research and resources, and greater connectivity between all students across the emerging global contexts of our program. we wanted to ensure equity, access, and quality for all students in the opportunities and experiences we provided to them. we have positioned this as a kind of creative design experience, not just on the basis of the defined creativity elements of novelty and effectiveness relative to our context (plucker, beghetto, & dow, 2004), but also on the design process of iterating through ideas and effort to build something that serves a purpose for people (schön, 1983). by keeping our broad purpose in mind—which for us, meant focusing on issues of equity, access, and quality—we were ultimately able to create a new and successful approach that better served the students and program as a whole. while this involved the immediate discomfort of letting go of existing elements, it also meant the ultimate benefit of achieving something as good or better, for our purposes, than we had even hoped for. change is hard. we do not suggest that this was an easy endeavor. nor do we deny that there were more than a few challenges and discomfort along the way. we wondered if or how we could pull off the technology and logistics of so many people across so many time-zones, all presenting and facilitating online over one day, and we hesitated over the concerns of students worried about the change, or if we really would lose something programmatically important along the way. but pushing forward with an open mind, carefully but but willingly, is essential to doing anything new and creative or making a change. this also necessitates managing the uncertainty and ambiguity the comes with change, until you have some results in hand. creativity necessitates a willingness to try, and to risk that you may fail or need to regroup along the way (smith & henriksen, 2016)—but it ultimately it pays off with reward. our anecdotal and methodical evidence collected along the way tells us that our creative leap paid off in what we wanted it to do, and also left us room to grow. we do not assume that this first iteration was perfect or that it is “a done deal,” so we are ready to keep iterating, changing, and improving the details and the design. as physicist william pollard once said, “without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” references amabile, t.m. (1996). creativity in context. boulder, co: westview press harper collins publishers. bruce, b. c. (1993). innovation and social change. cambridge, ma: cambridge university press. buss, r. r. (2016). using action research to develop educational leaders and researchers. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. charlotte, nc: information age publishing. cropley, a.j (2003). creativity in education & learning. bodmin, cornwall: routledge falmer. cross, n. (2011). design thinking: understanding how designers think and work. oxford, uk: berg publishing. dill, d. d., & van vught, f. a. (2010). national innovation and the academic research enterprise: public policy in global perspective. johns hopkins university press: baltimore, md. dillard, a. (1989). the writing life. in s. perl (ed.), landmark essays on writing process (p. 225-226). new york: routledge. edd in leadership & innovation. (2017, august 31). retrieved from https://education.asu.edu/academic-programs/leadership-andinnovation-edd henriksen, d., mishra, p., greenhow, c., cain, w., & roseth, c. (2014). a tale of two courses: innovation in the hybrid/online doctoral program at michigan state university. techtrends, 58(4), 45-53. kelley, t., & littman, j. (2001). the art of innovation: lessons in creativity from ideo, america's leading design firm. new york, ny: random house. mccloud, s. (1993). understanding comics: the invisible art. northampton, mass. tundra publishing. mertler, c. a., buss, r., & henriksen, d. (2016, june). becoming scholarly and influential practitioners through cyclical engagement in the action research process. presented at the june convening of the carnegie project on the education doctorate, portland, or. creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 43 norman, d. a. (1999). affordance, conventions, and design. interactions, 6(3), 38-43. perry, j. a. (ed.). (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner. charlotte, nc: information age publishing. perry, j. a., & imig, d. g. (2008). a stewardship of practice in education. change, 40(6), 42-48. plucker, j. a., beghetto, r.a., & dow, g.t. (2004). why isn't creativity more important to educational psychologists? potentials, pitfalls, and future directions in creativity research. educational psychologist, 39(2), 83-96. schön, d. a. (1983). the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action (vol. 5126). new york, ny: basic books. smith, s., & henriksen, d. (2016). fail again, fail better: embracing failure as a paradigm for creative learning in the arts. art education, 69(2), 6-11. zhou, j., & george, j. (2001). when job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: encouraging the expression of voice. academy of management journal. 44(4) 682-696. appendix a email communication to edd community regarding transition to fully-online research conference december 9, 2016 dear leadership & innovation edd community, this email is an important communication of essential information you will need for your doctoral program. please read this through carefully. you need to be aware of a changing requirement to factor it into your spring planning and calendar, asap. we know you are busy, but please carefully read this email through. you must plan the details into your upcoming calendar, and keep a copy of this note. the information below describes the substantive changes to the research forum—a change that we are extremely excited about, as it will continue to demonstrate and support the innovative nature of our edd program! as mentioned during the recent fall doctoral research forum, we wish to let you know of a significant upcoming change in format for one of the required elements (for all students) of the program—the doctoral research forum. as you know, our edd program has always held a doctoral research forum twice a year, at the end of fall and spring semesters on the west campus of asu. this research forum has been required for face-to-face edd students, as an opportunity to present their work—whether in their first year or at the dissertation stage. it has always provided a great chance for feedback and discussion from fellow students and faculty. however, we have not been able to share the experience yet with our online program, due to the face-to-face format. that is about to change. we are writing to provides some details on this new conference format. the entire event will be moving to larger and more globallyconnected online format. it will include both the face-to-face and the online versions of our program, sharing collaboratively in a virtual research conference, and in a new fully-online format. it will be held once a year at the end of the academic year, always on a saturday in late-april or early-may. it is an all-day event, going from roughly 8am to 5pm. all edd students—except for the cohorts that begin the program during spring semesters of that same semester—are required to be a part of this one-day-a-year online event. it presents the opportunity for all the important things we have valued about the forum—with the added benefit of connecting us all online as a much larger scholarpractitioner community. this year, the new online conference format—that we are calling the doctoral research conference—will be held on saturday, april 22nd, 2017, from 8am – 5pm (arizona time) in an online virtual space. we will send details about accessing the virtual conference space in the near future. for now, please plan accordingly for the date/time. april 22nd is the date for the upcoming 2017 spring event. each year, this event will be held around the same time—with yearly required participation happening once a year, at the end of the academic year (all day on a saturday, az time). it is vital that all students be a part of this event, so at present, that means saving the date all day from 8am – 5pm, saturday, april 22nd, 2017 (arizona time). this is considered a program milestone and a requirement, so attendance is not optional—it is mandatory. the oncampus doctoral research forum attendance has always been required, because of the importance of students experiencing a chance to present research in an academic, collaborative, networked setting. with this one-day, once-a-year commitment, this equates to committing three saturdays over the course of your entire program. this goes toward the goal of networked collaboration, sharing and improvement in our research and goals, through participation in this online conference. for any students who cannot participate for any reason, there is a program policy in place, which will include substantive project work and writing. this policy of “make-up” work for absence from the doctoral research conference is to ensure that if a student misses the event, she or he will engage in corresponding or comparable work to a missed day-long activity. active student status in the program requires that students either attend the forum, or complete the extensive makeup writing/work very soon after the event. for your information and future reference, this policy has been attached to this email. it is to your benefit to attend. so please reserve that date for now, and plan to be there. we will send more information, and your instructors at that time will help prepare presentation of your work in its current stages. we emphasize that while all edd students are required to attend, the newest edd students just completing their first semester in the online spring cohort do not have to present (they may attend only). everyone else (anyone who has not just started that spring semester) will both attend and present. for those in the face-to-face program who have been used to presenting in this forum on campus only, you may be wondering why we are now planning this once-a-year, fully online format. that’s an important question for us to answer. mertler and henriksen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.55 44 our doctoral research forum has been a wonderful opportunity to share work, get feedback, and connect and network with other faculty and students. it is a requirement of our program because we think such sharing of ideas and research is key to a productive intellectual community. but, because it has always occurred in-person only on the west campus, only on-campus students could participate. that is too limiting, since it means that our program, with its rich spread of students and experiences, cannot be as connected, integrated, and networked as we need it to be. with the new online version of our doctoral program, we find that we are missing the voices and experiences of our online doctoral students in this forum. our online and face-to-face students may be “different,” in terms of the format of the program they experience, but we are all the same program. among us, we have remarkable experiences and expertise to share globally. having the forum as a face-toface only event, we have been missing wonderful opportunities to talk across contexts, localities, states, time zones, and countries. we need this research conference to offer you all the opportunities and connections that our diverse and global society expects and deserves. fortunately, there are new technologies to help us connect—as we construct an online conference format that brings us all together. this will happen for one day, once a year, and we’ll give you information to help you be prepared to do this. we hope that you are as excited as we are, about the chance to make connections and get feedback/ideas— from other contexts and people that you would never get the chance to meet and interact with otherwise—that can help you in your work. once the technical and organizational details for this event are ready to share, we will be in touch again. for now, please allot the time for this experience on saturday, april 22nd, 2017, from 8am – 5pm az time. plan to prepare your work for this event with faculty support in the months prior to it happening, and to come with an open mind for sharing and thinking within the edd community. we are incredibly excited about this event, and about bringing the edd community together more powerfully. if you have questions, please feel free to contact dr. mertler (craig.mertler@asu.edu) directly. thank you sincerely, the edd program committee impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 14 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.142 on being a scholar-practitioner: practical wisdom in action book review cynthia a. tananis, edd associate professor, emeritus university of pittsburgh tananis@pitt.edu maria piantanida, patricia l. mcmahon, and marilyn llewellyn: on being a scholar-practitioner, practical wisdom in action. wisdom of practice series, pittsburgh, pa: learning moments press, 2019. 290 pp. $22.95 isbn-13: 978-0997648881 the development of scholarly practitioners for advanced practice through education doctorate degrees has become more common (perry, 2012; shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006). education doctorate programs strive to focus on the differences in training as a researcher-educator via the more traditional doctorate (phd) and in becoming a scholarly practitioner via the education doctorate (edd). i like to tell my own doctoral students, both phd and edd, that the crux of the difference is a focus on a problem area (for example, marginalization of teachers of color) as the fodder for the phd, and a focus on inquiry as practice as the purview of the edd. this assumes that as scholarly practitioners, graduates will regularly identify and systematically inquire about many “problems of practice” that will lead to informed improvement. we envision graduates who have adopted an improvement-centered mindset with the necessary skills and strategies to engage in inquiry-driven action. on being a scholar-practitioner, practical wisdom in action explores both, conceptually and experientially, what it means to “be” such a scholarly-practitioner. indeed, as scholarly-practitioners themselves, piantanida, mcmahon, and llewellyn begin with a “problem of practice” as the impetus for writing the text. as educators, they were troubled by the “persistent narrative about failing skills, teacher flight, and privileging of rules over professional judgement” in schools (p. 5). further, they took issue with the over-simplification of these complex issues, suggesting the importance of an understanding of context and development of practice-based wisdom in education. their book explores how best “to create the conditions in which professionals are able to cultivate wisdom” through “embracing the stance of scholar-practitioner” (p. 10). one of the seminal discussions of advanced practice in the professions, including education, is the notion of praxis; of being and caring, beyond the doing in practice (schwandt, 2002). this stance is important as a foundational element of the book and frames the purpose of the authors, as they suggest that engaging as a scholarly-practitioner “is a way of being, the embodiment of a mindset … in which action informs understanding and understanding informs action” (p. 3). the resulting sections of the book discuss dimensions of this mindset, both drawing from and creating the practical wisdom which informs daily engagement as an educator. the authors invite readers on a journey of meaningmaking as a “process of always becoming as nascent sensibilities blossom into more robust and nuanced capabilities” (p. 18). the body of the book invites exploration of components considered critical to a scholarly-practitioner’s praxis: pedagogical wisdom, theoretical understanding, contextual literacy, ethical stewardship, metacognitive reflection, and aesthetic imagination. each section offers two to three chapters that first describe the component and then presents discussion of nuanced praxis. pedagogical wisdom the authors call upon us to collectively cultivate “a repertoire of pedagogical wisdom” (p. 41) as scholarly-practitioners, where we draw from, and simultaneously create, practical wisdom. by responding to emergent learning needs and the embedded “dilemmas” and “pressure points” (p. 11), teaching is framed as a deliberate and well-informed “improvisation” (p. 33). chapters 3 and 4 provide a more detailed consideration of some common dilemmas faced by educators in practice. the “differential in engagement” (p. 51) among learners and teachers considers the complexity of various levels and motivations that can further lead to disruptions in teaching and learning. disconnection can also occur in the varieties of curricula (intended, taught, learned, and assessed), differentiation and personalized learning, and our obsession with “measurement mania” (p. 58) to document learning. theoretical understanding the theoretical understanding section presents theory as a partner to practical wisdom. the authors suggest we consider and articulate the theory underpinning that provides a solid base for best-informed spontaneous response in practice. theory and practice generate the knowledge, collectively, in a fluid interplay. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:lkimbrel@westga.edu on being a scholar-practitioner: practical wisdom in action book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.142 15 contextual literacy the authors refer to contextual literacy as the ability to perceive and understand various of messages across macro (state, nation, and world), mezzo (district and community), and micro (classroom and school) contexts that influence education (p. 137). education, both in practice and policy, is replete with “contestation” (p. 142) among stakeholders, fueled by varying values and beliefs, perceptions and inconsistent information. the authors suggest that our cultural and individual stories are important lenses to come to know ourselves and others better and make sense of what we encounter. ethical stewardship ethical stewardship of the profession is discussed in three major strands of activity. first, scholarly-practitioners should serve as exemplars of moral and ethical conduct. this suggestion is fairly straightforward as we consider how we represent not only ourselves, but also, our colleagues, and the profession as a community. the authors press this notion forward in two additional, and interesting ways. first, they advise us to be advocates for the profession, beyond the more technical representations of practice, to the more value-driven agenda of equity and justice, learning for all, and in support of educators as professionals. the authors further recommend a “commitment to inquiry” as a critical component of ethical stewardship. this area is explored more fully in a separate chapter in this section that offers a brief overview (epistemologically and ontologically) of the scientific, critical, and interpretive traditions of inquiry (p. 189-197). the section concludes with an additional plea for the importance of narrative inquiry as particularly well-suited for the self-inquiry and reflection of praxis. metacognitive reflection the authors offer an interesting and inviting lens on reflection and its relation to learning. metacognitive reflection is offered as a process of immersion in the experience, with elements of retrospective, introspective, and finally, conceptual reflection. immersion in the experience harkens back to the earlier exploration of praxis and the essential “being” in practice that carries with it an ongoing critique or reflective quality. retrospective reflection serves as the narrative of memory of what happened and how, often the narratives we share with others about an experience. introspective reflection and conceptual reflection call us to more thoroughly interrogate or consider the experience in both what we hoped for it to be and how it fits into the larger plan for what we want to achieve. the authors further encourage practitioners to engage in a more formal metacognitive reflection “process for moving systematically and critically between doing and understanding” (p. 221) by capturing and sharing one’s own narratives of teaching and learning. aesthetic imagination continuing with a press toward meaningful and shared reflection as a scholar-practitioner, the authors suggest that a variety of aesthetic modalities may be useful to both explore and represent one’s professional journey. the section offers a brief overview of a variety of ways in which scholar-practitioners might consider sharing their ways of knowing with colleagues and others, as well as exploring “possible worlds and possible selves” (p. 249) evolving in practice. recommendation on being offers an interesting and compelling guide for educators becoming scholar-practitioners, whether as graduates, graduate students, higher education faculty, or any educator called to developing practical-scholarly wisdom. indeed, the authors envision that the book might be used to “catalyze discussions in a variety of contexts” hoping that educators from various experiences and perspectives will “resonate with the ideas explored in this book” (p. 13). the interpretive lens offered throughout the book provides an inviting counter-narrative to the more scientific lens of some literature in the field that focuses on the professional roles and functions of practitioners and the more scientific inquiry modes often embraced. for example, “improvement science” essentially draws from seminal work in improvement processes done during the early-mid 20th century height of scientific rationality by walter shewhart and further extended by william e. deming1. this book invites scholar-practitioners to engage in the journey of praxis, to deeply and theoretically reflect on those processes for both professional growth and improvement, and to find ways of sharing that growth with the profession. as such, it perhaps, has an appeal to those who see the journey as important as the outcome; the process as perhaps an improvement outcome itself. piantanida, mcmahon, and llewellyn know from whence they speak. it was refreshing to read their own and colleagues’ examples within the narrative that help to illustrate and offer vignettes drawn from the landscape of practice. so too, the book stands well in the literature of the field, past and present, to align with conceptual knowledge feeding the movement toward the education doctorate. it serves as a good example of the interplay we value as a community in the merger of practice and scholarship. the authors also have offered several useful references and reflective prompts at the end of chapters and sections that might be very useful if used as a text for a class or community of 1 lewis (2015) and lemahieu, bryk, grunow, & gomez (2017) for more current application in education. tananis impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.142 16 practice. whether as a text for self-study or class use, this book offers a useful and insightful lens for the kind of meaningful and insightful reflection the authors suggest we should embrace as scholarly practitioners. references lewis, c. (2015). what is improvement science? do we need it in education? educational researcher, 44(1), 54–61. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x15570388 lemahieu, p., bryk, a., grunow, a. and gomez, l. (2017), "working to improve: seven approaches to improvement science in education", quality assurance in education, vol. 25 no. 1, pp. 2-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qae-12-2016-0086 perry, j. a. (2012). to ed.d. or not to ed.d? kappan, 94(1), 41–44. schwandt, t. (2002). evaluation practice reconsidered. new york: peter lang publishing, inc. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x15570388 file://///insight/search%253fq=paul%20g.%20lemahieu file://///insight/search%253fq=anthony%20s.%20bryk file://///insight/search%253fq=alicia%20grunow file://///insight/search%253fq=louis%20m.%20gomez https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0968-4883 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0968-4883 https://doi.org/10.1108/qae-12-2016-0086 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 2 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.7 no.4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.201 lack of high-quality, frequent feedback contributes to low success rates for community college students amy hankins new jersey city university ahankins@njcu.edu christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu abstract most students who enter a community college never finish. in fact, “fewer than four of every ten complete any type of degree or certificate within six years” (bailey et al., 2015). one reason for low success rates is the lack of high-quality, frequent feedback provided to students. feedback has been shown to improve student learning and success. the purpose of this systematic literature review was to understand the root causes for the lack of productive, consistent feedback. to this end, traditional peer-reviewed research, public scholarship sources, and faculty perspectives were included in this literature review. one cause identified was the lack of comprehensive faculty training in pedagogy in general and in how to provide high-quality feedback specifically. another reason was lack of time. faculty who teach in community colleges typically have heavy teaching loads, along with service and other responsibilities that make it difficult to provide regular, high-quality feedback to students. finally, many students have a negative perception of feedback and therefore, often ignore it. when students do not use feedback, faculty can determine that providing feedback is not a good use of their time. there is ample evidence in the literature that supporting faculty to provide high-quality feedback is effective for promoting students’ academic success. keywords feedback, professional development, student success, teaching strategies community colleges are open access, providing an educational path for people from all socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, and as a result, the student population is exceptionally diverse (bailey et al., 2015). unfortunately, most students who begin their education at a community college never reach their long-term educational goals. fewer than four of every ten complete any type of degree or certificate within six years (bailey et al., 2015). when the data are disaggregated, the completion rates are even lower for students of color. for instance, national statistics show that community colleges enroll 52 percent of all black students and 57 percent of all hispanic students in higher education (baime & baum, 2016), yet only 1 percent of black students and 4 percent of hispanic students graduate in two years (complete college america, n.d.). this is problematic on so many levels. for one, educational achievement gaps of this magnitude point to a disparity of educational attainment for minorities in the united states. persistent and increasing income inequity is a result of these achievement gaps (hanushek et al., 2016). unfortunately, hanushek et al. (2016) found that the achievement gaps have remained essentially unchanged over almost half a century. although many factors contribute to student success, a significant factor is the learning experience. achievement of the stated course learning outcomes and successful completion of the course is imperative for a student to move forward towards degree attainment. seminal research from adelman (2005, 2006) suggested that if a student does not successfully complete a course, their academic momentum is hindered. furthermore, adelman (2006) stated that his studies indicated students’ excessive course withdrawal was “one of the most degree crippling features of undergraduate histories” (p. xxii) preventing students from finishing college. pedagogical practices have an undeniable impact on community college students’ success. feedback, in particular, has been shown to be a powerful educational tool, and if used correctly, it is one of the main predictors of student success. seminal research conducted by hattie et al. (2014) stated that effective feedback from an instructor could be “one of the most effective instructional strategies for improving student performance and closing achievement gaps” (p.17). hattie and timperley (2007) reported a synthesis of over 500 meta-analyses involving hundreds of thousands of studies and effect sizes and millions of students. over 100 factors that might influence achievement were cited, including attributes of the schools, students, instructors, and curricula. the average effect size was 0.40 (achievement improved 40% of a standard deviation), but the effect size for feedback was 0.79, which, http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 lack of high-quality, frequent feedback impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.201 3 at about twice the average effect size, further supports the hypothesis that feedback ranks among the top influencers on student performance (hattie & timperley, 2007). feedback is an important component of student learning; hattie and yates’s findings in 2014 suggested that effective feedback can double the rate of learning. if used incorrectly, however, feedback can drastically harm students’ motivation and success (hattie & yates, 2014). literature on feedback reflects significant concerns regarding the quality of feedback and the manner in which instructional feedback is provided to students. for instance, some of the identified issues in the literature included the timeliness of the feedback, the clarity of the feedback, and the lack of opportunities for students to work with feedback (brooks et al., 2019; hattie & yates, 2014; hounsell et al., 2008; scott, 2005). for example, hounsell et al. (2008) researched student perceptions of feedback. the dataset was comprised of 782 completed student questionnaires and 23 group interviews with a total of 69 students (hounsell et al., 2008); students’ overall perceptions included that feedback had not helped improve their ways of learning or studying. specific concerns identified in this study echo the aforementioned concerns: the variance in quantity, quality, and timeliness of the feedback (hounsell et al., 2008). another established issue regarding feedback is that of a gap between students’ perception of feedback when compared to the perceptions of their instructors. hattie and yates (2014) reported instructors “allege they dispense much helpful feedback to their students at relatively high levels and they claim they do so routinely” (p. 52); yet, students reported otherwise. in a classroom observation, researchers found the amount of feedback students received was, in fact, much less than the instructors said they provided (hattie & yates, 2014). these findings of a significant variance in students’ and faculty’s perceptions about feedback have been echoed in numerous other studies (lizzio & wilson, 2008; mulliner & tucker, 2017; robinson et al., 2013). for instance, first-year students reported dissatisfaction with timeliness and the meaningfulness of feedback, yet faculty asserted they disseminated quality, timely, and constructive feedback (robinson et al., 2013). the fact that there have been concerns with the quality of feedback in higher education has been well-established in the literature (mulliner and tucker, 2017; robinson et al., 2013; scott, 2005). it is a complex issue, however, given the powerful outcomes effective feedback can have to either foster or hinder student success, it is judicious to suggest community college students need more opportunities to learn from quality feedback to aid in their success. there is a clear discord between what faculty believe was being provided and how students reported the learning opportunities from that feedback (lizzio & wilson, 2008; mulliner & tucker, 2017; robinson et al., 2013). the purpose of this literature review was to deepen educators’ understanding of the reasons why college students have not received high-quality feedback on a regular basis. discovering the root causes for this lack of consistent, productive feedback would enable community colleges to determine how to best increase and improve feedback for community college students. specifically, these data can inform and guide faculty development efforts aimed at improving student success outcomes and reducing equity gaps. for example, if one of the reasons for the lack of high-quality feedback is a lack of time, professional development efforts can focus on how faculty can use class time or technology tools to decrease time needed to provide meaningful feedback. method a comprehensive search approach was used to investigate why students have not been getting enough quality feedback consisted of gathering three different types of data. first, i gathered information via conversations with faculty. these conversations were conducted to gain an understanding of practitioner experiences, values, beliefs, and perspectives related to teaching and learning. next, i reviewed peer-reviewed research found using the library databases. finally, i explored gray literature that was accessible via public scholarship. practitioner conversations in the first round of investigations, ten community college instructors were interviewed during the fall of 2019 to elicit information about their experiences with faculty development and their perceived impact on students’ success in the classroom. the interviewee pool included full-time instructors from different disciplines. nine were faculty teaching at a large community college in the midwest, and one was an instructor who taught at a community college in new jersey. to gather more specific information about feedback, a second round of interviews was conducted during the spring of 2020. this round of interviews included seven full-time community college faculty in the communications department at a large community college in the midwest. peer-reviewed research the peer-reviewed literature search was performed in a manner loosely based on upon the methods of petticrew and roberts (2006) as detailed in their systematic reviews in the social sciences: a practical guide. although i employed some flexibility rather than strictly following petticrew and roberts’s (2006) steps, the elements of rigor, transparency, and replicability (mallett et al., 2012) were paramount throughout the process. the search terms used were: feedback and issues or problems or challenges or difficulties and community colleges or technical colleges or two-year colleges or junior colleges. the databases selected in ebscohost were: academic search premier, education research complete, educational administration abstracts, eric, the education resource information center, masterfile complete, newspaper source plus, omnifile full text, select edition (h.w. wilson), opendissertations, primary search, professional development collection, teacher reference center, and ebsco’s web news. this revealed 445 results at which point inclusion and exclusion criteria were used. the following limiters were then applied: full text; peer-reviewed academic journals; articles published between 1990 and 2020. only articles addressing factors of feedback quality and quantity for college students were included. articles were excluded if they were not related to student feedback in a higher education setting and were not written in english. although dissertations were not retained due to the fact that these were not peer-reviewed and the authors may not be recognized experts in the field, i utilized the snowball method and referred to dissertations’ comprehensive lists of references. this resulted with 147 peer-reviewed publications for further screening. finally, i narrowed the literature publications down to 50 results by employing the inclusion and exclusion criteria as i engaged in deep dive abstract reviews. i retained two publications that were older than 15 years due to their significant impact on the hankins & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.201 4 field. i then examined the references pages for titles related specifically to feedback in community colleges to ensure essential seminal works were not being overlooked. with these 50, i created annotations for the sources and a synthesis matrix to determine factors that have contributed to the lack of feedback. gray literature and public scholarship to further the understanding of feedback in education, reliable gray literature and public scholarship resources were located. this included academic and government articles and reports, conference materials, and other relevant data found in open-access academic journals and on professional organization websites. these sources included the american association of community colleges; the association of american colleges and universities; the chronicle of higher education, the cirt network: center for the integration of research, teaching, learning education research complete; educational testing service (ets); inside higher education; the w.k. kellogg foundation; and the national center for faculty development and diversity. many of these sources provided current, relevant data. all of the gray literature and public scholarship sources collected were then subject to the same exclusion and inclusion criteria as the peer-reviewed research. overall, 15 gray literature and publicly available scholarship resources were retained. results and discussion as a result of the literature research process, three major themes were revealed as major contributing factors related to issues surrounding the feedback students receive on their assignments. first, faculty in higher education, though experts in their own field, have not had training in pedagogical practices before they begin teaching (beach et al., 2006; eddy, 2010; levin, 2006; townsend & twombly, 2007.) therefore, they often begin their careers unaware of how to provide effective, quality feedback to support their students’ learning. second, even if community college faculty did receive training in how to give quality feedback, faculty reported not having enough time to provide feedback due to teaching loads and other institutional duties and expectations. finally, studies (hattie & timperley, 2007; martinez, 2019) suggested that students have a negative perception of feedback. often, students have not perceived feedback as a positive opportunity for learning, and therefore, they have not frequently used the feedback to revise work (ackerman & gross, 2010; fiock & garcia, 2019; mulliner & tucker, 2017; sambell, 2016). lack of training in pedagogical practices prior to teaching instructors in higher education are recognized experts or masters in their disciplines; however, this does not mean they are masters of teaching and learning, nor does it mean they have had training in pedagogical practices before they began teaching. very few faculty have had prior training in teaching before entering the classroom to teach for the first time. research by beach et al. (2006) revealed that community college instructors “come to their positions with training in their profession, but not always training to teach” (as cited in eddy, 2010, p. 22). community colleges have been touted as teaching colleges, yet, faculty have learned most often to teach by “observation, trial and error, and reading on areas of interest” (eddy, 2010, p.16). furthermore, levin (2006) acknowledged that rigorous preparation for teaching in the classroom is essential for student achievement. this lack of prior training in pedagogical practice is especially troubling for the disadvantaged community college student population who need expert teachers—not just experts in a particular subject area (cox, 2010; harrington, 2020). in 2006, levin studied the educational training of over 2,000 university and college faculty and compared that data to the subsequent achievement of their students. levin (2006) reported that “qualitatively, teacher skills and knowledge have to be raised if we are to substantially increase students’ achievement to the levels needed” (p.11). he stated that most of america’s college educators are underprepared to teach (levin, 2006). data gathered from practitioner interviews revealed that only one of the ten faculty had training in teaching and learning prior to teaching at the college level and that was due to the fact that he began teaching in the k-12 levels where teaching and learning training was a requirement (psychology faculty, personal communication, october 10, 2019). one nursing instructor who had been teaching at the same community college for nineteen years said she was “hired without having taught a day in her life.” when she asked her supervisor how to teach the class, the supervisor gave her a stack of videos to show her nursing students. “i was apprehensive,” the nursing instructor said in the interview. “i had no background in academia. it was like trial and error for me. i walked into the classroom, gave the students tests, showed a video. that was it. i didn’t know how to grade. i knew nothing, nothing, nothing” (nursing faculty, personal communication, october 8, 2019). morest’s (2015) publication pointed to the fact that adjunct faculty are also often hired without having to demonstrate any teaching techniques, and neither full-time nor part-time faculty are being assessed on their teaching skills until their evaluation period. another faculty member who was interviewed shared her story about the absence of training in pedagogy. she stated: “i basically did everything by instinct when i started teaching. when i was getting my ph.d., i accepted a teaching graduate assistantship. there was a 1-hour a week class for us about how to write a syllabus, enter grades, and use course calendars but not about actual pedagogy. i didn’t learn about any of that stuff. from there, i just learned from observations. i paid attention to what worked when i did it and what didn’t” (communications faculty, personal communication, october 16, 2019). rather than relying on formal training, faculty have typically learned to teach by trial and error (eddy, 2010; townsend & twombly, 2007). regarding feedback, in particular, the absence of faculty’s training in feedback can result in missed opportunities for student learning, engagement, and may hinder students’ completion of courses (brooks et al., 2019; frey et al., 2018; hattie & timperley, 2007). lack of time available to provide feedback literature and interviews with community college faculty on the topic of feedback revealed another one of the major issues is that faculty have reported not having enough time to give quality feedback in a timely manner. heavy teaching loads and other institutional duties and expectations have made giving frequent, productive feedback very challenging (martinez, 2019; morest, 2015). this is a major concern given that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on student learning (hattie & timperley, 2007). lack of high-quality, frequent feedback impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.201 5 teaching load regarding the instructional workload for full-time community college instructors, it is common for faculty to teach 30 instructional units per academic year, or 15 units per semester (martinez, 2019). unlike faculty at four-year institutions, community college faculty are primarily focused on teaching. the national center for education reported that full-time community college faculty members spend 89 percent of their time on teaching-related responsibilities (national study of postsecondary faculty, 2005). according to morest (2015), 48 percent of full-time faculty typically spend 13 to 20 hours teaching in class each week. warner (2017) indicated that the average time it takes to grade a college student’s paper is 40 minutes. this means that in one week, if a class of 20 students turned in one paper, the instructor would spend over 13 hours grading for just that class alone (warner, 2017). utilizing warner’s (2017) numbers and the national average of teaching load at a community college, with five writing classes, a full-time community college instructor could be grading over 66 hours a week. thus, faculty would need to work a total of 81 hours (15 for class, 66 for grading) per week if they needed to grade papers every week, and this does not include preparing for class, advising and tutoring students, or other responsibilities. service responsibilities community college instructors have other obligations such as participating in curriculum development, serving on committees, professional development, student advising, and new-faculty advising (morest, 2015). at community colleges, about 33 percent of instructional faculty are full-time (bickerstaff & chavarín, 2018). this means there are very few faculty to do all the work needed, and committee work can take up a significant amount of time as well. “among full-time faculty, 88% report spending 1 or more hours a week on committee work and 73% spend 1 or more hours on coordination or administrative work” (morest, 2015, p.25). furthermore, martinez (2019) noted that community college faculty are increasingly involved in the college’s governance which can include “faculty hiring, budget committees, and long-range planning committees” (p. 115). in some instances, community college faculty also engage in research, though only 0.1% of community college faculty reported conducting research as their main activity (national study of postsecondary faculty, 2005). work-life balance given the evidence presented thus far, it is not surprising that the findings from sallee’s (2008) study on the work-life balance of community college faculty suggested that community college faculty do not feel like they have a work-life balance. in fact, 84 percent of faculty felt undervalued and overworked at their college (sallee, 2008). morest (2015) stated that the “internal structures of community colleges make it difficult for faculty to engage in [the]scholarship” of teaching and learning because of the teaching load (p. 21). community college faculty are stretched incredibly thin on time. students’ negative perceptions of feedback another theme that emerged during the literature review was students’ perceptions of feedback. unfortunately, despite the powerful positive outcomes on student success when students receive effective feedback, there are ongoing issues surrounding this important process—some of which are directly connected to students’ perception of feedback. students continually report perceiving feedback as negative, authoritarian, or judgmental (ackerman & gross, 2010; fiock & garcia, 2019; mulliner & tucker, 2017; sambell, 2016). in fact, students have perceived feedback as punitive (hattie & yates, 2014). sambell (2016) stated that feedback could result in the student feeling alienated, and it can provoke general feelings of “compliance, powerlessness and subservience rather than a sense of belonging, enthusiasm, enjoyment, and ownership of the learning process” (p. 1). feedback in higher education is considered central to student learning, yet students’ negative experiences with feedback can result in students not using—or even looking at—feedback (ackerman & gross, 2010). furthermore, students’ negative perceptions of feedback may reduce their self-efficacy (sambell, 2016). as stated by soilemetzidis et al. (2014), “large scale surveys of student opinion still consistently identify assessment and feedback as the source of greatest student dissatisfaction” (as cited in sambell, 2016, p. 1). scott (2005) surveyed over 95,000 students about their perceptions of higher education. of the 3,068 students who answered questions about how assessment impacted their learning, only 10 percent of them had anything positive to report about feedback. over 90 percent of students selected the “needs improvement” (ni) category in reference to feedback. timeliness and amount of feedback one issue related to timeliness is that students reported not getting feedback from their instructors with enough time to make improvements (sambell, 2016). students also reported not getting any feedback on assignments, and some reported never receiving their assignments back at all (scott, 2005). on the other hand, findings from a study conducted by ackerman and gross (2010) illustrated that the more feedback students received on their returned assignments, the more likely the students were to feel that their instructor did not like them. student participants who received a high level of feedback believed the instructor had a more negative impression of them than did students who either received few comments or no comments (ackerman & gross, 2010). quality of feedback students have expressed frustrations with the quality of feedback (ackerman & gross, 2010; sambell, 2016). researchers (hattie & timperley, 2007) have evaluated both what feedback is (i.e., how it is defined) and what makes it effective or “quality.” however, there is no debate that there are ongoing student complaints about feedback. one of the reported issues relating to the quality of feedback centers around the types of comments instructors leave students on their work. for instance, praise is a common form of feedback; however, without specific and actionable comments, it can lead to negative student perceptions regarding the quality of the feedback (hattie & yates, 2014; taylor, 2011; wiggins, 2012). in their study, mulliner and tucker (2017) reported that praise as feedback, instead of comments about the students’ work itself, was confusing for more than half of the students in their study (n=194). some examples of quality feedback which have been reiterated throughout the literature include “directive comments (such as edits and commands) about content or mechanics, comments that include explanations of the comment’s reason, minimal marking of mechanics, and readerly and coaching comments about development of ideas” (taylor, 2011, p.161). hankins & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.201 6 lack of use of feedback given the dissatisfaction and overall malaise students have reported feeling about feedback, it may not come as a surprise that studies have indicated that it is common for students to not read their instructor’s feedback (jonsson, 2012). there is “ample evidence of both anecdotal and scientific nature that a number of students do not use the feedback they receive, and therefore do not realize the potential of feedback for learning” (jonsson, 2012, p. 64). interview data from faculty at a large community college reported that one of their main concerns is that students are not using feedback when it is provided. molloy and boud (2013) stated that feedback commonly has “no effect because information from teachers is not taken up by students and sometimes it is not even read” (p. 4). aknowledged experts in the study of feedback asserted that students will sometimes accept the comments on their work which they perceive to be positive but studies suggest students will “defensively reject negative comments” (hattie et al., 2016, p.7). another related issue is whether students understand the feedback provided. research has found students do not often understand the feedback they receive (carless & boud, 2018; taras, 2006; taylor, 2011). it is essential that students comprehend why and what an instructor is communicating about their work for feedback to work as the powerful educational tool it has been shown it can be (ackerman & gross, 2016; hattie & yates, 2014). given that students are not using the feedback provided, it is not surprising that faculty may feel devoting their time to this activity is often fruitless. if a faculty member spends a significant amount of time providing feedback to students, and this feedback is perceived as ignored or not well-utilized, this can be incredibly discouraging (cohan, 2020; stern & solomon, 2006). as was indicated by many of the faculty who i interviewed, this lack of student use of feedback results in a reduced desire to exert significant time and effort on this task and also disappointment that an important learning opportunity for students is being lost (personal communications, october 8, 10, 16, 2019). conclusion community colleges, as open-access colleges, are available as educational benefits to millions of non-traditional students regardless of their socioeconomic or academic background (bailey et al., 2015; mellow & heelan, 2015). in fact, more than 40 percent of the community college student population are students of color (mellow & heelan, 2015). according to the community college research center (2020), only 39% of those attending community college are walking away with degrees. one especially important way to support student learning and achievement is through effective feedback (hattie et al., 2016). unfortunately, college students are not provided with frequent, productive feedback (ackerman & gross, 2010; brooks et al. 2019; hattie & yates, 2014; hounsell et al., 2008; scott, 2005). findings from this literature review indicated that there were three main reasons why college students are not provided with high-quality, regular feedback. first, faculty have not been trained on effective teaching strategies in general and on feedback strategies specifically (eddy, 2010; levin, 2006). faculty are also incredibly stretched in terms of time, and feedback is an extremely time-consuming task (martinez, 2019; morest, 2015). finally, faculty get discouraged when students’ perceptions of feedback are negative, and when students do not read and use the feedback provided to improve their work and learning (cohan, 2020; stern & solomon, 2006). to address the lack of training, colleges can provide professional development that specifically focuses on why feedback is a powerful learning tool and how to use it in the classroom to support their students’ learning and success. for example, colleges could consider having a faculty learning community (flc) to allow faculty an opportunity to learn effective feedback practices—like the importance of implementing scheduled opportunities for their students to engage with formative feedback (brooks et al., 2019). through initiatives like feedback-focused faculty learning communities, faculty can also learn how to incorporate opportunities within assignments for students to read feedback, make revisions as needed, and resubmit work. time was identified as barrier to faculty providing meaningful feedback to students. thus, one approach can be to assist faculty with developing more time-efficient feedback strategies. for instance, encouraging faculty to use class time for this purpose or to provide targeted, formative feedback throughout the semester (harrington, 2022). offering training programs during already scheduled department, division, or college-wide meeting times is another way to address the time barrier (harrington, 2020). the final barrier of student perception can also be a challenge (ackerman & gross, 2010; fiock & garcia, 2019; mulliner & tucker, 2017; sambell, 2016). through faculty development, faculty can learn ways to better communicate the importance of feedback to their students. in essence, students need to understand why feedback is a positive and productive part of learning. “for feedback processes to be enhanced, students need both appreciation of how feedback can operate effectively and opportunities to use feedback within the curriculum” (carless & boud, 2018, p. 1315). carless and boud (2018) refer to this as feedback literacy, and they assert the importance of communicating feedback literacy to students early in the course, so students are mentally prepared for feedback. explaining why feedback is powerful, what kind of feedback they can expect, and giving students clear expectations about the formative feedback loop are essential in setting the stage for more positive student interactions with the feedback (carless & boud, 2018; gonzalez, 2020; hattie & timperley, 2007). based on these findings, professional development for faculty is clearly needed. innovative professional development programs where community college instructors can learn about the characteristics of effective feedback, be taught time-efficient strategies to provide feedback, and learn how to provide feedback in a manner that students will be more likely to act upon is essential. community colleges that want to support student success can invest in teaching and learning centers and offer professional development on effective feedback practices. students need and deserve frequent, high-quality feedback (taras, 2006). references ackerman, d., & gross, b. 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(2006). do unto others or not: equity in feedback for undergraduates. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 31(3), 365–377. taylor, s. s. (2011). i really don’t know what he meant by that: how well do engineering students understand teachers’ comments on their writing? technical communication quarterly, 20(2), 139–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2011.548762 townsend, b. k., & twombly, s. b. (2007). community college faculty: overlooked and undervalued. ashe higher education report, 32(6), 1– 163. warner, j. (2017). the ‘administrative fiction’ of faculty workloads. inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/justvisiting/administrative-fiction-faculty-workloads wiggins, g. (2012). seven keys to effective feedback. educational leadership, 70(1), 10–16. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/understanding-part-time-faculty-community-colleges.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/understanding-part-time-faculty-community-colleges.pdf https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v44n4.2 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354 https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/02/11/advice-grading-more-efficiently-option https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/02/11/advice-grading-more-efficiently-option https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/community-college-faqs.html https://completecollege.org/data-dashboard/ https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/feedforward/ https://www.educationnext.org/achievement-gap-fails-close-half-century-testing-shows-persistent-divide/ https://www.educationnext.org/achievement-gap-fails-close-half-century-testing-shows-persistent-divide/ https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487 http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360701658765 https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787412467125 https://doi.org/10.1080/026029307012 https://doi.org/%2010.1080/19439342.2012.711342 https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552119835022 https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1103365 https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005172.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2011.629291 http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2819 https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.327 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2005.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2011.548762 https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/administrative-fiction-faculty-workloads https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/administrative-fiction-faculty-workloads amy hankins new jersey city university christine harrington new jersey city university (1) method practitioner conversations peer-reviewed research gray literature and public scholarship results and discussion lack of training in pedagogical practices prior to teaching lack of time available to provide feedback teaching load service responsibilities work-life balance students’ negative perceptions of feedback timeliness and amount of feedback quality of feedback lack of use of feedback conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 embedding activism in a stem edd program bridget miller university of south carolina btmiller@mailbox.sc.edu christopher bogiages university of south carolina bogiages@mailbox.sc.edu jan yow university of south carolina yow@mailbox.sc.edu christine lotter university of south carolina lotter@mailbox.sc.edu abstract this article shares an example of how one stem edd program embeds activism throughout their program. the authors share examples of readings and assignments across the program geared towards helping students think about and enact activism within the stem disciplines. the stem edd mission offers insight into the foundations of the program. then, specific examples from the following courses or course sequences are given: action research, project-based learning, research methods in stem education, advanced readings in mathematics education, and principles of engineering in stem education. a conclusion offers some final thoughts about the ongoing development of the stem edd program to help our students grow as graduates who focus on equity and diversity in stem education. keywords stem, activism, edd, doctoral programs the capacity of the united states to remain innovative and prosperous depends on the development of an effective and inclusive stem (science, technology, engineering, and math) education ecosystem (national science and technology council, 2018). regardless of the career path an individual takes, the ability to apply necessary stem skills such as evidence-based reasoning is imperative for being an informed consumer and citizen. vital to this aim is cross-collaboration among educators and professionals in the field. the push to enhance stem education across the nation has reemphasized the need to prepare stem education professionals who can facilitate high-quality stem education (borrego, 2007). educators also need professional learning to present stem content in culturally appropriate ways to address the unique needs of nonwhite students (gay & howard, 2000; leonard et al.,2010). minority students (non-caucasian) are among the fastest-growing demographics within the united states population and within public schools (bureau, u.s.c, 2019) and remain underrepresented in stem fields and stem majors (national center for science and engineering statistics, 2019). in response to this need, the university of south carolina developed a stem concentration within the existing education doctorate degree (edd.) in educational practice and innovation. informed by the carnegie project on the education doctorate consortium (cped), this program aims to support the development of scholarly practitioners in k-12 education, who focus on investigating problems of practice in stem education. the stem edd degree develops an in-depth understanding of social justice in diverse communities and the desire to use equity pedagogies to address practice problems in educational settings. as part of the stem concentration, candidates explore the theory, history, and concepts within stem education settings and then apply these ideas to their research of practice. during the dissertation process, candidates will engage in action research related to stem education and social justice. given the need to prepare educators to teach all students, particularly those underrepresented in stem disciplines of study and careers, faculty seek ways to engage themselves and their students in social activism (underwood & mensah, 2018). http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ embedding activism in a stem edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 4 activism in stem education formal educational experiences set the foundation for individuals to connect knowledge (scientific and otherwise) within social activism (lester et al., 2006). integrating social activism across stem education is key to developing scientifically informed and socially responsible youth and adults (american association for the advancement of science [aaas], 1989, 1993; national research council [nrc], 1996; national science teachers association [nsta], 1993). within the context of stem education, there is potential to develop students who engage in thinking critically about societal issues, take personal roles in solving societal issues, and influence the actions of others (parents, friends, relatives, neighbors, or local businesses) (rahm, 2002). as teacher activism continues to develop throughout the country, ongoing research and teacher development, which directly addresses teacher activism specifically in stem fields, is needed. research about teacher activism points to the importance of gender, race, and personal experiences (kokka, 2018). teachers’ beliefs on learner equity and social justice can be critical in affecting student-learning outcomes than any other measure of teacher quality (quan et al., 2019; burant, et al., 2007; pajares, 1992). as such, teacher training programs need to engage teachers in becoming ethical and reflective professionals, rather than merely teaching professionals (mehta, 2013). to achieve meaningful programmatic or institutional changes, the need to raise the awareness of social activism is vital for both teachers and students. faculty from the edd program recently led a featured presentation at a convening of the cped consortium in the fall of 2019. data generated during that session regarding how activism was defined, supported in cped affiliated edd programs, and how outcomes were measured was analyzed. this analysis led to the identification of 12 considerations that support edd activism (becton, et. al., 2020). the 12 considerations are as follows: 1. coursework specific to social justice, multicultural education and/or leadership. 2. coursework related to or involving the community. 3. coursework related to research and/or dissertation in practice. 4. overall course design. 5. social justice related focus for the dissertation. 6. inclusion of student’s career and professional goals. 7. considerations relative to the research and writing of dissertation. 8. considerations for dissertation defense or final presentation. 9. addressing inequity in institutions, policies, methodological approaches, edd. programs (faculty and students). 10. defined and supported dissertation process. 11. mentoring/supporting students and graduates. 12. scholarly and practitioner inquiry activities. (becton et al., p. 49, 2020) with these 12 considerations in mind, we have intentionally designed a stem education concentration that reflects these considerations and offers a new approach to developing stem education professionals. stem edd concentration mission and curriculum the stem edd concentration at the university of south carolina follows the mission of our university and college of education. as an affiliate of the cped consortium, our fully online edd program strives to develop scholarly practitioners who choose to engage in efforts to identify and resolve injustices and inequities in diverse educational contexts. the program seeks to foster a learning community that supports the growth of aspiring and practicing educators. through purposeful interaction among faculty and students, the program emphasizes the active construction and application of knowledge, skills, and dispositions to promote educational excellence, equity, and opportunity in the 21st century. we honor our responsibility to contribute to the high achievement of all learners and the development of an educated populace. according to this responsibility, we are committed to developing and sharing our expertise and leadership while offering a forum for educational dialogue and advancement. by bridging the gap among theory, research, and practice, we aim to promote excellence in teaching and learning within and across educational contexts. through the enactment of principled, free inquiry from diverse perspectives that promotes quantitative and qualitative scholarship, we intend for our graduates to advance their knowledge and educational practice. by partnering with government agencies, p-12 educators, schools, districts, families, professional organizations, and other higher education institutions, we prepare educators to have a genuine understanding and appreciation of diversity as we challenge ourselves and others to work for social justice. in order to develop ethical, reflective, and socially responsive education professionals, the stem edd program attends to issues of equity and promotes activism throughout the program. each semester, students enroll in two, 8-week courses that run sequentially over a 16 week semester. the program has specific courses dedicated solely to issues of equity. one of these courses is introduction to diversity and curriculum, which introduces students to the vast array of differences among children, youth, and adults, and the impact of these differences on the curriculum, their learning, and their social and emotional development. additionally, students complete the advanced study of diversity and curriculum course, which explores the formulation and use of interpretive frameworks to study and understand the relationships among human diversity, school structures, and the curriculum. although these courses directly focus on equity and social justice, the themes of activism and equity run across all of the courses offered in the stem edd. in the following sections of this paper, we describe the primary ways we promote and support activism among our students in our stem edd concentration and highlight how several of our 8-week courses focus on specific considerations thus ensuring alignment with our intention to promote the importance of issues of equity and the potential power of scholarly activism in our program’s curriculum. principles of action research across all four of the concentrations in our college's edd program, doctoral candidates plan and conduct a dissertation in practice to either investigate or directly resolve a persistent problem in their professional practice that is especially significant to themselves and local community members. our edd program miller et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 5 highlights action research (herr & anderson, 2015) as the preferred methodological approach for these dissertations in practice. within our edd curriculum, all four concentrations include two 8-week courses dedicated to developing theoretical and practical knowledge of action research. these two courses promote the identification of significant problems of practice that are either partially or thoroughly caused by injustices or inequities and provide our students with the methodological skills to investigate and resolve them through systematic and rigorous practitioner research. action research methodology differs in significant ways from more traditional forms of educational research. whereas traditional forms of quantitative and qualitative educational research are primarily driven by researchers and generate knowledge for academic audiences, action research is driven by practitioners who aim to generate knowledge from research that is "grounded in educational practice" (dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020, p. 5) for themselves and other practitioners. as such, the action researcher is a practitioner first and has established an insider positionality (herr & anderson, 2015) within the context of the study. most often, the action research in which our students engage focuses on a problem of practice. these problems have either been present in the students' practice before enrollment in the program or have become apparent as their awareness of injustice or inequity in education deepens as a result of their progress in our program. given the context-dependent nature of the problem and the researcher's insider positionality, the goal of action research in our program is squarely on improving the lived experiences for those community members who are either directly or indirectly impacted by the problem. through a cyclical and collaborative process, action researchers intend to resolve the specific, real-world problems of practice encountered in a specific context. while this may not lead to filling gaps in the educational literature, the evocative power of practitioner research leads to transferable knowledge of, in, and for practice (cochran-smith & lytle, 1999). as such, we believe action research at the doctoral level requires attendance to the underlying social and educational injustices that cause the problem. in the two courses, principles of action research and advanced principles of action research, faculty instructors first focus students on developing an awareness of and appreciation for identifying problems of practice that are, at their root, caused by systemic inequalities or injustices that permeate educational spaces. in so doing, the student begins their journey towards what we have come to describe as edd-activism. given the 12 considerations for developing edd-activism we have identified previously (becton et al., 2020), our action research courses reflect all 12 considerations but focus primarily on the considerations related to 1) understanding and differentiating the goals of traditional and practitioner research, 2) uncovering issues related to social justice in day-to-day practice, and 3) supporting the development of the written dissertation in practice. in the first of the two action research courses, we begin with a focus on understanding the context-dependent nature of action research and how it is different from more traditional forms of research through an exploration and critical review of problems of practice used in previously completed dissertations in practice. through this process, our students have developed indicators for assessing and critically analyzing the quality of a problem of practice for an action research dissertation. with each successive cohort that completes the first action research course, the indicators of quality get refined to be more focused and more useful for current and future doctoral students in our program. this process of paying it forward connects our cohorts across years and demonstrates the power of collaboration and critical analysis, two essential attributes of an edd-activist. the iterative development of these indicators of quality for various aspects of an action research study is one example of how our program promotes a more scholarly approach to action research, thus differentiating it from action research completed at the masters or undergraduate levels of education. building on the more profound awareness of social justice our course sequence provides for our students, the second action research course revisits the problem of practice work with a more focused gaze on problems that emerge as a result of injustices in our educational system. the second action research course culminates with a focus on various practitioner research methods that allow the researcher to embed their data collection in the intervention or investigation process, thus minimizing any negative impact on the research participants' lived experiences. for example, our students often want to measure aspects of a student’s perspective like their sense of belonging or level of collaboration, two constructs that are not easily measured directly. so, we will often suggest they use a short survey referred to as an exit ticket as a proxy for a more robust instrument. exit tickets include a likert-style survey item followed by an open-ended response item (see figure 1.). mrs. johnson's exit ticket for today student name __________________ how successful were you in class today? (circle one number below) 1 2 3 4 5 not successful at all very successful why did you answer this way? how well do you feel you worked today? (circle one number below) 1 2 3 4 5 not well at all very well why did you answer this way? figure 1: exit ticket example exit tickets can be done with paper and pencil or using a cloudbased digital form application. they are typically short and only require a few minutes of student time but can generate large amounts of useful data from the student perspective. strategies for data collection that take very little if any student time away from the learning process is what we recommend as it aligns with action research’s emphasis on equitable and ethical research in the embedding activism in a stem edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 6 classroom. exit tickets, and other methods of formative assessment that are both of and for learning (kennedy et al., 2007) are topics of focus in the second action research course. in both action research courses, the final assessments are pieces of writing that can either wholly or partially become portions of their written dissertations. given that the action research courses occur at the beginning and end of the first year of the program, this writing typically contributes to the students' research proposal, the first of three critical benchmarks in our edd program. principles of project-based learning as part of the stem edd program cognate (3-course sequence), students learn about and enact project-based learning (pbl) within their educational context. this three-course sequence was initially developed for a state-level licensure endorsement for teachers (howard et al., 2015), and has been adapted for the stem edd degree. these courses focus on education professionals, and their use of project-based learning to engage k-12 students in local stem-careers and community. thus, this course sequence directly engages edd students in activism consideration #2 by connecting k12 students to their community to solve local problems or investigate local stem issues and consideration #6 through the explicit connection of the pbl unit content to stem careers. pbl engages students in activism, such as through social studies projects focused on civil rights and equity (turk & berman, 2018), service-learning projects (stowe, 2020), or projects focused on improving local environmental issues (herman, 2018; rahm, 2002; zimmerman & weible, 2017). in the edd program, stem teachers can use pbl units to engage students in improving their local community while also introducing students to stem career skills and content. during the initial course, introduction to project-based learning, the edd. students learn about the gold-standard design elements that distinguish pbl instruction from regular classroom projects (larmer et al., 2015). these design elements support student learning of content and 21st century process skills (collaboration, critical thinking, and communication), which include: (a) a challenging problem or question, (b) sustained inquiry (c) authenticity, (d) student voice and choice, (e) reflection (f) critique and revision, and (g) a public product (larmer, et al., 2015). the edd students are also introduced to place-based education (sobel, 2004) and link their pbl unit projects to local community problems or needs. these design elements work together to empower students to take ownership of their learning. for example, pbl elevates k-12 student voice when students choose project outcomes that benefit their school or local community. during a project, they might engage with local community members in sustained inquiry, interviewing local stem content or community experts to learn new content and learn about local stem career opportunities. additionally, they might present initial products to stem experts and engage in a round of critique and revision before presenting their final products to an authentic audience. at the end of this first course, the edd students develop a pbl unit that integrates stem careers and local connections that they will teach and reflect on during the next course. through the courses, teachers have developed pbl units that focus on school (developing a school garden or recycling program) or community level improvements (improving the ecosystem of a local park, engineering design projects in which students invent new products or artwork for their community). during the second course, applications of pbl in curriculum and instruction, the edd students enact and reflect on their first unit and develop a second cross-disciplinary unit (must address more than one content area) that they teach in the final course. in the final course, practicum in project-based learning, the edd students teach and reflect on their final unit and plan and engage colleagues in professional development around pbl. thus, through the three courses, k-12 students are engaged in two pbl units in which they learn 21st century skills, stem content, and stem career connections while also making a difference within and connecting further with the people and places in their local community. identifying areas for activism in stem education the research methods in stem education (edte 812) course was developed as an online graduate course for the stem edd. this course is designed to engage students in critical exploration of current research and research methodological approaches in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem). objectives in this course lend well to supporting activism among students, where students begin to identify areas of need. the ideas of action research developed and explored throughout this course, will lead to action research enacted within the students’ community. throughout the course, students explore research related to issues of social justice in stem (i.e. stem career gaps, educational gaps, opportunity gaps). through the lens of equity, students seek to identify local issues related to stem education and propose an action research line of inquiry. in order to truly identify areas of need and support their line of inquiry, students engage in an in depth literature review on their selected issue and activism topic related to stem. readings within the research to stem education course, students engage in readings from the national science foundations, and the state of the u.s science and engineering 2020 (nsf, 2020) which enable students to look at the current state of science and engineering education in pk-12 schools. readings and exploration of the data include analysis of reports such as the elementary and secondary mathematics and science education report (national science board, 2019). in addition to data and reports from the national science foundation, literature exploring barriers in stem such as gender, race, and socio economic status are explored (reilly et al., 2017; gonzalez & kuenzi, 2012; chachashvili-bolotin et al., 2016) along with readings from the course text, reconceptualizing stem education: the central role and practices (duschel & bismack, 2016). course readings are discussed in depth and reflected upon with a critical lens. students are asked to identify connections between the readings, national data, and their own communities and work with students and stem education (activism considerations 1, 2, 3, 5 & 9) assignments throughout the research methods in stem education course, students are engaging in their own literature review regarding an area of need within stem education. the aim of the literature review is to ground students in the literature and help students identify lines of inquiry to enact within their own communities through action miller et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 7 research (considerations 2 & 7). all areas of research will be approved by the instructor prior to beginning their formal literature reviews, must be grounded in the stem methodological approaches discussed in the course, and must address disparities regarding social justice implications (considerations 7 & 9). all literature reviews must identify areas of additional research where they can begin to develop a plan for their action research or build upon current findings. in addition to the literature review, students engage in a reflective critical analysis/ critiques of current stem education studies. students seek to identify strengths and weaknesses in the methodology of the studies, as well as identify disparities, level of generalizability, barriers, and issues of equity within the studies (considerations 3 & 7). the aim of this work is to help students identify strong methods, as well as learn to look at the literature with a critical lens and carry these skills into their future research. as students build their foundational knowledge in current practices and research across stem education, students will design and lead a mini-seminar based on at least two key articles from the course readings and at least five additional articles related to their topic, their plans regarding future studies, and issues of equity must be addressed (considerations 1 & 9). activism in mathematics education advanced readings in mathematics education is another course in our edd stem program. this course introduces students to a broad survey of research in mathematics education. as part of the course, we embed readings and an assignment that focus on helping them think about social activism in mathematics education with their work as stem education leaders (consideration 1 & 6). readings key readings are included in the course to help students think about mathematics education from the perspective of activism and what it may look like to be change agents in their local educational communities and beyond (consideration 2). for example, students read chapter 1 “algebra and civil rights?” from radical equations: math literacy and civil rights (moses & cobb, 2002). for many students, this reading is the first time they have thought about mathematics as a non-neutral subject that can be political in nature and can be used to help all students achieve more. moses and cobb (2002) offer the proposition that mathematics, in their text specifically algebra, is a civil rights issue. they explain that much like literacy, numeracy (i.e., the ability to understand and work with numbers) should be a skill afforded to all people. in our current society, people who cannot read often do not share that deficiency with others as it is shameful sadly because they feel shameful for not being able to read but in truth, it is shameful to us as a society that we have denied them the opportunity to learn to read. in contrast, many in our society are not ashamed to say, “i can’t do math” this should not be the case. individuals should not be ashamed of themselves for not being able to “do math,” but we as a society should be ashamed that we have allowed individuals to progress through our educational system without the same right to be numerate, as they have to be literate (considerations 1 & 9). we read additional book chapters and articles from a variety of texts that focus on issues of equity, access, and power when thinking about social activism in mathematics education. for example, we read part 1 of the book, the impact of identity in k-8 mathematics: rethinking equity-based practices (aguirre, mayfield-ingram, & martin, 2013). titled “rethinking mathematics learning, identity, and equity,” this section includes a discussion about what mathematics is taught in schools, for whom it is taught, and why it is taught. it further discusses ideas of identity and agency in mathematics and important concepts teachers need to understand to support student learning with regard to identity and agency. finally, it unpacks how teacher identities are shaped and the importance of knowing yourself and your own biases when teaching mathematics to students (considerations 12). another article example includes “engaging teachers in the powerful combination of mathematical modeling and social justice: the flint water task” (aguirre et al., 2019). with a focus on the long struggle for clean water in flint, michigan, this article focuses on the implementation of a mathematical model task with teachers focused on that crisis. findings from this study indicate that teachers can engage in both mathematical modeling tasks and social justice issues concurrently. this piece helps our students think about concrete ways to imbed social activism in the teaching of mathematics (consideration 2 & 12). one final example of a resource shared with students is nctm advocacy toolkit (nctm, 2008). the national council of teachers of mathematics (nctm) is “the world’s largest mathematics education organization” with a mission statement indicating it “advocates for high-quality mathematics teaching and learning for each and every student” (national council of teachers of mathematics, n.d.). in 2008, they created an advocacy toolkit, as well as an advocacy section of their website, to help members advocate for mathematics education policy making (krehbiel, 2008). this toolkit provides students with concrete examples and information to talk with policymakers about mathematics education for all students (consideration 1 & 2). lastly, students also are encouraged to seek out additional articles to offer examples of socially responsive mathematics education. for example, some journals that offer such articles include the journal of urban mathematics education, journal of research in rural education, the rural educator and journal of mathematics and culture. assignment one assignment students complete in this course is to develop a lesson similar to the flint water task exercise shared in aguirre et al., (2019). students are encouraged to choose a social issue that is of interest to them and the students they teach. then, they research the issue using primary sources, when available. they then create a lesson to emphasize mathematics standards for their grade band and state that will illicit student discussion around the social issue (consideration 1, 2 & 12). to offer additional examples of possible intersections of mathematics problem solving and social justice, students can review mathematics textbooks as well as online resources. students sometimes find word problems in traditional textbooks that have sound mathematical foundations that they can modify based on a social issue of which they and their students are interested. students also sometimes find ideas from reviewing local newspapers or historical documents that they can then use to emphasize the desired mathematical content. three additional books also offer examples of how to encourage socially active mathematics lessons: rethinking embedding activism in a stem edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 8 mathematics: teaching social justice by the numbers (gutstein & peterson, 2013),teaching mathematics for social justice (wager et al., 2012), and high school mathematics lessons to explore, understand, and respond to social injustice (berry et al., 2020). the authors of the last book recently shared their experiences of compiling a book with such a variety of mathematics content and socially responsive lessons in a podcast that offers students additional insight into authoring such tasks (amidon, 2020). in berry et al., (2020), teachers offer examples of their socially conscious lessons. some example lessons include looking at the statistical content associated with the census and how that data is collected, the geometry of gerrymandering, and the algebra and functions of fair living wages. from these examples, students see a variety of methods and ways to incorporate social activism in mathematics lessons (considerations 1, 2 & 12). activism in engineering education principles of engineering in stem education is another course in our edd stem program. this course introduces students to a broad survey of research in engineering education. readings and assignments are incorporated in the course to help students think about being socially conscious in engineering education as a stem educator. readings given that engineering education is a new addition to k-12 schooling, at least in a systematic way, more resources concerning socially responsive engineering practices are currently found at the collegiate level. although that makes it more challenging to find k-12 focused resources, we can encourage our students to fill the literature gap with their work and research (considerations 3, 5 & 7). for example, a recent call from the journal of pre-college engineering education research (j-peer) is seeking manuscripts addressing the focus on asset-based engineering education (martin & wendell, 2020). students in this course read about issues of access, equity, and power in engineering such as asset-based engineering education, meaning “students’ existing assets should be taken as epistemologically primary, so that education is designed first around students’ assets, and conceptions of engineering are interrogated and reimagined as needed” (martin & wendell, 2020, p. 1). these readings are designed to help students think about opportunities for social activism within stem engineering practices. one such project promoting asset-based engineering education that students learn about is the asset-based practices in engineering design (aprende) project. this particular project focuses on helping middle school students and their teachers emphasize funds of knowledge of latinx students and english language learners to impact student interest in engineering practices (mejia et al., 2019). learning about asset-based engineering education and this project offers students an example of current work happening in the area of promoting engineering education for all students (consideration 9). students also read chapter 11, “equity and diversity in science and engineering education” in a framework for k-12 science education (national research council, 2012). this chapter begins with defining equity and continues by helping the reader reflect on possible sources of inequity, ponder what inclusive science and engineering instruction looks like, value student culture and funds of knowledge – much like the work of mejia et al. (2019), and emphasize the importance of student prior interest and identity. this chapter helps students begin to position themselves as students of their students when they approach engineering practices in stem education. like asset-based engineering practices, students of their students means teachers must learn what talents and strengths their students already possess and integrate those assets within the engineering content. what do they need to know about their students and their interest and understanding of engineering as they begin to work with them as stem learners? (consideration 1) students further consider how they can develop as socially conscious engineering educators in stem by reading two additional j-peer articles: “capturing children with autism’s engagement in engineering practices: a focus on problem scoping” (ehsan & cardella, 2020) and “who is welcome here? a culturally responsive content analysis of makerspace websites” (kye, 2020). ehsan and cardella (2020) spoke to the strengths of children with autism in engaging in engineering practices. kye (2020) discussed the importance of grounding the work of makerspace work (nation of makers, n.d.) and websites in culturally responsive pedagogy. also as noted in mejia et al. (2019) and national research council (2012), these articles speak to exploiting the gifts, strengths, and expertise within students to engage them in the principles of engineering. the authors and those they study in these texts highlights the work our edd candidates can emulate to become activists and change agents within their local educational communities and beyond (consideration 1, 2, 3, 4, & 12). students also read part i, “service-learning in engineering education,” in projects that matter: concepts and models for service-learning in engineering (tsang & zlotkowski, 2007). with part i, students read about community-based learning and professional activism. though geared more for university engineering faculty, the concepts of infusing service learning into engineering classes such that students develop a socially responsive approach to engineering helps students see how they can use what they are learning in their classes to address community needs. this text offers students additional concrete examples of how they can integrate social responsiveness with content learning (consideration 2, 6, & 12). four final examples of resources shared with our students are the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” website at colorado state university (n.d.), the “peer & wise” website at clemson university (n.d.), “engineering inclusion” (n.d.), and the “american society for engineering education” home page at the american society for engineering education (asee) (n.d.). each of these websites offers information about equity and access to students that offers examples of social activism in engineering education. for example, the peer (programs for educational enrichment and recruitment) and wise (women in science and engineering) programs at clemson university offer concrete examples of socially responsive programs working to increase the involvement of underrepresented populations in the sciences and engineering (consideration 1, 6, & 9). assignment when students take the principles of engineering in stem education course, they have already completed the advanced readings in mathematics education course. therefore, they have all reviewed the nctm advocacy toolkit (national council of teachers of mathematics, 2008). in this course, one assignment is to develop miller et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.172 9 and share an engineering in stem education (esteme) advocacy toolkit with a specific focus on parents (consideration 2). whereas the nctm advocacy toolkit is designed more for political advocacy, this esteme advocacy toolkit is required to have a focus on parents – how can you help parents better understand what esteme looks like and how all children gain access to esteme. to complete this assignment, students research the “access, diversity, and inclusion” and “advocacy and public policy” sections of the asee website (n.d.). they interview a small sub-set of parents from underrepresented populations in stem to learn more about what they already know about esteme and what they have questions about or need in terms of guidance (consideration 2 & 12). once they assemble the esteme advocacy toolkit, they share the final draft with at least one parent to gather feedback and if possible, use one or two resources created from their toolkit to help the children learn more about esteme. the goal of this project is to support students in creating a living document that can be implemented to enact change. students can then further distribute their esteme advocacy toolkit to additional parents or use this template to create additional stem advocacy toolkits as they develop as social activists in stem education. conclusion looking across the different coursework and experiences within our stem edd in reference to the 12 considerations for implementing activism within edd programs, our program prepares graduates with strong practitioner research skills, a strong focus on improving their local community, and a strong social justice framework. through action research coursework, edd students are mentored through research methodologies that allow them to solve important practitioner-based problems of practice with a focus on equity and social justice. through the stem-focused education research courses (one for each discipline), students gain a strong understanding of current stem education literature and how this literature can be translated into educational experiences that value all students and encourage a diverse group of future stem professionals. the stem research knowledge provides direction for edd students to ask questions, create learning opportunities, or develop practitioner research methods that address the equity and social justice issues in their communities. the pbl courses take the learning experiences and social justice work directly to k-12 students. as the edd students implement their created pbl units, k12 students learn stem content knowledge and connect with stem career professionals in order to address local issues. thus, the program expands the social justice efforts beyond the edd students to impact a larger community. the edd students are empowered as stem activists as they are supported through the various program components and experiences. the courses we have highlighted above represent one subset of the coursework in our program. as we continue to develop courses and redevelop existing courses, it is our hope that we will find novel and stem-specific ways to address each of the considerations for supporting edd activism. while we recognize our stem edd program is still in its first year, we draw on the experiences of faculty from two of the other edd program concentrations that have been in existence in our college for many years. we further recognize the long standing and important role of the professional fields associated with stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and their past and future contributions to the work to resolve issues of social justice present in our society. it is our hope that the development and refinement of this program and its focus on equity and activism in stem education will continue to contribute to the tradition of positive improvements provided by stem related fields in the lives of american and global citizens alike. references aguirre, j. m., anhalt, c. o., cortez, r., turner, e. e., & simic-muller, k. 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(2002). emergent learning opportunities in an inner-city youth gardening program. journal of research in science teaching, 39(2), 164–184. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.10015 reilly, d., neumann, d. l., & andrews, g. (2017). gender differences in spatial ability: implications for stem education and approaches to reducing the gender gap for parents and educators. in m. s. khine (ed.), visual-spatial ability in stem education: transforming research into practice (pp. 195–224). springer international publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44385-0_10 sobel, d. (2004). place-based education: connecting classroom and community. great barring-ton, ma: the orion society. stowe, c. (2020). adolescent activism: teaching experiential literacy with young adult literature and global perspectives. the virginia english journal, 69 (2), 5-81. tsang, e., & zlotkowski, e. a. (2007). projects that matter: concepts and models for service-learning in engineering. stylus. turk, d. b., & berman, s. b. (2018). learning through doing: a project-based learning approach to the american civil rights movement. social education, 82(1), 35–39. underwood, j. b., & mensah, f. m. (2018). an investigation of science teacher educators’ perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy. journal of science teacher education, 29(1), 46–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560x.2017.1423457 wager, a. a., stinson, d. w., & kilpatrick, j. (2012). teaching mathematics for social justice: conversations with educators. national council of teachers of mathematics. zimmerman, h. t., & weible, j. l. (2017). learning in and about rural places: connections and tensions between students’ everyday experiences and environmental quality issues in their community. cultural studies of science education, 12(1), 7–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-0169757-1 https://riley.furman.edu/education/projects/sc-school-education-project-based-learning-teaching-endorsementcredential-initiat https://riley.furman.edu/education/projects/sc-school-education-project-based-learning-teaching-endorsementcredential-initiat https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.83.3.kr08797621362v05 https://www.nctm.org/about/ https://www.ed.gov/stem https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20196/ https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-016-9757-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-016-9757-1 embedding activism in a stem edd program bridget miller university of south carolina christopher bogiages university of south carolina jan yow university of south carolina christine lotter university of south carolina activism in stem education stem edd concentration mission and curriculum principles of action research principles of project-based learning identifying areas for activism in stem education readings assignments activism in mathematics education readings assignment activism in engineering education readings assignment conclusion references microsoft word 143-764-4.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 faculty leaders challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs jill a. perry, phd associate professor of the practice jillaperry@cpedinitiative.org debby zambo, phd professor emerita and cped associate director debby.zambo@cpedinitiative.org emma abruzzo, med phd candidate and cped graduate assistant eta9@pitt.edu producing change in higher education is not always easy or quick (kennedy, et al., 2018; perry, 2014a; schuster & finkelstein, 2006; tierney, 1998). conferences provide faculty with exposure to new ideas, but that exposure is often not enough to produce programmatic and structural change. in addition to new ideas, faculty must also have the tools they need to navigate change and institutional resistance when introducing and implementing new ideas. over the last decade or so, school of education faculty, guided by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) have worked to redesign the education doctorate and make it a professional practice degree. as a leader in educational change, cped aims to reframe the edd through both the cultivation of innovative ideas and the promulgation of those ideas across existing institutions and structures. cped found faculty leaders to be necessary in creating institutional change, but also that the role of leader is a challenging one. building upon earlier inquiries of faculty from cped member institutions, this current study sought to discover more about the needs, challenges, and means for successful innovation implementation by edd programmatic change leaders. keywords: education doctorate (edd), change leader, cped, redesign, resister, institutional, programmatic introduction and foundational work since its birth in 2007, cped collaborated with faculty to rethink and redesign the edd, and to learn about that process along the way. in 2010, cped was awarded a us department of education fund for the improvement of post-secondary education (fipse) grant to determine how twenty-one of its original members of education changed their edds. results from this cross-case study showed that even though cped provided a framework to help re/design programs, resistance and challenges confronted the change process at most institutions. for example, course work largely remained traditional in nature. that is, though some courses were redesigned, others remained focused on the needs of phd students (e.g., research theory, inferential statistics) as opposed to the needs of practitioners. courses reflected faculty experience and expertise in their own training and disciplines, which in most cases meant traditional phd-like thinking and the writing of a theoretical dissertation to jumpstart publishing careers. fipse data also showed the challenges faced by change leaders and faculty who were highly involved or leading redesign efforts. in this study, these leaders described their workload as more intense and more time-consuming (perry et al., 2015). meetings to share information and change courses and requirements reduced available time for other institutional obligations such as publishing and teaching. the same and more could be said for junior, tenure-track faculty chosen to lead or be involved in programmatic changes. these faculty members found themselves calling meetings and providing answers and rationales to more senior faculty with even fewer resources while having an increased imperative to publish. the study concluded that designated change leaders are forced to bear a cost relative to their time and career focus (perry et al., 2015). in 2014, perry reported from a multiple-case study aimed at understanding how three faculty members from three different institutions facilitated change based on cped’s framework. at the first institution, the faculty leader worked to bring together what she termed a “fragmented” faculty. her work involved the usual planning, organizing, and communicating with various people, along with “putting out fires.” this faculty leader admitted her role as change agent was a hard job and one for which she was not well prepared. her colleagues recognized this as well and were not envious of her leadership role; as one faculty member stated, she had “all this responsibility without the authority.” at the second institution, the faculty leader claimed his role was “to shake things up and to get these people either out or on board.” this faculty leader spent a great deal of time “cleaning up” issues related to the program like student time to degree and the delivery and sequencing of courses. his efforts fell apart when he left and no successor could be found. at the third institution, the faculty leader organized working groups around the cped design-concepts and invited faculty members to participate in working groups to redesign their existing edd program. the groups met regularly, and the faculty leader was central in 1 perry, zambo, abruzzo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 organizing discussions and work. still, the process unfolded slowly. two key findings emerged from perry (2014b) that grew the findings from the fipse study. first, in order to be successful agents of change, faculty in leadership roles necessitate top administrative support in a top-down/bottom-up change process. second, there exists a complexity and discomfort between faculty leaders and their colleagues during the process of choosing and implementing change efforts in their edd programs. given both of these study results, cped planned its next investigation to serve as a follow-up and extend this work with a new group on individuals – its delegates council, or faculty members who serve as institutional change leaders appointed to work with cped leadership to review, revise and update the cped framework, adopt policies for the implementation of the framework, support of institutional members, and more. theoretical frames two theoretical frames informed our study as we sought to uncover the needs, challenges and successes the delegate council faculty faced and how they addressed them. the first was everett rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovation which provides a comprehensive view of “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system” (p. 10). on a larger scale, rogers’ theory can support understanding of how cped ideas are adopted and how institutions change. in this study, the rogers model provided insights about the action faculty take when acting as change agents. these actions include: 1. developing a need for change through awareness; 2. establishing an information-exchange relationship or rapport between the change agent and those needed to make the change; 3. diagnosing and analyzing problems and determining why the way things are needs to be different; 4. creating an intent to change by motivating interest in the innovation; 5. translating intentions to change into to actions; 6. stabilizing adoption and preventing discontinuance at the implementation stage; and 7. achieving a terminal relationship. the change agent should seek to develop individual’s capability to be their own change agent (p. 337). in her study on faculty change agents, perry (2014b) found that these seven characteristics were not enough to fully understand the role of faculty as change agents in complex institutions like higher education. she adopted a second lens, meyerson’s tempered radicals framework (2003), to explore more deeply how grassroots leadership plays out in higher education. meyerson’s framework described individuals who both identify with and are committed to their institutions, but who are also committed to a cause or movement that is “fundamentally different from and possibly at odds with the dominant culture of their organization” (meyerson & scully, 1995, p. 186). this type of change agent aspires to create positive change but has no formal authority to do so. therefore, as they work to change colleague mindsets and policy structures in organizations that can be inherently resistant to change, they temper their strategies to limit personal discomfort. tempered radicals, as these grassroots leaders are called (meyerson, 2003), rely on a variety of strategies that do not necessarily follow a formal step-by-step process, as rogers (2003) suggested, but rather offer ways to tackle obstacles and resistance while protecting themselves. such strategies defined in meyerson’s (2003) framework are grouped into three levels—the individual or psychological level (including actions focused on self-motivation, identity, and resilience), at the group or social psychological level (including strategy, tactics, power dynamics to motivate change with groups) and at the organizational level (including leadership development, group formation, structural and cultural change). in this study, we utilized both theories to gain stronger understanding of how cped faculty members were addressing issues related to redesigned edd programs. participants and study design a study of the members of the cped delegates council was conducted through the administration of a qualitative survey and analysis of the subsequent results. participants were cped delegates, individuals appointed by their dean to serve as the primary contact between cped and their home institution, and who most often serve as one of the lead faculty in their edd program re/design. the delegates council was established in 2019 to enhance the reciprocal relationship between cped and its members. prior to their first meeting, cped leadership led an investigation into the dilemmas faced and remedies implemented by delegates at their institutions. to accomplish this an open-ended survey was sent to each delegate to learn about the following questions: q1: what is a dilemma that you face in implementing the cped framework at your institution? q2: what have you done already to try and remedy or manage the dilemma? surveys were sent to 107 individuals assigned to be cped delegates for their institutions. irb consent statements were included in the survey and completion of the survey served as consent to participate. 63 surveys were returned for a response rate of 59%. data were analyzed using a qualitative, grounded research approach (strauss & corbin, 1998). data were placed into a spreadsheet and instances of commonalities and differences were noted and coded. then coded data were categorized to understand each code’s properties and dimensions (strauss & corbin, 1998). data for each category were then reunited to form a bigger picture (glaser & strauss, 1967). this deductive process continued until saturation (miles & huberman, 1994). findings and discussion four dilemmas were described by respondents—faculty resistance, challenges redefining the dissertation, demands of the redesign process, and student issues. in the following, we will describe each of these dilemmas, the challenges they cause delegates, and the strategies they employ to address them. in doing so, we will apply the theoretical frames of rogers (2003) and meyerson (2003) to better describe and understand the actions taken by delegates in their capacity as leaders of institutional change efforts. faculty resistance the most commonly described dilemma faced by delegates in implementing cped’s framework was the prevalence of ‘faculty 2 faculty leaders challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 resisters’ at their institutions. faculty resisters fall into one of the following ideological persuasions: they not understand the need for change, they do not believe change should be implemented, or they disagree on just what that change should entail. faculty resisters were most frequently described as individuals who hold phds and who largely did not see the merits of redesigning courses and milestones to be different than traditional phd programs. these resisters did not buy-in to the cped framework. their perspectives are stubbornly held and manifest in a propensity to maintain the status quo in a way that is not productive for redesigning the edd. resisters may hold a deficit view of the edd, understanding it as a phd-lite, or a doctorate of lower quality and rigor. they appeared to have a difficult time accepting the edd as a practitioner degree rather than a theoretical/research degree. resistance to change was observed to be both overt and covert. some faculty plainly voiced their opposition in meetings and when serving on design committees. others more covertly resisted through the construction of roadblocks. the roadblocks were both social and administrative. an example includes faculty members agreeing to change courses, but then continuing to teach in traditional ways with little connections to practice. despite being one of the most difficult challenges faced, delegates have worked to engage their resisting colleagues. from a rogers (2003) frame, we see delegates enacting four of the change agent actions: developing a need for change through awareness; establishing an information-exchange relationship or rapport between the change agent and those needed to make the change; diagnosing and analyzing problems and determining why the way things are needs to be different; and creating an intent to change by motivating interest in the innovation. an example of these actions includes developing communication strategies -continuous face-tomeetings, discussions, reviews, and retreats, and advertisements, articles, and resources. another example includes making structural changes to programs such as course names, developing handbooks, or creating admissions tactics. a third example is the creation of professional development opportunities for their colleagues. from a meyerson (2003) frame, we can understand the delegate role as change agent more fully. at the individual level of the tempered radical framework, the continuous efforts of these faculty members speak to the notion of resilience in the face of resistance. delegates seek out new and various ways to reach out to their colleagues and share what they have learned at cped convenings to move the redesign effort forward. they remain motivated by their commitment to the edd as a practitioner degree. yet they often struggle with identifying as the leader, or most knowledgeable about the change effort, and continue to seek information and professional development for themselves. at the group or social psychosocial level, they seek to learn strategies and tactics to temper their role as a leader of change and become collaborative. they attempt to build consensus through group discussion and sharing of ideas. in this way, they feel they are reducing some of the criticism and cynicism. finally, at the organizational level, small structural changes to programs seek to create a culture that slowly shifts towards understanding the edd as a professional practice degree. redefining the dissertation the second most prevalent dilemma delegates face in implementing cped’s framework at their institution is in redefining the dissertation. cped asserts that the edd dissertation should be termed and understood as a dissertation in practice (dip), or a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice (cped, 2010). misconceptions about the purpose, format, and structure of the dip are key to the challenge of redefining the dissertation. delegates report that their colleagues have difficulty discerning how and why a dip differs from a traditional phd dissertation. their colleagues lack understanding about how to mentor and advise edd students differently from traditional phd students particularly around the dissertation experience. the degree and type of advice and support regarding the dissertation’s process and expectations varies between and within programs and institutions providing faculty with uneasy ground to stand upon. and often, programs lack documents to guide, support, and make edd dissertation work consistent. delegates have worked to support their colleagues and students in understanding the cped definition and implementation of the dip. through rogers (2003), we see delegates enacting four of the change agent actions: developing a need for change through awareness; diagnosing and analyzing problems and determining why the way things are needs to be different; creating an intent to change by motivating interest in the innovation; and translating intentions to change into to actions. actions taken include creating informational documents, ongoing support for colleagues and consistency in message about the dip, redesigning of course work to support early development of the dip, investigating and implementing new and different approaches to the traditional dissertation experience, and teaching colleagues to mentor in different ways. with this dilemma we also see delegates acting in tempered ways at all three levels of strategic change. as individuals, delegates identify as the resource for change though recognize that they don’t always have the answers. they often seek out more information to support their colleagues. they have worked at the group level collaborating with colleagues to change courses, share about new approaches, and collaborate on new advising models. delegates create change at the organizational level, in part, through structural changes to courses and formats of dips. demands of the redesign process the third dilemma delegates face in implementing cped’s framework at their institution is the speed and breadth of the redesign process. delegates said they were often “building the plane while flying it” and “making decisions [about (re)design] in the midst of the program.” overlaying this sense was the struggle to gain a shared understanding across faculty colleagues of the cped framework and how it applied to program redesign processes. additionally, delegates struggled to develop continuous improvement processes as part of the redesign. further complicating the redesign process, delegates reported that institutional roadblocks came in a variety of forms and at various points in the redesign process often causing need for quick action or slowing the process. delegates worked to overcome the struggles of program redesign. again, drawing on rogers’ (2003) frame, delegates continued to enact change agent actions to address these dilemmas. namely, developing a need for change through awareness, establishing an information-exchange relationship or rapport between the change agent and those needed to make the change, diagnosing and analyzing problems and determining why the way 3 perry, zambo, abruzzo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 things are needs to be different, creating an intent to change by motivating interest in the innovation, and translating intentions to change into to actions. these actions included having regular meetings, conversations and trainings with faculty colleagues and using cped’s resources—websites, readings, colleagues—to support those efforts. they created templates and documents to share with colleagues and students, developed communications to disseminate redesign efforts. meyerson (2003) frames delegates as individuals who identify with the role of change agent, having an openness to continuously improve their redesign process. this identity guides their work at the group level where they share and use cped’s resources (website, articles, books), set aside time to work together to develop a shared understanding of the edd based on cped’s vision, map curricular and experiential sequences around cped’s framework, redesign courses to meet students’ needs, share and align their syllabi, and create documents describing different options for dips. at the organizational level, the delegates also felt it was important to keep administrators updated about redesign efforts and maintain close working relationships. overall, despite feeling that change was slow and time consuming, they did see progress with programs moving in the right direction. they reported gains such as program clarity, new elements, respect for the edd, greater student learning, and influential dissertations in practice. administratively, they saw improved enrolment and completion rates. personally, they felt they were building partnerships with colleagues and finding opportunities for publications. student issues the fourth dilemma delegates face focuses on issues with students. key challenges were issues related to the dip issues that arise when students’ change their work context (which is often the place where the dip is conducted) and the challenge of working with practitioners who lacked quality, writing skills. delegates work to address these student issues regularly. delegates enacting four of the change agent actions: establishing an information-exchange relationship or rapport between the change agent and those needed to make the change; diagnosing and analyzing problems and determining why the way things are needs to things are needs to be different; and translating intentions to change into to actions (rogers, 2003). actions include listening to students and stakeholders, closing divides between practitioners and researchers, continuing to redesign the program, re-scheduling and redesign courses, mentoring, and dissertations to meet students’ needs, and providing support for improved writing skills. delegates as individuals take on more profound advisor identity supporting students in more ways, during unusual time (weekends, nights) and in shorter timeframes. at the group level, delegates are working to bring groups of academics, practitioners and stakeholders together through information strategies focused on defining the edd as a professional practice degree. at the organizational level, they are shift understanding and culture around what it means to be a faculty member in edd programs and practitioners (meyerson, 2003). conclusion over the last thirteen years, many cped faculty acting as change agents at their home institutions have worked to reimagine the edd and to make it a strong professional practice experience for those who lead educational organizations. using these faculty members’ input, cped has created a framework aimed at distinguishing the edd from the phd by giving the edd its own equally important, identity. still, as data from this study shows, reframing the edd has not been easy, straightforward, or fast. we learned much of what we have seen over the years delegates face implementation hurdles that stem from their peers, the re/design process, and new dissertation forms and functions. such hurdles are the result of the traditions and norms of higher education that often make organizational change difficult at the faculty level. as delegates continue to face dilemmas around the re/design of the edd and as they act in a tempered manner to create change, they continue to look to cped to provide more support and information. as a conclusion to this study, we offer a bit of experience and knowledge as leaders of cped on addressing some of the above challenges. engaging resisters if faculty members hold phds and have little connection to practice, they may not see or understand the need for change to the edd. to shift and guide their understanding of the edd, faculty leaders can engage tempered strategies such as providing evidence and clear information for discussion across all faculty members. to some degree cped delegates are doing this through varied communication (e.g., meetings, discussions, resources, readings etc.). however, we stress that the content of the communication should be substantive and persuasive and allow resistant faculty the opportunity to build their own understanding through discussion and debate. examples include: • data. offering data and information about the current status of the edd program (enrollment, completion rates, faculty and student perspectives, where students go after they graduate). do the data show a successful program, engaged students, and competent graduates? • literature. articles and research that explain the history of the edd and help faculty understand why change is needed. three good ones to start with are: o reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal by shulman, et al. (2006) o rebooting the edd by wergin (2011) o what does history reveal about the education doctorate? by perry (2012) as the work continues, additional literature (such as those about dissertation options) can be introduced to build conversations and foster change ideas. • cped framework. introducing the cped framework and information about cped’s mission, history, and accomplishments is essential to creating change. offering examples of what cped member institutions are doing to implement the framework and what these examples might mean for edd programs are basis for change conversations. 4 faculty leaders challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 communication that includes these types of information and opportunities to discuss and debate can help faculty resisters understand why edd programs need to change. substantive communication should help faculty understand that their courses and dissertation work prepared them for their roles at the university, which is not the goal of edd students who want to remain in practice and improve educational organizations and problems. support and buy-in from peers, networks, and stakeholders our findings demonstrate that this work is very challenging to do alone. despite often being both dedicated and resilient (meyerson, 2003), delegates faced the most difficulty when they experienced feelings of dissonance from their networks, colleagues, and administration. for that reason, it is strongly advised that change leaders build a supportive team when carrying our redesign efforts. this team may be at their institution and/or can include individuals and institutions from outside of the institution such as: • other faculty members: engaging colleagues in the change process, whether through voicing opinions or serving in committee roles, is important if buy-in and sustainability are to be achieved. additionally, creating like-minded peer networks is important for the change leader. these may be faculty in other departments that offer edds or simply critical friends, peers who will provide honest, open feedback and support. • external networks: cped members, cped team members who can answer vital questions about resources, facilitation services, and professional development opportunities. these colleagues can also offer critical feedback and general support in challenging times. • external stakeholders: key to successful edd program re/design is listening to the voices of those who will both attend the university and gain benefit from its work (e.g., school and organizational administrators, educators, parents, students). local contexts and communities should be engaged in edd program (re)design. action and sustainability we learned from this study and previous ones that the role of the faculty leader is important but not enough for sustainable change within schools of education. sustainable change takes a village (rogers, 2003). therefore, to enact and sustain change and continuous improvement, faculty leaders need support from the following: • deans. school deans must be on board to support faculty leaders. in their role as opinion-leaders (rogers, 2003), deans can champion and set a vision for change. they have the ability to support the faculty leader with policy and evidence-based decisions and support them with resources such as course releases, graduate assistants, and travel. we suggest that all faculty leading change keep their deans informed about their work, about changes in the field and other institutions, and about what they learn from cped and beyond as they engage in this process. • faculty working groups. the re/design of a degree should not be an assignment given to a single faculty member. the integral nature of edd courses and the need for alignment and collaboration across courses requires a backwards mapping process (perry, et al., in press) that should be done with groups of faculty— both those who teach and those who advise in the program. we suggest having a faculty committee that oversees the edd and working groups that manage the various aspects of the program. these faculty can also help in informing peers about the importance of the work to spread change more effectively (rogers, 2003). • students. current students and alumni are great resources for understanding what programs need. surveys and focus groups with alumni can support learning about what needs to change. connection with current students can support on-going change and build student buy-in to change. we recommend that students be made aware of the intention and action to re/design the degree as a professional practice degree. for cped-influenced programs, students should know they are part of a change movement that is aimed at improving their profession. • administration. having all levels of administration involved is important. we recommend that faculty and deans regularly communicate with upper-level administration about the re/design and vision for the edd. we suggest that admission folks be trained about the vision, goals, and types of students the edd program is seeking. support staff should also be aware so that students receive correct information. these tempered collaboration strategies across these various groups will help to create change at the organizational level (meyerson, 2003). change in higher education is incredibly difficult, but it is doable. cped members have shown this to be true. as our membership grows, we encounter old ways of thinking. but we have a history of supporting change in schools of education and are prepared to support members with our years of experience and resources in the continued effort to improve the edd and make it the professional practice degree in education. references adler, j. & karlsberg, r. (2005),7 strategies for sustained innovation. retrieved 6 march 2020 from https://innovationmanagement.se/imtoolarticles/7-strategies-for-sustained-innovation/ carnegie project for the educational doctorate (cped). (2010). design concept definitions. retrieved from http://cpedinitiative.org glaser, b., & strauss, a. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory. 1967. weidenfield & nicolson, london, 1-19. kennedy, b., altman, m., & pizano, a. (2018). engaging in the battle of snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model. impacting education (3). doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 meyerson, d. e. (2003). tempered radicals: how everyday leaders inspire change at work. boston, ma harvard business school press. meyerson, d., & scully, m. (1995). tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change. organization science, 6(5), 585–600. miles, m. b., & huberman, a. m. (1994). qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. perry, j.a. (2012). what does history reveal about the education doctorate? in macintyre latta, m. & wunder, s. (eds.). placing practitioner knowledge 5 perry, zambo, abruzzo impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.143 at the center of teacher education: rethinking the policy and practice of the education doctorate. charlotte: information age publishing. perry, j.a. (2014a). the cped argument: a counter-response. ucea review, 22-24. perry, j.a. (2014b). changing schools of education through grassroots facultyled change. innovation in higher education 39(2), 144-168 perry, j.a., zambo, d. & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations, 36, 58-85. rogers, e. m. (2003). diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). new york, ny: the free press schuster, j., & finkelstein, m. (2006). the american faculty: the restructuring of academic work and careers. baltimore, md: johns hopkins press. shulman, l. s., golde, c.m., bueschel, a.c., & garabedian, k.j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. strauss, a. & corbin, j. (1998). basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. tierney, w.g. (1998). organizational culture in higher education: defining the essentials. the journal of higher education, (59),1, pp. 2-21. wergin, j.f. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119-140. 6 microsoft word 87 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 51 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool carl i. fertman, phd, mba, mches university of pittsburgh carl@pitt.edu abstract becoming adept at crafting scholarly writing is an important aspect of a doctoral student’s development. presented in this article is an edd course, embedded writing scaffold that engages students and faculty to develop students’ scholarly inquiry projects. that scaffold is the applied inquiry plan (aip). the aip creates a programmatic pathway to guide a dissertation in practice. working to improve the quality and value of scholar practitioner writing parallels and draws from efforts in the biomedical fields to develop writing guidelines that impact the quality and value of practice. creating and using the aip provides opportunities for broad discussion of how to engage edd students to view their writing as an epistemological tool. discussed is the aip impact on edd program redesign and improvement. keywords: writing, writing scaffolds, edd students, scholar practitioner, dissertation in practice introduction writing has enormous relevance to the way edd programs construct themselves to develop scholar practitioners who create practitioner inquiry agendas, build professional visibility, and produce practice based knowledge, products, and services (carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped], 2010). the goal for the written work of edd students can be framed around cped’s principles. that is, it be original, significant, and framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice. furthermore, that the written work help to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice and prepare leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. finally, edd students’ written works should emphasize the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice (cped, 2010). one of the instructional edd teams i teach with at the university of pittsburgh uses writing scaffolds to allow students to understand the features of a number of scholar practitioner genres, see a model of a written text in the genres, participate in the creation of texts in the genres, and independently write text in the genres. we promote the concept of scholarly practitioner genres aligned with wolfberg and lyytinen’s (2017) model of scholar practitioner writing genres that spans between academia and practice. we examine empirical papers, typically academic journal articles with dedicated practice sections, that communicate significant empirical findings of practical and theoretical importance with a demonstrated influence on practice. these are grounded on reporting findings of empirical inquiry to a problem of practice and the inquiry are founded on qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. in these papers we appraise how the authors position their inquiry within the literature, briefly and accurately describe the methods used, condense the empirical and theoretical findings, and discuss clearly the lessons for practice. we review foundation, governmental, and nongovernmental independent organization publications and reports of practice successes, challenges, and future directions to impact practice. we study national and state level professional products from organization and conference trainings and presentations, to provide directions and guidance on how to approach and influence specific practices, focusing on one or more select theories to discuss how the chosen theories inform the formulation and address a specific problem of practice. finally we analyze practitioner journals, practice materials and dissertations for the nature of scholar practitioner knowledge, related epistemologies, methods of inquiry, and their relationships to practice or forms of knowing in practice. across the genres we seek writing with language widely understood in everyday practice. we place priority on narrating the tangible context and the lived experience of stakeholders, and look to see if it is oriented toward concrete solutions and actions whereby real-world problems are resolved. this voice is persuasive, and reports lived experience and specific narrative forms to examine the context and goals of the proposed action (wolfberg & lyytienen, 2017). writing scaffolds our use of writing scaffolds parallels efforts in the biomedical fields that develop writing guidelines. in particular, we model our work on the squire (standards for quality improvement reporting excellence) guidelines intended as a guide for authors reporting on systematic, data-driven efforts to improve the quality, safety and value of healthcare (goodman et al., 2016; ogrinc et al., 2008). squire was designed to increase the completeness and transparency of reporting of quality improvement work, and since its publication in 2008, has contributed to the development of this body of literature by providing a guide to authors, editors, reviewers, educators and other stakeholders. we also use the tidier facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 52 guidelines—template for intervention description and replication checklist and guide (hoffmann et al., 2014)—because it is a model for how to provide quality descriptions of interventions. the reason we modeled our work on the squire and tidier guidelines is they provide a framework for reporting new knowledge on how to improve practice and replicate improvement efforts. they can be used across the scholarly practitioner genres. the squire explanation and elaboration documents (goodman et al., 2016) provide specific models of scaffold structures and documentation. likewise the clear and concise writing grounded in practice modeled by squire and tidier guidelines is consistent with wolfberg and lyytienen’s (2017) efforts to define scholar practitioner writing genres. finally, scaffolding is based on social learning theory (bandura, 1995) to support students’ transition from assisted tasks to independent performance (bliss & askew, 1996). it is a step-by-step process that provides the learner with sufficient guidance until the process is learned, and then gradually removes the supports in order to transfer the responsibility for completing the task to the student. in particular, we have found that it is a balancing act to provide edd students with the optimal amount of support necessary to write in varied scholar practitioner genres and to appreciate and understand the iterative writing process of drafting, soliciting feedback, editing, and revising (menter, elliot, mhulme, lewin, & lowden, 2011). establishing writing scaffolding as part of an edd program infrastructure can start with the first class. for example, we start with students first reading and familiarizing themselves with the varied scholar practitioner genres all the way to structured writing assignments with prompts, word counts, and expected number of primary source references. faculty feedback is also scaffolded with forms, rubrics, and directions to guide and shape faculty feedback so students (as well as faculty) know the intention of the audience and measure of how well the writing matches the intention (graff & birkenstein, 2014). applied inquiry plan (aip) in our practitioner inquiry course series we have developed an aip—applied inquiry plan (figure 1)—to develop edd students’ dissertation in practice. the aip creates a programmatic pathway to guide a dissertation in practice (and depending on a department’s scholarly inquiry project could be a guide to a dissertation, capstone, or demonstration of professional practice). the aip intention is to guide scholar practitioner inquiry reporting on systematic, data-driven (qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods) efforts to improve the quality and value of practitioner scholar inquiry as well as to provide quality descriptions of the inquiry. it is a practical guide, a “why to” and “how to” to help clarify a student’s problem of practice and the details of the inquiry. it is a plan for the student’s evolving inquiry. it is a discussion document for the student and faculty (e.g. advisor) to plan for, and adjust, aspects and details of the student’s inquiry. each sequential aip item was written collaboratively by the instructional team members representing disciplines and professional backgrounds across our edd program eight areas of concentration (arcos), reflecting a wide range of knowledge and experience. similar to the squire explanation and elaboration document (goodman et al., 2016; ogrinc et al., 2008) for each item there is a brief description. furthermore the aip draws from the tidier guidelines—template for intervention description and replication checklist and guide (hoffmann et al., 2014)—to provide quality descriptions of interventions. without a complete, concise description of the inquiry, practitioners, stakeholders, consumers, and other decision makers cannot replicate or build on inquiry findings. the aip’s items focus is broader, beyond the specifics of an intervention. therefore, aip items detail a deliverable with a suggested content and length (e.g. page and word counts). the writing scaffold breaks the aip into three supported and discussed assignments (assignments a, b, c). it is an iterative, evolving document. students complete an assignment and receive peer and course instructors’ feedback after which students meet with their advisors for further refinement and revision while starting to work on the next assignment. this sequence continues through the three assignments that build upon each other culminating in the finished aip. the students are responsible to schedule three meeting dates (in person, phone, skype, etc.) that are documented through an advisor sign-off (figure 2). this is not just a formality—it is designed to make sure a student and advisor are on the same page regarding the student’s inquiry plan. the aip is evaluated via a rubric that the course instructors use. each assignment focuses on specific parts of the aip with various points and weights (figure 3). however, most critical is feedback from the advisors. the evaluation rubric is focused on thoroughness, specificity, and appropriateness of information and completion of the assignment, as detailed. the content feedback from the advisor is most focused on the inquiry itself. to prepare students for their discussions of their aips with the advisors as part of each assignment, students prepare questions and concerns to use during the discussions with the advisors. as part of class, we use role plays to support students to be assertive in how they raise questions and concerns related to their inquiry. our evaluation rubric also includes points for the advisor questions and concerns. at times, students receive conflicting and contradicting feedback and comments. this is grist for discussion with peers, course instructors, and advisors as part of the students’ decision making related to their inquiry plan. the aip is completed in the third practitioner inquiry course, however, it is not the first or last time students interact with it. rather from the first course in the four-course practitioner inquiry series to the fourth course, students are discussing, drafting, and revising aip sections. it becomes a living document going through iterations leading to the dissertation in practice. the aip aligns with and support the cped principle that defines a dissertation in practice as one that exhibits the doctoral candidate’s ability to think, to perform, and to act with integrity, addresses the development of scholarly practitioners who are consumers of research, identifies scholarly practitioners as those who merge practical knowledge with professional skills to solve problems of practice, and practitioners use scholarly research to apply theory to practice in an effort to achieve educational change(cped, 2010). aip impact on program redesign and improvement beyond being a guide and support to scholar practitioner writing, the aip is a vehicle to engage and support edd students to view their writing as an epistemological tool. central to our argument for the development and use of the aip process is it fosters not only scholarly writing, but a student’s ability to write seeking equity, ethical actions, and social justice, to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice, and to prepare leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive fertman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 53 section description deliverable deadlines and approvals 1 problem area problem of practice context and background. as you have learned, as you frame a problem for consideration as a leader, you must consider the fuller context of that problem: how has the problem area been described and explored by other inquiries? what frames the problem more widely? provide a focused summary of the broader area of professional practice from which your problem or practice emanates. (1 page1) 1/27/18 instructor, assignment a 2/24/18 advisor sign-off 2 inquiry setting what is the practice-related setting for the inquiry? how does the setting inform and constrain both the problem and the ways in which it can be explored? provide a detailed description of the specific site or organization with a focus on key characteristics that are central to the problem. (1/2 page) 1/27/18 instructor, assignment a 2/24/18 advisor sign-off 3 stakeholders who are the various people (or groups of people) who have a “stake” in the context and issues of the problem, both directly and indirectly? provide a detailed description of the specific individuals, or group of individuals and stakeholders demographics and key characteristics that are central to the problem. (1/2 page) 1/27/18 instructor, assignment a 2/24/18 advisor sign-off 4 problem of practice what is your problem of practice and how does it manifest in this specific setting, with these specific stakeholders? provide a focused description of problem of practice that is situated by the problem area, in this inquiry setting and among these stakeholders. (1 page) 1/27/18 instructor, assignment a 2/24/18 advisor sign-off 5 inquiry questions what are the specific questions that will guide the study of this problem of practice? enumerate the specific questions to explore and address in the inquiry. (3-5 focused questions, 1 page) 2/24/18 instructor, assignment b 3/31/18 advisor sign-off 6 inquiry design what is your inquiry design (e.g. improvement science, evaluation, action research ….) for your problem of practice inquiry? provide a focused summary of the inquiry design you anticipate will frame this inquiry. (1/2 page) 2/24/18 instructor, assignment b 3/31/18 advisor sign-off 7 evidence and method what evidence will be collected; how will it be collected (methods) and how does the evidence and methods align with the inquiry questions? provide a chart that details the alignment of inquiry questions, evidence, and methods you will use to gather the evidence. (one chart row for each inquiry question, 2 pages) 2/24/18 instructor, assignment b 3/31/18 advisor sign-off 8 analysis and interpretation how will the evidence be examined, considered in terms of the literature of the field, and situated in the context of practice? add a column to the chart produced in step 7 to detail the types of analyses planned to further examine and interpret the evidence. (one additional column in the chart) 3/31/18 instructor, assignment c 4/20/18 advisor sign-off 9 proposed deliverable product what is the planned product of the dissertations of practice and how do you anticipate its use? provide a description of what you anticipate as the product of the inquiry and how it may be used to inform practice and/or influence policy. (1 page) 3/31/18 instructor, assignment c 1 length of each section is suggested only to provide some guidance facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 54 section description deliverable deadlines and approvals 4/20/18 advisor sign-off 10 proposed timeline what is the proposed timeline for major steps of your inquiry and the dissertation of practice that is feasible within reasonable confines of your degree? produce an estimated timeline or gantt chart to match your inquiry. (1 page timeline/chart) 3/31/18 instructor, assignment c 4/20/18 advisor sign-off assignment flow, assumptions, and point values: educ 3009 product the completed in the fall term educ 3009 product will be a course resource as well as a platform for the work of educ 3007. document upload is due january 11, 2018. the assignment is worth 5 points and is graded as uploaded. assignment a: (approximately 3 pages): assignment consist of a revision and reworking of materials that students have already completed in practitioner inquiry 1 and 2 and review of supporting literature completed with advisor. it will be handed in one week prior to class time (january 27, 2018), allowing for instructor feedback and peer work in class on february 3, 2018. after instructor and class review, students must make arrangements for their advisors to review/comment/sign off on this assignment. as part of the assignment students prepare questions and identify concerns to discuss with their advisors. sign-off document is due february 24, 2018. this assignment is worth 20 points and graded with a rubric. assignment b: (approximately 3 ½ pages) this assignment follows a similar trajectory (individual drafting, hand in for instructor review and comment february 24, 2018, time for in class review on march 3, 2018, followed by an additional month for advisor review/comment sign off by march 31, 2018. as part of the assignment students prepare questions and identify concerns to discuss with their advisors. this assignment is worth 20 points and graded with a rubric. assignment c: (approximately 4 pages) this assignment follows a similar trajectory (individual drafting, hand in for instructor review and comment march 31, 2018, time for in class review on april 7, 2018 with advisor review/comment sign off by april 20, 2018. as part of the assignment students prepare questions and identify concerns to discuss with their advisors. this assignment is worth 20 points and graded with a rubric. module assignments: similar to how online activities were scheduled in practitioner inquiry 2, additional module-associated assignments graded with a rubric. the modules will award up to 35 points toward the final grade. the total points for the course (100) will be divided by assignments a, b, and c (60 points) which comprises the applied inquiry plan, 5 points for the educ 3009 product upload and 35 points for module assignments. figure 1. applied inquiry plan guiding the dissertation of practice. figure 2. practitioner inquiry 3: applied inquiry plan assignments advisor sign off sheet. fertman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 55 difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. this discussion within an edd program is not dependent on using the aip or any other course embedded writing scaffold. rather for us the aip provided the pathway for such conversation to elevate and deepen students’ thinking about their writing and its potential as a tool to create new knowledge and impact practice. the aip impact on our program redesign and improvement is fourfold. first, it impacted the process to elevate and deepen students’ thinking about how their writing can create new knowledge and impact practice. in working with students on their aips, we have found we need to do more than help students to increase their productivity (e.g. “write more”) or help them to be “better” at writing, particularly if our goal is for them to create new knowledge and impact practice. we concluded that we needed to ask the questions: do students really see themselves as writers?; and, would seeing themselves as writers help them reframe writing not as a task (e.g. completing the aip) but a tool in their work to create new knowledge and impact practice? in the process of answering these questions, we became aware that much of the encouragement of students to write focuses on embodying different behaviors (e.g. get up early, write every day, write simple). following a model of banks and flinchbaugh (2013) based on a rhetorical refiguration of writerly identity, we talk with students about why they do or do not see themselves as writers and have students embody a new writerly ethos. however rather than a dichotomous decision of simply being a writer or not being a writer, students are approached in ways that encourage them to adopt writer as one of their ethos or roles or identities (castells, 1996). as students begin to adopt this ethos, they make the move from students and practitioners who write as part of their course work and jobs toward writer-practitioners and, eventually as they progress through the program, to writer-scholar-practitioners who can embrace themselves as writers. second, we had to consider how to engender student commitment to writing to create new knowledge and impact practice. we do not believe any single project, activity, or class assignment can effect students’ commitment to write. by working with students to refigure their relationship to writing and embracing that change as a programmatic goal that weaves through our courses, we believe we have a better chance of meeting student writers where they are. this allows students to begin to experience themselves as writers in divergent contents. for if writing is the meta-discipline as murphy et al. (2009) has argued, we should engage writing and writers as frequently and flexibly as possible, taking each opportunity we have to help students see themselves as writers. the aip spanning our edd courses facilitates this process. it is woven into course assignments and referenced during discussions with aip section exemplars shared to have students reflect on their own writing. faculty feedback and input play a role in students’ commitment to writing. we know students want faculty feedback and input on their writing. an important aspect of constructing the aip was attention to how we engender student commitment to writing and provide students with feedback. an important consideration therefore in the aip design and assignment configuration was practitioner inquiry course instructors, student peers, and edd advisors all reading aip assignments (e.g. assignments a, b, c). to accomplish this goal, aip items are concise and focused to facilitate students receiving both technical and content feedback as well as suggestions for revisions and next draft. course instructors and student peers focus on aip section requirements (e.g. word counts, number of references, school style guidelines) as well as content. feedback from peers is structured into the courses’ process with designated times and procedures. advisors are the content experts and ultimate decision makers for students’ inquiries and aip content. we team teach the practitioner inquiry courses. course instructors share their feedback to students with co-instructors as well as advisors and likewise. as stated earlier, the feedback may conflict. it is thereby grist for the student and advisor discussions. the feedback and engaging students in discussions of their inquiry results in the aip being understood by students and faculty as a living document that is refined and revised through iteration and drafting. students become part of a community of writers in which their writing is read and valued. students experience themselves as writers in divergent contents as they begin to grasp what it means to create new knowledge and impact practice through writing. third, we had to consider students could have interest in exploring a problem of practice that does not necessarily have a clear and direct link to impacting practice and creating new knowledge. it is not unusual for students to view their inquiry as important but be less clear on how it will impact practice or create new knowledge. likewise, links to social justice, community, and organizations may also be unclear to the students. undoubtedly, they will agree that these are worthwhile and important but they may not feel strongly about them and view them as distal to their inquiry. for these students the aip process is how the students develop passion and emotion in their writing. what we strive for with these students is that their writing as scholar practitioners take on meaning and urgency. working with students on the aip, students ground and develop sound arguments (points of view) and synthesize and respond to other people’s work. furthermore, in producing the aip, students interact with the communities and organizations of which they are members and various stakeholders, for it is only within these communities and organizations as insiders do they construct meaning. only in relation to these communities and organizations are meanings validated, and they only receive validation to the extent they are compatible with the understandings and practice of the communities and organizations (hyland, 2004). what often happens is a clash between the academic program and aip demands for conformity in writing and stakeholders’ need for information on how to impact practice in the communities and organizations. as part of the aip student and faculty discussions, students wrestle with, and perhaps accept, the ambiguity presented by these positions, or at least hold them both in their hearts and hands as fuel for writing. it stokes a personal writing agenda, identifying likeminded colleagues, communities, organizations, and outlets for one’s writing. the process for faculty and students is creative and imaginative. it provides students access to their personal passion and intention, often motivation for delving deeper into the literature and critical inquiry in search for answers to address individual, community, and organizational needs. facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 56 inadequate needs improvement satisfactory well executed problem area the problem area is framed for broad understanding of the issue. frame will include: professional context & background: how is this area described in professional practice? scholarly context & background: what do other inquiries and the literature tell you about this area? problem of practice is not adequately described. some understanding of problem area is given; not clearly situated in professional and scholarly background & context. adequate understanding of problem as it is situated in professional and scholarly background & context understanding of problem is fully situated in professional and scholarly background and context with well developed examples and evidence. inquiry setting provide a detailed description of the specific site/organization. details will include: key characteristics that are central to the problem area. description of how the setting informs problem description of how the setting constrains problem ways in which the problem can be explored. inquiry setting is not adequately described some description of setting and how it informs, constrains and will guide exploration of problem but details are lacking. adequate understanding of the setting and how it informs, constrains and will guide exploration of problem. strong understanding of the role of setting in relation to the problem area & how it informs, constrains and will guide exploration of problem is demonstrated with examples and evidence stakeholders provide a detailed description of the specific individuals, or group of individuals and stakeholders including: demographics key characteristics how each of these are central to the problem description of their “stake” in this problem directly and/or indirectly. stakeholders not adequately described. some description of stakeholders and their characteristics, demographics and “stake”, but not convincing or clear. adequate description of stakeholders and their characteristics, demographics and “stake” clear description of stakeholders and their characteristics, demographics and “stake” demonstrated with examples and evidence. problem of practice provide a focused description of problem of practice that is situated by the: problem area inquiry setting stakeholders provide clear understanding of how the problem of practice is manifested in these three components. problem of practice is not adequately described. some description of problem of practice but it is not focused by the problem area, inquiry setting and/or stakeholders; limited understanding of how problem of practice manifests in these three. adequate description of problem of practice situated in the problem area, inquiry setting and/or stakeholders; adequate understanding of how problem of practice manifests in these three. clear description of problem of practice situated in the problem area, inquiry setting and/or stakeholders; strong understanding of how problem of practice manifests in these three as demonstrated with examples and evidence. inquiry questions enumerate the specific questions that will: explore address your problem of practice through a formal study. inquiry questions are not adequately written. some questions written but not with clear intention of exploring or addressing the problem of practice in a formal study adequate list of questions written with clear intention of exploring or addressing the problem of practice in a formal study. clear list of questions written with clear intention of exploring or addressing the problem of practice in a formal study. inquiry design what is your inquiry design (e.g. improvement science, evaluation, action research ….) for your problem of practice inquiry? inquiry design is not adequately described. some description of the inquiry design but purpose is not clear. adequate description of inquiry design with purpose clearly defined. strong description of inquiry design with purpose clearly defined and rationale for the choice of this design. evidence and method in a detailed chart, describe the methods used to collect evidence what evidence will be collected; how evidence aligns with the inquiry questions evidence and method not clearly described. some description of evidence and method provided but format not clear, connections not clear. adequate description of evidence and method with clear chart and details. clear and strong description of evidence and method with clear chart and details that show strong connections between method and inquiry questions. analysis & interpretation detailed description the types of analysis planned: how analysis will further examine and interpret the evidence. relate type of analysis to literature in the field. analysis and interpretation not clearly described. some description of analysis and interpretation but connections not clear and not related to field literature. adequate description of analysis and interpretation with understanding of how analysis will examine & interpret evidence; related to literature description of analysis and interpretation with strong understanding of how analysis will examine & interpret evidence; clear relation to literature fertman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 57 inadequate needs improvement satisfactory well executed proposed deliverable product provide a description of: the product of the inquiry how it may be used to inform practice and/or influence policy deliverable product not described some description of deliverable product and use in practice but not clear or convincing. adequate description of deliverable product and use in practice. strong and clear description of deliverable product and use in practice supported by examples and details. proposed timeline produce timeline or gantt chart that: matches your inquiry outlines action major steps is reasonable within the confines of your degree timeline is not provided. minimal timeline provided; details lacking. adequate and clear timelines provided; clear match to inquiry; outlines major steps; is reasonable for completion in given timeframe. clear and detailed timelines with detailed major steps provided. strong match to inquiry and clear indication that work is doable in degree timeframe. advisor questions and concerns as part of each assignment iteration students prepare questions and identify concerns to discuss with their advisors advisor questions and concerns to discuss are not adequately written. some questions and concerns to discuss but not with clear intention of exploring or addressing them in the aip development. adequate list of questions and concerns to discuss with clear intention of exploring or addressing them in the aip development. clear list of questions and concerns with clear intention of exploring or addressing them in the aip development figure 3. educ 3007 practitioner inquiry 3: applied inquiry plan. fourth, we recognize and understand scholar practitioner writing as a developmental process. the aip provides a structure to recognize and accept the pressure to write within an honest, frank discussion that validates a person’s anxieties and insecurities. writing may not be effortless for many edd students. we want students to accept the anxieties and insecurities with the goal to move beyond them to write to one’s best ability and capacity and to see and understand the students’ writing impacts for the benefit of stakeholders. these discussions led to portraying scholarly practitioner writing as a professional responsibility, as part of students’ progression from the practitioner to scholar practitioner as they create and implement practitioner inquiry agendas and write about their experience. stakeholders need knowledge and direction on how to understand and lead change. while not the only vehicle to communicate with stakeholders, scholar practitioner professional writing is one that edd programs can make explicit, promote and champion as a professional responsibility. furthermore, that scholar practitioner writing is cumulative with a body of work (writing) created over time. understanding writing as a developmental process does not lessen the work but rather provides structure and support, a pathway to create new knowledge and impact practice. conclusion the aip is to guide scholar practitioner inquiry reporting on systematic, data-driven (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods) efforts to improve the quality and value of practitioner scholar inquiry as well as to provide quality descriptions of the inquiry. the hope is the aip challenges edd students to write better and to think more clearly about the role of theory; interaction between context, interventions, and outcomes; and methods for studying improvement work. edd programs nurture and support students to write and document practice thereby creating new practice and knowledge to understand and lead change. writing is an epistemological tool that edd students can use to generate and disseminate their own practitioner inquiry agenda rooted in their practice and communities. writing scaffolds such as the aip provide opportunities for broad discussion of how to support and engage edd students to view their writing as an epistemological tool. looking forward a more concerted discussion linking the aip elements with edd programmatic outcomes is planned as a demonstration of the effectiveness of the aip. acknowledgment i want to recognize and thank my co-instructional team colleagues who teach with me using the aip: cindy tananis, jennifer russell, jill perry, kevin crowley, tom akiva, keith trahan, and sarah capello. references bandura, a. (1995). self efficacy in changing societies. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. banks, w. & flinchbaugh, k. (2013) experiencing ourselves as writers. in m. eodice & a. geller (eds.) working with faculty writers (pp.228 245 ). boulder, co: utah state university press. bliss, j. & askew, m. (1996). effective teaching and learning: scaffolding revisited. oxford review of education, 22 (1), 37-61. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2010). cped design concepts. college park, md: author. castells, m. (1996). the rise of the network society: the information age: economy, society, and culture, volume i. oxford, uk: blackwell publishers. goodman. d., ogrinc, g., davies, l., baker, g., barnsteiner, j., foster, t., . . .thor, j. (2016). explanation and elaboration of the squire (standards for quality improvement reporting excellence) guidelines, v.2.0: examples of squire elements in the healthcare improvement literature. bmj quality and safety, 25e (7). doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004480 graff, g., & birkenstein, c. (2014). "they say/i say": the moves that matter in persuasive writing (3rd ed.). new york, ny: w.w. norton & company. hoffmann, t., glasziou, p., boutron. i., milne, r., perera, r., moher, d., . . . michie, s. (2014). better reporting of interventions: template for intervention description and replication (tidier) checklist and guide. bmj, mar 7;348. doi: 10.1136/bmj.g1687 hyland, k. (2004). social interactions in academic writing. ann arbor, mi: university of michigan press. menter, i., elliot, d. mhulme, m., lewin, j., & lowden, k. (2011). a guide to practitioner research in education. los angeles, ca: sage publications. murphy, j., berlin, j., connors, r., crowley, s., enos, r., vitanza, v., . . . swearingen, j. (2009) the politics of historiography, rhetoric review, 7(1), 5-49. doi: 10.1080/07350198809388839 facilitating and supporting edd students’ scholar practitioner writing as an epistemological tool impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.87 58 ogrinc, g., mooney, s., estrada. c., foster. t., goldmann, d., hall, l.,...watts, b. (2008). the squire (standards for quality improvement reporting excellence) guidelines for quality improvement reporting: explanation and elaboration. quality and safe health care, 17. i13-i32, doi: 10.1136/qshc.2008.029058 wolfberg, a. & lyytinen, k. (2017). narrowing the dissemination gap: genres for practitioner scholarship. engaged management review, 1(1) 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.28953/2375-8643.1034 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 22 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 a university as the center of change: preparing educational activists and change leaders matthew militello east carolina university militellom14@ecu.edu lynda tredway east carolina university tredwayl16@ecu.edu lihi rosenthal university of california, berkeley lihi@berkeley.edu james ronald welch international school bangkok jamesw@isb.ac.th abstract the east carolina university international edd supports school leaders in the united states and across the globe to address local educational equity challenges. to achieve this, we prepare and support school and district leaders to use evidence as practitioner-researchers together with members of their educational community. as a result, the reimagined edd harnesses the power and utility of participatory action and activist research to address a contextualized, equity-focused dissertation in practice. we explore how two doctoral students have transformed their practices during and after their edd experience. keywords program design, dissertation in practice, equity, participatory action research, student voice "every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets," so says the adage widely attributed to w. edwards deming and used in the business world, with clear applications to education. the words are prophetic: continuing the same types of educational leadership programs is bound to yield school or district leaders ill-equipped for 21st century schools. at the turn of the century, scholars were critical of school leader preparation programs; levine (2005) challenged institutions of higher learning to employ improved methods to prepare school and district leaders. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) responded by engaging universities in an effort to reimagine preparation through a re-calibrated educational doctoral experience. cped did not envision a single solution to improve leadership programs. rather, cped engaged participating programs to utilize a common set of principles to guide diverse program redesigns (perry, 2013). along with colleagues at other cped universities, the east carolina university edd faculty reimagined its educational doctoral programs (militello et al., 2020). this article describes one of the ecu designs, the ecu international edd program, which supports school leaders in the u.s. and across the globe to address the equity challenges they confront in their local contexts (militello & tredway, 2020; militello et al., 2020). our overarching question throughout the re-design process has been: how can an edd program prepare and support school and district leaders to use evidence as practitionerresearchers? we wanted graduates to change the ways they inhabit the role of school or district leaders and become, as spillane and coldren (2011) note, diagnosticians and designers who use iterative evidence as a way of being educational leaders. as we describe in this article, program graduates become not only action practitioner-researchers but activists who support “collective action to challenge the many forms of social injustice” (hunter et al., 2013, p. 7). our goal is to prepare school and district leaders to systematically use the edd learning experience to sustain practices that interrupt the typical school reform narrative by fostering ways for becoming activist educational leaders. using innovative curricular and pedagogical approaches, we incorporate several key design elements in the reimagined ecu edd and, more importantly, want these elements to transfer to their ongoing school reform work (militello et al., 2019). at the heart of the program design, the edd program has spearheaded an effort to use participatory action research (par) as a vehicle to address equity challenges that crop up in participants’ contexts (see education.ecu.edu/intedd) – what hunter and http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:militellom14@ecu.edu mailto:tredwayl16@ecu.edu mailto:jamesw@isb.ac.th a university as the center of change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 23 colleagues (2013) term par or participatory activist research, a more explicit form of action research. the par is a process we use for the dissertation, but more significantly, the par represents an ongoing cycle of inquiry process we want graduates to use as they take on the roles of practitioner-researchers within their schools and districts. each candidate’s par specifically includes the inclusion of school or district constituents (teachers, other administrators, and/or students and families) as co-practitioner-researchers (cpr). the dissertation focuses on an equity challenge and the student, along with the cpr group, uses iterative qualitative evidence for decisionmaking (spillane & coldren 2011). in this article, we describe the reimagined ecu edd and share two stories of activism. first, we explore the program design, in which we fused a trio of frameworks that concurrently provide pedagogical direction – community learning exchange axioms, design thinking, and improvement science– to fully enact the cped principles and par principles of activist research. next, through two vignettes, we explore how doctoral students have transformed their practices during and after their edd. experience. specifically, we analyze two students’ accounts of activism as change agents in their school communities. we conclude with our premise that the university has a moral responsibility to prepare leaders who are practitioner-researchers who advocate for social justice. these questions guide our programmatic design and continuing inquiry for improving: what does a dissertation in practice look like for a practitioner-researcher committed to activism? how does a program support this kind of action research in its inception, pedagogy, and structures to guide the development of educational leaders as practitioner-researchers? and, most importantly, how does a program prepare practitioner-researchers to engage in activist research and practice beyond the completion of the program? program design: the reimagined edd earning a doctorate in educational administration is a journey, and, while it is an individual journey of learning for every person, no doctoral candidate should be on a solo trek. while the research is relatively scant, estimates of doctoral completion indicate low completion rates (most, 2009; spaulding & rockinson-szapkiw, 2012; tinto, 1993; van der haert, et al., 2014; zwick, 1991). estimates indicate that fewer than 40% of the educators who begin the edd obtain their degrees within seven years of beginning their programs. participant variables such as financial barriers, opportunity costs, intellectual capacity, and participant choice are most frequently cited explanations (bair & haworth, 2004; gardner, 2009; girves & wemmerus, 1988). we designed an edd to support completion by focusing on a cohort model, partnering doctoral students with faculty holding a strategic advisor role, and modeling par cycles of inquiry and a particular set of pedagogies. the cohort model turns the typical individual journey into a network of equityfocused school leaders who garner support from each other to disrupt and reinvent (theoharis, 2009; theoharis, 2010). because the edd faculty and advisors aim to walk the talk by modeling the pedagogies we expect students to use as school and district leaders, we consistently reinforce the importance of the collective and reciprocal responsibility for staying on track for completion (militello & tredway, 2020; militello et al., 2019). equally important to programmatic success is a common methodological approach. the par methodology is supported by the research coursework and the ability to share tools and processes for data collection and analysis (hale, 2008; hunter et al. , 2013; saldaña, 2016). while our program design cannot protect candidates from every factor a doctoral candidate might experience – such as financial barriers, health concerns, or opportunity costs – it aims to mitigate as many variables as possible. the purpose of each edd dissertation is the same: to improve the practices of school and district leaders in service of the goal of equitable student outcomes. through a distributed leadership perspective, use of evidence-based practices, and a focus on culturally responsive leadership for equity, we advocate for leadership as a function in the school, while fully recognizing that school and district leaders must simultaneously be the linchpins of facilitating substantive and equitable reform efforts (rigby & tredway, 2015; khalifa, 2019; spillane et al., 2001; spillane & diamond, 2007). because the edd prepares practitioner-researchers to organize and facilitate collaborative teams to address equity issues in their school or district contexts, each edd cohort operates as a collaborative group with advisors who maintain regular contact with candidates. advisors visit all doctoral students (cohort number=14-20) during the first year of the program, become familiar with the local contexts of the students, and calibrate the research design to the context. to serve the dual goals of ensuring rigor and supporting professionals to complete in three years, we organized the program with a single methodology: participatory action research (par). the par methodology we use has a strong focus on action as activism with a focus on equitable outcomes. the actions of an edd candidate as practitioner-researcher relies on systematic analysis of iterative evidence that requires frequent diagnosing and designing toward the ultimate improvement goals (gawande, 2017; saldaña, 2016; spillane, 2009; spillane & coldren, 2011). along with ongoing content courses that support deeper knowledge and understandings of equity, teaching and learning, history of education, organizational theory, and policy, design courses each semester promote ongoing movement toward completing the dissertation using qualitative methodologies required for par work. because the par process is deeply embedded into students’ course experience each semester, the common methodology supports completion of projects within normative timelines. yet, far from a tool for efficiency alone, the design aims to promote excellence. it is a methodological approach that can be incorporated as an ongoing best practice for social justice leaders, cementing their commitment to engagement and collaboration and fueling meaningful, sustainable change. thus, participatory action research is threaded through the entire program, resulting in a seven chapter dissertation: introduction, literature review, methodology, context/pre-cycle, par cycle one, par cycle two, and conclusion. in this way, the students build a dissertation chapter by chapter, semester by semester, throughout the program. the par design was influenced by improvement science, specifically the process of plan do study act cycles. however, our par design cycles add fluid engagement by the co-practitioner research partners (cpr), whose voice and insights help shape the direction of the work. this engagement and collaboration provide a dynamic influence on the study and solidifies the activist principles that anchors this work. in support of these functional design elements, the program is grounded in a set of critical foundational principles, frameworks, and pedagogical approaches that model activist research principles and buttress programmatic outcomes: equity focus, community learning exchange axioms, design thinking principles, and improvement militello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 24 science. the frameworks direct our design, pedagogy, engagement with students, participatory action research (dissertation), and most importantly, graduate student learning. the nature of researchers as activists is bolstered by the content and methods courses of the program that stress a set of equity principles for the coursework on policy, teaching and learning, history and sociology of education, change theory, and methodology courses that underscore activist research principles (eubanks et al., 1997; freire, 1997; gutiérrez, 2013; hale, 2008; hale, 2001; hunter et al., 2013; mckenzie & scheurich, 2004; mills, 1997). we are focused on how doctoral candidates can learn to successfully disrupt current practices as intentional social justice advocates (khalifa, 2019; theoharis, 2009). informed by the principles of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (perry, 2013), the aim of all cped programs is to differentiate the edd from the phd by designing the education doctorate for educational practitioners. through a robust admission process, that included a personal interview and group engagement day, we choose school leaders who want a program that specifically addresses equity and social justice as core values. the principles have set a standard for programs, like ours, that are seeking to be more learner-centered and focused on developing educators seeking to stay in school or district leadership positions. to actualize this vision in practice, we draw on three guiding frameworks and processes: community learning exchange, design thinking, and improvement science tailored to an equity focus. community learning exchange community learning exchanges offers not only a systematic framework, but an engaging approach to learning as well as a research methodology (guajardo et al., 2016). exchange is the operative word as we design all experiences and methodologies to follow the attributes of experiential education: interaction, reciprocity, and continuity (dewey, 1938). built on the core value that any genuine improvement effort must first honor the importance of place and the wisdom of local people, our program devotes time to investigating place and people in the very context which students seek to improve. to prepare students to embark on that work within their own settings, we thoroughly embed the community learning exchange (cle) axioms in our approaches to pedagogy and research methodology: 1. learning and leadership are dynamic social processes. 2. conversations are critical and central pedagogical processes. 3. the people closest to the issues are best situated to address local concerns. 4. crossing boundaries enriches developmental and educational processes. 5. hope and change are built on assets and dreams of local persons and their communities (guajardo et al., 2016). the protocols include rituals and routines from cle work since its inception in the early 2000s and additional processes we have designed. the processes include, for example, gracious space, journey lines, opening and closing circles, and world café (guajardo et al., 2016; see examples of pedagogy on iel.org/protocols). our pedagogical approach reflect our belief in dialogical education as an imperative for advancing social justice and the value of the arts as an integrative and integral part of learning, all of which we have translated to online learning (militello et al., 2019). the approaches include small group and large group protocols built on a foundation of equitable academic discourse in person and on virtual platforms, including learning walks, socratic seminars, writing workshops, and cooperative learning strategies used in k-12 classrooms (kagan, 2013; tredway, 1995; zwiers & crawford, 2011). previously proven powerful in community engagement (guajardo, et al., 2016; militello et al., 2019), community learning exchanges are inherently aligned with an activist approach in their explicit focus on uplifting community brilliance to empower local decision-making. they are a natural complement to participatory action research, which “at its broadest, works with a community on a common topic of interest, that is, engaging the community in finding answers and applying those answers to a point of concern” (hunter et al., 2013, p. 17). the cle axioms create the conditions by which doctoral students can engage in purposeful data collection strategies specifically focused on connecting with often marginalized voices (e.g., photovoice, digital storytelling, and story mapping). this does not always come easily. our national obsession with normreferenced, standardized test scores has shifted the conception many entering doctoral students have of what we even mean by data. in the edd, we work to deconstruct this misconception in action, leading students from their very first week in experiencing data collection and analysis “the cle way.” soon after meeting their new cohort-mates, students embark on an experiential data collection journey: conducting a community map of their new environment and then working together to code the evidence gathered. this exposure to data collection and analysis repeats often throughout the first year, supporting students as they begin to design their own research and seek irb approval for a variety of data collection protocols. yet, perhaps nowhere is the alignment between the cle axioms and par clearer than in the edd program’s integration of copractitioner-researchers (cpr groups) – local organizational actors who can join students’ research efforts in a similar way we hope the school leaders in our program will organize their future schools, utilizing distributed leadership structures such as instructional leadership teams and professional learning communities (militello & tredway, 2020). early on in the dissertation design process, each edd student partners with other local constituents that may include educators, parents, students, and/or community members as partners in the improvement effort. these individuals become their local co-researchers for the duration of the project. this allows doctoral students to translate the early and consistent exposure to cle pedagogies and axioms they themselves experienced as an edd cohort into lived practice within their individual contexts. in so doing, they gain facility with an approach to authentic engagement capable of leveraging the assets and insights of diverse constituents in service of a shared goal. in our experience, this can seem revolutionary to school leaders, especially those without a preexisting activist identity. as such, we layer the foundational work of community building and organizing with the principles of design thinking to support students in thinking boldly and creatively about how to bring about markedly different outcomes for systemically underserved students. a university as the center of change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 25 design thinking like the cle process, the design thinking process offers leaders the possibility of engaging in the sort of creative problemsolving that is useful specifically for doctoral research, but more importantly as a way forward for use in k-12 environments (nash, 2019). gallagher and thordarson (2018) posit that “[d]esign-driven leadership offers opportunities for moments of impact, often unscripted and unplanned but still intentional, and the [development of] mindsets are what help [leaders] learn to identify these opportunities” (p. 6). akin to the change theory of mcdonald (1996), design thinking offers an intentional process for creating epiphany moments termed sightings that can help determine a creative way forward. design thinking is particularly useful for complex problems that have multiple components and no easy solution. the emphasis on human-centered design principles privileges processes that attend deeply to the relational component of change work. as such, the approach aligns with the goals of 21st century education, in which a previous focus on traditional technical/rational problemsolving has given way to a need to enact systems that facilitate collective coordinated action on the part of leaders, teachers, students, parents and community partners (nash, 2019). a second critical design thinking component is becoming comfortable with divergent thinking. a+ b does not always = c. instead, educational leaders have to develop the disposition of flexibility by keeping in mind the ultimate goal while they experiment and inquire; they do not let go of the long-term “what” or “why” but are flexible in the short-term about the “how”. design thinking requires that leaders shift the focus from needs assessment to asset mining, from strategic long-term planning to short-term use of iterative evidence to diagnose and design, and from top-down to flattened hierarchy. as spillane (2009) reminds us: diagnostic work is not an end in itself; it is, sometimes more than others, the basis for design and redesign work. design is an everyday activity in schools as leaders attempt to shape aspects of their organizational infrastructure to meet new ends….[e]xternal designs can help, but they cannot substitute entirely for local diagnostic and design work. hence, developing a diagnostic and design mindset is critical to improvement (pp. 17 and 19). for our doctoral students, this concept of diagnose and design starts with empathy interviews to understand how all constituents think and feel about a proposed direction and proceeds to modest experiments or probes. a brief explanation of empathy interviews might be helpful. the results of this early experimentation lead to the design and testing of prototypes, similar to the plan do study act cycles of improvement science. these processes intentionally mirror what is required for durable and substantial change: daily and iterative evidence-informed decisions that schools make, not the strategic plan that sits on the principal’s shelf and is more compliance-oriented than reality-tested (plattner, n.d.). they do so incrementally and with multiple opportunities to stop, analyze, reflect and respond, in this way creating new space for students to become researchers by increasing their confidence in trying bold new things and making mistakes. the edd programmatic focus of design thinking reinforces how leaders re-imagine interactions with others, cultivates the knowledge and skills to use more accessible processes for gathering and analyzing evidence, fosters more flexible and fluid processes and decision-making, and supports the doctoral students to be risk-takers. our inclusion of design thinking is nested in improvement science anchored with relational trust. improvement science: re-emphasizing relational trust bryk et al. (2015) at the carnegie project for the advancement of teaching have committed to a school reform effort they term improvement science. the improvement science approach seeks to mitigate the 6% problem whereby only a small percentage of improvement efforts show results (bryk, 2017). we found the improvement science framework to be useful and accessible to the work of educators in schools because it supports educators to engage deeply in cycles of inquiry in a familiar context; as a result, they can gather a team of persons to address a focus of practice. however, we found improvement science alone lacks a personcentered approach. yet, while bryk and colleagues (2010) acknowledge relational trust as a precondition for improvement, we make the linkage between improvement science and relational trust more explicit in the edd program of study and student experiences (bryk, 2015; bryk & schneider, 2002). additionally, because all projects are focused on a local issue of equity, focusing on a learning climate of equitable access for student engagement was more useful to our work (allensworth & hart, 2018; sebastian & allensworth, 2019). we note that neither framework clearly defines nor makes use of the culturally responsive pedagogy that we see as critical elements of a strong edd program committed to equitable outcomes. the improvement science framework and tools inform coursework and the dissertation design. the framework focuses on metrics of practice and collaboration, and the iterative collection of evidence in short cycles of inquiry intersects with the emphasis on our attention to diagnose and design cycles (spillane, 2009). the framework supports divergent thinking and the importance of leaders paying attention to changes in the dynamic organizational structure in which they work. as well, we are committed to more deeply engaging graduate students in forming communities of practice, termed networked improvement communities (nics) in the carnegie parlance, and using the funds of knowledge that those communities can bring to reform work (lave & wegner, 1991; moll et al., 1992). however, as we discuss next, we found that we needed to shift some language to strengthen the relational trust necessary to engage in this work. we do so by honoring the context of place and wisdom of people. community learning exchange + design thinking + improvement science = reimagined edd context matters, especially a school context that is nested in institutional, community, economic, and historical contexts. this “recognition of the role and limitations of research-based knowledge liberates school leaders to move in the direction of reflective practice that honors theory, research-based evidence and the wisdom of practice” (hallinger, 2018, p. 19). combining the community learning exchange with design thinking and the improvement science frameworks addresses the overarching principles of equity and justice to which the program is committed. we are set on the process of developing a critical consciousness about issues of equity as fundamental to deeply interrupting current practices in school reform that have not produced results for the most vulnerable students. as an ongoing practice, design thinking is critical for the iterative processes in which the leaders engage others to become activist researchers. first of all, design thinking requires doctoral students to militello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 26 “think out of the school reform box” by engaging them in individual and group activities that push their ability to empathize, observe, inquire, and remold ideas of what is possible for social transformation, not social reproduction. the community learning exchange framework helped us reconsider the improvement science framework and practices and change the approach from technical to cultural and relational and from naming what is absent or faulty in a school or district to using the assets to support forward movement. for example, relational trust has long been known to be a substantial factor in school reform and is named a primary abstract resource of school change (bryk, 2015; bryk & schneider, 2002; grubb, 2009), but, for us, is not sufficiently stressed in the improvement science framework. however, three areas of the improvement science framework offered substantial start to our thinking. first, we shifted the term problem of practice to focus of practice because we want to ensure that we operate from an asset base rather than the traditional needs analysis that too often fosters deficit thinking. second, we wanted to ensure that doctoral students investigate with their co-practitioners the particular assets as well as challenges or needs that help them diagnose and address their dissertation focus of practice. thus, rosenthal (2019) developed a revised fishbone that included the micro, meso (organizational) and macro (systemic) levels of assets and challenges all influence the participatory action research; she shared that with instructors and her cohort, and that design has become the vehicle for inquiring about the focus of practice. third, we have intentionally emphasized the need for deeper inquiry and praxis (action and reflection of freire, 1997) for each part of the cycle of inquiry, which is termed the plan, do, study, act (pdsa) cycle in the improvement science framework. more specifically, we merge the frameworks both in coursework and in the intention (equity focus) and process (participatory action research) of each dissertation project. the new, reimagined edd framework has developed a new normative practice for design and delivery. we embrace engaging pedagogies and empower edd students to work with colleagues in their contexts. using a participatory action and action research methodology that stresses an activist approach to improve their practices, the edd students develop co-practitioner-researcher teams at their sites. this team is an integral part of the journey of inquiry and praxis. we have learned that the use of cle practices as a routine for the cpr or larger meetings is vital to success of the par (paryani, 2019; richardson garcia, 2019). at these meetings, the leaders use protocols and processes such as photovoice or guided inquiry with artistic reproductions to collect evidence that would typically be in survey form. similarly, as one of the vignettes we highlight in the following section illustrates, we often support doctoral students at their school or district sites to host a community learning exchange so that we can coach them in using the processes in their local contexts. the two vignettes featured in this article (rosenthal, 2019; welch, 2019) illustrate how using the processes provided key turning points for more deeply understanding the par inquiry. edd doctoral student activism the previous section summarized our philosophical why and our procedural how. we now pivot to real stories, the voices of doctoral students who participated (and graduated) from the reimagined edd. the students provide a first-hand account, vis-à-vis vignettes, of their experiences engaging in a participatory action research project. ronny the international school bangkok (isb) prides itself on being the premier international school in thailand. the isb is a private, nonprofit school, which was founded in 1951 and currently has close to 1,800 students from pre-kindergarten (age 3) to twelfth grade. the primary, middle, and high school are housed on one campus in one large building, but little interaction occurs between the divisions of the school. the school has everything a thriving student could want: excellent teachers, facilities that most schools can only dream of, and a flourishing after-school activities program. despite the luxuries, the school is not perfect. my research indicated that students were experiencing stress despite having all these academic and extracurricular advantages. was this anxiety due to the thai culture, the school, or was there something else driving these students to be stressed? when presented with the opportunity to do participatory action research for my doctoral studies, i decided to investigate how the social and emotional intersected with the academic challenges that students face at the isb when transitioning from eighth grade to high school. i wanted to make recommendations to the school about easing the transition for future students. i worked with four social and emotional counselors and with twelve student co-practitionerresearchers (cprs) from the four largest nationalities at the isb – american, thai, japanese, and korean. the student cpr participants consisted of three american females and one male, two female japanese students, one korean female, four thai males, and one thai female. the student participants ranged in age from 13 to 15 years of age. i documented the struggles that the students encountered from the beginning of ninth grade until the first semester of their tenthgrade year through three participatory action research cycles. i am a high school science teacher, so i did not know my cpr students before conducting the research. the challenge was significant and required me to use a different kind of methodology to establish relationships with the students so i could collect authentic data on their transition experience. i surveyed the eighth-grade class in may 2017 to see which students would be interested in participating in the study and then sought written permission from their parents for them to participate. not knowing the students, i had to think of innovative ways to get to earn their trust so i could get accurate information about their transition experiences. throughout three participatory action research cycles, the students took surveys, met with me for interviews, drew the most stressful part of the transition as a picture that we analyzed individually, wrote a weekly diary of how they spent their time, and used photovoice as an analysis tool to give a visual of the most stressful part of their transition (wang et al., 1996). these interpersonal ways of collecting data allowed me to build trust and relationships quickly with the cpr group, which was beneficial in getting honest feedback and understanding the complexity of their individual transition experiences. the uniqueness of our relationship was evident during a presentation of the results when one colleague said, “i know more about twelve random students in your study than i do my own advisory (pastoral care program) students whom i’ve known for two years.” by using photovoice and artistic representation as data collection, i was able to see the difficulties of the transitions. i a university as the center of change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 27 requested that the cpr students take a photo of the most stressful aspect of the transition at the end of their ninth-grade year. i collected these photos from the students, and we met in small groups to analyze the twelve pictures displayed on the classroom whiteboard. the students had to decide on consensus themes from the pictures. each group saw similar issues from the images: academic grades, the amount of schoolwork, and managing time between school and their personal lives. through these photos, i was able to determine each student’s individual struggles and how those struggles were similar and different. the korean and japanese students were struggling to stay on top of their studies in a second language while completing their korean and japanese courses on the weekends. commuting in bangkok traffic was difficult for those students living downtown since they spent at least two hours a day taking the bus to school and back home. the athletes and students involved in after-school activities were struggling to keep up with their extracurricular endeavors while maintaining their grades at acceptable levels. most surprisingly, i learned from the interviews, drawings, and photos that students were placing unnecessary pressure on themselves, an internal pressure to succeed that was not being driven from home or by their peers (see figures 1 and 2). at the conclusion of our study, we found that teacher-student relationships were initially a problematic part of the transition but were a non-issue after a couple of months into the school year. however, social pressure to achieve, increased academic demands, an emphasis on grades, time prioritization challenges, university planning, and internal pressure to succeed were common stressors. in our research, we had most immediate changes in the science department, in which i teach. we found that students were often doing two major independent research projects (irp) simultaneously, which is time-consuming and stressful for students and redundant in terms of the skills we want to reinforce. with the help of our research, the high school science department changed the course offerings, which has allowed the department to assess students in additional areas. our research demonstrated that creating relationships with students in semester-long classes was difficult. as a result, we changed a long-standing policy of semesterlong science courses in biology, chemistry, and physics in ninth grade and moved to an integrated approach to teaching science as a year-long course. students now have one teacher for all science courses in ninth grade, and that change made scheduling classes easier for students. the addition of integrated science allowed students to choose another semester elective, which has increased student choice in their academic schedule. i used our transitional research to recommend more collaboration time between science teachers in middle school and high school with the director of curriculum and learning support, which was has helped to improve communication between the two school divisions. the middle school is now working backward from this collaboration to ensure the alignment of skills and content in sixth and seventh grade. figure 1. increased academic demands were a primary stressor of the middle school to high school transition. militello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 28 figure 2. balance between home life, schoolwork, and after-school activities was identified as one of the most stressful aspects of the middle school to high school transition. the impact of change reached to other levels of the school. i facilitated three workshops on transitional stress that students encounter at the isb for both middle school and high school staff and presented our findings and recommendations to the school leadership team. recommendations included the hiring an additional social-emotional counselor in the high school, offering a social and emotional course in ninth grade, educating parents on the transition from middle school to high school, advocating for a universal grading system between the two schools, allowing for collaboration time between teachers in middle high schools, reducing the academic jump between eighth and ninth grade, creating an assessment calendar, providing additional activity counseling, vertically aligning the curriculum better, creating a bump-up day for students to experience ninth grade while still in eighth grade, and eliminating semester-long science courses in ninth grade. the par left me with a critical understanding: the voice of the student has been underserved with policy changes in the past when student voice should be at the forefront of decision-making in a school. the research helped to bring the student perspective forward at isb. more time has been devoted in advisory to discussing academic and social-emotional stress, and students have been given a voice in advisory planning sessions to outline the pressure they are feeling as a group and the ways we can better serve them as educators. i remain a teacher-leader at the school and, with many of my colleagues, have been somewhat surprised at the multiple ways the par could affect local school changes and choices. lihi the explicit social justice focus of ecu’s edd was key in my decision to enroll in the program. i pursued the degree with twin goals of sustaining my work as an educator for equity and advancing activism within my organization. it did not take long for these goals to begin to materialize. from the start, when instructed to eschew the traditional problem of practice and instead investigate a focus of practice, the program steered me toward an asset-based approach to addressing complex educational issues. this stood in contrast to the common problematizing approach of locating deficits to be remediated, which invariably contributes to the educationalization of entrenched, cross-sector social problems (labaree, 2008). through the use of design thinking strategies – including empathy-building, early probing, and prototyping – i could ensure my focus of practice stemmed directly from the voices of parent and staff activists, who quickly became my co-practitioner-researchers. working as the regional executive director for a large communitybased organization afforded me access to a wide swath of educational, mental health, and child welfare professionals within my agency, as well as to their school-based partners – the students, parents, faculty, staff, and leaders within the public schools in which my organization did its work. i gravitated toward the most vocal among parent and staff voices within one of these public schools, an elementary charter school serving racially diverse students in an under-resourced, urban setting. i was inspired by the collective quest among the school’s constituents to envision a school community organized to support unconditional belongingness, rather than exclusionary discipline practices and other methods of sorting and segregation. the goal dovetailed with my organization’s work and our existing partnership with the school, and was rooted in the activist tradition of radical inclusion, drawing from dr. king’s concept of the beloved community (https://thekingcenter.org/kingphilosophy/). choosing an equity-centered goal was only the beginning; ahead were the important steps of organizing for activist participation, doing the collectivist work required, and making meaning of this venture within the wider context of the school and community. https://thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy/ https://thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy/ a university as the center of change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 29 setting the table to actualize the laudable goals of increasing belongingness and eliminating exclusionary discipline, the research group of parents, transdisciplinary school staff, and school leaders defined a theory of practice. guided by our beliefs in the wisdom of the community and the power of collaboration, we defined our theory as follows: if we provide meaningful structures for collective learning embedded in real-time data about the school’s current culture and climate health, then we can continue the school’s goal of eliminating the use of exclusionary discipline practices while simultaneously maintaining an organized and orderly learning environment in which all students belong. understanding the complexity inherent in our inquiry, we committed to interrogating root causes deeply, creating a fishbone diagram that incorporated both assets and challenges, and considering the intersecting conditions impacting the school at the macro, meso and micro systems levels. the approach is rooted in systems theory: the belief that meaningful change requires a high level of systemic overhaul, and that such systemic overhaul is best negotiated by constituents most closely affected by the current system (bronfenbrenner, 1981). to activate the principles of educational activism further, we determined the need to center not only those with day-to-day interactions with the school but indeed those most disenfranchised by its status quo, believing they were best capable of uncovering blind spots and setting priorities (freire, 1997). to this end, we explicitly sought participation from constituents whose voices were least likely to be present, reaching out to families experiencing the impact of exclusionary discipline practices and engaging classified staff and community representatives. to provide access, i leveraged my role as a formal leader within the organization to ensure we had childcare and transportation available, provided meals for meetings, and identified co-facilitators who were credible messengers within the existing community (baumbusch et al., 2008). how did these experiences and decisions to exchange with various stakeholders match up or align with course work? what background knowledge did the student need to prepare or gain before they could make decisions about the circumstances described above? doing the work we put in place the conditions for authentic, community-driven change. yet, all too often promises of inclusion and access draw marginalized community members in, only to further their mistrust when these promises are not reflected in consistent practice. to actualize the goal of activating activism, i relied on the coursework in data collection and research design. having first experienced the community learning exchange (cle) model with my edd cohort, i was privileged to host two dissertation committee members as cofacilitators for our inaugural, multi-day cle at the focal school site. several days before the cle, all invitees were provided with pre-readings, including a summary of the cle axioms presented earlier in this chapter (guajardo et al., 2016) and the concept of gracious space, defined by the university of washington’s center for ethical leadership as, “a spirit and a setting where we invite the stranger and learn in public” (hughes & grace, 2010, p. 21). together, the cle axioms and corresponding concept of gracious space helped frame the intention of the cle: to create a space where hierarchy had been intentionally flattened and leadership thoughtfully distributed in order to facilitate the transfer of the community’s own wisdom and strengths. by empowering the people closest to the issues, encouraging appropriate boundary crossings, facilitating both critical conversation and other socially dynamic learning processes, and organizing around assets, hopes and dreams, the cle sought to activate change from within. these axioms were supported by the attention given to embody gracious space, which set in place the conditions necessary safety, trust, and space for strangeness for powerful activist action aimed at large-scale change. as the cle itself began, we translated these concepts into embodied experiences. the room was purposefully designed to encourage collaboration and creativity, with table-top bins consisting of colored pencils, fidgets, sensory items, snacks, pens, and other learning supplies and white paper as tablecloths and on most walls to encourage written or artistic expression of key concepts. the first activity consisted of a welcoming circle and a mindfulness exercise, and three 30-minute breaks and a free, provided lunch sent the message that selfand community-care were being prioritized. throughout the cle, the axioms and gracious space were both explicitly modeled and contextualized by the participants given their preferences and needs. as individuals shared stories, participated in performative modalities (such as theater exercises and the creation of metaphors through visual and performance art), and coconstructed a definition of the values they brought collectively to the work, they did so within their natural, transdisciplinary teams. in this way, the cle not only served as the vessel for interdependent learning and decision-making but as practice for how they would negotiate their common space in their work together so they could live out the values we were defining in practice. the king center stresses such “practice sessions” as essential in embodying a beloved community, sustaining the efforts of activists hoping to disrupt current public education trends. the scaffolding that the doctoral program afforded me in introducing the cle pedagogy provided the opportunity to increase my comfort and confidence in utilizing similar activist “practice sessions” independently, and in so doing added a sustainable practice by which to generate community insights and organize for cultural change. i followed up on the introduction the cle offered to expose additional activist-oriented approaches, including in selecting data collection processes such as photovoice, which allowed participants to capture their insights about the school reform process by sharing photographs at each of our meetings and helping code these for common themes (foster-fishman et al., 2005). i relied on additional data collection tools, such as a one-minute essay which could be written or spoken at the end of our sessions, to collect evidence while equalizing voice to ensure the contributions of all participants were incorporated. the strategies contributed to an expanded understanding of the focus of practice and facilitated rich sense-making rooted in the holistic wisdom of the community. ultimately, they led directly to many of the par’s most salient findings by demonstrating that progress on laudable goals, such as the cpr team’s desire to install trauma-informed alternatives to exclusionary discipline, began and ended with the ability to draw upon local strengths and passions. discussion and implications ronny needed a new way to hear from the often marginalized voices of students. he found a different methodology—par plus cle routines and more imaginative data collection tools --that allowed for this. in the end, he was able to develop the necessary militello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 30 trust with students to hear the authentic voices and was able to make changes based on the insights of the student voices. more importantly, the evidence from the par led to substantial local change in an organization that had rituals and routines that seemed impervious to change. the school leadership has seen the value of such research and the voices of students, and the high school has made substantial changes not only in policy and course design, but in relying more on student voice as a necessary component of decision-making. for years, the middle school and high school at the isb have primarily been operating independently of one another. as a member of the k-12 science curriculum committee, he advocated for scheduling time between the transition years in the school (fifth and sixth grade, and eighth and ninth grade) to reduce the academic transition stress that students experience. he was able to use the evidence from the transitional research to recommend more collaboration time between science teachers in middle school and high school with the director of curriculum and learning support, which was granted. in presenting the findings to the school community, the evidence led to substantial changes at other levels of the school. he began to see his role as a teacher leader and student advocate in different terms as he has actively represented the voices of students to other. at the outset of the doctoral program, he might have said he was “just a science teacher,” but, by the conclusion, he saw the value of becoming a practitioner-researcher who used evidence to make changes. in lihi’s case, modeling the techniques and sharing in the responsibility for utilizing them soon gave way to evidence of transfer. as the co-practitioner-researchers (cprs) gained facility with the cle approach, they began to experiment with strategies for engaging additional constituents who had traditionally been left out of decision-making opportunities. in one example, students in grades k-2 were asked to envision their ideal school culture using visual arts modalities such as drawing and sculpture, titling their submissions with the assistance of classroom adults. lihi’s cycles of research unleashed important learning about the conditions required for sustained educational activism. within her context, the inclusion of marginalized voices enabled a communitydesired change. perhaps more importantly, using the par processes promoted healing and repaired prior incidences of systemic harm. in freire’s (1997) words, “people are fulfilled to the extent that they create their world (which is a human world) and create it with their transforming labor” (p. 145). still, harnessing the insights of community members who were frequently at the margins required a commitment to reckon with the harm they had experienced within the current system. the insight revealed the critical importance of promoting healing and resilience, a finding that mirrored those in other social movements. as black lives matters co-founder patrisse khan-cullors and co-author asha bandele (2018) write of their work as activists in ferguson, missouri: “in our work we must always make space to confront trauma and to consider strategies for resistance” (p. 206). the two dissertation vignettes in the article represent the integration of the three foundational frameworks and processes of an iterative and participatory research methodology: (1) community learning exchange protocols; (2) design thinking; and (3) improvement science tools. other dissertations in our edd tell the same story – transfer from theory to practice because the doctoral students were empowered to take risks, try new ways of doing and collecting evidence, and collaborate intentionally with others in their local contexts to design and understand the work. our focus to create activist-practitioners has been rooted in the work of developing practitioner-researchers. our program design – pedagogies, activities, and par dissertation – integrates research (data collection and analysis), process (improvement science meet design thinking and learning exchanges) with practice. to do this type of work, we have to disrupt university preparation systems, often resistant to change. thus, creating and sustaining the program means a change in approach that often puts pressure on the current structures that strangle most university systems from making the necessary changes. for our re-imaged edd it means one syllabus per semester that combines courses for the doctoral students and keeping busy leaders on track by writing weekly memos; it means faculty conversations that integrate coursework and the dissertation; it means dedicated advisors who have phone conversations about the par and how to organize cles on a biweekly basis; and it means a university system responsive to changing the number of chapters in a dissertation and not putting up barriers to a different way of doing the work. we believe the road to new practice is paved by creating useful new knowledge, by modeling the practices we think will make substantial change, and by reflecting deeply in order to act responsibly. like the par process itself, leadership work is never sequential, nor does it stop. with core values as a constant beacon and strategic support from advisors deeply familiar with each student’s context, we were able to make substantive changes in the way we operate as university faculty. our aim was to create an educational doctoral program for practitioner-researchers that embodied activism and social justice as beacon core values for the coordinators and the program design. at the same time, the values and the structure, frameworks, pedagogy, coursework, and support need to reinvigorate school and district leaders as they pursue an edd we created a transformative program to model how they too can transform their current conditions as they transfer knowledge into practice. we know the process starts with a disposition and a set of core beliefs about social justice; we recognize that the belief has to be reified in the ways we construct and instruct. conclusion a common query at cped events is: what does a dissertation in practice look like? in this article, we provided two examples of dissertations in practice. moreover, we provided examples of students as activist practitioner-researchers. we do not separate research from practice nor practice from research. by fusing these roles together, and by anchoring our work in participatory action research in the triumvirate of frameworks and processes of community learning exchanges, design thinking, and improvement science, our dissertations led to real, meaningful change (rogers, 2003). combined, the frameworks are invitational and nimble. without the frameworks, ronny would not have been able to learn with the students to make policy level change. without the frameworks, lihi would not have been able to break the traditional hierarchy of school leadership. without the frameworks, each would not have been able to be activist practitioner-researcher in and beyond their dissertations. in the end, the celebration is not the completion of the program, but how this the processes transfer into practice beyond the dissertation exercise and how the program graduates maintain themselves as leaders of equity. a university as the center of change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.118 31 when performance fails to meet goals, a search process for a solution intensifies (cyert & march, 1963). the search process for a solution usually resides in the neighborhood of the problem itself. march (1997) stipulated, “search is stimulated by a failure to achieve a goal and continues until it reveals an alternative that is good enough to satisfy existing evoked goals” (p. 12). leadership programs, like other organizational innovations, have fallen into this solution trap and within years morph back to a traditional format (dimaggio & powell, 1991). the structure of programs needs to be adjusted, but without frameworks that provide space for risk-taking, inquiry, participation, and conversation, programs will tinker with different approaches, but not attempt to reinvent themselves. students in our reimagined program are practitionerresearchers. in the role, they engage a wide scope of community members, and they honor the context of their place and the wisdom of the people in their school and surrounding communities. they use an equity lens on all evidence, and they push colleagues to more equitable practices in leadership and classrooms. for us this is the definition of activist scholars. for us this is a way to foster the development of data-informed, inclusive, equity-minded practitioners who can develop capacity as qualitative researchers to have methods of evidence collection and analysis that can be translated into school and district improvement. references allensworth, e.m. & hart, h. 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(2014). are dropout and degree completion in doctoral study significantly dependent on type of financial support and field of research? studies in higher education, 39(10), 1885-1909. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.806458 wang, c., yuan, y., & feng, m. (1996). photovoice as a tool for participatory evaluation: the community’s view of process and impact. journal of contemporary health, 4, 47-49. welch, r.j. (2019). moving from the middle: an exploration of student experiences transitioning to high school in international settings (unpublished doctoral dissertation). east carolina university. zwick, r. (1991). differences in graduate school attainment patterns across academic programs and demographic groups. educational testing service. zwiers, j. & crawford, m. (2011). academic conversations: classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and classroom understanding. stenhouse. https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/designresources/wiki/36873/attachments/74b3d/modeguidebootcamp2010l.pdf https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/designresources/wiki/36873/attachments/74b3d/modeguidebootcamp2010l.pdf https://dschool-old.stanford.edu/sandbox/groups/designresources/wiki/36873/attachments/74b3d/modeguidebootcamp2010l.pdf https://doi.org/10.28945/1589 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.806458 matthew militello east carolina university lynda tredway east carolina university (1) lihi rosenthal university of california, berkeley james ronald welch international school bangkok program design: the reimagined edd community learning exchange design thinking improvement science: re-emphasizing relational trust community learning exchange + design thinking + improvement science = reimagined edd edd doctoral student activism ronny lihi setting the table doing the work discussion and implications conclusion references microsoft word 57 buss final layout.docx 40 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 40 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program ray r. buss, phd mary lou fulton teachers college arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu abstract in this essay, i have described how the cped guiding principles for program design (gppd) and design concepts (dc) have influenced the development and implementation of arizona state university’s edd in leadership and innovation program. i have explained the pervasive influence of the cped gppd and dc on various aspects of the program including (a) more general or global aspects of the program; (b) signature pedagogies of the program; (c) development of program milestones; and (d) development and implementation of courses in the program. as a result, faculty members have created and continue to deliver a more coherent, practitioner-oriented program, which benefits students and is guided by the cped principles and design concepts. keywords: cped, cped guiding principles for program design and concepts, edd programs, practitioner-oriented edd programs introduction when the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) came together in 2007, the consortium sought to better differentiate between the outcomes and expectations for edd and phd candidates. .... [over time, cped and its member institutions have] redefine[d] the edd and the preparation that produces educational leaders that transform practice. (perry, 2016, p. 2) how have education faculty members constructed and implemented redesigned doctoral programs to develop educational leaders who can appropriately transform practice? in particular, for those pursuing the edd, how have faculty members and programs provided meaningful doctoral experiences for practicing educators who seek to improve their settings to be more effective for those whom they serve? some reflection on these questions clearly indicated the nature of the experiences should be quite different for edd program participants than the experiences provided to those seeking the phd. yet, that typically has not been the case (perry, 2012, 2016; perry & imig, 2008). in numerous studies, researchers have suggested educational leaders frequently have been prepared in programs that were not appropriate to meet their needs (levine, 2005; shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006). fortunately for educators seeking the edd degree, more than 100 carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) affiliated programs have been (re)designed to better meet practicing educators’ needs (buss, zambo, zambo, perry, & williams, 2017; buss, zambo, zambo, & williams, 2014; hoffman & perry, 2016; perry, 2012, 2016; perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015; zambo, zambo, buss, perry, & williams, 2014). in this essay, i have described how the cped framework— the guiding principles for program design (gppd) and design concepts (dc)— has been used to (a) influence the design of arizona state university’s edd in leadership and innovation program and its delivery, (b) develop our program milestones, which have served as a means to assess students’ progress throughout the program, and (c) shape our courses. (note: perry and zambo fully described the cped gppd and dc in the introduction to these articles). the influence of the cped framework has continued as program faculty have implemented and continually refined the program to serve educational leaders more effectively. before i discuss the influence of the cped framework on this edd program, it will be instructive to consider how edd programs can best be responsive to the needs of scholarly practitioners. in this discussion, of course, the tension between students’ needs and faculty members’ considerations of what would be fitting to ensure appropriate doctoral preparation was a critical factor in designing and implementing the program. in the design and implementation of the current program, consideration of students’ needs as continuing leaders in various educational settings as well as the cped framework were carefully contemplated. the challenge in the next section, i documented the need to develop scholarly practitioners. in particular, i focused on developing appropriate practice-related skills for scholar practitioners. how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 41 developing scholarly practitioners in edd programs levine (2005) and shulman et al. (2006) have amply documented problems with respect to inappropriate and inadequate preparation of educational leaders in edd programs. for example, levine criticized edd programs for irrelevant curriculum; deficient clinical preparation; unsuitable research preparation of students that was not applicable to their work settings as school leaders; low quality research and dissertations; and so on. levine attributed the inappropriate preparation to programs that were a confused combination of phd and edd programs with undifferentiated outcomes. for example, levine claimed the majority of programs inappropriately prepared school leaders as more traditional researchers; rather than preparing them to engage in meaningful research work connected to their daily practices. shulman and his colleagues (2006) offered similar criticisms of edd programs including a strong critique about the mismatch between preparation and career paths. specifically, shulman et al. suggested this poor preparation resulted in “offering [edd students] experiences more similar to phd programs than to the high-level preparation for practice or leadership found in other learned professions” (p. 27). in this influential article, shulman et al. (2006) advocated for the development of a new degree, the professional practice doctorate (ppd). although use of the term did not “catch on,” the article and the thinking it represented were instrumental in directing the emergence and development of cped and cped gppd and dc, which have influenced the (re)design of many edd programs. further, shulman and his colleagues proposed ways to develop new or revised doctoral programs, which emphasized serving the needs of professional practitioners. they offered a set of fundamental characteristics to distinguish these new, practitioner-focused programs that included (a) employing signature pedagogies, (b) requiring development of practice-related research skills, (c) expecting program participants to be engaged in prior and ongoing practice experiences, and (d) suggesting individuals participating in such programs “would be skilled in carrying out local research and evaluations to guide practice” (p. 29). clearly, these characteristics provided a beginning point for discussions about necessary properties or features of programs that were consistent with the unique needs of degree-seeking, educational practitioners who wanted to influence their practices. importantly, these seminal recommendations for the (re)design of edd programs served as the impetus for devising the more fully articulated cped framework, which faculty members from the initial 25 colleges of education that participated in cped deliberated and developed. the carnegie project on the education doctorate faculty members from cped-affiliated colleges of education have collaborated since 2007 to reenvision and reclaim the edd as the relevant terminal, professional degree for educational leaders (buss et al., 2017; hoffman & perry, 2016; perry, 2012, 2016; perry & imig, 2008; zambo et al., 2014). by drawing upon the cped framework, taking into account local contexts, and considering students’ needs and faculty members’ visions for programs, cpedaffiliated colleges of education have developed new edd programs to meet better the needs of practicing educational professionals. the goal of cped-guided edd programs has been to develop educational leaders, scholarly practitioners, those individuals who combined practical wisdom, professional knowledge, and workrelated research skills to identify, frame, and solve problems of practice in their workplace settings (cped, 2009). to provide direction in attaining this goal, faculty members from cped-guided colleges of education collaborated to create a set of six gppd for reenvisioned edd programs (cped, 2009). as a result, faculty members of cped-guided programs have used the six cped gppd to (re)design edd programs. in addition to the direction provided by the six gppd, cpedguided programs have employed cped dc such as (a) problem of practice, (b) scholarly practitioner, (c) signature pedagogy, (d) inquiry as practice, (e) laboratories of practice, and (f) dissertations in practice (cped, 2010). use of the six gppd and six dc has resulted in extensively (re)designed edd programs throughout the united states (buss et al., 2014, 2017; de lisi, 2013; macintyre latta &wunder, 2012; perry, 2012, 2016; rueda, sundt, & picus, 2013; sawyer, 2013; susman israel, sostak, stewart, & bazzimoughania, 2016; zambo et al., 2014). using the cped framework to guide an edd program in the following three sections, i have described and explained how the cped framework has influenced our edd program. first, i have explained the influence it has had on our program design and its delivery in global ways and subsequently with respect to two signature pedagogies. second, i have described how the cped framework influenced development of program milestones. third, i have explicated the influence of the cped framework on our courses and provided several examples to illustrate those effects. influence of the cped framework on global aspects of program design and delivery the cped framework has extensively influenced the edd program at arizona state university. in this section, i have described how the cped framework shaped four fundamental facets of our program. those four key features of the program included (a) using problems of practice, which has been central to the program; (b) developing scholarly and influential practitioners, the overall program goal; and describing the two key signature pedagogies (shulman, 2005) of the program—(c) cycles of action research (car) and (d) leader scholar communities (lsc). i chose to write about these four features because they have been at the center of the program and influenced other aspects of the program like course content, course requirements, learning activities, student products, and so on. thus, these four features have served as the skeleton around which the program and its components were articulated. further, these features have ensured program meaningfulness, continuity, and coherence. finally, and notably, these four features may be useful to those who are redesigning their edd program or for those who wish to adapt them for use in a recently (re)designed edd program. problem of practice (pop). cped’s (2010) pop design concept has been a central feature of our program from the beginning. students have come to the program with a pop situated in their workplace setting, one that they wanted to improve or resolve. for example, one high school english teacher at a small rural high school developed english class work to foster collegegoing skills and behaviors to increase the number of students from buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 42 that high school to go on to post-secondary education. another student worked with methods course instructors in a teacher preparation program to infuse english as a second language strategies into those courses so that teacher candidates would be better prepared to teach english language learners when they lead their own classrooms. as illustrated in these examples, cped principle 1 on social justice or equity issues around a pop, served as the impetus for many of the students’ pop. clearly, in terms of principle 2, students’ work on the pop afforded them opportunities to make positive differences in the lives of others. further, the program’s reliance on the pop has resulted in other beneficial outcomes. by drawing upon the pop, the program has encouraged students to connect and apply what they were learning in the program to their pop in their field-based settings. therefore, program designers and faculty members have afforded students opportunities to apply cped principle 4 as they analyzed their pop and used multiple approaches to devise and test solutions for it. moreover, with respect to cped principle 5, as students worked on their pop, they capitalized on opportunities to develop their professional knowledge bases, integrate practical and research knowledge, and link that to systematic inquiry. finally, as students have worked on their pop, they generated and used professional knowledge in their practices, cped principle 6. developing scholarly and influential practitioners. the overall goal of the asu edd in leadership and innovation program has been to develop scholarly and influential practitioners: those individuals who were able to learn effectively, lead change, and improve local situations (cped, 2009) using action research. given these objectives, the program has employed a conventional cohort approach and two signature pedagogies based on the cped framework. we have used a cohort structure based on wenger’s community of practice (cop) perspective (wenger, 1998; wenger, mcdermott, & snyder, 2002). when students began the program, they worked in appropriate community of practice contexts, initially in a large group of 20-22 students and later in smaller leader scholar communities (lsc, see the description below) of five to seven students and one faculty member. requiring students to engage in the cohort work and discussions reflected several cped gppd including principles 2, 3, and 5. specifically, the cohort work fostered collaboration and communication skills, cped principle 3, necessary for working with diverse communities and building partnerships. notably, the collaboration developed in the cohort work extended to the practice communities of program participants, which allowed them to work more effectively within their own cop (wenger, 1998; wenger et al., 2002). this collaborative work also has supported program participants as they applied their efforts to effect positive changes in individuals, organizations, or communities, cped principle 2. for example, most students in the program have developed their own communities of practice as they attempted to implement innovations to effect changes with respect to their pop. finally, with respect to principle 5, the cohort work has been useful in extending the professional knowledge base of students and affording them opportunities to integrate practical and research knowledge as they discussed and defended their emerging knowledge of theories and inquiry practices. in addition to the more general approaches such as the pop and the cohort method described above, our program has employed two signature pedagogies (shulman, 2005) that pervasively have influenced the experiences of students in the program. again, cped gppd deeply influenced these signature pedagogies. because the program capitalized on students’ pop and its resolution, workplaces have served as students’ laboratories of practice, one of the cped (2010) design concepts. further, the program has employed cycles of action research (car) to provide opportunities for students to delve deeply into their pop as they seek a resolution to it. thus, car has served as our first signature pedagogy. the program has utilized leader scholar communities (lscs) as our second signature pedagogy. these signature pedagogies were consistent with shulman et al.’s (2006) first characteristic of strong professional doctoral programs that suggested such programs employed signature pedagogies that graduates would meaningfully and readily use after the program. thus, our selection and use of these specific signature pedagogies—car and lscs were applicable during the program and importantly afterword as graduates were engaged in their day-to-day educational practice settings. cycles of action research. throughout our program, we have employed on-going car (buss, 2018; buss & zambo, 2016). the use of car has afforded opportunities for students to develop practice-appropriate inquiry strategies closely connected to their workplace settings (buss, 2018). faculty members introduced car early in the program and expanded on them throughout. again, based on their pop, students have engaged in efforts where they explored the literature for practical solutions, engaged in some intervention/innovation, gathered and analyzed data, determined their outcomes, and decided about their next steps. students have continued this cyclical process throughout the program. an action research dissertation in practice (dip) has served as the culminating experience. further, car ensured students were conducting research in the local setting to guide practice. moreover, requiring students to engage in on-going car throughout the program, affords many opportunities for program participants to develop inquiry skills that carry over into professional practice upon completion of the program (buss, 2018). taken together, the car approach was consistent with a number of the cped principles. specifically, it was clear that car, which were based on the students’ pop from their workplaces, have provided occasions for students to engage in work related to equity and social justice, cped principle 1. further, car have offered situations in which students have constructed and applied knowledge to their pop to make a positive difference in the lives of their students, those whom they serve, or their organizations, principle 2. moreover, car have provided opportunities for students to develop and employ collaboration skills and build partnerships, cped principle 3, to implement and conduct their action research work during the program and afterword. for example, most students’ projects have included working with staff member colleagues to improve achievement at a grade-level or school site, improve student services staff members’ skills to support transfer students, or create more effective professional development for colleagues. notably, car have provided field-based opportunities for students to analyze their pop, and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions, cped principle 4. for example, students in the program conduct reconnaissance in an early car and then use that information to assist them in better understanding the problem and developing initial thinking about their intervention to combat the pop. through their work on their pop, students also integrated knowledge of practice from their workplace with research knowledge how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 43 as they linked theory and systematic inquiry, cped principle 5. simultaneously, the car provided students with opportunities to engage in generating, transforming, and using professional knowledge and practice, cped principle 6. leader-scholar communities. lscs have been the second signature pedagogy, which we have used to support students during the latter portion of the program as they completed comprehensive examinations, dip proposals, the dip, and its defense. beginning in the second year of our three-year program, students became members of a lsc. a lsc was comprised of five to seven students and one faculty member who served as chair of all these students’ dip committees. there were two primary functions of the lscs. first, lscs provided a method to support students as they developed their dip proposals, conducted the dissertation work, and completed data analysis and writing of the final dip. second, lscs provided a means for students to remain connected to the program, student peers, and faculty members to assist them in completing these dip efforts. to achieve these outcomes, members of the lscs met regularly, learned together, and supported each other academically, socially, and emotionally (amrein-beardsley et al., 2012; buss & allen, 2018; olson & clark, 2009). for a detailed description of lscs and their implementation, see buss and allen (2018). for example, regularly scheduled lsc meetings provided students with academic support by incorporating topics such as relevant theories for dissertation work, methodologies for instrumentation and data analysis, writing processes, and so on. faculty members and students supported one another socially and emotionally through social networks where they were engaged in face-to-face and now also in online contact for our online students, which ensured students remained connected to the program during the dissertation phase of study (ali & kohun, 2007). the use of lscs was consistent with cped principles 3, 5, and 6. the lscs provided occasions for students to employ collaboration and communication skills to build partnerships, cped principle 3. in some instances, lsc members formed their own dyads and triads who worked together in their own communities of practice where they exchanged ideas, reviewed one another’s work, and supported their colleagues. the lsc meetings presented numerous opportunities for members to develop professional knowledge that integrated practical and research knowledge, cped principle 5, as they discussed their pop and what theories might be useful in helping them to better conceptualize their pop or their intervention to effect change in their pop. finally, discussion and interaction during the lscs afforded opportunities for students to consider and explore the use of professional knowledge and practice to effect transformations in their workplace settings, cped principle 6. as noted above, students formed their own cop in their work places as they worked to resolve their pop. influence of the cped framework on program milestone development and assessment the cped framework was critical in the development of program milestones. it guided faculty members as they considered how to devise milestones based on program goals that would effectively assess the progress of students in the program. employment of the cped framework for this purpose allowed faculty members to take more general program outcomes—(a) becoming strong leaders, (b) serving as change agents, (c) becoming data-informed decision makers, and (d) working as collaborators in their settings—and create specific leadership and, innovation/research milestones that could be assessed throughout the program. examples of leadership milestones included a professional growth plan; leadership challenge reflection; a postdegree impact plan, and so on (see the upper part of table 1). by comparison, innovation/research milestones included context of problem of practice analysis; internal research presentations; a dip, and so on (see the lower portion of table 1). further, the connections between the cped framework and the program milestones has been denoted in table 1 by an ‘x’ in the row of the milestone under the column of the cped guiding principle or design concept, which applied to that milestone. influence of cped framework on leadership milestones. as an illustration of the influence of the cped framework, consider the professional growth plan, the first leadership milestone presented in table 1. faculty members regarded cped principles 1, 2, 4, and 6 to be influencing the professional growth plan required of students near the beginning of the program. specifically, in the growth plan, students have been required to address matters of equity and social justice, cped principle 1, as they considered professional growth to address better these matters in their practices. moreover, students had to indicate how they planned to develop leadership skills to apply knowledge to make a positive difference in their students, families, organizations, or communities, cped principle 2. similarly, with respect to cped principle 4, students developed a growth plan that included information about how they would use field-based opportunities to work on their pop. finally, with regard to cped principle 6, students were required to develop a growth plan with information about how they intended to use professional knowledge and practice to transform their practice. with respect to cped dc, as students developed their professional growth plans, their thinking and writing was concerned with matters such as their pop; investigating their pop by conducting inquiry as practice; and carrying out this work in their workplace settings, that is to say, their laboratories of practice. of course, all of the activities related to the exercise of developing a growth plan contributed to the development of students as scholarly practitioners as they blended their practical wisdom with professional skills to identify and solve pop while they were collaborating with key stakeholders. influence of cped framework on innovation/action research milestones. an example of an innovation/research milestone was the online research conference presentations (mertler & henriksen, 2018), which have been required three times throughout the program, at the end of each year of the students’ program. in their presentations, firstand second-year students have described the action research efforts they have conducted during the current semester. by comparison, third-year students have presented on their dissertations in practice. with respect to the cped framework, cped principles 2, 3, and 4 guided the development and use of the research conference presentations in the program milestones. in their presentations, students have described how their action research efforts have made differences in individuals, organizations, or communities, cped principle 2. further, they have provided information about how they have collaborated with their communities and built partnerships to deal buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 44 table 1. program milestones by cped guiding principles and design concepts cped guiding principles cped design concepts 1 equity, ethics, & social justice for pops 2 make a positive difference 3 collaborate & comm. skills to build partnerships 4 field-based opportunities to analyze pop and its resolution 5 integrate practical & research knowledge 6 generate, transform, and use professional knowledge & practice problem of practice scholarly practitioner signature pedagogy inquiry as practice laboratories of practice dissertation in practice leadership milestones 1. professional growth plan x x x x x x x x 2. leadership challenges reflection x x x x 3. directed field study analysis/ reflection x x x 4. community of practice presentation x x x x x x x 5. post-degree impact plan x x x x x x x x x x x innovative/ action research milestones 1. research ethics and citi training x x x x 2. context of problem analysis x x x x x x x 3. research conference presentations x x x x x x x 4. cycle i report, written and presented x x x x x x x x x x 5. critical papers portfolio from courses x x x x x x x 6. comp. exam/diss. proposal defense x x x x x x x x x x 7. dissertation and defense x x x x x x x x x x x 8. external dissemination of research x x x x x x x x x with their pop, cped principle 3. finally, students have shared how they engaged in field-based opportunities to analyze their pop and employ multiple frameworks as they developed solutions to their pop, cped principle 4. in terms of cped dc, faculty members viewed research conference presentations as being related to the following design concepts: pop, scholarly practitioner, inquiry as practice, and laboratories of practice. students’ research presentations focused quite naturally on their pop and on the work they conducted about their pop in their laboratories of practice, their workplace settings. further, the presentations reflected inquiry into their practice. finally, these online research presentations aided students in developing as scholarly practitioners because they blended practical wisdom with professional skills to work toward a resolution of their pop by collaborating with others and by disseminating their work to others. the influence of the cped gppd and dc on the remaining leadership and innovation/research milestones is illustrated in a similar way in table 1. that is to say, an ‘x’ at the intersection of the row and column indicated that the particular milestone was viewed as being influenced by or connected to the specific cped guiding principle or design concept. how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 45 table 2. program courses by cped guiding principles and design concepts cped guiding principles cped design concepts 1 equity, ethics, & social justice for pops 2 make a positive difference 3 collaborate & comm. skills to build partnerships 4 field-based opportunities to analyze pop and its resolution 5 integrate practical & research knowledge 6 generate, transform, and use professional knowledge & practice problem of practice scholarly practitioner signature pedagogy inquiry as practice laboratories of practice dissertation in practice summer 1 tel 706 introduction to doctoral studies x x x x x tel 705 systems and leadership x x x x x fall 1 tel 703 innovations teaching/learning x x x x x x tel 711 strategies for inquiry x x x x x x x x x x tel 707 reading the research x x x x x x x spring 1 tel 702 dynamic contexts of education x x x x tel 712 mixed methods of inquiry x x x x x x x x x x summer 2 tel 704 leadership organizational change x x x x x tel 709 directed field study x x x x x fall 2 tel 701 advanced quantitative methods x x x x x x x x x tel 713 advanced qualitative methods x x x x x x x x x tel 792 leader scholar community x x x x x x x x x x x x spring 2 tel 792 leader scholar community x x x x x x x x x x x x tel 780 electivea x x x x x x tel 780 electivea x x x x x x summer 3 tel 708 collaborative approaches to...b x x x x x x tel 780 electivea x x x x x x tel 791 innov. in dissem. researchc x x x x x x fall 3 tel 799 dissertation in practice x x x x x x x x x x x x spring 3 tel 799 dissertation in practice x x x x x x x x x x x x note: a—electives can be selected from courses such as using qualitative analysis in grounded theory coding, survey development, research in the postsecondary education context, and case study research. b--the full title of the course is collaborative approaches to data-informed decision making. c—the full title of the course is innovations in disseminating research. buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.57 46 influence of the cped framework on program courses to demonstrate the influence of the cped framework on courses in the asu edd in leadership and innovation program, i have provided two examples. first, i have discussed the influences of the framework on tel 712— mixed methods of inquiry, a methodology-type course students take during the program. in this course, students have engaged in action research efforts that have included developing and implementing a small-scale intervention on their pop. numerous cped gppd have influenced the course and the actions students have taken in the course. specifically, students have been engaged in conducting a small-scale intervention that was a means to resolve their pop. this has allowed them to analyze their pop more fully and begin to develop useful solutions, cped principle 4. moreover, this intervention work has required them to collaborate with their communities and build partnerships, cped principle 3, around the pop as they applied this new knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, organizations, or communities—cped principle 2. additionally, as students have conducted their efforts in tel 712, they have integrated practical and research knowledge and connected theory with inquiry, cped principle 5, and engaged in generating and using professional knowledge in their practice, cped principle 6. in table 2, i have demonstrated how the cped framework has influenced the courses in our program. again, an ‘x’ in the table indicated that the cped framework component influenced the course. with respect to design concepts, students have applied an intervention to their pop in an attempt to resolve it during this cycle of action research, which was one of the program’s signature pedagogies. as a result, students have engaged in inquiry as practice, a cped dc, “by using various research, theories, and professional wisdom … [to] design innovative solutions to address the problems of practice” (cped, 2010, para. 11). further, students have demonstrated inquiry as practice as they “gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature and data with a critical lens” (cped 2010, para. 11). because students have been required to conduct this work in their workplace settings, they have made use of cped’s laboratories of practice design concept defined, in part, by, “settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other …. where ideas—formed by the intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice—can be implemented, measured, and analyzed for the impact made” (cped, 2010, para. 12). thus, in conducting this effort, students have developed as scholarly practitioners because they have “blend[ed] practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice [as] they use practical research and applied theories as tools … to resolve problems of practice collaborating with key stakeholders …” (cped 2010, para. 9). second, tel 799—dissertation in practice (dip), the culminating activity in the program, has been guided by all the cped principles and design concepts. i will not provide a detailed explanation because much of it would reflect the description for tel 712 provided previously. in the following discussion, i merely amplify some aspects not well represented in the discussion of tel 712. first, students’ dips tended to examine questions of equity and bringing about solutions to complex pops, cped principle 1. the dip has been implemented as a scholarly enterprise that affects a pop, which was consistent with the cped design concept of dip. with respect to how the dissertation represented inquiry as practice, consider that cped’s (2010) definition of inquiry as practice included the notion that “the center of inquiry as practice is the ability to use data to understand the effects of innovation” (para. 11). thus, because students have acquired more well-developed skills with respect to gathering and analyzing data, those completing the dip were now more capable of using the data to determine the effectiveness of their innovation. conclusion in this essay, i convey the pervasive influence that the cped framework has on our edd program. the cped framework influences the more fundamental aspects of our program such as students’ focus on a problem of practice and use of cohort structure in program delivery as well as the more complex facets such as signature pedagogies like car and lscs. moreover, the cped framework also influences the program milestones and courses in the program. use of the cped framework in this way allows students to participate in a coherent, practice-focused program that is helpful as they participate in the program and useful long afterword as graduates continue to draw upon the knowledge and skills they learn to inform their professional, education, and leadership practices. finally, it may be instructive to consider your own program in light of the cped framework. for example, how does the cped framework influence general, global program components, such as use of cohorts or other program features? further, how does the cped framework shape your program milestones and assessments of those milestones? finally, how does the cped framework affect your program courses? undoubtedly, there are strong connections, but i suspect most of those are implicit. in our efforts to construct the online version of our program, we thoughtfully and thoroughly considered how the courses fit together and how the cped framework influenced them. similarly, as we considered the development and implementation of assessment of our program milestones, we carefully considered how the cped framework shaped them. as a result, faculty members were able to create and continue to deliver a more coherent, practitioner-oriented program, which benefits students. references ali, a., & kohun, f. 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(2016). creating an edd structure, program, and process fulfilling the needs of doctoral candidates and the communities they will serve: applying lessons learned from the redesign of a principal preparation program. in v. a. storey & k. a. hesbol (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation development and research methods (pp. 70-87). hershey, pa: igi global. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. new york, ny: cambridge university press. wenger, e., mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. boston, ma: harvard business school press. zambo, r., zambo, d., buss, r. r., perry, j. a., & williams, t. r. (2014). seven years after the call: students’ and graduates’ perceptions of the re-envisioned ed.d. innovative higher education, 39, 123-137. doi: 10.1007/s10755-013-9262-3 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 using evidence to frame problems of practice lesley f. leach tarleton state university leach@tarleton.edu credence baker tarleton state university cbaker@tarleton.edu catherine g. leamons tarleton state university catherine.leamons@go.tarleton.edu phillis bunch tarleton state university sw_bunch@tarleton.edu jesse brock tarleton state university sw_jbrock@tarleton.edu abstract improvement initiatives crafted based on well-understood problems of practice often stand the greatest chance of leading to sustainable educational improvements. framing problems of practice using multiple modes of evidence is advisable to fully understand the system of root causes of the problem and its stakeholders. in this study, we used the document analysis method to investigate the types of evidence (e.g., literature, anecdotal, secondary data) that students used to frame problems of practice in edd dissertations in practice within cped consortium member institutions (n=53). results suggest that students predominantly use literature to frame problems of practice with fewer using primary and secondary data. keywords problem of practice, evidence, framing, root cause analysis decades of reform efforts have yet to produce long-term, sustainable solutions to the issues plaguing the u.s. educational system. too often, in efforts to create quick change, educational leaders apply interventions that worked in other environments without considering the differences between the two environments and how those differences could negatively impact the intervention’s success (bryk et al., 2016). such interventions perpetuate the cycle prevalent in education in which initiatives are adopted but quickly abandoned because they are proven ineffective or are not provided enough time to show the desired effect (rohanna, 2017). some have argued that most large-scale initiatives fail due to limited understandings of the very problems the initiatives were undertaken to solve or improve (bryk et al., 2016). the understanding of the problem could be limited by a lack of data or a lack of understanding about the larger systems in which the problem is situated. take, for instance, the pervasive issue of mathematics achievement that exists at all levels of education in the u.s.—from students’ low algebra passage rates in k-12 to the difficulty community colleges and higher education institutions have moving students beyond developmental mathematics. a k-12 leader would likely first detect the issue from low scores on standardized tests to which the leader might respond by offering tutoring sessions to students. but if the leader investigated further, she would likely find that the problem stemmed from a wide set of factors including teachers’ lack of training to effectively teach mathematics, students’ language barriers, and curricula focused on rote memorization of facts rather than problem-solving skills. put simply, low test scores were symptoms of the problem; there was likely a system of root causes. and it is likely the system of root causes that should guide potential improvements to create meaningful and sustainable solutions. carnegie project on the education doctorate helping to lead the charge of defining and improving upon educational problems are institutions within the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) consortium. currently, there are http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:leach@tarleton.edu mailto:cbaker@tarleton.edu mailto:catherine.leamons@go.tarleton.edu mailto:sw_bunch@tarleton.edu mailto:sw_jbrock@tarleton.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9040-7207 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7814-2135 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3326-2261 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2943-9717 leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 2 over 100 cped member institutions (cped, n.d.-a) who, as “a network of ‘peer-to-peer’ faculty members and leaders” (perry & imig, 2016, para. 9), strive to better prepare edd programs to guide and produce leaders in education. according to perry (2013), cped is the first “action-oriented effort” aimed at reframing, redefining, and restructuring the edd (perry, 2013, p. 115). through intellectual exercises and discussions at meetings, cped members collaborated to define the edd as a degree that “prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, n.d.-a, para. 6). cped member institutions created a framework (cped, n.d. c) that edd programs could use to design their programs in ways that honored their particular student constituencies and local educational communities. cped also created a set of design concepts that member institutions could use in their edd programs to further the development of scholar practitioners. the design concepts include, among others, a signature pedagogy that is the hallmark pedagogical process particular to that program, similar to “rounds” in medical education or the “socratic method” in legal education. for the edd, graduates use “inquiry as practice” (cped, n.d.-c, para. 1) to identify and improve upon educational issues in their organizations, and the dissertation in practice. dissertation in practice the cornerstone of cped-influenced edds is the dissertation in practice (dip), which is similar to a traditional dissertation in some ways but markedly different in others. both traditional dissertations and dissertations in practice involve investigations of educational phenomena with extensive reviews of literature; however, the main difference between the two is that the dissertation in practice centers on an identified localized problem of practice rather than gaps in the research literature (storey et al., 2015). and it is the investigation of improvements related to the problem of practice that often defines a dip. completed dips serve as evidence that edd graduates possess the abilities, skills, and knowledge to “analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions” (cped, n.d.-a, para. 6) while in edd programs, but also in their current and future practice as educational leaders. problems of practice cped defines a problem of practice as “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, n.d.-c, para. 1). decomposition of the definition requires consideration of the three phrases within it. a persistent problem is one that happens more than once and likely for more than a short time period, with the timeframe relative based on the nature of the problem. a problem is contextualized when it is situated within a particular setting with particular characteristics. finally, a problem is considered a “specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, n.d.-c, para. 1) when it is one that is clearly localized to a practitioner’s work and in need of improvement. mintrop (2016) furthered the cped pop definition by stressing the urgency of the solution to the localized issue. by virtue of the individuals and the types of issues one sees in education, pops are often ill-structured or ill-defined, meaning that they are complex and lack clear-cut solutions (archbald, 2014; copland, 2000; jonassen, 2000; timperley & robinson, 1998). educational problems do not often present themselves ready for solution; rather, full understanding of a problem is generated through the collective examination of multiple problematic situations (schön, 1983). with the assistance of mintrop (2016), we define what it means to identify, define, and frame a problem of practice below; these steps are necessary to gain a full understanding of a pop and its system of root causes. note that while the words identify, define, and frame may have general meanings elsewhere, the meanings related to problems of practice are quite specific to those offered below. the first step toward a full understanding of a pop is to identify or select an issue that is an urgent need of an organization (bryk et al., 2016; mintrop, 2016). one might think of this as conception of the idea that completion of the next two steps in the process will further explicate. the process at which one comes to identification is likely different for various individuals and organizations but is often guided by organizational strategic plans or goals situated within the individual’s particular sphere of influence. once an issue has been identified as potential problem of practice, it requires further definition. to define the problem, individuals tap prior knowledge and experience to consider the symptoms or instances that initially made the issue appear problematic (mintrop, 2016). this has been characterized as the gap between the current state and the ideal (archbald, 2014; mintrop, 2016). gaps represent comparisons such as discrepancies between one’s organization and another (e.g., institution a has lower scores than institution b), between an organization over time (e.g., institution a’s scores have decreased over the last 5 years), or between an organization and its targets (institution a’s scores did not meet the target) (archbald, 2014). it is the justification of these gaps as problems, contends archbald (2014), that defines the problem of practice and situates it as an issue for study and potential improvement. framing the pop demands consideration of the broader construction of the issue, including the myriad factors that likely impact it and stakeholders who influence it. closely related to problem definition, framing of the problem goes one step further in considering the potential causes of the issue as well as individual assumptions and lenses that may influence the development of the frame (schön & rein, 1995). investigators have empirically examined the nature and content of pops (see e.g., gillham et al.,2019; ma et al., 2018; storey et al., 2015), but questions still remain about how to thoroughly frame a pop. naturally, scholars often turn to the literature for prior studies and theories that may inform the pop (archbald, 2014; belzer & ryan, 2013; mintrop, 2016). but when considering the contextual nature of problems, the literature may only serve to help situate the identified issue within the broader context and may not be enough to provide information on the problem in the local context. literature can help clarify the ideal state, but the most convincing problem definitions also include practitioner and stakeholder input through multiple modes of evidence, including secondary, primary, and/or anecdotal data in addition to relevant literature (archbald, 2014). mintrop (2016) also advocated framing problems using multiple modes of evidence, but through an iterative design-based process. using evidence to frame problems of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 3 the process begins with an initial framing of the pop and identification of potential improvement initiatives via broad problem statements. the broad statements are further refined as evidence is gathered and assimilated, with a portion of evidence derived as the result of an empirical needs assessment of the organization (mintrop, 2016). the improvement science (is) methodology advances a systems analysis to build a robust understanding of problems and avoid “solutionitis” (bryk et al, 2016, p. 197) where solutions are enacted before the problem is fully understood. in contrast to experimental science that seeks to minimize variation, is embraces the idea that “variation in implementation and setting are important sources of information” (lewis, 2015, p. 55) in solving problems. is advances a causal system analysis to investigate root causes of problems that might otherwise be obscured by their symptoms. from the causal system analysis develops a solution system that addresses the particular influence of each identified system on the problem and works to improve upon it. the solution is then implemented in iterative plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycles whereby the intervention is planned and enacted, results are studied, changes are made, and the implementation cycle begins again with the revised plan. iterative cycles of inquiry provide a mechanism to “[learn] fast to implement well” (bryk et al., 2016, p. 7) in the aim of continuous improvement. need for evidence in post-truth era the need for evidence to substantiate pops is arguably more relevant in the current post-truth era where “facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (oxford languages, 2018, para. 1). because they invariably do not uncover the true nature of pops, issues framed by personal agenda, emotion, or even anecdotal evidence likely prompt misguided reforms that stand little to no chance of creating long-term sustainable change in education. evidence is needed to substantiate pops in education, and that evidence needs to be of sufficient rigor and quality to withstand the “contempt for facts” (arendt, 1957, p. 350) that exists in the current post-truth society. study purpose currently, as the dissertation in practice continues to develop in redesigned edd programs, it is unknown to what extent evidence is used to frame problems of practice within dissertations in practice. thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the use of evidence in framing pops within published dissertations in practice. we sought to understand the nature of pops, whether they met the cped definition of a pop, what types of evidence and methods were used to frame the identified pops, and to what degree particular methods were used to frame pops. note that the study was limited to the framing of problems of practice rather resulting improvements or proposed solutions. method we used the document analysis method (bowen, 2009) to gain a more thorough understanding of the evidence used to frame pops as have other authors that studied pops (see e.g., gillham, williams, rife, & parker, 2019; ma, et al., 2018). according to bowen (2009), “document analysis is a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents both printed and electronic” (p. 27) for which documents are reviewed to extract data. data are then analyzed and interpreted to make meaning and gain understanding regarding the research question(s) or purpose (bowen, 2009). the primary data source comprised dissertations in practice (n=53, from original n=55 with 2 deletions for broken links) that were publicly available through the cped website (cped, n.d-b.). note that the dissertations were likely not a representative sample of dissertations in practice from cped member institutions, so may not be generalizable to the larger population of dissertations in practice as a result. the dissertations linked from the cped website comprise the only current centralized source of dissertations in practice known to the authors as of this writing. limitations notwithstanding, data should still offer interesting results that can contribute to the discussion of how pops are and should be framed. following the document analysis method, the following were coded for each dissertation: (a) the topic of each pop, (b) whether the pop was stated or implied, (c) whether the pop met the three components of the pop definition, (d) the evidence provided to frame the pop, (e) the methodology used to frame the pop, and (f) the dissertation’s institution. all three characteristics of the cped definition were coded including whether the identified problem of practice was (a) “persistent”, (b) “contextualized”, and (c) “a specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner” (cped, n.d.-c, para. 1). for the purposes of coding, we considered evidence of the persistent nature of a pop as at least one reference or sentence regarding the long-lasting nature of the pop, with “longlasting” being relative based on the nature of the pop. evidence of the contextualized nature of the pop comprised at least one reference or sentence regarding the conditions within which the pop was situated. evidence that the work was embedded in the work of a professional practitioner comprised at least one statement that signified whether the topic was localized and practice-based. it was difficult to discern whether a pop was embedded directly into the work of the author without directly knowing the author and their workplace, so whose work it was embedded within was disregarded. as a calibration exercise, the researchers reviewed a set of three dissertations together, and codes were discussed until all authors were in agreement. the remaining dissertations were each randomly assigned to two researchers to be coded individually. any discrepancies were flagged and discussed between each pair until consensus was reached. finally, the entire research team reviewed the spreadsheet together and tabulated results to gain an understanding of initial results followed by process of categorization and thematic analysis as suggested by bowen (2009). interrater agreement between the multiple coders strengthened the credibility of results as well as the fact that coding pairs were randomly assigned and varied for each dissertation in practice. much as particular individual’s assumptions and lenses can impact the framing of a particular problem of practice, so too could they have impacted our data collection and analysis. the authors are faculty and students in a cped-influenced edd program and acknowledge potential biases that could have influenced the study results. leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 4 results the coded data were analyzed descriptively. frequencies were run to analyze how each pop was characterized—specifically, was it explicitly characterized as a problem of practice, was it implied to be a problem of practice without the explicit language, or was it not stated or implied to be a problem of practice? table 1 presents the results. the majority of dissertations (85%, which comprised 45 of n=53) involved a problem of practice that was stated or implied. but just 27% of the dissertations (14 of n=53) explicitly characterized pops as such. fifty-eight percent (31 of n=53) offered evidence that implied that the identified issues were problems of practice but did not state it explicitly, and 15% (8 of n=53) were not considered to be pops and addressed gaps in the literature or other. table 1 also presents the results of descriptive analysis of coding regarding evidence that the pop met all components of the cped definition—i.e., that the problem of practice was (a) “persistent”, (b) “contextualized”, and (c) “a specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner” (cped, n.d.-c, para. 1). the majority of pops (43, which comprised 81% of n=53) did not offer evidence to show that all components of the cped definition of a pop were met. interestingly, of the dissertations that addressed a pop (n=45), most dissertations included evidence of at least one component of the definition, with 78% (35 of n=45) providing evidence of the persistence of the pop, 87% (39 of n=45) providing evidence that the pop was contextualized, and 84% (38 of n=45) demonstrating that the issue was specific and within the work of a professional practitioner. however, only 19% of all dissertations (10 of n=53) provided evidence of all three components of the definition. we coded the evidence and methods used to frame pops within the sampled dissertations in practice; results are presented in figure 1. pops overwhelmingly offered references to the literature as evidence of the problems of practice (41, which comprised 77% of n=53 dissertations). this particular result was perhaps not surprising given the emphasis of the literature on the theoretical, empirical, and practical bases on which problems may be framed. fewer pops (23, which comprised 45% of n=53) offered practitioner expertise or anecdotal accounts as evidence of the pops. data were presented in several cases with more pops justified using secondary data (18, which comprised 34% of n=53) than primary data (17, which comprised 32% of n=53). particularly compelling, however, is the fact that of all the dissertations in practice—even the ones that incorporated data as evidence of the pop—just two dissertations (4% of n=53) employed a systematic methodology to frame the pop. the two dissertations used empirical needs assessments to collect data as has been suggested by mintrop (2016), however they lacked the systems analysis advanced in improvement science (bryk et al., 2016). we examined the types of evidence offered for each of the pops by whether each met the cped definition of a pop; figure 2 presents the results. the general pattern of results generally mirrored the results presented in figure 1. however, the percentage of dissertations using primary (4, which comprised 40% of n=10) or secondary data (4, which comprised 40% of n=10) as evidence was a bit higher in the dissertations where the definition of the pop was justified over those that did not (primary data – 13, which comprised 30% of n=43; secondary data – 13, which comprised 30% of n=43). table 1. percentages of dissertations in practice that presented evidence of all components of the pop definition note. the definition of a problem of practice (pop) as “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner” (cped, n.d.-a) was used to classify dissertations into those that met the definition and those that did not. percentages represent the number divided by the total number of dissertations (n=53) rounded to the nearest whole number; the rounded numbers may not add to 100% as a result. figure 1. proportions of evidence sources for problem of practice (n=53) . note. problems of practice were often framed using multiple sources of evidence, so percentages of the sources of evidence will add to greater than 100% pop definition problem of practice characterization did not meet met total not characterized as pop 8 (15%) 8 (15%) pop implied but not stated 25 (47%) 6 (11%) 31 (58%) pop explicitly stated 10 (19%) 4 (8%) 14 (27%) total 43 (81%) 10 (19%) 53 (100%) 1 using evidence to frame problems of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 5 figure 2. proportions of evidence sources by the justification of the definition of problems of practice (n=53) note. problems of practice were often framed using multiple sources of evidence, so percentages of the sources of evidence for each category will add to greater than 100%. discussion results indicated that the sampled dissertations in practice primarily relied on literature to provide evidence to frame pops and less frequently cited primary or secondary data as evidence. due to the varied nature of pops and the contexts in which they are situated, the primary reliance on literature to substantiate pops is problematic. whether theoretical or empirical in nature, the literature offers references that could provide a rationale or evidence of pops in a general sense, which is needed, but typically not to the particular context in which one selects a pop, which is also needed. and although secondary data could be considered, primary data from the local context would seem to offer the most representative evidence of the pop—a certain fit having been designed and collected by the investigator for the primary purpose of framing the pop. with multifactor problems of practice, it may be best to consult multiple modes of evidence (archbald, 2014) that include not only anecdotal data and literature, but also primary data that are directly relevant to the identified problem of practice. evidence for claims as scholars, we are prepared to offer evidence as justification for the claims that we make in our writing. evidence can take many forms, but most often take the form of literature citations, theories, expert accounts, and/or empirical data that is either primary or secondary in nature. it is the presentation of the evidence by which the writer justifies his or her claims and the evaluation of such evidence by which the reader determines its validity (booth et al., 2016). the credibility of the evidence can depend on various factors, with the circumstances under which the evidence was collected as key, and primary sources are generally considered more credible than secondary. and generally, if found to be valid, more evidence is better than less, particularly when it derives from a variety of sources. the fact that sources of evidence beyond literature are infrequently used to frame pops and systematic methodologies are used even more infrequently is concerning as it potentially limits the credibility of the pops. improvements crafted for problems that are not fully understood stand the chance of ineffectiveness simply because they were developed to solve a problem that does not exist in the form that was originally conceived (bryk et al., 2016). implications and recommendations for practice systematic methodologies are needed to frame pops to generate clear understandings of the root causes of problems to have hope of crafting effective and sustainable improvements. the exploration of a problem of practice would require collection of multiple forms of evidence that would be specific to that particular problem of practice. an inductive methodology that synthesizes the evidence would generate an understanding of the extent, scope, and underlying root causes of the problem of practice. discussion of the specific methodologies that could be used to complete this goal is beyond the scope of this paper, but further exploration is needed to guide investigators in their methodological efforts to solve important educational problems. leach, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.144 6 within the systematic methodology of framing pops, clear and agreed-upon definitions of phrases like “local context”, “embedded in the work of the practitioner”, “persistent problem”, etc., are necessary to guide scholar-practitioners and their faculty mentors in the dissertation process. although the nature of pops can vary based on topics and institutional program 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practice need for evidence in post-truth era study purpose method results discussion evidence for claims implications and recommendations for practice references microsoft word peterson vf.doc articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  international  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   33 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 preparing scholarly practitioners redesigning the edd to reflect cped principles deborah s. peterson portland state university dperterso@pdx.edu abstract cped presents guiding principles, rather than a prescriptive program model, for the edd, requiring each cpedinfluenced institution to engage in a program design process specific to its context. over 80 cped schools and colleges of education offer an edd program that endorses the cped framework which “blend[s] practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice…”(cped, 2010). as with any design process in a complex organization, faculty members may wonder where to begin. this article describes the context, guiding values, characteristics of our redesigned edd, lessons learned, and implementation challenges of the education administration faculty in the graduate school of education at portland state university as we increased our focus on cped principle #1, a focus on “equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, 2009). introduction cped-inspired institutions of higher education endeavor to prepare scholarly practitioners who frame their focus on “questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, 2009). this means that scholarly practitioners in cped-inspired edd programs are prepared to lead complex organizations in which students of all backgrounds have equitable access to and success in rigorous, rich, culturally responsive educational opportunities. because cped presents guiding principles, rather than a prescriptive program model, each cpedinfluenced institution engages in a program design process specific to their context. the problem many institutions encounter, ours at portland state university included, is designing and engaging in a successful change process that reflects and responds to their unique context. within our current environment of corporate-style educational reform (ravitch, 2016), those within educational organizations often critically challenge redesign efforts. although market-driven reform efforts have failed (bryk, gomez, grunow & lemahieu, 2015), we know from local and national data that our schools are perpetuating educational inequities for children of color and recent immigrants resulting in lower high school graduation rates, lower post-secondary educational attainment, and increased incarceration for those from the non-dominant culture (fasching-varner, mitchell, martin & bennett-haron, 2014; national urban league, 2015). to combat these longtime inequalities, schools, and school leaders, must change. consequently, leadership preparation programs must also change to become a place where social justice leaders are prepared to interrupt systemic inequities in schools. if our goal is to prepare social justice leaders skilled at reducing educational disparities in a variety of contexts and under ever-changing conditions, the focus of our leadership programs must move away from solely teaching the technical aspects of leadership (bell schedules, facilities, contracts, budgeting, and transportation), a focus that unintentionally perpetuates inequities in our schools by ignoring the unique conditions of each community and the rich cultural backgrounds of the children in each community. similarly, if we in higher education blindly replicate the components of traditional phd programs under the name of the professional edd, we will likely perpetuate ineffective practices that have contributed to practitioners who are ill prepared to reduce educational disparities in our schools. developing school leaders into scholarly practitioners who are social justice leaders “requires intentionality in program design” (peterson, perry, dostilio & zambo, 2016, p. 59), not replication, and each university’s context must be reflected in the program design. the purpose of this article is to share lessons learned when one university redesigned its edd to better meet the needs of its students. this article begins with the context of our program’s need to redesign our education administration edd, our guiding values during the redesign process, characteristics of our redesigned program, and the role of stakeholder consensus. i then conclude the article with lessons learned during the redesign process and implementation challenges. the context for redesigning our education administration edd our department chair and the professors in our program had several indicators of the need to redesign our doctoral program. an examination of our program completion data revealed previous doctoral students had low completion rates. we found that students admitted under our existing program model were struggling at three critical times in their doctoral studies. they were dropping out after completing their first-year coursework, prior to an oral presentation of their comprehensive examination, and after completing their second year of required coursework, prior to their dissertation proposal de peterson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 34 fense. we also lost students who passed their dissertation proposals and were working independently on their dissertations. as a second issue, in our most recent doctoral admission cycle, our program had not clearly stated the professional roles for which our edd was preparing future students. in addition, our increasing commitment to cped principle #1 (equity, ethics and social justice) caused us to evaluate our program, which lacked a consistent and coherent focus on social justice. beyond the additional support our students needed and our increasing desire to include a commitment to social justice in our doctoral program, recent retirements had also changed the makeup of our faculty. now, instead of senior scholars, our education administration program was comprised of three untenured junior faculty members with limited resources to support additional doctoral students, particularly if future doctoral students’ interests were outside the professors’ scholarly focus. despite multiple requests from our masters (ma) and licensure graduates to have an additional admission cycle for doctoral students, we had not admitted new doctoral students in the previous four years in order to allow existing faculty to support previously admitted doctoral students and to develop expertise as doctoral advisors. as a result, our ma and administrative licensure graduates who might have continued on to our edd program, instead lost the support network they had created at our institution and enrolled at one of five local competing institutions. the combination of these factors contributed to our department chair asking our program faculty to redesign our edd. guiding values several values that reflect components of transformational leadership (leithwood & jantzi, 2007) guided our change process: a social justice focus, building collaborative and trusting cultures, and empowering faculty. as noted in the previous section, while considering changes to our doctoral program, our dean and several faculty had become increasingly interested in a focus on social justice leadership, which was influenced by the cped-inspired edd. although our university and graduate school espouse a commitment to diversity and equity, we do not have an institutional definition of social justice, and each faculty member defines social justice individually. our program faculty places critical theory at the center of our commitment to social justice; however, we have not adopted a specific definition of social justice despite six years of discussion. because our program relies on each faculty member defining social justice for themselves, i define social justice, as an orientation that includes both a goal and a process (bell, 2016) in which the dignity of each person’s unique identity—including the intersections of their race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, home language, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identification, ability, religion, or any other manifestation of diversity that advantages or disadvantages a person by virtue of membership in that group (gay, 2010)—is respected and enhanced. social justice leaders ensure each person, of each cultural background, thrives as a person, as a learner, and as a cherished member of the community, whose perspective is reflected in each classroom and in each school. the process that school leaders with a social justice orientation follow is “democratic and participatory, respectful of human diversity and group differences, and inclusive and affirming of human agency and capacity for working collaboratively with others to create change” (bell, p. 3). becoming skilled in leading processes that create the space for hearing the voices of and including the perspectives of all members of the community in decisions is a critical characteristic of social justice school leaders. second, because cped presents guiding principles, rather than a prescriptive program model, cped-influenced institutions should engage in a collaborative program design process that reflects and responds to its unique context. while some change processes are prescribed and linear (kotter, 1996), others are organic and unfolding (hagstrom, 2004; wheatley, 1992) and depend on developing a collaborative, trusting culture (leithwood & jantzi, 2007). developing a collaborative and trusting relationship among participants during the change process was a critical part of our work. as combs, harris and edmonson (2015) note, “the presence of trust can enhance an organization’s efforts to fulfill its mission, and the lack of trust can constrict those efforts” (p. 18). combs and colleagues identify communication as a primary tool for increasing trust. they further advise that leaders must have the courage to allow dissenting views. in our case, consensus decision-making was, and continues to be, our program’s preferred method of decision-making. in our program, consensus meant that we heard every faculty voice, addressed all concerns, and engaged in dialogue until we all agreed on the decision. this decision-making structure increased the time we needed to make decisions, but also increased our commitment to our conclusions. a third value included empowering faculty. engaging those impacted by decisions is empowering and liberating (freire, 1997) and contributes to success in learning organizations (leithwood & jantzi, 2007). because consensus is a strong strategy for increasing participant satisfaction with outcomes (lambert, 1998), our university empowers faculty through shared governance. our department chair believes in our program faculty’s ability to determine its doctoral program characteristics and the ways we would lead the redesign process. within a month of my appointment to the doctoral program council, the department chair asked me to lead the educational administration program redesign effort and to present a redesigned doctoral program within two months. while it empowered me as a faculty member and was in accordance with our university’s formal governance structure of shared leadership, asking me to lead the change violated informal hierarchical practices related to rank, as i was the most recently hired, untenured faculty member in our program (peterson et al., 2016). nervous about assuming this role as the most junior faculty, i nonetheless had substantial experience with complex change processes in other organizational contexts, having served most recently as a “turnaround” high school principal (peterson, 2013; peterson, 2014). these experiences would enhance my ability to lead the education administration edd redesign process. in addition, despite our team having over 75 years combined experience as educators in state and district leadership roles, traditional academics might question the wisdom of empowering untenured faculty to determine components of a doctoral program. however, our team appreciated the trust our chair and dean had in us, and we ultimately embraced the opportunity to design the program we believed would work for our students, all of whom were seated school leaders. we were originally given two months for our change process, a timeline imposed by our department chair based on common application deadlines within our department. creating a sense of urgency for change (kotter, 1996) and having a tight timeline (fullan, 2003) might be especially important in graduate schools, which are extremely slow to change. as cassuto (2016) points out: “… the changes in graduate school are typically measured in geological time” (para. 5). at a time when public criticism of institutes of higher education permeates public discourse, change must happen faster. however, when the department chair subsequently delayed admissions by a year, we were given more time for our redesign process. preparing scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 35 while the initial deadline created a sense of urgency to complete the task, this extension of time allowed us to engage more deeply in a process that matched our collaborative, consensusdriven decision making model in which our direction organically “unfolded” (hagstrom, 2004; wheatley, 1992), rather than proceeding in a prescribed manner. thus, our change process resembled a journey (fullan, 1993) and reflected bell’s (2016) concept of social justice processes. the additional time was also critical for our team’s ability to ask questions and explore possible responses, while also reaching consensus on every aspect of our program redesign. with an extension on our timeline, our faculty explored the factors influencing the model we would propose. these included available doctoral faculty and their scholarly interests, the desired level of support we wanted to provide future students, and components of cped-influenced and other successful doctoral programs that we wanted to incorporate into our redesign. identifying the factors that would influence our design, rather than the specific characteristics of the design, seemed to minimize the stressors of the change process for our faculty. while program faculty had originally spent meeting time expressing resistance to the chair’s charge to redesign our program, after identifying factors we needed to consider, they began to participate willingly and fully in discussions about program components. our redesigned model while this article is not intended to be a thorough explication of the characteristics of our redesigned model, i share a few of its key components next. i do so not because these components should necessarily be replicated by other institutions, but rather because they reflect our program’s interpretation of cped principles, existing university policy, and our faculty’s scholarly focus. key components of the new model are our mission and its connection to university goals and curricular changes, a discussion of which follows. mission as a part of our redesign process, we articulated a mission for the education administration edd. because most of our program faculty were either long-time, active members of oregon leadership network, a statewide consortium of school districts committed to equity and/or had a known commitment to leadership for equity, reaching consensus on our mission of having an equity focus in our doctoral program was readily reached without conflict. in addition, while our faculty consisted of both academic scholars with a phd and practitioner scholars with an edd, we believed that our strength was in preparing practitioner scholars, rather than future academics. thus, our mission, which also explicitly defines the professional roles our students would be prepared to fill, was articulated as follows: the graduate school of education edd in educational leadership (educational administration specialization) prepares students to serve as executive educational leaders in district, state, regional, and national educational organizations through rigorous and rich program offerings with a deep focus on educational equity in our k-12 schools (graduate school of education (gse), 2012). we also wanted to include our faculty commitment to students throughout their careers in education, which we described thus: the portland state university graduate school of education educational administration faculty members are committed to supporting the career aspirations of portland state university educational administration students as they explore and identify their career pathway and elect to earn the degree and licensure that best matches their career aspirations, including the ma, initial administrative license, continuing administrative license, and doctorate. we agreed to adopt a cohort model for the initial administrative licensure and edd programs, which would provide, in our view, the best support for our students as they complete a rigorous and rich program with a deep focus on educational equity in our k-12 schools (gse, 2012). with this model, students develop a network of support for completing their rigorous programming and have a consistent group of colleagues who can serve as resources for leading for equity in their schools. in addition, we agreed to only admit students whom our current faculty could support based on faculty scholarly focus and professional expertise. finally, as a part of our discussion of our mission, we connected our edd learning outcomes to the then stated university goals in the areas of communication; creative and critical thinking; diversity; culturally responsive engagement with families, students, community leaders, and partners; ethics and social responsibility; internationalization; and sustainability (portland state university, 2012). doctoral curricular changes we made several changes to our curriculum, including enhancing supports for doctoral students, modifying the focus of our comprehensive examination, and adding a capstone option. to ensure that our students were supported, we made some structural changes to coursework. first, students enrolled in a leadership seminar that i taught parallel to their other doctoral courses, which focused on providing intellectual access to research. in each session, we also ensured that they knew how to examine research that would support their developing concepts of leading for social justice in their schools. the class also prepared students for the first major benchmark in the program. papers assigned in this leadership seminar were comprised of components of the comprehensive examination, an examination that caused previous cohorts of students to struggle. we also made significant changes to our comprehensive examination. instead of a traditional presentation and defense of a core paper, we asked students to respond in writing to three questions based on the content in the core courses. the questions corresponded more appropriately to the practitioner-focused goals of the program and were more relevant for our students who are seated administrators engaging in praxis. students would have 20 days (three weekends) to complete the 25 to 30-page paper. the questions were shared in advance with students and included the following: what is one significant problem of practice related to educational disparities and leadership for equity in our nation and state? how would you analyze the problem using appropriate theoretical frameworks and critique their application to the problem related to core content in principles and practices of learning, organizational leadership theory and research in education, and educational policy and politics? what conclusions do you draw from your analysis and what recommendations/actions do you recommend to address the issue? our team also decided to include a “capstone project” as an option to a traditional dissertation, which reflects a traditional phd dissertation study. the capstone project could be developed “in collaboration with district, state, regional and national educational peterson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 36 organizations that are of value to the educational organization of the edd student as well as to the field of educational administration in general” (gse, 2012). next, we decided we would support a collaborative dissertation/capstone in which two or more students would collaborate, and their capstone project would include the following characteristics: identifies a problem of practice in educational administration leadership for equity in a k-12 educational setting; uses common data sets; and is evidence driven” (gse, 2012). further, our team concluded that both the dissertation or capstone options could be a 100-150 page paper that “includes a focus on a problem of practice in k-12 education with original research and appropriate literature/research context or it may be a capstone project that produces a product of compelling interest to the school/district as well as the broader educational administration community” (gse, 2012). our decision to include the option of a capstone project was important, especially due to our focus on preparing practitionerscholars rather than aspiring academics. our graduates needed to be able to demonstrate the ability to “construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” (cped, 2009)—a more situated, practice-focused goal than the generalized theory-building of the traditional dissertation. as explicated in peterson et al. (2016), our program model reflected, “that each university campus was unique which may or may not limit what could or couldn’t be changed programmatically” (p. 60). because major changes to the doctoral curriculum would take two or more years to go through our shared governance committees, we decided to only make changes that were allowed under existing university and graduate school policy and could thus be implemented more quickly. aligning our work with cped principles of equity, ethics, and social justice early in the change process, we revisited the cped working principles and identified which of the intended outcomes of cped we wanted to focus on in our program. key to this discussion was our commitment to ensuring a rigorous doctoral program with courses aligned with principles of social justice. one faculty member shared their view: we want to do this right. we want our edd to be rigorous. we want our research sequence to produce competent people who can read, analyze, and supervise analysis of research in meaningful ways in context. we need to link this to our professional doctoral seminar. we want all courses aligned with cped principles for years one and two [of the doctoral courses] (portland state university, initial administrative licensure/continuing administrative licensure workgroup, 2013). while we did not have the authority to redesign all of the doctoral courses, since they were graduate school courses and not program courses, we were able to have conversations with doctoral faculty about our interests in aligning the courses with cped principles. we also examined the resources available on the cped website and invited our doctoral program coordinator to come to our meetings. we asked her to explain university doctoral program requirements, which we did not have the authority to change. our doctoral program coordinator had substantially more experience with cped and we invited her to help us understand cped principles and to guide our work. guiding questions to align with cped principles we used the strategy of asking questions to guide our discussions. our first question was, given our faculty expertise, for which positions we could best prepare our doctoral students. while some institutions are preparing future academics, we were clear that our focus was on preparing practitioners: superintendents, directors of curriculum and research, and state and regional educational leaders. we knew that based on the extensive experience our faculty had as school and district leaders, we had the expertise to prepare future district and school leaders. we each identify as a practitioner-scholar and we believe that practitioner-scholars are well suited to prepare school leaders. we also asked what characteristics and skills we wanted our doctoral graduates to exemplify. we wanted students to apply research to how k-12 students and adults learn as a part of school improvement. we decided our graduates would engage in school improvement with demonstrated success reducing disparities in k-12 schools. because our focus was on reducing educational disparities such as disproportionate graduation rates and disproportionality in suspensions and expulsions among children of color, we wanted our students to have a comprehensive understanding of leadership for equity with critical theory providing foundation for their work. we also believe in community-engaged scholars, and wanted our students to be able to work with and alongside families, students, community leaders and other partners in a culturally responsive manner. finally, we wanted our students to demonstrate social and ethical responsibility through implementing inclusive and socially just policies, practices and change processes in school improvement as well as in finance, budgeting, policy, and legal arenas. in other words, our students would be known as leaders for equity who knew the research and the practices to effectively create socially just schools where all students thrive. while the ability to lead such school improvement efforts is extremely complicated and requires a thorough understanding of the interplay of policy, law, finance, community engagement, and student and adult development, these responsibilities reflect national leadership standards. in particular, the national policy board for educational administration (npbea) (2015) recently released 10 newly revised school leadership standards that recognize the increasing complexity of school leadership in the 21st century. one standard specifies that school leaders must “employ situationally-appropriate strategies for improvement, including transformational and incremental, adaptive approaches and attention to different phases of implementation” which also managing “uncertainty, risk, competing initiatives, and politics of change with courage and perseverance, providing support and encouragement, and openly communicating the need for, process for, and outcomes of improvement efforts” (p. 18). we wanted our graduates to be skilled in these critical and complex leadership areas. we asked additional questions related to how we would engage local districts as partners. we identified numerous possible answers, including having our districts identify the problem of practice, using common data sets available to the district and our students, and ensuring that once a problem is identified by the students, that our course work would relate to that problem of practice. we knew we wanted to make a commitment to develop our students’ capacity at every step of their career from their first school leadership position, and the licensure required for that position, through their doctoral work. we also asked whether our existing faculty or clinical faculty would best serve as advisors and professors for our courses. our answer was to begin with existing faculty, given that our professors preparing scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 37 are all former practitioners. we identified additional questions for which we again needed the advice of our doctoral program coordinator--specifically whether we could modify our existing traditional comprehensive doctoral examination or whether it would need to go through program and policy review, a process generally requiring two years. our coordinator indicated that if the doctoral program council (dpc) approved our changes no further review would be needed. recognizing the need for additional support in understanding how we could implement cped principles in our model, we began connecting with professors at other institutions, primarily by attending cped presentations at professional meetings. it was extremely helpful to hear the recommendations of other institutions in terms of how they overcame faculty opposition to change, the role of the dean or department chair, and components of cped-inspired doctoral programs. one institution shared that forming a collaborative team was critical to their change process, and that faculty had to want to put in the time to discuss changes. the most common barriers regarding the change process included faculty resistance to change, faculty not perceiving the need to change, and a lack of data that would convince faculty of the need to change. these barriers had slowed down or ended their redesign efforts. in addition, presenters indicated they did not have enough skill in or knowledge about what they needed to change. because i had attended additional cped meetings that other department faculty could not attend, i shared the lessons of other cped institutions with our team during our regular meeting discussions. our team continued to refine our program model at our twice/monthly meetings. additional questions arose, including what additional data we needed to consider regarding our doctoral graduates, and how we could use that information to inform our work. we also asked questions about who should teach in our program and who should advise our students. we asked questions about balancing fiscal requirements with the demands of supporting doctoral and other graduate students. in other words, we understood that every decision we made had fiscal implications due to the small size of our doctoral program, staffing implications in terms of hiring clinical or adjunct faculty, and curricular decisions that could impact our future doctoral student success. stakeholder consensus i present next the process of obtaining unanimous approval of our model, followed by a brief overview of the model itself. at the end of our first year, we had numerous concepts in mind for our new model but had not yet solidified details regarding required credits, support courses, and what our dissertation/capstone would look like. in september of our second year in the redesign process, we experienced a change in departmental leadership. our new chair was also extremely supportive of our direction and provided significant background expertise regarding university policy, potential options for program change, and general support for our progress. our new chair suggested we align our required credits with the other doctoral program within our department, which we did. his focus was on doctoral student success, noting that he believed we could overcome any barriers and offer a rigorous program of study in which our students would finish their doctorate within three to four years. in october, he asked us to propose a staffing model that included clinical faculty, a model we ultimately decided not to implement, preferring instead to include tenure-line scholar-practitioners in our doctoral faculty. as our team coalesced around our final program design in early october, our dean reviewed our work and indicated his support for key decisions regarding the goal of our program, the number of credits, our core examination and our dissertation/capstone project. two weeks later our program faculty met with the state’s administrator licensing agency to examine our proposal through the lens of state leadership standards and leadership licensing requirements. the director affirmed that the changes we made would have a neutral to positive impact on our doctoral students’ ability to receive licensure. that same week we brought our staffing model to the department chair, who supported our model. we next presented our model to the department faculty for their suggested revisions. based on their input, we revised the model again, creating the final draft in early november. continually revising our model, with the support and input of numerous stakeholders, helped us to address unique faculty issues and deflect conflict, particularly regarding the use of clinical, adjunct, or retired faculty and whether junior faculty would advise doctoral students or chair dissertations. eventually, we agreed that our most junior faculty would not teach core doctoral classes in order to protect their efforts toward tenure. we agreed on a timeline for announcing our admissions, reviewing files, and interviewing potential students. the dean then reviewed our final proposed model and timeline and encouraged us to obtain department and dpc approval. analysis of benefits and limitations of our model in the first week in december, the dpc conducted an examination of benefits and limitations of our plan. most of the benefits identified were in the areas of student success, student skill, and faculty commitment to our students. we determined that when our program focuses on problem-based learning and real problems occurring in our students’ schools, they will develop the skills to successfully lead schools and districts. next, we reiterated the strong commitment to equity in our schools shared by our state, university, graduate school and faculty. we believe we should prepare future leaders for leading for equity. knowing that integrating our licensure and doctoral programs would allow us to offer continuous support for our students throughout their career development, we offered our licensure courses as an integrated part of the doctoral program, instead of in addition to the doctoral courses. we also noted that our faculty has deep experience as practitioners focusing on equity in schools and has continued the focus on equity through their scholarly activities as faculty. with a doctoral program focus on equity, junior faculty would be able to provide support to doctoral students while also continuing to engage in scholarly activity (meeting notes, 20122013), a particularly well-received discussion point. while more experienced and tenured faculty were worried that advising doctoral students could potentially take time and focus away from the research agenda of junior faculty, junior faculty felt that having doctoral students with a similar commitment to community-engaged scholarship with a social justice focus would be of mutual benefit to junior faculty and the doctoral student. additional benefits of revising our program model echoed the reality of the changing arena of higher education. in our geographical area, six institutions offer a phd or edd in educational leadership. in addition, the expectation that superintendent and senior director positions are filled by candidates with an edd meant that if our institution did not offer a doctoral program, students who had been taking courses in our licensure program would have to transfer to other institutions. the council also identified limitations in our model, most of which related to the potential negative impact junior faculty might peterson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 38 experience when supporting doctoral students, the resources required to ensure a quality doctoral program, and the possible influence of small doctoral class sizes on our department staffing budget. tenured faculty members were primarily worried that if junior faculty focused on the success of doctoral students, they might not conduct their own research and publications to the extent required for tenure. these concerns were legitimate, as our institution commits substantial resources to the success of junior faculty, and their success rate is a source of institutional pride. engaging in this process of identifying benefits and limitations allowed professors to examine dissenting views, opposition, concerns, and questions, a critical step in our process. we needed to recognize and honor concerns that ranged from protecting junior faculty’s time to how we would support adjunct faculty, retired, and clinical faculty should we choose to staff our program in that way. by addressing faculty concerns, our colleagues had a voice in the process, and the model we ultimately adopted, including the decision to have only our tenure-line faculty members advise doctoral students and chair dissertations, was supported. within hours of the dpc meeting, program faculty met to review and discuss the input of our colleagues. program faculty decided that junior faculty members were highly committed to admitting students who were also interested in their area of research and believed doctoral students would contribute to the scholarly focus of junior faculty, not detract from their scholarly production. program faculty decided to follow current university policy regarding the number of credits eligible to transfer into the doctoral program and to ensure we developed an individualized plan of study that would support each student’s career goals. because our students’ licensure courses also apply toward required doctoral credits, each student would need an individualized plan for program completion. because of our specific licensure renewal statutes, students who only had three years before they needed to complete all courses for licensure had to complete the remaining required courses in the summer months. however, students who had nine years to complete their courses for licensure renewal could “count” any courses that were a part of the doctoral program toward their license renewal. we were now prepared to present our proposed doctoral program plan to our department first and then to our doctoral program council soon thereafter. the department faculty reviewed our final recommendation in december, and it received unanimous approval. in january, the model was brought to the doctoral program council. twenty-three months after we received our initial charge to redesign our doctoral program, the doctoral program council also unanimously approved our model. lessons learned from our redesign process several characteristics of our redesign process contributed to successfully incorporating a social justice focus and cped principles into our redesigned doctoral program. these included the original tight timeline for the redesign, redesigning the program within existing policy, identifying our mission and the potential future roles for which we are preparing our doctoral students, anticipating the needs of our students, and most importantly, having cped principles to guide our discussions. the first lesson points to a tight timeline for change. our department chair, a supportive, tenured professor who understood the need for scholarly practitioners in our communities, began the process by asking our program faculty to engage in a two-month change process. her tight timeline followed fullan’s (2003) concept of a fast pace for change, as well as kotter’s (1996) recommendation to create a sense of urgency around the need for change. when i asked our program coordinator for time on our next program meeting agenda to explain our department chair’s charge and solicit initial thoughts on our redesign, our program coordinator readily agreed. not unexpectedly, and perhaps appropriately, program faculty spent the majority of that meeting challenging the original two-month timeline for our redesign. at that meeting, we reached consensus on only one decision: it would be inappropriate to defy our department leaders’ request to make recommendations for program redesign within the allotted time. while our timeline was ultimately extended past the original two-month deadline, the urgency caused us to engage more quickly than if we had been given two years. without the initial urgent timeline set by our chair, we would not have embarked on our change process. however, once we started the process, our program faculty needed additional time to ask the many questions we needed answered. fortunately, our chair granted us an additional year for our process, giving us time to seek out the views of the new chair, our doctoral coordinator, our dean, and our doctoral council members. we had time to read and reflect on the cped materials, to attend sessions at national convenings hosted by cped, and to learn from the another key lesson was the value of working within existing university policy. we realized early in our discussions that significant policy changes require the approval of our program and policy committee, a process that can take up to two years after internal consensus is reached on program changes. thus, we decided to work within existing university policy, changing only aspects of our program that did not require the formal program and policy committee approval: focus of the program, characteristics of whom we admitted, components of the qualifying examinations and dissertation, and number of credits required for completion. working within university policy narrowed the scope of our changes, however, this allowed us to move more quickly with our change process. in addition, we tied our mission and learning outcomes to the university’s and our school’s vision. we wanted to ensure our edd program contributed to the larger university vision. another key lesson was the value of identifying early on our mission and for which roles we were preparing our doctoral students. it was essential that we identified early in the process that our focus of the education administration edd was to develop school leaders with a “deep focus on educational equity in our k-12 schools” (gse, 2012). this helped us with our admission decisions and guided me as i made decisions regarding the literature students would be reading in the leadership seminar. spending time developing this mission was key to our success; whenever we were stuck on an issue related to any aspect of our program, we returned to our mission. next, we experienced the difficulty of matching the needs of our rapidly-changing world to the needs of institutions that have historically been slow to change. cped founder, david imig (2013) succinctly addressed our struggle. three months after approval of our cped-inspired program model and timeline, imig presented to our graduate school on “professionalism and the professional practice doctorate.” one key concept he shared was “don’t try to remake yourself [through your doctoral students] for a world that doesn’t exist.” he encouraged us to care for and do “everything possible to meet the needs of clients [our students].” taking imig’s wisdom to heart, our faculty focused on meeting our students’ and communities’ desire for leaders who are skilled at eliminating educational disparities. we weighed the urgency of the need to change our preparing scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.30 39 program to meet the needs of our students and communities, addressing the concerns and incorporating the wisdom of our tenured colleagues. while our goal was to redesign our doctoral program, we approached this redesign process within our existing collaborative decision making model. no decision was made regarding any aspect of our doctoral program redesign without consensus, which although time consuming, ensured that all stakeholders were invested in the success of our model. another important aspect of our work was continual communication and complete transparency in our decisionmaking process. no one participating in our process had a hidden agenda, and differing perspectives were included in the discussions. all notes were taken during meetings and shared immediately with program faculty and our chair. no faculty member promoted an outcome that benefitted them over the needs of our students and communities. we had no preconceived notions of what our program had to look like. throughout this process, we learned that the cped design principles and the cped framework provided significant guidance. knowing that other institutions have piloted capstone projects and joint dissertations gave us the confidence to also pilot the concept. knowing that the first principle for cped is a focus on equity, ethics, and social justice contributed to our ability to put these values in our mission. the foundational design principles and concepts were a guide for examining our institution’s and our state’s context to determine what our cped-inspired edd program would look like. without the cped framework and guiding principles, the examples from other institutions, and the willingness of other cped institutions to share their institution’s work, we could not have redesigned our program. implementation challenges as can be expected with implementing any program redesign, our implementation effort revealed additional areas for improvement, specifically in the areas of coordination across departments and doctoral specializations and communication among university faculty. first, our edd students took their core courses with doctoral students from three other programs in the graduate school (curriculum, special education, and higher education). each program has a different focus, including for which roles they are preparing their doctoral students. in addition, each program is implementing cped principles in differing ways, with the education administration doctoral students focusing solely on reducing educational disparities in schools and the three other programs having a broader focus. third, the required research sequence continues to reflect traditional phd research courses (research paradigms, qualitative research, and quantitative research). the education administration faculty members have been working closely with cped, the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching and university experts on improvement science, believing that the research expertise of the doctoral students we are preparing (superintendents, curriculum directors, and principals) is different from the research experience needed by doctoral students preparing to become professors or teacher leaders. thus, students in the education administration doctoral program must be able to apply educational research to specific school and district problems of practice and lead their organizations in change efforts so students of all backgrounds are served. our last implementation challenge was that our communication strategies with department, graduate school and university professors were not well developed. we failed to ensure that our program redesign had been communicated to faculty in all program areas. we also failed to adequately communicate with the graduate studies dean and the chair of the human subjects research review committee (hsrrc) that our doctoral students would be jointly presenting their dissertation proposals, jointly submitting their study proposals and would be using common data sets. what we found was that because we had not adequately communicated our program changes in advance, we would share these changes with graduate office faculty representatives after students had presented their dissertation proposal or dissertations or during the faculty deliberations. communicating the program redesign at this time led to lengthy deliberations. in addition, approval of doctoral studies required numerous phone calls and emails to the hsrrc to clarify why the education administration doctoral students were submitting joint studies. our failure to communicate adequately with faculty, hsrrc and the graduate studies office did not negatively impact students; however, we could have increased support of cped principles and our program redesign had we prepared a communication plan. conclusion while our change process resulted in the unanimous approval of program faculty, department faculty, chair, dean, and doctoral program council members, perhaps more important is that our redesigned program contributed to our education administration doctorate remaining relevant for practitioner scholars. our students are developing the dispositions and expertise to lead organizations as social justice leaders and are highly engaged in school improvement efforts that reduce educational disparities. we offer our redesign process and resulting program decisions not as a prescribed model for others to follow, but rather as an example of the guiding values and processes that allowed cped’s guiding principles to influence our professional educational doctorate. while we have additional work to do to effectively implement our redesigned doctoral program, particularly regarding redesigning our research sequence, promoting collaborative dissertations, expanding the use of capstones as alternatives to traditional dissertations, and exploring improvement science as a research methodology, our initial redesign effort provides a solid foundation for further improvement. references bell, l. a. 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(1992). leadership and the new science: learning about organization from an orderly universe. san francisco, ca: berett-koehler publishers. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 53 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.128 creating a culture of activism in the education doctorate christine lynn mcclure cmcclure@ncjfcj.org abstract attempting to combine activism and scholarship would seem natural because most academic research is born out of a deep-rooted desire to change, eradicate, or transform a societal issue. as such, translating research into practice by way of activism would seem conventional for most scholars, because it is “informed by both personal and political values and the need to engage our emotional responses to the world around us” (derickson & routledge, 2015, p. 5). however, the elite, “ivory-tower” of the academy is not so accepting of scholar-activists. perhaps it is because activism places higher education in the cross hairs of the criticisms, critiques, and call-outs that activism seeks to influence. institutions of higher education have done a mediocre job at cultivating spaces for academics to freely engage in activism, as academics who desire to participate in activism face considerable and specific career-related risks (flood et al., 2013). loss of tenure, reduced opportunities for collaboration, decreased funding, isolation, and oftentimes physical threats are but a few strategies used against academics who openly participate in activism. while many activist movements have been birthed on college and university campuses, very few demonstrate a willingness to embrace the causes or individuals involved in these activist movements. as institutions of higher education try to strengthen both the policies and practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion it is imperative that they also examine the oppressive structures, antiquated hiring practices, and exclusionary curriculum that inhibit the culture of activism from thriving. these three specific areas are the focus for this article. keywords activism, higher education, doctoral studies, diversity introduction as scholars and practitioners, we have been trained in specific disciplines to follow a set of ethical guidelines while conducting and reporting on research. these standards are said to be based in moral principles that do not cause harm to the integrity of science and to human or animal life (creswell, 2013). these standards are rooted in the principles of honesty, integrity and responsibility, however, promoting the participation in activism in higher education does not come without risk (flood et al., 2013). attempting to combine activism and scholarship seems to be a natural fit, because most academic research is born out of a deep-rooted desire to influence, revolutionize, or transform an issue or problem confronted by society. therefore, translating research into activism would seem conventional for most scholars, because it is “informed by both personal and political values and the need to engage our emotional responses to the world around us” (derickson & routledge, 2015, p. 5). however, the elite, “ivory-tower” of the academy is not so accepting of scholar-activists. perhaps it is because activism places higher education in the cross hairs of the criticisms, critiques, and call-outs that activism seeks to influence. the purpose of this paper is to examine the areas in higher education that require additional strengthening to allow education doctorate programs to increase activism participation and awareness. history of the doctorate in education the first doctorate in education was awarded in 1921 at harvard university, when henry holmes established the harvard graduate school of education (perry, 2015). coursework lasted for five years, and was followed by the completion of a dissertation used to teach students how to conduct independent research. the overall goal of the program was to train and equip experienced educators to serve in high level leadership roles as practitioners (cremin, 1978). after harvard university began to offer the doctorate in education, many other institutions in the country began to follow suit and the education doctorate grew in popularity. there has always been a misperception and debate about the edd and the phd in education. while they are similar, they do have their differences. the edd is more of a practitioner’s degree that prepares individuals for high-level leadership roles in various areas of education, while the phd is more of a traditional doctorate that prepares individuals for a faculty career focused on research and teaching. the differences in degree and program requirements are oftentimes minimal, however, each schools’ requirements are different. the doctorate in education has come under criticism for not being an authentic doctorate, and those who oppose the degree believe that it weakens the position of the doctorate (nelson & http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ creating a culture of activism in the education doctorate impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.128 54 coorough, 1994). the degree has oftentimes been referred to as “phd-lite”, and there were calls to eliminate the degree altogether from degree programs (perry, 2015). instead, as a way to increase credibility and to reorganize the degree requirements for the edd, the carnegie project of the education doctorate (cped) was established. the original project was funded in 2007 with a $700,000 grant from the us department of education and started with 21 members. the goal of the project was to evaluate the edd programs of the cped member institutions to identify problems and weaknesses in their programs and to come together to redesign the programs in way that was more universal (perry, 2015). since 2007, cped has evolved from a grant funded project, to a stand-alone 501 ©3 organization with over 86 members in the us, canada, and new zealand (perry, 2015). moreover, cped has been responsible for an overhaul in how edd programs are structured and delivered, which has helped to provide greater distinction between the edd and the phd in education. activism in higher education according to flood et al. (2013) “academics who seek to combine activism with work in the university can be subject to threats, abuse, silencing tactics, and peer pressure and scholarly expectations to shift away from activism” (p. 17). however, as scholars we have the responsibility to use our privileged positions, to “produce knowledge and to inform progressive change” (flood, et al., p. 17). knowledge production innately, produces change, which is a form of activism. activism has many definitions, and depending on the circumstance can mean different things to different people. in general, activism is the use of “vigorous campaigning, with efforts to promote, disrupt or interrupt social, political, economic, and environmental climates within society” (dictionary.com, 2019). scholactivism is the point in which scholarship and activism intersect to create social change (farnum, 2016). this idea is different from pursuit of the traditional academic, whereby the traditional academics’ goal is to create new knowledge for dissemination to the public. scholactivists desire not only create new knowledge but to work as practitioners of knowledge in the communities they seek to understand. the education doctorate is by definition a practitioner’s degree. according to perry (2015), individuals who possess doctorates in education “use practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice” (p. 59). activism in higher education has become more pervasive in recent years, especially around issues of equity and social justice (cole & heineckle, 2018). our country’s history is full of examples where college students were involved in activism, in particular, on college campuses. this college student participation has forced those in leadership roles in higher education leadership to develop protocols around how to manage and respond to protests and while also staying neutral on the issues. in addition, many faculty have come out in support of or in condemnation toward certain societal issues, which has further increased the need for institutional leadership to address the issue of activism in higher education. challenging the constructs of higher education in the colonial era when institutions of higher education were established, they were only accessible to white males from affluent families (thelin, 2004). women and members of minority groups were denied access to higher education, and other civil liberties, therefore, the culture of the academy is one that was built on a history of elitism, and discrimination. while institutions of higher education have become more diverse with individuals from underrepresented groups entering the academy in increasing numbers, “higher education still represents the complex relations between race, property, and oppression” (patton, 2016, p. 320). as a result, the academy looks very different demographically, however, its espoused values, structure, and governance remain unchanged. one would argue that one of the reasons that the academy is so activism-adverse is because embracing activism would challenge the core values and beliefs of the academy. the system we call higher education was shaped by racism, sexism, and classism, which is still present today. to understand and effectuate change in higher education “requires acknowledging it’s violent, imperialistic, oppressive past” (patton, 2016 p. 317). therefore, building a culture of activism in higher education requires an acknowledgement the acceptance of higher education’s ugly past to begin to disrupt the normative oppressive structures that have served as the pillars of higher education thus far. while acknowledgement alone will not address the problem, it is a start to moving the academy away from its elitist culture toward one that truly embraces diversity and inclusion. in this paper i will discuss three distinct ways that higher education can promote and support participation in activism within higher education, in particular within its edd programs. increase efforts to recruit minority faculty according to the national center for education statistics (nces), university-level faculty in the united states in 2017 was comprised of 54% white males, 27% white females, 8% asian/pacific islander males, 3% asian/pacific islander females, with black males, black females, hispanic males, and hispanic females, each accounting for only 2% of all full-time professors (nces, 2017). although enrollment into graduate programs, such as doctorate programs has increased exponentially by minority groups, such as black women, who have increased graduate school enrollment by over 400% since 1970, they along with other minorities remain underrepresented as faculty in higher education (american federation of teachers; 2010, flaherty, 2015; mcclure, 2018). minorities who are working in higher education are doing so at lower levels, as the majority of full professors are white. leadership roles in higher education are no different, with roles such as college and university presidents, deans, chairs, and trustees being primarily occupied by white men (patton, 2016). the lack of diversity in the faculty further perpetuates the culture of oppression and elitism in higher education which stifles potential growth and prevents higher education from maximizing its full potential. the benefits of having a diverse faculty have been cited as “playing an integral role in advancing new knowledge and fostering pluralistic perspectives among students who will advance equity in a global society” (zambraba et al., 2015 p. 2). essentially, minority faculty are contributing to the cause of social justice through their teaching and mentoring students in the ways of equity and fairness. a study conducted by umbach (2006) concluded that students benefited greatly by interacting and learning from faculty of color (p. 336). increasing the number of faculty of color, has been long requested by student activists, however, institutions cite a shortage mcclure impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.128 55 of minority doctoral degree holders as the reason the number of faculty of color remains scant (flaherty, 2015). however, the survey for earned doctorates published by the national science foundation (nsf) reported that on average 40% of all minorities who earned doctorate degrees in 2018 planned to enter the academy after graduation (ncses 2018). this raises a different question, if minorities holding doctorate degrees plan to enter the academy, why are they still so underrepresented? perhaps, the question is better directed toward the institutions who would hire them. increasing minority faculty presence, in and of itself is a way that institutions of higher education can support and ignite activism, by supporting a cause that has seemingly fallen on deaf ears. incorporate activism into the curriculum graduate school curriculum, including at the doctoral level, has been criticized for being too white (wall, 2013). graduate level curriculum that lacks depth, diversity, and reinforces the hegemonic practices within higher education. often time’s students of color feel as though they are being placed in the margin, including where curriculum is concerned. in graduate education, and especially within doctoral programs, students of color are typically “the only one”, and during classroom discussions, they either feel silenced or are placed in a position to speak for their entire race (hooks, 1994). this is oftentimes because people of color, their culture and history are excluded from the curriculum (harris, 1993; patton et al., 2015; patton, 2016). redesigning graduate school curriculum to incorporate a broader range of epistemologies, pedagogies, and literature has the potential to decrease the negative experiences people of color confront in graduate school, as well, a spark interest in new genres, areas of study, and increase awareness as it relates to the struggles people of color face in everyday life. institutions of higher education can take an “intersectional approach to curriculum development and learning”, as way to demonstrate a commitment to the pluralistic society which is the academy (harris & linder, 2018, p. 155). this could help to foster a culture of activism within higher education, including in education doctorate programs. challenge internal power dynamics higher education by design is an elite institution that can only be accessed by individuals who can prove themselves worthy of admittance (thelin, 2004). however, admittance is not equivalent to acceptance. while institutions of higher education have become more diverse over time, individuals from minority and underrepresented groups still have issues with finding acceptance within the walls of the ivory tower (mcclure, 2018). issues of structural racism, sexism, and classism, still plague institutions of higher learning today. individuals who are members of minority groups often find themselves as “outsiders within” fighting to exist in an environment that does not openly accept or embrace them (collins, 2000). attempts at activism by scholars from minority, and underrepresented groups face the highest levels of risk when attempting to conduct research that influences societal change, or research that directly involves societal change (flood, et al., 2013). the reprisals they face can be severe, and damage their careers irreparably, and they face direct attacks from their institutions who may perceive them as threats to existing culture (flood et al., 2013). threats to career advancement by denying them tenure is often the weapon of choice used to thwart their current activism actions, and hinder any potential future involvement in activism. institutions of higher education need to do a better job at eliminating these threats and to support faculty who choose to participate in activism. this can be done by clearly defining what they value in terms of diversity and by incorporating perspectives that challenge the existing power structures of higher education. confronting the issues of privilege held by certain groups within higher education instead of finding ways to silence those who speak out is one of the most important strategies for promoting a culture of activism in higher education. conclusion incorporating activism into education doctorate programs is a natural fit. the origins of the degree clearly demonstrate its purpose for roles of leadership, change, and innovation. however, institutions of higher education have to address the structural issues of oppression that continue to dominate its culture. institutions of higher education are positioned as respected leaders within their communities, and therefore, are expected to develop solutions for the everyday issues of society. undertaking these issues requires a diverse faculty that is prepared to educate, train, and mentor students, through the use of a curriculum that embraces everyone, and prepares the next generation of socially, and politically responsible leaders. references american federation of teachers (2010). promoting racial and ethnic diversity in the faculty: what higher education unions can do. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/fles/factuly diversity0310.pdf basu, k. (2012). the country’s oldest ed.d. program will close down. inside higher ed. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (n.d.) the knowledge forum on the edd. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/. cole, r., & heineckle, w. (2018). higher education after neoliberalism: student activism as a guiding light. policy futers in education, 18(1), 90116. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210318767459. collins, p. (2000). black feminist thought. ny routledge. cremin, l. (1978). the education of the educating professions. washington, dc: american association of colleges for teacher education. creswell, j. (2013). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. sage publications, inc. dictionary.com (2019). retrieved from dictionary.com activism | definition of activism at dictionary.com. derickson, d., & routledge, p. (2015). resourcing scholar-activism: collaboration transformation, and the production of knowledge. the professional geographer, 67(1), 1-7. farnun, r. (2016). scholactivism –a growing movement of scholar-activists. university world news. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=201605301426063 45. flaherty, c. (2015). demanding 10 percent, inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/30/student-activists-wantmore-black-faculty-members-how-realistic-are-some-their-goals. flaherty, c. (2016). more faculty diversity, not on tenure track. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-gainsfaculty-diversity-not-tenure-track. flood, m., martin, b., & dreher, t. (2013). combining academia and activism. australian universities’ review, (55)1, 17-26. harris, c. i. (1993). whiteness as property. harvard law review, 106(8), 1709-1791. harris, j.c., linder, c. (2018). the racialized experiences of students of color in higher education and student affairs graduate preparation programs. the journal of college student development, 59(2), 141-158. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/fles/factuly https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210318767459 https://www.dictionary.com/browse/activism?s=t https://www.dictionary.com/browse/activism?s=t https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20160530142606345 https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20160530142606345 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-gains-faculty-diversity-not-tenure-track https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-gains-faculty-diversity-not-tenure-track creating a culture of activism in the education doctorate impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.128 56 hooks, b. (1994). teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. routledge. mcclure, c. (2018). count-our-space: examining the counterspaces of black woman pursing a doctorate in education [doctoral dissertation, university of pittsburgh]. proquest dissertation thesis global national center for education statistics. (2017). race/ethnicity of college faculty: 2017. washington, dc. national center for science and engineering statistics, survey of earned doctorates. (2018). statistical profile of postgraduation plans of doctorate recipients, by ethnicity, race, and citizen status:2018. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf20301/fata-tables@group7 national science foundation, national center for science and engineering statistics. 2019. doctorate recipients from u.s. universities: 2018. special report nsf 20-301. alexandria, va. nelson, j.k., coorough, c. (1994). content analysis of the phd versus the edd dissertation. journal of experimental education, 62(2), 158-168. patton, l.d. (2016). disrupting postsecondary prose: toward a critical race theory of higher education. urban education, 51(3), 315-342. patton, l. d., harper, s. r., & harris, j. c. (2015). using critical race theory to (re)interpret widely studied topics related to students in us higher education. in a. m. martinez aleman, b. pusser, & e. m. bensimon (eds.), critical approaches to the study of higher education (pp. 193-219). john hopkins university press. perry, j. (2012). what does history reveal about the education doctorate? latta & wunder (eds.). placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teach education (pp.51-75). information age publishing. perry, j. (2015) the carnegie project on the education doctorate, change: the magazine of higher learning, 47(3), 5661, https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1040712 perry, j. (2015). the carnegie project on the education doctorate. change: the magazine of higher education, 47 (3), 56-61. scott, d. (2016). ph.d. vs. ed.d.: which terminal degree is right for you? inside higher ed. http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/phdvs-edd thelin, j. (2004). a history of american higher education. the johns hopkins university press. umbach, p. (2006). the contribution of faculty of color to undergraduate education. research in higher education, 47(3), 317-345. wall, m.l. (2013). using balanced learning course design to reduce resistance to diversity curricula. enhancing learning in the social sciences, 5(2), 45-54. zambrana, r.e., ray, r., castro, c., cohen, b., & eliason, j. (2015). don’t leave us behind: the importance of mentoring for underrepresented minority faculty. american educational research journal, 52(1), 40-72. christine l. mcclure national council of juvenile and family court judges introduction history of the doctorate in education activism in higher education challenging the constructs of higher education increase efforts to recruit minority faculty incorporate activism into the curriculum challenge internal power dynamics conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 preparing education researchers: identifying necessary competencies for teachers, administrators, and student affairs professionals annie cole university of portland cole24@up.edu rebecca smith university of portland smithre@up.edu abstract this descriptive study aimed to answer two research questions: (a) what are the assessment, evaluation, and research (aer) competencies necessary for three educator types (teachers, k-12 administrators, and higher education student affairs professionals); and (b) what are the similarities and differences in competencies by educator type? current professional standards for each educator type were identified and coded for alignment with aer topics, then reviewed for similarities and differences. results suggest that teacher competency standards focus heavily on assessment; administrator competencies focus on ethical decision making and continuous improvement; and student affairs professional standards focus on advocacy and supporting institutional mission. these results imply that education preparation programs may need to adjust aer course curriculum and instruction to align with distinct educator needs. keywords education research competencies, professional standards, education program curriculum the value and necessity of educator engagement in assessment, evaluation, and research (aer) practice is clearly argued in the literature; professional standards have long referenced the need for competency in aer for all educator types, including teachers (ncate, 1954), k-12 administrators (nbea, 1989), and higher education student affairs professionals (ace, 1937). education research seeks to understand the “human attributes, interactions, organizations and institutions that shape educational outcomes” (madalińska-michalak, 2020, p. 31). educator engagement in research promotes a plethora of benefits for students, schools, and educators alike. practitioners and policymakers can use research results to inform practice and decision making, allowing for the improvement of schooling at the classroom, school, district, and community level (ho, 2017). the act of doing research prompts educators to think of the student experience in new ways, leading to practice and decision making that better aligns with student needs and experiences (nguyen et al., 2019). further, educators who regularly engage in aer understand the importance of research-driven practice and take responsibility for their action, practices, and decision making (phelps-ward et al., 2017). in the past decade, educator competency in aer has become more of a necessity than ever before (banta & palomba, 2015; darling-hammond, 2016; deluca et al., 2015; hamrick & edwards, 2017), and as a result, aer coursework within education degree programs is critical. with the goal of increasing student knowledge and decision-making abilities in research contexts (wieting, 1975), aer courses introduce students to the how-to skills of doing research (lei, 2010), offer first-hand experience in research practice (lewthwaite & nind, 2016), and communicate the why and how of conducting research (aguado, 2009; denham,1997). within education degree programs, research methods coursework fills an important need to equip educators with the ability to use research practices to assist in programming and service development (ace, 1949), oversee school systems and continuously improve practice (bowers, 2017), increasingly foster student learning (banta & palomba, 2015), internalize and make education work meaningful (evans & reason, 2001; sriram & oster, 2012), and practice research-informed teaching (griffiths, 2004). clarifying aer competencies despite this increased call for educator competency in assessment, evaluation, and research, the literature has yet to identify the specific skills and outcomes necessary for educators trained in aer. for example, it is unclear whether teacher and k-12 administrators should be trained in advanced qualitative analysis techniques or simply taught to use various assessment and evaluation methods. further, many graduate education programs http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3637-9326 preparing education researchers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 17 enroll students of multiple educator types in the same aer courses without acknowledging the differences between educator needs and professional standards. jones (2014) found that student affairs professionals who were enrolled in a general education research methods course were unsatisfied with their experience, noting that the “course actually felt like we didn’t get as much out it as we did in the other courses because that course was not specific to student affairs” (p. 41). with a vast number of studies suggesting that students already hold negative beliefs and attitudes toward research methods coursework (earley, 2014), perhaps targeting research methods curricula to student professional needs could positively shift perspectives. problem of practice to ensure that educators are prepared to engage in aer activities, education degree programs must clarify the specific aer skills and outcomes necessary for each educator type. this problem of practice arose in the context of a small, private institution on the west coast that offers an ed.d. program serving three different educator types: education administrators, teachers, and higher education student affairs professionals. students enrolled in these programs are often combined into shared courses; however, are the differentiated aer needs of these various professionals being met? are there clear differences in aer standards that can help inform curriculum to better prepare these professionals for their fields? given this context, this study aimed to explore aer standards related to these three educator types (teachers, k-12 administrators, and higher education student affairs professionals). researcher positionality the researchers are both educators, bringing years of collective experience in university educator preparation programming and familiarity with educator preparation standards. researcher one is a faculty member at the small, private institution who teaches all three educator types through graduate-level coursework. she is a licensed teacher and administrator and taught in a k-12 setting for 10 years. researcher two is a research analyst for an educational non-profit and a doctoral student with six years of experience working in higher education. she has spent the last two years advising teacher candidates on state licensure standards and is intimately familiar with the professional standards for teachers and higher education student affairs professionals. her work also involved sitting on the assessment, evaluation, and research knowledge community for the national association of student personnel administrators (naspa), a leader in the development of aer standards for higher education student affairs professionals. together, the two researchers have adequate knowledge of the three educator types, and their associated professional standards, to accurately interpret the meaning of these three sets of standards and their relationship to assessment, evaluation, and research (aer). study purpose the purpose of this study is twofold: (a) outline the unique assessment, evaluation, and research competencies necessary for each educator type (teacher, administrator, and higher education student affairs professional); and (b) identify similarities and differences in competencies required by different educator types. two research questions will be addressed: 1. what are the assessment, evaluation, and research competencies necessary for teachers, k-12 administrators, and student affairs professionals? 2. what are the similarities and differences between assessment, evaluation, and research competencies necessary for educators by educator type? review of the literature teacher competency standards a variety of entities have established professional standards for teachers related to assessment, evaluation, and research over the past 70 years. in 1954, the national council for accreditation of teacher education (ncate) was founded as an accrediting body for education programs (presently caep, 2020). by 1990, the standards for teacher competence in educational assessment of students (stceas) were established, outlining seven standards of critical assessment skills and competencies that were necessary to incorporate into teacher preparation programs, including: 1. choosing assessment methods appropriate for instructional decisions. 2. developing assessment methods appropriate for instructional decisions. 3. administering, scoring, and interpreting the results of both externally produced and teacher-produced assessment methods. 4. using assessment results when making decisions about individual students, planning teaching, developing curriculum, and school improvement. 5. developing valid pupil grading procedures which use pupil assessments. 6. communicating assessment results to students, parents, other lay audiences, and other educators. 7. recognizing unethical, illegal, and otherwise inappropriate assessment methods and uses of assessment information (national council on measurement in education, 1990, p. 1) as of 2020, the council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep; formerly ncate) has provided accreditation standards for education programs for over 60 years. the 10 intasc standards represent the model teaching standards and learning progressions for teachers across the country. the most recent edition of these standards was published in 2013 by the ccsso’s (council of chief state school officers, 2020) interstate teacher assessment and support consortium (intasc). each intasc standard includes a list of related teacher outcomes (i.e. performances, essential knowledge, and critical dispositions). these standards are also incorporated into the council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep) accreditation process for educator preparation programs nationwide. educational administrator competency standards the development of professional standards for educational administrators has long been led by the national policy board for educational administration (npbea), founded in 1989. in 1996, the first set of standards for educational administrators was developed by the council of chief state school officers and approved by npbea, known as the interstate school leaders licensure cole & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 18 consortium (isllc) standards. these standards provided a model for states, districts, and organization to use when developing policies related to educational administration (npbea, 2018a). by 2001, a special council was appointed by npbea to develop standards specifically to guide program development and accreditation standards for educational administration preparation programs, called the educational leadership constituent council (elcc) standards (npbea, 2018a). over time, these two sets of standards were revised to align with current empirical research and practices, culminating in the professional standard publications that exist today. the npbea produced the professional standards for educational leaders (psel; npbea) to replace the isllc standards for general policy guidance in 2015. these psel standards outline general actions that effective educational administrators should be able to take, spread across 10 standards: 1. mission, vision, and core values. 2. ethics and professional norms. 3. equity and cultural responsiveness. 4. curriculum, instruction, and assessment. 5. community of care and support for students. 6. professional capacity and school personnel. 7. professional community for teachers and staff. 8. meaningful engagement of families and community. 9. operations and management. 10. school improvement. within each standard, specific outcomes are listed that identify what an administrator should be able to do (e.g., strategically develop, implement, and evaluate actions to achieve the vision for the school; psel, 2015). these standards are to be used as a “compass that guides the direction of practice directly as well as indirectly” for administrators (psel, 2015, p. 4). student affairs professionals competency standards student affairs professionals (saps) are the personnel who oversee campus operations and administration on university campuses worldwide. saps are employed in all functional areas across campus, from offices of admissions and athletics, career counseling to health centers, to housing and residential services, academic support services, and multicultural programming centers (hevel, 2016). sap engagement in aer activities, and a call for aer competency in student affairs, has remained consistent throughout history. first emerging in 1937 when the american council on education (ace) published the student personnel point of view, scholars argued that saps must provide evidence of student learning outcomes using assessment and evaluation practices. this call for aer competency in student affairs remains today, with current professional competencies related to aer emerging from the joint work of the national association of student personnel administrators (naspa) and the association of college personnel administrators (acpa) in 2015. the naspa and acpa competencies (2015) include 10 competency areas: 1. advising and supporting. 2. assessment, evaluation, and research. 3. law, policy, and governance. 4. leadership. 5. organizational and human resources. 6. personal and ethical foundations. 7. social justice and inclusion. 8. student learning and development. 9. technology. 10. values, philosophy, and history. the assessment, evaluation, and research (aer) competency includes five subareas: (a) aer terms and concepts, (b) aer values, ethics, and politics, (c) aer design, (d) aer methodology, and (e) aer interpretation. the learning outcomes associated with each subarea, measured along three competency levels, were outlined by naspa and acpa in 2016; this document was used in this study to identify necessary competencies for saps. method this descriptive study used a two-phase design to answer the two research questions. during phase one, which answered research question one, necessary aer competencies per educator type were identified. this process included (a) completing an online search to identify the most current competencies required of each educator type; and (b) coding each competency document for items specifically related to assessment, evaluation, and research (aer). during phase two, which answered research question two, the coded competencies per educator type were further reviewed and coded for themes. themes between educator types were compared for similarities and differences. phase one: identifying and coding aer competencies a thorough internet search was conducted to determine the current standards for each educator type. the current teacher standards were the interstate teacher assessment and support consortium (intasc; ccsso, 2013) standards. educational administrator standards were the professional standards for educational leaders (psel; npbea, 2015) standards. finally, the acpa and naspa professional competencies rubric: aer competency (acpa & naspa, 2016) were for student affairs professionals. once the competency standards per educator type were identified, the researchers reviewed and coded the standards to identify items related to assessment, evaluation, and research. each list of standards was transformed into an excel document by extracting each item line by line. for the 10 intasc standards, every individual performance, knowledge, and disposition outcome was extracted individually (174 total items). for the psel standards, each outcome under each standard was extracted individually (83 total items). all items in the acpa and naspa aer competency were extracted individually (15 total items). this resulted in a comprehensive list of competencies per educator type in preparation for coding. each list of competencies was then reviewed and coded item by item by the two researchers individually. because the intasc and preparing education researchers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 19 psel standards include competencies outside of aer, items that were not related to aer were immediately discarded from further analysis. this analysis was an iterative process; if an item was related to aer, it was coded as such; the researchers followed saldaña’s (2015) in vivo and descriptive first-cycle coding process and assigned codes to each item that were either copied verbatim from within the item itself or described the essence of the item (e.g., “research” or “continuous improvement”). this process resulted in a continuously developing list of codes. once all items had been reviewed and codes assigned by each of the two researchers individually, the entire list of codes was compiled, and all items were reviewed once more for alignment with the entire code list. the final list of 18 codes is available in table 1. this process revealed a total of 49 aer-related competencies for teachers, 32 aer-related competencies for educational administrators, and 15 aer-related competencies for student affairs professionals. a list of aer-related competencies for each educator type is presented in tables 2, 3, and 4. these tables are further discussed in the results section. table 1. codes emerged from competency items: frequency counts and percentages code frequency by educator type administrator student affairs teacher n % n % n % accountable/accountability 3 9% 0 0% 2 4% advance field/advance practice 1 3% 0 0% 2 4% analyze/analysis 1 3% 1 7% 11 22% assess/assessment 6 19% 12 80% 23 47% continuous(ly) improve(ment)/improve 19 59% 2 13% 8 16% data 4 13% 5 33% 9 18% decision/decision making 3 9% 0 0% 9 18% diversity, equity, inclusion 3 9% 1 7% 11 22% evaluate/evaluation 4 13% 12 80% 9 18% evidence 1 3% 3 20% 4 8% inquiry 2 6% 0 0% 4 8% literature 0 0% 2 13% 0 0% method(s) 1 3% 1 7% 2 4% planning 2 6% 7 47% 10 20% report 0 0% 3 20% 1 2% research 2 6% 11 73% 3 6% study/studies 0 0% 3 20% 0 0% theory/theoretical frame(works) 0 0% 1 7% 0 0% note. codes with the highest percentage per educator type are bolded for emphasis. cole & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 20 table 2. aer competencies for teachers standard aer competency standard 1. learner development 1(a) the teacher regularly assesses individual and group performance in order to design and modify instruction to meet learne rs’ needs in each area of development (cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical) and scaffolds the next level of development. standard 2. learning differences 2(b) the teacher makes appropriate and timely provisions (e.g., pacing for individual rates of growth, task demands, communication, assessment, and response modes) for individual students with particular learning differences or needs. standard 3. learning environments 3(a) the teacher collaborates with learners, families, and colleagues to build a safe, positive learning climate of openness, mutual respect, support, and inquiry. 3(p) the teacher is committed to supporting learners as they participate in decision-making, engage in exploration and invention, work collaboratively and independently, and engage in purposeful learning. standard 4. content knowledge 4(b) the teacher engages students in learning experiences in the discipline(s) that encourage learners to understand, question, and analyze ideas from diverse perspectives so that they master the content. 4(c) the teacher engages learners in applying methods of inquiry and standards of evidence used in the discipline. 4(f) the teacher evaluates and modifies instructional resources and curriculum materials for their comprehensiveness, accuracy for representing particular concepts in the discipline, and appropriateness for his/her learners. 4(j) the teacher understands major concepts, assumptions, debates, processes of inquiry, and ways of knowing that are central to the discipline(s) s/he teaches. 4(p) the teacher appreciates multiple perspectives within the discipline and facilitates learners’ critical analysis of these perspectives. standard 5. application of content 5(a) the teacher develops and implements projects that guide learners in analyzing the complexities of an issue or question using perspectives from varied disciplines and cross-disciplinary skills (e.g., a water quality study that draws upon biology and chemistry to look at factual information and social studies to examine policy implications). 5(i) the teacher understands the ways of knowing in his/her discipline, how it relates to other disciplinary approaches to inquiry, and the strengths and limitations of each approach in addressing problems, issues, and concerns. 5(k) the teacher understands the demands of accessing and managing information as well as how to evaluate issues of ethics and quality related to information and its use. standard 6. assessment 6(a) the teacher balances the use of formative and summative assessment as appropriate to support, verify, and document learning. 6(b) the teacher designs assessments that match learning objectives with assessment methods and minimizes sources of bias that can distort assessment results. 6(c) the teacher works independently and collaboratively to examine test and other performance data to understand each learne r’s progress and to guide planning. 6(e) the teacher engages learners in multiple ways of demonstrating knowledge and skill as part of the assessment process. 6(g) the teacher effectively uses multiple and appropriate types of assessment data to identify each student’s learning needs and to develop differentiated learning experiences. 6(h) the teacher prepares all learners for the demands of particular assessment formats and makes appropriate accommodations in assessments or testing conditions, especially for learners with disabilities and language learning needs. 6(i) the teacher continually seeks appropriate ways to employ technology to support assessment practice both to engage learners more fully and to assess and address learner needs. 6(j) the teacher understands the differences between formative and summative applications of assessment and knows how and when to use each. 6(k) the teacher understands the range of types and multiple purposes of assessment and how to design, adapt, or select appropriate assessments to address specific learning goals and individual differences, and to minimize sources of bias. 6(l) the teacher knows how to analyze assessment data to understand patterns and gaps in learning, to guide planning and instruction, and to provide meaningful feedback to all learners. 6(m) the teacher knows when and how to engage learners in analyzing their own assessment results and in helping to set goals for their own learning. 6(o) the teacher knows when and how to evaluate and report learner progress against standards. 6(p) the teacher understands how to prepare learners for assessments and how to make accommodations in assessments and testing conditions, especially for learners with disabilities and language learning needs. 6(q) the teacher is committed to engaging learners actively in assessment processes and to developing each learner’s capacity to review and communicate about their own progress and learning. 6(r) the teacher takes responsibility for aligning instruction and assessment with learning goals. 6(t) the teacher is committed to using multiple types of assessment processes to support, verify, and document learning. 6(u) the teacher is committed to making accommodations in assessments and testing conditions, especially for learners with disabilities and language learning needs. 6(v) the teacher is committed to the ethical use of various assessments and assessment data to identify learner strengths and needs to promote learner growth. standard 7. planning for instruction 7(d) the teacher plans for instruction based on formative and summative assessment data, prior learner knowledge, and learner interest. 7(f) the teacher evaluates plans in relation to shortand long-range goals and systematically adjusts plans to meet each student’s learning needs and enhance learning. 7(k) the teacher knows a range of evidence-based instructional strategies, resources, and technological tools and how to use them effectively to plan instruction that meets diverse learning needs. 7(l) the teacher knows when and how to adjust plans based on assessment information and learner responses. standard 8. instructional strategies 8(b) the teacher continuously monitors student learning, engages learners in assessing their progress, and adjusts instruction in response to student learning needs. preparing education researchers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 21 standard aer competency standard 9. professional learning and ethical practice 9(c) independently and in collaboration with colleagues, the teacher uses a variety of data (e.g., systematic observation, information about learners, research) to evaluate the outcomes of teaching and learning and to adapt planning and practice. 9(d) the teacher actively seeks professional, community, and technological resources, within and outside the school, as supports for analysis, reflection, and problem-solving. 9(g) the teacher understands and knows how to use a variety of self-assessment and problem-solving strategies to analyze and reflect on his/her practice and to plan for adaptations/adjustments. 9(h) the teacher knows how to use learner data to analyze practice and differentiate instruction accordingly. 9(k) the teacher knows how to build and implement a plan for professional growth directly aligned with his/her needs as a growing professional using feedback from teacher evaluations and observations, data on learner performance, and schooland systemwide priorities. 9(l) the teacher takes responsibility for student learning and uses ongoing analysis and reflection to improve planning and practice. 9(n) the teacher sees him/herself as a learner, continuously seeking opportunities to draw upon current education policy and research as sources of analysis and reflection to improve practice. standard 10. leadership and collaboration 10(a) the teacher takes an active role on the instructional team, giving and receiving feedback on practice, examining learner work, analyzing data from multiple sources, and sharing responsibility for decision making and accountability for each student’s learning. 10(c) the teacher engages collaboratively in the school-wide effort to build a shared vision and supportive culture, identify common goals, and monitor and evaluate progress toward those goals. 10(f) the teacher engages in professional learning, contributes to the knowledge and skill of others, and works collaboratively to advance professional practice. 10(h) the teacher uses and generates meaningful research on education issues and policies. 10(p) the teacher actively shares responsibility for shaping and supporting the mission of his/her school as one of advocacy for learners and accountability for their success. 10(s) the teacher takes responsibility for contributing to and advancing the profession. 10(t) the teacher embraces the challenge of continuous improvement and change. table 3. aer competencies for k-12 administrators standard aer competency standard 1. mission, vision, and core values b) in collaboration with members of the school and the community and using relevant data, develop and promote a vision for the school on the successful learning and development of each child and on instructional and organizational practices that promote such success c) articulate, advocate, and cultivate core values that define the school’s culture and stress the imperative of child-centered education; high expectations and student support; equity, inclusiveness, and social justice; openness, caring, and trust; and continuous improvement d) strategically develop, implement, and evaluate actions to achieve the vision for the school standard 2. ethics and professional norms b) act according to and promote the professional norms of integrity, fairness, transparency, trust, collaboration, perseverance, learning, and continuous improvement a) act ethically and professionally in personal conduct, relationships with others, decision-making, stewardship of the school’s resources, and all aspects of school leadership standard 3. equity and cultural responsiveness g) act with cultural competence and responsiveness in their interactions, decision making, and practice standard 4. curriculum, instruction, and assessment b) align and focus systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment within and across grade levels to promote student academic success, love of learning, the identities and habits of learners, and healthy sense of self f) employ valid assessments that are consistent with knowledge of child learning and development and technical standards of measurement g) use assessment data appropriately and within technical limitations to monitor student progress and improve instruction a) implement coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment that promote the mission, vision, and core values of the school, embody high expectations for student learning, align with academic standards, and are culturally responsive standard 6. professional capacity of school personnel c) develop teachers’ and staff members’ professional knowledge, skills, and practice through differentiated opportunities for learning and growth, guided by understanding of professional and adult learning and development d) foster continuous improvement of individual and collective instructional capacity to achieve outcomes envisioned for each student e) deliver actionable feedback about instruction and other professional practice through valid, research-anchored systems of supervision and evaluation to support the development of teachers’ and staff members’ knowledge, skills, and practice f) empower and motivate teachers and staff to the highest levels of professional practice and to continuous learning and improvement standard 7. professional community for teachers and staff c) establish and sustain a professional culture of engagement and commitment to shared vision, goals, and objectives pertaining to the education of the whole child; high expectations for professional work; ethical and equitable practice; trust and open communication; collaboration, collective efficacy, and continuous individual and organizational learning and improvement d) promote mutual accountability among teachers and other professional staff for each student’s success and the effectiveness of the school as a whole e) develop and support open, productive, caring, and trusting working relationships among leaders, faculty, and staff to prom ote professional capacity and the improvement of practice h) encourage faculty-initiated improvement of programs and practices. cole & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 22 standard aer competency standard 8. meaningful engagement of families and community j) build and sustain productive partnerships with public and private sectors to promote school improvement and student learning standard 9. operations and management c) seek, acquire, and manage fiscal, physical, and other resources to support curriculum, instruction, and assessment; student learning community; professional capacity and community; and family and community engagement. standard 10. school improvement b) use methods of continuous improvement to achieve the vision, fulfill the mission, and promote the core values of the school c) prepare the school and the community for improvement, promoting readiness, an imperative for improvement, instilling mutual commitment and accountability, and developing the knowledge, skills, and motivation to succeed in improvement d) engage others in an ongoing process of evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning, implementation, and evaluation for continuous school and classroom improvement e) employ situationally-appropriate strategies for improvement, including transformational and incremental, adaptive approaches and attention to different phases of implementation f) assess and develop the capacity of staff to assess the value and applicability of emerging educational trends and the findings of research for the school and its improvement g) develop technically appropriate systems of data collection, management, analysis, and use, connecting as needed to the district office and external partners for support in planning, implementation, monitoring, feedback, and evaluation h) adopt a systems perspective and promote coherence among improvement efforts and all aspects of school organization, programs, and services i) manage uncertainty, risk, competing initiatives, and politics of change with courage and perseverance, providing support and encouragement, and openly communicating the need for, process for, and outcomes of improvement efforts j) develop and promote leadership among teachers and staff for inquiry, experimentation and innovation, and initiating and im plementing improvement a) seek to make school more effective for each student, teachers and staff, families, and the community table 4. acpa and naspa assessment, evaluation, and research competency rubric competency level: foundational competency level: intermediate competency level: advanced subarea 1: aer terms and concepts be able to differentiate between assessment, program review, evaluation, planning, and research. use aer terminology consistently when participating with colleagues in assessment, program review, evaluation, planning, and research lead and teach others assessment, program review, evaluation, planning, and research. subarea 2: aer values, ethics, and politics explain institutional and divisional aer procedures and policies with regard to ethical assessment, evaluation and other research activities. contribute actively to the development of a culture of evidence at the department level by providing aer training, advocating for funding, and incorporating aer in practice. create a culture of evidence in which aer is central to practice and that training happens across the organization. subarea 3: aer design design program and learning outcomes that are clear, specific, and measurable; informed by theoretical frameworks and aligned with organizational outcomes, goals, and values. prioritize program and learning outcomes with organization’s goals and values. lead the conceptualization and design of ongoing, systematic, high-quality, data-based strategies at the institutional, divisional, and/or unit-wide level to evaluate and assess learning, programs, services, and personnel. subarea 4: aer methodology differentiate among methods for assessment, program review, evaluation, planning, and research. design data collection efforts that are ongoing, sustainable, rigorous, unobtrusive, and technologically current. design and integrate ongoing and periodic data collection efforts such that they are sustainable, rigorous, as unobtrusive as possible, and technologically current. subarea 5: aer interpretation articulate, interpret, and apply results of aer reports and studies, including professional literature. effectively manage, align, and guide the utilization of aer reports and studies. lead the design and writing of varied and diverse communications of assessment, program review, evaluation, and other research activities that include translation of data analyses into goals and action. note. samples taken from acpa and naspa professional competencies rubrics, 2016, p. 13-16. phase two: theming the competency codes the coding process of the data included a systematic approach (miles & huberman, 1994) of multiple steps taken by the researchers. first, each researcher individually reviewed all aer competency items individually and assigned the codes of assessment, evaluation, and/or research to each standard they identified as related to one of these aer competencies. standards were coded with these aer codes if they included specific language related to the code (i.e., assess, assessment, evaluate), or if the intended outcome of the standard was related to aer (i.e., report). the second phase of coding included each researcher reviewing all of the aer competency items and their assigned codes again using saldaña’s (2015) descriptive coding to capture the essence of each item. the researchers attempted to identify similarities in necessary competencies between educator types, the researchers, assigning themes to items to group them with commonalities. unlike the first phase of coding, which aimed to identify whether an item was related to aer or not, this second phase aimed to capture a more detailed preparing education researchers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 23 description of the item, with codes emerging such as “leading change,” “culturally responsive instruction,” and “teacher/educational research advocacy.” although similar to the first list of codes, this second list contained a more detailed description of the competency items; this process resulted in a total of 14 final codes. saldaña’s (2015) pattern coding was used to identify patterns within these codes, resulting in three emergent themes: student learning, continuous improvement and change, and decision making. frequency counts were calculated to determine how often each code appeared within each set and across the various standards. to identify differences between necessary competencies by educator type, the researchers compared the phase one and phase two codes by educator types, identifying differences both in the codes and the frequency of codes between educator types. results necessary aer competencies by educator type the document analysis and coding process revealed a total of 49 aer-related competencies necessary for teachers within the intasc (2013) standards, 32 aer-related competencies necessary for educational administrators within the psel (2015) standards, and 15 aer-related competencies necessary for student affairs professionals within the acpa and naspa (2016) professional competencies rubric. teachers necessary aer competencies for teachers were identified across all 10 of the intasc standards: 1. learner development. 2. learner differences. 3. learning environments. 4. content knowledge. 5. application of content. 6. assessment. 7. planning for instruction. 8. instructional strategies. 9. professional learning and ethical practice. 10. leadership and collaboration. the full list of aer competencies, presented in table 2, emphasizes the necessity of teacher competency in assessing student learning, identifying and establishing student learning outcomes, and modifying instruction to successfully engage all learners within the school environment. the term assessment was common in the teacher competency literature, more so than other terms such as evaluation or research. k-12 administrators necessary aer competencies for k-12 educational administrators were identified across nine of the 10 psel standards: 1. mission, vision, and core values. 2. ethics and professional norms. 3. equity and cultural responsiveness. 4. curriculum, instruction, and assessment. 5. professional capacity of school personnel. 6. professional community of teacher and staff. 7. meaningful engagement of families and community. 8. operations and management. 9. school improvement. aer competencies for administrators emphasized decision making, especially the ethics behind decision making and the impact of decision making on school culture and student learning. one of the main aims of aer work for administrators is to lead continuous improvement efforts at the school and community level. student affairs professionals necessary aer competencies for student affairs professionals spanned the entire aer competency as outlined by the acpa and naspa (2016) professional competency rubric, including: 1. aer terms and concepts. 2. aer values, ethics, and politics. 3. aer design. 4. aer methodology. 5. aer interpretation. aer competencies for these professionals emphasized assessment, evaluation, and research throughout the text, with a specific emphasis on advocacy (i.e., advocating for aer-driven change and funding for aer projects) and utilizing aer to lead change and achieve the mission of the higher education institution. aer competency similarities between educator types the results of the phase one and phase two coding process resulted in three emergent themes in the necessary aer competencies for all educators: student learning, continuous improvement and change, and decision making. student learning present among all three educator aer competencies was a theme of supporting student learning, either through teaching, services, programming, or leadership. teachers, administrators, and student affairs professionals are expected to understand multiple methods and approaches to student learning assessment, develop student learning objectives and outcomes, evaluate student learning outcomes against identified rubrics or standards, and continuously adjust practice to support student learning. themes of accountability, using aer to promote equity, and supporting diverse learners were present in all three documents. continuous improvement educators of all three types are called to engage in aer as a way to continuously improve educational outcomes for students, for families, and for the wider community. continuous improvement includes working closely with internal and external stakeholders to identify goals and achieve those goals, leading school-wide change efforts that align with school vision and strategic plans, modifying services and instruction as a way to improve learning outcomes for students, and engaging in professional development opportunities to continuously grow as a professional and align with best practice in cole & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 24 the field. knowledge of specific techniques and methods are critically important to continuous improvement, including knowledge of research methodologies and knowledge of technological systems to collect, manage, and interpret data. decision making similar to the theme of continuous improvement, a final theme of decision making was present among the three educator types. teachers, administrators, and student affairs professionals are expected to use aer as a means of making data-driven decisions that align with current literature, acknowledge trends in school data, and support the vision of the school. ethics were an important part of this theme; for all educators, it is necessary to utilize assessment, evaluation, and research techniques to explore the impact of school instruction, services, and programs and ensure that equitable student learning is being achieved. aer competency differences between educator types differences in competencies in educator types also began to emerge when comparing the data, displayed in tables 2, 3, and 4, and analyzing the codes that emerged during phase one and phase two. aer methods the aer competencies identified within each educator competency document highlighted specific aer methods that were most essential for each educator. for example, teachers are expected to constantly measure student learning through multiple methods of assessment, communicate those assessment results to students, and then use assessment results to inform changes to their classroom instruction. this method of assessment is much different than the administrator, who is asked to assess school personnel, school-wide student achievement, and alignment of school outcomes with the greater vision of the district. different still is the student affairs professional who may evaluate a program within their department one day, and then assess the impact of a program on university-wide retention the next. interestingly, few items within any of the competency documents clearly articulated expectations for educator knowledge of specific research methods (i.e., qualitative or quantitative analysis) or furthering the field through publication or grant-funded projects. the competencies seem to focus on the daily work of educators and their practical use of aer methods during the workday. aer context each educator type engages in aer within a different school context; teachers spend most hours in the classroom, while administrators move from school to district and community locations. student affairs professionals, depending on functional position, may engage in aer work through a cross-divisional group or as a standalone assessment professional. administrators, often representing the mission of the school, are expected to communicate and lead school change efforts; student affairs professionals may do the same, depending on their role within the institution. while teachers must be prepared to communicate student data to parents and families directly, administrators should be prepared to communicate school trends, outcomes, and initiatives to a wide range of stakeholders. the timeline of aer engagement also seems to differ by educator type: student affairs professionals are often measuring the impact of programs on student outcomes each semester, while teachers are measuring student learning daily, and administrators are measuring outcomes continuously according to strategic plans. using aer to impact change expectations about how each educator will use the results of aer differ as well. student affairs professionals are asked to use the literature as a foundation to develop and adjust new programs for students, having clear assessment and evaluation plans to measure impact along the way. program outcomes often must be communicated to school leaders and outside stakeholders, possibly even presented on a university website. similarly, administrators are expected to continuously collect school data and develop reports to share with school, district, and community stakeholders. administrators are leaders of change and are expected to translate aer results into actionable steps. teachers are also change agents but are less likely to report aer outcomes to outside stakeholders. instead, teachers must be intimately familiar with translating student learning assessment into actionable change within the classroom, resulting in better learning outcomes for all students. discussion it is clear that the broader field of education recognizes the need for aer competencies across all educator types. however, the findings of this study highlight the need for higher education institutions to differentiate how these competencies are taught across various programs. our findings indicate that the similarities between programs included student learning, continuous improvement and change, and decision making. in programs that combine graduate students, such as edd programs, these competencies can be given prevalence in course curriculum and discourse. key differences in aer competencies across standards tended to be in the area of assessment, which could be addressed in programs by providing specific content-level assessment courses or assignments within courses that address various assessment preparation needs. it is critical that instructors in these courses are aware of the differences, so they can differentiate appropriately. additional key differences found in our analysis involved the aer context and aer intended outcomes across the competencies for the three educator types. due to the diversity in context experienced by each educator type, the need to tailor student learning is necessary to adequately prepare educator professionals. to address these challenges, programs can utilize real world data in course-based learning, such as engaging in district-based research projects to prepare teachers and administrators and partnering with institutional research to help prepare higher education student affairs professionals. research indicates that university-district partnerships that are transformational in nature can effectively support graduate student researcher development while also benefiting school districts, who are often underfunded in the research department (ralston et al., 2016). while this study affirms the existence of differentiated standards, it provides unique insight into the similarities and differences across standards that can contribute to how and what graduate students learn as budding researchers. preparing education researchers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.181 25 implications the implications of this study are both practical and theoretical. first, the results of this study outline the exact aer-related competencies necessary for teachers, k-12 administrators, and student affairs professionals. previously, this content comparison did not exist, suggesting that both education programs and educators may have been unaware of the competencies necessary across educator types, or perhaps educational leaders are not able to remain continuously abreast of changes to evolving standards when they transition from one type to another (i.e., if a teacher becomes a principal). this unfamiliarity is a major concern, as it suggests that educators may not be obtaining competency in an area that is critically important to their work (acpa & naspa, 2016; banta & palomba, 2015; deluca et al., 2015; hamrick & edwards, 2017; intasc, 2013; psel, 2015). these results can be directly translated by education program directors and faculty into curriculum development for education aer courses. second, the similarities and differences identified between necessary aer competencies by educator type suggest that not all educators should be treated the same within the aer classroom and curriculum. it may be that the current method of aer teaching, which often uses a one-size-fits-all instructional approach and curriculum, is not serving our educators well. as mentioned previously, earley’s (2014) review of research methods found that overall, students tend to hold negative beliefs and attitudes about research in general. studies within education research literature also suggest that educators are not prepared to engage in aer activities, with low aer competency cited among student affairs professionals (herdlein, 2004; schroeder & pike, 2001; sriram, 2011; waple, 2006; young & janosik, 2007), and only half of teachers identifying as a teacher-scholars (mullen, 2000). education practitioners also often have a hard time translating education research into practical action, an additional barrier to engaging in the aer classroom (price, 2019). the results of this study could be used to restructure aer courses specifically for each educator type, or in the case of the mixed educator classroom, allow the instructor to provide differentiated instruction that supports all educator types. limitations the results of this study should be considered in light of its limitations. the researchers used one competency document per educator type to identify aer-related competencies. it is possible that a meta-analysis of the literature in combination with the coding of the competency document would have revealed additional aerrelated competency items. this deeper analysis is suggested for future research to further elaborate on the competencies necessary for each educator type. it is also possible that the competency documents, although the most prominent in the field for each educator type today, are missing important competencies that have emerged in the literature since their publication. again, future research should include a review of the literature to complement the results found by coding the competency documents. conclusion in conclusion, this descriptive study provides important implications for policy and practice. it appears that higher education programs would better meet the needs of their diverse educators when curriculum and instruction directly align with needed competencies in their particular fields. while there are similarities in the required assessment, evaluation, and research competencies across teachers, administrators, and student affairs professionals, the differences in how these aer competencies are applied in practice should be considered in higher education coursework. the similarities across competency standards within the three educator types highlight the value of student learning, continuous improvement, and ethical decision making. however, the differences in aer methods, context, and the intended outcomes of aer competencies for each educator type suggest a need for differentiation in preparing competent aer professionals for their particular professional careers. these education professionals work to meet the individualized needs of their school communities; higher education institutions should also work to meet the individualized needs of these learners. references aguado, n. a. 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(2011). engaging research as student affairs professionals. naspa netresults: critical issues for student affairs practitioners. https://works.bepress.com/rishi_sriram/10/ sriram, r., & oster, m. (2012). reclaiming the "scholar" in scholarpractitioner. journal of student affairs research and practice, 49(4), 377-396. waple, j. n. (2006). an assessment of skills and competencies for entry-level student affairs work. naspa journal, 43(1), 1-18. wieting, s. g. (1975). simulated research experiences for use in teaching research methods. teaching sociology, 3(1), 33-59. young, d. g., & janosik, s. m. (2007). using cas standards to measure learning outcomes of student affairs preparation programs. naspa journal, 44(2), 341-366. https://naeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ho-final.pdf https://naeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ho-final.pdf https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/jones_ginny_m_201405_phd.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed574440.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed323186.pdf http://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/%20nelp-companion-guide.pdf http://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/%20nelp-companion-guide.pdf http://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/nelp-building-standards.pdf http://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/nelp-building-standards.pdf https://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/professional-standards-for-educational-leaders_2015.pdf https://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/professional-standards-for-educational-leaders_2015.pdf https://works.bepress.com/rishi_sriram/10/ annie cole university of portland rebecca smith university of portland (1) clarifying aer competencies problem of practice researcher positionality study purpose review of the literature teacher competency standards educational administrator competency standards student affairs professionals competency standards method phase one: identifying and coding aer competencies phase two: theming the competency codes results necessary aer competencies by educator type teachers k-12 administrators student affairs professionals aer competency similarities between educator types student learning continuous improvement decision making aer competency differences between educator types aer methods aer context using aer to impact change discussion implications limitations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 33 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 activism in practice: the influence of a rural school leader’s beliefs and practices in disrupting historical patterns of underachievement in traditionally marginalized students kristina a. hesbol university of denver kristina.hesbol@du.edu jennifer sparkman bartee university of denver jen.bartee@du.edu fayaz amiri university of denver fayaz.amiri@du.edu abstract despite the fact that rural communities across the united states are rapidly diversifying (fusarelli & militello, 2012), little research has examined the beliefs and practices of successful rural educational leaders, specifically in high poverty schools and districts where traditionally marginalized students demonstrate improving learning outcomes. the purpose of this study was to examine the beliefs and practices of a rural educational leader whose school or district met established study criteria for a high poverty, high performing school, in which traditionally marginalized students demonstrate increasingly productive learning outcomes. interviews with the leader were conducted, and the data were coded and analyzed using a constant comparative method (lincoln & guba, 1985). the following research question guided the study: what impact do the beliefs and practices of a rural school district leader have on the learning outcomes of traditionally marginalized students in the rocky mountain west? the findings from this study contribute to the paucity of research on culturally responsive rural superintendent-principals. identifying the rural leader’s beliefs and practices provides support for educational leaders who serve in that uniquely rural dual role, about which very little has been written. it informs leadership preparation programs, graduate students, researchers, and policy makers about the need for nuanced culturally responsive training for rural educational leaders. keywords: rural superintendent-principal, culturally responsive leadership, relational leadership in this article, we present a study that reports how the beliefs and practices of a rural superintendent-principal influence the increased learning outcomes of traditionally marginalized students. at the 2017 convening of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), executive director jill perry (2018) reminded members that cped’s design concepts provide a foundational platform from which to revolutionize the preparation of doctoral graduates to improve the field – as lee shulman suggests, “to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (shulman, 2005, p. 52). inquiry as practice pushes our capacity to innovate, dismantling oppressive systems and leading improvement for every student. the case study that follows was conducted by a graduate student-professor team and is used in our ed.d. program to expand the thinking of our doctoral students, most of whom have worked only in urban schools. it illuminates the need for innovation and activism as a rural leader in order to lead equitable improvement in the local school, district, and community, and provides real-world “fieldwork experience” for ed.d. programs with a broader lens through which to develop culturally responsive school and district leadership. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ kristina.hesbol@du.edu jen.bartee@du.edu fayaz.amiri@du.edu hesbol, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 34 according to a 2019 report from the rural school and community trust, 9.3 million students are enrolled in american rural public schools – nearly one out of every seven students in the country (showalter et al, 2019). rural communities across the us are rapidly diversifying racially, culturally, and linguistically (fusarelli & militello, 2012; pohl, 2017), and one in six of those students lives below the poverty line. despite such data, little research has been conducted to examine the beliefs and practices of successful rural educational leaders – specifically those in whose schools traditionally marginalized students demonstrate improving learning outcomes. as a result, successful rural educational leaders are left to advocate largely on their own to access professional development to meet the changing needs of students, their schools, and their communities. we see this as a civil rights issue. purpose the purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the influence of the beliefs and practices of a rural school leader to disrupt low expectations for student learning, evidenced by achievement gaps, including the nuanced, place-based challenges that are unique to rural contexts. the study focused on rural students who identify as emerging bilingual learners, as hispanic or native american, and/or as economically under-resourced, whose learning outcomes in math meet or exceed state standards. the research question that guided this study is: what impact do the beliefs and practices of a rural school district leader have on the learning outcomes of traditionally marginalized students in the district in the rocky mountain west? statement of the problem rural educators at the building and district level (sometimes the same person, as in the case of this study’s superintendent-principal) are called to re-imagine their leadership beliefs and practices in order to equitably meet the needs of their demographically changing communities. few leadership preparation programs are designed specifically to develop and equity-focused, inclusive, and innovative rural educational leaders. a focus on equity requires a purposeful redistribution of power and resources to repair the sociopolitical and moral “educational debt” (ladson-billings, 2006) owed to historically marginalized students (galloway & ishimaru, 2015; brayboy, castagno, & maughan, 2007; darling-hammond, 2010). this call for activism needs to be addressed by leadership preparation and professional development programs, providing a deeper and broader perspective on a continuum of nuanced rural educational contexts. despite a relentless national focus on the effect of the achievement gap on urban students, relatively limited research has been conducted on leaders of schools and districts in rural communities and their influence on student learning. 68% of american rural schools report significant achievement gaps (zhang, 2008; barrett, cowen, toma, & troske, 2015), but few rural leaders report that they know how to eliminate them. to provide the important data needed to help improve learning outcomes for every rural student, studies must investigate the critical leadership beliefs and practices of those successful educational leaders who improve schools (leithwood, louis, anderson, & wahlstrom, 2004), including culturally responsive leadership behaviors (khalifa, gooden, & davis, 2016). while the school reform literature includes numerous studies linking student learning with such strategies as progress monitoring (harris, 2013; bernhardt, 2013) and differentiated instruction (hallinger, heck, & murphy, 2014; valiandes, 2015), there is a paucity of studies that focus on the leader’s beliefs and practices, specifically in rural schools. since 1980, 95% of rural counties in the rocky mountain west have seen growth in minority populations (see figure 1). in 40% of these counties, overall population decrease slowed or reversed due to the growth of minority populations (pohl, 2017). these data support the need to examine rural educational leaders’ beliefs and practices and their influence on student learning outcomes, particularly as their students diversify racially, culturally, linguistically, and economically. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 35 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 figure 1. minority trends in the rural west, 1980-2015 equity-focused leaders identify and challenge practices that marginalize students, and create schools that adeptly respond to the educational, social, and cultural needs of every student and their communities (khalifa, 2018). they interrogate barriers to equitable practice, and question narratives that justify exclusionary practices that reproduce hegemony. often, rural leaders are “expected to act within accepted dominant values and norms of the community, in effect charged with upholding the traditional power structures that can create inequity” (mchenry-sorber & provinzano, 2017, p. 608). research on schools whose historically marginalized students demonstrate increasingly successful learning outcomes indicates that their principals actively reform the school curriculum to become more culturally responsive (sleeter, 2012), and move their teachers from a defensive resistance attitude (jacobs, boardman, potvin, & wang, 2018) to a sense of pride and empowerment, resulting from their students’ success (balkar, 2015). eliminating deficit mindsets and supporting diverse students’ funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth (kiyama, rios-aguilar & sarubbi, 2018; yosso, 2005) are additional requisite leadership responsibilities to guide schools and districts that genuinely welcome all students and families. as communities in the rural west continue to diversify, it will be particularly critical for leadership to be prepared to be culturally responsive (khalifa, 2018) to meet students’ changing needs. there is limited description in the scholarly literature of a rural principal’s daily practice, focused through a lens of school improvement and grounded in equity and justice (hesbol, 2020). data from a seven-state study (salazar, 2007) indicate that rural principals need more professional development to meet changing role expectations, exacerbated by rapidly increasing diversity and poverty. such training includes culturally responsive leadership behaviors (khalifa, gooden, & davis, 2016). pounder, reutzug and young (2002) stressed that training for school leaders in all contexts must prepare the to address “issues of demographic diversity, poverty, racism, ethnocentrism, language differences, homophobia, sexism, and their intersections within educational policies and practices” (p. 270). the most impactful areas of influence on student learning outcomes identified in leithwood, louis, anderson and wahlstrom’s (2004) formative study are the principal’s focused work to: • set direction for the school • develop faculty • redesign the organization • manage the instructional program http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ hesbol, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 36 such leaders create an increased urgency for change; they focus their work on such issues as disrupting inequity and white privilege (theoharis & causton-theoharis, 2008; skrla, mckenzie, & scheurich, 2009). very little research has examined an educational leader unique to rural contexts, the superintendent-principal. the findings of one study (hesbol, 2005) confirm consistent role conflict inherent in this dual role, due to the diffused responsibilities to multiple constituent groups with whom a superintendent-principal works. the superintendent/principal position typically exists as a result of the difficult financial circumstances facing small rural school districts. selecting a dual role administrator allows rural school districts to significantly reduce their administrative costs. because of divergent expectations by their board, faculty, and the state, these leaders consistently report greater focus on fiscal management than on instructional leadership or professional development for their teachers or themselves (curry, 2016). research design most of the literature on culturally responsive school leadership has been situated within urban contexts. the culturally responsive school leadership framework (khalifa, gooden, and davis, 2018) (see table 1) emerged from an extensive review of the literature on culturally responsive leadership. we used it as the conceptual framework for this study. in the study site state, the department of education designated 148 of the196 school districts as rural and compiled a database of all “rural and small rural districts.” according to this taxonomy, a rural district is located no less than 25 miles from an urban cluster (geverdt, 2015). a small rural district has less than 1,000 students with the same locality criterion; 15 districts in this state have less than 100 registered students. site selection we set the following criteria parameters to include a school for consideration in this study: • it aligned with the national center for education statistics (geverdt, 2015) definition of rural on the nces urbanicity scale; • students scored in the top 50%ile overall on the annual state math performance measure; • the school’s achievement gap in math was less than 15 points between non-white and white students, emerging bilingual students and native englishspeaking students, and between economically underresourced students and their peers. math was selected as a content area criterion based on our assumption that math likely impacts the learning outcomes of emerging bilingual students less than in language-based content areas; and • no less than 50 percent of students at the elementary level, 40 percent of students at the middle school level, or 35 percent of students at the high school level qualified for free and reduced lunch. the initial scans identified ten schools in the state that satisfied all four of these criteria – six elementary, three middle, and one high school. we contacted each school’s principal, inviting each to participate in this study. only two schools responded, despite sending a second invitation to each of the ten principals. one principal was excluded from this study following an initial interview, after we learned that she was not focused on inclusive practices to improve learning outcomes for every student. as a result, we invited principal mark taylor to participate in the study (names of all persons and places in this study are pseudonyms). mr. taylor serves as the superintendent-principal at great bend school district, which has a student enrollment of 197 students in grades k-12. there were neither enough black nor white students in the district (n<16) to assess discrepant score gaps including these students; otherwise, the district met all criteria. it is a rural and remote district whose traditionally marginalized students show increasingly productive learning outcomes. great bend received a “meets expectations” rating in 2019, the second highest of five set by the state board of education. 20% of students in the great bend school district identify as emerging bilingual (4% more than the state average). 78% of the students identify as hispanic, compared to the state average of 47%. 67% of the district’s students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, compared to 41% of the students in the state who qualify. a descriptive case study (stake, 1995; yin, 2017) was used to collect and interpret data about the beliefs and practices of this principal. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 37 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 table 1. culturally responsive school leadership framework (khalifa, gooden, & davis, 2016). data collection we phoned mr. taylor to confirm his interest in participating, sent him a consent form, and scheduled our interviews. two semistructured interviews were conducted by phone, lasting for 45-60 minutes each. questions ranged from inquiries about experiences that prepared him to lead the school, increasing community poverty, and navigating community resistance to using student performance data to inform instructional leadership and building community relationships. document analysis was done using public domain student performance data from the state’s department of education website. we also maintained field notes and included them in the analysis. data analysis transcriptions of the descriptive interview data were coded and analyzed using nvivo 12th edition software to organize the analysis process, completing three rounds using a constant comparative method (glaser & strauss, 1967; merriam, 2001). preliminary coding http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ hesbol, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 38 produced deductive codes aligned with our conceptual framework, which consists of four strands: • critically self-reflects on leadership behaviors • develops culturally responsive teachers • promotes culturally responsive/inclusive school environment • engages students, parents, and indigenous contexts findings the data indicated that the superintendent-principal of this small rural school district demonstrated a range of beliefs and practices that supported improved student learning outcomes. his effective strategies are described in the four identified themes that follow, including nuanced, place-based challenges that are unique to rural contexts. theme 1: critically self-reflects on leadership behaviors the practices identified in the crsl framework surpass the identification of oppressive behaviors; they affirm and celebrate cultural practices, requiring leaders to learn about members of the communities in which they serve. mr. taylor consistently demonstrated a critical self-awareness, a practice that has significant influence on a school’s cultural responsiveness. this opportunity for self-reflection in central to work as a transformative leader (shields, 2010). his beliefs and practices are demonstrated in the quotes that follow: we’re learning together as a school; learning opens my eyes in a lot of ways about what’s important to people – who are different than i am. how we approach a student that is acting out in class is different now. we stop and think, and are respectful to them, knowing that they may not know the answer and aren’t just trying to disrupt the classroom. i’m reacting in a way that’s different from how i might have reacted before. lots of ways to support students is coming through our learning – and i think a lot about it, too. he serves as an advocate as well as a social activist for communitybased causes in both the school and the neighborhood community. as he critically self-reflects on his leadership behaviors, he recognizes patterns that he now wants to change. we’re making a lot of opportunity for professional development. 70-75% of our students are hispanic, and our staff doesn’t reflect the same. we have a large free and reduced lunch population, so we’re doing a lot of education for ourselves. so for us to be culturally proficient, we need to make sure we have training to step outside of our comfort zone and say, “ok, this is how i perceive it; how are our students perceiving it? what is their world view, and how does it influence their outlook? how is it different from my way of thinking?” and that’s all good. despite the reported pressures on most superintendent-principals to focus on managerial, operational, and fiscal issues (curry, 2016), mr. taylor shared his beliefs and practices that have shifted the learning culture to support the improved math learning outcomes of students who have been traditionally marginalized. he challenges hegemonic epistemologies, and both acknowledges and values the indigenous cultural and social capital of the students and their families. these beliefs and practices reframe him as an activist – a leader who grew up in very same school and district in which he serves as the superintendent-principal, who recognizes the critical need to improve the culturally responsive capacity of teachers and the school environment that has changed significantly since he grew up there. he shows his commitment to continuous learning about the cultural knowledge of their context. theme 2: promotes culturally responsive/inclusive school environment the literature indicates that school leaders must leverage resources to foster a learning environment that is both culturally responsive and inclusive (dantley & tillman, 2006). the interview transcripts allude to mr. taylor’s protection of indigenous student identities, those who have been traditionally marginalized at this school, as in most across the country. his beliefs and practices related to this strand are shown in the following quotes: our most recent professional development has been on trauma-informed care, and that has been eye opening. you know a student may have five things that happen to them that morning. and when they finally make it to school, if the first thing we do is jump on them, then we've just created the sixth thing that's going to completely destroy how their day goes and their ability to be available to learn. he reduces anxiety among students, and challenges exclusionary or aggressive behaviors among the adults who work with students. he promotes a vision for inclusive instructional and behavioral practices, in the classroom and across the district. it's helped us better understand where our students and their families are coming from. because sometimes we do have different ideas of how we see things, and this has allowed us to really understand our students. it may not be that students are purposefully trying to be late; maybe there are some things going on in their life that make them late. what can we do to assist them with that? theme 3: develops culturally responsive curricula and teachers the majority of teachers in this country are white females (sleeter, 2012), in stark contrast to the rapidly racially, culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diversifying portrait of american school students. it is incumbent upon the principal to develop a culturally responsive teaching culture, by modeling expectations, guiding the development of culturally responsive curricula, and providing on-going professional development. the leader learns to interrogate assumptions about race, class, and culture and their impact on student learning. beliefs and practices that mr. taylor demonstrated aligned with this strand of the crsl framework are included in the quotes that follow: we’re all learning – and our teachers are becoming more culturally responsive, thanks to our pd. i encourage our staff if you need to go get pd, tell me when, where, how much, and we'll pay for it. we'll get you there. you can get that professional development you need that will better assist you. because teachers have different needs, strengths, and they need to build on those as well. so we constantly encourage that. how can i get you what you need? we've done a lot of training lately on add, autism spectrum disorder, those kinds of trainings. i believe that what we need activism in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 39 to do is have lots and lots of tools for our teachers’ tool bags, so that's what i try to do. how can i increase your tools, so that you are able to deal with those situations? we look at each student individually; that kind of approach puts a lot of accountability back on us as educators, because if bobby doesn’t have the skills he needs next year, we’re accountable for that. we have to learn how to make sure that every one of our students has the skills they need; teachers are starting to feel the same way. when you have a class of 15, it is very, very easy to break that down when you get to the data and say, i know who needs what. and so when we have an achievement gap, we know who those 2, 3, or 4 students are who we need to increase their skills – and we teach to support them. we stay away from that 30,000 feet view and get down to the 3,000 foot individual student view. what does this student need and how are we gonna get him those skills? individualized instruction, extra instruction, progress monitoring. what do we need to do to make sure this student has the skill when they leave us... to go to the next grade level, or their future, whatever it may be? he understands the need to develop teacher capacity for culturally responsive pedagogy and supports them (and himself) with on-going professional development. he promotes a vision for an inclusive instructional and behavioral culture. as a “warm demander” (bondy & ross, 2008), the superintendent-principal holds high academic expectations for district students while consistently showing caring support for them. this practice is in sharp contrast to a laser-sharp focus on the budget, discipline, and buses, as reported by many rural leaders who serve in this dual role (curry, 2016). he is reforming the district curricula to become more culturally responsive and uses school data to see cultural gaps in achievement. to meet their individual students’ needs, our teachers bring in supplemental material to meet students’ interests, their needs, their world view, and their ideas. how do they do that? they go find or make those individual supplemental materials to meet those diverse needs. what we’ve done is encouraged and supported our staff, through budgeting, by allowing them to purchase outside resources to meet differing individual needs in their classroom. if we can be very clear about the various needs of students and therefore the different methods we need, then i think we can teach in a way that will meet all students’ needs. is it easy? no. do i think our teachers do a pretty good job of it? i really do. recently, we’ve been finding mental health and behavior specialist resources. having those people who are able to meet the needs of some of the mental health and behavior issues that we are seeing currently in the community is critical. theme 4: engages students and families in community contexts the principal must demonstrate the ability to understand and address community-based issues, creating school spaces for traditionally marginalized student identities. most of the students in this study come from families for whom this study context is indigenous, who identify as chicano or mestizo, rather than from a native american ancestry. mr. taylor leans on the community as an informative space from which to develop positive understandings of students and their families (gardiner & enomoto, 2006). he has made decisions that make the great bend school district seem like a caring community, designed to meet diversifying needs. he finds spaces that overlap between the school and the community. the quotes that follow here show how he engages students and families in community contexts: tardiness has been a major problem for a long time here. if a student is habitually tardy, for example, that seems to be a big one, we try to go beyond that they were tardy. we try to find out why they were tardy. how did we assist with that? well, we bought washers and dryers for them to use here at the school. now we can help a student with those things so they're on time to school, ready and committed to learn – and knowing that we care about them. students have to meet their basic needs; we all do. if those needs aren't met, algebra becomes pretty unimportant. and so we try to make sure those basic needs are met safety and food, and all those things are met. then we go to the good teaching after that. we use this strategy in our teachers’ meetings all the time. one teacher will say, “i have a problem with this student, i'm having this issue. how can i really get feedback from our colleagues, how can i better meet the student’s needs?” we talk about that as a school – a community. what do know about their family and their home life? what can we do to help? that awareness piece has been huge. there are very different world views about life goals and opportunities, expectations, and family situations in our community now. how we overcome those not overcome them, but how we assist with those so that every student is very, very successful is so important. it even shows with their grades – and they want to be here. he resists deficit images of students and their families. by inviting the community to participate actively in important decisions, he has validated their role in the education of their students. he models acceptance and welcoming of indigenized, local identities, and describes himself as a servant leader. i've been here a long time, and sometimes we all get in a rut. we start thinking that this is what we need to do, or this is what we've done. and what i've started to see is that there are definitely different needs among our students. we have to be very, very cognizant and open to those needs. the one size fits all approach will not work. and so that is what we've been really focusing on. i think it goes back to that understanding that not everybody is like me. not everybody has been brought up in the same way, and that’s not good or bad. i'm not saying that my way is better than anybody else’s. i'm just saying everybody is brought up in a different way, and we all have different needs. i try to follow more of a servant-leader model than a top-down leader and i believe in supporting professional development for all of us. i think that is so key – to give people the knowledge about current practices to meet our ever-changing population and their changing needs in the educational system. community-based advocacy leads to trust between the educational leader and members of the community they serve (anderson, 2009). mr. taylor describes how he develops positive, meaningful relationships with the community. we are such a small district that everybody's invited for our accountability committee anybody can serve on it. and we invite people numerous times, please come serve. we usually, if we have anything that's even remotely interesting, we think it's going to be something the community really wants to talk about, we'll call a community meeting about it. you're talking 30, 40, 50 people showing up, but we'll have it in the cafeteria, and invite folks to come give us their thoughts on it. we did this recently we've been talking about a four day week. we're the only school in our area that still has a five day school hesbol, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 40 week. so, we've been talking about that, we've had some community meetings on this, and people come in – they all know they’re welcome and we want to hear what they have to say. and then we have six very active board members and they do a great job in the community. people talk to them and they'll pass along concerns or needs as they hear them as well. mr. taylor uses the community as an informative space from which to develop positive understanding about their students and families. i personally have had an opportunity to grow and be promoted from within this school and district. i went to school here, i did my student teaching here, became a teacher here, became a principal here, and now i'm the superintendent of this school district, as well. and so i've had an opportunity to grow, so i understand our values, our strengths, and the changing needs of our students in our community. i really do have an open door policy as far as people can come see me at any time, they don't need to make an appointment. they can literally walk in almost any time to see me in my office. i'm at all the district events, and they're welcome to stop me there and tell me their concerns. i live right across from the school, believe it or not, so people also will stop by my house after hours to tell me if they have concerns about anything. our community is really good. they're supportive of our students and our school. our school is the hub of this community. discussion few studies have examined the role of the rural superintendentprincipal, particularly related to the influence of that leader on student learning outcomes. further, limited research has studied the influence of the rural superintendent-principal on learning outcomes of students whose identities have been traditionally marginalized. the culturally responsive school leadership framework (khalifa, gooden, & davis, 2016) has been applied in few rural research contexts. this study examined the beliefs and practices of a rural superintendent-principal who serves as the principal of the district’s k-12 schools, a coach, substitute teacher, district maintenance director, transportation director/bus driver, curriculum director, district superintendent, business manager, and district superintendent. this dual role is one of the most complex in education, one for which few rural leaders are ever adequately trained, and the one that has the highest attrition rate nationally (curry, 2016). these findings contribute to the limited scholarship on the influence of the beliefs and practices of the superintendent-principal on the learning outcome trajectories of historically marginalized students. mr. taylor reframes activism as leadership (martin, william, green, & smith, 2019). he leads for social change within his community, and “disrupts and transforms existing institutional arrangements” (fine, 1994, p. 17). implications for research, practice, and policy this work contributes to the limited body of research knowledge on rural educational leaders, particularly the superintendentprincipal. our results showed an alignment between his beliefs and practices and student learning. it informs leadership preparation programs, as well as professional development options, about the need for contextually nuanced, culturally responsive leadership training for rural educational leaders to support the improved learning outcomes of traditionally marginalized rural students. our study has implications for understanding the influence of a rural school leader’s beliefs and practices on the successful learning outcomes of traditionally marginalized students. students pursuing an educational doctorate degree may find this study helpful in addressing their research on the critical need for culturally responsive rural leaders. while a principal is ultimately responsible for the success of every student in their school (leithwood, louis, anderson, & wahlstrom 2004), there are significant contextual differences between leaders who serve in rural and non-rural settings. identifying specific beliefs and practices used by the rural superintendentprincipal in the study school district now provides support for people who serve in that role, about which very little has been written. this study describes the superintendent-principal’s beliefs and practices, aligned with indicators of the culturally responsive school leadership framework (khalifa, 2018), with implications for rural k12 schools, for rural leadership preparation, for future research, and for policy. rural educational leaders must learn to develop culturally responsive schools, disrupting the hegemonic interpretation of local reality and engaging diverse voices of students, their families, and community members. seeking to understand funds of knowledge and the community cultural wealth (kiyama et al, 2018; moll et al, 2013; yosso, 2005) of diversifying rural community members, rather than reproducing the power of competing narratives, will support a shared vision for systemic improvement throughout rural communities. the recommendations that follow incorporate suggestions for future research related to policy, practice, and scholarship. recommended considerations for future research future studies related to increased expectations for and support of traditionally marginalized students in rural schools will contribute to a clearer understanding of the impact of the educational leader on improving learning. how can leadership preparation programs be redesigned to support the preparation of equitable rural school and district leaders, considering significant differences between their roles and responsibilities and those of their non-rural peers? how can the role conflict inherent in the rural superintendent-principal role be minimized, with a shift away from an emphasis on managerial issues and toward improving student learning (for every student) through a culturally responsive leadership lens? how can rural educational leaders collaborate through such loosely coupled structures as a networked improvement community to accelerate the improvement of leadership, teaching, and student learning outcomes, at little cost? recommended considerations for practice students pursuing the educational doctorate need to be able to demonstrate how their work impacts the field. seldom does an activism in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 41 aspiring school leader plan to become a superintendent-principal. if such an opportunity presents itself, however, that educational leader needs to understand the nuanced context of rural schools and districts. the beliefs and practices displayed by the subject of this study provide guidance for aspiring rural school and district leaders who are committed to equitable learning outcomes for every student. how can leadership preparation programs design curriculum to be responsive to the rapidly changing needs of rural school leaders, particularly in light of increasing racial, cultural, linguistic, and economic diversification of rural communities? what innovative professional development structures can inform both practitioners and researchers in the process of improving student learning in rural contexts? recommended considerations for policy policy recommendations should be designed to encompass systematic training, including district and school leadership teams comprised of administrators, teachers, students, and members of the community. how can local, state, and national policy makers support low-cost, innovative practice-research partnerships in the preparation and mentoring of culturally responsive rural educational leaders? limitations flyvbjerg (2006) stresses that the ability of a multiple case study to have generalizable findings is overestimated. in fact, he suggests that the impact of a single case study is underrated. while we did not set out to generate theory from this study, we suggest that there are important leadership lessons that can be learned by studying this case. the fact that there is only one leader studied establishes limitations, including those related to his gender, race, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, and native language. additionally, we set relatively high enrollment parameters for a school district to qualify for this study. adjusting them to include more contexts would contribute to the findings, as would the expansion of the context to additional states and regions across the country. scholarly significance of the study this study advances our knowledge of the foundational beliefs and practices of rural educational leaders that improve equitable learning for every student. these impactful beliefs and practices should be central to rural leadership preparation and serve as the bedrock of professional development. what educational leaders do and believe has especially strong impact when aligned with what teachers do collaboratively to improve student learning (goddard, goddard & tschannen-moran, 2007). evidence of mr. taylor’s alignment to behaviors from the crsl framework (khalifa, gooden, & davis, 2018) provides the reader with linkage to understand how he shaped the culture of his rural school district. these findings will be useful to inform the preparation of culturally responsive rural educational leaders, as well as to advise leadership programs to prepare leaders to 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(2008). some perspectives from rural school districts on the no child left behind act. washington, dc: center on education policy. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 43 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.134 http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 accessibility matters: universal design and the online professional practice doctorate lindsey a. chapman university of florida l.chapman@coe.ufl.edu amanda m. jackson university of florida ajackson@ufsa.ufl.edu abstract online doctoral programming geared toward working professionals can provide unprecedented flexibility in terms of time and place that affords greater access to a broader student demographic. at the same time, online learning poses its own unique set of challenges and limitations for students with and without disabilities. universal design (ud) is a framework built around the idea of proactively identifying and removing barriers to learning in the environment, pedagogical practices, and materials. in this essay, we highlight the necessity and relevance of ud to online doctoral programs and share insights related to its use in our program from faculty and student perspectives. keywords universal design, accessibility, online programs, special education recent technological and pedagogical advances in online learning allowed for programmatic development that might not have been imagined, nor possible, a century ago. the advent of the online education doctorate (ed.d.) and efforts from the carnegie project for the educational doctorate (cped) have helped (re)imagine what it means to provide rigorous and high-quality doctoral level preparation that is grounded in professional practice. online doctoral programming geared toward working professionals can provide unprecedented flexibility in terms of time (i.e., asynchronous learning opportunities) and place (i.e., geographic location) that affords greater access to a broader student demographic (roddy et al., 2017). experienced educational leaders seeking online doctoral programs tend to be older and/or with greater personal and professional commitments than their on-campus counterparts (johnson, 2015; kahu et al., 2013), so this level of flexibility is desirable and often essential. at the same time, online learning poses its own unique set of challenges and limitations. some online practices erect significant barriers for students, especially those with disabilities (burgstahler, 2015) and/or from other historically marginalized and minoritized groups (duquaine-watson, 2008). in this way, universal design (ud) is critically important in online programs. ud supports the critical examination of instructional delivery methods, the virtual learning environment, content material and technology tool selection, and opportunities for student support that have been integral to our development and improvement efforts. it encourages proactive planning with intentional reflection based around the anticipation and recognition of barriers present in the learning process and environment rather than within students (center for applied technology [cast], 2011). instead of maintaining and promoting deficit perspectives of students in traditional education spaces, ud builds on and embraces students’ diverse backgrounds, experiences, and needs (rogers-shaw et al., 2018). we contend that ud is a necessary, yet often overlooked element in online programming. in this essay, we share successes, challenges, and future possibilities related to the use of ud in our online ed.d. program. we first offer a brief history of ud and its origins beyond the educational space. we then outline the guidelines and principles of two prominent ud models as well as situating their need through examination of the barriers specific to online learning in higher education. then, we draw from our differing lenses and positionalities as program faculty/ed.d. coordinator and ed.d. student in sharing insight on the use of ud in the design, implementation, and evaluation processes of our program. we conclude with a call to action for other online doctoral programs preparing educational stakeholders across disciplines. universal design ronald mace, an architect who is widely credited for his contribution to the popularization of ud, defined the concept as a “commonsense approach to making everything we design and produce usable by everyone to the greatest extent possible” (roberts et al., 2011, p. 6). mace and others initially focused on the creation of accessible physical environments which included the development of curb cuts for wheelchair accessibility and later closed captioning on television programs for the deaf community http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7515-5013 chapman & jackson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 2 framework principles universal design for learning (cast, 2011) 1. provide multiple means of representation a. provide options for perception b. provide options for language and symbols c. provide options for comprehension 2. provide multiple means of action and expression a. provide options for physical action b. provide options for expression and communication c. provide options for executive function 3. provide multiple means of engagement a. provide options for recruiting interest b. provide options for sustaining effort and persistence c. provide options for self-regulation universal instructional design (higbee, 2009) 1. creating welcoming classrooms 2. determining essential components of a course 3. exploring use of natural supports for learning 4. designing teaching methods that consider diverse learning modalities, abilities, ways of knowing, and previous experience 5. communicating clear expectations 6. promoting interaction between faculty and students 7. providing timely and constructive feedback 8. creating multiple ways for students to demonstrate knowledge table 1. principles of prominent ud frameworks (jimenez et al., 2007). during the 1970s, the concept of ud moved beyond the removal of physical barriers for people with disabilities to emphasize integration of all people across all settings and environments (roberts et al., 2011). in recent decades, the concept of ud has been expanded for pk-20 educational environments through the development of adapted frameworks such as universal design for learning (udl; rose & meyer, 2000) and universal instructional design (uid; higbee, 2009) whose principles are highlighted in table 1. while there are nuanced differences across the two models, each operates under the recognition that the structures and “disabled curriculum” (rappolt-schlichtmann et al., 2012) commonly utilized within educational environments create barriers to learning for students with and without disabilities. therefore, these ud approaches emphasize universal accessibility to learning by “reorient[ing] how knowledge is defined, obtained, and expressed” (rogers-shaw et al., 2018, p. 21). in online contexts, ud can be strategically interwoven into every aspect of programming (i.e., design, implementation, and evaluation) to meet a wide variety of student needs and learning preferences while simultaneously leveraging their existing knowledge and strengths. popularized by the center for applied special technology (cast), udl is widely known and utilized, especially in k-12 educational contexts. rather than a single practice or method, udl is a framework based around the what, how, and why of learning. according to cast (2011), its three principles guide educators to provide multiple means of 1) representation (i.e., what learners access to gain understanding or information), 2) action and expression (i.e., how learners demonstrate their understanding of the content), and 3) engagement (i.e., why the learner engages in the learning process). educators are also encouraged to team these principles with a backwards design process that first considers clear and measurable outcomes before identifying potential barriers that need to be addressed (smith & basham, 2014). though udl can be applicable across educational settings, uid is an extension of udl, providing explicit guidance for higher education contexts (rao, 2013). according to higbee (2009), uid has eight guiding principles that are rooted in physical presence, effective and efficient communication, diverse teaching methods and assessment measures, and collaboration amongst others. it provides specific, alternative approaches to traditional educational practices that marginalize non-traditional students in all learning environments, including online and virtual spaces (rao & tanner, 2011). the udl and uid frameworks are complementary rather than contradictory. both emphasize a process of anticipating barriers and learning needs, developing targeted assessment and the instructional experience, and finally, fostering ongoing opportunities for critical reflection (smith & basham, 2014). barriers in online learning with the increased demand for online learning, there needs to be broader recognition of the issues unique to this type of instructional delivery. generally speaking, online learning may pose barriers for students caused by ambiguity and/or uncertainty about expectations, overreliance on text-based learning modalities, isolation and lack of community, and technology challenges (rao, 2013). palmer and caputo (2003) offered several guiding questions that can support the identification of these types of barriers in online courses such as: 1) are there major areas of confusion or inconsistency among course objectives, your own expectations, and/ or how the course is presented?, 2) does the course offer enough choice accessibility matters impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 3 so that students can, to a reasonable extent, demonstrate their competency in a way that suits their needs and abilities?, 3) might students have any difficulties accessing course materials or participating in any essential activities related to this class?, and 4) is some information in the course presented exclusively in a format that might be inaccessible to some students? (p. 13) barriers in online learning may affect all students but are also likely intensified for some groups. for example, students from historically marginalized racial, ethnic, and/or socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to have limited access to digital resources and be affected by the digital divide while being susceptible to greater feelings of isolation from their peers (duquaine-watson, 2008). students with disabilities may also experience greater barriers in online environments. this is especially true when there are uncaptioned videos, images without alternative text, or information is provided in disorganized and uncategorized formats (burgstahler, 2015). once identified, the guidelines and principles of ud are intended to support educators in removing barriers for all students across all aspects of a program (i.e., design, implementation, and evaluation; see table 2). potential barrier example of ud applied to program and course design example of ud applied to implementation example of ud applied to evaluation ambiguity and uncertainty of expectations build consistent and organized lms sites encourage students to communicate needs and preferences establish and modify goal setting and evaluation throughout the program excessive reliance on textbased learning and assessment design a variety of assessment formats (presentations, papers, videos, group work) aligned to course objectives and goals provide multimodal course materials and assignments that are scaffolded and organized on the lms utilize course mid-semester and end of the semester evaluations that assess for accessibility of materials and assignments isolation and lack of community establish program cohorts while providing multiple outlets of connection provide opportunities for synchronous and asynchronous learning to increase peer communication and engagement review communication with students and amongst students to increase availability and formal/informal participation relevance to professional roles/ context establish course content that connects relevance and value to practical, real-world applications and problem solving across professional contexts provide choices for students in terms of topics, readings, and other assignment tasks adjust courses and assignments regularly to account for changes in students’ professional contexts and roles table 2. examples of practices that support ud in the online professional practice doctorate universal design and online professional practice doctorate programs the online doctor of education (ed.d.) in special education program at the university of florida is a professional practice doctorate program designed to develop scholarly practitioners who can serve as advocates for individuals with disabilities within schools and the community. in many ways, the decision to develop an online ed.d. was uncharted, and necessary, territory for our faculty. its first group of students began in 2018 and was built around the principles and guidance of the cped framework. consistent with the broader trends of online learners in graduate education programs, our students are full-time working professionals. they support students with disabilities in varied capacities across the spectrum of pk-20 education and bring diverse experiences and identities into the program. we share in rogers-shaw et al.’s (2018) assertion that, “to teach, to learn, to develop programs and curricula is to engage, develop, and appreciate, not simply the content and learning objectives themselves, but also, primarily, the interaction of learners’ unique histories, abilities, cultures, and characteristics” (p. 23). as faculty in online programs, we need to think carefully not just about our program goals and coursework, but about our students. this means building on their rich practical knowledge and experience as educational leaders and emerging scholarly practitioners in their doctoral journeys. it also means recognizing that our students are balancing varied personal and professional responsibilities and the educational demands of doctoral study in an online environment. thus, the principles of ud guide our faculty in the identification and removal of barriers to their learning. we use our respective lenses, one author as program faculty and the other as a student, to share our perspectives on the embeddedness of ud into the design and development, implementation, and evaluation of our program in the following sections. design and development some of the most critical features of ud (e.g., development of clear and measurable outcomes) are standard development practices in online graduate education programs, especially in those influenced by the cped framework. the design process for our online ed.d. program involved the development of a competency matrix based on guidance from cped and professional organizations in the field of special education. this matrix helped structure the student outcomes that were then mapped onto our respective courses, with key assessments and advising/mentoring structures serving as important checkpoints in students’ progression through the program. while the general structure has remained the same in the three years since our program began, it has been updated and adapted to reflect changes in the population and number of students we serve. chapman & jackson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 4 there are two main considerations for online course design and development: a) technology (e.g., learning management systems [lms], video conferencing platforms) and b) pedagogy (e.g., instructional materials and strategies) that can be informed by ud (rao & tanners, 2011). our courses are housed in the canvas lms and organized into easily navigable modules that include clearly identifiable objectives and goals, materials (e.g., texts, videos, links, audio files), assignments, and multimodal spaces for dialogue and collaboration. they are designed to utilize both synchronous and asynchronous approaches to instructional delivery by capitalizing on the integration of external platforms like zoom and perusall into canvas. student cohorts also have access to a group advising shell in their canvas sites to make program related documents, updates, and announcements easily accessible while contained within one system. student perspective starting a doctoral journey while being a working professional with several competing responsibilities felt challenging for me at first. faculty who provided clear expectations during the first week of class helped to alleviate my anxiety of how time should be prioritized. the syllabus is by far one of the most important components for students because it allowed me to proactively review the requirements of the assignments and develop a plan of action for managing newfound responsibilities. i also found the syllabus to be a starting point for the foundation of an inclusive environment that made me more comfortable in my new learning space. for example, several courses in our program included an accessibility statement (see figure 1) on the syllabus which set the tone for a course that would be supportive of different learning preferences and professional goals. seeing the structure of the syllabus complemented in a well-organized canvas shell was also essential. it allowed me the structure i needed to focus on course content without additional difficulties in navigating the online environment. figure 1. example of an accessibility statement from a course syllabus additionally, it was also evident to me as a student that program faculty carefully selected texts and course materials that could be tailored to students' individual educational environments which encouraged sustained effort and interest in progressing through the program. as each course built upon the other, the courses did not feel disjointed or unattached to the end goal of the doctoral journey, our dissertation in practice. moreover, i was encouraged to take ownership, autonomy, and creativity in determining the direction of my doctoral program to meet my personal professional goals. this is particularly important in our program given the wide variety of professional contexts represented by our students. implementation burgstahler (2015) advocated for a universally designed online course that will allow students to utilize their preferred method of engagement and expression in order to combat the potential inaccessible features or design elements. students are encouraged to engage with a wide array of multimodal learning materials beyond traditional academic text and to use a multitude of formats and platforms in completing their assignments. for example, video and audio formats are increasingly being used to foster dialogue between both faculty and students in course discussion forums asynchronously. it is worth noting that platforms like zoom and youtube can auto-generate captions and/or transcripts for these videos and media, providing additional options for how information can be consumed by peers and faculty. further, many of our courses are also built around semester long projects that are chunked into manageable sections and due at various stages of the semester to check for understanding (cast, 2011). in these tasks, students are given opportunities to translate and contextualize course content into their professional settings in addition to frequent and timely feedback in that process. one lingering challenge we have faced in terms of implementation has been varying degrees of preparedness among our program faculty for online teaching generally, and ud embedded online teaching specifically. while there is vast familiarity with the concept of ud, translating these principles into digital, higher education spaces has come with its own set of difficulties. the proactive nature of ud makes the process of implementation nonlinear; while some barriers can easily be anticipated, others cannot. implementation also requires an iterative process of trial and error that takes time and continued professional learning. as a relatively new program with faculty of mixed levels of experience in teaching doctoral level courses online, we are still working on facilitating this process more consistently across the program. we have begun to foster collaborative systems, like course shadowing, whereby faculty can learn from one another by experiencing ud implemented in other program courses. however, more opportunities for education and development are needed and planned in the coming years. student perspective engaging within a learning environment after potentially spending years in the work environment can require students to go through a huge learning curve due to changes in technology and instructional methods. from the student perspective, what stood out most in implementation was faculty who paid close attention to their instructor presence in the course. this was done through providing video feedback with transcripts on discussion board posting and assignments which built in the face-to-face component in an online learning environment. providing students with timely feedback on semester long projects chunked into smaller assignments allowed me to apply the feedback, thus improving my skills throughout the course. likewise, feedback focused on the growth of the scholarly practitioner versus the letter grade, allowing me the freedom to experience the iterative process of problem-solving and inquiry. additionally, faculty were consistently cognizant of the importance of applicability to content and time commitments which greatly impacted the student experience. faculty also allowed flexibility and choice making when scheduling synchronous learning experiences and office hours due to students balancing multiple personal and professional commitments. by providing this flexibility in scheduling, i had easy access to my faculty for guidance, mentorship, and feedback. synchronous meetings each semester for each cohort of students accessibility matters impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 5 served as a space for students to vocalize feedback about their courses, provide an update on the cohort's progression in the program, and offer easily implementable skills, such as building a professional social media network. these meetings increased morale and the feeling of community amongst students, an important feature of online programming. evaluation smith and basham (2014) provided the following questions to guide the processes of critical reflection and improvement based on ud models: ● were outcomes as planned? did all learners meet desired high-expectations? ● what data support your inference? ● what instructional strategies worked well? ● how could the use of instructional strategies be improved? ● what tools worked well? how could the use of tools be improved? students and program faculty have multiple opportunities for both formal and informal feedback, dialogue, and reflection within and beyond their respective courses. these data provide useful insight for reflecting on the ways in which our program design and implementation are successful in removing barriers for students. in evaluating formal and informal feedback on our program and courses, we noticed a trend consistent with other literature on ud in higher education (i.e., rao, 2013). students have had more favorable evaluations and responses to the courses that most strongly align and incorporate the principles of ud. the evaluation process can also inform improvement. our program was not initially designed to utilize a cohort structure; instead, we used a rolling admissions process whereby students were admitted to the program each semester during the first two years of the program. what we had initially thought of as increased flexibility for students had instead created additional barriers to student success that we had to address. applying the principles of ud into this process allowed us to develop a structured and sequential program plan while maintaining consideration of student interest and decision-making related to coursework. because it was important to our faculty to maintain some aspect of flexibility and student choice related to coursework, we embedded 12 credits for student-selected specialization coursework (e.g., dyslexia, professional development, disability in society), but structured these opportunities into the course sequence. these courses were paired with students’ foundational courses through the first four semesters of study. reviewing and addressing the program structure allowed for more intentionality in terms of how students’ background knowledge was supplemented through each course. student perspective as a student, it was evident to me that the program faculty was consistently finding ways to improve students’ experience both within and beyond individual courses. through listening to the voices of students, faculty would adjust and respond. for example, i collaboratively led and faculty-supported our effort to foster informal communication avenues through microsoft teams, virtual social gatherings, and a peer accountability system that had not previously been part of the program design. these informal, student-centered spaces provided opportunities for relationship and community building within and across cohorts. in an online learning environment, i felt disconnected to my peers and faculty; however, efforts to increase collaborative learning through formal instructional methods and informal student-led initiatives in response to our feedback helped strengthen the accessibility of our program. a call to action the advent of online programs has enabled greater access to doctoral study for working professionals without the traditional constraints associated with time and location. in many ways, online programs, especially those guided by the cped framework, have pushed the boundaries of doctoral study in a way that would have been impossible a century or even decades ago. yet these changes necessitate intentional shifts in practice that center and prioritize accessibility for students. as asserted by jiménez et al. (2007), “we cannot expect teachers and school professionals to change the way they provide instruction and collaborate without expecting universities to change the way they prepare educational professionals infield” (p. 51). in using ud as a means of changing the way we prepare our students, we have learned that it is imperative to listen to and center student voices in programmatic decision-making. we have also learned that we need to remain positioned for growth as new barriers emerge from changing contexts and circumstances within our institution and beyond. so, where do we go from here? as a program, we continue to grapple with how to further our quest for a more socially just and equity-oriented educational environment. we will persist in providing opportunities for faculty collaboration and development, eliciting feedback from students, and looking to cped for continued guidance. in the coming years, we plan to focus these efforts on the critical evaluation of our major program milestones (e.g., qualifying examinations, dissertation-in-practice) with ud in mind in order to push the boundaries of what constitutes knowledge and how it is represented. we also hope to engage with other ed.d. programs across disciplines around issues of equity and how this idea can be operationalized with accessibility at the forefront. we move forward in these pursuits guided by the assertion by perry and colleagues (2020) that “change in higher education is incredibly difficult, but it is doable” (p. 5). as a program focused on preparing educational professionals to support students with disabilities, embodying the guidelines and principles of ud is also an essential means of ‘practicing what we teach and preach’. but its importance is not limited to special education programs. given the unique complexities and barriers inherent in online learning, ud can and should be an integral part of the online professional practice doctorate across disciplines. we hope that this essay inspires our colleagues to focus on accessibility and opportunities to utilize ud; but, start small. this may mean working together to identify potential barriers in the context of your program and discipline, carefully examine the ud principles, and assess the extent to which they may already be evident in varied aspects of your program. from there, consider focusing on a single course or a specific ud principle as an incremental next step. these efforts can be scaled up over time in tandem with ongoing feedback from students. it may not be easy, but it will be worth it. utilizing ud helps us in our shared goal of reimagining the how, why, and what of doctoral study without compromising the rigor and relevance chapman & jackson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.184 6 necessary to prepare scholarly practitioners who are agents of change in their professional practice. author note we have no known conflict of interest to disclose. correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to lindsey a. chapman, school of special education, school psychology, and early childhood studies, university of florida, email: l.chapman@coe.ufl.edu. references burgstahler, s. (2015). opening doors or slamming them shut? online learning practices and students with disabilities. social inclusion, 3(6), 69-79. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v3i6.420 center for applied technology. (2011). universal design for learning guidelines version 2.0. http://www.cast.org duquaine-watson, j. m. (2008). computing technologies, the digital divide, and “universal” instructional methods. in j. l. higbee & e. goff (eds.) pedagogy and student services in institutional transformation: implementing universal design in higher education (pp. 437-449). university of minnesota center for research on developmental education and urban literacy. https://www.cehd.umn.edu/passit/docs/ pass-it-book.pdf higbee, j. l. (2009). implementing universal instructional design in postsecondary courses and curricula. journal of college teaching & learning, 6(8), 65-77. https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v6i8.1116 jimenez, t. c., graf, v. l., & rose, e. (2007). gaining access to general education: the promise of universal design for learning. issues in teacher education, 16(2), 41-54. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej796250 johnson, g. m. (2015). on-campus and fully-online university students: comparing demographics, digital technology use and learning characteristics. journal of university teaching & learning practice, 12(1). https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol12/iss1/4 kahu, e. r., stephens, c., leach, l., & zepke, n. (2013). the engagement of mature distance students. higher education research & development, 32(5), 791-804. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.777036 palmer, j. & caputo, a. (2003). the universal instructional design implementation guide. https://cer.jhu.edu/files/uid-implementation-guide-v6.pdf perry, j. a., zambo, d., & abruzzo, e. (2020). faculty leaders challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 rao, k. (2013). universal instructional design of online courses: strategies to support non-traditional learners in postsecondary environments. in s. burgstahler (ed.). universal design in higher education: promising practices. http://www.uw.edu/doit/udhepromising-practices/uid_online. html rao, k., & tanners, a. (2011). curb cuts in cyberspace: universal instructional design for online courses. journal of postsecondary education and disability, 24(3), 211-229. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej966125 rappolt-schlichtmann, g., daley, s. g., & rose, t. l. (2012). a research reader in universal design for learning. harvard education press. roberts, k. d., park, h. j., brown, s., & cook, b. (2011). universal design for instruction in postsecondary education: a systematic review of empirically based articles. journal of postsecondary education and disability, 24(1), 5-15. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej941728 roddy, c., amiet, d. l., chung, j., holt, c., shaw, l., mckenzie, s., ... & mundy, m. e. (2017). applying best practice online learning, teaching, and support to intensive online environments: an integrative review. frontiers, 2(59), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2017.00059 rogers-shaw, c., carr-chellman, d. j., & choi, j. (2018). universal design for learning: guidelines for accessible online instruction. adult learning, 29(1), 20-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159517735530 rose, d. h., & meyer, a. (2000). universal design for learning. journal of special education technology, 15(1), 67-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/016264340101600208 smith, s. j., & bashman, j. d. (2014). designing online learning opportunities for students with disabilities. teaching exceptional children, 46(5), 127137. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059914530102 http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/si.v3i6.420 http://www.cast.org/ https://www.cehd.umn.edu/passit/docs/%20pass-it-book.pdf https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v6i8.1116 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej796250 https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol12/iss1/4 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.777036 https://cer.jhu.edu/files/uid-implementation-guide-v6.pdf https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 http://www.uw.edu/doit/udhepromising-practices/uid_online.%20html http://www.uw.edu/doit/udhepromising-practices/uid_online.%20html https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej966125 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej941728 https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2017.00059 https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159517735530 https://doi.org/10.1177/016264340101600208 https://doi.org/10.1177/016264340101600208 https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059914530102 lindsey a. chapman university of florida amanda m. jackson university of florida universal design barriers in online learning universal design and online professional practice doctorate programs design and development student perspective implementation student perspective evaluation student perspective a call to action author note references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 54 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 redefining roles: female scholars’ reflections and recommendations for coping during the covid-19 pandemic kelly j. brochu regis college department of education kelly.brochu@regiscollege.edu amanda j. jensen regis college department of education ajen891@regiscollege.edu regina m. m. robinson regis college department of education rrob589@regiscollege.edu trina r. bryant regis college department of education tbry303@regiscollege.edu danielle r. desjardins regis college department of education ddes267@regiscollege.edu lauren g. bent regis college department of education lauren.bent@regiscollege.edu abstract the objective of this article is to amplify the stories of female doctoral students and their passage through role conflicting periods of uncertainty and trauma. specifically, this article highlights how the covid-19 pandemic and racial unrest in the u.s. have impacted women pursuing doctorates in education. in addition to sharing personal reflections and experiences, the authors have outlined resources and recommendations for those who support doctoral students. through the diverse perspectives of five students and one faculty member in the edd in higher education leadership program at regis college, this article explores the lived experiences of second-year doctoral students during an incredible period of uncertainty. douglas t. hall’s model of coping serves to frame content around the many conflicting roles these students have been navigating and found to be exacerbated during the year 2020. this article seeks to empower leaders to re-envision approaches to support doctoral students through future crises and periods of uncertainty. keywords edd student, doctoral student, covid-19, role conflict, female scholar, scholar practitioner, coping strategies. the covid-19 pandemic posed significant challenges to edd students in a higher education leadership program, as jobs, doctoral work, and home-life collide, and every role and responsibility demanded more time. as second-year doctoral students, we have no longer been able to employ the strategies that initially helped us manage our multiple roles while persisting through our edd program. it is under these circumstances of conflicting roles that we have examined the role conflict of women in edd programs during the pandemic through a self-narrative. through these narratives, we explore the experiences of six women, diverse in age, race, religion, marital status, parental responsibilities, economic status, and occupations within higher education. five of us are second-year students in an edd program, and one is our faculty member and administrator for the edd program. while understanding the biases we bring to this discussion as scholarly practitioners, we are aiming to raise awareness and recognize the growth that takes place in fostering meaningful relationships, particularly in the context of role conflict management. additionally, we strive to increase the scarcity of research that exists that explores coping mechanisms and support structures designed for scholarly practitioners in edd programs. problem of practice in addition to the overwhelming stress and uncertainty experienced during the covid-19 pandemic, women also experienced an increase in the gender-specific pressures imposed on them. these pressures came in the form of higher performance expectations despite decreased support or resources, harsher criticism for mistakes made, and unfair penalties for being mothers or caregivers (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). for women in higher education, the impact of these biases often creates challenges that include a struggle to engage in scholarly work, establish a healthy work-life-balance, and prioritize career advancement through refuting the additional service work that http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:kelly.brochu@regiscollege.edu mailto:ajen891@regiscollege.edu mailto:rrob589@regiscollege.edu mailto:tbry303@regiscollege.edu mailto:ddes267@regiscollege.edu mailto:lauren.bent@regiscollege.edu redefining roles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 55 hinders leadership and scholarly productivity. this can lead to women remaining in lower levels of leadership than their male counterparts (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). since mid-march, the pandemic has added an additional layer of stress to everyday worklife balance; simultaneously, racial unrest throughout the u.s. intensified due to the murders of unarmed black americans. as our society was transitioning to stay at home orders, a 26-year-old black woman named breonna taylor was shot and killed by police in her louisville home. in the weeks to follow, video footage surfaced that showcased the murder of 25-year-old ahmaud arbery, a black man shot and killed by white men while jogging in his georgia neighborhood. this dramatic footage sent palpable shockwaves across the country and left people stuck at home, watching the news, and grappling with the realities of racism on american soil. several weeks later, raw video footage emerged of the murder of george floyd, a black man in minnesota, who was killed in broad daylight while apprehended by local police. this footage seemed to be the final spark necessary to ignite the fire of outrage across the united states. smithsonian secretary lonnie g. bunch wrote that the killing of floyd has “forced the country to confront the reality that, despite gains made in the past 50 years, we are still a nation driven by inequality and racial division” (solly, 2020, para. 1). shortly after these events, protests broke out across the globe with protestors demanding justice for the lives lost. compounded with the continued trauma of the covid-19 pandemic, these racial protests and sincere fear of personal safety upended our sense of normalcy, required us to develop new ways to cope, and forced us to reevaluate the roles we held in our lives. theoretical framework: coping as a woman robert l. kahn’s concept of inter-role conflict encompasses one’s understanding of how the pressures from identified roles, such as identifying as a scholarly practitioner, doctoral student, and as an employee for an institution of higher education, may present conflicting obligations between one another (kahn et al., 1964). scholarly practitioners, specifically in higher education, hold roles with the utmost responsibility; to approach problems in practice through reputable research in tandem with fostering collaboration with institution stakeholders (cped, 2020). furthering kahn et al.’s (1964) work, douglas t. hall (1972) developed a model of coping which suggests that women often take on multiple roles concurrently, which presents inter-role conflict due to competing demands such as being a wife, mother, caregiver, and employee. these experiences are different from their male counterparts, as women maintain these responsibilities while remaining in lower levels of leadership (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). this theory also encompassed three levels of coping as applied to college-educated women: “structural role definition,” “personal role redefinition,” and “reactive role behavior.” the “reactive role behavior” coping style describes the attempt to satisfy all directives from role-senders by enhancing performance in occupied roles (hall, 1972). hall’s (1972) findings demonstrated that college-educated women often embody this coping type by working as hard as possible, enhancing planning and organization skills without grasping a firm, long-term strategy. based on our own experiences, we employed the “reactive role behavior” coping style in the early stages of the pandemic, through self-identified passion, resilience, and dedication to the roles occupied; yet the confidence to maintain such a superior quality of service is not necessarily as significant. our individual narratives highlight feeling the need to “do it all,” which included daily job performance, transitioning children to remote learning, and completing an increased amount of household tasks, all while accomplishing edd coursework. often this “do it all” mentality meant compromising self-care coping strategies and putting others before ourselves. the second type of hall’s coping, “personal role redefinition,” is deemed a defense mechanism (1972). this occurs when individuals change the personal interpretation of the demands received from role-senders (hall, 1972). in our experiences, role senders included our supervisors, direct reports, students, spouses, partners, children, and edd faculty members. hall’s (1972) findings reveal that collegeeducated women exhibit this through establishing priorities for role responsibilities. this manifests as prioritizing one role over another; causing one to overlook or eliminate required role tasks from the role sender and divert away from roles geared towards self-focused interest (hall, 1972). the use of this coping style intensified as we continued to be challenged with managing the escalating responsibilities attributed to each role we held. since the beginning of the pandemic, students were forced to cope with losses, on all fronts, in ways that had not been explored before. we filled voids left by the loss of loved ones due to covid-19 and the shift from a sense of normalcy with coursework for the edd program and increased connections with classmates. funerals were postponed, and significant milestones were left uncelebrated. we discovered the necessity to re-evaluate what needed to be done to meet the immediate needs of the moment sometimes facing conflicts between personal and professional needs. hall’s (1972) final coping strategy, “structural role definition,” can be achieved through altering the structured expectations imposed by others, such as the role-senders (hall, 1972). at the onset of the summer term, nearly one year after we began our edd program, we exhibited coping strategies that embodied “structural role redefinition.” during this period, our collective narratives revealed a greater level of self-confidence that fueled the need to reevaluate our roles with role-senders as the pandemic continued. in doing so, we shared how we initiated conversations pertaining to ways in which responsibilities could be adapted to complement work objectives as well as personal trajectories. in the workplace, additional tasks such as committee membership and appointments to various task forces, are assumed as part of the commitment to community or contractual obligations; women are frequently asked to take on more commitments than men (babcock et al., 2017). through these extraneous and unexpected service obligations, women find themselves in a potential dilemma of having to choose between serving as the female representation on multiple committees or following personal pursuits that lead to promotions such as research or publications (babcock et al., 2017). research also indicates that service, such as committee work, is less valued than scholarship in promotional considerations (babcock et al., 2017). this disparity in task distribution furthers the difficulty of women ascending in leadership faculty ranks (babcock et al., 2017; guarino & borden, 2017; mitchell & hesli, 2013). while this disparity is experienced differently by each of us, we have all benefited from the support of peers and faculty in our edd brochu, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 56 program in further developing our confidence to continue to act as change agents in our respective roles both in and out of our edd program. it is in these challenges that we are demonstrating hall’s “structural role definition” as it relates to gender bias in higher education leadership. coping as a black woman role conflict created a different set of needs surrounding "structural role definition" for black women as they faced the punctuated equilibrium caused by covid-19 and racial unrest throughout the country. these detriments that turned people’s lives and workplaces upside down exposed the local and global community to the pre-existing health and educational disparities faced by communities of color. the three groups facing these distinct challenges are mothers, senior-level women, and black women (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). walkington (2017) argued that black women faculty often feel “relegated to race-specific positions considered not as academic, have limited access to mentors who can understand their unique experiences and insights, and help move them toward research grants, full time faculty appointments and achieving tenure” (p. 55). this reality often means that black faculty and other faculty of color experience what writer and watson (2019) referred to as “service stress” (p. 38). as mentioned previously, babcock et al. (2017) argued that women are asked more often than their male counterparts to participate in such service, which can benefit the community, but can also hinder scholarly work that is more likely to be celebrated and lead to career advancement. this dynamic can cause service stress, where female faculty and faculty of color are asked and, in some cases, feel pressured, to volunteer for additional service activities beyond their responsibilities (babcock et al. 2017). service stress can impact the well-being of faculty and lead to retention issues. for example, walkington (2017) suggested that the inability of higher education institutions to recruit and retain faculty of color is in part due to this dynamic. in an attempt to create more inclusive environments and to address diversity deficits, educators of color are frequently asked and expected to engage in service activities, such as mentoring all of the new faculty, staff, and students from marginalized groups, helping to facilitate dialogues, and professional development on race, equity, and diversity; undertakings that are in addition to their required work, and are not often rewarded or highlighted in the same way as other responsibilities. some faculty of color who leave an institution report that they felt overwhelmed and stressed by the number of committees they were expected to participate in and the additional responsibilities that they were asked to take on. as a person of color, serving as this representation on multiple committees can be time-consuming and both physically and emotionally taxing. these experiences can also compromise mental health as well as scholarship work (walkington, 2017; writer & watson, 2019). in comparison to women of other races and ethnic backgrounds, black women face more systemic barriers, receive less support from managers, and experience more acute discrimination (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). this adds to the need to address role senders about “structural role definition” and the specific needs of employees of color during this time. our experiences* *in some cases, pseudonyms have been used in this section. dianna the experience of enduring the pandemic while being an edd student, a spouse, and a mom of a pre-teen has been distressing, disjointed, upended, and surreal. covid-19 disrupted everything from faith relations and home-life to work and school obligations. while most americans felt the brunt of the pandemic’s force in midmarch, i was impacted in january when exchange students from china residing with my family were first alerted to the pandemic hitting home. the rhythm and efficiency used to balance my many roles was no longer possible. in normal times, i found faith as a grounding force whose presence was greatly missed when worshiping with others was prohibited and religious services moved online. without this, the rapidly increasing demands of being a mom, a wife, a doctoral student, a professor, and a woman, all seemed to demand more time than what was available. i was forced to reprioritize and reimagine this new lifestyle and manage the new challenges and emotions that came with it. there is no going back…but looking ahead trying to imagine a brighter future that’s hard, especially when social gatherings still carry large risks, shortages of daily necessities demand a whole new way of providing what families need, and children are doing hybrid learning. alexandria as the only student who does not reside in massachusetts, i faced a challenging experience in a state that was impacted incredibly hard at the onset of the pandemic. feelings of terror, anxiety, uncertainty, and hopelessness posed struggles for me to regulate emotions and balance expectations. after losing a parent a year prior, the deadly threat of the pandemic was extremely real to my close-knit family, and the horror of possibly spreading the disease was consistently overwhelming. furthermore, at what seemed to be the height of the pandemic, racial tensions in the country were also at an incredible high, as lives of black and brown people were taken at the hands of law enforcement; these events derailed everything. my emotions were flowing, i missed class assignments, and a i had a genuine fear for what was going to happen next; it was all-consuming. there were days when i would just sit on my couch and cry as i read the news. “how could this be real?” is what i would ask myself. i love my students like family, but i was terrified to ask them how they were doing because i knew, emotionally and mentally, i could not handle their response. the guilt of not stepping up for them still lingers with me. at the lowest point, i sought professional support to manage depression and anxiety and found relief in the practice of yoga. additionally, receiving unwavering support from classmates in the edd program was the best thing to come out of this awful experience. barbara in the midst of grieving the death of a family member, nurturing the morale of student-facing professionals that i supervise, and navigating my own sense of patience and adaptability to unexpected changes, i found an anchor through my doctoral education and family. they truly served as a stable reminder of why i am redefining roles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 57 passionate and committed to continuing my heart-felt service to students and staff in higher education. i faced challenges from the pandemic from all angles, and would define my experience as grieving, humbling, eye-opening, reflective, and validating. after losing a cherished loved one to covid-19, i developed a deeper appreciation for those people closest and for the connections made with others. finding joy in more quality time and careful cohesion with a spouse brought me a profound sense of gratitude despite longing for other social connections outside of zoom. my experience in the workplace also brought along its own challenges. ensuring the safety and well-being of supervised student staff, managing the growing expectations, and the mounting uncertainty surrounding what was happening next, and struggling to balance it all while still being a supportive leader has been taxing. i found a saving grace through the reprieve in schoolwork and connecting with classmates. these bonds have given me a muchneeded anchor, something to look forward to, and something to count on. michelle this story encapsulates the experience i have had as a black woman, mom, wife, dean of student affairs, and edd student during the pandemic. closing my work laptop, i sighed deeply. it’s finally friday evening and i was exhausted as i tried to navigate the new normal of working from home while supporting virtual learning for my four children, aged 14, 12, 10, and 7. as a family, our kids looked forward to friday dance parties and movie/pizza night, while i looked forward to no cooking prep, little cleaning, and some schoolwork for my edd program. but this friday in may was different. earlier in the week, the footage of the murder of ahmaud arbery, a young black man who was shot and killed by two white men while jogging in his georgia neighborhood, was made public. the entire week was filled with heart-wrenching news reports and as a mother of two black boys and a wife to a strong black man, this news felt too burdensome for my heart to bear. friday evening, my husband and daughter wanted to jog to join the movement to #runwithahmaud while i picked up dinner, but i didn’t want them to go, fearing for their safety in light of the week’s events. feeling anxious, i later drove around looking for their route before picking up the pizza, but i couldn’t find them. the stressors of this season of life were overwhelming as my heart raced in desperation to ensure their safety. thankfully, they made it home before me and i hugged them closer that night as i then had to switch emotional gears from fear to focus as there was schoolwork that still needed to get done. ida i often felt frustration, fear, and fatigue. the impact of covid19 hit home during the spring semester as my family members and i all contracted the virus. at a time when things were already challenging with managing schoolwork and employment related obligations, i became responsible for taking care of ill family members, who were disproportionately impacted by the virus. as one of two black leaders on my campus, i was drawn in many directions and faced increasing demands and pressures to provide support to grieving students, a voice to the black campus community, and a resource for those looking to learn more about how to help. exhaustion, both mentally and physically, set in. this exhaustion was only exacerbated when i contracted covid-19. while battling covid-19, i was also enduring the nationwide racial violence and the barrage of media coverage that came with it. the daily headlines broadcasting that another black life was tragically ended too early and the public outcries for justice for the victims began to take a toll on me. as a higher education professional, the deaths of george floyd, ahmaud arbery, and breonna taylor felt different. after a meeting with students, it was a struggle to listen to students who were confused, angry and scared. one international student from uganda said that he was so scared to walk down the streets of boston and quincy that he could not leave his host families home for months. he said he did not want to stay in the united states. i honestly, did not know how to respond. how could i tell him that as an american citizen i am scared and angry too? in experiencing all of this, i found support from classmates, advisors, the practice of mindfulness, and my faith. also, saying, “no” helped me establish and strengthen boundaries and ensure that i was able to focus on what was important and not be stretched too thin. these changes afforded me more free time to rest, relax, and heal. lauren as a faculty member in an edd program, mother of two children (ages 6 and 8) and wife, the pandemic illuminated my on-going approach to manage multiple roles. prior to the pandemic, i had established a village to help me care for my children, and i had set figurative and spatial boundaries in order to raise children and fulfill job responsibilities. however, when the pandemic hit, each of my roles required more work and deeper work, and i could no longer employ the strategies i had previously used in order to fulfill my roles as a mother, wife, and associate professor. boundaries collapsed when i was working from home while simultaneously supporting two young children with distance learning and grieving the loss of a family member. in reflecting on my own experience, i recognize that, like so many of us, i was crisis teaching and crisis parenting without practicing much self-care. since the onset of the pandemic, i have practiced resetting expectations and priorities, becoming more adaptable, and providing a space for myself, my family, and my students to sit with emotions. my students had similar experiences; they have assumed more pressure in their jobs and cared for family members, and facilitated distance learning for their children, all while pursuing their edd. they, too, experienced loss, grief, uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and as their professor, i constantly thought about them and the turmoil they were experiencing as a result of the pandemic and racial justice movement. among our edd community, there has been a deep sense of vulnerability and authenticity and teaching these students has brought a sense of solace and connection for me during a time of physical distancing. coping amidst role conflict as we continued to cope during this unprecedented time, we have identified and employed strategies which have enabled us to persist through our doctoral work while fulfilling other responsibilities. specifically, there are four coping strategies that we used in order to adapt our approaches as female scholarly practitioners during the brochu, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 58 pandemic and racial protests. these strategies lead to recommendations for future scholarly practitioners who find themselves experiencing role conflict overload and for individuals and organizations who support other scholarly practitioners. one of the strategies was self-care in order to recharge. instead of visiting the local gym or recreation facility, we walked, rode bikes, or ran in our neighborhoods, often with our families. this also allowed us to escape the confinement of our homes and reimagine quality time with loved ones. as a whole, we lost our sense of self-care, neglecting ourselves while establishing a new routine for family members and putting their well-being far before our own. racial fears added concerns for black families as neighborhood outings brought what “michelle” described as a “retraumatization of ahmaud arbery’s murder and the fear this could happen to my own family.” during this time, some of us also sought professional help in order to manage our mental health. another strategy was stealing away in solitude. with constant demands and continual distractions from the news, quiet space for personal recharging became an emotional necessity of soul care. for some of us, this included religious and spiritual connections, which provided more reflective spiritual support. another source of solitude became unplugging from technology. the constant updates were depressing and anxiety inducing. moments of solitude have become a permanent addition to the new-normal providing spiritual connectedness and fueling a deeper purpose for the work we do. seeking out peer support within our edd cohort was another key strategy for coping. amongst trusted faculty and cohort members, we discussed our shared experiences in classes, study sessions, and individual connections. as the new-normal began to impact summer plans, student-mothers reached out to one another and exchanged ideas for supporting our children’s summer structure and virtual connections. the shared knowledge that students brought to our fellow classmates created a powerful bond to support the many sub-identities that, at times, compete for its share of a women’s total identity (hall, 1972). having a diverse cohort gave us the connectedness we needed to persist; an invaluable resource that we will continue to rely upon in the future. the final strategy we uncovered was satisfying doctoral program expectations with a shared commitment to persist with the end goal in mind. throughout our journey as doctoral students, we face the daunting tasks of research and meeting weekly assignment deadlines that require consistent reminders of the value of individual efforts. with each assignment, classmate check-in, and cohort discussion board, the sense of progress within the semester took us one step closer to our shared goal of persisting together. through role bargaining and repositioning of responsibilities, such as asking faculty for assignment extensions and shifting to a greater sense of mutual support, we began to reimagine the new-normal of academic persistence. the dynamic intersectionality of our roles is key to our ability to support and accentuate the coping strategies of one another in order to academically persist through our scholarly pursuit of an edd. the layers of overlapping intersectionality also allow us to experience each other in an authentic manner that enriches each of us both personally and professionally and helps us develop greater confidence as emerging leaders in higher education. recommendations for practice based on the coping strategies that we implemented throughout the covid-19 pandemic, we have identified key recommendations for practice. these may be beneficial for edd programs, edd students, and professionals who supervise edd students in the workplace. edd program 1. schedule time to process implications of crises. one of the most prominent means of coping that we have drawn from our experiences was the benefit of having scheduled time within our edd classes to process and discuss the pandemic and its implications. simply having 10 minutes to share obstacles with other students cultivated a stronger connection within the cohort while also designing an approachable space for shared strategies. students found offering space parallels between experience and the context of their courses, such as how organizational leadership applies to decision-making and communication regarding covid-19 within higher education communities. 2. continue to foster a sense of community. like many cped-influenced programs, the sense of community in our edd program among each student cohort as well as between students and faculty is strong and significant. as many of us have felt isolated during the pandemic, we appreciate the initiatives leaders in our program took to ensure that students and faculty have felt interconnected. for example, our program director sent handwritten greeting cards with a customized face mask to all cohorts. in addition, students and faculty frequently came together on zoom calls for academic meetings as well as social events, including a toast at the end of the semester. these small gestures made us feel like we had not been forgotten; we felt like we mattered. therefore, we recommend that edd programs find ways to authentically build connections; this includes student-student, faculty-faculty, and faculty-student. 3. welcome student and faculty feedback and recommendations. according to mcmillan and chavis (1986), one of the four core elements of cultivating a sense of community is influence. people feel more connected to the community and invested in a shared mission when they are empowered to influence outcomes; this is particularly relevant during times of uncertainly such as the covid19 era. as such, we recommend that edd programs continue or adopt a culture of soliciting and incorporating feedback and recommendations from students and faculty. for students, specific examples include a survey tool to determine students’ level of comfort regarding returning to campus, a course mid-semester survey tool as a temperature check, inquiring about access to synchronous online courses, and administering focus groups using zoom videoconference. for faculty, program directors should engage faculty in the edd program with decision-making; this can be done through formal meetings, email or text messages. redefining roles impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 59 4. develop an education around racial identity and systemic disparity. our narratives highlight the importance of focusing on the implications of crises on individuals of color, specifically black individuals in the united states. ensuring that program faculty and directors, as well as their students, receive ongoing and mission driven education regarding the institutional disparities that are prevalent in trauma-inducing incidents is vital to the equitable support of doctoral students. dr. conway campbell, professor in regis’ edd program, shared his intentional teaching strategy, “i have introduced more sustained ways for dialogue in the classroom on race, where students can share their experiences with their fellow classmates through structured activities, modeling honest respectful communication, and stress that there are no experts just allies engaged in social action” (c. campbell, personal communication, october 9, 2020). in order to embrace this practice, it is crucial to acknowledge and condemn what is happening and to articulate and demonstrate a commitment to advocate for black doctoral students. 5. understand and validate students’ needs to redefine roles and priorities. faculty exuding empathy and validation for students’ needs to redefine roles was highlighted as an asset to coping through covid19. finding areas of the curriculum to amend in response to students’ hardship, while maintaining rigor and desired outcomes for the course, was crucial to our feeling supported while still being held to a high standard. deadline extensions and refining assignments to have a more practical and scholarly application are strategies that demonstrate this recommendation. we also emphasize the need for edd programs to identify opportunities for students to achieve significant milestones in scholarship during the pandemic. edd students 1. know thyself. female students who are juggling multiple roles need to activate their self-awareness and selfactualization skills in order to attain realistic necessary role adjustments. the pandemic has intensified challenges that women faced. now, the supports that have been traditionally implemented by women to combat the influx of responsibilities—including school and childcare—have been upended. meanwhile, black women already faced more barriers to advancement than most other employees (mckinsey & company & lean in, 2020). it is important to propose ways to reframe the roles that one occupies that allows the desired outcomes of roles to be met, while also acknowledging the need to nourish other responsibilities that need to be managed. a theme of self-care from the narratives included the concept of gratitude alongside an appreciation for the privilege of health that one possessed during the pandemic. although at times difficult to grasp, it is imperative to focus on the purpose in one’s life, whether that be the people or the vocation that keep them moving forward. 2. know thy goals. steven covey (1989) encouraged individuals to “begin with the end in mind” in seven habits for highly effective people. covey (1989) posited, “people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren't getting very far. they, in essence, are pushing a rope with all of their might” (para 3). if earning a doctorate degree is a chief goal, then set the necessary goals for the number of years in the program. if professional advancement is a desired goal, then map out the number of promotions, projects, or tasks required to achieve the goals. setting goals provides consistency and clarity when chaos and setbacks undoubtedly surface. 3. know thy network. edd students should consider, “who is in my network?” and stay connected with personal and professional networks. women need connections, and oftentimes, staying connected with a network is a form of self-care. as noted in earlier vignettes, caring communities provide support, reinforce goals, and can help navigate personal well-being as women manage their multiple roles. this has been pivotal to our persistence during the pandemic. employers of edd students 1. create safe spaces for honest dialogue. employers can build community and foster a sense of mattering by creating space for open dialogue between faculty, staff and administration (schlossberg, 1989). this can be accomplished by scheduling virtual town hall meetings, or faculty and staff virtual coffee hours; this provides all employees the opportunity to share concerns, frustrations, and ideas. these gatherings help to limit feelings of isolation and can be a time for employees to celebrate success and stories of resilience. employers can also work with their human resource department to develop and support affinity groups represented within doctoral programs, such as for women of color and other marginalized groups (diggs et al., 2009). research suggests affinity associations can provide faculty and scholarly practitioners of color a sense of belonging, mattering, and safety that is “essential for professional success” (writer & watson, 2019, p. 38). 2. be flexible and open to making structural changes. employers can also support employees in doctoral programs by allowing them to create flexible work schedules. studies suggest that a flexible work environment can improve employee retention (maurer, 2019). for scholarly practitioners who are parents, balancing work, school, childcare, and in some cases eldercare, a flexible work schedule is specifically important for leaders who want to help their female employees persist in their program. one author noted that being able to adjust her work hours allowed her to be available for her children during the morning hours. at the same time, she was able to carve out time in the afternoon that allowed her to focus on edd work. another author expressed gratitude that the leadership team adjusted the college’s classroom schedule so that classes were not held on wednesday. instead, wednesday was used for chapel, faculty coffee, and other virtual gatherings. 3. acknowledge and address the challenges that women face. as institutions strive to support female scholars, it is important for them to acknowledge and address the obstacles that women face. this is especially important for scholars of color who face two of the most lethal preexisting conditions during a pandemic—racism and economic inequality (gould & wilson, 2020). to support female brochu, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.170 60 scholars, supervisors can publicly speak about racism and gender bias with proficiency and an interesting in learning alongside fellow employees. supervisors should also publicly condemn racism and work with human resources to implement consistent mandatory training for all employees around these issues. these trainings and conversations should provide employees of color the opportunity to share their experience, their pain, and concerns, while giving colleagues the chance to listen, to learn, and to become better allies (creary, 2020). conclusion through this manuscript, we have critically reflected on ways in which the process of coping can be supported by the student and their respective role senders during periods of trauma and crisis. in doing so, we demonstrate the foundation of what being a scholarly practitioner is by taking on the responsibility of naming the barriers faced by female doctoral students while also framing recommendations for other students and stakeholders that are grounded in supportive literature (cped, 2020). the quest for a reprieve from the prolonged state of shared trauma is one that will continue until the pandemic ends, and for many, until well after it is over. for so many, searching for some semblance of normalcy during this period of extreme uncertainty was a daunting challenge, yet each individual was able to find ways to cope with these added stressors while also developing new ways to express a sense of hope for the future. based on our reflections, the aforementioned recommendations are intended to be integrated into practice in order to benefit edd students, their professional supervisors, as well as cped-influenced edd programs. it is essential that these programs learn from students’ experiences and optimize this opportunity to reframe support structures. this support will prove to be essential as we continue to progress through a period when the accomplishments of the female doctorate are coming under fire with attempts made to diminish our progress and further suppress our voices. it will be powerful and dignified female leaders, such as dr. jill biden, who will continue to pave the way for female doctorates to demand and ultimately receive the respect that being a female scholarly practitioner warrants. in following these footsteps and our provided recommendations, edd programs can become more effective in continuing the quality education of scholarly practitioners who contribute to the leadership of 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(2017). gender differences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotability. american economic review, 107(3), 714-747. cped (2020). the cped framework. the carnegie project on the education doctorate. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/theframework#:~:text=scholarly%20practitioner%3a%20scholarly%20pract itioners%20blend,of%20equity%20and%20social%20justice creary, s. (2020, july 8). how to be a better ally to your black colleagues. harvard business review. https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-to-be-a-betterally-to-your-black-colleagues covey, s. (1989). the seven habits of highly effective people. retrieved from https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/habit-2.html diggs, g. a., garrison-wade, d. f., estrada, d., & galindo, r. (2009). smiling faces and colored spaces: the experiences of faculty of color pursuing tenure in the academy. the urban review, 41(4), 312. gould, e., & wilson,v. (2020, june 1). black workers face two of the most lethal preexisting conditions for coronavirus—racism and economic inequality. economic policy institute. retrieved from https://www.epi.org/publication/black-workers-covid/ guarino, c. m., & borden, v. m. h. (2017). faculty service loads and gender: are women taking care of the academic family? research in higher education, 58(6), 672–694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2 hall, d. (1972). a model of coping with role conflict: the role behavior of college educated women. administrative science quarterly, 17(4), 471486. doi:10.2307/2393827. kahn, r. l., wolfe, d., quinn, r., snoek, j., & rosenthal, r. (1964). organizational stress: studies in role conflict and ambiguity. wiley. maurer, r. 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(2020, june 4). 158 resources to understand racism in america. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understandingsystemic-racism-america-180975029/ walkington, l. (2017). how far have we really come? black women faculty and graduate students’ experiences in higher education. humboldt journal of social relations, 39, 51-65. writer, j. h., & watson, d. c. (2019). recruitment and retention: an institutional imperative told through the storied lenses of faculty of color. journal of the professoriate, 10(2), 23-46. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework#:~:text=scholarly%20practitioner%3a%20scholarly%20practitioners%20blend,of%20equity%20and%20social%20justice https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework#:~:text=scholarly%20practitioner%3a%20scholarly%20practitioners%20blend,of%20equity%20and%20social%20justice https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework#:~:text=scholarly%20practitioner%3a%20scholarly%20practitioners%20blend,of%20equity%20and%20social%20justice https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-to-be-a-better-ally-to-your-black-colleagues https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-to-be-a-better-ally-to-your-black-colleagues https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/habit-2.html https://www.epi.org/publication/black-workers-covid/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2 https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/flexible-work-critical-retention.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/flexible-work-critical-retention.aspx https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/women_in_the_workplace_2020 https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/women_in_the_workplace_2020 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-racism-america-180975029/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-racism-america-180975029/ kelly j. brochu regis college department of education amanda j. jensen regis college department of education regina m. m. robinson regis college department of education trina r. bryant regis college department of education danielle r. desjardins regis college department of education lauren g. bent regis college department of education problem of practice theoretical framework: coping as a woman coping as a black woman our experiences* dianna alexandria barbara michelle ida lauren coping amidst role conflict recommendations for practice edd program 1. schedule time to process implications of crises. 2. continue to foster a sense of community. 3. welcome student and faculty feedback and recommendations. 4. develop an education around racial identity and systemic disparity. 5. understand and validate students’ needs to redefine roles and priorities. edd students 1. know thyself. 2. know thy goals. 3. know thy network. employers of edd students 1. create safe spaces for honest dialogue. 2. be flexible and open to making structural changes. 3. acknowledge and address the challenges that women face. conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.161 creating community in edd programs during covid-19: challenges, strategies, and opportunities alyson adams university of florida adamsa@coe.ufl.edu gage jeter university of florida gjeter@coe.ufl.edu abstract building community in online edd programs can be a challenge, and the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of doing so. in this essay, we will situate community building within the larger community of inquiry framework and focus on the element of social presence. by understanding more about the various aspects of social presence, faculty who design and deliver online programs can build stronger learning communities with and for their edd students. keywords community, online learning, social presence in march 2020, the covid-19 pandemic demanded a shift in how we live and work, and the education world instantly turned to technological solutions to keep our professional lives and programs running with some semblance of normalcy. what we hoped was a temporary change has evolved into something more long-term and uncertain. reacting out of necessity, we responded as best we knew how in the moment, but our proactive responses now and in the future could have a lasting, positive impact on the field of education and, particularly, professional practice doctoral programs; students who are full-time professional educators; and faculty whose teaching, research, and service connects to a doctorate in education (edd) program. the seemingly endless covid-19 pandemic has unequivocally shaped and continues to inform how we approach many aspects of our work in edd programs – creating and sustaining community, in particular. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) is an organization of over 117 institutional members focused on refining and reclaiming the edd (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019a). the values of collaboration and community are woven throughout the cped framework’s guiding principles for program (re)design and program design concepts. in particular, mentoring and advising in edd programs are guided by “dynamic learning that provides open communication, critical friendships, and peer-to-peer support with reciprocal interactions and responsibilities that form a community of learners inclusive of adviser, mentor, and peer relationships” (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019b). achieving open communication, critical friendships, peer-topeer support, and reciprocal interactions should extend beyond mentor/mentee and advisor/advisee relationships, and systematically and intentionally build and sustain a community of learners. doing so in an online space in the midst of an ongoing health pandemic requires much more, including creative thinking; risk-taking; and a suspension of skepticism regarding technology resources, online teaching and learning opportunities, and individual and collective community-building capacity. currently, approximately 20% of cped-influenced edd programs are fully online while the other 80% are an equal distribution of hybrid and face-to-face (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019c). as part of the 80%, we recognize how hybrid and face-to-face programs traditionally build and sustain community through a variety of in-person experiences that, as of now, are not possible given the realities of precautionary safety measures regarding social distancing, large gatherings, air travel, and more. like us, many hybrid cped-influenced programs likely relied on in-person events to foster connections among faculty, students, and the program itself. and, like us, many programs have undoubtedly learned from successes and challenges in the recent past. to share and reflect on our learnings, we center community building by first presenting a theoretical framework developed through online learning environments in higher education, the communities of inquiry (coi) framework (garrison et al., 2000). we then discuss both the challenges faced and subsequent strategies employed in building and sustaining community in our enforced online worlds. finally, we reflect on the ways we have navigated social presence during the covid-19 pandemic and, though often hesitantly, have opened our eyes to unexpected opportunities for sustainable program improvement. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:adamsa@coe.ufl.edu mailto:gjeter@coe.ufl.edu creating community in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.161 2 communities of inquiry framework the communities of inquiry (coi) framework is based on research on collaborative, constructivist online learning environments in higher education (garrison et al., 2000). the main premise is that, contrary to popular belief during the latter part of the 20th century, computer-based environments could include a great deal of learner/instructor interactions resulting in powerful learning. the coi framework, illustrated in figure 1, is helpful in mapping out the various ways online course and program design and delivery can intentionally include structures to support a community of learners through a variety of connections. researchers identified three types of interaction or “presence”: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. figure 1: community of inquiry framework (garrison et al., n.d.) these three interrelated elements overlap to convey the complexity of creating a collaborative, constructivist community of learners. social presence allows learners to feel that they are recognized in the community for their whole personalities, cultural experiences, and backgrounds. rourke et al. (2001) illustrate affective, interactive, and cohesive features of social presence, including expression of emotions, use of humor, asking questions, expressing agreement, and referencing a group using inclusive pronouns. cognitive presence focuses on the construction of knowledge through discourse and reflection and centers critical thinking and practical inquiry processes and outcomes (castellanosreyes, 2020; garrison et al., 2001). defined by anderson et al. (2001) as the “design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes” (p. 5), teaching presence relates to the actions of the instructor to construct and implement an interactive, engaging, well-facilitated learning environment. although scholarship centering the social, cognitive, and teaching dimensions of a coi framework has been available for 20 years, the prevalence of online learning (not to mention its necessity in times of a pandemic) has brought a new wave of faculty to the complexities and joys of these three interrelated concepts in online learning environments. challenges to building and sustaining community online as we now live and work primarily in online communities of inquiry, one of the most obvious challenges is the lack of non-verbal cues we rely on in interpersonal communication (arasaratnam-smith & northcote, 2017). while video-based conferencing can somewhat alleviate this constraint, there are some non-verbals that cannot be communicated by webcam: spatial proximity, body language/posture, and eye contact, to name a few. technology, itself, adds challenges to building community when you consider frustration with technology problems (malfunctioning computers, unreliable wifi), lack of technical skills and experiences (limited knowledge of specific web 2.0 tools or computer programs), or technophobia (disliking or avoiding situations involving the use of technology). we are also facing new challenges that became ubiquitous in 2020: when covid-19 sent working adults and students home, zoom, one of the most popular, free online video-conferencing tools, gave us a new visceral reaction known as “zoom fatigue.” this phenomenon may be related to the hyper-attention on facial expressions brought on by the ability to see everyone (including yourself) in boxes on the computer screen, as well as the pressure to maintain a constant gaze to signify you are paying attention (fosslien & duffy, 2020). while some of these challenges are real (malfunctions, for example), others are simply perceived and can be overcome. but they must be overcome intentionally, something that might have been neglected when covid-19 caused a rush to emergency remote instruction. researchers at indiana university’s pervasive technology institute (pti; 2020) recently surveyed students and instructors to examine and respond to remote instruction that took place in spring 2020 due to covid-19. surveys of over 6000 students and 1500 faculty in teacher roles indicated 74% of students and 67% of instructors felt disconnected and lost their sense of community during this remote instruction. pti utilized survey results to propose four recommendations, two of which were related to community building: a) to increase opportunities for teacher-student interaction, and b) to foster virtual community, particularly student to student interaction. these recommendations are, in essence, directing us to enhance social presence. social presence thinking about community building in a face-to-face setting might call to mind icebreakers and introductions. while these are certainly possible in online spaces, there needs to be an even more intentional focus on building social presence throughout the entirety of a learning experience – a semester-long course, a four-year doctoral program, a one-week intensive institute – rather than only at the beginning. operating in a virtual space can leave learners feeling isolated, and they may feel some of the challenges outlined in the previous section. we should attend to this key component of the community of inquiry (coi) framework’s goal of creating deep and meaningful learning experiences. social presence is, in fact, the essence of community and connections, and is necessary in the design and delivery of online courses and programs built on a foundation of social-constructivism. adams and jeter impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.161 3 social presence can be broken down into five elements: affective association, community cohesion, instructor involvement, interaction intensity, and knowledge and experience (whiteside et al., 2017; see figure 2). similar to the overarching coi framework, these categories overlap, as many elements of powerful constructivist learning environments reflect the interdependent nature of the relationship among learners, facilitators, and content. for example, the category of instructor involvement is listed under social presence to represent the intentional acts of the instructor to build community through powerful instruction. however, the broader coi category of teacher presence also reflects the intentional actions of an instructor to provide visible, facilitated guidance to learners during instruction. though other scholars have explored the connections between teacher presence and the other categories in relation to learner-centered education (swan et al., 2020), our experiences necessitate a focus on the overlapping elements of social presence. figure 2: elements of social presence (institute of education sciences, 2020) affective association establishing emotional connections, including using humor and sharing and learning about one another's lives, is a central component of social presence. an example of this might be a faculty member sharing pictures of their family and pets, along with personal and professional connections to the content of a course. in our program, we provide preview videos for upcoming courses that are informal, personable, and humanizing so that we might dismantle positions of power in the faculty role. faculty members share a bit about themselves in these videos and why the course content is especially important. in addition, students might begin a course by posting a video of themselves in their favorite study space at home to introduce themselves to the cohort. activities like this allow students and faculty to communicate warmth and emotion, as well as to present the parts of their personae that make them who they are as they join the community as co-learners. tending to affective association allows us to “see” our students, even in an online setting. community cohesion a cohesive community of learners ensures social connections and a supportive learning environment. students should know the expectations for how they will work together as a community through collaborative norm-setting and clear guidelines for participation. interacting in online spaces, faculty and students must commit to engage each other with honesty, open-mindedness, and vulnerability as they listen deeply to better understand various perspectives. in addition, creating a cohesive community helps them rely on each other for cognitive and emotional support. a common mistake in virtual courses is to simply have students introduce themselves without engineering a way for students to connect and converse. instructor modeling is especially important in showing students how to connect in meaningful and appropriate ways in online discussion forums. these positive connections and social interactions create community cohesion in virtual learning environments. instructor involvement an instructor’s intentional interactions shape the learning community in implicit and explicit ways. for example, an instructor should consider their students in designing activities that relate to real challenges they face in the workplace, as advocated by adult learning theory (merriam, 2001). in addition, providing timely and consistent feedback not only affords opportunities for learners to critically reflect on their thinking but also helps them feel recognized and supported in the learning environment. importantly, instructors must become part of the learning community, not simply maestros who orchestrate it. to avoid being the sage on the stage, instructor involvement requires being visible in more ways than simply delivering content through video-based lectures. interaction intensity online learning communities are strengthened when the learners within them engage fully with one another and the instructor. discussion forums with expectations for both quantity and quality of posts and replies can encourage full participation that extends the learning and the sense of connection in the community. instructors should monitor forums and encourage students to interact with one another through questioning, playing devil’s advocate, and/or extending and connecting ideas. a sense of connection among members of the learning community can result in more deep and nuanced understandings of complex concepts. interaction intensity also aligns with the concept of critical friendship in a learning community where learners feel comfortable asking each other hard questions and where they take ownership for helping others learn. knowledge and experience situated learning recognizes that cognition is situated, social, and distributed (putnam & borko, 2000) where learners contribute their knowledge and experiences to the community. this is another element that overlaps with the coi category of cognitive presence, but this aspect is about the recognition and appreciation for student knowledge and experiences as strengths in the community. instructors should highlight students’ unique backgrounds and resources and encourage them to use those to further the learning of the community. while this is something that all excellent teachers know and do when they teach in a physical classroom, it is sometimes ignored in online settings. the key is understanding where your learners are and using that as a bridge to the current course concepts and material. one successful strategy we have seen in this area is the consistent use of weekly announcements to summarize and synthesize small group conversations, highlighting creating community in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.161 4 students who connected course concepts to their personal and professional experiences to assist the understanding of their group. knowledge and experiences, when made visible and appreciated, contribute to the social connections among learners. surprising opportunities and lessons learned designing and delivering courses to reflect the many-faceted aspects of social presence requires intention and time, two things that may be in short supply during a pandemic as our priorities shift to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of ourselves and our family and friends. although at first mourning the loss of our faceto-face summer institutes, we have been pleasantly surprised by opportunities that successfully served as community building efforts and enhanced social presence in the online space. these opportunities included how zoom meetings actually make using names of our students easier because the names are right on the screen; how virtual social events such as trivia nights and campus “tours” can be an effective way to have fun with your students in an informal, relaxed environment; and that an online canvas shell for a cohort of students that follows them throughout their program can be an ideal opportunity and space for community that persists beyond one class session or semester. we have (re)discovered collaborative tools such as google docs, google slides, padlet, and perusall that create space for learners to create materials together in real-time during online instruction. the benefits of social connection in this time of extreme isolation should provide us all the motivation we need to intentionally attend to social presence. guiding questions for improving social presence pandemic or not, tenets of social presence should be built into online courses and programs that have a foundation of social constructivist learning. reflective of our own ongoing learning experiences, we conclude with a list of guiding questions for edd faculty to consider as they design, implement, and refine online courses and programs. ● how have i communicated my personality or humanity to my students in this online setting? how can i help students feel comfortable doing the same? ● how have i made clear the expectations and norms for interacting online? how can i frame and provide gentle reminders of their importance and purpose? ● how have i created opportunities for student interaction that are conceptually intensive and sustained? how can i model and engage in rigorous online interaction? ● how is my online class more than just delivery and receiving of content knowledge? how can i create opportunities for learners to take ownership of group learning and communication as a community of learners? ● how have i encouraged learners to draw on their personal experiences and contexts to connect to new learning and deepen discussions? how can i include job-embedded learning activities? references anderson, t., liam, r., garrison, d. r., & archer, w. (2001). assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. journal of asynchronous learning network, 5(2). arasaratnam-smith, l. & northcote, m. (2017). community in online higher education: challenges and opportunities. electronic journal of elearning, 15(2), 188-198. carnegie project for the education doctorate (2019a). our vision and mission. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission. carnegie project for the education doctorate (2019b). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework. carnegie project for the education doctorate (2019c). frequently asked questions about cped-influenced edd programs. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/faq. castellanos-reyes, d. (2020). 20 years of the community of inquiry framework. techtrends, 64, 557–560. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528020-00491-7. fosslien, l. & duffy, m.w. (2020). how to combat zoom fatigue. harvard business review blog. https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoomfatigue garrison, d.r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a textbased environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(3), 87-105. garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2001). critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. american journal of distance education, 15(1), 7-23. garrison, d. r., cleveland-innes, m., & vaughn, n. (n.d.) coi framework. community of inquiry. https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/ institute of education sciences. (2020). when teachers and students are separated: strategies from research on social presence for teaching at a distance. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/infographics/pdf/rel_se_when_teacher s_and_students_are_separated.pdf merriam, s. b. (2001). andragogy and self-directed learning: pillars of adult learning theory. new directions for adult and continuing education, 89(3), 3-13. pervasive technology institute. (2020). going remote: actionable insights from indiana university’s transition to remote instruction due to covid-19. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pn3ican7ujp3nq6cpsejj7zbge0axoin/ view. putnam r. & borko, h. (2000). what do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? educational researcher, 29(1), 4-15. rourke, l., anderson, t. garrison, d. r., & archer, w. (2001). assessing social presence in asynchronous, text-based computer conferencing. journal of distance education, 14(3), 51-70. swan, k., chen, c.c., & bockmier-sommers, d.k. (2020). relationships between carl rogers’ person-centered education and the community of inquiry framework: a preliminary exploration. online learning, 24(3), 418. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i3.2279 whiteside, a. l., dikkers, a. g., and swan, k. (eds.) (2017). social presence in online learning: multiple perspectives on practice and research. stylus publishing llc. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://www.cpedinitiative.org/faq https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-020-00491-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-020-00491-7 https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom-fatigue https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom-fatigue https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/ https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/infographics/pdf/rel_se_when_teachers_and_students_are_separated.pdf https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/infographics/pdf/rel_se_when_teachers_and_students_are_separated.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pn3ican7ujp3nq6cpsejj7zbge0axoin/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pn3ican7ujp3nq6cpsejj7zbge0axoin/view https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i3.2279 alyson adams university of florida gage jeter university of florida communities of inquiry framework challenges to building and sustaining community online social presence affective association community cohesion instructor involvement interaction intensity knowledge and experience surprising opportunities and lessons learned guiding questions for improving social presence references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 27 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 project-based learning and doctoral student research skill development: a case study nancy fichtman dana university of florida ndana@coe.ufl.edu james rigney suny plattsburgh jrign001@plattsburgh.edu vicki vescio university of florida vescio@coe.ufl.edu vera wei ma university of florida vma@ufl.edu abstract the purpose of this study was to understand the ways doctoral students in an online ed.d. program developed their skills as practitioner researchers through a project-based learning (pbl) experience. in order to describe and analyze the nature of the students’ pbl experiences, case study methodology was used. interviews, a video-recording of a two-hour synchronous class session, and student generated artifacts were iteratively analyzed by a team of researchers. results reveal underlying tensions within three case themes: individual versus collective learning, simulated versus real research experience, and public class activity versus private group conversations. these findings demonstrate that ed.d. program area faculty must balance the competing tensions raised by these case themes in order to facilitate research skill development and foster the ability of their students to grow as practitioner scholars. keywords project-based learning, action research, practitioner research, doctoral education the education doctorate has been much discussed in scholarly literature over recent years (guthrie, 2009; firestone et al., 2019; neumann, 2005). a good deal of this conversation has argued for distinguishing between the preparation of educational researchers in a phd program and scholarly practitioners in an edd or professional practice doctoral program (shulman, et al., 2006). as such, led by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (perry & imig, 2008), the last decade has seen numerous edd programs being launched throughout the nation with a distinct focus on developing scholarly practitioners. scholarly practitioners use “practical research and applied theory as tools of change” (perry, 2013, p.3) as they “direct their 1 throughout this text, we use action research and practitioner research relatively interchangeably to refer to systematic, intentional study of one’s own professional practice (dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020). research to the improvement of practice, based in the needs of the organizations that they seek to help and blend research methods with problems of practice” (barnett & muth, 2008, p.12). distinct from the needs of phd students, the development of practitioner scholars involves educating edd students to undertake “empirical inquiry that is more closely tied to practice settings than to theoretical questions” (mcclintock, 2004, p.4). hence, action research has been adopted as a signature pedagogy in many edd programs (buss, 2018). while adopted as a signature pedagogy, many edd programs continue to struggle with how best to teach the skills of practitioner research (adams et al., 2014).1 one potential route toward fostering authentic http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ dana, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 28 practitioner research experiences is to facilitate students’ inquiry through extensive, in-depth projects. project-based learning (pbl) is an instructional strategy in which learners cooperate with their peers to solve a problem. the defining features of pbl include the posing of challenging questions, student-led inquiry, extended periods of relative autonomy, the creation of realistic products or presentations, and careful assessment of student learning by instructors (hung et al., 2012; thomas, 2000). pbl promises to facilitate authentic learning and motivate students (david, 2008), and it has the potential to be a powerful pedagogical tool for teaching the skills of practitioner research. the purpose of this study was to understand the ways doctoral students in an edd program developed their skills as practitioner researchers through a project-based learning experience. as the teaching of research skills to doctoral students is the focus of this study, we begin with an overview of the literature on this topic. next, we explain the overall program and specific coursework within which this study took place, as well as providing a detailed description of the assignment which scaffolded the edd students’ research skill development. after a discussion of research methods, we report three case themes, and draw implications for the promise pbl holds to develop the research skills of scholarly practitioners. literature review: doctoral student research skill development despite the clear need to develop research skills during doctoral study, there is a dearth of empirical literature regarding how doctoral students learn research skills in their programs (kerrigan et al., 2008). additionally, an impediment to cross-program research that explores these skills is the diversity of doctoral and specialist degrees among educational programs (leech & huag, 2015). finally, the purpose and function of the edd is still a matter of debate (firestone et al., 2019). this state of affairs amplifies the need for better understanding the process doctoral students, especially in the edd space, undertake in order to become proficient at research. while there is a lack of research on pedagogical aspects related to the development of doctoral research skills, scholars have investigated the transition from student to researcher as well as students’ sense of research self-efficacy. lovitts (2005) theorized a model to understand the “critical transition” (p. 139) from a dependent to independent researcher—that is, from “learning what others know and how they know it” to “conducting original research and creating knowledge” (p. 140). lambie et al. (2014) found that doctoral students’ sense of research self-efficacy increased with additional research methodology coursework. however, leech (2012) emphasized the lack of research into the particular courses and curriculum that best helps doctoral students learn research skills. indeed, more recent searches of the literature show a lack of studies on the appropriate balance of research coursework and the particular content of those courses. hence, in the research literature regarding skill development of doctoral students, there is a need (1) to focus on coursework experiences and (2) to distinguish between courses designed to develop phd students as “professional researchers” and courses designed to develop edd students as “researching professionals” (kumar & dawson, 2018, p. 4). kerrigan and hayes (2016) noted this point in their assertion that “a program that is geared to developing practitioner-researchers must be more attentive to cultivating research interest among practitioners” (p. 158). to accomplish this, as previously mentioned, many edd programs across the nation focus their research preparation coursework on action research and associated practitioner research methodologies (buss, 2018; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020). the use of action research and associated practitioner research methodologies for doctoral coursework is more robustly documented (e.g., arslan-ari et al., 2018; pilkington, 2009; wetzel & ewbank, 2013), and action research and practitioner inquiry show promise as methodological framings for the educational doctorate. zambo (2011), following shulman (2005), points to action research as a “signature pedagogy” that fundamentally organizes the preparation of future practitioners. zambo found that action research contributed to students’ desire to be change agents within their professional context and provided a framework for personally and professionally meaningful research. buss and avery (2017) found that utilizing action research at their cped program contributed to students’ beliefs they had attained new research skills, developed new reflective and critical abilities, and gained new confidence in their research acumen. however, when considering the particularities of learning data analysis skills, vaughn et al. (2019) pointed to the struggle their students had with data analysis, and students identified “coding issues [as] a constant undertone” (p. 5) in their work. while it is well-documented that edd students develop confidence in their research abilities through coursework, an understanding of students’ acquisition of data analysis skills remains underdeveloped. to better understand one potential avenue to scaffold edd students through this struggle, this study documents an effort to teach the skill of data analysis through a pbl experience embedded within an edd research methodology coursework. we turn now to a description of the program, the courses, and the project-based-learning assignment. program, coursework, and pbl assignment description the current research project took place within our cped member institution edd online program. this program reflects the perspectives outlined by the cped organization in that we built our program around “questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped guiding program design principle #1). through inquiry-based recursive learning experiences (cped guiding program design principle #5), our primary program outcome is to prepare students to identify, examine, and redress inequity in diverse educational settings through their work as practitioner scholars, which we define as follows: professionals who bring theoretical, pedagogical, and research expertise to bear on identifying, framing, and studying problems of practice and leading informed change in their schools and districts to continually improve life and learning conditions for students and adults who work within their local contexts. (adams et al., 2014; dana et al., 2011; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020) hence, of particular relevance to this study is the cped design concept of scholarly practitioners, defined as professionals who “blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (cped, 2019, para. 9). to cultivate the specific skills and knowledge for naming, framing, project-based learning & doctoral student research skill impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 29 and studying problems of practice, students in our program enroll in a series of six online research classes spread throughout two years of coursework. these courses include: foundations of research (semester 1), practitioner research 1 (semester 2), qualitative research for practitioner scholars (semester 3), quantitative research for practitioner scholars (semester 4), practitioner research 2 (semester 5), and designing research (semester 7). this study focuses on the second practitioner research class taken during semester 5 of the program. this course is designed to further cultivate the skills of a practitioner scholar through advanced study of practitioner inquiry/action research, its utility within students' daily work as educators, and in preparation for the dissertation-inpractice. across the course there is a particular focus on developing the skill of data analysis. reflecting our focus on social justice and equity, in the fifth semester students also enroll concurrently in an online critical pedagogy course. in that course, students read several texts that challenge them to think more deeply about social (in)justice as it relates to existing structures of power that privilege some groups of people in society while disadvantaging others (e.g., sensoy & diangelo, 2017). in addition to reading five textbooks, twice during the class, students are asked to “try-it” and take an idea/suggestion from their course readings and apply it within an existing social or professional setting. for example, one student chose to work with kindergarteners on the concept of able-ness, and another restructured their department’s team meetings to encourage greater contributions from female faculty of color. as part of this work, the students are asked to create a reflective post of this experience to share with their classmates. across both classes, students engaged in a five-week pbl experience that connected the content of the critical pedagogy class with learning the process of data analysis for the practitioner research class. to achieve these ends, the 18 students were randomly placed in one of four teams during the second half of their practitioner research course. these teams had 4 – 5 members. each team was then assigned to analyze online postings related to either one of three books they read during the first half of the critical pedagogy class or to the “try it” social justice application assignment explained above. the “research questions” and “data” that guided the students’ work included: (1) what is the relationship between engaging in a virtual book study of is everyone really equal? an introduction to key concepts in social justice education by sensoy and diangelo (2012) and the evolution of our thinking and practice as practitioner scholars related to creating more equitable schooling experiences in our local contexts? (data: posts produced weeks 1-3 of critical pedagogy course) (2) what is the relationship between engaging in a virtual book study of everyday white people confront racial and social injustice: 15 stories edited by moore jr. et al. (2015), and the evolution of our thinking and practice as practitioner scholars related to creating more equitable schooling experiences in our local contexts? (data: posts produced weeks 4-5 of critical pedagogy course) (3) what is the relationship between engaging in a virtual book study of writing beyond race: living theory and practice by hooks (2009) and the evolution of our thinking and practice as practitioner scholars related to creating more equitable schooling experiences in our local contexts? (data: posts produced weeks 6-8 of critical pedagogy course), and (4) what are the benefits and barriers we, as practitioner scholars, face when we try to enact social justice practices in our personal and professional lives? (data: posts related to two “try-it” assignments in critical pedagogy course). each group worked throughout the final five weeks of their sixteen-week semester to develop and enact a data analysis plan related to their team’s research question and data set described above, following detailed instructions found in the course shell. these instructions, summarized in table 1, were divided into three parts: (1) first half of the week (completed individually by students in preparation for a group synchronous meeting), (2) second half of the week (providing structure for the group meeting itself), and (3) team leader responsibilities (completed by a different group member each week). the semester culminated with each group producing a 20-minute powerpoint presentation that detailed their pbl data analysis journey, including what they came to know about themselves as practitioner scholars as well as what they learned about the process of data analysis. these presentations were shared during a synchronous class session. table 1. instructions for pbl weekly activity week individual preparation group meeting time team leader one complete readings on data analysis and 3 openended sentences:  my most important learning about the data analysis process from completing the readings this week was …  one skill/talent i bring to the group that will help us excel in this project-based learning data analysis experience is …  something i need from the group to do my best work is …  test meeting technology  discuss readings on data analysis  develop “ground rules” for group work  prepares group’s data for analysis  summarizes and posts group’s ground rules for instructor feedback dana, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 30 week individual preparation  group meeting time  team leader two complete initial read of data set and 3 openended sentences:  a word or phrase that describes something interesting i noticed in the data …  a word or phrase that describes something that stood out to me in the data …  a word or phrase that describes a pattern i think might be emerging from the data …  discuss what was noticed in data individually  develop plan for how to code data together  writes and posts group data analysis memo summarizing synchronous meeting and group’s data analysis plan for instructor feedback three complete individual coding of data as per group coding plan and complete open-ended sentence:  a word or phrase that describes how i felt coding our data …  why i chose this word/phrase …  discuss individual coding experience and data itself, including how codes are defined, connected to one another, and what they mean in relationship to group’s research question  develop 2-3 claims about the data for presentation and assign group members to develop  writes and posts group data analysis memo summarizing claims group developed during meeting and how they were derived and group’s plan for preparing presentation for instructor feedback four complete individual parts of group presentation  share individual work on presentation, discuss, and finalize plan for finishing and practicing presentation  writes and posts group data analysis memo summarizing presentation progress and final presentation “to dos” for instructor feedback five group presentations via synchronous zoom meeting methodology this study was guided by the research question: “what happens when doctoral students engage in problem-based learning to develop their skills as practitioner researchers?” to describe and analyze the nature of the pbl experience, a case study design was chosen to frame this research. according to creswell and poth (2018), in case study design, researchers focus on “a bounded system (a case)” and use “detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information... and report a case description and case themes” (pp. 96-97). the bounded system of this case was the students’ experiences working within a small group to develop data analysis skills during the project-based learning assignments described above. our primary source of data were individual interviews conducted with the students after the two courses had ended (n=16). interviews were approximately one-hour in length, were structured using a protocol that guided the students through each individual week of the project-based learning experience, and asked students to recall and describe how their team meetings unfolded and the ways in which their thinking and learning about practitioner research evolved as a result. interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, generating over 300 pages of transcripts for analysis. data analysis was a multi-phase, multi-faceted process that included each researcher, on a team of four, independently reading and re-reading the entire data set to prepare for coding, creating categories, and facilitating patterns of meaning within the data set (saldana, 2015). throughout the readings, re-readings and coding process, the research team members met frequently, creating opportunities for multiple analysts to share, discuss and debate patterns emerging in the review of the interview and synchronous meeting transcripts (marshall & rossman, 2010). hence, analyst triangulation enhanced the trustworthiness and credibility of this study (patton, 2014). over several meetings, the research team generated three case themes that exemplified the doctoral students’ experiences as they learned the skills of practitioner research through a cross-class pbl experience. these themes, reported in the next section of this paper, were member-checked with the study participants (patton, 2014), further enhancing study trustworthiness and credibility. our reporting of each case theme is framed from the perspective of the students. this is followed with a discussion of the implications of the students’ pbl experience for edd program faculty who endeavor to teach the research skills of practitioner scholarship. case themes case theme one: individual learning versus collective learning this case theme is defined as the tension that occurred when individual students’ own ways of working and thinking collided with the collective compromise necessitated by their participation in the project-based learning experience. interview data indicated that students began the experience with generally positive feelings about the pbl assignment. as one student shared: “i was really excited. i thought this was a really excellent opportunity to interact with my cohort members.” another student indicated she was happy to have others to work with on the project to reduce the overwhelmed feeling she had about trying to do an extensive data analysis for the first time on her own. a third student talked about the comforting nature of the collaborative work, saying, “i was able to hear some of my group members’ fears about analyzing data but also their hopes, and that helped decrease my fears but also raised my hopes as well.” in addition to being thankful for the support of their classmates on this assignment, at the outset of the project students also expressed appreciation for having the opportunity to learn from each other as they collaborated to analyze a large data set. when asked to think about what she hoped to get from participating in the project, one student said, “i always feel like i learn better when i hear other ideas from other people, so i was hopeful that we would be able to work well together.” another student indicated she liked “being exposed to different ways people would code,” and a different student said, “it always helps to have a colleague or somebody look over your data and make sure they’re pulling the same things out.” students valued learning from and alongside their cohort members. this underscores the potential for collaboration to serve as an project-based learning & doctoral student research skill impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 31 important piece in teaching practitioner scholars about the process of data analysis. however, some of the very reasons students were excited about working collaboratively on the pbl project also became a source of tension as the students had to navigate various styles of working and differing ways of thinking among group members. students clearly articulated that there were times when conflicting ways of working created stress. one student expressed concern about these dynamics after their first group meeting, saying, “the particular person who was a little bit off track tends to sometimes not see other people’s points of view and so i thought this might be tricky.” another student shared: to be totally honest i was a little bit nervous because we didn’t pick our own groups and looking at who was in my group… certain people work better than other people, people work at different paces. we all know that some of us are more assertive type a people and trying to figure out that balance. i was a little bit nervous about how the dynamics of our group were going to work. in addition to different work styles, students also had to navigate different ways of thinking during the process of analyzing their group’s data set. with regard to coding and developing themes, students overwhelmingly spoke of trying to come to terms with group members’ differing ideas after individually reading the group’s data set during week 3 of the pbl experience (see table 1). one student said, “we started talking about what we were seeing in the data… [my group members] were seeing some things completely differently.” another said, “it was difficult to find the themes and decide on them because there were so many different competing minds.” a third student said, “we were all looking at codes a little bit differently.” these types of comments were common and reflected the students’ struggles to achieve consensus from individual thinking and analysis. navigating the ideas various group members had for how to approach data analysis created conflict for individuals in each pbl group. to resolve conflict and mitigate apprehension about group work, students talked of conceding their individual ways of work for the greater good by negotiating a “middle ground” with their group. it is important to note that students did not view the negotiation of a middle ground in these conflicts as negative. in most cases, students spoke in a positive manner about compromise being a natural part of the process of the work their group did. for example, one student said, “it was kind of nice to have multiple points of view; we usually ended up somewhere in the middle, somewhere that’s probably more true to what is real anyway.” beyond general positive comments about individual compromise for the larger collective, students spoke of specific ways that they or others in their group worked to come to a middle ground as a result of the differences in their ways of thinking as individuals. for example, when talking about her group, one students said: we had two people in our group who tended to be a little bit more shy and three people who talk a lot, so we really worked on the three of us who talk a lot kind of holding back, and the people who don’t talk as much, for them to try to talk more. and also, for us to stop and check and say, “oh, what do you think about this?” in another example, in regard to a common data analysis document that a particular group was creating, one student indicated, “i would go through and i coded what i felt was right from my point of view.” she added that as others contributed their codes, she could see how they compared to what she had done. she demonstrated a level of compromise when concluding, “if something didn’t match, i thought, let me go back and re-read that; either i disagree with it…or now i see their perspective, and i might change that thinking a bit.” similarly, in another group, one student discussed the ways group work slowed down the coding process in a positive way: instead of [me] saying, “i see this” immediately, [my group members] were like, “i feel like maybe you’re creating a code that’s not there.” i was like, “okay, i’m willing to step back and reconsider my thinking.” while overall, compromising one’s individual thinking to resolve conflict was seen as a positive learning experience, one student expressed some frustration with the process: the biggest thing that i had to face was my fear of groups, even though it was a small group. once again it’s finding my voice… there’s a lot that goes on in my head; it never shuts off – it’s getting it out…. there were times i kind of stepped back a little bit when i should have pushed my way in. for this particular student, it appeared that in the process of compromising she struggled to articulate her thinking, which ended up mitigating her voice in the group’s data analysis activities. the dynamic interplay between individual perspectives and group compromise were revealed in all four pbl groups and underscore important considerations for structuring the data analysis learning experiences of practitioner scholars in a collaborative pbl context. these considerations will be elaborated in the discussion section of this paper. case theme two: simulated research experience versus real research experience this case theme is defined as the tension that occurred when the benefits and value of participating in a research simulation collided with the limitations of participating in a research experience that wasn't real. similar to case theme one, interview data indicated that students expressed generally positive sentiments about conducting simulated research in their pbl groups, appreciating the opportinity to imitate the data analysis process they would eventually use when writing their own dissertations-in-practice. for example, one student said, “we [were] learning about how to be a better researcher of data. it was great. i learned really how to analyze data and get through it all. i think it was very awesome.” another student articulated the ways the pbl experience prepared her for conducting her own research in the future: it gave us firsthand experience in everything so it was wonderful. [the assignment structure] did make it really easy for you by setting things up: these are the questions to ask; this is what it looks like; this is [how] other people have [approached data analysis] in the past.... every opportunity that we have to practice data analysis is great. it was really good scaffolding; i feel much more prepared with every time i am able to practice [data analysis]. testimonies like these showed the value of pbl projects designed to foster data analysis skills. many students suggested that they now dana, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 32 know how data analysis works because they had hands-on experience. learning how data analysis works was not the only benefit expressed by students, as several also noted the value inherent in connecting two different classes through the pbl data analysis simulation. for example, some students suggested that using discussion posts from the critical pedagogy class as a data set provided them an opportunity to dig deeper into what they learned in that class: i really enjoyed having a chance to go back and look at everything and have that time to process and reflect. because we were analyzing [the discussion posts], i was able to get more meaning out of the [books we studied] in critical pedagogy and i learned more about critical pedagogy [in this process]. another student echoed the quote above, saying that she thought the experience was “worthwhile” and that “it was really nice how the classes were brought together” because “it made the workload more reasonable and more relevant.” statements like these revealed that students appreciated the intentionally designed pbl research simulation. engaging in the simulation afforded students the opportunity to both practice data analysis with a common set of data as well as to dig more deeply into the content of their critical pedagogy class, deepening their thinking as critical practitioner scholars. while the value of conducting simulated research was affirmed, interview data also indicated that some students felt frustrated when engaging in data analysis with research questions that were predeveloped by the course instructor and data they did not collect on their own. for example, one student shared that when she embarked on the pbl project, “my trepidation was that this felt very impersonal in that it wasn’t my wondering. analyzing the data was going to be tedious.” according to this student, although she enjoyed the learning process as a whole, she did not look forward to her pbl experience because the research question and data set were given to her, rather than developed by her. similarly, another student described her feelings when exploring a research question and analyzing data assigned to her group: it felt a little superficial to me… inauthentic. i think it might have been more meaningful if we had done an inquiry project based on something that we were doing… i think we could have developed an inquiry question that could have been more meaningful. this student further commented on the importance of developing one’s own question in having an impact on her specific context and practice, a defining feature of the practitioner scholar definition that undergirded the entire edd program in which the course was situated, as outlined previously. practicing data analysis with others’ posts seemed forced and, while a productive way of learning the data analysis process, unproductive in furthering the impact she could be having on her own local context. echoing this sentiment, a few students referred to their previous practitioner research class where they were introduced to practitioner inquiry for the first time and completed a modest project in their own contexts as a part of that class: [in the first practitioner research class], i had a problem of practice that i got to research and that really transformed my practice, that personal problem of practice versus [in this class], “here’s your question and do this”.… i missed the personal side of research. both the value and limitations of engaging in a research simulation to learn the skills of data analysis were revealed in all four pbl groups and underscore important considerations for scaffolding practitioner scholars’ research skill development in a collaborative project-based learning experience. these considerations will be elaborated in the discussion section of this paper. case theme three: public class activity versus private group conversation this case theme is defined as the tension that occurred when public class activity collided with private student conversation during the culmination of the project-based learning experience. interview data indicated that, like the initial positivity in themes 1 and 2 above, students began the experience satisfied with their wellestablished relationships as well as customary ways of communicating with cohort members: i felt really excited [when we started the pbl project] because i knew who i was working with…it’s interesting because i’ve been working with this cohort for so long; we all know each other so well and we do a lot of backchanneling outside of the course shells; we’re always talking on facebook or some kind of messenger service. … probably about 80% of our conversations happen through back-channeling. methods to engage in private group conversation, referred to as “backchanneling” in the quote above, were used to work on the pbl assignment as groups met every week (see table 1). these methods were developed and refined through trial and error with various technology mediums: it took us a long time to figure out the technology side of it. …we did a lot of texting and we ended up getting phone numbers and calling each other. at one point i had someone on my phone via facetime and i was skyping everybody else and it was kind of a mess, but we did end up getting it figured out and then we had good discussions. experimentation with different technology mediums ultimately led to well-developed “backchanneling” communication skills. these were capitalized on during the culmination of the project-based learning experience when each group presented their research study to the entire class via a zoom meeting. for example, while watching the other groups present, participants in one group continued to revise and improve their upcoming presentation: i’m pretty sure other groups did this, too. we were talking about the other [presentations] while they were happening in a facebook chat. we were so scared because everybody’s presentations were a lot more in-depth than ours, and they had way more slides than we had. everybody’s seemed to be structured very differently…. we actually changed a few of the things that we were going to say and added stuff in while we were watching other people’s presentations. another member of that group expressed similar feelings: i remember this part like it was yesterday. i remember watching all the other groups and we had a chat going at the same time, and we were just like, “ours just doesn’t project-based learning & doctoral student research skill impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 33 have enough information; look at all the other groups!” in the moment while other people were presenting, we were still making adjustments to ours. members of this group felt these revisions contributed to the impact of their presentation: i think we were on facebook messenger; we had that going on in the back and i was like, “[group member], we need a title; put a title on there now!” she’s like, “what should the title be?” i typed something out and it ended up being the title and then [the course instructor] said, “i loved your title; it just fit so perfectly!” for two of the four pbl groups, using backchanneling to make instant collaborative revisions increased their confidence in their presentations and was therefore seen as beneficial to their projectbased learning experience. in addition, other students stated that backchannel discussion with specific group members clarified concepts found unclear during reading and small group meetings throughout the entirety of the pbl experience. one student, for example, felt that backchannel communications facilitated what she called “intelligent conversations”: this actually took place in our backchanneling, too. i think just the ability to have vocabulary that described concepts that we had thought about but didn’t really realize that they had names. yet, while some of the students appreciated the affordances offered by backchanneling, interview data also indicated that some students felt sidetracked by this activity: i will admit that i was really distracted because my group members kept texting each other back and forth about whether or not something was working in our presentation. i kept getting texts about “oh no, this isn’t working; let’s fix this or that.” i was really, really distracted and [felt like] i didn’t even see the other presentations. another member of the preceeding particpant's group shared that backchanneling eroded, rather than enhanced her confidence before the group presentation: i didn’t really go through and rehearse it that well; i’m thinking about it and just the build-up of it as i’m listening to the first two groups. i was texting [another group member], “is that what we did?” i started second guessing myself; i shouldn’t have done that. the back-and-forth engagements with public whole class activity and private group conversation were revealed in two of the four pbl groups and underscore important considerations for scaffolding practitioner scholars’ research skill development in a collaborative project-based learning experience. these considerations will be elaborated upon in the next section of this paper. discussion in sum, the three case themes reported above each reveal a tension between two competing aspects of the problem-based learning experience designed to develop edd students’ data analysis skills: individual versus collective learning; simulated versus real research experience; and public class activity versus private group conversation. as indicated in figure 1, the key to creating a productive learning experience through project-based learning is to help students find the sweet spot that balances competing themes for social learning, research experience, and group communication respectively. hence, when edd program faculty think about how to scaffold the research skills development of practitioner scholars, careful consideration should be given to the tensions that were revealed in the three case themes in this study. regarding case theme one, individual versus collective learning, our data reveal that there are certainly positive elements of having students work in groups to practice data analysis. the ways in which they help each other throughout the process can elevate the learning beyond an individual endeavor. however, our data also suggest that navigating various work styles, ways of thinking, and pressure to compromise for the sake of the group are also important to consider. therefore, in contrast to the random group assignment that was implemented in this study, edd program area faculty who endeavor to use project-based learning as a pedagogical strategy to develop their students’ research skills should create project groups with intention, taking into account their individual students’ work styles. intentional grouping has the potential to accentuate the benefits of group work while minimizing stress caused by the need to negotiate work-style preferences, leading to better balance between individual and collective learning. in addition, edd faculty who employ project-based learning might name and elaborate this tension for their students when introducing the pbl experience, acknowledging the likelihood that conflict will emerge within groups as individual and collective learning styles are negotiated. further, faculty can discuss strategies groups might employ to reach productive consensus at the outset of the project as well as the important role of conflict negotiation in a student’s own learning. figure 1. balancing tensions in research skills problem-based learning. dana, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.148 34 regarding case theme two, simulated versus real research experience, our data reveal that a simulated research experience can be valuable for deepening content knowledge as well as cultivating data-analysis skills. however, our data also suggest that working with pre-determined research questions and data sets might detract from the impact of a more personalized research experience rooted in students’ own practice contexts—a signature feature of the professional practice doctorate. even so, if edd students only engage in individual, personalized research endeavors throughout their programs, they miss the opportunities afforded by a collaborative research simulation, such as sharing and practicing analysis procedures with a common set of data, as was the case in this study. while the simulation experience in this study worked well to provide a common data set for students to analyze (online posts produced by the students themselves in their critical pedagogy class), it failed to emulate a focus on studying problems of practice, the defining feature of the dissertation-in-practice experience. therefore, edd program area faculty who endeavor to use projectbased learning as a pedagogical strategy to develop their students’ research skills should consider creating simulation experiences that more closely approximate the types of research edd students conduct in their local contexts. these more realistic simulations would incorporate the kinds of research questions practitioner scholars ask and the kinds of data they are likely to collect. this can occur, for example, by obtaining appropriate permissions to collect and use data sets of edd program graduates who have completed practitioner research in coursework or for their dissertations-inpractice. edd faculty can use elements of these data and associated research questions to design simulations that enable their current students to share a common research experience, yet one that more closely resembles authentic research conducted in practitioner scholars’ typical contexts, thereby better balancing simulated and real research experience. organizations such as cped can play a leading role by creating a repository of raw data sets that can be accessed and used by cped member institutions to improve the research skills development of edd students world-wide. finally, regarding case theme three, whole class activity versus private group conversation, our data reveal that private group conversations can contribute positively to students’ overall learning and performance. however, our data also suggest that private group conversation can interfere with student learning when it competes with whole class activity. interestingly, in this study, course instructors were unaware of the private group conversations that occurred during the final presentations until participants mentioned them across their interviews. therefore, edd program area faculty who endeavor to use project-based learning as a pedagogical strategy to develop their students’ research skills should work to heighten their awareness of both the what and when of small group conversation. this, in turn, can help faculty capitalize on the potential of small group conversations to enhance learning while minimizing drawbacks, striking a better balance between the two. while instructors cannot be aware of every private conversation that occurs among students regarding course content, it is important to recognize that backchanneling, the term introduced by a student in this study to refer to private group conversation, can serve a useful purpose and contribute to student learning. with this in mind, edd faculty who employ project-based learning might actually suggest engagement in backchanneling as a potentially useful endeavor to further learning goals at the outset of the project, discussing strategies with students to ensure it complements, rather than competes with, whole class activities. conclusions the proliferation of new edd programs designed to develop scholarly practitioners who can conduct and lead research efforts aimed at improvements in educational practice necessitates that those of us who administer these programs thoughtfully craft a plan to teach the skills of practitioner research to our students. the current study responds to this imperative by giving voice to students transitioning into practitioner scholars. we learn from the budding practitioner scholars in this study that when a balance is struck between individual and collective learning, simulated and real experience, and public class activity and private group conversation, project-based-learning holds promise as one pedagogical strategy edd faculty can employ to foster the development of research skills. yet, a great deal of additional research is needed to better understand not only the possibilities inherent in a project-basedlearning approach to edd student research skills development, but also to uncover and understand additional strategies that will serve practitioner scholars as they learn to conduct systematic and intentional study of their own professional contexts to solve problems of practice and lead informed change. this study serves as a call for other cped programs to enact, study, and report upon the ways they develop the research skills of practitioner scholars. in so doing we emulate the kind 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(2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 shulman, l., golde, c.m., bueschel, a.c. & garabedian, k.j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. tashakkori, a., & creswell, j. w. (2008). editorial: envisioning the future stewards of the social-behavioral research enterprise. journal of mixed methods research, 2(4), 291-295. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1558689808322946 thomas, j. w. (2000). a review of research on project-based learning. autodesk foundation. vaughan, m., boerum, c., & whitehead, l. s. (2019). action research in doctoral coursework: perceptions of independent research experiences. international journal for the scholarship of teaching & learning, 13(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130106 wetzel, k., & ewbank, a. (2013). conceptualizing the innovation: factors influencing doctoral candidates’ interventions in the action research dissertation. educational action research, 21(3), 392-411. https://doi. org/10.1080/09650792.2013.813402 zambo, d. (2011). action research as signature pedagogy in an education doctorate program: the reality and hope. innovative higher education, 36(4), 261-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775119872231 https://doi.org/10.28945/1558 https://doi.org/10.28945/2111 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070500043093 https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.2009.11661579 https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 https://doi.org/10.1177/%201558689808322946 https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130106 nancy fichtman dana university of florida james rigney suny plattsburgh vicki vescio university of florida (1) vera wei ma university of florida (2) literature review: doctoral student research skill development program, coursework, and pbl assignment description methodology case themes case theme one: individual learning versus collective learning case theme two: simulated research experience versus real research experience case theme three: public class activity versus private group conversation discussion conclusions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 17 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.115 creating agents of change through doctoral learning aubrey l. c. statti the chicago school of professional psychology astatti@thechicagoschool.edu kelly m. torres the chicago school of professional psychology ktorres@thechicagoschool.edu abstract this article seeks to provide a case study of a doctoral program aspiring to create change through student progress and provide an overview of how they have structured program curricula to promote academic and professional growth and empower students to become global leaders. further, this article is focused on providing a focus on the importance of learning technologies and how doctoral students develop the skill sets and expertise needed to employ technology into educational and organizational contexts to enhance academic outcomes, instructional approaches, and employee productivity. particularly, information is provided on the importance of providing students access to cutting edge technologies that are transforming the landscape of educational and organizational learning. keywords learning technologies, professional growth, organizational learning, student empowerment in the present culture of higher education, education doctoral programs have a responsibility to prepare future leaders and agents of change through advanced scholarly learning. further, affiliate institutions of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) “focus on developing scholarly practitioners,[--] individuals who have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to solve the problems of practice they routinely encounter” (zambo et al., 2015, p. 233). this article seeks to introduce a case study of a doctoral program aspiring to create action and change through student progress. this piece also strives to provide an overview of how the program’s structured curricula promotes academic and professional growth as well as empowers students to become global leaders and advocates. further, this article is focused on providing a focus on the importance of learning technologies and how doctoral students develop the skill sets and expertise needed to employ technology into educational and organizational contexts to enhance academic outcomes, instructional approaches, and employee productivity. recommendations are made regarding the importance of providing students access to cutting edge technologies that are transforming the landscape of educational and organizational learning. kremers et al. (2019) explained that vital importance of bridging the gap between knowledge and change. in this regard, they identified five critical aspects of developing change agents: transdisciplinary collaboration and community; intellect and innovation; emotional intelligence and well-being; energy and commitment; and reflexivity, reflection, and action. further, they advocated for the evaluation of graduate learning spaces and posited for the need for creativity and diversity in program approaches, stating “instead of encouraging conformity, experimentation and providing space for the exchange of information to learn from one another should be encouraged” (para 2). additionally, ciok (2019) defined what it means to be an agent of change as “someone who listens to the people in the community where the issue exists and makes sure that they truly understand the root of the problem before implementing a new idea”, encouraging learners to “find your passion and act on it” (para 3). while the terminology is relatively modern and the research still in progress, the value of creating agents of change is present and growing in doctoral programs. the article begins with a brief overview of the program being evaluated and also reviews the curriculum rigor and standards of the program. further, the article provides specific examples of how the edd program under investigation is utilizing innovative technologies in order to create agents of change who are inspired to action in their global and local communities. additionally, a discussion of how the curriculum is focusing on issues of social justice through innovative technology-enhanced curriculum design is presented. further, initiatives of interprofessional education, program residencies, and how mentorship relationships are beneficial to creating student agents of change capable of action and advocacy are analyzed. as an example of these active learning strategies, instances of training and engagement with communities through service learning projects and study abroad opportunities are discussed. finally, the commentary concludes with a discussion of the future of the doctoral program. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ creating agents of change through doctoral learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.115 18 background on edd in ept program the chicago school of professional psychology (tcspp) and its educational degree programs, including the doctorate of education (edd) in educational psychology and technology (ept), are regionally accredited by the western association of schools and colleges senior college and university commission (wscuc). the professional doctorate, also referred to as the edd in this article, focuses on developing experienced professionals through professional practice and the extension of student professional knowledge base (lundgren-resenterra & kahn, 2019). the threeyear ept program prepares students to develop the knowledge and skills needed to work in the evolving field of learning technologies. students develop the expertise needed to critically evaluate instructional approaches, assess educational challenges, and critique technology-driven methods that may impact student learning, curriculum design, and employee performance. upon completion of the ept program, graduates are empowered to be agents of change in which they are able to effectively assess and understand how individuals and organizations learn, perform, utilize technology, and promote program productivity and sustainability. the ept program requirements include:  51 hours of core program coursework and 6 hours of concentration coursework.  two on-campus residencies (professional development and networking sessions).  a competency examination (which includes a professional practice project).  a dissertation (which may include either a traditional dissertation or action research dissertation approach). program core coursework is focused on various aspects of learning, teaching, culture, lifespan development, professional development, ethics, and the impact of technology on these areas. further, core coursework includes an emphasis on quantitative and qualitative methodologies and action research. students in the ept program also complete concentration coursework focused on k-12 education learning and technology, higher education learning and technology, or instructional design. curriculum rigor the ept program faculty and tcspp leaders are dedicated to providing students high quality and rigorous learning experiences that are tied to industry standards and encompass best practices for online learning. all courses include signature assignments that are aligned to program learning outcomes to ensure that students are acquiring content knowledge that has been identified by program faculty and industry leaders as essential to the field of ept. program administrative faculty also conduct annual program reviews that are focused on critically examining student performance and areas of future program modification. identified program modifications are focused on areas of program enhancement and the inclusion of current and future trends that potentially have significant impact on the field. current program focuses include social justice, service learning, and innovative forms of technology that students may be exposed to in their future workplace settings. students in the ept program are provided the unique opportunity to experience these areas of learning through a global perspective in the online classroom. further, all program faculty are trained in quality matters (qm), which provides a solid foundation of accessible, equitable, and innovative components during the curriculum design of each program course. additionally, tcspp’s online campus possesses the qm online learner support certification, which further illustrates the program’s and institution’s high level of commitment in providing quality and rigorous online educational experiences. tcspp also provides resources that promote student success. for example, the online campus writing center offers online students the opportunity to receive writing support and feedback on their course assignments, capstone projects, theses, and dissertations. moreover, students have access to methodology experts to support them in their coursework and research projects. students also are able to access resources and materials from the tcspp online library and are able to engage in online chats and schedule consultations with tcspp librarians. the online edd in ept is a professional practice program that is designed to be completed in three years. dissertation courses are integrated throughout the program to provide students the opportunity to complete their dissertation research while simultaneously enrolled in their coursework, thus providing students the opportunity to finish their degree in a timely manner and begin earning a higher salary upon completion of their studies. the program is also cost effective in that it was originally designed to ensure students are able to complete their doctoral studies while remaining in their full-time professional roles. for example, the program encourages students to identify problems of practice in their professional settings from which to conduct action research dissertations. this approach ensures that students are receiving doctoral experiences that are supportive and relevant to their careers and that they understand how they are able to effectively integrate the course content into their professional settings. due to the vast array of professional opportunities that are available to current students and program alumni (e.g., instructional designers, consultants, trainers, curriculum specialists, administrators, university/college faculty members), students are provided significant access to a large number of career options through the completion of one doctoral degree of study. additionally, students have expressed their appreciation of having instructors who are practitioners with expertise in the content areas they are studying and for faculty motivating them to accomplish their goal of earning their doctorate degree. examples of student testimonies include the following: “i appreciate how the instructors provide us examples of how we can use the topics we are learning in our professional settings,” and “the faculty are really knowledgeable in the areas we are learning and they encourage me to continue moving forward in my coursework and research.” advanced technology the ept program faculty continually strive to add innovative design elements to online program coursework in order to prepare students for roles of leadership and advocacy in social change. tools and platforms that have been used to enhance the ept program include augmented reality, virtual reality, and gamification. additionally, the ept program faculty have developed specific plans to incorporate artificial intelligence (ai), drones, and robotics into coursework in the coming academic year. statti & torres impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.115 19 students have also shared that their ability to explore innovative technologies has helped to enhance their levels of technology selfefficacy and their beliefs in their ability to implement similar trends in their own classroom and professional settings. as an example, one student stated that “the experiences and the knowledge i have acquired during the course of the ept program thus far has been magnified during this task of game design. i enjoyed coming up with the gameplay and making the decisions of what the reward structure would be. doing so, has really expanded my level of creativity as well as my learning and teaching expectations.” further, a student shared that “designing the us vr tourism game was a great experience. it really helped me to get over the misconception that creating technology should be reserved for those who work for major tech companies such as google. i am more confident in my abilities to design curriculum and to integrate technology.” additionally, the ept program also launched a monthly podcast series, titled edtech hour, in which students are involved in researching, conducting, and editing interviews. this podcast series is vital in further expanding students’ knowledge of course content and providing them important networking opportunities with professionals in the field. through the podcast series, students are able to gain experience observing how global leaders in the field are able to utilize their educational training in order to positively influence others, discuss topics they are passionate about, and share their knowledge. social justice and technology doctoral programs have the potential to inform and educate students to become global agents of change by expanding students’ knowledge about issues focused on inequities, disparities, and inhumanities. thus, including specific course readings, class discussions, as well as assignments, provides students with practical experiences in planning and pursuing issues of social justice. as marx and kim (2019) posited, in the past, much research on technology and equity in education focused specifically on access to technology for historically marginalized populations, such as children of color, children with disabilities, and children in poverty. the current ubiquity of technology, evidenced in our everyday use of mobile devices, computers, and social networking sites, has promoted broadening user demographics, alleviating some concerns about equitable access to technology as a tool. recent research expands the discussion of equity and diversity in education by attending to the means by which technology is taught and used, how it can enhance user identity, and what inequalities remain. (p. 10.) further, and of important note when educating a diverse student body, the terms “social justice” and “equality” hold different meanings to different individuals and often are dependent on their personal backgrounds, religious beliefs, political views, and sociocultural and ethnic perspectives. for example, smith (2012) explained that equity might mean “fairness in treating everyone equally (equality of opportunity), or might be treating people differently so that certain outcomes can become more equal, and therefore, more fair (equality of outcomes)” (p. xi) for example, despite cultural and religious differences, arar and oplatka (2016), concluded in their study specifically evaluating measures of social justice in arab and jewish schools in the middle east, that the four themes related to leadership in actions of social justice are: 1.) vision and values, 2.) the practical implementation of social justice, 3.) factors facilitating or obstructing the practice of a social justice school policy, and 4.) the socialization process of leaders for social justice. moreover, similar to what arar and oplatka (2016) expressed regarding their own research, doctoral programs should also strive to “contribute to the understanding of ways in which enlightened educators in a society dominated by inequitable practices can overcome political and cultural barriers and increase the potential for equity and social justice” (p. 71). therefore, rather than specifically instructing students on what these terms mean and providing a concrete list of issues of social justice, it is critical that doctoral learners are encouraged to truly grapple with the definitions, issues, measures, and needed actions of social justice in order to most effectively prepare students to be knowledgeable and compassionate agents of change in their communities and worldwide. rather than telling students what or how to think, students should be provided with skills that cultivate critical thinking as well as passion for helping others and an understanding of those different from themselves. the ept program has the unique opportunity to teach students about the potential for action through social justice with the use of technology, as a means to reach underserved populations as well as a means of protecting vulnerable populations. the ept program includes three specific program learning outcomes related to social justice: 1. demonstrate awareness and implications of biases, prejudices, and assumptions. 2. explain how social justice issues are manifested in educational and organizational contexts. 3. explain how social justice issues are manifested in educational and organizational contexts. through the ept program’s social justice initiatives, students are explicitly provided with practice training that offers opportunities for action through community engagement and social change with the use of technology. for example, in the ept qualitative research course students are taught to develop a research proposal that focuses on a student’s selected issue of social justice. students are encouraged to think about ways to provide a voice for previously unheard or underserved groups through the use of qualitative research and technology. in the program course titled the psychology of motivation and emotion in learning, students explore the motivational factors and theories behind social justice actions and conduct a presentation on how technology can be used to enhance participation and engagement in social justice movements. additionally, students analyze the potential for drone technology to assist in social justice movements, such as through the delivery of medical and food assistance in impoverished areas. further, in the program’s proseminar in education course, students write a persuasive essay focused on how educational technology can influence or impact social justice. student are also asked if distance learning can used in the pursuit of social justice and what specific groups or persons might be most positively and negatively impacted by technology enhanced education. these assignments, as well as other course work in the program, are utilized to educate, prepare, and empower students to feel capable and confident in their abilities to be active agents of change in their roles in the fields of education and training. creating agents of change through doctoral learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.115 20 service learning and study abroad opportunities as amerson (2019) recently shared, “ethical engagement, including the role of power and privilege, when working with vulnerable or indigenous populations also has moved to the forefront of the national dialogue” (p. 205). tcspp holds this value of ethical engagement in social change in high regard and therefore has incorporated service learning projects throughout the university curriculum. due to the online nature of the program, the ept program recently adopted virtual service learning opportunities for students. for example, in the ept cognition across the lifespan and technology’s impact online course, students created a servicelearning video intended to educate individuals in a specific stage of life, or caregivers to a specific stage, about learning, behaviors, emotions, or relationships through technology. in an effort to pursue social justice, students are instructed to view this service-learning project as an opportunity to advocate for special populations who are currently underserved or under-protected. amerson (2019) proclaimed the importance of appropriate student volunteer work in international service learning projects and explained the need for ethical work in host countries, primarily the need for students to engage in activities not “beyond their level of competence” (p. 205). students in the ept program have the opportunity to enroll in study abroad courses that focus on the implementation of course concepts into an international setting. lundgren-resenterra and kahn (2019) posited that “professional doctorates have a clear impact on the personal and professional lives of the individual student who undertake them” (p. 407). the success of ept study abroad programs supports this claim and have continually challenged students who participate in them to grow both personally and professionally. one program that is offered annually for ept students focuses on students developing an understanding of the south african educational, political, historical, and cultural landscapes. by participating in this study abroad program, students are afforded intensive service learning experiences in south african township primary schools. this study abroad program has been impactful for providing learners a better understanding of how the field of ept is implemented in technology rich and technology sparse schools. through this study abroad program, students receive hands-on, practical learning experiences of how to advocate for the equity in educational resources by creating professional development educator workshops and conducting program evaluation in an international context. through these study abroad experiences, students are empowered to engage in social change in their own communities as well as internationally. students who have completed the south africa study abroad program have shared that they are “eternally grateful to have had this experience with a wonderful group of individuals” and that “the study abroad program was one of the most impactful experiences” that they have had and that it “has fundamentally changed” them. study abroad programs are a vital component of the ept program in providing students a foundational understanding of how to develop culturally and contextually appropriate training materials, the ability to engage in cross-cultural communications, and the opportunity to research and apply educational technology to impact teachers and students in globally diverse contexts. scholarly mentorship in their research, zambo et al. (2015) explained that “doctoral students must make sacrifices [therefore,] it is important that they value learning, understand their learning habits, and carve out time for learning [in] their busy lives” (p. 248). moreover, they proclaimed that these steps and prioritizing time towards the doctorate ultimately brings pride and success for the student. in order to bridge the gap between a student’s goals and the steps it takes reach their goals, as described by zambo et al. (2015), the tcspp edd program relies heavily on faculty mentorship and student and faculty relationships. as godskesen and kobayashi (2015) explained, “doctoral students need supportive learning structures as well as encouragement and space to develop agentive competences in the academic environment” (p. 146). in this regard, ept administration and faculty provide support to students through one-on-one mentoring relationships; semesterly student outreach; and studentled, faculty supported research groups. through these facultystudent relationships, ept students have successfully collaborated with their peers as well as with faculty members in order to conduct research studies and produce effective scholarship, namely presentations and written work. in the student-led research groups, students select research socially conscious topics related to their interests, which are often focused on issues of social justice, and are guided through virtual monthly research meetings held with the supervising faculty members. during these cooperative sessions, faculty provide students with suggestions, recommendations, potential submission options, and ethical guidance in support of their research goals. students participating in these groups have completed studies on k12 learning, university learning, professional development communities, university assessment procedures, and diversity. faculty supported research groups are beneficial in not only developing the research abilities and scholarly writing skills of students, but also in supporting students to continue to grow into their roles as agents of change in their professional roles. in terms of the dissertation, ept faculty provide ongoing and supportive access for their dissertation students. brodin (2018) supported the necessity for dissertation supervisors to not act as gatekeepers, but as a “valuable intellectual resources” (p. 671). the dissertation chairs in the ept program embrace this notion closely by encouraging students to select research topics they are passionate about and also that benefit their personal and/or professional communities and impact social change. further, godskesen and kobayashi (2015) noted the value of coaching relationships with doctoral students. in this regard, ept dissertation chairs communicate closely and regularly with students by holding virtual dissertation open houses and virtual and in-person meetings. further, chairs hold round table discussions at program residencies to provide different scholarly perspectives of potential research studies students may have interest in pursuing. through these mentoring and coaching relationships, students experience the benefits of advocacy as learners and in turn feel empowered to advocate on behalf of others through their roles in education and other social justice initiatives. statti & torres impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.115 21 conclusion and discussion of the future of doctoral programs as zambo et al. (2015) posited, “the educational doctorate (edd) is being re-envisioned as a distinct professional degree. today’s edd graduates are envisioned as scholarly practitioners” (p. 233). further, their research indicated that many students apply to edd programs to be challenged and that edd students value a sense of growth and empowerment from their doctoral programs. in contrast, brodin (2018) postulated that doctoral education students may experience a “stifling silence” in their scholarly creativity due to “controlling intellectual, political, and economic agendas that enabled stifling conditions of the students’ scholarly creativity” (p. 655). edd programs must be cognizant of the potential for specific agendas to suppress student creativity in their research. instead, programs should strive to grow and evolve as scholarly doctoral institutes of learning, as individuals invested in the success of students, as providers of educational training, and as supporters of developing agents of change who can advocate on behalf of underserved and underrepresented communities. tcspp’s edd program is dedicated to inspiring student action through the development of agents of change. students are provided with the unique opportunity to explore movements of social justice, equity, and service learning through innovative technology platforms and tools. through curriculum rigor, providing students access to advanced and cutting edge technologies that are transforming the landscape of educational and organizational learning, as well as individual and personalized mentorship, students are challenged to make their learning practical in order to empower students to make an impact through action and advocacy in their global and local communities. references arar, k. h. & oplatka, i. (2016). making sense of social justice in education: jewish and arab leaders’ perspectives in israel. management in education, 30(2), 66-73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020616631409 amerson, r. (2019). transforming global service learning experience. journal of transcultural nursing, 30(2), 205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659618812946 brodin, e. (2018). the stifling silence around scholarly creativity in doctoral education: experiences of students and supervisors in four disciplines. higher education, 75(4), 655-673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-0170168-3 ciok, j. (2019). what does it mean to be an agent of change? https://www.educationpioneers.org/blog/what-does-it-mean-be-agentchange godskesen, m. & kobayashi, s. (2015). coaching doctoral students-a means to enhance progress and support self-organisation in doctoral education. studies in continuing education, 38(2), 145-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037x.2015.1055464 kremers, k., liepins, a., & york. a. (2019). developing change agents: innovative practices for sustainability leadership. m libraries publishing. https://dx.doi.org/10.24926/97819461 lundgren-resenterra & kahn (2019). the organisational impact of undertaking a professional doctorate: forming critical leaders. british educational research journal, 45(2), 407-424. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3503 marx, s. & kim, y. (2019). technology for equity and social justice in education: introduction to the special issue. international journal of multicultural education, 21(1), 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v21i1.1939 smith, e. (2012). key issues in education and social justice. sage. zambo, d., buss, r., & zambo, r. (2015). uncovering the identities of students and graduates in a cped-influenced edd program. studies in higher education, 40(2), 233-252. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.823932 https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020616631409 https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659618812946 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0168-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0168-3 https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037x.2015.1055464 https://dx.doi.org/10.24926/97819461 https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3503 http://dx.doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v21i1.1939 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.823932 aubrey statti the chicago school of professional psychology astatti@thechicagoschool.edu kelly m. torres the chicago school of professional psychology (1) ktorres@thechicagoschool.edu background on edd in ept program curriculum rigor advanced technology social justice and technology service learning and study abroad opportunities scholarly mentorship conclusion and discussion of the future of doctoral programs references microsoft word 59 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 24 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.59 getting to maybe: improving the education doctorate in an era of uncertainty harriette thurber rasmussen, edd fielding graduate university hrasmussen@email.fielding.edu abstract in an age of increasing complexity, particularly endeavors intended to address social justice, institutions of higher learning can be caught in the middle of the need for stability and responsiveness. using cped principles as a guide, this essay argues for complexity as an essential lens to address social justice, problems of practice, and systematic inquiry that incorporates multiple frames and perspective. it suggests specific tools to rethink approaches to foundational content and suggests a more central role of practitioner problems in doctoral coursework. keywords: complexity, evolutionary knowledge, problem of practice, education doctorate introduction as the level of organization increases, complex systems have a tendency to shift into a new mode of behavior, the description of which is not reducible to the previous description of the system’s behavior. (tsoukas & hatch, 2001, p. 989) without question the world is changing at warp speed. closest to home, our amazon dot helps my dementia-disabled husband access information he needs but has forgotten. my apple watch decided on its own where i was headed today and flashed my expected travel time. my 15-year-old’s textbooks are all housed on his school-issued tablet and on this device he completes and turns in all his assignments. even social norms are changing. for example, my son’s first girlfriend is openly bisexual. on a more global scale, cyber-terrorism is discussed as one of the most serious security threats of this generation; computer systems are now held for ransom (sanger, chan, & scott, 2017). u.s. military operations in iraq favored more flexible protocols, waiving traditional hierarchy to enable faster response to the rapidly changing scenarios of network-based warfare (mcchrystal, collins, silverman, & fussell, 2015). in some communities, it is not uncommon to share the road with a driver-less car. almost two dozen countries around the world recognize gay marriage, including four in catholic-majority south america (pew research center, 2015). estimates on how frequently the doubling of human knowledge takes place range from every 12 months to every 12 hours. in 1940 that same phenomenon took 25 years to accomplish (schilling, 2013). that these, often exponential, shifts in technological and cultural norms equate to progress is arguable. that they represent a global reality of rapid change and increasing variables is one of the few certainties in an otherwise vuca—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—world (berger & johnson, 2015). the uncertainty of the era in which we now live, work, and learn makes it challenging not only to predict the future, but concurrently difficult, if not impossible, to set realistic goals that drive us forward. the best we can do, perhaps, is aim for maybe. and, in the midst of this vuca climate sits the education doctorate. questions facing it include: does the unpredictable nature of the world in which we now live implicate the education doctorate? is there a foundation of knowledge that remains timeless? should institutions of higher learning be protected while society rights itself? do these institutions, in fact, represent a raft of stability amidst a chaotic sea? my responses to these questions are an emphatic yes, and. i might argue, as do others (e.g., four arrows, 2017; kochharbryant, 2017; lupinacci, 2017), that the graduate degree plays a critical role in society’s future. in an era of fake news and an increasing disdain for academically based assertions, higher education may well be the eye of the storm and should be held harmless so that it can remain such. at the same time, i argue that the success of the education doctorate depends on recognizing the shifting and increasingly complex nature of the world. if there is a response to be made, i suggest it is to integrate flexibility into the integrity of the edd degree. this manuscript illuminates the evolutionary nature of knowledge in a complex society and it explores the necessity of utilizing a complex systems lens to inform societal progress and justice in doctoral studies. within this context, i will examine how the principles developed by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) hold opportunity for this critical adaptation and the prospects afforded by the journey from practitioner/scholar to scholar/practitioner. the cped principles were established through the desire of its member institutions to solidify the role of the education doctorate within the broader field of doctoral study (perry, 2016). over the course of three years, cped’s members developed a set of six principles to guide institutional improvement efforts. these getting to maybe: improving the education doctorate in an era of uncertainty impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.59 25 collectively held ideals now act as beacons for member institutions to reconsider how their education doctoral programs, and their practices, serve the needs of students and society. in the past ten years, the principles have played a critical role in design decisions in research, development, and implementation of education doctorate content and practices (perry, 2016). the professional doctorate in education: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. (cped, 2009, para. 8). the cped principles illustrate my argument for complexity as we explore, in particular, principles related to social justice, problems of practice, and systematic inquiry that incorporates multiple frames and perspective. complexity and social justice an initial claim to be made is that the work of rectifying social injustice is inherently complex, complexity being an unpredictable state in which a system’s parts function interdependently, utilize diversity for productivity, and experience unintended consequences (sargut & mcgrath, 2011; tsoukas & hatch, 2001). this, of course, is noted in cped’s first principle as it acknowledges the complexity of professional problems of practice. also, attributive to complex systems are multiple and multiplying variables, all of which exhibit relationship and emergence. it is this attribute that will most orient my claim that social systems, and by extension social justice, are complex. to examine this further, snowden (2010) offers the cynevin framework (see figure 1). the cynevin framework distinguishes between systems that are simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic1. snowden’s graphic explains the predictable nature of simple and complicated systems. the variables are controllable in 1 chaos is reserved for short-cycle challenges, where the only goal is to establish sufficient order to take action and is outside the relevance of this discussion. these systems with the goal of managed and consistent results— which are possible because causes and effects are known (berger & johnson, 2015; snowden, 2010). complex systems, on the other hand, are non-linear and become such when the number of variables renders an outcome impossible to predict in advance. too, the problems that develop in complex systems tend toward causalities which are in themselves arguable. they are challenging to define, much less resolve, and reinforce snowden’s (2010) claim that the only route to resolution is learning—probe, sense, and respond. figure 1. cynevin framework. reprinted from cognitive edge by d. snowden, 2010. retrieved from https://cognitiveedge.com. reprinted with permission. while 21st century realities mean most organizations now have some complex attributes (berger & johnson, 2015; sargut & mcgrath, 2011), there can be little argument to the claim that social justice pursuits fall most heavily into the complex domain. in a most basic analysis, social systems contain more variables, each of which serves as a multiplier, shifting the system and increasing its complexity in true evolutionary fashion. consider the intersections of technological advances, where communities are now established across borders and humanitarian cultural norms. these are two of many variables impacting immigration challenges across the globe. whereas centuries ago immigration may have been successfully managed with a simple solution (e.g., a wall to protect a medieval city), the variables that comprise today’s immigration challenge comprise what complexity scientists term a wicked problem (conklin, 2005; sargut & mcgrath, 2011). in complex challenges, we do not know which variables become viable leverage points until we engage, and learn—probe, sense, and respond (snowden, 2010). they epitomize the reality of maybe, as claimed by peter, “some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them” (peter, n.d., p. 1). considering the elements of a complex environment, juxtaposed with social challenges like injustice, it is doubtful that any doctoral student can adequately address this injustice without the lens of complexity. heifetz, linsky, and grashow (2009) refer to complex challenges as adaptive and claims that one of the biggest leadership predictable un pr ed ict ab le collaboration command,and control rasmussen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.59 26 errors is to treat adaptive (complex) problems as technical (simple or complicated). if doctoral programs intend to develop leaders able “to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” (cped, 2009), a solid grounding in complexity theory and its unpredictable nature becomes a curricular imperative. acknowledging the nature of knowledge which means, what, exactly? does curricular knowledge fall into that thorny world of complexity? do the addition of new variables, perhaps even those as subjective as alternative perspective or conclusions around data suggest that knowledge is, in fact, evolutionary and thus complex? the cped principles account for the generation of knowledge; i argue that generative knowledge is, in fact, evolutionary. while most of the writing on evolutionary learning has been in the context of evolutionary systems design in service of a more sustainable future (banathy, 1985; laszlo, 2003), a claim can be made that all knowledge can, and should, be considered evolutionary. in this paper i extend that concept to consider the evolutionary nature of knowledge itself and its relevance to the doctoral degree. certainly the evolving nature of knowledge fits within the vision of doctoral research as it seeks to uncover new “truths,” which in themselves might be considered evolutionary. it can also be claimed, however, that the curricular base of many institutions approach foundational knowledge as static. these foundations may, in fact, be ripe for critical analysis and fit within the confines of evolutionary learning theory. but foundational knowledge also becomes a key opportunity to consider a core competency of complexity and its application to the evolving nature of knowledge through the addition of variables. heron and reason (1997) claimed that the way in which knowledge is acquired is in itself a complex endeavor, positioning different ways of knowing, e.g., experiential, practical, etc., as interdependent variables. laszlo (2003) continued this theme with his exploration of evolutionary learning in relation to evolutionary systems design. in his cycle of awareness, understanding, competence, and praxis, he posits knowledge as a state of constant development. banathy (1985) is most explicit in his call to establish competence in complex thinking, noting that evolutionary learning “can enable us to cope with change and complexity, renew our perspectives, and reassign our systems, often reorganizing them at higher levels of complexity” (p. 11). given that in the thirty years since banathy’s impassioned call for an evolutionary view of knowledge and learning the world has become exponentially more complex, it is not illogical to suggest that this framing of knowledge as evolving is more pressing than ever and will continue to become so. there are implications, of course, in repositioning a guiding epistemology to a less certain set of foundations, particularly for students who favor objectivity. i argue, however, that objective reasoning must be put forth as a beginning stage of a doctoral journey. in a complex environment, where adaptation is the norm, it is simply not possible to engage in robust understanding without attending to the context in which the supposed objective “fact” occurred. if in fact the education doctorate intends to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice (cped, 2009), this becomes the work of the doctoral student: to understand the systems in which the challenges of ethics, equity, and social justice reside. i am, of course, arguing that all doctoral students be asked to systemically apply a complexity lens to content in the course of their inquiry. by doing so we will enable a more systemic multiperspectived view of content and societal challenges. but how might that happen? problems of practice with the groundwork laid to apply a complex lens to doctoral studies and the imperative of understanding complexity as a perspective, we move now to another improvement principle, that which promotes field-based problems of practice. it also speaks to a core proposal: a more central role for the practitioner problem of practice as a structure in which to explore and apply critical content. this proposal begins with a discussion of the doctoral student and the opportunities afforded by the practitioner/scholar. i term the typical education doctoral journey as a shift from practitioner/scholar to scholar/practitioner. students enter doctoral work primarily as practitioners, bringing with them field experience in which, knowingly or not, they have most likely encountered complex systems and wicked problems. over the course of doctoral studies, i maintain that scholarship takes a more central view in a doctoral student’s perspective-taking. the key is to capitalize on that practitioner experience so that it becomes the context for scholarship. with the average age of those earning education doctorates of 40 (liu, 2011), students bring years of hands-on experience with systems that most likely have complex and wicked problems to solve. this is a ripe opportunity from which to draw relevance, consider complexity, and develop greater capacity to address social injustice. my proposal extends the typical praxis or the use of field experience in one’s culminating dissertation research to an instructional model that utilizes field-based experiences as a key access point for all doctoral content. the field of complexity is vast and can easily consume a central focus of study. integration of complexity theory into practitioner experience creates a more heuristic and applied instructional model and need not forsake the integrity of critical content. applying systemic and systematic inquiry to field-based problems of practice will enable an and/both approach to practice and scholarship; their integration, coupled with complexity perspective, grounds the doctoral student in another cped principle: a “professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge” (2009, para. 8). inquiry cycles preserving the integrity of research knowledge in problems of practice relies upon a disciplined inquiry cycle that incorporates a wicked problem, reframing, theory development and evidence prediction, systematic inquiry and complexity analysis, evidence collection, and narrative reflection. drawing on copland’s (2003) cycles of inquiry, figure 2 illustrates the positioning of each of these elements, also described below. getting to maybe: improving the education doctorate in an era of uncertainty impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.59 27 figure 2. cycle of inquiry with embedded practitioner problem of practice. adapted from “leadership of inquiry: building and sustaining capacity for school improvement” by m. copland, 2003, educational policy and analysis, 25(4), 375-396. adapted with permission. practitioner problem of practice. establishing a problem of practice for a cycle of inquiry is not essentially different from crafting one’s dissertation research question, except that a problem of practice suggests a smaller research cycle, is grounded in a current or prior experience of the student, and establishes a point of inquiry into one or more critical content areas. at fielding graduate university, doctoral students are encouraged to use their dissertation research questions as the context for most, if not all, of their predissertation coursework. this enables students to tailor the ways in which they consider new content to an area of primary interest. regardless of where the dissertation research begins in an institution’s curriculum model, a cycle of inquiry might be used to ensure relevance, practitioner field experience, and complexity analysis into all content areas. questions that might orient a practitioner problem of practice include, “what specific problem or set of problems am i trying to resolve related to equity, ethics, or social justice?” and “how is this urgent, current, and personal?” these problems of practice should incorporate aspects of wicked problems, meaning that they are thorny problems that have been around for a while and for which there are not ready answers. in other words, they are complex, with multiple variables and incomplete or contradictory knowledge. reframing. gaining clarity around a problem of practice is an essential first step toward legitimate inquiry—but reframing one’s problem helps to ensure one is solving the right problem. reframing also speaks to the use of “multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions,” another cped (2009, para 8) principle. the most basic method to reframe a problem is to surface the assumptions that undergird the questions that formulated the initial problem statement. these assumptions become the first variables to apply in how the problem is understood and begin to surface associated complexity. in his discussion of reframing, wedell-weddellsborg (2017) warns against a propensity for a myopic view and suggests adding external perspective through conversation with those not familiar with the problem, categorization exercises, and contextual consideration. reframing brings double loop learning (argyris, 1991) to the cycle, incorporating systematic metacognitive habits of mind and a push to probe more deeply. reframing assures the student/practitioner that he or she is investigating the real issue at hand. theory development/evidence prediction. with a solid and more complex problem of practice in place to guide inquiry, this next phase is really a planning stage to determine the exact nature of the inquiry. this might involve formulating a hypothesis and steps to prove or disprove preliminary ideas, or determining a primary inductive or deductive approach. theory development also includes justification for the particular method of inquiry using a simple “if, then” formulation: if i do …; then i will know or understand …. for doctoral students early in their career, this is an opportunity to work in partnership with instructors to understand the varied manifestations of inquiry itself and more about scholarly research methods in the context of this particular inquiry cycle. also important in this phase is a prediction of evidence that will convince the student/practitioner that any conclusions drawn are valid. while it is likely that the cycle will generate additional forms of evidence, the prediction phase orients the initial investigation and establishes a disciplined approach to systematic inquiry. systematic inquiry/complexity analysis. as the student moves into systematic inquiry, deliberate connections to the practitioner’s field experience that orient the problem of practice are critical. this can be supported through an initial complexity analysis that evolves as more variables are discovered. a complexity analysis can take many forms but should include, at a minimum, a systems level model of the context in which the problem of practice is situated, one example being a causal loop analysis in order to surface the known variables. this step draws upon snowden’s (2010) probe-sense-respond configuration and reinforces the emergent properties of complex systems, while surfacing opportunities to consider additional variables. evidence collection. while evidence is collected at all times during the inquiry cycle, this phase marks a deliberate surfacing of all aspects of the investigation with applied analysis steps as was determined during the theory development phase. an important consideration, however, is the allowance of emergent theories, analytic nuance, and the absence of hard and fast conclusions. in fact, hard evidence might suggest that the inquiry was focused too narrowly or subject to influence argument with the artificial boundaries of discipline obscuring potential insight (hayles, 1990). narrative reflection. the narrative reflection phase is in reality where the majority of the learning about content and complexity takes place and it is critical to build in sufficient time and guidelines for a robust reflection and solid narration of thought that encompasses the entire inquiry cycle. tsoukas and hatch (2001) claim that one’s interpretation of events constitutes second-order complexity and that “the complexity we discover when we apply methods of complexity science is a function of the second order complexity we introduce by our involvement” (p. 990). in other words, we insert boundaries around data not because they exist, but because we need them for interpretation. thus tsoukas and hatch (2001) argue heavily for narration as a dominant method of analysis of any complex system using bruner’s (1986) contrasts of logicoscientific modes of thinking with a more meaning-centered narrative approach to draw upon the richness of field-based practitioner experiences. the expectation of any inquiry cycle is that the narrative concludes with deeper questions illuminating new layers of complexity from which to launch a new cycle. copland (2003), adapted cycle of inquiry systematic inquiry/ complexity analysis practitioner problem of practice narrative reflection reframing evidence collection theory development/ evidence prediction rasmussen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.59 28 critical and reciprocal learning opportunities: the case for the adaptive institution placing practitioner problems of practice as a central instructional model for the education doctorate has numerous implications for growth, many of which reach beyond the student. institutions of higher education, those which house and guide the education doctoral student, are no less complex than socially-minded organizations in other sectors and as well suffer from the limitations imposed by decades of perspectives rooted in a more predictable past. the potential here is that students’ problems of practice and, the complexity they represent, will begin to influence institutional and instructional norms as stronger reciprocal learning opportunities between students and faculty are explored. placing the experiences of the practitioner/scholar as central to the curriculum as the primary arena to explore critical content necessarily changes the role of both the student and the instructor; they become more partners in learning and less in an expert/novice relationship. while shifting the instructor/student role does not negate the expertise and role of a knowledgeable other in a learning relationship, it does embrace the evolutionary notion of knowledge as developmental and emergent. as well it calls for an increased level of flexibility and argues for openness to emergence as new insights around complexity begin to infiltrate institutional behaviors. the opportunity afforded here is that institutions of higher education develop increased adaptive capacity, described by eichholz (2014) as purpose-driven, impactful, and responsive to an external environment. whereas institutions of higher learning traditionally fall into the lower left hand quadrant of figure 3, it is difficult to imagine how the education doctorate would fail to be enriched by an institution that embodies such values as creativity, collaboration, flexibility, and meaning. too, an adaptive stance furthers institutional capacity to continually examine and further integrate cped principles. what if this were that opportunity to enable an evolution that truly impacted equity, ethics, and social justice? even a maybe holds promise for our future. figure 3. driving forces and characteristics that characterize organizations. reprinted from adaptive capacity: how organizations can thrive in a changing world (p.60), by j. c. eichholz, 2014, greenwich, ct: lid publishing, inc. conclusion: getting to maybe does a complex lens around practitioner problems of practice get us to maybe? maybe. and maybe this represents only a start. but it is a beginning and evolution, as sneaky as it is, is ongoing whether or not we make it visible to our thinking and to the actions we take daily to make the world a more just and equitable place. this paper considered innovative ways to redesign the education doctorate in the context of cped improvement principles by moving problems of practice into a more central role and applying a complexity lens to the thorny and wicked problems faced by those wishing to right social injustice and transform society. i argued for expanding the role of practitioner/scholar problems of practice to bring the reality of complex systems into what can be a static, isolated higher education environment. i also explored how improvement efforts must take into account increasing variables, the evolutionary nature of knowledge, and argued for the cyclical nature of inquiry as a modal pedagogical strategy, rather than an outlier. ultimately, this initial discussion has perhaps raised more questions than answers, to which i say “bravo.” this proposal reflects the extraordinary changes taking place in all levels of education and the need to integrate flexibility into the integrity of the edd degree. improvement must embrace an and/both approach. i argue that the success of higher education and the education doctorate depends on recognizing the shifting and increasingly complex nature of the world in which we now find ourselves. so why not maybe? references argyris, c. 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(2017). are you solving the right problems? harvard business review. retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/01/are-yousolving-the-right-problems impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 39 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.153 heeding the call for social justice: how a cped ed.d. program illuminates the instructional intersection between covid-19 and the black lives matter movement nancy nasr granada hills charter high school nnasr@ghctk12.com abstract the intersection of the covid-19 pandemic and the blm movement led to a historic moment for american society. illness, death, and civil unrest provided a shared historical experience for all americans, and provided an opportunity for educators to capitalize on the multitude of teachable moments these historical events provided. for educators, like myself, who were the product of cped ed.d. programs that emphasized social justice in education, the historical events of covid-19 and the blm movement were immediately recognized as an opportunity to bring social justice to the forefront in the online classroom. the purpose of this manuscript is to reflect on the impact that my cped ed.d. experience had on my awareness of social justice in education and how this awareness translates to online learning opportunities in light of the covid-19 pandemic to provide students with experiences that emphasize the need to understand and overcome social injustices, through science. keywords social justice, science, online learning, black lives matter, covid-19 a resurgence of the black lives matter movement breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery, george floyd. all of these names belonged to black americans murdered because of an ugly underbelly of american culture; that of systemic racism against black citizens. in the weeks following the murders of taylor, arbery, and floyd, thousands of people in the united states, and globally, took to the streets in acts of protest to demand awareness for systemic racism and to call for an end to oppressive policing measures that disproportionately impact black people. though not new, the civil unrest that emerged as a result of the murders of taylor, arbery, and floyd, brought to light a rebirth of the black lives matter (blm) movement. as the primary goal of the blm movement is to bring awareness to “the daily violence and systemic oppression black people experience” (castillo-montoya et al., 2019, p. 1126), it becomes imperative for the blm movement to gain traction in schools as a means to educate society’s youth about the plight of black people in contemporary america. doing so honors the need for greater social justice awareness in education, particularly as a society’s ability to reconstruct itself stems from the vitality and awareness of its youth (schiro, 2013). the covid-19 pandemic and the calls for social justice the renewed uprising of the blm movement occurred at a time when safer-at-home orders were issued across the country in response to the covid-19 pandemic. though government officials across the country recommended citizens limit the spread of coronavirus by remaining at home, the social call for action was too great for those whose lives and identities were impacted by the murders of breonna, ahmaud, and george. as an educator, i knew that the unprecedented events of covid-19 coupled with the historic social protests of blm could not, and should not, be isolated from each other, and i also knew that the covid-19 pandemic meant instruction would continue to be delivered online for most educators. with this in mind, i began to wonder, how could i ensure that my online science curriculum honored the central tenets of the blm movement in the context of covid-19? before describing the ways in which i decided to address the intersection of covid-19 and the blm movement in my online science curriculum, a reflection on my doctoral experience is important. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ heeding the call for social justice: how a cped ed.d. program illuminates the instructional intersection between covid-19 and the black lives matter movement impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.153 40 social justice as a prominent theme in cped programs i was fortunate to realize that i would be returning to my high school science teaching position armed with a freshly minted doctor of education (ed.d.) degree from a university that is a member of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). as a member of the cped consortium, the notion of social justice, and how a cped ed.d. program could better prepare educators to tackle social justice issues was frequently emphasized. from social justice issues such as under-representation of minorities in certain academic disciplines, to organized “policing” of schools, there was no shortage of opportunities to use my experiences in a cped ed.d. program to design classroom learning sequences that empowered my students to view science as a vehicle for social change; in fact, the reignition of the blm movement provided one such opportunity. because of my experiences in a cped ed.d. program i noticed a marked shift in my own curricular ideology. early in my career as an educator, i staunchly aligned with the scholar academic curricular ideology (schiro, 2013) wherein instruction was heavily content-based and relied on traditional modes of transmission; however, with exposure to alternative curricular ideologies through my cped ed.d. program i began to find myself transitioning toward the social reconstructionist ideology (schiro, 2013), wherein i viewed teaching as an opportunity to raise student awareness to issues of social injustice plaguing marginalized communities. with historical events such as covid-19 and the blm movement, i began to reflect on the ways that education could be used as a vehicle to reconstruct society. indeed, my identity development as an educator was facilitated through the emphasis of social justice throughout my cped ed.d. program. cped programs draw awareness to race in the schooling system in addition to emphasizing the link between my cped ed.d. program and my resulting understanding of the social justice issues beleaguering society, my participation in a cped ed.d. program also provided me with ample opportunities to critically examine the role of race in the american schooling system. courses centered around topics such as diversity and race in curriculum structures promoted an even deeper awareness of the injustices experienced by students of color. prior to this coursework, i was unaware of the ways in which common disciplinary tactics used by schools disproportionately impact students of color, or how the notion of color-blindness is an often-misguided attempt to appear as a “non-racist”, or how many curricular approaches reflect an assimilationist position on race in the classroom. the acquisition of this knowledge through my cped ed.d. program further strengthened my desire to model anti-racist teaching in my classroom. i knew that my emergent understanding of anti-racism in the classroom could be used to further refine my own classroom-level curriculum in a way that ensured both cultural responsiveness and a respectful acknowledgement of the contributions and differences of a wide array of races represented in my diverse classroom, as well as a commitment to action against racism. in this way, my cped ed.d. program aligned strongly to the vision of the cped wherein i developed into a “well-equipped scholarly [practitioner to] provide stewardship…and meet the educational challenges of the 21st century” (the carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2020). indeed, careful attention to diversity, race, and overcoming the social injustices of marginalized communities is a key challenge of the 21st century that socially conscious educators have a moral duty to address in their classrooms. dissertation in practice experiences develop understanding of social justice i knew that social justice was a key component of my doctoral program, however, with a limited understanding of social injustices in the education system at the time, my ideas about social justice in the science classroom were only two-dimensional, at best. it was not until i started working on my dissertation in practice (dip) that i began to take a deeper dive into the notion of social justice, and specifically how true social justice in education cannot dilute the experiences of the marginalized. in the early stages of dissertation writing, i thought that honoring social justice simply meant ensuring that i delivered lessons aligned with culturally responsive pedagogy (crp). little did i know that crp is only one minor facet of the social justice movement in education, and that truly tackling issues of social injustice meant delivering lessons that required a closer look at systemic racism. in fact, it was not until i started writing my dip that i realized my important role as a social justice advocate particularly as my student population is highly diverse, constituting approximately 50% latinx and african american students. as my dip took a close look at the next generation science standards (ngss), it was only natural to assume that social justice meant ensuring that the unique and diverse backgrounds of students were used as an asset to solve scientific problems. though this is undoubtedly one important facet of social justice in science, my deeper understanding of the ngss, through the development of my dip, led me to explore disciplinary core ideas rooted in phenomena that embodied social injustice. for example, i started developing greater proficiency at designing lesson sequences that tackled phenomena such as how air pollution disproportionately impacts people of color or how the flint water crisis still plagues predominantly black communities. these phenomena were used not only to address the disciplinary core objectives of my course through the ngss, but were also used to address an even bigger social problem; that of environmental racism. covid-19 and the call for remote lessons centered on social justice as my doctoral experience at a cped consortium institution helped develop my deeper understanding of social justice, i knew that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic meant that delivering science lessons rooted in social justice must occur remotely. as our school district continues to institute a safer-at-home order i knew to expect another semester of online teaching, however, i also knew that i could not let the events that inspired the reignition of the blm movement go unaddressed in my online science classroom. in fact, while some may view the requirement for online teaching as a significant hindrance, i view it as a welcome means to address issues of social justice. as the “internet can now deliver text, voice, audio, and video messages that give students the ability to see and hear social events occurring elsewhere” (schiro, 2013, p. 186), the use of technology in the online classroom becomes a significant asset to allow students an opportunity to connect authentically to social injustices. as described above, my doctoral program experience effectively helped me understand that social justice nasr impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.153 41 “requires not only the recognition of social group differences, but also an understanding of how social differences…are connected to social group inequality” (adams, 2018, p. 2). however, with this understanding in mind, it was now up to me to ensure that i was meeting the goals of social justice education by providing my students with learning opportunities that helped them develop the “critical analytical tools necessary to understand the structural features of oppression and their own socialization within oppressive systems” (bell, 2016, p. 4), even in online formats. justice-oriented and racially liberatory science pedagogies experienced with searches for scholarly literature, i began researching the ways that social justice teaching could be delivered to students in online formats, paying particular attention to addressing the experiences of pervasive black racism. from my research, i discovered two important pedagogical approaches; justice-oriented science pedagogy (davis & schaeffer, 2019) and racially liberatory pedagogy (castillo-montoya, abreu, & abad, 2019), as well as earth force’s community action and problemsolving process (https://www.earthforceresources.org, 2020). these approaches highlighted the ways in which teaching could be used to bring awareness to the plight of racial groups impacted by systemic racism, as well as empower students, particularly those students belonging to marginalized communities, to enact social change. while davis and schaeffer (2019) provided a working definition of justice-oriented science pedagogy, castillo-montoya et al. (2019) provided a framework for delivering instruction situated in racially liberatory pedagogy. though these two pedagogical approaches provided a starting point, i had to remember that the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic meant that these pedagogical strategies had to be refined for the online classroom. in addition, the online classroom had to also support the ability for students to envision and propose ways to enact change in their communities. implementing justice-oriented and racially liberatory science pedagogies online working through my dip i became deeply familiar with the ngss and how to implement it in my classroom. providing students ample opportunities to plan and conduct their own investigations, collect and analyze data, and engage in argument from evidence became cornerstones of my science curriculum. as instruction moved to online formats due to the covid-19 pandemic, i had to provide alternative online access to the fundamental principles of the ngss and as a result, students had to be provided with data sets that allowed them to continue data analysis and engage in argument from evidence, without actually conducting the investigations themselves. providing students with remote experiences with the process of science learning not only aligns with the vision of the ngss but also provides a platform for science instruction that encourages students to explore social justice phenomena by linking the process of science learning to larger societal issues. inquiry experiences that were once conducted in traditional classroom settings could be moved to online platforms by sharing online access to data sets, allowing students to engage in the collaborative process of developing scientific arguments through online “breakout rooms”, and allowing students to propose action plans aimed at improving their communities through remote presentations. intersecting blm and covid-19 through online instruction to promote social justice linking the blm movement to the covid-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to engage science learners in online ngss instruction while also investigating a prominent social justice issue: coronavirus spreading more rapidly in the predominantly black city of flint, michigan. engaging online science students with short video clips that detail how handwashing is a critical step in slowing down the spread of coronavirus, and how handwashing became a difficult endeavor in flint sets the stage for student awareness of social injustice. in fact, engaging students in videos that “hook” them into the social injustices plaguing flint sets the stage for deep and intense discussions aimed at bringing awareness and a desire for social reconstruction. as discussion is a cornerstone of teaching anchored in social justice (schiro, 2013) it is also a pedagogical strategy that can be readily realized in online formats through commonly used platforms such as google meets and zoom. capitalizing on the awareness that intense discussion brings, students can then be posed the following guiding question: which population group is most affected by the spread of coronavirus in genesee county? genesee county was chosen as the geographical location of analysis as this is the location of flint, michigan. posing this guiding question sets the stage for additional virtual discussions and allows students to voice additional authentic concerns and opinions centered on social injustice. students can then use these discussion points to frame their analysis of statistical data showing that black populations in genesee county, and specifically those in flint, are the most impacted by the coronavirus. using statistical data analysis as a remote teaching strategy allows students to experience and analyze the social injustices of flint and might embolden students to think about how these social injustices might be mitigated. furthermore, allowing diverse students an opportunity to analyze data that is relevant and meaningful to the current society provides them with a deep connection to science learning. this relevance and meaning is fostered through student feelings about “what is socially just or unjust, good or bad, fair or unfair, right or wrong” (schiro, 2013, p. 186). concluding that black populations in flint are most impacted by the coronavirus fosters an opportunity for another virtual discussion of why. to begin the discussion, students might first be asked if they have heard of the term environmental racism. additionally, students might be asked to reflect on other instances of environmental racism, prompting reflections related to air pollution or the emergency response to hurricane katrina. bringing awareness to environmental racism honors the central purpose of social justice education as a means to identify areas of society that are unjust and improve those areas for a better future society. furthermore, after linking the social injustices of flint to environmental racism students can begin to think about what can be done to overcome this social justice issue and might serve as a summative assessment that can be readily researched and delivered online. providing students with an opportunity to develop action plans to overcome social injustices, empowers them and aligns with gay’s (2002) assertion that culturally responsive teaching ought to be transformative for students. heeding the call for social justice: how a cped ed.d. program illuminates the instructional intersection between covid-19 and the black lives matter movement impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.153 42 conclusion the intersection of the covid-19 pandemic and the blm movement led to a historic moment for american society. illness, death, and civil unrest not only provided a shared historical experience for all americans, but also provided an opportunity for educators to capitalize on the multitude of teachable moments these historical events provided. for educators, such as myself, who were the product of cped ed.d. programs that emphasized social justice in education, the historical events of covid-19 and the blm movement were immediately recognized as an opportunity to bring social justice to the forefront in the online classroom. the covid-19 pandemic resulted in teachers, like myself, finding themselves in the position of redesigning their face-to-face lessons to accommodate online platforms. this curricular redesign added an additional layer of complexity to the already complex task of planning lessons that addressed not only the disciplinary content of courses, but did so in a way that fostered continued critical thinking of students. as a science educator tasked with developing online science lessons, i had to also develop lessons that honored the three-dimensionality of science learning without ignoring the need to bring awareness to issues of social justice. indeed, the covid-19 pandemic coupled with the reignition of the blm movement provided an opportunity for science educators to use their online classrooms to bring awareness to the science linking these two phenomena. not only do these two phenomena provide an opportunity for students to engage with the process of science learning, but they also provide an opportunity for online students to address a universal truth; that black lives matter. references adams, m. (2018). core concepts for social justice education. in m. adams, w.j. bumenfeld, d.c.j. catalano, k, dejong, h.w. hackman, l.e. hopkins, b.j. love, m.l. peters, d. shlasko, & x. zuniga (eds.), readings for diversity and social justice (pp. 1-6). routledge. bell, l. (2016). theoretical foundations for social justice education. in m. adams, w.j., bell, l., goodman, d. j., & joshi, k. y. (eds.), teaching for diversity and social justice (pp. 3-27). routledge. castillo-montoya, m., abreu, j., & abad, a. (2019). racially liberatory pedagogy: a black lives matter approach to education. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 32(9), 1125-1145. davis, n. r., & schaeffer, j. (2019). troubling troubled waters in elementary science education: politics, ethics & black children’s conceptions of water [justice] in the era of flint. cognition and instruction, 37(3), 367389. earth force resources. (n.d.). earth force process. https://earthforceresources.org/efprocess/ gay, g. (2002). preparing for culturally responsive teaching. journal of teacher education, 53(2), 106-116. schiro, m.s. (2013). curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns. sage. the carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2020). our vision and mission. retrieved june 26, 2020 from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission https://earthforceresources.org/efprocess/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission nancy nasr granada hills charter high school a resurgence of the black lives matter movement the covid-19 pandemic and the calls for social justice social justice as a prominent theme in cped programs cped programs draw awareness to race in the schooling system dissertation in practice experiences develop understanding of social justice covid-19 and the call for remote lessons centered on social justice justice-oriented and racially liberatory science pedagogies implementing justice-oriented and racially liberatory science pedagogies online intersecting blm and covid-19 through online instruction to promote social justice conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 34 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.223 education leadership programs responding to current american crises james coaxum rowan university coaxum@rowan.edu michael farrow rowan university farrow@rowan.edu joann manning rowan university manning@rowan.edu abstract the 2020 global pandemic has further exacerbated the inequities suffered by our most vulnerable students. here in the united states, the intersection of two pandemics have raised major issues surrounding racial discrimination, civil rights, and equal justice. this essay details one university responding to the current american crises in three areas that are pertinent to leadership preparation programs: recruitment, curriculum, and the problem in practice dissertation. by sharing our experiences and the literature that guides our actions, this paper aims to inspire education leadership programs to revitalize their efforts to support education leaders committed to social justice. keywords social justice, covid-19, school leadership, dip, cped educational inequality has been of topical interest to social justice scholars for decades (dantley & tillman, 2010; farrow & coaxum, 2021; furman, 2012). definitions of social justice have varied; however, we define social justice leadership as advocating for students who have been historically and currently marginalized due to race/ethnicity, class, gender, disability, religion, or sexual orientation (furman, 2012). much of the research in this area has been focused on the plight of minoritized students, the achievement of learners from impoverished backgrounds, and the growing concern for students experiencing trauma (mckenzie et al., 2008). while these topical areas have garnered significant attention in educational research, the academic outcomes of students clustered in these categories are questionable at best. this acknowledges that our advancement in research has not been met with advancements in policy and practice. in other words, those at the margins of education remain disconnected from theoretical advances. the global pandemic outbreak has further exacerbated the inequalities we have witnessed in education. here in the united states, the intersection of two pandemics have raised major issues surrounding racial discrimination, civil rights, and equal justice. the initial covid-19 outbreak occurred as the nation felt outraged by the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police officers. these events unmasked the deep-rooted issues of poverty and racial relations that continue to impact the schooling of america’s children. these two pandemics have spurred new interests in understanding how race impacts the outcomes of students. for several decades, the achievement gap has plagued scholars who attempted to understand the disparities in achievement between racial ethnic students. minoritized students have consistently lagged behind their white peers in academic performance (dantley & tillman, 2010). scholars have utilized critical theories to understand threats to educational equity caused by race, gender, class, disabilities, sexual orientation, and other social descriptors that impact student performance, engagement, and achievement. this raises a concern for instructors and leadership preparation programs that prepare current and aspiring school leaders. more than ever before educational leadership preparation programs must prepare school leaders to lead an educational process that is socially just for all students (mckenzie et al., 2008). covid-19 and racial unrest within the united states has presented new challenges for school leaders that require a transformative leadership paradigm. for instance, the sudden change to virtual learning occurred to protect the safety of america’s children and teachers and have required school districts and leaders to rewrite policies. many of these leaders have had to draw on a transformative leadership approach to address needs of equity that they found in the new reality of virtual learning. this changing dynamic further beckons preparation programs to equip leaders with the tools necessary to http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ responding to crises impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.223 35 transform communities by improving the educational outcomes of all students, even those in crisis. in doing so, the student’s capacity to engage in transformative leadership may actualize goals of liberation, emancipation, democracy, equity, and excellence when put into practice (shields, 2011). this essay details one university responding to the current american crises in three areas that are pertinent to leadership preparation programs: recruitment, curriculum, and the problem in practice dissertation. by sharing our experience and the literature that guides our actions, this paper aims to inspire education leadership programs to revitalize their efforts to put into practice the social values that education leadership programs have long claimed to support. positionality education leadership preparation programs should respond to calls to improve the way future leaders are prepared to address crises in order to maintain their commitments to forming equityminded and culturally competent leaders. therefore, we approach this topic as faculty within an edd leadership preparation program located in the mid-atlantic united states. the doctoral program in educational leadership welcomed its first cohort of students in 1997 as the program was designed to develop leaders prepared to make meaningful change within education settings. the program has four pillars which incorporate leadership, social justice, change, and research; components that we find necessary for the preparation of equity-minded leaders. the mission of the program was also designed with a p-16 focus to produce cross-talk over multiple sectors of education. in that sense p-12 doctoral students become familiar with the higher education sector for which they prepare students and higher education students become more familiar with the p-12 sector from which they receive students. students are more sector and content focused as they take track-specific courses that center attention on their particular education sector. within recent years, our edd program joined the carnegie project on doctoral education (cped) with the idea that the program needed a stronger emphasis on helping students to address problems in practice (pip). the program was initially designed with a pip model but over the years drifted to resemble more traditional research doctoral programs. cped has allowed our program to reclaim its mission as a program anchored in improving practice and appropriately responding to inequities within school systems. furthermore, this partnership has allowed the program to consider its admissions process, the content of the curriculum, and the dissertation in practice (dip) as significant factors in the preparation of school leaders. in particular, a social justice and transformative leadership approach within each of these areas could be the key to ameliorating oppression in the context of schooling. conceptual framework we conceptualize our essay by utilizing furman’s (2012) framework for social justice as praxis that is intended to inform the design of leadership preparation programs focused on social justice activism. furman’s framework is anchored in freire’s (2002) notion that social justice leadership must encompass both reflection and action. therefore, furman postulates that leadership preparation programs must develop social justice activism in school leaders across five dimensions: personal, intrapersonal, communal, systematic, and ecological. as multiple pandemics have reframed social inequities in yet another context, leadership preparation programs for social justice are provided with an opportunity to examine how their program outcomes provides school leaders with knowledge, skills, and dispositions across the dimensions. the personal dimension involves deep and critical reflection of values, assumptions, and biases in regards to race, class, and in essence marginalization of any kind and how it impacts leadership. the interpersonal dimension focuses on the role of relationships necessary for social justice work with staff, parents, parents, and this occurs across cultural groups. the communal dimension focuses on the work of building community across cultural groups through democratic principles. the systematic dimension then is focused on the work of transforming school districts and schools into socially just learning spaces for all students. this includes a close examination of school policies and practices that have historically contributed to the underachievement of minoritized populations. finally, the ecological dimension takes the work beyond the level of the school in recognizing that educational inequalities seen within schools is a reflection of larger society (furman, 2012). while the model is not meant to be exhaustive, furman’s framework can assist programs in shaping content that equips school leaders with the competencies necessary to tackle educational inequality that continues to widen the achievement gap of minoritized students (2012). additionally in this paper, we juxtapose furman’s framework with mckenzie et al.’s (2008) framework which purports that leadership preparation programs for social justice focus on three key aspects: student selection, knowledge and content, and induction after graduation. particularly, mckenzie et al.’s model asserts that leadership preparation programs select students who already have an awareness of social justice issues. the model also asserts that the content within leadership preparation programs should raise the critical consciousness of instructional school leaders as they create inclusive schooling practices for all students. we utilize the initial two pillars of mckenzie et al.’s framework. taken collectively, these two models offer the best solutions for leadership preparations focused on social justice that reframe their praxis to ensure school leaders are able to handle the challenges presented by covid-19 and racial unrest. edd recruitment teams: part of a socially just response to current american crises when responding to the covid-19 outbreak and the concurring racial justice protests, we highlighted the role of recruitment as an integrated part of our edd program goals concerning social justice. recruitment is of critical importance to successfully developing equity-minded graduates (mckenzie et al., 2008). unfortunately, the pressure to achieve revenue goals can undermine wider program goals and cause substantial barriers to preparing social justice leaders (mckenzie et al., 2008). our recruitment team, working collaboratively with our larger department, abruptly revamped our strategy in several ways as the severity of the current american crises became apparent. the recruitment team responded to the crises by emphasizing our educational leadership program as preparation towards social justice leadership. although our edd program had already been redesigned to emphasize promoting equity for historically marginalized student groups, recruiters began to boldly describe social justice as the primary characteristic of the coaxum et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.223 36 program. we found that underscoring this feature was attractive to candidates and motivated them to overcome issues, challenges, and the doubts they grappled with during the application process. despite scholars and activists calling for education leaders to address systemic inequities, george (2017) wrote that edd programs focused on social justice are surprisingly still a “novelty” (p. 9). our deliberate marketing connected with the aspirations of social justice driven candidates and allowed us to reframe the classic practice of selling your brand (ortagus & tanner, 2018) in a meaningful way that accurately reflected our program as being redesigned to focus on forming social justice leaders. further, we have reason to be optimistic about reducing attrition rates. our experiences have found a social justice orientation to be a powerful motivator for edd students when overcoming obstacles and completing academic goals. because we are attracting students committed to social justice, we anticipate that their motivations rooted in social activism will be a valuable resource used towards program completion. another initiative of our recruitment response plan was to increase our efforts towards forging community partnerships with institutions serving marginalized students. our doctorate in educational leadership program has long worked to build a network of social activism that effectively addresses inequities in localized settings. however, the recent american crises made clear that a renewed energy had to be applied to ramp up our outreach efforts. program leadership identified recruitment teams as an effective means of forming new relationships and a strategic plan was implemented that entailed reaching out to education leaders serving students of color. we found that our outreach efforts were reciprocated and new partnerships blossomed allowing for us to expand our cyber recruitment initiatives as we explored long-term mutual goals for new professional relationships. our efforts to form partnerships with educational communities serving students of color attempted to achieve two main goals that align with our commitment to social justice principles. first, we sought to recruit teachers and administrators serving marginalized students in an effort to support them through equity issues facing their communities. education leadership programs aim to develop scholarly practitioners while students maintain their professional roles within their organizations (george, 2017). edd students hold dual positions: learners within a research community and active education practitioners. an institutional opportunity arises by providing a dynamic university space that supports students grappling with challenges of inequalities facing their communities. vibrant edd programs are capable of empowering students to reflect, identify, and act as change agents within their own education communities (furman, 2012). by supporting education practitioners in the field serving marginalized students, our institutional influence on equity issues expands. next, our new partnerships assisted our endeavors to increase the number of education leaders of color. scholars have raised awareness about the lack of education leaders of color and have highlighted the positive impact they have on marginalized students (ingersoll, may, & collins, 2019). districts who serve children of color employ higher numbers of education professionals of color (ingersoll, may, & collins, 2019) and prioritizing forming relationships with these institutions was a means to attract doctorate students of color. when making contact with prospective students of color, our recruitment team was conscious of providing personalized attention throughout the process. establishing a welcoming and professional relationship where potential students were comfortable enough to utilize recruiters for information and/or to express their challenges and concerns, proved to be a meaningful assistance for traditionally marginalized students forging pathways towards doctorate program matriculation. one illustration of our university’s outreach strategy that laid the groundwork for our present recruitment restructuring plan was the forming of a cohort within an urban p-12 school district. in 2016, recruitment efforts initiated a partnership with a large public-school district serving low-income minoritized students. after a series of collaborative meetings with district leadership and marketing, the recruitment team was granted access to the faculty and a student cohort was formed. student support was enhanced by applying a cohort model that entailed students remaining in an identifiable group for the entirety of the program (fifolt & breaux, 2018). the model helps our aims to provide students with an affinity group to work collaboratively with as they reflect upon real world issues facing their education communities (aikan & gerstl-pepin, 2013). being supported by their cohort, the students were empowered to put theory into action within their own communities throughout their doctorate learning experience. ultimately, establishing these practices within a cohort model promoted scholarly leaders beyond graduation, who are now well positioned to influence policy that responds to inequities. this established model, formed by a previous partnership, informs our current response to the recent american crises as we work towards similar cohorts with major districts serving marginalized communities. we note that our recruitment response that was initiated in march of 2020 has exceeded expectations. the strategic response plan resulted in a forty-nine percent increase in edd enrollment despite the pandemic's devastating impact on higher education (the economist, 2020). our experience suggests that education practitioners may be strongly attracted to social justice-oriented leadership programs. a curriculum response upon hearing the compelling stories of education leadership students grappling with tumultuous times, our faculty began the process of revising the curriculum to be more relevant when addressing problems of practice related to social justice issues and dilemmas. the aim was to assist students in resolving problems of practice when dealing with an unforeseen crisis such as covid-19. when experiencing crisis situations, our students and school leaders were sharing stories that emphasized three principles: trust, community building, and crisis leadership. trust leadership theories display themselves differently in specific contexts, trust usually is a part of any specific leadership theory, either explicitly or implicitly. without trust among the adults in a school and the community, there is almost no chance students will excel (sutherland, 2017). building relationships with school boards, community members, and parents makes it possible for district leaders to advance their core mission. in schools, trust is recognized as a critical component related to both student achievement and the behaviors of individuals and groups that contribute to effective schools. without trust, people do not take chances that characterize genuine learning and change. in spite of that, in times of crisis, such as covid-19, trust is a resource that can lead schools to continue to responding to crises impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.223 37 learn and to flourish (sutherland, 2017; furman, 2012). social justice leaders proactively build trusting relationships with colleagues, parents, community stakeholders and students in their schools, across cultural groups. trust reflects the central role of relationships in social justice work (furman, 2012; dantley & tillman, 2010). given the diverse and cultural climate that exists today, leaders need to expect that there may be cultural differences in perceived trust and actual trust. community building school leaders have recognized the essential role for parents, community organizations, community health groups and postsecondary institutions in the functioning of strong schools, especially during a crisis situation. hurricane katrina highlighted many of the inequity horrors that are again brought to the forefront by the covid19 crisis including lack of food, homelessness, and unstable homes where students are subject to abuse, neglect, and other forms of trauma (belkhir, 2015). these challenges, that far exceed the ability of any one leader to solve, require help from both inside and outside the school (beabout, 2014; fullan, 2007). the role of the educational leader under such grueling circumstance must be to emphasize support, collaboration, communication, and relationships with the various school communities. social justice leaders work to build community across cultural groups through inclusive, democratic practices (farrow & coaxum, 2021). preparation programs should encourage students to practice the type of data gathering they will need to use throughout their careers in order to gain deeper knowledge of the community in which they work and the cultural groups they serve. life histories and cross-cultural interviews are useful tools to master. in addition, courses should include the meaning of democracy and democratic community in contemporary education, and the principles of inclusive practice. social justice leadership involves proactive efforts to establish democratic forums and processes for dialogue and decision making that are inclusive and include traditionally marginalized groups. crisis leadership effective educational leadership has proven to be imperative during covid-19. districts and schools serve as frontline organizations for students, families, and communities to provide services and the negative effects of these services being jeopardize has rippled through the nation. effective educational leaders may utilize a variety of leadership styles and change principles during a time of crisis (beabout, 2014). school leaders may not be able to control or influence the occurrence of crises, but their responses can lead to positive learning and change in schools and communities. it is important to recognize that the school and community response to the covid-19 crisis is complex rather than simplistic. however, researchers suggest that crisis leadership requires more than is required of leadership in noncrisis situations and that being a good leader differs from being a good crisis leader (muffet-willett & kruse, 2009). it is likely that crises will repeatedly occur in our current times rendering the study of organizational crisis crucial for today’s leaders (james & wooten, 2011). this importance cannot be overstated because of the increased complexity and uncertainty within today’s institutions (demiroz & kapucu, 2012). the fact that these crises are unpredictable, intense, and longer in duration, and cost a lot more make it a meaningful conversation and focus on the importance of higher education leadership preparation programs (prewitt & weil, 2014). the students in our educational leadership program are under extreme stress. the fall 2020 cohort is our first group to respond to the new reality of covid-19 and is made up of state, district, pk-12 and higher education leaders and teachers. they clearly express that they need to be better prepared for a crisis and/or dilemma in the future. educational change scholar michael fullan (2007) has written that "when things are unsettled, we can find new ways to move ahead and to create breakthroughs not possible in stagnant societies" (p. 1). in response, the faculty has started to look for new ways to address crises that affect our schools and communities by assessing the entire program and developing courses and/or supplementary workshops that address social justice and leadership while simultaneously introducing our students to the literature on trust, community building and frameworks that address the prevention, action and recovery phases of a crisis. the problem in practice dissertation historically, the hallmark of the doctoral experience in most programs in the united states is the dissertation. the dissertation serves as the culminating activity for doctoral programs and at one time was seen as the threshold that allowed doctoral candidates to move from student to scholar. however, the educational doctoral dissertation since its inception has received much scrutiny as to its purpose, relevance, and place in the modern doctoral experience (guthrie, 2009). as a result, we have witnessed the distinction between the research doctorate and the professional doctorate, the expansion of the professional doctorate, and a growing typology of dissertation types. the end result has caused many disciplines to rethink the role of the dissertation in the doctoral experience (storey et al., 2015). in the field of school leadership preparation, the dissertation in practice (dip) is growing rapidly as the field continues to rebound from the fierce criticisms by arthur levine (2005) who slammed leadership preparation programs for lack of rigor. perhaps his criticism at best was a beckoning call for social justice scholars within those programs to consider how the dissertation could be used to impact issues of equity and justice within schools. the carnegie project on doctoral education defines the dissertation in practice as a scholarly exercise intended to address a complex problem in practice (storey et al., 2015). the dip brings together all five dimensions of furman's (2012) framework for school leaders. within the personal dimension, doctoral students engage critical reflection and select a problem in their practice as the basis for starting their dissertation work. in many instances, these problems of practice are grounded in social and academic inequities that present themselves in the daily realities of schooling. the second dimension focused on the interpersonal allows doctoral students to continue reflection by confronting their own mental models as they critically examine how these social and academic inequities exists among their own student and faculty and staff population. this is where transformative leadership is critical as school leaders develop action plans to address the problem identified in the dissertation. the third dimension focuses on communal that moves a doctoral student from reflection to the implementation of the action plan (freire, 2002), as doctoral students utilize inclusive practices and involve others in the dissertation experience. such inclusive practices include but are not limited to action research, professional learning communities, and group coaxum et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.223 38 dissertations. the systematic dimension allows for impact as the work of the dip can be utilized to dismantle policies and practices that hold local schools and school districts hostage to educational inequality. finally, the ecological dimension allows doctoral candidates to understand the broader outcomes of their work as they develop recommendations and implications for future policy and practice. our edd program in educational leadership utilizes a dissertation as the culminating experience of the program. in the initial design of the program and for the first decade, the program dissertation represented the culminating project of the doctorate program degree. as a matter of fact, for the first decade of the program, all students were required to complete their dissertation using an action research model aimed at improving some aspect of its practice. since one of the four pillars of the program is social justice, it would follow that many of the dissertations were designed to address equity issues through a transformational or transformative leadership framework (shields, 2012). after the critiques of levine (2005), the program drifted to more of a ph.d. model where students moved away from action research to a more traditional dissertation model. the role of cpeds has been instrumental in recent years for paving a path for the program to return to the dip model. as such, the program currently allows students to choose from several dissertation models so that the work has a significant impact on practice. while there are several aspects of the dissertation process that are unique, we highlight the importance of dissertation coursework, dissertation program supports and the student-advisee relationship. dissertation coursework one of the fundamental strategies to ensure student success with the dissertation is the transition out of coursework to courses, workshops, or institutes that introduce students to the purpose of the dissertation as well as demystifies the process that forces many students to an all but dissertation (abd) status. students enroll in two courses that prepare them for dissertation work. in dissertation seminar i, students spend time conceptualizing the scope and breadth of the dissertation. during dissertation seminar ii, students complete a twenty-five page prospectus that provides an overview of the dissertation for students to share with a potential chair and committee members. as the final activity from this sequence of courses, students prepare and present a poster session. this activity which is co-sponsored by the college of education, brings together dissertation students and faculty within the college with the hope of students receiving feedback from several members and finding committee members. for most students, this is the first time they have presented their ideas outside of the classroom and they find the poster session to be a critical activity for the reasons discussed above. dissertation bootcamps to ensure that the number of “all but dissertation” (abd) students remain very low, the program offers dissertation bootcamps in january and june that utilizes a workshop format and allows students to engage in dissertation content and writing. the bootcamp serves several purposes. for those who are completing coursework, it provides further opportunities for students to consider their transition into the dissertation. since a major portion of the bootcamp is dedicated to writing, students get the benefit of working with up to multiple faculty members who rotate and discuss student's work with them. this also allows faculty to redirect students in their dissertation aspiration to tackle an issue from practice and in many cases, social justice issues. secondly, the bootcamp is tailored to jump start those students who after coursework have difficulty connecting to the dissertation. we have found this to be another useful strategy in reducing the number of students who would be abd. these strategies may be useful for leadership preparation programs seeking to provide supports during the dissertation process. advisor-student relationship research has lauded the relationship between the dissertation advisor and doctoral student. other than financial factors, the advisor-student relationship is a major factor in persistence. leadership preparation programs should consider the process of how students select dissertation advisors. these relationships in many cases are formed based on topical interests. however, there are many other factors embedded in this process that should be recognized because of its importance to dissertation completion. some of those factors include work style, feedback delivery, common interests beyond the dissertation, and role of the chair. taken collectively, dissertation coursework, dissertation supports, and the advisor-student relationship make it possible for students to complete socially justice focused dips. conclusion educational leadership preparation programs should foster the development of social justice praxis (dantley & tillman, 2010) among doctoral candidates who lead schools. through the examination of their recruitment efforts, preparation programs can actively recruit and engage school leaders aspiring for more transformative approaches towards equitable excellence. the curriculum provides the space for preparation programs to provide a framework for candidates to develop strategies towards their social justice praxis. the problem in practice dissertation then offers an opportunity for school leaders to explore aspects of their praxis as they work to address issues of equity and social justice. the recently experienced crisis situations, while bringing urgent attention to issues of equity in schools, allow educational leadership preparation programs to respond 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(2020, 8 august). uncanny university. covid-19 could push some universities over the brink. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/08/08/covid-19-could-pushsome-universities-over-the-brink https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs00019335 http://www.edschools.org/ https://www.hetl.org/examining-edd-dissertations-in-practice-the-carnegie-project-on-the-education-doctorate/ https://www.hetl.org/examining-edd-dissertations-in-practice-the-carnegie-project-on-the-education-doctorate/ https://www.hetl.org/examining-edd-dissertations-in-practice-the-carnegie-project-on-the-education-doctorate/ https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/08/08/covid-19-could-push-some-universities-over-the-brink https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/08/08/covid-19-could-push-some-universities-over-the-brink james coaxum rowan university michael farrow rowan university (1) joann manning rowan university (2) positionality conceptual framework edd recruitment teams: part of a socially just response to current american crises a curriculum response trust community building crisis leadership the problem in practice dissertation dissertation coursework dissertation bootcamps advisor-student relationship conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 48 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 a school administrator’s journey through an edd program in the midst of a global pandemic courtney f. browning radford university cfbrowning@radford.edu abstract this braided essay weaves together the reflective journey of a school administrator traversing through a doctoral program during the initial stages of the covid 19 pandemic while considering her problem of practice in the current context of her school, local community, and global society. the ongoing challenges of a rural 3rd-5th consolidated school struggling through school improvement to meet the academic, social, and emotional needs of all students are examined, while analyzing the place-based education model as it pertains to the current global pandemic and present state of education. while examining the issue of racial discipline disproportionality in the local context, this essay also addresses the potential implications upon both the local school and overall state of education by fostering a strong sense of place within and through the implementation of place-based educational practices. keywords place-based education, covid-19, school closure, problem of practice, racial disparity april 30th time moves differently now. i often find myself asking questions and reflecting. my questions, sometimes profound, reflective, visionary, and sometimes simply basic, oftentimes don’t have answers. this afternoon though they do: “what day is it? wednesday, thursday?” i’m just getting home from work. it’s my second and last workday of the week. it is my second week of work after being quarantined. got it, it’s thursday. these days it seems as though we are all trudging our way through covid-19. though it’s hard to keep track of what day it is, i can keep count. i know it has been 70 days from the initial inklings of the possibility of something big, 53 days from it knocking on our door, 51 days from realizing like mother like daughter, 49 days from receiving the life altering call, 39 days from the news that changed my place, my purpose and sense of service, and 30 days from the moment everyone’s way of life changed. we are on this path, all of us together, yet apart experiencing the highs, lows, and everything in between. each of us questioning, reflecting, and perhaps discovering truths we didn’t know we needed. to think this journey started just over two months ago… 70 days ago, around 7:30 am the phone rings. “hi mom, how’s-” “courtney, what are you and your school doing to prepare for the coronavirus?!?” “what, mom?” i pause and breathe as i hear panic in her voice. oh great, she’s been watching too much msnbc again. she’s scared. she gets so caught up. i hate to hear this worry, this genuine fear, and to be so far away. i don’t try to correct. i listen, “mom, i think we’re okay. i don’t think we’ll need to shut-” she cuts in, “they’re going to shut everything down!” i try to calm her, “okay, honestly if we did have to close for a bit-” she interrupts, “a long time, courtney; a long time!” i breathe. this is so real to her. i need to start calling more. “okay, but we’ll be okay mom.” i explain that we’re wrapping up and heading into state testing season. we have coach books, resources, and lots of review work that can be sent home. we’re basically done with new material. i promise her we’ll be okay. “well, what about you and matt? courtney, you need to stockpile food and prepare. you need to go buy food that will keep. don’t just tell me you’ll do it!” i feel it again. i hate that she’s so worried. “okay, we’ll go this weekend. now, how are you guys doing? how’s dad?” we talk a bit as i drink my coffee, though the initial pace of the conversation has more than woken me up. i talk to matt that morning. we agree to make a good faith effort and then let my mom know. she deserves that. i can’t help but ask, “what if she’s right? is there any chance she’s right?” we tell each other and ourselves that she’s just worrying. she’s a worrier. i get it honest. but the question lingers, “what if she’s right?” even my http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ a school administrator’s journey through an edd program in the midst of a global pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 49 sister ellie was preparing. she never prepares. later that week a package arrives with a note, “love you guys, here’s your covid care package.” we laugh good naturedly as we open it. yet the questions have been planted, “what if? what will we do?” a problem of practice i continue on in my daily life and the questions fade. i am just finishing my first doctoral class and investigating the problem of practice: racial disparity among african american and white students for office referrals at slateville county elementary school. i have decided that if i am going to remain in slateville as an assistant principal while i complete my dissertation, i will study our discipline and school culture. at times it feels as if meaningful gains are being made, while other days it feels like we’re moving backward. i plan to lean into the problem rather than resist. i am about to begin my second doctoral course…social and cultural foundations of placebased education. i have no idea what place-based education is or how poignant this course will become. place-based education place-based education is a progressive model hinging upon connecting instruction to the local community and environment as a means of engaging students, staff, and the community to partake in authentic, problem-solving, hands-on learning. students learn to view themselves as active members of society who can and should impact change. the goal is to promote their development into socially and environmentally conscious citizens of their local and global communities (gruenewald & smith, 2010; smith & sobel, 2010). place-based education is rooted in many earlier progressive models of education connecting directly to dewey’s three foundations of education: environment, experience, and democracy (jayanandhan, 2009). through this holistic approach, learning extends beyond the school building and out into the community (smith & sobel, 2010). teachers and community members engage students in problem solving regarding local, global and environmental issues to become citizen activists and stewards of the world around them (gruenewald & smith, 2010; jayanandhan, 2009; smith & sobel, 2010). smith and sobel explained, “rather than seeing teaching and learning as being located primarily within the school, place-based education requires potentially all mature citizens to take responsibility for inducting children and youth into the obligations and possibilities of adulthood” (p. 23). 53 days ago, around 9:30 am typically, mondays are busy, and this monday hits like a tidal wave. already frustrated, a plethora of questions run through my head: “why are so many people always out? why can’t our teachers just be here?” our kids don’t handle subs and our subs don’t know how to handle our kids. i can sense we will have many issues with discipline today. a few of my frequent fliers have already rumbled and the school day has only just started. i can feel my pulse quicken and the pain move to my chest as anxiety builds. it is just so hard. too many of our kids have too much trauma in their lives coming to school wound tight and ready to snap. their anger surfaces quickly. school-wide discipline data shows a spike in referral totals, aggression, and racial disparity for the first half of our school year. this is a contrast to last spring when we proudly realized a reduction of referrals and suspensions, while at the same time began to close the racial disparity gap. again, questions swirl through my mind: “what are we doing wrong? why can’t we fix this? why can’t we reach our kids?” as the assistant principal, discipline and school culture are my primary zones. i am a fixer by nature who is profoundly troubled by not being able to fix this. more questions whisper in my ear: “how can we help our kids cope? why are so many of them ready to lash out so quickly?”. our school counselor always reminds me that hurt people, hurt people. it seems as if so many of our kids are hurt. everyone is trying. the teachers, the poor overworked teachers, try despite the time demands and push to teach more, teach better, and teach to close the gaps. they start their mornings with a speedy greeting to the class to then juggle taking attendance, helping their kids reset from the night before, and shuffling everyone to their first classes. every minute counts when you are in school improvement. i am in problem-solving mode when our receptionist approaches me. “mrs. browning, i need to go,” she tells me with urgency. “okay, let me see what i can do,” i respond. she stares at me quietly. i assure her, “don’t worry, we’ll get it taken care of. are you okay?” she gives a vague non-answer and prepares to leave. she never leaves like this. it’s so hard when we’re short staffed, and today we are definitely short. the following morning our receptionist texts my principal and me, “the doctor thinks i may have the coronavirus, but they won’t test me.” our text chain takes off as we try to offer support, advice, and ask questions. my mind spins, “what? how in the world? she can’t have it, can she?” this beast, this quiet, scary beast is lurking. it may be right outside our door. a question rushes in, “could it have snuck into our school?” school background slateville county elementary school opened its doors in august of 2012. after many years of discussions, debates, and renovation, the division restructured its entire k-5 educational system in an effort to provide more equitable and higher quality education to all preschool through 5th grade students in rural slateville. four small community schools were closed. in their place, the slateville county primary and slateville county elementary (sces) schools were opened at a newly renovated shared campus. the beautifully designed complex has space for a community garden, frog bog, fields, and many playgrounds. it has many open learning spaces, a composting system, solar tubes for lighting, and community meeting areas. local resources were woven into the design. each grade had science labs dedicated to them before the school opened. however, the school quickly became overcrowded, causing the labs to be pulled and used for regular classrooms. the vision for these schools was to foster problem-solving, citizenship, community involvement, and healthy lifestyles, to provide more equity and improve student achievement. in many ways, the entire complex was designed to support place-based education. unfortunately, as i would learn in time, simply designing and providing the physical structure and resources does not establish a strong sense of place or enable a school to implement place-based education. browning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 50 51 days ago, around 6:00 am i realize i have been ghosting my mom this week. i know why. i didn’t want to call when i wasn’t sure if our receptionist had covid19. i decide to make a quick call before school. i feel like i can let her know what happened with our receptionist, that she is quarantined while she awaits results, but she’s feeling better already. i feel more confident calling because i have optimistic news, rather than worry. when my mother answers, i fill her in. with even more conviction she dives into questions about what my school will do when we close. she warns that it is just a matter of time and a question of how long. again, i breathe and listen. it had been over a week since we’d talked. i want to be supportive, but i hate to hear her worry. that’s when i realize, i hadn’t been the only one ghosting. once i can get a few words in, i ask how she and my dad are doing. they’ve both been very sick, but she swears they are okay. no, they haven’t been tested, but they are recovering. it had been almost two weeks, but they were both doing better and my oldest sister was bringing them food. at that moment, fear creeps in. my parents live in a small connecticut town, and they were sick. they are in their mid-70s, and i am so far away. if our receptionist has covid-19, i absolutely cannot visit during our spring break. the questions begin: “when will i see them again? will they be okay? what will happen?” i am struck by the irony of the moment. my mother and i are so alike. we protect those we love to prevent them from worrying. yet, we both still worry. like mother, like daughter. our conversation shifts to how things are going with my edd program. my mother asks how i will keep up with it when we start state testing. she segues into a short, half-hearted lecture on asking for help with handling discipline and my site testing coordinator duties. she often encourages me to look elsewhere for employment because of the amount stress i endure from my job. she has seen the toll it has taken on me emotionally as i’ve worked tirelessly with my team trying to discern how to turn the school around. despite her lectures, she and i both know that i am not leaving my school, my place, right now. i am just not ready. school accreditation since opening its doors, slateville county elementary school (sces) has struggled to gain and maintain state accreditation. after scores in reading and math plummeted in the spring of 2013, sces moved into comprehensive school improvement status. because sces was newly formed, it could not rely upon a three-year average to offset the significant score drops. previously, all of the small schools were fully accredited and performing well above state benchmarks. had the schools not merged, each would have used their strong three-year averages, as most schools in the state did, in the spring of 2013. overall reading and math performances across the state dropped by double digits when new, more rigorous tests were rolled out (reporter for major newspaper, 2013). place-based education as change place-based education takes time and buy-in to implement (gruenewald & smith, 2010; smith & sobel, 2010). change will be slow as educators embrace a mind shift and change their approaches to instruction while simultaneously working to build trusting relationships with community members and agencies. our nature in education and as humans to emphasize time over place can become a barrier when implementing place-based education (dickson, 2011). with high levels of state and federal accountability and high stakes testing, the use of time by teachers and students becomes a source of pressure. this pressure impacts the willingness of teachers and administrators to take the risk of engaging students in many of the authentic, hands-on, place-based education practices that would motivate and engage students, staff, and community members (gruenewald & smith, 2010; smith & sobel, 2010). 49 days ago, around 3:00 pm it’s our only pd day this semester. in the ninth hour, plans changed. all reading teachers are required to attend the pd while also creating learning packets that will be due next tuesday. our presenter is fantastic and the teachers are trying to be engaged, but this the third pd on this topic. yet once again they are stressed, torn, and feeling beat up as teachers in a school that remains in comprehensive school improvement status, always “needing” more pd, coaching, or direction from the outside to fix what we must be doing wrong. selfishly, i am feeling the pressure of trying to get out a bit early so i can pick up my oldest from a sleepover and then race to drop our dog at the groomer on time. i’m running a sprint yet again. i try to tamp down feelings of worry and guilt for leaving by reminding myself i have permission to leave, i work late most nights, and i come in on weekends. i see my superintendent urgently take a call and rush to her car. it seems so important that she doesn’t even look in my direction as i leave. i pull up to my daughter’s friend’s house impatiently waiting for her to finish her goodbyes. i replay the conversation with my principal about the mad dash to make distance learning packets. it seems unlikely that we will need them right away or even at all, but we agreed it’s good to be prepared. as i wait, my phone rings and our superintendent’s voice begins. the governor has closed all schools for the next two weeks. my mind isn’t absorbing this. questions spin: “what? we were just told that the governor’s office said they weren’t planning to close. how can they? what does this mean? i have to get back to school. how will we get it done?” after the whirlwind of dropping everyone off, i call matt to ask him yet again to cover our home life because i don’t know how long i will be gone, but i have to go back to school. he understands; we take turns stepping up for one another when our schools need us. it’s what you do when you commit to your path of service and each other. when i arrive back to school, i see my team, my miraculous team, working away. they are moving mountains to get their packets done before leaving. not one person complains, grumbles, or leaves without making sure each student is set. when i look across the parking lot, i am choked up realizing what an incredible team i have. our parking lot is full. these people, my people, love our place and kids just as much as i do. the next week is surreal. i begin watching the news, checking for updates on positive case counts in our area, calling and texting my family up north, spending time with my girls, working on classwork for my doctoral program, and trying to wrap my head around what is happening. i remain optimistic that we will reopen in 14 days, while trying to connect with each student and family i see during food distributions. a school administrator’s journey through an edd program in the midst of a global pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 51 i am getting into my next course and can’t help but find the irony of the school closure while exploring place-based education. noticing myself becoming more reflective about my own school, its design, and our instructional practices, different, more existential questions begin to run through my head, “could we be doing it wrong? have we lost sight of what is truly most important in educating our children? what is my place? is my school suffering from a state of non-place?” preparing for place-based education prior to embarking on implementing a place-based education model, it is critical to determine the readiness level of the school and community (smith & sobel, 2010). gruenewald and smith (2010) reminded us “it is necessary to work with, while trying to change, what we have” (p. 350). a thoughtful assessment of readiness requires a “supportive institutional and cultural environment at the school—and ideally district” (smith & sobel, 2010, p. 114). as smith and sobel found through their study of the vinalhaven school, it is necessary to embrace the “first-things-first mindset” when implementing placeand community-based education. administrators and teachers must allow for the time needed to create significant and sustainable change (p.135). the school hierarchy of needs, modeled after maslow’s theory, can be an effective tool to assess readiness. the hierarchy is founded on the premise that the physical space, social fabric, and staff coherence needs of a school must be met before an extensive and effective curriculum and place and community-based education model can be fully applied. it is necessary to develop a strong sense of place within the school environment (smith & sobel, 2010, pp. 150-151). jayanandhan (2009) noted that, “place does not only refer to physical landscapes, landmarks, buildings, towns, cities, and ecologies; place is also differentiated from space by the meanings it signifies for people … and societies” (p. 104). academic achievement relative to state standards though slateville elementary has made gains and is accredited with conditions, it has not rebounded to the levels previously attained by the smaller schools. before the restructuring, all primary and elementary schools in the county were fully accredited and had three-year average pass rates in the 80s or above in all tested subjects. sces has made gains in math, performing at our above state standards with a current 74% pass rate from the spring of 2019 after a two-year decline in state assessment scores. in science, sces has experienced a three-year decline in performance and moved to level 2, performing near the state standard for the indicator, with a three-year average of 67% and current pass rate of 62% from the spring of 2019 (state department of education, 2020). this slow decline in science showed promise of a turn-around for the spring of 2020 based on mid-year assessment data, as teachers delved into more inquiry-based and hands-on learning approaches. 39 days ago, around 2:00 pm i am texting with my critical friend group from class when the press conference comes on and it happens; the governor announces schools will be shut down for the rest of the year. i freeze. my brain refuses to register this. i fight back tears. questions begin to race through my head: “how can this be? what does this mean? what will happen to our kids? who will take care of them? how will our school recover?” i numbly text my group, “this is so scary…” jeremy from my group responds, “yes, it is.” enough said. as i continue silently watching, questions continue: “will i see my family in connecticut again? what will happen to my students? what will happen to my school?” my oldest daughter comes into my room with tears streaming down her face. with each tear i feel her loss, no 8th grade formal, no track team, no drama performance, no gymnastics, no visiting her cousins and grandparents, no sleep overs, and no chance that her big crush will become her first boyfriend any time soon. we sit there while i stroke her hair, reminding her that i love her, and it will all be okay, eventually. she’s a worrier as well, like mother, like daughter. as i hold back my own tears questions pound within: “will my family be okay? how will our kids who come from such sad places make it through? what will happen to them? what will happen to my school, my place?” non-place in place-based education place-based education rests on a foundation of establishing buy-in from stakeholders and community members, facilitating collaboration, and fostering a strong sense of place. merely having the physical structure and resources will not eradicate the effects of non-place within a context (bertling, 2018; smith & sobel, 2010). non-place is the lack of connection to one’s environment, community, and one another. in a state of non-place, we are collectively driven toward individual, technologically-based, temporary experiences to further our wants and needs. it is a place devoid of real contact and authentic relationships. there is limited attachment to the environment, lack of reverence for the diversity within, and limited, if any, regard for the rich history of the context (bertling, 2018). it is a placeless place (gruenewald & smith, 2010). to combat non-place, it is crucial to incorporate shared values and a strong vision that define the sense of place within the school and community. it is critical to learn about the local context, its rich history, and the natural world around us. fostering an authentic shared sense of place shapes school and community culture, buy-in, and collaboration among school staff, students, community members, and families (gruenewald & smith, 2010; smith & sobel, 2010). academic achievement in reading sces initially made strong improvements in reading after dropping to a pass rate of 56% on the state assessment in the spring of 2013 and rising to 66% in 2015 (school division, 2020). however, scores have become stagnant with a current pass rate of 67% in both the spring of 2018 and 2019 (state department of education, 2020). in addition, sces, as a level three school, is performing below the state standard for gap group achievement in reading with black students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities performing far below the overall achievement rate. sces has implemented a multi-tiered reading approach to meet students where they are and tailor instruction to their needs. following two years characterized by inadequate resources and lack of teacher professional development, 2019-2020 would have been the first full year of implementation of this model with adequate browning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 52 teacher support, materials, and curriculum. preliminary mid-year data pointed to strong growth among below-level students and an increase in projected pass rates. 30 days ago, around 2:00 pm i anxiously await the governor’s weekly press conference. we have been instructed to socially distance, many businesses are closed or fundamentally shifting the way they do business, crowd sizes and gatherings have been limited, and i am at my school finishing up a workday with teachers. yet again, they are a machine getting student packets ready to be mailed while including special notes and touches. they are here with optimism, passion, and energy. those who cannot come in remain home, but their colleagues are making sure they are covered. we have just finished our first faculty google meet. i feel a sense of connection again. on the days the school is closed, i struggle with feeling detached and sensing a loss of purpose and direction. as the governor begins, it is clear he has an important point to make. he swiftly issues a stay-at-home order. it feels like we are being scolded for not heeding his recommendations last friday. gatherings took place, parks were filled, and places were busy. in this moment, it feels like this new official order is because, as a society, we were unable to think locally or globally last weekend. we hadn’t acted as stewards and caretakers for one another or our community. it feels like a reprimand and, perhaps, one that is needed. new questions swirl: “what if we had all stayed home? what if each one of us had a strong sense of place and community? what if we had been able and willing to put our individual wants and needs aside for one another?” place-based education principles as a response to the pandemic place-based education strives to foster a strong sense of community, social and environmental responsibility, and leadership among students. this shared accountability and connection can equip students and adults with the tools they need to make it through the many challenges we face during the current pandemic. gruenewald and smith (2010) foresaw this global struggle when they cautioned: one of the central flaws in the drive to globalize the economy and culture, however, lies in the illusion that the economic and political managers of the massive, centralized systems that now govern the lives of most people are in fact able to predict and control events outside their immediate domain…the beginning years of the 21st century are serving as an object lesson in humility and the dangers of hubris. (p. xxii) students will carry on traditions and sustain our common values when they become actively engaged in problem-solving within their communities and the world around them (misiaszek, 2016). this shift in disposition and behavior can become the thing that ensures we both grow and prosper even during times of struggle. discipline disproportionality slateville county elementary school has experienced an ongoing struggle with school culture and discipline. though sces has made improvements in closing the discrepancy between short term suspensions for african american and white students from 20162017 through 2018-2019, the disproportion remains (state department of education, 2020). preliminary school culture and discipline data for 2019-2020 indicates an increase in the overall number of office referrals, number of office referrals for verbal or physical aggression, and an increase in the racial disparity for office referrals and instances of out-of-school and in-school suspensions between african american and white students as compared to 20182019 data. despite the efforts to build in a social emotional curriculum, offer more support to students from a social worker and behavior interventionist, equip teachers with professional development and coaching in classroom management and positive behavior interventions, discipline and school culture remain an area of struggle. sces administrators, teachers, and staff have not been able to foster the problem solving, self-regulation, communication, coping, and empathy skills among their students to prevent the anger-driven outbursts and aggressive behaviors that disrupt learning and harm the well-being of the school overall. sces has not been able to recreate the community feelings that were once part of the culture of each small school before the merger. today, april 30 it has been 70 days since covid-19 began to creep into my realm of possibilities, 51 days from its knock on the door, 49 days since mountains were moved, 39 days since the doors closed, and 30 days since staying home became a requirement, not a choice. it has been 27 days since covid 19 snuck in and quarantined my family and two weeks since i returned to work. state testing would have otherwise started nine days ago. it would have been just six days before our hopes of finally making the needed gains in reading and science to become accredited or facing the realization that we were still missing something. i can’t help but wonder, “would we have made it? was the turn-around about to happen?” like many of the questions that course through my head and heart, these remain unanswered. i’m getting into a new “new normal” now. going back has helped restore some of my sense of purpose that had been slipping away. i am connecting with parents and teachers more, but the loss and fear remain. i find myself struggling to remember the names and faces of all the kids i know i need to worry about, the kids who seemed to have regular unscheduled appointments with me, the children who aren’t logging on for video meets. i long to know, “is …. okay? does … have enough food? is … safe?” yet again, these questions cannot be answered. while many of the answers to the questions i ask elude me, i know this reflection is critical to my journey. in times of struggle, we have an opportunity for growth, for building resilience, and for finding our way. i am using this time to lean into the questions, “what can we do differently to prepare ourselves, our communities, our schools, and, most importantly, our students to be the caretakers, change agents, and leaders we so desperately need? could the answer be in embracing place-based education? what if we worked together to foster a strong sense of place and community in our schools? what if we looked beyond test scores and efficiency to serving the whole child and community?” we are at a crossroads. perhaps, as robert frost (1916) poeticized, we, as educators, should take the road less traveled by. a school administrator’s journey through an edd program in the midst of a global pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 2 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.155 53 references bertling, j. g. (2018). non-place and the future of place-based education. environmental education research, 24(11), 1627–1630. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1558439 dickinson, e. (2011). displaced in nature: the cultural production of (non)place in place-based forest conservation pedagogy. environmental communication, 5(3), 300–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.584889 frost, r. (1916). the road not taken. poetry foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken gruenewald, d. a., & smith, g. a. (2010). place-based education in the global age: local diversity. lawrence erlbaum associates. jayanandhan, s. r. (2009). john dewey and a pedagogy of place. philosophical studies in education, 40, 104–112. misiaszek, g. w. (2016). ecopedagogy as an element of citizenship education: the dialectic of global/local spheres of citizenship and critical environmental pedagogies. international review of education, 62(5), 587–607. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9587-0 [reporter for major newspaper] (2013, august 20). [state] reading score drop on more difficult test. [major newspaper]. [school division] trend data. (2020). [school division]. smith, g. a., & sobel, d. (2010). placeand community-based education in schools. routledge. [state department of education]. (2020). [state] department of education school quality profile: [slateville] county elementary school. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1558439 https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.584889 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9587-0 courtney browning radford university april 30th 70 days ago, around 7:30 am a problem of practice place-based education 53 days ago, around 9:30 am school background 51 days ago, around 6:00 am school accreditation place-based education as change 49 days ago, around 3:00 pm preparing for place-based education academic achievement relative to state standards 39 days ago, around 2:00 pm non-place in place-based education academic achievement in reading 30 days ago, around 2:00 pm place-based education principles as a response to the pandemic discipline disproportionality today, april 30 references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 8 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing sarah capello, phd judson university sarah.capello@judsonu.edu abstract doctoral faculty have long advocated for writing support for doctoral candidates during the dissertation stage. however, schools of education are often challenged to provide organizational supports to assist struggling dissertators. edd students in cped institutions may need additional supports due to shorter time-todegree programs and full-time work commitments. this paper reports how one phd student in a cped institution acted as a dissertation consultant for 35 edd dissertators and successfully guided them through their dissertations. the author examines how her background in composition, experiences in educational research, and willingness to address socio-emotional needs contributed to this success and argues that phd students in schools of education with similar backgrounds can take up dissertation consulting work as organizational supports for edd dissertators. the mutual benefits of engaging in this work are discussed as is the potential for school-university partnerships stemming from phd-edd student collaboration during doctoral study. keywords dissertation, dissertation writing, peer review scholars suggest that doctoral students need writing support, especially at the dissertation stage (brooks-gillies et al., 2015; queen & squires, 2011; switzer & perdue, 2011), yet providing such supports can be challenging (russell, 2002). for example, doctoral students may not be offered an academic writing class during coursework. university writing centers may not be staffed to handle the volume of work a dissertation requires or have specialists to offer field-specific methodological and content feedback. peer feedback can be beneficial, but it requires students to have strong writing skills and the ability to diagnose problems and offer productive feedback, which not all students possess (lowery et al., 2018). finally, dissertation chairs often lack the time and inclination to teach academic writing skills or copyedit individual dissertations and may believe those duties fall outside their responsibility. schools of education (soes) are not immune to these challenges and must consider ways of supporting doctoral students at the dissertation stage. while there is an extensive literature base on general dissertation writing (e.g., becker, 2007; booth et al., 2016; kamler & thomson, 2008; queen & squires, 2011), research on organizational supports for edd dissertators has received less attention. this gap is important because edd students face different challenges when accessing available dissertation writing supports. edd programs were designed for working practitioners, so edd students are tasked with balancing full-time work and program commitments. their availability to receive dissertation writing support is limited to nonworking hours, and work schedules and family responsibilities may 1 scholars have begun to rethink the edd dissertation product and have suggested alternative forms of dissertation scholarship including horizontal collaboration, coprevent dissertators from participating in peer writing groups, visiting the university writing center, or seeking help from faculty during office hours. furthermore, online and hybrid programs may enroll distance learners who are infrequently or never on campus and have reduced opportunities to meet with and receive feedback from faculty, peers, and support staff. finally, reimagined edd programs, specifically those following the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework (carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped], 2019), are transitioning to shorter time-to-degree programs (perry, 2015), so students are tasked with similar work as traditional edd programs but they must complete that work in an abbreviated amount of time1. the implications of these shifts are clear—full-time employment commitments, the lack of comprehensive organizational supports, and shortened time-todegree programs can interact to exacerbate the challenge of dissertation writing for edd students. within this context, a for-profit dissertation writing industry emerged (white, 2016) that includes a plethora of do-it-yourself dissertation writing guidebooks (e.g., roberts, 2010) and online limited liability companies (llcs) that offer dissertation editing services. doctoral faculty have pushed back against this industry by arguing that the available dissertation advice books are largely reductionist, prescriptive, and patronizing (kamler & thomson, 2008) and by questioning the ethics of hiring outside editors to rewrite or copyedit students’ work (bertram gallant, 2016; white, 2016). while these critiques are fair, there is a tangible need in soes for ethical, authorship, closer ties to problems of practice, and challenges to technical rationality (kennedy et al., 2018). http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ sarah.capello@judsonu.edu capello impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 9 innovative strategies to support edd dissertators, yet few actionable alternatives have been operationalized. this paper suggests leveraging phd students in soes who have backgrounds in composition and educational research as dissertation consultants to support their peers in edd programs throughout the dissertation writing process. i engaged in this work for approximately four years as i was completing my phd in a soe. during that time, i consulted with 35 edd dissertators who all, with support, completed their dissertations and graduated. in this paper, i describe my background and experiences that led me to dissertation consulting and that allowed me to be successful in this role. stemming from my experience, i offer suggestions for leveraging phd students as organizational supports for edd dissertators, describe the benefits of doing so, and examine the means necessary for this intervention to be successful. a pathway to dissertation consulting before i began my work as a dissertation consultant, i took graduate courses in writing pedagogy, volunteered at a university writing center, and taught general education composition courses as part of my master of arts in english program. following graduation, i taught similar sections of introductory composition for three years at a liberal arts college. in this role, i learned to teach writing as a process, provide effective, non-threatening feedback, conference with students, and utilize revision strategies to move students’ work forward. in addition, i became acutely aware of the psychological nature of writing and the prior experiences with writing that students carry with them into their academic coursework that can stifle their progress. some students entered my courses already self-identified as “poor writers” and expected to struggle in the class. therefore, i learned to plan for and work to overcome deficit mindsets and socioemotional responses to academic writing. i came to dissertation consulting at city university (a pseudonym) during my second year of phd study at the recommendation of the edd program chair who matched my background in composition with a significant need for writing support for both edd and phd dissertators in the soe. during the four year period in which i was consulting at city university, i was deeply entrenched in the culture of the soe as—at varying points in time—a student, a graduate teaching assistant, a graduate teaching fellow, a graduate research assistant, a member of the edd curriculum committee, and a dissertator. the more i became known as a dissertation consultant among faculty and students in the soe, the more student referrals to i received. although my work began strictly copyediting edd students’ dissertations, the further i advanced in my coursework and the more experienced i gained in educational research and teaching in the edd program at city university, the more methodological and content-based feedback i was able to and began to provide. in addition, as i walked increasingly more dissertators through the dissertation process, i was able to coach students on non-writing aspects of the dissertation process such as: (a) preparing for the proposal and defense, (b) navigating departmental policies and politics, and (c) managing burnout and socio-emotional responses to the dissertation. thus, over time my role transitioned from a dissertation editor to a dissertation consultant. in this role, i was positioned in a third space (bhabha, 1994) by the faculty and students. from a faculty standpoint, i was a junior colleague who could check up on, report back, and move students forward in the dissertation process; i could do the messy and time-consuming work of helping students untangle jumbled thoughts and reconfigure them into coherent descriptions of problems of practice, precise methodological reporting, and thoughtful implications. to the edd students, i was a knowledgeable other yet sympathetic listener, a fellow traveler on the potholed dissertation highway, an insider advocate who had working relationships with faculty, and an experienced guide who had led prior students successfully through the dissertation process. early on in my consulting work, i realized that this experience was unique. i noticed—and was told by faculty members—that i and other editors in the soe were having positive effects on edd dissertators. therefore, i developed plans to write about this work with the hope that other doctoral program administrators would consider developing and supporting dissertation consultants in their soes. from 2015-2018, i kept detailed notes of my approach, process, salient anecdotes, city university’s context, and student outcomes. i wrote analytic memos that reflected my current thinking, questions, challenges, triumphs, and ways my varied background contributed to my success. i draw on these sources to analyze my experience and make claims in the following sections. setting the edd program at city university had been established for decades when i was consulting with dissertators, although the program had recently undergone a dramatic transition from a more traditional, phd-like program to the carnegie project on the education doctorate framework (cped, 2019). some major changes from the traditional to the revised program included moving from a departmental edd with a major to a school-wide edd with an area of concentration, from an in-person course format to a hybrid course format, and from a 5-10 year work-at-your-own-pace schedule to a three-year, full-time cohort model with year-round coursework. in the cped model, the students took two, three credit courses each summer, fall, and spring term. in addition, inquiry as practice (cped, 2019) became a primary mode of inquiry, which resulted in shorter, practice-based dissertations. prior dissertations did not require a specific methodology and were book-length. finally, the revised edd program began enrolling much larger cohorts (approximately 60 students per year), which was a trend for the first four years of the program when i was consulting. the students in the traditional edd program had primarily been pk-12 teachers and administrators or higher education administrators. the new program continued to attract similar candidates but also included new areas of concentration such as stem and health and physical activity, which provided new opportunities for those in government and research sectors as well as community leaders. before and after the redesign of the edd program, there was a significant need for writing support for edd students. many of the students had not taken an academic writing course since their undergraduate career, and they were not required to take one in either the traditional or the revised program. at one time there was an optional dissertation writing seminar available to all doctoral students; however, this course was designed primarily for accountability purposes rather than as an advanced composition course. the transition to the cped framework, along with the addition of new program tracks for students who many not have previously considered an edd, resulted in ballooning enrollments and a strain on program faculty. when i was consulting, the soe had not hired leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 10 new edd faculty to manage the increased enrollment (a significant ethical concern), which contributed to the existing need for dissertation writing support. the 2016-2017 academic year is a particularly striking example. during this academic year, i worked with 13 edd dissertators (and had to turn away other students because i did not have the capacity to help them), which was nearly 20% of the students in that cohort. as i was not the only dissertation consultant in the soe at city university at the time, the percentage of students who obtained writing assistance from that cohort was likely higher. while city university’s transition to the cped framework did not inherently cause these tensions, this anecdote illustrates that the need for dissertation writing support can significantly change with the implementation of institutional and departmental reforms, especially those that result in increased enrollment. it also demonstrates that even research i institutions with strong soes enroll underprepared writers who need support at the dissertation stage. supporting edd dissertators in this section, i detail my academic and professional backgrounds and offer three reasons for my success as an edd dissertation consultant: (a) my experience teaching academic writing, (b) my grounding in educational research and experience coteaching with edd program faculty at city university, and (c) my willingness to acknowledge and engage edd students’ socioemotional needs during the dissertation process. i argue that phd students with similar strengths and dispositions would be viable candidates to engage in this work. grounding in composition my experience teaching composition to undergraduates has close correlations to working with dissertators. these include: (a) teaching principles of academic composition and source-based argumentation, (b) framing writing as a process, (c) providing feedback, (d) discussing revision strategies, and (e) providing socioemotional support. when i was an english instructor, the content and skills i was teaching were nearly identical to those that i introduced to and reinforced with the dissertators i was coaching, although at an advanced level for the latter. one coaching practice i used with my undergraduates was a questioning strategy. once students had a topic, i would begin asking questions about their topics or arguments—often playing devil’s advocate—then join them in imagining what a particular project could look like, all the while urging them to take ownership of the topic, direction, and outcomes of the writing. i found this to be markedly similar to helping edd students develop their research questions and study design. the edd students had topics they wanted to study and sometimes research questions, but they often struggled to operationalize those ideas into a research design or proposal. having a coach with whom to talk through ideas, ask constructive questions, and imagine what a study could look like helped the students clarify and focus their thinking. sometimes, dissertators simply needed help moving from one step to the next to narrow the scope of the study, confront the realities of conducting said study (i.e., time, effort, skills needed), and set the goals of the project. my experiences teaching composition contributed to my initial willingness to engage in dissertation consulting, provided a framework for my work that was research-based and grounded in best practice, and gave me ethos that helped me build trust with both students and faculty. because dissertation consulting required additional genre and content-specific knowledge that i did not have from teaching freshman composition (e.g., writing a literature review or reporting qualitative data analysis procedures) it was critical for me to continue developing my knowledge of the dissertation genre and educational research through my own coursework and research. grounding in educational research and the cped framework while teaching composition positioned me to assist with dissertation writing, my experiences in educational research as a phd student transformed my work from dissertation editing to dissertation consulting because they bolstered my knowledge of methodology. this research engagement came from three sources: coursework, teaching, and research with soe faculty. as a phd student, i took courses in disciplined inquiry, quantitative and qualitative methodology, and data collection and analysis. in these and independent study courses, i learned principles of educational research and then designed, conducted, and reported small pilot studies. later, i assisted a team of edd faculty in developing and co-teaching two practitioner inquiry courses. in these courses, we introduced inquiry as practice (cped, 2019), data collection methods, and data analysis procedures. because of my work in the edd program, i was invited to be a graduate student representative on the edd curriculum committee that was tasked with reviewing and revising methodology courses in the edd program. at the end of my program, i worked as a graduate research assistant to soe faculty on a national science foundation grant-funded project where i engaged in data collection, preliminary data analysis, and dissemination activities. these experiences had a noticeable and impactful effect on my ability to coach the methodological components of the dissertation. for example, as part of my coursework i took a research interviewing course where i learned about interviewing as a data collection method and designed a pilot study that involved developing a protocol, writing interview questions, conducting and transcribing interviews, and coding the transcripts. the next semester, i worked as a graduate assistant conducting interviews and coding transcripts for a soe faculty member. engaging in my own and others’ research bolstered my knowledge and confidence of developing, conducting, and analyzing interviews. although i was far from an expert interviewer, these experiences allowed me to coach dissertators who using interviews, give practical advice, and share resources that i had utilized. i naturally applied my coursework and experiential learning via feedback and in conversations with edd dissertators by using the questioning strategy i detailed earlier and offering suggestions for next steps, resources, and questions to ask the dissertation chair. furthermore, i often conferred with edd students in class for the edd courses i co-taught. these conferences helped me identify common questions, misunderstandings, challenges, and socioemotional needs that the students had (e.g., narrowing topics, identifying problems of practice, aligning the elements of the research design), so i learned to expect these questions in my consulting work and was prepared to address them. for example, students often proposed larger studies than were feasible for a dissertation and resorted to case study design irrespective of their research questions or the scope or purpose of the study. teaching in capello impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 11 the program also provided me with knowledge of the cped framework and common programmatic language. for example, i understood inquiry as practice, a problem of practice, and a dissertation in practice (cped, 2019) because i had taught these concepts, and i could (and did) clarify them for dissertators when necessary. again, conferring in class and using program language translated naturally to my consulting work, and, as i was consulting at the time, it is likely that my experience consulting improved my inclass conferences for the same reasons. because i understood the conceptual framing of the edd dissertation under the revised cped framework, i was able to help students see the end product and goals of their dissertation and help them shape their study to meet those goals. acknowledging and supporting socio-emotional needs prior research has demonstrated that doctoral students need and benefit from socio-emotional support at varying stages of their program (hunter & devine, 2016; rogers-shaw & carr-chellman, 2018). the edd dissertators at city university were no different, and my acknowledgement of that and willingness to provide socioemotional support developed trust and positive working relationships that supported students’ progress. not all, but most of the edd students were referred to me for dissertation writing support from their chairs or committee members. students were often surprised at the suggestion to obtain an editor, because they had completed their coursework without realizing their writing skills needed improvement. a few students were languishing abds and were about to time out of the program and not graduate. the students in the redesigned cped program were all constrained by time due to the shortened program structure. therefore, in addition to normal stress that doctoral students experience (see mackie and bates (2019)), many edd students at city university demonstrated elevated needs for socio-emotional support. my approach to this was to acknowledge students’ socio-emotional responses to the dissertation process such as burnout, frustration, fear, and even loneliness, listen empathetically, and then offer hope by relaying my success guiding other students through their dissertations. i began each job with an initial phone call to introduce myself and hear the student’s story. during the planning and writing process, i often met students inperson, through video-conferencing, texting, or phone calls to check in and talk through feedback. while i did not realize it at first, dissertation consulting became a highly relational experience, and i believe that developing positive relationships with students and offering socio-emotional support bolstered the academic support i provided and spurred students onward. research on the effects of positive interpersonal relationships on doctoral student persistence (e.g., ruud et al., 2018) would seem to support this finding. for example, lev, an edd candidate, had been abd for five years when i began working with him. at that time, lev was disconnected from the university; he was working full-time and not taking classes or otherwise engaged with city university. he was also not making progress toward his dissertation. throughout our collaboration, lev checked in with me frequently to share his progress, vent frustration, and even ask questions about my own degree progress. he often commented that family and friends did not understand his struggle, because they had not been through a doctoral program. however, knowing that someone else was going through the dissertation process with him was comforting and motivating. i was quick to offer praise when he was moving forward, suggestions when he was stuck, and an ear to listen when needed. within a year of our collaboration, lev completed his dissertation and graduated. this anecdote demonstrates how responding to socio-emotional needs, in addition to coaching, offered a site of respite, motivation, and guidance for a dissertator who was stalled and disconnected. while some students might require more socio-emotional support than others, i found that providing this type of support was nearly as important as writing or methodological feedback. leveraging phd students like lev, many of my dissertators expressed that they did not feel they had anyone else to turn to for the specific types of support that i offered: (a) personalized academic writing and editing feedback, (b) methodology coaching, (c) and socio-emotional support. while city university had a writing center, library workshops on dissertation writing, and some faculty who held advisee meetings and encouraged peer writing groups, these organizational supports were not enough for the needs of many edd dissertators. while other soes may offer similar affordances, they might also lack sufficient organizational supports for edd dissertators. given this context, i argue that cped institutions as well as other soes with doctoral programs can leverage phd students to support edd dissertation writing. this model works for several reasons. first, the phd track has traditionally differed from the edd track in that it prepares future researchers rather than practitioner-leaders (butin, 2010), so phd students are likely to take research courses and have opportunities to engage in research independently and with soe faculty. they may also identify as burgeoning educational researchers and have professional goals that include continued engagement in research post-graduation. in tandem with their research orientation, advanced phd students would have experience writing about research via coursework, program benchmarks, comprehensive exams, conference proposals, journal articles, and their own dissertation proposals and manuscripts. thus, they are positioned well to support, not direct, the research and research writing components of the dissertation. second, although phd students may have left the school site to complete their degree, many come from professional backgrounds that involve pk-12 schools or higher education sites. this insider knowledge can benefit edd students as they develop and frame their studies as well as interpret findings and proffer implications. third, advanced phd students are positioned to become engrained in the soe culture and know the dissertation processes, procedures, and expectations as well as the faculty and their orientations, preferences, and feedback styles. therefore, they can help edd students navigate the sociocultural, academic, and political landscapes of the soe that affect all doctoral candidates. phd students with backgrounds in teaching or tutoring academic writing or current or former teachers may be particularly well-positioned to become dissertation consultants, especially as they gain experience in educational research methods through their coursework or graduate assistantships. phd students with backgrounds in composition but not educational research could still assist in the writing of the dissertation but should resist offering methodological commentary. when matching dissertation consultants with edd dissertators, program administrators should take great care to consider the fit between the consultant’s and the student’s methodological and epistemic orientations as well as the consultant’s experience with the dissertator’s methodology. consultants should be paired with dissertators who are doing studies leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 12 that fall within their realm of methodological knowledge and experience2. dissertation consultants must have a firm grasp on academic writing, standard american english grammar and punctuation, educational research methodology, and first-hand experience in educational research. finally, they must not only know this content but be able to teach it; thus, they should develop or refine coaching skills related to designing, conducting, and reporting research as well as dispositions that include patience, empathy, and encouragement. discussions and implications in this section, i first describe the potential mutual benefits to edd students, phd students, soes, and local schools and communities that could arise from partnerships between edd and phd students due to dissertation consulting. next, i discuss two important considerations for soes that are interested in implementing this intervention: (a) training for dissertation consultants and (b) funding for phd students who take up this work. mutual benefits utilizing phd students as organizational writing supports for edd dissertators can result in numerous benefits across parties. first, and most importantly, as my work at city university demonstrated, dissertation consulting can result in increased retention and graduation rates for edd students; all 35 students i worked with completed their dissertations and graduated. it is certainly possible that those students could have graduated without support, but the opposite is also true. current estimates dismally suggest that between 50-70% of edd students and 50% of phd students do not graduate (council of graduate schools [cgs], 2010; lowery et al., 2018). however, bolli et al. (2015) found that providing writing instruction in coursework is associated with increased graduation rates for social sciences phd students; it is likely that this effect could be the same for edd students. i argue dissertation consulting can be a proxy for writing coursework where none is provided. second, cped is currently leading the initiative for reimagined edd programs across the country, and many soes are revisiting existing edd programs or developing new ones (perry, 2015). therefore, there are exciting opportunities for newly-minted phds to work in edd programs. however, authentic engagement with edd students is hard for phd students to come by; therefore, dissertation consulting can be a valid and valuable pathway to accessing this population and building a professional portfolio. through dissertation consulting, phd students obtain advisor-like coaching experience, learn where and how edd students struggle with the dissertation, and develop strategies for supporting them. phd students who consult in cped institutions will learn the framework and know cped’s objectives, goals, and language, which would benefit multiple parties if they move to another cped institution after graduation. third, collaborations between phd and edd students can support existing and stimulate new school-university partnerships 2 for example, i specialized in qualitative methodologies and consulted exclusively with students doing qualitative dissertations. between researchers and practitioners who share common interests. christianakis (2010) asserted that these partnerships can “build reciprocal alliances” that can break down “knowledge hierarchies,” bridge the theory-practice gap, and engender collaborations that influence educational policy and reform (pp. 111, 114). developing relationships with key district personnel may open doors for phd students to conduct research in schools while positioning practitioners as researchers can push back against notions of practitioners as consumers, not producers, of research (cochransmith & lytle, 2009). pairing phd and edd students can benefit schools and communities by melding the knowledge and skills of aspiring researchers with the professional wisdom of school leaders as they investigate and address persistent problems of practice. developing and supporting dissertation consultants leveraging phd students as dissertation consultants should be strategic and intentional, and soes must attend to two important considerations for this work to be successful. first, while the experiences listed in the prior section may position phd students well for this work, it is also imperative that consultants receive initial training and ongoing professional development in several key areas: (a) dissertation research design, (b) edd programmatic language, norms, and expectations, (c) coaching edd students, (d) coaching writing, and (e) navigating socio-emotional responses. it is also crucial that consultants have a clearly defined role that delineates boundaries and responsibilities (e.g., dissertation consultants should not write sections of the dissertation or override the advisor.). this training could be provided by the university writing center, a graduate student supervisor, an edd program faculty member or administrator, or an experienced phd dissertation consultant. secondly, soes should allocate funding for graduate assistantships for dissertation consultants or partner with the writing center to do so. in fact, bolli et al. (2015) found that fully-funded phd students are more likely to graduate, so funding dissertation consultants could actually improve outcomes for both phd and edd students. soes that are experiencing a surge of edd students, such as city university, could utilize tuition revenue for these assistantships. the number of dissertation consultants could fluctuate depending on the institution’s size and enrollment; however, i suggest having at least one consultant who specializes in quantitative methodology and one who specializes in qualitative. redistributing resources and funding to support this initiative may be necessary, but, given my experience at city university, doing so could result in significant outcomes and positive shifts in graduation and retention for phd and edd students. conclusion white (2016) and others (e.g., bertram gallant, 2016) have been critical of dissertation editors for their predatory practices and completion of the work for which dissertators themselves are responsible. these authors pose an important question: can dissertation editing be done ethically so that the dissertator is not passing his work off onto someone else and taking credit for it? in capello impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.110 13 short, my response is yes. the edd students i consulted with genuinely worked hard and took responsibility for their studies. thus, my dissertation consulting was not the students passing their work off on me. furthermore, most of the students i worked with were referred to me by their committee members, so, at city university, dissertation consulting was sanctioned and appreciated by edd program faculty and administrators. finally, the dissertation consulting i did was essentially peer review, and much academic writing goes through the peer-review process. for example, dissertators receive copious feedback from committee members, doctoral students exchange papers in class, journal editors send out article submissions for review and feedback, and authors of scholarly and professional books use editors within the publishing house. therefore, dissertation consulting as framed in this article follows a scholarly tradition that is utilized in the academic community. although various forms of dissertation writing support exist across doctoral programs (e.g., writing courses, writing groups, scholar networks, and writing centers) they vary by institution and may not be sufficient for the academic and accessibility needs of edd students. by taking up this initiative in addition to other systemic support options such as writing courses, soe administrators would provide a much needed organizational support for edd dissertators while avoiding faculty burnout or having to hire writing support specialists. dissertation consulting has a strong potential to reduce edd student attrition and boost graduation rates and even affect phd completion through graduate funding streams. finally, this work could build bridges between edd and phd programs and offer both groups opportunities to further their professional knowledge and practice. references becker, h. s. (2007). writing for social scientists: how to start and finish your thesis, book, or article (2nd ed.). university of chicago press. bertram gallant, t. (2016). response to white’s ‘shadow scholars and the rise of the dissertation service industry’. journal of research practice, 12(1). bhabha, h. (1994). the location of culture. routledge. bolli, t., agasisti, t., & johnes, g. (2015). the impact of institutional student support on graduation rates in us phd programmes. education economics, 23(4), 396-418. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2013.842541 booth, w. c., colomb, g. g., williams, j. m., bizup, j., & fitzgerald, w. t. (2016). the craft of research. university of chicago press. brooks-gillies, m., garcia, e. g., kim, h. s., manthey, k., & smith, t. (2015). graduate writing across the disciplines: introduction. across the disciplines, 12(3). butin, d. w. (2010). the education dissertation: a guide for practitioner scholars. corwin. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2019). the cped framework. retrieved from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework christianakis, m. (2010). collaborative research and teacher education. issues in teacher education, 19(2), 109-125. cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. l. (2009). inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation. teachers college press. council of graduate schools in the u. s. (2010). ph.d. completion and attrition: policies and practices to promote student success. council of graduate schools. hunter, k. h., & devine, k. (2016). doctoral students’ emotional exhaustion and intentions to leave academia. international journal of doctoral studies, 11, 35-61. https://doi.org/10.28945/3396 kamler, b., & thomson, p. (2008). the failure of dissertation advice books: toward alternative pedagogies for doctoral writing. educational research, 37(8), 507-514. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08327390 kennedy, b. l., altman, m., & pizano, a. (2018). engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model. impacting education, 3, 4-12. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 lowery, k., geesa, r., mcconnell, k. (2018). designing a peer-mentoring program for education doctorate (edd) students: a literature review. higher learning research communications, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v8i1.408 mackie, s. a., & bates, g. w. (2019). contribution of the doctoral education environment to phd candidates’ mental health problems: a scoping review. higher education research development, 38(3), 565-578. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1556620 perry, j. a. (2015). the carnegie project on the education doctorate. change, the magazine of higher learning, 47(3), 56-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1040712 queen, r., & squires, l. (2011). writing a dissertation. journal of english linguistics, 39(3), 300-305. https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424211415834 roberts, c. l. (2010). the dissertation journey: a practical and comprehensive guide to planning, writing, and defending your dissertation (2nd ed.). sage. rogers-shaw, c., & carr-chellman, d. (2018). developing care and socioemotional learning in first year doctoral students: building capacity for success. international journal of doctoral studies, 13, 233-252. https://doi.org/ 10.28945/4064 ruud, c. m., saclarides, e. s., george-jackson, c. e., & lubienski, s. t. (2018). tipping points: doctoral students and consideration of departure. journal of college student retention: research, theory & practice, 20(3), 286-307. https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025116666082 russell, d. r. (2002). writing in the academic disciplines: a curricular history (2nd ed.). sothern illinois press. switzer, a., & perdue, s. w. (2011). dissertation 101: a research and writing intervention for education graduate students. education libraries, 34(1), 4-14. https://doi.org/10.26443/el.v34i1.299 white, j. l. (2016). shadow scholars and the rise of the dissertation service industry: can we maintain academic integrity? journal of research practice, 12(1), 1-9. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v8i1.408 microsoft word 80 final layout_degreeupdated.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 59 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders: generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice james e. bartlett, ii, phd north carolina state university drjamesbartlett@gmail.com michelle e. bartlett, phd north carolina state university mebartle@ncsu.edu j. jordan dolfi, mla north carolina state university jjdolfi@ncsu.edu audrey j. jaeger, phd north carolina state university ajjaeger@ncsu.edu diane d. chapman, edd north carolina state university ddchapma@ncsu.edu abstract this paper describes the redesign of a community college executive leadership doctoral program that seeks to develop senior-level leaders. the paper provides how the redesign was intentionally aligned with the cped principles and specifically the sixth principle. the paper sought data from students, faculty and other documents to gain an insight into the impact of aligning the program with principles and design concepts. the paper suggests that it is important for this program to integrate examples from practice and practitioners, include job shadowing experiences for students and faculty, and ensure there are active learning activities that are relevant to the students. the paper includes an overview of the program redesign as well as reflection on the first iteration of the new coursework through student's voice, faculty feedback, and a discussion of lessons learned. keywords: community college leadership, education doctorate, integration of practitioners introduction the redesign of the adult and community college education doctorate at north carolina state university has been strategic and systemic to develop leaders for senior and mid-level leadership positions in north carolina community colleges and beyond. the redesign effort applies the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) guiding principles and design concepts as the core framework for the program. this program is critical to develop the next generation of community college leadership since the doctorate is often the required credential for these positions. according to the american association of community colleges (aacc, 2018), there are 1,103 community colleges that served a 7.1 million student headcount as of fall 2016. the aacc fast facts sheet (2018) states that 72% of community college students in 20112012 received financial aid, 36% were first-generation college students, and 53% were non-white. while it is known that community college leaders serve a large number of diverse students, creating a pipeline to supply community college executive leaders for the future has been a concern facing the profession for some time (mcnair, 2010; shults, 2001; whissemore, 2011). inside higher ed's 2017 survey of community college presidents (jaschik & lederman) indicated, "in 2015, nearly one in four community colleges replaced its president" (p. 12). another estimate suggested 50% of community college presidents will retire by 2018 (rothwell, gerity, & carraway, 2017). the shortage of community leaders goes beyond just the president position. it is also a concern for midand senior-level community college positions. the aacc (2013) highlighted that the more traditional internal talent development pipeline for leaders normally included the promotion of vice presidents. however, vice presidents are also retiring at high rates. according to the results of the 2017 survey of community college presidents (jaschik & lederman), presidents “are divided on whether there are clear career paths to prepare for the community college presidency” (p. 12). redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 60 although 43% of respondents felt there were clear paths to prepare for the community college presidency, nearly the same proportion of respondents, 40%, disagreed and felt there was no clear pathway to prepare future presidents. clearly, there exists a substantial demand for community college midand senior-level leaders, and an education doctorate program that incorporates practice-based approaches to develop the skills and competencies needed to lead serves as part of the pathway to a presidency, as well as other leadership positions. even when potential leaders decide to pursue a doctoral degree, the pathway to find the specific program can be further complicated as many of these prospective students are unaware of the important distinctions between the phd and edd. moreover, this situation is further convoluted when faculty members and those leading doctoral programs are often confused by the purposes of the two degrees. over 10 years ago, shulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006) suggested, “the purposes of preparing scholars and practitioners are confused; as a result, neither is done well” (p. 5). according to perry (2012), the cped initiative drew upon this basic premise to “differentiate between the outcomes and expectations for doctoral candidates—those who choose to become professional practitioners (edd) and those who want to do research and teach in academic institutions (phd)” (p. 44). although both degrees have been necessary to the profession of education, it has become critical for prospective students to understand their employment goals and the knowledge, skills, and competencies needed to meet the expectations of their employers and then determine the most appropriate program to meet their needs. background on the redesign of education doctorate for community college leaders at north carolina state university, faculty members engaged in an extensive process of redesign to reform the education doctorate in adult and community college education (acce). the redesign effort has been supported by a grant from the john m. belk endowment (www.jmbendowment.org). the doctoral program redesign was one of the strategies to develop this needed pipeline of mid-level and senior executive leadership for north carolina community colleges. to develop these leaders, north carolina state university has made a concerted effort to differentiate the goals of the edd to provide a clear pathway that prepares practitioners to become community college leaders. the education doctorate in acce is housed in the department of educational leadership, policy, and human development in the adult, workforce, and continuing professional education program area. although north carolina state university offers both the phd and the edd, the education doctorate was considered to be the most appropriate degree to redesign in order to develop practitioners for leadership positions in community colleges. this decision was supported by the work of shulman et al. (2006) who suggested practitioners needed programs with a stronger focus on developing skills appropriate to educational practice rather than educational research. to create a sustainable path to develop leaders, it was important to create a vision that aligns with the needs of community college stakeholders, while simultaneously meeting the needs of adult learners. these efforts were supported by creating an advisory board, which included community college presidents, community college system office executives, and thought leaders from around the nation. the program redesign effort has been part of a larger initiative entitled envisioning excellence for community college leadership, which strives to strengthen the role of north carolina state university in outreach and engagement with community colleges including graduate education, professional development, supporting initiatives in community colleges, and research. within envisioning excellence, the aim of the program narrowed the focus of the education doctorate to develop a pipeline of future leaders prepared to serve in the north carolina community college system. to redesign the doctoral program, the cped guiding principles (gps) and cped design concepts (dcs) were used in conjunction with the most current content from the field including modules based on the aspen college excellence program (wyner, 2014), aspen institute's qualities of exceptional leaders (aspen institute, 2014) , and national competencies for community college executive leaders such as the aacc standards. the cped gps and dcs provided the foundational framework for the program redesign that delivers highly relevant content. decisions made in the redesign process were purposefully aligned with the stakeholder needs and cped gps and dcs. additionally, faculty members employed innovative educational reforms in redesigning the program, such as improvement science, to create continuous improvement. for example, student interviews provided information about version 1.0 of the redesign, which has been used to continuously improve the program design. the program redesign the program includes coursework that incorporates substantial opportunities for practice and practitioners, such as practice-based dissertations that are integrated into the coursework from the start of the program and a newly designed mentoring component grounded in generating professional knowledge. to ensure the program remains student-centered and continuously improves, intentional assessment is integrated throughout the program to gather student and faculty perspectives and that information is used for program refinement. one example is the students’ perceptions of community college student success. prior to starting the program, edd students were asked to write a definition of community college student success. the edd students then participated in several key activities that focused on community college student success in terms of learning, completion, transfer, equity, and labor market outcomes. these activities included learning modules, interactions with professionals, and screening a film developed by the college of southern nevada (2015) entitled no greater odds that followed the story of five community college students. after these activities, data was collected that demonstrated the edd students viewed success in a different manner. many program participants are able to see the community college students from a larger system perspective and were able to see the end goals that included bachelor degree completion and obtaining employment with family sustainable wages. coursework coursework for the edd program includes 14 three-credit-hour courses and 12 credit hours of dissertation research. the coursework and the sequencing were also evaluated by students and faculty members to explore opportunities to improve program outcomes. students complete coursework in a cohort that meets in an executive format on weekends (friday, 5 pm to 9 pm, and bartlett, bartlett, dolfi, jaeger, & chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 61 saturday, 8 am to 3 pm). fall and spring semester courses each meet for four weekends. during the summers, students complete two courses that each meet three weekends and have one online module for each course. students complete two courses in the summer, fall, and spring terms for two years, beginning and ending with summer terms. the last year of the program has students completing dissertation research. the program integrates a one-credit dissertation hour into each semester of coursework, beginning in the first fall semester of the program and continuing each semester until coursework is completed. students defend a dissertation proposal during the second year of the program. an internship course, completed in the final summer session, is another important aspect of the program that includes a reflection on the mentoring experience and completion of a project in the field. in the program redesign, major changes to the coursework included integration of practice from the practitioner's perspective, integration of modules from the aspen institute, redesign of the research methods courses to meet the needs of practitioners, job shadowing, and integration of the dissertation throughout the program. the changes were designed to intentionally “emphasize the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d., para. 7) to improve the outcomes of students in organizations our graduates would lead. the may 2016 cohort was the first to participate in the redesigned program and they provided data used in this paper. this redesign effort was in version 1.0 for this cohort and has continuously been improved. for example, one recent change to the program that has been implemented in the 2017 cohort is the sequence of classes. this provides an example of how program faculty members continuously monitored the program and adjusted it to improve student learning and outcomes. the 2017 cohort schedule incorporated one course designed to generate knowledge and impact practice, usually a research methods course, and one course focused on content knowledge and practice each semester. table 1 shows that in one term, two methods courses were taught in the same term in the 2016 cohort, whereas the 2017 course structure integrated content and methods courses throughout the program with a content and methods or methods-like course being paired in each semester/summer term. table 1. courses and sequence for edd community college cohort year/term version 1.0 cohort 1 location a 2016 dissertation hours version 2.0 cohort 2 location b 2017 dissertation hours courses to generate knowledge and impact practice content courses in knowledge and practice year 1/ summer reflective practice the change process 0 reflective practice the change process 0 year 1/ fall leadership organizational theory 1 improvement science organizational theory 1 year 1/ spring research methods 1 (quantitative) administrative issues 1 proposal writing (integrative review of literature) administrative issues 1 year 2/ summer research methods 2 (qualitative) research methods 3 (advanced quantitative) 1 research methods 1 (quantitative) leadership 1 year 2/ fall improvement science community college 1 research methods 2 (qualitative) community college 1 year 2/ spring program evaluation workforce development 1 research methods 3 (advanced quantitative) workforce development 1 year 3/ summer proposal writing internship 1 program evaluation internship 1 year 3/ fall dissertation hours 3 dissertation hours 3 year 3/ spring dissertation hours 3 dissertation hours 3 redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 62 purpose in this article, we provide a focused description of how cped guiding principle (gp) six, which suggested redesigned edd programs should emphasize “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice,” (cped , n.d., para. 7) was addressed through the redesign. in the discussion that follows, it is to be noted, that many of the cped gps have been interwoven and thus many of these practices were related to other principles. we describe the purpose of the program, provide an overview of courses, and discuss unique features that were designed to incorporate professional knowledge and practice into the first three courses of the redesigned program. we provide specific examples of how “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d., para. 7) was woven into the first three courses of the program’s curriculum. additionally, we draw upon the voice of students to understand their perspectives on how cped gp 6 was integrated into the program to meet their needs as leaders. this article was based on the data collected from one cohort after completion of the initial courses. the courses were eac 711: reflective practice, eac 712: change, and eac 704: leadership, as well as the integrated dissertation model. the student voices were included from guided interview questions and used to examine the redesigned program from the end-user perspective. we also integrate the voices of faculty members to provide the history, context, and perceived impacts from self-reflection. the context for the study professional knowledge and practice—cped gp 6 the sixth cped gp states, revised edd programs should “emphasize the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d., para. 7). in the current context, because this doctoral program was focused on the development of midand senior-level executive leaders in community colleges, the knowledge and practices were based on professional knowledge and practice in the context of community colleges. community colleges have been shown to be complex organizations (clotfelter, ladd, muschkin, & vigdor, 2013) and serve students with a wide range of needs including workforce development, associate degrees, transfer to four-year colleges, technical degrees, technical certifications, industry credentials, and continuing education. in some instances, community colleges also offer bachelor's degrees. the program is tailored to prepare practitioners specifically for the demands of this unique and complex educational environment. therefore, the standards used for practice were drawn from the current competencies for community college leaders (aacc, 2013), crisis and opportunity: aligning the community college presidency with student success (aspen institute & achieving the dream, 2013), and hiring exceptional community college presidents: tools for hiring leaders (aspen institute, 2014a). curriculum modules, based on lessons from the aspen prize from the community college excellence program (aspen institute, 2014b), were developed to advance the skill sets necessary to undertake scaled institutional reform, tapping into leading-edge practices in areas such as change management, guided pathways, intrusive advising, and partnering with employers and other educational organizations through collective impact strategies. additionally, the program has an emphasis on the development of leaders that are student-success driven. student success has been assessed in several ways including high absolute performance in learning, completion, labor market, and equity outcomes. further, the program emphasizes how important it was for leaders to create a culture that supports continuous improvement over time and the use of evidence-based practices. although these resources provided a basis for how to transform and use professional knowledge and practice with students, with an emphasis on improvement, the students needed to develop skills with respect to generating professional knowledge and practices. this skill development was achieved in the activities and requirements of the courses. contexts for the three courses with respect to context, we have provided details about the implementation of the courses to ensure those are clear so that the results may be readily understood by the reader. for the three courses, we provide some details that establish the context for each. context information on reflective practice course leading up to the interviews on user-centered problems of practice (pop). reflective practice, the first course offered to the cohort, incorporated a project in which student groups interviewed community college practitioners, leaders, students, faculty members, and alumni about problems affecting student success on their campuses. these problems provided a base from which students considered the types of problems they might endeavor to solve in their research efforts while meeting requirements for the dissertation. in addition to traditional interviews, the instructor organized and led several online collaborative panel sessions. the panels included practitioners, community college presidents, senior level leaders, system office staff, foundation personnel, parents, and students to create a user-centered approach to identify problems facing the field. the course included an in-class exercise using a design thinking approach based on the four measures (figure 1) to student success including learning, completion/transfer, equity, labor market, as well as, organizational culture and technology. in this activity, students independently generated problems of practice they had encountered or of which they were aware. students recorded the issues on sticky notes, then discussed and combined/condensed these into themes by group, and then again as a whole class. this preparatory work exposed students to aspects of community colleges which they might not have been aware because of their individual professional practice work. it also served as a jumping off point for the independent interviews and the online sessions that integrated practitioners. the goal of the project was to generate ideas and conversation about the problems community college practitioners currently face on their campuses to generate topics and research areas for edd research and subsequent dissertation work to address problems of practice. bartlett, bartlett, dolfi, jaeger, & chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 63 figure 1. aspen institute's model for the measures of community college excellence (2014b) context information on the change process course leading up to the interviews on integrating practitioners into teaching. a somewhat unique part of the program was the integration of practitioners into the classroom as instructors. they also serve as dissertation committee members. although not every course is team taught, in the redesign version 1.0, over half of the courses had a community college practitioner teaching in collaboration with a north carolina state faculty member who served as the instructor of record. the second course for the cohort, entitled the change process, was offered in summer 2016 and co-taught by a north carolina state professor and an illinois community college president. the change course was situated early in the program because it included content critical for developing the skills of an executive leader and provided knowledge to understand how a dissertation can support a change effort. further, the skills learned were foundational for future courses, which required students to implement course concepts into practice. having the change course co-taught by a scholar and a practitioner built upon the momentum of the first course demonstrating the strong commitment to practice and the cped principles. other cped programs reported similar challenges as aiken and gerstl-pepin (2013), stated “we developed new faculty collaborations to begin to address some of the dualisms we faced—professional knowledge and theoretical knowledge; coursework and fieldwork; theory development and problem solutions; individual scholarship and collaborative scholarship; and traditional research and action research” (p. 174). the north carolina state professor delivered the theory, research, and models for implementing successful and long-lasting change based on kotter’s (2012) and kezar’s (2013) work. concurrently, the community college president applied this knowledge and theory to community college “boots-on-the-ground” reality by teaching from his own experiences as a president at two community colleges as well as his experiences in other senior staff positions. other examples of team-teaching included the research methods 1 and research methods 3 courses, which were taught by a north carolina state professor and the executive director of institutional research for a large urban community college. context on the leadership course including intensive shadowing and mentoring. the third course, leadership, incorporated a substantial professional experience project. all students in the cohort received an open invitation from the community college president who served as the executive expert in the change course to engage in substantial and individualized shadowing at the community college he serves in illinois. nine students and two north carolina state faculty members participated in the experience. students who were unable to make the trip for any number of reasons—expense, time away from work—were allowed to substitute presenting at a conference, local job shadowing, or other creative and substantial projects that would meet the professional and academic goals and needs of students. integrated dissertation up to this point, we have addressed the coursework that was related to the cped gp 6. additionally, the redesigned curriculum integrated dissertation hours throughout the coursework, engaging students in the active development of dissertation topics throughout the coursework. during the first course, students began to identify problems of practice that were relevant to stakeholders. at the current point in the redesign, students had the options of doing a traditional five-chapter dissertation, three journal articles, or an action research, improvement science, or evaluation dissertation. starting during the first fall semester, students enroll in one dissertation hour and continue this enrollment until they have completed their coursework. during the first fall semester, students are assigned to their faculty dissertation chairs and work collaboratively with the chair to build their dissertation committees. faculty members take responsibility for teaching the one-credit dissertation courses. in this course, students set objectives and create deliverables, while the faculty member walks the students through the dissertation process. students work collaboratively with their dissertation chairs to develop the content of the dissertation proposal. as a result of these one-credit courses, students have the first three chapters of a traditional format dissertation or the first journal article completed and the second article proposed by the end of coursework. improvement science in addition to absolute high performance, it is critical to develop leaders that seek continuous improvement over time. because continuous improvement was such an important concept, the course on improvement science was moved to the first fall semester for future cohorts (see table 1). the content has included modules on (a) making the work on improvement problem-specific and usercentered, (b) focusing the importance of variation in outcomes and performance, (c) understanding systems that produce current outcomes, (d) recognizing the importance of measurements to improve at scale, (e) using inquiry to drive improvement, and (f) creating and implementing networked improvement communities (bryk, gomez, grunow, & lemahieu, 2015). although aspects of this were taught in the reflective practice course, it was not fully integrated until students completed the improvement science course. this course uses professional knowledge to generate new knowledge and is foundational in the transformation of quality outcomes that could be continuously improved. additional activities that emphasize the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice other assignments were integrated through courses and within classroom instruction to support the generation of professional redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 64 knowledge and practice. students completed a design thinking activity, created case studies, answered abbreviated cases, and conducted poster presentations. these activities provided students with opportunities to generate professional knowledge and practice. additionally, students used knowledge from these activities to identify problems of practice for dissertations. the dissertation has come to be viewed as another way to generate professional knowledge and practice. when asked what experiences so far in the program have most contributed to the generation of professional knowledge and practice, one student offered: the continuous access to practitioners—the panels we’ve had in classes, the co-teaching with practitioners, the people who have dedicated their lives to this rather than only the academics. integrating the data, the case study, all of it comes from practice and shows us how to apply what we’re learning. communication activities and presenting data. activities like panel discussions and poster presentations were integrated into the program. additionally, other activities that required the students to communicate in concise and effective manners were integrated. for example, students completed activities that required the visualization of data in easy to understand formats. they also had to complete an elevator pitch on the importance of student success and they completed an ignite session on a leadership topic. finally, the analysis of case studies was used to change practices at work. both detailed case studies and short case studies referred to as “dear abby’s” were used in the coursework. method in the next sections, we have provided information about the students and data sources for the paper. doctoral student participants the doctoral students that provided insight for this article are part of a cohort of 24 students. this group of students started the doctoral program in 2016. of the 24 students in the cohort, 16 (66.7%) were female and 10 (41.7%) were individuals of color. of the 24, 13 (54.2%) currently work at community colleges or in career and technical education, seven (29.2%) others work at four-year colleges and universities, and four (16.6%) were employed in business and industry. at the time of interviews, the students had completed eight (57.1%) of their 14 classes including courses on reflective practice, change, leadership, organizational theory (organizational behavior), administrative issues (hr issues), research methods i (quantitative methods), research methods ii (qualitative methods), and research methods iii (advanced quantitative methods). additionally, the students had completed 3 (25.0%) of the 12 credit hours toward their dissertation. sources of data to examine how the program implemented cped gp 6, on “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice,” data were gathered from students, faculty members, and courses. students were interviewed by a peer about how professional practice was incorporated into the first three courses: reflective practice, change, and leadership. it is important to note that the interviewer was a peer classmate which had the potential to affect the way respondents answered because they were speaking with a peer who had participated in the same classes and, therefore, had both a level of familiarity with the interviewed subject as well as a first-hand experience in the courses and modules discussed. faculty members for the three initial courses participated to inform the data from their perspective. course syllabi also served as a data source. the interview questions used to explore how courses influenced students were: 1. in the first course, reflective practice, did the inclusion of the module on identifying problems of practice and talking with community college leaders transform your knowledge or practice. if yes, probe how did it? 2. the second course in the program was on change management and was co-taught by an nc professor and a community college president. did having a professor and practitioner co-teach so early in our program impact your view of the program’s emphasis on practice? if yes, probe how did it and why did you feel this way? 3. in the third course, leadership, one component was a professional experience with a job shadowing as an option. did you participate in extensive job shadowing? did this experience build on your prior coursework? if so how and why? how has this shaped your approach to current coursework? did this impact your knowledge and practice? if yes, probe how and why? 4. in the change course, we learned about “buy-in.” in thinking about “buying into” the program, did the first three courses impact your buy-in? if yes, how and why did you see the content or sequence of the of the first three courses benefit buy-in? please expand on the ways the content and sequence benefit buy-in. did the inclusion of conversations with practitioners, team-teaching, and job shadowing impact this outcome? if yes probe how and why do you think they had impact? 5. have you had any other experiences in the program that emphasized the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice? if yes, probe what and how did they. results as noted previously, we developed practices for the first three courses to integrate cped gp 6 into those courses. specifically, we purposely selected the practices of (a) defining user-centered problems of practice (pop), (b) team teaching (practitioner and faculty member), and (c) intensive job shadowing, which were incorporated as critical features into the reflective practice, change, and leadership courses, respectively. results for defining user-centered pop. there was a consensus among the interviewed students that the project in which student groups interviewed various community college personnel and the initial course as a whole was pivotal in grounding the coursework in professional practice and orienting the cohort as a community of student practitioners. students reflected on how the exercises invited students to bring forward pops from their professional arenas. they noted how collaborative efforts generated more well-rounded views of community colleges. they also appreciated that the concerns/issues discussed were based on the experiences of the student practitioners. bartlett, bartlett, dolfi, jaeger, & chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 65 for example, one student maintained: the activity where we put the sticky notes on the walls about problems of practice was really amazing—twenty-some people in the class who all have different backgrounds and a different lens, and to see how themes emerged from everyone’s individual approach was cool. the diversity of problems that community colleges and universities are facing are big, and so many i’d never thought about, and this was a great way to be able to visually see all of the areas we can help improve. this project really informed the [online] sessions because in class we’d started to identify from our own student practitioner experiences the problems we see, and it was interesting to hear the presidents’ perspectives on those… that was one of my favorite activities in the cohort for generating knowledge and working together and bringing in our own practitioner lives. this quote demonstrates how obtaining “outsider” information, actual information from others who worked in community college settings, changed students’ perspectives of problems in the field because they now had a better picture of the full range of issues. the integration of the “outside” information provided perspectives that might not otherwise have been readily recognized. for example, another student suggested, “it allowed me to see from different perspectives. i work at a community college, and this project gave a more well-rounded view of the problems facing community colleges instead of just the faculty view from my perspective”. this type of collaborative work on establishing research by integrating a wider range of practitioners’ concerns/issues demonstrates how students’ perspectives were enriched and extended beyond their initial ideas. thus, more diverse research problems were considered. a different student stated: that project [interviews community college practitioners] in particular, the big point was don’t box yourself in, be open and whittle down from there … don’t limit yourself when you’re first gathering information, and don’t get stuck on preconceived ideas. it did help generate ideas, which we could reflect back to once we got through the methods coursework. additionally, students felt the project provided an opportunity for them to get involved on their own campus in new or more extensive ways, illustrating how student practitioners integrated the knowledge generated in class directly into their professional practice. one student who was a community college dean asserted: for the group project, i was able to talk with folks about what makes transfer students successful or what barriers they face. i ended up talking to people i work with regularly but had never talked to them about this particular topic, and we had really fruitful conversations that are still impacting our work today, a year later. moreover, a project in which student groups interviewed community college practitioners facilitated conversations where students were able to gain knowledge from their own personal work environments as compared to being isolated in their silos. the project provided access points for students to learn and develop a better understanding of the community college organization. for example, one workforce development professional claimed: this project was pivotal in helping me develop a relationship with a superior within my organization and helped me develop ongoing rapport. i learned how to connect with higher-level directors and have the opportunity to hear their outlook on educational leadership and professional development. that opportunity, the requirement to have those interviews, developed a relationship. the generation of knowledge occurred beyond the classroom projects and new knowledge was used in the students’ own workplace settings. one student suggested: that [project] was inherently applied and practical—it was grounded in theory but had us working directly with practitioners, applying our knowledge directly to problems of practice. i was even able to incorporate ideas and problems discussed as reflected in minutes from meetings of senior leaders at my own institution and look at that in a different way that i would have normally. from the data gathered for the project, the student teams wrote research papers. from the research papers, a comprehensive framework of problems was developed that included data from all student groups. this framework served as a guide for possible dissertation research topics. the identified problems were aligned to student success, policies and practices, professional development, engagement and communications, leadership and vision, strategy and planning, teaching and learning, and data and technology. results for integrating practitioners into teaching students who were interviewed stated that the inclusion of a practitioner as a co-instructor was important to their learning in the edd program because of the expectations that will be placed upon them after graduation, which differ from those of phd scholars and researchers. one student said, “the professors in our program are amazing, but they don’t have the experience of walking through all these scenarios of executive leaders on a daily basis. i’d definitely advocate for more!” students felt program faculty members were committed to the importance of practice and suggested, [the co-instruction] emphasized that the program is invested in helping us see how this content works in a real-world setting, how most of us can use this in our day-to-day. it’s putting your money where your mouth is: having the practitioner come in and illustrate how he’d use the knowledge in his daily work life. the students felt they still received the traditional strong content from a graduate course, but with a powerful application of those ideas. another student exemplified this point when she stated, “[the college of education professor] did a phenomenal job of leading the instruction in a more traditional way.” and then she added: [the community college president’s] voice on how he’s seen these theories evolve on the ground was very enriching. i don’t connect with a lot of theories but having the real voices and real stories from real cases was fantastic. it felt like a traditional graduate course plus a high performance professional training, very practitioner-based, but with the benefit of academic instruction as well. another student, who serves as a community college department chair, claimed: the co-teaching with professor and practitioner was a great strength and the change class was one of the more valuable classes i’ve sat through. it’s frustrating to sit there and have professors talk about all these ideas and criticisms of community colleges when they haven’t spent time in the trenches and having a practitioner in the classroom alleviated that. he knows what it’s like to work within the reality of community colleges, he’s walked in our shoes. redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 66 these statements provided solid examples of how the knowledge learned in the courses can be used. this collaborative teaching approach incorporated field-based education directly into the classroom and provides opportunities to view how a leader in the field uses professional knowledge in practice. results for intensive job shadowing and mentoring students who were interviewed fell into two distinct camps of thought about the job shadowing and mentoring based on their experiences in these areas. the students who were able to travel to the illinois community college for several days of customized shadowing found the assignment and experience to be an important aspect of their program of study and professional development. by comparison, students who participated in other job shadowing or conferences did not find substantial value in their experiences. this suggests that for job shadowing to be meaningful, it must be intentional, planned, and vetted by program faculty members. one student who participated in the intensive job shadowing in illinois stated: [this] was one of the more important experiences i’ve had in the program. i wanted to get that cutting-edge feedback that i don’t necessarily have at work. the experience of shadowing a sitting president and having access to his staff was more access than i have at my own institution. the experience of a multi-day immersion with a college president at an outside institution should be required. further, students suggested that opportunities which came from a real-world experience were not able to be simulated in the classroom. specifically, one student claimed: i think it’s important in this kind of program to have a lot of onthe-ground education. an opportunity to meet people who are working in executive leadership positions and how they do their day-to-day, what their expectations are, how they interact with people and make decisions, so important. it was very eye opening to see him in his element—how busy he is, all the meetings and demands. i’ve worked for four presidents over my deanship, but never seen that work up close like i did during the shadowing. i was thrilled when the invitation was extended because it’s been more guarded at my home institution. it’s one thing to read about or even talk to the leader about it, but another learning experience altogether to see him in his element, how he handles things, who he’s chosen to be his closest advisors. i can’t imagine having a program like this without having the benefit of interaction with executive leaders. one of the students did not participate in intensive job shadowing in the leadership course and instead presented at a professional conference. this same student later was able to attend the community college for a shadowing experience. the student stated: for [the] leadership [course], i presented at a conference, which is a great benefit to us in this program—it’s great experience and a resume builder and ties in our academic work with our professional development. it’s a great option for people who couldn’t make the trip [to the community college], but what i got out of it was very different than the [intensive] shadowing i was able to do in the administrative issues course. each person who visited [the community college] got a several day personally-tailored agenda based on individual interests. i traveled with another classmate who had very different interests than me, and so we had very different agendas because each was customized—what does this individual need from this experience? it wasn’t cookie cutter like every student who comes is going to meet with these eight people, it was completely about what do [sic] i need to be successful in my area of research and interest. students who participated in other professional experiences, such as presenting at a conference or local job shadowing did not find the experience to be as beneficial as those who participated in the intensive job shadowing with the practitioner associated with the program, and even had negative views of job shadowing. one student asserted, “the presentation aspect was helpful for practicing professional development—the practice of putting together a presentation or a proposal was helpful. i’m not a fan of job shadowing—it feels childish.” another student reflected, “i didn’t go to [the intensive job shadowing], but i shadowed someone in the state office. it didn’t really contribute [to my development] because i have so much experience in leadership. it really felt juvenile.” another student claimed, “for the intensive project in the leadership course, i used an existing off-campus conference experience due to my calendar constraints. with more time or planning, this could have been more meaningful.” although the job shadowing experience did take a considerable amount of time and financial resources, generally students’ responses support the job shadowing experience in this program as being a meaningful activity that transformed their perspectives. faculty members from the first two courses also participated in the job shadowing opportunity with the community college president. this provided faculty members with a realistic view of the duties of a president and offered insights into another state’s community college system. the faculty members felt this was an experience in which all faculty members who were teaching in the program should participate. further, they suggested it would be valuable to visit other schools such as those that have been aspen finalists to learn firsthand what excellent community colleges are doing to bring examples back to the classroom. one student spoke about how the classes have prepared students to transform professional knowledge to practice when she said: the case study approach is helpful—a way to emulate the experience of teaching with the practitioner and professor when that isn’t an option for the course. the modules where we’re forced to be concise in our communication are helpful because this is the reality in the community college world— concise presentations will be what’s expected for different audiences, like the elevator pitch project, or the ignite presentations—it forced us to synthesize and be succinct in the message—much more effective than droning on and really speaks to the practical approach of the program. the faculty and practitioners teaching in the program both reported liking the “dear abby letters” as a way to generate conversations on topics without taking a lot of time. recommendations from this paper, three major recommendations emerged for doctoral programs that are seeking to develop executive community college leaders. the integration of faculty members and practitioners transformed the students’ view of doctoral education. thus, other programs may wish to consider how they may might apply integration practices of this type. if funding is limited, options exist for practitioners to participate via video conferencing, webinars, bartlett, bartlett, dolfi, jaeger, & chapman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.80 67 online video, or online discussions. further, practitioners may help to create case studies and activities that can be used in the classroom. second, job shadowing that is organized in a planned, structured manner affects students’ perceptions of senior leaders’ work. this is also true of faculty members who participated in the illinois job shadowing opportunity. edd program leaders at other institutions may want to explore the benefits for both students and faculty of participating in an extensive job shadowing or internship experience. finally, results from these student interviews show it is important to have active learning exercises that are based on practice integrated into edd programs that prepare future community college leaders. these activities include ignite presentations, elevator speeches, case studies, “dear abby letters” (short case studies), and design thinking activities. students are more engaged when they see how material can be immediately applied to their daily practice. these types of exercises provided students with opportunities to solve problems, learn from others, and develop knowledge that can be used in their workplaces. summary to assist in answering the call for a pipeline for leaders at community colleges, north carolina state university responded with the redesign of the edd program. the completed curriculum and delivery redesign using cped’s guiding principles and design concepts was described in this article with particular attention to gp 6: “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, n.d.). initial responses from students regarding newly incorporated classroom activities, professional experiences, and the incorporation of practitioners as guest speakers and instructors has been constructive. by continuing to obtain feedback from students, it is possible for faculty to examine students’ perspectives and assess transformation of professional knowledge and practice. the program has made significant changes with the admission of each new cohort to ensure that practitioners’ needs are being addressed and that the program is integrating realworld practice from multiple activities and perspectives including cases, external involvement, and current leaders. edd program faculty are currently conducting an evaluation of the program that will be used to develop an assessment process to control quality, allow for continuous improvement and develop measures to assess the effective outcomes of the program. currently, a study is being conducted to assess the edd students’ perceptions of the desired outcomes of the program which will allow student voice to be included in the program evaluation. the assessment of the impact of the program on learning, completion, equity, and labor market outcomes of the students is also needed as students start to complete the redesigned program. further, assessment is being created to determine the longer-term impacts of how graduates are impacting the success of the community college students and the other stakeholders they serve and how graduates are making “a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” (cped, n.d.). lastly, the improvement science model is being used to develop practices to improve the outcomes of the program. the program will continuously seek to improve and make changes to serve the stakeholders and obtain the desired outcomes. references aiken, j. a., & gerstl-pepin, c. i. (2013). envisioning the edd and phd as a partnership for change. planning and changing: an educational leadership and policy journal, 44(3/4), 162-180. american association of community colleges. (2013). aacc competencies for community college leaders (2nd ed.). aacc leadership suite. retrieved from http://www.aacc.nche.edu/newsevents/events/leadershipsuite/document s/ aacc_core_competencies_web.pdf american association of community colleges. (2018). aacc fast facts sheet. retrieved from https://www.aacc.nche.edu/research-trends/fastfacts/aacc-2018-fact-sheet-front/ aspen institute and achieving the dream. (2013). crisis and opportunity: aligning the community college presidency with student success. retrieved from https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/pubs/ cep_final_report.pdf aspen institute. (2014a). hiring exceptional community college presidents: tools for hiring leaders who advance student access and success. retrieved from https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/pubs/ hiring%20tools,%20full%20report,%20final.pdf aspen institute. (2014b). lessons from the aspen prize for community college excellence. retrieved from https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/ccpriz e/lessonsfromtheaspenprizepdf.pdf bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. cambridge, ma: harvard education press. carnegie project on the education doctorate (n.d.). about us. retrieved from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/general/custom.asp?page=aboutus clotfelter, c. t., ladd, h. f., muschkin, c. g., & vigdor, j. l. (2013). success in community college: do institutions differ? research in higher education, 54(7), 805-824. inside higher ed & gallup (2017). 2017 community college survey. washington, dc: author. retrieved from https://www.ellucian.com/whitepapers/2017-survey-community-college-presidents/ jaschik, s., & lederman, d. (2017). inside higher ed's 2017 survey of community college presidents: a study by inside higher ed and gallup. retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/communitycollege-presidents-surveyed-enrollment-recruitment-pipeline kezar, a. (2013). how colleges change: understanding, leading, and enacting change. new york, ny: routledge. kotter, j. p. (2012). leading change. boston, ma: harvard business review press. mcnair, d. e. (2010). preparing community college leaders: the aacc core competencies for effective leadership & doctoral education. community college journal of research and practice, 33(1-2), 199-217. perry, j. a. (2012). to edd or not to edd? phi delta kappa, 94(1), 41-44. rothwell, w. j., gerity, p. e., & carraway, v. l. (2017). community college leaders on workforce development: opinions, observations, and future directions. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., and garabedian, k. j. (2006) reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189x035003025 shults, c. (2001). the critical impact of impending retirements on community college leadership (leadership series no. 1). washington, dc: american association of community colleges. whissemore, t. (2011, december 6). bridging the leadership gap. community college daily. retrieved from http://www.communitycollegetimes.com/pages/campus issues/bridging-the-leadership-gap.aspx impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 40 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 establishing rigor and quality in doctoral programs through program assessment maida finch salisbury university mafinch@salisbury.edu jake d. follmer university of west virginia djakefollmer@gmail.com heather porter salisbury university hdporter@salisbury.edu abstract this essay describes the development and implementation of a cped-grounded program assessment system and the ways in which it contributes to quality assurance in ed.d. programs broadly. we begin by articulating program quality and describing the contextual factors that guide our approach to program assessment. next, we overview major components and processes of our program assessment system. specific emphasis is placed on describing the development and evaluation of program effectiveness based on cped-influenced student learning outcomes. we then briefly describe how we leverage an existing learning management system to implement program assessment efficiently, and outline continuous monitoring and improvement efforts that are based on our program assessment work. finally, we describe our experiences with academic program review and discuss lessons learned and suggestions to promote program rigor and success. keywords program assessment, student learning, continuous improvement what do we mean by program quality in graduate and doctoral education? the answer is complicated because of the perspectives different stakeholders have on the matter. accountability, program review, accreditation, quality assurance, and assessment are terms characterizing program quality and reflecting distinctive values of stakeholders. for example, faculty may focus on assessment as an indicator of learning, while prospective students value accreditation for assurance that the degree will help advance their careers, and universities emphasize program review as evidence for market competition. in light of these different values, scholars offer multidimensional definitions of quality (bogue, 1998; bonvillian & dennis, 1995; harvey & knight, 1996), and koslowski (2006) suggested quality in higher education as a theory rather than a measurable output. from this perspective, quality is a process, or way of thinking, that views the work as “valuable, measurable, and able to be improved” (p. 280). assuring program quality requires a sustained effort at maintaining and improving academic standards (bowker, 2017). similarly, measuring program quality is complex and again reflects values of stakeholders, and increasingly, public sentiment. indeed, the commission on the future of higher education recommended assessment and accountability as essential to quality assurance and emphasized the role of student outcomes in this process (national commission on the future of higher education, 2006). at the postsecondary level, accreditation and program reviews are common processes for examining program quality. with an emphasis on accountability, accreditation is associated with external stakeholders; however, critics claim this focus is too responsive to outside pressures, disregards theories of learning, and stifles innovation (bogue, 1998; koslowski, 2006; openo et al., 2017). on the other hand, academic program review is undertaken by program faculty with the goal of assessing and improving and yet, it too is criticized as futile and meaningless (bogue, 1998). despite this, brooks and heiland (2007) argued that, in light of increased pressure for accountability in doctoral programs, faculty-driven assessment of program goals and outcomes is ideal. this raises questions about the feasibility of developing a quality assurance system that satisfies goals of both accountability and improvement. in an essay exploring best practices in quality assurance, bogue (1998) recommended guidelines for developing a system to accomplish both purposes that include linking measurement instruments to teaching and learning. graduate and doctoral faculty http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ establishing rigor and quality in doctoral programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 41 are well-positioned to develop such a system because they know their program’s mission and goals and can develop meaningful student learning outcomes (brooks & heiland, 2007). from there, they can create assessments designed to measure student learning, and then use information from assessments to make program improvements. this emphasis on linking teaching and learning to improvement and assessment should not be overlooked. a recent survey conducted by the council of graduate schools found that 65% of responding member institutions had developed student learning outcomes (denecke et al., 2017). as tagg (2010) asserted, “…assessment of student learning is the lever that, with the fulcrum of student learning outcomes, can move institutions to transformative rather than cosmetic change” (p. 57). discussions about quality assurance are particularly germane to postgraduate education. graduate and doctoral programs are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate their relevance and the applicability of the degrees they offer (denecke et al., 2017). in particular, the emergence and viability of the professional doctorate demands a greater focus on transferable skills to meet workforce demands absent from terminal degrees that primarily prepare students for academia or other research-focused careers (denecke et al., shulman et al., 2016). denecke et al. concluded their report on learning outcomes in doctoral education with recommendations for research about the process programs use to develop them, their specificity, and whether and how they are used by faculty and students. we take up these matters in this essay describing the program assessment process for our ed.d. program at salisbury university. we begin with an overview of our doctoral program as context for understanding our assessment practices. following this, we detail the process of developing our system, including how we drew from the carnegie project for the education doctorate’s (cped) framework and faculty collaboration throughout the process. we offer an in-depth description of the three components that comprise our assessment practices and highlight how we utilize our university’s learning management system to support this work. finally, we share information about our first formal program review, reflecting on what we learned about our assessment practices and our plans for moving forward. we conclude with remarks about the affordances of this process for other graduate and doctoral programs. program context salisbury university is a regional comprehensive university located on the eastern shore of maryland. the ed.d. program in contemporary curriculum theory and instruction: literacy, the second of two doctoral programs on campus, admitted its first cohort of students in 2014. the program mission is to develop reflective and scholarly practitioners who are prepared to promote culturallyresponsive, effective literacy learning across diverse contexts. our students are pursuing careers in p-12 and higher education contexts as well as literacy-focused community organizations. to accommodate working professionals, the program is offered in a hybrid format; classes meet in-person one week and online the following week. courses are offered year-round, and a new cohort is admitted each fall semester. students have the option of enrolling in the program full-time, with degree completion expected in four years or part-time with a five-year projected graduation. from its inception, doctoral faculty and staff have utilized a shared governance approach that is guided by our program mission and core values of collaboration, community, diversity, innovation, professionalism, and respect. monthly department meetings address procedural, policy, and instructional issues, and the department chair facilitates decision-making by consensus. the development of our program assessment practices (described below) followed departmental norms of review and revision based on faculty discussion and feedback. as a member of the carnegie project on the education doctorate, we engage with faculty at other institutions and draw from the cped frameworks to develop a rigorous and relevant degree program. in particular, the drafting, refining, and implementing of our student learning outcomes are grounded in four of the seven cped design concepts: signature pedagogy, inquiry as practice, laboratories of practice, and scholarly practitioner (the carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). according to these concepts, preparing professionals requires a pervasive set of practices (signature pedagogy) in order to understand problems of practice and use data to effectively address them (inquiry as practice). laboratories of practice are contexts where practice and theory interact and inform each other while scholarly practitioner describes professionals who blend practical and professional knowledge to solve problems. we developed our assessment practices with these concepts in mind. components of program assessment practices assessment and evaluation of the contemporary curriculum theory and instruction: literacy edd program is based on three overarching and interrelated components: basic student information and program metric tracking; student learning assessment; and student exit surveying. the roles and functions of these components are described in turn. the first component of our program assessment approach is based on descriptive analysis of student information and tracking progression through the ed.d. program. to support our analysis and reporting of this information, we record: contact and demographic information; student program status (i.e., part-time or full-time); employment information at enrollment in and completion of the program; student committee composition; performance on the comprehensive examination, dissertation proposal hearing, and dissertation defense; program exit information; and gpa at program completion. we use this information to gain insight into students’ successes and challenges as they progress through the doctoral program. such analysis allows us to understand, for example, changes in employment that occur in part as a result of completion of the program; examination, proposal hearing, and defense pass rate information; and student withdrawal rate information as well as students’ reasons for exiting the program (i.e., for reasons other than completion). taken together, this component allows us to examine broad trends over time in student enrollment, characteristics, completion, and successes and challenges across the program. a primary focus of program assessment efforts is to promote and ensure program quality and rigor (brooks & heiland, 2007; ewell, 2010). these aims are typified by evaluation of student learning. given the firm grounding of the literacy ed.d. program in the cped design concepts, we sought to develop a comprehensive finch et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 42 and integrated student learning assessment approach that was based directly on these principles. for this reason, we anchored our student learning assessment efforts to student learning outcomes (slos) that were informed by the language of the cped design concepts. program slos were drafted, evaluated, and formalized over time and through feedback and revision from all program faculty. in this way, refinement of the program slos was iterative. table 1 summarizes the program slos guiding student learning assessment. to further support alignment between our assessment work and the cped framework, we grouped the slos into areas in a manner consistent with the delineation of the cped design concepts: signature pedagogy (sipe), inquiry as practice (ip), laboratories of practice (lp) and scholarly practitioner (scpr) (table 1) (the carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). the broader lens of these slos is that our students are continually engaged in critical and transformative work that intends to address a relevant problem of practice – that is, a contextualized and persistent issue germane to individual students’ professional settings, the addressing of which aims to improve practice either through direct action or through contribution to the knowledge base. to ensure that our approach to developing, implementing, and refining these slos was reflective, we also provided explicit ratings of the degree to which each slo is emphasized and addressed by the program at the current time (table 1). these ratings, which were based on a likert scale ranging from 1-minor focus to 5-major focus and were agreed-upon by faculty consensus, provided important information about current points of program focus and possible future curricular revisions. one intention in adopting these slos was to ensure that the cped-driven outcomes are addressed fully in the program curriculum. to this end, we developed a curriculum map detailing broad alignment between program coursework, program milestones, and program-based slos (table 2). through such mapping, we extended evidence of overall alignment between the curriculum and slos and of each specific slo being addressed by the major course objectives of the doctoral program. each of the slos are addressed, at least broadly, by program core courses. as general trends, research strand courses address slos centered on the inquiry as practice cped area. next, theory and practice courses address slos centered on the signature pedagogy cped area and, to some degree, the laboratories of practice area. core courses emphasizing literacy assessment, policy and practice, and tools also address the laboratories of practice cped area. achievement of major program milestones, such as the comprehensive examination and the dissertation project, are intended to address the scholarly practitioner cped area. finally, as a whole, seminar and dissertation-based courses, and program milestones meaningfully address the integration of all the slos. we aimed to base our student learning assessment on a variety of meaningful representations of students’ work and understanding in the program, including:  a final project, completed in a quantitative strategies for inquiry course, designed to support students’ critical evaluative interpretation of data to understand the effect of developed innovations on literacy practice;  a research proposal paper, completed in a foundations of research course, designed to support students’ abilities to think critically and empirically about a relevant research question and develop a research proposal to support its investigation;  critical analysis and review of a literacy tool assignment, designed to promote students’ abilities to select and analytically evaluate an established literacy assessment tool from varied perspectives and using existing literacy theory and research;  results of the comprehensive examination, reflecting an assessment of students’ skill in synthesizing and conveying professional knowledge and linking theory with systemic and systematic inquiry;  and results of the dissertation hearing, reflecting a cumulative evaluation of students’ ability to evidence an in-depth understanding of existing literature and apply research skills to conduct an original, high-quality study intended to advance the field and profession. table 1. program-based slos and ratings student learning outcome cped tag rating slo 1. candidates will demonstrate the ability to ground professional practice in literacy theory and research. sipe-1 5 slo 2. candidates will be able to write about literacy and education in relation to equity and social justice for multiple audiences. sipe-2 5 slo 3. candidates will demonstrate the ability to identify, contextualize, and develop solutions that address problems of literacy practice in varied educational and community contexts. ip-1 5 slo 4. candidates will demonstrate the ability to use data to critically understand and evaluate the effects of developed innovations on problems of literacy practice. ip-2 5 slo 5. candidates will demonstrate the ability to apply critical inquiry to and through formal and informal contexts. lp-1 4 slo 6. candidates will demonstrate the ability to evaluate and make recommendations to improve the quality of services within literacy contexts through applied research and evaluation of local, state, and national policies and practices. lp-2 3 slo 7. candidates will demonstrate the ability to broadly disseminate research that has the potential to resolve critical problems of literacy practice. scpr-1 4 slo 8. candidates will demonstrate an understanding of the importance of equity and social justice in shaping their approach(es) to solving problems of literacy practice. scpr-2 4 note: the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) abbreviations in the cped tag column are as follows: signature pedagogy (sipe), inquiry as practice (ip), laboratories of practice (lp), and scholarly practitioner (scpr). ratings ranged from 1minor focus to 5-major focus. establishing rigor and quality in doctoral programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 43 these program-based activities allow for a holistic assessment of students’ learning and development across the trajectory of the doctoral program. to understand students’ progress on these assessments and further continuous improvement efforts, we regularly analyze and report the results of students’ performance on these key assessments. for course-based activities, such as the final project and the research proposal paper, we implement a simple, scalable three-point rubric that translates students’ work to one of three levels of performance: 1-approaching expectations, 2meeting expectations, and 3-exceeding expectations. we also present basic descriptive statistics to understand, in aggregate, students’ performance on the program assessments. an example summary of these data, based on the final project described above, is presented in table 3. table 2. alignment of courseand program-based assessments to slos assignment student learning outcomes aligned with cped design concepts slo1 sipe-1 slo2 sipe-2 slo3 ip-1 slo4 ip-2 slo5 lp-1 slo6 lp-2 slo7 scpr-1 slo8 scpr-2 1. research proposal project x 2. final project x x 3. equity audit and action project x x 4. critical analysis and review of literacy tool x x 5. mini ethnographic inquiry project x x 6. literacy policy case study x x 7.comprehensive exam x x 8. dissertation proposal hearing x x 9. graduate exit survey x x x x x x x x note. slos 2 and 6 will be assessed directly in course-based assignments beginning in the 2020-2021 academic year. table 3. example summary of program-based activity slo data assessment metrics slo3: ip-1 slo4: ip-2 # approaching expectations (score of 1 out of 3) 0 0 # meeting expectations (score of 2 out of 3) 5 6 # exceeding expectations (score of 3 out of 3) 4 3 m rating on outcome 2.44 2.33 sd for rating on outcome 0.53 0.53 mdn rating on outcome 2.00 2.00 note. n=9 students enrolled in the course. m=mean; sd=standard deviation; mdn=median. finch et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 44 table 4. example summary of program milestone outcome data assessment metrics slo7: scpr-1 slo8: scpr-2 # passing: first attempt (p/f) 15 15 # passing: first attempt conditional pass with oral or written revisions (p/f) 4 4 # passing: second attempt (p/f) 5 5 # failing (p/f) 2 2 final pass rate 92.3% 92.3% for program milestones, such as the comprehensive exam and the dissertation hearing, we examine and report students’ performance based on a modified pass rate system, describing students’ performance relative to the following categories: pass, first attempt; conditional pass, revisions; pass, second attempt; fail. an example summary of these data, based on the comprehensive examination, is presented in table 4. one notable feature of our approach to program assessment is our anchoring of our assessment framework to a learning management system. in particular, to support implementation and reporting of student learning assessment, we embed our programbased slos in the outcomes function of canvas. through this function, each slo is entered and tracked as a separate canvas outcome. next, the three-point rubric (described above) is attached to each outcome, and calculation method (e.g., most recent score) and criteria for mastery (e.g., 2 points) are specified. these rubricaligned outcomes are then embedded in and attached to specific course-based activities. this approach allows specific faculty overseeing implementation and grading of the assessments to efficiently score each program-based activity. using the reporting functions provided by the learning management system (e.g., outcome reports), we download, organize, and analyze pre-compiled student learning assessment data based on each outcome representing specific program-based slos. finally, in our assessment approach, we devote specific effort to understanding students’ beliefs about, perceptions of, and suggestions for improving the ed.d. program. to support broader evaluation of the program as well as understanding of students’ perceptions of their own progress on the program-based slos, we implement student exit surveying. in our use of student surveying, we implement an instrument to assess: graduates’ ratings of their development and competency in program cped-aligned slos (e.g., as a result of completing the doctoral program, i am able to apply critical inquiry to my own educational contexts.); graduates’ ratings of satisfaction with and quality of the doctoral program; and graduates’ perceptions of strengths and improvements needed of the program. taken together, this three-part assessment approach reflects an implementable and scalable framework for iteratively evaluating ed.d. program implementation, successes, and challenges. at the same time, a hallmark of strong assessment work is the ability to leverage the results of such work to promote continuous monitoring and improvement. in the literacy ed.d. program, for example, we support programmatic change based on the results of this assessment work through consistent review and discussion of major assessment findings (e.g., during allotted time in each faculty meeting); dissemination of program assessment results to both internal and external stakeholders; and the development, implementation, and monitoring of an assessment action plan. our first academic program review as a public institution in the university system of maryland, salisbury university aligns with and is required to report program effectiveness at the system and state level, i.e. maryland higher education commission (mhec), in addition to middle states commission on higher education, our regional accrediting agency. institutionally, the apr is valued as both a process and a product through which assessment, reflection, and innovation are leveraged to facilitate discussion and action around program quality, continuous improvement, and strategic planning. as is common at other institutions, our process is implemented across a seven-year cycle and involves a self-study, student learning assessment reporting, an external reviewer visit, and meetings with school and university leadership. these steps culminate in the creation of a comprehensive report, including assessment results and narratives that document an academic program’s accomplishments and challenges as well as envisioned goals and initiatives for advancement. the final document is then shared with external stakeholders as evidence of academic rigor and program viability. three years after the submission of the apr, a progress report meeting is held to discuss advancement toward the implementation of the recommended goals and review of the student learning outcomes. as a way to support the development of a culture of assessment within academic departments, newly established programs are required to conduct an initial apr within the first five years of program inception. our ed.d. program’s review took place during the 2019-2020 academic year. what we learned about our assessment system from first apr one of the challenges we faced early on in the process was defining what it meant to evaluate quality within our program and in doctoral education, in general. anchoring our slos in the cped framework as a guiding hallmark of quality in doctoral education, we opted for a pragmatic assessment approach that would help us determine the extent to which our students were meeting designated learning outcomes. however, as we worked with our data, we realized the need to look beyond evaluative measures of assurance in order to obtain a more nuanced, qualitative understanding of needs for improvement (hakkola & king, 2016). for example, the establishing rigor and quality in doctoral programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 45 comprehensive exam is a demanding learning experience in which students are expected to articulate mastery of the conceptual and methodological knowledge needed to advance to doctoral candidacy. the exam consists of three questions, independently evaluated by a committee, and an overall holistic metric of pass/fail is used to assess student outcomes. as table 4 shows, we have observed a trend in students needing additional attempts to successfully meet departmental expectations. as a measure of quality assurance, we grappled with how much credence this pass/fail rate should offer in demonstrating rigor to external stakeholders while also informing our understanding of specific teaching and learning issues. for instance, while faculty have voiced concerns with students’ abilities to synthesize literature and articulate rigorous research designs, the use of the pass rate as evidence of students’ slo achievement did not offer specific insights into the nature and extent of students’ demonstrated competencies at the individual or cohort level. our oversight in not developing a more descriptive evaluation method inhibited the kind of generative work that should stem from assessment efforts, such as leveraging the data to inform discussions about student preparation across the prerequisite coursework and ways to enhance outcomes. this is not to imply the department is not engaging in continuous improvement efforts as we regularly discuss teaching and learning concerns observed from our practice. the apr process requiring direct measures of learning, however, felt antithetical to much of the qualitative data we find most informative. moving forward, we seek to find ways to systematize the collection of qualitative data for program evaluation that can propel us beyond the reporting of outcome achievement to more descriptive analyses of student development. another limitation we faced was the extent to which we could draw upon the slo data to inform our understanding of our students’ learning processes across the program curriculum. due to the implementation timeline of embedding slo assessments in coursebased assignments, the milestone and course-level data represented different student cohorts and failed to account for course progressions. accordingly, we were unable to probe the data to examine how cohorts were developmentally progressing through coursework and milestones in order to anticipate and inform approaches to further scaffold students’ curricular experiences in preparation for more rigorous demands of advanced standing. we further realized that because the course-level and milestone assessments were unique evaluation points, they captured student achievement of the slos in isolation from the actual learning process that took place and were further disconnected from the integrated nature of doctoral students’ experiences. for example, although the high pass rate on our dissertation proposal hearing demonstrates students’ achievement of the slos, the real faculty concern is the time-to-hearing rate of the doctoral candidates that is not captured in the current evaluation and is a priority issue in terms of the observed extended time and advising needed by candidates to achieve this milestone. this reductive practice of reviewing slo data in isolation from larger programmatic experiences and outcomes was insufficient in helping us address a more complex issue of determining the efficacy of our mentoring practices in supporting student persistence. as a result, our efforts with the apr fell short in supporting “a more developmental approach to review” that prioritizes student learning and is emphasized by leaders in doctoral education and further valued by our department (hakkola & king, 2016, p. 140). finally, we would be remiss if we did not touch upon the importance of cultivating departmental ownership and stewardship of slos for sustained program and student learning improvement. while our process is emergent, our approach is grounded in a genuine desire to bridge individual efforts to improve teaching and learning with institutional goals for continuous improvement (openo, 2017). this work necessitates a departmental commitment to move slos from the periphery to formally integrate them into the daily discourse and practices surrounding program improvement. because student performance evaluation is embedded in the everyday work of teaching (kuh & ewell, 2010), we need to be able to leverage assessment data to ask practical questions about the nature and efficacy of our teaching and learning practices for advancing student learning. although our initial apr work supported our ability to offer assurance of program rigor and quality as they related to past student learning outcome achievement, we felt it was rudimentary in addressing questions about the vitality of our teaching and learning practices for future quality enhancement (openo, 2017). specifically, these experiences lead us to wonder about the efficacy of our methods to authentically speak to the hallmarks of quality we articulated in our student learning outcomes: what is adequate evidence for slo assessments? how do assessments authentically capture the holistic experiences of doctoral students, including beyond the class mentoring through research, practicum, and scholarly writing endeavors? how do assessments generate new understanding about what students are learning and how such efforts can be improved? how can data and slos be decoupled and disaggregated to reveal trends across different students and different experiential trajectories? how much rigor is acceptable for doctoral programs? and what balance must be achieved between such standards of rigor and the enhancement of program and student outcomes? while these issues remain a persistent tension in our efforts, we raise these questions in recognition of the developmental nature of program review work and for the benefit of discussions about program quality before assessment begins. brooks and heiland (2007) remind us that “the work of assessment must begin by thinking about the relationship of assessment to overall programme goals” (p. 357). we see the need for synergy as critical in our work to rightsize the reporting of quality assurance with the achievement of innovation in doctoral teaching and learning (kuh & ewell, 2010). future directions defining, assessing, and assuring program quality in doctoral education are critical, if not integrated, processes that inform programmatic change and continuous improvement efforts. yet, as discussed, scholars have long noted the tensions inherent in the work of quality assurance, including the challenges associated with evidencing student learning (ewell, 2010), variation in local, program-based and larger, system-level conceptualizations of quality (bogue, 1998), and a balancing of internal and external forces that impinge on accountability concerns with an authentic desire to engage continuous improvement in order to support rigorous practitioner preparation (brooks & heiland, 2007). in our program assessment work, we aim to implement a scalable, student learningdriven approach that is directly grounded in the cped framework and guiding principles for program design (the carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). we believe that a synthesis of our finch et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 46 program assessment work with these guiding principles supports a more informed evaluation of program rigor, applicability, and, when contextualized to the education doctorate, consistency. our reflection on our program assessment system illuminates the benefits of a multi-faceted approach while simultaneously identifying areas in need of further development and refinement. we contend that these matters are relevant to and have merit for other graduate and doctoral program assessment practices. for instance, our practice of tracking student progress throughout the program relies heavily on quantitative data reporting student outcomes. although we do collect some qualitative information predominantly in the form of our exit survey, developing a method for capturing descriptive analyses of student development over the course of the program would better position us to move beyond accounting the state of the program and toward refinement and improvement (koslowski, 2006). furthermore, in its present form, our assessment practices rely heavily on faculty voice both in their development and evaluation, the exception being, again, our student exit survey. identifying ways students can more fully participate in program assessment would provide a robust picture of their perspectives of and experiences with the program, as well as prepare them take up assessment practices in pursuit of improving teaching and learning in their own professional contexts (brooks & heiland, 2007). as we look to the next phase of our program review cycle, we have a renewed sense of understanding and purpose for the agency we have in building a culture of assessment that bridges the divide between assurance and improvement (openo et al., 2017). assessment is part and parcel of classroom teaching and it is a practice faculty embrace, formally and informally, as part of our daily work; however, the apr process seemed to decouple the generative nature of this kind of inquiry from the requisite documentation of outcome achievement (mårtensson et al., 2014). it is this sense of practicality that we believe is essential to reclaiming a utilitarian process of program review that reflects and responds to authentic issues of teaching and learning and, in turn, better serves students and faculty. although we are early in our reformative work, we are energized by the ingenuity through which researchers in the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) have approached closing the gap between institutional compliance and programmatic enhancement. while sotl has traditionally been driven by practitioners to understand and resolve problems of practice within the classroom, many scholars have noted the synergy between this facet of individual academic inquiry and the collective work of program assessment (e.g. hakkola & king, 2016; mckenny & anderson, 2019; openo et al., 2017). as mckenny and anderson reminded us “the work of sotl is, after all, the work of providing evidence about learning.” (p. 29). yet, it also prompts us to problematize such demonstrations to elicit deeper understanding about our approaches, our beliefs and values, and our purpose (mckenny & anderson, 2019). sotl’s emphasis on asking complex questions about student learning in relation to the broader context of the educational experience has the potential to address some of the limitations we saw in our initial apr, e.g. prioritizing questions about how students are learning within, across and beyond coursework, while not precluding us from satisfying regulatory requirements that necessitate the reporting of what they have learned. with this shift in reframing the questions we prioritize, we also broaden what counts for evidence and whose perspective is included in our efforts to integrate student voices and descriptive accounts of learning into the inquiry process. furthermore, just as we benefited from looking to cped as an external standard of quality for establishing our slos, we see an opportunity to embrace sotl as a leading heuristic through which we can ensure our local practices reflect and align with standards of excellence for assessment that advance changes for student learning. felten’s (2013) discussion of five pillars for quality and rigor in sotl offers one pathway forward as does hakkola and king’s (2016) account of an innovative approach to graduate program review at the university of minnesota. we conclude our discussion about program assessment and quality with a reflection of bogue’s (1998) call for a community of caring in quality assurance. it is not enough, he argued, to concern ourselves with only the technical and systemic aspects of program quality; we must also consider the moral and personal because quality cannot be sustained without integrity. our efforts to develop and sustain a worthy doctoral program are motivated by a genuine commitment to serve our students, and by extension, their literacy communities of practice; a purpose that cannot be fulfilled without an investment “in the minds and hearts, in the values and courage, of the faculty and administrators who hold our climates of learning in trust” (bogue, 1998, p. 16). references bogue, e. g. (1998). quality assurance in higher education: the evolution of systems and design ideals. new directions for institutional research, 99(99), 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.9901 bonvillian, g., & dennis, t. l. (1995). total quality management in higher education: opportunities and obstacles. in s. j. simms & r. r. simms (eds.), total quality management in higher education: is it working? (pp. 37-50). praeger publishers. bowker, l. (2017). aligning accreditation and academic program reviews: a canadian case study. quality assurance in education, 25(3), 287-302. https://doi.org/10.1108/qae-11-2016-0061 brooks, r. l., & heiland, d. (2007). accountability, assessment and doctoral education: recommendations for moving forward. european journal of education, 42(3), 351-362. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2007.00311.x carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2019). guiding principles for program design. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework denecke, d., kent, j., & mccarthy, m. t. (2017). articulating learning outcomes in doctoral education. council of graduate schools. ewell, p. (2010). twenty years of quality assurance in higher education: what’s happened and what’s different? quality in higher education, 16(2), 173-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2010.485728 felten, p. (2013). principles of good practice in sotl. teaching and learning inquiry, 1(1), 121-125. hakkola, l., & king, j. a. (2016). a developmental approach to graduate education review: a new take on a traditional process. innovative higher education. 41, 137-152. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-015-9338-3 harvey, l., & knight, p. t. (1996). transforming higher education. society for research in higher education & open university press. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed418640 koslowski, f. a. (2006). quality and assessment in context: a brief review. quality assurance in education, 14(3), 277-288. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610678586 kuh, g. d., & ewell, p. t. (2010). the state of learning outcomes assessment in the united states. higher education policy and management, 22(1). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1787/hemp-22-5ks5dlhqbfr1 mårtensson, k., roxå, t., & stensaker, b. (20014). from quality assurance to quality practices: an investigation of strong microcultures in teaching and learning. studies in higher education, 39(4), 534-545. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2012.709493 mckenny, p., & anderson, c. (2019). quality with integrity: working in partnership to conduct a program review. international journal for establishing rigor and quality in doctoral programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.171 47 students as partners, 3(2), 27-43. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v3i2.3757 national commission on the future of higher education. (2006). a test of leadership: charting the future of u.s. higher education. u.s. department of education. openo, j. a., laverty, c., kolomitro, k., borin, p., goff, l., stranach, m., & gomaa, n. (2017). bridging the divide: leveraging the scholarship of teaching and learning for quality enhancement. canadian journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning, 8(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2017.2.6 shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., kristen, j., shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2016). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0013189x035003025 tagg, j. (2010). the learning‐paradigm campus: from single‐to double‐loop learning. new directions for teaching and learning, 123(119), 51-61. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl maida finch salisbury university jake d. follmer university of west virginia heather porter salisbury university (1) program context components of program assessment practices our first academic program review what we learned about our assessment system from first apr future directions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 reinventing edd research methods courses: elevating traditional teaching with transformative learning karen s. acton oise, university of toronto karen.acton@utoronto.ca abstract the education doctorate program fills an essential niche that allows practitioners to earn a doctorate and make a difference in educational practice and policy. however, critics claim edd programs are failing to effectively prepare students. there has been a push for the reinvention of the edd which includes improving edd student confidence in their ability to undertake research. this calls for a redesign of research methods courses and purposefully grounding them in adult learning theory. the framework of transformative learning can foster higher-order learning by including key components such as critical reflection, collaborative dialogue, and awareness of context. this article shares a transformative learning model used to redevelop an edd research methods course that emphasised self-reflective tasks such as identity memos, research design maps, and cognitive interviews. this learner-centred, constructivist approach resulted in positive learning outcomes including increased student confidence and enhanced practical knowledge and research skills. keywords education doctorate, edd, research methods courses, adult learning, transformative learning background reinvention of the edd the education doctorate (edd) was first adopted in the early 1920s by harvard and columbia university to fill an essential niche. the purpose of the edd was to allow practitioners to earn a doctorate and contribute to educational practice and policy, as well as facilitate further research in the field. however, the worthiness and quality of the edd has since been debated, as critics claim edd programs are not handing the juxtaposition of academic and professional components and are failing to effectively prepare students (levine, 2005; wergin, 2011). the edd is sometimes equated to a phd-lite, a watered-down version of the phd, as opposed to a quality degree that stands on its own merits (buttram & doolittle, 2015). there has been a push for the reinvention of the edd by critically examining its purpose and delivery. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) was launched in 2007 to give the edd increased rigor and validity with the goal “to make it the highest quality professional preparation experience for educational leaders” (perry, 2018, p. 35). with member as well as non-member institutions showing commitment to the cped vision to improve the edd, it is hoped that a purposeful redesign might also help to mitigate the concerning rates of attrition of edd students (buss & allen, 2020). student dropout and the all but dissertation phenomenon are influenced by factors such as lack of finances, poor mentoring, social isolation, and program quality (kelley & salisbury-glennon, 2016). some students also lack research self-efficacy and feel they are not sufficiently equipped with the practical skills to undertake their research. improving the overall experience and confidence of edd students calls for a redevelopment of the structure of the edd, including a redesign of research methods courses to adequately prepare educational practitioners to conduct rigorous research (kerrigan & hayes, 2016). while the purpose for conducting research may be different for the phd versus the edd program, as edd students often investigate ongoing educational problems with the goal to improve practice (cped, 2021), conducting any type of doctoral-level research requires equally high levels of skill. research undertaken by edd students helps to address the implementation gap between academia and the practical application of educational research in the field (storey & hesbol, 2014). practitioner research must meet exacting standards in quality and rigor for it to be trusted to influence necessary changes in practice to improve educational leadership, teaching, and learning. teaching research methods courses and supporting students to acquire multifaceted and highly nuanced research skills is a complex challenge. as described by kilburn et al. (2014), “the capacity to engage with and undertake research… demands a combination of theoretical understanding, procedural knowledge and mastery of a range of practical skills” (p. 191). yet, pedagogical guidance to support the teaching of research methods course is disjointed and underdeveloped, and the quality and structure of research methods courses vary widely (earley, 2014; nind et al., 2015). some scholars go as far to say that there is great ignorance on the use of sound pedagogical approaches when teaching research methods, resulting in disappointing outcomes (garner et al., 2016). this sentiment is echoed by strayhorn (2016), who reported: teaching research methods is difficult and often a miscellany of approaches is used to proffer students a less than useful https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5755-394x acton impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 4 introduction to a wide range of concepts. in fact, a large majority of graduate students complain that their research methods courses inadequately prepared them for independent research. (p. 119) when investigating the best practices of teaching research methods, the literature points to transformative, active learning pedagogies (allen & baughman, 2016; gunn, 2017; lundahl, 2008; zhou, 2022), yet many instructors continue to follow a traditional, teacher-directed approach (kilburn et al., 2014). caution is given against teaching research methods courses using simplistic approaches, as ineffective teaching using a linear process “poses the danger of [students] adhering to strict methodological prescriptions with little regard for varying contexts or sensitivity to emergent research problems” (preissle & roulston, 2016, p. 13). thus, passive learning is not enough. helping students to become researchers requires transformative teaching that includes hands-on, learning-by-doing opportunities to think creatively, challenge assumptions, and practice inquiry, analysis, and evaluation skills (lewthwaite & nind, 2016). change is needed and meeting the challenges in reinventing the edd requires courageous new designs and the willingness to experiment and try new approaches (shulman et al., 2006). this article outlines an improved research methods course design that is purposefully grounded in adult learning theory, specifically transformative learning theory, to increase edd students’ research proficiency. two frameworks of transformative learning are presented, followed by details on how these frameworks were combined to create a comprehensive model for the redevelopment of an edd research methods course to promote higher-order learning. adult learning theory when seeking to address the criticisms of professional doctoral programs with the redevelopment of course content and delivery, the chosen pedagogical approach must be both meaningful and practical to address the academic and professional doctoral degree requirements (olson & clark, 2009). course design must meet the specific needs of adult learners and provide them with the essential knowledge and skills required to investigate solutions to educational problems, including critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis skills. malcolm knowles (1984) is credited for popularizing the term andragogy as a new learning pedagogy specifically targeting adults. the core assumptions of knowles’ theory describe adults as selfdirected learners who build on prior experience and are ready to learn relevant, real-world content. yet like all strong theories, andragogy has been widely critiqued and debated. among some of the shortcomings is the criticism that andragogy relies too heavily on individualization and conformity and ignores transformation (grace, 2001). thus, attention has turned to transformative learning, an adult learning theory that includes an additional core component missing from knowles’ (1984) theory of andragogy—critical self-reflection (cranton & taylor, 2012; kheang, 2019; taylor & laros, 2014). while both andragogy and transformative learning theory have common elements such as fostering self-directed learning and building on existing experience, transformative learning theory builds upon andragogy with the added dimensions of cognition, meaning schemes, and levels of learning. the application of these additional components found within transformative learning theory are vital to creating an effective learning environment in higher education classrooms, especially in research method courses which require students to use complex critical thinking and analysis skills, often accompanied with a shift in mindset. some students come into research methods courses thinking they have effective interview techniques or an understanding of thematic coding, when in fact their skills are rudimentary, and they bring with them many misconceptions about research (gunn, 2017). instruction based on transformative, higher-order learning is essential in supporting students to become aware of distorted or incomplete assumptions and to reevaluate and transform their understanding so that their research studies are properly conducted to produce valid results. this article describes the redevelopment of an edd research methods course based on the combination of two transformative learning frameworks: mezirow’s (2000) three ways of learning through meaning and taylor’s (2009) six core elements for a transformative approach to teaching. each framework alone does not address all the components of transformative teaching, however, when used in combination, they create a comprehensive model for a higher-order learning environment. transformative learning: mezirow’s ways of learning through meaning jack mezirow (1981) is recognized as one of the key founders of transformative learning theory. transformative learning emerged in the late 1970s as a theory in progress and is often first linked to paulo freire (1970) who described traditional teaching as banking, illustrated as teachers depositing knowledge upon passive students. his remedy was conscientization, whereby students are encouraged to develop critical awareness through reflection and action and learn to think for themselves. mezirow was influenced by freire and by the work on paradigms of knowledge by learning theorist jürgen habermas (1971) (fleming, 2018). one distinctive component of mezirow’s (1981) transformative learning theory is metacognitive growth that results from reflecting critically on the nature and consequences of our assumptions and those of others, which promotes a shift of consciousness, or perspective transformation, by the learner. the ability for students to critically reflect and transform their mindset is especially important in research methods courses where the validity of results depends on the researcher’s ability to identify biases and assumptions. while reflexivity is an essential component in quality research practice, it is frequently overlooked in edd programs (finch, 2022). reflexivity and critical self-reflection provide the foundation for mezirow’s (2000) three ways of learning, which describe changes to individual meaning perspectives based on content, process, and premise. as illustrated in figure 1, mezirow’s (2000) ways of learning through meaning include: 1) learning within meaning schemes, such as complementing and expanding on current understanding, 2) learning new meaning schemes, such as adding additional knowledge to existing understanding, and 3) learning through meaning transformation, such as by changing points of view (seeing from another’s perspective) or changing habits of mind (redefining assumptions and beliefs). while all levels of learning have value, it is only the uppermost level of learning, learning through meaning transformation, that results in perspective transformation. this dimension involves a critical re-evaluation of oneself that often includes a realization that what was believed previously no longer holds true. inherent in perspective transformation is the examination of preconceived transforming edd research methods courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 5 figure 1. mezirow’s ways of learning assumptions that, upon deeper deliberation, reveal social injustices and inequalities: transformative learning refers to the process by which we transform our taken-for granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action. (mezirow, 2000, p. 7-8) research methods courses that incorporate transformative, critical thinking approaches help create practitioners with a heightened sense of social justice, privilege, and inequity, resulting in more inclusive and richer research outcomes (perkins et al., 2020). transformative learning: taylor’s core elements for a transformative approach to teaching over the past few decades, a growing number of journal articles, books, conferences, and dissertations have examined, developed, and supplemented the understanding of transformative learning. while the literature on transformative learning theory itself is expansive, less studied is how transformative learning theory meets practice (kostara et al., 2022; mezirow & taylor, 2009) and how to explicitly implement the many facets of transformative theory to benefit learners in the classroom (kasworm & bowles, 2012; kreber, 2022). among the limited choice of approaches to inform instructors on best practices for teaching adults, taylor’s (2009) framework for a transformative approach to teaching is perhaps the most well-known, as it has evolved over decades of research that included collaboration with mezirow. taylor (2009) was concerned with the lack of clear direction and theoretical foundations when teaching adults, and he cautioned against “rudderless teaching, with no clear goal or purpose” (p. 5). after reviewing the empirical literature to ascertain the essential components of transformative teaching, taylor (2009) proposed six core elements of adult learning in practice: individual experience, awareness of context, dialogue, authentic relationships, holistic orientation, and critical reflection. these six elements were not intended to stand alone, as elements interact with each other, such as relationships can influence successful dialogue, or experience can influence understanding of context and holistic orientation. these interdependent elements help in the creation of an effective environment for adult learning that is conducive to critical questioning, probing discourse, and reflective evaluation. when choosing a transformative learning framework to guide the redesign of an edd research methods course, taylor’s (2009) six core elements provide an excellent structure for a transformative approach for teaching, yet this framework does not fully encompass mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning dimensions of cognition, meaning schemes, and levels of learning. in turn, while mezirow’s (2002) three ways of learning add deeper meaning dimensions, they are not sufficient as a stand-alone framework as they lack the practical scaffolding for teaching that is provided by taylor’s (2009) six elements. neither framework alone provides a complete model to fully implement the constructs of transformative learning, however, when integrating the unique strengths of mezirow’s (2002) ways of learning with taylor’s (2009) core elements, the result is a comprehensive model of transformative learning (see figure 2). the use of this combined transformative learning model that provides both structure and a guide for deeper meta-cognitive learning is a helpful tool for the reinvention of edd research methods courses, as explained in more detail in the next section. figure 2. a comprehensive transformative learning model for edd research methods courses the pedagogical redesign of edd research methods courses barriers to a transformative learning approach research methods courses are a critical component of doctoral programs for education practitioners, as proficient research skills are fundamental in linking doctoral scholarship to the field of practice. essential skills in research include identifying a research problem, synthesizing the literature, determining the research questions, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, and reporting and evaluating research (creswell & guetterman, 2019). the nature of undertaking a research study is especially well suited to transformative methods and critical reflection, from choosing a meaningful purpose statement and constructing significant research questions, to effectively analyzing data and appropriately interpreting resulting themes. however, few higher education instructors base their course content and delivery on the theoretical underpinnings of acton impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 6 adult learning theory (hidalgo et al., 2018). instructors come from a range of backgrounds and expertise in teaching, and without the proper training or expertise, many struggle to effectively incorporate transformative learning. some are put off by the notion that transformative learning can be uncomfortable and awkward (moore, 2005). others cite lack of time as a barrier and take a reductive approach to teaching: “they demand information about ‘what works’ and reject opportunities for their own formation and transformation as teachers and learners” (kostara et al., 2022, p. xviii). thus, many instructors focus on teaching what research is, as opposed to providing students with hands-on learning opportunities that shift away from teaching about research, towards learning how to do research (strayhorn, 2016). active learning falls under the umbrella of constructivist learning and requires purposeful lesson planning, as it is a student-centered rather than teacher-driven approach where the learner is actively constructing knowledge, as opposed passively taking in information. many instructors, as part of their university’s professional development, would appreciate learning opportunities about hands-on, transformative strategies, but are hard-pressed to find appropriate courses or resources (christie et al., 2015). implementing a model for transformative learning in an edd research methods course to aid instructors in understanding how to incorporate adult learning theory into practice, the transformative learning model introduced (see figure 2) is further explored in the subsequent sections of this article. this comprehensive model was used by the author to guide the redesign of an introductory edd research methods course taught in an educational leadership and policy program. permission was granted by a few selected students to include their self-reflections (anonymously) to help illustrate student learning. core elements of adult learning in practice in the redesign of the edd research methods course, the structure for the planning and delivery was provided by taylor’s (2009) six core elements of adult learning in practice: individual experience, awareness of context, dialogue, authentic relationships, holistic orientation, and critical reflection. each class, task, or activity incorporated a number of core elements into their design, depending on their purpose and nature, as further explained in the following sections. core elements 1 and 2: individual experience and awareness of context. previous experience was highly valued throughout the edd course, as each adult learner brought different knowledge and skills from which to draw. relevant experience was acquired through prior academic studies, professional work, or personal life experience. students were encouraged to be aware of their contexts and be mindful about how these might affect their thinking or create inherent biases. new contexts, such as personal, professional, and sociocultural factors, were introduced by the course content, setting, readings, tasks, and by fellow classmates. to facilitate student awareness of the significance of experience and context, the pedagogical framework for the course was presented and openly discussed in the first class to provide transparency regarding expectations and to assist in the understanding of the learning approach. coursework allowed for differentiation to better meet individual learner’s needs and build on their personal and professional experiences, as students in the edd course were typical of those pursuing the edd programs in that they brought with them differing levels of knowledge about conducting research. some students had undertaken a comprehensive research thesis in their ma programs, while others had completed a course-only med that did not require a research component such as a thesis or a major research paper. in addition, students came from varying subjectbased backgrounds including arts, science, philosophy, and math, and each having different epistemological approaches. to allow students to build on their varying backgrounds and experiences, tasks and assignments were purposefully designed with multiple entry points, and assignments had supplementary options based on skill or interest, and choice was given for content, process, and product. core elements 3 and 4: dialogue and authentic relationships. creating a collaborative community of learners was a central component of the edd course design. opportunities for dialogue with fellow classmates and the instructor were embedded throughout, as transformation happens “through trustful relationships that allow individuals to have questioning discussions, share information openly[,] and achieve mutual and consensual understanding” (taylor, 2007, p. 179). when learning to perform new research methods and skills, students often have misconceptions or take a wrong turn, which creates the opportunity for valuable learning. fostering an inclusive learning space that allowed individuals to feel safe to share ideas and make mistakes was essential for growth. in the edd course, creating a welcoming environment started with the instructor, who established a positive learning culture by fostering supportive and genuine relationships with students and by readily offering guidance and support. student-student relationships were promoted with the use of an online discussion platform, class breakout rooms, collaborative tasks, as well as independent small group sessions. classmates provided each other with encouragement, suggestions, and critical feedback. in addition, students reviewed other classmates’ work with the goal of undertaking self-assessment and engaging in metacognitive reflection of their strengths and weaknesses and understanding how new perspectives could improve their work. core element 5: holistic orientation. holistic orientation encompasses both the affective and rational ways of knowing. while the rational process (analyze-think-change) is more often recognized, the affective process (see-feel-change) is also an important factor for true change to occur (brown, 2006). when cognition is accompanied by emotion, this can elicit a reflective process that more deeply challenges previously held assumptions about knowledge or about self (dirkx, 2008). many of the activities in the edd research methods course were set within the zone of proximal development of the learners—where students left the comfortable realm of what they know, to be challenged to acquire new skills and new learning (vygotsky, 1978). when faced with a challenge or novel experience, students experienced emotions of doubt or anxiety. however, after achieving a successful outcome with support from the instructor and their peers, these feelings were replaced with pride and increased self-confidence in their abilities. as revealed by an edd student during a reflective activity in the final class: “i used to fear that collecting reliable data for my dissertation was an overwhelming task. now i feel far more optimistic that i have the skills and supportive, critical friends to conduct a study that will offer a valid contribution to the literature.” core element 6: critical reflection. although critical reflection is listed as a separate core component, it is inextricably woven into transforming edd research methods courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 7 all other core components. critical reflection has a strong foundation in critical theory and is divided into two categories: critical reflection of others’ assumptions and critical self-reflection of one’s assumptions (kreber, 2012). incorporating critical reflection components into the edd course structure required planning tasks and activities that encouraged learners to identify their perspectives as well as those of others to identify, scrutinize, interpret, and explore alternatives. like holistic orientations, critical reflections can be both rational and emotional. for example, discomfort may arise when engaging with social justice and equity issues and discovering that one’s views and convictions are revealed to be flawed. critical reflection and self-reflection were integrated throughout the edd course, starting with defining a research topic on a problem of educational practice and identifying positionality and biases. critical thinking was integral to all tasks including designing research maps, considering ethical implications, identifying methodological worldviews, creating, piloting, and conducting surveys and interviews, and gathering valid and reliable data from participants. critical selfreflection was also a key factor in the assessment rubric for the culminating research methods paper, which included a section devoted to students’ analysis of the difficulties they encountered and their learning and growth as researchers. ways of learning through meaning transformative learning through critical self-reflection is a process of questioning and critique, and the most profound adult learning occurs when meaning perspectives are transformed and core presumptions are reconstructed (kreber, 2022). to assist students in the edd course to re-evaluate and alter existing beliefs to achieve higher-order meaning transformations, mezirow’s (2000) ways of learning through meaning were used to provide further depth to taylor’s (2009) core elements. the center of the model shown in figure 2 lists the key course tasks and assignments that were grouped under each of the three ways of learning. course content and activities were scaffolded to allow students to sequentially gain the knowledge and skills required for the culminating assignment, with the ultimate goal of preparing students for their dissertation in practice. while the model depicts a linear structure with tasks and assignments categorized under a particular way of learning, arrows were included to indicate the levels of learning could occur at any point, depending on the learner and the nature of the task. a description of selected course tasks within each meaning scheme is presented in the following sections. learning within meaning schemes. the first way of knowing involves learners using what they already know and expanding on or complementing their existing knowledge base. specific tasks in the edd course within this meaning scheme included students working in collaborative groups to create graphic visualizations (infographic, mind map, sketch note, or graphic slide) of different research methods. some students brought with them a basic understanding of qualitative research, but were given the opportunity to expand their understanding of narrative inquiry, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, case studies or mixed methods. students were also tasked to write a researcher identity memo (maxwell, 2013), a reflexivity task to clarify and contextualize their position about the research process and help situate themselves into their proposed area of study. the researcher identity memo included an examination of their background, research interests, beliefs, strengths, and concerns. this memo was revisited at a number of points throughout the course to incorporate new understanding and track how conscious and unconscious assumptions might have changed. learning new meaning schemes. the second way of knowing involves learners acquiring new understanding that is compatible with existing knowledge, as new meaning schemes often fit into existing perspectives. in the edd research methods course, students created a research design map (maxwell, 2013) that included the key components of a research study and the ways in which these components may be affected by one another. the design map included research goals, research questions, and a conceptual framework, as well as a description of methodology, validity, and environmental constructs (ethics, researcher skills, and resources). the design map helped students understand the purpose and structure of their study and how to successfully carry it out. students acquired deeper understanding of the intricacies of research design, such as how to write effective research statements and how to graphically visualize a conceptual framework. revisions to the design map occurred throughout the edd course as students progressed with their research studies and gained valuable new insights and aptitudes. as voiced by one edd student, revisiting the design map in collaboration with fellow classmates helped to provide new insights and understanding: my discussion with classmates provided me with a deeper layer of review and probing. i felt that our conversations using course articles and our original design maps resulted in deep critical thinking about the alignment of our study’s purpose with our research questions. one significant point of learning for me was reflecting on the type and wording of my questions and whether they aligned with the study’s conceptual framework. did they actually target my original goals and research intentions? i was surprised at how my initial wording was not as effective as i had originally thought, and how the questions were not asking what i thought they were. i have come to a new realization of the complexities involved in designing research and how poorly constructed research questions can create problems for the rest of the study. a large portion of the edd course was dedicated to the handson, learning-by-doing acquisition of research skills. collaborative discourse with fellow classmates to provide feedback and support was integral to this process. for example, one active learning task was based on castillo-montoya’s (2016) four-phase process for systematically developing and refining an interview protocol. steps included posting interview protocol scripts to the class discussion forum for preliminary feedback, undertaking cognitive interviews to refine questions, and using their revised interview script to conduct pilot interviews with fellow classmates before initiating actual interviews with participants. for many students, the series of learning activities not only included uncovering new meaning schemes, but also prompted critical self-reflection that progressed into reevaluation of previously held beliefs and assumptions. as shared by one edd student, collaborative debate during cognitive interviews provided valuable learning: i was initially a bit skeptical when it came to cognitive interviews, but i learned—it’s all in the details! the most minor misuse of a word can create major misinterpretations and alter the outcomes of the results. discussing each question in detail with classmates was such an eye-opener, as it helped me to eliminate or modify statements that participants might interpret differently than i had intended. a particularly heated discussion acton impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.323 8 was about whether we should ask about a participant’s race, and whether race would, in fact, contribute anything to the research. (was it worth keeping, knowing that it risked offending some people?) this process proved to be highly valuable, and i learned how collaborative discourse greatly enhanced the validity of my study. learning through meaning transformation. the highest order of learning requires an awareness of one’s distorted or incomplete assumptions and reevaluating or reordering meaning to transform it (mezirow, 2000). points of view can be changed by being open to others’ interpretations and perspectives. habits of mind can be transformed by being critically reflective of one’s own premises, and by questioning assumptions, beliefs, and feelings (kitchenham, 2008). in the edd course, transformation occurred in one of two ways—sudden or dramatic, triggered by an incident or revelation, or slow and incremental, involving a series of incidents or experiences that caused a change in viewpoint or mindset (mezirow, 2000). certain tasks began with first order learning but transitioned to learning through meaning transformation by adding critical selfassessment or discourse, as transformation requires meaning to be explored, questioned, and debated. as part of the expectations of the edd course, students posted their weekly work on the online discussion forum in order to give and receive feedback from fellow classmates. some of the richest learning occurred from seeing their classmates’ work, which prompted metacognitive assessment to improve their work. in the final assignment, student learning was demonstrated in their research methods paper by the growth in knowledge and skills they gained throughout the edd course. growth was also revealed by students in their reflections, where many shared that they had experienced a change in their understanding or perspective. as expressed by one edd student, they appreciated being pushed to rethink existing assumptions: my greatest takeaway was the value in having critical friends to spend unhurried time with me participating in deep, reflective conversations about my research design, allowing me to gain not only clarity but also foundational skill development. my peers helped me to look at my study through a different lens and allowed me, as a researcher, to shed light on issues that i had not previously considered. this learning process changed my entire perspective on how to conduct effective research. as the professor shared in her introductory class, the framework for this course was collaborative, active, hands-on learning. at the time, i couldn’t imagine what that entailed. now, in retrospect, i know i have learned more by doing the learning in these short 12 weeks than i ever have before. conclusions and future directions the nature of an edd research methods course lends itself particularly well to the use of transformative learning pedagogies, as conducting a valid and reliable study is intrinsically a transformative undertaking for the researcher. conducting research requires critical reflection when considering researcher positionality, bias, inclusion, and ethics. when researchers are accepting of input from differing perspectives, especially in the creation of research instruments, the end product enhances the trustworthiness of the data collected. higher-order thinking skills and the use of a critical lens are especially important when analyzing and interpreting data. to ensure the proficiency of future researchers, it is essential for research methods courses to be based on an adult-centered, transformative approach. the model of transformative learning for research methods courses presented in this paper is intended to be a tool to assist instructors achieve rich and rewarding results for adult learners, such as increased self-confidence, personal satisfaction, stronger connections with others, empowerment, and deeper understandings (moore, 2005). the model emphasised fostering relationships that supported the creation of a safe learning environment. adult learners were encouraged to build on previous experience and could choose to investigate real-world issues relevant to their situations and interests. critical self-reflection was integral to the many metacognitive tasks such as researcher identity memos, research design maps, ethical considerations, and the collaborative creation of research instruments using cognitive interviews. an active learning approach facilitated gains in essential research skills, and growth was further supported by peer feedback and dialogue. transformation was achieved when learners were open to situating themselves into differing viewpoints and changing previously held assumptions and beliefs. these transformative outcomes are in alignment with a number of the guiding principles found within the cped (2021) framework that supports a high-quality, rigorous edd program by embracing the use of signature pedagogy that fosters the preparation of scholarly practitioners who act with integrity and challenge their pre-existing assumptions. it should be acknowledged that this article provides but one example of how to redevelop an edd course using adult learning theory. while all learners demonstrated significant growth, some transformed more than others, depending on previous skill levels and mindsets. due to the scarcity of research on the pedagogy of research methods courses, next steps would be to encourage further mapping of new directions for edd courses based on theoretical underpinnings (gunn, 2017). the literature lacks exemplars of theoretical frameworks to foster the instruction of effective transformative learning and reduce the practice of arbitrary and disconnected strategies (taylor & cranton, 2012). to help fill this gap, the transformative learning model presented in this article, created from the integration of mezirow’s (2000) and taylor’s (2009) frameworks, is a tool that can be used in future studies by researchers when investigating the use of adult transformative learning pedagogies in edd programs. 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(2022). teaching mixed methods using active learning approaches. journal of mixed methods research, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/15586898221120566 https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344614548589 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjf9vz4.1 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://doi.org/10.1177/15586898221120566 microsoft word luppanaci vf.docx articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  international  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 addressing 21st century challenges in education an ecocritical conceptual framework toward an ecotistical leadership in education john joseph lupinacci washington state university john.lupinacci@wsu.edu abstract this article critiques the notion of individually-focused notions of leadership, instead offering an ecocritical conceptual framework that works to support education at all levels with the aim of recognizing the importance of how leaders in western industrial culture think, act, and thus organize communities. this framework is applied to examine the potential for edd programs to critically (re)imagine the role k-12 and higher education institutions might play in reinterpreting how leadership might be (re)constituted—as local and in support of social justice and sustainability. from this lens, the article explores how 21st century challenges that emerge from the complex intersections of social justice and sustainability might be addressed through edd program development, supportive program structures, and course content influencing teacher education and k-12 school leadership. calling for a particular kind of leadership supportive of social justice and sustainability, this article shares examples from the authors own practice, program structures, curriculum, and future research. introduction the vision of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) calls for the development of leaders prepared to address the educational challenges of the 21st century. given the intractable local and global challenges of humanitarian crises, the effects of climate change, and widespread concern for democracy, cped provides timely guiding principles that focus efforts and attention in edd programming on equity, ethics, and social justice. programming that strives for alignment with the cped initiative offers the potential for the development of educational leaders whom one might characterize as both critical and ethical—in other words, these programs seek to develop an educational leadership committed to working toward justice while addressing a myriad of challenges facing us all in the early years of this century. given the current political context in the united states, it is hard to not consider the politics of the presidential campaign in 2016 as an example of where such 21st century challenges were brought into the fold of mainstream discourses of what constitutes leadership. sanders (2016) stated: election days come and go. but the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent—a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice—that struggle continues. and i look forward to being part of that struggle with you (para. 4) although sanders made these comments in his concession speech at the democratic convention in which he pledged his support for his opponent hilary clinton, his attention to these principles of justice resonated throughout his primary campaign. while they are certainly not new ideas—nor ought they be attributed to originating with or belonging to him or his campaign—they serve as powerful public markers of the kind of leadership the world needs, wants, and is demanding. the world needs leaders deeply committed to social justice and sustainability. however, questions still remain regarding why we need a different kind of leadership and what that different leadership might entail. there are 7.5 billon people in the world. despite a growing awareness of human rights, the circumstances of an estimated 700 million people living in extreme poverty are dire (united nations, 2014). most often, women and children bear the brunt of this tragic, and at times fatal, suffering (united nations, 2016). the united nations children’s fund (2016) reports that “unless the world tackles inequity today, in 2030: 69 million children under the age of 5 will die between 2016 and 2030” (p. 3), and the outlook for the world’s impoverished youth is becoming increasingly grim. the united nations (2015) reports that since 1990, global carbon dioxide (co2) emissions “have increased by over 50 per cent since 1990” (p. 8) and scientists have argued that this increase in co2 emissions is linked to changes in climate that contribute to increased floods, droughts, famine, and war (american meteorological society, 2012; anderegg, prall, harold, & schneider, 2010; doran & zimmerman, 2009; intergovernmental panel on climate change, 2015; oreskes, 2004). given current conditions of social suffering and the increasing impact of climate change potentially contributing to even greater widespread harm, current leadership models may need to be rethought and their effectiveness evaluated in order to truly address the pressing issues of social justice and sustainability. furthermore, such matters have become life or death. as the past decades of educational trends in educational leadership and the impending crises we face in the next half-century clearly demonstrate, a refusal to understand and embrace mutuality and interdependence is woven throughout the interconnected hardships of social suffering and environmental degradation. this refusal is embedded in a conceptual framework based on a system of ex addressing 21st century challenges in education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 21 ploitation and violence—a lens that serves as the dominant, shaping force regarding what it means to be a leader. in this article, i assert that a dominant egotistical leadership—or leadership focused on the individual or self—must be examined and critiqued for its limitations in favor of efforts toward an ecotistical leadership approach focused on the health and well-being of a broader ecological community. in confronting this stark contrast, i emphasize that as critical leaders, and especially as educators, we have a responsibility to examine and address how schools create, support, and sustain the violence of social suffering and environmental degradation. when leaders are faced with such challenges, we must be willing to inquire into the ways that current forms of exploitation are rationalized, justified, and/or ignored. in accordance with this inquiry, the purpose of this work is to introduce a different direction for thinking about horizontal educational leadership by presenting an ecocritical conceptual framework for the educational doctorate. calling for a particular kind of leadership supportive of social justice and sustainability, i share examples from my own practice, program structures, curriculum, and suggestions for research. i conclude by calling for a particular kind of leadership supportive of social justice and sustainability. (re)constituting educational leadership in the 21st century central to an ecocritical framework is the importance of recognizing the differences between ecological cultures and intelligences; and dominant human and individual-centered cultures. an ecocritical educational framework can be characterized as the examination and analysis of the ways in which culture, language, and the associated values and beliefs, shape our thinking and thus contribute to injustice—and the ability to confront the assumptions that underscore unjust social suffering and environmental degradation (lupinacci & happel-parkins, 2015, 2016a). such efforts require explicit attention to understanding diversity and the eco-social structural relationships between language, culture, and education that define how we recognize and understand difference. i draw from weintraub’s (2006) introduction of the term eco-tistical in response to a lack of terminology in the english language that describes “humans relating to the nonhuman environment in a harmonious, respectful, and pragmatic manner” (p. 55). by switching egoto ecoshe intended to direct “focus away from self and toward home or habitat” in response to the absence of any opposite terminology for anthropocentric—the privileging of humanity—and egocentric—the privileging of self (weintraub, et al., 2006, p.55). in this sense, the term ecocentric is an adjective for ecological consciousness, or what martusewicz and edmundson (2005) propose as an “eco-ethical consciousness” (p. 73) that takes into consideration the social and environmental impact of decision making and recognizes them as inextricably linked. the primary emphasis of a growing body of scholarship identifying as ecocritical is a recognition of the limitations of how we—as subjects of western industrial culture—understand and situate ourselves—humans—as a species that exists separate from and superior to all other forms of living and non-living beings (lupinacci & happel-parkins, 2016b). within that growing body of literature, scholars are increasingly using the phrase “more-than-human” (abram, 1996) to draw attention to the larger set of ecological relationships that exist beyond those that are bounded by emphasizing only humans in relationship with other humans. thus, henceforth in this article, i’ll use the term more-than-human to refer to plants, animals, streams, forests, soil, rocks, and so on to emphasize the existence of webs of connections that do not necessarily even include the human as a reference point. when addressing the injustices perpetuated by the conviction of human supremacy on the planet, ecocritical scholarship in education identifies the important role that schools, and more specifically educators and educational leaders, play in reproducing and reinforcing the root assumptions informing this belief. therefore, an ecocritical framework is explicitly designed to interrupt and (re)constitute western industrial assumptions that inform and structure how educators teach, and how such teaching might shape students’ understanding of their human existence in relation to each other and, more specifically, to the living systems to which they belong. as an ecocritical educator working to facilitate and encourage a change in mindsets for leadership, i focus on anthropocentrism—or human-centered thinking. anthropocentrism is the conviction that human beings are superior to other forms of life/matter and that human wants and needs supersede that of everything else. importantly, i do not make the argument that anthropocentrism should take priority over other dominant discourses constructing western industrial culture—such as patriarchy, racism, ableism, classism, and so forth. rather, i assert that if a critique of anthropocentrism is not included in the critical (re)constituting of how we think as leaders, then it is likely we will continue to fail to address the deep habits of mind upon which many social justice issues are predicated. our thoughts and actions all exist in complex relationships to one another, and our environments and the diverse relationships within them constitute and mediate how we construct meaning as a culture (lupinacci & happel-parkins, 2015, 2016a. 2016b; martusewicz et al., 2015). an important premise of an ecocritical framework is that the human-supremacist worldview is a cultural construct. in other words, this stance asserts that we, as humans—specifically those of us constituted by, and constituting, dominant western industrial culture—have learned to think and behave according to culturally constructed, relational ways of understanding, and we use this understanding to interpret relationships and thus create meaning. given the nature of meaning as culturally constructed, an ecocritical framework focuses on the ways in which meaning can be constructed in a manner that is supportive of the health and well-being of the entire community. our cultural constructions can be interrupted and shifted when we learn to think differently about our relationships to each other and to the natural world. thus, recognizing an anthropocentric worldview is an important entry point for rethinking humancentrism and the role of educators to further teach toward (un)learning the injustice and pervasive violence of western industrial culture. an essential role of leaders committed to ecotistical leadership is to recognize and value leadership that does not explicitly perpetuate human-supremacy, and in so doing, work to identify and revalue the critical practices of mutual aid and interdependence that still exist in communities all over the world. to help explain this work, i draw from an image that compares a human-centered worldview to an ecological worldview. this illustration has appeared on a variety of social media networks and blogs—most notably credit can be given to the organization generation alpha. the ego vs. eco image— having made its way around through posts, blogs, brochures, t-shirts, and posters—illustrates two fundamentally different worldviews. adapting the internet meme “ego vs. eco,” figure 1 depicts an egocentric worldview: lupinacci impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 22 figure 1. egocentric worldview adapted from “differing worldviews” (martusewicz et al., 2015, p. 11). this figure illustrates the socially constructed hierarchical worldview of western industrial culture. focusing on figure 1, i emphasize the need for educational leaders to engage in recognizing an anthropocentric worldview—that is, one that takes humans as the reference point—and how that worldview is culturally constituted and maintained. in the context of schools, educators and educational leaders can play a vital role in challenging this egocentric worldview that reflects our culture’s anthropocentrism. educators and educational leaders have the ability—and arguably, the social and ethical responsibility—to prepare citizens who both understand the need for and potential of (re)constituting this problematic worldview in favor of those more supportive of social justice and sustainability—such as an ecotistical worldview (pictured in figure 2). figure 2. ecotistical worldview adapted from “differing worldviews” (martusewicz et al., 2015, p. 11). this figure illustrates an ecologically balanced worldview often overlooked and devalued in western industrial culture. addressing 21st century challenges in education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 23 examining and discussing figure 1 and figure 2 provides educational leaders with an opportunity for dialogue about the ways in which worldviews can support or conflict with our leadership efforts to address the challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries. as educators and educational leaders engage in a critique of anthropocentrism, they develop the capability to cultivate habits of mind that support and sustain all species, not just humans. these habits of mind help to challenge destructive assumptions and practices promoted by anthropocentric egotistical leadership—a leadership approach that is all too prevalent and which often dominates school, family, and community politics. recognizing the ways in which language influences culture and the ways in which culture influences language is essential as we conceptualize and implement changes to what could and ought to be truly inclusive communities. thus, language plays an important role in how we interpret and examine the relationship between these two differing, and often conflicting, worldviews. for instance, leadership conceptualized through an ecocritical framework challenges the prominence of dualistic and binary thinking in western industrial culture. this process includes analyzing hierarchized superior/inferior dualisms in order to identify how such dualistic thinking works to uphold and perpetuate a problematic value-hierarchy that frames our understanding of our relationships with one another, ourselves, and the more-than-human communities to which we all belong. plumwood (2002) illustrates how in western industrial cultures humans overwhelmingly understand relationality through sets of value-hierarchized dualisms. this thinking not only justifies and perpetuates anthropocentrism (human/nature), it also upholds forms of oppression such as racism (white/person of color), classism (wealthy/poor), sexism (male/female), ableism (typical/atypical), and so on. all of these forms of oppression rely on value-hierarchized dualisms that inform how we understand and interact with one another. to help explain how this applies to educational leaders learning to recognize sets of superior/inferior dualisms, i offer an example from my practice. the following is a list of some of the dualisms i use while working with teachers and educational leaders to address the logic structure of leadership in western industrial culture. this list includes but is not limited to: superior / inferior central / marginalized human / nature man / woman masculine / feminine reason / emotion mind / body wealthy / poor white / person of color civilized / savage master / slave employer / employee teacher / student adult / child as we look at this list together, i ask the educational leaders to stack some of the value-hierarchized dualisms together with superior/inferior and central/marginalized, and then to describe how the dualisms work together as a group. grouping and stacking a smaller subset of the list shared above visually illustrates for students how these dualisms work within western industrial culture to set up what is often referred to as the norm or the standard. afterward, we highlight how these dualisms discipline our relationships, with an emphasis on the fact that while these dualisms inform how we think and act, it is important to remain mindful that “a map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness” (korzybski, 1933/1994, p. 58). specifically focused on identifying and unsettling notions of superiority, we use this opportunity to examine how these hierarchizeddualisms combine to support exploitation and domination of others through our leadership and, simultaneously, how de(re)constructing them offers potentials for alternatives in how we lead. to better understand the importance of de(re)constructing these dualisms it is necessary to recognize how the terms and subject positions in the first column—which name those that are most highly valued within western industrial culture—clearly illustrate how, for example, subject positions of wealthy individuals are considered more valuable than those in the second column, the poor. the high value and privilege afforded those in the first column are ascribed via a cultural logic structure that prioritizes and values them at the expense of those in the adjacent column. this list illustrates how such dualisms combine for those identified as being the subject position within the left-hand column to reinforce and legitimize power over, and control of, those identified as subject positions in the column on the right. although such hierarchies are examined through critical pedagogies in teacher education and educational leadership programs, the direct relationship of human/nature to the other dualisms depicted in the list is a vital facet of this logic that is often overlooked. pedagogically, i aim for these provocative placements, and specifically, listing them to illustrate how these value-hierarchized dualisms function together, to encourage leaders and potential leaders to critically and ethically question the fundamental assumptions in western industrial culture about relationships when considering the work they set out to do and the supports they intend to provide. i also intentionally use this list and the described process of drawing attention to the value-hierarchized dualisms and the connections between them to facilitate an understanding of the nature of these value hierarchies as intersectional. further, i strive to cultivate an understanding of the ways in which these dualisms function—while acknowledging that they are not universally experienced—to expose the inequitable construction of what is often valued and rewarded as “normal” in western industrial culture and which has manifested in an egotistical very male-centered, white, human supremacist leadership. teaching towards an ecotistical leadership in education with roots in critical pedagogy (freire, 1993; hooks, 1994; mclaren, 2006; darder, 2015) and ecocritical pedagogical frameworks (bowers, 1993; gruenewald, 2003; furman & gruenewald, 2004; kahn, 2010; lupinacci & happel-parkins, 2015, 2016a; martusewicz, edmundson, & lupinacci, 2015), this work strives to identify and confront deep cultural assumptions informing worldviews in efforts to support educational leadership for social justice and sustainability. when we are faced with these commitments and the recognition that they are interrelated, it is important to recognize that our cultures play a significant role in how we think and act. it is from such a socio-linguistic and postmodernist position that educational leaders must learn to examine how and why we—as scholarpractitioners—think and act the ways we do. accordingly, in educational leadership programs, students must learn to see the critical connections between empirical, social, and behavioral research and lupinacci impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 24 that they recognize their role as cultural workers in their communities (freire, 1998). as many issues of inequality and unjust suffering are embedded within educational structures that maintain and reproduce the unjust sociological phenomena of western industrial culture, i strive to uphold the expectation that my teaching foster community-based learning that is rigorous, relevant, and builds strong community relationships. to support the development of ecotistical leaders in any community, educational leaders must aspire to being cultural workers, respected and disciplined researchers, effective and engaging speakers, and must both talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk. drawing from a diverse set of pedagogical frameworks rooted in critical theory, the washington state university (wsu) college of education’s conceptual framework expresses its commitment to diversity and the importance of interrupting the status quo systems of privilege and power as part of its core values. listed as one of the core values in the conceptual framework, the college of education (2009) aims: to understand the myriad ways in which diversity manifests itself in our workplace, and embrace inclusive and nondiscriminatory practices. group differences, including those due to age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, ideology and socioeconomic status, can play powerful roles in relationships in the work place and in higher education. we aim to eliminate stereotypes based on those factors and create a democratic environment based on respect. in doing so, we recognize how communities and individuals inform and rely on one another in our work and our lives. we seek to promote critical thought of these issues among ourselves and in our candidates toward the far-reaching goal of social justice. (p. 3) this commitment to social justice and sustainability carries over into perspectives that contribute to the educational leadership edd program. there is a strong connection between the conceptual framework and a commitment to the self-reflective process of sharing diverse understandings of what it means for a program to be committed to social justice and sustainability. with strong attention to the inextricable relationship between social justice and sustainability, a critical contingency of faculty in the program strives to recognize that 21st century challenges of social justice and sustainability require a strong commitment to understanding and interrupting the complex relationships that constitute, and are constituted by, dominant discourses and discursive practices of western industrial culture in schools and society. furthermore, it is essential that such interruptions be intricately and intimately intertwined with our own work in relationship to the tasks we ask of our students and future students. for example, within the critical tradition (horkheimer, 1976; horkheimer & adorno 2007; marcuse, 1964, 1989), there exists an ecocritical movement working toward recognizing social and environmental justice as inseparable and inextricably linked with the value-hierarchized social thought of the enlightenment (bowers, 1993, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2013; bowers & flinders, 1990; code, 2006; gruenewald, 2003; kahn, 2010; martusewicz et al., 2015; merchant, 1983; plumwood, 1993, 2002). an ecocritical approach in a program committed to the role of educational leaders dedicated to social justice and sustainability in education addresses how education is shaped by systems of exploitation, violence, and a refusal to understand and embrace mutuality and interdependence (lupinacci & happel-parkins, 2015, 2016a). to respond to the violence perpetuated by our current social, economic, and environmental contexts, ecocritical educators have the responsibility to examine and address how it is that schools create, support, and sustain the violence of social suffering and environmental degradation. when faced with such a challenge, ecocritical educators ask: how is it that exploitation, and the associated unjust social suffering and environmental degradation, is rationalized, justified, and/or ignored? in an attempt to address this question, a growing critical contingency at wsu, and throughout the cped network, is taking the position that we, as scholar practitioners, must put to work an ecocritical approach to address inequities in education. the college of education at wsu has a collaboratively designed educational doctoral program that sets out to “prepare practitioner-scholars for leadership roles and challenges in education at the local, state, national, and international levels” (2015, p. 6). as members of cped, the program committee regularly works to ensure that they are reflecting on how the program is shaped by and held accountable to social justice using two guiding frameworks: 1) the college of education conceptual framework (2009); and 2) cped’s definition of the education doctorate & working principles for the professional practice doctorate in education and the accompanying “design concepts for professional preparation and program” (cped, 2015, pp. 1-2). working in relation to social justice, the program at wsu has objectives that are carried out through a combination of coursework and field experience in connection with inquiry practices of a variety of research methods that often culminate in action research. expressing the goal of the program in the handbook, the program committee states: “the ultimate goal is to prepare educational leaders who work together toward the goals of educational and institutional improvement and social justice” (p. 9). further in the breakdown of outcomes, two of the five outcomes explicitly express a commitment to social justice. outcomes listed in the program’s handbook state: • identify and analyze the theories, research, and policies, related to the study of k-12 educational/teacher leadership: ethics and social justice; inquiry; policy; and leadership development. • prepare and present written work to both academic and practitioner audiences. • understand, evaluate, and apply educational theory and inquiry knowledge and skills to problems of policy and practice of educational leadership. • design, conduct, report, and present clear and coherent research studies that contribute to understanding and solving problems of practice on multiple levels of educational leadership. • articulate core values and model the guiding principles of the profession including: commitment to social justice; understanding of ethical responsibilities of leadership; effective and respectful interaction with others of similar and diverse cultures, values, and perspectives; commitment to school improvement and a positive impact on student learning (p. 9) given the program’s objective and connected outcomes, it is not hard for those familiar with cped’s description of the professional doctorate in education to see the connections to, and influence from, cped’s charge that the scholarly-practitioner is responsible to addressing “questions of equity, ethics, and social justice” in relationship to the development and implementation of “solutions to complex problems of practice” (p. 1). furthermore, the wsu college of education conceptual framework (2009) states: the college of education contributes to the theory and practice of the broad field of education, and dedicates itself to understanding and respecting learners in diverse cultural contexts. we facilitate engaged learning and ethical leadership in addressing 21st century challenges in education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 25 schools and clinical settings. we seek collaboration with diverse constituencies, recognizing our local and global responsibilities to communities, environments, and future generations. visually represented on the walls of the classrooms and in every syllabi and program handbook is a shortened version of the statement—“collaboration with diverse communities of learners in cultural context, engaged learning with meaning and purpose, and ethical leadership toward a sustainable and just future.” this statement graphically organizes the three concepts of learners, learning, and leadership in a venn diagram and serves as a powerful tool for connecting students and teachers with the college’s commitment to what cped (2015) refers to as the role of developing scholarly practitioners through signature pedagogy, inquiry as practice, and problems of practice. as a recent addition to the program committee—with my background as a teacher leader, educational researcher, and critical foundations teacher educator—i see these guiding frameworks as playing a large role in holding us as leaders in education ethically accountable to social justice and sustainability. seeing social justice and sustainability as a complex but interconnected challenge for both current and future generations, i engage through the design of coursework and conducting collaborative research in a self-reflexive ecocritical pedagogical process. this process is framed primarily by engaging in the process of recognizing the relationship between language, culture, knowledge, and power specifically in relationship to any set of diverse problems of practice. in my conceptualization of this particular graduate program at wsu, i see it differing from more traditional approaches to educational doctoral coursework that tends to separate teachers from administers. by design, this edd program envisions the higher education classrooms as collaborate spaces where local, national, and international problems of practice are not only identified and examined but also where proposed solutions are discussed across traditional professional barriers. all too often while working with critical social justice teachers in k-12 classrooms, i would hear echoes of an overwhelming experience that leadership at the building, district, and state level were not entirely supportive of educational changes in the classroom, such as place-based and project-based learning. yet, while working with principals and district and state level leaders, i would regularly hear that they were working toward their teachers and schools being more student-centered, culturally responsive, and engaged in place-based, and/or project based learning. clearly, a breakdown occurred in the ability of these two (to simplify these groups a bit) categories of working professionals that were likely learning about the same conceptual interventions to inequity in education but not enough about how to implement and sustain those changes as an entire school community or network of school communities. i jumped at the chance to teach in the program’s summer leadership institute—which i fell into out of the generosity of my colleagues—and immediately learned that this program was fostering an intentional space devoted to developing a very different kind of educational leader: leaders that took social justice and sustainability seriously and that were focused on all levels of public education supporting such initiatives. it is one thing to say you are committed to social justice and sustainability, but it is another thing entirely to take on addressing, examining, and proposing solutions to inequities in education, society, and the cultural belief systems undergirding the vastly experienced day-to-day violence of oppression and domination of poverty, sexism, racism, ableism, and speciesism. i thought, if this is possible to do in higher education—and more specifically through the development of scholar-practitioners—then this was as good an opportunity as any to see if we as critical and ethical scholareducators could commit to interrupting the systemic inequities reproduced by current public schooling in the united states. certainly, this fit into the college’s conceptual framework and cped’s definition and design principles. with that in mind, the following is a brief overview of the coursework, research methodology, and approach to supporting students in the program. the program is designed for students across the state and region to attend courses throughout the school year through courses delivered through a variety of means that primarily consist of in person on-campus meetings, video conferencing systems, and online coursework for students in remote locations. additionally, each cohort of students—which are comprised of an intentional selection of students focused on teacher leadership or educational leadership with diverse backgrounds and professional positions in the state and region—attend a two-week summer leadership institute for two consecutive summers. the program committee explains in the program handbook: “the purpose of the leadership institutes is to build a learning community and support network among the statewide cohort, and to form inquiry groups that will focus dissertation research on common problems of leadership in educational settings” (p. 6). over the four-year program, students take courses in leadership, research, and foundations together and then fill out their programs with specialized electives and then preliminary exams and dissertation. a typical program of study for students consists of 15 credits in leadership courses, which consist of the following three credit courses; leadership studies, policy formation & analysis in education, school organization (or school administration), curriculum theory, intro to college student development (to be replaced by introduction to adult learning and professional development). they take the following three credit courses for research: action research, educational statistics, principles of research, qualitative research, and doctoral dissertation preparation. if students elect to do a traditional quantitative dissertation they are required to take a quantitative research course that moves beyond the introductory course content they receive in educational statistics. students are also required to take 9 credits of 3 credit foundations courses: values & ethics, race & identity, and history & philosophy of education. in theory, the college’s conceptual framework and cped’s definition of the educational doctorate influence the design and implementation of all courses—and if not in each course, then at a multitude of points through a student’s program. the program faculty in the committee’s current configuration and leadership is at the moment working to curriculum map the courses with a specific emphasis on the role each course plays not only in the scope and sequence of the program but also toward the development of scholar-practitioners committed to social justice and sustainability. the hope is that through this process emerging from a self and group examination of understanding of the program’s objectives in relation to cped and the college’s conceptual framework, there will be a clearer grasp of a signature pedagogy and inquiry process anchored in addressing problems of practice toward supporting social justice and sustainability. at the current moment, this work is in process and is leaning toward action research models that involve community engagement and methods drawing heavily from participatory action research (par) and youth participatory action research (ypar) influencing both the pedagogy in the courses taught, the connected inquiry course assignments, and research dissertations. with an emphasis on where programmatic changes in curriculum and pedagogy can support the ideal of an ecotistical leadership in education, lupinacci impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 26 the program described in this section, although a work in progress, strives to support social justice and sustainability. colleges of education (and the school districts they serve) are experiencing increasing corporatization under neoliberal influences. in such conditions and facing uncertain futures, leadership education—especially designed and influenced in accordance with cped—is positioned with the opportunity to intentionally set out to replace such egotistical (anthropocentric and individualistic) priorities with ecotistical (ecological or eco-ethical consciousness) leadership with the interest and goals of better addressing 21st century challenges. conclusion in conclusion, the more that educational leaders engage in what this article proposes is a necessary (re)constituting of educational leadership via critically addressing anthropocentrism toward the development and maintaining of an ecotistical leadership, the more potential there will be for educational experiences in schools and communities for educators and other leaders to foster spaces where teachers and students learn together to recognize the tendency of the privileged to dismiss what they would rather not confront. it is important to note that there are plenty of egotistical leaders who for good reason ought to be admired and valued, and who are firm supporters of a shared commitment to respond to the undeniable atrocities that we––as humans––enact on one another. however, none of these atrocities occur in isolation and no solution or political (r)evolution will come from an egotistical authority. in confronting human supremacy and the egotism beholden to western industrial culture’s version of leadership, it is paramount that critical educational leaders work as allied to all those suffering while challenging and confronting the systemic roots of oppression on all our respective fronts. in other words, we all have a responsibility—many of us as privileged members of society—to support those suffering unjustly in whatever capacity we can. as leaders striving toward an ecotistical leadership, we ought to be looking for any and all opportunities to decentralize power from individuals and facilitate a redistribution of power based on justice and equity. (re)constituting educational leadership toward an ecotistical leadership requires leaders, and aspiring leaders, in western industrial culture to stop leading in an egotistical manner, to turn attention toward the difficult necessity for shifting worldviews, and to committing to a cultural change that will mean giving up the power and privilege afforded to some at the cost of others and the environment. as educational leaders deeply embedded in western industrial culture, for many of us this means learning to listen and practicing humility while trusting that if we, enactors of dominant western industrial culture, do not (re)constitute the cultural framework by which dominant meanings are socially constructed, then we are destined to recreate many of the problematic relationships that we, as radical educators, often set out to change. inspired by movements to address unjust suffering from diverse activists around the globe to individual leaders like vermont senator bernie sanders, i am suggesting and sharing in this essay that there are some practical steps toward cultural change and that leadership does not need to be understood or enacted as domination. i end with a list of suggestions aimed toward supporting and addressing the pervasive egotistical leadership in education and turning our efforts toward more ecotistical projects. • engage in learning from the diverse projects in our human and more-than-human communities and commit to rethinking the dominant assumptions influencing how we, as humans, construct meaning and thus how we learn to relate to each other and the more-than-human world. further, make the commitment to critically and ethically examine how we understand educating, organizing, and taking action towards supporting healthy communities that include all beings and the intrinsic value of recognizing, respecting, and representing the right of all beings to belong to and live in peace within an ecological system. • engage in critical and ethical examinations of what it means to be a leader. as notions of leadership are all too often defined in terms of human-centered egotism, it is important to work to (re)constitute leadership in terms of what and how an ecotistical leader might think and act as a leader, and how those often competing but co-existing worldviews contribute to our actions either supporting or undermining the rights of all beings, including future generations, to coexist in peace. • engage in examining leadership in terms of ecological systems and the diverse ways in which our living relationships can be recognized, respected, and represented through teaching and learning among all members. specifically, engage in recognizing the role activist networks in modeling diverse examples of how an ecotistical approach to leadership plays a role in alleviating and eliminating unjust suffering in our communities. powerfully strong examples in the u.s. can be found in human communities in the black lives matter and idle no more movements as well as in more mainstream political movements like the bernie sanders campaign platform for a political revolution of the us government. build networks of solidarity with these organizations. furthermore, ask leaders in these movements about their visions and plans for education that supports social justice and sustainability. • engage in supporting the diverse approaches to leading and healing from western industrial culture and in solidarity show respect for epistemologies that differ from the current dominant way of leading. support the ways in which diverse forms of resistance work to challenge and break the will of their oppressors and as leaders support this resistance even when it means giving up privilege and power. • engage in strong alliance with all those suffering, and support the oppressed in solidarity while simultaneously working to shift and challenge the dominant systems that often perpetuate the suffering of marginalized and subjugated beings. in all cases as leaders stand up, speak out, and take action to stop the systemic domination of one another, ourselves, and our more-than-human kin. in such volatile and authoritarian times, it is important that ecocritical educational leaders learn to work together to challenge dominant perceptions of what currently constitutes leadership and education and work to (re)constitute toward a leadership that takes serious social justice and sustainability. efforts toward a political revolution in leadership can begin by focusing on the importance of convivial leadership networks—rather than on individual advancement. through fostering the development of networks of scholarpractitioners studying and researching 21st century challenges that include ecocritical dialogue we can resist the overwhelming egotism and anthropocentrism in western industrial culture and reject the illusion that as humans we are separate from and superior to each other and all other beings on the planet. we challenge egotism and anthropocentrism when we build solidarity in addressing common dilemmas in our communities with other ecotistical leaders and especially when we teach one another to make choices to include in our leadership networks more-than-humans––be they animals, mountains, trees, a river, the salmon that swim upstream to spawn, the large winged osprey that visit the lakes where we swim and cool off on a hot summer’s day, the food that we grow, or the vast net addressing 21st century challenges in education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.31 27 works of mycelium in the soil. it matters mostly, in this sense, that we work away from understanding ourselves as independent individuals toward the kind of ecotistical understanding of self as interrelated and interdependent on the diverse living systems to which we belong. the point is that we learn a deep respect for difference and our shared dependencies when we understand in an ecological sense what it means to be ecotistical leaders—to recognize and value that we are in relationship with a diversity of wonderful beings and that we owe our existence to these devoted networks. from such relationships, we learn what it means to lead by belonging and without framing that understanding within anthropocentrism; rather, belonging and respect become the leadership practices that we enact in our everyday lives as ecotistical leaders. when we practice an ecotistical educational leadership it is through these convivial and mutually sustaining relationships that we learn to overcome the isolating ills of western industrial culture and our habits of egotism, and we are called to action with our diverse sisters and brothers to teach and lead in support of living systems. references abram, d. 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(2006) forum: eco-tistical art. art journal 65(1), 54-81 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 37 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.263 supporting edd scholar-practitioners through the covid-19 pandemic using an ethic of care sarah capello radford university scapello@radford.edu abstract given the significant challenges pk-12 educational leaders currently face, the purpose of this essay is to orient edd faculty with noddings’ (1984/2003) care ethics as a framework for conceptualizing their work and employing care acts to support edd scholar-practitioners through the covid-19 pandemic. practical strategies for this work are suggested. the author argues that noddings’ (1984/2003) ethic of care provides a timely lens through which edd faculty’s actions can be guided. due to the covid-19 pandemic, faculty have become tasked with supporting their students’ socioemotional well-being in addition to their academic progress. edd faculty must be responsive to these needs if they are to retain students and effectively train scholar-practitioners to identify and address problems of practice. stemming from this argument, future research could empirically investigate how employing care ethics affects scholar-practitioners’ well-being, program satisfaction, retention, and completion rates. keywords education doctorate, edd faculty, ethic of care, covid-19 pandemic introduction edd students are tasked with managing multiple roles and responsibilities stemming from their professional, personal, and academic lives (hill & conceição, 2020), which can lead to tensions as they attempt to balance these intersecting and sometimes conflicting spheres (kovalcikiene & buksnyte, 2015; rockinsonszapkiw, 2019). historically low retention and graduation rates in doctoral programs may be indicative of the unique challenges edd scholar-practitioners face in maintaining this balance and completing their degrees. retention rates across doctoral programs are typically around 50% (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019), and online doctoral programs, a popular program delivery format for edd programs, have attrition rates that are 10-20% higher (graham & massyn, 2019). the council of graduate schools (2022) reports that even “under highly favorable conditions,” 25% of doctoral students still fail to complete their degrees (para. 3). although both programmatic and personal factors influence attrition in doctoral programs (hill & conceição, 2020; rockinsonszapkiw, 2019), scholars have vigorously critiqued the edd specifically for being disconnected from the work of educational practitioners (levine, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). while there is currently no empirical data nationally to shed light on the connection between practitioner-oriented edd programs and edd student attrition, aligning coursework and practice is a common premise for improving student outcomes in the discourse on re-envisioned edd programs. for example, edd reformers such as shulman et al. (2006) and perry (2016) have argued that edd programs need to be distinguished from phd programs and more relevant to preparing educational leaders. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (2021) has proposed principles for program design to support the development of scholar-practitioners who can inquire into and address problems of practice (pops), and some cped institutions have begun to replace a traditional, five-chapter dissertation that prepares researchers for academic work with dissertations in practice that support leaders as they address problems in their practice (tamim & torres, 2022). these efforts to align coursework and practice have led to new, practitioner-oriented visions for edd program design, curriculum, and pedagogy, which may serve to improve doctoral retention and completion rates by aligning the work that students do in their programs with their professional roles and responsibilities. unfortunately, the covid-19 pandemic has introduced an additional, significant burden for edd scholar-practitioners as many have been tasked with: (a) managing professional responsibilities such as never-before-seen school closures, the jarring move to remote and/or hybrid teaching and learning, and the demands of keeping schools, students, and families safe; (b) keeping pace with their doctoral studies; and (c) caring for themselves and their families including aging parents and school-aged children (browning, 2021; bukko & dhesi, 2021). while many were hopeful that the 2021-2022 school year would see a return to more normal schooling environments, the surge in covid-19 cases due to the delta variant in the summer of 2021 further prolonged the uncertainty many educational leaders, students, and families faced (tirrell, 2021). concurrently and without warning, pk-12 educational leaders quickly https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9124-9543 capello impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.263 38 became tasked with navigating new and contentious policies at the state and federal levels regarding masking and vaccine mandates. in the late summer and fall of 2021, u.s. news outlets frequently reported scenes from school board meetings that had become antagonistic and combative as parents fought back against these state and district policies (ferris, 2021; hassan, 2021; lenthang, 2021). on a positive note, at the time of this writing many districts around the country have returned to some form of in-person education. still, educational leaders must now find ways to make up for the academic and socioemotional learning losses students suffered over the past two academic years (camera, 2022a), manage teacher burnout (modan, 2022), and deal with school staffing crises due to a mass exodus from the teaching profession (camera, 2022b). despite the return to more normal pk-12 schooling conditions, educational leaders are not returning to their normal working conditions. while edd students may have needed targeted socioemotional and academic support in normal times to stem the tide of attrition due to the stress of managing full-time careers, coursework, and personal responsibilities, the socio-political and educational contexts they currently face in their professional lives demand that edd program faculty and administrators be responsive to the lived realities of their students and provide intentional and targeted support. noddings’ (1984/2003) ethics of care provides an apt lens for approaching edd education in this current context due to its forefronting of the natural human instinct to care and be cared for as the basis of moral action, the situatedness of caring through relations, and educational grounding and implications for educators at all levels. noddings’ (1984/2003) work has long been popular in educational ethics and has recently been used to guide the development of relationships between researchers and the practitioners with whom they engage in research (e.g., bergmark, 2020). however, using ethics of care as a framework for edd education, especially in light of the covid-19 pandemic, has not been explored. the following sections provide an overview of noddings’ (1984/2003) ethics of care and offer examples of care acts in which edd faculty and program administrators can engage to support edd students who are pk-12 practitioners through the covid-19 pandemic. i conclude by arguing that, during this unprecedented time, edd program faculty must use an alternative lens for approaching their work in order to: (a) be responsive to scholarpractitioners’ current pk-12 realities, (b) provide extra support to students in coursework and dissertation activities, (c) and retain and sustain students as they develop into scholar-practitioners with inquiry skills and dispositions needed to address pops. ethic of care noddings (1984/2003) posited that “[h]uman caring and the memory of caring and being cared for…form the foundation of ethical response” (p. 1) and spurs one to be moral with the ultimate goal of connection within relationships, specifically between the one-caring and the cared-for. she traces the act of caring to the natural action of a mother caring for a child as the relation that forms all human interactions. following suit, the one-caring is outward-focused and engages in caring acts out of moral prompting to benefit the caredfor rather than for self-adulation or praise. for there to be a caring relation, the cared-for must believe that the one-caring actually does care about them or their situation and that the care acts performed are not perfunctory. noddings argued, “we cannot justify ourselves as carers by claiming ‘we care.’ if the recipients of our care insist that ‘nobody cares,’ caring relations do not exist” (1984/2003, p. xiv). one can tell if the care acts are genuine if the one-caring is looking outward to the cared-for and if the action has a positive effect or is likely to have a positive effect on the cared-for. the action of caring stems from the cared-for being in an objective state of needing assistance, and the care acts performed by the one-caring are done out of a sense of compassion and affection for the cared-for. in order to perform care acts, the onecaring should step outside their individual perspective or narrowed lens and should pay particular attention to: (a) the specific situation in which the cared-for resides, (b) the needs of the cared-for, and (c) the expectations of the cared-for for the one-caring. noddings (1984/2003) argues that the caring acts should be motivated by intuition and fondness for the one cared-for rather than guided by a predetermined set of rules. finally, care ethics are reciprocal. as the cared-for benefits from the care acts, the one-caring receives a sense of joy from performing the care acts. this act of reciprocity, according to noddings (1984/2003), is not a contract between two actors but a guiding ethic of in lieu of absolute moral principles. employing an ethic of care in edd education care ethics have a specific application in the field of education. in fact, noddings (1984/2003) argued that, “the greatest obligation of educators, inside and outside formal schooling, is to nurture the ethical ideals of those with whom they come in contact” (p. 49). she further argued that “the student is infinitely more important than the subject [being taught]” (noddings, 1984/2003, p. 20). while edd faculty work within institutional and programmatic constraints that dictate many aspects of their work including policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and course delivery format, these faculty are wellpositioned to not only apply care ethics in their classrooms and programs but also model this stance for pk-12 educational leaders who themselves are likely acting as the ones-caring for teachers, staff, students, and local community members in their districts. many edd faculty are guided by a strong sense of ethics and service and care about their students’ academic and professional success. furthermore, they are in close contact with students through advising, coursework, and dissertation activities. therefore, the question becomes not should edd faculty engage in an ethic of care to support their students through the covid-19 pandemic but rather how can edd faculty effectively do this? to address this question, i provide examples of care acts my edd program colleagues and i have used over the past two and a half years that have made a difference in our students’ academic and personal well-being as they have been communicated to me. however, it is important to first clarify what caring ethics is not. care ethics does not include dumbing down the curriculum, inflating grades, or allowing students to consistently miss classes and deadlines. all of those actions are inherently unethical and do not demonstrate care, because they do not provide high expectations for student learning. furthermore, taking on an ethic of care does not mean that faculty members should become their students’ counselors. faculty may not be trained in mental health counseling, may not feel comfortable in this role or that it is not a part of their responsibilities, and acting in this role may put additional stress or fatigue on faculty members. rather, care ethics seeks to support supporting edd scholar-practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.263 39 students through appropriately-rigorous curriculum, assignments, course expectations, and management of life circumstances. edd faculty can embody and apply an ethic of care to their work with scholar-practitioners during and after the covid-19 pandemic in three different areas: academics, relationships with other students, faculty, and the program, and personal life. table 1 below provides a sampling of care acts that edd faculty members can employ to demonstrate caring ethics for their students. this sample of care acts was influenced by several sources including: (a) noddings’ (1984/2003) work as discussed in the prior section; (b) knowles’ (1988) theory of andragogy, which posits, in part, that adult learning should be meaningful and relevant, self-directed, and connected to adults’ personal and professional lives; (c) research on doctoral student attrition that demonstrates the importance of connection and building relationships among students, peers, and faculty (e.g., fiore et al., 2019; hill & conceição, 2020; studebaker & curtis, 2021), and (d) research on and first-hand accounts of edd students’ experiences during the pandemic (e.g., brochu et al., 2021; browning, 2021; bukko & dhesi, 2021). table 1. examples of care acts to support edd scholarpractitioners area of care care acts academics  include fewer course objectives; focus on the most important and connect all activities to those.  where possible, connect course assignments with work students are doing in their practice.  where possible, connect course assignments to the dissertation in practice.  ensure all activities and assignments are meaningful (i.e., cut “busy work”).  allow time in class for students to workshop their projects or assignments with peers and instructor.  scaffold major assignments.  allow for student voice and choice.  reuse readings for various purposes (e.g., content, learning about research methodology, examining academic writing / apa format). relationships with students, faculty, program  be available for individual conferences with students.  listen and show empathy.  provide opportunities in class or outside of class for students to engage / socialize with each other via coursework.  communicate support from program faculty and administrators.  celebrate accomplishments.  be responsive via email.  encourage students. personal life  acknowledge and affirm the challenging context practitioners are working in.  provide students with contact information for the institution’s wellness center and/or resources for mental health counseling.  have a staff member from the wellness/counseling center visit class and share information about the university’s services and/or lead a de-stressing activity.  begin each class with 3-5 minutes for deep breathing, meditation, prayer, or reflection to help students center themselves, shift from work-mode to school-mode, and focus on the class.  begin class with a “checking in” period that allows students to share what’s going on in their personal and/or professional lives. while edd faculty cannot and should not be expected to meet all of their students’ academic, professional, and personal needs, lower expectations, or take on the role of professional mental health counselors, there are a variety of practical and time-friendly strategies that faculty can use to embody and apply an ethic of care in their programs and support pk-12 scholar-practitioners through— and after—the covid-19 pandemic. although the specific care acts employed may look different depending on program delivery format, course, and instructor personalities and pedagogies, being aware of students’ needs, acknowledging them, and allowing space for caring acts is necessary, impactful, and equity-minded. studies have shown that building and sustaining relationships among students and between the student and faculty members in doctoral programs supports program completion (council of graduate schools, 2022; deshpande et al., 2016; hill & conceição, 2020), especially in online programs (fiore et al., 2019; studebaker & curtis, 2021). studentfaculty relationships may be even more critical post-coursework when faculty members take on a supervisory role, but these relationships may also be harder to establish and maintain in online edd programs (bawa, 2016). thus, care acts may also function to support both scholar-practitioners’ well-being and retention and program completion efforts. implications and conclusion the covid-19 pandemic has placed pk-12 practitioners on the front lines of keeping children safe, preventing and managing large scale teacher burnout, handling parental pushback against state masking and vaccine policies, and mediating learning losses. some of these challenges have never been seen before, and the convergence of them all together is a complex phenomenon for which there is no precedent for addressing them effectively. however, cped-inspired programs that emphasize the development of scholar-practitioners are well-positioned to support edd students through these challenges because of their focus on identifying a pop in a local context, using practitioner inquiry methods to inquire around the pop, blending scholarly knowledge with practical wisdom, and advancing social justice work. students in these programs have a prime opportunity to use their doctoral coursework and dissertation research to address persistent pops that existed before the pandemic as well as pops arising from the pandemic. therefore, it is important that edd programs continue to recruit pk-12 educational leaders into their programs and support them through program completion. however, as noddings (1984/2003) emphasized, it is not enough for program administrators or faculty to tell students they care about their professional, academic, and personal success and well-being; faculty must show that they care through targeted individual and group support. in order to provide this support in the three areas identified in the literature and referenced in table 1, edd program faculty could reexamine their program, curriculum, and dissertation structures as well as their individual pedagogical and instructional orientations and look for ways they are already employing or could adopt new care acts. alternatively, they could solicit feedback from students who have left the program and learn where students struggle and how they might help students meet these challenges (carter-veale et al., 2019). programs, especially those that are hybrid or online, might offer professional and extracurricular events to build relationships among students and between students and faculty. finally, faculty can take time to listen capello impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.263 40 to and acknowledge students’ current lived realities whether individually or in class. i have found that doing this at the start of class is a powerful space and practice for students and faculty to relieve stress, build empathy, foster connections, reflect, and clear the mind to be ready to absorb new and challenging content. although the pandemic has stagnated at the time of this writing, new and exacerbated pressures stemming from it compounded on top of personal and professional responsibilities will likely continue to be a significant strain on edd students who are also full-time practitioners. therefore, edd program faculty and administrators will likely be tasked with providing intentional support to students to prevent attrition. in this uncertain time when students and families across the world need exceptional pk-12 educational leaders, it is critical that edd programs, specifically cped-inspired programs, continue their important work of raising up scholar-practitioners who can face pandemic-induced challenges head-on. like their students’ work, edd program faculty’s work has perhaps never been so important. while this paper presents a largely theoretical argument, future research could inform the practices of edd programs and faculty and shed light on how to not only support edd students through the pandemic and its fallout but also inform the field how to slow student attrition from practitioner-oriented edd programs. several important questions could guide this work such as: how might employing noddings’ (1984/2003) care ethics and specific care acts such as those offered in this paper affect edd students’ well-being, program satisfaction, retention, and completion rates? how are faculty in practitioner-oriented edd programs taking up care ethics or employing care acts to support their students? what are students’ responses to these care acts, and which care acts are most effective? moreover, learning how connecting coursework to practice, which i argue is a care act, improves edd student outcomes could strengthen the argument that shulman et al. 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(2003). caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. university of california press. (original work published in 1984) perry, j. a. (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. information age publishing, inc. rockinson-szapkiw, a. (2019). toward understanding factors salient to doctoral student persistence: the development and preliminary validation of the doctoral academic-family integration inventory. international journal of doctoral studies, 14, 237–258. https://doi.org/10.28945/4248 rockinson-szapkiw, a., holmes, j., & stephens, j. s. (2019). identifying significant personal and program factors that predict online edd students’ program integration. online learning journal, 23(4), 313–335. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i4.1579 shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. 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(2021, july 8). delta covid variant now dominant strain in us. cnbc. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/07/08/delta-covid-variant-nowdominant-strain-in-us.html microsoft word arrows vf.docx new  articles  in  this  journal  are  licensed  under  a  creative   commons  attribution  4.0  united  states  license.   this  journal  is  published  by  the  university  library  system  of  the   university  of  pittsburgh  as  part  of  its  d-­‐scribe  digital  publishing   program  and  is  cosponsored  by  the  university  of  pittsburgh  press.   28 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.28 four ways to expand the foundation for cped’s social justice framework four arrows, edd fielding graduate university djacobs@fielding.edu abstract this article offers recommendations for deepening and expanding the important ideas about social justice that are presented in the current cped social justice framework for the edd. one suggestion is to better articulate the fact that social justice is ultimately inseparable from ecological justice, sustainability and diversity. i also argue that it is best if the proposed framework’s reference to the knowledge economy include awareness of the possibility that it can be as destructive as a material-based one. although the framework report does mention community as a target for social/ecological justice, sustainability and diversity (sejsd), it tends to focus primarily on its application in education settings. this paper emphasizes a greater expansion of sejsd into the world of social/ecological justice education. finally, i suggest a foundation for cped’s framework that includes “project-based learning” whereby work on the edd program’s final project, whether a capstone or dissertation, start “from day one” and be the focal point for all coursework. such a process, common in most international doctoral programs, will assure sejsd and mastery of a chosen topic area are at the highest level of interdisciplinary and will help encourage the kind of praxis in the real world the edd should require, especially in the trumpian era we entered on january 20, 2017. introduction before reading an earlier version of “centering social justice in edd program”, the opening piece of this special issue authored by my friend, colleague and social justice champion, brad j. porfilio and his colleague kathryn strom, i had been critical of cped’s work for not sufficiently addressing “social justice.” in a chapter i wrote for book, the education doctorate, i noted that educational hegemony has stifled the edd’s optimal potential for implementation (stead, 2015). i use brookfield’s definition for hegemony as being “the process by which we learn to embrace enthusiastically a system of beliefs and practices that end up harming us and working to support the interests of others who have power over us” (p. 94). as someone who has written extensively about the hegemony in schools (four arrows, 2013), i saw cped’s six principles for designing an educational doctorate program as needing to be significantly stronger as relates to its important social/ecological justice emphasis. “not even the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped), a prestigious research project started in 2007, has produced significant literature about educational hegemony’s influence on the problems it has supposedly been addressing” (p. 199). as an indigenous scholar and critical theorist i write this piece with counter-hegemonic eyes and offer an expanded perspective for enhancing the language, intentions, and scope of the framework. specifically, i recommend four enhancements for operationalizing social/ecological justice, sustainability and diversity social/ecological justice, sustainability and diversity (sejsd) education for the edd. these include: • adding ecological considerations such as ecological justice, sustainability and diversity to the social justice language; • representing a more holistic understanding of the knowledge economy; • significantly expanding the focus of sejsd beyond the university setting; • including a recommendation for the edd earlier and more intense work on the dissertation or final research project as is generally done in most international doctoral programs. adding ecological considerations this first suggestion is about consistently using language that weaves ecological justice and sustainability into any social/ecological justice documents or conversation. the current cped framework does not do this yet. referring to the slippery slope concerns about defining social justice, it does talk about the importance of “explicitly four ways to expand the foundation for cped’s social justice framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.28 29 defining the way the term is conceived in particular problems”.1 this reference might open the door for a professor or student to make an ecological connection, however i suggest more explicit instructions for this are important. it took me years to get my own social-justice oriented university to include “ecological” when referring to social justice, and too many dedicated social justice educators in our anthropocentric world continue miss the vital connection. whenever we refer to social justice it is important to include ecological justice as well. if the new edd guidelines change, doing so might positively impact the current ecological crises and its causal and consequential injustices. language is important. leaders in higher education and in social justice movements who understand the inseparability of social, ecological, and economic systems (rixecker & tipene-matua, 2003/2012) can better serve the social justice issues targeted by the cped framework. bringing ecological considerations into the picture when referring to social justice allows educators to discuss the problems of anthropocentrism and its influence on justice education. i suggest that our human-centered orientation toward having superiority over animals and a fear of the natural world begins the journey of human versus-human injustice. once we are able to feel superior to any life form, this sets the stage for looking down on people who are different (four arrows et al., 2010). unfortunately, the idea of human superiority and hierarchy over animals, rivers, trees, etc. continues to guide human economic and political choices, too many of which lead to injustice, inequality, and disrespect for diversity as well as leading us closer and closer to the reality of a sixth mass extinction (kolbert, 2014). one of the first things that non-indian supporters who came to the dakota access pipeline protest at standing rock learned was that the mighty missouri river was not just “water” but mni wiconi-the essence of life-giving as is mother’s milk from the breast. it is life itself and deserves respect accordingly. in 1987, the united nations referred to anthropocentrism versus biocentrism in describing links between environment, social justice, and peace (world commission on environment and development, 1987) but such ideas seldom make their way into teacher training programs. of course, many scholars have recognized the importance of connecting social to environmental justice in general (schmitz et al., 2012), but still do so in a human-centered way. for example, besthorn (2006) writes, “social work can no longer afford to miss the message that as the environment goes so goes human development” (p.2). as long as the connection is seen as solely for the benefit of humans we will continue to destroy all of life on the planet. until we do as we did for most of human history and what traditional indigenous peoples are still doing whereby we consider 1 note that i’ll use quotation marks when citing from the “foundational framework” article by porfilo et al but without repetitive referencing. i understand the publishers of this journal must put my citations into apa and only respectfully and with understanding state here it is not with my blessing. my own university also continues to require the use of apa in spite of my please to take a stand in light of the organization’s unpunished collusion and cover-up regarding the cia’s illegal torture policies and a number of other horrific contributions to social injustice i write about in my article at truthout in 2014 entitled “are eugenics, torture and social control hidden legacies of the american psychological association?”). rivers, trees, and frogs as having intrinsic value and as co-conscious entities, even as teachers, the foundation of superiority will remain a root cause for such destructive behavior. for many years i have conducted an experiment to help people realize that there is a living, intelligent, spiritual energy in even plants. i simply ask students or workshop participants to go outside and touch one quickly then return to the classroom. next, i ask them to go outside again, but this time i tell them to ask it permission before touching it and to wait for a response before doing so. over the years the feelings participants describe when they return are remarkable in how they describe a reciprocal communication, with many stories bringing forth tears. imagine if we lived life this way continually and thought of “natural resources” as our sacred relatives. how might this change the way we treat water, trees, and other-than-human (or greater-than-human) life? rethinking the dominant human-centered view may be a prerequisite for addressing the pitfalls of capitalism’s contribution to ecological crises also. economic externalities that create social and ecological injustices and loss of biodiversity would have to be reconsidered if other-than-humans received respect for having intrinsic value rather than only utilitarian value. in the libertarian view, which on this point is supported more or less by most people, everything on earth has only instrumental value for humans. loyola economics professor and author, walter block (2011) writes, “i regard humans as of intrinsic value and animals, plants, minerals, etc., as only of instrumental benefit insofar as they promote human welfare” (p.102).2 in short, man has rights because they are natural rights. they are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor (p.44). this manner of thinking lays the foundation for social and ecological injustices, from structural inequality to genocide. once we assume superiority over anything in nature, it can lead to a hierarchy over other people for whom we erroneously perceive as superiority. there are many connections between social justice and ecological issues beyond those that relate to human-centeredness that are not typically or sufficiently included in curriculum for the edd. for one, students ought to have courageous conversations about the role of organized religions in promoting destruction of earth’s life systems and injustices of all sorts (four arrow, 2014). for another, students should explore the important connections between poverty and environment. poverty has a devastating effect on climate change, deforestation and water pollution because people in poverty over-rely on wood and use unsustainable agricultural methods. wealthy people force people into poverty owing to exploitation of 2 because i have disagreed with most of what dr. block has written over the years, i invited him to co-author a book with me in which we had to “argue cooperatively” rather than “debate.” this quote comes from our book and although i still disagree with it, we did find common ground and share a friendship, strange bedfellows that we are. arrows impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.28 30 environment that destroys local livelihoods. people on the low end of the hierarchy suffer most from climate change problems. without deep awareness of ecological interconnectedness and whether as a matter of survival or not, rich and poor alike aspire toward lifestyles emphasizing consumption. the result will come to a head as depletion of water, soil health and food itself continues to create conflict. because violations of sejsd stem from unawareness about these links (blowers, 2003), and because education is the tool for awareness, the edd has a responsibility to include sejsd in its curricula. implementing a more holistic understanding of the knowledge economy as ecological issues are inseparable from social justice, so too are economic realities. unlike ecological issues, economic ones are not generally ignored in day-to-day decisions. strom and porfilio call attention to economic contributors to social injustice when it rightly identifies “the neoliberal” “corporate” reform movement that seeks to privatize, standardize, and deregulate school systems” and “an economically-motivated push for “twenty-first century skills” to meet job demands of the knowledge economy.” these authors also recognize education’s responsibility: “against a backdrop of global economic crises, these trends are expanding the historically entrenched inequalities that have been perpetuated by our educational institutions.” yet without more specific direction supplied in guidelines for higher education curricula about the growing knowledge economy, a blanket acceptance of its dependence on destructive potentialities is likely to continue. the edd curriculum must offer alternative perspectives about the knowledge economy. if the cped consortium embraces it without serious critical reflection, it misses a vital opportunity for dialogue about all factors that are preventing sustainability and justice. strom and porfilio are right in pointing out the potential for the concern about unequal access to skill acquisition and employment access, but a larger problem exists as relates to sustainability and wealth distribution. educators at the highest level must understand how the knowledge economy itself, not just the privatization movement, is closely linked to neoliberal globalization and rapid environmental destruction (brinkley, 2006). high tech design, business services, management, financial services, health, and education may seem benign and even preferable to materialbased economies, but it can go either way depending on how we educate ourselves. is computer technology really more eco-friendly for reading and learning than bound books or newspapers? people in edd programs are in a position to study the ecological impact of our constant expansion of technology. student projects can compare situations in various locations or between first and third world environments. they can look at consequences in their own schools and in the communities in which they reside of how service and knowledge based economic phenomenon might be understood in ways to mitigate ecological problems. however, without the awareness that the knowledge economy can indeed be more destructive than a material-based economy, we are unlikely to make the wisest decision with respect to the future of the planet. for example, in higher education, more and more schools are using telecommunications as part of administrative systems and teaching without considering possible social/ecological justice or sustainability impacts. educators at the doctoral level should be aware of whether or not educational technology itself might be responsible for ecological imbalance. in an article titled helping teachers respond meaningfully to technology, nichols (1993) writes that educational technology is deleterious to education and the environment and that we are morally responsible for how others are affected by it. chet bowers (1988, 1993) also writes about the unthinking culture of schools and about how their educational technologies contribute to ecological injustice and threats to sustainability (bowers, 1993). kenway et al. (2006) writes that we may not be able to say for certain that techno-scientific innovation in the knowledge economy will help or hurt but that we must at least seriously discuss and measure possibilities who will put such options on the table for future economists to consider? educators are responsible for creating k-16 curricula that prepare people to reason, intuit, and think creatively about the interconnected and potential consequences of decisions made in the knowledge economy. peters (2011) argues for such education in an article about “greening the knowledge economy.” the most sustainable and ‘productive’ interface in advanced postindustrial societies in the twenty-first will be that between the knowledge and the ‘green economy.’ it charts three forms of the knowledge economy – the ‘creative’, ‘learning’ ‘open science’ economy – each of which profiles education as a central activity and ‘learning processes’ as the source of intellectual energy driving the new educational environment and shaping emergent knowledge ecologies. it discusses the significance of network analysis as a broad methodology that provides the basis in terms of policy for yoking large systems together – ecosophy, ecology and economics and social, ecological, and economic sustainability. it also proposes a postmodern critique of neoliberal economics before examining conceptions of the green economy and its sustainability. (p.14). peters encourages educators to look more broadly, “at the need for a broad shift from anthropocentric conceptions of economy to one based on a systems framework, and in this light, considers the relations among eco-politics, environmental education and prospects for green capitalism” (p.22). as part of its anti-neoliberal orientation, strom and porfilio’s piece can help stimulate edd students and graduates to take the lead in embracing and advocating for these alternative perspectives. expanding the focus of social / ecological justice beyond the university setting a third concept in strom and porfilio’s piece has to do with, what i see as, the ultimate goal of education and the cped project itselfmaking the world more socially and ecologically just in the world at large, not just within the educational systems alone. as it stands, strom and porfilio are not sufficiently clear on whether sejsd is only about education issues per se or about preparing educators to engage the serious threats to democracy, equal treatment, economic fairness and ecological sustainability outside the schools in communities and workplaces. as it is, the authors’ ideas might be interpreted as looking only at problems of professional practice in educational processes, such as fair treatment of students, diverse student populations, etc. if so, this focus on organizational justice alone, teaching mostly about procedural, interpersonal, and distributed fairness within schooling, four ways to expand the foundation for cped’s social justice framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.28 31 may prevent the new edd from curbing hegemonic forces that are destroying healthy life systems everywhere. the following passage from their piece prompts the question as to whether or not cped’s reference to “problems of practice” relates to the practice of education or also to the practices of corporations, governments, and other groups. accordingly, the principles of the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (2009) promote the development and continuous improvement of professional doctorate programs that are “framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.” this principle is grounded in work such as that of shields (2014) which states: one cannot argue for the excellence of a school, regardless of test scores, if there are some groups of children who are misplaced in low-level special education classes; if certain groups of students are over represented in suspensions, dismissals, or dropouts; if parental wealth determines class or program placement; or if the curriculum is narrow and sterile and focused on test attainment rather than learning. these injustices in actuality prevent a school from being both socially just and academically excellent. the two go hand in hand. (p.) such concerns remain important but the edd emphasis on social/ecological justice must move beyond this internal focus that conceptualizes only as it relates to program development, coursework, student advising, research methods and to dissertations. i know this sometimes takes courage. i was on the front lines when the national council for accreditation of teacher education (ncate) removed “social justice” from the list of desired dispositions for teachers. clarity about purpose is especially important. strom and porfilio do refer to “explicitly defining the way the term is conceived in a particular program and articulating the bodies of theoretical literature from which that definition is constructed and actively connecting that contextual conceptualization of social justice to the ways it informs action in the doctoral program, but this is too ambiguous and allows for status-quo thinking. however, without realizing the role education must play in human survival, this focus will fall short. status quo in education is a powerful force. my own university almost expanded its focus with a stronger pro justice and sustainability vision but status quo forces stifled it. when i wrote about the project i was excited that we might become “the first survival university” but knew there was a high chance that faculty and administrators would see it as too bold. (this is the reason i added the question mark in my piece about it on truthout entitled, the first survival university? (four arrows, 2015). however, we have a chance with a new edd degree to emphasize curricula that connects classroom counter-hegemony to real-world education before it is too late. an earlier, more intense focus on the final research product one way to help achieve the goals for a more intentional focus on social/ecological justice and sustainability within the new edd is to have students to come into the program with a relevant research agenda in mind that they will start studying immediately. instead of merely absorbing what faculty feel is important to teach during the first two years, students should use coursework to work toward mastery of their focus from day one. in “the authentic edd program: project-based and counter-hegemonic” (four arrows, 2015), i write that edd graduates often perpetuate the beliefs of their instructors and administrators who are still clinging to competitive work; authoritarian expertise; hierarchy; letter grading; rigidly structured dissertations that stifle critical thinking and creativity in spite of the mandate for making an original contribution to literature and who in one way or the other stifle speaking truth to power in a politicallyoriented curriculum. doing project-based learning that relates to improving educational practice in ways that prepare educators to help students become change agents can make the edd a more vital tool in behalf of human survival. it helps assure that edd students deeply engage and study interdisciplinary aspects of a research project and praxis early on or even before admittance to the program. the content of syllabus-driven coursework can be negotiated for each student so as to provide a unique lens through which to better understand their research focus, a focus that attends to the most serious educational concerns of our time. how the research is represented can be a capstone project description and summary; a participatory action research log; a five-chapter dissertation or a creative alternative dissertation, but instead waiting until coursework is done to start learning to master the student’s main interest, work on it begins immediately or even before entry as is done in many international doctoral programs. when students decide upon their research focus, whether relating to curriculum, instruction or policy, faculty should encourage them strongly to consider sejsd aspects of their interest and plans for the final project. every life system is at a tipping point and injustice prevails in so many ways that it is difficult for me to imagine someone wanting to do a dissertation research project that would not make a connection to sejsd, whether global issues in the world or specific to problems of practice in education per se. the dispositions, knowledge, and skills needed should not be ancillary add-ons to the edd curriculum, but part of the broader goals of education to create full human beings who know how to learn and contribute in ways that help to express their full, positive mental, physical, social and spiritual lives. the goal of the edd is not “to get a job as a professor” or “to get a salary increase.” what makes the edd work that is currently being conducted by the cped exciting is that it has a chance of changing what many critical theorists have claimed about the existing hegemonic functions of education. edd degree work must stimulate critical and intuitive consciousness, virtues for acting on what is discovered to be for the greatest good, and skills for influencing transformation when appropriate. greg cajete (1994) refers to such goals as “seeking, finding, being with, and celebrating spiritual ecology” as relating to “becoming complete, of good heart, of good thought, with harmony” (p. 46). it is true that such education may be most important and most effective during a child’s early years. however the role of “higher education” is key to how future educators ultimately prepare children to be citizens. thus the edd with the goals and perspectives i have offered can truly become one of the most important doctoral degrees offered in higher education. we can no longer afford to ignore the challenges facing our world nor the hegemony that causes us to be in denial of them. perhaps it has always had this potential and this is why it has faced such systemic challenges from the established academy. whatever the barriers to what some may consider an idealist, radical vision for the edd such as i have proposed must be overcome if we are to have a chance to mitigate education’s role in the global challenges that are facing us today. arrows impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 2 (2017) doi 10.5195/ie.2017.28 32 references besthorn, f. h. (2006). “instructional techniques for social work education: insights from deep ecology in its norwegian cultural context.” universitas: on-line journal of research, scholarship and creative activity, 2(1), 1-18. block, w. (2011) “ecological justice” in four arrows and block w., differing worldviews in higher education: two scholars argue cooperatively about justice education. rotterdam: sense publishers blowers, a. (2003). inequality and community: the missing dimensions of sustainable development. in: s. buckingham, k. theobald (eds.), local environmental sustainability, pp. 235–250. boston, woodhead publishing limited bowers, c.a. (1988). the cultural dimensions of educational computing. new york: teachers college press. -(1993). education, cultural myths, and the ecological crisis: toward deep changes. albany, ny. suny press. brinkley, i. “defining the knowledge economy. the work foundation. london: carlton house. web. accessed 4/23/2016 at http://www.theworkfoundation.com/assets/docs/publications/65_defining %20knowledge%20economy.pdf brookfield, s. d. (2005). the power of critical theory: liberating adult learning and teaching. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass cajete, g. (1994) look to the mountain: an ecology of indigenous education. durango, co: kivaki press four arrows (2008) the authentic dissertation: alternative ways of knowing, research and representation. london: routledge four arrows (march 15, 2010): “anthropocentrism’s antidote: reclaiming our orientation to the non-human teacher.” in critical education, edited by e. wayne ross et al. university of british columbia. four arrows (september 15, 2014). “false doctrine” and the stifling of indigenous political will in critical education. vol.5, no.13., vancouver, university of british columbia four arrows (2015). “hegemonic barriers to the american edd” in stead, v. (vol.ed.) the education doctorate (ed.d.): issues of access, diversity, social justice and community leadership. in v. stead (series ed) higher education theory, policy, and praxis, vol.5. new york: peter lang kenway, j., bullen, e., fahey, j., & robb, s. (2006). haunting the knowledge economy. new york: routledge kolbert, elizabeth. (2014). the sixth extinction: an unnatural history. new york :henry holt and company nichols, r. g. (1993). critical theory, educational technology, and ethics: helping teachers respond meaningfully to technology. in m. simonson & k.o. abu, eds. the 1993 proceedings of selected research paper presentations. washington, dc: association for educational communications and technology. peters, m.a. (2011) “greening the knowledge economy: ecosophy, ecology and economy” in economics, management and financial markets. vol. 8 (2), pp. 11-38. rixecker, s and tipene-matua, b. (2012) in agyeman, julian, bullard, robert d., & evans, bob (eds) just sustainabilities: development in an unequal world. london: earthscan: 2012. (originally published in 2003 by mit press as “maori kaupapa and the inseparability of social and environmental justice: an analysis of bioprospecting and a people’s resistance to bio cultural assimilation”) schmitz, c. l., matyók, t. sloan, l., & james, c. d. (2012). the relationship between social work and environmental sustainability: implications for interdisciplinary practice. international journal of social welfare, 21(3), 278-286. world commission on environment and development (1987). our common future. new york, oxford university press. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 7 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 an approach to an online edd in community college leadership program christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu annmarie hughes new jersey city university ahughes3@njcu.edu john melendez new jersey city university jmelendez@njcu.edu kimberlee hooper new jersey city university khooper@njcu.edu eric klein new jersey city university eklein@njcu.edu faraz siddique new jersey city university fsiddique@njcu.edu ellen wasserman new jersey city university ewasserman1@njcu.edu abstract the purpose of this article is to provide an example of how an edd in community college leadership program is offered in an online format. first, the benefits of online programs, including increased access and flexibility for working professionals and higher levels of diversity among the student body are discussed. then, several strategies to promote connection among students and to facilitate a supportive, engaging learning environment virtually are shared. for example, the value of using a cohort model, a carefully designed curriculum with assignments that have practical value, and a balance of synchronous and asynchronous learning activities are described. finally, the important role of and strategies for incorporating models and mentors into an online doctoral program are discussed. keywords online program, cohort, synchronous and asynchronous learning, curriculum social justice and equity are core values of doctoral programs that follow the guiding principles of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (n.d.). toward this end, a diverse student body is essential. however, there is a lack of diversity among the student body in graduate programs. according to 2018 data provided by the national center for education statistics (2020), 63% of those enrolled in graduate programs in education were white, while only 14% were black, and 11% were hispanic. one way to promote equity is by offering online doctoral programs. an online format can provide an inclusionary structure that encourages participation by scholars who represent the varied populations served by community colleges. increased access to graduate programs is evidenced by the number of students of color who enroll in fully online programs. according to the national center for education statistics (n.d.), the percentage of black graduate students enrolled in online programs increased more than any other racial group, shifting from only 7.5% in 2003-2004 to 45.3% in 20152016. the percentage of hispanic graduate students enrolled in online programs also increased from 5% in 2003-2004 to 31.2% in 2015-2016. although the percentage of white students also increased, this increase was not as substantial. in 2003-2004, the percentage of white graduate students in fully online programs was 6.7% compared to 26% in 2015-2016. thus, online programs seem to be an excellent way to increase the pipeline for diverse educational leaders. according to the national center for education statistics (n.d.), the number of graduate students enrolled in online degree programs in the education field has substantially increased from only 8.2% in 2003-2004 to 34.3% in 2015-2016. yet, according to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (2018) annual report, only 20% of the edd programs offered by consortium members of cped are delivered in an online format. increasing the diversity of educational leaders is critical, especially in the community college sector. students of color are most likely to attend community colleges, yet the faculty and administrative leaders are still predominately white (dembicki, 2018). recruiting and supporting doctoral students who are black and latinx helps increase and strengthen the pipeline of strong leaders who reflect the diversity of the community college student population. the online community college leadership edd at new jersey city university (ccl) program has attracted a diverse student http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:charrington1@njcu.edu mailto:ahughes3@njcu.edu mailto:jmelendez@njcu.edu mailto:khooper@njcu.edu mailto:charrington1@njcu.edu mailto:fsiddique@njcu.edu mailto:ewasserman1@njcu.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3376-8449 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0545-3052 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1267-8188 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4467-4301 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2096-9420 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4150-469x harrington, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 8 population. in the ccl program, 48% of cohort 1 and 27% of cohort 2 are black and 13% of cohort 1 and 14% of cohort 2 are hispanic. the flexibility of the online format can make it easier for diverse working professionals to attend a full-time graduate program. doctoral programs that are offered in a traditional, face-to-face format add burdens such as travel costs, housing costs, time for travel, and inflexible schedules that can negatively impact students personally and professionally. these barriers may discourage prospective students, especially black and latinx students as they are more likely to face multidimensional poverty (reeves et al., 2016), from applying to the program and thus earning a doctoral degree that is often needed to get their voice at the table for important conversations about supporting community college success. the online ccl program was founded on principles of access and social justice and is devoted to promoting equity for students so they can bring this focus forward in their scholarship and careers. in addition to the increased likelihood of a racially diverse student body, another benefit of an online program is geographic diversity. students in the ccl program live in the states of mississippi, new jersey, new york, pennsylvania, washington, and wisconsin. because community college systems vary state by state, having geographic diversity adds tremendous value to the conversations and learning process. an online program provides access for a diverse student body and tremendous flexibility for learning. students often find the flexibility of an online program attractive but may have reservations about whether an online program will be engaging and productive. it is common for many students to enter an online program with hesitation about whether this decision will help them achieve their professional goals. faculty too may be unsure about the effectiveness of an online program. some educators may question whether online programs develop critical thinking as effectively as in-person courses do. hermond and tanner (2020) defined five domains of critical thinking including understanding, judgment, reflection, originality, and caution/skepticism. they conducted a small study of graduate students in texas to determine the degree to which participants in online graduate courses value critical thinking and the degree to which feel they are developing these skills. their study found that 80% of the participants valued critical thinking as essential in their learning process and that the graduate students were quite satisfied with the degree to which they were exposed to the competencies of critical thinking in online courses, with an average score of 4.35 out of 5 on the assessment scale (hermond & tanner, 2020). rather than an environment of competition and secrecy about research, there is an open and sharing community where cohort members challenge and support one another. there are several strategies that can make the online learning experience a positive one, perhaps even better than what can be achieved via traditional in-person formats. in the following section, examples of how a ccl program has aimed to engage and support students in a virtual learning environment will be shared. three aspects of the ccl program will be discussed: the cohort model, curriculum development and delivery, and the use of models and mentors. the cohort model the cohort model in educational leadership programs is one that is growing in appreciation throughout the academic world and is especially important in an online edd program. the cohort model is not new. it has been employed in various educational leadership programs since the 1950s. however, this format has increased in popularity in educational leadership programs as the cohort concept has been shown to enhance interpersonal relationships and individual support in these programs (barnett et al., 2000). lovitts and nelson (2000) pointed out that a key to helping scholars complete a doctorate is to encourage and support a sense of community among doctoral students. many students have concerns about whether they will connect to their faculty and classmates in an online learning experience, but the cohort model provides a sense of belonging, comradery, and networking opportunities. rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2019) found that students had higher levels of feeling connected and integrated when a cohort model was used. research suggests that a cohort model increases the number of individuals who complete their degrees and provides a higher rate of continued interaction among members over the duration of their professional careers (nimer, 2009). the intentional emphasis on personal ownership and agency in a cohort model builds personal investment from the students and mirrors the process of being in the role which they envision post-graduation. the online modality provides flexibility to adult learners who are often juggling full-time work as well as various personal commitments. an online learning experience provides a level of stability that makes achieving a doctoral degree while balancing work-life commitments more tenable, and the cohort model provides students with a built-in support system. many students in this edd program have commented that they sometimes forget this is an online program because they feel so connected to their peers and professors, having several opportunities to engage with them each week when it fits into their schedule. the cohort experience enhances the online learning format by developing a community of learners. the ccl program uses a cohort model with cohort sizes of 21-23. the cohort model was used to support student success by fostering connections among classmates and increasing communication pathways. fostering connections online students face unique barriers in making connections with peers including challenges associated with creating relationships at a distance. before the start of the ccl program, group collaboration was encouraged through an assigned partner activity, where students had to meet and then introduce a classmate at the first orientation session. this design was an excellent ice breaker and an enjoyable way for students to be introduced to cohort members. during a summer institute, which was held virtually due to the pandemic, students were required to use a pecha kucha approach to introduce themselves to the entire group. pecha kucha presentations consist of 20 slides that each run only 20 seconds long. the slides contain only graphics and no text. this concise and engaging presentation format was an interesting and effective way for cohort members to learn more about each other. students were able to share their motivations and experiences with the group, which significantly enhanced the initial bond among cohort members. through this process, it was discovered that many shared the same an approach to an online edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 9 struggles and motivations to enter the program. berry (2017) noted that cohort and small group activities can promote a sense of community in online programs. communication the program was designed from the onset to encourage communication between the cohort through several platforms. faculty hold monthly virtual meetings and weekly office hours specific to each cohort. weekly zoom office hours and meetings are a space for students to connect with cohort members as well as facilitate continued communication with professors. also, faculty host numerous synchronous sessions on topics related to the courses and overall program. synchronous sessions are offered at different times on different days to accommodate the varied schedules of students and are recorded for those unable to attend the live sessions. throughout the program, students are expected to support one another. in many courses, the students are required to share their work in an online space such as a discussion board so that cohort members can review the work of their colleagues and engage in further dialogue. this approach allows students to benefit from peer conversations and models and in many cases, the students are expected to provide constructive peer feedback to one another. students were also encouraged to connect on their own. for example, each cohort was encouraged to set up group messaging, using tools such as what’s app, between the cohort members. this provides a space for continued collaboration, encouragement, and support throughout each class. the graduate assistant in the department was also charged with setting up regular informal meetings for cohorts to get together virtually to discuss challenges, share successes, and support one another. students in the cohorts determine the nature and focus of these meetings. in addition, many students have offered to share their expertise. for example, students who have strong writing skills have provided mini workshops on using apa style and others who have strong quantitative skills have provided support related to statistics and research skills. in the ccl program, some students report logging into informal zoom meetings with cohort members to work independently on assignments so that they can easily ask a question of a classmate as needed. curriculum design and delivery curriculum design and delivery are always important, but especially so in an online program. this ccl program is outcomesbased and focused on the notion of constructive alignment. smith and lovat (2003) defined curriculum as a process of making decisions about educational goals and how best to accomplish them. the constructive alignment refers to the faculty’s role in creating a learning environment, incorporating academic assessment, and utilizing pedagogical activities that support the achievement of the desired learning outcomes. a description of the following four curriculum factors will be discussed: using backward design, honoring the varied experiences and talents of students, connecting academia to practice, and the importance of balancing of synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences when delivering curriculum. using backward design using wiggins and mctighe’s (2005) backward design, the faculty identified program and course-level outcomes that align with what is needed in the field. an advisory board comprised of 18 community college experts from across the nation was created and their input on the essential skills and knowledge needed, along with the competencies outlined by the american association of community colleges (2018), shaped the outcomes that guided the program and curriculum development. the curriculum in the online ccl program provides collective and shared goals for students to discuss and apply innovative ideas to solve problems with multidimensional styles of leadership. reducing equity gaps and applying social justice is a focus throughout the curriculum. toward this end, readings and expert guest lecturers have been carefully selected to ensure that the voices of black, latinx, and other marginalized populations are heard. after the program and course outcomes were determined, faculty defined the types of assessments that would demonstrate student achievement of these outcomes. at the program level, a program evaluation dissertation framework was identified as a key assessment. this research approach provides students with the data collection and analysis skills needed to make informed decisions about what programs to support as a leader. in addition to supporting student skill development, this approach also provides a significant benefit to community college partners who may not have the resources for a program evaluation but would find this data incredibly helpful to their work. in this online program, students are encouraged to focus on how to conduct the program evaluation virtually. this enables students to support the work of community colleges across the nation and not be restricted by geography. at the course level, assignments align with course-level learning outcomes and support the overall program goals and priorities. for example, in the introductory research course, the scholarly practitioner, one of the outcomes focuses on students learning to communicate research findings to various community college stakeholders. the assessment is a blog on an identified problem of practice. this assignment directly connects to the scholarly practitioner focus of the program. formative assessments such as an annotated bibliography and a synthesis matrix have been used to assist students with skill development and to support their success on this summative assessment. teaching strategies were then carefully selected to support student success on these formative and summative assessment tasks. for example, in addition to faculty sharing their expertise, a community college expert who writes blogs for inside higher education was invited to conduct a webinar for doctoral students. during this webinar, the presenter shared tips on how to write blogs, the benefits of doing so, and many of the challenges that can be encountered when writing blogs. in addition, faculty invited students to share their drafts, giving and receiving feedback, during zoom working sessions and via asynchronous online discussions. honoring student experiences and talents to develop relevant curriculum, faculty need to know who their students are and what they will be bringing to their studies (lea, 2004). a diverse student body requires increased innovation in the way courses are developed and delivered to meet the demands of different cohorts of students (gaskell & mills, 2014). toward this end, faculty in the ccl program have spent significant time getting to harrington, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 10 know their students through one-on-one meetings, phone calls, and small and large group discussions. this information is used to assist ccl faculty in identifying partners or group membership for projects, connecting cohort members with similar experiences or interests, and shaping assignments to build and expand on student knowledge and experiences. the information learned from these meetings also guided faculty in determining what type of support their online learners needed to achieve the course learning outcomes. for example, faculty have asked on and off-campus experts to assist students with developing their library search skills, giving online presentations, and learning how to use online tools such as reference management systems that can help them be more efficient and productive. in some cases, faculty have asked students with expertise in using technology tools to share their knowledge with cohort members during a zoom meeting or through a recorded instructional video. sankaran and bui (2000) proposed that to be able to reap the full benefits of online learning, education needs to match technology with the background and needs of the learners. connecting academia to practice curriculum in an online program can be designed to provide students with practical opportunities to put theory and research into action. the learning experiences in this ccl program enable students to practice the skills being taught in the program directly in a work setting. for example, during the second year of the program, students participate in an experiential learning program. thus, the ccl program allows students to work as a thought partner and team member on a project at a community college placement site. this service-learning approach assists students with developing essential leadership skills and content expertise while providing a valuable service to a community college partner. as this is a virtual experience, students can work with colleges across the nation and outside experts can easily provide guidance and support via zoom meetings. this virtual approach also makes it easier for doctoral students to participate in meetings at the placement site as travel time is not necessary. many students can use a lunch break to attend virtual zoom meetings with their colleagues at the community college partner site. in addition, the program evaluation dissertation requires the student to add knowledge to the field, while concurrently implementing and assessing programs designed to make a positive impact. this has immediate value to the institution where the program evaluation is being conducted as they will be able to use the data to guide decision-making. this program evaluation framework facilitates and challenges future leaders in the cohort to understand their research as it specifically relates to a community college rather than a hypothetical or generalized academic setting. the virtual nature makes it much easier for students to interact with key stakeholders as this eliminates travel time and costs that would often serve as barriers. delivering curriculum: balancing synchronous and asynchronous experiences curriculum delivery is also important. the ccl doctoral program blends synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning environments in a way that helps students feel connected to the faculty, content, and each other while not over-taxing students who are working professionals. research has found that increased opportunities for synchronous learning were associated with higher levels of program integration (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019). despite their value, synchronous learning activities can be a challenge for students with inconsistent and busy schedules. flexibility is important for students that select an online doctoral program because most are working full-time and assuming responsibilities at home. rather than having set times where students are required to attend synchronous sessions, the ccl program offers optional synchronous sessions. sessions are either mid-day when some can use their lunch hour to attend or late afternoon or evening. they are held on different days of the week to accommodate the varied schedules of students. each semester, students interact with numerous community college leaders such as college presidents, researchers, and authors via these synchronous meetings. these sessions are recorded and shared with those unable to attend. on average, approximately 75% of the students in the ccl program have attended the live sessions. in addition to cohort and program synchronous sessions, the ccl program faculty have encouraged students to connect regularly with each other using synchronous methods and use this approach for individual and small group meetings with students. interaction is a key component in becoming successful. it is important that faculty and students feel a connection to the content of each lesson and each other (watts, 2016). in the absence of physical interaction, faculty and students must identify creative ways to connect through technology that enables them to contribute to the group dynamic. research suggests that adult students seek to foster relationships with others and share their expertise in an academic setting (merrian & caffarella, 1999, as cited in barnett et al., 2000). technology offers various modes of communication that promote the social element of learning where information sharing can spark ideas and initiate reflective thinking (watts, 2016). the ccl program offers students a well-balanced mix of interactive synchronous sessions with diverse speakers and topics, and asynchronous discussions that promote expansive thinking and the opportunity to share ideas and experiences. connecting with faculty and students through discussion boards and group projects fosters the interaction students often crave when trying to be introspective and reflective in an online setting. when online courses and programs were first developed, the primary tool was the discussion board, but with the significant advances in technology, there are numerous ways to engage online learners. perez et al. (2020) emphasized the significance of interaction in coursework, research, and co-curricular activities on students’ perspectives on the relevance of equity, diversity, and inclusion. the online format provides students with numerous ways such as discussion boards, chat, and zoom to connect with classmates, faculty, and experts in the field. incorporating both synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning strikes an important balance between connection and flexibility. the synchronous sessions in the ccl program offer faculty and students an opportunity to participate in thoughtful dialogues that reflect on readings, apply theories, and incorporate professional experiences, while the asynchronous sessions enable students to process information over time and share insight into the perspectives of themselves and others. through individual assignments and group work, students collaborate with fellow leaders from diverse backgrounds and cultures while navigating each assignment and building skills that translate back to their professional roles (lieberman, 2018). the ccl doctoral program an approach to an online edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 11 uses a blend of interactive onand off-line discussion and collaborative assignments. models and mentors one of the central tenets of the ccl program is that modeling and mentoring are critical to leadership development. faculty serve as models, which supports student development of essential leadership skills (cohen et al., 2016). for example, faculty actively engage in professional and public scholarship focused on equity, social justice, and student success. faculty share this work with their students and often invite students to co-present or co-author papers. faculty also encourage students to publish on their own (kezar et al., 2018). in addition, faculty bring in numerous experts to speak to students about various issues facing the community college sector. in some cases, speakers engage in a discussion with a specific cohort, and in other cases, speakers address all students in the program. students also get to learn from keynote and breakout session speakers at the annual conference, the community college showcase, which is a signature learning experience in the program. the speakers who presented are at the forefront of the community college educational field. the online environment facilitates hosting guest lectures because financial burdens such as travel costs are eliminated. speaker availability can also be more easily accommodated as lectures do not have to be during a scheduled class time. varying the days and times works well for speaker and student schedules. during the experiential learning component of the program which takes place in year two of the program, students are assigned a personal mentor. faculty have leveraged their professional networks and technology platforms such as linkedin to connect with experts across the nation who can then serve as mentors. students benefit from 20 hours with their mentor during this year-long experience. this extensive access to a mentor supports the professional growth of students. conclusion and recommendations this online program has aimed to provide the structure, modeling, and support to help diverse doctoral students be successful. in this online environment, relationships have been born, and leadership skills have been developed and tested. students have been immersed in equitable and academically rigorous work through various online activities and projects that have value today and in the future. the cohort model provides students with a built-in support team of colleagues and faculty members. students have expanded their knowledge and professional networks through the synchronous meetings with experts in the field and the virtual conferences hosted by the program. for those interested in creating or enhancing an online experience that is both rewarding and achieves program goals, the following recommendations are offered: 1. determine what technology platforms will be used and ensure that all students have access to these platforms and know how to use them. provide live training or recorded online tutorials as needed. 2. engage students in virtual onboarding activities such as welcome sessions and orientation programs. consider assigning students to a partner or small group and requiring students to connect prior to the orientation so that they begin to form relationships early on. 3. offer a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences so students benefit from both the connection and flexibility offered through each approach. when possible, bring in outside experts to help students build knowledge and expand their professional network. 4. require a combination of individual, partner, and small group projects so that students have opportunities to engage with other cohort members but also get to immerse themselves in independent reflection and learning too. 5. determine how to incorporate experiential learning opportunities into the program and provide students with mentors and support related to the project as well as their professional growth. 6. meet regularly with students individually, in small groups, and as entire cohorts to stay connected and provide support. relationships matter. a rigorous online edd program can accommodate a diverse array of scholars by eliminating some of the barriers that may prevent potential students from pursuing a doctoral degree. the recommendations provided can assist doctoral coordinators and faculty who are developing new online programs or transitioning face-to-face programs to online programs. when online programs are developed with equity in mind, they can provide potential scholarly practitioners of color with a flexible, supportive learning pathway to become college leaders and serve as champions and role models for community college students. author note email correspondence can be sent to charrington1@njcu.edu, khooper@njcu.edu, ahughes3@njcu.edu, eklein@njcu.edu, jmelendez@njcu.edu, fsiddique@njcu.edu, and ewasserman1@njcu.edu references american association of community colleges (2018). aacc competencies for community college leaders. 3rd edition. https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2018/11/aacc-2018-competencies_111618_5.1.pdf barnett, b. g., basom, m. r., yerkes, d. m., & norris, c. j. (2000). cohorts in educational leadership programs: benefits, difficulties, and the potential for developing school leaders. educational administration quarterly, 36(2), 255-282. berry, s. (2017). student support networks in online doctoral programs: exploring nested communities. international journal of doctoral studies, 12, 33-48. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (n.d.). the cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework carnegie project on the education doctorate (2018). 365 days of the carnegie project on the education doctorate. https://cped.memberclicks. net/assets/resource-center/docs/cped_2018_annual_report_fina.pdf cohen, j.b., gammel, j.a. and rutstein-riley, a. (2016). learning like adults: a hybrid interdisciplinary doctoral program for mid-career professionals. emerging directions in doctoral education. innovations in higher education teaching and learning, 6, 189-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/ s2055-364120160000006032 mailto:charrington1@njcu.edu mailto:khooper@njcu.edu mailto:ahughes3@njcu.edu mailto:eklein@njcu.edu mailto:jmelendez@njcu.edu mailto:fsiddique@njcu.edu mailto:ewasserman1@njcu.edu https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aacc-2018-competencies_111618_5.1.pdf https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aacc-2018-competencies_111618_5.1.pdf about:blank https://draweb.njcu.edu:2119/10.28945/3676 https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1108/%20s2055-364120160000006032 https://doi.org/10.1108/%20s2055-364120160000006032 harrington, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.185 12 dembicki, m. (2018, march 8). not as diverse as they should be. community college daily. https://www.ccdaily.com/2018/03/not-as-diverse-as-itshould-be/ gaskell, a., & mills, p. (2014). the quality and reputation of open, distance, and e-learning: what are the challenges? open learning. the journal of open, distance and elearning, 29, 190-205. hermond, d., & tanner, t. (2020). mastering critical thinking competencies in online graduate classes. administrative issues journal: education, practice, and research, 10(1), 47-58. doi:10.5929/2020.10.1.4 kezar, a. j., drivalas, y., & kitchen, j. (2018). envisioning public scholarship for our time: models for higher education researchers. stylus publishing. lea, m. r. (2004). academic literacies: a pedagogy for course design. studies in higher education, 29(6), 739-756. lieberman, m. (2018, april 25). online students don’t have to work solo. inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/ 04/25/group-projects-online-classes-create-connections-and-challenge lovitts, b., and c. nelson. 2000. the hidden crisis in graduate education: attrition from ph.d. programs. academe, 86(6): 44-50. national center for education statistics (2020). postbaccalaureate enrollment. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_chb.asp national center for education statistics (n.d.). number and percentage of graduate students enrolled in distance education or online classes and degree programs, by selected characteristics: selected years, 2003-04 through 2015-16. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_ 311.32.asp nimer, m. (2009). the doctoral cohort model: increasing opportunities for success.college student journal, 43(4), 1373-1379. perez, r. j., robbins, c. k., harris, l. w., & montgomery, c. (2020). exploring graduate students' socialization to equity, diversity, and inclusion. journal of diversity in higher education, 13(2), 133-145. doi:10.1037/ dhe0000115 reeves, r., rodrigue, e., & kneebone, e. (2016). five evils: multidimensional poverty and race in america. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/ uploads/2016/06/reeveskneebonerodrigue_multidimensionalpoverty_full paper.pdf rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., holmes, j., & stephens, j. s. (2019). identifying significant personal and program factors that predict online edd students’ program integration. online learning, 23(4), 313-335. sankaran, s. r., & bui, t. (2000). impact of learning strategies and motivation on performance: a study in web-based instruction. journal of instructional psychology, 28(3), 191-198. smith, d. l., & lovat, t. j. (2003). curriculum: action on reflection (4th ed.). social science press. watts, l. (2016). synchronous and asynchronous communication in distance learning, a review of the literature. the quarterly review of distance education, 17(1), 23-32. wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design. expanded 2nd edition. pearson. https://www.ccdaily.com/2018/03/not-as-diverse-as-it-should-be/ https://www.ccdaily.com/2018/03/not-as-diverse-as-it-should-be/ https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/%2004/25/group-projects-online-classes-create-connections-and-challenge https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/%2004/25/group-projects-online-classes-create-connections-and-challenge https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_chb.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_%20311.32.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_%20311.32.asp https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/ christine harrington new jersey city university annmarie hughes new jersey city university john melendez new jersey city university kimberlee hooper new jersey city university eric klein new jersey city university faraz siddique new jersey city university ellen wasserman new jersey city university the cohort model fostering connections communication curriculum design and delivery using backward design honoring student experiences and talents connecting academia to practice delivering curriculum: balancing synchronous and asynchronous experiences models and mentors conclusion and recommendations author note references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.226 professional and practical considerations for the program evaluation dissertation mary alice varga university of west georgia maryalice@westga.edu katherine b. green university of west georgia kbgreen@westga.edu justin grant lindsey university of west georgia jlindsey8010@gmail.com abstract this essay discusses the emergence of the program evaluation dissertation in our doctoral program as the preferred dissertation in practice (dip) option. we also outline important considerations that must be reviewed with students when considering this approach. our students are professional educational leaders in the settings where they conduct their dissertation research, emphasizing the importance of our doctoral faculty in addressing the potential implications of blending dissertation research with professional practice. using the utilization-focused evaluation approach as a framework, we address professional and practical considerations to ensure effective evaluation designs to examine a specific problem of practice. these considerations include the student's relationship to the program being evaluated, the impact on their professional position, support for the evaluation, access to data collection, potential consent concerns, and the utilization of findings. we conclude with additional ethical considerations to be considered when supporting program evaluation dissertation work. keywords program evaluation, dissertation, problem of practice, dissertation in practice for the past 20 years, our school improvement doctoral program at a state-funded comprehensive university has trained many educators to initiate and sustain significant change in their educational settings. since educational leaders are tasked with generating and using data to inform their practice in various ways (bauer & brazer, 2012), we have experimented with various dissertation formats. the traditional five-chapter dissertation has been the most prevalent format that students use, primarily due to faculty preference. this approach is utilized in both ph.d. and ed.d. programs and mirrors the scientific method process, but is also used for qualitative research. this format includes chapters pertaining to introduction/rationale, review of literature, methods, results, and interpretations/recommendations (calabrese, 2006). despite the constant demand for educational data, it is argued that educational environments rarely use research-based information to inform their practice (dagenais et al., 2012). in response to doctoral student feedback, our program piloted a program evaluation dissertation format. this format is becoming increasingly popular within educational research since program evaluation is crucial to educational initiatives and even recommended by the united states department of education (u.s. department of education, 2014). as stewart (2016) noted, this trend will continue as schools become increasingly reliant on federal funding that requires evaluative components. the program evaluation dissertation format is also of interest to the doctoral students in our school improvement ed.d. program involved in designing, implementing, or evaluating various problems of practice in their real-world capacities. utilization-focused evaluation process we strive to have students use a process similar to the utilization-focused evaluation (u-fe) process (patton, 2012) when initially outlining their program evaluation dissertation proposals. ufe is based on the principle that evaluations should be useful both during the evaluation process and after findings are generated. u-fe fits well within the ed.d. philosophy and the dissertation in practice (dip) approach because it is personal and situational. the evaluation context is significant, and findings are expected to be used in practical ways that make sense for the program. there are 17 steps to the u-fe process that begins with assessing and building capacity for the evaluation. the u-fe process ends with a focus on the use of http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2416-3253 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8280-5061 professional and practical considerations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.226 17 findings (patton, 2012). as we explain the professional and practical considerations we address with students, we also outline their connection to specific steps in the u-fe process and the cped dip framework. connection to the dissertation in practice (dip) since program evaluation is inherently collaborative, this dip approach fits well with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) scholarly practitioner focus in two ways. first, students are more engaged with reflective problem-solving by their interactions with various program stakeholders. secondly, this process guides students through various systematic complexities specific to the program context. the dip approach allows students to more deeply and holistically examine their problems of practice in a way that may not be available in traditional research methods. while the program evaluation approach works well with the dip philosophy, there are professional and practical considerations that faculty must address with their doctoral students before implementation. this manuscript outlines these considerations from both the faculty and student perspective and discusses how these conversations facilitate student development into their role as scholarly practitioners in an educational evaluator capacity. professional considerations the professional considerations we address with students speak to their dissertation work in an educational leadership capacity. as with most ed.d. programs, our students are full-time practitioners, often in school, district, or state-level leadership positions. we specifically discuss their role with the programs they seek to examine. as a highly regarded best practice, our program encourages students to focus their dissertation research on a topic in which they are passionate (butin, 2010). for our program, the topic should center on identifying a problem of practice related to school improvement. students who choose the program evaluation dissertation often seek to evaluate programs housed in their school environments. their evaluations are not limited to dips and can involve a range of programs they would like to investigate with the intention of school improvement. however, professional and ethical concerns arise when our students are in positions of authority or obligation directly related to the program or its stakeholders. therefore, before the student begins their proposal, we ask them the following questions: 1. what is your relationship with this program? 2. will the findings of your evaluation impact your professional position? 3. is your school/district/state supportive of evaluating this program? these questions align with the first three u-fe tasks centered on the program, organizational, and evaluator readiness for a utilizationfocused evaluation and engaging the appropriate individuals in the process (patton, 2012). answers to these questions can immediately alter the program evaluation dissertation's trajectory in the design and implementation stages, as described below. student relationship to the program in our initial dissertation conversations, the first consideration we outline is the student's relationship to the program they seek to evaluate. for example, student author initially wanted to collect data on the autism support group he developed and led ten years ago. while the support group is now sustained by volunteers, student author still attends the meetings periodically and has a presence within the support group (author and author). during conversations with his committee (author and author), it was agreed that his direct relationship with the program could cause a conflict of interest when interviewing participants and conducting focus groups. as a result, student author enlisted a research assistant to collect data for this program evaluation dissertation. student author also performed member checks on his data analysis (merriam & tisdell, 2015) to increase the trustworthiness and dependability of his analysis. this additional layer of analysis allowed participants to ensure student author accurately interpreted their experiences in the program. impact on professional positions in addition to their relationship with the program, we also discuss the potential impact the evaluation could have on the students’ professional position. if our student's professional performance is tied to a program's outcomes, we consider the implications and various ways to approach these concerns. for example, instead of examining an entire program that a student oversees in a professional capacity, we may recommend that the student evaluate one portion of the program that another individual administers. this approach does not always work well, depending on the evaluation needs, but it can be an option for students who need a safeguard. while our goal is to help our students develop and grow into strong scholarly practitioners who initiate and sustain school improvement, we also strive to respect and protect them professionally. program evaluation support professionalism is also tied to the support needed for the program evaluation dissertation. early in dissertation discussions, we ask students about the anticipated support they will receive from their school, district, state, etc. we also ask about the potential findings. practical considerations once the professional considerations for the program evaluation dissertation are discussed, we outline potential practical considerations. since our doctoral students are practitioners, these considerations are important to discuss early in the dissertation process. as experienced educators and evaluators, faculty must guide students through thoughtful concerns for their dissertation research requirements, as well as their school/educational environments. given the political nature of some program evaluations, the questions need to be considered from a variety of angles. the student is encouraged to investigate background information on the program, such as when the program began, who started the program, who or which departments support and monitor the program, and if there are any potential issues with evaluating the program in advance, as student success should be at the forefront of varga, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.226 18 the dissertation. students may need guidance and support in order to navigate challenging situations. example questions we ask students include: 1. will you be able to collect the data you need to effectively evaluate the program? 2. are there any anticipated issues with gaining consent, assent, parental permission, etc.? 3. how will findings from this evaluation be used? these questions align with u-fe tasks 5-17 that begin with outlining the evaluation's intended uses and priorities and end with the use of findings for improvement purposes (patton, 2012). answers to these questions may significantly affect the data collection process and the use of findings. effective program evaluation data collection research in educational settings, particularly public schools, can be cumbersome and difficult to navigate. schools, districts, and states have varying policies and procedures for conducting research. the recent emergence of covid-19 has further complicated these processes. due to these barriers, we ask students to outline multiple data collection plans. for example, dr. student author initially planned on face-to-face focus groups to examine his autism support group. he planned a backup option to utilize an online platform for the focus groups, as well as to evaluate another similar support group. due to covid-19, he was forced to use the virtual option of data collection. regardless of the dissertation approach, we encourage all doctoral students to consider creating contingency options and plans and incorporate them into their initial irb application materials to ensure continuity in data collection. although dr. student author was fortunate to have additional data collection options available during his dissertation process, additional limitations may arise specific to program evaluation dissertations. for example, programs can be limited in the number of participants available for data collection. therefore, dr. student author had another data collection contingency plan specific to participants. since the emergence of covid-19 left many things unpredictable, his second option was to conduct focus groups with a similar program in a neighboring area. while this option would still provide beneficial information for his evaluation, it would not have been specific to the support group he developed and led. permissions and consents since an educational setting's culture can significantly impact the evaluation and research efforts, considerations about consent must be discussed. this is an important practice where students combine their schools' practical knowledge into their emerging knowledge as scholars. for example, students who know their target population is largely non-english speaking will outline thoughtful approaches to articulating evaluation efforts, translating consents, and modifying data collection tools as needed. utilization of evaluation findings the final practical consideration we discuss with students is the utilization of the evaluation. as we strive to have students use the utilization-focused evaluation approach (patton, 2012), this requires that stakeholders commit to using the evaluation findings to improve the practice in some capacity. the utilization of findings also connects to the appeal of the program evaluation approach to our doctoral students. the practical nature of this work is meaningful for our students who are passionate about improving schools and appears to strengthen their identities as scholarly practitioners. since our dissertations are publicly accessed, conversations about confidentiality and permissions are critical (patton, 2012). masking educational settings or participants' identities is always practiced in our program and often sufficient; however, we require students to have conversations with stakeholders about potential negative, unwelcome, or unanticipated evaluation findings. as student author shared in his post-dissertation experience, he highlights that "students should remember that program evaluations are effective at answering questions within organizations and that the answers to their questions may reveal problems or truths that are not easily accepted." we have had instances of students not being granted access to externally evaluate programs in schools due to stakeholder's concerns with data and the results of the program evaluation. as in traditional program evaluations, stakeholders connected to the program often request updates or debriefs as programs are being examined. we discuss the context of their situation and the optimal feedback process. for example, sharing preliminary findings with important stakeholders can prepare them for the results in final reports (patton, 2012). if the program a student is evaluating is highly sensitive, visible, political, or controversial, we encourage them to have regular conversations with the appropriate individuals. continued considerations as we continue to implement the program evaluation dissertation in practical settings using the u-fe approach (patton, 2012), we have outlined six specific professional and practical considerations to address with our students; however, additional questions and considerations remain. as our students work as fulltime practitioners and emerging scholarly practitioners examining important problems of practice, continued discussions around ethics in program evaluation are necessary. faculty in our program have posed the following questions: is it ethical to conduct a program evaluation in one's own educational environment as an internal evaluator? how can we ensure "no harm" and avoid coercion when edd students are evaluating students, teachers, and staff they oversee? should edd students only be allowed to conduct external program evaluations, as opposed to internal program evaluations? these questions will continue to be discussed as we work with students through their program evaluation dissertations while helping them balance the reality of their practitioner work. similar to the everchanging landscape of education, our work with doctoral students must adapt as well. we may never have a perfect program evaluation dissertation model that fits with all students and their circumstances. challenges and barriers will continue to present themselves in various ways. having individual conversations with students to guide them through professional and practical considerations in their dissertation will strengthen their work and their scholarly practitioner identities. professional and practical considerations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.226 19 references bauer, s. c., & brazer, s. d. (2012). using research to lead school improvement: turning evidence into action. sage. butin, d. w. (2010). the education dissertation. corwin. calabrese, r. l. (2006). the elements of an effective dissertation and thesis: a step-by-step guide to getting it right the first time. r&l education. dagenais, c., lysenko, l., abrami, p. c., bernard, r. m., ramde, j., & janosz, m. (2012). use of research-based information by school practitioners and determinants of use: a review of empirical research. evidence & policy: a journal of research, debate and practice, 8(3). policy press. https://doi.org/10.1332/174426412x654031 merriam, s. b. & tisdell, e. j. (2015). qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). jossey-bass. patton, m. q. (2012). essentials of utilization-focused evaluation. sage. stewart, tricia. (2016). educational leaders and the program evaluation dissertation with logic model. 10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0.ch014. https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/educational-leaders-and-the-programevaluation-dissertation-with-logic-model/169003 u.s. department of education. (2014). evaluation matters: getting the information you need from your evaluation. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oese/sst/evaluationmatters.pdf https://doi.org/10.1332/174426412x654031 https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/educational-leaders-and-the-program-evaluation-dissertation-with-logic-model/169003 https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/educational-leaders-and-the-program-evaluation-dissertation-with-logic-model/169003 https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oese/sst/evaluationmatters.pdf mary alice varga university of west georgia katherine b. green university of west georgia (1) justin grant lindsey university of west georgia (2) utilization-focused evaluation process connection to the dissertation in practice (dip) professional considerations student relationship to the program impact on professional positions program evaluation support practical considerations effective program evaluation data collection permissions and consents utilization of evaluation findings continued considerations references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 26 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 single mother students are lacking sufficient support to persist to graduation in community colleges fathia richardson new jersey city university frichardson@njcu.edu christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu abstract despite high levels of motivation, only 8% of single mothers who attend a community college will graduate (cruse, milli et al., 2019). as a component of this dissertation in practice, a systematic literature review was conducted to explore the reasons behind these unacceptably low success rates. based on data from empathy interviews, peer-reviewed research, and public scholarship sources, several root causes for low single mother graduation rates were discovered. first, there is a lack of institutional support and engagement. most colleges do not have staff or offices dedicated to working with this population and typically offer services such as tutoring or activities to connect with other students at times that do not align with student mother schedules. another key finding was that the lack of reliable childcare makes it very challenging for these students. finally, care-blind federal policies that require students to work and institutional policies that do not offer flexibility for absences or late work also contribute to low success rates. each factor is described, and recommendations are provided to address these issues. additionally, further recommendations to increase degree and certificate attainment for single mother students are provided. keywords student parents, single mothers, community college single mother students make up a substantial portion of the undergraduate college population. according to cruse, holtzman et al. (2019), a total of 1.7 million single mother students were enrolled in college in 2015-2016, with the largest share (42%) of student parents enrolled in community colleges. according to multiple reports and policy briefs from the institute for women’s policy research, one in five community college students are parents, and 70% of college parents are women (cruse, holtzman et al., 2019). however, only 30% of single mothers in the united states hold an associate degree or higher (cruse, holtzman et al., 2019). although many single mother students desire to improve their lives and the lives of their children, many are undereducated (beeler, 2016; goldrick-rab & sorensen, 2010). single parents may enroll in college, yet most are not earning a credential or degree. only 8% of single mother students leave college with an associate or bachelor’s degree within six years of enrollment compared to nearly 50% of college women who are not mothers (cruse, milli et al. 2019). single mother students are a marginalized group that is often overlooked and requires specialized support due to their unique needs as both parents and as students. according to beeler (2016), single student parents, who are disproportionately single mothers (73.5%), have difficulties maintaining their enrollment for consecutive terms, thus delaying degree completion, if ever completing. additionally, beeler (2016) points out that consecutive enrollment tends to be an issue for this population due to competing needs and prioritizing survival over academics. single mother students often have difficulty navigating the numerous hurdles required to maintain enrollment, such as planning schedules for themselves and their children and working (goodman & reddy, 2019; goldrick-rab & sorensen, 2010). as a result, they may opt to stop out and return at a later time when their lives are more manageable. these hurdles inevitably prolong completion times to more than the six-year benchmark (austin & mcdermott, 2003; beeler. 2016; goldrick-rab & sorensen, 2010). single mother students commonly have financial obligations such as rent or childcare fees that force them to obtain employment (gault et al., 2014). additionally, some government policies, such as temporary assistance for needy families (tanf), require that recipients meet work requirements to maintain benefits (austin & mcdermott, 2003; duquaine-watson, 2007). the need to work can lead to conflicts between schooling and being a mother, which adds to an already stressful academic career. single student parents are also more likely to take out extra loans if they do decide to stay in school because they see the loans as a means of paying for expenses as they attempt to earn a degree (austin & mcdermott, 2003; cruse, milli et al., 2019; duquaine-watson, 2007; gault et al., http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 single mother students are lacking support impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 27 2014). the use of student loan funds to supplement living expenses, in turn, increases overall student debt that compounds the problem of poverty and increases the urgency to offer meaningful support to these students (goldrick-rab, 2010). furthermore, single mothers of color or of more than one race are more likely than white single mothers to start college but not finish (cruse, milli et al., 2019). because single mother students of color are more likely to live in poverty (cruse et al., 2018; lovell, 2014; wladis et al., 2018), financial challenges often contribute to lower completion rates. addressing this disparity is necessary to help single mother students and especially single mother students of color achieve persistence to a degree or certificate completion. “the fact that so many single mothers enter college, yet so few make it to graduation day, demonstrates the critical need for greater policy and institutional supports that can help them persist” (cruse, milli et al., 2019, p. 9). generational poverty could be averted with the attainment of a college degree or certificate. according to cruse, milli et al. (2019), 35% of all single mothers in the united states aged 25 or older live in poverty, with 88% having income below 200% of the federal poverty level. ensuring that single mother students have adequate support to persist and complete a community college degree or certificate is imperative and can lead to upward socioeconomic mobility for this marginalized group. earning a degree or certificate will likely have a multigenerational impact, including positive outcomes on their children’s academic success and influencing their future socioeconomic status (cruse, holtzman et al.,2019; dodson & deprez, 2019). single mothers with an associate degree can earn upwards of $200,000 more in their lifetime than a single mother with some college, (carnevale et al., 2011; cruse, milli et al., 2019), increasing their chances of pulling themselves out of poverty. knowing that a college degree or certificate can lead to upward socioeconomic mobility, colleges need to examine ways to enrich these students’ experiences to improve outcomes for this group. the purpose of this literature review is to determine the root causes of the low graduation rates so that colleges can identify interventions that address these issues. method to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to the low persistence rates of single mothers, a literature review was conducted. the literature review is a key component of the program’s dissertation in practice. it included three search methods: a literature review of peer-reviewed articles relevant to the topic found in library databases, empathy interviews, and the review and evaluation of public scholarship. these three sources of data provide a comprehensive picture of the factors that contribute to low graduation rates for single mothers. empathy interviews four empathy interviews were conducted to discover the needs of single mothers as they relate to persistence and completion in community college. interviews were conducted with a director of advisement and retention, an educational opportunity fund (eof) counselor, a nursing student, and a previous nursing program graduate. this convenience group of interviewees was chosen because of their unique positions, either as student services professionals or as current or former single mother students. the goal was to gather information from those with first-hand experience or expertise related to single mothers’ persistence and completion in the community college setting. questions pertained to what they perceived as the needs of single mothers in community colleges to help them to persist. the sample size of the interviews was small, so there are limitations to the generalizability of the information collected through these interviews. peer-reviewed articles the following databases were used in the search: academic search premier, apa psych info, e-book, academic collection (ebscohost), e-book collection (ebscohost), and education source. the following search terms were used: single mother student or single parents or student parents and community college. this search yielded 248 full-text articles from 1934 to 2020. the search was narrowed down to scholarly peer-reviewed journals from 2005 to 2020, which yielded 91 articles. after exact duplicates were removed, the search was further reduced to 59 articles. additional inclusion and exclusion criteria related to relevancy were then applied. to be included, articles needed to focus on single mothers and their experiences. several articles were excluded because they did not specifically refer to the single mother’s experience in college. for example, several articles found in the initial search focused on the experience of the children of single mothers. on a review of the remaining article titles and abstracts, many did not meet the criteria or address the intended literature review topic. an additional 43 articles were removed based on a title and abstract review resulting in a final count of 11 articles for this review. public scholarship a significant amount of valuable information on the topic of single parent students was available via public scholarship. for example, relevant data and information were found on government websites, professional organization websites, blogs, and social media platforms such as linkedin, facebook, or twitter. many of these professional organizations were found via clicking on hashtags, which led to organization postings. achieving the dream, the institute for women’s policy research, the national college transition network, the center on budget and policy priorities, the center for postsecondary and economic success, the hechinger report website, and other social media posts, provided valuable data on single mother students. these organizations produced reports, webinars, videos, or other useful data sources that directly addressed single mother students. the chronicle of higher education and community college daily were also used to collect useful data. inclusion criteria for professional organization data and public scholarship were based on the relevance to single mother students and community college or higher education. if there were articles, webinars, or videos related to single mother students, the organization website or linkedin posts were explored for titles, and then the content was reviewed for relevance. overall, 12 articles, policy briefs, reports, videos, and webinars were obtained through public scholarship and are included in this literature review. richardson & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 28 results and discussion the lack of persistence of single mother students to completion of a degree or certificate is unacceptable. it is essential that community college professionals understand the reasons behind these low success rates so that actions can be taken to support single mother students (duquaine-watson, 2007). several themes emerged from this literature review. the first theme was the lack of institutional support and engagement, such as the ability to connect with other single mother students and the lack of opportunities to become a part of the broader college community. the second theme identified was the lack of reliable childcare. the final theme was the impact of policies on student success. these factors have been found to contribute to the low persistence and graduation rates for single mothers. lack of institutional support and engagement institutional policies are typically designed with the childless traditional student in mind. “low-income mothers, racing between jobs, childcare arrangements, and classes are the antithesis of the “ideal” college student” (dodson & deprez, 2019, p. 39). because there are few programs aimed at supporting student parents’ unique needs, including single mother students, colleges encourage single parents to take advantage of the academic and student support structures already available at the college. however, these services often do not accommodate the schedules and needs of single mothers (sallee & cox, 2019). for example, tutoring services are typically only offered during limited hours and may not be accessible virtually. the lack of support services explicitly aimed at student parents creates “care-blind postsecondary environments [that] operate under the assumption that students are free of parenting or other caregiving responsibilities” (sallee & cox, 2019, p. 623). unfortunately, the one size fits all student services models typically do not meet these students’ needs. the competing role of mother and student commonly requires mothers to choose between study time and time with their children. as part of a webinar sponsored by achieving the dream, one student parent reported that study time usually occurs late at night when their children are in bed or occurs very early in the morning before they arise. (archer hatch et al., 2020). two of the empathy interviews conducted identified similar issues. the current and former nursing students also discussed the challenges faced while studying and trying to juggle time with children. competing roles are highlighted in the literature with single mother students working as managers of their families and schooling and having to choose between studying and cleaning their homes and cooking meals for their families (beeler, 2016; crispin & nikolaou, 2019; goldrick-rab & sorensen, 2010; lindsay & gillum, 2018). campus engagement is essential for single mothers to feel like they are a vital part of the college community. feeling like part of a community can positively impact completion rates (goodman & reddy, 2019). although colleges often have dedicated spaces and offices for other special populations such as veterans, this is not typically the case for single parents (sallee & cox, 2019). student parents need family-friendly places to utilize to engage with others who share similar challenges and access needed services (ashford, 2020; sallee & cox, 2019). single mother students are also frequently unable to attend activities that facilitate engagement, such as sporting events, clubs, or organizations, outside of their scheduled classes due to their role as the sole caregiver to their children (austin & mcdermott, 2003). the inability to attend campus activities limits their ability to engage with classmates outside of the classroom and develop students’ networks in similar situations (austin & mcdermott, 2003; beeler, 2016). the inability to engage with other single mother students limits the size of their on-campus networks. collaboration on this level can reduce feelings of social isolation, promote a positive sense of well-being, and support persistence (austin & mcdermott, 2003; dodson & deprez, 2019). the need for childcare support childcare support is a common theme in the literature as single mothers’ success commonly depends on quality, reliable, and affordable childcare (austin & mcdermott, 2003; beeler, 2016; carlson, 2015). childcare is essential, but the cost and availability of quality childcare is often a challenge for these women. some colleges offer on-campus childcare, but frequently, single-parent students are not made aware of this service, and many times the child care centers have waitlists due to limited spots for students to enroll their children (salee & cox, 2019). the unavailability of childcare spots is due to faculty and staff and the broader community also utilizing the on-campus childcare centers (duquaine-watson, 2007). furthermore, childcare centers on campus are decreasing due to either being eliminated from college budgets or being privatized (beeler, 2016; carlson, 2015; goldrick-rab & sorensen, 2010). in childcare centers that are still available on campus, the service options may not fit single parents’ needs. for example, childcare may only be available as a full day or even monthly service when students may need drop-in services during their classes. services are often offered during the day when students may need evening childcare while attending class or working (duquainewatson, 2007; lindsay & gillum, 2018). the nursing school graduate who participated in the empathy interview noted that she did utilize on-campus childcare for her scheduled nursing classes that met on campus, but that her clinical schedule started earlier than the daycare opened. therefore, she was not able to utilize the service on clinical days which were eight-hour days. this posed a problem with obtaining reliable childcare during clinical days. these factors must be taken into consideration when addressing the needs of the single mother student population. “the large majority of student parents have one or two children (nearly 80 percent) and over half have children who are preschool-age or younger” (cruse, holtzman et al., 2019, p. 5). their children’s ages can pose an issue with study time as younger children typically require more parental attention (wladis et al., 2018). academic success can be negatively impacted by the lack of adequate study time due to their competing role as mothers and students, especially when childcare is not available when single mothers need to study (austin & mcdermott, 2003; beeler, 2016). according to carlson (2015), who interviewed student parents from community colleges, “students say that if they don’t have childcare, then the other support services just don’t mean that much” (para. 8). one of the students interviewed stated, “if you don’t have childcare, then you can’t go to tutoring or a mentoring program or any other number of support services that schools offer” (carlson, 2015, para. 7). the disappearance of this essential service challenges the ability of student parents and especially single single mother students are lacking support impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 29 student mothers to take advantage of support services and to engage in the college community. policy impacts on persistence public and governmental policies designed to aid women who received public assistance to become employed, such as the tanf work first programs are not student-friendly. due to the grueling stipulations required to maintain benefits, such as working at least 20 hours per week, student parents have been faced with additional stress related to work requirements. these requirements often cause single mother students to lose time with their children and experience time poverty or “insufficient time to devote to college work” (wladis et al., 2018, p. 810). because student mothers often have to work to receive benefits, students have less time to dedicate to schoolwork, which ultimately impacts persistence (austin & mcdermott, 2003; beeler, 2016). single mother students frequently depend on some level of state or government assistance while in pursuit of their college education (beeler, 2016; duquaine-watson, 2007; goldrickrab & sorensen, 2010). however, some of these support policies, such as tanf, have time limits and are not designed to support educational attainment other than short career-related programs (duquainewatson, 2007; goodman & reddy, 2019). thus, single mother students who wish to pursue college degrees are challenged with meeting eligibility requirements. since the development of welfare reform in 1996, single mothers that receive state benefits have been forced to engage in work-related activities to maintain eligibility for state tanf benefits (austin & mcdermott, 2003; duquaine-watson, 2007). because 35% of all single mothers live at or below the poverty line (cruse, milli, et al., 2019), many rely on tanf assistance for basic survival. some states do not include postsecondary education as an acceptable tanf work activity. the tanf reauthorization of 2006 limited the use of tanf funds toward postsecondary education and instead recipients were steered toward vocational education. this is due to reluctance by the department of health and human services to see tanf as a “college scholarship for postsecondary education” (pearson, 2007, p. 725). the tanf work requirement forces recipients to complete the original 20-hour work requirements while in school to maintain benefits. states have the flexibility to regulate their tanf policies, and some have allowed postsecondary hours related to job training to count toward work requirements or the work performance rate (wpr) once recipients have met the 20 hours per week requirement (lower-basch et al., 2014). because states that fail to meet their wprs can lose a portion of their funding, many states discourage local tanf offices or contractors from assigning recipients to activities that cannot be counted toward the work participation rate, and higher education commonly does not count as a full-time work activity (center on budget and policy priorities, 2020; lower-basch et al., 2014). although tanf requirements have become less restrictive in most states, the implementation and administration of benefits by caseworkers are challenging to students who are required to check in frequently with caseworkers on top of their already cumbersome schedules as students and mothers (goodman & reddy, 2019). one single mother nursing student who participated in an empathy interview worked part-time while going to school to be a nurse. she received a childcare subsidy through tanf for her required work hours during the day, but she could not get any additional childcare help during her school hours in the evening. ultimately, she relied on friends and family for childcare. having day and evening childcare adds additional strain and stress on a typical day. she would leave work, pick up her child from daycare, and then take her child to family while attending class. after class, she had to pick up her child from the evening caregiver and then go home and study. this demonstrates the typical routine for many single mother students who struggle to meet tanf work requirements. moreover, single mother students that receive tanf are commonly required to frequently check with a caseworker on top of attending class, shuttling children to and from daycare, and working. (duquainewatson; goodman & reddy, 2019; pearson, 2007). these frequent appointments with caseworkers further compound these students’ time constraints, and the added strain of working while attending college negatively affects completion rates. institutional policies also negatively impact the performance of student mothers. single mother students have reported that they felt invisible due to institutional policies that are “care-blind, or [that] operate under the assumption that students are free of parenting or other caregiving responsibilities” (sallee & cox, 2019, p. 623). for example, attendance policies often do not consider that single mother students may need to be absent or late due to issues with childcare or child illness (austin & mcdermott, 2003). another example of a care blind policy is a no children on campus policy at one college in chicago (flaherty, 2021). additionally, some students are required to participate in mandatory activities or event that occur outside of regular class times (beeler, 2016). these policies also may not consider that single mother students cannot attend mandated class outings due to caregiver responsibilities. conclusion the persistence rates of single parent students are unacceptable. the lagging persistence rates are due to multiple factors such as the lack of institutional support and engagement opportunities, unmet childcare needs, and the care-blind policies that do not address the unique needs of single mother students and often place additional burdens on students. most community colleges do not offer spaces or offices designed for this student population. also, many campuses do not provide childcare services that are needed, and if they do, student parents may not be able to use these services because of long waitlists or the lack of drop-in service availability. addressing the issues that emerged from this literature review could positively impact degree completion and persistence rates and elevate the socioeconomic status among single mother students (beeler, 2016). there are multiple areas of support services that may assist single mother students to persist to graduation, such as targeted student support services like support for navigating governmental and institutional policies, as well as academic support, and institutional support that encourages engagement (goodman & reddy, 2019). single mothers also require support with childcare services because available childcare on campus has decreased over the years, even though the number of student parents has increased (beeler, 2016; carlson, 2015; cruse, milli et al., 2019). in addition to these supports, student parents need support that recognizes them as part of the college community (beeler, 2016; dodson & deprez, 2019; sallee & cox, 2019). richardson & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 30 many community college institutional policies, processes, and activities are designed for the ideal traditional student. traditional institutional policies do not lead to a child or family-friendly environment (dodson & deprez, 2019). at many community colleges, waiting areas for student service, computer lounges, and general study areas are not child-friendly (sallee & cox, 2019). providing childcare or childcare vouchers for on or off-campus childcare assistance may be one way to meet the needs of this group because childcare is not only needed for college class attendance, but it is also commonly required for these mothers to study, work, and attend any kind of extracurricular activities such as clubs and organizations (sallee & cox, 2019). having childcare available on campus can limit the multiple trips between school and daycares that many single mothers face when trying to juggle theirs and their children’s schedules. another salient point regarding childcare is to make sure that the childcare centers can accommodate the students’ needs for drop-in hours and to prioritize these students’ children for enrollment (duquaine-watson, 2007; lindsay & gillum, 2018). offering specialized support services tailored to this population’s needs is another way to address this population’s unique needs. one way to do this may be to assign one student support personnel as a single mother navigator who is trained in the unique needs of this population. for example, this navigator could help students learn about the tanf requirements, complete the fafsa with dependent children, explore childcare options, and connect students to community resources as needed. (beeler, 2016; goodman & reddy, 2019) single mother student and student parent-friendly institutional policies are also imperative for the success of these students. single mother students should be considered in institutional and classroom policies such as attendance policies and course scheduling including multiple sections of essential courses. this will provide single mother students with some flexibility when choosing courses that fit into theirs and their children’s schedules. putting these support interventions into practice can positively impact the persistence rates of single mother students. support services targeted toward single mother students, including childcare support, institutional support, and governmental support, are necessary to increase this population’s graduation rates. understanding that without childcare support for single mother students, many will not succeed is a start to addressing this barrier that these women face when attempting to complete college degrees or certificate programs. institutional support, such as recognizing single mother students as a vulnerable group that needs specialized support, can impact this group positively by developing institutional and classroom policies with single mother students in mind. hiring or appointing a navigator trained in the specialized needs of this population as well as governmental policies will give single mother students a sense that the college is aware of their needs and is working to address them. all of these support services designed for the success of single mother students has the potential to encourage engagement and to positively impact the persistence to graduation for this group. references archer hatch, m., davis, s., mulvihill, a., & de castro, g. (2020, march 20). equity in design for holistic student supports: increasing success in community colleges for student mothers [webinar]. achieving the dream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=iwggi91jssa&feat ure=emb_logo ashford, e. (2020, may 13). student parents underserved. community college daily. https://www.ccdaily.com/2020/05/student-parents-underserved/ austin, s. a., & mcdermott, k. a. (2003). college persistence among single mothers after welfare reform: an exploratory study. journal of college student retention: research, theory & practice, 5(2), 93-113. https://doi.org/10.2190/uqlx-bqx6-byw0-yt89 beeler, s. (2016). undergraduate single mothers’ experiences in postsecondary education. new directions for higher education, 176, 6980. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20210 carlson, s. (2015). campus child care is disappearing. the chronicle of higher education, 61(36), 1-4. carnevale, a. p., rose, s. j., & cheah, b. (2011). the college payoff: education, occupations, lifetime earnings. the georgetown university center on education and the workforce. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed524299 center on budget and policy priorities. (2020). policy basics: temporary assistance for needy families. https://www.cbpp.org/research/familyincome-support/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families crispin, l. m., & nikolaou, d. (2019). balancing college and kids: estimating time allocation differences for college students with and without children. monthly labor review, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2019.3 cruse, l. r., holtzman, t., gault, b., croom, d., & polk, p. (2019, april 11). parents in college by the numbers. iwpr 2020. https://iwpr.org/iwpr-issues/student-parent-success-initiative/parents-incollege-by-the-numbers/ cruse, l. r., milli, j., contreras-mendez, s., holtzman, t., & gault, b. (2019, december 18). investing in single mothers’ higher education by state. iwpr 2020. https://iwpr.org/iwpr-issues/student-parent-successinitiative/investing-in-single-mothers-higher-education-state/ cruse, l. r., milli, j., & gault, b. (2018, july). single mothers with college degrees much less likely to live in poverty. iwpr 2020. https://iwpr.org/publications/single-mothers-with-college-degrees-muchless-likely-to-live-in-poverty/ dodson, l., & deprez, l. s. (2019). “keeping us in our place”: low-income moms barred from college success. contexts, 18(1), 36-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504219830675 duquaine-watson, j. m. (2007). “pretty darned cold”: single mother students and the community college climate in post-welfare reform america. equity & excellence in education, 40(3), 229-240. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680701334785 flaherty, c. (2021, october). the campus kiddie ban. inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/12/columbia-collegebans-kids-classrooms-limits-visits freeman, a. (2015, august). why welfare reform is keeping poor, single moms from getting college degrees. the atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/why-singlemoms-struggle-with-college/401582/ gault, b., cruse, l. r., reynolds, e., & froehner, m. (2014, november 17). 4.8 million college students are raising children. iwpr 2020. https://iwpr.org/iwpr-issues/student-parent-success-initiative/4-8-millioncollege-students-are-raising-children/ goldrick-rab, s., & sorensen, k. (2010). unmarried parents in college. future of children, 20(2), 179-203. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2010.0008 goodman, s., & reddy, m. (2019). no matter what obstacle is thrown my way. https://www.ecmcfoundation.org/informed/2019/no-matter-what-obstacleis-thrown-my-way lindsay, t. n., & gillum, n. l. (2018). exploring single-mother college students’ perceptions of their college-related experiences and of campus services. journal of continuing higher education, 66(3), 188-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2018.1537657 lovell, e. d. (2014). college students who are parents need equitable services for retention. journal of college student retention: research, theory & practice, 16(2), 187-202. https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.16.2.b https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=iwggi91jssa&feature=emb_logo single mother students are lacking support impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.202 31 lower-basch, e., duke-benfield, a. e., & mohan, l. (2014, march). ensuring full credit under-tanfs work participation rate. center for postsecondary and economic success. https://www.clasp.org/sites/default/files/publications/2017/04/ensuringfull-credit-under-tanfs-work-participation-rate.pdf pearson, a. f. (2007). the new welfare trap: case managers, college education, and tanf policy. gender and society, 21(5), 723-748. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243207306381 sallee, m. w., & cox, r. d. (2019). thinking beyond childcare: supporting community college student parents. american journal of education, 125(4), 621-645. https://doi.org/10.1086/704094 wladis, c., hachey, a. c., & conway, k. (2018). no time for college? an investigation of time poverty and parenthood. the journal of higher education, 89(6), 807-831. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1442983 fathia richardson new jersey city university christine harrington new jersey city university (1) method empathy interviews peer-reviewed articles public scholarship results and discussion lack of institutional support and engagement the need for childcare support policy impacts on persistence conclusion references microsoft word 50 final_2.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 13 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations vera wei ma university of florida vma@ufl.edu nancy fichtman dana, phd university of florida ndana@coe.ufl.edu alyson adams, phd university of florida adamsa@coe.ufl.edu brianna l. kennedy, phd utrecht university b.l.kennedy@uu.nl abstract investigating a “problem of practice” is a signature feature of the edd dissertation. yet, little is known about how doctoral students derive their problems, the nature of the problems they study, and the impact studying problems of practice has on students’ local contexts. the purpose of this study was to investigate edd students’ problems of practice through document analysis of 28 dissertations completed in one edd program at a large, research-intensive university. findings revealed that problems are derived from doctoral students’ felt difficulties and real-world dilemmas in three main categories: supporting marginalized students, increasing the quality of educator professional development, and supporting novices’ entry into the profession. furthermore, five generic themes that describe the types of impact dissertation studies had on students’ local contexts are reported. based on findings, four guidelines to assist edd students in deriving problems of practice are offered. keywords: professional practice doctorate, dissertation experience, problem of practice, doctoral education introduction in recent years, discussion of the education doctorate has received heightened attention in the literature (guthrie, 2009; neumann, 2005; shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006). much of this discussion has argued for distinguishing the phd program (designed to prepare educational researchers for positions in higher education) from the edd or professional practice doctoral program (designed to cultivate the leadership abilities of practicing professionals who wish to remain in the school system and tackle problems of practice in their local settings). many institutions of higher education have attempted to translate these conceptual ideas on the educational doctorate from the literature into practice by designing and launching new and unique professional practice doctoral programs through their participation in the carnegie project on the education doctorate (perry & imig, 2008). as new programs have been launched, it is not surprising that distinguishing the dissertation experience for students in professional practice doctoral programs from the dissertation experience of phd students has presented a challenge for faculty responsible for program design and development. for example, andrews and grogan (2005) in their manuscript, “form should follow function: removing the edd dissertation from the phd straight jacket,” asserted that the phd dissertation format has done more to hinder than help edd programs to provide practitioners with the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and dispositions needed to lead effectively in educational settings. in response to the call to reconceptualize the dissertation experience for edd students, many professional practice doctoral programs have experimented with and studied alternative dissertation formats to the dissertation experience. creative examples from published sources include replacing the traditional dissertation experience with (a) a team-produced, client-consultant oriented culminating report (smrekar & mcgraner, 2009); (b) a thematic dissertation that asks students to explore a common topic (marsh & dembo, 2009); (c) a portfolio of individual and collaboratively produced writing projects (browne-ferrigno & jensen, 2012; maxwell & kupczyk-romanczuk, 2009); (d) creation of a project and project report (everson, 2009); and (e) an action research or practitioner inquiry dissertation (adams, bondy, ross, dana, & kennedy-lewis, 2014; wetzel & ewbanks, 2013). while formats and emphasis for edd dissertations vary across institutions, a defining feature that distinguishes them from phd ma, dana, adams, and kennedy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 14 dissertations is that they target a problem of practice (pop). according to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), an organization of over 80 institutions committed to establishing quality edd programs, a pop “is a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, n.d., design-concepts section, para. 6). yet, as institutions across the nation engage students in dissertation research that focuses on pops, there has been little documentation of what constitutes a pop, the nature of it, and the impact studying it can have on a doctoral student’s local context. analyzing pops our institution, a research i university located in the southeast of the united states, offers an online professional practice edd program focused on curriculum, teaching, and teacher education. launched in 2010, the program admits a cohort of 20-25 students every other year. to date, 28 students have completed professional practice dissertations and graduated since the program’s inception. the purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways pops grounded our graduates’ dissertation experience, distinguishing it from the phd dissertation experience. as such, the following research questions guided this study: 1. how do edd students derive their pop? 2. what is the nature of these pops that our students have studied? 3. what are the reported impacts the pops have on doctoral students’ local contexts? we begin this paper with a brief review of the literature to contextualize our study, noting the long history of the dissertation in doctoral programs and summarizing recent studies done to better understand the dissertation experience in both phd and edd programs. next, we describe our edd program with particular attention given to the theoretical framework underpinning the program and, therefore, the analysis of the dissertations produced within it. we then share our methodology and findings organized by the three research questions named above. finally, based on our analysis and findings, we conclude with suggested guidelines for edd students in professional practice doctoral programs as they name, frame, and study pops as a part of the capstone dissertation experience for the attainment of their edd degree. literature review: the doctoral dissertation the construct of a doctoral dissertation is age-old, dating back to 1861 when yale university granted the first doctor of philosophy degrees to three students after they completed “two years of graduate study, passing final examinations in several fields, and submitting written dissertations” (storr, 1953 as cited in thurgood, golladay, & hill, 2006, p. 4). in the field of education, a phd dissertation can be traced back to the early 1890’s when the first phd degree was granted at teachers college, columbia university. over time, the dissertation, defined as “a formal document that demonstrates [students’] ability to conduct research that makes an original contribution to theory or practice” (roberts, 2010. p. 18), grew in form and function, becoming commonplace as the culminating experience in the attainment of a phd degree (e.g., monaghan, 1989; walker, 2008). distinct from the phd degree is the edd degree, a relatively new phenomenon that was first granted at harvard university in 1920 (shulman, et al., 2006). over time this degree, meant to meet the needs of practicing professionals, became less and less distinguishable from the phd, until shulman (2006) called for a more careful examination of the edd experience, recasting it as a professional practice doctorate: the professional practice doctorate that we propose would be an extremely demanding, rigorous, respectable, high-level academic experience that prepares students for service as leading practitioners in the field of education, whether as educational leaders—principals, superintendents, policy coordinators, curriculum coordinators, and so forth—or as educators of teachers and other school personnel. we argue that preparation as a scholar in the traditional sense, culminating in a doctoral dissertation, is not the best way to prepare the superintendent of schools for a california community or a teacher-educator who will be preparing teachers of mathematics for that same community. we need a degree that is positively and intentionally designed to serve the needs of professional practice—as the edd was originally intended to do, but no longer does. (p. 29) as institutions across the nation heeded shulman’s call to reconceptualize the edd to serve the needs of professional practice, discussion and debate emerged about the dissertation experience for the edd student (e.g., archbald, 2008; murphy, & vriesenga, 2005), with several researchers turning their gaze to the study of the dissertation experience, comparing and contrasting dissertations produced in both the phd and edd programs. for example, nelson and coorough (1994) examined 1,007 phd and 960 edd dissertations from “dissertation abstracts international” from 1950–1990 to compare these two types of dissertations in relationship to characteristics such as research design, statistical analysis, significance of results, and types of research (i.e., basic vs. applied). they found over the time period examined that there was a very small percentage of qualitative research for both phd and edd dissertations. meanwhile, the edd dissertations were in “greater reliance on descriptive research (primarily the survey)” (p.163) and most prevailing in educational administration research. they found no difference in the incidence of significant findings or in the basic-applied research continuum. similar to the study completed by nelson and coorough (1994), walker and haley-mize (2012) adopted a content analysis to compare phd and edd dissertations from 1997 to 2010 with a narrower focus on the content area of special education. their study examined gender of authors, age of the participants, target population, area of exceptionality, along with those nelson and coorough (1994) investigated (i.e., research design, statistical analysis, significance of results). findings of this analysis showed that there was no difference in the percentage of dissertations in special education by degree type (i.e., phd vs. edd), type of research (i.e., applied vs. basic), or gender. however, substantial differences existed in the variables of research design, statistics, target populations, significance of results, age of participants, and exceptionality category. specifically, while phd dissertations tended to use “correlational, experimental, and single-participant research designs” (p. 205), edd dissertations drew more heavily on qualitative research designs. in addition, a large number of phd dissertations were conducted using school-age participants, whereas more edd dissertations were conducted with adult participants. understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 15 as studies were being conducted that compared phd and edd dissertations, other studies looked at edd dissertations exclusively (belzer & ryan, 2013; dawson & kumar, 2014; storey et al., 2015). one such study, completed by dawson and kumar (2014), shared the result of their scrutiny of edd dissertations in an online educational technology program, analyzing the first 23 dissertations completed by their graduates to assess the ways guiding program principles played out in those dissertations. based on their analysis, the researchers revised the principles and provided recommendations for other online programs in educational technology. one year after the publication of the dawson and kumar study (2014), storey et al. (2015) published a study reviewing 25 dissertations submitted in 2013 for cped dissertation in practice (dip) award. this study sought to determine if edd program dissertations had changed because of institutional membership in cped and their re-design effort. results showed that although there were changes in the dissertation process for edd students compared to traditional approaches to phd dissertation work, few changes occurred in the final dissertation product. the majority of dissertations reviewed fell into a traditional five-chapter, singleauthored format. while all award submissions addressed immediate needs in practice, they indicated that most cped institutions were not certain what an exemplary edd dissertation looked like as little evidence of impact on local practice was reported in many of the dissertations submitted for this award. based on these findings, the authors raised concerns about the distinctiveness of professional practice doctorates in education and what the phrase “creation of generative knowledge” (p. 14) means for edd dissertations. while providing insights about the edd dissertation experience in general, both the dawson and kumar (2014) and storey et al. (2015) studies did not focus on the notion of a pop within an edd dissertation specifically. in contrast, a study by belzer and ryan (2013) investigated the pop as it was depicted in dissertations by their first cohort of graduates from an interdisciplinary, school-wide edd program. similar to our study, belzer and ryan’s work endeavored to clarify what is meant by a pop and how the study of pops distinguishes an edd dissertation from a phd dissertation. looking across 21 dissertation abstracts, the authors named three categories representing their students’ research questions related to pops: (1) questions that evaluate an initiative or policy that is already in place; (2) questions that ask what happens when students implement an initiative to solve a problem and improve outcomes; and (3) questions that seek to describe current conditions as a way to generate, appropriate, and contextualize solutions to problems. while similar in nature to belzer and ryan’s work, our study contributes to the literature by examining the entire text of 28 dissertations, looking beyond the research questions articulated in a dissertation abstract to describe pops, how they are derived, and the impact studying them can have for edd students. hence, our study complements and extends the work of belzer and ryan. theoretical framework as a member of cped, we designed our doctoral program using the perspectives outlined by that organization. as such, our program: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex pops. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze pops and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice (cped, 2014, working principles section, para. 5). program description guided by cped principles, the overarching goal of our program is to cultivate students’ skills as practitioner scholars, professionals who use theoretical, pedagogical, and research expertise to name, frame, and study pops and lead informed change in their schools and districts. in addition to cped principles, to conceptualize this edd program we drew heavily on boyer’s (1990) broadened notions of scholarship where the scholarship of teaching, application, and integration hold value alongside more traditional notions of the scholarship of discovery (typical in phd programs). we sought to create a program that was different from our phd program and which respected the value that informed insiders bring to educational change. our online program was designed as jobembedded professional learning (croft, coggshall, dolan, powers, & killion, 2010; webster-wright, 2010) using a framework of situated learning (putnam & borko, 2000) that recognizes cognition as situated, social, and distributed. students use their own contexts as intentional sites of inquiry where they investigate pops, situating theory from coursework into their daily practice. building on the social and distributed aspects of cognition, students complete coursework in cohorts and collaborate in research support groups throughout the dissertation process. students are also required to attend summer institutes on campus during the first three summers of the program in order to strengthen the learning community. like many phd programs, our program unfolds in three phases over 3 to 4 years: coursework, qualifying exams, and dissertation, but each phase is distinctive from phd study in focus and purpose. in the first phase, students enroll with their cohort members in two highly interactive online classes each fall, spring, and summer semester for the first two years of study. coursework begins in the summer with two foundational classes focused on educational research and our program’s focus—curriculum, teaching, and teacher education. classes follow in practitioner research, professional development, critical pedagogy, teacher leadership, teaching children in poverty, school change, and qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. all classes are primarily asynchronous in nature and focus on structured discussion of pertinent readings as students connect what they are learning to their full-time work as teachers and administrators. the students’ work settings serve as a laboratory of practice (shulman, 2006) and course assignments require students to apply what they learn in ma, dana, adams, and kennedy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 16 coursework immediately to their local contexts. students often collect and analyze data to reflect on the ways what they are learning in coursework translates into their practice. students have multiple opportunities to then compare and contrast what they are learning regarding knowledge for-, in-, and of-practice, the three sources of knowledge practitioners need to make lasting and effective changes to their practice as described by cochran-smith & lytle (1999). knowledge for-practice refers to educators becoming informed about new research-based practices that have legitimized their worth. knowledge in-practice refers to educators applying knowledge forpractice to their work in schools, adapting as needed to address the unique circumstances and situations inherent in their local school contexts. knowledge of-practice refers to educators making “problematic their own knowledge and practice as well as the knowledge and practice of others” (cochran-smith & lytle, 1999, p. 273) by systematically naming, framing, and studying pops. as our students share what they are learning regarding knowledge for-, in-, and of-practice, they develop strong collaborative working relationships with one another despite their individual geographic location. over time, these relationships enable students to serve as critical friends for one another, as they discuss their daily work as educators honestly and openly, and push each other’s thinking and practice in relationship to program goals. in addition to intensive online interaction, an on-campus, one week long june institute is held each summer where students meet to discuss the content of courses and work in small research groups of five to six students advised by a team of two faculty members to progress through qualifying exams and dissertation. qualifying exams and dissertation the major written task associated with qualifying exams is the production of a dissertation prospectus of approximately 25 to 30 pages that outlines the plans for the student’s dissertation research, a study of a pop in their local context. this task helps our students move right into their practitioner research study following qualifying exams taken during the third fall semester in the program because it is heavily tied to their current job/position/context, and we want to time their studies, so they are able to collect data within the same school year in which their study was designed (their third spring semester enrolled in the program). other pieces of the exam include: 1. a biosketch detailing their journey in becoming practitioner scholars. 2. a paper describing shifts in thinking/actions that have occurred over time in their practice as a result of experiences in our program. 3. a presentation (oral only) that demonstrates their work as practitioner scholars. students work on the dissertation prospectus and the other components of the qualifying exams named above within their research group with support from a faculty advisor for approximately one semester and subsequently come to campus for a 90-minute oral examination. if passed, students are admitted to doctoral candidacy and proceed with their proposed dissertation research. time to complete dissertation study varies by student, but typically falls within a six to eight months’ timeframe, at which time students again return to campus for a second 90-minute oral defense by the student’s committee of the dissertation-in-practice. analysis of the written dissertation product produced by students is the focus of this study. methodology document analysis was used as the method to gain insights into the research questions. document analysis is a “systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents—both printed and electronic material” (bowen, 2009, p. 27), which requires “data selection, instead of data collection” (p. 31). according to bowen (2009), advantages of document analysis include high efficiency, availability, cost-effectiveness, stability, exactness, coverage, and lack of obtrusiveness and reactivity. though bowen (2009) cautions that document analysis is not always advantageous as there are three potential flaws inherent in the process—(a) low retrievability, (b) biased selectivity, and (c) insufficient detail, this study addressed these limitations by selecting to review every dissertation produced in our program in its entirety. as stated earlier, the research questions that guided this study were threefold: (1) how do edd students derive their pops?; (2) what is the nature of these pops that our students have studied?; and (3) what are the reported impacts the study of pops have on doctoral students’ local contexts? to explore the nature and content of edd students’ pops studied for their dissertation experiences within a professional practice doctoral program, our primary source of data included all of the dissertations that had been completed in our program since its inception in 2010 (n=28). the analysis of these dissertations began with the first author of this paper, who was not related in any way to the production of these dissertations (i.e., served as dissertation chair or committee member), conducted an independent reading of each study, creating a spreadsheet that included dissertation title, professional role of dissertation author, pop, purpose statement, research questions, data, findings, and impact on practice. next, each member of the research team read a subset of the dissertations and checked the spreadsheet created by the first author for agreement with the published dissertation document. any discrepancies in the ways the dissertations were represented in the spreadsheet were discussed and debated with the entire research team until a consensus on each dissertation component representation was reached. finally, as a form of member-checking (patton, 2002), we sent the spreadsheet description of each individual dissertation to the dissertation author, asking the author to confirm if our representation of his/her dissertation in the spreadsheet was accurate. out of our 28 edd graduates, 24 responded to our member-checking request. they either confirmed the accuracy of the information on the spreadsheet or made minor revisions. once a dissertation summary chart was complete using the procedure discussed above, the first three authors independently read and re-read the constructed summary chart to prepare for coding using an inductive approach (hatch, 2002). during this process, we set out “to organize and group similarly coded data into categories or ‘families’ because they share some characteristic—the beginning of a pattern.” (saldaña, 2013, p. 8). this method of analysis is in line with what bowen (2009) suggests that document analysis requires—a combination of elements of content analysis (organizing information into categories related to the central questions of the research) and thematic analysis (a careful, more focused re-reading and review of the data). throughout the readings and re-readings and coding process, the research team communicated multiple times either face to face or virtually, creating opportunities for multiple analysts to share, discuss and debate patterns emerging in the review of the understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 17 dissertations (marshall & rossman, 2010). throughout these meetings, the research team moved through cycles of discussion, analysis, further discussion, and reanalysis until we reached agreement on the research findings. analyst triangulation and member-checking enhanced the trustworthiness and credibility of this study (patton, 2002). findings research question #1: how do edd students derive their problems of practice (pops)? across the 28 dissertations analyzed, all of our students’ pop derived from a “felt difficulty” or “real-world dilemma” they faced in their local contexts. we define a “felt difficulty” as a deep concern or dissatisfaction upon which the practitioner felt an urge to take action. for example, a district literacy specialist felt that she was not meeting the needs of english language learners in terms of writing instruction in the schools where she worked (christensen, 2014), and her dissertation was designed around taking specific actions to address that. another example is from a special education teacher who realized that the tier three instructional support within a response-to-intervention framework might not have been the most effective way to meet student needs (ammons, 2016). a third example is from a secondary music teacher who noticed a discrepancy between her female students’ high musical performance in her class and their below-average academic performance in math and science classes (harris, 2015). we viewed examples like these as “felt difficulties” because they were problems that our edd students believed could be addressed through direct action in their dissertation research. different from students who derived their pops from a “felt difficulty,” others derived their pops from “real-world dilemmas,” which we define as a situation an educational practitioner faced where he/she had to navigate existing tensions to improve their work. different from “felt difficulties”, these were problems situated in larger educational policy and procedures that created dilemmas for educators in their daily work. for example, one dilemma for a principal working at a large and diverse urban elementary school was that he had to deal with the frustrations his teachers faced as they struggled with implementing new state standards (moss, 2015). a dilemma for a teacher working in a school committed to detracking (stop sorting students into different “tracks” based on their past academic performance or ability) high-school mathematics was simultaneously supporting struggling learners and challenging advanced learners in her detracked honors geometry classroom (weller, 2016). finally, one dilemma for an independent educational consultant/adjunct professor was negotiating conflicting views that existed among local practitioners and her colleagues regarding the effectiveness of the prevailing approach to professional development in high quality early childhood education (pizano, 2016). these “real-world dilemmas” and “felt difficulties” are intertwined, complex, authentic, and therefore, often messy. table 1 provides an overview of all the dissertations we reviewed, including their titles, the professional role of the authors, and how we categorized the way pops were derived. table 1 indicates that across the 28 pops, 8 fell into the category of “felt difficulty,” and the remaining 20 fell into the category of “real-world dilemma,” perhaps indicating that unresolvable dilemmas are felt more often or more deeply by our edd students than problems that they felt could be greatly alleviated or completely resolved. regardless, less important than distinguishing between what constitutes a “felt difficulty” and what constitutes a “real-world dilemma” is the value these two constructs hold in helping edd students derive a pop. table 1 reveals that felt difficulties and realworld dilemmas are pervasive across the practice of all educators regardless of their professional roles or context, and hence, can work as a mechanism for naming and framing a pop for any edd student regardless of their position or context. table 1: how edd students derive their pops title of dissertation author’s professional role pop from … author (year) quality in early care and education: multiple perspectives and critical considerations in a diverse context a district grant director for early childhood education a “real-world dilemma” altman (2016) understanding and designing teacher professional development for universal design for learning (udl): analysis of udl expert perspectives an elementary special education teacher leader (elementary level) a “felt difficulty” ammons (2015) there is where i belong: understanding teacher candidates’ decision to work in high-poverty, urban schools a clinical supervisor in a teacher education program a “real-world dilemma” blaine (2016) coach’s impact on early learning teachers’ class scores a professional development provider who leads coaching work across her state a “real-world dilemma” burns (2015) using collaborative writing to help english language learners actualize the common core state standards an elementary district literacy specialist a “felt difficulty” christensen (2014) constructing knowledge and practice of culturally responsive teaching in an early childhood context an instructional leader a “felt difficulty” conage (2014) ma, dana, adams, and kennedy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 18 responses of disengaged and minoritized haitian american students in a 10th grade english/intensive reading class to the intentional use of culturally relevant literature a 10th grade english and intensive reading teacher a “felt difficulty” fishbein (2016) principals as instructional leadership coaches: school change through job embedded professional development a lead professional development facilitator in her state a “real-world dilemma” gibbs (2015) the role of the music teacher in collaborating with academic teachers within a professional learning community a performing arts teacher in a k-12 developmental research school a “felt difficulty” harris (2015) perceptions of barriers to enrolling in advanced placement courses by high ability, high performing black male high school students a principal at an urban high school a “real-world dilemma” hunter (2016) the perspectives of novice principals in high-poverty, lowperforming schools: challenges faced and support need a school district administrator a “real-world dilemma” kirton (2014) coordinating support for new teachers in a title i middle school an intervention support specialist at a middle school a “felt difficulty” knutowski (2014) helping teachers in a high poverty school move from a deficit to an asset orientation through professional development a guidance counselor and an intervention specialist a “real-world dilemma” latzke (2015) the role of differentiation and standards-based grading in the science learning of struggling and advanced learners in a detracked high school honors biology classroom a high school biology teacher a “real-world dilemma” macdonald (2016) instructional leadership to enhance implementation of the common core state standards in secondary english a district staff developer a “real-world dilemma” mallory (2014) our children deserve this: understanding highly effective teacher retention in hard to staff schools a district administrator a “real-world dilemma” martin (2016) facilitating culturally responsive classroom management professional development for novice teachers in an urban school an instructional staff developer and new teacher mentor at a high-needs urban school a “real-world dilemma” miccichi (2014) the role of the school principal in establishing a school culture that embraces job embedded peer coaching as effective professional development a school principal in a large and diverse urban elementary school a “real-world dilemma” moss (2015) teaching reading to a student with blindness using universal design for learning: a practitioner inquiry an elementary english language arts teacher a “felt difficulty” mundorf (2014) professional development for early care and education in a diverse context: multiple perspectives and critical considerations an independent educational consultant and adjunct professor at a university a “real-world dilemma” pizano (2016) informing educator professional development based on the school experiences of lgbtq students a literacy curriculum support specialist and school improvement specialist a “real-world dilemma” robertson (2014) a principal's reflection on using video to improve classroom a principal of a mid-sized, urban elementary school a “real-world dilemma” saccasyn (2015) understanding the successes and failures of africanamerican high school boys an administrator in a drop-out prevention program a “real-world dilemma” thomas (2014) understanding how to meet the needs of gifted and talented learners within a middle school push-in model: a practitioner research case study of one middle school student a middle-school special education teacher leader a “felt difficulty” van boven (2015) closing the cultural gap: a study of successful integration of western teachers into emirati school culture a professional development specialist a “real-world dilemma” vonderlind (2015) life in school: the academic identity stories of fifth grade african american boys a principal at an urban elementary school a “real-world dilemma” walsh (2015) understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 19 the role of differentiation and standards-based assessment in the mathematics learning of struggling and advanced learners in a detracked high school geometry classroom a high school geometry teacher a “real-world dilemma” weller (2016) successful district online teachers’ perspectives of professional development a school administrator a “real-world dilemma” wiggins (2016) research question #2: what is the nature of these problems of practice (pops) that our students have studied? across the 28 dissertations analyzed, pops fell into three main categories. these categories included: (1) supporting marginalized students or groups (n=14), (2) increasing the quality of educator professional development (n=9), and (3) supporting novices’ entry into the profession (n=3). it is important to note that sometimes an individual dissertation could fit into more than one category. for example, one student looked into how to support marginalized students through professional development of teachers (latzke, 2015). we discussed these overlapping dissertations as a research team, and made our decision about which category to place them in by returning to the complete dissertation and reviewing the background information leading to the study, purpose statement, and research question(s) that drove the study, ultimately placing the dissertation in the category that was most closely related to the purpose statement and research question(s). in addition, two of the 28 dissertations reviewed did not fit into any of the three categories and were therefore categorized as “other.” half of the dissertations we examined (n=14) focused on pops centered on supporting marginalized students or groups. according to unesco—international institute for educational planning (lugaz et al., 2009), marginalized groups in education could be genderrelated, culture-related, location-related, poverty-related, or special groups. here we define “marginalized students or groups” as any of the above-mentioned categories, including but not limited to students of color, students of a low socioeconomic status, and students with special needs. specifically, the marginalized student(s) our edd students focused their dissertation work on included: africanamerican male students (hunter, 2016; thomas, 2014; walsh, 2014), academically struggling african–american female students (harris, 2015), english language learners (christensen, 2014), disengaged haitian american students (fishbein, 2016), struggling and advanced learners in a detracked high-school biology and geometry classroom (macdonald, 2016; weller, 2016), students in early childhood education (altman, 2016; conage, 2014), a female student who was visually impaired and completely blind since birth (mundorf, 2014), a gifted student receiving push-in enrichment support services in a mixed-ability classroom (van boven, 2015), lgbtq students (robertson, 2014), and students at hard to staff schools (martin, 2016). pops in this category demonstrated our students’ passion for making a difference in the lives of marginalized students and demonstrated the ways our program was consonant with the cped principle recommending that edd programs are “framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex pops” (cped, 2014, working principles section, para. 5). nine of the dissertations we examined focused on increasing the quality of educator professional development. situated in practitioners’ local contexts, these problems included meeting the need for effective professional learning opportunities for teachers when a school implemented new standards (mallory, 2014; moss, 2015), providing high quality professional development for early childhood educators (pizano, 2016) and online teachers (wiggins, 2016), introducing a particular framework (ammons, 2015) or specific reflective tool (saccasyn, 2015) to teachers, and helping teachers examine deficit views they may hold about particular groups of learners (latzke, 2015). in addition, while a couple of our edd students did not study teachers’ engagement in professional development directly, their end goal was to help teachers grow. these two pops were about understanding the impact of a coaching model on teacher practice (burns, 2015) and supporting principals to become strong leaders of job-embedded learning and coaching in their schools (gibbs, 2015). the third category of the nature of a pop was supporting novices’ entry into the profession. in our analysis, three studies fell into this category, with two focused on supporting new teachers and one focused on supporting new principals. an instructional staff developer attempted to better understand how she could provide new teachers the support they need to become more effective working with students of color and from poverty (miccichi, 2014); a middle school intervention support specialist explored what the current support system for new teachers in her context looked like and designed and implemented ways to enhance it (knutowski, 2014); and a school district administrator examined the perceptions of novice principals about the challenges they have faced and support received from the district in leading their high-poverty, lowperforming schools (kirton, 2014). research question #3: what are the reported impacts the study of problems of practice (pops) have on doctoral students’ local contexts? across the 28 dissertations analyzed, five generic themes of impact emerged: (1) advancing/changing researchers’ practice and beliefs, (2) promoting communication and collaboration, (3) strengthening/informing policy, (4) supporting student learning, and (5) fostering colleagues’ learning (including challenging colleagues to rethink their practice). as we engaged in the process of data analysis as described in the methodology section to derive these themes however, it became apparent that it would be much more challenging to code and discuss findings related to our third and final research question than it was to code and discuss findings for research questions one and two. we found the task of naming categories for types of impact and then neatly sorting each dissertation into a category problematic for three reasons. first, each individual dissertation study had impact in numerous ways, leading every individual study to occupy multiple categories simultaneously. second, the ways students described impact was usually very specific to their unique dissertation study and context. without background details, as to the study itself and the rich, thick ma, dana, adams, and kennedy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.50 20 description of the student’s local context provided in the individual dissertation, generic descriptions of impact as portrayed in the dissertation would hold little meaning for readers of this paper. hence, we learned as researchers that decontextualizing impact when it is specifically meant to be contextualized makes little sense. finally, there was a great deal of variety across dissertations in the ways students discussed impact. for example, some students discussed impact throughout the dissertation, some in relationship to individual findings and some in the dissertation’s final chapter. the variety in the ways students reported impact led the researchers to different interpretations of what the students’ written words meant for their practice. hence, we learned our understandings of impact and what it meant to the student’s practice would be severely limited by relying solely on the dissertation report. consequently, we are now embarking on a new study employing survey and interview data collection strategies to ascertain what practitioner scholarship looks like in practice after our students graduate from the edd program and the program’s influence on shaping students’ practitioner scholarship. with the additional data sources of survey and interview, we believe we will develop a more accurate understanding of the impact of dissertation studies than we can through simply reading the dissertations alone, and will describe the impact categories derived from this study in further detail after the completion of study number two. conclusion as a result of our analysis, we offer four principles for deriving pops to assist doctoral students across the nation in framing edd dissertation studies. these principles include: 1. pops are deeply embedded in the students’ professional practice or context. 2. pops emanate from felt difficulties and real-world dilemmas students face as they work as educational practitioners. 3. pops align with contemporary, critical issues in education explicated in the literature, such as creating more equitable schooling experiences for all children. 4. pops hold personal significance for the student’s developing professional identity as a practitioner scholar. as we found in our analysis of data related to our three research questions, edd students in our program focused their research on highly contextualized problems of practice that were sometimes addressed with direct action, and sometimes more of an exploration of tensions around abiding dilemmas. the problems, for our students, were very real and very timely, and inextricably linked to their own identities and roles as professionals. these findings are reflected in the four principles outlined above. we are continuing to develop these four guidelines for use within our program to help 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(order no. 10410574) document4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 4 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model brianna l. kennedy, phd utrecht university b.l.kennedy@uu.nl miriam altman, edd educational consultant miriamaltman@att.net ana pizano, edd educational consultant acpizano@gmail.com abstract tensions arise with regard to appropriate research preparation and dissertation experiences for students who have as a career goal the conducting of context-based research to solve problems of practice (hochbein & perry, 2013; shulman, golde, conklin bueschel, & garabedian, 2006). schön (1995) describes “technical rationality[,] the prevailing epistemology built into the research university” (p. 27), as a primary impediment to programs that attempt to develop practitioner scholars. in this paper, we define technical rationality and explore the epistemological challenges it presents to faculty. next, we describe a critical incident illustrating how conflicting epistemologies between programs and graduate schools impact students and faculty. finally, we make recommendations for policies and practices that could better support doctoral work conducted from a range of epistemological approaches. keywords: practitioner scholarship, doctoral education, dissertation in practice, co-authorship, constructionist epistemologies introduction as gary anderson (2017) asserted in the recent special issue of qse, scholars respond to the trump regime, neoliberalism has strengthened an audit culture that narrowly defines high quality research as postpositivist, experimental, and removed from the daily experiences of educators and students in schools. federal policies, funding streams, and faculty members in institutions of higher education reinforce standards for such research, which influence the socialization and training of future generations of researchers. doctoral students experience this socialization through methods courses and through their demonstrations of mastery of research in the dissertation process. students and faculty conducting research using theories and methodologies other than those rewarded by neoliberalism must often creatively negotiate these policies and practices. faculty members who advise practitioner scholars in edd programs must often engage in such negotiation. practitioner scholars are: professionals who bring theoretical, pedagogical, and research expertise to bear on identifying, framing, and studying problems of practice and leading informed change in their schools and districts to continually improve learning conditions for students and adults who work within their local contexts. (adams, bondy, ross, dana, & kennedy-lewis, 2014, p. 366) the embedded nature of practitioner scholarship challenges faculty members to provide appropriate research preparation and dissertation experiences for edd students who have as a career goal the conducting of context-based research to solve problems of practice (hochbein & perry, 2013; shulman et al. 2006). traditional values and shared institutional expectations for what the dissertation process and product should entail have evolved with the rise of the modern american research university. schön (1995) traces this evolution to the second half of the 19th century when european ideals for research universities began to replace the values embodied in american liberal arts colleges and reflected “technical rationality[,] the prevailing epistemology built into the research university” (p. 27). technical rationality frames: (a) social problems as composed of discrete parts rather than interdependent systems; (b) problems as solvable through basic research approached using postpositivist research designs; and (c) knowledge as accumulating through a process of incremental and linear progress (anderson & herr, 1999; carr & kemmis, 1986; schön, 1995). technical rationality justifies narrowly defined conceptions of what counts as valid and reliable research, and frames rigor as a engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 5 qualification that can only be accomplished by an objective researcher detached from contexts and systems (anderson & herr, 1999). practitioner scholarship, the focus of many contemporary edd programs, poses an epistemological challenge to technical rationality by situating problems of practice within a context and embracing the researcher’s embedded role as a stakeholder in that context. ravitch and lytle (2016) argue that the positioning of practitioners as producers of knowledge “represents a ‘constructive disruption’ of some understandings of the relationships of knowledge and practice” (p. 3). practitioner research has emerged from a history of international movements to shift research paradigms in order to better address social problems (anderson, herr, & nihlen, 1994). rather than adopting the technical rational view that the researcher’s subjectivity should be controlled and limited, practitioner scholarship foregrounds the researcher as an agent of change and positions the research process as a vehicle for change. its purpose is not to protect a phenomenon from researcher bias in order to describe the phenomenon but rather to insert informed understandings or practices in a context in order to transform it. in this process, the researcher is also transformed. because both context and researcher change through acts of practitioner scholarship, technical rational understandings of knowledge, which presume an unchanging context, have little use. practitioner scholarship challenges technical rationality and represents a fundamentally different epistemological approach (anderson & herr, 1999; cochran-smith & lytle, 2005; dill & morrison, 1985; schön, 1995; zeichner & noffke, 1998). challenges to technical rationality can cause tensions between faculty members who disagree about what counts as research and rigor. anderson and herr (1999) stated, “practitioners [and we would argue faculty members] intuitively know that when they challenge the norms, the institution’s dynamic conservatism will often respond in a self-protective manner” (p. 17). challenging technical rationality is risky and uncomfortable, but also necessary to unseat this paradigm and develop institutional systems that make room for paradigms that adequately support and explain research conducted outside of technical rationality and that may better address social problems. schön (1995) explained: all of us who live in research universities are bound up in technical rationality…hence, introducing the new scholarship into institutions of higher education means becoming involved in an epistemological battle. it is a battle of snails, proceeding so slowly that you have to look very carefully in order to see it going on. but it is happening nonetheless. (p. 32) in this paper, we explore the particular case of practitioner scholarship in the edd to challenge the orthodoxy of postpositivism and the five-chapter dissertation model that it often supports in the field of education. we begin by examining existing scholarship that describes how edd programs have engaged in the battle of snails, particularly with regard to creating appropriate dissertation experiences. next, we describe a critical incident experienced by the authors of this paper that illustrates how conflicting epistemologies between programs and graduate schools impact students and faculty. in reflecting upon the critical incident and analyzing its impact, we argue for the inclusion of collaboration and co-authorship as accepted processes and products of the dissertation. finally, we make recommendations for higher education policies and practices that could better support doctoral work conducted from a range of epistemological approaches. conceptualizing contemporary edd dissertations teachers college at columbia university granted the first education phd in 1891 and harvard offered the first edd in 1920 (anderson, 1983; dill & morrison, 1985). harvard began offering an edd so that the school of education could replace the graduate school in granting a doctoral degree in a field focused on applied rather than basic research (dill & morrison, 1985), which may have marked the beginning of the epistemological battle of snails. the epistemological underpinnings of programs shape several program components, including the content of the dissertation research, the approach to the research process, and the format of the research product (see figure 1). we define the content of the research as what students do for their capstone/dissertation project (e.g. build new knowledge about a topic of interest or investigate a solution to a problem of practice); the process of research is how the content is addressed or studied (e.g. individually or collaboratively); and the format of the research product is what is submitted to the committee as a demonstration of mastery (e.g. a five-chapter dissertation or a series of journal articles). each of these areas provides terrain for the battle of snails. figure 1. components of the dissertation process shaped by programs’ epistemologies kennedy, altman, and pizano impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 6 contents of the dissertation research the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) provides a forum for the development of the professional practice doctorate (shulman et al., 2006). in 2007, cped invited eddgranting institutions to join the organization in redesigning the edd to more closely align the research content, process, format, and preparation to the goals of practitioner scholarship (buss, zambo, zambo, perry, & williams, 2017; cped, 2016a). cped distinguishes the edd dissertation as a “dissertation in practice,” one that focuses on “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner” (cped, 2016b, decisionconcepts section, para. 7). by acknowledging and promoting contextualized, evolving interrelationships between scholar, knowledge, and application, the dissertation in practice reflects a constructionist epistemology underlying practitioner scholarship. this epistemological foundation positions practitioner scholarship to bridge the divide between research, theory, and practice. practitioner scholars can study complex educational issues that perpetuate social injustices in particular contexts and figure out how to improve them in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. the shift from accumulating discrete pieces of academic knowledge, presumably isolated from context and application, to continually contextualizing understandings and addressing problems of practice require fundamentally different approaches to the research and may result in fundamentally distinct dissertation products. approaches to the dissertation research process cped does not offer guidelines on how dissertation research should be conducted, but the values placed on collaboration and social justice have implications for the research process. some edd programs have incorporated collaboration into dissertation research, which challenges the “traditional perspective of the lone investigator laboring away on her or his research project” (murphy & vriesenga, 2005, p. 47). archbald (2008) asserted that few details are available to describe collaborative dissertations but concluded from existing literature that group approaches derive from faculty members’ recognition that collaboration is an important component of the work of practitioner scholars. according to archbald’s review, group-based dissertations include both individual and group components. here, we distinguish between two types of collaboration: (a) the joint work of a doctoral student or group of students and a senior scholar in pursuit of the senior scholar’s research agenda; and (b) the interdependent pursuit of a commonly identified problem of practice among multiple stakeholders who systematically study and address that problem. in the first of these two versions of collaboration, a hierarchical power relationship positions the senior scholar as research guide and mentor and the student(s) as learners in the process of conducting the research. we call this type of collaboration vertical collaboration. vertical collaboration supports the goals of technical rationality. a second version of collaboration deconstructs traditional power relationships and positions collaborators as co-constructors of all parts of the research process, from the articulation of the research dilemma through the pursuit of addressing that dilemma and to the production of the documentation of the process and circulation of the results. this type of collaboration reflects constructionist epistemologies and can better serve the purposes of practitioner scholarship. we call it horizontal collaboration. archbald’s (2008) review addressed dissertations that involved horizontal collaboration and reflected the distinct research paradigm of practitioner scholarship. formats of the dissertation product since dissertations in practice may address content and use research processes distinct from traditional dissertations, students and faculty seek formats for the final dissertation products that similarly reflect the epistemological foundations of practitioner scholarship. however, faculty members who, as schön (1995) points out, are themselves steeped in technical rationality, have difficulty imagining alternatives. a number of surveys of edd-granting institutions have been conducted over the past half century examining differences in research preparation and dissertation products between edds and phds (e.g., anderson, 1983; archbald, 2008; dill & morrison, 1985; murphy & vriesenga, 2005). these surveys have consistently shown that while the goals of the two degree programs typically differ, the implementation rarely does; edd and phd research courses are often indistinguishable and the five-chapter, sole-authored dissertation genre abounds. a common exception to this format is one in which introduction and conclusion chapters bookend a sequence of co-authored articles. these articles are written through a process of vertical collaboration between professor and students in the development of technical rational research. we call these vertical collaboration formats. philosophers of science and education have developed paradigmatic alternatives to technical rationality that support practitioner scholarship, and the literature base documenting culminating tasks that differ from the five-chapter, sole-authored dissertation and vertical collaboration formats is growing (e.g., archbald, 2008; belzer & ryan, 2013; dana, bondy, kennedy-lewis, adams, & ma, 2016; dawson & kumar, 2014; murphy & vriesenga, 2005; ravitch & lytle, 2016). archbald (2008) summarizes, “alternatives proposed in the literature include portfolios, internships, analytical papers, and collaborative projects” (p. 705). he then critiques the paucity of literature examining the breadth, depth, and effectiveness of those products in supporting the goals of practitioner scholarship, pointing the way for future research. in the specific field of educational leadership, murphy and vriesenga (2005) contacted 161 edd programs and found that only eight included dissertation formats that differed from the sole-authored, five-chapter genre, and only four institutions had fully developed and consistently implemented those models. all four programs offered multiple formats for the final project and incorporated collaboration as a key component of their culminating tasks. the roles of academic policies and faculty socialization in regulating dissertation production faculty members at research universities learn how to advise doctoral students through a process of socialization that begins with their own experiences as doctoral students and is guided and regulated by academic policies and at various institutional levels (austin, 2002; weidman, twale, & stein, 2001). the socialization process transmits from one generation of faculty to the next the values, priorities, and modes of work integral to a technical rational system. the epistemological foundation supporting this system positions the mastery of doctoral level knowledge and research skills as developed within individuals and possessed by those individuals as opposed to being socially constructed and communally engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 7 possessed. doctoral students who successfully demonstrate mastery within this system, which arguably requires either the adoption or the creative manipulation of the epistemological assumptions of technical rationality, go on to become the faculty members who write and implement the academic policies that reinforce and perpetuate these values and assumptions. such policies are not neutral, but instead regulate this socialization process to ensure ultimate adherence to outcomes that promote technical rationality even if doctoral students and/or faculty members enact creative resistance that asserts alternative epistemologies and paradigms. such policies exist at various institutional levels, including the program, department, school, college, and graduate school. as background research for this manuscript, we conducted a review of policies at both the program and graduate school levels at all cped member institutions1. institutional policies could be categorized as: (a) not directly stating specific requirements for the dissertation research process or product at either the program or graduate school levels, (b) providing specifications at one level, or (c) providing specifications at both levels. policies articulated at the graduate school level typically endorsed the sole-authored five-chapter dissertation or manuscript models, reflecting technical rational paradigms. some policies at the program level supported challenges to technical rationality by endorsing horizontal collaboration or alternative dissertation formats. in some cases, the inherent tensions between the assumptions of technical rationality and practitioner scholarship appeared in the policies themselves. for example, the university of southern california’s educational leadership program policy stated: the edd in educational leadership program offers innovative thematic dissertation groups, in which students work collaboratively with faculty and practitioners from the field to study a contemporary problem in educational leadership…students write individual dissertations, but access their faculty group leaders and fellow group members for support, literature and research design recommendations, and feedback on drafts. (university of southern california, 2016) this policy both validates the horizontal collaboration supported by constructionist epistemologies, especially by including educational practitioners as experts in the research process, and also reinforces technical rational values that require individual demonstrations of knowledge and skills. a policy that enabled a constructionist epistemological alignment between research process and product would either articulate the endorsement of a research product produced through horizontal collaboration or else leave the determination of an end product open to a faculty member’s or dissertation committee’s determination, which could intentionally challenge technical rationality. however, this policy demonstrates how epistemological tensions play out either implicitly or explicitly in policy language, which also symbolizes the tensions that play out between and among doctoral students and members of dissertation committees. the role of policy in arbitrating these tensions is never neutral, even when policies do not require technical rational 1 listed members as of august 1, 2016 as per cped’s website http://cpedinitiative.org/consortium-members 2 although we did not set out to collect data using flanagan’s (1954) critical incident methodological technique, we adopt cope and watts’ (2000) definition of the term as “an emotional event [that represents] a period of intense feelings, both at the time and during its subsequent reflective demonstrations of knowledge, because the milieu of the research university perpetuates the values of technical rationality even when these values are not explicitly articulated in policy or consciously acknowledged by faculty. in the battle of snails, policies and practices end up supporting one side or the other, whether that process occurs consciously or unconsciously on the parts of individual students or faculty members involved. next, we describe a critical incident illustrating how this battle impacted two edd students and their faculty advisor. a critical incident illustrating the battle and its impact on students and faculty context as part of her faculty appointment, brianna advised students in an edd program designed to develop practitioner scholars as defined by cped. in practice, the edd program culminated with a doctoral dissertation that often looked similar to the phd dissertation in content, research process, and format, though faculty continued to explore alternatives that could better prepare practitioner scholars. the edd program was housed in the college of education, which contained phd and edd programs. these programs varied with regard to goals, target student populations, and faculty perspectives on cped principles. although edd programs enrolled significant numbers of students, preferences toward traditional phd research over practitioner scholarship were reflected in many aspects of the college, such as in the types of research courses offered and required. faculty regularly worked to inform colleagues about the purpose as well as the programmatic aspects of their edd program, and often worked through, around, and in spite of misunderstandings about, and disregard for, the edd as a valid and high quality doctorate. the critical incident described next occurred as brianna advised two edd students, ana and miriam on their dissertation. the incident illustrates one attempt to work through, around, and in spite of institutional limitations. it demonstrates how actions of institutional agents can result in the reinforcement and perpetuation of technical rationality even, and perhaps particularly, when these norms are challenged. the critical incident2 when completing their edd program, both ana and miriam worked in early childhood education settings in miami, florida. they brought critical stances to the roles of standardization, accountability requirements, and narrow definitions and assessments of quality in early care and education (ece). in ana and miriam’s local context, predominantly latina immigrants working with latinx3 children negotiated tensions between ece quality improvement demands and their personal, cultural, and linguistic assets and beliefs. miriam was interested in contested definitions of “quality” ece, and interpretation” (p. 114). critical incidents can be used to elucidate important, but often neglected, theoretical issues manifested in everyday life. 3 the “x” at the end of latin is used in lieu of the “a” or “o” typically used in the spanish language in order to avoid reinforcing a gender binary and instead representing a range of gender identities (see reichard, 2015). kennedy, altman, and pizano impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 8 exploring how ece professionals with varied roles understand and represent the construct. ana was interested in ece practitioners’ perspectives of effective professional development (pd) and their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and professional assets as well as their perceived pd needs. ana’s and miriam’s independent studies addressed an overarching, complex problem of practice: the marginalization of the voices and experiences of ece practitioners in miami. this problem of practice affected the daily work of both authors in their respective ece settings. ana and miriam did not occupy the same professional roles or consistently work together, but their professional paths had crossed before enrolling in the program and they shared experiences facilitating pd for local ece practitioners. both students subscribed to campbell and wasco’s (2000) constructivism, which understands reality and knowledge as socially constructed, and social factors such as gender, race, class, culture, and economics as shaping perceived realities. after two years of coursework, the students began their written qualifying examinations, which included preparing a dissertation proposal that they developed with feedback from brianna before presenting to their committees. as brianna provided feedback on each student’s first chapter, she noticed complementarity in their professional contexts, epistemological stances, problems of practice, perspectives, interests, and skills, and suggested they consider collaborating on their dissertation. in addition, brianna recognized the potential of jointly exploring the interrelated problems of practice in the students’ shared ece context, believed horizontal collaboration to be necessary for creating educational change, and believed that encouraging such collaboration would benefit the students and their work. using her academic freedom as an advisor, brianna committed to seeing how the partnership evolved to best suit the students’ individual and shared goals. brianna first consulted program colleagues about forming dissertation committees for both students that were composed of the same members, and then consulted with the committee regarding the students’ collaboration. the committee agreed to allow the collaboration to develop organically with the understanding that each student would conduct independent, related research. at this point, the committee tip-toed toward supporting horizontal collaboration, without articulating it as such, while still preserving the values placed on individualistic demonstrations of knowledge as promoted by technical rationality. each of the dissertation committee members had been socialized into technical rationality and, therefore, preserved a core value of this paradigm while simultaneously supporting the broadening of the dissertation process to reflect the values of practitioner scholarship. while engaging in this difficult balancing act with no examples to guide their decision making, the committee agreed that ana and miriam’s horizontal collaboration could include co-authorship. here, committee members relied upon the technical rational value placed upon their own academic freedom as committee members in encouraging the horizontal collaboration in both the research process and dissertation product. the committee did not, however, explicitly frame the decision-making process in terms of the battle of snails, but rather implicitly negotiated tensions between expectations for traditional dissertations and appropriately responsive expectations for practitioner scholars. after the successful defense of a co-authored three-chapter dissertation proposal, which would become the first chapters of the dissertation, brianna and the students regularly discussed their independent research and its collaborative intersection. while committee members had endorsed co-authorship in the proposal, they did not articulate any distinction between collaboration and coauthorship during the following year that ana and miriam coauthored their dissertation. the students’ collaboration seamlessly included co-authorship and neither students nor advisor saw a need to distinguish between them. through the processes of collaboration and co-authorship, ana and miriam deepened their individual thinking and produced work more sophisticated and rigorous than would have been expected of them individually. although they asked separate research questions, performed distinct data collection and analyses, and conducted their studies in different languages, they supported each other at each stage. ana and miriam engaged in collaborative and critical reflection and writing processes that challenged them to position both studies within their broader miami ece context to widen potential impact. they described collaboration and co-authorship as so important to their work that brianna and the students agreed that the students would craft a co-authored final document. this document would clearly articulate their individual contributions and the specific nature of their collaboration while also weaving together both studies within the students’ shared context and the broader field. such a product would seem to meet the norms of technical rationality that supported individual demonstrations of knowledge while also building upon the horizontal collaboration characteristic of practitioner scholarship and maximizing the importance and effectiveness of this work for the students. to guide the students in this process, brianna consulted the graduate school guidelines regarding collaboration and coauthorship, and, finding conflicting policies—one stating that coauthorship was not allowed and another stating that co-authorship should be noted and cited appropriately—presumed that the part of the policy that named the supervisory committee as responsible for the quality of the dissertation was meant as the fundamental guiding principle. brianna had used her professional judgment to determine that the students had conducted high quality work and that their collaborative process and co-authorship developed their individual skills in ways that would benefit their roles as practitioner scholars. brianna trusted that committee members’ feedback at the dissertation defense would determine the final format submitted to the graduate school. despite the graduate school’s official position on deferring to the chair and committee to determine quality and its claim to judge first submissions based solely on compliance with the formatting template rather than content, the students’ co-authored dissertation document was immediately rejected by a non-faculty graduate school editor due to its having two authors. the explicit coauthorship of the document violated the implicit norms of technical rationality and was rejected by an institutional agent who unconsciously guarded and enforced technical rational norms despite the explicit position stated by the graduate school that such an action was beyond the scope of the roles of the editors. the powerful norms of technical rationality dictated the rejection of this enactment of horizontal collaboration. graduate school editors performed the work of foot soldiers in the battle of snails with little awareness of their roles. the students were placed in jeopardy of not being able to graduate on time if they could not meet the first submission deadline by submitting a draft that the graduate school would approve, and brianna called upon colleagues and other faculty members for engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 9 assistance. after difficult conversations among administrators at the school, college, and university levels who had not been involved in the editor’s initial rejection of the document, it became clear that despite the graduate school’s written policies, the students would have to separate their co-authored document into two singleauthored documents that were judged by these administrators to be sufficiently distinct before the documents would be accepted. the faculty advisor was allowed to exercise academic freedom until her choices fundamentally challenged the norm of technical rationality that required only one name to be listed as dissertation author even if the work had been jointly produced. ana and miriam recalled being particularly disturbed by an email stating that they would be required to “disentangle” their coauthored document since careful synthesis was an essentially embedded and intentionally valued aspect of their collaboration. ana, miriam, and brianna refuted the notion that the co-construction of the dissertation and knowledge itself could survive what would amount to an excision. this process would require the students to compartmentalize knowledge with regard to the dissertation content, process, and product—reflecting an epistemological position that they did not share—by engaging in the impossible, unethical, and emotionally fraught task of arbitrarily assigning sole authorship to thoughts and words at which ana and miriam had arrived together. brianna and the students thought that such a task would mischaracterize and diminish the nature of the collaborative research content and process that had produced the dissertation and that was integral to the students’ work as practitioner scholars. after university colleagues at all administrative levels had further conversations, the students were ultimately allowed to include several co-authored chapters in each document, a practice already routinely allowed in the natural sciences that used manuscript style vertical collaboration formats that did not fundamentally challenge technical rationality. the students were required to divide the original document into two and add independently written chapters to each separate document in order to pass first submission, for which they were granted an extended deadline. brianna quickly realized her own powerlessness as the chair as well as the powerlessness of the committee in this process; administrators and colleagues pressured her to do whatever necessary to get the students through first submission, which included developing outlines to guide the division of the students’ document, which she philosophically opposed. even colleagues who supported horizontal collaboration and practitioner scholarship, but who had been socialized into a technical rational system, reinforced the power and predominance of technical rationality by encouraging compliance rather than resistance. both advisor and committee had been effectively stripped of the autonomy and academic freedom ensured in official graduate school documents, and a high quality product of practitioner scholarship was mangled in order to look more like two traditional five-chapter dissertations, which were less cohesive, relevant, and rhetorically sound than the original document. lessons learned from the critical incident in examining the critical incident, we have identified two connected lessons upon which we elaborate. the first lesson relates to the concept and practice of horizontal collaboration. while cped articulates the value of collaboration in its principles and some programs have explicitly embedded it in their dissertation policies, few descriptions exist regarding the nature, experience, and value of horizontal collaboration to the students as practitioner scholars. consistent with the epistemologically constructionist underpinnings and ideals of practitioner scholarship, collaboration can transform not only the format of the dissertation product but also the content and process—as well as the context, application of the research, and the researchers themselves. the second lesson emerges from the conflicting understandings and epistemological assumptions about co-authorship held by stakeholders involved in the critical incident. ana, miriam, and brianna articulate their understanding and experience of co-authorship as a horizontally collaborative, constructive process. this process extends beyond the instrumental goal of vertical collaboration in producing a finite document that meets narrow conceptions of rigor and instead offers potential for enacting change. horizontal collaboration in practitioner scholarship: ana and miriam’s experience drawing upon bhavsar and ahn (2013) and siry, ali-khan, and zuss (2011), ana and miriam experience and define collaboration as a dialogical, reflective, interactive process and relationship in which peers value, learn from, ethically negotiate, and apply different perspectives, ideas, and strengths. ana and miriam’s collaboration extended beyond, and organically encompassed, co-authorship. for example, in addition to co-authoring the dissertation document, the students shared methodological approaches, conferred about data analyses, maintained a collaborative reflective journal, and copresented preliminary findings. the students’ experience of collaboration as a dialogic relationship is consistent with social constructivism, which emphasizes the power of social context and relationships in the development of thought, language, and meaning (vygotsky, 1978 as cited in bhavsar & ahn, 2013; vygotsky, 1986). this emphasis on the power of context and relationships further relates to freire’s (2007) call for humility in recognizing that “i cannot make myself alone, nor can i do things alone. i make myself with others, and with others, i can do things” (p. 73). furthermore, freire asserts that pride and self-sufficiency counter efforts to address social injustice. ana and miriam relate their experience to freire’s call for communication between active subjects who are open to discovery while resisting “bureaucratization of their minds” (freire, 2007, p. 99); the students’ collaborative processes actively nurtured creativity, discovery, purpose, and meaning and resisted assumptions of knowledge, knower, and known as compartmentalized, technically separate entities. working in collaboration deepened ana and miriam’s beliefs about the nature of knowledge, social problems, and the role of relationships in learning and enacting change, and countered technical rational understandings of problems as composed of discrete parts rather than interdependent systems. collaborating to describe and address intersecting problems of practice specifically opened doors to new and significant learning and points of view, provided access to broader repertoires of knowledge and skills, and enhanced the students’ abilities to advance change through their professional positions. throughout their collaboration, ana and miriam took risks in their explorations with and through the support of each other and clarified their beliefs and understandings as they developed philia, a kind of friendship based on trust and respect that emerges through opportunities for ethical reflection (siry et al., 2011). while kennedy, altman, and pizano impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 10 collaboration can take many forms, the students characterize their experience as marked by mutual respect, adventurousness, curiosity, and cycles of critical questioning and listening (freire, 2007), which they especially developed through co-authorship, a specific form of horizontal collaboration that entails a dialectical process of thinking and recording creatively co-constructed ideas. co-authorship: a challenge to technical rationality the students’ co-authored eight-chapter dissertation represented a break in content, process, and format from the traditional, individually written five-chapter dissertation, and challenged prevailing manifestations of technical rationality. the nature of their co-authorship similarly reflected a break from technical rationality and associated individualistic notions about the nature of knowledge, rigor, scholarship, and intellectual ownership. we first discuss practical details of the students’ collaborative writing process, then discuss how they benefitted from the process, and, finally, describe how their enactment of collaborative writing challenged technical rationality. how the students co-authored. practically speaking, although they had different writing styles, they were flexible about structure, open to discussing nuances in meaning, and interested in sharing literature that they found insightful. technology facilitated coauthorship, allowing them to write simultaneously or asynchronously, and affording flexibility regarding time, approaches to writing, and processing of divergent ideas. using the google docs platform in which they could write and converse on the same document at the same time allowed them to simultaneously verbalize and refine emerging ideas. the “comment” and “suggesting” features also enabled them to work independently at different times while allowing the co-author to reflect on, accept, expand, question, or reject the other author’s writing. these practical aspects of writing together facilitated and reflected a process of collaborative co-authorship which evolved as a dialogic process, relationship, skill set, and art that they continually explored and refined together. how the students benefited from co-authorship. as siry et al. (2011) proposed, co-authorship resulted in the construction of ideas, perspectives, and research that developed on both individual and collective levels. the students experienced the collaborative effort of “writing in and around each other’s’ thoughts” (siry et al., 2011, para. 20) as a delicate but valuable dance that pushed them from individualism towards a collective, constructive, ethical, and critical relationship in both research and practice (altman, 2016; pizano, 2016). their co-authorship importantly served as a “metacognitive strategy to generate deeper thought and clearer ideas” (bhavsar & ahn, 2013, p. 14) as they questioned each other’s understandings and assumptions, and continuously clarified and made uncertainties and disagreements explicit. the process required each of them to remain critical while resolving differences and building consensus. co-authorship developed their willingness and ability to sustain respectful, critical, and open conversations, not only about shared views but also about divergent ideas; it also advanced commitments and skills that are not necessarily well developed through sole authorship but are important assets to practitioner scholars engaged with complex problems of practice. for example, the ongoing and intentional practice of collaborative writing helped miriam become a more thoughtful and sensitive writer in her grant-related work as she experienced co-authorship as a form of dialogue in which thoughts interacted as they took form. she grew to understand “the final product was never the result of the knowledge or skills of one, but instead reflected a set of interconnected, ongoing interactions and values” (altman,, 2016, p.152). this understanding of knowledge as produced through ongoing co-constructed interactions fundamentally challenges technical rationality’s epistemological assumptions that knowledge is possessed and produced by individuals. how we characterize co-authorship. as miriam reflected: writing with more than oneself in mind is a balancing act and an attempt to capture, communicate, or inspire emerging ideas, problems, or messages in a way that is both aesthetically appealing and resonates as true to more than one. collaborative writing is also an act of trust…characterized by caring interactions and an ongoing, responsive balance of shared moments of engaged exploration along with allowing time for independent pursuit of one another’s curiosities and priorities. (altman, 2016, p. 152) miriam emphasized that technically oriented, expert-derived, predetermined criteria in writing represent a minimum standard, while the beautiful, meaningful, creative, and functional sides of writing occur in spaces where different voices and points of view come together. within these spaces, the students experienced “collaborative writing as both empowering and a form of empowerment in which the limits and sources of words are less relevant than the meaning and function of the messages they convey” (altman, 2016, p. 152). the reciprocal, transformational nature of the students’ coauthorship applies to bhavsar and ahn’s (2013) differentiation between instrumental and developmental collaboration, which parallels our definitions of vertical and horizontal collaboration. on the one hand, administrators holding technical rational assumptions arguably reduced the students’ collaboration to the instrumental goal of producing a dissertation product that would allow the students to graduate. on the other hand, the students acted as practitioner scholars and epistemologically challenged technical rationality because, while they viewed the product as necessary to graduate, they prioritized and enacted collaboration as a collective, “socially constructed learning relationship” (bhavsar & ahn, 2013, p. 13). the administrators who initially required the co-authored dissertation to be “disentangled” seemed to fail to recognize or to undervalue this interdependent relationship and instead to assume that the nature of the co-authorship was simply instrumental by suggesting that the writing consisted of discrete, separable parts. we experienced these assumptions and reactions to the students’ co-authorship as reflective of what freire (2007) calls “authoritarian antidialogue” (p. 99) because it did not grant legitimacy to the students’ learning process and its context in practitioner scholarship. challenging the marginalization imposed by technical rationality the nature of the students’ collaboration and co-authorship contrasted with technical rationality and illuminated unexplored epistemological assumptions affecting and reflecting uneven power dynamics associated with modes of scholarship, research, and collaboration. while we did not intend to engage in an epistemological battle, the vulnerable positioning of our distinct approach to the research content, process, and product in the critical engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 11 incident point to the need to analyze how prevailing epistemologies may discourage alternative modes of scholarship, particularly that correspond with the goals of practitioner scholarship and the edd degree. the students’ efforts to engage with and portray the interconnected complexity of their contexts as practitioner scholars, collaborators, and co-authors were undermined by university administrators in favor of traditional notions of rigorous scholarship as an individual act. this experience suggests a need to encourage and grant legitimacy to, rather than suppress, the values, ways of knowing and learning, and voices of practitioner scholars. despite the obstacles we encountered, our experiences throughout this critical incident showcase the power of collaboration and co-authorship in overcoming socialized expectations about scholarship imposed by dominant forces. for example, if the students had individually responded to the rejection of their first submission, they may have complied with unjust demands regarding their work. however, they conferred and substantiated one another’s convictions that their scholarship was legitimate and that our expectations to maintain co-authored content, and to assign coauthorship to that content, were reasonable and just. the students explicitly agreed not to be divided as they supported each other throughout the critical incident, including writing additional independent chapters and preparing the collaborative dissertation defense. the students’ partnership through collaborative design, reflection, analysis, and co-authorship: transformed their understandings and abilities to apply informed understandings to problems manifested in their professional contexts; resulted in continued collaboration to tell the stories of their participants and their experience of collaboration, co-authorship, and this critical incident; and led to further collaboration and co-authorship in enacting change in policy and practice. this critical incident raises issues related to the value of collaboration and co-authorship to address problems of practice, and to the potential conflicts that arise when challenging technical rationality at a university, even when its programs, faculty, and policies have formally expressed alternative stances. the relevance of this incident transcends the experiences of two practitioner scholars and their dissertation advisor and exemplifies the need for consistency among policies and practices that protect academic freedom and allow for innovative approaches, including horizontal collaboration and co-authorship. as a team, we agreed that this incident was not only about completing individual degree requirements, but also about broader issues related to how power, epistemologies, and modes of scholarship are understood and play out in institutions, specifically in edd programs. ana and miriam’s collaboration initially empowered them in thought and action to counter the demand to disentangle a synthesized work and to negotiate a more ethical and respectful resolution that would allow them to graduate without compromising personal and scholarly integrity. more broadly, our shared experience resulted in a commitment to each other and to other practitioner scholars that has surpassed the critical incident and compels us to continue to tell our story in order to hold and gain terrain in this battle of snails. striving for excellence in scholarship requires that educators openly question how our daily practices in and across educational organizations support or contradict our espoused beliefs and goals. it also requires that we continuously search for ways to consistently and systematically revisit and align policies and practices in order to better serve learners, teachers, scholarship, and the contexts and communities we hope to impact. recommendations for practice in higher education aligning doctoral programs, policies, practices, and principles will require ongoing review of how academic institutions support rather than stifle dialogue, collaboration, and practitioner scholarship. we recommend continuous revisions to coursework, syllabi, policies, procedures, and programmatic guidelines to reflect consistency between what is officially condoned and what is commonly practiced. our recommendations involve preparing practitioner scholars to intentionally choose and coherently connect their pedagogical approach, research content, process, and product in a manner most relevant to their problems of practice and research questions. course syllabi, program documents, and university policies and procedures regarding dissertation products should clearly describe how they reflect scholarly, analytical, and ethical considerations of relevant problems of practice. for example, program coursework, including dissertations, should align with stated program goals and with the desired knowledge, attitudes, and skills that practitioner scholars need to develop in order to successfully and ethically enact sustainable social change, including the ability to collaborate and coconstruct knowledge with others. clear understanding and analysis of epistemological and methodological differences could support the alignment between theoretical paradigms, pedagogical approaches, research methods, and all phases of the dissertation. doctoral programs and dissertation processes should provide opportunities for students to develop a deep understanding of different epistemologies, theoretical paradigms, and research methods and to practice how they can be applied to students’ own educational settings and communities. epistemological understanding would allow students to identify and develop appropriate inquiry stances and procedures to address relevant problems of practice. recognition and encouragement of the importance of horizontal collaboration for practitioner scholarship may include practice with different collaborative methods like coauthorship throughout the program. additional coursework on research methods that challenge or complement technical rationality should be offered to highlight how epistemological foundations affect pedagogy as well as research content, process, and product. further recommendations relate to policies and procedures that govern the dissertation process. it is important that these policies guarantee academic freedom and clearly define the role of advisor and committee in supporting practitioner scholarship through the dissertation in ways that are appropriate for practitioner scholars. dissertation policies and procedures should assert that advisor and committee are responsible for determining rigor in research content, process, and product and advise candidates accordingly by clearly laying out the power and responsibility of advisor and committee. policies and procedures should also explicitly limit administrative involvement to technical formatting and/or cases in which unethical conduct or mismanagement jeopardizes the candidate’s research, practice, academic freedom, or possibility of degree culmination. we recommend policy language that clearly addresses the need for dissertations to represent adequate fit between content, process, and product aligned with epistemological stances and research paradigms. we also recommend establishing approval systems that explicitly support all research designs that demonstrate epistemological alignment, including those that incorporate collaborative approaches and co-authored products. effective policies might explicitly address co-authorship and the expectation kennedy, altman, and pizano impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.27 12 that co-authorship be clearly indicated in the dissertation document when co-authorship has occurred. technical criteria for the dissertation format should be considered minimums and not compliance standards. lastly, we recommend ongoing organizational and academic support for practitioner-scholars and faculty who challenge technical rationality, particularly through horizontal collaboration. this could take the form of policy language and guidelines that acknowledge the distinct benefits of horizontal collaboration, continued exchange among academic institutions regarding effective practices, as well as the creation of support/guidance mechanisms for scholars who encounter epistemological resistance in their doctoral program. continuing to win ground in the battle of snails for epistemological plurality in doctoral education will require creative advising, program inquiry and evaluation, and strategic policymaking by faculty, educational institutions, and the organizations that support them. we advocate policy language that supports practitioner scholarship’s challenge to the supremacy of technical rationality by broadening definitions of what counts as rigorous scholarship to include pedagogical approaches, research processes, and products that reflect epistemological diversity. only by explicitly recognizing the distinct demands, affordances, and rigor of contextbased research can higher education institutions empower practitioner scholars to bridge the research-practice divide and create solutions to educational problems of 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(pp. 404-442). washington, dc: american educational research association. microsoft word 56 final.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 32 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.56 advancing a community of practice reflections from the field one year later felice d. billups, edd johnson and wales university felice.billups@jwu.edu scott l. borstel, edd johnson and wales university scott.borstel@jwu.edu abstract a year after embarking on program redesign to align with cped principles and practices, faculty from a small doctoral program at a private university assessed their work. specific initiatives such as embedding social justice principles into program components and revising admissions strategies were largely successful. conversely, attempts to re-conceptualize the dissertation in practice met with resistance from numerous stakeholders. the challenges and opportunities of substantively changing a long-standing program have affected the way this faculty work together and envision the future of their program. new approaches to collaboration, innovation, and conflict resolution, viewed from an organizational change perspective, and rooted in the program culture, resulted from their collective efforts to strengthen the education doctorate. keywords: education doctorate, cped alignment, program redesign, organizational change introduction as part of the process to strengthen our education doctorate (edd) program and align it with cped’s principles, we embarked on a long-range planning process to guide program redesign efforts for the educational leadership doctoral program at johnson & wales university (jwu) (billups, borstel, & dipaola, 2016). after identifying specific areas for improvement, we developed a series of action steps to guide this work. our collective vision for our program, a program that is now in its 22nd year, was to reflect cped principles and practices by transforming our curriculum, advising systems, research, and dissertation projects in order to strengthen and enhance our education doctorate (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2017). but something unintended happened along the way to transformation, and we have learned some valuable lessons as a result of our efforts. create or renovate? david allen coe is quoted as saying, “it is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it’s the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time” (as cited in yellen, 2014, p. 75). more recently, and perhaps more glibly, lily tomlin added to that sentiment by noting that “the road to success is always under construction” (brainyquote, n.d., para. 1). our past year reflected both statements in full measure, as we realized that renovating an existing program was significantly different from building a new program. we envy our cped colleagues who may be designing their edd programs without the same types of cultural impediments that might inhabit an established program; every lofty goal we identified met with an obstacle, some of our own making, and some originating from external stakeholders. using the construction metaphor, we found that renovation was less challenging with nothing in the walls when you broke through. if no structural elements, no pipes, no electrical wires, and no plumbing interfered with tearing down the existing wall, the process was more straightforward. if, on the other hand, the wall was weight-bearing or contained essential elements, the work became more complicated or even impossible. we found that in spite of our best intentions, it was challenging to redesign a program in the midst of a strongly embedded culture and history. there were some program components that the internal, and even the external, community were attached to in ways that made it difficult to achieve change. the small, cohesive, and familial community spirit of the program was grounded in a long tradition of collaborative decision-making and goal setting; program redesign could not be accomplished by the faculty alone. the entire community of alumni, students, staff, and partners, in conjunction with the faculty, felt that they owned important program decisions. as lewin notes (1951), processual change results in the tension between emergent change and planned change. this was evident in advancing a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.56 33 the intersection of our efforts to continuously improve our program at the local level (schedule adjustments, class assignments, rubric refinements) and the major pedagogical and programmatic changes that are required to remain viable (program redesign, alignment with cped principles). the threat of deep change generates conflict and challenges cultural assumptions; we found that we were not immune from these effects (lewin, 1951; schein, 1992). successes and challenges our redesign efforts met with seamless success as well as with significant resistance. the two major goals we identified in our 2016 plan (billups, borstel, & dipaola, 2016) focused first, on embedding social justice principles into the program and, second, on redesigning the dissertation project. in terms of social justice philosophy and practices, we sought to intentionally define and embed concepts into our curriculum, community dialogue, dissertation research problems of practice, and our program stance. conversely, the dissertation in practice (dip) work involved a re-conceptualization and a new approach to envisioning and actualizing the dissertation project for our students. our social justice goals were addressed without much resistance, as if we were starting with a blank wall; alternately, the dip goal met with considerable resistance, to the point that we have halted work for the present. that particular wall was filled with wires, plumbing, pipes, structural beams, and numerous unexpected obstacles. successful implementation of social justice practices strom and porfilio (2017) posit that edd programs should be able to clearly articulate their understanding of social justice through program operationalization. as a community, we spent two years working with faculty, alumni, and students to define and articulate our understanding of how issues of social justice could be operationalized in our program. our goal was to generate conversation around the issues of social justice from theory to practice and to view these issues through both an individual and structural orientation (chubbuck, 2010). we envisioned a community-based approach to beginning the social justice discussion in our program, and a community-read project kicked off this work in 2016-2017. the one book, one read program we developed is now in its second year, and brings together all first-year doctoral students, program leadership, and faculty for an intentional program of reading, debate, and reflection around issues of equity, inclusion, marginalization, and opportunity. the book selected, a hope in the unseen (suskind, 1998), was chosen by a committee of students and faculty, as it was felt that the content of the book best highlighted issues of social justice that were very evident, and in some cases very subtle, in the k-16 educational community. it is our hope that this more intentional social justice focus will lead to stronger identification of problems of practice for dissertation focus. our edd program previously skirted the concept of social justice, without strategic inclusion in our program components. because there was no precedent, there was little resistance to any new or creative approaches to our synergistic efforts. additionally, our students are now increasingly choosing dissertation topics that reflect these advocacy stances, and we are now adding a social justice learning outcome to our program outcomes. our aspirations for furthering these efforts, for creating a climate where students and faculty are more openly conscious, and talking about issues of equity and inclusion, are proceeding quickly. we feel that the progress we have made in developing our social justice focus is rewarding and encouraging; however, we are depending on that positive impact to balance out our less successful effort to renovate the dip. the challenge of redesigning the dissertation in practice our hopes for introducing new approaches to the dissertation project seemed benign enough when we first discussed the concept. much work has already been accomplished by cped institutions with regard to new dissertation formats and designs, so we understandably anticipated similar success. we talked with cped colleagues, learned from what others had tried, and devised options for our own program that students would find compelling. this naivety was short-lived; while a few students responded positively to the idea of exploring a different approach to the dissertation, the rejection of any “tampering” with the traditional dissertation was overwhelming. akin to an underground resistance movement, internal and external groups responded quickly and forcefully to proposed dip changes. current students, some faculty, and our academic leadership, along with external groups such as our alumni, fellow practitioners, and professional associations who knew of our program, voiced their concern. the battle was real. complaints about how we were diluting the dissertation, a “watering down” of the research process, an “easy way out” for new students, and a host of other complaints were hurled at us in rapid succession. we quickly learned that the traditional dissertation format represented our structural, weight-bearing wall; everyone had their own personal nail in those beams, and any change we wanted to make – regardless of our reasons – met with resounding rejection. the cultural underpinnings, those values and beliefs that lay deep under the surface, unseen and subconscious, surfaced in the form of rebellion. as a program focused on developing close working relationships between students and faculty, these relationships were never more evident than in the dissertation phase. to alter the structure of the dissertation suggested an alteration to the very foundation of a special program feature. our stakeholder groups worried that the core experience the working partnership between advisor and advisee – would be disturbed with any shift in the substance and format and approach to the dissertation. while these fears may have been unfounded, they reflect what schein (1992) notes as the result of cultural values clashing with cultural artifacts; what appeared to faculty as a positive change was viewed as a negative change which affected the espoused values of the program. as a small program in a region where competition is fierce, we were ever mindful of positioning ourselves as viable and rigorous, and able to offer special benefits that other programs might not offer. our proposed changes to the dip caused an observable artifact (the dissertation) to be interpreted as the symbol for something greater (the cornerstone value of the program). although we used the same transparent, collaborative process with the dip exploration as we did with the social justice program strategies, stakeholders believed that we were disregarding our cultural roots and beliefs. to suggest change in the dip format affected stakeholders as a rejection of our traditions, our respect for rigor, quality, and working partnerships as central tenets of the program, just as suggesting the introduction of billups and borstel impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.56 34 social justice programming appeared to reflect the best of our cultural roots. there was no way we could have anticipated such a reaction to changing the dip; in this sense, an existing structure hosts many elements that seem benign until they are disturbed. the dip was one such element. we are now reconsidering how we want to revise our future goals for the dip, since we still believe there is value in redesigning it to meet 21st century teaching, learning, and research practices. it will, nonetheless, be a longer journey than we originally expected. success by degrees have we realized more success than resistance in the past year? in several areas, we have been able to effect positive change for our program. after the shaky experience with the dip, we approached our other program goals more cautiously. a comprehensive review of our curriculum, complete with a crosswalk exercise, and a review of assignments, grading, delivery of content including the implementation of a hybrid format, and evaluation processes, has proven to be successful on many levels. at the very least, the work prompted more frequent and candid discourse among faculty about how our courses effectively cover and uncover the appropriate content for our students and how this content continues to be relevant and rigorous. our self-assessment of aligning with cped design principles formed the basis for our self-study in anticipation of our program review last spring; it will likewise form the basis for our self-study report for our upcoming institution-wide new england association of schools and colleges visit next fall. additionally, our attempts to examine our admissions practices have been relatively successful, largely due to a mix of how we approached the redesign, as well as how we instituted the changes. we closely examined admissions criteria, gave more weight to faculty voice, revised procedures and forms, including the redesign of an admissions rubric to better assess disposition, and applied guidelines for greater diversity in the applicant pool. we implemented changes to the follow-up process for applicants, and extended our reach to combine program information with targeted recruiting. in this instance, the foundational footprint of the admissions program remained stable, but we were able to rearrange some of the rooms to meet program needs. overall, we hope these changes will attract more qualified, more diverse, and more experienced practitioners to our program. lessons learned so, what have we learned and what can we share with you? regardless of whether you are “renovating” an existing edd program, or designing a new program, our collective vision remains rooted in establishing a doctorate that will “educate and prepare those to whom we can entrust the vigor, quality, and integrity of the field” (shulman, golde, bueschel, & garabedian, 2006, p. 27). ongoing conversations with cped colleagues will support any work you undertake at your respective institutions. this consortium of committed educators and innovators is essential to your redesign process. while our colleagues who are currently designing new programs may have fewer impediments than those of us revamping existing programs, we should use the work we have already accomplished to enhance our “renovations.” the foundation is the same for all cped schools: redesign impacts schools, programs, individuals, and implications/practices for the future (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2017). the goals are universal, regardless of where you are in the construction or renovation journey. one unexpected by-product of this work was our deeper understanding of the role conflict plays in adaptation and change. we found that productive conflict was the key to our most creative problem-solving efforts. cohen, march, and olsen (1972) captured the tone of generative conflict when they noted that instead of resolving conflict, organizations tend to break the problems into smaller pieces to avoid the pain of making major changes. this conflict avoidance denies a group of decision-makers the chance to take creative risks or try new approaches. mary parker follett (1924) was ahead of her time with her perspective that while conflict was inevitable, the only way to leave the past behind was to embrace conflict as the key to innovation. her interactionist stance is where we found our best results; in allowing ourselves to engage in healthy conflict, to disagree and to see alternative possibilities, we made real progress. this progress did not always occur smoothly or painlessly, but it was a valuable lesson learned. for instance, our initial discussions about how or whether to change the dip led to considerable disagreements among faculty. as we continued to debate the pros and cons, we became more divisive. increasingly, however, we realized that we could continue to argue the same points and remain polarized or we could adopt a different approach. we recognized that instead of an all-or-nothing approach to changing the dip, we could explore a pilot program with several options for students and faculty to consider. in this exploration, each faculty member found a way to accept proposed changes and feel validated in their own perspectives. our conflict ultimately produced two potential dip options: the first was for students to consider a collaborative dissertation bridging k-12 and higher education research topics, while the other option offered students the opportunity to engage in the traditional dissertation process, which included the individual five-chapter dissertation format. in the end, the dip options met with too much resistance from too many stakeholders, to move forward; however, the ability to push through the initial conflict was a valuable and surprising benefit. the experience would help us approach other changes with less trepidation. thus, we would like to offer the following insights into the redesign process, now that we are one year into this work: • individual beliefs, philosophies, and backgrounds provide multiple perspectives that can interfere with forward-progress; an effective starting point in any redesign process is to find a common voice, a shared language, an agreed-upon set of norms and goals to advance the work. looking back at what “was versus what is” is only going to destabilize your work. acknowledge this challenge openly and you will find that the conversations are easier. • when considering changes to an existing program, outside viewpoints challenge the way you see things; in other words, we get attached to what makes us comfortable, but if we can listen to someone who does not own the history of the program or the way things are done, new opportunities can be more easily envisioned. this does not require a consultant or some other costly intervention, but merely a respected colleague or professional who can provide a new way of seeing things. lewin (1951) posits that advancing a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.56 35 individuals resist change for many reasons, but including external change agents in negotiations can provide leverage to own the new ideas, new concepts, new ways of thinking. • use conflict productively, rather than as a negative influence. there will inevitably be conflict among any group of colleagues who are passionate about their work and their product. as noted above, conflict, when used wisely, can produce positive resolutions to challenges that accommodation or resignation might have missed. • we tend to have single-focused views of how to solve problems, but one thing we have learned through our own process is that there is truly no single answer. problems can have multiple solutions, programs can have multiple delivery strategies and courses can have multiple interpretations. just as in-house construction, rooms can be designed to have multiple functions. we had to step back and see how we might re-use, re-consider, and re-conceptualize the way we had typically accomplished our work. we could have abandoned our initial attempts to revise admissions procedures, revise curriculum, or develop new dip approaches but stepping back and reimagining alternatives allowed us to push ahead, either with significant success or with the realization that we needed to put a plan ‘on hold’ for a while. • for our colleagues who are currently building new education doctorate programs, we encourage you to build a program designed for elasticity, with room for possibilities, and to accommodate a vision that anticipates what you think your students will need to know and do in the future. the youtube video series, did you know? emphasizes how we are preparing our students for jobs that do not yet exist (did you know, n.d.). we should all consciously plan our doctoral programs the same way. • finally, do not accept initial defeat as the final word on addressing a problem or achieving a goal; instead, practice the art of retreat and reflection. do we still believe it is possible for us to create a new approach to the dip in our program? yes! do we believe it can happen soon? …probably not. but we will work together to realize an eventual workable solution. in the end, renovated or newly constructed, we all share the goal: to offer exemplary, relevant, rigorous edd programs to a new generation of scholar-practitioners. our pathways might be different, and we might even feel that the renovation pathway is more arduous, but we are heading towards the same endpoint. whatever we attempt, we must believe in the intention and the goal as worthy and that we are meeting an important need in the educational landscape. as winston churchill (1944) noted during the rebuilding of the house of commons, “we shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” references billups, f. d., borstel, s., & dipaola, t. (2016). advancing a community of practice: one university’s journey to strengthen the ed.d. and reflect cped practices. carnegie project on the education doctorate white paper project, 1(2), brainyquote. (n.d.). lily tomlin quotes. retrieved from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lilytomlin379145.html carnegie project for the education doctorate. (2017). http:/cpedinitiative.org/ chubbuck, s.m. (2010). individual and structural orientations in socially just teaching: conceptualization, implementation, and collaborative effort, journal of teacher education, volume 61(3), 197-210 churchill, w. (1944). national churchill museum quotes. retrieved from https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/cmss_files/attachmentlibrary/q uotes.pdf cohen, m. d., march, j. g., & olsen, j. p. (1972). a garbage can model of organizational choice. administrative science quarterly, 17(1), 1-25. did you know? (n.d.). home [youtube channel]. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/user/didyouknowclips follett, m. p. (1924). creative experience. london, uk: longman and green. lewin, k. (1951). field theory in social science. new york, ny: harper row schein, e. (1992). organizational culture and leadership (2nd ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. shulman, l. s., golde, c., bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. strom, s. & porfilio, b. (2017). centering social justice in ed.d. programs. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, volume 2, 15-19. doi 10.5195/ie.2017.43 suskind, r. (1998). a hope in the unseen. ny: broadway books yellen, p. (2014). the bank on yourself revolution: fire your banker, bypass wall street, and take control of your own financial future. dallas, tx: benbella books, inc. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 45 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 edd graduate perspectives: uplifting our own voices staci b. martin, edd portland state university mar24@pdx.edu kara gournaris, edd western oregon university gournark@mail.wou.edu zafreen jaffery, edd behavioral science research institute zjaffery@bsrinstitute.org lisa hatfield, edd oregon health sciences university hatfiell@ohsu.edu su-jin jung, edd portland state university sujinj@pdx.edu li xiang, edd western michigan university lxiang12@gmail.com ingrid anderson, edd portland state university ianderson@pdx.edu micki m. caskey, phd portland state university micki.caskey@gmail.com abstract the purpose of this essay is to share the voices of edd graduates who are often underrepresented or missing in the literature. to begin, we invited edd graduates to co-author this article about the connection among their edd program experiences and interactions and their activism. we included our definition of activism and posed three open-ended questions. six program graduates and one professor agreed to organize the graduates’ responses by the question topics and salient themes. we asked about our experiences in the edd program and how these influence—positively and negatively—what we are doing now (post-program). we found (a) relationships with faculty and cohort mattered; (b) instructional scaffolding was vital; and (c) faculty and cohorts reflected how lived experiences cultivated a sense of belonging and collectiveness. we also asked about our interactions with peers, cohort, advisor(s), instructors, or mentors, as well as, in what ways did these interactions affect—positively and negatively—what we are doing now (post-program). lastly, we asked, in what ways, did the edd program affect—positively or negatively—our activism in the classroom, community, or place of employment. we found examples of how we are shifting the landscape of academia to honor more voices in research and publication, more culturally responsive to impacted communities, and challenging the status quo. we focused on our experiences and interactions in an edd program and how these experiences and interactions prompted activism in our current practice so that having a diversity of voices not only challenge other students, regardless of their background, to think differently about who creates, produces, and defines knowledge, as well as, support faculty that say they want to expand their curriculum and instruction, yet rely on what they know or what was taught to them in their courses. keywords: activism, edd graduates, underrepresented students, experiences, interactions the carnegie project on the education doctorate, doctorate in education (edd) programs make a difference in the nature of educational research because of their scholar-practitioner stance that considers students’ professional and personal backgrounds as an integral part of their educational and development process (purinton, 2012). while postbaccalaureate students are increasingly diverse (mcfarland et al., 2019), faculty diversity and curriculum content often do not reflect the lived experiences or cultural context of these students. the problem manifests as differences that create barriers for postbaccalaureate students of color as faculty and persons in positions of power in higher education institutions remain predominantly white (espinosa et al., 2019; jaeger & haley, 2016; li & koedel, 2017). to address this problem, we highlight and uplift our voices -primarily voices of color -to offer a space that affirms students’ racial, gender, cultural, and other identities (egalite & kisida, 2018; gay, 2000; gershenson et al., 2016; wang & li, 2011). in this essay, we position edd scholar-practitioners of color and other underrepresented groups as exemplars of what graduates from edd programs contribute to the field, and specifically, how they make contributions in their practice. we contend that predominantly white faculty could share these examples from edd scholarpractitioners of color with their diverse cohorts of doctoral students (lei et al., 2011). the purpose of our research was to share the voices of edd graduates who are often underrepresented or missing in the http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/mar24@pdx.edu file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/gournark@mail.wou.edu file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/zjaffery@bsrinstitute.org file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/hatfiell@ohsu.edu sujinj@pdx.edu file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/lxiang12@gmail.com file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/ianderson@pdx.edu file:///c:/users/sjone/downloads/micki.caskey@gmail.com martin, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 47 literature. edd graduates of color and underrepresented communities are often the subjects of research; we want to shift this dynamic so they are the researchers and authors of publications. in particular, we wanted to foreground underrepresented communities including graduates of color, international graduates, multilingual and/or multicultural graduates, and a graduate from the deaf community. to this end, we emphasized the power of writing collaboratively (ens et al., 2011) as an approach to bring forward the voices of underrepresented communities. theoretical framework we used situated learning theory (lave & wenger, 1991) to frame our research and guide our thinking about edd graduates who are missing or underrepresented in the literature. in situated learning theory, lave and wenger (1991) posited that learning is socially constructed through legitimate peripheral participation — “engagement in social practice that entails learning as an integral constituent” (p. 35). as such, learning occurs when individuals engage with others in activities, settings, and situations in which they would typically use their knowledge. situated learning often happens in a community of practice where a group of people share a common concern or passion for their practice and seek ways to improve their practice by interacting with one another (wenger, 1998). in our study, the community of practice included edd scholar-practitioners of color and other underrepresented groups who worked collaboratively to make sense of knowledge within higher education contexts. in this collective essay, we feature our seldom-heard voices— voices from one or more of the aforementioned underrepresented groups—regarding our experiences and interactions in an edd program and how these experiences and interactions prompted activism in our current practice. in our community of practice, we focus on activism because of its centrality in the work of scholarpractitioners. in addition, for our essay, we use a broad definition of activism. we contend that activism encompasses the expansion of personal and professional agency (quinn & carl, 2015) that consists of actionable steps. these actions push against the status quo and create spaces that we co-create with our colleagues or community that lead to individual or collective action. we acknowledge scholars who have explored teacher activism (e.g., picower, 2012) and others who examined activism in cohorts of social work graduate programs (e.g., dodd & mizrahi, 2017); however, our specific focus is activism among graduates of an edd program. the graduates share the common context of an edd program that is a member of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) knowledge forum (cped, 2019). methods we used a qualitative and collaborative research approach to explore the voices of underrepresented edd graduates. our research explored the ways in which our edd program affected our sense of agency and activism. using this approach, we (staci and micki) invited edd graduates from underrepresented communities (i.e., graduates of color, international graduates, multilingual and/or multicultural graduates, a graduate from the deaf community) to engage in our exploration. to gather data about the problem of missing voices, we developed and shared three open-ended questions. accepting our invitation and responding to the questions, signaled the willingness of edd graduates from underrepresented communities to be our co-researchers and coauthors; their identities and narratives are part of this essay. during any time and for any reason, co-authors could withdraw from the collaboration at which point the lead author(s) would remove relevant names and quotes from the essay. because we were interested in edd graduates’ experiences and interactions that supported their activism, we wanted to highlight specifically edd graduate activism in underrepresented communities. along with our invitation, we offered our definition of activism and posed three open-ended questions. we want you to share your stories of becoming “activists” within your current context---the community in which you serve. we are curious about if the edd program made an impact on your sense of agency and activism. 1. thinking back on your experience in the edd program (e.g., activities [agency and identity projects, irb application, mini-research project, book review), how did these influence--positively and negatively--what you are doing now (post-program)? 2. now, consider the interactions you had in the edd program. think about your interactions with your peers, cohort, advisor(s), instructors, and/or mentors. in what ways did these interactions affect--positively and negatively--you and what you are doing now (postprogram)? 3. in what ways, did the edd program affect--positively or negatively--your activism in the classroom, community, or place of employment? staci and micki coded the data generated from the three questions. then, we shared our themes with the rest of the group of co-authors to see if there are any missing themes. next, we co-wrote the essay and at the final stage, co-authors reviewed and edited the manuscript. six edd graduates and one professor (all of the coauthors) agreed to organize the graduates’ responses by the question topics and salient themes (e.g., relationships, scaffolding). we selected this collaborative research approach based on “speaking for ourselves action research” (soar)—a process of how a small group of people from an impacted community identifies the problem (martin et al., 2018. in her prior research, staci had the entire impacted group code alongside her. although the soar approach took a considerable amount of time, care, and patience, the approach positioned co-authors with the authority in the analysis process and writing, in turn, co-creating spaces that represent their experiences authentically within education research. participants our study consisted of seven womxn, including five womxn of color and six womxn who are multi-lingual (e.g. hindi, korean, mandarin, punjabi, american sign language, spanish, and urdu) and bicultural. in some ways, we are “border crossers” (giroux, 1994) when it comes to navigating bicultural histories and experiences. we have a total of over 75 years amount of teaching at a post-secondary education that stem from k-12 preservice and/or in-service teachers to cross-cultural communication to early childhood education to refugee education to edd programs. our research spans from co-researching with vulnerable communities so that they can share their inherent expertise and co-produce knowledge to holding space for those whose voices are marginalized edd graduate perspectives impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 48 under the dominant narrative of education. other co-authors focus on teacher’s identities, in particularly, chinese language teachers' teaching identity to being a researcher in american sign language community especially using the community of practices theory since there is no specific research focus in this field. several co-authors conduct evaluations in the health and education sectors as they attempt to find solutions to the toughest problems faced by women, children, and those from marginalized groups. other co-authors address how language and cultural learning experiences are related to u.s. education and schooling. another co-author creates conceptual frameworks that involve the whole learner to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning. influence of edd program experiences on current practice when we asked about our collective experiences in the edd program, we wondered how these influence—positively and negatively—what we are doing now (post-program). when coauthors answered the prompts, we identified three themes: (a) relationships with faculty and cohort mattered; (b) instructional scaffolding was vital; and, (c) faculty and cohorts reflected how lived experiences cultivated a sense of belonging and collectivism. these three components connect to and impact activism because they support edd students, now graduates, in a third space (bhabha, 1994) that provides an impetus to achieve institutional stability, cocreates spaces to become advocates for themselves, and negotiates an alternate position of visibility in the academy where they are seen as the experts. relationships/cohort and faculty relationships in the edd program were critical to the graduates’ and professors’ experiences. researchers and scholars (hilliard, 2012; lee, 2008; paré, 2011; simpson & matsuda, 2008) explained the importance of how establishing and maintaining professional, positive relationships among faculty and doctoral students helps to ensure the student receives relevant academic support. the faculty, in particular, the dissertation advisor and committee members, played a central role in the doctoral students’ experiences and success. doctoral programs had the ability to position doctoral students as colleagues “engaged in a shared, unequal, and changing practice” (kamler & thomson, 2008, p. 507). in addition, researchers (amrein-beardsley et al., 2012; bista & cox; 2014) found that doctoral cohorts promote supportive and collegial relationships among doctoral students and faculty. zafreen shared, “three professors were instrumental and continue to be an inspiration in my development as an international scholar of color.” kara added, “from the very beginning...my advisors, instructors, and peers, made me feel welcome and included.” li shared: i like the interactions with my cohort members and instructors. i especially like the writing group and peer editing. in my teaching, i use peer editing on my students when there is a writing assignment. peer editing can help students improve their writing. sometimes students value their peer’s comment more than their instructor’s feedback. with regard to the cohort, micki revealed, “we—students and instructors—forged long-lasting relationships given our shared learning experiences in our friday night seminars. we continue to enjoy these post-graduation.” relationships were fundamental to the success of edd students. we also found that instructional scaffolding played a critical role in supporting students’ confidence, agency, and direction. instructional scaffolding while micki used instructional scaffolding to support doctoral student development as researchers and writers, so did other professors. researchers explicated the value of writing scaffolds (e.g., ahern & manathunga, 2004; aitchison & lee, 2006; caskey & stevens, 2016), and a cognitive apprenticeship pedagogical model (e.g., collins et al., 1991) for improving doctoral student writing and program completion (austin, 2009; caskey & stevens, 2019). zafreen reported how one professor: ...consistently taught every tool available in her toolkit to allow her students to access the seemingly mysterious task of academic writing. she shared templates, discussed resources and made visible her own process to empower her students. i keep a journal and have a writing habit because of what she has taught me. lisa remarked: the irb application process was invaluable. i am the director of a teaching and learning center and am advocating scholarship in our work. we must share with the world the work we are doing so that not only others can learn from it and potentially transfer to their own contexts but that we also try to make sense of the effectiveness and impact of our work. no one else on my team had gone through the irb process when i started a year ago; now, we have scholarship as one of our strategic goals, which includes having our center faculty citi trained. su jin shared: i enjoyed participating in writing groups while i was in the edd program. the writing group that consists of 3-4 people is a support group of writing projects. the writing group members shared google spreadsheets to set weekly writing goals and met regularly to talk about our writing processes, to share our own writing tips and resources, to discuss specific writing concerns, and to provide helpful feedback by reviewing our drafts. staying connected with my writing group members helped me to complete all the doctoral work successfully by having a good writing habit. because i know the huge benefits of being a writing group member, i am a writing group member through the faculty writing workshops at psu. also, i strongly recommended my graduate students to participate in writing groups in my action research proposal class last year. while ingrid remarked: during the first year of the program, there were several faculty guides that supported my eventual victorious emergence from higher education. during the first year of the program, there were several faculty who served as guides/mentors that supported my eventual victorious emergence from higher education. my guides either taught me to scaffold the new language of the academy that i needed to learn or provide collaborative support with new ways of navigating the doctoral experience. the roadmap that they provided was the only thing that kept me from being lost. guides or teachers come in all shapes and forms. for some of the co-authors, they explained how being surrounded by a group of people with lived experiences similar to their own offered space to belong, to create, and to just be. martin, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 49 lived experience our co-authors shared that it was important that their lived expertise are valued, responded to and reflected in the edd curriculum, as well as, in the research they did. researchers (e.g. ladson-billings, 1992; gay & kirkland, 2003; savage et al., 2011) recognized the importance of not only representation in the curriculum and instruction, but also for valuing their lived experiences as credible. kara remarked: i was actually thrilled to find out that several other cohort members had english as their second language, too! i was not alone...rather than viewing my non-native english skills as an indication that i was less intelligent or less qualified to be part of the program, i found that people acknowledged my expertise in american sign language, and recognized the unique lens i brought to the field as a second-generation deaf woman. ingrid’s sentiments explained that she chose the edd program because she was looking for community when she said: moving to oregon, at 42 years of age, created a sense of loneliness that i did not expect. set adrift from my cultural foundation, i decided to join the edd program in part because of the need to become part of a new community...as a student, i sought to make connections with others in my cohort. over time, i discovered while coming from radically different backgrounds, the unique experiences of an edd program makes for a strong sense of collective that while not always assuring our mutual success, acknowledge our mutual survivorship. zafreen explained the importance of having her research approach represented by someone who had first-hand experience, when she said: i am also grateful for a doctoral dissertation committee structure that provided me with the flexibility to recruit a professor from the school of urban studies and planning at psu who had a unique lens and first-hand understanding of conducting field-based research in the south asian context. having students and graduates see themselves reflected in their cohort, teachers, and/or researchers in the field affirms their values, enhances the educational experiences of both learner and teacher, and often forces teachers to re-examine their own biases and complicity in maintaining the status quo. influence of edd program interactions on current practice we asked about our interactions with peers, cohorts, advisor(s), instructors, or mentors. we wondered, in what ways these interactions affect—positively and negatively—what we are doing now (post-program). when co-authors answered the prompts, we found numerous examples of how people influenced us and shifted our thinking about ourselves. zafreen noted deep and personal interactions with her professors: my professors opened their homes and hearts for me, which was critical for my success as an international student. they invited me for gatherings at their homes and always made sure that i had moral and emotional support available. they offered me genuine kindness, compassion, and understanding. she disclosed that after graduation, another professor “invited me for tea to offer support and encouragement during a rough transition.” kara also described interactions with her professors: ...they looked me directly in the eyes and saw me for exactly who i was. they asked questions about how best to work with the interpreters, checked in about the types of accommodations i needed, and made sure to include me in every aspect of the program. while ingrid remarked on how she learned both what she might do and what was not ideal from her relationships with professors, when she said: i was able to take this [past professors’ relationships] forward into my own experiences in teaching and advising students. i spend hours with students a week in advising to help them decode their experiences and receive the support they need in higher education. i want students to thrive and i work to impact their experiences and support them by listening, sharing my own lessons and/or offering navigational tips for academic success, while holding the confidentiality of the students. relationships appeared to affect us deeply. often professors rarely know how they have made a difference in our lives, but it is clear they do. effect of edd program on activism in current practice we also wondered, in what ways, the edd program affected— positively or negatively—our activism in the classroom, community, or place of employment. when co-authors answered the prompts, we found examples of how we are shifting the landscape of academia to honor more voices in research and publication, more culturally responsive to impacted communities, and challenging the status quo. ingrid spoke about her journey as an activist and how it evolved when she was an edd student and currently as an assistant professor of practice when she said, an edd program teaches you to critically examine the world. from my edd program and the constant and unwavering support of my advisors, now 5 years + graduation, i have developed a scholarship agenda that feeds who i am as an educator. it is this foundation that supports my research in the emotional lives of educators. the collaboration with educators on the emotional labor of teaching emerged from my own experiences of inquiry, disequilibrium, and a strong grounding in phenomenology that i experienced as a doctoral student. these are the foundations of my practice now. i would not be the thinker i am, without my mentors, who to this day remain my champions and co-thinkers. kara encompassed activism when she started her edd program and continued beyond, due to the literature and research being largely absent of voices like hers, when she said: i ultimately decided to face my fears because i recognized the existing gaps in research related to american sign language [asl] instruction at the post-secondary level, and i wanted to contribute to that field of study. i remember feeling so selfconscious about my writing, and about the fact that i would be the only deaf person at a hearing university. she later continued: my experience in the edd program was not only transformative for me but for students and faculty at my institution and the local deaf community. understanding how edd graduate perspectives impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 50 to better situate my research and instruction, allowed me to advocate for local community events that have had a farreaching impact on members of the deaf community and students in our program. these community events are student-centered, immersion-based opportunities for deaf and hearing communities to bridge language and cultural gaps. this edd program provided the foundations and modeling that i needed to improve my teaching, advocacy, and research practices in the classroom, in my position at the university, and in my role as a leader in the deaf community. this led her to embark on a journey that inserted herself in this field of research and forced the field to hear her both figuratively and literally. because of her unique positionality, she advocated for a third space (bhabha, 1994) for students who are learning about asl. she explained, “many asl classes require hearing students to attend deaf events, but this has led to a decrease in opportunities for deaf space because hearing students sometimes outnumber deaf people at the events.” this outnumbering by the hearing students creates a burden on the deaf community (holcomb, 2017). having access to native language models is essential in second-language acquisition, so is finding a way to honor deaf space. however, providing students with a way to engage with members of the deaf community (krashen, 1988) is an ongoing challenge for many of the deaf communities. kara also established a professional community of practice focused on identifying the changing landscape of educating third year asl students. the intent behind this think tank is to discuss pedagogy, resources, and materials needed to bridge the gap in current professional practice (lave, 1991). overall, the edd program helped kara’s activism by offering space for her: ...to assess my own frames, biases, pedagogical approaches, and belief systems as they relate to me personally and professionally…[it] allowed me to dismantle many of my old beliefs about my inability to contribute to the field of research and scholarship because of my english skills. this program allowed me to find my voice, as an educator, a scholar, and as a leader in my community. this sentiment of individual agency with a collective social justice slant was a current theme throughout the questions answered. zafreen reported applying: ...critical theory and research, which has enabled me to give voice to my activism through the lens of social justice and equity. i also learned from my professor the critical awareness to identify disparities. she continued: i conduct research and evaluation for a non-profit focusing on increasing health care and education access. i advocate for disaggregating data to analyze how provisions of policies and programs impact sub-groups disproportionately. recently, inspired by environmental activism, i have worked to revitalize a community garden in an impoverished and historically african-american neighborhood in miami. additionally, i have been developing an environmental education curriculum to be piloted via learning gardens in three elementary schools in miami that cater to children from low-income backgrounds. li also recognized how theory and practice are brought together to promote social action. she said, “with more knowledge of learning theories, i purposefully use different learning strategies to help my students to learn.” not only with theory, this also was seen in practice, as li continues to pay more attention to the needs of the vulnerable and less represented groups, in particularly with people with disabilities. in china, deng and harris (2008) noted in the late 80s, there was a considerable effort for inclusivity under the learning in regular classrooms (lrc) program, however they explain that there was limited experience and expertise in the special education field where “students with disabilities were ignored in the classroom and often did not receive instruction, because the teachers had neither enough time nor adequate knowledge to help them” (deng & harris, 2006, p. 198). since li’s edd program focused on equity and inclusivity, she received the experience and expertise that she needed to support students with disabilities. this is seen when she said: the edd program makes me pay more attention to the needs of the vulnerable and less represented groups. i have some students with learning disabilities. i accommodate their needs and give them extra attention in classroom instruction. there is a local weekend chinese school. teachers teaching in this school are mostly new immigrants from china, without any knowledge in language teaching. just moving from china, teaching chinese language for a couple of hours on weekends might be the only job they could find now. to better help this group of teachers, i volunteered to organize some teaching workshops. su-jin also brought her activism into her practice when she said: because i was trained how to conduct educational research through the edd program, i could easily plan and organize course materials for my action research class last winter. i coached teacher candidates how to conduct an action research by sharing my own research experiences. i could see the positive results through the course evaluation. for example, many students thought that my action research class made a significant contribution to their learning and professional development. i was very happy to see that my research knowledge/skills, which i learned from the edd program, played significant roles in my students’ research learning process. the edd program expanded opportunities for both lisa and staci to develop concrete legacy materials, policies, and publications that collaboratively bring forth vulnerable voices to the forefront. lisa explained: since emphasizing scholarship within my department, three colleagues have begun research projects with institutional collaborators. one is looking at linguistic trends of narrative medicine notes, which are reflections of students’ clinical experiences; the second is shadowing hospitalists to learn about effective teaching in clinical settings; and the third is working on speech-to-text technology for hearing and hearingimpaired learners to develop exceptional communication skills. one colleague has been inspired to begin a certificate program in narrative medicine, which brings the “powerful narrative skills of radical listening and creativity from the humanities and arts to address the needs of all who seek and deliver healthcare” (columbia university school of professional studies). whereas, staci attempted to co-create space for underrepresented and resilient communities’ voice by co-researching, co-presenting (e.g., martin & umubyeyi, 2019), and co-publishing in academic papers (e.g., martin et al., 2019). she is critically aware that most often research is on a population. as a learner, educator, and researcher, the edd program reinforced her belief that without collaborating with participants in the research process and the writing itself, “their voices will be muted in the academic language martin, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6, no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.124 51 describing them and the dominant narrative that disempowers them” (martin & umubyeyi, 2019, p. 123). writing this essay with a group of accomplished, resilient, and smart educators and researchers is also an act of activism. we are co-creating spaces for people to have meaningful conversations that go beyond just the peripheral and focus on the lived experiences of made vulnerable edd graduates. conclusion the purpose of our research was to share the voices of graduates of an edd program who are often absent from the literature. while researchers often study or talk about underrepresented communities in their research, these communities are rarely the researchers themselves, or authors of the publications. we wanted to foreground our community of practice (wenger, 1998) of underrepresented groups including graduates of color, international graduates, multilingual and/or multicultural graduates of color, and a graduate from the deaf community. in this essay, we uplifted our voices—ones often underrepresented or missing in the literature. we focused on our situated learning experiences and interactions (lave & wenger, 1991) in an edd program and the way these experiences and interactions prompted activism in our current practices. in doing so, we brought a diversity of voices that not only challenge other students, regardless of their background, but also called on them to think differently about who creates, produces, and defines knowledge. our aim was to support faculty who say they want to expand their curriculum and instruction, yet tend to rely solely on what they know or what they learned in their academic programs. references ahern, k., & manathunga, c. 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(2019). the condition of education 2019 (nces 2019-144). u.s. department of education. national center for education statistics. retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019144 paré, a. (2011). speaking of writing: supervisory feedback and the dissertation. in l. mcalpine & c. amundsen (eds.). doctoral education: research-based strategies for doctoral students, supervisors, and administrators, 59–74. springer. picower, b. (2012). teacher activism: enacting a vision for social justice. equity & excellence in education, 45(4), 561–574. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.717848 purinton, t. (2012 may 15). the ed.d. dilemma. education week, 31(31), 24– 25. quinn, r., carl, n. m. (2015). teacher activist organizations and the development of professional agency. teachers and teaching, 21(6), 745-758. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044331 savage, c., hindle, r., meyer, l. h., hynds, a., penetito, w., & sleeter, c. e. (2011). culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum. asia-pacific journal of teacher education, 39(3), 183–198. simpson, s., & matsuda, p. k. (2008). mentoring as a long-term relationship: situated learning in a doctoral program. in c. p. casanave & x. li (eds.). learning the literacy practices of graduate school: insiders' reflections on academic enculturation, 90-104. university of michigan press. wang, t., & li, l. y. (2011). “tell me what to do” vs. “guide me through it”: feedback experiences of international doctoral students. active learning in higher education, 12(2), 101–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787411402438 wenger, e. (1988). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge university press. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019144 https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.717848 https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044331 https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787411402438 staci b. martin, edd portland state university kara gournaris, edd western oregon university zafreen jaffery, edd behavioral science research institute lisa hatfield, edd oregon health sciences university su-jin jung, edd portland state university (1) li xiang, edd western michigan university ingrid anderson, edd portland state university (2) micki m. caskey, phd portland state university (3) theoretical framework methods participants influence of edd program experiences on current practice relationships/cohort and faculty instructional scaffolding lived experience influence of edd program interactions on current practice effect of edd program on activism in current practice conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 32 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 reframing the problem of practice: transitions in baylor university’s ed.d. in learning and organizational change program brooke e. blevins baylor university brooke_blevins@baylor.edu lacy k. crocker papadakis baylor university lacy_papadakis@baylor.edu leanne howell baylor university leanne_howell@baylor.edu jessica meehan baylor university jessica_meehan@baylor.edu sarah pratt baylor university sarah_pratt@baylor.edu sandra talbert baylor university sandra_talbert@baylor.edu sandi cooper baylor university sandra_cooper@baylor.edu julia earl baylor university julia_earl@baylor.edu cece lively baylor university cece_lively@baylor.edu elizabeth anne murray baylor university elizabeth_murray@baylor.edu laila sanguras baylor university laila_sanguras@baylor.edu tony l. talbert baylor university tony_talbert@baylor.edu nicholas r. werse baylor university nick_werse@baylor.edu abstract this article reports on the program changes that emerged from the baylor university ed.d. in learning and organizational change program development team as we engaged as a community of practice in the organizational change process to reframe our conceptualization of the problem of practice dissertation. this process led to logical implications for the program course offerings and student support systems. the following article, therefore, traces these changes as they emanate out from the problem of practice dissertation reconfiguration, into the course sequence, and finally the student support systems. this article concludes by offering the perspective gained about this work as we engaged in the same organizational change process through which we guide our students. keywords dissertation in practice, problem of practice, education doctorate, organizational change, professional doctorate introduction scholars continue to discuss and debate the nuances concerning how to distinguish between the ed.d. and ph.d. degree goals, values, and outcomes (e.g., osguthorpe & wong, 1993; brennan, 1998; andrews & grogan, 2005; shulman et al., 2006; anderson, 2011; jill a. perry, 2012; killham et al., 2018; lindsay et al., 2018; gillham et al., 2019). one may type the phrase “difference between an ed.d. and ph.d. programs” into the widely used academic search complete database to discover hundreds of results. variations of these search terms only multiply the findings, uncovering numerous academic and professional publications offering a particular definition of or distinction between these terms and their corresponding degrees. amidst these epistemological and axiological discussions populating the research literature contrasting the ed.d. and ph.d. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6380-5824 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9417-3479 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5830-3421 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7130-3581 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6503-1575 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9798-1209 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5982-5806 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8539-3947 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9158-3154 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6909-5894 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2408-294x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4328-7526 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6374-3739 reframing the problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 33 degrees, there is a binding element to the dna of the doctoral degree whether it be an ed.d. or ph.d. for generations, the dissertation in its traditional fiveor six-chapter form has characterized the capstone experience of persons earning a ph.d. (bell et al., 2019). although multiple studies note variations in dissertation formats and structures (e.g., paltridge, 2002; thompson, 2005), hyland concludes that the dissertation genre as a whole remains fairly “conservative” (hyland, 2009, pp. 140–143). not surprisingly, earlier theoretical discussions surrounding the emerging dissertation in practice, often begin with, reflect upon, or become contextualized by the traditional ph.d. dissertation (neumann, 2005). the traditional ph.d. dissertation genre is what many dissertation advisors personally experienced, whether they find themselves advising ph.d. or ed.d. students. following this trajectory, when beginning the task of constructing the baylor university ed.d. in learning and organizational change program (ed.d.-loc) as well as its capstone thesis project (the problem of practice dissertation), we as the program developers often found ourselves beginning with and operating under assumptions shaped by our own experiences with traditional ph.d. dissertations. in many respects, we came to embody the 2007 observation made by the council of graduate schools report that professional degree programs operating at ph.d. granting institutions tend to operate from a preexisting culture oriented around ph.d. doctoral assumptions (see particularly p. 22). to address this problem, we as a community of practice embarked on a journey of research, reading, and self-reflection to reframe our prior assumptions and redesign the envisioned problem of practice dissertation. however, because of our commitment to providing a holistic and cohesive educational experience, we soon found that the process of reframing our approach to the problem of practice dissertation required us to reconsider the implications that these adjustments had for the course sequence and student support systems. reframing the problem of practice dissertation, therefore, led to a process that impacted nearly every aspect of the baylor university ed.d.-loc program in some way. the following article, therefore, reports on the changes we have made as a program seeking to produce scholarly practitioners following the carnegie project on the education doctorate framework and principles (buss & zambo, 2014; perry, 2016; perry & imig, 2008; schuster, 2017). just as the process of reframing the problem of practice dissertation led to logical implications for the program course offerings and student support systems, the following article traces these changes as they emanate out from the problem of practice dissertation reconfiguration. this article, therefore, proceeds in five parts. first, we introduce the design and structure of our program to contextualize the community in which these changes took place. second, we describe the development of our conceptualization of the problem of practice dissertation. third, we discuss how these changes echoed into the broader curriculum and course sequence. fourth, we present the implications that these adjustments had on our student support systems. finally, this article concludes by offering the perspective gained about this work as a result of revisiting these transformations as we engaged in the same organizational change process through which we guide our students. baylor university ed.d.-loc program and context in the fall of 2018, the baylor university school of education enrolled the first cohort of students in the online ed.d. focused on learning and organizational change in the department of curriculum and instruction. this program follows the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) model by attempting a comprehensive effort to critically examine doctoral degrees leading to careers in professional practice (buss & zambo, 2014; perry, 2016; perry & imig, 2008; schuster, 2017). although 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the ed.d. degree, recent innovations in ed.d. program design have pioneered new curricular strategies to better incorporate connections between education and other fields such as public health, business, and humanities because of professional practice influences. the baylor university ed.d.-loc program serves professionals from varied fields beyond those connected to traditional education. currently, about 45% of students are k-12 educators, 25% are in higher education, 7% serve in non-profit and entrepreneurship sectors, 5% are in social services, 5% serve in the military, 5% serve in human resources, 4% serve in hospital administration, and 4% serve in other industries. with the most diverse program at baylor university, the student population currently includes 32% black or african american students, 15% hispanic students, 4% native american students, 38% white students, and 11% who identify with two or more races. many students in this program are full-time professionals with responsibilities related to educating others, either in formal or informal contexts. this ed.d.-loc program aims to graduate emerging leaders who utilize a professional knowledge base that integrates practical and research-based knowledge to cultivate systemic change; address problems of practice by exploring multiple perspectives that lead to the development of meaningful and creative solutions; and develop local, national, and global partnerships through collaboration and communication. designed to be completed in three years, this 54-credit program includes 18 courses, strategically organized to support the development of a problem of practice dissertation study during this period. the course sequence follows a trimester format and includes five courses focused on learning, five courses focused on organizational change, four research courses, and four “problem of practice” research and writing courses. the program offers students an opportunity to enhance their careers by acquiring a deeper understanding of teaching and learning in general but also the opportunity to identify a critical issue or innovative practice, which they further explore through their research. this critical issue or innovative practice is based on the students’ practical experience and goals within the context of their current or projected future professional settings. this critical issue, therefore, becomes the focal point for their problem of practice dissertation. the ed.d.-loc courses combine synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences for students. each week, students engage in scholarly work through asynchronous assignments such as reading, reflecting, synthesizing, and evaluating. then students also attend weekly live class sessions using zoom where they collaborate with their instructor and classmates to delve deeper into course topics by examining and critically thinking through various modes of creativity. during the live class sessions, students from across the country participate in small blevins, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 34 breakout rooms to share personal stories and perspectives, as well as learn from others. the ed.d.-loc program is committed to community building as a central value. our program vision to engage all learners in a community of reciprocal mentoring and accountability buoys the recruitment and retention of students through innovative and rigorous academic development. based on research literature, we designed this online program to have high-quality interaction among our students and faculty. we recognized the importance of regular and genuine student-to-faculty interaction. although all courses occur online, ed.d.-loc students participate in two on-campus immersion experiences during their program. the covid-19 pandemic, however, required us to temporarily move this immersion experience online. the ed.d.-loc program admits students, then groups and moves them through the course sequence in cohorts to build an intentional learning community among students at similar stages in the program. the ed.d.-loc program supports a maximum of nine cohorts of 45–80 students at a time. because students in a cohort are on a set course sequence together, they can encourage, uplift, and interact with one another. faculty advisors are assigned to each cohort and teach the problem of practice courses. within these cohorts, students participate in peer working groups to collaborate and communicate with others as they write their problem of practice dissertations (aitchison, 2019; aitchison & guerin, 2014). cohort members benefit from psychological support from other members, stronger affiliations among members, and an overall reduced level of loneliness (hill, 1995). in addition, norris and barnett (1994) found greater cohesiveness in a cohort model than a non-cohort approach. with a common purpose and a common goal, students involved in these cohort models are in a better position to form a community of practice, which leads to greater student persistence and success (lei et al., 2011; maher, 2004, 2005). current metrics indicate high degrees of program success and student satisfaction that reinforce the benefits of utilizing a cohort model. research findings suggest that ed.d. programs typically experience 50–70% attrition rates (ivankova & stick, 2007; rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2014). in contrast, the baylor university ed.d.-loc program has maintained a comparatively lower attrition rate at only 17%. in addition to supporting students through their placement into cohorts with assigned advisors, our commitment to learning from them as they journey through the program has allowed for the form and function of the problem of practice dissertation to evolve as each cohort of students moves further into the program. reframing the problem of practice dissertation recognizing that the goals of the ed.d.-loc students who are already leaders in their respective professions are different than those of students pursuing doctoral degrees to become career academics required us to reframe the problem of practice dissertation to better suit the needs of the ed.d.-loc students. this process of reframing the problem of practice dissertation took into account the fact that most students pursued this degree while working full-time, striving to finish the program in three years, and balancing their personal lives—all while trying to develop the skills, knowledge, and insight needed to affect concrete change in their local organizations and broader industry practice. this process of reframing the problem of practice dissertation led us to redesign our approach to two central parts of any traditional dissertation: the literature review and the research design and methodology. reframing the literature review and background research as with most ph.d. dissertations, we originally conceptualized the literature review as an exhaustive review of the literature in the field through which the student articulates a gap in the literature that their research aims to fill. following a traditional five-chapter dissertation format, the literature review occurred in chapter two after the introductory chapter and before the methodology chapter. we envisioned that our students would compose a 25–35-page literature review section. this section would provide the historical background for their study, explore previous research related to their study, uncover major scholars or theories in their field of study, identify key variables or concepts related to their study, incorporate theoretical or conceptual frameworks relevant for their study, and explain the relationships between previous research and their study to create a compelling argument for the need for and significance of their problem of practice dissertation study. this literature review design followed creswell (2018), who suggested that the literature review is “a written summary of journal articles, books, and other documents that describe the past and current state of information; organizes the literature into topics and documents a need for a proposed study” (p. 89). during this process, we viewed the literature review as an important academic endeavor that helped students demonstrate their prowess as researchers and writers. advisors encouraged students to refrain from including their voice throughout the literature review and to support their claims with research-based evidence. the literature review chapter proved to be the most daunting chapter for many of our students as it involved a great deal of reading, analyzing, and synthesizing literature in fields that were often foreign to them. this exhaustive review of the literature was not always relevant or meaningful to our students as they viewed this process as tangential and even perfunctory to completing their problem of practice dissertation. this chapter also became repetitive with their introduction in chapter one, which included the problem and purpose statement, theoretical or conceptual framework, research design overview, and key terms. students often found themselves repeating much of the same information in both chapters particularly as it related to the problem statement and frameworks. while much of the original intent for the literature review remains intact, we have begun to conceptualize the literature review in a slightly different fashion based on our reading around the purposes and practices of the ed.d. ed.d. dissertations often differ from traditional ph.d. dissertations in the origin of the research questions, foci of the study, end goal, and role of the researcher. ed.d. studies are designed to have pragmatic importance with outcomes that improve practice and have a community impact (archbald, 2008; belzer & ryan, 2013). most ed.d. students are working professionals who want to remain in the field after obtaining their degree (perry et al., 2020). thus, ed.d. research should take place “at the intersection of an individual’s work as a practitioner and researcher, wherein a practitioner focuses on understanding localized problems of practice through in-depth inquiry” (lochmiller & lester, 2017, p. 3). engaging in such proximate and relevant research trains students to apply data-informed solutions to industry problems and to “to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” reframing the problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 35 (shulman, 2005, p. 52). as such, the literature review in an ed.d. dissertation should look different than it would in a traditional ph.d. dissertation. rather than seeking to fill a gap in the literature, ed.d. dissertations explore a localized problem that is of immediate and pragmatic concern (belzer & ryan, 2013). therefore, the literature review is not used to demonstrate that the project is unique or fills a gap in the literature, but rather to demonstrate how the problem is conceptualized within other contexts to “bring the problem into sharper focus, identify root causes of the problem, and help etch out appropriate entry points for investigation that truly have the potential to help solve the problem” (belzer & ryan, 2013, p. 204). the gap in the literature is not the rationale for the ed.d. study, but rather the literature serves as a launching point for students to consider how to address issues of concern in their localized contexts and find research-based solutions. perry et al. (2020) argued that ed.d. literature reviews should be conceptualized as “review of scholarly and professional knowledge” that involve “a concise review blending professional, practical knowledge with scholarly knowledge to understand the problem, find solutions, and develop measures that will provide evidence of change (or not)” (p. 38). while ph.d. literature reviews often situate the study within the larger academic dialogue and demonstrate a students’ grasp of broader conceptual literature, the ed.d. literature review may be more pragmatic, examining root causes and solutions that are highly contextual in nature (archbald, 2008; belzer & ryan, 2013). belzer and ryan (2013) highlight the unique role that theory plays in an ed.d. dissertation as practitioners draw from their personal and practical knowledge or theories of action. as scholarly practitioners, ed.d. students generally possess a wealth of practical knowledge about their chosen topic and care deeply about creating meaningful change around these issues. in traditional ph.d. programs, this practical and professional knowledge are often dismissed, as such “academic” research is often given more credence and seen as more valid. however, because the goal of the ed.d. is to prepare practitioners who will remain in the field and work to create meaningful solutions to organizational problems, this practical and professional knowledge can be of great value for the ed.d. dissertation. practitioners often utilize frameworks in their thinking, but these are often informed by their own knowledge and experiences that have been tried and tested over time and, as such, may differ from the way academic researchers utilize theoretical frameworks (cochran-smith & lytle, 1993). these practically derived theories and ideas, however, should also be informed by and complement academically derived theories and research findings. thus, ed.d. students need the skills and expertise to access, understand, and use the literature to help make sense of their own experiences and develop reasonable theories and solutions to their problems of practice. perry et al. (2020) suggested that faculty can help to “expand edd students’ thinking about a problem and potential solutions by teaching them to use literature and theories and preparing them to use research methods and tools to solve or improve problems” (p.71). practitioners and industry leaders must be active learners who use research and theory to engage in analysis of and reform within their organizations. this dialectical relationship between theory and practice or praxis is even more important for ed.d. dissertations (andrews & grogan, 2005). as we have begun to reconceptualize the purpose and goals of the ed.d. dissertation, our approach to the literature review has shifted to reflect the ideas discussed above. most notably, we combined chapters one and two to allow for the more seamless integration of the problem statement, literature review, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and purpose statement. the combined chapters reduced repetition and allowed for students to contextualize their research problem throughout the literature review as well as identify theories or frameworks that would inform the purpose of their investigation. we also encouraged students to weave their voices into the literature review and to acknowledge their professional and practical expertise. as we reframed the purpose of the literature review as an opportunity to contextualize the problem rather than a historical lineage of research, we reduced the target length of the literature review to about 20 pages. reframing the research design and method the second component of the problem of practice dissertation that we reframed throughout rethinking the problem of practice dissertation is the research design and methodology. while these discussions on the distinctive form and function of the ed.d. versus the ph.d. dissertation are certainly important, a remaining shared ontological denominator blurs such distinctions. simply put, those who wish to earn the doctoral degree must acquire the knowledge and skills that facilitate the design, development, and dissemination of a unique research project that distinguishes the person as a scholarly-practitioner among their peers. the reality is that all persons earning a doctoral degree must engage in the study of research design and method to operationalize the research agenda. moreover, if the emerging scholarly-practitioner is to impact their field of study or community of practice, the ability to communicate the research design with clarity and technical congruence is essential, regardless of whether one pursues an ed.d. or a ph.d. the confluence of the epistemological and axiological form and function debate allows for blurred distinctions between the ed.d. and the ph.d. when it comes to the depth and breadth of research methodology and methods knowledge and skills. the rigor and dedication needed to earn each degree parallel even when the ultimate vocational goals of the students differ. while we aimed to clearly distinguish the purpose of the ed.d.-loc program from that of the ph.d., we wanted to ensure that there was no perceptible distinction in the quality of research methodology and methods knowledge. the ed.d.-loc program’s design team integrated the distinctive purpose of the ed.d. with the deliberate inclusion of rigorous research methodology and methods curriculum that ensures all students can demonstrate a wide proficiency of research design knowledge and skills. the ed.d.-loc program’s design team distinguished the ed.d.loc research courses from comparable ph.d. counter-parts by including the continuous presence of the problem of practice dissertation as the conduit for integrating the theoretical and applied knowledge of four research paradigms’ methodology and methods. embedded within each stage of the ed.d.-loc program, is an intense focus on the student’s practitioner-based research project. from the program’s application and admission protocols, throughout each course taken in the program, to the final defense of the problem of practice dissertation, the student’s practitioner-based research focus is not simply a capstone but a cornerstone for earning the ed.d. the original scope and sequence of research courses making up the baylor university ed.d.-loc program resembled a traditional ph.d. degree plan where the curricula of the courses focused blevins, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 36 exclusively on either the quantitative or qualitative research paradigms with little curricular overlap. although the development of the problem of practice dissertation was an integral component of the original research courses, instructors taught each course from a traditional approach within quantitative and qualitative paradigms and design silos. after continued evaluation of student product development and feedback, the program’s design team reconfigured the traditional methods course sequence better align them with the practitioner-inquiry-based problem of practice dissertation. in addition, the faculty design team and research faculty engaged in a deliberative dialogue that identified quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and evaluation as “signature methodologies and methods” that would comprise the core of research courses and that would be fully integrated and embedded within a problem of practice dissertation framework. on the surface, the research courses in the ed.d. loc program may appear to be similar to those within any rigorous doctoral program. however, the research courses’ faculty decided to adhere to signature research methodologies that are best suited for the ed.d.-loc students’ skill development that is the distinction. this distinction includes a heavy emphasis on the practical application of each set of skills to the individual student’s research area of interest. during the first term of the ed.d.-loc program, students enroll in their first research course: qualitative research analysis. while they are immersed in the technical aspects of qualitative research design specifically related to the five main design approaches (ethnography, narrative, phenomenology, grounded theory, and case study), the application of each design is tethered to each student’s problem of practice focus. the culminating assignment for the course requires students to design, develop and write an in-depth and detailed qualitative research mini-proposal that serves two purposes. first, students can deeply explore existing research related to their problem of practice topic. second, students begin to develop the research agenda that may inform their dissertation. in the third term of the program, students take both statistical methods and educational evaluation. the statistical methods course builds upon the research framework identified in the qualitative research analysis course (writing research questions, collecting data, analyzing data), but within the quantitative paradigm. the content of this course revolves around an overarching course question that highlights a possible difference between this course and others: “how can quantitative research and statistics make a scholarly-practitioner a better leader and agent of change in their professional or personal life?” students’ understanding of statistics is scaffolded from an introduction to levels of measurement up to regression and analysis of variance, with an emphasis on logic and a conceptual understanding of each statistical procedure. in educational evaluation, students learn how needs assessment and evaluation are critical components in determining if and why programs achieve their intended results and then design a study around these components as they relate to their problems of practice and their professions. by constructing a logic model and thinking about research design from a program evaluation perspective, students encounter the practical implications of their newfound research skills. the final traditional research methods course, mixed methods research, occurs in the fourth term of the ed.d.-loc program. in this course, students follow two parallel paths simultaneously. on the first path, they learn the tenets of mixed methods research, particularly as these methods apply to the three core designs (convergent, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential). the course reviews signature research methodologies but within the mixed methods research paradigm. on the second path, students apply these methodologies to their research, whether qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. however, whereas in previous courses they applied their new understandings in an exploratory context, in this course, students compose a first draft of their methods for their problem of practice dissertations. this focus creates an energizing and practical environment for students to apply their research knowledge. along with the innovative integration and alignment of the quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and evaluation research curricula with the problem of practice dissertation framework, students also complete courses designed to support them as they write their dissertations. program leadership recognized the need to reconfigure how faculty advisory teams provide students with a comprehensive team of scholars to guide them through their doctoral program and the design, development, and dissemination of their problem of practice research projects. in these courses, the students work closely with their faculty advisors to design, conduct, and report on the results of their problems of practice dissertations. in term five, they take problem of practice phase 1 and problem of practice phase 2, which is when they write their reviews of the literature and their methods drafts. in term eight, students analyze the results of their studies in problem of practice phase 3. in their final term, students polish, defend, and disseminate their results in the problem of practice capstone course. in moving to an integrated approach to research methods, the students in the ed.d.-loc program emerge with a problem of practice dissertation that has both scholarly and practical impacts. the program faculty’s commitment to these impacts is a major distinguishing factor between this degree and a traditional ph.d. the resulting dissertation, and ultimate degree conferral, is not a “ph.d.light” (a concern noted by others regarding practitioner-based or professional doctorates; e.g., edwardson, 2001; neumann, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). rather, the program design team aimed to reorient the same doctoral level of methodological intentionality and rigor around practitioner-oriented concerns and inquiries. summary: reframing the problem of practice dissertation the most significant changes introduced through continuous review of the ed.d.-loc program include streamlining the format and purpose of the literature review chapter to allow students to craft a focused entryway into their problems of practice dissertation. tailoring the research courses to establish a strong foundational methodological and theoretical base while simultaneously facilitating activities with direct application to the unique research goals of the students, and thoughtfully assigning advisors to the student cohorts, made it possible to restructure the problem of practice dissertation through the careful scaffolding of research instruction and practice. because the ed.d.-loc program leadership designed the research and methodology courses to guide students on their problem of practice dissertation research, adjustments to the problem of practice dissertation required adjustments to select aspects of the program curriculum. thus, the journey of reframing the problem of practice dissertation led program leadership to reconsider the horizontal and vertical alignment of program curriculum goals and support systems across the course sequence. reframing the problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 37 reframing coursework to prepare for the problem of practice the ed.d.-loc development team designed the course sequence to both facilitate collaboration and broad critical thinking as well as to prepare students for writing their problem of practice dissertation. our goal is to develop a course sequence where students blend theory with practice while also learning and applying the necessary research skills to prepare them to be change-agents through the research and writing process. guided by professional literature (austin & mcdaniels, 2006; olson & clark, 2009; shulman et al., 2006) and using both synchronous and asynchronous learning formats, the ed.d.-loc development team designed the cohortbased model to encourage scholarly-practitioners to work as a learning community to embrace issues within their professional fields and engage in critical discussions around both new and future learning opportunities. working this way, our students use their professional roles as contexts to engage in systematic inquiry. from the beginning of the program, we embraced our course sequence design as an ongoing process. as we learn from our students about their needs and scholarly development, we engage in constant iterations of specific courses and the course sequence as a whole to meet better our students’ learning needs. our program consists of three years of coursework, which includes four phases of problem of practice development courses. the initial course sequence (see figure 1), included problem of practice phase 1 in term 3, problem of practice phase 2 in term 6 problem of practice phase 3 in term 8, and the problem of practice capstone in term 9. the initial design also included only the qualitative research analysis course to be taken before students began problem of practice phase 1, and the other research courses to be taken either in conjunction with or after the initial problem of practice phase 1 course in term 3. figure 1. initial course sequence after two cohorts matriculated through the first problem of practice course, we conducted our own action research as students expressed a need to know more about formal research methods before taking their problem of practice courses. consequently, we realized a shift in the sequence was essential to ensure our students had both in-depth knowledge of necessary research skills and a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and pedagogical skills necessary to advance as scholarly practitioners. we realigned the course sequence with these concerns in mind (see figure 2). the new alignment contains two notable differences: the realignment of the problem of practice courses and the realignment of the research courses. realigning problem of practice courses within the course sequence first, we now offer both problem of practice phase 1 and problem of practice phase 2 courses simultaneously in term 5. given that students have approximately three years to complete their culminating research projects, faculty recognized the need for students to engage in the literature review process while simultaneously taking courses. moving problem of practice phase 1 from term 3 to term 5 allowed students more time to explore the research literature on their topics before writing their literature review. to support students through this process faculty developed a literature review guide and embedded it into courses that precede the problem of practice phase 1 course. this guide is a living document that moves with the student from trimester to trimester. across four courses, students identify, read, and annotate ten to fifteen articles related to their topic of study. working this way, the literature review guide ensures that students consistently explore the existing literature on their problem of practice research topics. ideally, students arrive at the problem of practice phase 1 course in term 5 with a wealth of knowledge on their topics and with a collection of annotated and analyzed literature that will form the foundation for their literature review. figure 2. current course sequence blevins, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 38 realigning research courses within the course sequence the second major change to the course sequence involved moving the research courses before term 5 (qualitative research, statistical methods, educational evaluation, and mixed methods research as described above), thereby allowing students more flexibility to explore and test a variety of methodological designs before committing to one when they write their methodology chapter in problem of practice phase 2. this adjustment ideally allows students to students to approach the process of developing their research methodology with greater awareness of methodological breadth. as evidenced by earlier discussions, our faculty engage in individual and collaborative reflection leading to both macroand micro-level program adjustments. this reflective practice is “an essential part of a circular process that motivates and drives decision-making processes, action planning, and professional learning” and encourages further program development (feucht et al., 2017, p. 237). at the macro-level, this collaborative reflection led to shifts in how faculty now view the literature review and research methodologies. likewise, this reflection resulted in the establishment of robust support systems and the modification of the course sequence. these macro-level program improvements created a ripple effect on faculty-designed courses and triggered changes at the micro-level through individual faculty reflection and course revisions. faculty purposefully integrated student supports into their courses thereby assisting students in the successful completion of the problem of practice dissertation. specifically, faculty now include a literature review guide and content specific experiences, which equip students with skills and knowledge needed to complete the problem of practice dissertation. summary: reframing the course sequence ultimately, continued engagement by faculty in reflective practice leads to further refinement of both the course sequence and individual courses. given that the program is in its infancy, faculty fully expect to “identify problems, select a strategy to address the issue, implement the strategy, evaluate the results,” and cycle through the problem-solving process until issues are resolved (feucht et al., 2017, p. 237). through this practice, faculty hope to create the best possible learning experiences for the ed.d.-loc students in which they not only engage in rigorous preparation but also feel guided and supported throughout. to support students through this process, the ed.d.-loc program design team create a robust student support system to guide students through this process. as a result, the process of reframing the problem of practice dissertation led to the need to realign the course sequence, and to readjust the corresponding student support systems. reframing student support for the problem of practice dissertation with the stressors and challenges of doctoral work wellrecognized, the ed.d.-loc design team constructed a student support system to help ensure a positive doctoral experience for students. lovitts (2001) noted that a sense of community and mentorship are two significant factors in matriculation. these factors are compounded by the fact that our program is completely online, which complicates the means of developing a community of learners (rovai & wighting, 2005). noting these concerns, we established support structures to build community, focus mentorship, and thereby increase student completion rates. one key element of supporting students is the establishment of processes to ensure that the students know about the various supports available to them, such as library support, the office of access and learning accommodation, veteran support, writing center support, the counseling center, and much more. in evaluations, students regularly note the depth of support provided in our ed.d.-loc program, making comments such as, “i’ve never attended a school that has done so well in setting their students up for success. our baylor university family takes meticulous care in facilitating our growth and development as we transition from professionals to scholarly practitioners.” toward this goal of community development, we targeted both academic support as well as emotional and psychological support elements. we designed these elements to accomplish three tasks: to build a community that extends beyond a single course or professor, to provide programmatic structures to promote continuous success, and to provide opportunities for students to display how they apply their scholarly endeavors to lead change in professional practice. we developed these efforts based upon scholarship on the development of communities of practice (wenger, 1998; wenger et al., 2002; wenger-trayner & wenger-trayner, 2015). task one: build community to accomplish the first task of building community beyond a single course or professor, each cohort receives a fixed set of dedicated faculty advisors who travel with the cohort as they journey through the course sequence and develop their problem of practice dissertations beginning in term 5. these faculty advisors serve as the chairs for the problem of practice dissertations within the cohort, teach the cohort’s problem of practice phase courses, and serve as the student’s “go-to” person for support, questions, and advice. though the faculty advisors differ from one cohort to another, they work closely with each other to ensure continuity across the program and to provide the students with program-wide collaborative support and expertise (swan et al., 2000). in addition to traveling through the program with dedicated faculty advisors, students are assigned to peer working groups within their cohort, which bring together students who have somewhat similar topics. initially, the peer working groups receive structured topics for discussion to build cohesion within the groups. as they grow and become more connected and invested in one another’s work, the discussion agenda is set by the group itself. these peer working groups come to function much like problem of practice dissertation writing groups and support networks for students. these peer working groups have been a key in creating community among our students. we have found that the students often exceed the required meeting expectation for their peer working groups. another strategy for creating a community of learners in our online program is through the immersion experiences mentioned earlier. on two occasions during their program, students come to baylor university’s campus with their cohort to familiarize themselves with the brick-and-mortar university of which they are a part and to experience some of the university’s traditions. during these immersion experiences, students meet their faculty advisors and peers face-to-face and attend seminars to educate and inspire. the reframing the problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 39 benefits of these immersion experiences are academic as well as social and have strengthened the networks of support integrated throughout the program. one final way that program leadership builds a sense of community is through providing periodic, celebratory university swag. when students receive t-shirts, cups, caps, phone covers, and other items displaying the university’s insignia, they can openly represent the university and their membership to the community. students take pride in being associated with a university that has a strong academic reputation and values its students’ successes through generous support systems. task two: build systems for academic support the second task we undertook was to build programmatic structures to promote continuous success. the most obvious source of programmatic support stems from the corps of people who make up the ed.d.-loc program staff. this group includes a graduate program director (full-time, tenured faculty member), assistant program director, student services program manager, and director of the ed.d. writing center. faculty who teach and serve as faculty advisors in this program include full-time faculty in the department of curriculum and instruction, full-time lecturers (with a 4/4/4 load on a 12-month contract), full-time faculty from other departments on the university campus, and adjunct faculty. one essential member of this student support team is the student support advisor. each student receives a student support advisor who regularly reaches out to students to check on their progress, field any questions they may have about navigating the program, and connect them to available resources. the support advisors assist students in navigating the academic components of the doctoral program (course schedules) as well as the emotional and psychological challenges inherent in a rigorous doctoral program. support advisors check in with their assigned students biweekly or monthly, depending on the need. the support advisors also serve as an intermediary with professors if needed. one unique source of support is the ed.d. writing center, solely dedicated to helping the ed.d.-loc students. the ed.d. writing center staff includes two full-time writing coordinators and three graduate student writing consultants, who are abd or have defended but not graduated. this team assists students with major writing assignments throughout the program and supports the work of the faculty advisors as they facilitate chapter-by-chapter feedback on the development of the problem of practice dissertation. ed.d. writing center staff track student progress and develop individualized writing develop strategies that help meet the unique needs of each student. one unique aspect of this departmental writing center, however, is that the full-time writing coordinators each qualify to serve as the third reader on students’ problem of practice dissertation defense committees. students can sign up for individual writing consultations once every three weeks. in addition to these individual writing consultations, the ed.d. writing center offers an optional writing course and supplies students with templates and planning documents. the ed.d. writing center closely collaborates with university librarians to host group writing webinars where students can develop their skills as scholarly researchers and writers. librarians and writing center staff regularly engage in professional development classes covering tips and strategies for effective writers. intentionality in support systems for students increases the chance of retention and certainly decreases the chances of attrition caused by feelings of isolation or lack of support. combined, these programmatic support resources work in conjunction with the community building aspects of the ed.d.-loc program to create a network of helpers to which the students may turn with questions or concerns during all stages of their work. task three: build a system to recognize student achievement the third task that program leadership undertook when designing the student support systems for the ed.d.-loc program was to provide opportunities for students to display how they apply their scholarly endeavors to lead change in professional practice. engaging, motivating, and rewarding individuals, whether they are employees, students, or leaders, is essential to maintaining a positive professional environment. one way the ed.d.-loc program recognizes student success is by inviting students to present their scholarly work (individually, with peers, or faculty). the faculty and staff keep students apprised of opportunities to present at various conferences and to write articles for journals appropriate for their topics. as students share their research ideas and findings, they not only increase the awareness about their research topic, but they also gain valuable insights and feedback from others as they share their work. program staff also create social media recognition through platforms such as twitter and instagram to highlight student achievements within the program as well as honors and achievements professionally outside of the program. students in our program have published books, contributed to numerous peerreviewed journals and edited collections, received significant promotions, won awards, and have presented at a multitude of conferences. these recognitions affirm to the students that the university sees and values their contributions. additionally, social media recognition encourages a platform where other students in the program can observe and cheer on their peers’ achievements. three times a year, the ed.d.-loc program leaders compose and distribute a newsletter that communicates to students important program information and highlights student work. these newsletters provide academic advice to students, highlight faculty members (helping students get to know them better), recognize students’ achievements, and offer announcements about upcoming opportunities, events, and activities. the newsletter is distributed electronically through a variety of methods, and its colorful and professional presentation demonstrates the program’s commitment to excellence and care. summary: supporting students along the problem of practice journey in summary, successfully undertaking and completing an online doctorate requires dedication from students and extensive support from program faculty and staff. it is a false assumption to think a well-designed program can be put on autopilot and left alone. our program’s success is attributable to reflexivity, research, trial-anderror learning, design, redesign, and an enduring commitment to building a welcoming community and a comprehensive network of student support. by creating a program that encourages open communication and provides diverse opportunities for students to be heard and recognized we have fashioned an ongoing cycle of blevins, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 40 improvement that strengthens each component of the program with every turn. these changes have not only improved the problem of practice dissertation, but they have also improved the entire program. conclusion: from problem of practice to program design our commitment to ourselves as faculty, and most importantly to our students, is to continue our responsive efforts to iterate our program goals, outcomes, and design, as needed. collectively, we feel that this reflective practice not only makes our program more responsive to students’ needs but also challenges us as faculty to reflect on our own practices. furthermore, all of us, in our endeavors as scholars, engage in praxis to act on systems to impact change. when we set out as a community of practice to draw distinctions between the dissertation process of the traditional ph.d. and the ed.d. we knew that changes within our program would follow. we embarked on this journey, in many respects, as participants in the same change process that we seek to equip our students to carry out: we saw a problem in professional practice; we engaged in a careful process of reading, reflection, and assessment; and then we designed a change plan to address the problem under consideration. this journey ultimately led us to reframe not simply the problem of practice dissertation, but also our approach to the program course sequence and the student support systems that shepherd students through their research and writing endeavors. finding answers to the questions we posed about the dissertation process underscores the importance of the relationship between program design, student support systems, and the problem of practice dissertation. alterations to one had logical implications for the others. yet understanding the complex interrelationships between institutional systems, practices, procedures, and the people that engage them is a foundational element for leading organizational change. references aitchison, c. 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(2006). using doctoral education to prepare faculty to work within boyer’s four domains of scholarship. new directions for institutional research, 2006(129), 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.171 bell, d. j., foster, s. l., & cone, j. d. (2019). dissertation and theses from start to finish: psychology and related fields (3rd ed.). american psychological association. belzer, a., & ryan, s. (2013). defining the problem of practice dissertation: where’s the practice, what’s the problem? planning and changing, 44(3/4), 195-207. brennan, m. (1998). struggles over the definition and practice of the educational doctorate in australia. the australian educational researcher, 25(1), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03219666 buss, r. r., & zambo, d. (2014). a practical guide for students and faculty in cped-influenced programs working on an action research dissertation in practice. carnegie project on the education doctorate. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cpedinitiative.org/resource/resmgr/literatur e/arbuss_zambo_cped_product.pdf cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. l. (1993). inside/outside: teacher research and knowledge. teacher college press. council of graduate schools. (2007). task force report on the professional doctorate. creswell, j. w. (2018). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (6th ed.). pearson. edwardson, s. r. (2001). nursing education and doctoral study in the united states. in b. green, t. w. maxwell, & p. shanahan (eds.), doctoral education and professional practice: the next generation? (pp. 85-108). kardoorair. feucht, f. c., lunn brownlee, j., & schraw, g. 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(2018). the demise of the educational doctorate: caught in the middle of programs transitioning from the edd to the phd. journal of behavioral & social science, 5(3), 157-169. lei, s., gorelick, d., short, k., smallwood, l., & wright-porter, k. (2011). academic cohorts: benefits and drawbacks of being a member of a community of learners. education, 131(3), 497-504. lindsay, h., kerawalla, l., & floyd, a. (2018). supporting researching professionals: edd students’ perceptions of their development needs. studies in higher education, 43(12), 2321-2335. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1326025 lochmiller, c. r., & lester, j. n. (2017). conceptualizing practitionerscholarship for educational leadership research and practice. journal of research on leadership education, 12(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775116668525 lovitts, b. e. (2001). leaving the ivory tower: the causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. rowman & littlefield. maher, m. a. 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(1993). the ph.d. versus the ed.d.: time for a decision. innovative higher education, 18, 47-63. paltridge, b. (2002). thesis and dissertation writing: an examination of published advice and actual practice. english for specific purposes, 21(2), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0889-4906(00)00025-9 reframing the problem of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.230 41 perry, j. a. (2012). what history reveals about the education doctorate. in m. m. latta & s. wunder (eds.), placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education: rethinking the policy and practice of the education doctorate (pp. 51-72). information age. perry, j. a. (ed.). (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. information age. perry, j. a., & imig, d. g. (2008). a stewardship of practice in education. change: the magazine of higher learning, 40(6), 42-49. https://doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.6.42-49 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. rockinson-szapkiw, a., spaulding, l. s., & bade, b. (2014). completion of educational doctorates: how universities can foster persistence. international journal of doctoral studies, 9, 293-308. https://doi.org/10.28945/2072 rovai, a. p., & wighting, m. j. (2005). feelings of alienation and community among higher education students in a virtual classroom. the internet and higher education, 8(2), 97-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2005.03.001 schuster, m. t. (2017). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.34 shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-60. shulman, l. s., golde, c., bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35, 25-32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 swan, k., shea, p., fredericksen, e., pickett, a., pelz, w., & maher, g. (2000). building knowledge building communities: consistency, contact and communication in the virtual classroom. journal of educational computing research, 23(4), 359-383. https://doi.org/10.2190/w4g6hy52-57p1-ppne thompson, p. (2005). points of focus and position: intertextual reference in phd theses. journal of english for academic purposes, 4(4), 307-323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2005.07.006 wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity (1st ed.). cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511803932 wenger, e., mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. harvard business review press. wenger-trayner, e., & wenger-trayner, b. (2015). learning in a landscape of practice: a framework. in e. wenger-trayner, m. fenton-o’creevy, s. hutchinson, c. kubiak, & b. wenger-trayner (eds.), learning in landscapes of practice: boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning (pp. 13-30). routledge. brooke e. blevins baylor university lacy k. crocker papadakis baylor university (1) leanne howell baylor university (2) jessica meehan baylor university (3) sarah pratt baylor university (4) sandra talbert baylor university (5) sandi cooper baylor university (6) julia earl baylor university (7) cece lively baylor university (8) elizabeth anne murray baylor university (9) laila sanguras baylor university (10) tony l. talbert baylor university (11) nicholas r. werse baylor university (12) introduction baylor university ed.d.-loc program and context reframing the problem of practice dissertation reframing the literature review and background research reframing the research design and method summary: reframing the problem of practice dissertation reframing coursework to prepare for the problem of practice realigning problem of practice courses within the course sequence realigning research courses within the course sequence summary: reframing the course sequence reframing student support for the problem of practice dissertation task one: build community task two: build systems for academic support task three: build a system to recognize student achievement summary: supporting students along the problem of practice journey conclusion: from problem of practice to program design references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 51 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.243 a cross-cultural consideration of teacher leaders’ narratives of power, agency, and school culture: england, jamaica, and the united states book review robby lee robinette arizona state university rlrobine@asu.edu eleanor j. blair, carmel roofe, and susan timmins: a cross-cultural consideration of teacher leaders’ narratives of power, agency, and school culture: england, jamaica, and the united states. myers education press, 2020. 200pp. paperback: $42.95. isbn 978-1-9755-0158-7 education is a fundamental right in the 21st century (international commission on the futures of education, 2021). for education to serve its purpose in preparing students for future endeavors, we need teachers who can be trusted to guide them. in many societies around the world, however, the teaching profession is held in lower esteem than other professions (fullan et al., 2015; leana, 2011; saltman, 2014). teachers are not afforded the deference other professionals receive. as such, their voices are silenced in favor of those perceived as more capable of making decisions that affect education (fullan et al., 2015). the guides of societies are thus left weakened and unable to meet their full potential in creating educational contexts where all stakeholders thrive. in challenging this premise, eleanor j. blair, carmel roofe, and susan timmins present an alternative future for teachers in their book, a cross-cultural consideration of teacher leaders’ narratives of power, agency, and school culture: england, jamaica, and the united states. each of them within their respective countries set out to define the role teacher leaders can have in strengthening their educational contexts to ensure students meet their educational needs. the authors advocate for the preparation of teachers to serve in leadership roles. this focus is especially pertinent for many edd candidates who are working to advance the needs of their colleagues, students, and communities. to enlighten our understanding of the importance of teacher leaders, the authors conduct a phenomenological study with 36 teacher leaders in england, jamaica, and the united states (12 teachers in each country) to attain this goal. the authors describe the experiences of participant teachers and how their roles as teacher leaders exemplify the potential they may have in improving the education students receive, and in doing so strengthening society. while teachers in each of these countries engage in situations informed by unique historical, cultural, and social factors, the authors contend there are overall themes shared amongst teachers in these three countries. the authors present their findings related to teacher leadership in three distinct sections devoted to each country. within each section, the first chapter is devoted to a description of the general context and the methodology each author employed. the second chapter focuses on the findings of the phenomena under investigation. the third chapter presents an analysis of the findings. the authors in their conclusion weave the various themes that emerged from teachers’ experiences and insights in these three countries to the themes shared amongst them. the authors reflect on these themes as they contemplate the future of teacher leadership within each of their countries. the authors maintain teacher leaders are well placed to support their colleagues, students, and communities as they are embedded within their educational contexts. since the late 20th century, politicians in numerous countries have increasingly applied a topdown management model of education with mandates and standards (fullan et al., 2015). teachers are seen as receivers of orders they are to implement with the idea that standardized practices will lead to school improvement. the reality, though, is that contextual factors influence the implementation of mandated standards that requires leadership on the ground to address them as they occur. in each of the countries, many of the interviewed teachers shared that dissonance between what is mandated at the top to what is feasible at the bottom. when such situations arise, teacher leaders, as the authors argue, are best positioned to deal with them because of their intimate understanding of their students and contexts. as they stated, “teachers based on the nature of their roles possess a great deal of power within schools that school leaders need to utilize for the benefit of all” (p. 8). how to foster that power and recognize it within oneself is an endeavor edd programs should have for their students. when teacher leaders are afforded a voice and agency within their contexts to influence change, they can engage with stakeholders to move forward in ways relevant to their situations. any teacher who asserts agency may claim this role. as roofe explained about teacher leaders in jamaica: consequently, the construct of teacher leadership being promoted by this jamaican study is not about a formal role of leadership, but more about the agency that resides in those who offer their expertise and those who are committed to impacting the experience of learners and their colleagues http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1633-705x robinette impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.243 52 without being assigned a formal role or without knowing what the reward will be. their sole aim is to improve the teaching and learning experience and schooling for all. (p. 110) teacher leaders, though, will at times need guidance in how they may use their agency. teacher educators are well-positioned to provide that guidance as doctoral students take on leadership roles within their contexts. while teacher leaders are agents of change, teacher leaders also need the support of other teachers and administrators (edwards, 2005). when teachers are formally acknowledged as leaders within their schools, they provide opportunities to lessen tensions between school administrators and their fellow teachers. such tensions hinder the development of schools, students, teachers, and administrators. when the focus is on delineating roles between who can act, energy is spent on internal politics. this focus comes at the expense of ensuring students prosper and fostering their development. these tensions exist, in part, due to the semi-professional status teachers are afforded. each of the three authors asserts that unlike the fields of medicine or law, many leaders at various levels of government tell teachers what the problems are and how to solve them. teachers are understood as passive mediators for policies others have enacted. the ramifications are that there exist discrepancies and resistance to policies ill-suited for specific contexts. the authors contend that when teachers and administrators share power and are provided compensation for their efforts, schools and students benefit. teacher leaders, additionally, are well-positioned to identify areas for improvement and intervention. they, though, need to take active steps in meeting their potential. as timmons contended about teachers in england: teacher leaders need to come forward and make a stand for how they believe our children should be educated and how our schools should be led into the future. no more passive acceptance of systems and testing which have a damaging impact on children, but marching forward bravely disrupting the status quo for equality, social justice and our future generations. (p. 58) teacher leaders are able to work to build stronger relationships with students and local communities, which affects student outcomes. due to their intimate understanding of their contexts and the people within them, teacher leaders are uniquely situated to enact meaningful change. yet, there is a need to recognize that potential and make meaningful and well-reasoned changes. these are lessons doctoral students need to learn in their edd programs so they may apply what they learn into their contexts with confidence and awareness of why the change they advocate is appropriate. for that to happen, though, leaders must be willing to share power and nurture the development of teacher leaders. also, teacher leaders must see themselves as agents of change instead of actors of change. as the authors explained: teachers must change their mind-set, instead of believing that they have no power, they must believe in themselves; as they are intelligent, highly trained, and highly skilled, and their voice is very important and very powerful. teachers themselves need to be the ones to implement change, not wait for change to happen. (p. 181) this shift requires a new way of understanding school leadership that is more dispersed to those within schools that are best suited for those tasks. such work requires a paradigm shift as the authors contend, but one with the promise of empowering teachers and enacting change that benefits all stakeholders. as edd programs include students who are administrators or teachers within their contexts, teacher educators can help develop this understanding with the facilitation of dialogue amongst doctoral students. there is a need to understand who these teacher leaders are and their roles in advocating for schools and students within the current discourses about education (cohen & mehta, 2017; fullan et al., 2015; ladson-billings, 2013). equally important, though, is to acknowledge there is a wide breadth of leaders within schools. the authors in selecting their participants focused on teachers their colleagues identified as leaders. yet, those recognized by others tend to stand out in light of other leaders who seek to enact change and lead in subtle ways that others may not recognize (meyerson, 2001). in this endeavor to push teacher leaders and the profession forward, it is important to realize that leadership styles exist on a continuum. to acknowledge one style of leadership over others substitutes one form of authority over another form. many edd programs are situated to help encourage leaders from diverse backgrounds and personalities to explore different styles of leadership and to find the style appropriate for them. in this way, doctoral students develop their awareness of how they can be leaders and be true to themselves within their contexts. the goal for school leadership, as such, is for a dispersed and democratic sharing of power. notwithstanding this concern in how leaders are defined, the authors’ focus on teacher leadership and the ascension of teaching as a recognized and respected profession is relevant to discourses of education’s role in society. much work in education, specifically in teacher leadership, is focused on specific contexts to allow for a deep understanding of the phenomena under study. yet, the application of what is learned in one context to another, while explained as an important endeavor in any research (creswell & guetterman, 2019), is more limited in application. each author’s work with teacher leaders presents compelling insights into who teacher leaders are and the barriers they face within their settings. when their insights are combined, though, they present a compelling case of how issues, such as globalization and neoliberal policies in education, occur across boundaries and affect stakeholders in similar ways. that information is important to realize and explore as issues of equity, social justice, and economic parity exist in many jurisdictions (bridges, 2014; darian-smith, 2020). as blair explained, “teacher leadership is not simply a personal issue; it is about making schools and education inclusive environments for all people; it is about supporting democratic values of equity, freedom, and justice for all” (p. 164). these educational issues require local solutions; teacher leaders have a crucial role to play. understanding who they are and the environments they emerge in provides insights into the influence they have in making schools better for all stakeholders. eleanor j. blair is a professor in the college of education and allied professions at western carolina university in the united states. she has primarily focused her work on the use of qualitative methodologies to critically explore teaching and learning in different cultural contexts. carmen roofe is a senior lecturer at the school of education at the university of the west indies in jamaica. she has worked extensively on topics related to teacher quality and preparation across cultural contexts. susan timmins is a senior lecturer in the school of education and professional development at a cross-cultural consideration-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.243 53 the university of huddersfield in england. she has focused her research on initial teacher education and professional development. myers education press published a cross-cultural consideration of teacher leaders’ narratives of power, agency, and school culture: england, jamaica, and the united states in 2020. available in paperback, hardback, and e-publication, the book is 200 pages in length and includes a forward by paul miller, a table of contents, index, tables, and references. the authors have developed a well-researched and insightful book concerning teacher leaders in england, jamaica, and the united states. scholars focused on teacher leadership and crosscultural education will find this book a useful resource. for those within edd programs, this is especially pertinent as many of the practitioner-scholars that graduate from these programs will take on leadership roles within their contexts. in preparation for those responsibilities, there is a need to understand who teacher leaders are, how to support them, and why they are important in their contexts. the authors help provide those insights. the teacher leaders in this book contend with issues of neoliberal education policies, equity, and power dynamics within and around their learning environments. i, too, contend with similar issues within my educational setting in china (e.g., feng, 2021; wu, 2019). other educators in different places likely will find similar connections with the issues the authors present. that is the power of cross-cultural studies such as this one. the ability to find ourselves mirrored with those in different places and times helps build our empathy and understanding that we share similar goals and face similar obstacles (ting-toomey & dorjee, 2019). while we each will need to develop appropriate and pertinent solutions for our situations, we can open dialogues with one another, learn from one another, and together build more just and equitable learning environments. the authors of this text help with that endeavor. this book would be an incredible resource for those leading edd programs to use with their doctoral candidates. outside academia, this book is also accessible for those who wish to hear the voices of teachers and their perspectives on what it means to be a teacher in the 21st century. the voices of politicians, commentators, and social influencers have helped shape the discourse on teachers; the voices of teachers are more often than not drowned out in favor of these individuals. blair, roofe, and timmins, however, elevate the voices of the 36 participating teachers so we may learn from and understand those who work within the education systems of england, jamaica, and the united states. with this contribution, the authors help us better understand how the work teacher leaders do is more than teaching students. teacher leaders’ work focuses on guiding and supporting the future citizens of a globalized world that needs to be more equitable and just for everyone. teacher leaders are well-positioned to steer that effort. references bridges, d. (2014). the ethics and politics of the international transfer of educational policy and practice. ethics and education, 9(1), 84–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2014.890274 cohen, d. k., & mehta, j. d. (2017). why reform sometimes succeeds: understanding the conditions that produce reforms that last. american educational research journal, 54(4), 644–690. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831217700078 creswell, j. w., & guetterman, t. c. (2019). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (6th ed.). pearson education. darian-smith, e. (2020). globalizing education in times of hyper-nationalism, rising authoritarianism, and shrinking worldviews. new global studies, 14(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2019-0020 edwards, a. (2005). relational agency: learning to be a resourceful practitioner. international journal of educational research, 43(3), 168– 182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2006.06.010 feng, s. (2021). the evolution of shadow education in china: from emergence to capitalisation. hungarian educational research journal, 11(2), 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1556/063.2020.00032 fullan, m., rincón-gallardo, s., & hargreaves, a. (2015). professional capital as accountability. education policy analysis archives, 23(15), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v23.1998 international commission on the futures of education. (2021). reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education. united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. https://unevoc.unesco.org/home/unevoc+publications/lang=en/akt=det ail/qs=6566 ladson-billings, g. (2013). lack of achievement or loss of opportunity? in p. l. carter & k. g. welner (eds.), closing the opportunity gap: what america must do to give every child an even chance (pp. 11–22). oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199982981.003.0002 leana, c. r. (2011). the missing link in school reform. stanford social innovation review, 9(4), 30–35. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_missing_link_in_school_reform meyerson, d. e. (2001). tempered radicals: how people use difference to inspire change at work. harvard business school press. saltman, k. j. (2014). the austerity school: grit, character, and the privatization of public education. symplokē, 22(1–2), 41–57. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/566832 ting-toomey, s., & dorjee, t. (2019). communicating across cultures (2nd ed.). guilford press. wu, j. (2019). confucian revival and the hybrid educational narratives in contemporary china: a critical rethinking of scale in globalisation and education. globalisation, societies and education, 17(4), 474–488. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2018.1558048 https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2014.890274 https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831217700078 https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2019-0020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2006.06.010 https://doi.org/10.1556/063.2020.00032 https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v23.1998 https://unevoc.unesco.org/home/unevoc+publications/lang=en/akt=detail/qs=6566 https://unevoc.unesco.org/home/unevoc+publications/lang=en/akt=detail/qs=6566 https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199982981.003.0002 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_missing_link_in_school_reform https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/566832 https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2018.1558048 robby lee robinette arizona state university references document4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 23 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities ray r. buss, phd mary lou fulton teachers college arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu abstract in this essay, i describe the role of action research (ar) in developing inquiry as practice among students in a cped-guided edd program. the essay is focused on issues such as (a) the need for developing inquiry as practice skills; (b) a rationale for using ar to develop inquiry skills; and (c) developing inquiry as practice through cycles of ar. i provide a rich, detailed description about how our faculty members have used it to develop students’ inquiry skills. the essay concludes with an examination of the challenges of using ar and a summary of its merits to prepare students’ inquiry as practice orientations and skills. keywords: inquiry as practice; signature pedagogy; action research; edd programs introduction no action without research; no research without action —kurt lewin the epigraph attributed to lewin aptly portrays the inquiry orientation employed by the edd in leadership and innovation program of the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. consistent with lewin’s ideas, research conducted by the students in our practitioner-oriented edd program has been action research (ar)—research with roots in and conducted in a workplace setting by educators who know the context, the problem of practice (pop), and the change they want to effect. from the beginning of our program, faculty members easily and enthusiastically agreed ar had great potential to develop educational leaders/practitioners who could conduct sound inquiry as part of their practice. on the other hand, we have found fostering inquiry as practice skills has required much more effort. this challenge led faculty members to devise a progressive, developmental process, designed to build inquiry skills systematically through action research as students advance through their doctoral preparation. evidence from program research suggests our action research orientation has been effective in developing inquiry as practice skills among program participants. for example, in studies about students’ research skills, participants in our edd program freely admitted they knew very little or nothing about research and did not employ systematic inquiry skills as part of their practices when they entered our program (buss, 2017a; 2017b; buss & avery, in press; buss, zambo, zambo, & williams, 2014; zambo, buss, & zambo, 2015). by comparison, those who have completed one year of the program maintained they were developing emerging inquiry and research skills (buss, 2017a; buss & avery, in press). importantly, graduates of the program readily claimed they had developed powerful, worthwhile research and inquiry as practice abilities, which they applied to their workplace settings (buss, 2017b; buss et al., 2014; zambo et al., 2015). these positive findings have encouraged me to write this essay in which i describe how this substantial growth of inquiry as practice abilities among students may be accounted for. in the next section, i have situated this idea within the context of edd programs. i then go on to explain the lessons we have learned about how ar fostered the development of inquiry as practice among edd program participants. objective and questions guiding the essay in this essay, i focus on two compelling questions: • (a) how has a ‘signature pedagogy’ approach like ar offered practitioners an effective tool to develop practice-appropriate inquiry skills for use in their workplace settings? • (b) how have we more deliberately connected students’ inquiry, both in their courses and dissertations, to their daily practice? in the remainder of the essay, i present responses to these two questions and organize them around such issues as the need for inquiry skills, a rationale for using ar, and notably an extensive explanation of developing inquiry skills through cycles of ar. additionally, i conclude the essay with describing the challenges of using ar and provide a summary of the merits of ar for preparing students’ inquiry as practice orientations and skills. buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 24 the challenge: developing inquiry as practice inquiry as practice is the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice. by using various research, theories, and professional wisdom, scholarly practitioners design innovative solutions to address the problems of practice. at the center of inquiry as practice is the ability to use data to understand the effects of innovation. as such, inquiry as practice requires the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens. (cped, 2010) the previous characterization is cped’s definition of inquiry as practice. it serves as a foundation for developing inquiry as practice abilities, which are considered to be a fundamental component of strong edd programs. using cped’s ideas on inquiry as practice led faculty members to anticipate that our program’s participants and graduates would draw upon their inquiry as practice skills as they initiated and subsequently continued to conduct inquiry in their settings. on the need for developing sound inquiry as practice levine (2005) presented a harsh critique of the preparation of educational leaders in edd programs. in this critique, levine focused his severest criticisms on the poor preparation of school leaders with respect to conducting sound research that was relevant to their workplaces. he argued research preparation for these school leaders was “disconnected from practice” (p. 44). further, levine claimed this problem arose because students were prepared as traditional researchers, not as educational leaders who were engaged in meaningful research connected to their professional practices, and which would serve them subsequently in their educational practice settings. shulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006) articulated similar criticisms of edd programs. like levine (2005), shulman et al. expressed great concern about the mismatch between research preparation and career paths. shulman and his colleagues also argued edd students were prepared as traditional researchers, rather than attaining inquiry skills better suited to their roles as educational leaders and educational practitioners. for example, shulman et al. suggested, “education has struggled to strike a balance between the practice of education and research in education, in crafting doctoral programs” [italics in original] (p. 26). this uncertainty has resulted in the edd being “widely regarded as a ‘phd lite’” (shulman et al., 2006, p. 27). thoughtful consideration of the criticisms articulated by levine (2005) and shulman et al. (2006) suggest several important implications with respect to inquiry in edd programs. first, inquiry and research skills must be better matched to career demands and requirements. thus, by using an inquiry as practice approach, edd programs can better meet the needs of students who work in educational practice settings. both critiques attest to the importance of developing practice-related inquiry skills appropriate to the workplace setting; not technical skills, which could not be used routinely in educational practice settings. second, to be practicable, edd students’ learning about research and the research skills they develop must be connected to practice in meaningful ways. by situating inquiry in practice, doctoral programs can capitalize on authentically connecting inquiry with practice and create potent learning circumstances, laboratories of practice, that include (a) learning initial inquiry skills by practicing them in relevant, real-world educational settings and (b) subsequently using those skills on an on-going basis in their workplace settings throughout their educational practice careers after their doctoral work. importantly, shulman and his colleagues (2006) went beyond a critique of edd research preparation by suggesting hallmarks that could be used to guide the (re)design of edd programs to overcome the shortcomings related to inappropriate research preparation for practitioners. these hallmarks included (a) utilizing signature pedagogies, (b) developing practice-related research skills, (c) requiring students to be engaged in prior and on-going practice experiences, and (d) expecting that program participants “would be skilled in carrying out local research and evaluations to guide practice” (p. 29). in fact, thoughtful consideration of the hallmarks showed they have served as the foundation for some of cped’s framework, principles and design concepts, for edd programs (cped 2009, 2010). specifically as related to the edd program developed in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university, cped (2009) principles 4, 5, and 6 were influential in developing students’ inquiry and research skills, just as they undoubtedly have been at other cped-influenced programs. for example, we incorporated principle 4 into our students’ inquiry work because it focuses on how programs provide opportunities for students to analyze and develop solutions to their field-based pop. similarly, we included principle 5 because programs are to aid students in developing professional knowledge that integrates practical and research knowledge, which allows them to link theory with inquiry. additionally, we involved principle 6 because students were to generate and use professional knowledge to influence their practice. with respect to cped’s (2010) design concepts, many of them are related to research and inquiry and are consistent with the design of inquiry-based components of the program. the first, problem of practice, suggests a specific issue or concern that is rooted in a practitioners’ workplace setting and warrants some type of resolution. the second, inquiry as practice, proposes that students should be engaged in working on a problem of practice and determining solutions for it as they gather, organize, analyze, and use data to aid their thinking about the problem, and was defined more fully above. the third, laboratories of practice, suggests students should be afforded opportunities for theory, inquiry, and practice to come together in productive ways in workplace settings as they work toward resolution of the pop. the fourth, dissertation in practice, recommends that the culminating experience reflect the scholarly practitioners’ comprehensive ability to employ inquiry in a meaningful way to address the pop. these design concepts were taken into account as we designed research and inquiry skills that were specifically suited to students working in educational practice settings. programmatic definitions before proceeding, it will be instructive to consider briefly definitions of some key terms as they are applied in our program. first, ar in our program provides opportunities for students to examine a pop by taking action in repeated cycles of inquiry (mertler, 2017; mills, 2014). using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 25 moreover, ar as carried out by students in our program, tends to be more pragmatic in nature (buss & zambo, 2016) because insiders conduct it as they work individually or collaboratively with others (herr & anderson, 2015) in settings such as schools, higher education, or other workplace venues. in other professions (e.g., rounds in medicine), signature pedagogy is seen as a set of relevant practices, employed in the preparation of professionals, and later used in their practice (shulman, 2005). in preparing educational professionals, we use signature pedagogies like ar to develop decision-making, collaboration, and other relevant practice skills. responding to the challenge: using action research to develop inquiry as practice a rationale for using ar to develop inquiry skills ar serves as an inquiry as practice approach that guides our program efforts because of its flexibility and functionality. we highlight ar in our doctoral program because various characteristics make it appropriate for use by doctoral students as they develop an inquiry as practice approach and work to investigate and resolve their pop (buss, 2017a). four characteristics appear to be foundational with respect to developing students’ abilities to engage in inquiry as practice. see buss and zambo (2016) for a more thorough discussion. first, ar is adaptable to a variety of contexts and to pop situated in those contexts. students in our program explore pop from contexts as diverse as k-12 classrooms, school sites and district offices, higher education settings, and other organizational venues. second, ar allows students to ease into research over time. because students in our program conduct ar in cycles over time, it permits them to initiate and continue their inquiry as practice work in smaller, more manageable efforts. the various ar cycles students conduct throughout the program along with the ar requirements are depicted in figure 1. see figure 1. thus, for example, during cycle 1, students are extending their efforts from cycle 0, implementing a small-scale intervention, and developing/revising intervention and data collection procedures. third, use of ar facilitates the development of systematic inquiry by offering a structured framework that is employed by program participants. specifically, ar provides students with an elegant four-step process that is used to conduct systemic inquiry about their pop in their workplace settings. the ar four-step framework includes (a) studying and planning, (b) taking action, (c) collecting and analyzing data, and (d) reflecting on the data (mertler, 2017; mills, 2015). the four-step process is displayed in figure 2. see figure 2 finally, ar is sustainable during the program (buss, 2017a; buss & avery, in press) and afterward (buss, 2017b; buss et al., 2016). students use ar in their workplaces because subsequent ar work builds on previous efforts. moreover, the effects of ar are also sustainable. to illustrate, consider the following example. one graduate maintained, “yes, it’s [her intervention is] still part of our professional development program in our district … we have about 130 teachers and probably to varying degrees they’ve been influenced to utilize problem-based math a … bit more.” figure 1. cycles of ar in arizona state university’s edd program in leadership and innovation buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 26 to capitalize on these four important characteristics of ar, faculty members employ a complementary component about teaching ar to doctoral students. specifically, ar is readily scaffolded over time to foster edd students’ use of ar as an inquiry as practice approach. as noted in the following section, requirements during the cycles are incremental to make them quite manageable for students. developing inquiry as practice abilities through cycles of action research we use cycles of ar throughout our program as shown in the third column of table 1. our efforts in describing our use of cycles of ar, here, extend the work of mertler, buss, and henriksen (2016). table 1 has been presented in three columns—(a) the course(s), (b) a description of inquiry skills that are being developed within the course(s), and (c) the attendant cycle of ar that is being conducted by students in the program during that timeframe. see table 1. as demonstrated in the discussion that follows, these cycles afford students opportunities to ease into the work over time. further, the cycles allow students to ‘dig deeply’ into their pop because they are conducting ar in their workplaces on an on-going basis. moreover, as evidenced in table 1, the cycles of ar are connected to a methods or methods-like course in the program. in the next section, i describe the cycles of ar in detail to provide a clear explanation about how the cycles are used to develop inquiry as practice among students participating in the program. additionally, taken as a whole, the descriptions demonstrate how the cycles are scaffolded to foster the development of workplace, relevant inquiry as practice skills among students. taken together, the descriptions also confirm how these inquiry skills are consistent with shulman et al.’s (2006) hallmarks, the criteria for strong doctoral programs; cped’s (2009) principles 4, 5, and 6; and four of cped’s (2010) design concepts including problem of practice, inquiry as practice, laboratories of practice, and dissertation in practice. finally, in the descriptions about the cycles of ar throughout the program, we demonstrate how we provide students with opportunities to develop practice-appropriate inquiry as practice skills—skills that are employed as they develop transformative actions in their educational settings. moreover, in presenting the cycles of ar below, we make evident how students’ inquiry is purposefully and strongly connected to their daily practice throughout their coursework and during their dissertations in practice. first term ar including ar concept paper in tel 706—introduction to doctoral studies, students are introduced to one of the signature pedagogies of the program, ar. students learn about ar, the ar process, its value in inquiry as practice, and the long-term benefits of continuing to engage in ar throughout their professional careers as explicated in mertler (2017) and herr and anderson (2015). as students begin to develop their understanding of ar, they apply these ideas as they articulate and refine a pop of their own choosing that is connected to their workplace setting. they also formulate their initial research questions related to their pop. moreover, they preliminarily identify and review some initial research literature in a very limited way. based on their emerging understandings of ar, their pop, and the initial, limited research literature connected to their pop, they develop a brief, 10-12 page paper, in which they articulate their ar concept. in it, they communicate their pop and contextualize it, draft their initial research questions, provide a very concise summary of some literature relevant to their pop, and develop some initial thoughts about methodology on how to address their pop. second term ar including cycle 0 and preparing for cycle 1 in tel 711—strategies for inquiry, students extend and refine their thinking about their pop and their research questions. note: it is not expected that students will develop an ultimate pop or final research questions at this time. instead, we consider these early efforts to be developmental in nature. thus, the pop and the research questions are viewed as ‘working pop and research questions’ that are intended to be refined as students proceed through the program. moreover, the course is designed to aid students in developing understanding of quantitative and qualitative research, developing background on theories (along with tel 703), and building skill in critically reading the literature (in conjunction with tel 707). texts such as creswell (2015) on general research using quantitative and qualitative research techniques, plano clark and creswell (2015) on reading research, and selected chapters from brinkmann and kvale (2015) on interviews are used to help facilitate students’ development of knowledge and skills appropriate to the ar work in which they are engaged this semester. finally, students design an initial, simple interview or survey for their cycle 0 research efforts and conduct that work. in their ar efforts, the scope of the work for cycle 0 is limited. typically, students conduct 3-4 interviews of key informants such as their colleagues, staff members, or students in which they focus on reconnaissance work and gather additional data to support inquiry into their pop. alternatively, some students conduct a survey with a small group of informants. to prepare students for this cycle, they read and discuss selected chapters from interviews by brinkmann and kvale (2015). the instructor provides initial training on interviewing and developing interview questions to aid their efforts. students develop interview items, receive feedback, and practice figure 2. representation of the action research approach using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 27 term and course(s) course content to develop inquiry skills action research activity term 1 tel 706—introduction to doctoral studies • developing understanding of ar • considering, articulating, and refining a problem of practice (pop) • writing research questions (rqs) • identifying and considering initial research literature action research concept paper • developing a preliminary pop • contextualizing the pop • drafting initial rqs term 2 tel 711—strategies for inquiry • developing understanding of quantitative and qualitative (q/q) research • developing background on theories (w/ 703) • building skill reading the literature (w/ 707) • designing an initial interview or survey • writing about context, theories, related literature and initial methodology • considering and developing an initial intervention/innovation action research cycle 0 • conducting reconnaissance • gathering information and writing it up action research foreshadowing cycle 1 • clarifying and writing about their context • reviewing and writing about theoretical frameworks guiding the project • designing initial intervention/innovation • designing preliminary action research study term 3 tel 712—mixed methods of inquiry • developing mixed method research skills • extending interviewing and survey skills • developing initial qualitative analysis skills • developing initial quantitative analysis skills using spss action research cycle 1 • extending cycle 0 • developing/revising intervention and data collection procedures • revising rqs • implementing cycle 1 study using a small scale intervention term 5 tel 701—applied methods of quantitative inquiry tel 713—applied methods of qualitative inquiry • extending mixed method research skills • extending interviewing and survey skills • extending qualitative analysis skills • extending quantitative analysis skills using spss • learning to use qualitative analysis software (using hyperresearch) action research cycle 2 • extending cycle 1 or stepping to the side • revising intervention and data collection procedures • revising/extending rqs • implementing cycle 2 study term 6 tel 792—research in the leader scholar community • extending mixed method research skills • extending interviewing, survey, etc. skills • extending qualitative analysis skills • extending quantitative analysis skills action research cycle 2.5 • extending cycle 2 or stepping to the side • revising intervention and data collection procedures • revising/extending rqs • implementing cycle 2.5 study terms 7-8 tel 799—dissertation research • applying mixed method research skills • applying interviewing and survey skills • applying qualitative analysis skills • applying quantitative analysis skills action research cycle 3 • extending cycle 1, 2, and 2.5 • fully extending previous cycles • implementing cycle 3 study—dissertation in practice with peers. then, students conduct interviews and use simple analysis procedures such as listening to the audio files several times and determining three or four key ideas or concepts from the interviews. no formal analyses using coding, themes, and so on are conducted at this time because faculty members feel students are not ready for such complex approaches at this point in their preparation. before presenting an illustration of one student’s work, i provide some background information about the student’s pop. holly’s (pseudonym for a graduate of our program) pop was concerned with how to develop teachers’ technology skills to implement a ‘bring your own technology’ (byot) program at her school. holly was newly appointed as principal of an elementary school. further, the district had just implemented a byot initiative, which she was required to table 1 coursework, inquiry strategies, and cycles of action research in the edd program at arizona state university. buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 28 develop at her school site. as indicated in the descriptions in the cycles of ar below, she successfully implemented a byot effort in her school. note: holly’s work was used throughout this section to illustrate the various cycles of the ar process and how cycles of ar have culminated in the dissertation in practice (dip). to illustrate the nature of the work that typically is performed in cycle 0, consider the following example of holly’s cycle 0 project, in which she gathered reconnaissance data about her pop—how to foster teachers’ use of student, hand-held technology (hht, e.g., tablets, smart phones, etc.) for instructional purposes in their classrooms. holly conducted interviews with key informants including two individuals from her campus who were higher users of hht and two district instructional technology coaches. she interviewed them to determine what model byot classrooms would look like, as well as, the skills and resources that would be required by teachers implementing student, hht for instruction. respondents identified four potential barriers—support, time, resources, and professional development. they also indicated ways to overcome these barriers. holly used all of this information as she developed plans for an intervention to prepare teachers to use hht during instruction. by conducting this reconnaissance work, she was better able to articulate her pop and gained additional insight into how she might construct an intervention to deal with her pop. additionally, in tel 711, students are required to think about their ar efforts for the next cycle, cycle 1. in particular, they write about their context and frame their efforts within the larger national or international work in the area. moreover, they consider different theoretical perspectives and research related to their pop to understand it better. this work on theoretical frameworks also assists them in considering what their intervention might be to deal with their pop. based on their review of the theoretical perspectives and related literature, they write an initial literature review that includes several theoretical perspectives. further, they describe an initial, potential intervention/innovation and articulate some initial methodological work suitable for use in the next term when they are required to conduct cycle 1 of their ar work. again, this work on the methodology is quite basic and includes sections on participants, their role as researcher, an initial intervention/innovation, and preliminary instruments to measure outcomes relevant to the cycle 1 study. notably, much of this work, which is initial material, serves as foundational material for later efforts as they craft their dissertation proposals. third term ar including cycle 1 in tel 712, students explore mixed methods ar using ivankova’s (2015) text as a source to guide their learning. additionally, they extend their learning about interviews by studying the remaining chapters of brinkmann and kvale’s (2015) interviews. students receive their first formal preparation in analyzing qualitative data using charmaz’s (2014) approach and they employ these techniques with their own cycle 1 data. they also learn a bit about surveys and developing survey instruments. finally, they engage in their first formal analysis of quantitative data as they work through their own data and other data sets using spss and these efforts are guided by green and salkind (2014). cycle 1 ar efforts include developing and implementing a small-scale intervention, which is usually conducted with two or three teachers, staff members, or a small group of students. generally, the intervention is limited in scope to ensure the researcher could adequately implement it, monitor it for its effectiveness, and make changes as necessary. frequently, data collection instruments are more limited because students are developing their knowledge with respect to designing instruments. thus, instruments are being tried out in this cycle with the intent of revising them as necessary grounded in information from this cycle. based on the outcomes from this cycle, students typically revise the research questions, intervention, and/or data collection procedures as seen later in the discussion of cycles 2 and 2.5. consider the following example from holly’s work that illustrates the nature of the work she conducted in cycle 1. holly initiated a small-scale intervention with eight teachers, four who used student, hht (albeit in limited ways) and four who did not. in this cycle, she created a small community of practice (wenger, 1998: wenger, mcdermott, & snyder, 2002) in which participants learned with and from each other; and she provided professional development, time, support, and resources for using hht for instruction using a collaborative apprenticeship model. this model was based on the work of glazer, hannafin, and song (2005; glazer & hannafin, 2006) who suggested collaborative apprenticeship is a professional development model that “features reciprocal interactions between peer-teachers [pt, novices in using hht] and teacher-leaders [tl, more experienced users of hht]” (glazer et al., 2005, p. 59). she also asked these participants to implement the use of hht in a limited way during instruction in their classrooms. results from quantitative and qualitative measures such as scores on hall and hord’s (2011) stages of concern measure, interviews and teachers’ journals about their implementation of hht indicated the intervention was successful in increasing the use of hht and it appeared to address the four perceived barriers. note that term 4 in the program is a summer term and students are not required to engage in ar activity. fifth term ar including cycle 2 in tel 701—applied methods of quantitative inquiry, students focus their efforts on learning how to apply quantitative procedures and increase their understanding of quantitative data collection and analysis. for instance, they spend considerable time learning about reliability and validity. they also are involved in developing, finetuning, administering, and revising survey instruments. they expand their understanding of quantitative analysis by working in such areas as reliability analysis, anova, regression analysis, and correlational procedures using spss (green & salkind, 2014). all of this work supports students’ understanding of these various techniques as they read the literature related to their own research efforts and/or as they use it in their research work. additionally, in tel 713—applied methods of qualitative inquiry, they extend their learning about qualitative data collection and analysis. students expand their learning about gathering and analyzing qualitative data including developing their qualitative analysis skills and learning to use qualitative software such as hyperresearch (hyperresearch, 2016). cycle 2 ar efforts typically involve students in a variety of research endeavors, but the scope of work, usually narrows as students take a ‘step to the side’ and examine their instruments in detail or work on developing their interview skills, expanding qualitative data collection efforts, revising research questions, and increasing data analysis procedures. some students chose to examine very carefully their survey instruments by administering, using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 29 analyzing, and revising them. others chose to revise, administer, and refine their interview questions or explore new qualitative data collection processes. still other students may test their intervention or a component of their intervention to ensure its effectiveness with respect to influencing outcomes associated with their pop. during cycle 2, holly refined her interview questions. in addition, she worked on revising and sharpening the prompts she used with teachers in their journal entries as they wrote about their assessments and reflections on implementation of hht practices in their classrooms. sixth term ar including cycle 2.5 in tel 792—research in the leader scholar community, students extend their research skills by working on their interviewing skills, data analysis skills, and so on. with respect to their ar, they are extending cycle 2 by revising their intervention, data collection procedures, or data analysis procedures, and revising or extending their research questions as they prepare their dissertation proposals. in cycle 2.5, which is similar to cycle 2, students take a step to the side and typically narrow the focus of their ar efforts. again, students select various ar efforts that best meet their needs with respect to conducting research on their own pop. some students work on their survey instruments, whereas others refine their interview questions, and others expand their qualitative data collection efforts. by comparison, others work to refine and finalize their intervention or a component of their intervention for their pop. during this cycle, holly spent time developing and exploring a digital ethnography component, which she subsequently used in her dissertation in practice. the digital ethnography component included asking teachers what was happening in the digital image that was taken while they were using hht in their classrooms. additionally, she worked on developing stronger interpretive skills for analyzing her qualitative data. seventh and eighth terms ar including cycle 3— dissertation in practice in this culminating activity, students expand their work by conducting a dissertation in practice (dip) based on their previous cycles of ar. during the dip, students fully implement an intervention designed to effect change with respect to their pop, engage in comprehensive data collection, and conduct thorough data analyses. during the first of these terms, term 7, the intervention is implemented and data are collected and analyzed. in the subsequent term, students finish the data analyses and complete writing the dip. holly conducted a dip in which she extended her efforts from the previous cycles; particularly the efforts in which she engaged during cycle 1. in the dissertation, the proposal and the dissertation itself, holly used data and information from her previous efforts during earlier cycles to inform the conduct of the ar dip. for example, she used data from cycle 0 to help establish the context for her work in chapter 1 of the ar dip. in particular, she discussed the barriers noted by respondents in cycle 0 reconnaissance work that hindered them from using student, hht during instruction in their classrooms, which helped to establish the need for the intervention to aid in resolving the pop. in chapter 2 on theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study, she described results that indicated the intervention used during cycle 1, when she conducted her small-scale intervention, was effective. moreover, in chapter 3, as she described her method, holly drew upon the work she had done earlier in cycles 1, 2, and 2.5 to inform her method including using well-developed instruments, developing the intervention, and delineating data collection and analysis procedures. in the ar dip, she implemented a larger-scale intervention that included 22 teachers, 11 who indicated they were ‘more accomplished’ in using hht during instruction and 11 who were ‘less capable.’ again, she used the collaborative apprenticeship approach to develop a community of practice for the participants where they learned with and from others about using hht during classroom instruction. she also provided professional development on using hht for instruction; and she asked teachers to use hht during instruction. she collected a variety of data including data from hall and hord’s (2011) stages of concern questionnaire and innovation configuration maps, collaborative weekly reflections (a blog shared among participants), digital ethnography data, and semi-structured interview data. results showed her intervention was effective because teachers increased their use of student, hht during instruction, decreased their concerns, and demonstrated increased efficacy for using student, hht during classroom instruction. post graduate ar efforts the influence of ar on inquiry as practice endures among graduates who continue their ar work and/or extend it to other pop (buss et al., 2016). in particular, graduates of this cped-guided program continue to engage in ar in their local contexts as they lead, foster innovation, and collaborate with their colleagues. for example, one graduate who teaches mathematics at a community college successfully used cooperative learning in her dip. she has continued those efforts and mathematics department colleagues saw the strong results she obtained. now, as a result of her work, most of the mathematics faculty members have been trained how to use cooperative learning and they employ it to aid learning of mathematics and retention of students. another graduate who mentored alternatively certified teachers at her school using action research as a form of professional development has influenced her whole school campus as noted when she said, “now, every … teacher on my campus engages in action research.” thus, these results show graduates have influenced and continue to influence their workplaces through their ar efforts. challenges of using cycles of ar cycles of ar as implemented in this edd program have not been without limitations. in fact, three challenges that warrant consideration have arisen as we implemented cycles of ar. first, a very small number of students have ‘tunnel vision’ in which they become too narrowly focused on ‘their pop.’ when this occurs, students may deem material that is not directly related to their pop or its resolution as extraneous or irrelevant. as noted, this overly narrow focus by students occurs infrequently and has been remedied by individual consultation with the student. second, students have changed their pop. frequently, when this type of change occurs, students moved to a related pop that allowed them to use their contextual setting, theoretical perspectives, and so on, which they had been using in earlier cycles. of course, these students may not be able to engage in all the cycles of ar as they have been articulated, here. nevertheless, they have typically engaged in the work of cycles 1 and 2, and incorporated some of the work of other cycles, as they were able before they culminated their buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 30 efforts with cycle 3, the dip. moreover, for those who chose a new pop that is unrelated to their earlier one, they, most often, have completed cycles 1 and 2 prior to the dip. third, students have changed professional positions and this has prevented them from engaging in all the ar cycles as described, above. in this situation, students have successfully used two types of strategies. the first has been a ‘compression strategy.’ in this process, students have conducted cycles 0 and 1, for example, in one semester. another compression strategy that has been used was compressing cycles 2 and 2.5 into one semester. an alternative, second strategy, which has had a similar outcome and which has been used by students who were further along in the program has been the ‘blending strategy’ where students have executed cycles 1 and 2 concurrently. specifically, because they were more knowledgeable, they more carefully designed their instruments, cycle 2, as they executed cycle 1, the trial intervention, on their new pop. thus, although students may not have been able to conduct the cycles of ar as outlined in the timeframes denoted above, the cycles of ar framework has been sufficiently adaptable to allow students to make modifications in the cycles of ar, as they progress through the program in a timely way. conclusions: strengths of ar and implications for preparing students’ inquiry as practice orientation and skills for the edd program in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university, ar is a very powerful technique that fosters development of skills allowing students to conduct effectively inquiry as practice in their work settings. several aspects of ar make it especially useful in developing an inquiry as practice orientation and requisite skills for students in an edd program and bode well for its use in other programs. first, ar has some inherent characteristics that make it a potent approach that can be used readily by educational leaders and practitioners in their practices. those characteristics include (a) adaptability to various contexts and pop, (b) easing into ar over time, (c) developing systematic inquiry because of the elegant, four-step process in ar, and critically (d) sustainability of ar in educational practice settings after completing the program. second, faculty members can scaffold ar to prepare edd students to use it as students inquire into their practices during the program and beyond it. for example, the cycles of ar as articulated in this program provide students with a demanding, but supportive approach to learning ar and using it during inquiry into their practices. specifically, faculty members scaffold the ar work to allow students to move from conceptualization, to reconnaissance, to a small scale intervention, to modifying an intervention as warranted, to refining quantitative and qualitative instruments and procedures, and then to conducting a dip. thus, students are aided in applying ar processes to inquire into their practices during the program and following it. third, it is apparent in the descriptions about the cycles of ar that students are afforded opportunities to develop practiceappropriate inquiry as practice skills that are employed as they engage in transformative actions in their educational workplace settings. additionally, it is evident that students’ inquiry is pervasively connected to their daily practice, their laboratories of practice, throughout their coursework and during their dip. finally, although there are some challenges with respect to using cycles of ar as outlined in this essay, there is sufficient flexibility to accommodate students who change their pop or their professional position. taken together, the arguments i offer here along with the data from several research studies suggest ar is highly effective for developing and sustaining inquiry as practice abilities among edd students (buss, 2017a, 2017b; buss & avery, in press; buss & zambo, 2016; buss et al., 2014; zambo et al., 2015). specifically, it is clear these inquiry as practice abilities emerge during the program as students try them out in their laboratories of practice and become more adept at using them (buss, 2017a; buss & avery, in press). importantly, these ar inquiry abilities are sufficiently durable that program graduates continue to employ them in their educational practice settings after they complete the program (buss, 2017b; buss et al., 2016; zambo et al., 2015.) references *—indicates textbook used in the methods or methods-like courses in the program. *brinkmann, s., & kvale, s. (2015). interviews: learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. thousand oaks, ca: sage. buss, r. r. (2017a). developing edd students’ identities as educational leaders and educational researchers ii: outcomes from a carnegieproject-on-the-education-doctorate program. manuscript in preparation. buss, r. r. (2017b). educational learners, leaders, and researchers: identity development of edd students in a carnegie-project-on-the-educationdoctorate program. manuscript in preparation. buss, r. r., & avery, a. (in press). research becomes you: cultivating edd students’ identities as educational leaders and researchers and a “learning by doing” meta-study. journal of research in leadership education. buss, r. r., & zambo, d. (2016). using action research to develop educational leaders and researchers. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner (pp. 137-152). charlotte, nc: information age publishing. buss, r. r., zambo, r., & zambo, d. (2016). realizing shulman’s vision: carnegie project on the education doctorate affiliated program graduates influence professional practice. manuscript submitted for publication. buss, r. r., zambo, r., zambo, d., & williams, t. r. (2014). developing researching professionals in an edd program: from learners and leaders to scholarly and influential practitioners. higher education, skills and work-based learning, 4, 137-160. *charmaz, k. (2014). constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. cped. (2009). cped principles. retrieved from https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/cpedinitiative.siteym.com/resource/resmgr/cped_framework.pdf cped. (2010). cped design concepts. retrieved from https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/cpedinitiative.siteym.com/resource/resmgr/cped_framework.pdf *creswell, j. (2015). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (5th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. glazer, e., hannafin, m. j., & song, l. (2005). promoting technology integration through collaborative apprenticeships. educational technology research and development, 53(4), 57–67. glazer, e., & hannafin, m. j. (2006). the collaborative apprenticeship model: situated professional development within school settings. teaching and teacher education, 22, 179–193. *green, s. b., & salkind, n. j. (2014). using spss for windows and macintosh: analyzing and understanding data (7th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. hall, g., & hord, s. (2011). implementing change: patterns, principles, and potholes (3nd ed.). boston, ma: allyn and bacon. *herr, k., & anderson, g. l. (2015). the action research dissertation (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.46 31 *hyperresearch. (2016). hyperresearch 3.7.3. researchware, inc. *ivankova, n. v. (2015). mixed methods applications in action research. thousand oaks, ca: sage. levine, a. (2005). educating school leaders. princeton: nj: the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation. *mertler, c. a. (2017). action research: improving schools and empowering educators (5th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. mertler, c. a., buss, r. r., & henriksen, d. (2016, june). becoming scholarly practitioners through cyclical engagement in the action research process. learning exchange session presented at the june 2016 convening of the carnegie project on the education doctorate, portland, or. mills, g. e. (2014). action research: a guide for the teacher researcher (5th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. *plano clark, v. l., & creswell, j. w. (2015). understanding research: a consumer’s guide. boston, ma: pearson. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. new york, ny: cambridge university press. wenger, e. mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. boston, ma: harvard business school press. zambo, d., buss, r. r., & zambo, r. (2015). uncovering the identities of students and graduates in a cped-influenced edd program. studies in higher education, 40(2), 233-252. 170-erratum[29]-veg new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol.6 no.2 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.248 erratum to: brochu, k. j. ., jensen, a. j., robinson, r. m. m. ., bryant, t. r., desjardins, d. r., & bent, l. (2021). redefining roles: female scholars’ reflections and recommendations for coping during the covid-19 pandemic. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 6(2), 54–60. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.170 suha tamim university of south carolina rhonda jeffries university of south carolina abstract the article metadata for brochu, k. j. ., jensen, a. j., robinson, r. m. m. ., bryant, t. r., desjardins, d. r., & bent, l. (2021). redefining roles: female scholars’ reflections and recommendations for coping during the covid-19 pandemic. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 6(2), 54–60. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.170 listed the authors with an incorrect order and contained an incomplete affiliation of author lauren g. bent. the pdf of the article is correct. this error occurred during the journal editing phase. the correct order of the authors is kelly j. brochu, trina r. bryan, amanda j. jensen, danielle r. desjardins, regina m.m. robinson, lauren g. bent. the affiliation for lauren g. bent is regis college department of education. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. educating educational leaders in a blended professional doctorate program an initial action research inquiry kathryn strom assistant professor of educational leadership kathryn.strom2@csueastbay.edu bradley porfilio associate professor of educational leadership bradley.porfilio@csueastbay.edu bobbie plough associate professor of educational leadership bobbie.plough@csueastbay.edu abstract this paper describes the first cycle of an action research study investigating the impact of new blended learning courses in a professional doctorate program, the results of which will inform future course planning and pedagogy. specifically, core researcher-faculty members associated with the program were interested in understanding how a blended learning program impacted students’ learning experiences. in our findings from this initial inquiry, we detail both constraining and enabling elements of the hybrid experiences provided to students. we also describe the revised action plan created from these findings to improve our ability to utilize the online portion of our doctoral coursework to meet our larger goals of preparing educational leaders to fight for issues of social justice in k-12 settings and beyond. key words: social justice, educational leadership, action research, online instruction, hybrid pedagogy, blended instruction, education doctorate programs online doctorate programs; cped, impact of educational doctorate; synchronous online delivery introduction the california state university east bay’s (csueb) educational leadership for social justice (elsj) doctoral program has recently introduced program changes geared toward providing a more supportive, yet rigorous research experience. these include carefully scaffolding research courses to support work leading up to the dissertation, making academic writing an explicit (yet problematized) part of the research curriculum, and transitioning to a blended format that combines online and face-to-face class sessions. we focus on the latter, describing an action research study undertaken by three of the program’s principal faculty members. the study was designed to investigate the impact of new blended learning courses in the professional doctorate program. specifically, researcherfaculty members were interested in how a blended learning program impacted students’ learning experiences. the knowledge generated from the study informs both local practices and program structures, provides transferrable information for other professional doctorate programs seeking to adopt blended learning formats, and contributes to the slim, but growing, focus on high-quality doctoral education specifically for practitioners. in a rapidly diversifying educational context in the us (valdés & castellón, 2011) that includes an expansion of well-documented historical inequalities in wealth and power (bale & knopp, 2012), school leadership that prioritizes social justice goals is paramount (brown, 2004; furman, 2012). yet, issues of social justice tend to be marginalized in educational leadership programs (jean-marie, normore, & brooks, 2009), particularly as the current neoliberal educational reforms have turned attention toward accountability and finance (lipman, 2011). neoliberalism is a globally reigning ideological doctrine that asserts that societal wealth and advancement stems from individual entrepreneurialism, privatization of social services, and markets free from government regulation (hursh, 2011). when applied to education as corporate education reforms (ravitch, 2011), this market-driven logic has resulted in increasing testing, systematic starving of public school funding, and punitive treatment of highpoverty schools mainly serving students of color. against this contextual backdrop, preparing k-12 educational leaders with strong social justice orientations and the ability to impact educational change is critically important. the csueb educational leadership for social justice (elsj) edd program has focused on providing this type of critical preparahttp://cpedinitiative.org/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://www.library.pitt.edu/d-scribe-digital-collections http://upress.pitt.edu/ mailto:klasater@uark.edu mailto:bradley.porfilio@csueastbay.edu mailto:mmurphyl@email.uark.edu educating educational leaders in a blended professional doctorate program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 tion for its students for the past several years in california. however, with the intensification of schooling (apple, 2004) that has accompanied the infiltration of neoliberal ideologies into us educational systems school leaders’ professional lives have become more and more complex. accordingly, our students have communicated in multiple forums that they need a program that fits with their demanding schedules. like many other institutions offering doctoral degrees to school leaders who are employed full time while simultaneously completing a doctoral degree, increasing access for students and improving scheduling flexibility in the elsj doctoral program has meant a foray into online learning opportunities (bell & federman, 2013). specifically, we adopted a blended format (dawson et al, 2011). in this type of program, online learning opportunities are offered in combination with face-to-face classes. in the elsj blended learning initiative, faculty members are required to offer approximately a third of their class sessions in either synchronous or asynchronous format. yet as the three of us—educational leadership faculty with varying k-12 career paths and academic teaching experience who were relatively new to hybrid doctoral instruction—prepared to teach three introductory summer courses in a blended format to a new cohort of students, questions arose for us that were concerned with praxis. first, we wondered how the blended format would affect students’ learning experiences. would students find the online, mainly asynchronous learning in the online classes as effective and engaging as face-to-face time? as a second consideration, we recognized that while were experts in our educational areas, we were novices to teaching through technology. while we knew how to use the technological tools at our disposal, how could we ensure that we were enacting our theoretical ideals of social constructivist learning and critical pedagogy in our online classes? in the sections that follow, we present theoretical perspectives that inform our study, review related empirical literature, and provide an overview of the design of our inquiry. we then explore the concerns posed above through an initial cycle of action research, presenting an analysis of a qualitative student questionnaire, student communication over one quarter, and our own reflective narratives. finally, we discuss the action plan created from the insights drawn from this first cycle of inquiry. theoretical and conceptual perspectives two main perspectives ground the pedagogical and curricular vision of the elsj program. broadly, as noted above, we adopt a view of education based on the work of multiple critically oriented theorists and educators who examine the factors and conditions that contribute to historic and current inequalities and power differentials in schools and larger society (e.g., bourdieu, 1973; freire, 1970; ladson-billings, 1995/2006; weiler, 2001). having worked in schools in the larger bay area, which tend to serve large proportions of marginalized student groups, leaders who enter the elsj program are normally aware of the massive inequalities that exist in our educational systems and larger society (ladson-billings, 2006). however, much work must be done with our students regarding less visible factors that may, albeit unintentionally, support schools’ reproduction of societal power imbalances (bourdieu, 1973)—such as recognizing and interrupting the patterns of deficit thinking toward those marginalized students and understanding the larger impact of valuing a technical view of leadership rather than a moral one (theoharis, 2007). raising awareness of and problematizing these often deeply invisible ways of thinking about education and leadership is very difficult, as it involves changing deep-set beliefs. also informing the work of the program is a theory of adult learning rooted in sociocultural theory (vygotsky, 1978) and communities of practice (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger, 1998). in a sociocultural view of learning, learning is an inherently social activity; it occurs first as a co-construction between participants in a social setting, usually through talk, and then over time becomes internalized on the individual level (vygotsky, 1978). learning is also a mediated activity that occurs in the “zone of proximal development” (zpd). as students construct understanding, a teacher or peer mediates learning through conversation and other tools, moving the student to more complex levels of understanding and/or skill. finally, learning is an apprenticeship that occurs within a particular community of practice. over time, the building of understanding and skill is visible as learners move from participating peripherally in the community to becoming a more central participant (lave & wenger, 1991). both of the above perspectives are tightly connected to the development of relationships in a community of practice where shared understandings are constructed (wenger, 1998) and critical, problem-posing dialogue can occur (freire, 1970). traditionally, such educational activities are held in person, with students and teacher able to see, hear, and be in close physical proximity with others. the physicality of these often emotionally charged interactions plays an important role in students’ learning experiences. as hooks (2009) noted, “the physical experience of hearing, of listening intently, to each particular voice strengthens our capacity to learn together” (p. 139). the three of us, then, were concerned with the impact that shifting to a partially online classroom format would have on these experiences for our students. moreover, given our personal and programmatic critical, constructivist orientations, we also wondered how this would affect our capacities as critical-scholar practitioners to enact practices and activities that allow for socially co-constructed, appropriately scaffolded learning focused on fostering socially just learners. online and blended learning in higher education in the current neoliberal context of higher education, undergirded by the same the market-driven logic discussed above, universities have sought new directions that promise an increase in student tuition dollars (porfilio & yu, 2006). accordingly, programs offering full or partial online learning experiences have proliferated (schneider & smith, 2014). while such programs may offer universities the ability to mediate some of the damage from shrinking state appropriations and rising costs, e-learning research over the past two decades has yielded mixed results on the effectiveness of online and hybrid learning models (means, toyama, murphy, & baki, 2013; russell, 1999; zhao, lei, lai, & tan, 2005). for example, two meta-analyses (cavanaugh, 2001; machtmes & asher, 2000) found no significant difference between online learning (mostly distance education at that time) and face-to-face instruction, but a more recent meta-analysis conducted by means, toyama, murphy, and baki (2013) found that, on average, students in an online learning course performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. such mixed results may be explained by the wide variation of online education programs in terms of content, delivery method, instructor characteristics and student characteristics. strom, porfilio, plough impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 generally, however, researchers have agreed that course design and pedagogy are the decisive factors in student experience, rather than the online or hybrid format itself. in particular, studentstudent interaction plays a critical role in graduate level courses (zhao, et al, 2005). for instance, shinsky and stevens (2011) found that authentic, project-based activities promote active engagement, participation in groups, connections to real-world experts and frequent interaction and feedback. another crucial component of successful online instruction is teacher-student interaction. the degree of instructor involvement is a significant distinguishing quality of effective/ineffective programs (zhao, et al., 2005). in terms of format, blended learning may be more fruitful for students than fully online instruction. hilliard (2015), for example, found that more student engagement, increased academic achievement, and student retention among the benefits of blended learning. participants of blended learning programs have the opportunity to quickly see individual progress, increase learner engagement and motivation, achieve greater access to materials and resources, and extend learning time, while experiencing the critical factor of instructor presence (garrison & kanuka, 2004; hilliard, 2015; nash, 2011; zhao, 2005). blended learning courses also provide flexibility of time and place (garrison & kanuka, 2004), along with a more productive mixture of human and technical interaction (zhao, et al., 2005). however, the strategies used in face-to-face environments do not necessarily translate to fully online or blended learning (nash, 2011). in moving instruction into a digital space, the teacher’s multiple roles become different in nature, with a heavy emphasis on instructional design, including organizing, facilitating, and managing pedagogical tasks (baran, correia, & thompson, 2011). moreover, in an online environment, student-teacher interaction is fundamentally different than the embodied experiences that occur in a face-to-face course. to shift their instructional practices to include new digital pedagogies and practices, faculty require appropriate, sustained professional development and support (kreber & kanuka, 2006; merideth & steinbronn, 2008). recent researchers have also raised questions regarding the capacity for online or hybrid instruction to support programs with an explicit aim of raising students’ critical consciousness of educational issues such as schools’ reproduction of societal inequalities (e.g., caruthers & friend, 2014; schneider & smith, 2014; wang & torrisisteele, 2015). some have argued that most teachers of online or hybrid courses continue to espouse more traditional teaching methods characterized by transmission models (baran, correia, & thompson, 2011), which result in the perpetuation of teacher-student power imbalances (baran, correia, & thompson, 2013) and promote learning as an individualistic endeavor (schneider & smith, 2014). others, however, suggest that critical online pedagogy is possible (wang & torrisi-steele, 2015), and such pedagogy can become “a form of political intervention entangled in a broader project of transformation and social justice” (caruthers & friend, 2014, p. 15) if teachers deliberately utilize technology as a tool for dialectic transformation (schneider & smith, 2014). these researchers have suggested that such critical online pedagogies might include critically framed discussions and self-reflection (wang & torrisi-steele, 2015), digital storytelling (guajardo, oliver, valadez, cantu, and guajardo, 2011), and collaborative writing and coproduced texts (caruthers & friend, 2014). while a large and growing body of research addresses the broader question of online/blended learning experiences, the extant body of research regarding pedagogy and student experiences in professional doctoral programs is slim (jean-marie & normore, 2010) and studies regarding the use of technology in edd programs, socially just or otherwise, is practically nonexistent. the few exceptions (e.g., kumar 2014; mcleod & richardson, 2011) specifically address educational doctorate programs for educational technology. this signals that an inquiry into the use of blended learning in professional educational doctorate programs would speak to jean-marie and normore’s (2010) call for the building of a “scholarly foundation that will guide the vision of graduate education—especially at the doctoral level” (p. 8). methods research site california state university, east bay (csueb) is located on the pacific coast of the united states. the college itself, which is classified as a hispanic serving institution (hsi) and an asian american native american pacific islander serving institution (aanapisi), is one of the most diverse in the nation (csueb, 2015). the elsj edd program reflects the diversity of the rest of the campus—at the time of this study, the makeup of all three cohorts, a total of 62 enrolled doctoral students, was 24% latino, 24% white, 36% black, 11% asian (chinese, pakistani, and vietnamese) and 5% middle eastern (turkish and irani). the program itself is a full-time, three-year program with a curricular focus on critical theories of education, educational change, and leadership. one of the authors of this paper, brad, joined the elsj program as the new director in the fall of 2014. in speaking with faculty and students, he found two major concerns. first, they felt the structure of the program (e.g., students taking two or three courses and meeting face-to-face on 12-18 times a quarter) inhibited full-time educators and administrators from enrolling in the program. second, the same program structure blocked many students from completing the degree on time or prevented them to competing it at all. these concerns echoed those he had encountered teaching and conducting research in his previous position within an edd program in chicago, il, which was also designed for full-time working educators and administrators. to address the aforementioned concerns, the various parties supported creating a hybrid, online program. the program would consist of 60% face-to-face meetings, while 40% of the coursework would be online. for several months, brad, the edd program director, worked steadfastly to market the program to students who might have been be reticent to enroll in a doctoral program that would not provide the time to complete their degrees or who may have felt a fully online program would not provide intellectually stimulating coursework or opportunities to learn from their colleagues or instructors. the participants for our study included 20 students from our incoming 2015 cohort who were taking three summer courses, each taught by one of the authors. of these students, 15 identified as female and five male. they ranged in age from late twenties to late fifties, and represented a range of educational careers, including teachers, p-16 administrators, k-12 district personnel, and higher education counselors. the group also included six black, four white, four latino, four asian, and two middle eastern students. in addition, because we conducted an action research study, we--the three authors of this paper, katie, bobbie, and brad—are also central participants. we discuss our backgrounds and characteristics further in the trustworthiness section. educating educational leaders in a blended professional doctorate program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 action research to make our own practices a site for learning (ball & cohen, 1999), for this study we adopted a qualitative, action research design (anderson, herr, & nihlen, 2007). action research is a method of inquiry that hinges on educators studying the effects of their actions, usually collaboratively, and using that knowledge for transformative purposes. as a methodology, the first implementation of action research is usually ascribed to kurt lewin in the 1940s as a way to test theories in practical situations and observe their usefulness and applicability (kemmis, mctaggart, & nixon, 2009). action research, even in its nascent form, was a major departure from positivist research epistemologies and methods, and was roundly rejected by the social science community (carr, 2006). rather than regarding research as an activity that is conducted by an objective, distant researcher, research views knowledge as socially constructed, and the researcher as actively and necessarily involved in that knowledge construction (kemmis, mctaggart, & nixon, 2009). following carr (2006), we regard action research as a “rehabilitation of practical philosophy” (p. 428) that aligns with and supports our goals in multiple ways. first, action research as practical philosophy means putting educational theories and philosophies to work for transformative purposes—that is, the pursuit of praxis (carr, 2006; freire, 1970). action research also aligns with our purposes of improving our hybrid pedagogies and, in turn, our ability to work with students toward socially just knowledge and action in schools and communities. finally, the underlying tenets of action research are theoretically coherent with our positions as social justice educators. grounded in freire’s (1970) cycle of inquiry, action research can be utilized as a critical tool to analyze problems of practice, gain new insights, and use those for transformative action. as such, action research offers a ground-up, iterative change process. data collection and analysis although action research methodologists have proposed multiple methods of inquiry, we adopt the cyclical steps suggested by anderson, herr, & nihlen, 2007 (p. 20): develop a plan of action to improve what is already happening; implement this plan; observe the effects of this plan in action; and reflect on these effects as a basis for future planning and action. our original plan of action encompassed the move of the program from fully face-to-face to a hybrid model, where approximately 60% of the course was provided inperson on campus at the university, and 40% was provided online, through the learning platform blackboard. as we implemented the original plan of action that was developed (the blended learning format with attention to enacting socioculturally-grounded and socially just practices), we collected multiple forms of data across the summer 2015 term to gauge the effects of our plan in action. we, the three faculty members participating in the study, met multiple times to discuss our practices and student responses to them. during these meetings, one of us took notes to record the key points of the discussions and the learning and reframing that had occurred through our dialogue. these served as an important meaningmaking process for us. as pinnegar and hamilton (2009) noted, “dialogue provides rigor for understandings because the ideas that emerge are strengthened, supported, transformed, and energized.” a second data source encompassed informal conversations with students both in-person and via email. some of these conversations were initiated by us to probe student experiences with the hybrid coursework and their emerging understandings of social justice issues in educational leadership, while others were unsolicited in-person or email exchanges that students initiated. we formalized our learning from these interactions through summary reflective narratives regarding our summer course experiences with our students. finally, we also designed a qualitative student survey, using google forms for anonymity and ease of recording. we used open-ended questions to probe for understandings we could use to reconstruct analysis of student experiences. we asked questions such as: “describe your prior experiences in classes that were either held entirely or partially online. how does the experience this summer compare to previous experiences?” and “do you feel that the current iterations of hybrid courses provide a comparable experience to a purely face to face format? please explain.” 18 students out of 20 students (90%) responded to the survey. once data were collected, we each individually read the student surveys, engaging in a first level of analysis that encompassed familiarizing ourselves with the data and beginning to note initial patterns (bogdan & biklen, 1998; merriam, 2009). we then compiled initial themes with corresponding evidence and exchanged these via email. the first author then conducted a round of axial coding, synthesizing these initial patterns into larger themes (saldana, 2015). finally, all three researchers reconvened to discuss the larger categories that had been constructed by author #1, dialoguing about each category, “codes” that had been subsumed into the category, and corresponding evidence from student and our own data sources. we then collaboratively formalized these categories into our “findings” for our first round of inquiry and used them to create a modified action plan for moving forward, which we present in later sections. trustworthiness and positionality rather than a concern with validity, or the notion that we could report the objective truth, we sought to achieve trustworthiness--the notion that a study’s findings are credible, dependable, confirmable, and transferable (lincoln & guba, 1986). in addition to strategies of transparency of method, aim, and theoretical grounding, we also understand the importance of practicing reflexivity in relation to our investigation (tracy, 2010). we are three white, cisgendered faculty members, and our backgrounds as k-12 educators and administrators in urban environments serving mainly high-poverty students of color, as well as our critical orientations, inform our commitment to prepare educators to advocate on behalf of such students. moreover, we share a desire to improve both our own pedagogical practices and the overall student experience in our doctoral program, which spurred us to undertake this study. as members of the dominant white culture in privileged university positions, we understand that our background experiences differ from the majority of our students. however, our previous positions as k-12 teachers and administrators provide us with particular “insider” experiences and knowledge shared by our students. however, we readily acknowledge that the accounts and interpretations provided here are value-laden and shaped by our own experiences and biographies, and thus the knowledge generated through this study is admittedly partial (lather, 1992). findings in the following section, we present a summary of the initial findings from our first action research cycle. overall, students articulated both enabling and constraining aspects of their experiences with the three hybrid summer courses we provided. when examining our own dialogues and reflective narratives, we found that the nascent state of our own hybrid pedagogies, coupled with deep-set resistances to online instruction and a notable preference for face-to-face interac strom, porfilio, plough impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 tion, were contributing factors to tensions and struggles for students with the online coursework. although we hoped to generate evidence that would help us understand how our own emerging practices related to the development of social justice-focused, critical scholarpractitioners, most of the data we collected focused on student experiences with hybrid coursework more generally. below, we have organized our findings into three main sections describing the constraining and enabling aspects that emerged from students’ data and our own personal and pedagogical contributions to our students’ experiences with hybrid learning. the constraints of online instruction mainly, students reported that the activities professors created for online classes did not achieve the same level of authentic dialogue as an in-class conversation. students commented, for example, that discussion boards produced “forced responses from peers” that felt “artificial” and “seemed to take away the human element of communication.” some students also felt that the online activities were more about task completion than real learning. they stated that online assignments felt like “busy work” that was “about getting points rather than meaningful engagement.” another mentioned, “the amount of work in many assignments did what i call ‘tipping the scales’ toward less learning and more proving reading was completed.” further, activities that work in class do not always translate well into an online format. for example, one student referenced the activity where they had to answer questions, share their answers via email, then comment on another’s paper, and then send it back; the student reported that this process took too much time and, in the end, was not as powerful as doing so in class. students also shared that they found the blackboard sites between the three professors to be designed very differently. one student felt that “each teacher had a different way of doing things, which added to the confusion,” and another thought it would be helpful if “professors use the system in a more uniform way.” in some cases, students relayed that expectations for the activities were unclear, with one noting, “there were mixed messages being sent from different professors.” clarity of course navigation and instructions for assignments were points that were also raised. two students remarked that they “were not always clear how to operate functions like turning in papers,” and “it was sometimes a scavenger hunt to locate readings, assignments, etc. this quarter.” a third student wrote, “i can’t figure [the course assignments] out for myself.” another similarly conveyed, “the communication between what was assigned through blackboard, personal email, university email and in class didn't always match, requiring hours of study to just figure out the assignment.” these concerns were echoed in emails to faculty, with students reporting that they “struggled tremendously” with organization and mismatch between the online course and professor communication. from a combination of student comments on the surveys and in class, email conversations, and our own informal conversations with students, a third important theme emerged—the issue of access. for instance, several students reported difficulty accessing the digital platform and tools. one email received by bobbie regarding this issue said, “ it is a bit frustrating about the online tools. i can see that they could be amazing, if they worked. i have trouble just logging in.” yet, others were able to access the coursework, videos, and other media with ease, leading us to theorize that the level of experience with digital platforms and media seemed to contribute to differential access between students--some students were either very comfortable with technology or had previous experience with online instruction, and these students generally reported positive experiences with the hybrid summer course activities. others who either self-reported as being resistant to heavy technological use or as inexperienced with online learning found the experience itself much more difficult, and in particular, time-consuming. as an additional factor contributing to differential experiences, the students also varied in their access to up-to-date computers and reliable broadband wifi, which was necessary to support the learning platform. enabling elements of hybridity a tension was revealed between students who felt the hybridity was important for flexibility and time management, but acknowledged that the face-to-face meetings yielded more powerful learning. for example, eight of the 18 students discussed the merits of online instruction. one noted the dual affordance of flexibility for job and religious observance, “i think it is necessary not only for working professionals but also for respecting religious practice needs…i was quick to come to learn the appeal of the learning experience.” another described the hybridity of the program as the reason for choosing it over others, “for some of us who work full time and have families, having the online portion is what makes the program accessible.” a third explained, “i wouldn’t give up the hybrid [program component] because it affords us the opportunity to work and still be active participants in classes.” in an email to faculty, another student lauded this aspect of the program as well, “i love the edd program, how it is set up for full-time employees.” also commenting on the access the program’s hybrid structure provided, a student who lives more than sixty miles from our campus noted, “i didn’t have two hours or more of commute time to get to class, which keep costs, stress, and time to a minimum.” in addition to the notes above about the importance of flexibility, time management, and family/life/work balance, three students also described their appreciation for the ways that the online portions fostered learner autonomy, with one student expressing, “[online classes] promoted the shift from ‘good student’ to independent scholarly researcher.” in addition, two other students further described the particular linguistic aspects of the hybrid format. one described the benefit of being able to compose an answer in writing, which she felt was helpful because “it gives me time to think about what i want to say and choose carefully words that better represent my thoughts.” a second student noted that online activities provide her with the luxury of additional processing time, which is important to her as a language learner. these response stood out to us, as supporting our culturally and linguistically diverse students—who must learn sophisticated, graduate-level academic english while also learning program content—is an important social justice goal for our program. one student also mentioned that the online opportunities also helped facilitate discussions of “sensitive” topics (such as those regarding issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on), which may have made students feel more vulnerable in a face-to faceformat. as faculty, we were conflicted about this statement. the elsj program interprets social justice as disrupting entrenched inequalities in the us educational system that disproportionately affect historically marginalized students of color. to develop this stance, our students must engage in critical conversations about how these inequalities were and are created and maintained—conversations that can, at times, be difficult and uncomfortable. on the one hand, an online space may protect students from feelings of discomfort— particularly those of the dominant power group—and perhaps make it more likely that they participate in a conversation. yet, it also educating educational leaders in a blended professional doctorate program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 means that students may choose to enter into such a discussion superficially or even disengage entirely—something that is not so easily done in a face-to-face setting. however, the tension between the enabling elements noted above and the drawbacks of online instruction were apparent. as mentioned previously, several students felt strongly that online activities were not as authentic or interactive as face-to-face sessions, the assignments felt like busy work, and collaboration between students was more difficult. in the questionnaire, two students explicitly stated their preference for in-person educational formats for the program. one opined that, “there should be more face to face sessions,” while another acknowledged that, “if i had enough time, i would rather have all sessions face-to-face.” faculty knowledge and practices in our dialogues and written narratives, three ideas emerged that connected with the reports of our students. one encompassed the limiting nature of our own emergent pedagogical skills regarding hybrid pedagogy. although the three of us have many years of experience teaching both students and adult learners in face-to-face formats, and consider ourselves skilled with planning and enacting highly interactive lessons with ample opportunities for critical dialogue, we were/are novices in terms of providing the same in a blended platform. the limits of our technological teaching expertise surfaced in our student data in very concrete ways—such as attempting to simply move the same activity structures one would use in class into an online format, failing to provide adequate directions for online assignments, and offering a course platform that was not as organized or easily navigable as it needed to be. as bobbie noted in a reflective narrative, i need additional training and experience with online instruction to make discussion boards and other learner-learner interaction more meaningful and less cumbersome…i also need to consider synchronous discussions, including my interaction with small online discussion groups, but my lack of technology acumen currently prevents me from doing this. as our lack of experience adversely affected our students’ experiences, we are committed to learning from our initial course design and delivery and continuing to expand our professional knowledge in this area as part of our second cycle of inquiry, a topic we discuss in the next section. however, we realized that we do bring valuable knowledge and skills that we need to draw on as we move forward. brad, for example, has studied and written about male-centered computing culture, and he recognized that he had failed to tap into this expertise when orienting students to the program. he reflected, i should have accounted for the fact that many female students are often reticent to use computing technology in online formats because computing technology is a male-centered artifact and its culture typically focuses on male-centered interests (margolis & fisher, 2003). since the vast majority of students in the edd program are female educators and professionals who have never used course management software learn, there may have been an immediate reticence to use the online platforms to learn. finally, from our conversations and reflective writing, we surfaced an inhibiting element we had not considered prior to engaging in this project: the impact that our own orientation to teaching online may have on our students’ experiences. each of us greatly values the relational and human connections involved in teaching and the embodied nature of learning, which katie described thus: “a physical, bodily experience that just cannot be replicated in an online environment.” describing her own concerns and resistances to online education in a written reflection, katie shared: i care deeply about structuring my pedagogy to provide ample opportunities to engage in meaningful social interaction that allows students to jointly construct knowledge, and i worry that, at least in asynchronous formats, online instruction is an impediment to this type of learning. as we talked through our concerns, we began to think about the affordances of synchronous learning as another way to mediate the inauthenticity students had discussed. we agreed that we needed to learn about and incorporate online activities providing students with a way to exchange ideas in real time. not only are such tools promising for increasing student collaboration and co-construction of knowledge, but would perhaps also meet our own needs. as bobbie explained, “the need for human connection will push me to learn and use more synchronous and live interaction tools in the online environment.” as we talked through our concerns, we began to think about the affordances of synchronous learning as another way to mediate the inauthenticity students had discussed. we agreed that we needed to learn about and incorporate online activities providing students with a way to exchange ideas in real time. not only are such tools promising for increasing student collaboration and co-construction of knowledge, but would perhaps also meet our own needs. as bobbie explained, “the need for human connection will push me to learn and use more synchronous and live interaction tools in the online environment.” an action plan for moving forward according to many of our students, the hybrid aspect of the elsj program provides flexibility to obtain a terminal degree while maintaining their full time jobs, and others noted pedagogical benefits provided by an online format, such as fostering learning autonomy and supporting linguistic aspects of the doctoral experience. from this evidence, we argue that our program is providing multiple entry points to mainly “non-traditional” edd students, including people of color, those from high poverty backgrounds, and english learners, to pursue their doctorates. drawing from these “baseline” findings, we argue that some potential exists for our blended program to rupture the status quo profile of “doctoral student”—that is, white with college-educated parents (nces, 2011; 2012). yet, without addressing questions of inauthentic, taskorientation tendencies of online instruction, questions of technological skill and access, and our own online pedagogical expertise, we run the very real risk of contributing to inequalities we seek to disrupt. below, we share components of our revised action plan, which takes into consideration our own and our students’ experiences and responses to hybrid teaching and learning, and begins to more explicitly address our program’s mission to provide opportunities for students to gain critical insights for becoming transformative leaders. technological supports for students. recognizing that some students need additional practice with the specific technological platform we use, we have created a technology lab module devoted entirely to the learning management system, blackboard, prior to the first quarter of instruction. the module, which will be co-taught by an instructor and a technology assistant to reduce the teacherinstructor ratio and ensure any necessary technical assistance is available, will be offered on three different dates and times to fit stu strom, porfilio, plough impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 dent schedules. as a module outcome, students will be required to demonstrate a minimum proficiency with blackboard on a “module mastery test,” that will require them to show mastery of basic skills such as posting to the discussion board and submitting an assignment through a designated link. for differentiation, students who have previous experience with this platform can attempt the module mastery test during the lab sessions or at any point prior to the first quarter of instruction to demonstrate their mastery. while we hope that by ensuring that all students have mastered a basic proficiency with blackboard, we can mediate some of the issues that may contribute to student challenges with accessibility and navigability, we know that some students may struggle with technological access due to financial hardship. while we do not have a concrete plan in place as of the writing of this paper, we are investigating options to ensure that all students who enter the doctoral program have access to a portable device that can reliably connect to the internet and support blackboard use, as well as contain necessary word processing software. one possibility may include the elsj program purchasing a library of laptop computers that doctoral students may check out on a quarterly basis. however, it is clear the program must account for the fact that some of our students do not have the financial resources to secure functioning technology to access material and complete assignments in a timely manner. quality matters training. one of the logistical issues raised by students concerned issues with consistency between professors in terms of technological use and ease of navigating the blackboard site, and we recognized that organization and navigability were manifestations of the limits of our own technological expertise. to address this issue, the three of us have taken quality matters training, and are in the process of building certified courses, as well as becoming peer reviewers. quality matters is a federal initiative developed in response to the proliferation of online and blended programs in k-12 and higher education that ensures online classes are designed in ways that are accessible, navigable, interactive, and appropriately rigorous. by developing our expertise and courses according to quality matters standards, the three of us can align ourselves in terms of course structure as well as improve course navigability and accessibility. interrogating our own practices. as a faculty, in the spring of 2015 we engaged in a two-day professional development opportunity with recognized experts in the field of educational technology to build our expertise in providing quality blended learning experiences. yet we recognize that providing faculty two days of professional activities does little to prepare them to provide most students with a positive online learning environment and meaningful, deep learning opportunities (as opposed to exercises that are mere tasks to complete). while the three authors of this paper have sought out additional and ongoing development, we also realize that this effort has to expand to include our entire faculty. as a department, we must inquire into and problematize our own online pedagogical practices to examine how we can provide our students with more meaningful experiences that invite them to interrogate critical issues of social justice in schools and larger society; foster student collaboration in an online format; and help students navigate the online management systems in order to complete their assignments, locate readings, and communicate with their instructors. finally, we must actively involve our students in this process, as they are the social actors who yearn for humanizing educational learning experiences, yet may be forced to learn in unfamiliar environment. we must interrogate how computing technology and culture can be altered to become humanizing forces for learning, instead of becoming sources of alienation. interrogating the intersection of social justice and computing technology. as the edd program moves forward with educating the next cohort of historically underrepresented minorities who are classroom instructors or in senior leadership positions across the bay area, there is an urgent need to create dialogue and inquiry in relation to how computing technology can be merged with social justice concerns (miller, becker, & becker, 2016). in particular, faculty members in the edd program must interrogate why computing technology and culture have alienated numerous historically marginalized and female students from engaging in learning activities in higher education (carr & porfilio, 2009), while concomitantly reflecting on ways in which computing technology and its culture can be reimagined to position our students to become transformative leaders. in essence, computing technology cannot function as a roadblock preventing our students from engaging in learning experiences that stifle their ability and desire to eliminate oppression and to promote social change both inside and outside their institutions. instead, educational technology must become a central component in providing students a learning environment where they gain the knowledge, skills, and courage necessary to become transformative leaders who begin with “questions of justice and democracy, critique inequitable practices, and address both individual and public good” (shields, 2010, p. 558). furthermore, our students must get beyond commonplace thinking that computing technology will a priori improve learning inside of schools and the quality of life outside educational institutions, and develop a robust vision of how educational technology can support learning activities and classroom environments designed to support students’ and educators’ understandings of the word and the world (freire, 1970) as well as be applied outside of schooling structures to promote equity and social justice (porfilio, 2016). integrating social justice more explicitly in online assignments. in this initial inquiry cycle, the responses of our students, and indeed, our own conversations and reflections, tended to focus on topics like “authenticity” and “collaboration” rather than specific social justice topics or foci. part of our plan of action is to ensure that we are, indeed, incorporating critical activities in our online portions of our classes. the assignments will be designed to helping students gain an understanding of what is responsible for unbalanced power differentials in schools, their own social circles and in the broader society, instead of focusing on merely increasing student interactions in an online platform. for example, brad created a critical autoethnography assignment in which students explore their own histories as well as those of their cohort members in relation to issues of race, class, language, gender/sexuality, and so on. rather than merely generating a written text, the product of this assignment will be a digital story. students will develop a digital artifact with the intention to locating themselves as social actors whose views on leadership have been mediated by being members of dominant or subordinate social groups during their lifetime (tatum, 2002). they will also reflect upon how they, as educational leaders, can work collectively to confront unjust practices and policies continue to hinder the academic, emotional and social development of those occupy subordinate identities inside and outside of educational institutions. conclusion as we move into the second cycle of our action research inquiry, a second round of data collection will be initiated this summer to capture the impact of our revised action plan. in the next round of inquiry, we plan to focus more explicitly on the ways our own practices connect with the social justice focus of our program. the second educating educational leaders in a blended professional doctorate program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 1 (2016) doi 10.5195/ie.2016.11 cycle will be guided by the question, “how do three educational leadership faculty members construct hybrid pedagogies that support the development of increasingly critical understandings for students?” to generate data, we will conduct three focus groups of students, design a second qualitative questionnaire focusing on pedagogical practices, conduct content analysis of revised course design, and document continuing conversations between the three faculty members. alongside continued data collection, we also plan to bring more faculty members into our effort, encouraging colleagues to engage in quality matters 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(2005). what makes a difference? a practical analysis of research on the effectiveness of distance education. teachers college record, 107(8), 1836-1884. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012045 https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2012045 http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageid=article&articleid=56 http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageid=article&articleid=56 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 42 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.234 the group-based dissertation in practice: a journey worth taking william hamilton augusta university whamilton@augusta.edu abstract this personal reflective essay explores a group dissertation in practice (dip) model and process used in a localized doctor of education program. it describes and recommends this team-based dip approach as an innovation that prepares practitioners to tackle complex problems of practice by focusing on a process centered around group dynamics that requires collaboration, advanced dialectical activity, engagement of stakeholders, and application of solutions to localized problems of practice. the framework of the exploration is based on accepted theories of small group development. implications of this dip approach include providing doctoral students collaborative problem-solving skills and professional capacity building. ultimately, the model enables doctoral students, as future educators and leaders, to transform an environment predicated on teaching and learning in isolation to one of a highly functioning, effective team-based professional practice. keywords dissertation in practice, educational doctorate, group dynamics, problems of practice, small group development by the way of introduction, my name is bill hamilton and i am an assistant professor and the assistant dean for instruction and innovation at the augusta university college of nursing in augusta, georgia. after having been out of school since 1991, when i received a master’s in business and healthcare administration at georgia state university, i enrolled in the augusta university college of education (aucoe), doctor of education (edd) program in 2017. i successfully defended my dissertation in may 2020 and received my edd. the aucoe edd program is based on the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework (cped, 2021a) and has adopted a group dissertation in practice (dip) model for its doctoral students. instead of an individual completing the dip, it is done by a small team of doctoral students within a larger cohort. this essay will be a personal reflection on my journey and focus on the team-based dip model and process used by the aucoe. the framework of the exploration will be tuckman’s (1965) theory of small group development. specifically, the doctoral journey of my dip group will be examined as it progressed through group development stages, as identified by tuckman and jensen (1977): forming (testing), storming (conflict), norming (cohesion), performing (role relatedness), and adjourning (disengagement). then, i will describe this dip approach as an innovation that prepared us, as scholarly practitioners, to tackle complex problems of practice by focusing on a process centered around group dynamics. next, lessons learned will be explored that can be used by edd programs that utilize or are considering utilizing the group dip model. following this, larger implications will be discussed about how the group dip model can positively disrupt traditional educational research paradigms. ultimately, this approach will be shown to support the cped framework in terms of its guiding principles and design concepts (cped, 2021a). finally, future implications for doctoral students that engage with this type of dip process and structure will be discussed. cped framework as mentioned above, the aucoe edd program is based on the cped framework, which is evident, in part, by alignment of its dip process with cped guiding program design principles (cped, 2021a), as described below. first, the requirement of the group dip format requires collaboration and advanced dialectical activity among doctoral student groups in order for them to successfully complete and defend their dissertations. secondly, the dip groups must actively engage with stakeholders in a contextualized problem of practice. this requires partnering, communicating, and working directly with practitioners that are impacted by the problem of practice. next, the construct of the dip requires the students to go into the field and apply realizable, workable solutions to localized problems of practice. finally, the dip requires that products are created by the doctoral students that can be used in the localized setting and are transferable to similar contexts, thus generating actionable knowledge bases for the professional practice of teaching. these examples align nicely with the cped guiding principles for program design as follow, respectively: “prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities”, “provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7249-8448 the group-based dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.234 43 communities and to build partnerships”, “provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions”, and “emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (cped, 2021a, guiding principles for program design section). the edd at augusta university the edd in educational innovation program at the aucoe is designed for practitioners (teachers and/or leaders) in all settings and at all levels. the program is cohort based and meets on fridays/saturdays during each semester. the edd is a three-year program that is based on a structured plan of study. the first year includes core courses. the second year includes core courses and dip preparation. the third year includes core courses and the dip final defense (aucoe, 2021). team theta’s dip model faculty in the doctoral program created research teams within the cohort and connected each team to a stakeholder with a problem of practice. our dip group adopted team theta as its moniker and it consisted of four members, including me, and began work in earnest during the second year of the program. our dip focus was the result of a local middle school approaching the aucoe for assistance in understanding stagnating math and english language arts (ela) scores in comparison to state targets. in response, team theta hypothesized that the use of instructional rounds (ir), in a professional learning community construct, would increase teacher metacognition. the study investigated metacognitive transformation in the teachers who engaged in ir in comparison to those who only engaged in traditional professional development. ultimately, ir appeared to be a catalyst for metacognitive growth and progression. it is interesting to note that team theta, a group of edd doctoral students, were studying a group of middle school teachers, using similar conceptual frameworks of group dynamics inherent in ir (via professional learning communities) that they were experiencing reflexively. the dip study yielded results that showed that collaboration, professional learning communities, and teamwork were important factors in teacher metacognitive development. in other words, effective teaching was proven not to be an isolation drill, but a team-based endeavor. this work resonated with team theta during the course of our doctoral journey. we realized that successfully completing and defending our dissertation was not an isolation drill, but a team-based endeavor, as well. conceptual framework the conceptual framework that aligned with team theta’s dip journey was embedded in tuckman’s (1965) stages of group development. tuckman identified four stages of group development, each having group structure (interpersonal relationship patterns) and task activity (interaction in relation to the task) characteristics. in his original work, tuckman conducted a literature review to identify common themes of small group development among therapy, training, and natural/laboratory task groups. his goal was to create a model that could be generalized for small group development over time. the resultant model represented an ordered sequence of development stages that would occur over a non-specified period of time (tuckman & jensen, 1977). tuckman believed that the group development sequence he described was consistent across the groups he studied. however, he suggested the content of the stages, rate of stage progression, and the sequence order may be affected by differences across and within other settings not in his original review (tuckman, 1965). the first development stage described by tuckman (1965) was the forming stage, when the group enters a structural testing period. the main activities are involved with orientation to the task at hand. before the group can move to the next stage, the members must engage in testing of interpersonal relationships, form leader dependency, and become orientated to the required tasks. next, the storming stage results in conflict and resistance within the group. the task activities are met with emotional responses from the members. the resistance is overcome by cohesiveness emerging resulting from the evolution of standards and role adoption, thus allowing the group to move to the next stage. the third stage is norming where group members become more open and cohesive. group member roles emerge and team standards become adopted. there is more open communication and opinion expression during the task activity. this stage begins to end when the interpersonal structure starts to drive the completion of tasks and the next stage is entered. the fourth stage is performing where the action of the team is constructive and the structure accelerates the performance of the task at hand. the interpersonal interactions become the lever for the completion of required tasks. once the required task is completed, this stage ends. a fifth stage was added by tuckman and jensen (1977), which is adjourning, when the group disengages. this creates separation anxiety and melancholy among the members. the group members enter into self-evaluation of the task activities and achievement. rickards and moger (2000) have added to tuckman and jensen’s (1977) original model to account for their observation that teams may never reach the performing stage and may even regress to former stages of development due to two barriers. the first is a weak barrier that may keep a team stuck in the storming phase and is caused by dysfunctional behavior. most teams are aware of this barrier, when it is reached, and overcome it though unintentional or intentional establishment of processes, roles, and responsibilities. the second is a strong barrier that keeps a team from reaching high performance, attainment of which requires high levels of creative performance. in both cases, creative or facilitating leadership is the driver that breaks through these barriers and move groups along the development stages. this requires the emergence of a leader within the group structure who assumes the role of team facilitator in creative problem solving, through establishment of creative sustaining protocols (rickards & moger, 2000). while tuckman’s (1965) model is over half a century old, it is considered valid and pertinent in examination of group dynamics. this was supported by kiweewa et al. (2018) in a recent study that examined growth factors in experiential training groups. they found the growth factors varied over time across different stages of group development, supporting tuckman’s (1965) original model. in another recent study, guttenberg (2020) recommended lean six sigma project teams should adhere to tuckman’s model to insure development of cohesive and task-focused teams. with this in mind, my reflection on team theta’s journey will use tuckman’s group development stages as a framework for explication. each stage of team theta’s development will be hamilton impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.234 44 discussed in terms of the group structure and task activity, as described in tuckman’s (1965) model. additionally, i will reflect on the adjourning stage, which was added by tuckman and jensen (1977). team theta’s dissertation in practice journey forming the forming stage included navigating the mechanics of the formation of the dip team and managing its? resultant’s structure and group characteristics. the main tasks included becoming oriented to the dissertation topic and the overall dip process and testing our interpersonal relationships in the construct of the work required. group structure team theta was formed in year 2 of the edd program during fall, 2018. the group members were assigned by the lead faculty in the edd program. originally, the group had three members who were in k-12 field, who began working in earnest to hone the topic and began exploratory meetings with the stakeholders. i had been assigned to a different group that was exploring a state-wide assessment of regionally-based professional learning communities. toward the end of the semester, i was approached by one of the lead faculty members and asked if i wanted to switch groups, based on my stated and visible interest in the use of instructional rounds at the localized level. i accepted the offer and had to disengage from my original group and joined team theta, one semester into the dip process. the final composition of team theta represented a heterogenous mix that included an elementary school assistant principal, (2) high school teachers, and me, a health sciences/higher education administrator with a teaching load. this mix, along with my late entry, created some strain among our interpersonal relationships and stunted our ability to coalesce quickly. there seemed to be a certain level of distrust about my real intentions for joining the group. however, due to the cohort nature of the aucoe edd program, we knew each other and had worked together previously. this made the forming stage somewhat easier to navigate, but did not minimize the need for testing of personalities and capabilities. also, we agreed upon some simple work management techniques, such as using google docs for document preparation and smartphone texting as the primary communication method. task activity the tasks at hand were centered on honing down the dissertation topic, becoming oriented to the overall task of the dip process and testing our interpersonal relationships in the construct of the required work of this phase of dip which include writing the first three chapters of the dissertation (introduction, literature review, and methods). storming the storming stage saw the emergence of intragroup conflict due to the heterogeneous nature of the team members. the main task was to defend the dip proposal. group structure team theta experienced an acute onset of the storming phase immediately after forming. the heterogenous nature of the group structure resulted in intragroup conflict. all members had different schedules and each came from a different career background. additionally, each member had unique career goals and reasons for pursing an edd. finally, the work/life balances of each member varied due to different family structures. this led to the task activities and intra-group assignments being met with emotional responses. the impeding deadlines of the task at hand exacerbated the intrapersonal conflicts and overall work quality was compromised. the communication was tense, guarded and non-conducive to productivity. upon reflection, the group structure at this stage was not supportive of the required dip task at hand. task activity the task at hand in this stage was to prepare and successfully defend the dip proposal. the heterogeneity of the group structure, described above, resulted in conflict in terms of scheduling meetings/work sessions, milestone/goal setting, and overall coordination of delegated work necessary to complete the proposal. the stress levels were high and communication was strained. ultimately, this conflict led to a failed defense proposal in late spring, 2019. this required team theta to extend their work on the proposal and defend again in summer, 2019. norming the norming stage included the engagement of intentional conflict resolution activity and role delineation. the main task was to re-defend the dip proposal defense, after a failed first defense proposal. group structure after the failed proposal defense, team theta began to engage in very intentional conflict resolution activity. additionally, i assumed the informal role as the facilitating leader and collaboratively engaged the team members in the establishment of new protocols which, in hindsight, was aligned with the work of rickards and moger (2000). this included setting clear expectations in terms of communication, schedules, and milestones/due dates. the group began to evolve and adapt by identifying role strengths of the members and assigning dip components to the member that would maximize its quality and be most accommodating to their work/life environment. also, informal roles emerged. for example, one of the members took over the scheduling and communication duties, due to a penchant for details and time management. another member focused on the qualitative data analysis based on a background and interest in this type of research. this is consistent with tuckman’s (1965) model, which observed that groups develop cohesiveness through the establishment of standards and role delineations. only then, can they pass from the storming phase to the norming stage. the group-based dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.234 45 task activity this stage coincided with the dip second proposal defense in summer, 2019. the resultant group cohesion and growth in the norming stage allowed for success this time and provided team theta confidence, as a team, to tackle the dip research study, write the results, and defend in spring, 2020. the group began to communicate openly and entered a stage where conflict was addressed openly and resolved through dialogue and planning, with no lingering resentment. additionally, the group began to engage with each other on a personal level and feelings of companionship and caring emerged. for example, the main communication method was via smartphone group texting. the members would text each other through the day to discuss family, friend, and work matters. this created a strong sense of bonding and interpersonal relationship built around a social community. this proved to become a group structure that supported the arduous task of defending the dip and completing the edd. performing the performing stage saw team theta experience maturation of interpersonal relationships that created efficacious and efficient task accomplishment capabilities. the main tasks were to conduct the research project with study participants, write the final three chapters of the dissertation (findings, discussion, products), and defend the dissertation. group structure after the successful proposal defense, team theta entered into the performing stage. the group experienced a renewed sense of confidence, efficacy, and resiliency after recovering from their earlier failure. the defined roles established in the norming stage began to become more flexible as the dip required cross collaboration due its mixed method design. the members were assisting each other in their assigned tasks by providing alternate lens and interpretations. team theta was operating at a high level of performance, attributable to an overall adoption of creative sustaining protocols by each team member in their role. this result was consistent with rickards and moger (2000), who believed that these protocols were necessary to break the strong barrier to reach high performance. task activity consistent with tuckman’s (1965) beliefs, the interpersonal relationships became the lever by which the multitude of tasks were accomplished, milestones/targets were met, and the complex problems of practice were addressed. for example, during a late night meeting the group was able to crystallize a convoluted and complex set of results into a concise metacognition progression model, through brainstorming, complicated conversations, active discourse, and opposing analytical views. adjourning the adjourning stage began after team theta’s successful defense and ended as the relationships dissolved over the next 2-3 months. group structure the maturation and evolution of team theta was apparent during the dip defense in spring, 2020. after completing the defense of the dip proper, we all provided our own oral reflection on the journey to the committee. all members discussed how we had become a close, tight knit group of friends and we would miss each other. the group attempted to remain intact, via phone calls and texting, into summer, 2020. however, the level of communication waned and eventually dissipated in fall, 2020. the structure supported the task of adjourning, since we all worked in different disciplines and organizations. task activity tuckman and jensen (1997) believed that the adjourning phase included the task activity of self-evaluation. team theta did not engage in this task, directly. however, the depth and breadth of the dip task and journey seemed to cause a natural, non-provoked reflection for each member. as such, this essay is an attempt to conduct such a reflection. conclusion in conclusion and upon reflection, the dip at aucoe is an innovation that prepares scholarly practitioners to tackle complex problems of practice by focusing on a process centered around group dynamics. it does this by a group dissertation team model that naturally progresses through tuckman’s (1965) stages of group development, ultimately ending with the adjournment phase (tuckman & jensen, 2007). additionally, this approach supports the cped guiding principles for program design (cped, 2021a), as described in detail earlier. implications the structure of a group dip model results in a process that is less isolating than an individual dissertation model. it mirrors the need for collaborative problem solving and provides doctoral students with capacities to address complex problems of practice. additionally, it helps meet the professional needs of doctoral students as they mature and progress as leaders and changes agents in future localized teaching and learning contexts. they will be able to recognize the progress of team goal achievement through the lens of group dynamics. ultimately, the model enables doctoral students, as future educators and leaders, to transform an environment historically predicated on teaching and learning in isolation to one of a highly functioning, effective team-based professional practice. however, there are lessons to be learned from team theta’s experience as it moved along the stages of group development, as described by tuckman and jennings (1977). first, close attention and thought should be given to dip group formation. specifically, lead faculty should clearly communicate the rationale for group member inclusion, members should be matched to their area of interest, and efforts should be made to have a heterogenous mix of skill sets (e.g. detail orientation, writing, conceptual and critical analysis). next, lead faculty should be quick to intervene with the dip groups to help them move along the group development process, such as facilitating role delineation and the establishment of standards. next, collaboration and communication among the dip hamilton impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.234 46 groups in a edd cohort would have proven to be helpful to team theta for support and role modeling. this could be facilitated by the edd faculty in regular open sessions where each group shares its successes, failures, and roadblocks. ultimately, edd programs that utilize a group dip model could explore tuckman’s (1965) model of group development and recommendations made rickards and moger (2000) for breaking down progression barriers with the doctoral students before they embark on their dip journey. this would have been helpful to team theta in recognizing its group development progress and help us to engage in tactics to move as quickly as possible through the stages. the larger implication points to the argument put forth by kennedy et al. (2018) that calls for educational doctorate programs to evolve from conducting research using a discrete, objective, detached lens to one addressing and solving problems of practice through contextualized understandings, as articulated by dialectical and reflective process that engages researchers in shared learning though co-authorship, negotiation of contested areas (such as writing), and maximization of individual strengths and perspectives. upon reflection, this approach is consistent with and supported by the overall construct of the edd program at aucoe. kennedy et al. (2018) also contended that co-authorship of a dissertation is metacognitive in nature, due to the need for continued critical analysis, conflict resolution, and consensus building. interestingly, this links well with team theta’s dip, which was predicated on developing metacognitive strategies and capacity in a group of teachers that could be passed on to the students. in team theta’s case, the group dip model, its ensuing group development journey, and focus of study supported each other in content, structure, and aim. ultimately, the group dip format, team theta’s journey, and its larger educational research implications, as described above, supports the cped’s 2020 annual convening theme, which is “reimagining and reconstruction the dissertation in practice: dismantling the hegemonic practices of establishing knowledge in the education profession” (cped, 2021, main section). as kennedy et al. (2018) discussed, the traditional research module is based on technical rationality, where problems are studied as independent, not interdependent parts and are approached by creating knowledge that is linear and accumulative. this type of basic research in education perpetuates traditional power dynamics between the individual student and the dissertation chair/committee and isolates the researcher into an objective corner. a group dissertation model, and its ensuing journey, breaks this power dynamic through collaboration, community building, and contextualized approaches to problems of practice that have many interdependent part. final ship log entry as i reflect back on the dip journey with my fellow sojourners, my mind travels to herbert spencer who asked the critical question of what knowledge is most worth (1860). reframing the question, i asked myself of what made my dip journey most worth. the journey to the safe port of the final dip defense was laden with rocks, shallows, unnavigable passages, and unpredictable weather. this made the voyage demanding, rigorous, and ultimately, satisfying. the only way to reach home was to have a seaworthy ship and crew. using a maritime example, every crew member on a functioning sea vessel has a specific role and strength, whether it be the skipper, trimmer, navigator, or helmsperson. a ship cannot complete its journey with single crew member or seven trimmers. likewise, team theta had a diverse crew with multiple skills and talents necessary to guide the group dip model. we were able to navigate the straits of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (tuckman & jennings, 2007) and reach the safe port of graduation, armed with new knowledge, skills, and beliefs that would enable us to tackle complex problems of practice in our pedagogical journey. ultimately, the heterogeneity of the group produced an impactful homogenous product that provided real solutions for educators at all levels. this could not have been done without the group dip model. i would readily take the journey again and strongly recommend the group dissertation model to my colleagues, across all disciplines. references augusta university college of education [aucoe]. 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(2018). engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 kiweewa, j., gilbride, d., luke, m., & clingerman, t. (2018). tracking growth factors in experiential training groups through tuckman’s conceptual model. journal for specialists in group work, 43(3), 274-296. https://doi.org/10.1080/01933922.2018.1484539 rickards, t. & moger, s. (2000). creative leadership processes in project team development: an alternative to tuckman’s stage model. british journal of management,11(4), 273-83. https://10.1111/1467-8551.00173 rittel, h. & webber, m. (1973). dilemmas in a general theory of planning. policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01405730 spencer, h. (1860). what knowledge is of most worth? in h. spencer (ed.), education: intellectual, moral, and physical (pp. 21-96). d appleton & company. https://doi.org/10.1037/12158-001 tuckman, b. (1965). developmental sequence in small groups. psychological bulletin, 63(6), 384-399. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022100 tuckman, b. and jensen, m. (1977). stages of small-group development revisited. group & organization management, 2(4), 419-427. https://doi.org/10.1177/105960117700200404 william hamilton augusta university cped framework the edd at augusta university team theta’s dip model conceptual framework team theta’s dissertation in practice journey forming group structure task activity storming group structure task activity norming group structure task activity performing group structure task activity adjourning group structure task activity conclusion implications final ship log entry references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.267 evolution of the dissertation in practice suha r. tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu kelly m. torres the chicago school of professional psychology ktorres@thechicagoschool.edu abstract this article introduces the special issue on the evolution of the dissertation in practice, presenting a brief overview of the history of the edd cand the concerns raised over professional doctorates, that triggered efforts to redefine the education doctorate through the leading role of the carnegie project on the education doctorate. keywords dissertation in practice, professional doctorate, carnegie project on the education doctorate doctoral programs first emerged in the nineteenth century and revolved around knowledge transmission in traditional disciplines. they later expanded towards critical thinking approaches and began including professional practice in order to accommodate part-time students with careers, offering them professional doctoral degrees (archbald, 2011; taysum, 2006). the first professional doctorate originated in the field of education in 1920, in the graduate school of education at harvard, as doctor of education (edd) (dill & morrison,1985). subsequently, other disciplines followed. nowadays, professional doctorates vary from education to engineering, to health-related professions, business, and others (hawkes & yerrabati, 2018; kot & hendel, 2012). while no consensus on the nature of these degrees and no standard definition suitable to the different disciplinary contexts exist, professional doctorates focus on preparing students in becoming scholarly practitioners (kot & hendel, 2012). the council of graduate schools (2007) identified three characteristics for a professional doctorate program: 1. it addresses an area of professional practice where other degrees are not currently meeting all employer needs. 2. it emphasizes applied or clinical research or advanced practice. 3. it includes in its ranks leaders of the profession who will drive the creative and knowledge-based development of its practices and the development of standards for others. (p. 7) however, the differentiation between the traditional doctor of philosophy (phd) and a professional doctorate raises concerns regarding rigor and purpose (lester, 2004; storey & hesbol, 2014). in education, edd programs are often advertised as practitioneroriented; whereas traditional doctor of philosophy (phd) programs are advertised as research-oriented, although the difference between them in total hours and research courses is minimal (leist & scott., 2011). lester (2004) argued that knowledge generated from professional doctorate research must be purposeful in solving practice problems and initiating change. similarly, shulman et al. (2006) maintained that the phd and the edd “serve distinct purposes” (p.25) and called for grounding the edd in scholarship while preparing student-practitioners “to solve educational problems “(p. 26). moreover, leist and scott (2011) asserted that educational institutions must re-examine the purpose of each degree and its structure and align its components in order to resolve the ambiguities surrounding these differences. these voices and others initiated efforts to redefine the education doctorate. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) took the lead in setting clear differences between the edd and the phd, establishing edd design principles, proposing its coursework, and implementing related signature pedagogies that provide experiences in solving educational dilemmas (boyce, 2012). under the cped model, the culminating project is referred to as the dissertation in practice (dip) (storey & hesbol, 2014). perry (2016) highlighted that dips are distinguished from more traditional five-chapter dissertations. educational professional doctorate research provides a unique bridge between the researcher-practitioner gap. according to cped (2021), dip research advances professional knowledge, incorporates rigorous and ethical methods, addresses a complex problem of practice, includes innovative or interdisciplinary inquiry, and reflects an alternative format from traditional research. the cped organization has worked strategically to redesign and reimagine edd dissertations. to disseminate knowledge and further provide a forum to enhance edd programs of study, cped developed a cped improvement group (cig) focused on reimagining dips. cped’s (2021) dip cig efforts have centered on issues that include:  exploring new research models and approaches that dismantle traditional practices.  considering actionable points that allow for faculty and students to engage in new reimagined dissertation models.  identifying new opportunities for dips. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1664-747x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4374-6366 tamim & torres impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.267 2  conveying potential barriers to engaging in and conducting reimagined dip models. the cped framework outlines design concepts for edd programs to be inclusive of dip models that focus on a problem of practice (pop). research pops are contextualized and focus on specific issues that are embedded within professional practice. by addressing pops in research, students can evaluate issues that result in improved understandings, experiences, and outcomes. dips allow for students to conduct research that encompasses the application of knowledge and skills that are acquired through experiences. edd graduates gain valuable skills that allow them to become transformed leaders. further, dip approaches allow for the reinforcement of practitioner learning (perry et al., 2020). essentially, dips contain a more practical focus and address existing workplace problems in comparison to traditionally structured dissertations. this themed issue focuses on the evolution of the dissertation in practice. it showcases examples of program redesign, alternative dissertation formats, and innovative strategies that aim towards dip improvement. the following list provides an overview of the articles.  in taking action: the dissertation in practice at northeastern university, ewell and colleagues describe the redesign of their edd program towards an alternative model that supports their students in creating social justice-oriented change in their professional settings. they detail the challenges and successes faced by moving from a traditional five-chapter dissertation to a three-component dissertation.  in using mentor texts to develop disciplinary literacy of scholarly practitioners through dissertations in practice, markus and buss discuss the use of mentor texts to strengthen the disciplinary literacy of edd students as they develop their dissertation in practice and become scholarly practitioners, by transforming them from consumers of text to producers of text through a community of practice learning environment.  in professional and practical considerations for the program evaluation dissertation, varga and colleagues propose program evaluation dissertations as alternatives to fivechapter dissertations to better serve the needs of their students. they outline how students use the utilizationfocused evaluation process to develop their dip and present issues to consider in program evaluation dissertation models.  in clearing the clouds: finding motivation and clarity in a non-traditional dissertation using arts based educational research, kramer reflects on her experience in completing an art-based dissertation in practice, authoring a non-fiction fiction script to improve her students’ reading skills. she recounts her challenges and successes in navigating the process during the covid-19 pandemic.  in artful design: disruptions within the dissertation in practice, hash paints her dissertation in practice journey, elaborating on how she circumvented disruptions of design, knowledge, format, and identity, negotiating interesting fields while using visual arts to help students construct knowledge of writing and knowledge of self.  in reframing the problem of practice: transitions in baylor university’s ed.d. in learning and organizational change program, blevins and colleagues report on their institution's utilization of a community of practice to engage in organizational change processes to reframe their conceptualization of pop dissertations. they provide practical suggestions on how to accommodate online learners in addition to considerations for an inclusive program design and for student support systems.  in the group-based dissertation in practice: a journey worth taking, hamilton discusses the processes involved with his journey of engaging in a team-based dip and how he progressed through the group development stages. he further shares how group dips can positively disrupt traditional research paradigms and the implications for utilizing this research approach.  in reading research for writing: co-constructing core skills, bjorn and quaynor highlight the importance of doctoral-level writing and reading skills and their impact on student performance. they emphasize strategies and processes that support acquisition and development of these vital skills.  in improvement science as a frame for the dissertation in practice: the johns hopkins experience, pape and colleagues examine their applied dissertation to be inclusive of improvement science principles to further support their scholar-practitioners to possess the ability to take on future workplace challenges and opportunities. they provide reflections from this process and emphasize how scholarpractitioners’ narratives provide insights for future growth and improvement. references adams, a., bondy, e., ross, d., dana, n., & kennedy-lewis, b. l. (2014). implementing an online professional practice doctoral program in a phd environment: managing the dilemmas. journal of school public relations, 35(3), 363-382. archbald, d. (2011). the emergence of the nontraditional doctorate: a historical overview. new directions for adult and continuing education,129(spring), 7-19. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace boyce, b. a. (2012). redefining the edd: seeking a separate identity. quest, 64(1), 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2012.653260 cped (2021). carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). https://www.cpedinitiative.org/cped-improvement-groups dill, d. d., & morrison, j. l. (1985). edd and phd research training in the field of higher education: a survey and a proposal. the review of higher education, 8(2), 169-186. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1985.0027 hawkes, d., & yerrabati, s. (2018). a systematic review of research on professional doctorates. london review of education, 16(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.18546/lre.16.1.03 kot, f. c., & hendel, d. d. (2012). emergence and growth of professional doctorates in the united states, united kingdom, canada and australia: a comparative analysis. studies in higher education, 37(3), 345-364. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.516356 leist, j., & scott, j. (2011). differentiation ... but to what degree? the ed.d. and ph.d. in higher education programs. academic leadership (15337812), 9(3), 1-15. lester, s. (2004). conceptualizing the practitioner doctorate. studies in higher education, 29(6), 757-770. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507042000287249 perry, j. a. (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. information age publishing, inc. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2012.653260 https://doi.org/10.1080/00336297.2012.653260 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/cped-improvement-groups https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1985.0027 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1985.0027 https://doi.org/10.18546/lre.16.1.03 https://doi.org/10.18546/lre.16.1.03 https://doi.org/10.18546/lre.16.1.03 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.516356 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.516356 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.516356 https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507042000287249 https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507042000287249 https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507042000287249 evolution of the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.267 3 shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 storey, v. a., & hesbol, k. a. (2014). can the dissertation in practice bridge the researcher-practitioner gap? the education professional practice doctorate and the impact of the carnegie project on the education doctorate consortium. journal of school public relations, 35(3), 324347. https://doi.org/10.3138/jspr.35.3.324 taysum, a. (2006). the distinctiveness of the edd within the university tradition. journal of educational administration and history, 38(3), 323334. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620600984255 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://doi.org/10.3138/jspr.35.3.324 https://doi.org/10.3138/jspr.35.3.324 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620600984255 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620600984255 suha r. tamim university of south carolina kelly m. torres the chicago school of professional psychology references microsoft word 64 final layout.docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 30 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice joy c. phillips drexel university joy.phillips@drexel.edu kathy d. geller drexel university kathygeller@drexel.edu kenneth j. mawritz drexel university kjm97@drexel.edu abstract the essay describes how a task team of drexel edd faculty worked as a community of practice (wenger, 1998) to conduct a crosswalk to align program principles, known as the keystones, with national and university standards including the six guiding principles for program design contained in the cped framework (carnegie project on the education doctorate, n.d.-a). in accordance with the study institution’s planning tool, the edd crosswalk also demonstrates alignment with the national council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep) advanced program standards (council for the accreditation of educator preparation, n.d.-a), drexel university student learning priorities (dslps), and drexel school of education program themes. discussion examining the task team’s work is framed around the four interlinking components of community of practice: meaning, practice, community, and identity. wenger (1998) describes these components as “deeply interconnected and mutually defining” (p. 5). while uncommon, the process described in this essay represents the intent of assessment scholars (banta & palomba, 2014) and contributes to deepening understanding of higher education assessment work. keywords: higher education; program assessment; carnegie project on education doctorate; edd program design and innovation introduction the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) celebrated its 10th anniversary in june 2017. this milestone provides a backdrop for considering how faculty at drexel university, a cped member institution, aligned the edd program with cped guiding principles, national, and university standards. the alignment work was undertaken as part of a larger effort to review the edd program’s design and level of curricular innovation. the faculty selfstudy exercise presented in this essay addresses three themes of this special issue: specific uses of the cped guiding principles for developing and/or evaluating programs, determining graduate outcomes, and innovative ways to redesign and improve edd programs. the manuscript describes how a task team of drexel edd faculty worked as a community of practice (wenger, 1998) to conduct a crosswalk to align program principles, known as the keystones, with national and university standards including the six guiding principles for program design contained in the cped (n.d.a) framework. in accordance with the drexel planning tool, the edd crosswalk also included alignment with other key standards: the national council for the accreditation of educator preparation/advanced program standards (council for the accreditation of educator preparation [caep], n.d.-a), drexel university student learning priorities (dslps), and drexel school of education program themes. the cped framework provided a lexicon and pedagogical constructs that align well with the drexel edd program keystones in which students are guided to become scholarly practitioners who address complex problems of practice through inquiry by producing a dissertation focused in practice. this manuscript contains four major components: study context; the alignment work: description of selfstudy; working as a community of practice: discussion; and conclusion with next steps. study context the self-study is grounded in three interrelated contexts: cped, the push for higher education assessment and accreditation, and drexel school of education’s quest for caep accreditation. collectively, these contexts situate the essay into the larger national program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 31 discussion of the need to demonstrate that higher education students graduate with measurable evidence of having obtained program learning outcomes. carnegie project on the education doctorate in cped’s first decade, a growing number of cped institution faculty members have answered the call to radically revise their edd programs, and research papers and resources have begun to emerge (cped, n.d.-b). much of the early literature focused on descriptions of how member faculty have engaged in the redesign process and how the redesigned programs function. as the cped initiative moves into its second decade, more in-depth research is developing (perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015). this paper contributes to the dialogue by exploring how member faculty at drexel university are engaging in “conversations that matter” (reference to a university assessment conference) as they analyze if and how the cped framework fits an existing edd program of study. as described in the next section, the impetus for this work is a response to intense public and private pressure to provide evidence of dynamic student outcomes. higher education assessment and accreditation the increasingly stringent demands for higher education accountability manifest through assessment and accreditation processes. gradually, accreditation organization leaders have adopted standards, and higher education administrators have strengthened, deepened, and broadened institutional effectiveness programs, policies, and staff (field, 2006). in july 2013, two competing educator preparation accrediting organizations, the national council for accreditation of teacher education (ncate) and the teacher education accreditation council (teac), merged into a single new professional organization: known as caep (n.d.-b). in july 2016, the caep board of directors adopted revised standards for advanced programs (caep, n.d.-c). the new standards for advanced programs apply to any higher education institutions seeking caep accreditation after september 1, 2017 (caep, n.d.-c). because the advanced program standards are new, most higher education institutions have not yet engaged in this level of program accreditation. indeed, caep administrators are continuing to make policy changes (caep, n.d.-d). all cped member institutions seeking caep accreditation will need to comply with these new program standards. while the gradual adoption of more rigorous university accountability processes has made assessment standards and procedures more visible, most faculty still interpret institutional assessment as something “done to” them, rather than as a tool for them to use for program improvement (haviland, 2014, p. 755). evidence of exemplary postsecondary assessment practices continues to be limited (haviland, 2014), which makes the account discussed in the essay noteworthy. drexel university’s quest for caep accreditation the third contextual dimension includes an overview of the drexel university school of education and a description of the faculty self-study task team. this essay details how the drexel self-study is situated in the cped and higher education assessment environments. the university. this self-study was conducted by faculty from drexel university (du), a private, non-profit institution, whose brick and mortar campus is located in the center of philadelphia, pennsylvania. currently, the school of education (soe) has just over a thousand undergraduate and graduate students, with 42 faculty serving in and across 43 programs that confer 17 types of degrees (du/soe, n.d.-a). the soe offers both an edd and a phd programs. while the phd program is full-time and on-campus, edd students may participate either completely online or in a hybrid (60%/40%), executive weekend format. the edd part-time program of study is designed to be completed in three years or 12 quarters. although the drexel edd program was launched in 2009, the university did not become a cped member until 2015. thus, the edd program was fully developed when the faculty self-assessment process began. as confirmed in the university’s cped application and participant responses from an october 2016 convening presentation, the university’s edd program design exhibits a robust demonstration of the cped intent as described in the cped framework. the drexel edd program was designed for part-time working professionals from a variety of disciplines including k-12, higher education, non-profit leadership, health care, and industry. from the outset, the edd program sought to develop students as scholar practitioners who would conduct their dissertation inquiry on a problem of practice. therefore, the cped definition of education doctorate is directly aligned with the drexel edd. the edd program definition is also aligned with the drexel mission statement, which focuses on productive professional and civic lives and collective expertise on solving society’s greatest problems (du, n.d.). the program’s applied orientation is consistent with the region’s historical roots in practical education. the goal of the drexel edd dissertation is for students to develop an actionable response to a critical educational need; in contrast, the phd program prepares education leaders who aspire to be researchers, scholars, and instructors in higher education (du/soe, n.d.-b). faculty self-study task team. the self-study began in january 2017 when the soe administrators advised faculty to begin preparing for accreditation from the caep; the actual external review is scheduled to occur in 2020-2021. the caep accreditation will accompany the drexel university’s regional accreditation with the middle states commission on higher education (msche). msche includes the geographic areas of delaware, the district of columbia, maryland, new jersey, new york, pennsylvania, puerto rico, and the virgin islands (msche, n.d.). to launch the self-study, the edd program director announced the accreditation initiative to the edd advisory committee. the advisory committee includes an average of seven faculty members, most of whom are non-tenure-track clinical faculty. at drexel, most clinical faculty appointments are full-time and include faculty voting rights, service obligations, and university benefits. responding to a call for volunteers, the program director and two faculty colleagues, all clinical faculty, formed a task team to create a preliminary edd program assessment plan. the faculty task team was dispersed across three states (e.g., california, pennsylvania, and north carolina). two of the three faculty members were physically located away (i.e., remote) from the university main campus. the self-study process was conducted electronically (e.g., web-based video platform zoom, email, word documents, and phone calls). phillips, geller, & mawritz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 32 each member of the team brought a specific perspective to the work: the program director had a corporate training background leading global management development efforts and years of experience teaching in the drexel edd program. the second faculty member had extensive k-12 leadership experience followed by a longstanding faculty appointment in the edd program. the third member, who was new to the university, had multi-disciplinary leadership experience, including 20 years in higher education and expertise in graduate-level program assessment. the assessment work required the faculty task team to engage in an array of tasks including broadly conceptualizing the coursework programmatically, focusing on minute details of coursework, identifying connections between and among courses, raising the level of analysis to the program level, and comparing/contrasting discrete sets of standards. moving through discussions within, between, and across the array of intense cognitive tasks required the team to invest a considerable amount of time and energy. the team’s work is described in the next section. the alignment work the edd task team began their work with the soe edd keystones. the keystones are so named because pennsylvania’s nickname is the keystone state. developed by the faculty who created the edd program, the keystones provide a vision of the desired edd graduate. the keystones were not designed to easily identify specific measurable student outcomes, which was at odds with assessment requirements. to address this problem, the selfstudy task team operationalized the five keystones with more detailed mastery descriptions of student outcomes (see table 1). table 1. school of education edd keystones with outcomes keystone/program learning outcome outcomes 1. edd graduates possess the abilities to create and support communities that are the basis for sustainable change. graduates demonstrate mastery to: (a) create and nurture networks of people (b)establish collaborative partnerships (c) work effectively in communities of practice (d) honor diversity (e) lead with a global mindset 2. leaders develop the habits of mind and competencies to lead complex organizations shaped by global forces. demonstrate mastery for leading systemic change drawing from a range of theoretical frameworks (a) systems thinking (b) adaptive leadership (c) theory u (d) creative problem solving (e) design thinking 3. leaders develop the abilities to sustain their own leadership growth. each student delineates and identifies existing assumptions and mental models that inform both leadership practice and scholarly inquiry; and develops the mastery to suspend judgment and bracket biases (epoché) 4. edd graduates utilize the full range of emerging technologies to reach across generations, communicate effectively, and engage others in meaningful change. demonstrate mastery in the: (a) use and integration of learning technologies (b) appropriate use of technology in general to communicate, collaborate, and resolve problems 5. edd graduates exemplify the curiosity, inquiry skills, and scholarly competencies needed to investigate an idea and transform it into meaningful action. demonstrate the mastery to identify a “problem of practice” and conduct scholarly research leading to an actionable solution. after developing the keystone mastery statements, the team struggled with how to begin the assessment process. following considerable conversation, in which the team wrestled to distinguish course from program learning outcomes, the team decided to begin by going deep into individual program courses. this decision provided an open path for further discussion and analysis because the course learning outcomes were clearly documented in course syllabi and familiar to the faculty. working in an emergent manner, the team created a process as they progressed. ultimately, the process included examining existing course-level learning outcomes, developing program-level learning outcomes, aligning program-level outcomes with the cped framework and national and institutional standards, and identifying measurable outcomes with a review and follow-up process. each of these is discussed in the following sections. program outcomes by course initially, the team divided edd program courses into two categories: leadership (4 courses) and research (9 courses), excluding courses offered in concentration areas. one team member pulled the catalog course descriptions and identified which keystones were addressed in each course. another associated the keystones with the learning objectives by course. then, the team created a matrix that listed by course: the associated keystone, the learning goals/student knowledge base, and the student application or evidence of performance. for example, data included formative course-level work that evidenced student performance in creating effective communities through knowledge-based development and application, or student work that evidenced the ability to honor differences through diversity, a global mindset, or a focus on social justice. program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 33 edd program assessment planning tool the edd program director compiled a matrix of keystone/program learning outcomes (plos) into three columns: data evidence—what data or evidence could be used to determine whether or not each plo had been met; review of evidence—how program data/evidence would be reviewed; and, reporting and follow-up—what the plan is for reporting the results and findings (e.g., strengths and gaps). this early draft was provided to edd advisory committee members who offered no additional comments. at this stage, deciphering the pieces of information needed to successfully address the alignment was challenging. while the task team was familiar with the drexel student learning priorities (dslps), soe themes, and cped guiding principles, they realized there was a disconnect incorporating the caep vision, mission, and goals. this disconnect existed because the caep protocols were new and did not include an administrative component for advanced programs until september 1, 2017. thus, the task team needed to inform themselves about the new standards, then project a vision for how to fit this component into the alignment. reviewing and further developing data/evidence, review, and reporting/follow-up next, the task team revisited the previous work and considered whether other data/evidence might be identified, how this evidence might be reviewed, and what the follow-up process would be. because the group could not come to a decision on a single set, they decided that two team members would individually create sets of data/evidence, review, and follow-up as a starting place for further team discussion (see table 2). table 2. two sets of possible data/evidence, review, and follow-up data/ evidence (a) data/ evidence (b) review of evidence (a) review of evidence (b) reporting and follow-up (a) reporting and follow-up (b) parsing out connections to specific standards for the next activity, the task team returned to the soe planning tool-directed alignment of learning outcomes with national and university standards. the process began with the team dividing up national and institutional standards to create a crosswalk, or alignment, with each of the five drexel edd keystones. table 3 illustrates the keystone alignment with the cped guiding principles. the resulting work was transferred to a master matrix (see tables 4 and 5), with each standard in a separate column. because the master matrix contained an overwhelming amount of detailed information, the team focused next on completing the crosswalk by reviewing all standards that had been aligned with specific keystone/program learning outcomes before addressing the data/evidence, review of evidence, and reporting and follow-up. table 3. alignment of edd program keystones with cped guiding principles program learning outcomes standards cped guiding principles keystone 1 edd graduates possess the abilities to create and support communities that are the basis for sustainable change. a. demonstrate mastery: create communities i. nurture networks of people ii. establish collaborative partnerships (iii) work effectively in communities of practice b. honor difference i. value diversity ii. lead with a global mindset iii. focus on social justice cped 1. equity, ethics & social justice 2. positive difference 3. collaboration/ communication phillips, geller, & mawritz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 34 program learning outcomes standards cped guiding principles keystone 2: leaders develop the habits of mind and competencies to lead complex organizations shaped by global forces. learning outcome: demonstrate mastery for leading systemic change drawing from a range of theoretical frameworks: a. systems thinking b. leadership & adaptive leadership & theory u c. creative problem solving and design thinking d. communication cped 1. ethics/social justice 2. positive difference 3. collaboration/communication 5. theory w/systemic inquiry keystone 3 leaders develop the abilities to sustain their own leadership growth. learning outcome: students learn to delineate and identify: a. existing assumptions and mental models that inform both leadership practice and scholarly inquiry b. develop the mastery to suspend judgment and bracket biases (epoché) in conducting inquiry. cped 1. ethics/social justice 2. positive difference 3. collaboration/communication keystone 4 edd graduates utilize the full range of emerging technologies to reach across generations, communicate effectively, and engage others in meaningful change. learning outcome demonstrate mastery in the: a. use and integration of learning technologies b. appropriate use of technology in general to communicate, collaborate, and resolve problems cped 2. positive difference 3. collaboration/communication 5. theory w/systemic inquiry keystone 5 edd graduates exemplify the curiosity, inquiry skills, and scholarly competencies needed to investigate an idea and transform it into meaningful action. learning outcome demonstrate the mastery to identify a “problem of practice” and conduct scholarly research leading to an actionable solution. cped 2. positive difference 4. field based solutions 5. theory w/systemic inquiry 6. generation of professional knowledge & practice program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 35 table 4. master matrix with all options table 5. program learning outcomes/keystones with each standard set program learning outcomes/keystones caep dslp cped soe themes reaching team agreement on which standards aligned best with each keystone during this work, the team engaged in rich discussion punctuated by critical reflection, questioning, debate, reconsideration, and finally agreement. this deeply collaborative discussion resulted in a narrowing of specific standards to fit each keystone. the agreed upon standards were then collapsed into one column, as originally intended. condensing work into 5-column matrix to complete this stage of the assessment work, the final phase of the preliminary process involved arriving at task team consensus on a set of data/evidence, review of evidence, and reporting and follow-up. the team returned the analysis process to the 5-column format (see table 6). with this phase completed, the initial project goals had been achieved, and the draft was ready to be submitted to the soe director of assessment. an appendix provides detail of one fully explicated keystone. table 6. soe program assessment planning tool program learning outcomes (plos) dslps/ standards/ soe themes data/evidence review of evidence reporting and follow-up what are the plos? plos are learning expectations, expressed in active, measurable terms. which drexel student learning priorities (dslps), standards (intasc, caep, spa) and, soe themes align with each outcome? (see list below) what data or evidence will be used to determine whether or not the outcome is met and/or level of impact on p-12 learning? provide: type of measure type of evidence # of students assessed where in the curriculum or program is the outcome assessed? when and how often will the outcome be assessed? how will program data/ evidence be reviewed? identify: evaluation tool (rubric; evaluation summary form; statistical tool) performance target, achievement level, or benchmark who will review the evidence? what will be the process? when and how often will the evidence be reviewed? what is the plan for reporting the results and findings (strengths and gaps)? identify: to whom will the quantitative and/or qualitative results be reported? how often? who will be responsible for reporting the results and findings? for tracking the followup? collaborating as a community of practice in the self-study process, the edd faculty task team worked instinctively as a community of practice (wenger, 1998). wenger (1998) describes this conceptualization as a social learning theory with four main components: meaning, practice, community, and identity (p. 5). as wenger notes, “these elements are deeply interconnected and mutually defining” (p. 5). theorized as a matrix with four quadrants: social learning takes place at the “intersection of [these] intellectual traditions” (p. 12). to emphasize the role of community and interaction, each component’s definition begins with caep standards dslps/ standard/ soe themes cped principles data/ evidence (a) data/evidence (b) review of data/ evidence (a) review of evidence (b) reporting and follow-up (a) reporting and follow-up (b) phillips, geller, & mawritz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 36 “a way of talking” (p. 5). the discussion in this section provides an example of wenger’s model in action, as the task team took an opportunity to: “articulate a familiar phenomenon [the edd program] …to push our intuitions: to deepen and expand them, to examine and rethink them” (p. 7). meaning first, wenger (1998) describes the component of meaning as “a way of talking about our (changing) ability—individually and collectively—to experience our life and the world as meaningful” (p. 5). as the task team began conversation, they were initially equipped only with the soe program assessment planning tool; the first of many challenges associated with the project was making sense of the tool and the task ahead. all three team members began the work with a sense of commitment to the edd program and an expectation that the task could be completed in a couple of meetings. convening the group, the program director (pd), a former human resource development leader, was looking for people who had the needed talent and skills. although the pd had extensive knowledge of the program and its courses, she had little experience with assessment. the faculty member with k-12 experience was deeply familiar with the creation and development of the edd program from its inception in 2009; from this position, he was well prepared to provide details about the program’s leadership courses and the founders’ intent. as a newcomer, the third faculty member perceived her role as one of asking questions about the program, pausing the conversation for reflection, and interjecting assessment ideology. while initially this approach was meant to further her own understanding, the team agreed that the reflection process also contributed to promoting group understanding and deepening the conversation. the original assignment from the soe director of assessment was to complete what appeared to be a very simple form. however, the task team realized at the first meeting that the challenge was complex. in addition to figuring out how to use the form, the team realized they would need to build out the content by connecting the boilerplate information to the edd program mission and the program’s five keystones. eventually, the task team reviewed the inprogress work with the director of assessment to ensure that it met expectations. in fact, the director indicated that the work exceeded expectations. throughout the work, the team pressed themselves to continue the sensemaking process. within and between each round, the team was faced with the same challenge; how to convert the tasks into meaningful chunks of work that would contribute to their understanding—individually and collectively—and would provide the information necessary to form a foundation and structure for program assessment that could eventually be shared with edd advisory committee and the other faculty teaching in the edd program. this task never became easier. the more time and energy the team devoted to the project, the more important it became to the team to view the work as something worthwhile that would improve/enhance the edd program. equally as important, was keeping in mind that eventually this work would be shared with the larger group who would need to engage in their own sensemaking and might very well disagree procedurally and philosophically. the task team identified the problem to be addressed as how to build upon the foundation keystones of the edd program to develop a comprehensive plan of edd program learning outcomes. this approach required the team to consider the edd program as a system. viewing the program as a system was consistent with the program’s use of theory u (scharmer, 2016), which is used as a guiding framework for all four leadership courses in the edd program. viewing the program as a system required the team to shift back and forth between the fundamental beliefs of the faculty who developed the edd program, the team’s mission to operationalize the somewhat abstract program keystones into measurable learning outcomes, and the university’s mission to develop the student’s knowledge base and provide creative application activities. while the team found that the keystones were generally wellaligned with the cped guiding principles, they also discovered that one principle was not clearly visible: social justice. the cped framework indicates that “[the professional doctorate in education] is framed around questions of equity, ethnics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, n.d.a, para. 5). recognizing this alignment gap, the task team reflected often and at length about whether there was a distinct social justice orientation to the program’s edd students’ dissertation topics. this discussion led to a decision to conduct a topical analysis of the edd student dissertations. while discussion of the results of that analysis are beyond the scope of this essay, the development illustrates that faculty recognition of the need for further data collection and analysis grew with each conversation. although this university pulls heavily from students in the midatlantic coast region, it also attracts students from across the united states, including immigrants to this country, and has a growing group of international educators who are attending. the edd student body is well represented across ethnic groups, and many edd students of color—as well as others—focus on problems of practice related to educational issues of underrepresented minorities. other edd students focus on issues related to students in poverty and firstgeneration college students. the task team determined that the cped social justice principle is represented in the edd program and that they needed to make such language explicit in the developing plan. discussion also ensued about whether a sixth keystone should be added that explicitly names social justice; the team decided to table that discussion to future convening with the full edd advisory committee and with other faculty who teach in the edd program. practice second, wenger (1998) describes the component of practice as, “a way of talking about the shared historical and social resources, frameworks, and perspectives that can sustain mutual engagement in action” (p. 5). although the task team members were colleagues, they had never worked together on such a complex project. as will be discussed in this section, the group developed an uncommon set of faculty practices for this work. in an approach fostered by the pd task team leader, all three faculty had an equal voice in the conversations, decisions, and work. except for one occasion, the full team convened for every discussion. this situation, in which two members talked about future steps, led to a critical incident that could have destroyed the group. although the situation was heatedly discussed, there was a positive outcome: an explicit conversation about the group’s norms. naming and discussing the issue actually made the group stronger. program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 37 chief among the now explicit norms was the shared understanding that the group would work collaboratively, honor each other’s contributions respectfully, and allow unlimited “push-back” from any member on any point at any time. this practice caused the development process to extend over six-months and nearly a dozen one and a halfto three-hour meetings. such a time commitment strained the patience of all team members who struggled to accommodate the project into a workload already replete with faculty responsibilities. the process was messy and complex, and demanded that team members engage in sometimes head-banging critical thinking. at any time, a team member could and did return to earlier discussions and versions of the developing plan as new, contradictory, or explanatory thoughts occurred between meetings. “but what about?” queries were commonly raised. these new contributions caused the team to work often in a one-step forward, two-step backwards manner. as team members’ understanding grew with construction of meaning of what the process was intended to yield, prior efforts were perceived differently; some previously rejected ideas were resurrected into fresh insights of what elements the plan should hold. at times, the conversations turned philosophical, as the team pondered whether and how the edd program’s guiding theory, the keystones, could be operationalized. these philosophical debates prompted one person to ask if “we are making this [process] too complicated,” and another to suggest, “we do not want to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, do we?” in reference to a medieval-era argument about focusing on irrelevant details. but, the question of how to decide what was irrelevant was baffling. the team’s process was the opposite of linear, unfolding in a spiral and iterative fashion despite one member’s mounting frustration with delayed closure. only in retrospective analysis could the task team’s work be perceived as having occurred in distinct phases. community third, wenger (1998) describes community as “a way of talking about the social configurations in which our enterprises are defined as worth pursing and our participation is recognizable as competence” (p. 5). as described in this essay, the larger community in which the project is situated can be conceptualized as three concentric circles. at the center is the work conducted by the original task team; the next circle is the membership of the edd advisory committee; and the outer circle is the remaining group of faculty who teach in the edd program. many of those in the latter group teach primarily in the phd program. while this essay focuses on the original task team, the team members were constantly aware that at some point the conversation would need to go forward to the larger groups. this recognition was infused in the task teams’ conversations and strengthened their resolve to produce an outcome that could both stand up to scrutiny and be permeable enough to continue to grow and develop. the team’s process of working as a community occurred as follows. at each meeting, one person would come in with an idea from reflection since the previous meeting. since each person came with different perspective, massive discussion was needed to arrive at a common understanding. the result might be similar or different to the presenting idea, but it would almost certainly have incorporated some aspects of the original idea. the team members at any point could have abandoned the process of meaning making and simply put words on the form, but that did not happen. the team members shared the belief that the task was about improving the edd program. from filling out a form, the process of complex meaning making emerged. the deeper into it the team went, the more they became convinced of its value to the program. this conviction allowed the team to deconstruct the program, identify data and evidence about the program, and consider how to improve the program. in using this approach, the team practiced another idea promoted in the edd leadership courses: leave the dance floor and look at the program from a balcony perspective (heifetz, grashow, & linsky, 2009). in other words, the team needed to step back from their individual faculty work in the program and look at the assessment process from a system’s perspective. to further the goal of developing a meaningful product, the team shared ownership of ideas, and the resulting work exhibited collective meaning. for example, a presentation of the work was accepted for the fall 2017 cped convening; however, one member had a scheduling conflict. the group figured out a way to include the third member by arranging with the conference staff to use zoom. by way of this online video platform, all three task team members conducted the presentation, responded to robust questions and engaged in discussion with the session participants. towards the end of this major stage of work, the team reflected on their collaborative work. all agreed the work probably could have been completed more quickly without the extensive, intense conversations that mattered. however, the team acknowledged that the alternate result would likely have yielded less common agreement and less complexity of thought and may have faced greater resistance when introduced to the larger edd faculty. identity finally, wenger (1998) describes identity as “a way of talking about how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities” (p. 5). by working collaboratively in this community of practice, the team members strengthened their assessment knowledge and skills individually and as a group. from an uncertain starting point, the members confidence in their work grew; early conference presentations led to more presentations and an invitation to author a piece for a national assessment website. from novices, the team began to see themselves as having important information to share with other university faculty. the task team practiced and reviewed their team interaction responsibilities from the start. these responsibilities required that the team’s practice also take consideration of and respect for faculty, staff, and doctoral student life space. lewin’s (1936) term “life space” denotes the totality of all the influences on a person at a given moment in time, both the outer environment and inner personal environment (pp. 73-77). this idea is another concept discussed in the edd leadership courses. thus, recognizing the micro team effort of the task group, as well as the macro team effort regarding the entire faculty, staff, and study body, prevailed throughout the entire planning process. finally, in review of the process for program assessment, it is significant to note that key leadership principles related to inclusion, carefully listening to others, and general collaboration were incorporated. as scharmer (2016) argues, “while management is phillips, geller, & mawritz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 38 about ‘getting things done,’ leadership is about creating and cultivating the larger context—the fertile common ground and soil—in which things can happen.” (p. 72). the task team was problemand edd-student-focused and guided by a systems approach to thinking and action. the task team also endeavored to identify and expound on both formative and summative data/evidence from the existing program for the developing plan. much discussion focused on distinguishing formative data (i.e., mainly course-level) from summative data (i.e., program-level) and whether to propose that data systems of credible evidence be created at the formative and/or the summative level. a recurring discussion was to what extent the developing assessment plan needed to be a “polished” document before seeking wider faculty input and discussion. ultimately, the team agreed that the document language could include planned action steps in addition to incorporating existing data collection and review systems. this decision left the process open to experimentation and discussion with other faculty with the idea that plan refinement (cped, n.d.-a) would occur in continuous improvement cycles. conclusion in sum, this manuscript demonstrates how faculty in a cpedaffiliated edd program responded to external accountability demands by embracing the goal of developing, implementing, and measuring program learning outcomes consistent with cped guiding principles, national caep standards, drexel student learning priorities (dslps), and soe themes. although spurred by external accountability demands, edd program faculty took this opportunity to create the baseline for an edd program assessment plan that can serve as the framework for cycles of continuous program improvement. trying but failing to create a linear working process, the faculty task team kept the edd program’s keystone principles at the center of the emergent assessment work. the team used the keystones throughout their work to create a preliminary edd program learning outcomes document. the document included identifying specific, measurable learning outcomes as data/evidence and accessing or creating systems for regular review of evidence and follow-up actions. to complete this project, the team worked as a community of practice. as is evident from the discussion, the four components of wenger’s (1998) community of practice are threaded within and across the descriptions of each element and its application to the team’s work, thus, demonstrating that “these elements are deeply interconnected and mutually defining” (p. 5). the next step in this process is for the task team to take the preliminary work to the edd advisory committee and subsequently to the full edd faculty for discussion. successful transfer of this process to the wider group is incumbent upon task team members engaging in and fostering a culture and norms aimed toward continuous program improvement. throughout the ongoing, now normalized, continuous program improvement work, the edd task team faculty vowed to keep the cped guiding principles tied tightly to program development and evaluation, to continue to identify and examine graduate outcomes aligned with cped principles, and to maintain the edd program’s focus on innovative design by ensuring that the program will stand up to both internal and external assessment scrutiny. references carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (n.d.-a). about us. retrieved from http://cpedinitiative.site-ym.com/page/aboutus carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (n.d.-b). research and resources. retrieved from http://cpedinitiative.siteym.com/page/researchresources council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep). (n.d.-a). about the caep standards for advanced-level programs. retrieved from http://caepnet.org/standards/standards-advanced-programs council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep). (n.d.-b). history of caep. retrieved from http://caepnet.org/about/history council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep). (n.d.-c). standards for advanced-level programs. retrieved from http://caepnet.org/standards/standards-advanced-programs council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep). (n.d.-d). policy changes: accreditation for advanced programs. retrieved from http://caepnet.org/~/media/files/caep/accreditation/policy-changes-foradvprepprograms.pdf?la=en drexel university (du) (n.d.) about drexel: at a glance. retrieved from http://drexel.edu/about/glance/mission/ drexel university/school of education (du/soe) (n.d.-a) welcome to drexel university school of education: drexel is different. retrieved from http://drexel.edu/soe/ drexel university/school of education (du/soe) (n.d.-b) academics: doctoral degree programs. retrieved from http://drexel.edu/soe/academics/doctoral/ field, k. (2006, september 1). uncertainty greets report on colleges by u.s. panel. the chronicle of higher education, a1. haviland, d. (2014). beyond compliance: using organizational theory to unleash the potential of assessment. community college journal of research and practice, 38, 755-765. heifetz, r. a., linsky, m., & grashow, a. (2009). the practice of adaptive leadership: tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lewin, k. (1936). principles of topological psychology. new york: mcgraw-hill. middle states commission on higher education (msche). (n.d.) the msche defined. retrieved from https://www.msche.org/?nav1=about&nav2=mission perry, j. a., zambo, d., & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations, 36(winter), 58-85. scharmer, c. o. (2016). theory u: leading from the future as it emerges (2nd ed.). oakland, ca: berrett-koehler publishers. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. ny: cambridge university press. program innovation and design in an era of accountability: edd faculty work as a community of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3, no. 2 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.64 39 appendix articulated program learning outcome (plo) for edd keystone 2 program learning outcomes standards: dslps/cped/soe themes data/evidence review of evidence reporting and follow-up keystone 2: leaders develop the habits of mind and competencies to lead complex organizations shaped by global forces. learning outcome: demonstrate mastery for leading systemic change drawing from a range of theoretical frameworks: a. systems thinking b. leadership & adaptive leadership & theory u c. creative problem solving and design thinking d. communication caep 1. content & pedagogical knowledge 2. clinical partnerships & practice 4. program impact 5. provider quality assurance & continuous improvement dslp 1. communication 2. creative & critical thinking 4. information literacy 6. technology use 7. global competence 8. leadership cped 1. ethics/social justice 2. positive difference 3. collaboration/communication 5. theory w/systemic inquiry soe themes soe 1-innovation & creativity soe 2-diversity soe 5-leadership edd students participation/performance as evidenced by the following: a. utilize systems thinking to address leadership standards through knowledge base development and application (educ 800, 845, 801, 802) • leadership: individual and team projects • theory u projects b. identify & develop leadership style (educ 800, 845, 801) • academic papers & team projects • technology tools c. creative problem solving & design thinking (educ 800, 804, 845, 801, 802, 803, 810, 818) • utilize leadership and research to design dissertation d. effective communication principles (educ 800, 845, 801, 802, 802) • academic papers & team projects • discussion boards & voice threads e. summative evidence includes the following: i. comprehensive ii. citi iii. dissertation proposal iv. final dissertation create an e-portfolio of student academic and professional accomplishments (e.g., writing assignments, sample discussion boards, team projects, course activities, irb approval letter, soe/gs funding letters, juried conference presentations, community presentations, juried publications, etc. ) comprehensive examination rubric – leadership; action oriented research and evaluation; keystones, writing and apa as scored independently by two professors with a rating of 2.0 (scale 0 – 3) or higher on all categories citi certification: create a central repository for citi certifications (obtained during educ 810) dissertation proposal defense committee approval (forms d-2 & d-2a) dissertation final defense (forms d – 3 to d5) dissertation approval form completion form proposed create a review process for the e-portfolio. semi-annual report (fall/spring) comprehensive examination outcomes by program director program manager provides annual listing of citi certifications for active students work with hrpp to create irb approvals annual report for edd research create (from d2) annual report by quarter on doctoral proposal create (from d5s) annual report by quarter on doctoral defenses approved impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 44 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.283 improving social belonging to increase success in an online doctorate program jim rost middle tennessee state university jim.rost@mtsu.edu kevin krahenbuhl middle tennessee state university kevin.krahenbuhl@mtsu.edu abstract institutions of higher education have long been plagued with difficulty in overcoming the high rates of incompletion of candidates who enroll in doctoral programs. as we continue to move through the post-pandemic era, online course delivery in doctoral programs continues to rise which brings an added layer of difficulty for edd students to persist beyond their required coursework in the online environment (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019). as a result, it is incumbent upon online edd program directors and faculty to not only identify barriers to online doctoral student success, but to also find solutions. in summer of 2020, a regional state university in the southeast accepted its inaugural class of doctoral students into a new higher education concentration of their existing on-ground k-12 edd program. during the past few years between the program’s original design and inception, faculty have been examining factors related to doctoral student belongingness, from initial coursework through dissertation completion. moreover, in 2021, the institution was fortunate to be admitted into the carnegie program on the education doctorate (cped) consortium and as a result, has worked to adopt the cped framework for edd program design and application. it is through this new lens that the faculty at this institution have identified some lessons to share in pursuit of high rates of success while maintaining a demand of excellence in their work. therefore, the purpose of this article is to use the newly designed higher education edd program as a baseline case study towards improved online program student success. keywords online edd programs, student success, belongingness, imposter syndrome over the course of the past decade, we have seen a steady growth in doctoral program participation, and to a large degree, success in producing doctorates in education. for example, between 2009 and 2019 the total number of conferred doctoral degrees increased by 18 percent (national center for education statistics (nces), 2022). this is, in part, driven by the rise of online programs which provides a more attractive access point, but also creates another layer of difficulty for degree completion (rockinson-szapkiw, 2010). as a result, in online learning environments, candidate completion has widely been noted as being significantly lower, as much as 20 percent lower, than their traditional classroom counterparts (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019). moreover, based on previous research done in this area, this is especially true at the dissertation phase where students are even less likely to persist (provident et al., 2015; rockinson-szapkiw, 2010; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2019). as the number of online doctoral programs continue to rise, it is imperative that institutions, departments, and programs shift the traditional paradigm to meet the unique needs of these students (provident et al., 2015). in the spirit of shulman et al. (2006), “these challenges can be met only by courageous new designs, experimentation, and evaluation” (p. 30). therefore, the challenge for online edd program directors and faculty is to assess and evaluate the unique needs of online learners as an impetus to develop a better understanding of the barriers for online doctoral student success. as such, the overall premise of this article is that if we, as online edd faculty and program coordinators, are to meet the challenge of program evolution set forth by shulman et al. (2006), then we must begin with courageous new ideas and designs that will continually shift the paradigm of online edd programs towards an improved student experience (holt, 2020) and student success. based on this premise, the authors sought to examine potential barriers as well as conduits to online doctoral student success through the constructs of student belongingness and imposter syndrome, and the personal, social, and programmatic factors that contribute to them. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1209-3550 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6759-2931 social belonging to increase success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.283 45 online doctoral student belongingness as illustrated in figure 1, the authors chose to investigate the outcomes for online doctoral student success through the construct of student belonging as a positive outcome and imposter syndrome as a potential negative outcome. according to glass and westmont (2014) student belongingness is categorized as “students’ sense of connection with their college, degree of social support, and experience of both academic challenge and support” (p. 108). studies have shown positive associations between feelings of a strong sense of belongingness and connectedness with peers and increased engagement, academic success, and the overall learning experience among graduate students (chung & mckenzie, 2020; dolan et al., 2017; stallman, 2010). as related to online doctoral students in particular, creating this sense of connection is arguably the most difficult aspect of the classroom environment for online educators (johnson, 2015). chung and mckenzie (2020) contend that although the creation of a fully equivalent academic experience has been at the forefront of modern online course offerings, we cannot say the same for the other factors related to the broad and socially available experience of the traditional classroom. therefore, it is recommended that online educators examine and maximize the factors related to an online environment that promote student-tostudent and student-to-faculty interaction to facilitate a sense of connectedness and belongingness in an otherwise disconnected platform (bianchini, 2022). figure 1. factors associated with student belongingness online doctoral student imposter syndrome as online programs offer courses in an exclusively asynchronous delivery system, oftentimes students may feel a lack of connectedness, support, and identity while matriculating through what they perceive as a difficult intellectual and academic endeavor. one could argue that this lack of belongingness could further manifest itself into a feeling of imposter syndrome where students may feel so isolated or unsupported, they perceive that they are not worthy and don’t belong at this level of education altogether. imposter syndrome has been defined in the literature as “describing high-achieving individuals who, despite their objective successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud or imposter” (brevata et al., 2020, p. 1252). given the academic dedication required for pursuing a terminal degree, it is easy to hypothesize that a relationship exists between doctoral students and the high achievers, mentioned in the definition above, who may have little difficulty completing their coursework, but perceive the dissertation as an insurmountable task. this may be particularly more likely if these high-achievers are left in isolation, or even have the perception of not being supported. this perception could easily progress into self-doubt and/or negative selfefficacy towards completing a daunting task such as a doctoral dissertation (feenstra et al., 2020). societal factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic background have also been shown to put certain students at even a higher risk of negative selfefficacy towards successful program completion (cokley et al., 2017). students in these specific demographics have a higher probability for self-doubt and imposter syndrome due to the socialization and programmatic limitations an exclusively online doctoral program (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2019). further, these limitations are a byproduct of an individualistic approach that is inherent to an asynchronous learning environment (provident et al., 2015). personal factors as the literature suggests that the probability of imposter syndrome increases as student belongingness decreases, the authors sought to examine personal factors that may have a negative effect on student sense of belongingness. as such, several personal factors have been shown to exacerbate feelings of isolation in the online environment as related to gender, marital status, and race/ethnicity (spaulding et al., 2012). these factors, or barriers, have been shown to be noteworthy contributors of student attrition in online doctoral programs. this is perhaps unsurprising in light of the fact that, as online students, it may be difficult to actually feel that sense of belonging. gender, race, and ethnicity gender has been found to be a contributing factor to whether or not students perceive a feeling of belongingness in their doctoral program. moreover, there also appears to be an interaction or intersection among student gender and race and ethnicity. results of several studies in this area which suggest that students of color are more likely to feel a sense of isolation or not fitting in than their white peers (castello et al., 2017; gay, 2004; gonzález, 2006; rovai, 2003). rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2019) found in their study of doctoral student belongingness that white male students reported significantly higher integration or belongingness scores than their female or underrepresented peer groups. they also go on to add “while women may be the majority in online programs, women and racial and ethnic minorities may experience difficulty integrating into the male-dominant and white social structures that dominate the online higher education environment” (p. 323). more specifically related to gender in an online environment, researchers have also determined that female students continue to feel a diminished sense of a belonging on average than their male counterparts (gardener, 2013; sallee, 2011; schmidt & hansson, 2018). based on the results of these studies, edd faculty and program directors may need to consider the intersection of gender and race and ethnicity as relevant rost & krahenbuhl impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.283 46 and important factors when considering doctoral student socialization and program effectiveness. marital status marital status among doctoral students has also been shown to be a significant factor in doctoral student socialization and belongingness. according to the findings of van de shoot et al. (2013), marital status, particularly among female doctoral students, and married students with children under the age of 18, are more likely to be delayed in completing their program than those who were not and were more likely to feel a sense of isolation from their nonmarried peers. on the other hand, rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2014) found that spouses, children, and other family members could also serve as positive motivation for doctoral student program completion. however, cochran et al. (2013) found that while positive motivation was provided by family members, many doctoral students who served in the role of parent or primary caregiver found it more difficult to manage the time demands associated with family obligations and their scholarly pursuits. as the authors have ascertained that the majority of students in the online edd program discussed in this article are considered adult learners (above the age of 25), working professionals, and parents, this demographic is of particular import in the pursuit of continuous improvement. socialization factors unlike in a traditional classroom environment, students may find it challenging to connect with peers in asynchronous online programs. this type of delivery also makes the interaction and the mentoring of doctoral students more difficult for faculty. according to bagaka’s et al. (2015), the doctoral student/faculty mentorship dynamic is an essential component to the doctoral program experience in and of itself. for example, as many edd programs are designed to develop the practitioner in action research and advance their professional goals, many graduates of these programs will remain or return to higher education to be active in research, instruction, and innovation as future leaders in the higher education community. as such, experienced faculty mentorship for these individuals is essential to their development as future faculty (cho et al., 2011). for the purpose of this article, edd faculty-student mentorship can be defined as a method of socialization used within doctoral programs which involves teaching, coaching, and giving professional guidance (dobie et al., 2010). the primary factor that is difficult to address or replicate in an online asynchronous environment is the age-old tradition of doctoral residency. results of a study conducted by kennedy et al. (2015) found that in a limited or non-existent residency program, students were less likely to feel involved, supported, or prepared to successfully complete or persist in their doctoral program. these results are consistent with brevata et al. (2020), who found that student perceptions of isolation or exclusion from faculty and peers was the primary antecedent towards imposter syndrome. as the results of these studies indicate, the faculty-student connection can be an important factor in determining a student’s sense of belonging in their program of study. therefore, the development of program structure and course design should take into consideration what has been lost with regards to the faculty-student connection in the electronic-education age. programmatic innovation and experimentation in summer of 2020, a regional state institution in the southeast accepted its inaugural class of doctoral students into a new higher education concentration of their existing edd program. this new concentration shares the same research and methodology courses as the traditional face-to-face k-12 program in existence for over 10 years, but all courses are offered and taught exclusively online in the higher education concentration. this new concentration was created at the behest of the university president to provide an online option for higher education professionals. during the past few years between the online program’s original design and inception, faculty have been seeking to answer the questions related to online doctoral student attrition, especially at the dissertation or abd phase based on the current data (nces, 2022) and previous research done in this area (provident et al., 2015; rockinson-szapkiw, 2010; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2019). moreover, in 2021 the institution was fortunate to be admitted into the cped consortium and as a result, has worked to adopt the cped framework for edd program design and application. it is through this new lens that faculty have identified some lessons to share in pursuit of high rates of success while maintaining a demand of excellence in their work. therefore, the purpose of this article is to use the newly designed higher education edd program as a baseline case study to examine improved online program student success under the following constructs: synchronous interaction, dissertation planning and mentorship, and the capstone research course. synchronous interaction as attrition rates for online doctoral students continue to increase, the edd faculty purposefully examined the components of several traditional, hybrid, and online edd programs prior to, and during, the development of the program. as a result, the online program utilizes the following three-pronged dissertation preparation approach: 1) monthly zoom meetings focused on relevant issues, including foci on problems of practice in contexts, 2) coursework tasks and projects being explicitly encouraged to steer towards emerging dissertation topic(s), and 3) integration of research seminars tailored to meet the needs of these students – research seminar i (overview of dissertation), research seminar ii (action research, problems of practice), research seminar iii (literature as foundation of the dissertation), all preceding the capstone (putting the pieces together and refining them). moreover, as the last and often most challenging hurdle of the doctoral program is completing the dissertation (rockinson-szapkiw, 2010), the faculty specifically zeroed in on the dissertation preparation process. as a byproduct of this investigation, the team identified three strong socialization factors that may be improved through programmatic and instructional strategies intended to promote more robust synchronous student and faculty interaction in an otherwise asynchronous world. the first of these focused on course design and development. specifically, this included the purposeful designing of learning experiences that promote group interaction and collegiality. in order to accomplish this, faculty worked with instructional technology design team members to create a uniform template to utilize in online coursework so that socialization was integrated into the fabric of each course in the program. this meant carefully designing both discussion and project work which not only social belonging to increase success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.283 47 encourages, but demands student socialization to facilitate successful completion of learning outcomes. the second strategy involves direct individualized faculty-tostudent mentoring where students receive immediate and relevant feedback to course objectives as well as a sandwich approach to task mastery and correction. the third strategy involves monthly synchronous zoom program meetings where students, faculty, advisors, and others could connect consistently, provide important just-in-time updates, provide a connection to university support services, and opportunity to engage with one another on the journey towards success. some examples of talking points and presentations in these meetings include: overall program philosophy, student goals and expectations, general advising and matriculation information, equity, inclusion, and diversity initiatives, shared experiences from students in the research capstone or dissertation phase of the program, and informational presentations by the university research librarian, director of the writing center, graduate studies analysts, and mental health counselors. in addition, faculty conduct one-on-one zoom dissertation mentoring sessions for students in the topic development phase all the way through to the capstone phase. these real-time opportunities to interact informally also provide meaningful chances to display what they learn and what they are thinking about through talking with their faculty and one another. dissertation planning and mentorship the online edd program was designed with the limitations of the online environment in mind. therefore, for the online concentration in particular, dissertation planning and mentorship is directly embedded into each of the required doctoral courses, and not only utilizes the socialization strategies mentioned previously, but also requires students to practice dissertation fundamentals such as annotated bibliographies, baseline methodological analyses, and extensive research-based and supported critical analysis as foundational components in each required doctoral course. as the higher education doctorate is directed to professionals in the field of higher education, these dissertation preparation strategies are primarily focused on action research topics congruent with not only prior coursework, but current problems faced by professionals in the field. this not only allows the program to accomplish its mission towards action research, but also provides graduates practical applied research to not only further knowledge in the field, but their career aspirations as well. capstone research course the crown-jewel to this approach is the capstone research course which is taken as the final course in the program prior to enrolling in dissertation hours. these courses are offered with emphases in either quantitative or qualitative design and is required for all edd students as the final course of their program and leads directly to the dissertation proposal. the higher education faculty developed and designed these courses specifically for the online concentration to not only encapsulate all of the material learned in previous courses, but specifically to provide students with clear and concise instructions on how to successfully complete each section of their dissertation proposal. furthermore, students are given individual attention and feedback by the instructor each week starting with their creation of the problem statement and research questions, all the way through proposing their methodology and data collection by the end of the course. the advanced quantitative research course is comprised of unit assignments, where for example, the student must turn in their problem statement and statement of purpose for unit 2 in week two of the course. not only are students specifically guided through the proper way to execute the task through lecture and text instruction, but also receive specific feedback and revision comments the day after their submission is received in the online platform. students must also complete two mini projects in units 11 and 12 where they will turn in a cumulative rough draft of dissertation chapters 1 and 2, and chapter 3 respectively. while they matriculate through the course, students take the revised work and coordinate with their chair through one-on-one zoom dissertation meetings, thus providing one full semester of multi-layered, structured, and iterative feedback on their dissertation that can help them anticipate future questions about their work. the course culminates in the unit 13 final project where a final, proposal-ready draft, is submitted for final revision and evaluation. therefore, upon successful completion of the capstone course, not only are these students prepared to successfully propose their dissertation, but they also have developed a positive cognitive appraisal that they are going to make it as they have already passed the mid-way point of successfully completing the first three chapters of their dissertation! discussion helping shift online graduate students towards a sense of belonging is something that can make a notable difference in their experience and in their ultimate success. the online edd higher education concentration at this regional state institution has had early successes as of this writing with the first graduates in fall 2021 and summer 2022, six additional successful dissertation proposals in 2022, with eight of the first eight students successfully completing the quantitative capstone course, for a small-sample size success rate of 100% thus far. this format has also allowed faculty to successfully navigate challenges with one of our early students who needed extensive formative feedback and an extended opportunity to complete his proposal. as the edd faculty continue on this journey, they will continue to assess means through which the integration and inculcation of personal, social, and programmatic actions that will improve the experience for everyone. in this regard, the faculty are consistently seeking to improve in its efforts to guide students towards success and will be exploring self-efficacy of students within the program while simultaneously engaging in collective building of shared knowledge about our students, our program, and our desire to become the most effective learning program we can. future research future opportunities for empirical research in this area abound as mentioned by bagaka’s et al. (2015), dobie et al. (2010), and rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2019), where an integration of socialization and programmatic factors may be further examined as significant antecedents for online edd student success or attrition and specifically, how faculty can continue to foster an online environment towards student connectedness and belongingness. as of this writing, the authors are embarking on an extensive research project where we will examine the question: what effect does successfully completing the dissertation capstone course have on student self-efficacy towards successful dissertation completion? the purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of the new rost & krahenbuhl impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.283 48 application of a capstone model of doctoral-level advanced research courses on the self-efficacy towards dissertation completion among students in the newly designed higher education online edd program. the potential benefits to future online doctoral program design and online edd student success that may result from this study include: a) identifying cognitive-behavioral traits towards doctoral-level academic rigor, b) evaluation of a novel approach to dissertation preparation, and c) if this novel approach significantly improves doctoral student self-efficacy towards dissertation completion. it is our hope that this study will be the first of many. as per others in the cped community, we are always striving for continuous improvement to support student success. moreover, the results of these studies will provide empirical evidence of how personal, socialization, and programmatic factors influence student belongingness and success, and these factors can be modified to increase student perception of belongingness and reduce the probability of becoming imposters. references bagaka’s, j. g., badillo, n., bransteter, i., & rispinto, s. 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(2020). is it time to create a hierarchy of online student needs?.in s. mckenzie, f. garivaldis, & k. r. dyer (eds.) tertiary online teaching and learning. (pp. 207–215). springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8928-7_19 cochran, j. d., campbell, s. m., baker, h. m., & leeds, e. m. (2014). the role of student characteristics in predicting retention in online courses. research in higher education, 55, 27–48. cokley, k., smith, l., bernard, d., hurst, a., jackson, s., stone, s., awosogba, o., saucer, c., bailey, m., & roberts, d. (2017). impostor feelings as a moderator and mediator of the relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health among racial/ethnic minority college students. journal of counseling psychology, 64(2), 141– 154. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000198 dobie, s., smith, s., & robins, l. (2010). how assigned faculty members view their mentoring relationships: an interview study of mentors in medical education. mentoring & tutoring: partnerships in learning, 18, 4. dolan, j., kain, k., reilly, j., & bansal, g. (2017). how do you build community and foster engagement in online courses? new directions for teaching and learning 2017, (151), 45–60. feenstra, s., begeny, c. t., ryan, m. k., rink, f. l., stoker, j. i., & jordan, j. (2020). contextualizing the imposter “syndrome”, frontiers in psychology, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575024/full gardener, s. k. (2013). women faculty departures from a striving institution: between a rock and a hard place. review of higher education, 36, 349– 370. gay, g. (2004). navigating marginality en route to the professoriate: graduate students of color learning and living in academia. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 17(2), 265–288. glass, c. r., & westmont, c. m. (2014). comparative effects of belongingness on the academic success and cross-cultural interactions of domestic and international students. international journal of intercultural relations, 38: 106–119. http://sites.bxmc.poly.edu/~chengyangyin/thesis/wpcontent/uploads/2015/03/1-s2.0-s0147176713000564-main.pdf gonzález, j. c. (2006). academic socialization experiences of latina doctoral students: a qualitative understanding of support systems that aid and challenges that hinder the process. journal of hispanic higher education, 5(4), 347–365. holt, d. (september-october,2020). cultural innovation: the secret to building breakthrough businesses. harvard business review. https://hbr.org/2020/09/cultural-innovation johnson, g. m. (2015). on-campus and fully-online university students: comparing demographics, digital technology use and learning characteristics. journal of university teaching & learning practice, 12(1), 4. https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol12/iss1/4. kennedy, d. h., terrell, s. r., & lohle, m. (2015). a grounded theory of persistence in a limited residency doctoral program. the qualitative report, 20(3), 215–230. national center for educational statistics. (2022). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/ctb provident, i. m, salls, j., dolhi, c., jodi, s., mattila, a., & eckel, e. (2015). design of an online curriculum promoting transformative learning in post professional doctoral students. online learning journal, 19(3), 1–16. rockinson-szapkiw, a. j. (2011). improving doctoral candidates’ persistence in the online dissertation process. faculty publications and presentations. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/educ_fac_pubs/184 rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., holmes, j., & stephen, j. s. (2019). identifying significant personal and program factors that predict online edd students’ program integration. online learning, 23(4), 313–335. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1237795.pdf rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., spaulding, l. s., swezey, j. a., & wicks, c. (2014). poverty and persistence: a model for understanding individuals’ pursuit and persistence in a doctor of education program. international journal of doctoral studies, 9, 181–190. rovai, a. p. (2003). in search of higher persistence rates in distance education online programs. internet and higher education, 6, 1–16. sallee, m. a. (2011). performing masculinity: considering gender in doctoral student socialization, the journal of higher education, 82(2), 187–216. schmidt, m., & hasson, e. (2018). doctoral students’ well-being: a literature review. international journal of qualitative studies on health and wellbeing, 13(1). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482631.2018.1508171 shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 spaulding, l. s., & rockinson-szapkiw, a. j. (2012). hearing their voices: factors doctoral candidates attribute to their persistence. international journal of doctoral studies, 7, 199–219. stallman, h. m. (2010). psychological distress in university students: a comparison with general population data. australian psychologist, 45(4), 249–257. https://doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2010.482109 van de schoot, r., yerkes, m. a., mouw, j. m., & sonneveld, h. (2013). what took them so long? explaining phd delays among doctoral candidates. plos one, 8(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068839 https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/8635 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8928-7_19 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575024/full http://sites.bxmc.poly.edu/~chengyangyin/thesis/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/1-s2.0-s0147176713000564-main.pdf http://sites.bxmc.poly.edu/~chengyangyin/thesis/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/1-s2.0-s0147176713000564-main.pdf https://hbr.org/2020/09/cultural-innovation https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol12/iss1/4 https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/ctb https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/educ_fac_pubs/184 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482631.2018.1508171 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 41 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.272 examining the dissertation in practice relative to responsible conduct of research: alignment or mismatch? carla j. thompson university of west florida cthompson1@uwf.edu abstract this essay focuses on the components and uses of the dissertation in practice (dip) relative to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and the alignment of the dip description and process to the u. s. office of research integrity responsible conduct of research (rcr) conditions and requirements. the essay provides a cursory view of the multiple uses of applied research, a common framing of the dip, and the essay examines the purpose and components of the dip relative to the specific rcr criteria and specifications. information provided explores the alignment of the dip to rcr through discussions of the commonalities and diverse characteristics of the dip and rcr to discern if these two important considerations regarding the framing of the education doctorate are a mismatch or an alignment. the potential for aligning the dip with rcr may contribute substantially to propelling the dip to the highest standard for inclusion within the listing of scholarly research. keywords cped dissertation in practice (dip), office of research integrity (ori), responsible conduct of research (rcr) purpose the responsible conduct of research (rcr) is defined by the u. s. office of research integrity (ori) within various perspectives and illustrated by specific examples. determining if the focused approach of the dissertation in practice (dip) aligns or does not align with the specified requirements for meeting both carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and rcr definitions, purposes, and uses may provide insight into the level of rigor and responsible conduct of research alignment of the dip. this essay includes the following posited areas of focus: (a) an exploration of the background and description of the dip, (b) a discussion of the cped perspective of the dip with examples of the components required by cped to develop and deliver a dip, (c) exploration of the definition and description of rcr as posited by the regulations determined by the ori under the auspices of the u. s. department of health and human services, (d) a full examination of the interrelationships of the dip and rcr conceptual components to discern the degree of corresponding concepts and principles, and (e) an examination of these concepts and principles to determine whether there is an alignment or a mismatch using information and criteria established by the public health service research integrity activities on behalf of the secretary of health and human services. background and description of the cped dissertation in practice (dip) the cped was established in 2007 as a collection of 100 colleges and schools of education within the united states and canada focused on differentiating the doctor of education degree (edd) from the doctor of philosophy (phd) degree, particularly regarding the type of dissertation, purpose, and process pertinent to the edd degree. the education doctorate has been described as the “scholarly practitioner” (perry, 2015, p. 23). additionally, the scholarly practitioner is prepared as a professional: “to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (schulman, 2005, p. 52). the edd degree has been defined as follows: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.” (cped, 2022, para. 1). these descriptors provide a sound reflection of the high quality and detailed alignment of the concepts, convictions, and contingencies of the professional doctorate in education (edd), thereby promoting excellence in education for the highest level of degree attainment within the field of education. the dip is defined within the framework of the cped as follows: “the dissertation in practice is a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (cped, 2022, para. 2). a complex problem of practice is defined as “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, 2022, para. 2). an examination of these two definitions endorsed by the cped reveals a strong reliance on the following characteristics of rigor and responsibility inherent within the guidelines posited by cped and summarized as follows: (a) equity and justice, (b) mutual respect, (c) supportive and safe learning environment, (d) rigorous practices, and (e) shared sense of responsibility and accountability https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9981-2396 thompson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.272 42 (cped, 2022). these cped descriptors align accordingly with shamoo and resnik’s (2009) twelve principles of ethical/responsible conduct in research as follows: (1) honesty, (2) objectivity, (3) openness, (4) confidentiality, (5) carefulness, (6) respect for colleagues, (7) respect for intellectual property, (8) respect for the law, (9) respect for research subjects, (10) stewardship, (11) social responsibility, and (12) freedom. thus, the cped descriptors align with the rcr principles and provide a synergistic partnership. background and description of the office of research integrity the ori annual report for the fiscal year 2021 includes multiple areas of focus of this important office within the u.s. department of health and human services. the areas pertaining to the ori include the following: (a) investigative oversight, (b) communication with stakeholders, (c) intramural projects, (d) ori’s grant programs; and (e) ori’s compliance programs. ori’s division of education and integrity serves as a solid resource for educational researchers. some of the multiple functions of the ori include the following services to assist in responding to allegations of research misconduct as represented in the 2021 ori annual report (a) review of institutional research misconduct proceedings, (b) perform whistleblower and retaliation issues, and (c) assist in whistleblower and retaliation issues (office of the assistant secretary for health, 2021). proposed conceptual argument the prior examination of the properties and characteristics of the cped dissertation in practice (dip) and the detailed description of the office of research integrity definition of rcr and related functions of the ori serve to posit the following commonalities and differences: (a) the cped dip is a program determined by a national organization within the united states, comprised of higher education institutions, substantiated cped. (b) the ori rcr is a program determined by the office of research integrity, a federal office within the united states department of health and human services, comprised of the division of education and integrity and the division of investigative oversight. an overview of the proposed conceptual discussion related to the dip and rcr is provided in figure 1. overview of the proposed dip and rcr conceptual argument dip rcr commonalities of dip & rcr united states national program underwritten by cped is the authority on the dip. united states federal program underwritten by the oriis the authority on rcr. both dip and rcr are programs targeted and underwritten by national programs of integrity. cped institutions across the united states are dedicated to the prevention of research misconduct and the promotion of responsible conduct of research, especially aligned with the processes within the dip. ori is focused on the prevention of research misconduct and the promotion of rcr. both dip and rcr are programs dedicated to the prevention of research misconduct and the promotion of responsible conduct of research. cped institutions across the united states are focused on implementing activities and programs to teach research integrity, especially aligned with the development and implementation of the dip. ori is dedicated to the implementation of programs to teach and responsibly implement the rcr. both dip and rcr are programs focused on implementing and promoting research integrity. cped institutions across the united states are charged to deliver various types of dips such as policy analyses, program evaluations, and applied research studies requiring intensive scrutiny to ensure the highest level of responsible conduct of research. ori is committed to assisting all types of institutions across the united states in protecting the rigor and responsibility of the researcher to adhere to intense scrutiny to ensure the highest level of responsible conduct of research both the dip and rcr are programs devoted to the rigor and intense scrutiny of the research by the researcher to ensure the highest level of responsible conduct of research. implications for research specific implications of the proposed conceptual argument associated with the dip and rcr are examined in this section relative to the overriding question posited within this essay, i.e., is the dip and the rcr in alignment conceptually and in practice or is the dip and the rcr mismatched conceptually and in practice? information presented from the literature as represented in figure 1 indicates a strong alignment between the dip and rcr, both conceptually and practically. information provided in figure 1 provides specific discussions of the commonalities and characteristics of the dip and rcr. four areas of focused discussions provided in figure 1 offer credence to the alignment and interactive qualities of the dip and rcr as follows: (1) the dip and rcr are programs targeted and underwritten by national programs of integrity, (2) the dip and rcr are programs dedicated to the prevention of research misconduct and the promotion of responsible conduct of research, (3) the dip and rcr are programs focused on implementing and promoting research integrity, and (4) the dip and rcr are programs devoted to the rigor and intense scrutiny of the research by the researcher to ensure the highest level of responsible conduct of research. to discern if these two important considerations (the dip and rcr) regarding the framing of the education doctorate are a mismatch or specifically aligned qualities for propelling the dip to the highest standard for inclusion within the listing of scholarly research, an examination of the education doctorate as posited by cped is a major consideration for discussion as follows: (a) the cped has defined and developed a substantive higher education program of study represented by the doctor of education degree (edd) with practitioner research findings presented to the world through the dip (cped, 2022), (b) the ori rcr is a program office directed by a national organization within the united states, the office of research integrity, comprised of multiple research purposes aimed at national organizations and dedicated to examining research efforts across the us to "support programs that enhance education in the responsible conduct of research" (steneck, 2007, p. v) at all levels of government, education, private enterprise, and medical research, (c) the cped dip and the ori rcr involve national programs focused on being accountable and trustworthy relative to the research process, (d) the cped dip and the ori rcr national programs focus on reporting dip and rcr: alignment or mismatch impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.272 43 procedures that are "honest and objective" (steneck, 2007, p. 3), (e) the dip and rcr provide verifiable actions and results, (f) the dip and rcr reflect steadfast procedures reflective of "ethical decision making" (shamoo & resnick, 2009, p. 29), (g) the dip and rcr advocate for responsible conduct by researchers "that bind all researchers together" (steneck, 2007, p. 163), and (h) the dip and rcr rigorously adhere to the perspectives related to the overriding question posited by this essay, to discern if these two important considerations (dip and rcr) are a mismatch or an alignment. a cursory review of the two concepts and their degree of alignment or mismatch as posited in figure 1. dip and rcr properties reveal a solid alignment of the two concepts and an alignment to the propagation of responsible conduct within the research process, especially directed within the field of educational research applications. this examination of the dip aligned with the guidelines advocated by the ori is also implied within the work of sieber and tolich (2013) in their appeal to researchers regarding the need for "protecting the vulnerable" (p. 11) and their reminder to researchers of the importance of "beneficence-that researchers should maximize good outcomes while avoiding unnecessary risk, harm, or wrong" (p. 35). amdur and bankert (2011) pointed out the potential for bias due to a researcher's conflict of interest “violates the principle of beneficence because it means that risks to subjects are not minimized” (p. 25). in summary, this essay examined the cped dip and the ori rcr to discern if these two important national organizations considerations regarding the framing of the education doctorate by cped are a mismatch or an alignment to propel the dip to the highest standard for inclusion within the listing of scholarly research, the rcr. the following response is provided to complete the assessment of the dip and rcr question posited for discussion within this essay as follows: to determine whether there is an alignment or a mismatch of cped’s dip and the ori rcr. the final decision is alignment supported by two major drivers: (1) the multiple aligned characteristics of the dip and its adherence to the rcr and (2) the overriding national organizations responsible for governing the dip and rcr, cped and ori. this aligned two-fold partnership is dedicated to producing high quality research and rigor and enforcing the highest standards for scholarly research. implications of the alignment of the dip, driven and monitored by cped within the specific rcr guidelines, driven and monitored by the ori, provide a sound foundation for the emerging dip, and may lend credence to new types of practitioner research efforts across the united states. the dip may potentially become the practitioner's most popular response to the rcr in the future with the potential to propel the dip to the highest standard for inclusion within the listing of various types of scholarly research. the high quality and strong connections of the dip and rcr (both conceptually and empirically) provide conclusive evidence of the strong alignment of the dip and rcr. references amdur, r., & bankert, e. a. (2011). institutional review board, member handbook. (3rd ed.). jones and bartlett publishers. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2022). cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org office of the assistant secretary for health. (2021). agency financial report: fiscal year 2021. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2021-hhsagency-financial-report.pdf perry, j. a. (2015). the ed.d. and scholarly practitioners. school administrator, 72(3), 20–25. sieber, j. e., & tolich, m. b. (2013). planning ethically responsible research. sage. shamoo, a. e., & resnik, d. b. (2009). responsible conduct of research. (2nd ed.). oxford university press. steneck, n. h. (2007). ori introduction to the responsible conduct of research. u.s. government printing office. document4 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.79 adapted from the october 2017 convening opening address: cped beyond 10 years jill alexa perry, phd school of education university of pittsburgh jperry@pitt.edu the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) theme for the october 2017 convening, hosted by california state university east bay and san jose state university, was creating new futures: thinking differently to build a better world. this theme presented the consortium with the opportunity to consider better ways to: • relate to each other, • emphasize our connective work, • collaborate in meaningful ways, • celebrate our creative differences, and • serve as role models for our edd students. this opportunity, to me, the executive director of cped, is a vision for moving our unique organization forward into its next 10 years. i stress unique because cped is unlike any of our other professional organizations. we have been built on a foundation of collaboration and shared vision. more than just an intellectual exercise, cped has become the first action-oriented effort aimed at producing definitions and frameworks for changing the meaning and design of the education doctorate (edd). our faculty members have led the ambitious cped agenda at a grassroots level, allowing the design process to evolve at the local level and shared learning to take place at the national level. at the national level, we convene twice a year to engage in discussions and sharing of ideas about our program designs and the purpose and appearance of professional practitioner preparation in education. these discussions are shaped by the basic questions— what are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that professionals working in education should demonstrably have? and how do we prepare them to have these? at the local level, ideas generated at convenings are brought back to each institution and implemented as change/improvement efforts. over time, members bring back to the consortium what they have learned from testing cped innovations. it is from this process of experimentation and sharing that the consortium developed and continues to evaluate the cped framework (see table 1) across more than 100 members. this process has led to many accomplishments at our growing number of member institutions over the past 10 years. as cped moves into its next decade, the organization must consider the two inspirational talks from our june 2017 celebration. one from dr. lee shulman, the president emeritus of the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, who is affectionately known as the grandfather of cped. the other from dr. ash vashudeva (see vol 2, no 1 issue of impacting education), vice president of strategic initiatives at the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. first, dr. shulman told us how cped came to be—how our original 25-member institutions and their faculty contemplated their differences as they considered professional preparation that aligned with other professions and demonstrated the tenets of a profession. he called us a community of innovators and challenged us to treat our own work of redesigning our education doctorate programs as “an active site for investigation.” he stressed the need to gather all types of evidence—numbers, narratives, etc.—of the work we are doing. he urged us to make it public via our journal or others, to invite critique from colleagues within and outside of cped and to act on that critique so that we, as faculty, will continue to improve our programs and our own practice as educators. in short, he pointed out that cped is a networked improvement community. next, dr. ash vashudeva asked the attending member of the convening if “cped’s existing strategies, approaches and structures are sufficient to achieve the goals we have for the organization and for our individual campuses over the next decade? is what got you here today enough to get you where we want to go tomorrow?” (vashudeva, 2017, p. 2) to help answer that question, he reminded us of two issued raised by judge (1982): 1. our tendency as schools of education to emulate traditional forms of academic research and scholarship; and 2. our tendency to less-than adequately address the pressing needs of practitioners in schools and school systems – particularly those related to equitable opportunities and outcomes. in doing so, he cautioned us to consider the impact of our work in redesigning edd programs. we cannot emulate what we know and dress it up in new packaging. instead, we must become faculty leaders (perry, 2014) who change the way practice in doctoral education is performed. he noted, cped is a community of academic practitioners learning to improve our own practice of designing impactful edd programs and offered improvement science as a means to document our improvement efforts. cped beyond 10 years impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.79 2 what i took away from these two talks is the imperative to document the work of cped. we must learn from our program designs and the impact they have on graduates and their practice. we must share and teach others about best practices. and we must continue to be innovative and to improve the edd. what got us here was a combination of courageous faculty who wanted to change the way things had been done and institutional support from deans. our early members came together and deliberated during a time when the edd was so poorly regarded and in many respects on the chopping block, threatening the opportunity to give practitioners the skills they need to improve our nation’s education system. these faculty asked their institutional colleagues to consider changing the way things were being done. now, going forward, we must look to these pioneers and consider new ways of changing, new ways of improving, and new ways of demonstrating the accomplishments we have made. how do we consider the next steps for cped and for our edd programs? our best tools to overcome these challenges are those that we have been taught, and those that have strengthened in our edd programs—scholarship and inquiry. why? as an organization, cped not only works to improve the education doctorate but it also ultimately changes both the culture in graduate schools of education and the skills and abilities of the educational practitioners we prepare. the only way cped and its members can provide evidence that our work has been impactful inside and outside of the academy is to share what we have learned. that is, we must share our knowledge about how to redesign and improve the edd as a professional degree. we must share how the new edd changes the processes and policies of schools of education. we must share our learning about the impact our graduates have on their own practice. in doing so, we must also invite critique and reflect on whether we are doing our best, if our practice is having the impact we want. celebrating the 10th anniversary of cped in 2017, offered the opportunity to look back together and acknowledge the tremendous accomplishments of the organization—from membership growth to the creating of a journal, from increased numbers of graduates that span pk-20 and beyond to several books and many more articles written by our membership. we have much to be proud of in terms of growing, learning and sharing. still, we need to do more. as i settle back from the june convening, still glowing from all that cped members have achieved, i received an external review for a book proposal submitted to harvard education publishing group. with this review, i was painfully reminded of all we still need to do to change the perception of both schools of education and the education doctorate. i share an excerpt of this review here as it pertains not just to cped headquarters, but also to our members— those who have worked so hard over 10 years to change the perception of the edd and to change their own institutions, and those table 1. cped framework: members of cped developed a framework for edd program design/redesign that supports creating quality, rigorous practitioner preparation while honoring the local context of each member institution. perry impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 3 (2018) doi 10.5195/ie.2018.79 3 who are new to this organization seeking to continue the work. the anonymous reviewer said, whether this book makes a significant contribution to the “field” depends heavily on whether schools of education are interested in its emphasis upon doctoral education in improving educational practice. so far that is a very weak subject. while many graduate schools of education profess to prepare practitioners at the doctoral level in ways that will improve educational practice, so far few are able to do so effectively, regularly and widely. most are still caught in explaining the problem, not in fixing it. hence, programs that claim to make doctoral graduates able to remedy the educational flaws found in the u.s. and thus improve educational practice lack broad public support for their enterprise. if such programs were ever able to provide compelling evidence for their claims, undoubtedly, they would be in great demand since without question such skills would be extremely valuable. if the authors had evidence that doctoral preparation in education was truly changing as a result of their efforts, then this book would be very useful. from headquarters, we can refute these claims with evidence of: • growing numbers of cped-influenced programs, • early spencer funded work on graduate outcomes (see imig, syed & perry, 2009), • a u.s. department of education fund for the improvement of post-secondary education (fipse) funded work that demonstrated how schools of education had changed as a result of cped membership (see perry, zambo & wunder, 2015), and • a william t. grant funded study on research evidence use by cped graduates (underway). additionally, at headquarters, we have launched a massive data gathering effort to learn about our member’s programs, outcomes and implementation of the cped framework. however, our evidence is only as strong as the documented and demonstrated work of our members. as an organization, we need to listen to shulman and vashudeva—we need to network our learning and be stronger in voice and in evidence. cped is unique. in the beginning we were novel, but over the years i have come to appreciate and value the many faculty who strongly believe in and have dedicated much of their professional time to the idea that the edd is a professional degree that must be tailored to the needs of practitioners versus the needs of the academy. i have come to know many more students who have thanked us for giving them a degree that serves them and helps them become stronger change agents and leaders. i know our work is the right work, and i will continue to argue this claim with evidence that supports it. just as david imig and i (2016) did in the inaugural issue of impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, i invite our growing membership to join me in strengthening our community of practice. by pushing our own boundaries to innovate, learn, critique and share our knowledge and to produce the necessary evidence of change our next ten years will be strengthened and offer the opportunity for the naysayers to walk along side of us and see for themselves how this unique community has changed history and will continue to do so. references imig, d., syed, s., & perry, j.a. (2009). final report: creating rubrics for the assessment of edd candidates. spencer foundation: chicago, il judge h. (1982). american graduate schools of education: a view from abroad. new york, ny: ford foundation. perry, j. a. & imig, d. (2016). what do we mean by impact? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice. 1(1), 1-3. doi: https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2016.26 perry, j. a. (2014). changing schools of education through grassroots facultyled change. innovation in higher education, 39(2), 155-168. doi: 10.1007/s10755-013-9267-y perry, j. a., zambo, d. & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations, 36 (winter), 58-84. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. vashudeva, a. (2016) reflections and new directions on cped’s 10th anniversary. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 1-5. microsoft word 02 layout #285_0220_finished_research 9-17 revised[65].docx new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 9 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 let’s talk: critical participatory action research and improvement science-guided research comparing our approaches to improve education joy howard western carolina university howardj@wcu.edu kim derk university of southern indiana kaderk@usi.edu tori colson university of southern indiana tshoulders@usi.edu abstract the purpose of this paper is to identify key characteristics and forms that both research approaches use within the applied field of education. in this paper, we ask—how are cpar and is-gr similar and different? and, can tools or propositions from each be used in tandem within a research project? we invite readers to consider useful frameworks created to address problems of practice. drawing strength from our diverse backgrounds (fields of study and professional roles), we aim to identify clear overlaps and divergent perspectives between the two approaches to aid scholarly practitioners in making informed decisions about the research frameworks they choose to take up to address pressing problems of practice in education. keywords critical participatory action research, improvement science, educational research research as public science – for the public good, has been taken up across many fields including psychology, education, urban planning, sociology, and interdisciplinary areas (e.g., gender studies and ethnic studies). both improvement science guided research (is-gr) and critical participatory action research (cpar) frequently make claims to be forms of public science. as co-authors from diverse fields and with affiliations across a wide array of professional organizations, we have noticed many similarities between these two frames of research in our scholarly reading and conversations. the purpose of this paper is to identify key characteristics and forms that both research approaches use within the applied field of education. in this paper, we ask—how are cpar and is-gr similar and different? and, can tools or propositions from each be used in tandem within a research project? from the onset, we want to acknowledge that while we focus the present discussion specifically on the term, cpar, it is important to note that there are strong connections to community-engaged research (cer), community-engaged participatory action research, critical participatory action research, engaged research, and public sociology that share characteristics of cpar. to allow for a clear and concise review, we focus on three primary fields – psychology, sociology, and education in our discussion of cpar. we are three authors who have several shared commitments around equity in education, but we have distinct educational backgrounds and experiences. joy is an associate professor who works with edd and masters’ students at a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) institution, engages in diverse research projects (e.g., cpar, arts-based, ethnographic, and poetic inquiry) most frequently collaborative projects, identifies as a motherscholar, and has taught qualitative research. holistically, joy’s research seeks to find spaces of humanization in education in a racist society. kim is completing her edd program, and joy and tori have been her mentors since the start of her edd program where both were her instructors and advisors in the program. joy’s focus is punitive and exclusionary discipline practices from the perspective of publicschool principals and more broadly a search for methods to humanize schooling spaces for all children. tori works with edd students and was the program director in a cped educational leadership program. tori is now the assistant dean of pott college science, engineering, and education. tori’s research interests include assessment, teacher preparation, educational research, and inclusion. throughout this paper, we use pronouns strategically. we is indicative of a collective and agreed-upon proposition or position on howard et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 10 a topic or issue. as researchers with different political and philosophical leanings as well as academic training, when one of us uses our name followed by personal pronouns, we are indicating a voice of dissent or particularity. we represent this strategically as we do not intend to indicate that these frameworks are oppositional or that those who use them cannot be in conversation or share many ideals and purposes in research. we believe this is an important standpoint to explain and demonstrate as we aim to lead conversations about these terms in an inviting yet distinctive way for scholarly practitioners who are wading through the work of making distinctions between these research approaches. despite that intention, we also emphasize that this effort is only intended to extend necessary conversations that may inform emerging scholars in their research efforts. we invite readers to consider useful frameworks created to address problems of practice. beyond the scope of this paper is a comprehensive or definitive articulation of cpar or is-gr; however, we aim to identify clear overlaps and divergent perspectives between the two approaches to aid scholarly practitioners in making informed decisions about the research frameworks they choose to take up to address pressing problems of practice in education. the context of the conversation: key concepts and history our goal in this paper is to explain key characteristics and forms that are distinct and shared between cpar and is-gr both frequently taken up within the applied field of education. to begin, we emphasize the last word of each term (research and science) and consider how each may be taken up by scholarly practitioners, who are focused on significant problems of practice within educational communities, in the field of education. research and science critical participatory action research (baum, 2006; fine & torre, 2021; mirra & rogers, 2016; pain et al., 2011) and improvement science (bryk et al., 2017; langley et al., 2009; perry et al., 2020) are often taken up by distinctly diverse groups of educational researchers. in the pursuit of training scholarly practitioners within edd programs, however, these distinct frameworks for research have converged in conversation about how to approach everyday problems that affect students, educators, and families. therefore, we aim to engage both frameworks and point to the shared characteristics and major differences. we do this to offer clarity about the context of each so that educational researchers can engage in conversation and make informed decisions about research frameworks best suited to take on complex problems of practice. we begin by emphasizing the last word used in both terms– research and science. these frames for inquiry are not interchangeable. understanding these terms as not synonymous is a linguistic artifact pointing to the genesis of each approach and the journey each took on the way to being applied to problems in education. the terms set up an immediate, yet subtle differentiation that can muddy discourse around the two approaches. we offer the following propositions to help extrapolate the differences and similarities between cpar (torre et al., 2012) and is-gr (langley et al., 2009). to begin this conversation about research and science, we acknowledge the entanglement of the two terms, yet we point to the signifiers of each as useful in framing cpar and is-gr. the behavior of researching, a verb, eventually produces a body of work that some refer to as the research, a noun. science is often framed from the traditional perspective of a subject (e.g., biology, astronomy, and physics) taught in middle and high schools. we synthesize multiple definitions to describe this perspective of science as the construction and organization of knowledge. science implies that data is gathered in a prescriptive manner to document observations and experiments to improve the theory and/or practice. said differently, the purpose of science is to develop testable explanations and predictions. traditional science evolves when such bodies of work, or research (the noun), link together around a common area of inquiry and produce similar outcomes that are convincing enough to offer explanations and develop predictive abilities for specific areas of interest (aken, 2004; romme, 2003). there are two distinct branches in the sciences (dresch et al., 2014). the natural sciences (e.g., astronomy, biology, botany, oceanography, and zoology), are a study of living things and their interactions with and within their environments (fischer et al., 2011). the social sciences (e.g., anthropology, history, economics, psychology, and sociology) focus on areas such as human interaction, behavior, and societies (fischer et al., 2011). both branches rely on empirical evidence to formulate a hypothesis about our natural and social world. the gold standard within traditional research has been dominated by double-blind randomized control studies (bartman et al., 2018; misra, 2012). beyond this traditional scope of natural and social sciences, there are also the formal sciences. these fields consider abstract concepts, such as logic, philosophy, mathematical reasoning, and symbolism (aken, 2004; franklin, 1994). relevant to this discussion, some scholars do not consider the formal sciences as a separate branch because they rely on conceptual systems, theories, and axioms, rather than empirical evidence. for instance, albert einstein’s well-known axiom, theory of general relativity, and john nash’s prisoner dilemma may be considered examples of this branch of science. formal sciences can enhance and challenge empirical traditional sciences, but they cannot replace or duplicate them. holistically, the natural, social, and formal sciences are considered fundamental sciences. researchers from these fields conduct fundamental, or basic, research to improve human understanding and the ability to predict natural and other phenomena (fischer et al., 2011). these sciences tend to spend a lot of time on theory and explanation, which can decrease their value to those directly experiencing the problem and seeking workable solutions (aken, 2004). this disconnection between theory and real-world application necessitates the applied sciences, such as engineering, architecture, applied behavior analysis, and medicine (holtzman, 1994). applied sciences take place in non-pristine, often chaotic reallife environments. this is quite different from sterile labs or controlled research populations, and as a result, applied sciences tend to rely heavily on empirical evidence. researchers from applied sciences often utilize formal science to gain insight that informs highly practical goals, many of which evolve into subspecialties. for example, neuroscience is a subspeciality that has developed within the applied science of medicine. it merges knowledge gained from the natural sciences of biology and chemistry with information from the social science of psychology (jamaludin, 2019). in the field of education, let’s talk: approaches to improve education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 11 neuroscience informs many strategies being developed for traumaresponsive classrooms and social and emotional learning curricula (imad, 2021). it is at the intersection of formal, traditional, experimental, and applied knowledge that the challenge of differentiating cpar from is-gr emerges. in the following section, we provide a brief history and overview of cpar and is-gr. the evolution of critical participatory action research the historical background of cpar research informs presentday engagements with terminology and assumptions. torre et al. (2012) provide a detailed history of what they call cpar. in their review, they emphasize diverse legacies that laid the scholarly foundation of this work. in this historical backdrop, torre et al. (2012) highlight the influence of paulo freire, the tradition of liberation theology, and postcolonial studies such as the revolutionary praxis of orlando fals borda in south america and anisur rahman in asia. in the field of psychology, they credit kurt lewin (1946) and several other scholars who contest what ignacio martin-baro (1994) called the collective lie or the meaning of the dominant constructions of injustice within research. in sum, they describe that cpar scholars, who are broadly defined and not limited to scholars within the academy, work to mobilize everyday people for social change movements toward justice. additionally, the influence of w.e.b. dubois (1898) on cpar cannot be overstated. his work critically examines what he refers to as the negro problem (meaning the condition under which african american people are forced to live – not to be confused with any innuendo of a deficit within this ethnic/cultural group) (dubois, 1898). as a forerunner in community-engaged work, dubois (1898) demonstrated innovative ways to position social science as a method for social change by creating large-scale community surveys to explore the impact of social and economic conditions on black communities as a means of quantitatively describing structural racism to change these conditions. over a century later, the field of sociology (and a broad array of academic fields) still struggle to adopt or even fully comprehend the importance of cpar or what hartman (2022) describes as community-engaged research. framing this work as public sociology, hartman (2022) argues that responsiveness to community needs and questions should drive sociological inquiry not only as applicable to implementation into practice but also to inform theory. this proposition points to a strong position about what it means to not just observe the world, but to forward epistemological questions researchers must assume. in short, hartman (2022) describes the nature of this public work as inclusive of any sociological research, writing, and work happening outside of the academy for not only disseminating and applying general knowledge, but also to construct new knowledge, ideas, and approaches (hartmann, 2016). sociology is a discipline in need of constant reinvention and renewal. working with concrete, community-based initiatives, organizations, and advocates provides academic sociologists with opportunities to put theories and methods to the test (jefferson & kirshner, 2021; warren, 2021). in the field of education, cpar work has been growing in its various translations and applications. like in other fields, the way that research projects get taken up varies. given the educational focus of the readership of impacting education, we offer a few examples that may be especially relevant. in a recent special issue of the assembly, jefferson and kirshner (2021) highlighted par work in the field of education where the community drives inquiry and researchers collaborate on the development and design of research projects that take on equity issues in education – in this case issues of displacement. to illustrate, ferman et al. (2021) utilized participatory observation, coalition-building, and community collaboration to uncover how universities contribute to or exacerbate the displacement of low-income communities and students. ferman et al. (2021) described a book club that evolved into a cpar collective to understand factors contributing to black students withdrawing from school in atlanta. they used community listening sessions to locate the importance of teachers being at the center of education policy conversations. other exemplary research topics that exemplify community-engaged research include actively challenging university epistemologies that commodify knowledge for private interests, competition, and standardization (mirra & rogers, 2016) and interrupting the move toward corporate management of chicago public schools (gutierrez & lipman, 2016). the evolution of improvement science as a body of knowledge focused on the science of solving problems of practice, is-gr is at its core a framework within the applied sciences. is-gr initially utilized small, rapid tests of change cycles to produce momentum-building outcomes that allowed researchers to learn fast and make a measurable impact toward a desired aim (bryk et al., 2017). the science behind is-gr has been evolving for decades. although it was initially envisioned to improve schools, its potential was ignored by education scholars (langley et al., 2009). thus, for several decades, it was utilized primarily in japanese businesses (add source). notably, walter shewhart, a 1920s polymath used is-gr to apply his expertise in statistics, engineering, and physics and ultimately develop numerous process control tools (deming, 1967). his work developed the prototype for today's plan-do-study-act or pdsa model (best & neuhauser, 2006). shewhart shared his work with his mentee, william edwards deming, who went on to become known as the father of quality improvement (peden & rooney, 2009). while the cycle sometimes is referred to as the deming cycle, deming (1986) credited shewhart for the original model and inspiring his interest in systems and variation reduction. the deming (1986) cycle principles are at the foundation of improvement science as it is referred to in education research. although shewhart’s pdsa model was largely ignored by educators during his lifetime, the learning and improvement tools are at the center of what has been adopted as is-gr in education (moen & norman, 2010; nilsen et al., 2022) and have also found traction in japanese business and american manufacturing (add source). practitioners facing quality and process problems in a wide variety of other fields soon took notice of the improvement leaps happening in the business sector (gawande, 2009). for example, airlines brought in process improvement experts to reduce variation in how consistently pilots followed their preflight checklists, and safety rates improved dramatically. the fast-growing tech sector also built continuous improvement processes into operations from the ground up to rapidly deploy product improvements in the hypercompetitive environment (impruver, 2020; langley et al., 2009). while initially applied to systems, equipment, and processes, improvement projects also emerged from within the soft side of business in areas such as human resources, sales, customer responsiveness, and workplace safety. these areas grew alongside company profits. for example, disney borrowed deming’s pdsa cycle which transformed into the dream-believe-dare-do cycle howard et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 12 described by capodagli and jackson (2016). this articulation of that framework is credited as a key ingredient in the magic behind the company’s famous customer experiences. in each example above, measurable improvement projects influenced both individual outcomes and larger processes within systems. during this evolution, depending on the setting, application, and practitioners, the core elements were included under many labels, such as quality improvement, continuous quality, and continuous quality improvement (langley et al., 2009). often, the tools and processes supporting the science, as measurable outcomes based on theories derived from research findings, were built into commercial packages that masqueraded as new and unique approaches to problem-solving. these approaches have taken on stand-alone identities such as: six sigma, lean for manufacturing, lean for education, implementation science, organizational behavior management, and many other consultant-friendly frameworks (brethower et al., 2021; langley et al., 2009; lemahieu et al., 2017). despite the various labels, the unifying theme of is-gr is a charge to instigate effective and efficient positive change on problems of practice. improvement science can arguably be applied to any setting or profession and can involve people from all occupations (improvement science research network, n.d.). it can be used to improve individual, small group, or societal performance, or it can drive systemic change. as understanding and application of the framework moved through several fields of study toward education, the is-gr collective now offers a deep and wide collection of tools, processes, guides, job aids, analysis, and experience narratives to drive measurable change appropriate for each specific situation and setting (langley et al., 2009). these methods provide the ability to identify, control, and test variables to ensure that change leads to measurable improvement, as opposed to change that drains valuable resources or adds unnecessary complexity to problems of practice (bryk et al., 2017). langley et al. (2009) explain the significance of this cumulative knowledge in the seminal tome on improvement research, the improvement guide. a noteworthy resource is included in the appendix which lists the 72 most common change concepts. the list provides prompts for practitioners to consider in application to their problems of practice (langley et al., 2009). these concepts are then sorted into categories, followed by a synthesis of the tools and processes that have proven successful in the case examples offered. despite the different names and nuances, all approaches to is-gr, regardless of the problem or setting, share core commonalities (lemahieu et al., 2017). lemahieu et al. (2017) described each one as: � uses a scientific approach to address problems, � develops a hypothesis regarding what will lead to positive change, � gathers empirical evidence that substantially reduces or eliminates as much variation as possible, � tests the hypothesis against the empirical evidence, � provides transparency throughout, and � encourages collaborative inquiry, particularly with those living closest to the problem. in short, is-gr is the scientifically oriented discipline that guides how improvement research (often referenced as projects or cycles) is conducted (hinnant-crawford, 2020). a practitioner utilizing is-gr is interested in determining the most effective and efficient ways to move from the current state (with a measurably defined problem of practice) to the desired state, using interventions that make a measurable and identifiable improvement, not just a change. within this paradigm, almost any research method, process, or tool that demonstrates measurable improvement to the targeted outcomes is allowed. as a result, is-gr often fits into the category of applied mixed methods, although it is not constrained exclusively to that research structure. a comparative analysis of critical participatory action research and improvement science-guided research to make connections and comparisons about the ways that cpar and is-gr have been applied, we focus on nine basic categories that we identified in our analysis of the literature and how these frames have been applied to real-world problems. in what follows, we introduce a comparison table (table 1) that offers a synthesis of work from numerous authors operating within these research specialties. while it is beyond the scope of the present paper to offer a more detailed description of either, we suggest that readers review fine and torre (2021) as a primer for cpar. additionally, a substantial number of articles and examples of is-gr can be found on the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s website, www.carniegefoundation.org. our aim is to offer a starting place for academic discussions (e.g., through research, in edd research courses) about the relationships between the research structures (shared features and tools) and the ideological convergence and divergence of projects taken up under either banner. to encourage dialogue, we offer a brief discussion of the epistemological leanings and methodologies within each. given the complexities of the task, we offer table 1 as a comparison of several categories including: definitions, the foundational influences, applications, methodologies, engagement with participants, process, tools, data collection norms, and how findings are used. in the center of the table are some of the characteristics shared between the two paradigms that we identified based on our review of literature. we do not proport that this table captures all differentiators or commonalities between the two. instead, we offer this comparison to help guide readers as we move through this discussion of the background and application of both approaches, and to serve as a catalyst for scholarly conversations about one or both approaches to educational research. epistemologies and methodologies core characteristics drawing from fine and torre (2021), cpar operates as an epistemology, not just a methodology. further, it can encompass theories of change that counter what tuck (2009) calls “damagecentered research” or “research that operates, even benevolently, from a theory of change that establishes harm of injury to achieve reparation” (p. 413). the danger of such work is that focusing on the oppression alone, or what hooks (1990) describes as research on oppressed people groups that asks them to “only speak your pain” (p.152), negates a humanizing perspective of the hope, joy, resilience, and strength present in communities that are robbed of human rights and dignity. let’s talk: approaches to improve education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 13 table 1. comparing cpar and is-gr frameworks cpar (sources include fine & torre, 2021; fine et al., 2021; hartman, 2022; meyer et al., 2018; pain et al., 2011; torre, 2009).) shared is (sources include bryk et al., 2017; langley et al., 2009; perla et al., 2013) definition research is conducted in collaboration with communities, groups, and individuals. generally the problem identified problematizes injustice and directly critiques sociopolitical power dynamics that limit or prevent political, medical, professional, economic, educational, nutritional, etc. access in ways that deny human rights and/or ignore the dignity of targeted groups of people. a research paradigm built on decades of continuous improvement interested in determining the most effective and efficient ways to move from the current state (with a measurably defined problem of practice) to the desired state, using an intervention(s) that makes a measurable and identifiable improvement; not simply a change. foundational influences theoretically guided by critical, participatory/advocacy/emancipatory philosophy psychology guided primarily by theories of systems, variation, & knowledge focused on making interventions work effectively with unique implementors across different settings & situations primary applications to date social justice concerns education healthcare community concerns business & industry individual & group performance improvement methodological trends avoids starting with a hypothesis process evolves organically collective research design research with – not on participants seeks improvement of current conditions values & accepts multiple scientific methodologies – qualitative, quantitative, & mixed methods and related sub-categories in the realm of applied sciences – research, action, decisions are informed by doing assigns a fundamental relationship to change & improvement uses data-based decision-making such as process maps, root cause analysis, & baseline data to select starting point participant engagement research teams with diverse levels of societal power, interests, issues, experience, and expertise analyze qualitative and quantitative data, while maintaining the central focus on the perspectives of those most impacted by injustice. participants considered expert co-researchers distributed leadership with no participation commitments central focus is on those closest to the concern. subject(s) can be self, individuals, small or large groups, organizations, or systems can be independent, small group research, but nics are encouraged nics thrive on transparency, but it is not required members commit to take specific actions toward a measurable goals processes democratizes knowledge production ideologically and occupationally diverse research teams read and critique academic and popular articles and media about the topic of interest. researchers watch, listen, and record activity related to the topic of interest engages participants early and often welcomes challenging and difficult conversations at all stages of the process studies the system that created the current conditions requires proof of variability control starts with: “what specifically is the problem we are trying to solve.” often, but not always, uses plan-do-study-act cycles. utilized consecutive rapid cycles to test change ideas and inform direction tools creative presentations accepted: art, poems, music, theater research collectives often uses surveys, interviews, & observations fishbones, driver diagrams, root cause analysis, process & other systems maps, and traditional change measurements validity and reliability measurements. data collection data can take many forms is not limited to that which is measurable variability control not required data informs direction requires information comes from those most impacted by the problem measures key outcomes and processes, as well as potential unintended consequences. should answer the following questions: “what changes might we introduce & why? “how will we know that a change is actually an improvement.” how findings are used challenges dominant narratives to illuminate hidden realities that are often not brought into public view. to be used as a catalyst for social change. determines next step in pdsa cycle. guides whether to act-adapt-abandon contributes to improvement along multiple components of a problem. howard et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 14 although there is a wide variety of methods of data collection and analyses that appropriately fall under the umbrella of cpar, there are some common threads that are shared among researchers ascribing to this way of inquiring into our social world. our review of the literature on cpar yields the following characteristics as core to all descriptions of cpar. pain et al. (2010) describes seven themes central to cpar: collaboration, knowledge, power, ethics, theory building, action, emotions, and well-being. to summarize, we found across all the studies that we reviewed, authors shared a consensus that cpar must be: 1. about social justice. a focus on in(justice) (fine & torre, 2012) and explicitly stated commitments to action-oriented change as the expected outcome of the work. “critical par commits at once to human rights, social justice, and scientific validity” (torre et al., 2012, p. 182). 2. participant driven. research “with” and alongside community members whose knowledge is respected and who inform the research process and product; not on (as an outsider) or for (as patronizing or all-knowing). this way of research is founded on an approach that undertakes the “science of the oppressed rather than for the oppressed that called for research designed from the perspective of those most affected by injustice” (torre et al., 2012, p. 175). 3. characterized by the democracy of knowledge. deep commitments to an ethical pursuit of knowledge that will improve social injustices where the entire design of the project is carefully planned and revisited not just by the lead researcher but by the research team (e.g., research questions, data collection, data analysis, reporting of findings, and research goals are all co-constructed by the group). 4. change and action-oriented. a wide variety of theories can be applied to cpar projects, but they tend to be oriented to critical theories and indigenous ways of knowing. in our review of the literature, we found that is-gr also has key features consistent across projects, regardless of whether the research subject is an individual, group or organization, or system. this is particularly true when multiple researchers collaborate on a project, such as one involving a networked improvement community, or nic. when considering is-gr, perla et al. (2013) constructed the epistemology for is-gr using the following propositions: 1. testing and learning cycles anchor the science of improvement. 2. conceptualistic pragmatism provides the philosophical foundation. 3. psychology and logic can co-exist in is-gr. 4. justification and discovery provide context for the science of improvement. 5. operational definitions are required in is-gr. 6. improvement science utilizes shewhart’s theory of cause systems, which requires tracing sources of variation and accurate identification of statistically normal processes to recognize and address the abnormal. 7. systems theory feeds is-gr. participation by definition, cpar cannot be conducted by a solo researcher. is-gr can be conducted solo, with groups and organizations of all sizes, and on systems (langley et al., 2009). the potential of is-gr is best optimized when built upon and within a body of knowledge developed within a nic (bryk et al., 2017). protocols and processes in general, under a cpar framework groupings may be loosely constructed and member actions and outcomes are not predetermined. when a nic conducts is-gr, processes and procedures are organized in a more prescriptive way around a central problem. members are expected to identify and explicitly state what they are working together toward (bryk et al., 2017). the target is operationally defined, and members commit to follow-up actions specific to their interests and needs related to the problem. those commitments often change depending on the cycle, currently expressed target, and each member's available resources at the time. what remains consistent from one improvement cycle to the next is transparency, shared data gathering, and reporting, followed by group analysis (bryk et al., 2017). this is similar to cpar projects. multiple perspectives contribute to the interpretation of data and crafting steps forward and committing to future actions. nic project outcomes are often fast-paced by comparison. the genesis of the work there are no set rules on how a nic evolves. in some cases, a researcher may tap into an existing workgroup or scientists that have been actively publishing on the topic of interest or a group of volunteers that has been tackling a problem in the community. if a connected group of people already working on the problem cannot be found, a researcher can intentionally develop a nic to address a specific problem of practice (bryk et al., 2017) as part of an is-gr project. researchers intending to do cpar should have a strong connection with the community they plan to work within. indeed, cpar is ideally a response to a community-identified problem, and the researcher is selected for partnership because of the skills and commitments they can offer to the community. sustainability and careful ethical thought work will allow researchers to be authentically accepted and useful to the problems they claim to address. overarching similarities and differences given these foundational principles and approaches to research, both frameworks offer tools to affect change. is-gr only acts after systemically studying the variables contributing to a problem of practice: gathering insight from a widely defined set of stakeholders, studying the system that gave birth to the problem, and explicitly defining the primary desired outcomes in measurable ways. a key focus is identifying and attaining control over variability within the process. settings vary from individual institutions to communities inside intensely complex systems, such as hospitals and schools. conversely, cpar begins, continues, and ends within the community and takes a more democratic approach to the research design and activities. another area of both convergence and divergence involves the relationship with participants. cpar thrives on researchers breaking down barriers and developing a rapport that enables them to share let’s talk: approaches to improve education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 15 the experience as they learn from each other. in every project, participants are intentionally engaged from the beginning to the end, frequently blurring the lines wherein participants also become researchers (baum, 2006; breda, 2014). improvement science accepts flexibility in the role of the researcher to maximize the improvement opportunity. for instance, during the planning and analyzing phases of a study, the researcher may take a more detached and objective position of an expert while designing and measuring. however, while in the field interviewing, measuring, collecting data, or implementing an intervention, is-gr researchers may work beside study participants as a peer in the same way as a cpar researcher. a critical distinction is in situations where an isgr researcher may determine that it is best to remain detached for the entire study if it allows more improvement. the resulting power dynamics may also mirror each other or be vastly different. cpar advocates for intentionally shared power. the experience is impacted by the researcher’s engagement (baum, 2006). cpar researchers consistently interrogate issues of power— how it was attained, who benefits from the power, and who is suffering because of the existing power dynamic (baum, 2006). as with cpar, fundamental to effective is-gr projects are the stories, experiences, and knowledge provided by those who live the closest and are most impacted by the problem of practice. neither can identify effective resolutions without candid and authentic input from those who know the issue the most (baum, 2006; breda, 2014). problem identification and potential solutions cpar and is-gr both identify gaps between what is and what should be and use an action to solve problems. while cpar centers on problems of social injustice, is-gr projects could engage in such problems, but often do not. still, we found that is-gr researchers can be motivated and/or informed by an equity lens and can amplify outcomes when applied to social justice initiatives (bryk et al., 2017; crow et al., 2019; hinnant-crawford, 2020; peterson & carlile, 2021). the operative verb related to is-gr is improving both outcomes and processes concerning specific populations. by contrast, cpar fits cleanly under the social science umbrella with a much narrower focus. it typically utilizes both qualitative and mixed methods research designs because its primary concern is community improvement which impacts the quality of life of both groups and individuals. while the two approaches share some commonly used tools and techniques, such as observations, surveys, interviews, and so on, they may diverge at implementation. for instance, is-gr leans into practices and processes that follow a disciplined approach to inquiry and supported by scientific and/or empirical evidence. in the absence of specific data, evidence and knowledge may be collected via successive improvement cycles. these cycles are dictated by clear, measurable targets, known as aims, which are agreed upon by those conducting the research. it is up to those researching to decide to what extent and in what way to engage research participants. this prescriptive approach to problem-solving biases changes toward improving the outcome or at least minimizes the resources and potential negative impact should the resulting change not be an immediate improvement. this embeds a certain level of predictability and control into the process of change. conversely, cpar relies upon a collective, ongoing, and reflexive response to seeking answers to real-world problems. participants as researchers collect and study the data, then determine what next action to take (baum, 2006). outcomes are dependent on the choices made by the group and individuals involved and the variables in play. purpose and outcomes cpar and is-gr projects both seek improved outcomes for those most impacted by socially constructed problems. in cpar, those most impacted should drive the response to social injustice. although is-gr projects could effectively help tackle those concerns, tori’s recent literature review indicates that has rarely happened so far. there is, however, a growing awareness and interest in the topic as evidenced by recent publications (e.g., bryk et al., 2017; crow et al., 2019; hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020; peterson & carlile, 2021). both approaches consider it important to name and describe a needed change, identify the variables contributing to current conditions, and analyze whether a change has occurred and in what direction. however, the stores of knowledge used to do that have developed from various sources. in cpar, knowledge comes from those who are oppressed by unjust policies, practices, and systems (e.g., educational exclusion; food deserts; criminalization by police targeting). the applied knowledge of is-gr was originally implemented within the business sector, driven by a constant push to exceed promised financial targets and enhanced by projects designed to keep employees safe and focused on their job. the range of improvement projects that address issues of quality, effective measurement, organizational learning, leadership development, individual performance, quality matters, and other business buzzwords (langley et al., 2009; peden & rooney, 2009; the health foundation, 2011) quickly increased as it jumped to multiple fields and occupations, including education. implications based on our review of literature and experience as researchers we found that cpar and is-gr share many commonalities while there are critical distinctions between them. we do not view these approaches to educational research as incompatible or contradictory as a whole. rather, we see opportunities for the frameworks to complement each other and push scholarly practitioners toward a shared goal of improvement in the field of education. opportunities to develop this awareness further abound, as examples of the use of any version of participatory action research along with is-gr in the methodology of the same study remain limited. while some call out the value of specific is-gr tools, such as the pdsa cycle, for use with par (magnuson et al., 2020), they are rarely explicitly named (meyer et al., 2018). future research designs might explore a melding of explicit tools and strategies especially as they pertain to problems of practice involving issues of social justice and educational equity. another direction may be to build on table 1 as a means for working toward a decision tree for emerging scholars looking for a framework to begin addressing their problems of practice. conclusion for faculty and edd students aiming to address educational inequities, it is essential to be clear about the origin, strengths, and limitations of research frameworks. both cpar and is-gr can be strong approaches to research when used to address problems of howard et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.285 16 practice. while the paradigms, primary scholarly fields they draw from, and methods of data collection used are unique, we are living in a time where there is no shortage of problems faced by educators, leaders, students, and researchers alike. therefore, while we do not claim this to be an exhaustive review of research literature, we propose that there is value in naming limitations, looking for potential collaborations, borrowing ideas, and seeking opportunities for the cocreation of designs between scholars who draw from either one or both. if our aim as scholarly practitioners is to address real-world problems, especially those that include educational injustices, as educational researchers we would benefit from considering both frameworks for their strengths, contributions to practice, and shared commitments to improvement. references aken, j. e. 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(2013). seven propositions of the science of improvement. quality management in health care, 22(3), 170–186. https://doi.org/10.1097/qmh.0b013e31829a6a15 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. peterson, d. s., & carlile, s. p. (2021). improvement science: promoting equity in schools. myers education press. romme, a. g. (2003). making a difference: organization as design. organization science, 14(5), 558–573. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.14.5.558.16769 the health foundation (2011). event report: evaluating healthcare quality improvement a summary of learning from a health foundation roundtable. https://www.health.org.uk/publications/evaluating-healthcare-qualityimprovement torre, m. e. 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(2021). willful defiance: the movement to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. oxford university press. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.340 erratum to: pape, s. j., bryant, c. l., johnbull, r. m., & karp, k. s. (2022). improvement science as a frame for the dissertation in practice: the johns hopkins experience. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 7(1), 59–66. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.241 stephen j. pape johns hopkins university stephen.pape@jhu.edu ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university rmjohnbull@jhu.edu rhonda jeffries university of south carolina rhondajeffries@cpedinitiative.org camille l. bryant johns hopkins university cbryan16@jhu.edu karen s. karp johns hopkins university kkarp1@jhu.edu suha tamim university of south carolina suhatamim@cpedinitiative.org abstract the original version of the article, “improvement science as a frame for the dissertation in practice: the johns hopkins experience”, published on 25 january 2022 included references to casey handfield, a former doctoral student at johns hopkins university. all references to mr. handfield have been removed from the article and the associated dissertation has been subsequently withdrawn. the authors and editorial team regret the inclusion of this material in the original article which has been retracted and updated with an edited version. the full article has not been retracted because the editorial team believes that the problematic references did not impact the overall utility and conclusions of the article. for any additional questions, please contact the editorial team at impacting education <cped@journals.pitt.edu>. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.241 mailto:cped@journals.pitt.edu stephen j. pape johns hopkins university ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university (1) rhonda jeffries university of south carolina camille l. bryant johns hopkins university (2) karen s. karp johns hopkins university (3) suha tamim university of south carolina (1) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 10 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.337 casting a wider net: incorporating black feminist theory to support edd students’ epistemological stance development in research methods courses stephanie smith budhai drexel university smithbudhai@drexel.edu kristine lewis grant drexel university ksl33@drexel.edu abstract this article ponders the question: “how might edd research methods courses be reimagined to position black feminist theory as a comparable theoretical framework to guide epistemological stance development and scholar-practitioner inquiry?” by introducing black feminist theory as a viable theoretical framework, this article posits its potential incorporation into reimagined edd research methods courses. after providing a more detailed description of black feminist theory and its associated constructs, the ways that black feminist theory can shape scholar-practitioners’ inquiry is explored, including: 1) framing a problem of practice, 2) building conceptual and/or theoretical frameworks, and 3) connecting to research design and approaches. implications for black feminist theory’s alignment to the cped framework are discussed. keywords black feminist theory, epistemology, research methods despite the ever-evolving socio-political environment in today’s world, research methodology courses have remained stagnant. within doctoral programs, traditional quantitative methodologies may be favored, however, for professional education doctorate (edd) programs, exposure to more all-encompassing qualitative methods better align with the work of scholar-practitioners. moreover, in the face of persistent racism, sexism, and other forms of inequity in us public schools, few scholar-practitioners are prepared to adequately investigate these “wicked problems” (hopson & cram, 2018) and their implications for practice. traditional edd research methods courses introduce students to dominant epistemologies such as positivism, constructivism, and interpretivism, while omitting more critical frameworks. by doing so, many students are ill-equipped to fully conceptualize complex problems of practice or develop nuanced research designs. black feminist theory presents a critical framework that enables the reframing of persistent social problems in education. when included as a viable epistemology in research methods courses, black feminist theory enables future scholar-practitioners to conceptualize the complexity of research problems shaped by racism, sexism, and classism, especially those affecting the educational experiences of black girls and women, as well as the action-oriented research designs required to envision justiceand equity-centered solutions. problem of practice in supporting edd students’ inquiry pursuits towards equity and justice, it is important to understand that “other epistemologies approaching research from personal/political standpoints that honor multiple, possibly conflicting, positionalities are marginalized” (patterson et al., 2016, p. 55). such epistemologies, including black feminist theory (crenshaw, 1991; hill collins, 1991, 2000; hooks, 1989, 2000), are not typically taught in edd research methods courses as credible philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. growing out of the lived experiences of black women, black feminist theory is situated at the intersections of race and gender (crenshaw, 1991; hooks, 1989, 2000; hill collins, 1991, 2000). this unique positioning affords black women’s insights on the racism, sexism, and the ways these and other forms of oppression interlock to produce persistent, systemic inequities (hill collins, 1991, 2000; hooks, 1990). hill collins (1991) asserts that black feminism resonates with the theme of the “oneness of all human life” (p. 39), and, from this, concludes that black feminism is “a process of selfconscious struggle that empowers women and men to actualize a humanist vision of community” (p. 39), which can be carried out through scholar-practitioner research. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3508-3534 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9074-7639 casting a wider net impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.337 11 purpose of essay this essay ponders the question: how might edd research methods courses be reimagined to position black feminist theory as a comparable theoretical framework to guide epistemological stance development and scholar-practitioner inquiry? this essay introduces black feminist theory as a viable theoretical framework and posits its potential incorporation into reimagined edd research methods courses. after providing a more detailed description of black feminist theory and its associated constructs, the essay explores the ways that the theory could shape scholar-practitioner’s inquiry, including: 1) framing a problem of practice, 2) building conceptual and/or theoretical frameworks, and 3) connecting to research designs and approaches. in addition, black feminist theory’s alignment to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework regarding inquiry as practice and laboratories of practice, is discussed. guiding framework the theoretical framework guiding this paper is black feminist theory (hill collins, 1991). advanced by audre lorde, patricia hill collins, bell hooks, and other black scholars, black feminist theory “encompasses theoretical interpretations of black women’s reality by those who live it” (hill collins, 1991, p. 22). the power of black feminist theory is not limited to black women, but is best conceived as “a process of self-conscious struggle that empowers women and men to actualize a humanist vision of community” (hill collins, 1991, p. 39). according to hill collins (1991), black feminist theory is comprised of four dimensions: concrete experience as a criterion of meaning, use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims, ethic of caring, and ethic of personal accountability. these dimensions also serve as knowledge validation rules. the first dimension, concrete experience as a criterion of meaning, asserts that knowledge is rooted in one’s lived experience. hill collins (1991) explains, “for most african-american women, those individuals who have lived through the experiences about which they claim to be experts are more believable and credible than those who have merely read or thought about such experiences” (p. 209). related to this experience, black women base this criterion of meaning on the wisdom derived from these lived experiences. wisdom has been key to the survival of black women. hill collins (1991) incorporates both knowledge and wisdom, distinguishing that knowledge “is adequate for the powerful, but wisdom is essential for the survival of the subordinate” (p. 208). related to the first dimension, use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims, hill collins (1991) indicates that dialogue is central to the development of knowledge. dialogue is based on the assumption of connectedness, that two people (or more) are communicating with one another as humans of equal value and agency. hill collins (1991) writes, “for black women, new knowledge claims are rarely worked out in isolation from other individuals and are usually developed through dialogues with other members of the community” (p. 212). for dialogue to be used in assessing knowledge claims, all must engage in full and authentic participation (hill collins, 1991). the ethic of care is central to the knowledge validation process in black feminist epistemology. hill collins (1991) grounds the ethic of care in three interrelated components. first, individual expressiveness asserts that “each individual is thought to be a unique expression of a common spirit, power, or energy inherent in our all life” (hill collins, 1991, p. 215). second, the appropriateness of emotions in dialogue indicates that “a speaker believes in the validity of an argument” (p. 215). third, the capacity for empathy speaks to both black women’s capacity for empathy as well as their ability to see the capacity for empathy in others (hill collins, 1991). together, these three elements of care speak to a connected way of knowing. lastly, the fourth dimension, ethic of personal accountability, requires that one’s position on issues are informed by personal experience and full responsibility is assumed for the arguments presented (hill collins, 2000). one must be responsible for their knowledge claims. hill collins (1991) explains that one’s perspectives and behaviors are grounded in the personal values and beliefs. research in educational leadership employing black feminist theory amplifies the ways that black women leaders in educational settings (k-12, higher education, community-based organizations, etc.) draw on these four dimensions to reframe problems of practice and pursue equity and social justice. edd research methods courses as laboratories of practice: situating black feminist theory in inquiry within edd research methods courses, traditional paradigms such as constructivism, interpretivist, positivism, and post-positivism are often introduced as standards to impact edd students’ development of their positionalities and researchers’ stance that will guide their dissertation in practice. more recently, critical theories have been included to address issues related to diversity, equity, and social justice, however, black feminist theory is often left out of consideration. in this section, examples of how black feminist theory can be incorporated into edd research methods courses in an effort to increase attention to students’ development of equitycentered praxis and raised-consciousness in their quests to solve problems of practice related to educational inequity and injustice are provided. to that end, an exploration of different aspects of the research design process to demonstrate black feminist theory’s potential contribution to edd students’ conceptualization and implementation of research, as it relates to framing a problem of practice, building conceptual and/or theoretical frameworks, and connecting research designs and approaches are shared. framing a problem of practice the crux of the research design process is to frame a problem of practice (ma et al., 2018), one that is relevant to the edd student’s professional setting as well as one that has the potential to impact and influence change for the greater good. by drawing on the dimensions of black feminist theory, edd students begin with their lived professional experiences as educational leaders to inform their understanding of the problems that they hope to explore for their dissertation research. edd students’ lived wisdom related to the problem can also shape their conceptualization of the problem. in addition to drawing on their lived experiences, leaning on black feminist theory can provide a signification in representing the context in which the problem of practice derives. black feminist theory also requires that edd students engage in dialogue with members of the community to generate knowledge. this has the effect of contextualizing the students’ budhai & grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.337 12 knowledge and linking their experiences to the collective experiences of other members in the community. noted author bell hooks (1989) suggests that “dialogue implies talk between two subjects, not the speech of a subject and object” (p. 131). she sees dialogue as “humanizing speech, one that challenges and resists domination” (p. 131). conceptualizing the problem of practice in dialogue with members of the community can generate new ways of seeing, interrogating problems of practice which has the potential to open the door to new approaches and solutions. black feminist theory enables students to frame their problems of practice in ways that are distinctly different from those framed by positivist paradigms. while the tenets of positivist paradigms are aligned with scientific and mathematical proof as a way of confirming research findings, black feminist theory relies on the validation of silenced experiences, storytelling, and engagement in discourse to understand new information and make meaning of what is there. while black feminist theory has close ties with both feminist and constructivist paradigms, it goes beyond both with a focus on nuanced dual oppressive experiences based on race and gender that cannot be ignored as scholar-practitioners begin to conduct research. by drawing on black feminist theory to frame the problem of practice, edd students are well-positioned to then conceptualize and frame their larger research studies. building conceptual and/or theoretical frameworks conceptual frameworks, particularly in edd dissertations, provide a blueprint that builds context for understanding the problems of practice to be explored (kumar et al., 2022). similarly, theoretical frameworks provide a theory-based basis for the study. when edd students draw on black feminist theory to serve as the framework for their research, they are adopting a distinct worldview and abiding by a different set of knowledge validation claims. in contrast to the dominant paradigm of positivism, black feminist theory is rooted in the lived experiences of edd students. students’ knowledge of a research problem is required in order to establish their standing to explore a research problem. insider knowledge is valued as this enables students to understand the problem its contours and nuances. moreover, their personal and professional experiences speak to their personal accountability as it relates to the research. black feminist theory places importance on the identity of the researcher and requires researchers to own their ideas, which can be immensely useful as edd students develop their positionalities. black feminist theory as a lens to conceptualize a study can guide the researcher’s decision-making about a host of methodological issues. for example, black feminist theory will inform the selection of the research design and approach. with an emphasis on dialogue, many studies employing black feminist theory are qualitative in nature. black feminist theory sees dialogue as central to assessing knowledge claims, and calls for a level of care and connectedness between the researcher and the participants. knowledge is conceived as a generative experience resulting from conversations with participants about their lived experiences and the meaning that they create from those experiences. black feminist theory also informs decisions about the selection of participants as well as how the participants will be engaged in the study. edd students employing a black feminist framework will identify and invite participants with direct personal experiences with the research problem and vested interests in the findings of the research study. conceptualizing a research study using black feminist theory calls for the researcher to demonstrate a sophisticated level of care about the participants, the research design, and the data collection and analysis. where positivism and other traditional paradigms require a level of objectivity and distance from the study participants, black feminist theory requires a care, emotion, and personal accountability to the study. by applying a different standard of research ethics, edd students who employ a black feminist theory in the conceptualization of the research need to defend their research and their knowledge claims when compared with dominant paradigms. connecting to research designs and approaches given the centrality of concepts such as lived experiences and dialogue to black feminist theory, qualitative research designs and methods are best paired with this framework. the majority of empirical research studies on black girls and women in educational spaces employ qualitative approaches. like black feminist theory, qualitative research is preoccupied with the human experience, how investigating lived experiences sheds light on humanity and how the exploration of our stories provides insight on how we make meaning of our lives and make sense of our worlds. by conducting individual interviews with black women, qualitative researchers, often black women scholars themselves, can examine their lives, interpret their stories, and amplify their voices in the intellectual spaces that often talk about black women but not to black women. hill collins (2000) argues that black women scholars and researchers are in a unique position to tell the stories of black women, as their lived experiences as black women grant them significant insiders’ knowledge that is valued by black feminist theory. recognizing that black women are not monolithic, scholars who conduct research with black women should listen to their stories, empathize with their experiences, and hold themselves accountable to accurately retell their stories with the same level of wisdom, passion, and urgency in which it is conveyed. black women’s stories are not only theirs, but belong to humanity. standing at the intersections of race and gender, black women’s experiences offer a kaleidoscopic lens to understand the larger human narrative of oppression and liberation. within the qualitative designs, there are several approaches that align with black feminist theory, highlighted below. narrative inquiry narrative inquiry is a vehicle to gather experiences and stories from participants to inform knowledge and practice. as narrative inquiry positions the researcher alongside the participants in the telling and retelling of their stories, black feminist scholars who employ narrative designs draw on the dimensions of the concrete experience as criterion of meaning and dialogue in the application of narrative research. counter-narratives, also called counterstorytelling, are a specific type of narrative inquiry that center the experiences of and challenge dominant narratives about people in marginalized populations. counternarratives amplify silenced voices and situate racialized experiences as a catalyst for understanding the stories that are told by marginalized participants, including black women. an example of the application of black feminist theory in a narrative study can be found in cook’s (2022) dissertation titled casting a wider net impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.337 13 shifting early childhood philanthropic leaders’ mindsets and approaches to funding strategies by centering counternarratives of black women, home-based early childhood educators in the district of columbia. in this dissertation, cook (2022) employed a black feminist methodology to conduct semi-structured interviews with 12 black women home-based early childhood educators. from these black women’s experiences, cook (2002) developed counternarratives that challenged dominant ways of thinking about early childhood education and resulted in a reported shift in philanthropic leaders’ approaches to funding. phenomenology phenomenology is another qualitative design that is uniquely positioned to explore the lived experiences of black girls and women. phenomenology concentrates on understanding the essence of aspects of the human experience and relies on participants’ consciousness to derive meaning. within phenomenology, there are certain approaches that lend themselves well when using a black feminist epistemological stance to carry out dissertations in practice. for example, a hermeneutic phenomenological study “is based on the analysis of the most complex aspects of human life, of what is beyond the quantifiable” (gullien, 2019, p. 217), focusing on a participant’s cultural experiences, values, and beliefs. hermeneutic phenomenology requires a careful and iterative interpretation of the text of a participant’s lived experience. drawing on interviews, diaries, and journaling, this form of phenomenology incorporates myriad ways that dialogue can initiate, evolve, and sustain in order to generate a deep understanding of a collective experience of a human phenomenon. recognizing the influence of the researcher’s own lived experience, phenomenologists can apply an ethic of care into the research process where empathy is exerted, allowing space for the participant to share their experiences within their cultural and sociopolitical context instead of in a more general way (smith & osborn, 2003). an example of the application of black feminist theory phenomenological research can be found in hatcher’s (2021) dissertation titled gendered racial experiences of black women students at hispanic serving institutions. in this hermeneutic phenomenological study, hatcher (2021) drew on black feminist theory to help interpret the lived experiences of black female undergraduate students attending predominantly hispanic college. she conducted a close reading of the interview transcripts with five black women undergraduates to explore their stress related to microaggressions, as well as their approaches to supporting one another through their college experiences. autoethnography as a critical methodology, autoethnography is a qualitative approach that allows for exploration of the intersectionalities present in the lives of black women. in addition to telling the often silenced stories of black women, autoethnography centers the lived experience of the researcher in her own research. aligned with the ethic of personal accountability in black feminist epistemology, black women researchers are personally responsible for using their privileged standpoints to tell the larger story of black women’s lived experiences by beginning with their own experiences. autoethnography enables black women scholars to employ research as a vehicle for activism and social justice within and beyond the academy (gale & wyatt, 2018). an example of the application of black feminist theory in an autoethnographic study can be found in lawrence’s (2019) dissertation titled changing the world one black girl at a time: an autoethnography of a black wom[x]n teacher’s journey to become an agent of change. lawrence (2019) recounted that she analyzed 20 years of her journals, correspondences, and other artifacts to explore her experiences in predominantly white educational settings as a k-12 student, undergraduate student, teacher, and administrator. lawrence (2019) endeavored to use her lived experiences to challenge dominant narratives about black girls and school discipline practices contributing to their suspension and expulsion. these are three examples of qualitative approaches to use with black feminist theory. other approaches include grounded theory, ethnography, and case study. black feminist theory can also be employed in mixed methods designs. further possibilities and conclusion regarding the cped framework (carnegie project of the education doctorate, 2022), the use of black feminist theory with edd research methods courses has the potential to expand the epistemologies that are used to address problems of practice, serve as a mechanism for mentoring and advising diverse students, and support the development of well-rounded equity-minded scholarly practitioners. what makes edd candidates’ research special is the focus on complex, yet current, problems of practice situated in a realworld context. as the current socio-political context is consumed with civil unrest and trauma, it is likely that the problems of practice that edd candidates tackle will connect with these socially conscious themes of inquiry. by exposing students to black feminist theory as they develop their positionalities, the framing of their problems of practice through the epistemological lens of black feminist theory including: 1) the inclusion of concrete experiences as a criterion of meaning, 2) use of dialogue in assessment knowledge claims, 3) ethic of caring, and 4) ethic of personal accountability (hill collins (1991, 2000), is possible. according to the american association of university women (2022), black women are more likely than black men to earn degrees, and 65% of black students earning doctoral, medical, and dental degrees are black women. moreover, black students are overrepresented in majors that are associated with lower earnings including education and human services (american association of university women, 2022). thus, black women students are very much present in many edd programs. as stated by cped, “mentoring and advising should be guided by equity and justice, mutual respect, dynamic learning, flexibility, intellectual space, supportive learning environments, cohort and individualized attention, rigorous practices, and integration”. adding to this, while we know that black students thrive when they have professors who share the same ancestral heritages, this may not always be possible given the current racial makeup of education faculty. however, part of mentoring and advising includes exposing students to critical theories and epistemologies that speak to their lived experiences. these frameworks influence the lens that shapes how students see the construction of knowledge which in turn they can use in their inquiry pursuits. in addition, as we mentor and advise students who do not identify as black, we can help them leverage black feminist theory and use the concepts to advance their pursuits of justice through their scholarly inquiry within practice settings. budhai & grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.337 14 finally, according to cped, scholarly practitioners leverage applied theories and practice-based research methods to contribute to change in their professional settings (carnegie project of the education doctorate, 2022). without the inclusion of black feminist theories as a viable epistemological complement to edd research, we are doing our students a disservice, depriving them of critical theories needed to “inform educational leaders of all races and genders in leading to eliminate inequities (capper, 2020, p. 198). all edd students, many of whose research and practice are about and/or with black people, need to understand critical frameworks that are relevant to the communities that they serve. 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(2003). interpretative phenomenological analysis. in j. a. smith (ed.), qualitative psychology: a practical guide to research methods (pp. 51-80). sage publications, inc. https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/fast-facts-woc-higher-ed/ https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/fast-facts-woc-higher-ed/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418800754 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 pilot testing as a strategy to develop interview and questionnaire skills for scholar practitioners: a selection of education doctorate students’ reflective vignettes ruth tate university of toronto ruth.tate@utoronto.ca fatima beauregard university of toronto fatima.beauregard@utoronto.ca cristina peter university of toronto cristina.peter@utoronto.ca laura marotta university of toronto laura.marotta@utoronto.ca abstract this essay presents the reflections of four education doctorate (edd) students on the pilot testing strategies used during an online research methods course. rigorous questionnaire and interview development skills are challenging to acquire. pilot testing is an under-researched stage of instrument design, yet it is crucial to ensure validity and reliability, reduce bias, and psychologically prepare researchers for data collection. a structured, multi-step pilot testing process led to the collective development of stronger scholar-practitioner identities, the use of innovative synchronous/asynchronous methods during covid-19 and increased academic rigor. these reflections demonstrate how several types of pilot testing can support the development of rigorous data collection instruments and prepare post-graduate students for the psychological and technical challenges they may encounter in future research. keywords research methods, pilot testing, critical self-reflections, education doctorate, course design, learning during covid-19 introduction the education doctorate (edd) has historically been the awkward middle child of faculties of education hard to differentiate from the phd yet often considered intellectually inferior and lacking the status of the “higher professions” (labaree, 2003, p. 13). moreover, critics of the edd argue that it has focused on traditional research methods that inadequately prepare educational leaders to conduct sound, rigorous, research that is relevant to their practice (buss et al., 2014). in recent years, there has been a focus on how the edd can be intentionally structured so that graduate students can transition from learners with extensive professional experience to scholarly, influential practitioners with the “combined practical wisdom, professional knowledge, and research skills to identify, frame, and solve problems of practice in their workplace settings” (buss et al., 2014, p. 139). rigorous data collection that produces meaningful contributions to the field can be a challenging skill for novice and experienced scholars alike. naturally, a researcher’s skills determine the reliability and validity of instruments and the quality of both qualitative and quantitative research. when conducting interviews, the interviewer is “the primary instrument” (majid et al., 2017, p.1) in data collection, and when using questionnaires, the wording of questions is “crucial to their success” (cohen et al., 2018, p. 496). as edd students cultivating our research skills, we have found limited empirical research examining how scholars acquire the methodological acumen that is central to producing quality educational research. there is little formal training available, few verified resources, and a gap in the literature examining how to develop excellent research skills in scholar practitioners, especially with regards to developing interview protocols and questionnaires (roulston et al., 2003). this essay presents our critical self-reflections as four edd students on the instrument development processes and metacognitive exercises used during a research methods course titled “introduction to research methods for the edd” with synchronous and asynchronous components. the carnegie project https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7033-0898 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5992-2569 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7916-6913 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0361-8178 pilot testing as a strategy to develop interview impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 21 on the education doctorate (cped)’s (2021) “design-concepts upon which to build edd programs”, recommends that scholarly practitioners should develop “a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry” (para. 6) that they can use to “name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (para. 8). the first half of this course aimed to provide students with an understanding of research ethics, the main paradigms and methodologies in educational research, how to formulate research questions, and different research designs. in the second half of the course, there was a focus on providing active learning opportunities that would allow students to “acquire essential research skills” (acton, 2022, p. 3). during the course, students developed a research question linked to a problem of practice and designed and conducted interviews and survey questionnaires. the aim was for the skills, readings, and considerations that students used to explore their research questions in this course to inform their doctoral dissertation research later in the course. in this essay, we share our experiences of following a multi-step, iterative, pre-testing, and revision pilot testing method of our interview protocol and questionnaires. we then reflect on the process and impact of gathering feedback from peers, recording think-aloud feedback, and conducting recorded cognitive interviews, and conclude by sharing recommendations for promising practices in future graduate research methods courses. purpose this reflective essay uses castillo-montoya's (2016) interview protocol refinement (ipr) framework to showcase how the stages of pilot testing, including peer feedback and cognitive interviewing, are effective pedagogical practices in developing both quantitative and qualitative research skills. its purpose is to provide insights from edd students that can support scholars’ and instructors' integration of peer-to-peer pilot testing as a pedagogical tactic to support rigorous, quality data collection instrument development and prepare students for the potential psychological and technical challenges of the research process. literature review while surveys and interviews are widely used by scholars, there is limited research and guidance on how doctoral students develop these skills through the course of their programs (cohen et al., 2018; collins, 2003; merriam & tisdell, 2016). as emerging researchers and scholars, graduate students aim to learn how to produce “results that are valid, reliable, sensitive, unbiased and complete” (collins, 2003, p. 229) both for methodological rigor and to uphold participants’ rights to engage in quality research (cohen et al., 2018). the quality of the data collected relies heavily on the data collection instrument yet creating an interview protocol or survey instrument is not an intuitive or simple task. in quantitative research, cohen et al. (2018) argue that every stage of the questionnaire development process should be critically reflected upon, including the questions, their impact on participants, the data analysis, and the reporting. in qualitative research, scholars agree that interview protocols must be carefully designed to ensure validity and reliability and reduce bias (castillo-montoya, 2016; collins, 2003; merriam & tisdell, 2016). intentionally embedding pilot testing within a designbased research methods course can be a meaningful and effective pedagogical practice to support edd students in developing their skills as research practitioners. pilot testing prepares students for the potential challenges encountered during data collection and increases developing scholars’ competence and confidence in their research processes (castillo-montoya, 2016; collins, 2003; merriam & tisdell, 2016). with the goal of creating surveys and questionnaires that are “clear, unambiguous and useful” (de vaus, 2014, p. 97), participating in pilot testing allows students to check clarity of questions, gain feedback on validity of questionnaire items, test whether questions are leading, eliminate ambiguities, and check readability (cohen et al., 2018; de vaus, 2014; privitera & ahlgrim-delzell, 2018). in addition to the creation of a reliable and valid instrument, students can also use piloting activities to monitor the participant experience, such as checking how long the questionnaire takes to complete and how difficult the questions are to answer. finally, piloting can support students’ understanding of data analysis as they can use the pilot phase to generate categories from open-ended response items, identify redundant or superfluous questions, and try out potential coding/classification systems for data analysis (cohen et al., 2018). in the design of an interview protocol, pilot testing supports students in generating interview protocols that are clear, consistent, and participant-centered (truong, 2021). piloting, more importantly, allows students to practice conducting interviews which can be surprisingly challenging! many researchers state they have never received formal interview training; therefore, piloting interviews within doctoral programs can provide future researchers with an informal and low stakes way to hone and practice their identity and skills as interviewers (majid et al., 2017; roulston et al., 2003). using the ipr framework as a guide for piloting interviews and surveys while there is scant literature on the teaching of research design to doctoral students, castillo-montoya's (2016) four phase ipr framework offered an elegant process that guided us as doctoral students when piloting interviews and surveys during this research methods course. the ipr framework includes: (1) ensuring that research questions inform the questions asked of participants, (2) creating questions that are inquiry-focused, (3) inviting and incorporating feedback on protocols, and (4) piloting the protocol. in addition to using castillo-montoya's (2016) ipr framework to structure each step of the instrument development process, our course instructor introduced the use of supplemental cognitive interviewing methods to pilot student surveys and questionnaires. willis (1999) describes two components of cognitive interviewing: the think aloud and verbal probing. the think aloud pilot empowers the participant to share their thought process while responding to each survey question. the researcher then notes whether questions are eliciting thought processes that produce reliable and valid responses. the verbal probing procedure allows the researcher to gather further information regarding participants’ understanding of each question and identify how and if a question meets its measurement purpose (collins, 2003). these components of cognitive interviewing ensure that individual questions and the survey, as a whole, receive a rigorous and critical review before being presented to participants (de vaus, 2014). despite the limited literature on pilot testing and its role in supporting emerging researchers in gaining interview and survey protocol creation skills, castillo-montoya's (2016) framework and the cognitive interview processes appear to be rigorous methods for students to use to improve the reliability and validity of their tate et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 22 research protocols and served as the basis for piloting activities within this course. method for the purposes of this course, students were asked to explore a small-scale research question of interest related to their potential dissertation topic that could be further developed at a later stage. peer-to-peer pilot testing was used as a pedagogical practice for an online research methods course for edd students. assignments in the course included the hands-on experience of creating, testing, and conducting a survey questionnaire and interview protocol using asynchronous and synchronous virtual activities. castillo-montoya's (2016) four-phase ipr framework and additional cognitive interviewing strategies were used by students to systematically develop and refine their research protocols. phase 1: aligning interview and survey questions with research questions as part of the pre-testing process, students created a matrix to support the alignment of their research questions to the interview and questionnaire question protocols. these matrices were shared with peers who engaged in a close reading of questions. lose reading of an interview protocol “entails a colleague, research team member, or research assistant examining the protocol for structure, length, writing style, and comprehension” (castillo-montoya, 206, p. 826). asynchronous feedback was provided via discussion boards, and students then included the proposed changes within their matrices. students engaged in personal reflection and used the feedback they received to inform revisions to their instruments. phase 2: constructing an inquiry-based conversation after pre-testing the interview questions, students created a script “a written text that guides the interviewer during the interview” (castillo-montoya, 2016, p. 824) to support smoother transitions between questions and achieve a more natural, conversation-based interview protocol. the consideration of prompts and follow-up questions also occurred at this stage of the process. students created a chart to track changes made to the interview protocols and the reasoning behind those changes. this step was not relevant for the questionnaire, as the questionnaires were to be completed asynchronously and anonymously by participants without the presence of a researcher. phase 3: receiving feedback on interview protocols and questionnaires castillo-montoya (2016) identifies that a close reading of the interview protocol can help provide important feedback to enhance reliability of the protocol. willis (1999) identifies a comparable version of close reading for questionnaires and survey questions through think aloud activities and verbal probing. students participated in both activities with peers from our cohort, using slightly different processes for the interview and questionnaire protocols. when evaluating the questionnaires, students used the rules for writing survey items (privitera & ahlgrim-delzell, 2018) to guide them as they provided feedback on the overall flow, design, and length of their peers’ surveys. for the questionnaire, the think-aloud activities were conducted asynchronously with this group of students, recording their close reading thoughts in an audio file as they completed the survey questions. the questionnaire was revised a second time using this feedback before the second cognitive interview activity. during the second cognitive interview activity, the edd student (as interviewer) used a verbal probing approach to ask the respondent questions about their thoughts on the survey questions as they completed the questionnaire. changes based on this verbal probing activity were then made to the survey to create the finished protocol. for the interview protocols, feedback was given asynchronously in a first close reading, then synchronously in a think-aloud cognitive interview. after each of these exercises, students were encouraged to refine their questions and track their changes using a chart to illustrate the evolution of their protocols. phase 4: piloting the interview protocol and survey questionnaire for the final step of this process, a pilot test of the survey questionnaire was conducted via the discussion board where students could take one another's survey and offer final feedback. the final stage of interview pilot testing also included a practice interview with an individual, who either had familiarity with the topic or was a member of the target population, within or outside of our program. this practice interview was conducted in person or using a video meeting platform. simulating the context of the interview provided the interviewer with a realistic idea of how long the interview would take and allowed the interviewer to make necessary improvements or changes to the protocol (castillo-montoya, 2016). this final stage of testing interviews and surveys in full with members of the target population helped to confirm the validity of the questions being used, helped students practice their roles as interviewers, and ultimately resulted in methodologically rigorous data collection instruments that students were confident in using for research (kelley et al., 2003). a finished product the final project of the course was a scholarly paper itemizing the development of survey tools and interview protocols and reflecting on the evolution of these products throughout the course based on readings, lectures, peer-to-peer feedback, and pilot testing. after working through this course together, we continued to meet virtually to compare our experiences. this time spent together after the course solidified our learning, allowing us to gain different perspectives and a richer understanding of the different facets of research design as experienced by our peers. the personal experiences are reflected in the following vignettes, as each student discusses their primary takeaways. vignettes vignette 1: collective learning and the formation of our scholar-practitioner identities fatima: many students entering graduate education programs, such as our edd program, are working professionals, and depending on their previous education and work experience, some students have not had any prior undergraduate experience conducting research (coronel llamas & boza, 2010). i started this program with pilot testing as a strategy to develop interview impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 23 years of professional working experience, confident in identifying myself as a practitioner but doubting my skills and abilities as a researcher. although i had experience conducting a research study for my master's degree, i completed my research two decades ago. it was quantitative research, and it was not in the field of education. as such, i began the research methods course with some theory but no hands-on experience with qualitative research methods. the organization and content of the lectures and the extent of peer-topeer, active learning exercises provided the necessary structure and support to guide my learning as an adult learner. as a member of a cohort in our edd program, the tasks of giving and receiving feedback, role-playing, and conducting cognitive interviews provided multiple opportunities to collaborate, build relationships, and share knowledge with a diverse group of peers. interviewing can include not only technical challenges but psychological difficulties, especially for novice researchers. feedback can provide the researcher with information about how well participants understand the interview questions and whether their understanding is close to what the researcher intends or expects (patton, 2015). having multiple perspectives from my peer group on my interview questions provided valuable insights that i would not have had on my own. the pilot testing process that we engaged in, due to its ongoing nature and the intentional collective involvement of fellow students, created a dynamic learning opportunity to support our development as scholarly practitioners within a safe space. i appreciated the time and planning that went into designing and guiding the course to provide for the “open communication, critical friendships, and peer-to-peer support with reciprocal interactions and responsibilities” that i feel helped us to form a true “community of learners” throughout the pilot testing process (cped, 2021, para. 14). the scaffolded learning that we received during this course was purposeful, and the assigned readings in conjunction with the peer-peer activities and feedback increased my skills, knowledge, and confidence with the interview process. by engaging in experiential learning as a group, we developed competence with developing and conducting interviews by sharing knowledge with each other, reflecting, and providing meaningful feedback. active learning opportunities such as these helped to scaffold learning within an authentic context, provided us opportunities to engage in meaningful practices with peers and faculty, exposed us to the complexities and messiness of the research process, and empowered us to be more confident in the research process (saeed & al qunayeer, 2021). an integral part of the cped (2021) framework is to build an edd program using a set of program principles, including “laboratories of practice” where “theory and practice inform and enrich each other” (para. 11) the pilot interview process contributed to my growth as a novice qualitative researcher, and i hope that i was able to contribute to the growth of others. the impact of the peer-to-peer support during this learning cannot be underestimated – these intentional, collective, collaborative experiences helped to strengthen my expertise, social, professional, and academic relationships and the formation of my identity as a scholarly practitioner. vignette 2: increased academic rigor ruth: the feedback received was instrumental in allowing me to reflect on the survey’s clarity, structure, validity, and reliability and in improving it ahead of sending participants the final iteration. going through the process of crafting, revising, and testing was an opportunity to bridge theory and practice and improve my interview protocol. when considering feedback, i was able to rephrase questions, clarify the wording where necessary, and prepare additional prompts (roulston et al., 2003). when my classmates indicated a question was difficult to understand, redrafting, and having the opportunity to discuss further increased my confidence that respondents would not satisfice, as understanding questions is key to respondents giving authentic, considered responses rather than perfunctory answers that fulfil the minimum requirements (cohen, et al., 2018; collins, 2003). the recorded audio file was particularly useful when piloting the survey. if both the pilot respondents understood a question in the same way, it indicated clarity, as they had recorded separately and were not influenced by each other’s responses. when discrepant feedback was given, i saw how specific terms and questions could be interpreted differently and adapted the wording before our in-person meeting. some of the feedback also identified biased language i corrected. one question was initially phrased “our school critically examines the curriculum to determine whether it reinforces negative cultural stereotypes.” one classmate reflected that any cultural stereotype can be harmful, which allowed me to rephrase the question in the next iteration. after multiple steps of pilot testing, i felt more confident in the research process, and that although eliminating all bias is unrealistic, the interview protocol and questionnaire would yield valid, reliable data that authentically represented participants’ views (cohen et al., 2018). vignette 3: learning during covid-19: hybrid pedagogies and innovation cristina: as we were participating in this course in winter of 2022 during the peak of the omicron wave in ontario, all class activities were required to be virtual. while virtual classes can limit peer-to-peer activities, i greatly appreciated our instructor’s creativity and intentionality in using virtual tools to support peer-to-peer piloting, and as a result, i believe there were benefits and improvements on how peer-to-peer piloting can be conducted in the future. for our first piloting activity, for both the interview and survey, we were asked to review multiple classmates' protocols asynchronously via a discussion board. i gave and received more insightful feedback on protocols, as these reflections were not conducted in a noisy thinkpair-share type classroom activity. i had the time and quiet i needed to deeply reflect on my peers’ work, and i reviewed far more peers’ protocols asynchronously than i could during a single class period. by seeing more of my peers’ work, i saw a diversity of unique approaches to using class readings and lectures in the creation of protocols (de vaus, 2014). while in person think-pair-share reviews of protocols are a more traditional approach, moving this initial step of piloting asynchronously and online was a great benefit for my learning. as a scholar-practitioner, i find it challenging to practice research skills, especially since i cannot participate in the research assistant roles, as my full-time peers in phd programs can. the asynchronous activities allowed for flexibility in the timing of activities that we adapted as needed to accommodate our schedules. flexible and intentional activities, like piloting via discussion boards, limit the amount of rushed class assignments and focus on developing tangible skills through deep and reflective learning to ensure students have these research skills prior to embarking on the dissertation process. tate et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 24 my other favorite pivot was conducting the think aloud pilot asynchronously by recording ourselves reading aloud and talking through one another's surveys. recording and sending our read aloud to each other electronically rather than meeting to conduct them was a quick change our group had to make due to scheduling conflicts that week. reflecting on this process, participating in asynchronous think alouds eliminated the possibility of us interjecting or reacting to our peers’ commentary on our survey questions and potentially stifling honest responses (willis, 1999). hearing the recording of my peers’ unfiltered thought processes as they worked through my survey instrument was helpful in generating verbal probing questions to dig deeply into some of the more challenging concepts i was trying to measure. lockdown or none, i would highly recommend instructors and students incorporate asynchronous components of pilot testing via discussion board reviews and a recorded think aloud, as i felt these were more beneficial than synchronous piloting activities! asynchronous, spacious learning activities to explore and practice research skills are both efficient and effective in training scholar practitioners in the nuances of research. vignette 4: the challenges experienced by a wouldbe quantitative research/practitioner laura: as a student in the edd program, i participate in compulsory courses with my classmates along a prescribed timeline. the course where my fellow authors and i practiced our research methods, and in particular pilot testing, focused almost entirely on a qualitative research approach. although i was fairly certain, even at this early stage in the program, that i would not engage in interviews in my research, i learned significantly from using this pilot testing protocol. now that i am further along in my studies and have determined that i will pursue a quantitative methodology, i provide a reflection on a slight gap i now recognize in the course structure of the edd related to pilot testing for quantitative research or rather a mixed methods methodology. creswell and guetterman (2019) recommend locating, modifying, or developing instruments as the fourth step in the process of quantitative data collection and “the easiest procedure is to use an existing instrument or modify one, rather than develop your own” (p. 170). i benefited as a novice researcher from participating in pilot testing through the think-aloud activities because i tested an existing instrument and considered potential modifications. the cognitive think-aloud, like the practice we engaged to test our interview questions, provided significant insight on examining my bias and decisively explaining the choices i made regarding the specific language used in the final instrument i chose to send to participants. it was essential to ensure my questions had the same meaning for respondents as they did for me, the researcher (collins, 2003; devaus, 2014). the cohort edd structure, however, specifies that certain compulsory courses will be taken in a particular order with the cohort members (ontario institute for studies in education, n.d.). research methods, the course upon which this paper is focused, was scheduled as the fourth compulsory course, and it is expected that all members of our cohort be enrolled during the stated term without opportunity for an elective until after this term. wanting to pursue quantitative research, i would have benefited from testing the questions related to my hypothesis or how variables might or might not interact with one another (creswell & guetterman, 2019) in order to prepare for the specific psychological and technical challenges associated with this process as well. i had not yet even learned about these and therefore did not take full advantage of pilot testing to develop and test them. i advocate, therefore, for a pause in the edd course's timeline to allow for an introductory statistics elective related to a student’s interest in pursuing quantitative research. this would allow the researcher to “consider how the research questions or hypotheses will be answered when deciding on what data type(s) to use, identify the variables, operationally define them, and select measures (e.g., performance and attitudes, observations of behavior, and factual and personal data) that fit the operational definitions” (creswell & guetterman, 2019, p. 170) and then engage with classmates in pilot testing. i might recommend testing not only the language of the questions but also the type of statistical analysis that would be employed to examine relationships, if any related to the variables in question. a novice researcher would need, at minimum, a cursory understanding of statistical practices and measures which i did not possess. while it is evident i did not select the most appropriate research methods course, without the opportunity of a statistics elective, i certainly was not adequately prepared in any research methods course to pilot test a questionnaire for statistical analysis. furthermore, it was challenging in the subsequent compulsory data analysis course i enrolled in to engage in meaningful measures, as much of my previous work had been focused on an interview protocol i would not use. recommendations these reflections point to recommendations for supporting students in participating in peer-to-peer pilot testing to improve their qualitative and quantitative instruments and learn valuable research skills. based on promising practices used by our course instructor, we highlight the following recommendations for instructors who wish to incorporate new and innovative practices into research methods courses: 1. include multi-step piloting integrated as an explicit, structured component of research methods courses to scaffold deep understanding of each step of the research method. 2. edd students, as scholar-practitioners, have limited resources and availability to participate in and conduct research prior to their dissertations. offer synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for both face-to-face and online course options to accommodate edd students with different learning preferences and time commitments to reflect on and critique one another's work. asynchronous activities also encourage diverse pairings of students. 3. consider integrating piloting models that balance the focus on both qualitative and quantitative methods within educational research. for additional depth, consider using piloting frameworks beyond their intended purpose for new approaches, like using castillo-montoya's (2016) ipr framework to support quantitative as well as qualitative testing. 4. continue to create and share empirical research to fill the gap in the literature on effective pilot testing and feedback strategies. 5. although focus groups and other methodologies were not included in this research course, instructors may consider using these pilot testing strategies in the teaching of other methodologies to edd students. pilot testing as a strategy to develop interview impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.333 25 conclusion this essay highlights the reflections from four edd students on conducting systematic and rigorous multi-phase pilot testing of survey questions and interview protocols during a research methods course. coronel llamas and boza (2011) describe the journey that doctoral students take as they engage in this type of active learning of research methods by stating that, students range from being passive recipients of knowledge about research methods and prior research to fully engaging in the process of research, and thus becoming active agents in creating their own research agenda and further developing their own professional and personal understandings of the world around them (p. 78). as a professional doctorate, the edd presents specific considerations when teaching the applied theories and research methods necessary for scholarly practitioners to be able to pose and address “significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice” (cped, 2021, para. 10). as a result of the intentional course scaffolding of our instructor and the accidental necessities of the pandemic, we experienced a research methods course that fostered collaborative and reflective learning to begin to hone our work as active agents who are continuing to make sense of the world around us. inviting and incorporating peer feedback on protocols using a variety of methods, including asynchronous review on the university’s online portal, recorded think aloud feedback, and cognitive interviews with probing questions, led to improvements in the clarity and flow of the questions used to pilot the interview and questionnaire question protocols (castillo-montoya, 2016; collins, 2003; majid et al., 2017; willis, 1999). pilot testing the interview protocols provided students with the opportunity to collectively roleplay, reflect, revise, learn, and grow as emerging researchers. the flexible nature of the asynchronous strategies provided were particularly effective in developing applied research skills for scholarly practitioners with full-time professional commitments. most phd students dedicate themselves full-time to their studies and can develop research skills through teaching and/or research assistant positions in which graduate students work collaboratively with professors. in contrast, the edd requires the integration of flexible opportunities for collaborative critical reflection as students develop their problems of practice and research skills. all four of us found that pilot testing helped us reciprocally develop scholar-practitioner identities and skills through an iterative and collaborative cycle of sharing knowledge and reflecting. starting the edd during covid-19 presented undeniable challenges, but also opportunities for innovation and flexibility. the relevance of pilot testing for doctoral candidates from such different backgrounds and with such varying interests indicate these reflections are relevant to a wide range of scholars seeking to develop their research skills. after receiving feedback, redrafting, and retesting our interview protocols and questionnaires several times in authentic contexts, we were better prepared for psychological and technical challenges and confident in our research instruments’ reliability and validity. we hope these potential recommendations can help future cohorts of students. acknowledgements we are grateful to dr. karen acton for her guidance and support in the class and conversations that inspired this article. dr. acton’s expertise as both an educational scholar and practitioner afforded our cohort a rigorous foundation by which to explore survey and interview protocols. as students who truly benefited from this process, we hope that other faculty are inspired to use dr acton’s methods for teaching survey and interview skills. references acton, k. 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[short course] research triangle park, nc: research triangle institute. meeting of the american statistical association. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-11-2013-0022 https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2337 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4038871?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/4038871?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2010.492136 https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzg031 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x032004013 https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v7-i4/2916 https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/lhae/doctoral-degrees/doctor-education-educational-leadership-policy https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/lhae/doctoral-degrees/doctor-education-educational-leadership-policy https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800403252736 https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2020.1728526 https://doi.org/10.20935/al2335 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 39 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 fair play: a qualitative exploration of visitor behavior at playgrand adventures all-abilities playground taylor d. bunn baylor university taylor.bunn@gmail.com leanne howell baylor university leanne_howell@baylor.edu lacy k. crocker papadakis baylor university lacy_crocker@baylor.edu abstract people with disabilities in the united states have access to a fraction of engaging play experiences available to others due to playground design choices, minimal legal requirements, and societal acceptance of the status quo. playgrand adventures, the first and largest all-abilities playground in north texas, meets this need by providing engaging play opportunities for everyone. this qualitative case study explores and describes community engagement at playgrand adventures, informed by principles of environmental reciprocity supported by bandura’s social cognitive theory (1986) and gibson’s affordance theory (1979). the researcher collected data on community perception and engagement via a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and playground observations. the study fills a gap in academic research on all-abilities playgrounds in the united states to increase awareness of the systemic underserving of people with disabilities in this country and provides a potential solution. the researcher offers initial recommendations for playgrand adventures’ future development and implementation with implications for replication in other cities. keywords accessible, all-abilities playground, disability, inclusion children and adults with disabilities merit the same opportunities for development and social engagement as those without disabilities. it can be challenging, however, to find playgrounds that are engaging for all visitors. playground design should include equitable features for marginalized populations, yet almost 20 percent of the united states population consistently receives fewer, inferior opportunities to play (brault, 2012; stantonchapman & schmidt, 2019). people with disabilities are at a greater risk of acute and chronic health issues stemming from a lack of physical activity (booth et al., 2012; centers for disease control and prevention, 2018; office of disease prevention and health promotion, n.d.). free, accessible city services and facilities, like parks and recreation centers, are critical to ensure all people’s physical and mental health and development. north texas is a 9,000 square mile region containing 150 cities, including dallas and fort worth. nearly ten percent of 6.8 million north texans live with physical and cognitive disabilities, and 114,433 of these live below the poverty line (north central texas council of governments in playgrand adventures: a dallas-fort worth destination, n.d.; north texas commission, 2016). playgrand adventures, an all-abilities playground located in the north texas city of grand prairie, aims “to create and manage an inclusive playground where children and adults of all ages and abilities can play together, in a seamless, barrier free [sic] and playful environment” (playgrand adventures, n.d.). playgrand normalizes inclusion by offering equipment and features that can be enjoyed by everyone: children with physical and intellectual disabilities, children without disabilities, parents with disabilities who want to play with their children, aging relatives, people who want open spaces, people who love risky play, and people who prefer tranquil spaces. as the vision and creation of this playground develop, visitor engagement with existing features should guide design and implementation strategies. statement of the problem everyone needs and deserves to play, connect, and belong. people with disabilities need the social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development supported by playing independently, crossgenerationally, and with their peers (clarke, 2018; deaver & wright, 2018; yılmaz & soyer, 2018). furthermore, people with disabilities are positively impacted by learning and practicing attributes such as http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ bunn et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 40 respect, empathy, creativity, self-advocacy, and agency in social situations with peers (clarke, 2018; deaver & wright, 2018; yılmaz & soyer, 2018). communities must ensure all individuals have equitable access to engaging playgrounds and other play spaces. the lack of equitable play-based resources and opportunities impacts how often children with disabilities play (jenvey, 2013; reimers et al., 2018). in 2014, 23 playgrounds in north texas were deemed accessible based on a minimal standard of having at least one accessible feature (npr, 2014). this standard means a playground could qualify as accessible by having a smooth, wheelchair-friendly surface, even if none of the play equipment was accessible by a child in a wheelchair. these 23 playgrounds offered a variety of features, primarily focused on mobility accommodations, but none offered all accessible features. twelve playgrounds had smooth services throughout for ease of transport within the space. eight had transfer stations for visitors to move or be moved from their mobility device to a play feature, and six had ramps to play components. six had at least one accessible swing, three had play components utilizing sound, and one had a play component for visually impaired visitors (npr, 2014). the extent to which people with disabilities in north texas are underserved is an ethical as well as a legal issue. the americans with disabilities act of 1990 (ada) aimed to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and ensure equity in rights and opportunities. public recreation facilities, like city parks and playgrounds, must follow certain specifications to ensure equitable opportunities and resources are available for all visitors. playgrounds must have accessible pathways. the surfacing material and grade must allow ease of use by people with physical disabilities. there must be ramps and transfer stations that allow access to play equipment for people who use mobility aids (americans with disabilities act of 1990). accessibility is necessary, and these accommodations are essential, but they are not enough to ensure equitable experiences for all visitors. the law requires attention to critical mobility issues regarding equipment and entry, but it ignores sensory issues, sight and sound disabilities, developmental delays, and intellectual disabilities (americans with disabilities act of 1990). playgrounds need more than smooth surfaces and transfer stations for wheelchairs. these mobility accommodations provide access to some playground features. still, they do not give independence to a child who wants the freedom to play on a piece of equipment without being lifted by a caregiver (siu et al., 2017). playgrounds should have more than a swing that can accommodate a wheelchair—they need swings, slides, and towers that can accommodate wheelchairs, walkers, braces, and crutches. they need quiet spaces, features with lights and sound, sensory elements, challenge courses, and open areas for all types of play (christensen & morgan, 2003). playgrounds should innovate, create, expand, and provide opportunities for all unique individuals to play together to reap the positive benefits of play (brown, 2010; christensen & morgan, 2003; clarke, 2018; stanton-chapman & schmidt, 2019; zahl et al., 2014). community engagement is necessary for playgrounds like playgrand adventures to succeed, expand, and innovate (city of fort wayne parks & recreation, n.d.; george et al., 2012; manzo & perkins, 2006). all-abilities playgrounds require significant space and funding, so there must be a perception of value to multiple community stakeholders for long-term support and sustainability (city of fort wayne parks & recreation, n.d.; jonathan’s dream, n.d.; zahl et al., 2014). building an all-abilities playground is an important first step in solving the problem of access to equitable places to play. without engagement from the community through visits, advocacy, and funding, an all-abilities playground will not thrive (jonathan’s dream, n.d.; manzo & perkins, 2006). for this reason, this study focuses simultaneously on the need for all-abilities playgrounds to support people with disabilities and the need for community engagement to support such playgrounds, specifically playgrand adventures. purpose of the study the problem playgrand adventures and other similar playgrounds across the nation strive to solve is one of inclusion (jonathan’s dream, n.d.; playgrand adventures, 2020; shane’s inspiration, n.d.; zahl et al., 2014). this qualitative case study seeks to understand community engagement with playgrand adventures all-abilities playground in grand prairie, tx. the playgrand adventures master plan is ambitious and designed to be built over several years. this playground is a place for play, learning, connection, and opportunity that will serve as a model for similar initiatives in other areas. understanding how the community engages with the first phase of the playground is essential for making informed, effective decisions about future building phases, partnerships, and engagement strategies. at this stage in the research, engagement was considered through the lenses of playground visitation and the utilization of available features. donor behavior and community perception will be more deeply considered as the dissertation develops and more data are collected. one central research question guided this qualitative case study: how do community members engage with playgrand adventures? three subquestions inform this central research question: how do visitors utilize playgrand adventures, how do donors support playgrand adventures, and how does community perception of playgrand adventures drive engagement? this study satisfies a need to determine how community constituents engage with, utilize, and perceive playgrand adventures. the results will inform the design and implementation strategy at playgrand adventures to ensure future phases meet the community’s needs for a place everyone can play. a larger, longterm opportunity also exists to raise awareness about the need for reasonable proximity and access to all-abilities playgrounds across the nation, create a roadmap for replication, and fill a gap in research on the topic in the united states. theoretical framework social cognitive theory, introduced by albert bandura in 1986, posits that (1) people learn from observing others, (2) learning may not result in a change in behavior, (3) cognition plays an important role in learning, and (4) people have control over their actions and environment to a certain degree. the environment is critical in this theory because learners react to what they observe in the environment: general conditions and immediate stimuli. they see that actions are vicariously or directly reinforced, ignored, or punished, and they learn what behaviors to enact based on the observed consequences (bandura, 2001; ormrod, 2020). perception affects behavior—people need to see a payoff to pay attention to fair play: a qualitative exploration impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 41 something or perform a behavior (bandura, 2001; merriam & bierema, 2013; schunk & dibenedetto, 2019). these perceptions and observations combined with a person’s sense of self—selfefficacy, self-confidence, and self-concept—leading to reciprocal causation or an interaction of the environment, the person, and the enacted behaviors (bandura, 2001; merriam & bierema, 2013; ormrod, 2020). this theory is observable in both formal and informal environments, including school buildings, online learning environments, and even playgrounds (bandura, 2001; dewar et al., 2013; merriam & bierema, 2013; schunk & dibenedetto, 2019). gibson’s affordance theory (1979) underscores the importance of understanding how perceptions shape experiences. affordance theory in perception psychology explains how humans and animals interact with their environment. [o]rganisms are given, furnished, provided, or “afforded” support and resources by the environment so that the individual has an opportunity to behave in a particular manner. for example, the affordances of an edible substance, a smiling face, and a solid surface provide, respectively, the individual with the opportunities to eat, to engage in conversation, and to walk securely across an unfamiliar expanse. (roeckelein, 2006) gibson (2015) posits that while what the environment affords remains constant, perception can change depending on who interacts with the environment. for example, an adult’s eye level is not eye level for a child, creating a difference in how they view and perceive objects. the perception of what the environment affords impacts the experience one can have in the environment (gibson, 2015). therefore, considering this theory is vital in ensuring people with disabilities are included in play environments and experiences. creating a playground with multiple features that bring all ages and abilities together affords an environment of equity and inclusion that surpasses the minimum standards required by federal law. this type of environment affords a perception that everyone can have fun playing together in comfortable, safe, and developmentally beneficial ways (stanton-chapman et al., 2020; stanton-chapman & schmidt, 2019). this approach decreases the stigma often associated with disabilities and removes societal barriers and limitations imposed on a significant portion of the population. through this study, the researcher considered multiple opportunities to engage and explored levels of engagement. if there is a perception of value to the community, the community will engage with playgrand adventures. review of existing literature existing literature support the importance of play for all children. children who play benefit from active, creative opportunities for social, emotional, and physical development (buchanan & johnson, 2009; convention on the rights of the child, 1989; deaver & wright, 2018; menconi & grohmann, 2018; siu et al., 2017). unfortunately, most public playgrounds are not equally accessible by all children, especially those with disabilities (siu et al., 2017; stanton-chapman et al., 2020; stanton-chapman & schmidt, 2019; zahl et al., 2014). federal law stipulates that people with disabilities must have access to the same quality of public services as people without disabilities. however, the same law sets accessibility standards for people with disabilities far below what the general population can enjoy (americans with disabilities act of 1990; ada amendments act of 2008). allowing this inequity to exist does a disservice to the almost one in five americans living with physical and cognitive disabilities, an already chronically underserved and disadvantaged group of people (brault, 2012). the benefits of play when children play, the brain creates neural pathways that help them process emotions and gain executive functioning (brown, 2009; panksepp, 2007 as cited in clarke, 2018). play is critical for developing happy, creative, well-adjusted adults who innovate and sustain positive relationships (brown, 2009). by participating in team play, children develop teamwork, empathy, and respect while learning to follow the rules and help others (siu et al., 2017). children need to play in different environments to develop emotional intelligence, social skills, motor coordination, problem-solving, and abstract thinking (siu et al., 2017; yılmaz & soyer, 2018). playgrounds provide a place for people to engage in different types of play that can introduce new skills and experiences. deaver and wright (2018) found that children develop social skills like patience and problem-solving while playing together on playgrounds. academic lessons that take place on outdoor playgrounds build cognitive and social skills, including inquiry, observation, and motor skills like digging and climbing. learning at a playground increases feelings of well-being in children and provides an opportunity to make connections between the curriculum and the natural world in ways that are not possible in a traditional classroom (deaver & wright, 2018). in addition to social, emotional, and academic development, playgrounds promote healthy physical development. playgrounds provide a space for children to get outside, run, jump, climb, and interact with one another. when children see their peers engaged in this physical activity on a playground, they are more likely to engage in physical activity themselves (reimers et al., 2018). “playgrounds should offer a wide variety of play facilities and provide spaces for diverse play activities to respond to the needs of large numbers of different children and to provide activity-friendly areas enabling their healthy development” (reimers & knapp, 2017, p. 1). according to reimers and knapp (2017), these spatial features impact physical activity more than other predictors, including cleanliness, aesthetics, quality, division of features, or playground size. children are curious, and playgrounds provide a space for them to take calculated risks that develop their decision-making skills, judgment, and understanding of consequences. in addition, play is fun, engaging, and interesting, and children enjoy activities that raise their stress levels and induce an exciting bit of fear (gill, 2018; sandseter, 2009a, 2009b). according to gill (2018), risky experiences help children build flexibility, resilience, and confidence. playgrounds also provide an important facility for children to practice risk compensation and test their boundaries. climbing, spinning, play fighting, and moving fast all contribute to this growth and development opportunity (gill, 2018). without equitable access to a full array of play spaces and playground equipment, people with disabilities cannot experience the same valuable opportunities to grow, learn, and interact socially as their peers. a fully accessible and usable playground with appropriate equipment and structures provides more significant opportunities for family and caregiver engagement, social inclusion, and promotion of physical activity (zahl et al., 2014). opportunities to play help children with disabilities develop academically, socially, and emotionally (alison et al., 2013; brown, 2010; bundy et al., bunn et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 42 2008; milteer et al., 2012). denying access to equitable play experiences and opportunities, in both quantity and quality, denies children with disabilities the opportunity for development and social belonging. traditional playground design traditional playgrounds across the world feature similar designs that include easily maintained, mass-produced features. they are familiar, perceived as safe, and can fit into compact spaces (siu et al., 2017). a study of inclusive playgrounds in hong kong noted the sameness of public playgrounds and the reliance on efficiency of design and maintenance. [p]laygrounds had a ‘fast food’ standardized characteristic. the play contents were homogenous and repeated. the playground design did not focus on children and their rights to play. instead, having less safety issues, less complaints, easier management and maintenance were the ultimate goals of designing playgrounds. (siu et al., 2017, p. 171) the research asserts that this focus on efficiency leads to playgrounds that are deemed inclusive based on a few features, such as smooth surfaces and the availability of ramps. however, while technically accessible, these playgrounds are not inclusive. they lack signage and aids for caregivers, and while there are some games for hearing, vision, and cognitive development, the composite structures do not include proper accessibility for inclusive play (siu et al., 2017). figure 1 compares what is considered an accessible seesaw to a genuinely inclusive seesaw. the accessible seesaw (left) does not differ much from traditional seesaws. the inclusive seesaw allows independent entry and utilization by people who use mobility devices via a wide ramp connecting the ground directly to the seating area. the smooth surface around the traditional seesaw allows people who use mobility devices to get to it, and it is low to the ground so that a caregiver is able to lift a child out of a wheelchair and onto the seesaw. however, an individual with a physical disability is not able to play on the seesaw independently (siu et al., 2017). this same issue of accessibility by technicality is seen in parks in north texas and across the united states and includes other playground equipment, like slides and swings, that are accessible but do not invite independent play (npr, 2014). removing physical barriers promotes accessibility, but doesn’t necessarily improve social inclusion. providing greater physical access within the play environment without creating similar social access can actually emphasize a child’s disabilities, rather than their capabilities. perhaps only one in ten children who use wheelchairs and other mobility aids are able to use a standard transfer system. and then they may be able to move around the equipment only by crawling. too often, children with disabilities who can access equipment find themselves isolated because the ‘fun stuff’ is all at higher levels, beyond their reach. (christensen & morgan, 2003, p. 51) thus, access without inclusion does not afford an equitable opportunity for social belonging or physical, cognitive, and emotional development to children with disabilities. playgrand adventures strives to be an inclusive space where people of all ages can experience engaging play together. the need for academic scholarship grassroots efforts and word-of-mouth marketing have effectively increased awareness of inclusive playgrounds, existing since 1996 and garnering attention from local media and playground equipment manufacturers (zahl et al., 2014). still, there is a need for more academic research to deepen understanding of how inclusive playgrounds create opportunities for people with disabilities to thrive (boldureanu, 2015; jenvey, 2013; stanton-chapman et al., 2020; stanton-chapman & schmidt, 2019). this knowledge transfer from academic research leads to technology, service, and product innovations that potentially disrupt the market and provide solutions to societal inequities (boldureanu, 2015). ultimately, this critical discourse is necessary for raising awareness, understanding options, and insisting on inclusive—not just accessible—opportunities and resources for people with disabilities. figure 1. comparison of accessible and inclusive seesaws note. from siu et al., 2017. photos are available for reprinting through a creative commons license. fair play: a qualitative exploration impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 43 this researcher is hopeful as more playgrounds are built, awareness will grow, leading others to learn about and support the work ahead. demand for inclusive playground equipment could increase, potentially lowering its cost as it becomes more efficient to mass-produce. an increase in scholarship could drive policy change to more thoroughly insist on inclusion for people with disabilities in public playgrounds, impacting legal requirements, availability of resources, and societal mindsets. the development of inclusive playgrounds depends on the engagement of the community, inclusive mindsets, and prioritization of resources including space and funding (city of fort wayne parks & recreation, n.d.; stantonchapman et al., 2020; zahl et al., 2014). this study aims to begin the work of cultivating these outcomes through academic scholarship by thoroughly describing community engagement during the implementation of playgrand adventures. research design the researcher utilized a qualitative case study design to deeply explore community engagement at playgrand adventures including playground visitation and utilization, donor behaviors, and the role of perception in driving engagement. the qualitative case study methodology was appropriate for the specific focus on a sole location with a small sample size (creswell & poth, 2018; yin, 2017). this narrow focus allowed deeper exploration of multiple themes and perspectives utilizing a variety of data sources (yin, 2017). the researcher deeply examined multiple elements of one playground, offering a thick description and an accurate, contextual explanation of how visitors, donors, and other stakeholders interacted with the playground in person and virtually during the three-month period of the study (creswell & poth, 2018; hayes et al., 2015). the in-depth analysis was bound by time and utilized multiple data collection strategies. this study explored one primary research question: how do community stakeholders engage with playgrand adventures? three subquestions guided this exploration of engagement. the first, how visitors utilize playgrand adventures, was answered through on-site observations of playground visitors focused on how they interacted with the equipment and environment. the second, how donors support playgrand adventures, explored donor behavior and fundraising activities. the third, how community perception drives engagement, sought to uncover the role of perception through the lenses of affordance theory (gibson, 1977) and social cognitive theory (bandura, 1986). while it was necessary to identify what types of engagement took place, understanding what drives engagement enables playgrand adventures and potential new inclusive playgrounds to respond to stakeholder perception in planning future design, implementation, marketing, and funding strategies. this paper focuses on playground utilization, and donor behavior and the role of perception are analyzed as key components of the complete dissertation. just as participants interpret the environment and their experiences, the researcher made meaning of the social engagement observed and understood through the inductive, constructivist process meant to adapt and respond as new data emerged (creswell & creswell, 2018). lessons learned and personal connections from participants led to recommendations based on findings, which are targeted to multiple audiences to bridge gaps in understanding and provide practical and implementable solutions (hayes et al., 2015; yin, 2017). data collection data were collected via a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and on-site observations. the questionnaire was launched using a password-protected survey monkey account accessed only by the researcher. the 14 questions were primarily open-ended and covered a combination of demographics, behaviorbased questions, and perception-based questions. questionnaire participants opted into follow-up semi-structured interviews conducted virtually and recorded on the researcher’s passwordprotected zoom account. these interviews provided additional data on the participants’ perceptions and experiences using their questionnaire responses as a springboard. at the time of writing, the researcher had received 29 questionnaire responses of a desired 50 and had conducted three interviews. in-person observations began when the playground reopened at the end of october after an extended closure due to the covid-19 pandemic. the researcher recorded data every day of the week at least once with observations beginning as early as 8:00 a.m. and ending as late as 5:00 p.m. the plan to conduct a total of 21 observations—visiting every day of the week during morning, lunch, and afternoon hours—shifted when city leadership once again made the difficult decision to close the playground due to a rise in covid19 cases. at this time, 14 observations had been conducted. the playground is not scheduled to reopen again until march 1, so the researcher has increased the number of desired interviews to 14 to maintain the depth of the data pool. the data collection process is detailed in table 1 and figure 2. table 1. data collection and analysis subquestion data collection data analysis how do visitors engage with the playground environment? questionnaire follow-up semi-structured individual interviews on-site observations description using an observation protocol and field notes template designed for this study identification and description of themes how do donors support the playground? questionnaire follow-up semi-structured individual interviews description of different types of giving and rationale for giving identification and description of themes how does stakeholder perception of playgrand adventures drive engagement? questionnaire follow-up semi-structured individual interviews analysis of themes based on word choice in responses comparison of behaviors in different perception groups bunn et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 44 figure 2. research methodology participants and sampling this study utilized purposive criterion-based sampling consistent with a qualitative research design as a starting point, with snowball sampling as needed to reach minimum participant numbers (creswell & poth, 2018). participants were connected to playgrand adventures in at least one of the following ways: as a social media follower, as a donor, as a visitor, as a parks department employee, or as a parks department board member. these roles ensured the participant had at least some interest in playgrand adventures and knowledge of the playground. the participant pool varied for each data collection strategy, though there was overlap in participants. the researcher conducted participant sampling in two distinct but convergent phases: virtual and in-person. participation in the virtual phase was voluntary, beginning with a questionnaire distributed to potential participants via playgrand adventures’ website and facebook page. the researcher conducted semistructured interviews with willing participants identified through the questionnaire. participants in the in-person observation phase were visitors to playgrand adventures. all visits took place during regular operating hours over a four-week period. the researcher did not identify or interact with the participants to avoid disruptions, to preserve anonymity, and to reduce interference with natural reactions to the environment (yin, 2017). fair play: a qualitative exploration impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 45 observation site playgrand adventures is a sprawling, ten-acre tract of land within a broader public entertainment and recreation area called epic central. in total, epic central comprises 177 acres of city-owned land and includes five lakes, a recreation center for active seniors at least 50 years old, a dog park, an indoor waterpark, an interconnected trail system, and an all-ages recreation facility with sports courts, exercise studios and equipment, a theater space, a recording studio, and a restaurant. playgrand adventures is centrally located and accessible via a small parking lot, shuttle service from larger parking areas, or the walking trails. as visitors walk through the playground, equipment and features shift from manufactured to natural, active to tranquil, and team-based to individual play. once fully implemented, the master plan will accommodate all ages, ability levels, and play preferences (playgrand adventures, 2020). development of the playgrand adventures master plan began in 2013 with a team of dedicated professionals and parents familiar with people with special needs. the playground contains multiple zones for different types of play. the complete master plan is depicted in figure 3. the first phase is roughly five acres and includes adventure zone and adventure hill, as described in table 2 and depicted in figures 4 and 5. the play areas in phase 1 offer familiar composite structures, multiple levels of access, sensory play elements, ada-compliant poured-in-place rubber surfacing, musical instruments, isolated wheelchair swings, and an area for infants and toddlers (playgrand adventures, 2020). while there are plenty of options for people to play at their own ability level, the layout invites collaborative play, utilizing physically scaffolded structures with multiple entry points and equipment designed for a variety of ages and sizes. data analysis data analysis followed a process depicted as the data spiral and explained by creswell and creswell (2018). after collecting data described in the previous section, the researcher organized and filed raw data including pictures, field notes, interview recordings, and questionnaire responses. all data were stored in a passwordprotected cloud file accessed and managed only by the researcher to protect identities and preserve anonymity. interpreting qualitative data requires researchers to make assumptions, revisit existing literature, and engage their personal beliefs and worldview in a responsible, trustworthy way (creswell & poth, 2018; yin, 2017). researchers must acknowledge and clarify their biases and positionality as these cannot be separated from their interpretation (creswell & poth, 2018). this case’s interpretation included triangulation of multiple data sources, member checking, and peer debriefing to ensure accurate representations of perceptions. these strategies mitigated confirmation bias and contributed to the validity of the study (creswell & creswell, 2018). while reliability cannot be confirmed based on these findings due to the nature of the study and the focus on one location, another researcher could repeat this process using the same methodology and protocols to test the results (yin, 2017). initial findings and recommendations initial data analysis indicated playgrand adventures benefits the community as a safe, inclusive, well-maintained recreation area for children of all ages to learn, play, and develop. in the short time playgrand adventures was open for public play, it became a beloved playground and jewel in the crown of a larger recreation area. community members painted ceramic tiles that now adorn the entrance, a creative and successful fundraising campaign that created personal connections to the playground. the bright colors and welcoming design of the entrance brought families through the gates, and the engaging, challenging play features keep them coming back for more fun. during the time of covid-19, families flocked to the outdoor space where they could eat lunch, move their bodies, and step away from their phone or tablet screens for a moment of connection in the fresh air. questionnaire questionnaire respondents mention the importance of getting children outside and connecting with other parents in similar situations. parents note that playgrand is a place all children can play together on a playground with engaging features for young children, teenagers, and parents with various ability levels. visitors appreciate the various climbing structures, unique swings, roller slides, and soft ground. parents enjoy that features are designed so they can comfortably play with their children. most respondents love playgrand as it is, but there are some suggestions as the playground continues to expand, such as more parking, more bathrooms, a place to purchase refreshments, a splash pad, more climbing features, and more features for preschool and early elementary children. these requests are not specifically inclusive; rather, they would improve any traditional playground. table 2. playgrand adventures phase 1 play zones zone description adventure zone adventure zone provides the highest intensity play for all ability levels, featuring vibrant and whimsical play equipment and a wide variety of play opportunities, such as climbing, swinging, and spinning. abundant shade and areas to socialize are spaced throughout the play area. this zone includes a play area specifically designed for toddlers with separated activities on a miniature scale. adventure hill adventure hill provides visitors of all abilities the opportunity to experience varying heights and physical challenges at new levels. the playground will accommodate spinning, sliding, climbing, and learning activities in ways traditional playgrounds cannot offer. challenging opportunities expand as one climbs the ‘hill’. note. all text is reprinted directly from www.playgrandadventures.com. bunn et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 46 figure 3. playgrand adventures master plan note. from www.playgrandadventures.com. reprinted with permission from city of grand prairie parks, arts, & recreation. fair play: a qualitative exploration impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 47 figure 4. playgrand adventures phase 1 play zones rendering note. adventure zone (left) and adventure hill (right). from www.playgrandadventures.com. reprinted with permission from city of grand prairie parks, arts, & recreation. figure 5. playgrand adventures phase 1 photographs note. photos taken by the author during on-site observations. bunn et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 48 on-site observations data from observations support the need for more climbing features. children climb everything: nets, fences, walls, slides, and even each other. the climbing features are popular throughout the playground and children of all ages cannot resist the temptation of climbing up the inside of slides and getting out of the way as quickly as possible when someone comes down. this type of risky play in a safe, controlled environment is a critical part of childhood development (brussoni et al., 2012; sandseter, 2009a), and playgrand provides many opportunities. two other popular features, the carousel and seesaw, invite collaborative play at a higher level than other features. families have different personalities at playgrand. some children play with who they came with and some children naturally befriend strangers. some parents play, some follow along and coach from the ground, and some observe from a distance. these personalities stay intact as they move from feature to feature throughout the playground. the exceptions were with large spinning features, especially the carousel and the seesaw. these features appear to be more fun with more people. players can bounce higher and spin faster as more people get involved, so this motivates children to bring others over to play with them. with other features, such as climbing structures, adding people does not improve the experience and indeed sometimes erodes the experience by causing crowding or extended wait times to engage. if the goal is to bring people together, features like these should be added to future phases. semi-structured interviews the researcher did not observe any people with apparent disabilities during playground visits, but two of three interview participants were parents of children with disabilities. these parents feel safe at playgrand adventures due to the soft and bouncy surfacing, their abilities to keep their eyes on their children from various vantage points, and a design that intentionally includes people with disabilities with gradual elevations, attention to size and space needs, and scaffolded challenges. their children have more opportunities to play at playgrand adventures due to the quantity and variety of features available. two expressed needs stand out for further consideration. some of the adaptive features provide unique opportunities for play, but there are still restrictions due to the size. for example, the face-to-face swings are appealing, but they are too small to accommodate a child in leg braces without removing the mobility aid. there is also a need for an area where children with disabilities can play away from the hustle and bustle of the main playground on busy days. this supports the planned implementation of the forthcoming tranquil adventures zone. recommendations the perception of playgrand adventures is overwhelmingly positive. initial participants in this study enjoy the playground environment in its current state, though there are a few trends to consider for future development. forthcoming zones should continue to include a variety of features that engage people of all ability levels without calling attention to differences. however, new zones should not simply replicate what already exists; participants desire new opportunities for climbing, swinging, sliding, and spinning. designers should consider specifically engaging older visitors with sports, fitness, and intense challenge opportunities such as basketball hoops, an annotated fitness trail, or an obstacle course. these features engage a new audience and also provide appropriate engagement for people seeking these experiences out on existing features. finally, increasing communications about playgrand adventures in new markets and media could bring in visitors and donors who are unaware of the playground and the opportunities to sustain and support its development. these recommendations are based on interim findings and will adjust to reflect additional data as the research process is completed. limitations and delimitations of the study it is important to acknowledge several limitations in this case. the strict focus on one playground and small sample size prevented expansion into a mixed-methods case study and also inhibited the generalizability of the findings (creswell & plano clark, 2018). the thick, rich description herein paints a detailed picture of playgrand adventures that informs future development for this population, but these results could differ in other locations. the interpretation was based on data collected from a sample that might not fully represent the population, and much of the data was filtered through participants’ differing lived experiences. direct observations provided a different lens, but these were subject to the researcher’s interpretation of behaviors due to her non-participatory role (creswell & creswell, 2018). the impact of covid-19 further restricted the sample size and data collection opportunities due to an extended playground closure. delimiting factors chosen by the researcher included the focus on one playground, specific factors in subquestions, and the criteria for interview participants. choosing an illustrative single case study allowed the researcher to deeply explore multiple subquestions, perspectives, and data sources that would have been unwieldy in a larger study with more locations and a larger sample size. this intense focus and depth of exploration benefit playgrand adventures through specific recommendations customized for the needs and perceptions of their stakeholders. while several common challenges facing inclusive playgrounds emerged from existing research, the choice to focus on visitation, donor behavior, and perception was specific to the expressed and felt needs of playgrand adventures. likewise, choosing interview participants based on questionnaire responses ensured opportunities to collect additional data from key constituents with direct connections to the variables explored in this case. the study also fills a gap in the literature by addressing multiple common challenges facing inclusive playgrounds rather than focusing on specific challenges in isolation. this sets the stage for future research and the creation of new evaluation tools, frameworks, and theories. future research understanding how the community interacts with the playground was the first step in what i hope to be the development of a complete roadmap to replicating the design and implementation of all-abilities playgrounds in cities across the country. people desire to give others opportunities, but they need to experience the benefits themselves and see a practical way to make things happen (shane’s inspiration, 2019; zahl et al., 2014). expanding this case study into a fair play: a qualitative exploration impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.206 49 larger body of work will require additional research such as case studies in other geographical locations, convergent or explanatory mixed methods designs to expand understanding of frequencies and significance of variables, and exploratory mixed-methods designs to contribute to evaluation tools to measure the impact of inclusive playgrounds in different settings (creswell & plano clark, 2018). the iterative research process in this study was informed by learnings along the way and the participants guided some of the process, hinting at a participatory social justice design that could develop in follow-up studies (creswell & plano clark, 2018). with more research available to interested readers, the practicality of designing and building inclusive playgrounds may seem within reach for more cities, moving towards increased equity in our cities and improving academic understanding of an important emerging field. researcher reflections i have grown as a researcher throughout the preparation and implementation of this study. i approached this research with a pragmatic, constructivist worldview. i also desired to learn as much as i could from the data, and i remained open to adjusting course as needed to tell the complete story of playgrand adventures. before beginning my doctoral journey, i prioritized quantitative research as the gold standard, failing to see how research questions are like learners in a classroom—different challenges require different approaches. through my education and the practical experience gained through my own study, i am more equipped to identify diverse research needs and effective responses. i am also more willing to trust the process, responding with a bit more lived experience as environments change. the most significant adjustment stemmed from the covid-19related playground closure, which decreased the number of days available for observations; i completed 14 out of 21 planned observations. however, the observations conducted provided sufficient data for analysis. another adjustment was evident in the way i recorded field notes. i saw a difference in the quality of my field notes from the first observation to the fourteenth as i learned the patterns of playground visitors. by the end, i was collecting more data in a shorter amount of time due to finding the flow in my process. while i started rigidly tracking a planned, timed path, my later observations moved organically and naturally as i recorded the most compelling qualitative data to address my specific research question. in addition, interviews added a level of context and understanding i could not have collected with limitless observations. upon reflection, the closure forced a decision that has improved my understanding of playgrand adventures specifically and the need for all-abilities playgrounds more generally. as an emerging qualitative researcher, this experience taught me to keep my focus on the end goal and to adjust course when the environment changes, an apt lesson in the context of social cognitive theory (bandura, 2001). i believe everyone should have equal access to opportunities, but my privileged position protects me from personally experiencing oppression and disenfranchisement. having never been challenged with a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability, i can freely enjoy playgrounds and recreation facilities. i do not have family members or close friends who have been prevented from playing on a playground due to inaccessible equipment or facilities. i am someone who felt my heart warm when i saw a playground with an accessible swing because it seemed progressive and inviting. the research i have conducted thus far in this field has opened my eyes to the inequities legally permitted on playgrounds and what it means to be truly accessible to everyone. this playground study has certainly left me with more questions than answers because i am now looking at the problem as a qualitative researcher who understands there is always more to uncover through inquiry and research. as i finish this exploration and my doctoral degree, i have a list of evolving research questions to explore different angles, more playgrounds, and other challenges facing people with disabilities as they navigate a world designed for people without the same challenges. inferior opportunities for people with disabilities inhibit their development and further stigmatize an already disenfranchised population. as a researcher, this topic provided an opportunity to fill a gap in academic literature, tap into diverse perspectives, and examine a problem from multiple angles. as a human being, this has been a learning opportunity with the potential to 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(2019). building playgrounds for children of all abilities: legal requirements and professional recommendations. early childhood education journal, 47(5), 509-517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00947-3 yilmaz, a., & soyer, f. (2018). effect of physical education and play applications on school social behaviors of mild-level intellectually disabled children. education sciences, 8(2), 89. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8020089 yin, r. k. (2017). case study research and applications: design and methods. (6th ed.). sage. zahl, m. l., morse, k., & piatt, j. a. (2014). boundless playground. therapeutic recreation journal, 48(4), 345-347. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15071356 taylor d. bunn baylor university leanne howell baylor university (1) lacy k. crocker papadakis baylor university (2) statement of the problem purpose of the study theoretical framework review of existing literature the benefits of play traditional playground design the need for academic scholarship research design data collection participants and sampling observation site data analysis initial findings and recommendations questionnaire on-site observations semi-structured interviews recommendations limitations and delimitations of the study future research researcher reflections references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 complexities of practitioner research: seeking hallmarks of quality maida finch salisbury university mafinch@salisbury.edu abstract the emphasis in ed.d. programs on professional knowledge and practical research means methodological training in these programs must prepare their candidates for the career demands graduates will likely encounter; practitioner research is well-suited to this task. yet, the lower status traditionally accorded to practitioner research, along with an absence of clear guidelines for its methodology and quality, challenge its acceptance as a form of knowledge production. the current study analyzes 74 accounts of practitioner research in literacy for evidence of methodological quality. findings reveal ways practitioner researchers systematically conduct and report their inquiries as well as areas for improvement. the hallmarks of quality identified in this study can be used by research educators to advance practitioner research as a methodology and knowledge generating endeavor. keywords practitioner research, methods, quality, graduate education the education doctorate prepares individuals to address complex and persistent problems of practice in their professional context through applied inquiry (the cped framework, 2021). the emphasis on professional knowledge and practical research means methodological training in ed.d. programs must prepare their candidates for the career demands graduates will likely encounter; practitioner research, in its many forms and purposes (cochransmith & lytle, 2009; stremmel, 2007), is well-suited to this task. practitioner research can make an important contribution to knowledge about teaching and learning, and over the years, support for teachers as creators of knowledge has developed. publishing opportunities, arguably an indicator of relevance and importance, continue to expand (dana, 2016), and practitioner research is a focus of professional organizations nationally and internationally. scholars enumerate the benefits of practitioner research that include the emic perspective practitioners are able to provide because their research questions are derived from the intersection of practice and theory, and the level of detail their investigations offer because the research context is the practitioner’s own professional setting (cochran-smith & lytle, 1990; hiebert et al., 2002). furthermore, practitioner research extends the dialogue between researchers, policy makers, and practitioners by offering opportunities for practitioners to challenge and reveal issues of power and inequality in schools and classrooms (anderson & herr, 1999), helping researchers understand the complexities of classrooms, and providing policy makers with compelling accounts of practice (rust & meyers, 2006). yet, these strengths of practitioner research, particularly the emic perspective and localized context, are also its vulnerabilities (anderson & herr, 1999; huberman, 1996). the lower status traditionally accorded to practitioner research, along with an absence of clear guidelines for its methodology and quality, are frequently cited as reasons for debate about its role in research and knowledge production (anderson, 2002; heikkinen et al., 2016; huberman, 1996; zeichner & noffke, 2001). a common focal point in the discussion about methodological quality is whether practitioner research should adhere to established research traditions or reflect a new genre of research (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006). since practitioner research draws from myriad traditions and involves data and analysis that can differ from conventional notions of research (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; nichols & cormack, 2017), establishing criteria for quality is challenging. the scope of the literature in this debate is daunting; consequently, as a former classroom teacher and now a faculty member in a literacy-focused ed.d. program, i grapple with how to prepare my students to conduct rigorous practitioner research. an important first step is identifying the methodological processes practitioner researchers engage, but there is little empirical evidence of this (finch, 2021). to address this gap, the present study is a content analysis of reports of practitioner research in literacy to answer the question, what evidence of methodological quality do literacy practitioner researchers provide? i deliberately focused on literacy practitioner research because as a field, literacy has an established position in practitioner inquiry (cochran-smith & lytle, 1999; huberman, 1996); furthermore, this is the literature i read to help our students develop the skills and knowledge they need to become practitioner researchers. though some might argue the primary goal of most practitioner research is to address local issues (mertler, 2016; stieglitz, 2021), i believe education doctorate programs should expect more from it if http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8154-5907 finch impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 2 the mission is to prepare graduates who “lead through scholarly practice for the improvement of individuals and communities” (the cped framework, 2021). when practitioner researchers share their work, it provides opportunities for dialogue about teaching and learning and becomes an epistemological stance (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009) rather than an activity undertaken in isolation. this way of knowing can contribute to the broader knowledge about students, classrooms, and teachers. for this potential of practitioner research to be realized, we must cultivate a shared understanding about what constitutes methodological quality among those who pursue this inquiry and those who prepare them. conceptual framework examining the myriad terminology of practitioner research, its philosophical grounding, and the potential impact of it reveal some of the challenges and possibilities for establishing criteria for methodological quality. these ideas provide the framework for the subsequent literature review and methodology of this study. terminology teacher research, practitioner research, practitioner inquiry, and action research are often used interchangeably and scholars’ preferences vary. for example, cochran-smith and lytle (2009) refer to practitioner inquiry as a “conceptual and linguistic umbrella” to denote the myriad terms researchers have used to characterize this work (p. 2), while herr and anderson (2015) use action research as “a cover term for several approaches that have emerged from different traditions,” (p. 9). this variation can complicate efforts to define practitioner research, especially for novice researchers such as graduate students. however, there is widespread agreement with cochran-smith and lytle’s conceptualization of practitioner research as systematic and intentional (currin, 2019; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; miller & shinas, 2019; schaenen et al., 2012; schroeder, 2020; stremmel, 2007). furthermore, empirical practitioner research differs from other types of practitioner research in that it involves the systematic collection and analysis of data (cochran-smith & lytle, 1993) and is intentional and more visible than reflection, a practice teachers engage in every day (dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020). the acknowledgement of systematicity and intentionality in practitioner research provides a common ground from which to consider criteria for methodological quality. the philosophical worldview aligned with practitioner research also contributes to this foundation. philosophical worldview a researcher’s philosophical worldview influences their approach to research, and consequently their methodological choices (creswell & creswell, 2018). pragmatism, a worldview concerned with what works and research that solves problems, is particularly germane to practitioner research. because researchers who espouse a pragmatic worldview are concerned with the application of their inquiries, they have freedom of choice in selecting methods, designs, and analysis (creswell & creswell, 2018). instead of being married to a singular method, they are concerned with the what and how of answering their question (cohen et al., 2018; creswell & creswell, 2018). this perspective is also aligned with blakely and hemphill (2021) who argue the distinction of quantitative and qualitative research is a false binary and quote allwood in proposing researchers consider “the pros and cons of research methods…in relation to the specific research context that they are used in” (as cited in blakely & hemphill, 2021, p. 58). although the emphasis on problem solving and flexibility in methods differs from other worldviews, cohen et al. (2018) argue, this “methodologically eclectic, pluralistic approach to research…has its own standards for rigor” – answering the research question in “useful, practical, reliable, and valid” ways (cohen et al., 2018). another distinction between pragmatism and other views of research is pragmatism’s acknowledgement of the role of context in research (creswell & creswell, 2018); practitioner research occurs in one’s own context, and therefore one cannot enter the research as objective or distant researchers (nichols & cormack, 2017). an important consideration in the conduct of practitioner research, then, is reflexivity, which creates space for the practitioner researcher to examine the influence of their insider status (nichols & cormack, 2017). impact practitioner research is often described as having dual purposes – local, problem-solving in a specific context, and global, contributing to the knowledge base about teaching and learning (dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; herr & anderson, 2015). although a desire to solve problems is often the impetus for practitioner research, the potential for such inquiries to have an impact beyond the immediate context means the research process must be shared (hiebert et al., 2002). this creates a challenge for evaluating the impact of practitioner research that is often linked to debates about methodological quality (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; herr & anderson, 2015). in fact, some scholars argue it is precisely because practitioner research aspires to meet these dual purposes, traditional concepts of validity and trustworthiness are not applicable (heikkinen et al., 2016; herr & anderson, 2015; nichols & cormack, 2017). attempts to establish criteria for quality draw from multiple perspectives including literary traditions (bullough & pinnegar, 2001; connelly & clandinin, 1990), japanese lesson study (hiebert et al., 2002), and greek philosophy (heikkinen et al., 2016), to name a few. accordingly, the resulting indicators for integrity range in focus from defining validity in multiple ways (anderson & herr, 1999), to standardizing methods (levin, 2012), to establishing principles for validation (heikkinen et al., 2016). in summary, although practitioner research is known by many terms and drawn from different traditions, there is consensus among scholars about the need for systematic and intentional practices. the alignment between practitioner research and a pragmatic worldview suggests the research question or problem should guide the choice of methods and also highlights the need for reflexivity in these endeavors. finally, the potential for both a local and global impact raises questions about how to address credibility issues, resulting in a multiplicity of ideas. the hallmarks of quality identified in this study can be used by faculty in education doctorate programs to prepare candidates to design and implement their own rigorous practitioner research. the next section reviews the methodological literature and scholarly discourse to identify hallmarks of quality for practitioner research. complexities of practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 3 literature review two bodies of scholarship guided the approach to identifying hallmarks of quality in practitioner research: methodological literature and scholarly discourse about validating practitioner research as a legitimate form of knowledge generation. literature included in this section was drawn from methodological textbooks, book chapters and articles about practitioner research, and books, which report, and provide guidance for conducting, practitioner research. levin’s (2012) discussion about legitimizing action research, a form of practitioner research, provides the rationale for drawing from methodological texts: the scientific method is a “transparent and argumentative way of reasoning” (p. 138) and so, in order for action research to be legitimized, it must “comply with the rules and regulations associated with the actual discipline” (p. 142). however, the ways in which practitioner research are distinct from traditional research (cochran-smith & lytle, 2004) also necessitate consideration of the criteria proposed by scholars in this field. the literature included in this review is not intended to be exhaustive but rather a representation of earlier and more recent scholarship to serve as a starting point for identifying hallmarks of quality in empirical practitioner research. similarly, and echoing herr and anderson (2015), the indicators identified are meant to advance the discussion between practitioner researchers and academics rather than define it. the exclusive focus on methodology is intentional because regardless of whether the impact of practitioner research is local, global, or both, the processes for conducting it are paramount. the examination of this literature, particularly their shared features, led to three focal areas: research design, data analysis, and the emic perspective. these areas, described below, provided the foundation for codes then used analyze the data, published accounts of practitioner research in literacy contexts. research design according to cochran-smith and donnell (2006), a key feature of practitioner research, regardless of the form it takes, is intentionality, which they define as the “planned and deliberate rather than spontaneous nature of practitioner inquiry” (p. 510). on the subject of intentionality, methodological textbooks typically assert the first steps in conducting practitioner research are to define an area of focus and develop research question(s) or goals (check & schutt, 2011; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; mertler, 2016; mills, 2018). research questions or goals then guide the selection of the research design, participants, data, and analysis, all of which are related to another key feature of practitioner research: systematicity. systematicity is defined as “ordered ways of gathering and recording information, documenting experiences inside and outside of the contexts of practice, and making some kind of written record” (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006). process validity (herr & anderson, 2015) and transparency in describing methods (heikkinen et al., 2007) are similar to systematicity in their focus on the manner in which practitioner research unfolds; it is also important to justify and explain the choices practitioner researchers make (dana & yendolhoppey, 2020; zuber-skerritt & fletcher, 2007). because of the emphasis in practitioner research on documenting the practitioner’s own thinking and learning (cochransmith & donnell, 2006; cochran-smith & lytle, 2004; heikkinen et al., 2016), researcher journals, anecdotal records, and field notes are commonly used. such records are legitimate forms of data and contribute to the construction of knowledge by revealing tacit understandings (zuber-skerritt & fletcher, 2007). traditional ideas about validity and generalizability are not typically applicable in practitioner research; however, criteria for trustworthiness, while not suitable for all forms of practitioner research (e.g. those grounded in literary traditions), are viewed as useful by some (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; levin, 2012). in particular, practitioner researchers should ensure their findings are accurate representations of the data to establish credibility (lincoln & guba, 1986). this can be accomplished through collecting and triangulating multiple forms of data (check & schutt, 2011; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; herr & anderson, 2015; mertler, 2016; mills, 2018; zuber-skerritt & fletcher, 2007), conducting member checks (herr & anderson, 2015; mertler, 2016; mills, 2018; zuber-skerritt & fletcher, 2007), and establishing audit trails (mills, 2018). data analysis the second focal area concerns data analysis. bullough and pinnegar (2001) explain self-study scholars must negotiate the tension inherent in this type of practitioner research through descriptions of how analysis occurred, an idea shared by erlandson and colleagues (1993) who assert describing the analysis process helps warrant the findings and permits replication of the study. this seems particularly important given data used in practitioner research is often different from other forms of research (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; nichols & cormack, 2017). dana and yendol-hoppey (2020) recommend practitioner researchers provide detailed descriptions about how the data were analyzed, including references to the methodological literature, when appropriate (p. 290). similarly, mills (2018) encourages practitioner researches to “let readers ‘see’ for themselves” (p. 166). strategies for accomplishing this include providing excerpts of data and examples of instruments (mills, 2018; nichols & cormack, 2017) and sharing authentic voices of the participants (heikkinen et al., 2007). these practices illustrate and substantiate conclusions the researcher makes and are applicable to practitioner research where sharing student and teacher voices helps establish transferability and confirmability (erlandson et al., 1993) by giving the reader a sense of an authentic interaction. finally, details about instruments can establish dependability (erlandson et al., 1993). these strategies also contribute to establishing the utility of the research findings for the intended audience (mertler, 2016). emic perspective a common criticism of practitioner research is the insider status of the practitioner introduces issues of bias and questions about the legitimacy of findings (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; herr & anderson, 2015; huberman, 1996). two ways to mitigate this concern are collaboration and reflexivity (check & schutt, 2011; dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; mertler, 2016). notwithstanding the challenges of collaboration, an epistemological stance grounded in the idea about knowledge as collaboratively constructed suggests the affordances of practitioners partnering with others can lead to productive and meaningful experiences (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; flessner & klehr, 2016). furthermore, mertler (2016) recommends novice practitioner researchers partner with more experienced individuals; also, collaborative inquiry can promote dialogic and democratic validity (herr & anderson, 2015). finch impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 4 according to nichols and cormack (2017), because practitioner research occurs in practitioners’ own contexts, “they cannot, therefore, utilize traditional views of objectivity or distance to demonstrate their own interests aren’t influencing the research,” (p. 102). instead, the practice of reflexivity helps “to gain separation from context and reflective clarity from their own perceptions and actions” (check & schutt, 2011). reflexivity can occur through dialogue with critical friends (herr & anderson, 2015), supposition statements (mills, 2018), and interrupting the day to day routine to examine what often goes unscrutinized (nichols & cormack, 2017). journaling also provides an opportunity to capture one’s thoughts in the moment and then reflect on them over time; dana and yendolhoppey (2020) liken this to the pensieve from the harry potter series. methods the current study is part of a broader content analysis about practitioner research in literacy in which the methodology is described in detail (finch, 2021). an overview is provided here. content analysis methodology was used to answer the research question because it involves examining texts for patterns by employing a consistent coding process (hoffman et al., 2011). in their review of the use of content analysis in literacy scholarship, parsons et al. (2016) note this methodology is often used to examine trends across several decades within one journal or professional organization, but less frequently includes multiple journals. however, examining multiple journals over a shorter period of time provides a broader view of what is occurring in the field (parsons et al., 2016). thus, for the current study, i confined the selection of practitioner research to a single decade, 2007-2017 across 10 journals (the last year for which complete volumes were available). identification, screening, and selection i employed a two-stage identification process to select the articles (holsti, 1969), first identifying journals published by either a literacy organization or with an explicit focus on action research and with practitioners as the intended audience. action research is a type of practitioner research and while not all practitioner research is considered action research, it is reasonable to assume practitioner researchers might select an action research focused journal to disseminate their work. the name of the journal and literacy organization affiliation (when applicable) are presented in table 1. table 1. description of sources (n =74) journal literacy organization (if applicable) number of articles journal of adolescent and adult literacy ila 11 the reading teacher ila 10 english journal ncte 15 language arts ncte 6 talking points ncte 7 voices from the middle ncte 10 voices of practitioners 4 ie: inquiry in education 2 journal of teacher action research 5 networks 4 following this, i used an inclusion criteria framework that reflects the qualities of practitioner research to select articles characterized by a purpose of sharing the results of systematic and intentional inquiry: 1. author is a practitioner (if multiple authors, the first author must be a practitioner). 2. the research concerns the practitioner’s own practice and was conducted in k-12 school contexts, including afterschool contexts. 3. acknowledgement on the part of the author(s) s/he/they conducted a study. terms could include research, inquiry, study. using the word project without another term (research/inquiry) was insufficient to meet the inclusion criteria. 4. evidence of data collection and description of the participants. in total, the data corpus was comprised of 74 articles authored by 72 literacy practitioners about their own professional practice. table 1 also indicates how many articles were included from each publication. during data analysis in the original study (finch, 2021), a lack of uniformity in how practitioners report their research endeavors, and presumably how they conduct them, became apparent, consequently leading to the focus of the current study of identifying hallmarks of quality in published accounts of practitioner research. this identification is an attempt to establish criteria to reflect the reality of practitioner research while also satisfying calls for “a robust yet tailored methodological repertoire” (huberman, 1996, p. 138). coding the reports of literacy practitioner research were imported into nvivo for analysis, and a priori codes were developed from the review of the literature. the three focal areas for coding included: research design, data analysis, and the emic perspective. i collaborated with another faculty member and a graduate assistant to establish inter-rater reliability and to evaluate the applicability of the codes. throughout the coding process we met regularly to discuss questions we had about the coding process; we also had our graduate student randomly select and code 13 articles, and then check them against our coding to ensure we maintained consistency. research design the first focal area, research design, included seeking evidence of all of the following elements: 1. explicitly stated research question, or in the absence of a question, clearly articulated goals for the research. 2. specified research design. 3. data derived from more than once source. 4. some type of researcher records – research journal, anecdotal notes, field notes. 5. consideration for credibility of the findings. data analysis to determine how literacy practitioner researchers provide evidence to warrant their findings, the data corpus was analyzed for evidence of the following: 1. providing details about instruments. 2. specifying or describing the analytic approach. 3. sharing examples or excerpts of instruments and data. complexities of practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 5 emic perspective analysis of the final focal area, the emic perspective was guided by the following: 1. collaboration, as evidenced by a co-author. a. co-author’s position and education level (this information was also collected for the first author in the original study). 2. reflexivity, as evidenced by statements indicating an awareness of the importance of uncovering underlying assumptions of biases. findings: hallmarks of quality in practitioner research a review of methodological literature and scholarly discourse about practitioner research suggested hallmarks of quality that were then applied to reports of literacy practitioner research. the following section presents findings that illuminate the research processes practitioner researchers engage and highlight examples of research reporting that can strengthen the credibility of this type of inquiry. the organization of the findings mirrors the literature review and description of coding: research design, data analysis, emic perspective. research design many of the reports of practitioner research included at least one of the features of research design (research question/goal, stated design, multiple sources of data, researcher records, consideration for credibility) (finch, 2021); in the present study, the focus is on the reports incorporating all of the features so exemplars may be identified. the classifications and filter features of nvivo were used to classify articles meeting all of the criteria, resulting in a winnowing down from 51 articles either explicitly stating a research question or presenting goals for the inquiry to four articles also specifying a design, collecting data from more than one source, keeping researcher records, and addressing trustworthiness issues. figure 1 illustrates the results of the filter: articles including a research question or goal are represented in the first rectangle on the left; the next rectangle represents the articles that also specify a research design. each subsequent rectangle applies a new hallmark of quality; the rectangle in the bottom right corner represents the four articles meeting all of the criteria. from the full data corpus of 74 reports of practitioner research, 69% (n=51) stated a research question or goal, but nearly half (n=23) of those reports did not specify a research design. and, while most of the reports identifying a research design went on to collect multiple forms of data, only nine of the articles stating a research question remained on the list for using researcher records; one of the articles expressing a goal also met this criterion. finally, just four articles attended to credibility of the findings, and therefore met all of the criteria (figure 1). of the four exemplar articles, three of them were published in action research journals (and two are from the same journal, networks) (table 2). all of the articles explicitly state a research question instead of a goal and all describe their research design as either teacher or action research. the number of data sources in each of these ranged from two to four, and the variety in the data sources reflected the overall diversity in the data corpus (finch, 2021). reflective journals and field notes were each used by two practitioner researchers; anecdotal records were used by one. in terms of credibility, all but one of the studies mentioned the use of multiple sources of data to triangulate findings, and two studies acknowledged the need for a reliable method of data collection. in summary, the examination of 74 accounts of practitioner research revealed only four that stated a research question, specified a design, collected multiple forms of data, utilized researcher records, and incorporated elements to strengthen the credibility of their study. figure 1. features of practitioner research designs finch impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 6 table 2. exemplars of practitioner research author(s) & journal research question research design data multiple sources data researcher records credibility juana & palak, 2011 networks what is the effect of podcasting to help improve student speaking abilities? action research rubrics pre-& post survey university collaborators student discussions reflective journal recordings increased reliability of data triangulation of sources mcgee, 2011 language arts what would it look like to construct a language arts curriculum that responds to the changing demographics of my students’ community in a way that disrupts one-dimensional images of immigrants’ negative stereotypes? teacher research student work survey reflective journal field notes triangulation of sources pankratz, 2015 voices of practitioners how can picture books act as a tool to foster imaginative, collaborative, and sustained play within the block center? teacher research student interviews photographs student observations event records anecdotal notes outside observer triangulation of sources tomczak, 2014 networks how was student talk around reading influencing reading comprehension in my third-grade classroom? action research audio recordings of students’ readings student interviews field notes needed a reliable way to collect data data analysis the full data corpus (n=74) was used to examine the instruments and analytic methods practitioner researchers use. due to the diversity of approaches they employed, it was difficult to characterize the description of analysis holistically. for example, in some cases, practitioner researchers offered clear descriptions of their entire analytic approach, but in others, they discussed the analysis of one type of data more fully than other types. the following sections elaborate on three hallmarks of quality in analysis of practitioner research: specifying or describing the instruments, explaining analytic approach, and sharing examples or excerpts of instruments and data. instruments providing details about pre and post-tests or surveys provides a context for understanding the findings from practitioner research and establishes confirmability. in the data corpus, this information included identifying if a test was a standardized assessment (e.g. dibels, dra 4-8, itri) or one developed by the practitioner researcher and describing what was measured as shown in this example, “assessments for rate, accuracy, prosody, and comprehension were administered prior to and after the intervention” (guerin & murphy, 2015, p. 554). descriptions of surveys also help clarify the study for the reader. one example of this is, “this survey queried the students on many aspects of their spanish abilities, including their speaking, reading, writing and listening abilities, as well as their grammar, their ability to express their ideas and their anxiety in recording their voice” (juana & palak, 2011). there was one instance where the description was presented in the appendix rather than the body of the article (toth, 2013). analytic approach in cases where practitioner researchers use quantitative or qualitative methods common in other disciplines, specifying the analytic approach demonstrates their authority as a researcher. an excerpt of the most elaborate example of this is a description of the statistical tests used: for those readers interested in detailed statistics, we actually performed three statistical tests with this data: the rank signed test, the mannwhitney test, and the npar1way procedure/wilcoxon twosample test. according to the mann whitney test, z = 4.1754, p < .0001. (chanski & ellis, 2017, p. 6). this information is presented as an endnote, perhaps reflecting a belief that most readers would not find this information useful; it is also the only instance where this level of detail was provided. in the five other cases where practitioner researches used such tests, two identified the test (e.g. t-test, chi-square), while three referred to completing statistical analysis. the 12 practitioner researchers who specified qualitative analytic approaches did so by naming the strategy and then referencing the methodological literature. for example, “the group used the constant comparative method to analyze data (hendricks 2009)” (ortiz et al., 2014, p. 5) and, “i also used the multiliteracies framework (new london group, 2000) as a heuristic to conduct a fine-grained analysis of concrete voices artifacts” (broderick, 2014, p. 201). in general, these researchers described their approaches more fully than those who conducted statistical analysis. in instances when practitioner researchers do not identify a specific analytic approach, describing how they analyzed their data are useful. for example, this description (and the figure that accompanies the article) makes clear the categories the practitioner researchers used to analyze their data and brings to light questions they had about their process: while we use the framework in figure 1 to guide our discussion of zine entries, the four categories are not always discrete, causing us to wonder if the separation of the categories is the optimal way to present them. nonetheless, the categories did complexities of practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 7 provide a way for us to examine the elements of critical stance taken up by students who chose to respond to classroom conversations around texts that had to do with coercive aspects of awards and prizes (heffernan & lewison, 2009, p. 24). descriptions of the analysis did not need to be lengthy to convey the process as seen here, “i collected and read student responses to the latter question (which were written in two-way response journals), recording anecdotal comments on an alphabetized list of the participants so i could trace general patterns of thought and inquiry” (mcgee, 2011, p. 274). examples and excerpts because of the idiosyncratic nature of practitioner research, examples of rubrics and checklists can be particularly helpful in understanding how the authors made sense of their data, strengthening the trustworthiness of their findings. examples of rubrics were presented as appendices (e.g. cease & wilmarth, 2016; juana & palak, 2011) and as figures within the text (e.g. brett, 2016; lafferty, summers, tanaka, & cavanagh, 2016). another approach was to provide a narrative description of the criteria along with student performance: at the end of the year, 20 out of 21 students (95%) met or exceeded the standard in identifying key events, 19 students (90%) met or exceeded the standard in identifying the character’s actions or feelings, 14 students (67%) were able to provide evidence from the text, and 19 students (90%) met or exceeded the standard in identifying the author’s message related to the key events,” (witte, 2016, p. 35). in another study, an observation checklist was described narratively (moratelli & dejarnette, 2014), similar to the previous example. in the data corpus, practitioner researchers indicated using transcripts collected from class discussions, interviews, and focus groups during data analysis. brief excerpts of transcripts were shared within the body of the article (e.g. gatto, 2013; ragland & palace, 2017), presented as tables (e.g. lobron & selman, 2007), and in one example, the entire transcript was presented in an appendix (whitecotton, 2013). sharing results from open-ended survey items is another way practitioner researchers demonstrate confirmability. as seen in this example where students completed a pre-interest survey about writing topics, one way to do this is summarizing information: “our study began in september with a pre-interest survey and classroom observations. the surveys had a reoccurring theme of writing topics. these writing topics included family, animals, and sports,” (gericke & salmon, 2013). another technique for sharing results is to elaborate on frequency counts by including student comments as cease and wilmarth (2016) do here: “for example, 18 participants wrote that they liked blogging because they could interact with classmates. one student wrote, ‘i like that people can read blogs and comment on them.’ another stated, ‘you can improve by getting comments’” (p. 6). finally, including examples of students’ responses also permits the practitioner researcher to share their own thoughts as they examined the data. this excerpt from a study about book clubs demonstrates the contrast between students’ and the practitioner researcher’s perceptions: ‘book clubs are fun and they challenge me,’ mary shared, ‘by reading higher levels and thinking deep thoughts.’ this comment was in response to an open question toward the beginning of the book club experience. her response was surprising because the first meetings contained awkward silence between the students as they did not know what to do with the unstructured time and conversation (petrich, 2015, p. 7). emic perspective to mitigate concerns about bias when the researcher is also the practitioner, the studies were examined for evidence of collaboration and reflexivity. nearly two-fifths (n=28) of the practitioner researchers in the dataset collaborated with a co-author; in four instances there were three or more authors in total. most co-authors held positions in higher education compared to the 10 who worked in k-12 contexts. evidence of reflexivity was less clear throughout the reports of practitioner research included in this study. in some instances, authors made a brief statement about their beliefs pertaining to teaching and learning. though limited, these declarations reveal an awareness of the relationship between their perspectives and the research they conducted. two practitioner researchers named a particular training as influencing their beliefs (crowell, 2015; knieling, 2016), and in three cases, they included a deliberate statement about their stance and the scholars who influenced it (broderick, 2014; mcgee, 2011; nixon, 2012). in these cases, the authors went on to elaborate about how the training or stance shaped their inquiry. most interesting was the relationship between reflexivity and the use of critical theory, a focus on critical literacy, or both. of the 20 studies coded for evidence of reflexivity, four used critical theory to frame their study; critical literacy was the focus of the study in another four; and three studies incorporated both critical theory and a critical literacy focus. these eleven studies, perhaps unsurprisingly, included robust descriptions about how practitioner researchers’ own identities, experiences, and subjectivities played a role in their research. discussion the findings of this study extend the literature on practitioner research through an examination of the research processes practitioners engage and report when conducting their own inquiries. to better understand the state of practitioner research in literacy, the methodological literature was reviewed to identify indicators of quality in the conduct and reporting of research; these indicators were then used as a lens to examine reports of practitioner research. findings were organized into three focal areas: research design, data analysis, and the emic perspective. accounts of practitioner research that include all of the hallmarks of quality for research design are rare, suggesting that perhaps practitioner researchers are not attending to these matters or, alternatively, do not realize they should include them in their reports. if the latter is true, it is also possible journals that publish these accounts make allowances for practitioner research and do not ask for these elements to be included during the review process. despite this, there is evidence of systematicity: practitioner researchers have a clear starting point for their inquiries, most frequently through a stated question, and in some cases, clear goals. yet, less commonly noted is the type of research design. again, there could be different reasons for this discrepancy: perhaps practitioner researchers focus more on defining their starting point and are less concerned with specifying a design for carrying out their inquiry. on the other hand, possibly they are unaware that different finch impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 8 types of research design exist. regardless, the finding that practitioner researchers are likely to collect multiple forms of data is heartening; it implies practitioner researchers see value in relying on more than one data point. cochran-smith and lytle (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009) consider multiple data sources a strength of practitioner research because they “illuminate and confirm, but also disconfirm one another” (p. 44), and too, this practice can counter the practitioner’s own predispositions (anderson & herr, 1999) few of the reports in this study also indicated the use of researcher records and considerations for credibility. this is consistent with the examination of the independent inclusion of these elements (finch, 2021). while elements of research design in practitioner research bear resemblance to what occurs in other types of social science research, data, and consequently, analysis often take new forms (cochran-smith & donnell, 2006). thus, findings about the practices practitioner researchers take up to make sense of their data extend our knowledge in this area. the variation in analysis shown in this data corpus reflects the diversity of the types of data collected and also provides evidence of systematicity on the part of practitioner researchers. in particular, when practitioner researchers name their analytic approach and reference the methodological literature, it brings transparency to the research, thus enhancing the quality (dana & yendol-hoppey, 2020; heikkinen et al., 2007; zuber-skerritt & fletcher, 2007). providing examples of rubrics, checklists, and student work, as well as describing the instruments used, also strengthens the credibility of practitioner research. these details further contextualize the investigation, making clear the coherence between research questions or goals and data collection and analysis. in cases where standardized assessments are used, identifying the test allows readers familiar with it, particularly other practitioners, to consider whether the findings might be applicable in their contexts. alternatively, when practitioner researchers use locally developed assessments, rich descriptions and excerpts support this purpose. the ways in which practitioner researchers shared details about their data analysis is also notable. practitioner researchers described these things in the text (including quotes and excerpts), in tables and figures, and in footnotes and appendices. these practices, quite common and expected in social science research (duran et al., 2006), can be an effective bridge, bringing together traditional ways of presenting data analysis with the diverse types of data in practitioner research (nichols & cormack, 2017; zeichner & noffke, 2001). practitioner researchers appear to value opportunities to collaborate when conducting a study, most frequently with higher education faculty. it seems likely that such collaborations happen as a result of or concurrently with a teacher education program; this is encouraging because it suggests faculty also see value in practitioner research and such partnerships. another benefit of collaborations between practitioners and higher education faculty is the research knowledge and experience the faculty member has to provide guidance in developing and executing the study (mertler, 2016). finally, there is limited evidence of reflexivity in the data corpus. similar to less attention being paid to defining the research design, lack of discussion about biases and assumptions could indicate practitioner researchers do not consider this when they conduct inquiries, or it could be that they do not realize it has a place in reporting their study. this is important because reflexivity is widely considered essential in practitioner research (check & schutt, 2011; heikkinen et al., 2007; herr & anderson, 2015; mills, 2018; zuberskerritt & fletcher, 2007). where evidence of reflexivity was apparent, the strongest examples come from articles also linked with critical theory, critical literacy, or both. given this finding, it is feasible that practitioner researchers who draw from these approaches might be better positioned to recognize the importance of discussing their beliefs and assumptions and their potential impact on the study. limitations an important limitation to note is the difficulty in disentangling research processes practitioner researchers engaged from the ones they reported. it is possible the authors employed processes (e.g. selecting a research design) they then did not include in their report for any number of reasons. thus, it is difficult to state conclusively what processes practitioner researchers are using. second, this study is limited to the specific journals included and consequently, as examination of other journals might confirm or challenge the findings in this study. third, this study restricts reports of practitioner research to literacy education, and an examination of other fields might reveal different findings. conclusion practitioner research holds promise for building knowledge about improving teaching and learning, but thoughtful appraisal of this scholarship is inconsistent, in part because of the variety of guidelines for practitioner research methodology and quality, and too because dialogue around quality and rigor in practitioner research is more theoretical rather than grounded in research. one exception is oolbekkink-marchand et al.’s (2014) study of quality in teacher research by applying anderson and herr’s (anderson & herr, 1999) criteria for validity. similarly, although discourse about appropriate research skills for education doctorate programs is quite prevalent (e.g. buss, 2018; hochbein & perry, 2013; kochhar-bryant, 2017), these discussions are largely conceptual and lack empirical evidence. an exception here is hochbein and smeaton’s (2018) study of the quantitative methods school leaders need to understand in order to apply research-based findings to their work improving schools. notably, the researchers selected journals relevant to school leaders and then analyzed articles for the prevalence of quantitative methods. based on their findings, they recommended school leadership preparation programs include explicit instruction in research methods beyond the introductory level and provide opportunities for reading and evaluating empirical research in content courses. oolbekkink-marchand et al. (2014) endeavor to substantiate practitioner research as a knowledge generating form of inquiry while hochbein and smeaton’s (2018) goal is to influence school leadership preparation programs. i suggest the findings in the current study can, and should, contribute to both of these objectives. for practitioner research to have an impact beyond the local context, it must become public and open to scrutiny and peer review (bullough & pinnegar, 2001; cochran-smith & donnell, 2006; hiebert et al., 2002; zeichner & noffke, 2001). the findings of this study extend the discourse on practitioner research by first identifying hallmarks of quality in the extant literature and then applying them to published complexities of practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.256 9 accounts of practitioner research; this process allows research educators to initiate a discussion using common language for evaluating such inquiries and understanding how they contribute to knowledge generation about teaching and learning. since ed.d. programs prepare students to respond to local problems of practice (the cped framework, 2021), this approach could respond to blakely and hemphill’s (2021) call for a third space for education research in which technocratic methods refuted in favor of methods responsive to questions grounded in practice and contexts. if education doctorate programs provide explicit instruction in practitioner research methods, including how to evaluate quality, graduates will be prepared to design and conduct inquiry responsive to their professional context. notably, the findings from this study suggest the need for a focus on research design and reflexivity. disseminating their research will demonstrate its capacity to transform education systems and respond to anderson’s and herr’s (anderson & herr, 1999) call for “a new definition of rigor…that does not mislead or marginalize practitioner researchers” (p. 15). references anderson, g. l. 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(2007). the quality of an action research thesis in the social sciences. quality assurance in education, 15(4), 413–436. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880710829983 https://doi.org/10.4148/2470-6353.1088 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.25 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.475 https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750312445034 https://doi.org/10.1002/ev.1427 https://doi.org/10.1598/rt.60.6.3 https://doi.org/10.5038/2379-9951.4.1.1093 https://doi.org/10.5038/2379-9951.4.1.1093 https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1261 https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2013.854175 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x16680053 https://doi.org/10.1080/13450600500365452 https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9916_ijar_2012_01_schaenen https://doi.org/10.1688/1861-9916_ijar_2012_01_schaenen https://doi.org/10.5038/2379-9951.5.1.1122 https://the-action-research-pod.captivate.fm/episode/episode-20-rethinking-rigor-in-action-research-with-dr-alfredo-ortiz-aragon https://the-action-research-pod.captivate.fm/episode/episode-20-rethinking-rigor-in-action-research-with-dr-alfredo-ortiz-aragon https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.4148/2470-6353.1039 https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1467 https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880710829983 maida finch salisbury university conceptual framework terminology philosophical worldview impact literature review research design data analysis emic perspective methods identification, screening, and selection coding research design data analysis emic perspective findings: hallmarks of quality in practitioner research research design data analysis instruments analytic approach examples and excerpts emic perspective discussion limitations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 54 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 when qualitative research is taught virtually: drawing on experiential design to build deeper knowledge of qualitative observation joy c. phillips drexel university joy.phillips@drexel.edu kristine s. lewis grant drexel university ksl33@drexel.edu kathy d. geller drexel university kathygeller@drexel.edu abstract this essay discusses the edd program design and qualitative research course sequence at drexel university, a private, non-profit institution. this large program admits up to 140 edd students annually with approximately 100 attending fully online and 40 attending hybrid offerings at the main campus and at a satellite program in washington, dc. the essay features a qualitative course observation activity designed by janesick (2011) to be used face-to-face and details how the activity has been adapted for virtual delivery at east coast university. as a literature review revealed a paucity of published works on teaching observation qualitatively, the authors seek to contribute to the knowledge base with particular emphasis on faculty teaching in an online program. based upon the east coast university faculty’s use of this observation activity, students develop increased understanding of the roles of perception and perspective in qualitative observation. keywords edd programs, online edd programs, teaching qualitative research, teaching virtually a century ago, academics would have found it impossible to imagine teaching a qualitative research course in an online edd program. in the 1920s, when harvard awarded the first recipients the edd degree, the seeds of what would become qualitative research were taking root. this was evident in the early works of sociologists in the chicago school such as park and burgess’ (1925), as well as with social anthropologists as shown in margaret mead’s (1928) coming of age in samoa (as cited in cooley, 2013). as the methods of qualitative research coalesced and became more refined, ethnographic accounts of educational settings emerged with the first study of note conducted by george and louise spindler in the second half of the 20th century (cited in cooley, 2013). on a parallel path, the seeds of online education were being planted in the form of correspondence courses with lectures delivered over the radio. pennsylvania state university was the first institution of higher education to broadcast such courses in 1922 (ferrer, 2019). three years later in 1925, the national home study council was established; in 2015 the name was changed to the distance education accrediting commission (ferrer, 2019). while these three innovations have encountered different challenges and successes in their respective fields over the course of their unilateral developments, their integration in the form of online edd programs has given rise to a new set of questions, including how to effectively introduce scholarly practitioners to qualitative research through online teaching and learning. in this essay, we feature a method of virtually teaching qualitative observation to online edd students. we situate the essay in a literature review on teaching qualitative research online. this review highlights the dearth of research on teaching qualitative research and observation as a research method in an online course. we also consider the areas for growth for both instructors and edd students in online qualitative research methods courses. after introducing our edd program and our stances as teachers and researchers, we describe our approach to teaching observation skills in an online qualitative research course. we conclude by offering recommendations for future research and practice. teaching qualitative research online in the last decade, two literature reviews about teaching qualitative research have been published. the first literature synthesis by wagner et al. (2019) examined 39 research studies http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ phillips, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 55 published from 1999–2013 on teaching qualitative research methods. seven themes were identified including experiential learning, practice-based materials and workshops, course structure, peer or collaborative work, apprenticeship model, competence of qualitative research trainers, and teaching resources. although this review considered research on teaching qualitative research, five of the seven identified themes focused on student learning—notably reinforcing the significance of experiential learning (cooper et al., 2012). in contrast to wagner et al.’s (2019) literature review, snelson (2019) produced a scoping review of research based solely on scholarship on teaching qualitative research methods online. using the tpack framework, which defines teacher knowledge in terms of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge, snelson analyzed 11 articles; her findings indicated that “…online qualitative research methods educators choose course goals, instructional modules, and topics in a manner consistent with instructional design approaches” (p. 2799). noticeably absent from snelson’s review was attention to experiential learning for online students, which was emphasized in the other reviews (cooper et al., 2012; wagner et al., 2019). however, snelson’s research called for greater attention to experiential learning in future studies of teaching qualitative research online. as evidenced by both of these literature reviews, there is a paucity of works on teaching qualitative research methods online (miskovic & lyutykh, 2017; snelson, 2019). miskovic and lyutykh (2017) concluded that “[t]here are few studies on how to teach qualitative research, let alone how to go about it in an online format” (p. 2705). snelson (2019) concurred: teaching practices in online qualitative research methods courses have become an increasingly important topic of inquiry in an age when a wide variety of online and distance education opportunities are available including online doctoral programs in which qualitative methods courses are an established part of the curriculum. (p. 2799) for instructors in online edd programs, more research is required to inform pedagogy and practices related to teaching qualitative research methods in online classes. with regard to pedagogy, scholarship on teaching qualitative research methods online highlights three areas for online instructors to consider. first, kanzki-veloso et al. (2018) asserted, “in addition to being an expert in research as a subject matter, teaching research online also requires the instructor to effectively blend technology, instructional strategies, and content” (p. 1). second, hunter et al. (2014) insisted that regardless of the teaching format, “the epistemological and ontological suppositions of qualitative research require a format that is interactive, engaging, and reflective—both traditional and distance must teach using interactive, engaging, and reflective methods” (p. 9). last, miskovic and lyutykh (2017) argued that qualitative methods course instructors teaching in an asynchronous online setting should give careful consideration to certain inherent tensions: (a) how to explain or enact the give-and-take occurrences of interviews on the static discussion board…? (b) how to ‘type in’ positionality and the role identity markers play in research, when both the instructors and the students remain mostly invisible to each other? [and] (c) [how to negotiate] … the privileging of a written form in an online teaching platform [that] simultaneously challenges and liberates us in meeting the students through the text only? (p. 2714) creative instructional technologies and engaging learning experiences can help to address the inherent tensions and relative limitations posed by largely text-based communication in online educational settings (gregory, 2018). moreover, within this limited body of work, few studies have focused on the teaching of specific qualitative research methods such as observation. between the cited literature reviews and the search conducted for this paper, just three studies of teaching observation in an online qualitative methods course were identified. in the first study, the observation activity involved students watching a video and writing up fieldnotes (steckler et al., 2001). in the second study, students practiced participant observation in the virtual world of an online game, world of warcraft. students developed avatars and entered the video game, where they interacted with other people in the game, and wrote fieldnotes to record their experiences (snelson et al., 2017). in the third study (kawulich & d’alba, 2019), students conducted ethnographic research in second life. similar to the prior study, students created avatars and entered second life to interact with other people. while innovative in their use of technology to learn observation, these studies suggest that more research is needed to understand how observations skills can be taught and learned in an online course format. context: drexel university edd program in this section, we provide a summary of drexel university’s edd program. additionally, each of the three authors reveals their researcher’s stance. we end this section by describing the research sequence in our edd program. brief program description professors phillips, grant and geller teach in the drexel university online edd program. uniquely, the virtual designation at drexel university, a private, non-profit institution, can represent both students and faculty. while drexel university itself is located in the mid-atlantic region, we three faculty live in north carolina, ohio, and california respectively, and our students, while primarily from the northeastern united states, are also from across north america, asia, europe and the middle east. this edd program was founded in 2008–2009 and designed based on the principles defined in shulman et al.’s (2006) reclaiming education’s doctorate: a critique and a proposal. as such, the drexel edd program’s five learning objectives – our keystones are tightly aligned with the carnegie project on the education doctorate guiding principles (cped, 2020). upon completion of our edd program, our graduates will: ◊ possess the ability to create and support learning communities that are the basis for sustainable change; ◊ develop the habits of mind and competencies to lead complex organizations shaped by global forces; ◊ develop the abilities to sustain their own leadership growth, to begin new careers in leadership or advance in their current careers; when qualitative research is taught virtually impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 56 ◊ utilize the full range of emerging technologies to reach across generations, communicate effectively, and engage others; and, ◊ exemplify the curiosity, inquiry skills, and scholarly competencies needed to investigate an idea, transform it and put into meaningful action. as we write this paper, our edd advisory council is in the process of adding a sixth learning objective that recognizes that our graduates address issues of social justice and lead actions to ensure the creation of more equitable organizations, communities, and policies. the initial edd program was a hybrid model delivered at three us locations; this program was delivered 40% face-to-face during monthly executive weekend sessions and 60% online. in 2012, we added our first online cohort. today our program admits up to 140 edd students annually with approximately 100 attending the three and five-year options fully online. the drexel university edd program became a member of the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) in 2015 and was recognized as the 2019 cped edd program of the year. according to the drexel university website, the mission of this edd program is to “enhance the preparation of professionals for leadership positions in a wide variety of educational and organizational environments; preparing them to address today’s problems of practice.” the majority of students are education professionals with 52% employed in higher education, 36% in k12/charter school education, and the remaining 12% hailing from a variety of fields including the us armed forces, government agencies, healthcare, corporate settings, non-profits, and as independent entrepreneurs. the cohorts forge interactive communities of practice as they move through coursework and beyond (wenger-trayner, e. & wenger-trayner, b., 2020). the courses feature scaffolded content within and across the curriculum. in the first year, students take the four core leadership courses based on the essential elements of systems thinking, transformational change, organizational design, and equity and justice. they also take the first four research courses which introduce the students to program evaluation, academic writing, and educational research. in the second year, students take four additional research courses—including a two-course sequence of qualitative research methods and data analysis—and four concentration courses. during several of the leadership and research courses, students complete scaffolded “signature assignments.” signature assignments reflect the class content (leadership, academic writing, qualitative research, proposal development) and provide students with scaffolded developmental writing feedback to enhance the students’ critical thinking and writing skills reflecting their transformation to “scholar/practitioners.” research sequence in our edd program research coursework begins in the first quarter of the program, when students draw on their tacit knowledge and professional experiences to gain an understanding of the scholarship of program evaluation to enhance their professional practice. prior to beginning their study of educational research, they develop an understanding of the value of creating evidence-based arguments and deepen their understanding of leading systemic change to address “problems in practice” (cped, 2020). for the last two quarters of their first year, they gain an overview of educational research and apply these learnings about research problems and questions to their initially framed problem of practice choosing to study it through their preliminary application of quantitative, qualitative, or mixed research methods. by the end of the first year, drexel university online edd students have created initial writings that introduce their selected research problem in practice, define the purpose of their study and begin to identify the questions that will frame their dissertation study. they have begun to develop their foundational knowledge of the scholarship and published practice related to their problem and they are actively considering possible research methods. in the context of this classwork, our edd students have been introduced to the dissertation proposal for a problem of practice. in the second year, students take a deep dive into qualitative research, studying their proposed problem of practice in a pilot qualitative study. they similarly take a lab-based quantitative course and apply elements of quantitative research and mixed methods to their understanding of their problem of practice research. in their eighth quarter, the students begin to work with a supervising professor who serves as the chair for their dissertation journey, and, simultaneously, they participate in a doctoral seminar where they integrate the prior learnings about evidence-based practice with an enlightened understanding of educational research. in this seminar they begin working on the three chapters that are the basis for their proposal. in their ninth and final quarter of coursework, they work with their supervising professor to bring their proposal to readiness for committee review. in the third year, students complete their coursework and with the mentoring of their supervising professor gain their committee members’ approval for their research proposal and begin their dissertation research process. who are we as online instructors and qualitative researchers? in line with the spirit and tradition of qualitative researchers, we offer insight on our positionality and stances as teachers and researchers. each author situates themselves in their identified epistemology, ontology, and axiology. dr. joy phillips believes that one’s researcher’s stance is constantly evolving, as we are all in the process of becoming. her white childhood in the segregated south was dominated by reading anything she could get her hands on and asking “why.” in adolescence during the civil rights movement, guided by her mother, she followed a college preparatory track that emphasized math and science, with little attention to the humanities. an undergraduate degree in a stem field led to a decade long career chapter as a scientist. it was not until a master’s program that she was introduced to the social sciences, with which she fell in love, a passion she had never felt for math and science. this graduate degree led to a new career chapter in non-profit administration and leadership in organizations that provided services to underserved families and children. undergirding both chapters was a focus on education and teaching and continuing to ask “why;” all eventually led to a phd and a third career chapter in academia. from these experiences, phillips discovered much about herself, including that she learned best from observing, listening, talking with people, and engaging with complex and contradictory ideas. gradually she came to know this as her epistemological stance. from this emerging understanding came a recognition of her worldview, or ontology, as a social constructivist. influencing both phillips, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 57 were values and beliefs, axiological views, that individuals are shaped by their own personal experiences, that all people have important stories to tell, and that knowing is always partial and tentative. dr. kristine grant is a cisgender african american woman who grew up in northern kentucky and attended school in the district that her father, aunts, and uncles helped to desegregate. her first love was stories—the stories her elders told at family gatherings, the stories she read from the many books that she borrowed from the library every week, and the stories and poems that she wrote and shared. the first in her family to attend college, grant enrolled in an african american studies course the fall of her first year. there she learned the history and language to both contextualize and connect her family’s and community’s experiences to the larger legacy of people of african descent. as a sociology and african american studies major, grant conducted her first research study the summer of her junior year and discovered her second love—qualitative research. after graduating, she earned a phd in urban education with the expressed intention to honor her elders and ancestors by giving back in her role as professor. listening to the stories of people of color, understanding how they make meaning of their lived experiences, and examining how the stories of and meaning assigned to their lived experiences contrast with the oppressive, controlling narratives prominent in us society—together, this in/forms the basis of her black feminist epistemology. ontologically, grant’s worldview is rooted in the intersectionality of her identities and lived experiences as a woman of african descent. in alignment with patricia hill-collins (1991), she abides by an ethic of care, placing value on individual expressiveness, understanding the appropriateness of emotions, and developing a capacity for empathy. before joining academia, dr. kathy geller was a management education and organizational learning professional; she frequently spoke about “truth with a small t” when she was facilitating leadership programs at various locations around the world. her philosophy of facilitation was based on “knowing oneself and honoring the other.” residing in hong kong, kuwait and malaysia and working for a british bank focused in asia, africa and the middle east, geller learned to appreciate the cultural basis of identity, to question her worldviews gained from living and working in texas, maryland and florida, and to recognize that emily post’s rules of etiquette worked only for a few cultures (although they had been taught as if they were global). these experiences and others informed geller’s epistemology as a scholar/practitioner and faculty member where she found natural alignment with gergen’s (1985) representation of the social constructivist view reflecting her ontology that “truth comes in many representations.” her axiological values in leadership draw on the concept of an ethic of care (noddings, 2013) and recognizing and honoring difference. while emersed in her culture of origin for these recent 12 years, geller draws on these global life lessons as she teaches qualitative research. the faculty use their paradigms and philosophies to personalize the delivery of the content and bring it to life. however, course design, including the readings and assignments, are consistent across the cohorts. the next section focuses on the qualitative research methods course sequence. qualitative course sequence: design of educ 836-837 in our edd program, we teach qualitative research in a twocourse sequence. since drexel university follows the quarter system, each course runs for 10-weeks; thus, this two-course sequence is taught over 20 weeks. a quarter break of approximately two weeks occurs for students between the two courses. edd students may elect a three-year or a five-year program of study. in the three-year edd program design, the initial course, educ 836, is taught in year two, in the fifth quarter. the second course, educ 837, is taught in the quarter immediately following, in the sixth quarter. in the five-year program, students take one course per term and the two qualitative courses are taught in year four, during the 13th and 14th quarters. both plans of study include the same courses. the primary learning goals of the initial qualitative course are to introduce edd students to a set of five qualitative traditions, or methodologies including case study, phenomenology, narrative, ethnography, and grounded theory (creswell & poth, 2018). students select one of these traditions to conduct a pilot study related to their identified problem of practice. they construct a pilot study proposal and protocols, and following instructor approval, collect qualitative data through three one-to-one interviews and one focus group with three to four participants. over the quarter break, students may begin the process of transcribing the recordings (audio and/or video) of the interviews and focus group. in the second course, educ 837, students have the first two weeks to complete their data transcriptions. we urge students to personally transcribe at least one transcript, but we are yielding to the emerging reality that transcription services are fully integrated into computer software. for example, zoom, the online video platform provided to our students, allows them to conduct their interviews and focus group online, and provides a written transcription supported through otter.ai. in this second course, students focus on coding their transcripts and analyzing their data following saldaña’s (2016) guidance through first cycle coding, transitional steps after first cycle coding, and second cycle coding. we require students to demonstrate their progression through the coding process in textual and graphic form to illustrate how they arrive at their selection of final themes and subthemes. ultimately, students produce a final report of their pilot study including problem overview, methodology, analysis, findings, conclusions, and recommendations. in summer 2020, we began to score the final papers with a detailed 30-point rubric; this assignment is a signature assignment for students that enables them and their instructors to assess their progress with skill development and proficiency that will be evidenced later in their problem of practice dissertation proposal and subsequent study. regardless of what research methodology students select to conduct their dissertation, we believe that demonstrating a level of proficiency in qualitative research is useful and important to advancing students’ future success as scholarly practitioners (lochmiller & lester, 2016; slayton & samkian, 2017). in the second course in the qualitative course sequence, we also introduce students to qualitative observation through two learning activities. one observation activity is conducted individually; pre-covid, students selected a public setting with a lot of action and recorded in writing as much as possible about what they saw. during when qualitative research is taught virtually impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 58 covid, instructors shifted to students conducting a written observation of a film clip. the other observation activity is conducted in a group format and is composed of “observing a still life” (janesick 2011). the still life activity is used to explain the elements of observation and the requisite skills and is fully described below. observation activity the primary learning objective of the still life observation activity is to facilitate students’ awareness of the role of perception and perspective in their qualitative practice. the featured group observation activity is conducted virtually, via the web-based video platform zoom. this activity was developed for face-to-face delivery by valerie janesick (2011, pp. 25-26), and phillips initially used it in a face-to-face qualitative research course. converting this lesson for online delivery was not difficult. to assist with understanding the activity intent, the face-to-face version is described first, followed by the online conversion. face-to-face version as janesick (2011) explained, the purpose of this activity is for participants “to observe and describe an assortment of objects on a table” (p. 25). aligning with the arts, janesick called this arrangement a “still life scene” (p. 25). the items included in the still life are the instructor’s choice, composed of random objects from the home or office. according to janesick, the assortment should contain at least five items of various shapes, sizes, colors, texture, etc. this arrangement is casually displayed in such a way that students may see the front, side, or back of an object. students are seated around the table enabling them to see a slice of the still life; they are not able to move to see the arrangement from a different angle. the instructions are to spend approximately 20 minutes observing the still life and writing as many details as possible about what they see from their position, while remaining silent throughout the activity. the notetaking is to be done in a fieldnote format with separate columns for description and for reflective notes. after completing the observation, another 20 minutes is spent having the students read aloud to the full group what they recorded. typically, as students report out, those arrayed around the table express surprise as they hear the description of items that they viewed from one angle, detailed from a different angle. surprise is also expressed about the different degrees of detail in each report, as some students read a fairly brief list of items, while others provide substantial to complex details. phillips has noted that students initially comply with the activity instructions with some amount of unspoken skepticism, voiced later, about whether the observation exercise would have much meaning to them. however, as and after the students share the individual responses, students often marvel as they gradually recognize the unconscious assumptions they had made. phillips concludes this activity by explicitly acknowledging that the process promotes increased individual awareness of perception and perspective. virtual version the virtual version of this activity includes all the elements of the face-to-face version with a few adjustments. instead of having students seated around a table on which the still life is arranged, the virtual participants engage in the observation activity in small teams of three to four people in zoom breakout rooms. instead of having the group observe a single still life scene, each group is provided a different photograph of the same setting from a different angle. to prepare, the instructor creates a still life scene as described above; then, the instructor takes a set of photographs of the scene in a 360-degree fashion. each photo represents a sliced view of the still life, mimicking the face-to-face individual views. see figure 1 for example photographs from phillips; these are four of eleven total photos in the set, roughly representing the still life at 90-degree angles. figure 1. examples of still life photographs phillips, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 59 when qualitative research is taught virtually impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 60 in the virtual version, the instructor provides students the same general directions as above (e.g., 20 minutes of silent observation, recorded fieldnotes, etc.) along with the specific virtual instructions. at the end of the allotted time, the instructor calls students back from the breakout rooms into the full group zoom, and all report out as previously described. variations of the virtual activity are easily made such as having small group members discuss their individual accounts of the same photo before returning to the full group. another option for students unable to attend synchronously is for the instructor to delay posting the class session zoom recording, to email those students one of the photographs, and to have them do the activity individually before posting their responses to the blackboard discussion board. regardless of the face-to-face or virtual formats, students report their observations in a quite similar fashion with less, more, or much detail. the full group reflection yields the same sort of surprised responses, and the instructor ends the experiential, online session with the same focus on being aware of the role of perception and perspective in their observation practice. discussion and conclusion our adaptation of janesick’s (2011) observation activity adds to the small selection of works on teaching observation as a qualitative research skill in an online learning environment. previous articles on teaching observation skills in an online course featured the use of a video (steckler et al., 2001) and two online games, world of warcraft (snelson et al., 2017) and second life (kawulich & d’alba, 2019). our work seeks to build on steckler et al. (2001); by providing a description of our actual lesson, we seek to provide an example of an effective instructional strategy for teaching qualitative methods online. our work also contributes to the scholarship of teaching qualitative research methods, specifically in online classrooms. teaching qualitative research online requires a format that is "interactive, engaging and reflective" (hunter et al, 2014, p. 9). the featured experiential learning activity incorporated technology and instructional strategies to introduce students to qualitative research broadly, and observation specifically. by making use of the breakout rooms in zoom, we resolved some of the inherent tensions in online teaching and learning. the use of zoom (or similar videoconference platforms) in online teaching reduced the invisibility of teachers and students and promoted real time exchanges that are not mediated by text alone. by placing students into breakout rooms and bringing them back together for a whole group reflection and discussion, this learning activity fosters student interaction and engagement. teaching qualitative research online "blends technology, instructional strategies and content" (kanzki-veloso et al., 2018, p. 1). by attending to these requirements, online instructors can mitigate some of the inherent tensions associated with online teaching and learning, such as static discussion boards, invisible identities and positionalities, and privileged written formats (miskovic & lyutykh, 2017). more importantly, learning about qualitative research methods in an online edd program has clear implications for students' development as scholarly practitioners. developing edd students' qualitative research skills can shape their approaches to leadership in areas such as communication, community-building phillips, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.193 61 and problem-solving (gregory, 2018; lochmiller & lester, 2016; slayton & samkian, 2017). this observation activity is one of several in the drexel university online delivery of qualitative research methods that draws on the community of practice concept (wenger-trayner & wengertraynor, 2020) to foster a collaborative learning environment. additional assignments that include online collaborative methods are the use of a critical friends process to upskill qualitative interviewing, a virtual coding experience that fosters knowledge of cycle one and cycle two coding methods as the basis for research findings, and pilot study presentations that focus on using evidence in leading change. with this essay, the authors seek to help professors in online edd programs re-imagine teaching and learning qualitative research for our emerging generation of virtually based scholar-practitioners. references carnegie project on the education doctorate. 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(april 01, 2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25-32. slayton, s., & samkian, a. (2017). scaffolding learning for practitionerscholars: the philosophy and design of a qualitative research methods course. journal of research on leadership education, 12(1), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775116663713 snelson, c. (2019). teaching qualitative research methods online: a scoping review of the literature. the qualitative report, 24(11), 2799-2814. retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss11/9 snelson, c., wertz, c., onstott, k., & bader, j. (2017). using world of warcraft to teach research methods in online doctoral education: a student-instructor duoethnography. the qualitative report, 22(5), 1439– 1456. retrieved from http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss5/18/ steckler, a., farel, a., bontempi, j. b., umble, k., polhamus, b., & trester, a. (2001). can health professionals learn qualitative evaluation methods on the world wide web? a case example. health education research, 16(6), 735-745. http://doi.org/10.1093/her/16.6.735 wagner. c., kawulich, b., & garner, m. (2019). a mixed research synthesis of literature on teaching qualitative research methods. sage open, 9(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019861488 wenger-trayner, e. & wenger-trayner, b. (2020). resources for social learning: publications. https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-tocommunities-of-practice/ https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol17/iss52/3 https://thebestschools.org/magazine/online-education-history/ https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol19/iss45/3 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/fdla-journal/vol3/iss1/6 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/fdla-journal/vol3/iss1/6 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss10/12 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol24/iss11/9 http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss5/18/ http://doi.org/10.1093/her/16.6.735 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019861488 joy c. phillips drexel university kristine s. lewis grant drexel university kathy d. geller drexel university teaching qualitative research online context: drexel university edd program brief program description research sequence in our edd program who are we as online instructors and qualitative researchers? qualitative course sequence: design of educ 836-837 observation activity face-to-face version virtual version discussion and conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 18 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 differentiating the edd and the phd in higher education: a survey of characteristics and trends holly a. foster university of southern mississippi holly.foster@usm.edu steven chesnut university of missouri-kansas city schesnut@umkc.edu james thomas university of southern mississippi james.w.thomas@usm.edu courtney robinson university of southern mississippi courtney.l.robinson@usm.edu abstract purpose: higher education, as a field of study, is one of the few programmatic areas that offer two doctoral degrees: the doctor of education (edd) and the doctor of philosophy (phd). in the united states, the two degrees are often conflated. conversations, to this point, have done more to contribute to the theoretical debate than to operationally distinguish between the two degree paths. method: the current study analyzed data collected from a review of the 188 doctoral programs at 145 institutions listed with the association for the study of higher education (ashe). results: results suggest that while there is a shift toward operational differences between the edd and the phd in higher education, the similarities in entrance requirements, formats, and research expectations, to list a few, suggest that the edd and phd still require further refinement to reach the theoretical clarity common in many conversations about the education doctorate. keywords higher education, differentiating phd and edd, educational doctorate, graduate education introduction several fields offer professional doctorates, including business, education, nursing, law, and psychology. these professional doctorates aim to offer a better option for developing advanced professional skills compared to their respective phd counterparts (jones, 2018). however, there are ongoing debates within higher education in the united states that continually affect how these degrees are understood. more specifically, the ongoing discussion pertaining to the doctor of education (edd) vs. doctor of philosophy (phd) degree paths requires educational practitioners and researchers alike to differentiate programs that are often unable to be completely independent of one another, especially considering the overlap in instructional facilities and faculty. despite the ongoing discussions, the existing phd and edd programs in the field of higher education may have different intentions, but often share overlapping goals (de lisi, 2013). some differences that distinguish the edd from the phd in the united states typically include career focus, the role of research, admissions requirements, mode of study, and breadth of focus (jones, 2018), yet there remains some misperception about the differences between the two degrees. in recent years, significant attention has been directed toward defining and clarifying the roles of the edd and phd in higher education in relation to one another in order to elucidate the different purposes of each degree (aiken & gerstl-pepin, 2013; boyce, 2012; card, chambers, & freeman, 2016). the discussion, while persistent and ongoing, remains unresolved, and the juxtaposition of these two programs has created more questions than answers. a significant effort in clarifying these programs, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), was developed in 2010 to “reclaim the education doctorate” (perry, zambo, & wunder, 2015). since then great strides have been made to address the differences between the edd and the phd. the carnegie project on the education doctorate “is the first national effort that has undertaken the distinction of the two degrees through clear examination” of the purpose and goals of the two degrees (perry & imig, 2010, pp. 1718). the carnegie project has worked with more than 125 schools https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3849-5833 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6164-7823 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4909-9967 differentiating the edd and phd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 19 and colleges of education to not only develop a framework for the edd to be a professional practice degree but will continue “to test and refine its work to ensure that the ed.d. is distinguished as the preferred degree for educational practitioners” (perry & imig, 2010, p. 18). while perry (2015) recognizes the advances towards the redesign of the edd, she notes that “the edd as the professionalpractice degree in education is far from complete” (p. 61). while significant work has been done, questions remain about differences between the degrees in terms of overall credit requirements, research requirements, and admissions requirements. based on research of the past 30 years, the two degrees have remained largely similar in these areas (carpenter, 1987; baez, 2002; nelson & coorough, 1994; shulman et al., 2006). on the historical context of comparing the edd and the phd while professional doctorates are still relatively new in many countries, they have been long established in the united states (lester, 2004). the edd was formally offered at harvard university in 1922 as a professional practitioner degree but was developed with a phd mindset (townsend, 2002). further study demonstrates an earlier intention as harvard formed its graduate school of education with a $500,000 contribution from the rockefeller education foundation, setting out to establish the first such endeavor in the country, stating that “it will rank with the university’s schools of medicine, law, divinity and engineering,” all of which offered their own doctoral degree programs as the md, the jd, the thd, and the engd respectively (“harvard school endowment fund,” 1919, p. 14). developing the edd using a phd format has caused ongoing challenges in the delineation of the two degrees, as the two have been compared to one another for as long as they have been in existence. in 1931, just a decade after harvard began offering its edd, freeman wrote one of the earliest documented articles that addressed problems with the lack distinction between the two programs. as a result, some have argued to re-define the edd so that the two degrees can each focus on their individual missions (boyce, 2012). others have even argued for the elimination of the edd degree (levine, 2005). to date, a dualistic landscape has been forged and strengthened that sustains the debates between the edd and phd, focusing on practicality versus perception and application versus research. the debate to distinguish the edd from the phd has continued for decades. hollis (1942) called for change 75 years ago when he argued that given the need for professional preparation, the edd degree needed to be modified to meet the needs of those seeking it. because most students pursuing the edd do not desire to be researchers, the edd program that is modelled on the phd is failing to provide students with the high-level preparation that is often found in other professional degree programs (shulman et al., 2006). however, instead of further modifying the degree to be practitionerfocused, the degrees have remained similar so that neither has the potential to be suitable for practice nor research. according to shulman et al. (2006), “instead of having two separate entities that effectively accomplish distinct functions, we have confounding and compromise, a blurring of boundaries, resulting in the danger that we achieve rigorous preparation neither for practice nor for research” (p. 26). an earlier, but often overlooked, study denotes the challenge of the differentiation in the 1950s, stating in its introduction, “when asked to differentiate between the requirements for the two degrees, people express widely varying opinions. the usual conception of a ph.d. program is that it requires at least one year of course work above the master’s level, proficiency in one or more languages, and the preparation of a dissertation, but the ed.d. curriculum is less defined in the popular mind” (carter, 1956, p. 3-4). in her research, carter studied 44 institutions that conferred both the phd and edd degrees in education and she sought to define the differences based on aspects including prerequisites, course of study requirements, foreign language requirements, dissertation requirements, and so forth. carter tellingly cites earlier studies that denote historical differences. for example, a 1930 study noted a few important differences between the edd and the phd at that time wherein “the most significant variations seemed to be in the elimination of the language requirement, the prerequisite that a candidate have professional experience, and the concept of a thesis as ‘an organization and application of existing knowledge’ rather than an original research project” (carter, 1956, p. 36). likewise, the study denotes that walton c. john, a senior specialist in higher education at the united states office of education completed a study in 1934 which included a summary that noted “the ph.d. in education stressed original research which tended to go in the direction of the historical or scientific studies” while noting that the “ed.d. emphasized the solution of problems by well-proved methods through the accentuation of mastery of subject matters in given areas…” (p. 38). despite its long history, attempts to differentiate the phd in education from the edd are as pertinent as ever, since programs are often restructuring, merging, or realigning their goals to establish programmatic identity (hochbein & perry, 2013). extensive academic research that analyzes coursework, completion requirements, and student motivations has been published regarding the differences between the two degrees; however, a consensus has yet to be established that operationally differentiates the two programs (anderson, 1983; carpenter, 1987; deering, 1998). in the absence of a clear distinction, the academic higher education community has also failed to establish any consistency regarding the purposes of each degree. more specifically, a review of program handbooks associated with ashe highlight that some programs define their edd as a research degree, while others define it as a professional degree. additionally, some studies have concluded that no major differences exist between the two degrees (anderson, 1983; baez, 2002; nelson & coorough, 1994; osguthorpe & wong, 1994). this confusion and lack of consistency has incorrectly relegated the edd to the status of a phd-lite (perry, 2012). perhaps the most meaningful, contemporary change in the edd was harvard’s elimination of its edd program in 2012. although harvard continues to offer the doctor of educational leadership (edd), the original edd program was replaced with a phd in education (basu, 2012). harvard administration said the former edd program was a research-based degree rather than a practiceoriented degree, which contributed to the ever-present edd vs. phd debate. harvard’s elimination of the edd, however, does little to clarify the differences between the degrees (perry, 2015). in order to approach this debate, the first step is to identify the purpose of the doctoral degree. the receipt of a phd typically indicates that an individual is able to conduct research that contributes knowledge to the field whereas receipt of the edd indicates that an individual is able to practice in the profession with the skills needed to grow and adapt to changing scenarios in practice foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 20 (townsend, 1990). research in 1985 showed that only four percent of phd in higher education graduates become scholars in the field (dill & morrison, 1985), and that number is said to be even lower today (kendzior, 2015). given the small number of graduates entering the professoriate, there is a “mismatch between preparation and actual career paths” (shulman et al., 2006, p. 26). while the need for two separate degrees is clear, the edd is continually hampered by the comparison to the phd, which leads to a number of questions such as whether a practitioner degree is needed, whether both degrees are needed, whether they both need to be redesigned, and what the degrees should look like. conceptual framework several areas of analysis appear in the literature as they relate to the edd and the phd in higher education. specifically, there are five areas that are commonly evaluated in comparing the edd and the phd. those areas include: course hours to degree, research hours to degree, culminating experience requirements, entrance/exit requirements, and admissions requirements. it is in those areas where the degrees commonly overlap, thus challenging the definition of each degree independent of the other. figure 1. concept framework overlapping components of the edd and phd that contribute to conflation surveys of higher education doctorates have been conducted repeatedly over the years in an effort to identify similarities and differences between the degrees (anderson, 1983; dill & morrison, 1985; dressel & mayhew, 1974; harris, 2007; hyle & goodchild, 2012; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). results from extensive investigation have suggested that there is limited operational distinction between the edd and the phd in higher education. in some cases, the differences between the two degrees were and are still negligible. these results have been relatively stable over time, with similar results being reported over the last 40 years (anderson, 1983; courtenay, 1988; cross & nelson, 1986; dill & morrison, 1985; deering, 1998; dressel & mayhew, 1974; perry, 2015). the lack of distinction between the degrees has led some to question why the edd exists if it cannot be distinguished from the phd (deering, 1998; levine, 2005). despite the need for these two degrees to prepare individuals for unique professional goals, studies of the degree requirements consistently reveal minimal differences in course requirements, research requirements, and entry and exit requirements (baez, 2002; hyle & goodchild, 2012). doctoral programs can vary in the number of required credit hours, number and type of required research hours, types of required courses, admissions requirements, and culminating experience requirements. one area that has been regularly studied between the two degrees is in the required courses and overall number of credit hours. in their study of 47 programs, hyle and goodchild (2012) found that phd programs required only slightly more courses than edd programs. keim (2007) corroborates these findings in reporting that phd degrees required 71 hours, on average, beyond the master’s degree, while edd degrees required an average of 62.5 hours beyond the master’s degree. the range of hours in keim’s study found edd programs that required as few as 43 credit hours and phd programs requiring as many as 93 hours. however, the number of required credit hours beyond a bachelor’s or master’s degree do not and should not necessarily be what distinguishes the phd from the edd. while a range of required credit hours is common across degrees, martinez-lebron (2016) found that the total credit hours was only slightly higher for phd programs and that the total credit hours were not significantly different between them. another area of investigation between the degrees is in the number and type of required research courses. dill and morrison (1985) argued for the need to teach data collection skills appropriate for practitioners as opposed to the skills taught for researchers, thus indicating a need for different research requirements. while there has not been a significant difference in total number of required credit hours between the two degrees, the same cannot be said for number and type of required research hours. martinez-lebron (2016) found significant differences in research credits requirements between the two degrees, in which phd programs averaged 12.6 credits and edd programs averaged 7.9 credits. unfortunately, there is no consistency in this finding, as keim (2007) found that while phd programs required more research courses as compared to edd programs, the difference was not significant. instead, keim (2007) reported that phd programs required an average of 4.8 research courses compared with an average of 4.5 for edd programs, and that many of these courses were the same between degrees. the phd and edd degrees have historically had similar entry and exit requirements (hyle & goodchild, 2012). while gpa requirements for admission are generally higher now than they were in the past, there is still a general expectation of a 3.0 to 3.5 gpa required for admission as well as a standardized entrance exam, such as the gre (keim 2007). in their 1986 study, crosson and nelson found no significant differences in admissions requirements between phd and edd programs. twenty-five years later, keim (2007) found only one difference in entrance requirements for just two edd programs. specifically, he found that these programs sought applicants with five to ten years of professional experience in the field, which does indicate a slight shift in the goal of the degree towards professional preparation. past research has shown very little distinction between the edd and the phd programs in higher education in almost every area of analysis. while differences between the degrees have been noted in prior research, the findings have yet to show consistency to clearly differentiate the two degrees across the field. as such, there remains overlap and contention between the purpose and requirements of the edd and the phd in higher education. the lack of clarity between edd and phd programs not only leaves the students conflicted about which degree is the best option for their future goals but gives program administrators little guidance in administering such programs. differentiating the edd and phd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 21 purpose of the current study the purpose of the current study is two-fold. first, we aim to update the literature base regarding progress toward operationally differentiating the phd and edd degree paths in higher education. second, we aim to establish methodological practice that relies on the consistency of an up-to-date secondary database rather than on the inconsistencies of individual researchers’ sampling plans to improve comparison of findings over time. we aim to accomplish these goals by continuing the line of inquiry into operational differences in the edd and phd degrees in higher education, with a focus on (1) program entrance and exit requirements, (2) credit hour requirements, (3) research and methods course requirements, and (4) program format offerings. specifically, this study aims to address the following research questions: (1) how do current phd and edd programs compare to prior assessments of the degrees and (2) has progress been made on prior calls to delineate edd and phd programs? to continue previous work, we conducted a study which looked at areas evaluated in prior studies to determine if current doctoral programs have made any advancements in distinguishing between degrees. methods historically, investigations on the comparison of edd and phd programs have been based on disparate sampling plans. more specifically, samples from these studies have been relatively small (i.e., 40 to 60 cases), have utilized unclear search criteria for case inclusion, or both. while random samples of different cases from a relatively large population is commonly a good thing in the social and behavioral sciences in establishing a sampling distribution, it makes little sense to conveniently sample from a small population where all/most potential respondents (i.e., doctoral programs in higher education) are known. to improve the methodological practice of sampling that can enhance consistency from one study to the next, we advocate for and have selected to use an up-to-date, secondary dataset of programs in higher education. the association for the study of higher education (ashe) maintains a database of higher education programs in the united states. their database includes a list of 240 institutions with varying degrees in higher education. given that the focus of the current study was on the comparison of edd and phd programs in higher education, we excluded master’sonly institutions and for-profit institutions as well as degrees in educational leadership and leadership. one hundred eighty-eight higher education programs at 145 institutions were included in the analysis. coding and data collection we utilized the ashe database to first retrieve basic information about the programs that offered an edd or phd in higher education and the institutions in which they were situated. next, we developed a coding protocol that we used to record data about each of the programs from readily available materials on program websites. the data collected comprised program requirements and characteristics, such as comprehensive exam requirements, gre or other testing requirements, culminating experience requirements, program formats, research methods requirements, and degrees offered by institution. it is important to recognize that content from online collections can be unreliable, especially in areas where information can change fluidly (i.e., changing program requirements); however, this collection method can offer timely data and can serve as a point of comparison for previous and future website analyses of doctoral programs in higher education (harris, 2007; jensen, 2013). data analysis to analyze the data collected from the online search and coding phase, different statistical techniques were utilized. more specifically, descriptive statistics were utilized to describe the nature of the program components, including measures of central tendency and dispersion. t-tests were utilized to examine differences in continuous program components (i.e., required credit hours) between edd and phd programs. finally, chi-square and phicorrelations were utilized to examine the relationship between dichotomous variables (i.e., program by gre requirement). prior to analysis, assumptions required for the chosen statistical analysis were checked. the data either met the assumption or adjustments to the statistic (i.e., equal variances not assumed) were made. results results from the analysis of program requirements and characteristics highlight important trends across the united states. the following sections report the descriptive statistics concerning program type and format, credit hour requirements, research hour requirements, and entrance and exit requirements of edd and phd degree programs, along with the results of inferential tests examining the differences in program requirements between phd and edd programs for institutions that housed both programs as well as institutions that only housed one or the other. program a majority of the programs at the 145 different institutions designated as maintaining a doctoral degree in higher education offered only a phd (n = 56, 38.6%), followed by those only offering an edd (n = 46, 31.7%), and those offering both a phd and an edd (n = 43, 29.7%). in the context of the history of the edd and phd in higher education, the number of institutions offering both degrees has steadily declined, while institutions offering one or the other has slowly increased. from the results of these types of analyses in publications over the last 40 years, as summarized in table 1 and illustrated in figure 2, it appears that institutions might be focusing more on one type of degree (i.e., the phd or the edd) than on trying to sustain both. figure 2. percentage of degree type from published literature between 1974 and present foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 22 table 1. frequency and proportion of institutions offering phd only, edd only, and combined phd/edd degrees current study jensen (2013) valerin (2011) harris (2007) cross & nelson (1986) dill & morrison (1985) dressel & mayhew (1974) sample size n = 145 n = 161 n = 77 n = 104 n = 72 n = 66 n = 67 degree # % # % # % # % # % # % # % pdd & edd 43 29.7 62 38.5 29 37.7 22 21.2 36 50.0 35 53.0 36 53.7 phd only 56 38.6 38 23.6 30 39.0 48 46.2 17 23.6 12 18.9 17 25.4 edd only 46 31.7 61 37.8 18 23.3 34 32.7 19 26.4 19 28.8 14 20.9 format the formats offered for the 188 programs across the 145 institutions demonstrated differing trends for the edd and the phd programs. as illustrated in figure 3, phd programs offered instruction primarily via traditional, on-campus formats (n = 63, 63.6%), followed by blended, hybrid formats (n = 28, 28.3%), executive, weekend formats (n = 6, 6.1%), and online with residence requirements formats (n = 5, 5.1%). more diversified, the edd programs offered greater flexibility in program format, with a majority offering blended, hybrid formats (n = 35, 39.3%), followed by traditional, on campus formats (n = 29, 32.6%), executive, weekend formats (n = 18, 20.2%), online with residence requirements formats (n = 16, 18.0%), and fully online formats (n = 5, 5.6%). the edd and phd programs differed meaningfully in the formats offered. for example, nearly twice as many phd programs were formatted as traditional programs. conversely, over three times as many edd programs were formatted as executive and online with residence requirement programs, compared to phd programs. while none of the phd programs in the sample were fully online, 5.6% of the edd programs were. figure 3. program modality by degree type admission and credit hour requirements admission criteria differed between the edd and the phd programs. of the 61 phd programs that reported gre requirements, 53 (86.9%) required students to complete the gre for admission. of the 55 edd programs that reported gre requirements, 39 (70.9%) required students to complete the gre for admission. additionally, the edd and phd programs differed in the total number of hours required to complete the degree. after completing an acceptable master’s degree, phd programs in higher education required between 42 and 90 hours of post-graduate coursework with an average of 65.4 hours (sd = 8.3), followed by edd programs which required between 39 and 81 hours of post-graduate coursework with an average of 58.3 hours (sd = 7.8) to complete the plan of study. likewise, phd programs in higher education required between 6 and 30 hours of research coursework, with an average of 15.3 hours (sd = 3.8), followed by edd programs which required between 3 and 24 hours of research coursework, with an average of 11.7 hours (sd = 3.8). final project requirements characteristics of each of the programs’ final degree projects overall described the phd as the more traditional degree, in which 96 (97.9%) of the 98 programs with information, described this project as a traditional dissertation. for the edd programs, students had greater flexibility in the final project, with 72 (83.7%) of the 86 programs with information requiring a traditional dissertation, 7 (8.1%) requiring a capstone, and 7 (8.1%) requiring a less defined final project. of those completing a dissertation for an edd degree, 25 (34.7%) described this project as an action oriented or applied research project. only three of these dissertations were embedded in the curriculum. required hours to complete degree post master’s degree institutions that housed both phd and edd programs required different hour requirements to complete the doctoral degree postmaster’s degree. phd programs required the most hours postmaster’s, ranging from 48 to 81 hours, with an average requirement of 66.26 hours (sd = 7.69). edd programs required a range of 44 to 81 hours, with an average requirement of 58.23 hours (sd = 8.10). examining the differences between phd and edd programs in institutions that house both, results of a paired sample t-test, assuming equality of variances (bartlett’s k2 = 0.11, p = 0.74), phd programs required significantly more hours post-master’s degree with an average difference of 8.02 hours (t = 7.84, p < .001, 95% ci[5.95; 10.09]). institutions that housed either a phd or an edd program, but not both, also required different hour requirements to complete the doctoral degree post-master’s degree. phd programs again required the most hours post-master’s, ranging from 42 to 90 hours, with an average of 64.67 hours (sd = 8.70). edd programs required a range of 39 to 78 hours, with an average requirement of 58.36 hours (sd = 7.63). examining the differences between phd and edd programs from independent universities, results of an independent samples ttest, assuming equality of variances (bartlett’s k2 = 0.82, p = 0.37), phd programs required significantly more hours post-master’s degree with an average difference of 6.31 hours (t = 3.78, p < .001, differentiating the edd and phd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 23 95% ci[3.00; 9.62]). in comparing the results between institutions that house both an edd and phd program versus those programs that only house one or the other, the greatest difference between hour requirements was found amongst the institutions that house both programs. required research hours in degree plan institutions that housed both phd and edd programs required different research course requirements in their respective degree plans. phd programs required the most overall research hours, ranging from 6 to 24 hours, with an average of 16.33 hours (sd = 3.67). edd programs required a range of 6 to 21 hours, with an average of 11.79 hours (sd = 3.58). examining the differences between phd and edd programs in institutions that house both, results of a paired sample t-test, assuming equality of variances (bartlett’s k2 = 0.03, p = 0.87), phd programs required significantly more research hours with an average difference of 4.64 hours (t = 8.74, p < .001, 95% ci[3.57; 5.72]). when disaggregating by the type of research coursework, similar differences were also found in quantitative methods coursework (t = 2.83, p < .01, 95% ci[0.32; 2.08]), but not for qualitative coursework (t = 1.00, ns). institutions that housed either a phd or an edd program, but not both, also required different research course requirements. phd programs again required the most research coursework, ranging from 6 to 30 hours, with an average of 14.46 hours (sd = 3.81). edd programs required a range of 3 to 24 hours, with an average of 11.60 hours (sd = 3.58). examining the differences between phd and edd programs from independent universities, results of an independent sample t-test, assuming equality of variances (bartlett’s k2 = 0.24, p = 0.62), phd programs required significantly more research hours with an average difference of 2.86 hours (t = 3.60, p < .001, 95% ci[1.29; 4.44]). when disaggregating by type of research coursework, similar differences were found in quantitative methods coursework (t = 2.69, p < .01, 95% ci[0.29; 1.93]), but not for qualitative coursework (t = 1.50, ns). required gre scores for admission to program institutions that housed both phd and edd programs tended to require very similar admission requirements in terms of the gre. of the 24 institutions that had information about gre requirements for both the phd and edd program, 83.3% (n = 20) required the gre to be admitted to either the phd or the edd program, and 12.5% (n = 3) did not require the gre to be admitted to either program. on only one occasion (4.2%) did an institution that housed both a phd and an edd program disagree on the requisite of a gre score for admission. in this case, the phd program required the gre for admission, while the edd program did not. results from a χ2 test of independence suggested that this overlap was not due to chance (χ2 = 10.97, p < .001), but instead both programs’ requirements were nearly perfectly correlated (r = 0.85). institutions that housed either a phd or an edd program, but not both, demonstrated slightly different admissions requirements in terms of the gre. of the 64 institutions that had information about gre requirements for their respective phd and edd programs, 85.3% (n = 29) of phd programs required the gre compared to 60.0% (n = 18) of edd programs. conversely, 14.7% (n = 5) of phd programs did not require the gre compared to 40% (n = 12) of edd programs. results from a χ2 test of independence suggested that these percentages were not due to chance (χ2 = 4.01, p < .05), but instead the gre requirements were more likely to be associated with phd programs than edd programs (r = 0.29). discussion dressel and mayhew’s (1974) study showed that the majority of institutions surveyed offered both the phd and the edd. they found that slightly more institutions offered the phd only as compared to the edd only. cross and nelson’s (1986) study reflected little change in institutions offering both degrees but found that slightly more institutions offered the edd only as compared to the phd only. twenty years later harris (2007) discovered a marked difference in institutional offerings. harris found that nearly half of the institutions surveyed offered the phd only, while just over twenty percent offered both the phd and the edd. harris’s (2007) findings are similar to the findings of this study. the shift from most institutions offering both degrees occurred sometime in the late 20th century, and current research indicates that more institutions are opting for one degree or the other, with fewer offering both, where having two degrees can cause conflict between the demands of theory versus practice. moreover, offering both degrees can lead to similar content thus adding to the confusion between the two degrees (perry & imig, 2010). most institutions today offer the phd only, but the number of institutions offering the edd only is relatively stable as reported in previous studies (harris, 2007; jensen, 2013). previous research has shown that the demographics and career goals of students can vary across doctoral programs. the median age of traditional phd graduates remains much lower than the median age for edd graduates who are typically already practicing in the field. this understanding of the demographic is clear in the program formats offered between the two degrees. while a sizeable number of edd programs offer an executive format, almost no phd programs offered such format. similarly, over half of the phd programs offer traditional format, while fewer edd programs offer the same. these results reflect the demand for programs and the balance that those already practicing in the field may require. while there is some debate over the quality/rigor of the edd degree as compared to the phd (de lisi, 2013; perry, 2013; schulman et al., 2006), previous research (king, 1961) found the edd degree tended to have more demanding admissions requirements; however, current research has found the opposite to be true. of those surveyed, 86.9% of phd programs require the gre exam while only 70.9% of edd programs require the exam. at this time, there is no explanation for the differences in admissions testing by degree. previous research (carpenter, 1987; hochbein & perry, 2013; lester, 2004) noted that phd programs rarely deviated from the standard dissertation requirement, while edd programs were more likely to offer alternatives to the formal dissertation. current research shows this remains to be true as nearly all phd programs reviewed required a traditional dissertation. while most edd programs require a dissertation, the format of those dissertations varies significantly in format and content. just over half of the edd dissertations specify they are action-oriented, applied, executive, or thematic edd research projects. much like the testing requirement could be a matter of audience needs, the action research dissertations, a foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 24 primary feature of edd final projects, also meets the needs of professionals already working in the field. this study shows phd and edd higher education programs have statistically significant differences in research hour requirements where the phd requires more hours. this was more pronounced at institutions offering both degrees where program administrators need to clearly differentiate between their two degrees. similar to research requirements, there is a statistically significant difference in total hours by degree program. like research hours, the difference is more pronounced at institutions offering both degrees where they need to clearly differentiate differences between their own degrees. the final area of analysis in this study is the entrance and exit requirements. while the gre requirements are nearly identical at institutions offering both programs, there is a significant difference at institutions where only one or the other degree is offered. in this case, edd programs are more likely to require the gre as compared to the phd. this pattern appears contradictory to what might be expected. based on the findings of this study, it is evident that institutions offering both degrees are more likely to differentiate clearly between degree requirements. however, institutions offering one degree still have work to do. toma (2002) contends that reinventing the edd can both legitimize education as a field of study within the respective institution and establish specific standard practices, which already occurs within other advanced programs. as in business, law, and medicine, the enhancement and specification of an established edd curricular structure also implies, to outside communities, that graduates have received a high level of training tailored to specific career goals (toma, 2002). this notion was heralded by guthrie (2009), who argued education doctorates “that still attempt to meet all markets and cram both professional and research preparation into the same curriculum shortchange institutional obligations to enrollees and stigmatize education as a field. failure to correct the shortcoming of one degree ensures continuance of weaknesses in both” (p. 4). this contention is neither a new nor marvel idea, rather, it has been posited by several researchers for decades (brown, 1990; deering, 1998; schulman, et al., 2006; toma, 2002), yet the challenges of differentiation persist. limitations of study and further research areas while the study has attempted to be thorough, further studies could address some limitations. one such limitation is that a more exhaustive survey of the core or required courses could be included in future research on the differentiation of the programs. considerations of how higher education programs have evolved in their definition of a core program may be of note in considering how the differentiation of the edd and phd vary for higher education. a recent study noted that there was “common agreement in the subject matter areas of organization, leadership, administration, and history,” but also stated that there was a “growing consensus among higher education doctoral programs about the position of higher education law and finance in the curricular core” (card et al., 2016, p. 127). another limitation could be considering the cocurricular and extracurricular opportunities and traditions around the different programs that might provide further insight into how campuses with both programs create differences outside the organized curriculum. surveys of students and an examination of student organizations might better inform this area. another limitation would be to consider the cost of attendance. while this article does discuss some variations reported in the hours required to complete the different doctoral degrees, there is still a need to consider the institutions that offer the programs. beyond the credit hours to completion variations, are there expense differences in the credit hour costs of each institution? for institutions that offer only one program, are there comparative expenses and prestige at another institution with the other program? finally, there is a need to consider the lasting impact of the various degrees. what similarities and differences do we see between edd and phd graduates’ salaries, job placements, and career satisfaction after completing the degree? these studies would further align the results of this study to further a broader, more informed understanding of the differences between the phd and the edd programs in higher education. conclusion by conducting this investigation, not only have we contributed to the discussion on the current state of the doctoral degree in higher education, but we have also uncovered some methodological inconsistencies that need to be addressed if we are to further examine this progress reliably. the variability in results reported in studies over the past 40 years is more likely to be due to sampling error than real changes in programmatic offerings. prior to the current study, research in this area has relied on returned surveys and website searches to gather information about programs that offer degrees in higher education. while these offer useful insights into degree requirements and characteristics, there is undoubtedly a high level of inconsistency in what is either returned (via survey design) or what is found (via search engines). large organization lists, like those maintained by ashe, provide a common, repeatable methodological foundation that future researchers can use to compare numbers reliably over time. while it is possible that the institutional list obtained from ashe omitted some higher education programs, as institutions are added to these types of lists, they become increasingly comprehensive with clear details about how much change has occurred between studies using the same list. the need for change has been established, and doctorate education is shifting and is continuously being revamped to answer the call for increased professional skills in a number of areas across higher education (robinson et al., 2016). however, this update on the current state of higher education doctoral programs suggests that change is happening slowly. this update further provides an overview of what changes have occurred over the past decade and reflects where the similarities remain, thus perpetuating the debate of practicality versus perception and application versus research. the edd must be viewed for its true value, to add to the professional skills. however, to be successful at that, edd programs must be true practitioner-based doctoral programs and must be completely separate from the phd. if the goal is true differentiation, this data suggests some opportunities for departments and administrators to further define and regulate the programs as distinct forms of doctoral work in higher education. first, institutions could consider how to determine the core curriculums of each program to research and professional expectations. partnerships could be developed with consortiums such as the carnegie project on the education doctorate as well as professional organizations related to practice areas in higher differentiating the edd and phd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.288 25 education such as the national association of student personnel administrators (naspa), association of deans and directors of university colleges and undergraduate studies, national academic advising association (nacada), the association of international educators (nafsa), the american college personnel association (acpa), and other such organizations to define the modern practitioner skillsets needed. through reviewing the standards, missions, and values of such organizations, the edd could be aligned as a practitioner’s degree as opposed to the phd focus on research and scholarly duties. such work might allow students seeking a terminal degree to better understand and engage in the differentiation of the goals of the degrees and pursue one appropriate to their professional goals. this may also help provide structure and support for those with an edd that face impostor syndrome or the belief that they are “an edd in a phd world” (doran, 2021, p. 110). institutional responsiveness and definition of expectations in response to professional development and career aspirations within the goals and structures of current academic standings could be a core way for these programs to be defined as research-themed and practitioner-focused if that is the understood differentiation most institutions pursue. the edd and phd in higher education were designed to serve two distinct purposes, each with unique curricula and assessments. while there has been progress, especially at institutions offering both degrees, more differentiation still needs to occur. this study shows some significant differences; thus, it appears that work is being done. however, there remains a need for continued research and definition of the roles of each program, defining targeted populations for each degree, and meeting the needs of each population. further, there needs to be more clarity toward the value of the edd independent of the phd, so that the edd is valued for its purpose and not seen as a phd-lite. declarations the authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. authors declare no competing interests. references aiken, j. a., & gerstle-pepin, c. 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(1990). doctoral study in the field of higher education. in m. b. paulson (ed.), higher education: handbook of theory and research, (pp. 161-199). agathon press. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01742197 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41763570 https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cpedinitiative.org/resource/resmgr/docs/cped_data/cpedfinal_report_2010_copy_.pdf https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cpedinitiative.org/resource/resmgr/docs/cped_data/cpedfinal_report_2010_copy_.pdf https://education.illinoisstate.edu/planning/ http://www.ijiet.org/ https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 32 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.205 low completion rates of latinx community college students christine burshnick genthe new jersey city university cgenthe@njcu.edu christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu abstract completion rates for latinx students are unacceptably lower than white and asian students (nces, 2019). shapiro et al. (2017) reported that the completion rate for latinx students attending community colleges was 33%, while the completion rate was 45% for white students and 44% for asian students. this literature review aimed to discover the root causes of these low completion rates for latinx students. having a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to low success rates can enable community college professionals to take action to improve success outcomes and reduce equity gaps. based on this systematic literature review of 24 peer-reviewed articles and five public scholarship articles, the following root causes emerged: financial barriers, lack of institutional support, educational preparation, psychosocial considerations, and familial and cultural issues. recommendations for institutional actions are provided. keywords latinx, community college, persistence, completion, graduation introduction latinx are the largest and second fastest growing ethnic minority group in the united states (budiman & ruiz, 2021). they comprise 18.5% of the total population, compared to whites at 60.1% (u.s. census bureau, 2020). educational attainment among latinx has been shifting in recent years, echoing the group’s growth in the nation’s k-20 pipeline (bauman, 2017). over the past decade, the latinx high school dropout rate has fallen, and college enrollment has risen, but latinx students fall behind other groups in earning a degree (krogstad, 2016; national center for education statistics [nces], 2019). although the increased high school completion rates and college enrollment rates are promising, the data show latinx students still have the lowest high school completion rate and are the least likely to pursue higher education compared to black and white students (carnevale & fasules, 2017). only 45% of latinx students who enrolled in any type of college or university earned a degree or certificate within six years (shapiro et al., 2017). the completion rate for latinx was 10% higher than black students but considerably lower than white and asian students (67% and 72%, respectively). latinx are more likely than any other race to attend a two-year institution or a community college (adelman, 2005; martinez & fernández, 2004). almost two-thirds (65%) of latinx students initially enroll in certificate or associate degree programs, compared to 42% of whites and 52% of blacks (radwin et al., 2018). however, many latinx community college students do not complete the required coursework and, therefore, leave college without a degree. comparing the completion rates of different racial/ethnic groups at two-year public institutions, researchers found latinx and black students were lower than white and asian students, 33% and 26%, compared to 45.1% and 43.8%, respectively (shapiro et al., 2017). the purpose of this literature review is to determine the factors that contribute to this problem of practice. specifically, through this review of the extant literature, the obstacles affecting the latinx community college students’ persistence rates are identified. the findings from this review provide community college practitioners with the knowledge required for actions needed to improve success for latinx students. these disparities in educational outcomes must be addressed to provide economic security for latinx students and close the achievement gap. method a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed research was used. this type of review, which focused on identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing original research related to discovering the factors that contributed to low success rates for latinx students, reduced bias in the selection and inclusion of original research studies (petticrew et al., 2006). the research structured around determining the root causes of low persistence and completion rates of latinx community college students allows the researcher to utilize conditions to determine if a study should be included or excluded in the synthesis (green et al., 2006). this technique helps make sense http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 low completion rates for latinx students impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.205 33 of large amounts of information and identifies themes within the original research (petticrew et al., 2006). an internet search for gray literature was also utilized to conduct this literature review. gray literature, or data not published in commercial journals, can make important contributions to a literature review (paez, 2017). open-access reports, for instance, often provide valuable data and recommendations (mahood et al., 2014). peer-reviewed research in early august 2020, 44 electronic databases were searched for relevant studies. the search utilized all the databases available to the researcher at the time. the databases included: educational research databases, academic search premier, academic search ultimate, alt healthwatch, america: history & life, apa psycarticles, apa psycinfo, biography reference bank, biological abstracts, business source elite, business source premier, business source ultimate, cinahl plus, communication & mass media complete, education source, educational administration abstracts, eric, european views of the americas: 1493 to 1750, funk & wagnalls, georef, greenfile, humanities & social sciences index retrospective, international security & counter terrorism reference center, legal information reference center library, information science & technology abstracts, literary reference center, masterfile elite, middle search plus, points of view reference center, primary search, referencia latina, regional business news, small business reference center, and teacher reference center. all peer-reviewed articles available in full-text research conducted prior to august 2020 were considered for review. the initial search terms included “latinx” or “latinos” or “hispanics” or “chicanos” or “latinas” or “mexican” and “persistence” or “retention” or “graduation” or “resilience” and “community colleges” or “two-year colleges” or “junior colleges.” the initial search resulted in 305 articles, and 167 duplicates were removed, yielding 138 articles to review. each study identified from the above process was reviewed. studies were eliminated for failing to meet one or more of the criteria. the following criteria were used to identify studies to be analyzed, critiqued, and summarized: (a) the subject of latinx community college students in the united states was the sample group or a subsample, (b) addresses academic persistence, resilience, retention, or graduation, (c) addresses obstacles in academic persistence, (d) peer-reviewed, and (e) available in full-text. the entries were scanned for appropriateness to the topic of latinx community college students and persistence. the screening applied the inclusion criteria to the titles and abstracts and resulted in excluding 45 articles. of the excluded articles, 29 (64%) were not focused on latinx community college students in the united states, ten (22%) did not address obstacles in academic persistence, four (9%) were evaluations of an intervention program, and two (4%) were nonempirical articles, such as a book review or comments to the editor. ninety-three articles remained for review. the remaining 93 articles were investigated further through a more comprehensive article review. this round of identification applied the inclusion criteria to the methods, results, and conclusions and resulted in the exclusion of 70 additional articles. of the excluded articles, 34 (49%) did not address obstacles in academic persistence, 18 (26%) were not focused on latinx community college students in the united states, 13 (18%) were evaluations of an intervention program, and five (7%) were nonempirical articles, such as a book review, literature review, or comments to the editor. one additional article was discovered using the “snowballing” technique, a method of scanning the reference lists of full-text papers to identify sources not already identified (greenhalgh & peacock, 2005). twenty-four articles remained for review. public scholarship to reduce publication bias and to discover research available in open access scholarship formats, an internet search was conducted to identify pertinent research not published in the selected databases (paez, 2017). a general internet search was performed as well as a search of organizational websites thought to publish works related to the topic at hand. similar criteria used in the database search were also applied to the public scholarship pieces. the research had to meet the following criteria to be included: (a) the subject of latinx community college students in the united states was the sample group or a subsample, (b) addresses academic persistence, resilience, retention, or graduation, and (c) addresses supports or obstacles in academic persistence. the organizations’ websites search included achieving the dream, american association of hispanics in higher education, community college resource center, educational policy institute, excelencia in education, higher education research institute, hispanic association of colleges and universities, league for innovation, pew hispanic center, pullias center for higher education, tomás rivera policy institute, and unidosus. this internet search provided five additional sources. these five sources combined with the 24 articles identified from the database search yielded a total of 29 articles to be analyzed. results and discussion an analysis of the methodologies utilized revealed a majority (62%) of the studies used qualitative methods, 34% used quantitative methods, and one study (3%) used a mixed-method approach. the qualitative studies relied heavily on interviews and focus groups, while the quantitative studies used a variety of surveys, including the beginning postsecondary student longitudinal study (alfonso, 2006; carales, 2020; crisp & nora, 2010; museus et al., 2011). a thematic synthesis (creswell & guetterman, 2019) of the 24 peer-reviewed articles plus the five public scholarship pieces was conducted to identify common themes among the 29 documents. all 29 documents focused on barriers latinx community college students encounter that decreased student success and college persistence. after examining the selected literature, five categorical themes emerged: a) financial barriers, b) lack of institutional support, c) educational preparation, d) psychosocial considerations, and e) familial/cultural issues. these factors were identified as contributing to the low persistence and completion rates for latinx students. many of the barriers discussed are interconnected within and among the categories and affect latinx community college students who simultaneously experience them. financial barriers the latinx community faces numerous economic challenges. their median household income is about 74% that of whites, and genthe & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.205 34 they are 1.7 times more likely to live in poverty than whites (fontenot et al., 2018). the poverty rate for latinx was 18.3 percent in 2017, down from 19.4 percent in 2016; however, latinx continue to be overrepresented among the population in poverty (shrider et al., 2021). thus, latinx rely heavily on financial support to attend college. furthermore, low-income latinx experience financial literacy challenges, making it difficult to complete the free application for federal student aid (fafsa) and to understand financial aid forms and processes (rendón et al., 2012). socioeconomic conditions are related to the educational experience of latinx students. inadequate finances were cited most frequently as a huge barrier to persistence (dulabaum, 2016; harris, 2017; harris et al., 2017; longwell-grice et al., 2016; negrongonzales, 2017; pena, 2013; sáenz et al., 2017; unidosus, 2020; weissman et al., 1998; zell, 2010). most of these studies were concerned with tuition expenses and the lack of adequate financial aid; however, harris et al. (2017) also refer to the financial burden of the cost of living expenses and non-tuition items (e.g., rent, food, books). in interviews with latinx first-generation college students, longwell-grice et al. (2016) discovered transportation issues were also considered an obstacle for these community college students. gross et al.’s (2014) quantitative research of indiana’s public postsecondary institutions confirmed a lack of financial resources was a barrier to academic access and persistence. many latinx students work while enrolled in college to avoid incurring debt (crisp & nora, 2010; harris et al., 2017; perez et al., 2009; santiago & stettner, 2013; weissman et al., 1998). however, carales (2020) found being a loan borrower increased the odds of earning a certificate or an associate’s degree. research shows that working while attending school can negatively impact success. a quantitative analysis of academic resilience by perez et al. (2009) indicated lower persistence rates with higher employment hours. the latinx population is especially vulnerable to job losses and unemployment due to their disproportionate numbers in lowersalaried jobs (bureau of labor statistics, 2021). in a press conference on april 29, 2020, jerome h. powell, chairman of the federal reserve stated, “unemployment has tended to go up much faster for minorities, and for others who tend to be at the low end of the income spectrum.” (federal reserve board, 2020). the covid19 pandemic has only intensified the problem. a majority of the latinx workforce, including those attending community college, is employed in industries such as retail, hospitality and food, construction, and service occupations in the professional and business sectors (kochhar, 2014). these same industries had the highest unemployment rates during the covid-19 pandemic of 2020 (bureau of labor statistics, 2021). unemployment rates for latinx went from 4.2% in august 2019 to 10.5% in august 2020. (bureau of labor statistics, 2020). thus, essential part-time work has been challenging for latinx students, especially in recent times. another tactic latinx employed to reduce the college financial burden was enrolling part-time (alfonso, 2006; santiago & stettner, 2013; weissman et al., 1998). historically, part-time enrollment has had lower persistence rates (o’toole et al., 2003; taniguchi & kaufman, 2005). the most favorable outcomes, degree completion and transfer to a four-year institution, among part-time students are associated with students who tend to enroll term after term with few breaks (crosta, 2014). when latinx college students had an interruption to their education, alfonso (2006) discovered they were less likely to complete their associate degree. socioeconomic factors are tied to outcomes of latinx community college students. lack of institutional support the qualitative literature provided details of students’ criticisms of their institutions. their criticisms included: poor or misinformed advising practices, unhelpful personnel, lack of personnel knowledgeable in immigration status policies and procedures, inconsistent information from support services, intermittent engagement by faculty, and lack of latinx professors (alfonso, 2006; dulabaum, 2016; eberly, 2018; jabbar et al., 2019; negróngonzales, 2017; sáenz & ponjuan, 2008; zell, 2010). negróngonzales (2017) recounted incidents of students being turned away at their local community colleges because they did not have a social security number. jabbar et al. (2019) provided details from a latinx, first-generation college student’s experiences with academic advising, who described “feeling ‘on his own’” (p. 7) during the college transfer process. zell (2010) reported that 16 out of 17 latinx community college students interviewed had trouble accessing information and support from academic advisors. for many of zell’s (2010) participants, the relationship with their advisors was one of the most difficult aspects of their college experience. personal connections mattered. alfonso (2006) found latinx students attending institutions that enroll between 2,001 and 10,000 students were less likely to complete a certificate program, earn an associate degree, or transfer to a four-year institution than students attending schools with 2000 or fewer students. this suggests that smaller institutions may be providing a more personal experience and doing a better job of aiding social and academic integration (alfonso, 2006). along with student enrollment numbers, the racial makeup of an institution’s student body appeared to influence success rates. museus et al. (2012) concluded that the ingroup representation of latinx students on campus positively correlated with persistence. in addition to connecting with faculty and staff in general, latinx students want to specifically connect with latinx faculty and staff. as such, the low number of latinx educators, from pre-school through college, is an obstacle hindering the success of latinx students (sáenz & ponjuan, 2008). latinx faculty in higher education are in short supply. in 2017, only 4.7% of all faculty identified as latinx, which is not much of an improvement from 4.4% in 2015 (nces, 2018). hagedorn et al. (2007) indicated that latinx faculty on campus can promote a sense of belonging and social integration among latinx students. for students to prosper, diversity should be found in the student body, the faculty, and throughout the college campus community. educational preparation a student’s ability to thrive in college depends on pre-college educational factors: content knowledge, core academic skills, noncognitive skills, and knowledge about the college selection process (roderick et al., 2009). latinx students’ academic performance during high school was repeatedly found to be related to college grades and persistence. students who reported feeling academically underprepared, not feeling ready for college, or who were required to take remedial courses had lower persistence rates or declared these as barriers to overcome (alfonso, 2006; dulabaum, 2016; gross et al., 2014; pena, 2013; risco et al., 2019; sáenz et al., 2018; santiago & stettner, 2013). low completion rates for latinx students impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.205 35 students also cited that the lack of high school guidance on what to expect during the transition from high school to college was problematic (pena, 2013; sáenz et al., 2018). latinx students often experienced academic difficulties which required them to learn and institute new study skills (harris, 2017; pena, 2013). one student in harris’s (2017) study commented, “what i used to know about studying went out the window” (p. 118). lastly, crisp and nora (2009) examined pre-college factors relating to persistence and found not immediately enrolling in college after high school decreased the odds that a student would persist, transfer, or earn an associate degree. the education received prior to college can adversely affect the first-year experience for many latinx community college students. psychosocial considerations psychosocial factors include the mental, emotional, and social aspects of attending college. during their time in college, latinx community college students in these studies experienced stress related to the transition to college, a struggle with self-efficacy, and encountered many negative emotions related to discrimination and racism. these psychosocial factors negatively impacted their ability to successfully complete degree requirements. many college students, including latinx, find it difficult to transition from high school to college (alcantar & hernandez, 2020; harris, 2017; longwell-grice et al., 2016; negrón-gonzales, 2017; pena, 2013). adjusting to a new setting was identified by students as being stressful and another hurdle to overcome (longwell-grice et al., 2016; martinez-vogt, 2017; pena, 2013). stressful life events, including the transition to college, along with coping methods used to manage the stress were considered obstructions to persistence. harris (2017) cited stressful life events as a deterrent to student success. certain coping mechanisms, such as drug and alcohol use, had a significantly negative impact on the college persistence rates of latinx students (lesure-lester, 2003). perceived self-efficacy, or one’s perception of their ability to achieve a goal successfully, has been recognized to impact academic achievement. latinx participants in zell’s (2010) and dulabaum’s (2016) research revealed low self-confidence, lack of motivation, and doubts about succeeding in college as barriers faced during college. others mentioned fear as a stumbling block, which ultimately prevented students from accessing support services (jabbar et al., 2019; weissman et al., 1998). discrimination and racism affected the well-being of latinx students and could severely affect college success rates. several studies presented data illuminating the effects of racism. normalization of the majority culture further marginalized latinx students (ives & castillo-montoya, 2020). racism added to feelings of loneliness and withdrawal and was an impediment to retention and persistence for latinx students (alcantar & hernandez, 2020; martinez-vogt, 2017; negrón-gonzales, 2017; perez et al., 2009; zell, 2010). low persistence rates were attributed to latinx students feeling as though they do not belong in predominately white institutions, where they were often subjected to microaggressions and blatant acts of discrimination from students and faculty alike (pena, 2013; zell, 2010). undocumented students frequently experienced a non-hospitable campus environment which produced increased feelings of societal rejection (negrón-gonzales, 2017; perez et al., 2009). in spite of the unwelcoming campus environment, martinez-vogt (2015) reported latinx females who had experienced racism and stereotypes on their community college campus used their frustrations as motivation to persist and achieve academic success. familial and cultural issues latinx places a strong emphasis on family as the major source of ones’ identity and protection. the term used to describe this cultural value is “familismo.” familismo refers to the “importance of strong family loyalty, closeness, and getting along with and contributing to the well-being of the nuclear family, extended family, and kinship networks” (ayón et al., 2010, p. 3). this can be a substantial source of support for latinx community college students; however, it can also be challenging for students. balancing family and school life, contributing to the family’s well-being, and having numerous family responsibilities led to decreased class time and study time. student participants in several studies reported family obligations, responsibilities, or expectations, such as attending family functions or taking care of siblings, as interfering with their ability to be successful in college (alfonso, 2006; bukoski & hatch, 2016; dulabaum, 2016; harris et al., 2017; longwell-grice, 2016; sáenz et al., 2017; sáenz et al., 2018; santiago & stettner, 2013; tovar, 2015; unidosus, 2020; weissman et al., 1998). according to pew research center (2015), more than half of the latinx parents surveyed said it was extremely important for their child to earn a college degree as opposed to only 34% of white parents. latinx parents strongly believe that a college degree is essential to becoming part of america’s middle class. specifically, 49% of latinx parents believed this, compared with 43% of black parents and only 22% of white parents (pew research center, 2015). however, in a study examining latinx men and their fathers, conflicting messages regarding postsecondary education were reported by the sons (sáenz et al., 2017). one student noted: “he wants me to finish college but at the same time he wants me to work. he wants me to do both” (sáenz et al., 2017, p. 101). latino men often feel strain related to being caught between their academic responsibilities and their familial obligations to contribute to the household. of all latinx college students, nearly half (48%) were identified as first-generation college students (postsecondary national policy institute, 2018). being the first in the family to attend college leaves the student with limited knowledge about how the higher education system works and how to navigate it. having limited knowledge from their families on how to traverse the community college environment proved to be challenging to latinx students (alfonso, 2006; perez et al., 2009; sáenz et al., 2018; santiago & stettner, 2017; unidosus, 2020). college professionals and staff often base their actions on student development theories anchored in separation-individuation theories that do not embrace or encourage a significant parent or family involvement (sax & wartman, 2010). sax and wartman (2010) reported that latinx students were most likely to report that their parents were not involved enough with interactions with college professionals, course registration, or college activities. despite the role latinx families could play in the success of their community college students, there is little to no family engagement on the part of the colleges. these aforementioned elements can be detrimental to student success even in the light of the latinx supportive culture. in a study that examined black and latinx males, dulabaum (2016) identified factors that limited success which were unique to genthe & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.205 36 latinx students. latinx students in the study identified language as the major barrier to their success in higher education. students also mentioned the lack of bilingual materials, tutors, teachers, advisors, and counselors who are prepared to work with latinx students as disappointing (zell, 2010). witkowsky et al. (2018) shared the importance of using the spanish language to communicate with parents and families but noted that “spanish information coupled with culturally relevant content provided by faculty and staff from similar cultural backgrounds creates the trust and desire to remain connected the campus” (pp. 9-10). conclusion the number of latinx students in higher education is increasing, and many latinx students begin their postsecondary education at a community college (adelman, 2005; martinez & fernández, 2004; radwin et al., 2018). despite increasing enrollments, persistence, graduation, and transfer rates have remained low (carnevale & fasules, 2017). obstacles abound for latinx students. this literature review comprised of peer-reviewed journal articles and public scholarship provided insight into the obstacles and factors that contribute to low completion rates. barriers, such as finances, limited academic preparation, lack of institutional support, psychosocial factors, and family and cultural issues interfere with latinx students’ postsecondary plans, often forcing them to drop out without reaching their goals. first, latinx students face significant financial barriers. almost 20% of latinx families live in poverty (fontenot et al., 2018). unfortunately, many of the strategies latinx students employ to combat financial challenges, such as working and attending school part-time, can result in lower completion rates (alfonso, 2006; perez et al., 2009). not feeling academically prepared combined with a lack of support during the transition process to college also decreases the success rates for latinx students (sáenz et al., 2018). latinx students also reported that it is difficult to access the support they need from professionals on campus and that there are too few latinx faculty and staff to turn to when needed (jabbar et al., 2019; nces, 2018). latinx students experienced an array of negative emotions and a lack of self-efficacy when they experienced stressors and were victims of discrimination and racism, and these factors significantly impacted their performance and success (pena, 2013; zell, 2010). finally, although latinx parents believe in the importance of earning a degree, family responsibilities are of paramount importance (harris et al., 2017; sáenz et al., 2017; sáenz et al., 2018; santiago & stettner, 2013; tovar, 2015; weissman et al., 1998). thus, many latinx students have competing responsibilities. complicating matters, nearly half of latinx college students are considered firstgeneration college students, and their families are, therefore, unable to provide them with navigational capital or the skills and abilities to navigate educational institutions (yosso, 2005). findings from this systematic review of the literature indicate a combination of financial, institutional, educational, psychosocial, and familial/cultural barriers have been shown to affect one or more of the student persistence outcomes for latinx community college students. these issues are not isolated events; they are all interconnected and experienced simultaneously by latinx students. understanding the factors that impact educational success for latinx students is imperative to pinpoint interventions that will make a difference. hence, this literature review provides community college leaders and practitioners with a synthesis of the research on an important problem of practice: the low retention rate of latinx community college students. armed with a strong understanding of the barriers facing latinx college students, community college leaders and practitioners can determine institutional strategies that directly address these barriers. for example, colleges can address financial barriers by providing support with completing the fafsa, scholarship applications, and other financial aid opportunities and offering students on-campus job opportunities. one critically important strategy that can address the lack of institutional support barrier is for community colleges to hire and support more latinx faculty and staff (hagedorn et al., 2007; harris, 2017). in addition, leaders need to facilitate dialogues to address discrimination and racism (alcantar & hernandez, 2020; harris et al., 2017; martinez-vogt, 2017; zell, 2010). colleges will also need to improve the overall quality and quantity of support offered to students, especially during the transition to college (eberly, 2018; longwell-grice et al., 2016; negrón-gonzales, 2017; tovar, 2015; zell, 2010). thus, providing students with the support needed to build their self-efficacy and coping strategies. to address the lack of educational preparation, colleges can strengthen partnerships with p12 school districts and expand college readiness and dual enrollment opportunities for latinx students (mehl et al., 2020). given the critically important role of the family in the latinx community, community colleges will want to find a way to partner with parents and family members as they strive to better support latinx students. well-intentioned leaders and practitioners in the community college sector who do not have a strong understanding of the problem often engage in efforts that do not lead to the desired results. it is hoped that this review of the research will provide a solid foundation for leaders and practitioners to engage in actions that will lead to improved retention rates for latinx students. references adelman, c. 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(2018). connecting familismo and higher education: influence of spanish language pfmo programs on latinx family involvement and sense of belonging. journal of hispanic higher education, 19(4), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192718810429 yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race, ethnicity and education, 8(1), pp. 69-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 zell, m. c. (2010). achieving a college education: the psychological experiences of latina/o community college students. journal of hispanic higher education, 9(2), 167-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192709343102 https://www.aahhe.org/%20assets/docs/2008%20saenz%20ponjuan%20new.pdf https://www.aahhe.org/%20assets/docs/2008%20saenz%20ponjuan%20new.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/census/library/ christine burshnick genthe new jersey city university christine harrington new jersey city university (1) introduction method peer-reviewed research public scholarship results and discussion financial barriers lack of institutional support educational preparation psychosocial considerations familial and cultural issues conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 26 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5, no.2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 opening up to hard history: activating anti-racism in an immersive ed.d. cohort experience at heritage sites in montgomery, alabama theresa g. coble university of missour st. louis coblet@umsl.edu corinne wohlford mason fontbonne university cmason@fontbonne.edu lisa overholser university of missouri extension overholserl@missouri.edu william w. gwaltney national park service (retired) gwaltney479@yahoo.com abstract the ed.d. program in heritage leadership for sustainability, social justice, and participatory culture at the university of missouri—st. louis helps students cultivate the mindsets and skill sets required to sustain, pluralize, and enliven heritage in the public sphere. although the program primarily meets synchronously online, the january 2020 “wintercession” field trip to heritage sites in montgomery, alabama, provided an opportunity for face-to-face interactions, deep conversation, and reflection. curricular, conversational, and collaborative inquiry deepened awareness and activated activism toward issues of racial justice. the use of high-impact practices (kuh, 2008) allowed the cohort and faculty mentors to delve further into heritage leadership themes, including: confronting difficult emotions, recognizing sanctified space, facilitating group bonding and trust building, identifying models for activism, and moving forward in activism. we argue that the emergence of these themes demonstrates the value of immersing students and faculty in a shared, high-impact experience that focused on awareness, remembering, and wondering—the process of imagining the not yet (keenan-lechel et al., 2019) —as a means to “activate activism” in a cohort-based ed.d. program. keywords: memorials, affect, contested space, high-impact practices, activism, equal justice initiative under stress, an unexercised heart will explode in frustration or fury. if the situation is especially tense, that exploding heart may be hurled like a fragment grenade toward the source of its pain. but a heart that has been consistently exercised through conscious engagement with suffering is more likely to break open instead of apart. such a heart has learned how to flex to hold tension in a way that expands its capacity for both suffering and joy. (palmer, 2011, p. 60) in august 2019, the university of missouri—st. louis (umsl) admitted its second cohort of 26 doctoral students who will focus their ed.d. inquiry on heritage leadership for sustainability, social justice and participatory culture. we view heritage as a contested and contextualized phenomenon tied to collective memory, identity, and creativity. for our purposes, heritage leadership cultivates the mindsets and skill sets required to sustain, pluralize, and enliven heritage in the public sphere. vlad glăveanu, a swiss scholar of creativity, culture, and the arts, views creativity as an emergent property of experiences that open people up to difference and to the perspectives of others. he maintains that creativity is embedded within a given representational space, but as individuals communicate and as collaboration unfolds, a common representational space emerges “where cultural norms and systems of thought are played with—where representational elements turn into symbolic resources” (keenan-lechel et al., 2019, p. 653). building and sustaining a common representational space requires group members to engage in dialogue, hold tension, and operate within a context of risk and uncertainty. but the benefits outweigh the risks because enriching the common representational space also enriches the personal representational space of each participant (keenan-lechel et al.). when participants “open up rather than close http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:coblet@umsl.edu mailto:cmason@fontbonne.edu mailto:overholserl@missouri.edu mailto:gwaltney479@yahoo.com opening up to hard history impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 27 history” (caruthers, 2007, p. 311)—grieving difficult history, wrestling with the aftermaths, and engaging otherness--they sketch the contours of an emotional geography (askins & swanson, 2019). in doing so, factors like emotions, empathy, and trust must be in play (keenan-lechel et al.). as heritage leadership faculty mentors, we are keenly aware of the need to cultivate emotional engagement, empathy, and trust. thus, we established norms of collaboration (garmston & wellman, 2013) via weekly class meetings, using zoom so we can see and hear each other. we rotate leadership responsibilities, bringing student voice and thought leadership to the fore. our three-year heritage leadership curriculum begins with ted talks and texts that showcase the challenges and some of the solutions to achieving sustainability, social justice, and participatory culture (e.g., alexander, 2012; bales, 2016; hawken, 2017; liu, 2017; palmer, 2011; rothstein, 2014; wallace-wells, 2019). as an online program, our wintercession week is the only time in the calendar year set aside for immersive experiences, face-to-face interactions, and team building. it is our time to pursue transformative praxis, nurture wholeheartedness, and hold tension. this helps us embrace the discomfort, rather than swiftly diverting our gaze or succumbing to easy answers as we confront difficult issues (burbules, 2016; sibbett, 2016). we feel there is no substitute for immersive, placebased experiences in which, “history and consciousness duel anew” (kendi, 2019, p. 33), so we planned a four-day field trip to montgomery, alabama, as a highlight of our time together. curricular methods to deepen awareness, add nuance, and activate activism heritage leadership ed.d. students traveled by caravan in five vehicles from saint louis to montgomery on thursday, january 16, 2020. because the program runs primarily online, the nearly ninehour drive was the first time that the students spent an extended period of time together. a component of our wintercession course, the trip included 26 students (10 black, 16 white) and seven faculty mentors (two black, five white—one of whom was of arab descent). on friday morning, the group met for a discussion of two pieces related to race and pedagogy: matthew r. kay’s (2018) not light but fire: how to lead meaningful race conversations in the classroom, and smith and colleagues’ (2017) exploration of the challenges white professors encounter when they teach about racism. shortly thereafter, the group walked to the legacy museum, which they explored on their own. at the legacy museum, students had an opportunity to visualize the past, to be caught short by an image or artifact, to engage with the experiences of perpetrators and victims, and to reflect on the justifications that allowed such dehumanization to persist. perhaps most importantly, they considered how this diminishment challenges us today. at one point, our ed.d. students turned a corner and encountered these words: the formal abolition of slavery did nothing to overcome the harmful ideas created to defend it, and so slavery did not end: it evolved. after lunch, we proceeded to a question and answer session with kayla vinson, a lawyer from the equal justice initiative, who spoke broadly about the organization’s efforts in and outside montgomery. finally, the students and faculty mentors visited the national memorial for peace and justice (“the lynching memorial,” as our group called it), exploring it in small groups and as individuals. the next day, the schedule was identical, allowing students to return to the sites that they had visited previously for deeper reflection and contemplation. additionally, many students stopped at the legacy pavilion, which opened to the public for the first time that day, for a soul food lunch or to browse the extensive bookstore. others made time to visit the dexter street baptist church, rosa parks commemorative sites, and/or the freedom riders museum during walks, runs, or other downtime. the return ride on sunday was a chance to discuss the deep feelings and concerns that the sites had stirred in them. students were tasked with three projects during their time in montgomery. the first was a six-minute video of their experiences, to be narrated with commentary. the video was intended to elicit insight related to their personal experiences. students also wrote a lengthy written reflection and created a facilitated dialogue action plan focusing on some aspect of racial justice. we held dialogue sessions before and during the field trip and provided students with materials prepared by the national park service in conjunction with the international coalition of sites of conscience and the tenement museum (see for example, https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/upload/about-allies-for-inclusiondialogues_2015.pdf). the heritage leadership wintercession concluded at umsl with a martin luther king, jr. observance that featured dr. marc lamont hill (temple university) and brian owens (life arts, inc.). the authors reviewed all student-produced artifacts as well as the transcript of our subsequent online in-class discussion of the trip in order to produce a thematic analysis of this high-impact experience, drawing from our own diverse academic backgrounds. our combined academic backgrounds include history, american studies, music, folklore, forestry, and chinese; our professional backgrounds include service in the national park service, museums, and battle sites; community engagement programming; and work in higher education as faculty and administrators in the social sciences and humanities. three of us identify as white women, one as an african-american man. we paid special attention to the differing responses of white and black students--in particular, how they approached the museum and memorial and related the difficult histories to their own experiences. this learning experience represented an engagement with what alderman and associates (2020) term “affective heritage,” in that students focused largely on feeling and emotion, encouraging student resolve toward activism in their emerging careers as heritage leadership professionals. montgomery itself, which describes itself as the birthplace of both the confederacy and the civil rights movement, and the museum and memorial in particular, served as “wounded places” (alderman et al., 2020) with which the students reckoned with the histories of racism and capitalism in the spectacle of the lynched body in history and the contemporary reality of mass incarceration and injustice in the prison system. students grappled deeply though divergently with what they encountered, as might be expected in any sort of field experience; however, the woundedness of these sites and their divergent cultural meanings seemed to produce particularly profound affective engagement. the five themes we identified were the following: confronting difficult emotions, recognizing sanctified space, facilitating group bonding and trust building, identifying models for activism, and moving forward in activism. we argue that the emergence of these themes demonstrates the value of immersing students and faculty in a shared, high-impact experience that focused on awareness, remembering, and wondering—the process of imagining the not yet https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/upload/about-allies-for-inclusion-dialogues_2015.pdf https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/upload/about-allies-for-inclusion-dialogues_2015.pdf coble, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 28 (keenan-lechel et al., 2019) as a means to “activate activism” in a cohort-based ed.d. program. confronting difficult emotions student responses emphasized their trepidation about the trip even before they left saint louis; these responses were especially prominent amongst white students. several expressed what one student called “low expectations” of the trip; another described being “extremely hesitant.” another wondered why faculty would take the students to alabama to explore racial injustice when saint louis abounds in its own race problems. on a more basic level, many expressed a concern about being in a vehicle with near-strangers for an extended period of time and/or to leaving family or work obligations behind. a white woman wrote that she worried about “wanting to fit in, wanting to mesh,” in order to “have a good road trip.” even more, however, focused on what they correctly anticipated would be an intensely emotional experience. the trip was “completely outside my comfort zone,” wrote one white woman; two other white women described themselves as “nervous” and another as “insecur[e]” about engaging with the difficult racial topics. as they began to feel powerful emotions from the sites, some white students questioned their right to be there at all. “i keep asking myself if i should be at the legacy museum. in essence, what do i have to cry about?,” wrote one. another asked, “what the hell am i doing?” many reported tears. black students expressed considerably less trepidation about the trip’s emotional content, with many stressing that the content of the museum and memorial was “not new.” one of the black men, for instance, described the trip’s value as “not necessarily the information but the experience.” a black woman noted she was “already versed in my history.” however, some black students, like their white colleagues, expressed stress, annoyance, or anxiety about the trip in general, for similar work and family reasons. one noted that she felt more comfortable early in the trip sticking with other black students, and another remarked, without subsequent detail, “barriers of race” in the group. it is important to note that black students may have had reason to moderate their expressions of discomfort, especially as it related to white student responses, in order to promote group harmony—as student responses were visible to one another—or to avoid any perceived potential offense to the faculty team. we believe it is eminently reasonable for our black students to have concerns about traveling in an interracial group to a site of such intensely violent racist history. however, one black student observed that all “[p]articipants were vulnerable and courageous enough to lean to places of discomfort,” and others eventually expressed appreciation for sharing the trip with white classmates. while most hotel roommate accommodations were single-race, every van was notably a mixture of black and white students and/or faculty mentors. recognizing sanctified space for many students, the sites in montgomery went beyond purposes of education or information, even if they did encounter “new” information. the legacy museum’s location on the site of a slave warehouse imbued the space with an absent presence that haunted its atmosphere. even more powerfully, the lynching memorial represented a sanctified space in which students could engage in “quiet contemplation.” one black student described a feeling of peace at the memorial, where she said it felt as though “the heavens had opened.” the sense of reverence in the lynching memorial caused students to feel they needed to whisper, if they spoke at all. in her video, d, a black woman, filmed images from the memorial without commentary, simply imploring the viewer to “breathe,” creating an act of meditation in the video itself; at another point, she implores, “lord, have mercy.” in a similar vein, a white classmate described himself as “moved to a place of speechlessness.” another white male student described feeling “haunted” at the memorial: “as i navigated the space, i couldn’t help but wonder what [the lynching victims] might be thinking of me….in being here, in doing my best to be fully present, i was haunted by the legacy of their stories….i even imagined what it would be like if the crushing weight of their history came down on me, physically, as i navigated the memorial.” describing the holograms of enslaved men and women that speak to visitors at the legacy museum, one white student felt confronted in her white privilege as a “ghost literally looked me in the eye.” others of both races described the emotional resonance of standing in the church where dr. martin luther king preached, on the footsteps placed in the crosswalk near the alabama state capital in commemoration of the selma-montgomery march, and of standing where rosa parks famously boarded the bus and—a short distance away—was arrested. it was powerful to stand “where history was made,” wrote one. another eloquently described the trip as “horrifically beautiful.” these responses indicate that the students experienced several sites in montgomery as sanctified spaces. the “absent presence” of the victims of slavery and lynching and of civil rights icons imbued these places with meanings that could not be simply categorized or described. the students participated in collective memory work that connected their own identities to those of the past. responses that emphasized sanctity often were the most personal and eloquent; however, they typically did not engender critique. they were embodied physically in images, sounds, breath, prayer, tears, and even silence. although many engaged in conversation with site staff or with one another, the lynching memorial, in particular, functioned as a collective site of mourning and reflection. as one student wrote, at the lynching memorial, “here i could only mourn.” facilitating group bonding and trust building the shared experience of grief and growth resulted in significant connections between students. in class after our return, we asked students about how the experience had differed for them because they traveled with the ed.d. program cohort rather than alone or with family or friends. students noted that even the van rides, which in some cases had been dreaded, had been a valuable chance to converse with classmates and faculty team. of particular interest was an emphasis in their comments on the spontaneous and unscripted nature of exchanges in the vans, which ranged from playful singing of songs together to serious discussion. several contrasted the open discussion in this setting with the more formal online classroom environment, in which students already have some sense of what they will be discussing each week and can formulate thoughts and responses in advance—for instance, the student who noted that conversations on the trip were “organic and not forced.” the presence was one of “brotherly/sisterly” relationship, wrote one student. “being in a van for nine hours with people you don’t know opening up to hard history impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 29 demands learning,” wrote one student; another concurred that “social time is so important when cultivating a working group.” content aside, the experience of the van rides proved valuable to building community across the cohort that will be important as they work together over the next three years. one faculty mentor concern was for the emotional labor of the black students on this trip. in montgomery, one black female student, j, repeatedly mentioned not wanting to serve as a “case study” for white students, as though white students would be monitoring her for a response. others concurred: “sometimes you feel like a spectacle…it can be exhausting!” however, j also wrote eloquently about experiences that pushed her in a positive direction. she shared that at one point during a visit to the legacy museum, she met eyes with a white woman—not a member of the cohort—who had been crying and looked “apologetically” at her. the student admitted that “on our first day of exploration,” she had felt some “curiosity or even judgment” about how her white peers were responding to the sites; however, when she saw the white woman’s pain at the site, j reflected, “this was poetic for me because i do hold some personal biases and opinions about ‘they,’ but her compassion chipped away at my resolve.” she continued that witnessing “26 of us with our hypothetical shovels digging to unpack the answers and remedies needed to mend our country and heal our world” shifted her perspective somewhat. “this was an experience unlike any other i have had,” j wrote. in class discussion, she remarked, “being part of the group forced [me] to not be so selfish or one-sided in my thinking.” another black woman remarked, “i felt a sense of responsibility for those with me, meaning how they were feeling, processing. we supported one another through the various intervals of our feelings…even though we all had our own personal experiences, there was always a sense of togetherness.” another black student reported that despite her normally introverted nature, the group made her speak up more and to “realize that this period doesn’t just negatively [a]ffect african americans.” although we are aware that some more candid feelings may not have been expressed in written or recorded responses, in most cases, the black students valued being in an interracial group, allowing for a greater diversity of perspectives on information that, for most black students, was already familiar. several white students also remarked on what they gained from their black classmates. one white student described being overwhelmed with emotion at a video in the legacy museum, and a spontaneous hug from a black peer at that moment surprised and heartened her. another appreciatively described how two of his black classmates encouraged him to lean into his fears and grapple meaningfully with what was found there. after speaking with a black classmate, a white student said “i know that i felt my whiteness more than i ever had before.” white students described pushing past their initial difficult feelings. one white woman reflected in class, “i felt like as a group even though we are all like-minded in that we are growing towards being heritage leaders, i think the group was large enough to have a broader representation of ideas and experiences which helped add value to the places.” another appreciated that the group had been helpful because “we weren’t experiencing it alone.” one reflected, “it seemed as though we could handle more complex discussion, share diverse perspectives, and pool our collective knowledge because there were so many of us.” one remarked that “having a mixed-race group that had created at least somewhat of a safe space opened the conversation and allowed me to be more vulnerable with topics such as white people leading race conversations or white guilt.” some students also remarked upon the professionalizing experience of traveling to the sites as part of an ed.d. cohort. “i sensed my responsibility more than a tourist type of experience,” wrote one white student; another, black, shared that she felt she was “mining the museum” in a “new light” as she engaged a “tourist location with a learning hat.” the collaborative opportunity increased professional resolve for the group. the group’s professional commitments mean that they were “trying to understand our place as heritage leaders.” a black student who repeatedly stressed the professionalizing elements of the trip pushed back slightly on the idea of black students being case studies, asserting that to become a heritage leader is to become a case study. “[a]nd to that end,” she remarked, “i’m willing to be vulnerable and open.” although the group experience seems to have been effective for all students who responded and commented on it, several also remarked on the need for their own down time to reflect alone, as well. the intensity of the experience was exhausting for many, even when the shared experience was of value. one student remarked that, when she returned to umsl on monday for martin luther king, jr. day services, the speaker had remarked that to some extent, one would always be alone in the pursuit of racial justice. here was one point, she said, where she disagreed, because in her cohort, pursuing racial justice, she did not feel alone anymore. identifying models for activism we were struck by the ways in which the students sought connections with people outside the group, even during a short stay. by far the most influential person the students met was kuntrell jackson, a volunteer at the equal justice initiative. jackson had been incarcerated for life, without parole, at age 14 in arkansas. jackson had stayed outside when two friends entered a video store, intending to rob it, and instead killed the clerk. with the advocacy of the equal justice initiative, jackson was released from prison in 2013 and today engages with visitors to share his story. students connected with jackson’s story and his commitment to education and activism today. some shared lunch with him; others invited him to saint louis to speak. one student, a white male police officer, apologized to jackson on behalf of the criminal justice system, a gesture that touched many others in the cohort. jackson provided extensive emotional labor to students— sharing his difficult story, his faith, his hope, and his humor while they listened, many of them filming him as he spoke. students were deeply grateful for jackson’s candor, though we did not hear any students directly express a concern for the emotional work that jackson’s sharing must have represented. as munro (2014) has suggested, such sharing of oneself via community engagement can be very draining. although one student privately expressed one of us some discomfort with engaging with jackson as though he were a performer, many seemed to interpret jackson himself as an embodied version of the wounded place, redeemed through the work of the equal justice initiative and his own courage and will to reform his life. in addition to jackson, students drew inspiration from other leaders and models of activism. several mentioned the equal justice initiative lawyers and staff on hand at both the museum and memorial who answered questions about their experiences at the sites. three students made serendipitous connections with heritage leaders at other montgomery sites. wanda battle, tour director at the dexter avenue baptist church, wowed one student with her ability to coble, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 30 build community, share history of both national and personal scale, and challenge visitors to the sanctuary where king once preached. another pair of students met dorothy walker, site director of the freedom riders museum, which had just closed when they approached the building. walker stopped to talk with them at length about their visit and research interests, offering them literature to distribute to the rest of the cohort and future remote assistance. students reflected on the ways these leaders differently engaged with montgomery’s past, advocating through their particular stories and the stories of the place. however, it was not only official sources from which students drew inspiration. others mentioned meaningful connections and learning from bus drivers and hotel staff who did their part to share montgomery’s history. one student remarked on letters displayed at the museum written by incarcerated men and women as a piece of activism toward which she felt “a responsibility to respond.” another student noted that simply the presence of signs around montgomery that commemorate civil rights and slavery were important signs of activism and acknowledgment, an observation in alignment with cook’s (2018) study of alabama’s historical markers. wahl (2019) argued that a better understanding of racial oppression could prompt one to (re)consider the appropriateness of adversarial actions like confrontation and protests. we also discussed with students the value of museums and memorials as activist spaces. this point seemed especially salient in that so much of the experience in montgomery focused on feelings of woundedness and grief. many expressed that “the work of acknowledgment…is a first step” in activism. another remarked on the need for education through sites like these to “move forward.” moving forward in activism izard (2010) highlights key functions of emotions that are relevant to our visit to montgomery—namely, emotions motivate and organize cognition and action. emotions provide information to us about our experiences. emotions may integrate our antecedent cognitive appraisals and influence our ongoing cognition. they may motivate our approach or even cause avoidant behavior. and in a non-trivial way, emotions may be social or relational in nature. it was the in-working and out-working of emotion that prompted many students to leave montgomery with a renewed sense of commitment to racial justice. “i can assure you,” wrote one, “that my life was altered by this trip.” another wrote, referring to kay’s not light but fire text, “i damn well know i am going to make fire where others have shed light.” some had specific and concrete ideas to implement—for instance, a new way to lead a book club discussion. others had a renewed commitment to issues such as the school to prison pipeline. another who considered herself “an advocate for sexual assault victims” reflected on the ways that white men had “used sexual assault as a validation for murder” and connected this realization meaningfully to her advocacy work. one white woman in particular focused on moving from feelings of “white guilt to white responsibility.” another hoped to volunteer in voter registration efforts. a language arts teacher in a predominantly white school district reflected on how she would build a course on black literature, already in progress. a police officer hoped to bring these insights into his career in law enforcement. many students expressed a particular concern about history education: where, they wondered, had information about slavery, lynching, and incarceration been in their curricula, whether as students or educators? for the one student who is a high school history teacher, application of this material was most direct: “i think i will be able to teach a much better american history class first and foremost.” although student calls for teaching “true history” were somewhat problematic from a disciplinary perspective, the resolve to educate formally and informally on slavery, lynching, and mass incarceration were strong. one remarked that “ultimately this dialogue serves as a navigational tool” for future discussions. “a lot of people are moving through life with false ideas,” wrote another, emphasizing the need to be optimistic and yet to share “the untold story.” many reflected on ways that they were sharing newly learned information with family, colleagues, and almost anyone who would listen since they had returned. students agreed, however, that they were “not striving to be rosa parks,” as one student commented; rather, they wanted to use their professional platforms to advocate better in the areas in which they have influence. in these discussions, many students pivoted to their graduate education as an important platform for making change. however, exactly how these strong feelings and renewed commitments would manifest was still diffuse. one white student described a discussion with a black peer, in which they agreed that “the last thing we need with respect to race relations is a whole new set of ‘fixes.’” our review of the students’ facilitated action dialogue plans suggested the wisdom of this comment. we had asked students to prepare a dialogue based on some aspect of racial justice, to be implemented at some specific future time and place. with the short wintercession format of the course, we realize in retrospect that this assignment asked students to pivot too soon from sanctified grief into concrete action steps. while all the students suggested interesting discussion topics, most of them focusing on education-related topics, the responses were generally not interpretive, were overly broad and vague, and were not ones that could likely be managed in a short, one-off event. students wanted to explore issues such as social and racial justice in schools or in specific programs or faith communities in which they currently are involved. they suggested topics such as cultural appropriation, microaggressions, gun violence, white privilege, and college student success. while it is heartening to see the many ways students sought to apply new ideas and information, the plans themselves were, by and large, not focused enough to be implemented within the time frames the students had suggested. our conclusion from reading the facilitated dialogue action plans was that, in addition to simply needing more time to complete such an assignment effectively, what was most valuable for students had not been strategic and concrete, but rather experiential and affective. we also noticed this emphasis on the emotional in student responses to readings such as kay’s text and an article written by white professors who teach about racism (smith et al., 2017). when asked what the most valuable reading was, opinions on the article written by smith and associates were mixed—in part because an academic treatment that centered the experience of white professors resonated with some but fell flat with others. however, there was the uniform praise for kay’s book. smith et al. (2017) was presented as a typical research study published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, heavy on citations and abstract language and ideas. one student described it as “stuffy,” and another remarked, “it was so heavy in research and didn’t seem to get to the true meaning and challenges of teaching about racism.” however, no one expressed concerns about kay’s text, which they felt embodied more useful opening up to hard history impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 31 techniques and personal storytelling. the preference—not in all but in many, including all of the black students—for the kay book seemed to reflect the emotional tenor of the visit. implications for activism: holding multiple perspectives although most students learned new information on this trip to a wounded place, the most important catalysts to action were affective rather than intellectual. oberpfalzerová and associates’ (2019) explored transitional truth-telling in bosnia and herzegovina, where bosnians, serbians, and croatians served as “victim storytellers.” as they shared their wartime experiences, their ethnic identities were shielded from listeners. when their testimonies conveyed sadness, or elicited pity or regret, the impact on listeners was the greatest. the authors concluded that victims needed to receive empathy and perpetrators needed to give empathy—and when this happened, there was reduced prejudice, reduced competitive victimhood and blaming, an increased sense of guilt for the actions perpetrated by one’s in-group, a change of emotions toward the out-group, and increased interest in peace activism. similarly, though to a lesser degree, our short trip provoked internal change in both black and white students, stretching them toward greater openness as they confronted difficult histories in montgomery. this internal change was deeply personal and specific to each cohort member; however, participation in the cohort, and a burgeoning sense of purpose, emerged in ways that we believe will support and sustain their collaborative research. although many of the trust-building and group-bonding outcomes could have been achieved on any short trip, the choice of a destination with such a powerful affective heritage seems to have engendered a more profound commitment to racial justice. student outcomes may not have coalesced yet into a single, clear plan for activism. we believe these shifts in student identity will activate their activism beyond the trip, beyond their graduate study, and well into their careers. we view these sites as uniquely suited to helping students “become critical learners and healers in a wounded space” (battiste, anuik & gillies, 2009, n.p.). yet it is also essential that, in sites connected to racist violence, we give time and space for students of color, in particular, to engage and retreat as needed, to ensure they feel no pressure to perform as “case studies” for white students. while emotions were high for all students, we must respect that they may be more painful and personal for some than others. one of our students, for instance, shared that she had an ancestor who had been lynched. while others have described the role of emotion work in museums (alderman et al., 2020; munro, 2014), our results suggest the need to consider the intra-group emotional dynamics that also influence visitors’ emotional engagement with and identity work within such sites. our experience also shows the need to engage critically with museums and memorials. for instance, our students’ calls for the “true history” of slavery to be taught takes at face value the interpretation provided at the sites in montgomery. one black female student problematized the legacy museum’s emphasis on male victims, as she observed that relatively few black women were represented at a site that focused largely on lynching and mass incarceration. though women’s stories are not missing from the site, they are considerably fewer than men’s. an analysis of what was included or excluded, or in what ways and to what extent something was included, would help future activists consider what frames they apply to “true history.” we also could do more to draw students’ attention to the ways that these recently opened sites reflect presentday rather than commemorative concerns (alderman et al., 2020). the equal justice initiative has launched projects in montgomery at an impressive scale and magnitude, but their popularity has overshadowed other sites in the city devoted to racial justice, such as the dexter avenue baptist church and the modest freedom riders museum, both of which represent older, sanctified sites. how does one place-based opportunity to engage in remembrance veil or erase other forms of anti-racist memory? addressing these critical questions will help us deepen our students’ engagement, supporting them as they thoughtfully choose and frame their activism. pulling it all together if we assume that history, especially american history, is always (and always has been) dealing with difference—its confrontation, management, conflicts, suppression, or celebration—we can recognize that diversity is always already in the curriculum, and that our work is to understand why and how history and memory have erased that engagement. in other words, we need not necessarily seek new stories, but we need to restore the racial contexts in which major events of american history have occurred. in doing so, new stories will emerge. similarly, if ed.d. cohorts seek to activate activism focused (in part) on racial justice, then vlad glăveanu’s insights will prove instructive: new stories, and new conceptions of the possible, will emerge as cohort members create a common representational space, imbued with symbolic resources, fashioned through collaboration and dialogue, engaged with eyes wide open in the risk and uncertainty of the other (i.e., otherness, other ideas, and other views), and enlivened by wondering, that is, an ongoing process of imagining the not yet (keenan-lechel et al., 2019). as cohort members achieve something glăveanu refers to as a metaposition, they are able to see and hold multiple perspectives of reality. when this happens, a third possibility—a third space— emerges that enables positive transformation: “a third space is a communicative achievement: situated and contingent, accomplished by actual people in actual circumstances” (burbules, 2016, p. 3). we hope that our curriculum, our high-impact practices, and our instinct to embed inquiry at heritage sites with anti-racist framings and layers of emotion will nurture a third-space outcome that activates activism and fosters heritage leadership. references alderman, d. h., brasher, j. p., & dwyer iii, o. j. (2020). memorials and monuments. pp. 39-47. in international encyclopedia of human geography, 2nd edition, volume 9. alexander, m. (2012). the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. new york: the new press. askins, k. & swanson, k. (2019). holding onto emotions: a call to action in academia. emotion, space and society, 33, 100617. bales, k. (2016). blood and earth: modern slavery, ecocide, and the secret to saving the world. new york: spiegal & grau. battiste, m., anuik, j. & gillies, c. (2009, may). nourishing the learning spirit: emerging promising practices for teaching and lifelong learning. presentation for the canadian society for the study of education 2009 conference: learning spaces, places and connections. carleton university, ottawa, ontario. burbules, n. c. (2016). being critical about being critical. a response to “toward a transformative criticality for democratic citizenship education.” democracy & education, 24(2), article 7. coble, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 5, no. 2 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.132 32 caruthers, l. (2007). the soil of silence: deconstructing socio-cultural and historical processes that have influenced schooling for first nations people and african americans. american educational history journal, 34(2), 303-313. cook, m. r. (2018). textual politics of alabama’s historical markers: slavery, emancipation, and civil rights. pp. 1-31 in s. d. brunn et al. (eds.), handbook of the changing world language map. springer international publishing. garmston, r. j. & wellman, b. m. (2013). developing collaborative norms. pp. 27-44 in the adaptive school: a sourcebook for developing collaborative groups. norwood, ma: christopher gordon publishers. hawken, p. (ed.) (2017). drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. new york: penguin books. izard, c. e. (2010). the many meanings/aspects of emotion: definition, functions, activation, and regulation. emotion review, 2, 363. kay, m. r. (2018). not light, but fire: how to lead meaningful race conversations in the classroom. portland, me: stenhouse publishers. keenan-lechel, s. f., henriksen, d. & the deep-play research group. (2019). creativity as perspective taking: an interview with dr. vlad glăveanu. tech trends, 63, 652-658. kendi, i. x. (2019). how to be an antiracist. new york: one world. kuh, g. d. (2008). why integration and engagement are essential to effective educational practice in the twenty-first century. peer review, 10(4), 2728. liu, e. (2017). you’re more powerful than you think: a citizen’s guide to making change happen. new york: publicaffairs. munro, e. (2014). doing emotion work in museums: reconceptualizing the role of community engagement practitioners. museum & society, 12(1), 4460. oberpfalzerová, h., ullrich, j., & jeřábek, h. (2019). unofficial storytelling as middle ground between transitional truth-telling and forgetting: a new approach to dealing with the past in postwar bosnia and herzegovina. international journal of conflict and violence, 13, 1-20. palmer, p. j. (2011). healing the heart of democracy: the courage to create a politics worthy of the human spirit. san francisco: jossey-bass. rothstein, r. (2014, oct). the making of ferguson: public policies at the root of its troubles. washington, dc: economic policy institute. (available online: https://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/). sibbett, l. a. (2016). toward a transformative criticality for democratic citizenship education. democracy & education, 24(2), article 1. smith, l., kashubeck-west, s., payton, g., & adams, e. (2017). white professors teaching about racism: challenges and rewards. the counseling psychologist, 45(5), 651-668. wahl, r. (2019). learning in democracy: deliberation and activism as forms of education. studies in philosophy and education, 38, 517-536. wallace-wells, d. (2019). the uninhabitable earth: life after warming. new york: tim duggan books. https://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/ impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 40 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 inquiry as practice: the pathway to redesigning an educational leadership doctoral research seminar series steven tolman georgia southern university stolman@georgiasouthern.edu daniel w. calhoun georgia southern university dwcalhoun@georgiasouthern.edu nikheal patel georgia southern university np06756@georgiasouthern.edu juliann sergi mcbrayer georgia southern university jmcbrayer@georgiasouthern.edu elise j. cain georgia southern university ecain@georgiasouthern.edu abstract as faculty of an educational leadership doctoral program (edd) aligned with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) principles, we acknowledge the importance of inquiry to develop scholarly practitioners. applying the tenet of inquiry as practice, our edd faculty critically examined the doctoral curriculum to explore ways to effectively prepare our doctoral students to learn and apply research methodology meaningfully. this essay details how the review of our research curriculum led to a pedagogical and curriculum redesign of our research seminar series. this revised research seminar series culminates in a course offered every fall/spring semester in the final two years of the program and intentionally has different faculty members teaching each course. we have utilized a backward design to create the themes/content of these seminar courses to better prepare students for their dissertation research. keywords edd, research seminar, cped, backward design, dissertation, a.b.d., inquiry as practice, educational leadership with a mass exodus of executive position retirements looming (stewart, 2016), the need for qualified leaders and change agents within the field of education has never been greater (taylor & youngs, 2018). this imminent leadership vacuum is not easily filled, as there is an expectation that today’s educational leader holds a terminal degree and can research, assess, and evaluate their schools to improve student academic performance. fortunately, this call for new leaders aligns with the increasing number of educators earning their doctoral degrees. the number of doctoral degrees awarded between 2000-2018 (both edd and ph.d.) in the united states has more than doubled (snyder et al., 2019). while educational leaders can choose between seeking a ph.d. or edd as a terminal degree for these purposes, it is becoming more common for educators to seek an edd to prepare them to be scholarly practitioners and change agents. reinforcing the benefit of edd programs, kerrigan and hayes (2016) asserted that “the edd is expected to develop existing practitioners into practitionerresearchers who can develop, implement, evaluate, and improve programs in their workplace based on empirical research” (p. 148). while completing a doctoral program can be a transformative experience for students and strengthen their academic identities (kriner et al., 2015), many doctoral students will need more time to complete their degrees. this attrition creates an emotional toll on the student and an economic burden on the institution (gardner, 2009) and society (kelley & salisbury-glennon, 2016). to avoid this outcome, mcbrayer et al. (2018) reminded us that doctoral programs play a significant role in the ultimate success of their students, and “[t]here is a need for doctoral programs to engage in continual reform to better meet the needs of our constituents” (p. 429). acknowledging that a substantial number of students in doctoral programs will pass their course work but stall out at the dissertation phase, there is a calling for doctoral faculty to examine their curriculum and support structures to ensure students have the academic scaffolding needed to be successful in their dissertation work. at the heart of the dissertation process is the ability to develop a research study based on sound research methodology and design. to that end, this essay aims to detail how the faculty of an edd program used the framework of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) to redesign their research seminar series. by redesigning our research seminar series, we may better prepare students for the rigor and self-directed nature of dissertation study. we believe the foundations of these students’ doctoral studies, both the content and research methods courses, should provide the scaffolding to propel them to complete their dissertation research https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ inquiry as practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 41 successfully. however, this is not the case for many doctoral students, both in our program and in programs nationally. acknowledging this concern, this essay addresses the question: why are our students successfully navigating through their doctoral coursework and candidacy exam yet remain all but dissertation (abd)? our faculty address this question by proposing a revised research seminar series. literature review recognizing the privilege and responsibility that doctoral programs have in shaping the identities of scholarly practitioners, it is imperative for faculty to assess their program’s curriculum and pedagogical practices continually (hall & burns, 2009). as our faculty redesigned the research seminar series of our edd program, we grounded our efforts in the knowledge and lessons learned from other colleagues and scholars, specifically those focused on the cped tenets. subsequently, we provide a brief insight into this literature which helped shape our redesign efforts. this abridged literature review begins by expressing the need for edd programs in the professional preparation of educators and how cped helps guide our efforts. we then explore the alarming rate of doctoral students who ultimately do not complete their degrees – stopping out at the dissertation stage of the program and remaining abd. the literature review culminates in the calling for the (better) preparation of doctoral students to conduct scholarly practitioner research, which is at the heart of our redesign of the research seminar series. educational leadership doctoral programs – professional preparation knowledge dissemination and application are paramount in higher education as working professionals gravitate toward teaching, research, and administration (friesen & jacobsen, 2021). obtaining a doctorate in educational leadership catalyzes the careers of educators, administrators, and scholarly practitioners. educational leadership doctoral programs also enhance the skills of strategic thinking and planning, applying evidence-based research to practice and incorporating equity and social justice objectives in leadership role qualifications (ivankova & stick, 2007). edd programs prepare aspiring practitioners, while ph.d. programs prepare aspiring faculty members (ivankova & stick, 2007). mid-career professionals working toward career growth at institutions benefit from edd programs (caboni & proper, 2009). successful edd programs exemplify practice-focused and practitioner-oriented models of knowledge dissemination and application (ivankova & stick, 2007). these effective tactics foster the development of problem-solving skills and the applicability of evidence-based research. no matter the orientation, ph.d. and edd programs in educational leadership intentionally promote scholarship and practice in education. carnegie project on educational doctorates (cped) acknowledging the intentionality to support scholarship and application to practice in education is one of the tenets of cped. subsequently, cped prioritizes a practitioner-focused approach toward preparing aspiring educational leaders to foster lasting and meaningful impact in education domains (cped, n.d.). the cped framework incorporates values such as diversity, learning, partnership, and social justice into shaping effective scholarly practice (hoffman & perry, 2016). cped defines the education doctorate through an application lens, where disseminated knowledge is utilized for the profession’s advancement (cped, n.d.). cped principles guide the work of doctoral faculty as they shape educational leaders. doctoral faculty also capitalize on the bountiful benefits through their association/membership with cped, as networking, ideas for curriculum development, conversation, and faculty development are among its vast merits (gardner, 2009). cped also provides a medium for collaborative efforts of faculty, practitioners, and administrators who meet to understand the needs and concerns of p-20 leaders and their constituents (cped, n.d.). by articulating the attributes of an effective scholarly practitioner, cped advocates for these guiding principles and frameworks to improve doctoral education. to truly understand the value of cped, scholarly practitioners need to recognize its significance beyond academia. doctoral education in education has long been criticized for its lack of relevance to the needs and goals of professionals, often prioritizing theory over practical application (buss, 2019). in response, cped has implemented a practice-oriented dimension to doctoral education, emphasizing research and collaboration with educational institutions to address these critiques. for doctoral education to effectively prepare practitioners for the realities of the educational landscape, it must prioritize a curriculum relevant to their needs. by incorporating the principles of cped, researchers can ensure that their findings have a tangible impact on education practice (buss, 2019). by emphasizing a practice-oriented approach to research, cped ensures that educational research is rigorous, relevant, and impactful, ultimately leading to improved educational outcomes (cped, n.d.). alarming rate of doctoral completion while the principles of cped strive to improve doctoral education and develop scholar-practitioners (cped, n.d.), mcbrayer et al. (2018) pointed out, “[t]he time to complete a doctoral degree is an ongoing concern in the higher education arena” (p. 414). according to berman and ames (2015), approximately 20% of all graduate students pursue doctoral degrees, but 70% do not advance to graduation. about half of all doctoral students in education fields fail to complete their degrees (ames et al., 2018; spaulding & rockinson-szapkiw, 2012). while many of these students may get through the coursework in their doctoral program, about 20-30% of their academic journeys end when they opt out at the dissertation stage (berman & ames, 2015). this attrition may occur due to a variety of reasons, including issues with work-life balance, shifts in careers and employers, unclear academic expectations, academic burnout, academic isolation, and lack of preparedness for the demands and rigor of dissertation work (breitenbach, 2019; lake et al., 2018; mullen, 2012). additionally, pressures to meet enrollment goals often lead to the admission of students who lack the academic ability to be successful in a doctoral program (mcconnell, 2015). preparation of doctoral students to conduct research as we look to strengthen the academic abilities of doctoral students, there should be a focus on their ability to conduct research. focusing on students’ ability to conduct research aligns with cped’s (n.d.) emphasis on creating scholarly practitioners in education and supports students toward degree completion because most edd tolman et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 42 programs require traditional dissertations for their final projects (foster et al., 2023). the ability to conduct a research project independently has been a consistent, critical part of doctoral programs, with the dissertation process being the most distinguishing aspect (thomas et al., 1986). the goal of our edd program is aligned with the work of golde (2005), in which we strive to aid our students in moving from novice researchers to expert researchers to create change around educational reform. scholarly practitioners should be able to engage in inquiry activities to solve problems of practice, including deciphering, debating, and designing solutions to these challenges in education (hochbein & perry, 2013). specifically, scholarly practitioners must consume research and obtain the skills to employ knowledge by applying theory to practice. arsland-ari et al. (2018) noted that action research is vital for scholarly practitioners as each research course they take furthers their knowledge and strengthens their academic skillset. the need to prepare doctoral students to be scholar practitioners who can meaningfully engage in research supports redesigning our research seminar series. we aim to strengthen the focus on action research to solve problems of practice and improve time to degree completion. educational leadership program redesign levine (2005) provided a scathing critique of edd programs, and universities have been challenged to reimagine and redesign their programs (perry, 2012; shulman, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). doctoral programs in educational leadership have been criticized for lacking academic rigor, necessitating calls for program redesign and reform (maranto et al., 2010; zirkel, 2012). this criticism partly stems from the blurred differentiation in the fundamental differences between a ph.d. and edd (goldring & schuermann, 2009). our edd program has addressed this calling for reform by aligning our program with the cped framework and principles to develop scholarly practitioners. to give context to our program and redesign of the research seminar series, it should be noted that our edd program is 69 credits, and coursework is broken down into three tiers. in tier i, students are required to complete 30 graduate semester hours post-masters. in tier ii, students complete an additional 30 graduate semester hours in a sequential mode over two years. after passing their candidacy exams, students move to the program's dissertation phase, tier iii. while this educational leadership doctoral program underwent several iterations of redesign over its lifetime, each change focused on the framework suggested by cped. our edd program has undergone four phases of redesign (figure 1). phase 1 focused on theoretical research, with a traditional five-chapter dissertation serving as the culminating activity for the p-12 and higher education students, who were in separate cohorts at the time. in phase 2, emphasis was placed on more heavily embedding the tenets of cped into the program and preparing scholarly practitioners. this phase also combined our bifurcated p-12 and higher education cohorts into one seamless group of p-20 educational leaders. in phase 3, we fully embraced the cped model, with an intentional focus on writing the first three chapters of the dissertation. after waiting several years to evaluate this phase, the faculty noticed that while our students continued to advance through their coursework, some lost momentum once they reached the dissertation stage and progress stalled. both students and program faculty recognized that the obstacles to progression seemed concentrated in two areas: weakness in academic writing and comprehension of action-based research. while these students may have had three chapters, they lacked an understanding of how their problems of practice could translate to meaningful studies. our vision to engage in continued program redesign to strengthen the effectiveness of our program led us to our most recent redesign, phase 4. this phase emphasized understanding the research and academic writing processes to address time to degree completion. figure 1. the phases of the redesign of the edd program since the phase 1 design in 2011 inquiry as practice as the path to program redesign as faculty of an edd program aligned with the principles of cped, we acknowledge the importance of inquiry in the work we do within our doctoral program to develop scholarly practitioners to become change agents within p-20 education. as we think about our commitment to the inquiry process in our edd program, we must remember that inquiry as practice plays a role in the courses we teach and the work we do as faculty who develop, coordinate, and lead edd programs. hoffman and perry (2016) remind us of the importance of inquiry, asserting: inquiry is an undeniable component of any educational process and crucial to doctoral study. in the case of the cped-influenced edd, however, inquiry has special meaning. inquiry as practice is a process targeted toward improvement of practice through an examination of applicable questions and the development of relevant solutions. (p. 20) applying this inquiry as practice tenet, our edd faculty critically examined the doctoral curriculum to explore ways to prepare our doctoral students to learn and apply research methodology meaningfully. this systematic review of our research curriculum led to a pedagogical and curriculum redesign that spawned a dedicated research seminar course each semester in tier ii of the program over a two-year period. inquiry as practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 43 research seminar series redesign acknowledging the dishearteningly high national estimates of students who will not complete their doctoral degree (ames et al., 2018; berman & ames, 2015; spaulding & rockinson-szapkiw, 2012), our inquiry of practice focuses on the factors preventing our students from completing their dissertation stage, while also helping them successfully navigate their coursework leading up to it. as our faculty revisited the curriculum, it became apparent that more emphasis was needed to prepare our students to be active researchers who are better informed about developing, conducting, writing, reading for comprehension, and presenting dissertation research as scholarly practitioners. we initially believed we covered all aspects needed for student success, including educational leadership content, research methods, and the connection of these two areas via a seminar series. however, as our faculty discussed our perception of students who had stalled/stopped out of our program, it became clear that our research seminar series was the obvious piece that could hold the promise to address our students’ needs for additional preparation. like many edd programs, our edd is designed for students to complete the dissertation phase (tier iii) in as little as three semesters (one academic year). however, our faculty acknowledge that six semesters (two academic years) is a more realistic timeline for most students. anecdotal evidence from our program suggests that less than half of students who move beyond abd status and successfully defend their dissertation will do so in two years or less. that means most of our students take between three to five years to defend their dissertation (not to mention the significant number who will never defend, remain abd, or time out of the program). acknowledging this necessitated our faculty to explore mechanisms to decrease the time-to-completion of dissertation defenses (seeking our desired one-to-two-year timeline to do so) and, even more importantly, address our students who permanently remain abd. locke and boyle (2016) suggest that more than half of educational leadership graduate students are in this abd position. redesigning our research seminar series actively addresses the academic preparation our students need to ebb their abd rate and expedite their time to complete their dissertations. the redesign was informed by insights from our faculty and doctoral students, who collectively shared challenges in academic writing, scholarly practitioner research skills, and reading comprehension. subsequently, multiple revisions have been made to our research seminar series over the last decade, which evolved from a twocourse series to a four-course series offered throughout tier ii of the program (mcbrayer et al., 2018). at the heart of these ongoing revisions has been the recognition that action-oriented research and academic writing shortcomings are our doctoral students' primary areas of difficulty. the most recent iteration of the research seminar series included the following course offerings: • research seminar i was offered in the fall semester (year 1). in this seminar, students drafted the first half of chapter one for their dissertation manuscripts (introduction through the significance of the study). • research seminar ii was offered in the summer semester (year 2). in this seminar, students drafted chapter two for their dissertation manuscripts (literature review). • research seminar iii/iv was a combined course in the final spring semester (year 2). this seminar allowed students to focus exclusively on developing their dissertations, particularly the materials needed for their pre-prospectus defense (chapter one of the traditional dissertation). as our faculty critically examined this curriculum design and when the courses were being offered, we pondered whether there was a better way to develop our doctoral students to successfully defend their pre-prospectus and support them throughout their entire dissertation process. our assessment of this curriculum helped us draw a few conclusions which would ultimately help redesign the research seminar series. the first was to rethink when and how we offered the research seminar courses (table 1). we decided to offer a seminar each fall/spring semester and to pair it with either a research methods or leadership content course. we opted not to have a seminar course during the summer term because it was abridged due to the shortened summer session. in addition, we deliberately did not want to have two seminar courses in one semester, instead spreading them out to serve as a scaffold throughout tier ii. table 1. the course sequence of when the research seminar series courses are offered in the program’s previous iteration versus the newly redesigned course sequence 1 fall research seminar 1 research seminar 1 spring research seminar 2 summer research seminar 2 2 fall research seminar 3 spring research seminar 3 & 4 research seminar 4 secondly, we wanted to expose our doctoral students to the wealth of resources provided by each of our graduate faculty. subsequently, we established the expectation that a different faculty member would teach each of these newly redesigned research seminar courses so our students could learn research insights from faculty with varied expertise. lastly, and most importantly, we were intentional in what content each redesigned seminar course would offer. similar to the process of weiler and lomotey (2022), we utilized a “backward design to develop, align, and assess curriculum and pedagogy with those outcomes, including scholarly learning experiences (rigor in research) and the elicitation of students’ critical thinking (rigor as complexity)” (p. 124). the intention was to develop the central themes for each newly redesigned research seminar course (table 2). these newly developed themes for each of the research seminar courses are substantial and fundamental changes to the curriculum and pedagogy of each course. as of fall 2022, the redesign of research seminar 1 and a pilot test of research seminar 3 were being taught. the syllabi for these courses can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/cped-article. research seminar series redesign: successes and challenges like many doctoral programs, our faculty have observed that our students have the academic ability to complete their terminal degrees readily. with few exceptions, our students excel in their coursework. they successfully defend their candidacy exams before beginning their dissertation journeys and immersing themselves in the academic world of research in the last phase of the final tolman et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 44 table 2. description of the redesigned research seminar series in tier ii of the edd program research seminar 1 fall (year 1) introduction to doctoral studies and the dissertation journey. topics include developing a fundamental working understanding of problems of practice, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, dissertation manuscripts versus defenses, dissertation manuscript components, and dissertation alternative formats research seminar 2 spring (year 1) literature review. completing an annotated bibliography, developing a literature review matrix, critiquing scholarship, and identifying and finalizing a problem of practice and theoretical framework research seminar 3 fall (year 2) research questions and research design. critiquing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research articles; and developing quantitative and qualitative research questions and research design proposals that can be used to explore their problems of practice research seminar 4 spring (year 2) pre-prospectus. preparation for the candidacy exam, finalizing their problem of practice and research questions, and drafting their pre-prospectus document dissertation. the foundations of these students’ doctoral studies, both the content and research methods courses, are intended to provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary to complete their dissertation research. however, this outcome was not the case for many of our doctoral students, leading our faculty to posit the following question: if our students are struggling to finish their dissertation research, what can we do as a program to help scaffold their learning during coursework in a way that can help propel them to completion? to address this adaptive challenge meaningfully, our faculty ascribed to the inquiry as practice principle and critically examined our program’s curriculum and pedagogical practices. this inquiry started with a shared observation and evolved into a collaborative dialogue among our program’s faculty. we discussed our practices and explored national efforts to address the high attrition rate of edd students at the dissertation stage. similar to the experiences of coaxum et al. (2022) and gillham et al. (2019), we found cped’s framework to be a common thread to serve as a guiding resource for the development of scholarly practitioners and the focus on a dissertation in practice (dip) model. our faculty held firm to the commitment to developing educators to be scholarly practitioners who would not only be consumers of knowledge but would continue to add to the literature base to inform the work of other educators, practitioners, and scholars. as we acknowledged many of our students’ shortcomings regarding their research preparation, we collectively agreed we needed to address this within our curriculum and immediately looked to redesign our research seminar series. an inherent challenge in making a significant change to any academic program is the faculty investment in the current model. any change can be difficult, especially when navigating the political terrain of colleagues’ egos, the skepticism of the ability for small programmatic changes to make a significant impact, and avoiding the all-too-common pitfalls of this is how we have always done it or that is how we did it in my doctoral program. edd programs may also struggle with faculty and academic administrators being mentally locked into a ph.d. model way of thinking (friesen & jacobsen, 2021). however, one of our greatest resources as edd programs is our affiliation with cped and the commitment to reimagining our doctoral programs, their purpose, and the curriculum. at the forefront is the commitment to developing scholarly practitioners who will serve as change agents in education. this shared commitment, and the excitement around it, enabled our faculty to avoid these inherent challenges in the change process and instead ask the question, what if? what if we tried this? what if we support our students in another way to see if it helps them to succeed? what if…? our faculty’s answer to this question, what if, led us down the unified path of redesigning our research seminar series. this redesign now gives our students more time, resources, and support to develop research skills for their dissertation studies. we fully anticipate a richer experience for students and their identities as scholarly practitioners. while we are in the first year of implementing this redesigned curriculum, we are already finding it fruitful in our conversations with our doctoral students inside and outside the classroom. these richer experiences address the calling by other colleagues and scholars to incorporate the dissertation processes earlier into coursework to better equip doctoral students for their dissertation research (leach et al., 2020). to that end, we expect we will see gains in the quality of our students' writing at the dissertation stage and yield greater numbers of students defending their dissertation at the pre-prospectus stage, improving overall progression and time to degree completion (figure 2). the strengthening of the research seminar series will be reflected in the quality of students writing and overall knowledge of research methodology as they progress towards defending the pre-prospectus defense. this will lead to students being (more) successful in their pre-prospectus defense and catalyze progression as they move onto the prospectus phase of their dissertation. figure 2. logic model of the anticipated impact of revised research seminar series on dissertation progression program evolution – next steps and future (re)designs shepherd et al. (2016) remind us that our educational leaders need to be better prepared to meet their ever-evolving roles and the growing demands thrust upon them as academic leaders. to that end, establishing their identity as scholarly practitioners through their edd program provides them with the much-needed skills and resources to succeed in these leadership roles. our edd programs are responsible to our doctoral students and, more importantly, the educational communities they serve. we must keep striving to develop our programs further and, in turn, (further) strengthen the educators and scholarly practitioners we help produce. as our program continues to commit to innovate and look ahead to the future, the following next steps are on our horizon: ● utilizing the crosswalk provided by phillips et al. (2018) to develop a curriculum map that aligns course outcomes with cped’s guiding principles and framework ● redesign of the pre-prospectus defense format to expedite students having engaged in scholarly conversations with their dissertation committee earlier in the process ● intentionally moving away from traditional five-chapter dissertations associated with the ph.d. and meaningfully adopting alternative dissertation formats inquiry as practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 45 ● connecting pieces from each research seminar course to the student’s ultimate pre-prospectus as a mechanism for scaffolding ● redesign our candidacy exam to be a better indicator of students’ abilities to successfully navigate their imminent dissertation and connect the candidacy exam prompt directly to the student’s intended dissertation topic as another mechanism for scaffolding conclusion there is a clear need to address doctoral students' completion rates and abd status (brietenbach, 2019). we can better prepare our students through the research seminar series and scaffold the knowledge needed to conduct their research. in doing so, it will have a ripple effect on their dissertation completion and graduation rates. our faculty challenged one another to explore how we could better cultivate a culture of research and help our students view inquiry as a means of practice. careful assessment and reevaluation of our program revealed opportunities in the curriculum, notably our research seminar series, where we could provide our students additional support to become well-practiced scholarly practitioners. redesigning our research seminar series will better provide the scaffolding students need at the dissertation stage. not only will this redesign begin to address the vexing number of students who remain abd, but it will also have a rippling impact on p-20 education, as these newly minted doctors of education “are prepared to effect change in their organizations and respond to the many and often conflicting demands of their constituents” (stark, 2019, p. 40). references ames, c., berman, r., & casteel, a. 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(2010). the future of ed. schools. education week, 29(16), 36–25. mcbrayer, j. s., melton, t. d., calhoun, d. w., dunbar, m., & tolman, s. (2018). the correlation between self-efficacy and time to degree completion of educational leadership doctoral students. international journal of doctoral studies, 13, 413–439. https://doi.org/10.28945/4138 mcconnell, k. (2015). rethinking admissions: recruiting for retention. nagap perspectives, 27(2), 14–15. mullen, c. a. (2012). from student to professor: translating a graduate degree into a career in academia. rowman & littlefield publishers. perry, j. (2012). to ed.d. or not to ed.d.? kappan magazine, 94(1), 41-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400108 phillips, j. c., geller, k. d., & mawritz, k. j. (2018). program innovation and design in an era of accountability: ed.d. faculty work as a community of practice. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(2), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.64 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.288 https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400108 tolman et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.329 46 shepherd, k., fowler, s., mccormick, j., wilson, c., & morgan, d. (2016). the search for role clarity: challenges and implications for special education teacher preparation. teacher education & special education, 39(2), 83– 97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406416637904 shulman, l. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 shulman, l., golde, c., bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 snyder, t. d., de brey, c., & dillow, s. a. (2019). digest of education statistics 2017 (nces 2018-070). national center for education statistics, institute of education sciences, u.s. department of education. spaulding, l. s., & rockinson-szapkiw, a. j. (2012). hearing their voices: factors doctoral candidates attribute to their persistence. international journal of doctoral studies, 7, 199–219. https://doi.org/10.28945/1589 stark, j. b. (2019). the value in pursuing the edd. journal of school administration research and development, 4(1), 39–41. https://doi.org/10.32674/jsard.v4i1.1942 stewart a.j. (2016). exploring nonprofit executive turnover. nonprofit management & leadership, 27(1), 43–58. taylor, s., & youngs, h. 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(2012). doctoral programs in educational leadership: a duality framework of commonality and differences. educational considerations, 40(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.4148/0146-9282.1078 https://doi.org/10.32674/jsard.v4i1.1942 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 4 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.5 no.3 (2020) doi 10.5195/ie.2020.215 erratum to: buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1-7. ray buss, phd mary fulton teachers college arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu james g. allen, edd college of education northern kentucky university allenj4@nku.edu the article buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1-7 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.98 contained incorrect information for the degree title and college name of author james g. allen. his degree has been changed from phd to edd and his school from college of education and human services to college of education. this error occurred as a result of inaccurate information in the manuscript which was overlooked during the journal editing phase. the online version has been corrected to reflect this change. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.98 erratum to: buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1-7. ray buss, phd mary fulton teachers college arizona state university james g. allen, edd college of education northern kentucky university impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 equity gaps in dual enrollment kimberlee m. hooper new jersey city university khooper@njcu.edu christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu abstract this article examined root causes of the equity gaps in dual enrollment through a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed literature, public scholarship, and practitioner perspectives. root causes identified include access barriers, lack of advising and support, lack of awareness, and financial barriers for underrepresented students, all of which contribute to lower participation rates for black and latinx students when compared with white and asian students. this article serves to provide community college practitioners with a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to this problem so that they can identify interventions that will address these root causes. suggestions for mitigating equity gaps in dual enrollment for underrepresented students through the use of targeted messaging campaigns are discussed. keywords dual enrollment, equity, underrepresented students underrepresented black and latinx students are not participating in dual enrollment at the same rate as white and asian students. a recent report from the community college research center (ccrc) where researchers studied about 950 dual enrollment programs suggested that, on average, only 7% of black and 8% of latinx students participated in dual enrollment compared with 12% of white students (lamiell, 2020). in addition, a longitudinal study released in 2019 of 23,000 high school first-year students across the nation found that 38% of white and asian students participated in dual enrollment compared with only 27% of black and 30% of latinx students (williams & perry, 2020). many black and latinx students have perceived themselves as incapable of achieving secondary and post-secondary success. they have shied away from post-secondary opportunities due to lack of belief in their ability to be successful in college-level work (zinth & barnett, 2018). dual enrollment programs allow high school students to take college-level courses to earn high school and college credit. other commonly used terms are dual credit and concurrent enrollment. dual enrollment programs exist in many iterations, and research has identified 38 term variations among participating states (williams & perry, 2020). despite many term and program variations, dual enrollment participation with community colleges remains the most prevalent option. most students participated in dual enrollment through programs that partnered with community colleges. community college partners offered courses within a traditional high school or college setting, and 86% of students took classes at a high school (mehl et al., 2020). many dual enrollment programs serve as enrichment and advancement opportunities for participants, offering a head start on college requirements and career exploration. dual enrollment participation has helped students discover their capabilities and gain confidence in their ability to succeed in college (hughes et al., 2012; hoffman et al., 2009). dual enrollment has been positively linked with several student outcomes, notably high school graduation and enrollment in college (hoffman, 2012). dual enrollment students were more likely to graduate high school (zinth & barnett, 2018), and according to a report from the community college research center (ccrc) 88% of dual enrollment students enrolled in college (fink et al., 2017). research has found that dual enrollment participants were more likely to earn a post-secondary degree than non-dual enrollment participants (ddamulira, 2017). according to the national center for education statistics, underrepresented black and latinx students graduated high school at lower rates than white and asian students (national center for education statistics, 2020). as data has demonstrated that dual enrollment is positively linked with high school graduation and enrollment in college, it is critical for black and latinx students to gain equitable access to dual enrollment opportunities that can improve their graduation rates and prepare them for post-secondary success. despite proven benefits and participation that has more than doubled in the last ten years (adcock, 2016), the growth in dual enrollment has been disproportionate, with white and asian students participating at higher rates. at one time, programs were widely recognized as helping high-achieving, affluent white students thwart “senioritis,” a term coined for students who lose motivation during the senior year of high school, but research has shown that dual enrollment can have an even greater impact on lowand middle achieving black and latinx students (an, 2013). studies have http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1267-8188 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 equity gaps in dual enrollment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 21 demonstrated that dual enrollment can help underrepresented black and latinx students graduate from high school, enroll in college, and complete a post-secondary program, but efforts to close the equity gap have left them behind (weissman, 2020). programs have been developed that appear inclusive on the outside, but internal eligibility requirements, financial commitments, and recruiting methods often exclude underrepresented populations. dual enrollment participation can open the door to post-secondary opportunities for underrepresented black and latinx students but developing programs without exploring the root causes that create equity gaps will likely result in more inequitable programs (field, 2020). if developed through an equity-minded lens, dual enrollment programs could serve as a catalyst for inspiring students to look beyond high school and set post-secondary education and career goals (taylor, 2015). creating policies and practices that address these equity gaps requires a deep understanding of why equity gaps exist in dual enrollment for underrepresented black and latinx students. a literature review was conducted to identify the root causes of this problem so that practitioners can use this data to inform practices aimed at decreasing the equity gaps in dual enrollment. method to explore why equity gaps exist in dual enrollment, three strategies were used: a systematic search for peer-reviewed literature using library databases, practitioner perspectives with k-12 and higher education practitioners, and an internet search for public scholarship. a systematic literature review was used to identify peerreviewed research articles. each article’s findings were reviewed, and a synthesis matrix was created to track themes related to the research topic. in addition, conversations with k-12 and higher education practitioners were conducted to obtain various perspectives on the research topic from the point of view of practitioners who work with underrepresented student populations and manage dual enrollment programs. lastly, an internet search for public scholarship was conducted to identify literature from organizational and higher education websites. the topic of dual enrollment generated a large amount of public scholarship literature that was published on various blogs and academic websites. this type of literature is beneficial when exploring a research topic that has multiple iterations and implementation models. public scholarship articles were reviewed and findings that illuminated root causes for equity gaps in dual enrollment were included in the results. library databases in january 2021, an electronic database search was conducted using the following search terms: dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment or dual credit and minority students or underrepresented students and “community college.” the initial search resulted in 21 articles from five databases: eric, education source, academic search premier, apa psychinfo, and business source elite. each peer-reviewed article was examined for relevance to the established criteria by title review, abstract review, and article review. criteria for inclusion included: (a) dual enrollment was the program being discussed; (b) underrepresented or minority students were included in the sample group; (c) programs took place in partnership with community colleges; and (d) articles were peerreviewed. articles that referenced dual enrollment as an optional or mandatory program were included in the review. the 21 articles were reviewed by title and found to be relevant to the topic, equity gaps in dual enrollment. a review of article abstracts was then conducted. of the 21 articles, 16 were found to be relevant to the topic. five articles were eliminated for failing to include dual enrollment as the main program of discussion and underrepresented students as part of the sample group. the remaining 16 articles were reviewed to ensure that the purpose and content aligned with the topic. of the 16 articles, four were eliminated as the studies focused on dual enrollment student outcomes rather than a lack of equity for underrepresented students in dual enrollment. three additional articles were eliminated for focusing on state policy rather than underrepresented students in dual enrollment. nine articles remained and the snowball technique was then used to identify additional relevant articles. four articles were identified using the technique for a total of 13 peer-reviewed articles. practitioner perspectives conversations with one higher education administrator and two k-12 professionals took place to gather practitioner perspectives related to the topic. the first conversation was with a community college administrator involved in managing dual enrollment programs for underrepresented students. the second was with a k-12 administrator from a hispanic-serving school district who is accountable for student outcomes. the third conversation was with a k-12 administrator from a hispanic-serving school district accountable for curriculum development and supplemental programs. the discussions involved dual enrollment program design, barriers in eligibility and participation, demographics of local dual enrollment programs, limitations of programs for hispanic students, and perceived program issues. these conversations helped the researcher gain insight as to how school districts that serve underrepresented populations are working toward equity for their students. there were limitations to the practitioner conversations. most importantly, the opinions and perspectives shared may not represent the opinions and perspectives of other practitioners in similar roles. in addition, the researcher was unable to determine the student perspective of dual enrollment programs because no conversations with underrepresented students took place. public scholarship to locate published articles available on organizational websites, academic websites, and blogs, an internet search was performed using search terms relevant to the topic. search terms included: dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, dual credit, and underrepresented students. the criteria for inclusion were: (a) dual enrollment was the program being discussed; (b) underrepresented or minority students were the sample group; (c) programs took place at community colleges; and (d) equity issues were addressed. articles that referenced equity issues in dual enrollment in relation to early and middle college programs were also included for review. these terms were included because they involved learning models that expand access beyond traditional dual enrollment and serve predominantly underrepresented students. organizational websites such as the national alliance for concurrent enrollment partnerships (nacep) and the community college research center at teachers college of columbia university (ccrc) were explored. the search hooper & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 22 resulted in 20 additional articles identified as relevant to the topic. seven articles were eliminated for failing to meet inclusion parameters. the remaining 13 articles were then added to the 13 peer-reviewed articles for a total of 26 articles that were included in this review. see table 1 for a list of peer-reviewed and public scholarship articles that were included in this literature review. results and discussion each of the 26 articles identified through the peer-reviewed and public scholarship searches were thoroughly reviewed. twelve articles were studies that examined various policy changes impacting dual enrollment access and participation, as well as student retention and success. two of the studies (8%) utilized qualitative methods to collect data, including interviews, existing program data, and focus groups. three studies (11%) utilized quantitative data, including grade point average, enrollment, and completion data. seven studies (27%) utilized mixed methods to collect data related to access barriers, funding barriers, and transition to college. the remaining 14 articles were discussions of various dual enrollment programs and suggestions for improving access, support, and success for underrepresented students. the articles and practitioner perspectives were examined for common themes related to the topic and four common themes emerged from the analysis. the major themes included: (a) access barriers due to racially biased eligibility parameters, implicit bias in recruitment and identification of participants, and lack of qualified k12 faculty; (b) lack of advising and support for underrepresented students; (c) lack of understanding of opportunities and benefits; and (d) financial barriers. table 1. peer-reviewed and public scholarship articles author (year) title source type abdul-alim, j. (2014) colleges urged to take advising of underrepresented students to deeper level public scholarship, www.diverseeducation.com an, b. p. (2012) the influence of dual enrollment on academic performance and college readiness: differences by socioeconomic status peer-reviewed article barnett, e., zinth, j. (2018) rethinking dual enrollment to reach more students public scholarship, www.ecs.org bragg, d., kim, e., & barnett, e. (2006) creating access and success: academic pathways reaching underserved students peer-reviewed article boswell, k. (2000) building bridges or barriers? public policies that facilitate or impede linkages between community colleges and local school districts peer-reviewed article community college research center (2012) what we know about dual enrollment public scholarship, www.ccrc.tc.columbia.edu duncheon, j. (2020) what students do early college high schools serve? unpacking social constructions of the target population peer-reviewed article edmunds, j., unlu, f., furey, j., glennie, e., & arshavsky, n. (2020) what happens when you combine high school and college? the impact of the early college model on postsecondary performance and completion peer-reviewed article fink, j. & jenkins, d. (2021) rethinking dual enrollment to advance equitable transfer public scholarship, www.insidehighered.com ganzert, b. (2012) the effects of dual enrollment credit on gender and race peer-reviewed article gilbert, e. (2017) how dual enrollment contributes to inequality public scholarship, www.chronicle.com gleeson, m. (2020) equity in higher education requires equal access to dual enrollment in high school public scholarship, www.insightintodiversity.com hoffman, n., vargas, j., santos, j. (2009) new directions for dual enrollment: creating stronger pathways from high school through college peer-reviewed article hughes, k., rodriguez, o., edwards, l., & belfield, c. (2012) broadening the benefits of dual enrollment public scholarship, www.ccrc.tc.columbia.edu hugo, e. (2001) dual enrollment for underrepresented student populations peer-reviewed article karp, m. (2015) dual enrollment, structural reform, and the completion agenda peer-reviewed article mangan, k. (2019) rise in dual-enrollment courses may help community colleges. but minority students? not as much. public scholarship, www.chronicle.com pretlow, j. & wathington, h. (2013) access to dual enrollment courses and school-level characteristics peer-reviewed article pretlow, j. & wathington, h. (2014) expanding dual enrollment: increasing postsecondary access for all? peer-reviewed article rivera, l., kotok, s., ashby, n. (2019) access to dual enrollment in the united states: implications for equity and stratification peer-reviewed article schwartz, n. (2020) new dual enrollment data points to unequal access public scholarship, www.highereddive.com st. amour, m. (2020) report: how to improve equity in dual enrollment public scholarship, www.insidehighered.com stout, k., ballinger, m., parker, a., plinkske, k., thomas, d., mehl, g., & fink, j. leading with equity in dual enrollment public scholarship, www.ccrc.tc.columbia.edu taylor, j. l. (2015) accelerating pathways to college: the (in)equitable effects of community college dual credit peer-reviewed article weissman, s. (2020) dual enrollment works. but who is it working for? public scholarship, www.diverseeducation.com williams, a., & perry, a. (2020) prioritizing equity in dual enrollment public scholarship, www.ecs.org http://www.insidehighered.com/ http://www.insightintodiversity.com/ http://www.highereddive.com/ http://www.insidehighered.com/ equity gaps in dual enrollment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 23 access barriers access barriers exist that prevent underrepresented students from participating in dual enrollment at the same rate as white and asian students. program accessibility is a thematic issue impacted by eligibility, recruitment, and availability of implementation resources. this expansive root cause was broken down into three subcategories that address the depth of accessibility issues for underrepresented students. eligibility parameters, implicit bias, and faculty pool are explored. racially biased eligibility parameters dual enrollment eligibility parameters vary by state and by institution within each state. some states limit participation to juniors and seniors, and many require placement testing, written recommendations from high school teachers or school counselors, and a minimum gpa (flynn, 2021). despite recent attempts to shift the focus of recruitment efforts to underrepresented students, numerous dual enrollment programs maintain eligibility requirements that may exclude many students from participating (mehl et al., 2020). in addition, programs that were created to address the needs of underrepresented students have been impacted by racial disparities in eligibility requirements including gpa requirements, testing pre-requisites, and other academic requirements, hindering access, and success for students they intended to serve (yuen ting liu et al., 2020). underrepresented students cannot take advantage of dual enrollment opportunities afforded to other students due to racial disparities in eligibility criteria and a lack of meaningful support (williams & perry, 2020). duncheon (2020) performed a study to determine how recruitment strategies affected participation. results showed that recruitment efforts may begin with equity in mind, but stringent eligibility parameters and academic requirements ultimately excluded many underrepresented students from participating. many programs required placement testing to determine dual enrollment eligibility. underrepresented students were more likely to be placed in lower-level classes in high school, lessening their chances of accessing dual enrollment opportunities (de brey et al., 2019 as cited in duncheon, 2020), and increasing their chances of performing poorly on placement tests due to a lack of content knowledge from slower-paced lower-level classes. a study by rivera et al. (2019) found that access to dual enrollment was affected by academic performance and socioeconomic status, leaving behind underrepresented students that placed into lower-level classes. as a result, underrepresented students lacked adequate academic preparation for many programs and courses and may not have been aware of the opportunities that existed to help enrich their knowledge. rivera et al. (2019) suggested that despite crediting dual enrollment for improving college readiness, many programs abided by the original policies associated with early programs of the 70’s and 80’s where high-performing students were targeted for enrollment. according to mehl et al. (2020), dual enrollment programs only benefitted students if the students were made aware of opportunities and programs were intentionally developed with a goal of mitigating equity gaps from the start. implicit bias in recruitment and identification of participants every person holds a degree of unconscious or implicit bias that impacts how they feel about others based on race, gender, or other characteristics (stevens, 2017). as people grow and learn, their implicit biases develop based on their surroundings and how they sort information in their brains (stevens, 2017). implicit biases can prevent people from treating others equally, but it is difficult to address given the unconscious state of many biases. for example, white students have had a better chance of receiving a lesser consequence for acting out than black students (stevens, 2017). the presence of implicit biases can extend beyond behavior and impact how educators assist students with planning for their future education and career goals. within k-12 schools, staff may hold implicit biases against underrepresented students, assuming they are not qualified for dual enrollment and cannot meet higher academic expectations (mehl et al., 2020). school counselors typically work with students to identify and register them for programs like dual enrollment, but 70% of counselors are white and may hold unintentional racial biases that prevent them from recommending underrepresented students for dual enrollment programs (field, 2020). underrepresented students need to be surrounded by educators who believe in their ability to achieve success and who can connect them with opportunities that meet their needs and align with their goals. not all students have a clear idea of their education and career goals in high school, and school counselors have an important task of helping students realize their potential and explore their options. high-achieving students may be more on track with future plans, where middle-achieving students may need more support and exposure to opportunities that help them define and navigate their educational paths. zinth and barnett (2018) suggested dual enrollment should be more accessible to middle-achieving students who are unsure about their post-secondary plans because participation in dual enrollment could help them discover their interests. school counselors are overloaded with students, making time an issue for students who require extra support and may not have their educational goals planned out (waddle, 2011). school counselors may also lack the necessary training to provide the depth of college counseling support required by middle-achieving students (waddle, 2011). lack of qualified k-12 faculty williams and perry (2020) reported that high schools with large numbers of underrepresented students were less likely to offer dual enrollment opportunities because of a lack of qualified high school faculty. low-income and urban schools with high numbers of underrepresented students were less likely to offer dual enrollment because their low achievement rates discouraged qualified faculty from seeking long-term employment, leading to high turnover and frequent hiring of inexperienced faculty (ahram et al., n.d.; field, 2020). pretlow and wathington (2013) found that underrepresented low-income students often attend schools with fewer resources and inexperienced teachers. it is critical for high schools to employ qualified faculty who take an interest in accelerating their students’ academic progress and have the credentials to teach at a college level. according to the higher learning commission (hlc), faculty should hold a master’s degree in the content area they are teaching or have accumulated 18 graduate credits in the content area (smith, 2017). in general, the standard for high school teachers is a bachelor’s degree in a content area and state certification (zeiger, 2018). in some states, each institution can elect to substitute field hooper & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 24 knowledge and experience for career and technical education dual enrollment courses where industry experience holds great value to the course experience (horn & parks, 2018). there was a lack of consistency across regional accrediting commissions concerning dual enrollment credential requirements that led to various interpretations by state and by institution. it is difficult to ascertain how many faculty members were considered unqualified for dual enrollment as little data exists that highlights the areas of need (smith, 2018). gleeson (2020) highlighted the need to hold community colleges accountable for facilitating dual enrollment courses rather than rely on k-12 faculty. according to a k-12 practitioner from an urban, hispanic-serving school, it is difficult to recruit and retain qualified faculty for all courses, and supplemental programs like dual enrollment fall by the wayside due to larger staffing issues (k. scussa, personal communication, october 21, 2020). hooker (2019) suggested examining the addition of content-area knowledge in the coursework required for the master’s in education degree that is commonly sought by high school teachers for advancement in their roles, ensuring most teachers graduate with a credential acceptable for dual enrollment. lack of advising and support in order to provide programs that are comprehensive in aligning with their needs, dedicated staff and resources must be available to support underrepresented students (ccrc, 2012). there has been a lack of advising and support in the k-12 and higher education sectors for specialized programs like dual enrollment. due to overextended resources, community colleges were often unable to offer designated advisors or counselors for dual enrollment students and high school counselors were bogged down with administrative tasks and demands (weissman, 2020). training was also lacking for staff who worked with underrepresented and first-generation students, populations that may require additional support during important transition periods. advising and support services for underrepresented students must be intentional, adequately balanced with student goals, involve high school and college staff, and include guidance for career connection and exploration to help them build and achieve a suitable program experience (mehl et al., 2020). dual enrollment can entice underrepresented students to explore college, but if those students were not well-prepared and supported, they may not succeed in their courses or persist to college (unlu & edmunds, 2019). dual enrollment was meant to be a positive experience for students and a means to make the education journey more manageable, affordable, and successful. programs devoid of adequate support serve to widen the equity gaps by leaving underrepresented participants in unfamiliar territory with unreliable or unavailable support. school counselors may not be aware that dual enrollment participation can help underrepresented students meet elevated standards and access the tools necessary to plan for post-secondary success. their implicit bias may also prevent them from seeing beyond a student’s unconsciously assigned category. therefore, it is essential to professionally train staff on the value of dual enrollment and how participation can benefit underrepresented students and institutions alike, as well as how to work through implicit bias and achieve equity for students. in addition, establishing a dual enrollment partnership with a college can open the door for future discussions and cooperative programs that benefit students and facilitate their transitions to college (mehl et al., 2020). with appropriate support in place, dual enrollment participation can help underrepresented students achieve their education and career goals. lack of understanding of opportunities and benefits many families and school counselors are often not aware of dual enrollment programs and benefits (gleeson, 2020). this may be in part due to dual enrollment changing significantly over the years. hoffman et al. (2009) highlighted how dual enrollment used to be geared toward high-performing students, but many programs have been repurposed to serve the needs of all levels of students. nevertheless, dual enrollment programs may still be perceived by many as catering to advanced students (boswell, 2000). parents and counselors are often more familiar with college board advancement programs (ap), which were established in the 1950’s. ap courses have benefitted from the familiarity of standardized courses and consistent support from each state (bragg & barnett., 2006), where dual enrollment programs operated more independently and lacked standardization, making it difficult to devise a universal message. clarifying the message around dual enrollment can be complicated. as a result of the disconnect and lack of communication regarding program expectations, high school students and their families may not be fully aware of various dual enrollment options and the long-term benefits of participation as they are left to navigate the unknown with preconceived notions of what dual enrollment can or cannot contribute to their futures (fink & jenkins, 2021). in addition, there are often not enough school counselors to offer individualized recommendations for students, resulting in students navigating uncharted territory on their own and, consequentially, making uninformed choices (weissman, 2020). where some program’s messaging may inform students of opportunities, efforts often fail to highlight the tangible benefits that come from participation. gleeson (2020) suggested messaging should focus on the value of participation and serve to eliminate misconceptions regarding eligibility. efforts must involve high-level district leaders that can successfully bridge the k-12 experience with the bigger picture for students (gleeson, 2020). more attention and involvement with effective messaging is needed to ensure all students and families understand how dual enrollment programs align with their education and career goals. financial barriers funding and resources remain a challenge for both high schools and colleges when addressing the growing needs of dual enrollment programs. low-income underrepresented students typically do not participate in dual enrollment due to financial limitations (gilbert, 2017; mangan, 2019). on average, dual enrollment courses cost less than traditional college courses with the majority of states charging reduced tuition and about half offering free programs, but even reduced-cost options can be a barrier for students from low-income backgrounds (field, 2020; mangan, 2019). dual enrollment courses cost anywhere from zero to $400 per course with some costs covered by the state or the high school and some requiring students and their families to cover the cost (flynn, 2021). depending on how each institution determined the cost, many students may be excluded based on their income level if their school cannot obtain funding to cover the cost of dual enrollment equity gaps in dual enrollment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.251 25 participation. an (2013) performed a study that showed income level influences whether students participate in dual enrollment, but other factors also impacted participation, including student characteristics and parental education level. dual enrollment students were not eligible for traditional financial aid to pay for courses. some colleges have grants available to pay for students to take courses however, grant-funded programs generally have strict eligibility requirements that may exclude certain students from participating. according to a higher education practitioner who facilitates dual enrollment at a community college, funding for underrepresented high school student participation in dual enrollment is inconsistent amongst local schools, and self-pay students tend to be white and more affluent (c. conzen, personal communication, october 6, 2020). the lack of financial aid, open-access grant funding, and low-income level serve to keep dual enrollment opportunities out of reach for the students that may benefit most (reed, 2017). underrepresented populations are growing rapidly and account for an inordinately large number of low-income families. according to data from the national center for education statistics (nces), threefourths of black and latinx students attend low-income schools compared with one-third of white students. low-income schools are less likely to have access to sufficient funding to support the costs of dual enrollment programs for students (gilbert, 2017). low-income schools face many challenges when it comes to offering advanced coursework, but studies show a positive correlation between students who take advanced coursework, like ap or dual enrollment, and the likelihood of those students persisting in college (coutts & lafleur, 2011). more funding is needed to support programs at lowincome schools and for low-income students and fewer barriers to obtaining and qualifying for funding are necessary to ensure those that need financial support most have easy access to resources. a study by roach et al. (2015) found that eliminating the cost of dual enrollment increased participation for underrepresented lowincome students, but limitations in sustainability exist due to funding requirements to support all students. williams and perry (2020) highlighted that lack of resources and funds negatively impacts dual enrollment opportunities at schools with larger underrepresented student populations. “inequitable access to dual enrollment by race is clearly predicted by income disparity,” (williams & perry, 2020, p.3). underrepresented, low-income students were found to be some of the most highly motivated students, but financial limitations impacted participation (hugo, 2003 & mangan, 2019). according to a k-12 practitioner from an urban school district, reducing or eliminating the cost of dual enrollment may further widen the equity gap if underrepresented students are not adequately informed about their options and able to make decisions about participation (k. scussa, personal communication, october 21, 2020). financial limitations impacted underrepresented student participation in dual enrollment, creating barriers to post-secondary success and widening the equity gaps for underrepresented students. conclusions equity gaps in dual enrollment exist due to access barriers in eligibility, recruitment, and qualified k-12 faculty, as well as financial limitations and a lack of advising and support for underrepresented students. as a result, dual enrollment programs lack equity and may serve to deter students from pursuing post-secondary opportunities and worsen racial disparities. many programs began with a goal of inclusion but often ended with stringent parameters that excluded underrepresented students from participating. if developed through an equity-minded lens, programs could serve as cost-effective solutions for propelling underrepresented students toward postsecondary education opportunities that may have otherwise been inaccessible. dual enrollment is often a student’s first look at college expectations and participation can set the stage for them to begin planning their educational futures. programs must be developed with the needs of students in mind, especially when target populations are underrepresented. advocating for underrepresented students and announcing initiatives designed to serve them is not enough to increase their desire to participate or their motivation to succeed. tools must be developed to engage underrepresented students in meaningful experiences that lead to positive outcomes. resources must be included to ensure students can navigate the process, succeed academically, and feel confident in their abilities to continue in the education pipeline. to mitigate the equity gaps and help underrepresented students reap the benefits of dual enrollment participation, equity must be at the forefront during creation and implementation with an emphasis on access and support to ensure positive outcomes. with thoughtful program development comes the need for an effective messaging and recruitment campaign designed to inform underrepresented students and their families about the opportunities available to them. to effectively target the population that can benefit most from dual enrollment, it is important first to explore the current methods of dual enrollment messaging, examine the level of knowledge of affiliated staff, and assess the needs of the target population. mitigating equity gaps begins with aligning the needs of the target population with relevant messaging and following up with knowledgeable staff that help students and families navigate their options. dual enrollment programs can help underrepresented black and latinx students achieve their education and career goals by providing opportunities to earn college credit, enrich their academic knowledge, connect with college staff to learn about post-secondary opportunities, and prepare for the rigors of college. all programs are not created equal, and more work is needed to explore the root causes of equity gaps and find solutions that help underrepresented students reap the benefits of dual enrollment participation. references adcock, p. k., gomez johnson, k. m., & pearson, f. 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(2018, may). rethinking dual enrollment to reach more students. education commission of the states. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed582909.pdf https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/whos-participating-dual-enrollment/ https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/whos-participating-dual-enrollment/ https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-enrollment-contributes-to https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-enrollment-contributes-to https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.354 https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20009 http://www.jobs4thefuture.medium.com/ http://www.ecs.org/ https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/increasing-the-supply-of-qualified-high-school-teachers-for-dual-enrollment-programs.pdf https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/increasing-the-supply-of-qualified-high-school-teachers-for-dual-enrollment-programs.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/broadening-the-benefits-of-dual-enrollment.html https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/broadening-the-benefits-of-dual-enrollment.html https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.10 https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20137 https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2020/october/dual-enrollment-programs-arent-helping-most-poor-and-minority-students/ https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2020/october/dual-enrollment-programs-arent-helping-most-poor-and-minority-students/ https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/coi https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2013.739513 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0091552113509664 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0091552113509664 https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20130 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/27/institutions-grapple-accreditors-changes-dual-credit-instruction https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/27/institutions-grapple-accreditors-changes-dual-credit-instruction https://doi.org.10.1177/0091552115594880 https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/06/dual-enrollment-for-high-schoolers-can-expand-access.html https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/06/dual-enrollment-for-high-schoolers-can-expand-access.html https://www.tradeschool.com/blog/high-school-counselorshttps://www.tradeschool.com/blog/high-school-counselorshttps://diverseeducation.com/article/172340/ https://www.ecs.org/prioritizing-equity-in-dual-enrollment https://www.ecs.org/prioritizing-equity-in-dual-enrollment https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/dual-enrollment-florida-race-ethnicity-course-modality.html https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/dual-enrollment-florida-race-ethnicity-course-modality.html kimberlee m. hooper new jersey city university christine harrington new jersey city university (1) method library databases practitioner perspectives public scholarship results and discussion access barriers racially biased eligibility parameters implicit bias in recruitment and identification of participants lack of qualified k-12 faculty lack of advising and support lack of understanding of opportunities and benefits financial barriers conclusions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 21 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 building community in online professional practice doctoral programs cece lynn lively baylor university cece_lively@baylor.edu brooke blevins baylor university brooke_blevins@baylor.edu sandra talbert baylor university sandra_talbert@baylor.edu sandi cooper baylor university sandra_cooper@baylor.edu abstract despite high attrition rates and abundant criticisms, online graduate programs continue to grow. this paper describes the efforts of one online doctoral program that focused on developing programmatic support structures to increase community. utilizing a qualitative, case study research design, including surveys and semi structured interviews, this study examined two research questions: a) in what ways did students experience a sense of community? b) what elements of an online professional doctoral program did students find most influential in developing a learning community? findings indicate that students experience community through peer collaboration, program support, and shared learning and networking. a sense of community was developed through the cohort model, strong student support services, synchronous live sessions, and relationships formed with faculty. as a result, a community of practice was formed among program participants. findings from this study have the potential to aid other online graduate programs as they design and implement structures to foster student success and retention. keywords community, online education, edd, cohort, student support introduction according to a recent report citing enrollment in graduate programs, online graduate programs dominated the virtual program landscape in 2019 (schaffhauser, 2020). due to rising numbers of programs offering online degree options, it is imperative for practitioners and scholars to examine the needs of students in virtual classroom environments that foster success at all levels as they matriculate and grow as scholars. historically, online education has been criticized for its lack of human connection in coursework in the broader field of education. traditionally, online programs have been viewed as void of meaningful interaction with asynchronous message boards and impersonal, irregular feedback. in addition, studies have identified shortcomings among online programs such as a lack of connection as well as feelings of isolation (bettinger & loeb, 2017). researchers have found that students in distance learning programs may be more likely to experience isolation and alienation from the institution because of their physical separation from the school and its services and from other students (rovai & wighting, 2005, p. 97). despite these concerns, online graduate programs continue to grow (schaffhauser, 2020). as such, it is critical to recognize the importance of building a community among these virtual learners and then act on ways to incorporate strategies to help develop a tight-knit community, regardless of the students physical proximity to each other or the brick and mortar campus. in this article, we investigate the outcomes of one online doctoral program that focused specifically on building high quality learning communities to transcend criticisms related to poor human connection and disjointed approaches to online education. using innovative learning environments and community building practices alongside engaging http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?xeuuny https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?urwejo https://orcid.org/ https://orcid.org/ https://orcid.org/ https://orcid.org/ lively, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 22 instructional models and student support services, our program worked to create meaningful connections with and among students. framing the issue several studies have identified empirical evidence of educational shortcomings among online programs, including lack of faculty student connection, isolation and alienation (rovai & wighting, 2005), low academic performance (bettinger & loeb, 2017), and lower retention rates (rovai, 2003). many of these shortcomings may contribute to the disheartening 50-70% attrition rates within edd programs (ivankova & stick, 2007; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2014). to overcome these shortcomings and reduce attrition, attention must be given to building community and increasing connections among online doctoral students. regular and genuine student-to-faculty and student-to-student interaction produces quality online education, which leads to increased student outcomes (endo et al., 1982). when students feel connected to a community, stronger classroom interactions and discussions often occur. that feeling of connectedness helps retain learners and create community investment. the connections that can occur in a community of practice are incredibly important when considering the implementation of online courses. in a 2008 survey of 3800 students taking online courses through state university of new york’s online network, swan et al. (2000) discovered that the more interaction students had with their instructor and fellow peers, the more they thought they learned and the more satisfied they were with their courses. social presence in live face-to-face online courses is an exceptionally effective way to create a learning community. rourke et al. (1999) defined social presence as ‘the ability of learners to project themselves socially and effectively into a community of inquiry’ (p. 50). creating a connection to the rich asynchronous coursework, providing a face-to-face live online class session for discussion, and offering an opportunity for students to serve as a community of learners can work together to create an ideal learning environment for professional practice doctoral students to learn online. the theory of doctoral student persistence suggests the primary communities for students relative to their graduate education are their peers and the faculty in their programs (tinto, 2010). the cohort model is one potential way to enhance the learning community (browne-ferrigno & maughan, 2016), bringing students together with their peers. because students in a cohort are on a set course sequence together, they are able to encourage, uplift and interact with one another offering psychological support, stronger affiliation with other members, and an overall reduction in loneliness (hill, 1995). with a common purpose and a common goal, students involved in these cohort models are often in a better position to form communities of practice that lead to greater student persistence and success (norris & barnett, 1994; bagaka’s et al., 2002). the role of the doctoral mentor or doctoral advisor weighs heavily in the doctoral student success and persistence. research suggests that hands-on mentorship in the form of a faculty advisor is required to support doctoral students (lovitts, 2001). the research literature draws attention to the need to develop communities of practice in order to foster meaningful online education. communities of practice are formed by people who share a common concern for what they do, and generally make each other better as they learn together (lave & wenger, 2002; wenger, 1998). investing in a community of practice can aid in students’ overall academic progress. as such, our online edd program adopted a community of practice model that consists of students, faculty, and staff who interact on a regular basis through coursework, student support services, immersion activities, and faculty-student advising models. description of the program based on the research literature, we intentionally designed our online program to have high quality interaction with and among our students. researchers have suggested several potential support structures for edd students including, peer mentoring (lowery et al., 2018), cohort models and community building (bista & cox, 2014), library support (tuñón & ramirez, 2010), and focusing on practice based and authentic research (kerrigan & hayes, 2016; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2014). the recruitment and retention of students through innovative and rigorous academic and professional development preparation is buoyed by our program vision and faculty mission to engage all learners in a community of reciprocal mentoring and accountability. although we have high expectations for all of our students, we work to provide support for them throughout their journey towards degree attainment both academic support and social/emotional support to help them feel they are a part of our greater university community. our edd online program is designed as a three-year program, with a specific course sequence organized in 14-week trimesters. students enter as a cohort and take two courses per trimester. they are required to complete a problem of practice (pop) dissertation, but this work is organized into a series of four pop courses taken over the three year program. edd students are assigned a primary faculty advisor who serves as the instructor for their pop courses and guides the entire development of the pop. below we describe several key programmatic elements designed to help reduce transactional distance (moore, 1993), cultivate community (tinto, 2003), build relationships (gisemba bagaka, et al., 2015), and create a sense of belonging (curtin et al., 2013). cohort model our program utilizes a cohort model in which students progress through their educational experience together. with a cohort size of about 45-65 students, each cohort follows a specific sequence of classes each trimester and engages in the problem of practice dissertation process at the same time. research results have long supported the cohort model as an effective practice to increase collaboration, encourage shared learning, cultivate teamwork and innovation, build support networks, and sustain students towards completion of their doctorate degree (lange, pillay, & chikoko, 2011). immersion experiences immersion experiences are designed to bring students physically together on campus at two specific times during their entire edd program. during the first immersion experience, students participate in a two-day workshop where they begin to work on elements of their problem of practice (pop) with the assistance of edd faculty and staff. during the second immersion experience, https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?vxvo5q https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?xtxfwv https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?wzff69 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?s3iush building community in online programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 23 students return to campus to engage in peer working group sessions and present their pop dissertation in a poster format. immersion experiences not only give students the opportunity to meet their classmates in person but also offers hands-on learning that will empower graduates to enter the field with confidence. the series of immersion experiences cultivates community, is invaluable to the edd online program, and imperative to formulating the pop dissertation. student support student support is generally a model reserved for undergraduate students. however, we recognized the importance of having systems in place to support students across the program. upon admission, each student is paired with a dedicated student success advisor (ssa). the student success advisors (ssas) work closely with students on many issues, including technology, systems support, program information, as well as general goal achievement coaching. the ssa conducts regular phone call check-ins, assists with degree plans, and serves as a sounding board for all things edd and course-related. in addition, the program supports its own writing center for student use. the edd writing center provides writing support to the online edd students through all stages of the writing process. regular writing workshops and individualized writing consultations are conducted via zoom on an appointment basis. the edd writing center specializes in writing development strategies, meaning that rather than proofreading documents, the focus is on identifying key writing techniques and practices that can help students grow as writers beyond the individual documents that are reviewed. live sessions in addition to the 90-minute weekly asynchronous sessions, students also attend a 90-minute synchronous, or live, session of class each week of the trimester. during this time, the professors actively engage students in extension of material covered in asynchronous work, introduce new and supporting information on the topic, and provide students opportunities to apply what they have learned. the live sessions generally consist of whole group discussions and breakout rooms where students are asked to complete various activities with small groups of their classmates. additionally, during live sessions, students often engage in group as well as individual presentations. although the goal of live sessions is to elaborate and extend the material, an important component is the community that is fostered through the sharing of ideas, views, and experiences. students learn about their classmates’ professional roles as well as their personal experiences. not only do the students build a network of colleagues, but they also build a network of friends (mcmillan et. al, 1986). faculty advisors faculty advisors serve their assigned group of cohort students as instructor, mentor, guide, and overall supporter. the role of the faculty advisor is essential in building community among the students. during their first problem of practice dissertation course (trimester 5), students often struggle and are overwhelmed with the daunting task of completing chapters 1 and 2 in one trimester. however, we have found that having one key contact person the faculty advisor gives students a sense of security and encouragement that someone is going to be there with them every step of the way. faculty advisors develop relationships with their students; they become intimately acquainted with the students’ research topics; they know the students’ strengths and weaknesses, and, generally, they get to know the students on a personal level. students often reach out to their faculty advisors, even during the trimesters in between the assigned problem of practice courses. students regularly note the support, encouragement, and guidance that they receive from their faculty advisor as one of the highlights of the program. peer working groups while in their faculty advisor groups, students are assigned to smaller groups of 3-4 students called peer working groups. peer working groups are generally assigned based on shared topics of interest and/or topics of their problem of practice studies. peer working groups meet weekly to collaborate, provide feedback on each other’s thinking and writing, answer questions and share resources, and generally encourage one another during the problem of practice dissertation phase. through peer working groups students engage in both self-reflection and peer dialogue. taken together these program components have been instrumental in supporting students throughout the program. notably, based on program data, the current attrition rate for our program is only 17%, with most of those students exiting within the first three trimesters. information gathered in exit interviews revealed the reasons behind student withdrawals at this stage are attributed to personal needs, family needs, or financial concerns. methodology to examine if and how the online edd program cultivated community as a result of our purposeful efforts, this study centered around the following research questions: 1. in what ways did students experience a sense of community? 2. what elements of an online professional doctoral program did students find most influential in developing a learning community? to answer these questions, this study utilized a qualitative research design (merriam, 2008; stake, 2006). data were collected from students in our first four doctoral cohorts. three primary data sources were used to inform our study including student surveys (n=248) and semi-structured and open-ended interviews (n=89) (creswell, 2002; merriam, 2008; stake, 2006). the survey was administered electronically at the end of each trimester and included open-ended questions asking students to describe their experience in the program including interactions with faculty, students, and student support services. interview protocols consisted of brief, semistructured interviews with 89 students representing each of the four cohorts. interviews were manually transcribed and coded for emerging themes. interview themes were then compared with themes that emerged through student surveys. thematic analysis was utilized to analyze student feedback data, noting similarities, differences, categories, concepts, and ideas to ensure that participant voices and ideas led to the emerging patterns and themes (strauss & corbin, 1990). throughout the process, we referenced the other data sources as a means of triangulation. this led to the results discussed below. lively, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 24 results data analysis revealed several important themes related to the research questions. in the following section, we describe the results from our data analysis in relation to the two research questions. rq #1: in what ways did students experience a sense of community? for the first research question, data analysis revealed that students experience community through peer collaboration, program support, and shared learning and networking. below we describe each of these experiences in more detail. peer collaboration in describing peer collaboration, students cited the collaborative nature of the classes. for instance, one student remarked: the cohort model gives students a true opportunity to collaborate and build community with intelligent and driven professionals in their field. this collaboration is leading to life-long friendships. since my peers come from a variety of backgrounds and professions, what i love most is that i am learning so much from my peers in professional fields other than mine!” (written response, end of term survey respondent #15). another student shared about the diversity of ideas experienced in live class sessions with their classmates by saying, “..it has been an awesome experience connecting and collaborating with so many people from different backgrounds” (interview response, interview participant #24). students often remarked about the connections made with colleagues in other professions all over the world. they identified the ability to create new and meaningful relationships as key to the sense of community and success they experience. one student remarked, “since my journey began, i have felt more connected with my colleagues and professors, through collaboration and enriching discussions, than i ever thought possible from a distance learning environment” (interview response, interview participant #12). another student shared that, “the strength of the program resides not only in the material that is presented, but the truly collaborative cohort of professionals that explore, encourage, critique, and support one another” (interview response, interview participant #50). in addition to peer collaboration as a means of experiencing community, the students noted that program support was also essential in their success and sense of belonging. program support students consistently remarked about the high level of support they experienced in the program. when describing programmatic support structures, one student shared, “the support the edd program provides through the student success team, writing center advisors, and accessible faculty members has been the most welcome surprise during my first trimester” (interview response, interview participant #46). in addition to program structures, student connections with their colleagues led to an overwhelming sense of genuine care and community within the program with another student remarking: perhaps the best part of it [the program] is the learning community that has developed. my classmates and i communicate constantly and have developed a nice support structure for each other; this also widens my professional network, which i think is an under-appreciated feature of the program. (written response, end of term survey respondent #114) in addition, a caring and supportive faculty with positive interactions ranked high for students. for instance, one student wrote: i love that my instructors and classmates became invested in me as a person. i'm not just a name on a roster. two weeks into the trimester, i was in a pretty serious car accident. my car was totaled, and i was out of work. i told my instructors and classmates, and they were extremely accommodating. my classmates emailed to check on me when they found out. i think this made us less like classmates and more like family. i guess that means i mostly like the camaraderie of the program. (written response, end of term survey respondent #11) genuine care and community within the program from the faculty and staff is a sentiment felt at the student level with remarks such as, “i have never felt so much support from the faculty and staff since i started my journey. their support has been something i have truly cherished” (interview response, interview participant #54). shared learning and networking through their interactions with peers from diverse personal and professional backgrounds, students had the opportunity to engage in shared learning and networking, which fostered the development of community. one student remarked, “i'm a better friend, employee, and advocate every day that i spend in this program. the work we are doing elevates my capabilities and character in a way that no education in my life has done before” (interview response, interview participant #65). students seemed to place great value in these shared experiences with comments like: the edd online platform offers professionals the opportunity to continue their educational journey in a collegial environment. my cohort is amazing, and i appreciate the shared wealth of knowledge from each person and thankful i am taking this journey with them! (interview response, interview participant #8) in the live sessions, students are also able to learn from one another in class discussions and breakout rooms. one student reflection noted: the edd program is a perfect fit the courses challenge me as a student and support me as a professional. while i look forward to the live lectures each week, my favorite part of class is the breakout room, where i get a chance to learn directly from my peers. (interview response, interview participant #16) another shared, “my favorite aspect has been the classroom discussions we have had throughout the trimester. it has been an amazing experience to hear the different perspectives that each student provides in the classroom” (interview response, interview participant #14). recognizing that these learning experiences allow for a closeness with fellow classmates that would be difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom, one student shared: building community in online programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 25 the program provides me the unique experience of taking classes and coursework with individuals across the country that approach their work uniquely. these experiences would have been difficult to attain in one centralized classroom. my peers, professors, and advisors transform my approach to everyday issues with deep and riveting discourses and their experiences shape my approach to every individual. (interview response, interview participant #26) the relationships developed by networking through these shared learning experiences played an integral role in developing community among students. rq #2: what elements of an online professional doctoral program did students find most influential in developing a learning community? for the second research question, data analysis revealed four primary programmatic elements that helped develop a sense of community, including the cohort model, strong student support services, synchronous live sessions with collaborative learning, and rich advisor/student relationships formed through working on the problem of practice dissertation. below we provide examples of student data that highlight programmatic elements that helped to foster a rich learning community. cohort model the previously described cohort model resulted in increased feelings of community among the students. students developed both professional as well as personal relationships with the other students in the cohort. interview and survey responses showed that students developed these relationships through shared experiences, common goals, and a united sense of purpose. over 50% of the students interviewed made some mention of the impact of the cohort model on their experience in the program. when describing the cohort model, students shared feelings of respect, admiration, and powerful learning experiences. for instance, one student remarked: “i have such respect for my cohort and the diversity of demographics and experiences that are brought to our learning” (written response, end of term survey respondent #20). another noted, “i am really enjoying getting to know my cohort classmates, especially those who do not have the same professional background that i have. this diversity makes our conversations rich” (written response, end of term survey respondent #111). these quotes showcase the important role that the cohort model played in cultivating relationships across differences, including cultural and professional diversity. remarking on the impact of these relationships, one student commented, “i love working with my cohort in small group discussions and finding out about the diversity of experiences in the education field. it makes the material more meaningful and applicable to the professional world” (interview response, interview participant #87). the cultivation of relationships through the cohort model helped students to develop relationships that were meaningful both personally and professionally. one student wrote, “i have gained friends in this degree program. i am actually going this weekend to meet another cohort member in person for the first time!” (written response, end of term survey respondent #70). students often remarked about how the cohort model allowed them to learn from and alongside others, including one who said, “the most meaningful and impactful experience has been getting the opportunity to learn with and from the others associated with the program.” (interview response, interview participant #19). the cohort model was a powerful programmatic element that cultivated a sense of community among students. student support services participants overwhelmingly identified student support services as an important programmatic support structure that helped to cultivate community. students have access to student success advisors, a designated edd writing center, assigned faculty advisors, and open access to the director and assistant director of the edd program. one student noted, “the program has provided a lot of support for students, more than i have received at any other university. i appreciate the guidance and help especially returning to school after a long hiatus.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #163). another remarked, “i love all the resources that are available to us. the program goes the extra mile with providing so many areas to help us succeed. for example, writing center, tutors, office hours with professors, etc.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #57). when describing the student services available to them, students shared feelings of support and encouragement and described the experience as valuable. comments included, “so far it has been rigorous, but i have access to the supports i need to be successful,” (written response, end of term survey respondent #149) and “i feel supported: my success is university’s [pseudonym] success.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #37), “the support university is giving is superior!” (written response, end of term survey respondent #170), and “i feel supported to be successful!” written response, end of term survey respondent #93). many students pointed out the important role of their student success coach. one student commented, “i love everything about the success team! having a success coach is a wonderful concept and tremendous help as i navigate through such unfamiliar territory.” (written response, interview respondent #79). another remarked, “i like the calls from student success as they helped me navigate potential hot spots without feeling like i had to find someone to contact. (written response, end of term survey respondent #158). one other said, “the positive and motivational demeanor of our student success coach was influential in my completion of the trimester.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #17). participants also highlighted the support they found in the edd writing center, “i think the program is very engaging and is providing me with the skills and tools necessary to achieve my educational and professional goals. the edd writing center was also extremely helpful! the input and help from the writing center staff helped me complete my coursework with excellence.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #171). these data showcase the role that student support services played in students’ sense of connection within a learning community. synchronous live sessions the live class sessions were another programmatic element that many participants referred to as important in developing a shared learning community. when describing their experience with live class sessions, students expressed feelings of connectedness, interaction, and deep personal and intellectual growth. in regard to feeling connected through the live session, student comments included, “i particularly like the live sessions because it feels like an actual classroom and i'm making connections with other people lively, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 26 (networking!),” (written response, end of term survey respondent #150); “i appreciate the live sessions which enables you to feel like you're in a brick and mortar situation and it also allows you to connect to fellow classmates.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #266), and “the live sessions have been awesome and i feel like i’m really attending class on site. i am honored to be a part of the university family! i feel welcomed and like a member of the community.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #93). participants also noted how the live sessions promoted intellectual growth and academic rigor. one student remarked, “i love the live class sessions and interacting with my talented classmates.... i have learned not only from the program curriculum but from my classmates as well; what an added bonus! (written response, end of term survey respondent #110). another student noted, “i love the live class meetings over zoom and getting to see the faces of my classmates. i love the break-out sessions and the group work. i love that i am being made to think harder than i have in a long time so i can grow as a person.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #6). several additional comments highlighted how the live sessions were a distinguishing feature of the program and differed from other online learning programs students had experienced. i enjoy interacting with faculty and the other members of our cohort during the synchronous sessions. whether we are spending time in breakout rooms with a few people or with the larger group, the time goes by quickly. i previously attended another program that was 100% asynchronous work was mundane. (interview response, interview respondent #75) i’ve been really amazed at just how well the faculty make use of the face-to-face sessions. they’re very interactive and capitalize on bringing in the diverse set of perspectives in the class. this is the first time i’ve experienced an online degree program that really felt like it was optimized for remote learners. (interview response, respondent #39) data analysis revealed that the live synchronous sessions were instrumental in developing a learning community among students. program faculty over 80% of student responses noted the importance of program faculty in their sense of purpose and community. the relationships developed between the faculty and the students were key to developing a learning community among our students. when describing the relationship between the student and the faculty member, students expressed a sense of confidence, dedication, and an overall feeling of support from the faculty member. one student noted: the edd program has holistically inspired my curiosity, challenged my intellectual and analytical capacities, and authentically cultivated my academic potential. the professors are eager to foster your development, and classrooms are filled with fervent individuals from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. thus, this scholarly research community is vibrant, pragmatic, and purposeful as well as accepting of perspectives outside the education sector. (interview response, interview participant #58) students overwhelmingly remarked about faculty members’ knowledge, expertise, and passion. student comments included, “the university has professors that are knowledgeable and tenured enough within their area of expertise to use that as a benefit.” (interview response, interview participant #24), “ there is so much passion from the faculty. i appreciate the interest and the support and motivation from most of the faculty. i appreciate that they are letting us voice our opinions on things,” (written response, end of term survey respondent #77), and “i appreciate the passionate, astute, and supportive instructors!” (written response, end of term survey respondent #80) data analysis also highlighted the role faculty played in encouraging and supporting students. one student wrote, “the professors i have are incredible and contribute to my confidence in the quality of the program. the program has been well-planned and organized.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #28). another noted, “the overall program is so supportive with the student success team as well as amazing professors who are so flexible and understanding of how life happens.” (interview response, respondent #13). other students commented, “the personalized attention you receive as a baylor bear is next level! i have been impressed with how committed the faculty is to student success. this has been a constant theme from day 1” (interview response, respondent #79), “the faculty are amazing and very helpful. they truly want us to learn and understand. they are also approachable which is the best thing about the program!” (written response, end of term survey respondent #49), and “the faculty/staff has been very attentive and supportive of me (often unprompted) throughout the trimester.” (written response, end of term survey respondent #34). program faculty’s expertise and supportive dispositions played a key role in cultivating a shared learning community among students. discussion our results highlight the ways in which students experience involvement in a learning community and how this learning community enhances student learning and persistence (cross, 1998; tinto, 2003). in answering our two research questions, we discovered the ways in which students experience community, through peer collaboration, program support, and shared learning and networking, intersected with the program supports that they identified as most helpful including the cohort model (lange, pillay, & chikoko, 2011) strong student support services (reynolds & hebert 1998), synchronous live sessions with collaborative learning (gardner, 2008; tu & corry, 2003), and strong faculty student relationships (gisemba bagaka, et al., 2015). this type of support has been found to relate positively to the level of motivation to persist (wentzel, 1999; eggens et al., 2008). the collaboration that results in a sense of community in the edd program is not happenstance; instead, it was intentionally planned and cultivated in a variety of ways by program faculty and staff. recognizing low persistence rates among doctoral programs nationwide (golde, 2005; terrell, 2005; terrell et al., 2012), the support systems offered to our students are purposefully designed to increase student persistence. we knew early on that students in this accelerated program would include full-time working professionals, many with families and demanding community responsibilities. in developing the support structures over time, faculty and program leadership noticed an increased opportunity to support and encourage our students. through the process of helping our building community in online programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 27 students feel supported, a sense of community has emerged. consequently, the program has helped to cultivate a community of practice defined by three essential elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in their domain” (wenger, et al., 2002, p. 27, emphasis in the original). as browne-ferrigno and maughan (2016) noted, “engaging actively in a cop can expand participants’ opportunities for professional growth and career advancement through sharing of expert knowledge and development of collegial relationships.” (p. 49) the students have developed these collegial relationships and created networks of professionals as evidenced through their comments in interviews and survey responses. these connections are a cornerstone of the students’ rich experiences. recognizing the lack of connection in asynchronous only online programs (rovai & wighting, 2005), a critical choice was made to include face-to-face synchronous class times in addition to asynchronous course content. while that decision meant dedicating a time and day each week for class sessions, the synchronous experience has proven crucial in the development of a community of practice. in that shared learning time, students engage in deep and meaningful interactions with their peers and professors that has helped to build a stronger tie to the program and to the overall community of learners. most of our faculty had not previously taught online and were rather concerned about how they would transfer their learner centered instructional practices, such as discussion, student presentations, and collaboration, into an online format. thus, when planning the asynchronous as well as the synchronous material, the faculty worked together to purposefully incorporate opportunities for students to work together in a multitude of ways such as whole class and small group discussions, student led presentations, collaborative projects, and peer-working groups. the development of high quality asynchronous and synchronous material allowed students to develop a domain of knowledge that cultivated a common understanding and shared sense of identity as a cohort. this domain of knowledge “inspires members to contribute and participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions.” (wenger et al., 2002, p. 28) developing a dynamic interface, involving thoughtful and highquality instruction, and working toward discussion-based learning are keys to achieving this successful synchronous learning experience (swan et al., 2000). the second element of a community of practice was cultivated in large part during the time students spent in synchronous class sessions where they interacted as a whole group as well as in smaller breakout groups. as wenger et al. (2002) noted, “the community creates the social fabric of learning. a strong community fosters interactions based on mutual respect and trust. it encourages the willingness to share ideas, expose one’s ignorance, ask difficult questions, and listen carefully.” (p. 29) students consistently noted that many of their relationships were built and strengthened through the time in the live sessions. during live sessions, including small group breakout rooms, students had the opportunity to share ideas, explore various perspectives, ask questions, and learn from others. rather than simply completing online work individually, live sessions created the space for students to develop relationships of respect and trust with their colleagues and faculty. the cohort model also allowed students to develop relationships with their classmates which resulted in support, encouragement, camaraderie, and diversity of thoughts and ideas. student comments highlighted the ways in which the cohort model helped to create a community of learners. students developed both personal and professional relationships with cohort colleagues as they took classes together and worked on the problem of practice dissertation in tandem throughout the program. as the closed-cohort progressed at the same pace through the curriculum, they had ongoing opportunities to interact with one another, share experiences, and work toward a common purpose which contributed to the development of a community of learners and practice (maher, 2005; wenger et al., 2002). additionally, the immersion activities provided multiple opportunities for students to interact with members of their cohort in multiple settings. participant comments illustrate how powerful collaboration and ongoing peer support was in creating deeper interpersonal ties and shared experiences (maher, 2005). through the cohort model, students received the benefits of a built-in support system of peers, social support, a personal network, and powerful peer learning. wenger et al. (2002) noted that “community is an important element because learning is a matter of belonging as well an intellectual process, involving the heart as well as the head” (p. 29). the multitude of community-building opportunities through the cohort model add a richness to the students’ experiences, cultivate peer mentorship, and allow students to make connections that will last beyond the completion of their degrees. another key theme that emerged from student data was the importance of the support services provided by the program. student support services that work to foster growth and development in the whole student experience, not just academic in nature, are another key element in fostering a learning community. by understanding more about our unique online student population and the ways in which they create and identify communities, it is important to “identify the sources of support for connection in online doctoral programs, researchers and practitioners can design programs that support distance learners’ satisfaction, persistence, and retention” (berry, 2017, p. 35). many of our students work full-time, are actively engaged in their families and communities at home and began careers after receiving their bachelor’s degrees years prior. with this level of involvement at home and at work, our doctoral students have different levels of support needs than traditional students (cockrell & shelley, 2011). by providing services like student success coaches, writing center support, and career services, our students indicated that they received the help they need to navigate the new landscape of the doctoral journey. bagaka et al. (2015) found that the quality of program support is a significant predictor of student success. perhaps one of the most surprising findings from this study, was the number of participant responses that highlighted the role of the faculty in promoting community. while many student comments emphasized peer collaboration, shared learning, the cohort model, and student support services, the most frequently occurring comment centered on faculty. students indicated that the relationships they developed with their faculty advisor and other faculty engaged in the program who spent time emphasizing the development of scholars were key in their success and commitment to the program (bagaka’s et. al, 2015). bagaka’s et al. (2015) also highlighted the important role that faculty-student relationships play in the ongoing success of doctoral students. they found two items that were important to faculty student relationships including the accessibility of the faculty advisor and the willingness of faculty to spend time with the student. while their work specifically focuses on the role of formal faculty mentors or advisors, we believe that this kind of support from all faculty was important to our students’ sense lively, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.187 28 of support and community. certainly, this relationship was strengthened through the interactions students had with faculty in live sessions and immersion experiences as well. in addition, students are assigned a dedicated faculty advisor to help guide them through their problem of practice dissertation beginning in the fourth trimester of the program. faculty advisors teach the students in four distinct problem of practice courses and guide students through their ongoing dissertation process. in our case, the faculty, students, and program, all benefit from intentional interactions between our faculty and students. formal and informal faculty mentorship is important in helping students develop confidence and competence in their role as a doctoral student (hayes, 2005). we believe the development of a community of learners and practice helps students in our program to persist at a higher rate and experience greater academic success than other online programs. research suggests that over 40% of those who begin a residential doctoral program do not complete their degree, and the attrition rate for online doctoral programs is even higher at 60-70% (golde, 2005; terrell, 2005; terrell et al., 2012). as noted earlier, our current attrition rate of 17% has been minimized through our efforts to develop community. these outcomes are particularly important in ensuring successful program matriculation for our very diverse student population. conclusion and future directions the findings from this study suggest the edd online program design has produced a myriad of positive outcomes in terms of community. our program is committed to community building as a central value proposition. we have high expectations for all of our students and provide support for them throughout their journey towards degree attainment both academic support and social/emotional support. through purposeful programmatic structures focused around building community, students feel they are a part of our university community even though many reside thousands of miles from campus. as a result, students invest in their courses, their cohort, and their problem of practice dissertation early in the program. the cohort model and purposeful programmatic community building elements contribute to students’ sense of belonging and purpose in the program. our program is focused not only on high academic standards and rigor, but also the lives of our students and how they work together within our program to build a community of scholars with real hopes and dreams in their quest to influence their workplaces through new knowledge and skills. as wenger et al. (2002) noted: the most successful communities of practice thrive where the goals and needs of the organization intersect with the passions and aspirations of the participants. if the domain of a community fails to inspire it’s members, the community will flounder...the intersection of personal meaning and strategic relevance is a potent source of energy and value. (p. 32) the development and implementation of our program has not been without its own challenges. our efforts to develop community and increase student persistence have evolved over the past three years. we have tried things that have worked and others that have not worked as well, so we continue to adjust. finding the right balance for our students is the most challenging aspect of implementing new initiatives, primarily because our student population includes so many full-time working professionals who just do not have the time or energy to include many extra activities into their schedule. for instance, we have tried to offer webinars on a variety of topics outside students' class time as well as virtual immersion experiences (due to covid-19) and these have not been terribly well received. in addition, we have found that as our program continues to grow in size, our ability to provide high quality program support has become more challenging. as an example, our writing center is always at full capacity and students must sign up far in advance in order to secure an appointment. this is a point of frustration for some of our students. in response, our writing center has created a number of web-based modules and resource guides to assist students while they wait on individual meetings with writing consultants. we have also invested in resources for students such as turn-it-in and grammarly. additionally, as the program grows, we continue to consider how we can cultivate high quality student-faculty relationships with both faculty advisors and program faculty in general including maintaining smaller class sizes (<20) and faculty advisor loads (<15). however, we are committed to continuous improvement which involves listening to our students, faculty, and staff and working together to design meaningful and effective experiences for all involved (aggarwal et al., 2006, dittmar & mccraken, 2012). as program faculty and staff, we meet regularly to discuss and debrief what is working well and what is not. to assess program quality and student experiences, we collect multiple forms of data each trimester including course evaluations, faculty questionnaires, program-wide surveys, and interviews. we utilize this feedback and data as a driving force in our decision making about program improvement and modifications. as the number of online doctoral programs continues to grow, it is imperative to consider how to design programs that promote sustainable and equitable outcomes for students. we argue that programs should carefully consider how they might implement programmatic structures to cultivate community and communities of practice. in this article, we have described several strategic practices we employ to build community in our online edd program. it is our intent through describing these community building practices and associated student outcomes, that our experiences might serve as a useful guide to those working in other online doctoral programs. ultimately, we take substantial strides to ensure our students are not only positioned for success in our program, but also feel appreciated, valued, and heard through the myriad of community building strategies that we utilize. based on the evidence provided through this study, we are making great progress to foster community in an online doctoral program. references aggarwal, a. k., adlakha, v., & mersha, t. 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peer collaboration program support shared learning and networking rq #2: what elements of an online professional doctoral program did students find most influential in developing a learning community? cohort model student support services synchronous live sessions program faculty discussion conclusion and future directions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 54 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.242 critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education book review blair stamper university of north carolina at charlotte bstampe1@uncc.edu rachelle winkle-wagner, jamila lee-johnson, and ashley n. gaskew: critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education. routledge, 2018. 250pp. paperback: $49.95, ebook: $42.29. isbn: 978-1138067035 introduction as a new practitioner scholar, i am intrigued by the endless opportunities for qualitative data collection, analysis, and interpretation. in addition to conducting qualitative interviews, researchers can also analyze field notes, documents, television scripts, video footage, photographs, speeches, social media content, and observations (dennis, 2018; lee-johnson & henderson, 2018; mobley, 2018; reavis, 2018; winkle-wagner, thandi sulé, et al., 2018). this data can then be analyzed using a multitude of methods, including through a critical theoretical lens (winkle-wagner, et al., 2018). critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education showcases opportunities for data analysis and interpretation using different sub-theories of critical theory with the goal of disrupting “historical and contemporary inequality” (winkle-wagner, et al., 2018, p. i). the goal of this review is to take a fresh practitioner scholar’s perspective to discuss the techniques of using critical theory to drive the analysis of qualitative data while conducting research as presented in critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education, edited by rachelle winkle-wagner, jamila lee-johnson, and ashley n. gaskew. background summary in critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education, winkle-wagner, et al. (2018) introduced readers to multiple perspectives from researchers who have used critical theories in data analysis and interpretation. each chapter is written to provide guidance to the reader through specific examples and author experiences while utilizing critical theories in data analysis across a multitude of data collection methods. the goal of the book is to provide researchers with a fresh opportunity to present their research findings to disrupt historical systems and disband inequalities. audience critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education is written for the qualitative researcher and/or graduate students who are interested in learning to apply critical theory to data analysis and interpretation. furthermore, researchers interested in working with and observing underrepresented groups may also be interested in this book (winkle-wagner, lee-johnson, et al., 2018, p. xiii). editors editors winkle-wagner, lee-johnson, & gaskew, are affiliated with the university of wisconsin-madison, usa. winkle-wagner is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy analysis, while both lee-johnson and gaskew are doctoral students at the time of publication. winkle-wagner’s research focus includes access, student success, and methodologies for researching and analyzing data related to students of color (winkle-wagner, n.d.). lee-johnson’s research passions lie in the promotion of female black and latinx student success (lee-johnson, n.d.). finally, gaskew has focused her research on critical theories within higher education (gaskew, n.d.). critical theory critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education introduces new qualitative data analysis techniques through the critical theory lens. critical theory is the overarching category of theories that critique social structures and examine inequalities. furthermore, critical theory looks deeply at the root causes of inequities and injustices for marginalized populations, while critical theory analysis provides a voice to the oppressed populations (winkle-wagner, lee-johnson, et al., 2018). karl marx, pierre bourdieu, and michel foucault are credited as being early critical theorists. however, as winkle-wagner, et al., (2018) pointed out in chapter 10, marx, bourdieu, and foucault did not use racial perspectives and experiences to help drive their research and data analysis. instead, the authors relied upon the critical theory work conducted by audre lorde, c.l.r. james, and w.e.b. du bois. regardless of the critical sub-theory or the associated scholar used, winkle-wagner, et al. (2018) showcased the opportunities for new perspectives and experiences that can emerge by using critical theory as the underpinning for qualitative data analysis. using critical theory for qualitative data analysis as winkle-wagner, lee-johnson, and gaskew (2018) summarized, critical theory in data analysis means creating new http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2461-0458 critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.242 55 methods that do not conform to the “norm” and actually become more humanizing for both the participants and the researchers (winkle-wagner, et al., 2018). in using critical theories, researchers reflect upon their own positions and use their work to “empower and/or benefit participants and communities” (p. 8). this mindset opens the opportunity to see data in a new light. the approaches conducted by the authors followed the normal qualitative data coding analysis that includes multiple cycles: low-level codes, high-level codes, theme development, and drawing conclusions. however, critical theory data analysis differs during the steps of high-level coding and theme development in codebooks. for example, in chapter 8, the author utilized critical geography for analyzing interviews to create a technique that could be applied to future studies. during the study, qualitative analysis techniques were used beginning with low-level coding, followed by transforming those codes into high-level codes with higher levels of inference. rather than taking the next step of grouping codes into themes, the author utilized the tenets of critical geography to create themes. high-level codes were categorized into imagination, manifestation, and contradiction as well as space and place. once this was completed, the author could then create codebooks according to the themes and begin drawing conclusions. using this technique, the author found that using space and place as themes helped offer “nuanced insights that other data analysis techniques may miss” (blackburn cohen, 2018, p. 135). in chapter 11, another example included the analysis of a presidential campaign speech given by donald trump using postcolonial theory. similar to chapter 8, the author followed qualitative data analysis techniques and began with two rounds of low-level coding aligned directly with the campaign speech. once the low-level codes were developed, the author used discourse analysis to group the low-level codes into themes according to postcolonial theory, meaning fields analysis, and reconstructive horizon analysis. these techniques allowed the author to interpret data from multiple perspectives and identify possible meanings outside of what was actually said in the speech. this third round of coding involved meaning fields, or the consideration of all possible meanings outside of the speech for each concept. by incorporating this step within the analysis, researchers can present how language can have different meanings and purposes depending on the audience and underlying meanings. once these steps were completed, the author was able to create high-level codes and draw conclusions. discussion of strengths and weaknesses winkle-wagner, lee-johnson, and gaskew (2018) and the chapter authors in critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education provided multiple techniques for coding data using critical theory. one of the strengths of this text is the amount of examples provided for the reader. in each chapter when a new technique is introduced, not only are the theories and steps for analysis discussed, but examples are also provided. this allows the reader to use this text as a guide in their own data analysis. as a practitioner scholar learning qualitative data analysis, i often struggle with the transition from coding to interpretation. more specifically, i grapple with the transition from high-level coding to thematic analysis and drawing conclusions. while i appreciate the coding examples provided by the authors, a discussion of how their own perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences influenced the conclusions would have been beneficial. this brief discussion could have the opportunity to give more insights into the “how-to” behind using critical theory for qualitative data analysis, especially for new practitioners to the field. another strength of this text is the presentation of multiple types of qualitative data, not just interviews. instead, field notes, documents, television scripts, video footage, photographs, speeches, social media content, and observations are also analyzed in separate chapters (dennis, 2018; lee-johnson & henderson, 2018; mobley, 2018; reavis, 2018; winkle-wagner, thandi sulé, et al., 2018). however, each chapter read as its own study with little cohesiveness in the presentation of the driving theories and data analysis. to help make greater comparisons and contrasts to the possibilities that are created through the use of critical theory in data analysis, a more cohesive format between chapters would have been beneficial. in analyzing the text as a new practitioner scholar, the original goals of presenting new techniques for data analysis using critical theory are truly met in this text, but a more cohesive approach within the chapters could have made the text even stronger. references blackburn cohen, c. a. (2018). globalization, higher education, and crisis. in winkle-wagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education (pp. 123–137). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-9 dennis, b. (2018). context and materiality. in winkle-wagner, r., leejohnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education (pp. 138–156). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-10 gaskew, a. n. (n.d.). ashley n. gaskew. google scholar. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=v4vqa94aaaaj lee-johnson, j. (n.d.). jamila lee-johnson, phd. linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamila-lee-johnson-phd-22a71065 lee-johnson, j., & henderson, l. (2018). using social media to (re)center black women’s voices in educational research. in winkle-wagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education. (pp. 222–235). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-16 mobley, s. d. (2018). answering the methodological “call” to position complex blackness in conversation with hermeneutic phenomenology. in winklewagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education (pp. 92–108). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-7 reavis, t. b. (2018). illuminating systemic inequality in education. in winklewagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education (pp. 81–91). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-6 winkle-wagner, r. (n.d.). research. rachelle winkle-wagner, ph.d. https://www.rachellewinkle-wagner.com/untitled-ctw8 winkle-wagner, r., gaskew, a. n., & lee-johnson, j. (2018). the missing link in data analysis. in winkle-wagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education. (pp. 3–13). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-1 winkle-wagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (2018). critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education. routledge. winkle-wagner, r., thandi sulé, v., & maramba, d. c. (2018). analyzing policy critically. in winkle-wagner, r., lee-johnson, j., & gaskew, a. n. (ed.), critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education (pp. 193–203). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-14 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-9 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-10 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=v4vqa94aaaaj https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamila-lee-johnson-phd-22a71065 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-16 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-7 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-6 https://www.rachellewinkle-wagner.com/untitled-ctw8 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-1 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158860-14 blair stamper university of north carolina at charlotte introduction background summary audience editors critical theory using critical theory for qualitative data analysis discussion of strengths and weaknesses references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.7 no.2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 ageism-induced anxiety of job seekers aged 50-83: preliminary findings from a phenomenological case study problem of practice dissertation nadine e. franz baylor university nadine_franz1@baylor.edu nicholas r. werse baylor university nick_werse@baylor.edu tony l. talbert baylor university tony_talbert@baylor.edu abstract ageism in today’s job market has a range of detrimental emotional, psychological, and economic impacts on older job seekers aged 50-83. even as such job seekers “de-age” their professional documents and online profiles, they still navigate misperceptions about older workers that disadvantage them in the recruitment and hiring process. while anecdotal evidence raises concerns about older job seekers’ equitable access to employment, empirical evidence documenting the impacts of ageism on this population remains limited, thus impeding the efficacy of their support systems. this article reports on progress from the qualitative case study that i designed for my cped-informed problem of practice dissertation that captured data from 30 job seekers, aged 50-83, through one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires. this article offers preliminary findings from this research, documenting the negative financial, emotional, psychological, and physical effects of navigating persistent ageism for older job seekers. keywords ageism, age discrimination, employment, job search, adea job seekers aged 50 and older are a rapidly growing sector of the u.s. labor force (u.s. department of labor, bureau of labor statistics, 2018). many older job seekers are healthier than their predecessors, passionate about their careers, and seek long-term professional growth (heisler & bandow, 2018). this dedication to their occupations influences their desire to remain in the workforce indeterminately (heisler & bandow, 2018), yet many older americans encounter ageist assumptions and hiring practices during job searches and career advancement pursuits (barrington, 2015; veldon, 2013). even as reports document growing trends of ageism and ageist tendencies in the workplace and job market environments (e.g., u.s. department of labor, bureau of labor statistics, 2018), the implications of consistently navigating such ageist environments remain underexplored. the construction of effective support systems for these older job seekers, however, depends upon a robust understanding of how older job seekers identify, internalize, and respond to ageism in their job searches and career advancement pursuits. my awareness of this problem arose from my almost 20 years of experience in the human resources (hr) and recruiting field, including ten years of experience working as a career coach and hr consultant with job seekers aged 40 and older. these clients, particularly those aged 50 and older, consistently expressed negative experiences and concerns about ageism. many of them believed that their struggle with ageism became more pronounced as they progressed in age. it was disheartening to hear my clients talk about the depression, anxiety, fear, frustration, and anger they felt as ageism victims. these recurring client conversations and coaching sessions over ten years heightened my awareness and commitment to addressing the issue of ageism. i began to assist my clients with de-aging their resumes, linkedin profiles, interview skills, social media profiles, interview strategies, and physical appearances through image consulting to ensure a more youthful appeal that fostered job search success. although i designed these practices to help my clients circumvent select ways in which ageism may negatively affect their job searches, this experience fueled my passion to advocate for a broader social and cultural change in human resources management and job placement firms to begin addressing the often-unrecognized ageist assumptions within these industries. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2713-3108 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6374-3739 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4328-7526 franz et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 12 i chose to pursue an edd in learning and organizational change because of how much the principles of andragogy informed and enriched my approach to career coaching with my clients. this practitioner-focused degree, furthermore, allowed me to both conduct practitioner-based research to better understand the experiences of my clients and the nature of the broader problem of ageism that they continually navigate. as such, my problem of practice dissertation embodies the six cped principles that guide the “professional practice doctorate” (perry, 2013, p. 116). first, as stated in the first cped principle, this problem of practice research focuses on a core issue of “equity, ethics, and social justice” (perry, 2013, p. 118) to address a complex problem of ageism in the job market. the worldview through which i conduct this research is deeply shaped by the critical theory approach, reflecting my passion for and commitment to ensuring fairness and equity to marginalized employees. this critical theory lens enables me to advocate for the voiceless. second, the journey toward this problem of practice research began with my personal commitment to hone the research and educational skills needed both to improve the experiences of my clients and to affect the broader industry. third, this research process has led to collaboration with numerous scholars across institutional lines as i honed the precision with which i examined the problem of ageism in job market searches and the methods used to disseminate my findings to impact market practices. fourth, while drawing upon academic social science research methodologies, i conducted this research as a “field-based” attempt to “analyze problems of practice” (perry, 2013, p. 118). fifth, i draw upon and contribute to both “practical and research knowledge” (perry, 2013, p. 118) on aging, ageism, and the job search process. finally, in keeping with the sixth cped principle that emphasizes “the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (perry, 2013, p. 118), i desire to conduct research that raises awareness of the injustices that employees and job seekers face while informing organizational leaders on changes necessary to improve the employee experience within the recruiting process and the workplace. to address this need in professional practice, i constructed a phenomenological case study for my problem of practice dissertation that collected data from 30 job seekers age 50-83 through questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. this study explored the experiences of these job seekers throughout their job search processes and the anxiety-inducing effects of navigating explicit and implicit manifestations of ageism while on the job market. while the findings have the potential to inform both corporate and governmental policy changes to minimize the impact of ageist hiring practices on older job seekers, the data additionally revealed the urgent need to construct emotional and psychological support services for job seekers age 50-83 who regularly navigate the experience of ageism while on the job market. the following article, therefore, proceeds in three parts. first, i examine the past scholarship that identified ageist hiring trends, noting the absence of job seeker voices concerning their identifications of and response to these practices. second, i present the research design and methodology that i developed to capture the experiences of job seekers aged 50-83 as they identify and respond to ageism on the job market. third, i provide a preliminary report on the study’s findings. finally, i conclude with three data-informed recommendations for changes in industry practice based on the findings. these research findings have the potential to inform hr and recruiting leaders as they develop and implement non-ageist hiring and hr practices. i hope that these research findings foster deep reflections within organizations that drive organizational change that results in the recruiting, hiring, and retention of older workers. my goal is to educate hiring decision-makers on the value that older workers offer and the importance of including older workers’ needs in their overall diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. ageism on the job market: evidence of a problem in professional practice ageism, also known as age discrimination, is the injurious treatment of individuals based exclusively on their ages. gerontologist robert neil butler introduced the term in 1969, identifying age discrimination as a premeditated classification and prejudicial treatment of older persons. he notes the prevalence of ageism throughout the job search process for older career seekers (rippon et al., 2014). consequently, older job seekers face a complex web of interconnected misperceptions about older workers that propagate bias against them when they become unemployed (world health organization [who], 2019). although federal regulations prohibit discrimination against older workers on account of their age, the data identify substantive evidence of ageist biases and practices that disadvantage older workers seeking new employment and career advancements. the parallel between age and the reemployment of older workers reveals a detachment between current recruiting policies and legislation since the equal employment opportunity commission (eeoc) administered the age discrimination in employment act of 1967 (adea). considering the subsequently growing concerns over agebased employment discrimination, congress later updated the adea in 1990 with the older workers benefit protection act (owbpa) (u.s. department of labor, bureau of labor statistics, 2018). the owbpa formally shelters employees over the age of 40 from specifically defined age-related workplace discrimination (u.s. department of labor, bureau of labor statistics, 2018). however, scholarship on the topic demonstrates that ageism remains a spiraling problem in current employment recruitment and hiring processes. several scholars conclude that companies use ageist employment practices to exclude older job seekers from applying for positions (barrington, 2015; grossman, 2013; hujsak, 2015; lesonsky, 2017). such practices can range from youth-oriented job description language to more explicit decisions made in the recruitment process (lahey, 2005). one study found that 64% of respondents age 45-74 experienced some form of workplace ageism (grossman, 2013). these findings complement earlier studies that conclude that employers were more likely to respond to the applications of younger candidates (lahey, 2005) and that identify ageism as one of the fastest-growing types of workplace discrimination cases (gibson et al., 2010). older workers discover that, notwithstanding the presence of laws to protect them, employers wield inventive ways to inflict age discrimination without accountability (gibson et al., 2010). despite labor laws that protect older workers, many organizations impose prejudicial attitudes towards older workers (gibson et al., 2010). past scholarship links three common misperceptions or “myths” about older workers that can make employers hesitant to hire them (gibson et al., 2010; koeber & wright, 2001; malinen & johnston, ageism-induced anxiety of job seekers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 13 2013). first, a recent report by the u. s. department of labor, bureau of labor statistics (2018) suggests that some employers are circumspect of employing older individuals for fear that they are overly expensive. second, employers are also hesitant to hire older job seekers for fear that they may soon retire (malinen & johnston, 2013). third, employers fear that older workers are physically less capable or skilled to accomplish the job for which they apply (stark, 2009). the implications of these myths take many forms, including damaging attitudes, inequitable practices, and direct and indirect established stratagems that prolong these stereotypical views (malinen & johnston, 2013). while these myths remain influential factors in hiring-related decisions, they remain difficult to prove. in fact, malinen and johnston (2013) cite examples of studies in which older workers outperformed their younger counterparts. these job market conditions, naturally, result in older workers experiencing longer periods of unemployment. the evidence reveals a correlation between age and reemployment status, noting that job seekers over the age of 50 faced greater reemployment challenges (wanberg et al., 2016). the u.s. department of labor (2018) statistics demonstrated that job seekers over the age of 55 spent an average of nearly 25 more weeks in the job search process than those under the age of 55. these longer periods of unemployment negatively affect job seekers over the age of 55 who risk losing motivation as they accumulate larger gaps in their employment history that further disadvantage them on the job market (ahn & song, 2017). the experience of ageism in the job search process, therefore, leads to several harmful implications for older job seekers. in addition to the economic strain caused by these periods of unemployment (clark, 2012; mandal et al., 2011), older job seekers report negative psychological and emotional experiences, such as employment-related anxiety, self-doubt, despair, and other health issues (lyons et al., 2014; mandal et al., 2011). older job seekers likewise experience job-loss depression, especially after the unexpected termination of their employment (mandal et al., 2011). to combat the experience of ageism during the hiring process, many older job seekers implement de-aging strategies to rebrand themselves to avoid encountering ageism on the job market. these older job seekers are aware that their perceived older appearance will negatively affect their interview standings (lyons et al., 2014). the identity management tactics may comprise de-aging employment marketing documents, coloring gray hairs, assuming a youthful wardrobe, and using technical and trendy language. older employees apathetically transform into an altered identity that begets employment prospects (lyons et al., 2014). veldon (2013) advocates for detecting and confronting inequitable employment policy-level and statutory improprieties to curtail ageism in the job search process. pursuant to the research, prevailing legislative armors remain insubstantial for shielding and championing older job seekers. correspondingly, veldon (2013) avouches that organizational and governmental amenableness for the nullification of workplace ageism ameliorates organizations and older workers alike. regulatory acquiescence and principled culpability on the part of organizations forestall prejudiced and ageist employment policies that occlude employment possibilities for older job seekers. while the data suggest that ageism remains a prominent problem for older job seekers, one of the challenges to studying the impact of ageism on this demographic is the difficulty they have linking their lack of success on the job market as individuals to larger trends of age-based discrimination. ageist staffing approaches are habitually veiled and become difficult for job seekers to identify (stypinska & turek, 2017). this veil makes it difficult for older workers to identify clear transgressions of their rights during the recruitment process and to link these transgressions with larger trends experienced by older workers on the job market (malinen & johnston, 2013). this veil could leave older job seekers uncertain whether their lack of success derives from their age or other factors such as a lack of qualifications. in conclusion, while substantive data suggest that older workers experience age-based discrimination when searching for reemployment and career advancement opportunities, scholarship concerning how older workers identify and experience ageism as well as the impact that it has on their well-being remains limited (grossman, 2013; powell, 2010; roscigno, 2010; veldon, 2013). the pursuit of research on this problem in professional practice, therefore, has implications for not only policymakers but also for the professionals who support older job seekers throughout the job search process. to address this problem and to contribute to the ongoing study of ageism, i conducted a phenomenological case study to gather data from 30 job seekers age 50-83 concerning the impact that their experiences with ageism on the job market had on their well-being. data collection and assessment procedures this phenomenological case study examines how job seekers age 50-83 identify ageism in their job search experiences and the impact it has on them throughout the job search process. the findings from this study potentially inform companies concerning the negative impacts of prejudicial recruiting and hiring practices on job seekers aged 50-83 as well as ways in which they may exclude older job seekers, regardless of intentionality. this study gives voice to the collective experiences of older job seekers concerning ageism’s role in obstructing employment prospects. to accomplish this purpose, this study answers five research questions: 1. how do job seekers aged 50-83 identify and describe the anxiety triggered by ageism while job hunting in the united states? 2. what are the perceptions, attitudes, and lived experiences among persons aged 50-83 about anxiety-inducing experiences when involved in the job search process? 3. what are the perceptions, attitudes, and lived experiences among persons aged 50-83 about the specific measures to take to overcome age-related biases during the job search process? 4. what are the perceptions, attitudes, and lived experiences among persons aged 50-83 about gaining or not gaining employment when taking specific measures to overcome age-related biases? 5. what are the perceptions and attitudes among persons aged 50-83 about how they experience the impacts of age-related biases based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other similar factors? franz et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 14 data collection & analysis the phenomenological case study is the optimum research design for this study on the effects of ageism on employment candidates aged 50-83. i employed snowball sampling and purposive criteria-based sampling to select participants (following creswell & clark, 2018; naderifar et al., 2017; patton, 2014). i first identified 30 job seekers aged 50–83 from my client database of job seekers and their referrals. i then utilized purposive criteria-based sampling (following creswell & clark, 2018; naderifar et al., 2017; patton, 2014) to identify participants who were over the age of 50, have engaged within the last two years or are currently engaged in an active job search, and lived within the united states. this sampling strategy ensured the collection of participants linked by their mutual lived experiences of a studied phenomenon (following the methodological guidance of van manen, 2014) rather than a physical research site (as noted in creswell & poth, 2018). the study, therefore, included geographical, racial, and gender diversity. i solicited participants across all racial backgrounds, yet only black and white job seekers responded. the data collection process consisted of four steps that gathered data in different ways to ensure the reliability of the study’s findings. first, i interviewed participants using comprehensive semistructured interview questions to afford a non-judgmental haven for them to express their experiences with ageism in the job search and any associated emotions (yin, 2013). conducting these thorough interviews allowed me to decode parallels and variances across the participant experiences (creswell & poth, 2018). second, i gathered 18 participants into six focus groups of two to four participants each. i used key themes from the interview data to guide the focus group conversation (creswell & poth, 2018). the focus group conversations allowed me to further explore the parallels and variances across the participant experiences (creswell & poth, 2018). through this process, i observed how the participants connected their individual experiences on the job market with emerging trends across the participant experiences. third, i appraised archival information (creswell & poth, 2018) from three of the participants’ online job applications to identify evidence of the experiences and awareness of ageism during employment searches. supplementary archival data, including online employment vacancies and job specifications, complemented the online application data information (creswell & poth, 2018). fourth, the participants completed a questionnaire containing structured, semi-structured, and unstructured questions that provided accompanying evidence to ensure the assemblage of far-reaching answers (creswell & poth, 2018). collecting data from multiple sources using these four data collection strategies allowed for data triangulation, thereby ensuring the validity, reliability, and trustworthiness of the research (yin, 2013). data analysis procedures took place between each of these four phases in the data collection process. between each stage, i performed open, axial, and selective coding (creswell & poth, 2018). this process allowed me to identify themes and categories across the participant experiences and across the phases of data collection. i thoroughly arranged the data to prevent vagueness and misperception during the analysis process (creswell & poth, 2018). i employed direct interpretation to clarify the data analysis, recognize an isolated occurrence, and determine meaning and significance without categorizing various instances (creswell & poth, 2018). i then compared key themes in light of the race, gender, industry, geography, education, and age of the participants. while constructing this phenomenological case study, i took care to establish trustworthiness (lincoln & guba, 1986) in all stages of the research process. applying the a priori lens of critical theory, i implemented a three-staged qualitative data analysis protocol involving pattern matching within case framework analysis and across case framework analysis (creswell & poth, 2018). through this rigorous qualitative data analysis protocol, i triangulated (denzin, 2007) the data, thereby verifying the interpretation and understanding of the findings (miles et al., 2020). critical theory provided a lens for capturing the experiences of older job seekers while considering the relationship between individual experiences and the power of organizations and institutionalized systems (dejours et al., 2018; horkheimer & o’connell, 1972). critical theory provided a foundation for advocating for social change within corporate systems. i, therefore, operated with both a constructivist worldview (denzin & lincoln, 2005) and a transformative worldview (mertens, 2009) as i strove to empower the voices of older job seekers while advocating for social change. throughout this process of conducting research using past clients from my professional practice, i intentionally adopted a scholarly-practitioner positionality as one conducting research grounded in my professional context. i began this study both with a preexisting sense of the challenges that older job seekers face because of my professional experience as a certified professional career coach and with preexisting professional relationships with the study participants. my nearly twenty years of experience as a human resource consultant and career coach provided a robust assortment of professional experiences that shaped my perspective and positionality. this “insider status” and substantive experience observing the phenomenon of ageism in professional practice not only inspired this research but also raised the important issue of the study’s limitations and ethical considerations (smith et al., 2020). i designed the study to achieve credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. furthermore, i crafted the study to prioritize my ethical convictions as both a researcher and industry practitioner, by following the irb regulations, acquiring informed consent, and obscuring the participants’ identities to ensure their confidentiality (creswell & creswell, 2018). this study’s findings, therefore, contained two limitations and two delimitations (on limitations and delimitations see creswell & creswell, 2018). my extensive human resource background, which informed my preexisting sentiments, mindset, and concerns for ageism, presents the first possible limitation. my experiences with the phenomenon under consideration shaped my emic view on ageism. while such experience may allow for bias, i used the abovementioned research methodologies to conduct fair and accurate data collection and assessment processes. the second limitation was that the data collection relied exclusively upon the participant reports of their experiences. my inability to observe job seekers during interviews prevented me from verifying their interview experiences. the first delimitation of the study was my close association with some of the participants. this familiarity developed between the participants and me possibly allowed for participant bias in which the participants may engorge experiences to garner compassion. second, my exclusion from the participant’s routine job search activities is delimiting since the candidate applies for jobs online and ageism-induced anxiety of job seekers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 15 interview independently. these limitations and delimitations posed latent threats to the breadth of implications and informed recommendations drawn from the study’s findings to inform changes in professional practice. i assiduously conducted ethical research and reporting that assures credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. discussion of preliminary findings the participants reported remarkably consistent experiences with ageism, regardless of gender, industry, age, and race. the participants were highly educated, poised, and anxious to work. all were at the top of their fields and revealed a great deal of professionalism, efficacy, and exceptional skills and knowledge. twenty-eight participants held college degrees, one held an md, and one held a ph.d. the participants represented sales, marketing, medicine, academia, and other industries, having served in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors for an average of 25 to 30 years. the participants collectively submitted close to 2,000 resumes and job applications with little success in receiving responses or interviews. those who interviewed typically felt the meetings went well, only to receive rejections afterward. all of the participants are still job-hunting as of this publication, and none have reported gaining employment. the length of unemployment ranged from two months to five years, with an average unemployment length of 18 months. all thirty expressed that companies are losing out on the loyalty, maturity, experiences, dedication, work ethic, and common sense that older job seekers offer the workplace. in my opinion, all thirty job seekers would be hired much quicker if ageism were not a factor. while the participants were very candid in their one-on-one interviews, the focus group interactions were exceedingly beneficial because they created a community where the participants commiserated on the shared experiences. the open communication elicited further insights, and the participants bonded over their shared anguish and wonderment at how ageism profoundly impacted their lives. the participants were relieved to see that their individual experiences were part of larger trends experienced by others. the participants supported each other and offered insights to each other in a non-threatening way. the focus group gave participants a chance to vent their frustrations while encouraging each other to persevere. the comparison of participant experiences across gender and race yielded few differences. black participants reported that race likely played a role in addition to ageism in their pervasive job search rejections. in general, women handled the employment rejection easier than men in terms of how they processed their new normal. in the following discussion, i focus on three findings that emerged from the data analysis process: that participants tended to identify ageism in the same two parts of the job-search process, that participants experienced shockingly harmful outcomes because of prolonged exposure to ageism during the job search process, and that participants tended to use four strategies to avoid encountering ageism during the job search process. perceiving ageism in two places the research revealed that the study participants almost unanimously believed that ageism was a significant deterrent in the job search process. twenty-eight of the 30 participants indicated that ageism has negatively impacted their job search results. when asked for specific examples, the participants predominantly identified evidence of ageism in two places: the interview process and the job descriptions. first, the participants who received interviews overwhelmingly described their interviewers as younger than them with an average age range of mid-twenties to mid-thirties. according to most participants, this age discrepancy posed a problem as younger, inexperienced people made hiring decisions to reject people they believed to be too old to contribute to the workforce’s knowledge and expertise. the second place where the participants identified signs of ageism in the hiring process was in the wording of job descriptions. all but one of these job descriptions mentioned age as a protected status. many job seekers noted that the job descriptions they often encountered requested applicants with five years of relevant experience. the participants reported that this language alienated those with substantive more experience (such as 25-years), raising concerns that employers could exclude them for far exceeding this target level of experience. my review of numerous job boards, job aggregators, and job descriptions confirmed that ageist language is inconspicuous and widespread. in my review of job postings for this study, i found no postings acknowledging experience levels beyond ten years. by focusing on candidates with five to ten years, these postings assume job seekers are in their mid-twenties to earlyforties. the negative impacts of prolonged exposure to ageism in the job search in addition to identifying concrete examples of ageism in the same two parts of the job search process, the participants reported remarkably troubling effects that the prolonged exposure to ageism in the job search process has had on their well-being. i categorized these implications into two types of effects: emotional and psychological effects as well as social or environmental effects. first, the interviews, focus groups, and the survey revealed that the pervasive experience of ageism in the job-search process had severely harmful emotional and psychological effects on the participants. while some participants remained reserved throughout the data collection process, most revealed deep pain and disappointment. participants commonly described their feelings using the terms “depressed,” “anxious,” “disappointed,” “rejected,” “unwanted,” “defeated,” “sad,” “angry,” and “hopeless.” job seekers felt miscategorized, misunderstood, and relegated to a lack of opportunities because they were deemed “too old.” some job seekers even described a feeling of expulsion from the labor market. many expressed that they felt things got worse as they aged, and some discussed the drastic differences they noticed as they transitioned from their forties to fifties. many felt hopeless because of the unfair discrimination they faced based only on age. most suffered self-doubt due to uncertainty of what they can do to convince employers of their value in the workplace. while most participants described heightened anxiety and mental health impacts, a few even sought professional counseling to cope with the emotional and psychological impacts of the job search process. second, many participants described ways in which the persistent experience of ageism in the job search process led to unanticipated negative ramifications on their social lives and living environments. these effects most often took the form of the negative financial implications of extended periods of unemployment on their franz et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 16 lifestyles and families. some had dire financial situations due to longterm unemployment. about half of the participants expressed that they needed to work to avoid serious financial consequences. many expressed a fear of unemployment, living off savings, and entering a forced early retirement. one participant even experienced physical abuse from her spouse due to the financial strains attributed to her unemployment. those close to retirement age reported feeling forced into retirement when they still had much more to offer the workforce. those further from retirement worried about their futures, deemed full of uncertainty and rejection. strategies for avoiding ageism in the job search process since the participants overwhelmingly reported that ageism posed a persistent obstacle to their job search endeavors, many described various strategies they used to avoid encountering ageism in the job search process. i group these strategies into four broad approaches to overcoming and circumventing the ageism they met in the job search process. first, some participants described seeking to bolster their credentials through pursuing additional certifications and training in hopes of circumventing age discrimination. second and more commonly, many participants expressed a need to play-up their youthfulness to convince employers of their vibrance. the participants discussed several steps they took to “de-age” themselves, such as coloring gray hairs, dressing younger, exercising, losing weight, removing older employment from their resumes, using special lighting on zoom to add a more youthful glow, and removing linkedin photos to make it more difficult for employers to identify their ages. third, some participants whose industries and experiences allow for contract work entertained the possibility of becoming self-employed. finally, the participants who were closer to retirement expressed greater inclinations to quit their job searches and retire early. conclusion in conclusion, job seekers aged 50-83 overwhelmingly identified ageism as an obstacle to their pursuits of new employment prospects. perhaps one of the most important findings of this case study is not simply the existence of persistent ageism in the experiences of job seekers age 50-83 but the remarkably harmful and even dangerous effects it can have in people’s lives. the persistent experience of ageism throughout the job search process has far-reaching negative implications for their emotional, psychological, and physiological well-being. it can have disastrous results for their finances, families, and other aspects of their lives. these job seekers have developed numerous strategies for circumventing ageism with only minimal success. it is imperative to divulge the lived experiences of job seekers aged 50-83 as they deal with ageism to spotlight the harsh treatment of job seekers aged 5083 while spearheading transformations to eliminate prejudicial employment trends nationwide. implications for industry practice this problem of practice research aims not only to illuminate an under-researched area of inquiry but also to recommend datainformed changes in industry practice (hoffman & perry, 2016; jones, 2016). specifically, these findings have implications for senior human resource leaders as well as for diversity and inclusion officers concerning the harsh realities and experiences of older job seekers during the job search process. the following discussion, therefore, provides three data-informed recommendations for industry practice to address the problem of ageism in the job search process. the first data-informed recommendation for change in industry practice concerns how employers present themselves and their employment opportunities on job postings. employers can make three simple changes to their company documents and job postings to be more inviting to older applicants. first, organizations can write job descriptions that use age-inclusive language that invites older job seekers to apply as serious contenders. rather than requesting a minimum amount of experience—which can come across as excluding applicants with substantively more experience—employers can request applications with an experience range of “up to and beyond 30 years.” such language intentionally includes career-long industry veterans who bring a wealth of experience to an organization. second, job descriptions should avoid language that often plays into youth stereotypes, such as “seeking high-energy employees” or “must be tech-savvy.” coding job descriptions with stereotypical “youth” language may dissuade older job seekers from applying, even when they bring decades of experience of evolving and growing with industry technology. third, companies can revise their eeoc notice on their websites and applications to include “age” as a protected class. the second data-informed recommendation for change in industry practice concerns the need to include anti-ageist efforts into preexisting diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace. many companies tout diversity and inclusion—also called diversity, equity, and inclusion—as part of their overall human resource focus, yet typically exclude older workers as a protected class. such initiatives lead to not only a more equitable and inclusive workplace but also to more equitable and inclusive hiring practices (friedman et al., 2016). powell (2010) explained that with the older population’s rapid growth, increasing numbers of them desire career continuation and development. given the pervasiveness of ageist experiences identified among job seekers age 50-83, diversity and inclusion initiatives should include anti-ageist hiring and retention strategies. the lack of intentional focus on age among equity and inclusion initiatives could unfairly exclude a large and vital part of society. the workforce benefits from a diverse talent pool, including employees of all ages, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, religious backgrounds, national origins, and other protected classes. one of the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives is to create a workforce reflective of larger society. to achieve this outcome for older workers, human resource leaders must implement a comprehensive anti-ageism plan that includes: anti-ageist recruitment strategies and practices; anti-ageism training for employees; training and development for older workers; career planning and succession planning that provides for older workers; support and mentoring that targets age-related employment concerns; and retirement preparation and support for those who seek assistance. the third data-informed recommendation for a change in industry practice concerns protocols for executing “reduction in force” (rif) initiatives. the participants revealed that they often felt targeted during rif initiatives that sought to quickly reduce a company’s expenses. companies must implement rif policies that ageism-induced anxiety of job seekers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.199 17 protect older employees, ensuring that such initiatives—when necessary—are equally dispersed and do not result in higher layoffs for older employees. it is wise for companies to make concerted efforts to prioritize addressing ageism before ageism becomes a hashtag. diversity and inclusion programs often feel reactionary to workforce issues, a band-aid that companies prioritize when the need arises for righting wrongs. when it comes to ageism, companies with existing diversity and inclusion policies can evaluate and update their plans to include older workers. organizations without diversity and inclusion initiatives should now complete the meaningful work of creating diversity and inclusion strategies that promote and represent fairness, impartiality, and inclusion. these policies can then guide not only company culture but also recruitment and hiring procedures. aging is inescapable, so organizations must recognize this fact and create fair and equitable employment solutions to address an aging workforce’s predestined needs. conclusion it is clear from this research that older workers are ready, willing, and able to contribute to the workforce. yet, many experience obstacles and rejections due to ageism within the job search process. while the veiled nature of ageism has made it difficult to identify and rectify, through the careful alignment of data collection methods to triangulate the findings, this study reveals the pervasive nature of ageism as well as where older job seekers identify it in the job search process, strategies they employ for overcoming it, and the dangerous toll it takes on them. in addition to the financial consequences of extended periods of unemployment, job seekers aged 50–83 in this study reported a range of negative emotional, psychological, and even physical implications of experiencing ageism during the job search process. this discrimination alienates older job seekers from the workforce and creates additional issues that companies fail to consider. the aging workforce’s financial, social, and emotional needs do not fade with age, and neither should the potential for earning a living. this mistreatment of older job seekers yields disastrous results when companies prevent them from contributing their immense expertise and knowledge. older job seekers face continuous roadblocks as they forcibly exit the workforce to employment exile. this talent eviction harms older job seekers and deprives employers of the experience they bring, resulting in a workforce “brain drain” of valuable skills and knowledge honed by on-the-job experience. the gross maltreatment of older job seekers exasperates me. it is unimaginable that ageism is a problem in 2021. my worldview and positionality that is profoundly entrenched in critical theory fuels my passion, drive, and commitment to exposing the problem of ageism through scholarly research and practical fieldwork with clients. i am fervent about and devoted to safeguarding fairness and equity to disregarded older employees. i am relentless in my desire to bring awareness to ageism’s atrocities and its impact on older workers and job seekers. the critical theory approach guides me in the development of a voice of advocacy as i strive to empower the voices of older job seekers. by applying the precision of academic research methodologies in the social sciences to the experience of ageism in the job search process, this problem of practice dissertation uncovered numerous findings of value to both academic research and industry practice. while these findings have the potential to advance the scholarly study of aging in modern united states society, my positionality shaped by decades of industry service led me to bring the implications of these findings to bear 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(2013). case study research and applications: design and methods (5th ed.). sage. https://doi.org/10.1002/ev.1427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jmp-03-2013-0078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jmp-03-2013-0078 https://doi.org/10.1080/0361073x.2013.808111 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.014 https://doi.org/10.5812/sdme.67670 https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2010.508510 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/aft146 https://doi.org/10.1525/ctx.2010.9.1.16 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-016-0407-y https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc https://doi.org/10.2478/cris-2013-0008 https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000019 http://www.who.int/ageing/ageism/en/ nadine e. franz baylor university nicholas r. werse baylor university (1) tony l. talbert baylor university (2) ageism on the job market: evidence of a problem in professional practice data collection and assessment procedures data collection & analysis discussion of preliminary findings perceiving ageism in two places the negative impacts of prolonged exposure to ageism in the job search strategies for avoiding ageism in the job search process conclusion implications for industry practice conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 it's not a perfect thing: facilitating an independent engineering fair with fifth grade students kelly feille university of oklahoma feille@ou.edu janet pyle norman public schools jpyle@norman.k12.ok.us jessica marshall noble public schools jmarshall@nobleps.com annie wildes anniewildes@yahoo.com abstract elementary science education calls on teachers to facilitate student learning of the content of science while they engage in the work of scientists. additionally, recent national and state standards incorporate the practices of engineering into science education throughout grades k-12. however, many practicing teachers receive little to no professional development related to this shift in educational practice for the science classroom. to exasperate the issue, elementary teachers are generalists by nature without content or practical expertise in science and engineering content or practices. this study investigated how two fifth-grade teachers experienced co-facilitating an independent engineering fair with their students. the findings from this study can inform the ways in which teacher educators can support the incorporation of authentic engineering practice in the elementary classroom. keywords elementary, engineering, science, engineering teaching self-efficacy, teacher experience elementary teachers face significant challenges when incorporating engineering instruction into the science classroom (moore et al., 2015). recent national standards incorporate the practices of engineering into science education to facilitate students’ learning of the content of science while they engage in the work of scientists (ngss lead states, 2013). however, many practicing elementary teachers have received little to no pre-service or inservice professional development related to this shift in educational practice for the science classroom (banilower et al., 2013; pleasants, et al., 2020; sun & strobel, 2014). to exasperate the issue, elementary teachers are generalists by nature without content or practical expertise in science and engineering. this study relies on teacher interviews and research team memos to describe the ways in which two fifth grade teachers’ thinking about and knowledge of science and engineering teaching practices, teaching engineering self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, and relationships with student learning emerge and shift through a grade-level, co-facilitated independent engineering fair (ief) project. we ask: 1. how do janet and jessica describe the experience of facilitating an ief fair with their students? 2. in what ways are teaching engineering self-efficacy and outcome expectancy influenced and described through the lived experiences of janet and jessica? background this work is informed by a constructivist understanding that teachers’ lived experiences inform what they know and what they do. this foundation centers much of what teachers learn around the experiences that take place daily in their classrooms. while teachers bring into their teaching practices past learning and lived experiences, what happens with students in the classroom adds to the depth and complexity of their pedagogical content knowledge (pck). therefore, investigating a particular aspect of teaching (such as engineering teaching practices) is best informed when taken in consideration with the experiences of the teacher within the context of the classroom and alongside the learners (sun & strobel, 2014). to that end, the research team (kelly and annie) worked in http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5320-7641 feille et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 12 collaboration with the instructional team (janet and jessica) to construct stories of experience throughout the facilitation of an independent engineering fair with fifth grade students. teaching engineering engineering, as defined by the framework for k-12 science education, means “any engagement in a systematic practice of design to achieve solutions to particular human problems” (nrc, 2012, p. 11-12). for students in third through fifth grade, engineering practices focus on defining problems within given constraints, researching and considering multiple solutions, and working to improve or optimize proposed solutions (ngss lead states, 2013). the primary step to incorporating the practices of engineering in the elementary classroom relies on teachers understanding the value of and opportunities for engineering in elementary education (estapa & tank, 2017; guzey et al., 2014). however, previous work has shown that elementary teachers approach engineering teaching with a lack of experience, anxiety, and limited outcome expectancy related to the incorporation of engineering-based tasks in their instruction (cunningham, 2008). while arguments for the inclusion of engineering practices are well-supported by intentions to improve the 21st century skills of students and increase student performance and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or stem) fields (moore et al., 2015), curricular and professional support for educators is not wide-spread nor well-established in most districts. engineering tasks can highlight student-centered collaborative problem-solving through authentic tasks rooted in scientific content and the processes of engineering design (cunningham & lachapelle, 2014). however, it is important that as engineering is incorporated into the classroom, it is not presented as stand-alone tasks or events but instead is integrated into and supported by the science curriculum (moore et al., 2015). this requires from teachers a deep understanding of both the nature and processes of engineering as well as scientific content. to support the inclusion of engineering into the elementary classroom, teachers need to see students struggle through the engineering process (lesseig et al., 2016), experience authentic problems themselves that are appropriate for engineered solutions by students (guzey et al., 2014; sun & strobel, 2014), and feel confident that the practices of engineering can enhance science content (estapa & tank, 2017; guzey et al., 2014). teaching engineering self-efficacy self-efficacy is related to a person’s conception of their ability to successfully accomplish a task. outcome expectancy describes the outcomes of the task (bandura, 1977, 1986). when self-efficacy and outcome expectancy are applied to the task of teaching, teacher efficacy is a teacher’s belief in their ability to affect change in student learning (guskey & passaro, 1994). while there are extensive studies that investigate the general or science-specific self-efficacy of teachers, only recently have scholars begun to examine their engineering self-efficacy (coppola, 2019; hammack et al., 2017; nesmith & cooper, 2019; s. y. yoon et al., 2013). findings indicate that intentional focus on engineering teaching practices in preservice development (coppola, 2019), long-term professional development (hammack et al., 2017; nesmith & cooper, 2019), and extended partnerships with engineers in the classroom (estapa & tank, 2017) can support teachers’ incorporation of the practices of engineering in the elementary classroom. in the design and validation of the teaching engineering selfefficacy scale (tess), yoon and colleagues (2014) identified five potential factors that define teaching engineering self-efficacy. these factors included engineering content knowledge self-efficacy, instructional self-efficacy, engagement self-efficacy, disciplinary selfefficacy, and outcome expectancy (yoon et al., 2014). deconstructing teaching engineering self-efficacy into these factors can help to identify the particular ways in which teachers may excel or require additional support in incorporating engineering instruction. teacher narratives teacher narratives can provide an understanding of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and experiences (carter, 1993; conle, 2000; connelly & clandinin, 1990; drake, 2006). allowing the space for janet and jessica to tell their own stories of experience provides an opportunity for the reflected on and retold lived experiences to reveal novel understandings for both the researchers and the storytellers themselves. reconstructing the stories of teacher experiences through a collaborative partnership of practitioner and researcher, we reveal the stories of participant teaching and learning merging with the story of the researcher “holding possibilities for both researchers and teachers and for those who read their stories” (connelly & clandinin, 1990, p 12). method at the end of the spring semester of 2019, kelly (university science education faculty) and annie (science education doctoral student) partnered with janet, jessica and their colleague (not a participant of this study) to co-facilitate an independent engineering fair (ief) with 90 fifth-grade students at chapparal elementary (pseudonym). chapparal elementary educates 513 students in a suburban setting the central united states. janet has 16 years of teaching experience in fourth and fifth grades. jessica has 14 years of teaching experience in second through sixth grades. the participants for the project were selected based first on their willingness to facilitate the ief as fifth grade teachers at chapparal elementary and later consent to participate in the research study. kelly and janet imagined the ief the year prior as a means to expose fifth-grade students to immersive and authentic science learning experiences. while traditional science fairs can provide authentic science experiences for students (bellipanni & lilly, 1999; dionne et al., 2012; schmidt, 2014), we wanted to avoid the frequent inequities realized in science fair assignments (carrier, 2006; magee & flessner, 2012). it was the goal of the team to mimic, but enhance, an experience similar to a science fair while at the same time incorporating novel practices of engineering. this manuscript highlights one part of a qualitative, single-case study that investigated how participation in and facilitation of an ief project can affect perceptions of teaching and learning in the elementary science classroom. the study relied on the partnership of the research team (kelly and annie) to act as participant observers, filling the role of support personnel as needed for the teaching team (janet and jessica) while they facilitated the ief project work with their students. over the course of two weeks, students identified problems, conducted background research, and then worked to it’s not a perfect thing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 13 design and improve a drawn prototype solution. students did not complete the engineering design process by building and testing their prototypes, but instead presented their prototype designs and their decision-making process during the grade-level ief (see feille et al., 2021a). the ief allowed students to understand science as a tool for explaining the natural world and positively influenced their perceptions of science and engineering as well as their ability to engage as scientists and engineers (feille & wildes, 2021). data the data sources for this study include research team observational notes, memos, and interviews with janet and jessica. field notes (or research memos) serve as an “active reconstruction” of events as viewed through the researcher’s lens of experience and expression (connelly & clandinin, 1990, p. 5). semior unstructured interviews are used as a means to allow for the situational re-telling of experience by the participant, allowing the researcher insight into the meaning made through lived experiences. research memos for each 30-minute to one-hour class period where students worked on their ief projects, kelly and annie acted as participant observers. they fielded questions, provided scaffolds and prompts, and discussed class and student progress with janet and jessica. during this time, they recorded research notes and memos related to student and teacher interactions and to describe the procedural aspect of the project (see feille & wildes, 2021). additionally, kelly audio recorded reflective memos after each class period. each memo was hand transcribed and included in the data for this study. teacher interviews after student presentations, kelly conducted interviews with janet and jessica via zoom. interviews were video and audio recorded and then transcribed by annie. the semi-structured interviews included questions related to teaching self-efficacy, student outcome expectancy, and the experience of facilitating the ief. (the complete interview protocol can be found in the appendix.) analysis transcribed teacher interviews were analyzed by kelly and annie using an eclectic coding approach (saldaña, 2013). meaningful units of data within the teachers’ narratives were first identified using in vivo (or literal) coding by both members of the research team independently. each in vivo code was then reanalyzed and assigned descriptive codes that were identified using the interview questions as well as additional themes that emerged from the data. these codes resulted in three primary themes including reflection, students as science learners, and science teaching. within each primary theme, sub themes were then identified using secondary and occasionally tertiary descriptive codes (see table 1). the research team (kelly and annie) assigned descriptive codes independently and then reached consensus through multiple research team meetings. transcribed research memos served the role of triangulating the research team’s interpretations of teacher interviews and narratives of experience. janet and jessica’s narratives of experience as described through their interviews and research team memos were used to construct a single narrative describing the facilitation of the ief. janet and jessica provided member checking for the final narrative by reading their respective constructed narrative. no corrections to research team interpretations were requested or required. table 1. descriptive codes and example data code example from data reflection i think the most part is just, uh, reflecting on it and looking back of what can i do to improve upon it (interview with janet) reflection: feelings about ief fear, um (laughs and smiles) (interview with jessica) students as science learners so, a lot of the kids that are super shy and quiet and don't seek out attention all the time, i was really able to make better connections, like relationship wise with them because they were able to show me what they were interested in and what they wanted to learn about (interview with jessica) students as science learners: student process i think what we did was perfect for what they are capable of. um, i think for a lot of them, they were able to kind of, they got that beginning of information, they looked at it in that research aspect of it. (interview with janet) students as science learners: contribution to student success and so, being able to tie it back to what they're learning is important. (interview with jessica) students as science learners: contribution to student success: practices i think it's important for them to know that it's not a perfect thing. there's mistakes that are made. (interview with janet) students as science learners: impactful ief i think it kind of making these connections, um, into, you know, the stuff we're trying to practice and preach with them about, you know, making mistakes and not everything has to be perfect. it's okay to go back to the drawing board. i think that's important for the kids to see. (interview with janet) science teaching so, i wouldn't say that i was scared of science or bad at teaching science. like, i like science and i remember loving science growing up, too. so, i wanted kids to like science, too. (interview with jessica) science teaching: teaching practices i don't think science can be taught in a text book. i think it's good for reference information, but i think students, espec ially kids, need to feel, and touch, and see it, and manipulate it and see that things don't always work and you go back and you try it again. (interview with janet) science teaching: teaching practices: facilitation and then there were others that we might have had to hold their hand a little bit. as much `as we could, almost like riding your bike "we're going to hold onto you and help ya, but eventually, you know, you're going to go off on your own (interview with janet) science teaching: teaching practices: changes i feel like, reframing the way i start teaching science at the beginning of the year will be very helpful to be able to do the engineering fair project again next year. (interview with jessica) science teaching: goals i mean, and at (school) especially, like, working with the service club, and things like that, we try, or at least i try to instill, like making the world a better place. and i think it kind of, this is a perfect example of doing that. (interview with janet) feille et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 14 table 2. factors of teaching engineering self-efficacy factor definition example from the data engineering pedagogical content knowledge self-efficacy teachers’ personal belief in their ability to teach engineering to facilitate student learning, based on knowledge of engineering that will be useful in a teaching context. i think it's teachable moments in the classroom, um, where, like this is a perfect opportunity of what i've talk about making a mistake or going back or it doesn't work or let's reflect on it. um, which i think is important for the kids to see. it's not just something they're doing, but it's something that happens in our daily lives as well. (interview with janet) engineering engagement self-efficacy teachers’ personal belief in their ability to engage students while teaching engineering jessica was still hesitant, kind of stayed back. would re-read questions, but didn't really offer a lot of input on what she thought students should do. we had a conversation about what her role should be and i encouraged her to just let the students lead the way. (research memo) engineering disciplinary self-efficacy teachers’ personal belief in their ability to cope with a wide range of student behaviors during engineering activities i think, i got ways i can improve it next year with them. um, but from there, going through having the notebook, having the slides where they kind of in put their information was good. i wish, and i think we already discussed this, like there were a couple more people to maybe help out with it (interview with janet) engineering outcome expectancy teachers’ personal belief in the effect of teaching on student learning of engineering we still have the same end result, you know, they learned what i need them to learn. so, figuring that out myself, like it's okay if the end product looks different. that was a big learning (pause) shift for me, too. (laugh) (interview with jessica) note. see yoon et al., 2014, p. 479 to describe the teaching engineering self-efficacy of janet and jessica throughout the ief, an additional coding cycle was used. original in vivo codes from interviews and research memos were coded using factors of teaching engineering self-efficacy which describe teachers’ belief that they can positively affect student learning of engineering (yoon et al., 2014). these factors include engineering pedagogical content knowledge self-efficacy (the combined factors of engineering content and pedagogical knowledge), engineering engagement self-efficacy, engineering disciplinary self-efficacy, and engineering outcome expectancy (see table 2). to avoid potential bias, janet and jessica were not participants in the analysis of data but did provide member-checking related to the research team’s interpretations. to honor their voices throughout the study they have been included as participating authors. findings in their narratives of experience, janet and jessica were asked to reflect on their feelings about the ief, how the ief project impacted their students as science learners, and their science teaching beliefs and practices. their stories and the reconstruction of events as told through research memos provide the tools to understand janet and jessica’s experiences and teaching engineering self-efficacy as influenced by the ief. reflections of experience janet and jessica reflected thoughtfully on their experiences of facilitating the ief. feelings of angst and excitement accompanied their initial approach to the novel teaching practice. as the teacher responsible for bringing engineering into the fifth-grade classrooms at chaparral elementary, janet saw opportunities and felt excited to see how students would engage in the engineering fair. on the other hand, jessica was apprehensive about her role in facilitating the engineering task, approaching the project with feelings of fear. when i first got the packet, and started reading through it, honestly, i was confused. and i was not sure how i was going to be able to facilitate the learning and steer them in the right direction on some of the questions that they had. (interview with jessica) despite approaching the ief very differently, both janet and jessica reflected continuously about the process throughout and improvements for future iterations. recognizing that the ief was “great for the students” and “something everyone can benefit from” (interview with janet), encouraged both teachers to consider the ways to work practices of engineering into their science teaching throughout the year. while janet considered structural and practical changes in approach, jessica’s reflections included revelatory moments recognizing that the variation in end product was a benefit for her students’ learning rather than a hinderance and that “giving yourself permission to fail” is important (interview with jessica). students as science learners when describing the ief related to their students as science learners, janet and jessica focused on the students’ process of completing the ief, the contributions to student success, and their perceived impact of the ief. additionally, the affective aspects of the project seemed to be an important feature for both. jessica saw the experience as a way for her to better understand her students as learners and “make better connections” through her students’ “acts of passion” (interview with jessica). she also saw this end-of-year experience as something more than “normal end of year stuff” and rather as something she sees her students “talking about for a long time” (interview with jessica). janet viewed the ief as a catalyst for her students as an experience that “ignites a passion for them with science” where they can build on the experience and see the opportunities to “go beyond the box of science” (interview with janet). process for students the process allowed space for students to connect with janet and jessica in new ways because of the students’ focus on a problem that was interesting to them, something they were passionate about. asking students to imagine the possibilities, without relying on the constraints of physically making their prototype, created the space for students to dream big and consider it’s not a perfect thing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 15 a future as engineers. additionally, requiring students to work on an independent project not only engaged all students but allowed for the teachers to see the progress and growth of their students as individuals. i don't even know if i could even say one was better than the other because i think, for that individual student, they were able to create something. they were able to go through something. and i think, for them, again, like i said, it's that self-discovery that i think is so important for them to see at this level. (interview with janet) contributions to student success janet and jessica emphasized allowing students to follow their individual interests. they contributed student perseverance and engagement with the task to the fact that students had autonomy over the problem they identified to solve. additionally, due to the timing of the ief at the end of the spring semester, the teachers were able to help students connect their ideas to science content that they had learned throughout the academic year. by providing opportunities for students to relate their own real problems to content that is often abstract, janet and jessica saw students making significant connections to their learning. both janet and jessica attributed students’ success to the school-wide messaging related to persistence and growth mindset. additionally, students’ failures and opportunities to improve their plans were seen as important tools for them to take with them into upper grades and professional life. i think it's important for them to know that it's not a perfect thing. there’re mistakes that are made. i think that fits along with, especially at [chaparral] elementary, with our growth mindset … and you can always go back and redo it. and i think that's important for them to see. (interview with janet) impact of engineering fair the impact of the ief on their students was a point of emphasis for both janet and jessica. jessica identified ways that her students had different educational needs to be successful on their project than the other classes. she was able to capitalize on her students’ strengths and adjust her expectations to allow them room to succeed. this shift allowed jessica to feel relieved, but also eased the angst of her students who were struggling. realizing that, in engineering especially, there are multiple approaches to a problem served as a lightbulb moment for all of them. i could breathe a sigh of relief because it finally clicked…i guess, my class was a lot more gray-area than black and white. it’s not right or wrong, i want to know what you see. (interview with jessica, emphasis in speech) science teaching janet and jessica came into the ief feeling positive about their role as science teachers and wanting their students to leave their class with an appreciation for science. both teachers focused on helping students to see and “understand that science is all around us” (interview with janet) and tied to “real world things that [students] are seeing today” (interview with jessica). they worked, often collaboratively, to find ways to engage their students in the practices of science, moving beyond “open a textbook, read a passage, here’s an experiment” to seeing the “rhyme and reason” of science learning (interview with janet). facilitating the ief allowed both teachers to uncover the ways that engineering supports science content and incorporate the practices of engineering into their teaching of science topics. goals beyond appreciation, janet described wanting her students to come away from the project seeing the ways engineering is realized in their everyday life. she hoped to move the processes of engineering out of the abstract and into a realistic possibility for her students. “i think, my goal for them was to broaden their understanding of science. of engineering. to make connections to their daily life” (interview with janet). additionally, janet saw the project as a way for her students to realize the opportunities ahead of them to make the world a better place. it wasn't just something fun you wanted to do; it was improving life for people. and i think that's what i wanted them to get out the most. i definitely wanted them to learn the engineering design process and things like that but coming back to making something better for other people. (interview with janet) teaching practices the ief allowed the teachers to reexamine their role in instruction. focusing on the processes of engineering and helping her students see themselves as “inventors” helped jessica consider that she is “preparing these kids for problems and jobs that aren’t necessarily even there right now" (interview with jessica). when the project began jessica was “scared of the word ‘engineer’” but began to recognize that she needs her students to “be these outside the box thinkers to solve these problems that we have,” broadening her conceptions of science (interview with jessica). through the project, the teachers were able to more easily move into a facilitator role rather than a traditional instructor role due to the nature of the individual projects. i enjoyed kind of, here's the information and i'm going to facilitate it for you and i'm going to give it to you, but you're going to take as much out of this as you want. i think that was important for me, but i also think for the other teachers. (interview with janet) this shift in practice was different from ways they taught during their science block throughout the year. because students were involved in individual projects, large and small group demonstrations or lectures related to specific problems or projects were not feasible or warranted. constraints such as materials and timing were not limiting factors to the pedagogical approach of janet and jessica due to when the project began, additional facilitation help from the research team, and the lack of physical manufacturing of student prototypes. therefore, the teachers were free to scaffold each student as they worked through their projects, focusing on individual strengths and areas for growth. the opportunity to individualize instruction was novel and relied on different pedagogical strengths from the teachers. teaching engineering self-efficacy janet and jessica’s teaching engineering self-efficacy can be described in relation to their engineering pedagogical content knowledge self-efficacy, engineering engagement self-efficacy, engineering disciplinary self-efficacy, and engineering outcome feille et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 16 expectancy as revealed through their individual interviews and the researcher field memos. engineering pedagogical content knowledge selfefficacy janet and jessica’s beliefs about their ability to capitalize on their own knowledge of engineering to facilitate student learning was represented throughout the two-weeks of the ief. while janet relied heavily on her prior professional development experience and the timeline and planning packet provided to the students, she deliberately scaffolded students through the process. however, jessica’s apprehension in the beginning of the project created space for her to step back and learn alongside her students resulting in a very individualized process (research memos). incorporating outside resources such as trade books allowed jessica and her students to begin to see and capitalize on the connections between engineering (or “inventing”) and science learning (interview with jessica). potentially the most important revelation for both teachers and students was the emphasis on the value in failure. the recognition that the process is “not a perfect thing” and making a mistake and reflecting on ways to improve it happens in daily lives, “it’s okay to go back to the drawing board” (interview with janet). engineering engagement self-efficacy janet and jessica incorporated much of the same practices of engagement that they relied on for science teaching, which informed their beliefs about their ability to engage students while facilitating the ief. however, jessica stressed that she would not have volunteered without prompting from her colleague, she remarked, “i feel like it stretched me even professionally and i realize i can do a lot more with these kids than what i thought i could” (interview with jessica). while janet was excited to capitalize on the encouragement of the district and state standards and incorporate the practices she gleamed from limited professional development (interview with janet). both teachers demonstrated a confidence and ability to move engineering design from an “academic” construct to a process that their students engaged fully in (interview with jessica). jessica’s incorporation of trade books about inventors and engineers helped her to change the paradigm for herself and her students that capitalized on her students’ creativity within their prototypes (interview with jessica, research memos). recognizing that her students had unique needs to engage them in the process gave jessica the permission to break from the structure prescribed and create room for her students to thrive (research memos). engineering disciplinary self-efficacy janet and jessica incorporated experiences of guiding independent student work and took advantage of additional facilitators in the classroom throughout the project. their beliefs in their ability to respond to various student behaviors seemed to relate closely to their individual classroom cultures. janet was very comfortable to let students move through their project independently and counted on them to come to her when they struggled or were stuck, and many did (research memo). she took advantage of the structured planning packet for her students but recognized that, for some students, she needed to “hold their hand a little bit…almost like riding a bike” (interview with janet). jessica had multiple students who struggled in ways unique to those in the other classrooms. however, she realized “that it’s okay to completely reframe something to fit how my students learn best” and gave herself “the permission and the freedom to allow their learning to happen however they learn best” (interview with jessica). engineering outcome expectancy janet and jessica’s personal beliefs in the effect of the ief on student learning of engineering varied. janet entered the project with the expectation that the work would be meaningful for her students, perhaps due to her own learning experiences (research memos). but as the project progressed, she began to acknowledge that the effect of the ief was more than a class experience and was an opportunity for her students to understand, through going through the process, that there is value in “improving something that’s already been done or making someone’s life easier” (interview with janet). janet remarked on taking students out of their comfort zone of working with a group or partner and instilling in them the confidence to push through “their own personal feelings about science” with the opportunity to “do what they [want] to do and put in their own thoughts and ideas” (interview with janet). jessica, once relieving herself from the pressures of “getting it right”, helped her students benefit from knowing there is not “right or wrong” and that wherever her students ended up was important. she placed emphasis on the value of the process and that “we did something meaningful [that] they will take with them and remember” (interview with jessica). additionally, the ief helped jessica conceptualize the ways to incorporate the processes of engineering throughout the schoolyear, imagining the impact on her future students she said, “i can’t imagine the growth i’m going to see next year. i’m really excited about the potential to see more growth” (interview with jessica). discussion janet and jessica’s narratives of experience of facilitating an ief with their fifth-grade students provides an understanding to the ways in which elementary science educators may implement novel pedagogies in their classrooms, such as teaching the processes of engineering. personal retelling of the challenges and successes embedded in the two-week project illustrates the ways in which teacher educators can support the pedagogical development of practicing teachers in response to changes in national standards or theoretical approaches to teaching. the ways these two teachers’ teaching engineering self-efficacy were influenced by their personal and shared experiences can highlight the changes in teacher identity that experienced teachers face while adapting to new pedagogical demands. although a small sample size, the narratives of individual experience can provide insight into the experiences of fellow teachers facing similar challenges. teacher experiences while janet and jessica were tasked with implementing the same ief, in the same school, in classrooms mere feet apart, their individual experiences were unique and meaningful when considering how teachers may incorporate novel pedagogical tools or teaching reforms. below, their stories of experiences are reconstructed and presented side-by-side in table 3. it’s not a perfect thing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 17 table 3. stories of experience janet is a site science leader and before the ief attended a district-level professional development regarding resources for engineering instruction. she helped introduce the grade-level teachers and students to the processes of engineering through large-group brainstorming sessions and design challenges. her excitement to implement the ief fueled her confidence. after helping construct the student resources, she incorporated the student planning packet deliberately. each day, janet checked in with her students to align their plans with the planning checklist, identifying those who required individualized attention and inviting others to share their questions, concerns, and ideas freely. as her students engaged with their individual ideas, moving beyond their own science boxes, janet began to see the ways they could grow from the process. she began to point out to each student how they were improving a process or product, making someone’s life a little better. janet’s students constructed their presentations of prototype with pride, confident they had met the goals of the ief. their new ideas, they knew, could change the world. and as her students shared their work, janet already was considering the ways to broaden the experience aiming for more impact and more growth in future years. jessica values science teaching and finds multiple ways to build science into her students’ experiences including using read-alouds and student-focused media in addition to inquiry-based science experiences. however, jessica’s only introduction to teaching the processes of engineering came from her colleague, janet. the multi-page student resource added to her apprehension of implementing the ief, making “engineering” feel increasingly academic and out of reach. while learning alongside her students, jessica began to see the ways that the diverse areas of interest and expertise of her students inspired creativity in their work. inviting in a diversity of approaches, she abandoned the notion of right or wrong and encouraged her students to do the same. jessica’s students, many of them crippled by similar concerns with getting it right, began to loosen their self-imposed reigns on the process and see themselves as inventors engineers of the future. her heightened awareness of the struggles her students faced allowed jessica to identify alternative avenues for success. navigating the paradigm shift alongside her students illuminated the ways jessica would improve her teaching in the future. she felt confident in the ways to help her future students peel back the mystery of engineering processes and situate them in her science teaching practices. teaching engineering self-efficacy janet and jessica developed a teaching engineering selfefficacy that was informed by their own learning experiences and further constructed alongside the learning of their own students. janet’s initial engineering pedagogical content knowledge selfefficacy was informed by limited professional development experiences and jessica’s by what she learned from her colleague. while janet brought to the experience an understanding of the nature of engineering and the engineering design process, her pedagogical experience for teaching the processes of engineering was minimal. through scaffolding her students and also her colleagues through the ief, she was able to identify the tools and practices that supported teaching the processes of engineering. jessica’s content and pedagogical knowledge of teaching engineering developed in tandem. by relying on supports from her colleague and the research team and her deep understanding of student needs, she identified the practices that best supported her students as they navigated the ief. engineering engagement self-efficacy corresponded with each teacher’s engineering pedagogical content knowledge self-efficacy. as they both deepened their understanding of the nature of engineering and the pedagogical practices that supported student learning of engineering processes, the ways in which they envisioned their ability to engage their students in the task changed (guzey et al., 2014; pleasants et al., 2020; yoon et al., 2013). janet entered the ief informed and confident in her ability to engage her students in the task. yet, she seemed to strengthen that belief as she identified the ways in which her students were finding the ways they could improve life. it was not until jessica could see that her students needed to understand the value in embracing failure (therefore embracing her own potential failure) that she seemed to believe that she was able to engage her students in the process. experiencing the struggle alongside her students contributed to her own self-efficacy. it is unclear how the teachers’ engineering disciplinary selfefficacy varied from their approaches to classroom culture or management. both janet and jessica demonstrated comfort in allowing students the freedom of individual approaches to the problems posed by the ief. they embraced classroom noise to varied extents but relied on existing classroom norms of how students worked and requested and received help. both teachers seem to encourage and value the creativity of their students, and the ief created an additional space to support student autonomy and creative thinking by capitalizing on the role of failure in engineering (stretch & roehrig, 2021). most striking regarding janet and jessica’s teaching engineering self-efficacy is in relation to their teaching engineering outcome expectancy. by the conclusion of the ief, both teachers described long-lasting impacts of the ief on their students. with ambitions to change student perceptions of science, inform course selection and career paths, and encourage students as changemakers, janet and jessica were confident they had facilitated an experience their students would remember for years to come. they saw the ways in which all of their students, even those who traditionally struggled, persevered through challenge and complexity to find various ways to be successful (lesseig et al., 2016). janet and jessica had facilitated learning for inventors and engineers, and the next year they had plans do it again. concluding remarks and limitations janet and jessica did not implement the ief after a long-term professional development or partnerships with engineers (estapa & tank, 2017; hammack et al., 2017; nesmith & cooper, 2019). however, they did engage in teaching engineering with the support of a learning community (guzey et al., 2014) while witnessing their students struggle through the engineering process (lesseig et al., 2016), sometimes engaging in that struggle themselves. their stories of experience contribute to the understanding of the ways in which elementary teachers may incorporate engineering into their science teaching practice. while their situation is unique and not generalizable, their experiences can help teacher educators and administrators support experienced teachers as they incorporate novel teaching practices into their classrooms. providing janet and jessica with the opportunity to identify for themselves the value of and opportunities for teaching engineering for their students as well as the providing the freedom to fail contributed positively to both teachers’ teaching engineering self-efficacy and commitment to engineering teaching throughout their science classroom experiences. feille et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 18 references bandura, a. 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(2014). validation of the teaching engineering self-efficacy scale for k-12 teachers: a structural equation modeling approach. journal of engineering education. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20049 https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--4414 https://doi.org/10.26822/iejee.2021.226 https://doi.org/10.19030/ajee.v5i1.8610 https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20049 it’s not a perfect thing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.250 19 appendix interview protocol i’d like to thank you once again for being willing to participate in the interview aspect of my study. as i have mentioned to you before, my study seeks to understand how participation in an individual engineering fair project affects student perceptions of science? and how does facilitating an individual engineering fair project affect teacher perceptions of teaching science? the aim of this research is to encourage the inclusion of individual engineering fair projects for upper-elementary students as a means to improve their perceptions of science and themselves as scientists and to improve teacher selfefficacy in science teaching. our interview today will last approximately one-two hours during which i will be asking you about your experiences before, during, and after the facilitation of the engineering fair project. earlier, you completed a consent form indicating that i have your permission (or not) to audio record our conversation. are you still ok with me recording (or not) our conversation today? ___yes ___no if yes: thank you! please let me know if at any point you want me to turn off the recorder or keep something you said off the record. if no: thank you for letting me know. i will only take notes of our conversation. before we begin the interview, do you have any questions? [discuss questions] if any questions (or other questions) arise at any point in this study, you can feel free to ask them at any time. i would be more than happy to answer your questions. questions below are to be used in an open-ended format, probing participant for clarification and elaboration as needed: 1. how would you describe yourself as a science teacher before the engineering fair project? 2. what were your feelings about facilitating the engineering fair project prior to its beginning? 3. what do you think contributes to student success in science learning? 4. what role do you as the teacher play in student success in science learning? 5. what of your own practices do you personally feel contribute the most to student science learning? 6. what moments of the engineering fair project were the most impactful or memorable for you and why? 7. how did facilitating your students work on their own self-determined engineering fair projects influence the way you saw them as science learners? 8. would you describe yourself as a science teacher differently now after the engineering fair project? if so, in what ways? 9. did facilitating the engineering fair project for your students change the way you see yourself as a science teacher? if so, in what ways? 10. is there anything i didn’t ask you that you want to tell me about your experience facilitating the engineering fair project? kelly feille university of oklahoma janet pyle norman public schools jessica marshall noble public schools annie wildes background teaching engineering teaching engineering self-efficacy teacher narratives method data research memos teacher interviews analysis findings reflections of experience students as science learners process for students contributions to student success impact of engineering fair science teaching goals teaching practices teaching engineering self-efficacy engineering pedagogical content knowledge self-efficacy engineering engagement self-efficacy engineering disciplinary self-efficacy engineering outcome expectancy discussion teacher experiences teaching engineering self-efficacy concluding remarks and limitations references appendix interview protocol impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 34 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 assessing online doctoral student research competencies john c. gillham university of findlay gillham@findlay.edu nicole v. schilling university of findlay nicole.schilling@findlay.edu abstract the purpose of this study was to investigate online education doctoral students’ perceptions of their research competencies. the researchers utilized the scholar-practitioner research development scale (rockinsonszapkiw, 2018) which consisted of 24 likert-based items to assess research competency in five areas: attitude toward or value of research, critical evaluation and application of research, research knowledge, research skills, and research dissemination. for each of the five research competencies students reported their competency at 4.0 or above (on a scale of 15) each year, with students most strongly agreeing with statements related to the value of research, evaluation and application skills, and research knowledge. this study illuminates the development of research competencies in online doctoral students. recommendations include using the scholar-practitioner research scale to assess program effectiveness, track program improvements, and identify gaps in the curriculum. keywords edd student development, scholar-practitioner research development scale (sprds), research competencies, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) in 2006, schulman et al. noted that “the problems of the education doctorates [ed.d.] are chronic and crippling. the purposes of preparing scholars and practitioners are confused; as a result, neither is done well” (p. 25). schulman et al. (2006) were part of a chorus of scholars (andrews & grogan, 2005; archbald, 2008; deering, 1998; grogan & andrews, 2002; levine, 2005; malen & prestine, 2005; murphy & vriesenga, 2005; osguthorpe & wong, 1993; toma, 2002; townsend, 2002) who criticized academia for failing to distinguish the ed.d. degree from the ph.d. degree and called for reform or redesign of the ed.d. as a professional degree to prepare educators for practice in the field. it was for these purposes the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching initiated the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) in 2007 (perry et al., 2015). over time, the traditional ph.d. model was modified to meet the unique needs of the ed.d. student, leading to the concept of the scholar–practitioner (also described in the literature as the scholarly practitioner or the practitioner-scholar). literature review scholarship conducted since shulman and colleagues’ (2006) challenge provides a more robust conception of the role and development of scholar-practitioners. jenlink (2014) envisioned scholar-practitioners as educational leaders who engage in research as practice, view knowledge and practice as one, are situated in critically oriented inquiry and noted “scholar–practitioner leadership is grounded in a postmodern—post-positivist inquiry of leadership, which seeks to blur boundaries in the knowledge-practice and inquiry-practice relationship” (p. 8). hochbein and perry (2013) stated that scholar-practitioners will utilize three habits of inquiry— decipher, debate, and design—to solve their problems of practice. a central focus of these habits is to utilize the body of research in the field and apply it to a real-world context. murakami-ramalho et al. (2013) propose scholarly practitioners need to understand and use research to set goals, implement research design, and measure growth. developing research competencies begins with critically consuming the literature (slayton & samkian, 2017), progressing to learning research methods, and culminates in the defense and publication of the dissertation (baker & pifer, 2014). golde (2013) conceptualizes the development of scholar-practitioners as occurring in three stages: entry and integration, integrating new knowledge, and completion and exit. focusing on impact, one scholar notes that “scholar–practitioners conjoin the strategies and knowledge gained through meticulous academic endeavors with experiences and knowledge...to form the basis of effective, change-centered practices” (bouck, 2011, p. 203). rockinson-szapkiw (2018) posited scholarpractitioners should: 1. develop a value of research, including an understanding and appreciation of research as a means to solve problems of practice and to advocate for social https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ assessing student research competencies impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 35 justice and equity; 2. obtain skills and knowledge to critically consume (e.g., information literacy), apply, and conduct research to inform practice; and 3. gain the ability to disseminate research to professionals in the field to transform practice. (p. 2) therefore, the primary objectives of a scholar-practitioner are to value, critically evaluate, and apply the necessary knowledge and skills to disseminate research to solve problems in the field. at its heart, “the scholar-practitioner’s goal is to bridge research, theory, and practice” (suss, 2015, p. 50). as ed.d. students begin to develop as scholar-practitioners, they become aware of problems of practice and approach these problems through the application of rigorous research methods. they generate, analyze, and disseminate data among stakeholders to produce change. lasater et al. (2016) conducted a case study of the perceptions of students and alumni from the cped affiliated ed.d. program at university of arkansas. specifically, the researchers sought to answer three questions: 1. how do current students and alumni describe their experiences in the educational leadership online doctoral program at university of arkansas? 2. how do current students and alumni perceive the online experience as impacting their professional practice? 3. how do current students and alumni describe the value of the educational leadership program? (methods, para. 1). utilizing a qualitative approach, the researchers distributed surveys and conducted semi-structured interviews with students who were enrolled in the program between 2010 and 2014. first among the three findings, students perceived “the doctoral program led to a change in their thinking” (lasater et al., 2016, findings, para. 1). one participant reported their experiences changed the way they looked at problems and how they approached problem-solving. they noted: i think about “what does the literature say?” those are questions that are popping up in my head that didn’t pop up in my head before. i definitely can read those stats parts of the findings, when you read an article, now i am like, “oh, i think i know what that means” (doctoral program led to a change in student thinking, para. 2). another participant shared they have become more critical of data distributed in the workplace and need proof that data is valid and meaningful. these findings reflect graduates who value, critically consume, and apply research to their professional context, characteristics of scholar-practitioners. other findings included students valued the program design and the relationships they built with faculty and their peers in the program (lasater et al., 2016). perry and zambo (2019) examined data gather from cpedinfluenced programs to investigate whether the cped framework was being used to develop the research capabilities of students. the researchers specifically examined inquiry as practice, a cped design concept for scholar practitioner research development. the examination was part of a broader study that sought to assess the impact of the cped framework upon member institutions’ doctoral programs. the study investigated teaching inquiry to improve practice in cped-influenced programs, how students are socialized in this method, the methodologies used by these programs, and the skills and abilities that resulted from being taught inquiry. for this qualitative study, online, open-ended surveys were sent to individuals who were the primary contacts at cped-influenced programs. fifty-three (60%) member institutions responded. participants were asked to provide student and faculty demographics, to describe how they enacted the cped framework, and to provide syllabi to illustrate how the framework was enacted at their institutions. a two-level analysis consisting of generating categories and subcategories of elements of the cped framework that were enacted was used to analyze open-ended responses. syllabi were analyzed using content analysis until reaching saturation and providing evidence for the findings. data gathered to answer the research questions allowed perry and zambo (2019) to better understand how participating institutions “understand inquiry as a form of practice for professional practitioners, how inquiry is taught, and what graduates are expected to be able to know and do as a result of having completed one of these programs” (p. 10). findings indicated participating cped-influenced programs put problems in the professional context at the center of doctoral and research training. the practice of inquiry and reliance on the research were understood to be essential skills for educational leaders. programs also placed an emphasis on the socialization of students into their roles as scholar-practitioners. a focus on inquiry was seen as an integral part of being a scholar-practitioner and was present across the curriculum, in field experiences and in the dissertation process. participating programs utilized various research frameworks and methodologies, with learning objectives centered on the dissertation. research methodologies tended to permeate the curricula and increase in sophistication as students progressed through their programs. participating cped-influenced programs also utilized inquiry to develop scholar-practitioners who can do the following: think systematically, creatively, and reflectively; to blend their own practical knowledge with the theories and ideas learned in their program; to use literature to deeply understand problems of practice; to analyze and critique policies, theory, and research and to wisely consume literature and apply it to develop solutions. (perry & zambo, 2019, p. 18) finally, participating cped-influenced programs emphasized the “creation and transformation of professional knowledge and practice” (perry & zambo, 2019, p. 18), one of cped’s six guiding principles. cped-influenced programs foster students’ identities as scholarpractitioners and students are inculcated with the belief that ongoing professional learning must take place to renew professional practice and programs. because many education doctoral students lack experience conducting research, they may not feel competent in research or developed an identity as a researcher (caskey et al., 2020), and scholars note developing an identity as a researcher for doctoral students is a complicated problem (labaree, 2003; murakamiramalho et al., 2013; shulman et al., 2006). in their review of the literature, choi et al. (2019) investigated how doctoral students (both ph.d. and ed.d.) develop their identities as scholars. the study was built upon gee’s (2000) theory of identity and engeström’s (1987, 2001) cultural-historical activity theory. the researchers defined a scholar’s identity as “as an individual’s felt or recognized abilities allowing association with communities doing scholarship pertaining to an academic discipline” (choi et al., 2019, pp. 7-8). choi et al. (2019) sought to understand the conceptualizations of researcher identity relevant to doctoral students, determine how doctoral gillham & schilling impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 36 students’ identities as scholars evolve, and determine the practical implications for stakeholders based on the literature of how to cultivate doctoral students’ identities as scholars. after unstructured and structured phases of literature identification, 62 potential research studies were identified. an additional round of reviewing the exclusion/inclusion criteria resulted in 36 empirical studies suitable for review. independent coding by the authors and subsequent discussions resulted in cogent codes and findings. the literature investigated in the choi et al. (2019) study revealed how doctoral students begin to see themselves as scholars and become recognized as scholars by others. multiple methods of attaining scholarly identity were noted, including engaging with other doctoral scholars, seeking and receiving feedback from the faculty, engaging with undergraduate students and earning their respect, garnering respect for their work from non-academics, participating in affinity groups, and attending academic conferences. student identities as scholars increased as faculty shared their vulnerabilities and students reflected on their research journey, noting the challenges associated with producing research. choi et al. (2019) also noted how doctoral students developed a sense of competence as scholar-practitioners. choi et al. (2019) identified 27 articles from the literature that indicated competence and confidence often go hand-in-hand. as students develop research competence, they also develop confidence and become more invested in their identities as scholars. one method to promote competence was participation in student-created writing groups for faculty and peers. an additional layer of challenge in developing scholar practitioner research competencies is the increasing reliance on online education as a medium for teaching the value and application of research, as with the program in this study. for most students, the dissertation represents the pinnacle of the research experience during their preparation as scholar-practitioners and requires multiple research competencies. scholars have investigated what dissertation chairs can do to support doctoral (ed.d.) students as they craft their dissertations in an online learning environment. in their qualitative study, burrington et al. (2020) conducted semistructured interviews with dissertation chairs they contacted through social media. the six female and five male participants had a range of 1.5 to 16 years’ experience working with dissertation students in an online environment, with a mean of 5.5 years. feedback was a frequent theme in the findings, including the frequency, modes, timelines, and effectiveness and relevance of feedback. burrington et al. (2020) noted “the importance of providing frequent feedback through various modes of communication, emphasizing a tailored approach to the students’ needs. timely, thorough feedback was supported, stressing effectiveness and relevancy, which was most commonly achieved through one-on-one communication” (p. 1). the researchers also noted the importance of the dissertation chair’s expectations for doctoral scholarship; scholar-practitioners must learn to represent themselves “in a scholarly voice, learning to conduct original research, and learning to tell the story of that research in a way that is consistent with a field of scholarship and practice, as well as with the research methodology chosen” (burrington et al., 2020, pp. 7-8). the researchers found other factors in effectively supporting online dissertation students, including building a caring, trusting relationship, providing individualized guidance, and balancing the needs of the student with university’s requirements. to assess the student’s development, the research competency of the scholar-practitioner must be clearly examined using diverse criteria (perry, 2015; rockinson-szapkiw, 2018; rolfe & davies, 2009; servage, 2009; shulman et. al., 2006). the program in this study sought to understand the development of its students’ research competencies as a means of assessing its ability to produce scholarpractitioners. to prepare students for their role as scholarpractitioners, cped-influenced and other doctoral programs need a comprehensive, valid assessment of student growth to assess program effectiveness and track program improvements. such an instrument might also serve as a guidepost for program faculty, revealing areas of strength as well as areas of need in the curriculum. purpose and context of the study this study sought to assess the impact of a doctor of education (ed.d.) program on students’ perceptions of their ability to effectively use research in the field. the purpose of this study was to explore how online doctoral students, who are predominantly educational leaders, perceive the way they value, understand, and can use research. the program in this study prepares students to become scholar-practitioners who solve problems of practice using researchbased strategies. students apply the skills gained in their research courses to their dissertations and professional context over a period of three or more years. across the curriculum, students are required to use the literature to solve problems in their professional practice. graduates of the program take leadership roles in public education, assume responsibility for the school districts in which they apply their research skills, and serve as first responders in the gap between scholarship and systemic change. the setting for this study is a private residential liberal arts institution located in the mid-western united states. founded in 1882, the institution offers 86 bachelor’s degrees, 10 master’s degrees, five doctoral degrees, and a variety of non-degree license and certificate programs. approximately one-third of the institution’s 4,829 students are enrolled in graduate programs, both online and face-to-face. doctor of education degree requirements at this institution include 60 course credits composed of core courses (24 credits), research and dissertation courses (21 credits), and electives (15 credits). students may choose from two elective strands, teaching and learning or administration. the administrative strand includes courses required by the state for a superintendent’s license. students may complete the program in as little as three years, with no penalty for taking fewer courses each semester and extending their timelines. to satisfy the residency requirement, students attend three face-to-face summer institutes, each lasting three days. the summer institute is an opportunity for students to present their research, give and receive feedback to and from their peers, and attend research training workshops. a signature pedagogy of the program is the embedded dissertation. students begin working on the dissertation their first semester in the program and continue to craft it as they progress through the program. several of the research courses are associated with specific chapters of the dissertation so students apply what they learn as they write the chapter in that course. as a member of cped, the program supports and promotes the cped framework and the guiding principles for program design. assessing student research competencies impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 37 the expectation is for students to develop as scholar-practitioners who will apply research to problems of practice (pop) in their professional contexts. cped (2021) posits that: scholarly practitioners blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice. they use practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice. they disseminate their work in multiple ways, and they have an obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals (design-concepts upon which to build programs, para. 2). each core course in the program contains a key assessment that, taken together, compose the comprehensive exams. for each key assessment, students are required to analyze a pop in their professional context relative to the subject of the course (e.g., policy, leadership, diversity, etc.), investigate the literature on their pop, then create a plan to solve the pop using the research they have identified. students in this program are primarily individuals working full time in p12 education (teachers, principals, and superintendents), with some students from other fields such as higher education, health professions, and business. students have an average age of approximately 39.7 years, with an age range of 22 to 70 years. participants across the four years of the study ranged from one to five years of involvement in the doctor of education program. offered entirely online (aside from the three-day summer institutes), this program is representative of a larger trend in education. online graduate programs have witnessed consistent growth since the year 2000. at that time, 2.2 million students were enrolled in online graduate programs, a figure which increased to 3.1 million students by 2019 (nces, 2021). programs such as these require doctoral students to develop research competencies in a virtual context, thus presenting an addition layer of challenge to both faculty and students. the informal assessments faculty might make of research competencies in regularly scheduled face-to-face settings are not possible in online, asynchronous courses such as the one utilized in this program. in the same way, students’ selfassessment of research competencies are done in isolation without face-to-face context with peers and faculty, making the need for a specific, objective assessment of research competencies even more pressing. similar challenges may be prevalent among cped member institutions’ doctor of education programs, as 25% are offered entirely online (cped, 2020). while online enrollment in undergraduate programs decreased during the covid-19 pandemic, graduate programs grew at higher-than-expected rates (quality matters & eduventures research, 2021). nearly 30% of graduate students enrolled in private, not-for-profit institutions like the one in this study are enrolled in exclusively online programs (nces, 2020). one study of chief online officers at private universities found that 88% expect online enrollment to continue to increase (quality matters & eduventures research, 2021). the study was guided by the following research question: how do scholar-practitioners perceive their research competency (value of research, evaluation and application skills, research knowledge, research skills, and research dissemination)? research methods the researchers, who are online doctor of education program faculty, in this study sought to explore students’ perceptions of their research competency as scholar-practitioners through dissemination of the scholar-practitioner research development scale (rockinson-szapkiw, 2018). the survey consisted of 24 likert-based items (strongly agree 5, agree 4, neutral 3, disagree 2, and strongly disagree 1) developed to access research competency in five areas: value of research (six items), evaluation and application skills (three items), research knowledge (six items), research skills (six items), and research dissemination (three items). for example, in respect to attitude or value of research, participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement: 1. acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important. 2. research can improve the lives of those served in my professional practice. 3. research can improve my professional practice. 4. research is useful to solve complex problems i face in my professional practice. 5. research is important to promote equity and social justice in my professional practice. 6. disseminating my research to various audiences is important to improve professional practice. rockinson-szapkiw (2018) reported in her development of the scholar-practitioner research development scale that “evidence from both an exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency analysis demonstrate that the self-report scale has both validity and reliability” (p. 20). the cronbach’s alpha was .93 and each subscale demonstrated good internal consistency (value of research = .88, evaluation and application skills = .82, research knowledge = .85, research skills = .90, and research dissemination = .93). a link to the online survey was distributed electronically to all ed.d. students during the summer for four consecutive years (2018 2021). the primary use of the collected data was for program evaluation and program improvement. in addition to the questions on the scholar practitioner scale, four demographic questions were asked: (1) years in the ed.d. program, (2) gender, (3) professional role, and (4) the number of years in their professional role. no identifying data was collected, which protected student confidentiality and encouraged truthful responses. however, due to the lack of identifiable data, it was not feasible to track individual students or cohorts longitudinally. for each iteration of the survey, the data was downloaded into an excel spreadsheet. means and standard deviations were calculated for each of the 24 items and for the five constructs for each of the four years. results a total of 129 students participated in the study over a four-year period. a large majority of participants reported they worked in p12 education as teachers or administrators. other participants worked in fields such as higher education, health care, and business. other participant demographics can be found in table 1. gillham & schilling impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 38 table 1. participant demographics study year participants (n) year in the program (%) gender average years in professional role 2018 33 1 (28) 2 (34) 3 (22) 4 (16) female: 64% male: 36% 9.7 2019 33 1 (13) 2 (41) 3 (31) 4 (13) 5 (3) female: 61% male: 39% 10.3 2020 28 1 (18) 2 (36) 3 (32) 4 (14) female: 61% male: 39% 11.2 2021 35 1 (26) 2 (23) 3 (37) 4 (11) 5 (3) female: 54% male: 46% 10.4 note. percentages are rounded and may not equal 100. to answer the research question, an initial descriptive analysis of the data was conducted. due to the lack of identifiable data, it was not feasible to track individual students or cohorts longitudinally, regardless patterns in the data emerged. across all four years of the survey, participants perceived their competency highest in value of research, evaluation and application skills, and research knowledge, respectively. value of research participants perceived their highest competency in the value of research construct in each of the four years of the study (m = 4.59, 4.65, 4.60, and 4.57 respectively). within the value of research construct, in the first year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be equally highest (m = 4.71) for the items “acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important” and “research can improve the lives of those served in my professional practice.” the item which participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.49) was “disseminating my research to various audiences is important to improve professional practice.” in the second year of the study, participants also perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.79) for the item “acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important.” the item which participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.52) was “research is important to promote equity and social justice in my professional practice.” in the third year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.79) for the item “acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important.” the item which participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.36) was “disseminating my research to various audiences is important to improve professional practice.” in the fourth year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.89) for the item “acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important.” the item which participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.34) was “research is important to promote equity and social justice in my professional practice” (see table 2). table 2. participant perceived competency in value of research survey item 2018 2019 2020 2021 m sd m sd m sd m sd acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important. 4.71 0.46 4.79 0.48 4.79 0.42 4.89 0.32 research can improve the lives of those served in my professional practice. 4.71 0.57 4.70 0.53 4.71 0.46 4.54 0.70 research can improve my professional practice. 4.63 0.55 4.76 0.44 4.75 0.52 4.69 0.58 research is useful to solve complex problems i face in my professional practice. 4.57 0.50 4.58 0.56 4.61 0.63 4.54 0.74 research is important to promote equity and social justice in my professional practice. 4.53 0.61 4.52 0.62 4.39 0.69 4.34 0.84 disseminating my research to various audiences is important to improve professional practice. 4.49 0.70 4.55 0.62 4.36 0.73 4.43 0.65 evaluation and application skills within the evaluation and application skills construct, participants reported their highest perceived competency for the item “i can identify scholarly resources to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice” across all four years of the study (m = 4.65, 4.79, 4.61, and 4.71 respectively). in the first three years of the study, participants reported their lowest perceived competency for the item “i can apply theory to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice” (m = 4.15, 4.36, and 4.29 respectively). in the fourth year of the study, participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.31) for the item “i can apply empirical research to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice” (see table 3). research knowledge within the research knowledge construct, participants reported their highest perceived competency for the item “i understand ethical guidelines for research in my profession (e.g., obtain irb approval, do not harm participants)” across all four years of the study (m = 4.74, 4.81, 4.75, and 4.60 respectively). in the first two years of the study, participants reported their lowest perceived competency for the item “i understand analytic procedures to analyze data collected in my professional practice” (m = 3.94 and 4.14 respectively). in the third year of the study, participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.04) for the item “i understand how theories and paradigms are used to develop investigations to solve problems in my professional practice.” in the fourth year of the study, participants reported their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.20) for the item “i understand how to engage in the research process, from conceptualization to dissemination (e.g., communication to key stakeholders), to address problems in my professional practice” (see table 4). assessing student research competencies impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 39 table 3. participant perceived competency in evaluation and application skills survey item 2018 2019 2020 2021 m sd m sd m sd m sd i can apply empirical research to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice. 4.32 0.64 4.55 0.56 4.36 0.68 4.31 0.58 i can apply theory to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice. 4.15 0.74 4.36 0.74 4.29 0.66 4.37 0.60 i can identify scholarly resources to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice. 4.65 0.60 4.79 0.42 4.61 0.69 4.71 0.46 table 4. participant perceived competency in research knowledge survey item 2018 2019 2020 2021 m sd m sd m sd m sd i understand ethical guidelines for research in my profession (e.g., obtain irb approval, do not harm participants). 4.74 0.51 4.81 0.40 4.75 0.44 4.60 0.74 i understand how to formulate questions to investigate problems in my professional practice. 4.32 0.68 4.56 0.67 4.29 0.76 4.54 0.51 i understand research methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) i can use to investigate problems in my professional practice. 4.41 0.66 4.63 0.49 4.43 0.69 4.43 0.74 i understand analytic procedures to analyze data collected in my professional practice. 3.94 0.89 4.14 0.87 4.18 0.86 4.23 0.73 i understand how theories and paradigms are used to develop investigations to solve problems in my professional practice. 4.00 0.92 4.39 0.72 4.04 0.84 4.31 0.72 i understand how to engage in the research process, from conceptualization to dissemination (e.g., communication to key stakeholders), to address problems in my professional practice. 4.29 0.80 4.37 0.62 4.18 0.90 4.20 0.93 table 5. participant perceived competency in research skills survey item 2018 2019 2020 2021 m sd m sd m sd m sd i can design meaningful research investigations to address problems in my professional practice. 4.06 0.83 4.38 0.79 4.04 0.88 4.29 0.67 i can choose the appropriate method of inquiry (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) to address problems in my professional practice. 4.15 0.83 4.31 0.69 4.25 0.80 4.37 0.73 i can conduct rigorous research investigations to address problems in my professional practice. 4.12 0.89 4.22 0.83 4.07 0.86 4.03 0.92 i can interpret results from the data i analyze. 4.15 0.67 4.19 0.83 4.21 0.74 4.09 0.90 i can analyze data (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) that i collect to address problems in my professional practice. 4.06 0.86 4.22 0.79 4.18 0.77 3.94 0.91 i can develop investigation questions to examine problems in my professional practice. 4.33 0.60 4.39 0.76 4.32 0.67 4.40 0.65 table 6. participant perceived competency in research dissemination survey item 2018 2019 2020 2021 m sd m sd m sd m sd i can communicate (e.g., present, write) the results of research investigations i conduct to key stakeholders. 4.18 0.85 4.44 0.72 4.25 0.70 4.17 0.86 i can discuss the results of research investigations in light of empirical and theoretical literature, drawing connections between the practice and the knowledge of the profession. 4.12 0.89 4.31 0.74 4.00 0.90 4.17 0.82 i can communicate implications to improve practice based on the results of research investigations i conduct. 4.27 0.72 4.38 0.79 4.14 0.85 4.29 0.83 gillham & schilling impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 40 research skills within the research skills construct, in the first year of the study participants perceived their competency to be equally highest (m = 4.15) for the items “i can choose the appropriate method of inquiry (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) to address problems in my professional practice” and “i can interpret results from the data i analyze.” in that same year, participants perceived their competency to be equally lowest (m = 4.06) for the items “i can design meaningful research investigations to address problems in my professional practice” and “i can analyze data (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) that i collect to address problems in my professional practice.” in the second, third, and fourth year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest for the item “i can develop investigation questions to examine problems in my professional practice” (m = 4.39, 4.32, and 4.40 respectively). in the second year of the study, the item which participants reported as their lowest perceived competency (m = 4.19) was “i can interpret results from the data i analyze.” in the third year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.04) for the item “i can design meaningful research investigations to address problems in my professional practice.” in the fourth year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 3.94) for the item “i can analyze data (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) that i collect to address problems in my professional practice” (see table 5). research dissemination within the research dissemination construct, participants reported their lowest perceived competency for the item “i can discuss the results of research investigations in light of empirical and theoretical literature, drawing connections between the practice and the knowledge of the profession” across all four years of the study (m = 4.12, 4.31, 4.00, and 4.17 respectively). in the first year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.27) for the item “i can communicate implications to improve practice based on the results of research investigations i conduct.” in the second year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.44) for the item “i can communicate (e.g., present, write) the results of research investigations i conduct to key stakeholders.” in the third year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.25) for the item “i can communicate (e.g., present, write) the results of research investigations i conduct to key stakeholders.” in the fourth year of the study, participants perceived their competency to be highest (m = 4.29) for the item “i can communicate implications to improve practice based on the results of research investigations i conduct” (see table 6). conclusions and discussion this study illuminates the development of research competencies in online doctoral students. participants in this study are developing scholar-practitioner research competencies through an online medium. participants rated their competencies with a weighted average of 4.0 or higher in all five constructs across all four years. even the weakest responses to an individual survey item (m = 3.94) barely fell below the 4.0 threshold. on average, students strongly agreed or agreed with statements related to their research competency in all five constructs. this may be attributed to the emphasis placed in the program on using research to solve problems of practice, as is evidenced in other cped member programs (perry & zambo, 2019). another possible explanation for the high degree of perceived competency is the expectation that students will emerge from the program as a scholar-practitioner equipped to impact their professional context, a factor found to impact doctoral student development (burrington et al., 2020). rockinson-szapkiw (2018) posits scholar-practitioners have three purposes, the first of which is “develop a value of research, including an understanding and appreciation of research as a means to solve problems of practice” (p. 2). students self-assessed their competency to be highest in three categories: value of research, evaluation and application skills, and research knowledge, aligning with rockinson-szapkiw’s (2018) first purpose. this also supports the findings of perry and zambo (2019) who found among cped member programs that application of research skills is an essential element of preparing scholar-practitioners. these programs put inquiry at the center of their curriculum, as does the program in this study. rockinson-szapkiw’s (2018) second and third purposes of scholar-practitioners are to “obtain skills and knowledge to critically consume (e.g., information literacy), apply, and conduct research to inform practice” and “gain the ability to disseminate research to professionals in the field to transform practice (p. 2).” these purposes align with the research skill and research dissemination competencies. in the last two years of the survey, participants most strongly agreed with the statement “acquiring research knowledge and skills during my program is important,” which suggests the importance of research skills had been emphasized in the program and, more importantly, internalized by the online doctoral students in this study. similarly, in lasater et al.’s (2016) study, program graduates approached problems and problem-solving differently and became critical consumers of data. although the means were lower for research skills and research dissemination than the other competencies, this may be explained by the experience of participants in the study. research value and knowledge is emphasized from the first semester of the program; however, the application of research skill and dissemination culminate in a dissertation defense in the program’s third and final year. scholars have noted that acquiring research competencies in doctorate programs begins with evaluating and consuming literature (slayton & samkian, 2017), progresses to research methods, and culminates in the dissertation defense and publication (baker & pifer, 2014). between 49% and 61% of participants surveyed each year were in their second year of the program, which may explain higher perceived competency in the value of research and lower perceived competency in research skill and research dissemination. additionally, as students progress through the program, they attend more summer institutes and become more active in attending and presenting at education research conferences. choi et al. (2016) found that participating in affinity groups and attending academic conferences were both associated with development of a scholar identity. these factors suggest why the skill to conduct and disseminate research develops more slowly even as the value of research, evaluation and application skills, and research knowledge are developing throughout the program. in conclusion, the findings indicate that participants in this study, in accordance with rockinson-szapkiw (2018), are developing as scholar-practitioners in their abilities to value research as a means to assessing student research competencies impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.296 41 solve problems of practice, obtain skills and knowledge to critically consume, apply, and conduct research to inform practice, and gain the ability to disseminate research to professionals in the field to transform practice. recommendations and calls for future research first, the researchers recommend using the scholarpractitioner research scale to assess program effectiveness and track program improvements. the scale represents a valid means for doctoral faculty to assess whether students are emerging as scholarpractitioners who can “bridge research, theory, and practice” (suss, 2015, p. 50). our data indicated students perceived their competencies to be highest in value of research, suggesting the program has been successful in fostering a belief in the important role research plays in solving problems of practice. on the other hand, students perceived research dissemination to be one of their lowest competencies. however, growth in student perceptions of dissemination of research over the last few iterations of the survey reflect an increased focus on research dissemination in the program as a result of the findings from earlier iterations of the scholarpractitioner research scale. in response to data collected in the earlier iterations of the survey, the program put a greater emphasis on research dissemination earlier in the program, alumni shared how they disseminated their research, and students were encouraged to present at regional and national conferences, even during the research-in-progress stage. subsequently, student perceptions of dissemination of research increased. thus, the scholar-practitioner research scale helped identify a need and empowered the program to target and improve that research competency. golde (2013) conceptualizes the development of scholarpractitioners as occurring in three stages: entry and integration, integrating new knowledge, and completion and exit. it is recommended that cped-influenced ed.d. program develop a strategy for developing research competencies across all three stages. similarly, it is recommended that cped-influenced institutions and other institutions that prepare scholar-practitioners, review individual items on the scholar-practitioner research scale to identify possible gaps in the curriculum. for example, a doctor of education program may emphasize using research to solve pops, yet the item “i can identify scholarly resources to solve problems i encounter in my professional practice” might lead faculty to question the ways in which students are taught to access research, especially after they graduate from the program. the literature highlights the skills required of scholarpractitioners, yet additional research is needed to determine the impact of specific pedagogical practices and faculty behaviors upon the development of individual research competencies. this is particularly important for online doctoral education, a growing segment of doctoral study. further research is required to determine the manner in which scholar-practitioner research competencies are attained by students and whether these competencies are attained sequentially, concurrently, or in splintered fashion. though golde (2013) conceptualized the development of scholar-practitioners as occurring in three stages, the scholarship on doctoral students has yet to determine if the growth and development of research competencies are developed in a sequential, linear fashion or if development is staggered and splintered. in other words, research competencies may not be developed in a specific order or at a specific pace. perhaps students experience periods of rapid research competency development and growth, interspersed with periods of relatively slower growth. likewise, some competencies may be developed simultaneously. more research is needed to make these determinations. as choi et al.’s (2019) literature review reveals, multiple studies found a link between research competence and researcher confidence. further research is needed to determine if competencies in particular skills is associated with researcher confidence and if scholar-practitioner attitudes (e.g., value of research) are associated with competence and confidence. choi et al. (2019) also note that specific activities such as participation in student-created writing groups promote research competence, however additional research is needed to determine how these might function in an online, asynchronous environment, such as the one in this program. while this study investigated the development of scholarpractitioner competencies in an online doctor of education program, it could not separate the impact of the program from the online medium itself. therefore, further investigation is needed to determine the impact of an online learning environment on the development of scholar-practitioner competencies. replication of this study using identifiable individuals and groups is recommended to better understand the growth of research competencies over time, including sequence and pace. a qualitative study of student experiences while developing research competencies would help illuminate this phenomenon and therefore is also recommended. references andrews, r., & grogan, m. 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(2002, november 22). rethinking the edd or what’s in a name [paper presentation]. annual meeting of the association for the study of higher education, sacramento, ca. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_311.15.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_311.15.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_311.15.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/2021/chb_508c.pdf https://www.qualitymatters.org/sites/default/files/research-docs-pdfs/chloe-4-report-2020-navigating-the-mainstream.pdf https://www.qualitymatters.org/sites/default/files/research-docs-pdfs/chloe-4-report-2020-navigating-the-mainstream.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21179 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 developing leadership for improvement: iterative cycles as opportunities for learning maritza lozano california state university, fullerton malozano@fullerton.edu leyda w. garcia california state university, fullerton legarcia@fullerton.edu carlos sandoval, jr. wested carloss4@uci.edu abstract improvement and action-oriented research approaches make iterative testing to learn about systems and adaptive change a central practice. as the need to develop the field’s capacity to improve grows, so does the need to develop leaders’ capacity for leading and conducting iterative cycles of testing. the present study reveals how edd candidates learn to investigate and specify problems and aims, develop the capacity to lead, and conduct iterative cycles of testing in schools and school districts. we draw on the implementation of core learning activities in one educational leadership doctoral program employing improvement science as a signature methodology. findings suggest shifting candidate orientations, growth in the capacity to engage in iterative cycles for improvement of problem definition and actionable steps, and the ability to garner collegial engagement in improvement and iterative testing. implications highlight the importance of designing and structuring learning activities beyond those that exist in traditional research methods courses to ensure adequate candidate preparation. keywords improvement science, iterative testing, edd, educational leadership, systems change improvement research and improvement science continue to expand and take hold in teacher preparation (sandoval & van es, 2021), teacher professional learning (lozano, 2017), and edd programs (perry et al., 2020). the spread of improvement science into edd programs has given rise to the adoption of improvement research methodologies and approaches. the increasing use of improvement in education has created a need for fieldand capacitybuilding work where educators are capable of engaging and leading improvement at scale. as the need to develop the field’s capacity to improve grows, so too does the need to develop leaders’ capacity for leading the work of improvement. leading improvement requires the adoption of specific dispositions (biag & sherer, 2021), including the take up of disciplined inquiry, a penchant for inquiry and learning, and persistence. these dispositions are reflected in core activities that span across improvement research methodologies. for example, in design-based research, improvement science, continuous improvement, action research, and other research approaches oriented towards improvement, iteration and testing of changes to practices, processes, tools, and systems are central features of improvement research (barab & squire, 2004; bryk et al., 2015; hinnant-crawford, 2020; langley et al., 2009; young et al., 2010; yurkofsky et al., 2020). across these methodologies, iterative cycles of testing are opportunities for educators responsible for leading improvement to engage in critical reflection where educators fail fast, learn quickly, and develop insight into the systems within which they work. iteration is a basic element of engaging and leading improvement that results in system wide change. yet, while the importance of iteration is understood in these approaches, iteration itself is often ascribed to a formalized process that occurs after the establishment of a well-defined problem space and a well-scoped aim. in improvement science, the use of plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycles are an example of a formalized process for iteration (bryk et al., 2015). once a specific area for improvement is identified, pdsas are used to articulate well-specified changes that can then be tested and refined at small scales. iteration is not limited to engagement to a formal routine, like the pdsa. instead, iteration is the foundation of critical reflection, disciplined inquiry, and persistence. these are essential dispositions required of leaders working to support innovation and change. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5104-7090 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8906-9984 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1468-2949 iterative cycles as opportunities for learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 17 in this study, we build on the notion of iteration as a process that permeates every step of improvement research to illustrate the dialogical nature of problem articulation, scoping, and iteration to achieve change at scale. the aims of our study are twofold. first, we seek to contribute to the field’s practice and understanding by examining how educational leaders learn to investigate and specify problems and aims through iteration. secondly, this study showcases specific learning activities used by faculty to support doctoral candidates in that process. although improvement literature articulates “well-specified” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 144) aims and theories of action as a central feature of improvement, how improvement leaders reach highly specified theories of action, how they learn to specify these theories, and how instructors or facilitators teach leaders to engage in these processes of inquiry is vague. we view our study as a contribution to this literature by highlighting what “well-specified” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 144) means and looks like in the context of preparing leaders to take up problems of practice in the dissertation in practice and how emerging improvement leaders learn to specify their aims and theories of action through guided activities in their coursework or consultations with course instructors. we present two cases of doctoral students, kerry and nicole, both in the second year of a three-year doctoral program, to illustrate how educational doctorate programs can support their candidates as they learn to use improvement tools in service of their dissertations in practice. our goal is to highlight how kerry and nicole engaged in iteration over a series of course activities and, through these activities, shifted in their views of improvement and use of improvement tools over the course of a semester. we highlight the core learning activities that faculty facilitated to inform student orientations towards improvement science and its use in dissertation research. faculty had an explicit goal of providing candidates with the experience of engaging in iterative testing and building of evidence. kerry, nicole, and the faculty teaching the course continuously challenged assumptions through iteration, testing, and continued scoping of the problem. these two cases illuminate how the work of scoping unfolds through iteration, better positioning students to engage in research design that creates a throughline from problem to aim and that leads to productive iterative cycles of testing change ideas. we begin with a brief description of the educational leadership doctoral program and the course from which we draw these two cases. we describe the core learning activities in detail to illustrate the process faculty anticipated candidates to move through as they refined their research projects. as faculty in the program, we also offer descriptions of our positionalities relative to the edd program, the course, and the two candidates. we then present the cases, offering rich detail into each student’s problem and their disposition towards improvement. we then engage in a discussion about these cases, describing candidates’ initial orientations to improvement work to situate the extent to which the learning activities helped candidates refine their understanding and scope of their dissertation research. program and course context the doctoral program was founded in 2007 and is currently in its 16th year. with an express focus on the preparation of educational leaders, the program has evolved now offering two concentration tracks: p12 and community college. in this three-year program, candidates take many of their courses during the first two years. students matriculate in courses during fall, spring, and summer terms, including continuous research-to-practice seminars where candidates work closely with a faculty member to scope and craft dissertation proposal work in preparation for the third year of the program which is dedicated to their dissertation research. beginning in 2019, the program recognized the need for redesign to more closely reflect the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework and initiated a formal process of revisioning involving faculty in both concentrations. revisioning processes included drafting new mission and vision statements, conferring with the edd. advisory board to discuss the knowledge and skills program graduates required to be successful educational leaders in the field, the development of new program competencies, and a steady shift towards the adoption of dissertations in practice. p12 faculty took up course revisions beginning with the research methods courses by adjusting target learning outcomes in the existing course sequence. for example, while all candidates completed an introduction to research methods course in the spring of their first year, revisioning meant that the introduction to research methods course would now include quantitative and qualitative learning modules where previously learning was limited to qualitative or quantitative methods. similarly, students also complete an advanced research methods course in the spring term of their second year. previously, students would select into the advanced course based on their anticipated research design, but this often was premature and did not always adequately support candidates. the shift to dissertations in practice required p12 faculty to analyze their current course sequence and identify gaps where program learning goals could be strengthened. the primary gap noted occurred between the two spring terms. in the first spring term, candidates were immersed in learning about research methodology, research methods, and actively engaged in reflexive activities that prompted them to write about their positionalities in relation to their identified problems of practice, including their personal and professional identities. in the second spring term, candidates were expected to finalize their research designs in preparation for their dissertation research and write that section of their proposals. in practice, this meant that candidates had a two-semester gap where they might, or might not, make applied connections to the research methods they might use in their dissertation work. the forecasting and addressing instructional needs (faain) course, as an applied methods course, was meant to fill this gap; however, the course had not been explicitly treated or taught as such. upon reflection about this gap, instructors decided to redesign the faain course to center the applied research component and thus support students’ engagement with improvement science methodologies. the authors entered this problem space at different junctures of the revisioning process. we describe our respective roles in this space in turn. lozano has been part of the education leadership doctoral program revisioning process since 2019. as part of this process, lozano worked on the redesign of the p12 research methods course sequence and previously taught the intro to research methods course. lozano co-teaches forecasting and addressing instructional needs with garcia and co-led departmentwide professional learning sessions focused on improvement science and dissertations in practice with sandoval. garcia has been instrumental in the redesign of forecasting and addressing instructional needs and co-teaches with lozano. garcia comes to the course with experience as a practitioner of improvement science lozano et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 18 within school systems and organizational approaches. sandoval teaches the advanced methods course in the research methods course series for p12 students. sandoval brings a breadth of experience leading networked improvement community efforts. sandoval led p12 learning-focused conversations on dissertations in practice, targeting the alignment of methods and data analysis. in this paper, we draw on coursework completed in the redesigned faain, a required course for all doctoral candidates enrolled in the fall semester of their second year. the purpose of the course from which we take these two cases had the goal of providing candidates with the opportunity to refine and revise their understandings of the problems of practice they aim to take up in their dissertations. to make the purpose of the course clear, the course learning goals and objectives were organized into practice and research categories. figure 1 indicates how these learning goals appeared in the course syllabus. figure 1. course learning goals and objectives course learning activities the course instructors carefully designed the instructional arcs to coincide with the candidates’ anticipated learning trajectory as they refined dissertation projects. in figure 2, the primary drivers indicate the core learnings that are reflective of the instructional arcs of the course, whereas the secondary drivers reflect the course components that instructors believed were integral to supporting candidate preparation and application of improvement science tools in service of candidates' dissertation work. figure 2. course driver diagram as part of the course, there were two core learning activities designed to support candidates to bridge their understanding: 1) the improvement work learning log (see appendix a) and 2) two workshopping protocols (see appendix b) conducted in small breakout groups during two separate synchronous class meetings (week 4 and week 9). each core learning activity is described. workshop protocol 1 candidates were expected to attend the week 4 class with a working driver diagram draft to share with their peers. during this meeting, we introduced the protocol that was designed to provide candidates with a structure for presenting their driver diagrams and talking through their ideas with peers in small groups. our goal was to provide candidates with a scaffolded feedback opportunity to support driver diagram draft revisions. improvement work learning log at the end of the week 4 class meeting, faculty introduced the learning log to support candidates in documenting learning as part of the improvement research process. the logs included three learning reflection entries, each with distinct prompts. the first entry, driver diagram, prompted candidates to reflect on the degree to which their systems were reflected in their driver diagrams, to consider improvements that were needed, and directed candidates to share their driver diagrams with colleagues to solicit input and feedback. the second and third entries were focused on testing and building evidence through iteration. these entries, titled learning cycle 1 and learning cycle 2 respectively, included reflection questions that prompted students to plan testing of a change idea anchored in their theory of action, reflect on what they hoped the test would help them learn, make predictions about how the test would unfold, collect evidence on the execution of the test, and reflect on what happened when they completed the test. these prompts are closely aligned with the organization of pdsa cycles central to improvement science approaches (bryk et al., 2015). workshop protocol 2 candidates were provided with a second structured workshopping opportunity during week 9. the protocol included the following steps. in small groups, students numbered off and decided who would present first. then, each student had the chance to share their learning, namely the iterations they had engaged in to stage their improvement project. while the presenter explained their project, the other students listened and captured their reactions and questions in a note-catching matrix that was accessible to all students in the small group. the presenter then responded to the questions and comments made by the others in the group. after each member had a chance to explain their project, the whole group reviewed the questions and takeaways and synthesized the themes that emerged through their collective exchange. the second workshop protocol was distinct from the first in two ways. first, because we knew that candidates were at different stages in their work projects, we offered two pathways to enter the process of sharing their work and soliciting feedback. it was important to emphasize the importance of learning, honoring where candidates found themselves in this process, and reinforcing the notion that this is real work, and it is messy. to this end, one version offered candidates the opportunity to discuss their revised driver diagrams, this time emphasizing their anticipated plans for conducting a future learning cycle. at the same time, we also found it important to support candidates who had already conducted at least one learning cycle. we offered a second protocol path in support of those candidates that had tried something and were in the stages of iterative cycles as opportunities for learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 19 reflecting on their learning and/or planning their next learning cycle. an important difference in this protocol was the inclusion of a notecatching matrix (see appendix c) that helped students reflect on feedback and questions provided by peers where, again, candidates could document what was being shared as well as questions and feedback that were provided in return. the process of taking notes was intentionally designed to reinforce the importance of documenting learning. we introduced the first workshopping protocol during our online week 4 class meeting. through this activity, our aim was to provide candidates with the opportunity to share their working theories as documented in their driver diagrams in anticipation of engaging with other colleagues at their respective work sites to solicit feedback as part of their improvement work learning log. this first workshopping protocol set candidates up for completing their first improvement work learning log entry and ease them into the subsequent learning log entries. in much the same way, the second workshopping protocol was designed to scaffold students into the continuation of refining their research projects in the service of the dissertation in practice. our co-constructivist approach to teaching facilitated our ability to be responsive to the learning needs of our candidates. in this way, the development and refinement of these tools and protocols allowed us to meet candidates where they were in the learning process and design learning experiences that could propel them to the next phase of their learning journeys. developing capacity for improvement we present the cases of kerry and nicole, two educational leadership doctoral candidates enrolled in this course, who were learning to use improvement tools to improve mathematics teaching in their respective districts. these cases highlight how they evolved in their understanding of the use of improvement tools as they began to use them: for their dissertation research, the scope of their aims in early stages of work, the learning activities that faculty engaged to shift their individual orientations around these tools to help further scope their projects, the extent to which scoping shifted, and how scoping supported iterative cycles of testing. case study 1: kerry kerry was a student in her second year of the p12 education doctorate program. upon entering the class, kerry, much like her peers, had an identified complex problem of practice that merited attention and fit within the requirements of a dissertation in practice. yet, the degree to which kerry had engaged in specific problem analysis and problem definition activities had been limited. kerry was an experienced educator and was encouraged to draw on these experiences as she continued to explore and define the problem of practice she would take up in her dissertation research. this was something that we as instructors also emphasized in the context of our course and repeated frequently throughout formal instruction opportunities. during week 4, when candidates were asked to generate working drafts of their driver diagram in preparation for the first workshopping experience, kerry joined a small group to share her work. in class, small groups were provided with ample time to workshop their current driver diagrams with each other in breakout groups. at the end of the dedicated group time, the instructors held a whole group debriefing session. kerry shared some of her insights and questions about her project. based on her description, the instructors gathered that the scope of kerry’s project was much too broad, constraining her ability to identify a direction for engaging in iterative cycles of testing that she might want to explore in this course. in this debrief, kerry identified a specific professional learning approach, lesson study, as her dissertation in practice research. she wondered how she might test and build evidence at a small scale if her dissertation research required her to implement an entirely new approach with a team of teachers over a prolonged period of time. at this point, kerry surmised lesson study was not a small, testable change that she could engage in inquiry around and that she would need to come up with an entirely new project to meet course assignment requirements. it was clear that kerry had identified a complex problem of practice around mathematics teaching and learning, had identified lesson study as a specific solution, and believed that was her dissertation in practice. upon reviewing kerry’s driver diagram it was clear that the aim was broad and incomplete (see appendix d). kerry’s driver diagram listed two goals: 1) increase math teachers’ capacity for change as measured by survey/interview data by fall 2023 and 2) increase participation in professional learning by implementing new practices, improved opinion/attitude of professional learning and/or willingness to continue. the goals listed in the driver diagram were preliminary and not reflective of the kind of problem definition within a specific system or the scoping required to clearly identify a throughline for improvement in a dissertation in practice. further review revealed that the primary and secondary drivers were also unclear. at this point, kerry had identified drivers that were reflective of resources (e.g., provide time, provide incentives, require professional learning), people (e.g., district, math department, volunteers, coaches), and actions (e.g., coaches conduct focus groups, group conducts research, etc.) that were beyond her sphere of control. given her use of specific categories (i.e., resources, people, actions) beyond her immediate local context, it was apparent that kerry’s initial driver diagram captured reasoning that was similar to what might be captured in a causal systems analysis (e.g., ishikawa or fishbone diagram). kerry had not moved through a process of flaring where she might brainstorm root causes that might directly contribute to the problem of practice she sought to redress: student mathematics achievement. at this juncture, it was evident that kerry needed to consider how the identified problem of practice manifested within her district and work team, investigate how others understood the problem, and determine how feedback loops were used with her team. this would enable her to scope a project that was reflective of her system and aligned with the existing work practices that she could leverage to support improvement. kerry emailed her driver diagram to the two course instructors to solicit their feedback. one of the course instructors responded with written feedback, noting: i see 2 aims in your aim statement. how about choosing one for the class? i think the one about increasing participation in [professional learning] is a good starting point. and i would ask before settling for that one, is that the problem you are trying to solve? how do you know that is the problem? (jot those things down) now, look at the slides from the class again and ask? what could augment participation? and what is within your sphere of control? personally, i would not include the district. list all the resources you do have and/or can provide within your role. perhaps things like: embedded time during regular lozano et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 20 pd or time during regular grade level/department meetings; peer observations (are these already common practice); think of things that already exist within the system. follow the same process for secondary drivers. these questions aimed at helping kerry try to scope her theory of improvement. in particular, the instructor’s move to ask kerry to attend to what problems she was attempting to solve and what was within her locus of control were meant to get kerry to center the needs of her colleagues and students over her commitment to lesson study as a change. the questions also were designed to get kerry to center activities and meeting spaces she had influence over, rather than large, year-long efforts and initiatives. kerry took this feedback and constructed a second iteration of her driver diagram based on the instructor’s feedback. during week 9, kerry participated in the second workshopping session using the protocol with her peer group. she shared her most recent version of her driver diagram as peers used the note catcher to document the sharing and feedback session. kerry had refined her goal to the following: improve high school math teachers' attitude and capacity for professional learning. in addition, she had refined her primary drivers to identify similar grain size areas that could potentially be targeted to reach her goal. while kerry had refined her secondary drivers, these were still too broad in scope as they named people and not necessarily specific norms, structures, or routines clearly related to the primary drivers. furthermore, kerry had also expanded the change ideas to include specific components of a more comprehensive professional learning approach that could be leveraged to test and build evidence. for example, kerry identified things like journal club and unit mapping as specific change ideas. the second workshopping protocol supported kerry in working with her peers to discuss the scope of her project and also consider additional factors that might be important to her work. at this point, kerry had conducted one of the learning cycles which involved surveying math teachers to identify professional learning supports that they were interested in and following up with requests. kerry had written in her learning log that she had rarely received responses to her offering of support and used this cycle to interrogate why. she noted: over the past year, i have told many math teachers to reach out with any kind of request for support. here are some example phrases i have used in email to teachers: • “if there is anything else we can help you with over these next couple of weeks, please let us know!” • “is there anything i can do to support your teaching from home efforts?” [...] i am certain that there were basically zero requests for support in response to emails with any of these phrases. kerry recognized that her open-ended offering of support was a possible issue after having read beswick’s (2014) study on soliciting the professional learning needs of mathematics teachers. beswick’s (2014) study found that providing teachers with options for what kinds of supports they could leverage was more effective in soliciting their needs than asking them open-ended questions. thus, kerry decided to conduct a learning cycle around using a survey, with one item offering multiple options for support and a second item offering multiple options for formats of professional learning activities (e.g., observing a lesson), to solicit her math teachers’ professional learning needs. in her learning log, kerry predicted she would receive up to three responses out of the 15 teachers to whom she sent the survey. she received nine. kerry wrote that while she was pleasantly surprised with the number of responses to the survey, she found it difficult to respond to all the math teachers’ divergent needs. in her reflection of the use of the survey, she noted that her next test would omit the second item asking teachers what format they prefer for professional learning activities. kerry’s case illustrates her shift towards engaging in iterative cycles of testing. though kerry began the class with an overly general theory of action and a skepticism of the value of iterative cycles of testing, she began to scope a manageable, testable theory of action and charted out a small change idea to help her learn about her theory and adapt the change idea based on how the change went. rather than implement lesson study at scale, kerry began to learn her way into providing responsive professional learning to her mathematics teachers and enabled her to build confidence in her theory of action and her project more broadly. case study 2: nicole nicole was a second-year doctoral student in the p12 program. similarly to kerry, her experience in narrowing the problem she was trying to address was limited. at first, she wanted to create a planning and teaching tool the drew from universal design for learning (udl) and culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy (clrp) to scaffold math learning for english learners (els) and students with disabilities (swd) (see appendix d). she assumed that was the best solution to address math underachievement for els and swd. through the guided activities and consultations in her course, she was better able to represent her theory of action through a revised driver diagram that was informed by teachers (users), doctoral peers, and faculty members. the process of scoping her problem and ideas about how to address the problem was very much informed by the learning opportunities created for her within the faain course. this course offered nicole the opportunity to maximize the utility of improvement science tools in a way that was adaptive and responsive to her needs. the readings, the reflection piece through the learning log, and the collaboration with her instructors supported nicole’s journey in improvement work. initially, nicole thought she had to start with an intervention to test. however, through the course reading and consultation she documented the following: “adding student and teacher voices via empathy interviews as primary drivers were the most significant changes i made to my driver diagram and helped me zoom in on a more specific aim and fine-tune my problem of practice.” nicole followed hinnant-crawford’s (2020) recommendation to leverage the power of a pdsa cycle to refine the aim. nicole noted: “conducting teacher empathy interviews became my pdsa for cycle i. hinnantcrawford (2020) discusses using a pdsa cycle to determine my aim. that’s what cycle i has helped me do.” learning through her first pdsa cycle resulted in a more attainable aim and clearer drivers to achieve that aim. after conducting ten empathy interviews with the assistance of colleagues who were aspiring administrators and enthusiastically joined her investigation of the problem, nicole’s data revealed complex teacher perceptions and understanding about the underachievement of els and swd in mathematics. in fact, the empathy interview data directly contradicted some of her assumptions about what teachers thought about their students who were classified as els and swd. she realized teachers grasped the iterative cycles as opportunities for learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 21 complexity of challenges these students face and were excited about engaging in a learning process that allowed them to better differentiate their instruction. nicole documented her prediction about her first cycle in this way: i anticipated that teachers would acknowledge the underperformance of els and swd in mathematics. i was pleasantly surprised that their answers focused more on the curricular/instructional/learning challenges these students face rather than emphasizing work completion and not knowing their math facts (which i seem to hear a lot). her findings also allowed her to see the dialogical nature of improvement science tools to frame change and learning. once she had the space to grapple with new questions and conflicting data that challenged her assumptions, nicole made adjustments. in her revised version of her driver diagram, udl became a primary driver rather than the change idea. she credits a conversation with the instructor to help her rethink the drivers she had first crafted: after meeting with dr. x., we talked about possibly positioning the lesson planning tool as a primary driver. this may assist me in being able to take a slice of this massive idea that has multiple inputs to achieve the aim and streamline my research. nicole is forging a path to improvement by building up her knowledge and understanding of her current system, the entry points to stage changes, and the centrality of ensuring she is being user-centered. as her learning evolved–aided by the readings, the learning log, and the support of the instructors–nicole redesigned her driver diagram to include places where she could intervene to make improvements. for example, she situated teacher planning time as a place where (secondary driver) a collective udl/clrp lesson could be designed by teachers with her support. embracing a well-defined process aided nicole in finding high leverage places in her system where she could support teacher learning to make mathematics instruction more accessible for els and swd. in addition, her new approach included the buy-in of the teachers she was hoping to support because she had recruited their input and involvement through her interview process. by week 9 of the semester, nicole was prepared to share the progress of her project with peers through a workshop protocol that was part of her course. for nicole, having the opportunity to explicate her thinking and actions resulted in a more refined driver diagram and plan for implementing her change idea–testing her planning tool in the field. the intentional sequence and scope of the forecasting and addressing needs course allowed nicole to trust herself to leverage the power of improvement science tools by spending a whole pdsa cycle learning from teachers, the users she wanted to support. investing her time in this way resulted in a more precise definition of her problem and aim statement. her next iteration involved testing the tool she had created with second grade students during a math lesson. once again, the improvement work log allowed her to capture her learning and appreciation for the complexity that using a new tool might hold for a teacher. she observed: the tool is ultimately meant for teachers. i learned that i probably needed to plan alongside the teacher if i was to teach/facilitate the lesson because the teacher can use the tool with more specificity given his/her knowledge of the students. i think she would have gladly taken the time but i didn’t want to add another thing to her plate. although she had a successful lesson with the students in a teacher’s classroom, nicole recognized that if she wanted teachers to interact and use this tool, they would need more in-depth capacity building and scaffolds than she might have anticipated. after the course, nicole is much better positioned to engage with teachers in her educational system to collaboratively work on improving mathematics instruction for students classified as els and swd. nicole began with a deep desire to support math instruction, particularly for students with disabilities (swd) and english learners (els). her initial approach led to a colossal problem of practice and what seemed to be an insurmountable project. however, after an intentionally curated process that included readings, an improvement work learning log, a workshop protocol with peers, and consultations with her instructors, nicole was able to understand that her initial theory of action was too broad and prescriptive. the guidance provided through a focused line of inquiry led her to rethink and redesign her driver diagram and thus her ideas for change that might lead to improvement in mathematics instruction. learning to scope the ethos of improvement science is to “unearth our problems, understand our current systems, and have prophetic imagination about what can be, and then work to bring that about. improvement science is a methodology that can help us do just that” (hinnantcrawford, 2020, p. 5). in the course, forecasting and addressing instructional needs, the doctoral students were given opportunities to unearth problems and understand their systems resulting in prophetic imagination (forecasting) that allowed them to test out change ideas that could indeed become improvements. the guided activities and opportunities to discuss and reflect on what they were learning created a rich journey through which they were able to scope the problem to a reasonable size and ascertain whether their changes were in fact improvements. the impact of each instructional tool is summarized. workshop protocols the evolution of the protocols from workshop one to workshop two differentiated the reflection for students to enhance the impact of the consultation. being responsive to student needs and progress within their improvement projects solidified the learning and allowed students to learn from one another based on where they were in the improvement process. in addition, the process of workshopping itself modeled the dialogic nature of iteration as a necessary component of improvement. here, it was the course instructors that demonstrated iteration to the course to improve their facilitation of learning in dialogue with doctoral candidates’ learning progression. improvement science tools seek to create a common language among users that leads to collective action towards a common aim (bryk et al., 2015). in this case, the improvement science tools and differentiated protocols provided a framework for all students to participate fully in the consultation and gain profound insight into their problems of practice and theories of action. the improvement work learning log no learning can occur without reflection. any authentic analysis of current conditions in an educational system requires a naming of the world that results in praxis–action and reflection that result in emancipatory practices and authentic learning (freire, 2014). learning to engage in practices that can bring about equity and lozano et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 22 social justice to educational contexts may seem overwhelming to students who seek to interrogate current conditions and bring about change. improvement science invites a close study of systems that produce problems and the creation of a theory of action that manifests places where changes can be implemented and measured to ascertain their impact. however, the tools alone may not be as powerful as when coupled with reflection tools like the improvement work learning log. the log used in the course invited a deep level of reflection that pushed students to shift and expand their mindsets to better address their pops. the questions allowed students to codify their learning by naming their world and thus propelling their practice into praxis–action and reflection that led to improvement. thus, having a set of tools to stage and manage change coupled with powerful reflection helped students like kerry and nicole carry out significant improvement projects. collaboration we posit that the co-teaching model in the faain course provided an additional layer of support for students and faculty who were able to co-design and co-construct a pathway for students to practice improvement science in a safe space. in our work, we acknowledge our desire to prepare students to be education leaders that recognize and name injustice in educational systems and are ready to lead transformation. leading in this way requires vulnerability, engagement with others, and collaboration. the course instructors co-designed the course, co-facilitated class sessions, shared grading responsibilities, met regularly to discuss student progress, and made adjustments based on students' learning. here instructors collaborated with each other and worked to provide an alternate model of the dialogical nature of teaching and learning. faculty prioritized collaboration and co-construction, soliciting input and feedback that was integrated into course activities. through these parallel approaches, where faculty were engaged in their process of iteration, testing approaches to learning through workshopping and learning logs, and students were interrogating their approaches to complex problems of practice, collaboration was positioned as a vital component of leadership. programs may want to consider and reflect on the current levels of collaboration across their institutions, including in the co-design and co-teaching of courses. such collaborative approaches may represent a myriad of benefits for students as they embrace more formal leadership roles in their current educational systems or as they lead larger improvement projects in their current systems. the power of shared-learning through this doctoral program, educational leaders learn to embrace a praxis of research-practice-reflection that accelerates learning to effect changes that result in improvement. the two cases discussed in this study revealed the various opportunities candidates had to stop and reflect, with the support of peers and faculty, to reassess their grasps on the pops and shape their improvement projects. these leaders have learned invaluable lessons about the power of disciplined iterative cycles to bring about significant changes to their current systems: “to exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in actionreflection” (freire, 2014, p. 88). the leaders in the case studies and in the doctoral program in general, are in fact building their identities as leaders in word, work, and in action-reflection. the adaptive nature of the forecasting and addressing instructional needs course revealed a contextually-driven learning space that built on students’ expertise and centered learning fast as an invaluable part of the process. leadership preparation programs aim to develop leaders who center equity through their work and who have the tools to enact lasting improvements to our current educational systems. the inclusion of intentional spaces to stop and reflect, to question and clarify, and to revise and iterate is crucial to the needs of school leaders facing complex pops. if our aim is to prepare and sustain social justice leaders, we must then create systematic and systemic pathways that help leaders see learning as necessary and reciprocal in nature within various educational partner groups (françois & hunter quartz, 2021). as educational doctorate programs continue to explore, revise, and adapt to meet the leadership preparation demands of the field, it is important to develop processes and mechanisms that allow them to be responsive to candidates’ evolving needs. the authors have presented detailed examples of what adaptation and responsiveness looks like in the context of a single course like forecasting and addressing instructional needs. engaging a praxis of researchpractice-reflection that is dialogic is mutually beneficial for candidates and faculty. praxis supports candidates’ learning as developing improvement leaders and faculty who are invested in living the ideals of improvement by continuously revising their instructional practice. references biag, m., & sherer, d. (2021). getting better at getting better: improvement dispositions in education. teachers college record, 123(4), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300402 beswick, k. (2014). what teachers’ want: identifying mathematics teachers’ professional learning needs. the mathematics enthusiast, 11(1), 83– 108. https://doi.org/10.54870/1551-3440.1293 bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. françois, a., & hunter quartz, k. (2021). preparing and sustaining social justice educators. harvard education press. freire, p. (2014). pedagogy of the oppressed (30th ed). bloomsbury. hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. myers education press. langley, g. j., moen, r. d., nolan, k, m., nolan, t. w., norman, c. l., & provost, l. p. (2009). the improvement guide: a practical approach to enhancing organizational performance. wiley. lozano, m. (2017). learning in practice: exploring the use of plan-do-study-act cycles to support professional learning. university of california, los angeles. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. sandoval jr, c., & van es, e. a. (2021). examining the practices of generating an aim statement in a teacher preparation networked improvement community. teachers college record, 123(6), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300606 young, m. r., rapp, e., & murphy, j. w. (2010). action research: enhancing classroom practice and fulfilling educational responsibilities. journal of instructional pedagogies, 3(1), 1–10. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1096942.pdf yurkofsky, m. m., peterson, a. j., mehta, j. d., horwitz-willis, r., & frumin, k. m. (2020). research on continuous improvement: exploring the complexities of managing educational change. review of research in education, 44(1), 403–433. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x20907363 https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300402 https://doi.org/10.54870/1551-3440.1293 https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300606 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1096942.pdf https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x20907363 iterative cycles as opportunities for learning impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 23 appendix a improvement work learning log what is the purpose of the learning log? learning logs are used to document learning in practice. they are used to chronicle your learning journey over time. in an improvement project, documenting what you learn is an important part of the process. anchoring your learning in practice is contingent on your ability to effectively measure the impact of your change idea. the learning log helps you reflect, plan, and record evidence to inform future action. how “to do” the learning log? this document is unique to you, the user, so there is no right or wrong way to complete it. consider describing evidence that expands on or supports your process. learning log reflection: driver diagram 1. what were the key learnings you derived about your current system by building your driver diagram? 2. what are some areas you see for improvement? 3. share your driver diagram with 2-3 colleagues in your current context. how did their insights or reflections shift and/or reinforce your current thinking about your driver diagram? learning log reflection: cycle 1 1. what did you want to learn from this test? 2. what data did you collect? 3. what did you anticipate or predict as a result of this test? 4. what did you learn from this test? 5. what were some unintended consequences from this cycle that happened as a result of your change idea? 6. how will what you learned inform what you will do next time? learning log reflection: cycle 2 1. what did you want to learn from this test? 2. what data did you collect? 3. what did you anticipate or predict as a result of this test? 4. what did you learn from this test? 5. what were some unintended consequences from this cycle that happened as a result of your change idea? 6. how will what you learned inform what you will do next time? 7. what might be a good way to present your findings to other stakeholders in your system? appendix b workshop protocols week 4 in your groups, join a breakout room 1. count off to decide who will begin. designate a timekeeper. 2. presenter: share your driver diagram (2 minutes) 3. audience: after presenter shares, ask clarifying questions about the theory of improvement represented in the driver diagram (5 minutes) ○ how is the system reflected in the driver diagram? ○ what is the connection across drivers? ○ what would people in your system say about your driver diagram? 4. presenter: reflects out loud, sharing how the questions and discussion deepened their thinking (1 minute) week 9 where are you in the improvement process? probing questions i’m planning for my cycle… 1. share your driver diagram and talk about your change idea with the group. ○ what is your throughline? why is this the place where you chose to begin? 2. share your process for implementation of your first learning cycle with your group. ○ what are you piloting? what data are you collecting? what do you anticipate learning through this first learning cycle? 1. is the aim clear, specific, actionable, and timebound? 2. what is the feasibility of this work? 3. what data did you review/collect to help you identify a starting point? what data will you revisit throughout the project? 4. how are you working with others? how do you plan to gain their support and/or participation? i’ve completed at least one learning cycle… 1. share your driver diagram and talk about your change idea with the group. ○ what is the aim of your project? what is the throughline? where did you begin? why did you begin here? 2. you’ve completed at least one learning cycle. share with your team. ○ what did you do? ○ what did you learn? ○ will it work? why or why not? ○ how do you know? 1. is the aim clear, specific, actionable, and timebound? 2. what is the feasibility of this work? 3. what data did you review/collect to help you identify a starting point? what data are you revisiting throughout the project? 4. if you worked with others, how did you gain their support and/or participation? 5. what were some things that you learned that were completely surprising or unanticipated? 6. where will you go next? lozano et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.345 24 appendix c note-catching protocol note-taking and feedback process 1. number off. 2. select a timekeeper and note taker (per presenter). 3. person 1 will present (5 mins). 4. group will add clarifying & probing questions on the table provided (3 mins). 5. discussion (7 mins). 6. repeat for the next person. note catcher notetaker will capture the presentation. each member will then take time to write down their question(s). group will ask questions and notetaker will capture discussion notes. note-catching matrix presenter: notetaker (catch notes from the presentation and discussion during the questions portion): timekeeper (set a timer for each portion of the protocol): general presentation notes (5 mins) • clarifying & probing questions (10 minutes total: 3 mins. for folks to write in their questions in the table below. 7 mins. for discussion) name my questions notes appendix d candidate driver diagrams figure d1. kerry’s driver diagram at the beginning of the course figure d2. kerry’s revised driver diagram figure d3. kerry’s end-of-course driver diagram figure d4. nicole's driver diagram at the beginning of the course figure d5. nicole’s end-of-course driver diagram impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.279 edd student research and discoveries sherisse g. jackson university of south carolina sherisse@email.sc.edu yuechen sun university of south carolina yuechen@email.sc.edu abstract this article introduces one design concept of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (2022) framework and highlights the importance of edd student research and discoveries, which is the theme of this issue. then, it provides an overview of each article appearing in this issue. keywords student research, cped, dissertation in practice, edd the design concepts of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (2022) framework prepare edd students to become change agents in their local context, which also extends to the state and national levels. one design concept of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (2022) framework is the problem of practice, which is a complex issue embedded in the local context of the edd student. this problem of practice also is defined with equity and social justice in mind (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2022). in order to find a meaningful solution to the issue, the edd student must be immersed in scholarly research to develop an understanding of the problem of practice and develop a plan for change. for this purpose, the edd student identifies causes for the problem and identifies recommendations to address the issues based on equity and social justice. this themed issue focuses on edd student research and the discoveries from their work. these articles present research embedded in personal practice and recommendations based on findings to improve societal conditions for those who are marginalized. the following list provides an overview of each article.  in essential factors of a 15 to finish campaign: increasing on-time completion rates for community college students, howard and harrington discuss the low graduation rates of community college students and the challenges for these students to complete their studies. presently, community college administrators are implementing an intervention, a 15 to finish campaign, and this article highlights the success of this campaign.  in ageism-induced anxiety of job seekers aged 50-83: preliminary findings from a phenomenological case study problem of practice dissertation, franz and colleagues describe the challenges of seeking employment due to ageism and discuss strategies for employers to minimize ageism in their hiring practices.  in too few black male educators, jeter and melendez seek to learn and understand the factors contributing to the few black males pursuing careers in education in the u.s. they identify four major factors: poverty, a lack of sense of belonging, the lack of availability of role models or mentors, and existing institutional racism. further, they highlight the importance of increasing the number of black male educators and its impact on black male student success.  in single mother students are lacking sufficient support to persist to graduation in community colleges, richardson and harrington describe institutional barriers for single mother students pursuing their education at community colleges. in acknowledging these barriers, this article provides recommendations for improving the graduation rates of these students.  in low completion rates of latinx community college students, genthe and harrington identify the barriers and factors that contribute to the low persistence and completion rate of latinx community college students. they emphasize that most factors are interconnected and interactively affect latinx students. they also provide recommendations for institutional actions.  in fair play: a qualitative exploration of visitor behavior at playgrand adventures all-abilities playground, bunn and colleagues bring awareness of the need for accessible playgrounds for those with disabilities. this study provides recommendations to improve playgrounds for a more enjoyable and equitable experience for children with disabilities as well as parents with disabilities.  in intersections of identity, culture, and curriculum on the threshold of a latinx transforming edd program at a hispanic serving institution, hesse and jewett explore the intersections of culturally relevant, responsive, and http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ jackson & sun impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.279 2 sustaining approaches. they also bring critical consciousness into discussing the unique lens each approach offers the teachers and edd program (re)design, and the possibilities and problems of applying these approaches for edd program (re)design at hispanic serving institutions.  in developing pre-service teachers: a social justice approach for educating culturally and linguistically diverse students, alsen and buss explore the influence of a culturally and linguistically responsive teaching (clrt) framework in teaching orientations toward culturally and linguistically diverse (cld) students, providing pre-service teachers with pedagogical knowledge and skills, and employing a community of practice-based, service-learning approach. while this themed issue highlights the evolutionary work of students matriculating in doctor of education programs across the united states, the volume would not have been possible without the significant contributions of emma abruzzo, former editorial assistant for impacting education, who was a matriculating doctoral scholar during the inception and development of this special issue. the vision of the carnegie project on the education doctorate and impacting education foregrounds the preparation of doctor of education scholars, and this volume magnifies that mission. references carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2020). cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org sherisse g. jackson university of south carolina yuechen sun university of south carolina (1) references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 developing scholar activists: the role of the edd valerie storey franklin university valerie.storey@franklin.edu roschanda fletcher franklin university fletch41@email.franklin.edu abstract a qualitative descriptive approach was followed in the research, starting with a theoretical conceptualization of scholar activism within doctoral education as a basis for further inquiry. seventeen doctoral candidates described how they conceptualized and applied the carnegie project on the education doctorate's (cped) framework for the emerging edd activist to their experiences in an online program. study respondents gave accounts of growing confidence to engage in active, vocal advocacy, which they attributed to their new knowledge and understandings gained through participation in the program. however, for some mid-career students, increased vocal advocacy in the workplace was perceived as endangering career prospects. the data draw attention to the complexity of the professional learning process, calling into question the current inputoutput model of activism. further research is necessary to develop a greater understanding of the relationship between a developing scholar-activist and the impact of the edd and precisely how that can be measured. the findings from this study have implications for program developers and doctoral students wishing to become scholar-activists and agents of change. keywords activism, action research, advocacy, edd, graduate programs, impact, praxis, professional doctorate, scholar activism, scholaractivist activism is defined as "the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change" (oxford languages, n.d.). "embracing or pursuing activism is not for the faint of heart. it requires a degree of grit and commitment to outcomes that may or may not fully manifest despite the concerted effort" (becton & jeffries, 2021, p.1). the first iteration of the framework for the emerging edd activist (becton et al., 2020) was developed by faculty at the university of south carolina through the feedback of more than one hundred participants of the october 2020 carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) convening (becton et al., 2020; becton & jeffries, 2021). a single profile and a multi-profile model of an edd activist are incorporated into the framework. this paper applies the single and multi-profile model of an emerging edd activist to doctoral candidates from an edd program which, while not an institutional member of cped, was developed around cped design concepts and working principles (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2010). since early cped convenings in 2007, the institutional knowledge and professional capacity of cped has percolated to non-institutional members as faculty transition to new positions. programs that are cped influenced have drawn together under a shared vision to intentionally make the education doctorate (edd) significant to practice. program graduates are uniquely able to bridge theory and practice while simultaneously producing significant research and scholarship in the field (normore, 2008). the graduate's role as a bona fide agent of change was first considered by cped members a decade ago at the california state universityfresno, june 2012 convening when two critical questions relating to the dissertation in practice (dip) were discussed. first, what, if any, action pieces have been identified? second, what generative impact will this work have on practice, policy, and future research? the paper begins with a theoretical conceptualization of a scholar-activist before discussing the edd activist profile (becton et al., 2020). the reviewed literature considers the development of graduate activism in education, communication, law, and counseling psychology. the findings of a small-scale study investigating a particular population in education— doctoral candidates from an online edd program and the application of the edd activist model as the primary criteria in the data analysis are described. finally, the commentary concludes with a discussion of an emerging edd activist's single and multi-profile model. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8868-0802 storey & fletcher impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 2 a theoretical conceptualization of a scholar activist a process view of scholar activism can be traced back to the greek words λόγιος ακτιβιστής which means to be educated and to take action to achieve a goal – and implies that learned people can be scholar-activists (wiktionary, n.d.). such a process-oriented view resonates with farnum's (2016) definition of scholar-activists or school activists who actively work across multiple academic disciplines and engage in the communities they work with in order to address power inequities and make a difference. however, varying literature has treated this concept differently (ramasubramanian & sousa, 2021). for example, brooks and miles (2008) define an activist as a person who has adopted a social justice stance and is prepared to "deconstruct political, social, and economic inequity" (p.108). environmental scientists (2004) identified the primary characteristic of an activist as "persistent." atypical of the wider population, an activist has a stronger than average stomach for conflict and confrontation and possesses the following characteristics:  mistrust agency information  unwavering idealists  have a strong penchant for looking for and seeing problems, injustices, or danger  are often ready to research and seek expert help  have specific skills or knowledge  possess powerful tools for making themselves heard  are passionately immersed in an issue (journal of environmental science, 2004) a supplementary characteristic highlighted by frey (2009) and emphasized by dempsey et al. (2011) is the need for a scholaractivist to have a strong understanding of research and theory supporting the stance being taken. researchers in the field of social work have found that a range of background characteristics, including gender, race, age, prior political experiences, and prior community activism, could affect the activism of social work students (boehm & cohen, 2013; epstein, 2011). in the field of communication, ramasubramanian and sousa (2021) developed a conceptual framework for theorizing scholaractivism consisting of nine key dimensions: community-driven, social justice-oriented, action-oriented, grounded in the co-creation of knowledge, interdisciplinary, requires long-term involvement, challenges the status quo, driven by intrinsic motivation, and blurs the boundaries of scholarship. edd activist profile model the single and multi-profile edd activist model developed by becton et al. (2020) consists of four themes: coalition builder, vocal risktaker, visionary leader, and social justice champion (see table 1). these four themes were identified as embodied in edd students due to being embedded in a cped influenced edd program. review of the literature one of the challenges in synthesizing the existing scholarship is that the literature is sporadic. only recently has the relationship table 1. edd activist profile model themes characteristics coalition builder inspires and focuses on bringing people together for a common cause. possesses the ability to galvanize forces and build consensus within an organization. vocal risk-taker gives voice to critical issues and topics and possesses the courage necessary for activism. juggles competing political, social, and economic forces. increasingly confident in resisting the dominant discourses to advocate for societal's marginalized and powerless. visionary leader engages in critical reflection to solve authentic problems, exhibiting the kind of vision that is a necessary precursor for organizational change. social justice champion identifies the inequities and injustices that may go unnoticed in a particular work environment. continually focuses on equity and fairness. desire to make a difference. note: modified from becton, y., bogiages, b., d'amico, l., lilly, t., currin, e., jeffries, r., & tamim, s. (2020). an emerging framework for the edd activist, impacting education journal, 5(2), 43–54. between edd graduate programs, social justice, and activism been explored. previously, the focus was on student activism (frequently on campus) and was not considered a legitimate avenue for leadership development; it was thought to be disruptive and viewed as a detraction from student learning and engagement (chambers & phelps, 1994). this negative view of student activism has declined as scholars began to assert that activism contributes to civic engagement and leadership development (biddix, 2014; biddix et al., 2009; kezar & maxey, 2014). to take on the role of scholar-activist, there must first be developed "a heightened and critical awareness of oppression, exclusion, and marginalization" (brooks & miles, 2008, p.107). this proclivity can be taught overtly in educational programs and praxis though not enough is known as to how the experiences of edd students affect their role as scholar-activists. burnard et al. (2018) argue that professional practice doctorates should develop new practices that activate change and provide "a clear pathway for active policy participation, policy action, and policy change" (p.36). they further argue that participation in professional learning communities engages with activism to shape action and impact. essential to the success of this approach is the need for synergy and equality between involved agencies. a qualitative study by martin et al. (2021) focused on aspects of an edd program that impacted agency and activism, explicitly highlighting edd graduate activism in underrepresented communities. three open-ended questions were asked of 6 participants, and three themes were identified: relationships with faculty and cohort mattered; instructional scaffolding was vital; and how lived experiences cultivated a sense of belonging and collectivism. miller et al. (2021) applied the following 12 considerations for supporting activism within edd programs to a stem edd: • edd programs o vocal opportunities for addressing inequity in institutions, policies, methodological approaches, o mentoring/supporting students and graduates scholarly and practitioner inquiry activities scholar activism: role of edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 3 • coursework o specific to social justice, multicultural education, and/or leadership o related to or involving the community o related to research and/or dissertation in practice o embedded in overall course design • dissertation o social justice-related focus o inclusion of student's career and professional goals o considerations relative to the research and writing of the dissertation o considerations for dissertation defense or final presentation o defined dissertation process o supported dissertation process after analyzing course curriculum content and delivery, findings suggest that the program empowers program graduates as stem activists. while course readings and action research coursework focus on equity and social justice, of particular interest is the role and impact of problem-based learning (pbl) courses which take the learning experiences and social justice work directly to k-12 students (miller et al., 2021). edd programs are not unique in focusing on the role of the program in the development of graduate activists. victorson and doninger (2001), from the field of counseling psychology, argue the need for structured social activism training to be included in the graduate programs curricula for participants to understand the political forces and events that affect lives. they propose that a social activism component be integrated into the program that focuses on the following: • defining social activism • reviewing the history of social activism within psychology • studying prominent activists who have organized movements of social change • providing basic education on participatory action research (par) • teaching the logistics of engaging in social activism initiatives (victorson & doninger, 2001) from the legal field, yamada (2016) identifies the importance of intellectual activism, which is defined as "both a philosophy and a practice for engaging in scholarship relevant to real-world problems and challenges, putting its prescriptions into action, and learning from the process and results of implementation," (p.127) and draws upon the following attributes, skills, and values: • a commitment to changing the law, legal profession, and legal systems for the public interest. • a commitment to being responsibly bold and to thinking and doing in intellectually creative ways while avoiding qualities of recklessness or hubris. • respect for the conventions of scholarship, with the ability to write, research, analyze, and assess in an intellectually honest mode. • an understanding of how scholarly analyses translate into prescriptions for change. • comprehension of how legal systems, policy-making bodies, and stakeholders operate and interact practically. • appreciation for the central role of political and bureaucratic stakeholders in lawmaking. • a willingness to work with scholars, practitioners, policymakers, the media, and the public rather than limiting one's circle of influence (yamada, 2016, p.175). in the legal context, intellectual activism involves conducting and publishing original research and analysis and then applying that work to reforming and improving the law, legal systems, and the legal profession. the process of intellectual activism starts with a foundational writing project that identifies a legal or policy problem and then investigates reality by conducting thorough research and analysis. it concludes with a proposed policy change or structural reform. the literature highlighted from the fields of education, clinical and social psychology, social work, and law highlights the activist's imperative to be bold, scholarly, and critical to address social injustice and to recognize and use the power program graduates now possess to impact equity as agents of change. theoretical framework paulo freire's (1972, 1985) theories of critical consciousness, dialogue, and praxi and gidden's (1979) concept of human action with the intent to change power dynamics frame this paper as they characterize edd programs and the development of a scholaractivist. critical consciousness+ dialogue+ reflection = laboratory of active praxis social injustice freire (1998) argued that education cannot be neutral but demands that the educator address issues of values and belief. through critical instruction rather than banking teaching and learning, students become aware of the inequalities and oppression surrounding them, guiding them to critical consciousness. further, education should help students become self-empowered in recognizing their potential to be active agents of change (freire, 1972). furthermore, through dialogue, the learner can engage in a critical analysis of reality and, in turn, work with others to act against oppression. however, freire (1972) believed that dialogue and critical consciousness only go so far in addressing injustices. consequently, freire connected critical consciousness with praxis, the union of theory (insight), reflection, and action (ibid), arguing that without praxis, or reflection in tandem with action, an individual cannot become aware of the structures of oppression and transform these structures. freire (1972, 1985) refers to activism as action without reflection; however, in the current paper, activism denotes what freire (1972, 1985) calls praxis, or the combination of reflection and action. the concepts of critical consciousness, dialogue, and reflection are embedded in the laboratory of active praxis. laboratory of active praxis (theory/reflection/action) = self-empowerment & activism social justice giddens (1979) described the concept of human action with the overt intent to change power dynamics in education and other political spaces as an agency. this concept of agency can be seen as complementary to the notion of an activist in that an agent of change challenges established ways of thinking and behaving. as storey & fletcher impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 4 table 2. curriculum, laboratory of active practice and self-empowerment & activism: an assessment framework scale: 5 = exceeds expectations and serves as role model for others; 4 = exceeds expectations; 3 = meets expectations; 2 = approaches expectations for needs further development; 1 = needs considerable development and additional support social justice phase laboratory of active practice (theory/reflection/action) self-empowerment & activism curriculum • is self-motivated, inspired, and committed. • conscious of their own identity as activists & change agents. • interested in redrawing or expanding the boundaries of practice & policy. • critical orientation & questions current practices & one's own beliefs. • reflects on value commitments & how they guide one's actions. • views cultural & linguistic diversity as an asset. • can move freely between different ways of seeing & understanding reality. • can use different perspectives to examine complex situations. • expresses own values & talents & actualizes identity as a skilled professional. • defines & reflects on personal & professional transformations that contribute to identity as a change agent and commitment to a more significant community impact. • possesses resilience. • committed to implementing the vision developed as a scholar-practitioner. • demonstrates fluency in research-based & experiential knowledge & can maneuver between the theoretical & the practical worlds. • make sound, defensible, research-based judgments regarding how current practices can be undertaken more effectively & efficiently. • constructs a theory of change grounded in theory & an understanding of the history of previous interventions into the problem in the past. • demonstrates interest in & capacity to design innovative solutions to address the problems of policy and practice. • demonstrates skill in using data to understand the effects of innovation. • can operate in complex situations to translate ideas into reality. • chooses among alternative courses of action & accepts responsibility. note: adapted from kochhar-bryant (2017), its framework highlights the symbiotic relationship between the curriculum's vision and values and the developing activist and leader with a strong identity for change. activists or agents of change, they enable the transformation of policy/organization/structure. the third and final frame of reference is the first section of kochhar-bryant's (2017) three-section socialization framework (curriculum, practice, dissertation) for assessing the development of doctoral candidates, as shown in table 2. this table is a helpful tool for reviewing the doctoral candidate's progress within the program on the journey to leading active change. methodology a qualitative descriptive approach was followed, as this methodological approach allows the researcher to interpret the data intersubjectively (merriam, 2008). the particular organizational leadership doctoral program (edd) for this study is delivered entirely online. respondents match the profile perry and abruzz (2020) identified as working professionals with a solid professional identity, actively on a career path, and situated in their specialist practice. cped's scholar activist framework was used as a basis for further inquiry. an email was sent to two edd classes (24 doctoral candidates) during spring 2021 by the administrator of the edd program, inviting students to freely express their thoughts in response to two open-ended questions in microsoft form. the form remained open for three weeks, and three invitations were sent. seventeen responses were received (70.8%) (see table 3). of the respondents, 14 (82%) were females, 3 (18%) were males, four were black (24%), two (12%) were hispanic, and eleven (65%) were white. a team of two researchers analyzed 17 responses to two openended questions: q1. how has your experience in the edd program impacted your ability to "speak up" and be proactive for a cause? table 3. demographic profile demographic characteristics n percentage gender female male ethnicity/race asian black hispanic white 14 3 0 4 2 11 82% 18% 0% 24% 12% 65% q2. on reflection, do you fit into one or more of the following categories? (respondees reviewed the edd scholar-activist profile) questions were designed to elicit rich, descriptive data on participants' experiences and perceptions of scholar activism. respondent anonymity is ensured through the use of an assigned code number. the data were analyzed using inductive analysis, and the major emerging threads were reported. each response highlights the individualized nature of doctoral education, but there were also definite emerging themes on how the 17 respondents conceptualized scholar activism in doctoral education. the study does not aim to generalize but explores the complexity of conceptualizing scholar activism in doctoral education. all responses were manually transcribed and coded for keywords. during the process, emerging codes were compared with previous codes and amended if necessary to capture process and understanding. identified codes from the 17 interviews were transferred and displayed on sticky notes. this facilitated seeing relationships between codes within participant responses. codes were then grouped under headings. scholar activism: role of edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 5 further rearranging was done until the researchers agreed that the categories and codes best reflected the participants' responses. this step was followed by recoding to create a master code list (strauss & corbin, 1990). next, researchers reached a consensus around seven emergent themes, and quotations were assigned from coded exerts to each theme. finally, findings were mapped against the proposed edd activist profile model (see tables 4 and 5). authenticity and trustworthiness were strengthened through the researchers discussing their biases, assumptions, and reliance on verbatim quotes. results while all respondents received were those students in an online edd program at one university, their unique experiences and backgrounds impacted the word choice used to describe and interpret their relationship to specific scholar-activist themes. we offer representative quotes and examples to substantiate our findings. table 4. keyword analysis number of student responses (n) 17 keywords & emergent themes no. of mentions % of student mentions (based on n) vocal active engage(ment) vision challenge confident/confidence *advocacy/advocate 16 7 4 2 3 3 9 94% 41% 24% 12% 18% 18% 53% activist environment professional community 9 5 52.9% 29% being vocal (94%) and active on identified personal and individual pertinent issues (41%) was expressed often and deemed highly important to the respondents. i often speak my mind, and my professional role requires me to engage in more advocacy, so my risk-taking has a tangible purpose (student 1). my ability to speak up and be proactive for the cause of gender equality has been strengthened because of my doctoral program. as i progressed in my studies for my dissertation topic, i found myself compelled to speak up (student 9). based on my program learnings, i have become increasingly confident at work and can now speak up when i see an injustice. i feel that i have the knowledge to solve real problems of practice (student 3). active (41%), engagement (24%), and advocacy (53%) were vital aspects for respondents in making a connection between scholarly activism and edd program influence. respondents stated: (as a vocal-risk taker) i am now an advocate for female pastors and church leaders (student 9). i continually use my voice to speak up for my students' rights and advocate for their benefit concerning policies, resources, and program implementation… these behaviors are not new, but i am increasingly confident (student 10). my role as social justice champion requires i advocate for the student. these students need a champion, and with some assistance from a concerned adult, many of their societal and educational deficiencies can be reversed gradually, and sometimes totally… i am compelled to publicly share success stories (student 4). considering i am now leading two projects at work, one of which puts me in a strong leadership position, i suspect that my education has really helped me to be proactive, and my supervisors have seen that, which is why i am being asked to lead (student 13). vision (12%), challenge (18%), and/or confidence (18%) were found to be used in conjunction with other keywords and provided additional support in identifying and linking scholarly activist themes. examples of such included: i have felt more confident speaking up and being proactive for a cause (student 2). i believe that the curriculum in the doctoral program has provided a greater sense of confidence and critical thinking. as a result of my studies, i have a stronger voice at the leadership table (student 14). as a visionary leader, i look for ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness in my organization and communicate my ideas (student 8). when self-applying the edd activist profile (see table 5), respondents overwhelmingly perceived themselves as coalition builders (71%) and social justice champions (71%). however, identifying as a vocal risk taker in practice is challenging, as student one pointed out: it is also my job to oversee all communications emanating from the organization and monitor what is being said about us on social media. this makes it extremely difficult for me to be the "vocal risk-taker" i would love to be. once i resign from this position, i look forward to exercising my voice in an unrestricted manner and advocating for the marginalized and powerless on a much grander scale. student 4 identified themselves as a vocal risk-taker and social justice champion: i have most definitely been challenged throughout the program … the work of the program has helped push my personal and professional growth forward in taking bold risks to disrupt dysfunction and bring forth an educational experience equal or superior to that found in more advantaged areas and populations. i genuinely believe that my school will find levels of success directly due to my participation in the program. student 5 stated: i speak out via the podcasts i create to challenge the system and present perspectives not often heard. student 3 pointed out that "while i am a vocal risk taker, these activities seem to be within the framework of the other themes and not separate." storey & fletcher impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 6 table 5. edd student self application of the scholar activist profile mapped with the edd activist profile edd activist profile 1. coalition builder 71% application 2. vocal risk taker 53% application inspires and focuses on bringing people together for a common cause. possesses the ability to galvanize forces and build consensus within an organization. advocate-53% confident-18% gives voice to critical issues and topics and possesses the courage necessary for activism. juggles competing political, social, and economic forces. increasingly confident in resisting the dominant discourses to advocate for societal's marginalized and powerless. vocal-94% active-41% confident-18% 3. visionary leader 59% application 4. social justice champion 71% application engages in critical reflection to solve authentic problems, exhibiting the kind of vision that is a necessary precursor for organizational change. engagement-24% vision-12% identifies the inequities and injustices that may go unnoticed in a particular work environment. continually focuses on equity and fairness. desire to make a difference. advocate-53% challenge-18% in considering the quadrants of the edd activist profile, student 11 responded: my work in the program has greatly assisted in helping me focus and leverage my visionary leader and coalition builder practices, specifically in change management. however, the program helped me find new resolve as a leader committed to identifying, addressing, and supporting staff through the process of confronting the challenges of a diverse student population that struggles with the impacts of poverty at home and school. vocal risk-taker and social justice champion have been challenged and improved because of work through this program. discussion of findings consistent with the findings of dodd and mizrahi (2017), this study demonstrates that for almost all doctoral students (94%) participation in the edd program has resulted in increased confidence in being vocal and speaking out on issues of concern. however, findings are complex in that 94% of respondees identified as vocal but only 53% of participants identified as vocal risk takers. some respondents highlighted that as mid-career professional practitioners speaking out and being vocal in their place of practice can be challenging, as in some cases, it may jeopardize their jobs. as student 1 pointed out, the program enables participants to hone their activism skills, which could be put into practice later when they feel more secure in their careers. the environment in which most doctoral candidates practiced activism was primarily associated with the type of keywords used to define activist behaviors. keywords such as voicing, vocal, or active were associated mainly with activism in the professional (job) setting; meanwhile, words such as engagement and challenge were associated with participants that practiced activism in the community setting. dodd and mizrahi (2017) utilize macro and micro terms concerning activism tracks for master of social work (msw) students. macro refers to the practice in the social sector acknowledging social problems, while micro practice is more individual focused. in this study, the macro would align with the community setting and the micro with the professional. the terminology used to assess macro versus micro activism with msw students closely aligns with the participants' response keyword mentions when analyzing activism in the community versus the professional setting. other keywords to note as a possible association with activism include intentional, mindful, involved, and champion. interestingly, only 59% of respondents perceived themselves as a visionary leader. this needs further research to unpack the rationale for the response. for example, it would be interesting to replicate the study with program graduates rather than current participants. a prominent theory of action emerging from this study is that the design of edd programs of study to tightly couple frequent and consistent opportunities to advocate for an individually and strategically chosen issue is a prerequisite to enhancing the capacity for scholar activism. course deliverables such as a movie, podcast, or poster rather than a paper can sharpen scholar activism skills. when programs act with intentionality and care to support scholaractivists development, an important message is sent to the academy regarding the characteristics of graduating edd students. limitations the patterns that emerged from the data in this study characterize doctoral candidates from one edd program. further research is required to compare the outcomes with other professional practice doctoral programs and phd students. confusion over nomenclature is evident from participant responses as activism and advocacy are applied interchangeably. essentially, advocates work within the system, while activists are seen as working outside the same system (kelly, 2015). according to dodd and mizrahi (2017), defining and measuring activism is often limited because of differing definitions, actions, and attitudes toward the concept. one question asked of the participants was, "have you noticed a change in your ability to "speak up" and be proactive for a cause as a result of your learnings and experiences in the program?" the use of vocabularies such as "speak-up" and "proactive" may have influenced the mentions of such keywords as vocal and active in participant responses. research implications: problematizing activism definitions are critical! it would be worthwhile and beneficial for any future analysis to provide participants with definitions of keywords/phrases to ensure complete understanding. the concept of coalitions could differ in a professional setting versus a community scholar activism: role of edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.277 7 setting. how does the research intend to define a coalition in a professional and/or community setting? think about how a leader's role influences and/or impacts activism. participants often referred to their role as a leader interchangeably with an activist. issue #1 in attempting to clarify the kind of activism one can expect from edd graduates, it must be first noted that nomenclature impacts the perceived relationship between the program and activism. second, the nature of the activism will vary across different professional fields. issue #2 as there are no consistent measures of edd doctoral student activism, it is challenging to develop a formative conceptualization of scholar activism based on the activity level. furthermore, there is a need to develop a scholar activism typology. issue #3 differentiating between advocacy and activism presented an issue when self-identifying with the framework for the emerging edd activist. the majority of responders reported that they have a commitment to social action and that they are more likely to make renewed efforts to ensure that their voice is heard due to the increased knowledge and confidence gained while in the program. issue #4 the data suggest that the doctoral process impacted doctoral candidates' sense of self, leading to altered organizational relations and interactions. as stated, these changes were framed positively and were broadly characterized in terms of enhanced confidence, engagement, and status leading to new capabilities and forms of interaction. greater boldness, criticality, and ability to question and challenge were also highlighted. final takeaway this study is unique in that while respondees are diverse in age and lifespan trajectories, their responses share similarities. engaging in community actions within the academy allows edd students the opportunities to refine their critical analysis and self-awareness concerning social justice efforts. further research is recommended to investigate what would account for edd students' increase in confidence and why some edd students perceive that expressing their activism in a professional capacity (as opposed to within the academy) may jeopardize their job. conclusion this study throws into sharp relief the complexity of the professional learning process, highlighting the development of individual scholar activism. the application of the edd activist profile does not offer a simple answer to how an edd program impacts the development of a program activist. the findings from this study suggest that undertaking an edd grounded on cped (2021) principles with a specific focus on principle #1 "is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice" (cped, 2021, para. 5), sustained instructor mentoring, and frequent opportunities for critical peer dialogue supplement the opportunities for scholar activism integrated into both the program and individual praxis in the doctoral candidates' laboratory of practice. the results indicate the need to develop consistent measures of edd doctoral student activism as it is challenging to develop a formative conceptualization of scholar activism based on the activity level without an identified scholar activism typology. this may address the nomenclature confusion between scholar activism and advocacy. the emergence of edd program graduates as active agents of change may 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(2016). intellectual activism and the practice of public interest law. review of law and social justice 25(2), 127–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909880902792321 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.20103 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33350-8_8 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%ce%bb%cf%8c%ce%b3%ce%b9%ce%bf%25 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 25 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.342 research methods courses redesigned for an edd in instructional and performance technology holley handley university of west florida hhandley@uwf.edu nancy b. hastings university of west florida nhastings@uwf.edu abstract this essay describes the design, and subsequent redesign, of the research methods courses included in an instructional and performance technology (ipt) edd program at a regional comprehensive university in the southeast united states. the program under examination was developed based on the principles of the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) and research and best practices aligned with the practice of performance improvement. the curriculum includes three research methods courses. the first introduces the students to the principles of action research as applied to the analysis of performance problems in organizational settings. the second addresses instrumentation and data collection processes used in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research, and the third examines analyzing and reporting quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. collectively these courses provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to serve as scholarly practitioners, examining any type of problem of practice in any organizational setting. keywords research curriculum, performance improvement, scholarly practitioner the edd in instructional and performance technology (ipt) program discussed in this essay grew out of a long-standing specialization in instructional design and technology (idt) in an edd in curriculum and instruction (c&i) program offered by a regional comprehensive university in the southeastern united states. the c&i program, like many edd programs, was designed based on the standard phd format, including a heavy focus on scholarly research and requiring students to conduct empirical research and report their work in a traditional five chapter dissertation. over time, it became clear that this structure was not meeting the needs of our students. the first challenge was that many of the students pursuing the idt specialization were employed in positions outside of traditional educational settings, where a degree in c&i is not highly valued. the second challenge was that the coursework portion of the program was very heavily focused on the c&i component of the degree, allotting only 18 credit hours for academic preparation related to the area of specialization. this is equal to about half of a master’s degree; not at all sufficient for the level of education we felt was needed for doctoral students. finally, because our students were planning to continue to work in the field post-graduation, we felt it was important to move away from the traditional requirements of comprehensive exams and five chapter, empirical research-based dissertations, providing students with opportunities to engage in the type of research they would be expected to perform in their organizations post-graduation. to address the above-noted challenges, the university sought and obtained membership in the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) in 2018 and developed a standalone edd in instructional and performance technology, which was approved by the board of governors in june 2019 and enrolled its first cohort of students in fall 2020. this new program was designed based on the cped principles and framework, which are focused on structuring the edd as a professional practice doctoral degree and preparing students to serve as leaders, solving organizational performance problems, and facilitating change in their areas of expertise (cped, 2022). many of the cped member institutions offer edd degrees focused on educational leadership, higher education administration, and/or curriculum and instruction (cped, 2022). the program discussed in this essay is unique because it leads to a degree in instructional and performance technology (ipt), which is a very broad field, relevant for professionals in any organization that has an interest in improving performance, integrating technology, and/or designing and delivering well-designed instruction for training and development purposes (university of west florida, 2022). due to the unique nature of our field, our program redesign presented some challenges that stretched beyond those faced by most cped https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6008-1979 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9048-9855 handley & hastings impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.342 26 institutions. they included identifying an appropriate guiding framework that would allow students to envision the entire performance improvement process, aligning the program deliverables with that framework, and finally, reimagining the research methods portion of the curriculum to align with the data collection and analysis activities associated with the performance improvement framework. performance improvement (pi) is widely accepted as being concerned with identifying, designing, developing, and implementing instructional and non-instructional solutions to close gaps between desired and actual performance. it relies heavily on comprehensive front-end analyses from a solution-neutral perspective to identify root causes of performance issues before making recommendations as to how to address current or potential future performance issues (van tiem et al., 2012). it is the overarching field that encompasses the various aspects of ipt research and practice, and therefore, was seen as a suitable framework on which to build the program. pi is both systemic and systematic, providing students with a logical, stepby-step process to follow when investigating organizational performance problems, while also reinforcing the importance of systems thinking. the pi framework also provided the structure necessary to resolve the second challenge of aligning the program deliverables with the framework. the first deliverable is a proposed analysis plan, identifying the problem of practice and the student’s strategies for collecting and analyzing data to complete the performance, gap, and cause analysis processes. the second deliverable reports the findings and proposes appropriate solutions based on the data and stakeholder input. the final deliverable, the dissertation in practice, includes the information from the previous two steps as well as information about the design, development, implementation, and initial evaluation of their identified solutions (university of west florida, 2022). faculty worked collaboratively to address the third challenge noted: reimagining the research methods portion of the curriculum to align with the data collection and analysis activities associated with the performance improvement framework. we started from the traditional perspective of individual classes on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs, but quickly realized that sub-dividing pi research in this manner did not provide students with a realistic view of the analysis activities they would be engaging in post-graduation. we knew we needed something different, and we knew that it needed to fit into no more than three dedicated research methods courses. the design of the research courses is rooted in adult learning theory (knowles 2014), action research methodology (stringer, 2020), and principles of performance improvement (van tiem et al., 2012). the decision to split the research content into three courses aligns with these theories and research methods. the action research course is taught first to give the students foundation in action research. the other two courses, data collection and then data analysis, are designed and offered in this order to align with the processes involved in conducting a performance improvement action research project. the content of these two courses is situated in adult learning theory, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and performance improvement processes. according to the tenants of adult learning theory (knowles, 2014), adults learn by the information being relevant at the time of instruction and the content being “oriented to learning as problem-centered and contextual (p. 6)”. the research courses are aligned with the other courses in such a way that the data collection course is taught when students need to know how to design a data collection plan and create data collection instruments, allowing them to apply these concepts immediately. similarly, the data analysis research course is taught when the students are preparing to analyze their data, allowing them to apply the concepts immediately. the courses and assignments are aligned so the students can apply them to the current problem in the workplace context that serves as the basis for the dissertation in practice. the structure of the research courses and the order in which they are presented supports three additional principles of adult learning theory: learning from experience, readiness to learn, and self-concept (knowles, 2014). the students are learning by creating data collection plans and instruments and gaining immediate experience by using these instruments in real-world practice. the students are ready to learn as they are motivated to address problems of practice in their workplaces and have a vested interest in doing so. the balance of this essay focuses on the solution, how it was implemented, and our initial assessment of its effectiveness. course offerings the edd in idt integrates the principles of action research and the processes associated with the international society for performance improvement (ispi)/human performance technology (hpt) model to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to conduct practitioner-based research. to achieve this goal without exceeding the intended nine credit hour research sequence, we opted to teach one course on practitionerbased/action research and then integrate quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research activities into two comprehensive courses: one covering data collection processes for all three designs and the other covering data analysis processes for all three. fundamentals of practitioner-based research the first of the three research courses, fundamentals of practitioner-based research, introduces students to the principles of action research and their applications in the field of instructional and performance technology. this course explores action research, defining a problem of practice, and contextualizing identified problems in the relevant literature. processes and strategies for conducting research within an individual's organization are discussed extensively. this course provides the foundation necessary to conduct scholarly research using the performance improvement process. students are taught how to critically analyze research literature. the course highlights trends for investigating problems and issues. methods to ensure quality research are detailed throughout the course. in this course, the students are introduced to the six principles of cped research. this course teaches the cped signature pedagogy of preparing scholarly practitioners “to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (shulman, 2005, p. 52). the students are introduced to the concepts of action research and “inquiry as practice” (cped, 2022, para. 8). they are guided through the process of identifying their problems of practice and contextualizing their problems of practice in the literature. the course requires the students to analyze the literature to facilitate the process of viewing their research at the intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice. research methods course redesign impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.342 27 course outcomes include: • examining the components of improvement science and performance improvement, • critiquing existing research regarding problems in professional educational practice, • generating a formal problem of practice document, • evaluating applied research design to address a problem of practice, and • assessing ethical standards of research. specific topics that are examined during the course include the dissertation in practice, improvement science framework, performance improvement, diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, scholarly literature review, problem-of-practice, scope and risks of a problem of practice, applied research, and research ethics. the first deliverable in the course is an investigation into various action research methods and how they relate to the dissertation and problem of practice. the students examine action research and the various data types, data collection methods, data analysis, and data presentations. as students are guided through the assignments, they learn about the dissertation in practice and the process of becoming a scholarly practitioner and the alignment of action research and improving performance within an organization. the assignment also provides students the opportunity to compare and contrast the different types of data and data collection processes involved in action research. the second deliverable of the action research course is the student’s in-depth problem of practice statement and description. they create documents outlining how their proposed problems of practice are urgent, actionable, feasible, and strategic. the students prepare their problem of practice documents using the cped definition of a problem of practice, “a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, 2022, para. 11). students provide a contextualized examination of the identified problem and how the resolution of this problem results in outcomes that improve both individual and organizational performance. the third deliverable is a review of the research as it relates to the identified problem of practice. the review of the relevant research includes an introduction and summary of the problem of practice, justification of elements included/excluded from the review, the broader situational context, historical context, definitions, resolution of ambiguities, methodologies, and research techniques that have been used in the field, the practical and scholarly significance of the research problem, and the impact of the problem’s resolution. data collection in performance improvement the second course in the student’s research curriculum sequence is data collection in performance improvement. students examine data types, collection methods, sources, and instrumentation. students learn how, when, where, and why to collect quantitative and qualitative data for performance improvement projects. students critically investigate researcher bias, reflexivity, and positionality when conducting data collection for performance improvement research. in the data collection course, students learn to develop data collection instruments. this course coincides with the front-end analysis portion of the performance improvement process. the first step in using the performance improvement model is to gather information relative to an organization's current and desired performance. students learn how to develop instruments to gather relevant quantitative and qualitative data to determine the actual and desired performance. in this course, students also learn how to prepare the documents necessary to apply for university institutional review board (irb) approval. the irb is a university committee charged with protecting the rights and welfare of human participants involved in university research. the irb process requires the students to include the data collection instruments. these documents are created during the semester and become part of the irb application. student learning outcomes include: • evaluating quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments, • evaluating strategies, methods, and timing for collecting quantitative and qualitative data for performance improvement projects, • justifying the alignment between identified problems of practice and chosen data collection elements, • creating data collection instruments for quantitative and qualitative performance improvement research, • implementing performance improvement data collection instruments aligned with a specific problem of practice, and • critically analyzing researcher bias and positionality in relation to performance improvement projects. students produce three specific deliverables during this second research course. the deliverables for the course are 1) the completed quantitative instrument protocol, including planning for the assessment of validity and reliability, 2) the completed qualitative instrument protocol, including planning for the assessment of face and content validity, and 3) a completed irb application. in addition to the completed assignments, the students are led through three comprehensive, structured discussions. these discussions provide support for the students and the opportunity for them to collaborate and critically examine key elements for creating data collection instruments for both quantitative and qualitative data collection. the three structured discussions are: 1) proposed problem of practice and research-focused elevator speech providing the essence of the planned study, 2) data collection instruments, participants, and required procedures before, during, and after data collection, and 3) qualitative instrument content and face validity. in the first structured discussion, the students provide a concise two to three sentence overviews of their problems of practice, a onesentence purpose statement for their dissertations in practice, one overarching research question for their studies aligned with the purpose of their studies addressing the problems of practice, and potential research sub-questions that guide the dissertations in practice. for each research sub-question, the students include the a) type of data/data collection method and b) type of analysis that will provide formal responses to the research sub-questions. in the second structured discussion, the students discuss data collection instruments, participants, and the steps required relative to one of their proposed data collection methods. in this discussion, students provide brief descriptions of the instruments they will use for data collection and identify the participants that will be the sources of handley & hastings impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.342 28 the data. the students list the steps required before, during, and after data collection. these steps include requirements such as obtaining their organization’s approval and the institution’s irb approval, creating consent forms, confirming protocol validation and reliability, implementing the instrument, gathering data, recording interviews, downloading and cleaning data, transcribing qualitative interviews, and preparing data for analysis. in the third structured discussion, the students examine procedures to ensure content and face validity for qualitative instruments. the students also provide concise statements summarizing their data collection instruments, the participants, and the steps they will follow to ensure face and content validity for the instruments. the students collaborate and share ideas on the best practices for planning, communicating, and completing the process for instrument validation. data analysis processes the third and final course in the student’s research curriculum sequence is data analysis in performance improvement. students examine the various types of data analysis consistent with action research and the performance improvement framework. appropriate qualitative and quantitative data analysis procedures and alignment with research questions and study purposes are also addressed in this course. students learn how to analyze the data they collect using the instruments created in the previously completed data collection course. it is important to note, that while the students create instruments and analyze data relative to their specific problems of practice, they are taught all methods of data collection and analysis. the goal is to prepare students to collect and analyze data in future projects and contexts; therefore, data collection and data analysis techniques are not limited to the current problem of practice. learning outcomes for this course include: • comparing and contrasting strategies for analyzing quantitative and qualitative data in performance improvement, • analyzing quantitative and qualitative data using appropriate methods in performance improvement, • mapping data analysis results to performance improvement research questions, and • presenting results in the context of the problem of practice. specific topics that are examined during the semester include quantitative data, descriptive and inferential statistics, parametric and nonparametric tests, qualitative data, qualitative data analysis and coding, research question alignment, and writing and presentation of results. students produce six specific deliverables during this third research course. the deliverables for the course are 1) study population, sample, and demographics, 2) quantitative data analysis, 3) qualitative data analysis, 4) performance analysis findings, 5) gap analysis findings, and 6) root cause analysis findings. at the conclusion of the course, the students are prepared to create comprehensive reports of their problems of practice, data collection and analysis activities, and findings and recommendations for presentation to their stakeholders. the purpose of this report is to obtain approval to move forward with the design, development, implementation, and initial evaluation of the recommended solutions. course rotation fundamentals of practitioner-based research is offered during the student’s first semester in the program. this has remained consistent across all three cohorts. the timing of the data collection and data analysis courses has changed based on student feedback and performance. we admit one cohort each fall, with our third cohort of students having started the program in fall 2022. as the students have completed the research courses and are progressing in the program, we have made a few adjustments in the timing for the delivery of the courses in relation to their program of study. these changes are shown in table 1. table 1. research course timing research course cohort one cohort two cohort three fundamentals 1st semester 1st semester 1st semester data collection 3rd semester 3rd semester 2nd semester data analysis 5th semester 4th semester 4th semester note. change in research course teaching from cohort one to cohort three. as the students have progressed in the program, we have found it beneficial to move the data collection and analysis courses earlier in the rotation. initially, students took the foundations course in their first semester, the data collection course the following summer, and data analysis in the fifth of their six semesters of coursework. we quickly realized this timing was back-end loaded, making it difficult for students to progress at the expected rate. the first change we made from cohort 1 to cohort 2 was to move the data analysis course earlier in the program. this modification was intended to facilitate the students being prepared to present their findings and recommendations to their stakeholders earlier. this modification allowed students to engage stakeholders in the decision-making process sooner and provided students with more time to design, develop, implement, and initially evaluate identified solutions, all of which is necessary for degree completion. the second change in the timing of research course delivery was moving the data collection course one semester sooner in the rotation. the expectation is for students to collect data in the beginning of their second year. we found that irb and student site approvals were taking longer than initially anticipated, delaying planned data collection. to address this challenge, we moved the data collection class one semester earlier starting with cohort 3. the revised spacing of the research courses facilitates earlier data collection. the semester between data collection and data analysis allows the students adequate time for data collection. lessons learned we gather feedback from the students in course reviews, personal communications, and written reflections for each course. the feedback from the students has been constructive, reflective, and overall positive. the students relay how they are provided the resources and research tools when needed, making the courses and program immediately relevant. students have expressed how they appreciate the layering of the courses and how each semester, the research methods taught build on each other. students also express how exciting it is to be able to apply how to conduct action research research methods course redesign impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.342 29 directly in their organizations. they feel they are empowered to make positive impacts in their workplaces. having the research presented in the sequence of collection and then analysis, the students have expressed the advantage of being able to compare and contrast qualitative and quantitative methods in terms of the type of data needed in the performance improvement context. students comment on what they perceive to be the advantages of having the research content arranged as data collection and then data analysis compared to the more traditional, separate qualitative and quantitative courses and how it supports the scholarly practitioner focus of the degree program. based on the student feedback and student deliverables, we added a semester between the data collection methods course and the data analysis course. the additional time has allowed most students to obtain irb approval and collect data that can be used during the analysis course. this is a lesson learned as we continually monitor student progress through the program and the various phases of their research. one of the challenges we face is the need to present some of the analysis processes when introducing data collection to inform the students as to how they will use the data. we have added a big picture overview of data analysis, describing the entire process during the data collection course. this general introduction to analysis aids the student in designing data collection instruments. the students appreciate seeing how the data will be used and presented when designing data collection tools and instruments. another challenge we are facing is relative to the quantitative research methods content. we have found that most performance improvement dissertation in practice research projects do not include high-level inferential statistics. the course introducing data collection for quantitative research has been modified to focus primarily on descriptive statistics as most of the projects do not go into in-depth inferential statistical analysis. as we further modify the curriculum and expand the program, we are planning to offer an optional, indepth statistics course for those individuals that need or want a more comprehensive examination of inferential statistics. conclusion we continue to assess the effectiveness of the research courses and our curriculum as students progress through the program. based on student deliverables and student and faculty reflections, the timing and the content of the courses appear to be better aligned with the structure of the dissertation in practice and best practices in performance improvement. providing the fundamentals in the first semester, the data collection course earlier in the program, and the data analysis course with only one semester separating it from the data collection course give students the structure necessary to move through the program at the desired pace, applying skills as learned. the revised structure provides opportunities for students to control their learning (knowles, 2014) while ensuring students complete the major components of the dissertation in practice when expected, preparing them to finish the program in the intended three years. we regularly apply the principles of action research and performance improvement in the course and program design. this continuous improvement mindset, which is also supported by cped, encourages us to regularly assess student performance to identify opportunities to enhance outcomes through modifications in curriculum, course design, and course rotation. it also provides us with an opportunity to model the best practices we are developing in our students. references cped. (2022). the cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/theframework knowles, m. s., holton, e. f., & swanson, r. a. (2014). the adult learner (8th ed.). taylor & francis. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 stringer, e. t., & alfredo, o. a. (2020). action research (5th ed.). sage publications, inc. university of west florida. (2022). university of west florida online: ed.d. instructional and performance technology. https://onlinedegrees.uwf.edu/online-degrees/edd-instructionalperformance-technology/ van tiem, d. m., moseley, j. l., & dessinger, j. c. (2012). fundamentals of performance improvement: optimizing results through people, process, and organizations (3rd ed.). pfeiffer. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 https://onlinedegrees.uwf.edu/online-degrees/edd-instructional-performance-technology/ https://onlinedegrees.uwf.edu/online-degrees/edd-instructional-performance-technology/ impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 50 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 it’s time to make more room for program evaluation in the education doctorate program jessica a. marotta marymount university jmarotta@marymount.edu abstract this essay highlights the value of an applied methodology course in program evaluation in the education doctorate program by exploring several benefits that it offers to enhance a doctoral student’s ability to solve complex problems of practice. observations and recommendations are made based on designing and teaching two cohorts of edd students in a program evaluation course. improvement science is referenced throughout to highlight how the two may complement each other, not to place a higher value on one or the other. how and where program evaluation and improvement science appear to have possible areas of overlap, along with a brief overview of the major differences, are discussed. the author maintains that both program evaluation and improvement constitute a tremendous capacity to provide the ideas, tools, and approaches to prepare students to be the change agents they hope to aspire to be in their present and future roles as scholarly practitioners. keywords education doctorate, program evaluation, improvement science, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) the purpose of this essay is to highlight the value of an applied methodology course in program evaluation in the education doctorate program. it is also to widen the view, or for some to revisit, how program evaluation methodology can enhance doctoral students’ research coursework. improvement science will be used throughout various aspects of this discussion to highlight how the two may complement each other, not to place a higher value on one or the other. both are considered applied methodology approaches since they are used to solve practical problems through the use of data collection methodologies. as the latest carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) convening in october 2022 showed, improvement science was found in several session titles, while program evaluation had zero title references. therefore, this essay is written to highlight the benefits program evaluation offers and, in my opinion, why program evaluation should be discussed more widely as an effective applied methodology for doctoral students. i use the term program evaluation loosely to embody the variety of different programs practitioners are involved in observing, leading, evaluating, or participating in at the local, district, state, or national levels. there are a variety of different program evaluations found throughout the vast literature on evaluation such as: formative, summative, outcome, needs assessment, evaluability assessment, and impact evaluation. while not all program evaluation types align with improvement science, there are elements from some, such as formative or implementation evaluations, which tend to have more similarities than other types. it is important to first provide some background information on the students enrolled in our doctorate program to better appreciate the rationale behind this support for more emphasis on program evaluation. the university’s edd program currently enrolled our sixth cohort with the first cohort graduating spring 2023, became members of cped in 2021, and are a fully online program, enrolling students nationally and internationally. the students come from a variety of professional backgrounds and settings. for example, the first cohort (entered fall 2020) had approximately 25% of students coming from non-educational settings and cohort four (spring 2022) had approximately 40% of students coming from non-educational settings. while the college does not know if this trend will continue, it certainly recognizes the impact this has on the planning, designing, and teaching of coursework. for example, improvement science is used widely with doctoral students working in educational settings and have access to a sample population for data collection and analysis. our edd program does not offer a course in improvement science, and our signature pedagogy is not improvement science; therefore, there is no expectation or arrangement required that our students would conduct research within their local context for their dissertation in practice (dip) or for course assignments. since improvement science has increasingly been discussed as a possible signature pedagogy for doctoral programs, especially for those working closely with school systems, i will frame program evaluation within this particular discussion. due to the number of students working in non-educational settings, our doctorate program needs to consider applied methodologies in addition to improvement science. i will also be reflecting upon my experiences after designing and teaching two semesters of a course titled, program evaluation and decision making, (n=81) and how those experiences both shaped some unanswered questions, possible future directions for this course, and https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4920-1823 role of program evaluation in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 51 its place in our program. due to the varied nature of the professionals in our program, i needed to provide a wider diversity of non-educational-based evaluation resources and research which is easy to find within the evaluation field. the research on evaluation is intensive and spans multiple professionals and disciplines. it has also been quite rewarding to find resources that meet both the needs of our students and our cped-influenced program. since most educational doctorates offer part-time programs within an approximate three-year completion, it is worthy to recognize the limitations of our students possibly either designing, implementing, or finishing a program evaluation for coursework. program evaluations can vary greatly in scope and length, and it is reasonable to acknowledge the difficulty of completing one within the three-year program, let alone for coursework during one semester. while students could focus on a process or formative evaluation and not necessarily see the evaluation to its completion, it still might prove difficult if they do not have the influence or capacity to use their professional context, as with improvement science dips. however, the topic of this essay will focus more on the program evaluation coursework students take as a required course as opposed to examining program evaluation dips. therefore, granting students the choice to study a previous, ongoing, or a planned evaluation allows for maximizing their ability to examine the complexities of an evaluation they have or have had direct experience with throughout their years as a practitioner. program evaluation and its importance as an applied methodology course have several benefits. if one of the goals of an effective, practice-based dip is its utility to society or to the local context, then i believe that program evaluation skills and knowledge should be included in this dialogue. however, i will first discuss what program evaluation coursework can offer doctoral students, followed by how and where program evaluation and improvement science appear to have possible areas of overlap. i am not claiming that i have explored all possible overlaps and differences between program evaluation and improvement science, but rather i am recommending that cped-influenced institutions further integrate program evaluation approaches within their education doctorate conversations. in fact, upon a brief search of program evaluation and improvement science to see if this topic of overlap has been widely and explicitly investigated, there appears to be limited work in this area. for example, in several resources on program evaluation and improvement science, there does not seem to be much mention of each other in the literature (newcomer et al., 2015; peurach et al., 2022). in one resource, however, there is a distinct call for how improvement science can benefit the evaluation field and how to increase the “cross-talk and perhaps even cross-fertilization of ideas, techniques, and tools between evaluation and improvement science” (christie et al., 2017a, p. 7). ultimately, the goal of this essay is to open this possible crosstalk of what skills, abilities, and knowledge applied evaluation approaches can enhance the current improvement science discussions without the exclusion of one over the other. what program evaluation coursework offers doctoral students leaders engage with program evaluation in varied ways that require a complex understanding of the intricacies of effective evaluation as an observer, participant, leader, evaluator, communicator, or recipient of evaluation findings and impact. i would argue that most practitioners engage with program evaluation at some level in their daily lives, but many do not see themselves as evaluators or are aware of the methodologies of program evaluation. given that schools, as well as non-educational organizations and settings, are filled with multiple and various programs, it appears that having a knowledge and skill set in program evaluation would be a significant asset to educational leaders. when reading about the skills and knowledge edd scholarly practitioners need in their realworld contexts, program evaluation research methodology quickly emerged and captured my attention. for example, research is often explained as seeking new knowledge, while evaluation research tends to provide information for decision-making and determining the merit or worth of a program (giancola, 2021). solving complex problems of practice is not just figuring out how to get things done but “about what to get done, why to get it done, who decides, and whose interests are served” (cochran-smith, 2009, p. 21). since cped has been working diligently to provide a distinct identity of the edd from the phd, it appears that a bigger focus on decision-making within real-world settings aligns more with evaluation research than traditional research, just like improvement science is highly regarded as a distinctive approach to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. studies have examined how edd students were developing their professional identities as educational leaders, researchers, and action researchers and how students appear to not see themselves as such, in relation to being a learner or leader (buss & avery, 2017; zambo et al., 2015). this makes me wonder if there is an opportunity to help students see themselves as evaluators and if that would make it a more easily relatable professional identity since the word evaluation is commonly used in educational, corporate, and non-profit settings. i just finished teaching program evaluation to our first two cohorts of edd students in summer 2022 (n=81) which has inspired my thinking on the value and importance of teaching program evaluation as an applied methodology course and even placing it earlier in their course sequencing. what i found quite surprising was the number of students who admitted that the programs they are currently or have been involved with were never formally or informally evaluated. for these reasons, this course helped reshape my thinking on the importance of program evaluation in what i found to be a gap in their knowledge and skill set that could have significant implications for their abilities to solve complex problems of practice. relatedly, i found this course was impactful and relevant since it allowed students to bring in their rich experiences as practitioners and have an assignment that asked them to apply their professional experiences from working with program evaluations. students are asked throughout the semester to create program evaluations from start to finish, beginning with an explanation of a context-specific problem, a program theory, a logic model, an evaluation matrix (with evaluation questions, smart (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) indicators and targets, data collection methodology and data analysis), a stakeholder analysis, a monitoring and evaluation plan, a communications plan, and a dissemination plan. every student easily found a program to reference, either an existing one or was able to create a new one within their contexts, which supports the argument that programs are prevalent in a diversity of settings. moreover, i have been energized by their abilities to align or complement their possible dip concepts to the course assignments. several students have even altered their dip trajectories to a program evaluation dip, or they have been able to enhance their dip by incorporating marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 52 aspects of program evaluation. doctorate programs are called upon to develop the tools our edd students need, and i would focus on the word need in that statement and support the idea that program evaluation knowledge and skills are certainly needed for students to be able to determine effects validly and reliably or influences of initiatives and programs to avoid wasting resources, efforts, and political capital (hochbein & perry, 2013). an aspect to be reemphasized is that our students do not all have access to or the influence to implement a new program or to revise an existing program. however, a definite future direction is to track how many of our students’ dips are within their contexts, have implemented a change within their spheres of influence at their workplaces, had the time to collect data from implementations, or have implemented program evaluations. without these data yet, it is difficult to determine if and how many students chose aspects of program evaluation, but it certainly is a program goal to collect these data for each cohort. i am hopeful that this type of analysis of their dips will shed additional light on whether my observations are confirmed for the continued support of program evaluation as an applied methodology course. another aspect to be reemphasized in that i am not calling for program evaluation to be a signature pedagogy for our doctorate program, but rather i am calling attention to the worthiness of a program evaluation applied methodology course into the required coursework. i fully support the relevancy that program evaluation knowledge and skills offer to our practitioners who will most likely all interact with a program evaluation and could benefit significantly from being able to ask the right kinds of questions related to an evaluation whether it is looking at data from a previous one, analyzing a current one, or planning a future one. while an edd student may not have the opportunity to engage in an improvement science plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycle or in a completed program evaluation, i believe that there are enough programs for our students to examine at any given point in their careers that would provide them experiences to draw from to understand how both might work. however, i argue that more students have had experiences with program evaluations than with the pdsa cycles, which i believe makes program evaluation coursework more inclusive of what our students can relate to and more relevant to the transfer of these skills to future program evaluations. these pdsa cycles, though, offer students an alternative to the lengthier, complex, timeconsuming program evaluations. evaluation efforts can be short, localized efforts to iteratively collect data on a smaller scale initiative. improvement science and program evaluation both offer students the skills, knowledge, and professional competencies to understand how to undertake future evaluations. it is valuable to expose students to both of these methodologies and the rich resources available within each approach. one accessible point for students learning evaluation approaches could relate to the three essential questions that guide improvement science processes: 1) what are we trying to accomplish?, 2) how will we know that a change is an improvement?, and 3) what change can we make that will result in an improvement? (langley et al., 2009). while the exact wording of these questions may not be used in their program evaluations, these are certainly questions that program designers, evaluators, and stakeholders should collaboratively discuss. these questions would be meaningful guideposts for the logic model, program theory, and evaluation matrix development. in addition to the required semester-long program evaluation assignment, the course covers additional topics such as the history of the evaluation field, the variety of evaluation ideologies, designs, and approaches to provide a groundwork for how and why they may approach evaluation in the ways they do and why and how the field of evaluation has grown over time. while most improvement science research has recently come from the healthcare and educational fields, evaluation research spans a greater variety of professions. while the task of evaluation could easily be argued as being around much longer, the evaluation profession emerged primarily in the 1970s, with the early evaluators coming from a wide range of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, educational psychology, education, and statistics. as they brought their methods of evaluation into the field and the profession grew, evaluation approaches and methodologies continued to be debated, articles were published, and as a result, there is an influential amount of research available for students to explore today. in the course, i also focus on the american evaluation association’s (aea) mission, vision, and guiding principles. it is interesting to look at both cped and the aea, because while the function of each organization is vastly different, there are similarities worthy of noting. both appear to emphasize the generation of new knowledge, preparation of people to learn and apply professional skills to make an impact (aea calls out evaluation specifically, while cped references appropriate and specific practices), and a desire for them to become stewards of their particular professions. aea mission: the american evaluation association’s mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods, increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession, and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. (https://www.eval.org) cped definition of professional doctorate: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.” (https://www.cpedinitiative.org) without a detailed analysis here, one can find additional similarities in the terminology and wording used within the aea and cped mission, vision, and guiding principles, such as systematic inquiry; equity and ethics; program improvement; and application of knowledge to improve the lives of others. if doctoral students chose to conduct evaluation research, the aea can provide a variety of support through their publications and website. through conducting their evaluation research, the principles of our cped-influenced program would also be integrated. the aea is a well-established organization established in the 1980s with many resources available, such as a guiding principles training packet, self-assessment on the aea competencies, detailed explanation of their cultural competencies, publications, and their efforts with policy advocacy. another benefit of showing students the aea website is the diversity of job opportunities listed within both educational and noneducational settings. there are no certifications, license exams to take, or required coursework listed for most of these positions. this exposure to the evaluation job market could possibly open up their curiosities to investigate further or validate for many that they already have the competencies of being evaluators through their previous experiences. the aea quarterly sourcebook, new directions for evaluation, provides over three decades' worth of a wide range of articles on evaluation that could possibly benefit those involved in improvement science since the literature on improvement science is role of program evaluation in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 53 not extremely robust (hinnant-crawford, 2020). while very few of the articles directly mention improvement science, reading the challenges, concepts, and applications of previous studies helps bring to light how evaluations can be a mechanism to facilitate learning at the individual, team, and organizational levels. “transformative learning can be facilitated when employees seek to understand something, address critical organizational issues, and improve their work through a participatory, dialogic, reflective, and inquiry-oriented approach to evaluation and the use of findings” (preskill & torres, 2000, p. 29). areas of overlap and differences between program evaluation and improvement science t the next section is what i hope to be the beginning of a continued conversation on how and where program evaluation and improvement science appear to have possible areas of overlap, along with a brief overview of the major differences. in reviewing the aea mission and cped’s definition of the professional doctorate, one initial common link would be the value that a participant places on the initiative or program. to reflect upon this concept of value, there is a need to engage in conversations about who the initiative or program aims to help, who is not included, how power influences decision-making, and how the skill of cultural competency will impact the processes that take place before, during, and after an evaluation. these are complex conceptual questions that must be addressed before any new initiative begins in either improvement science or program evaluation. next, it appears that for program evaluation and improvement science, the starting point is doing a heavy conceptual lift in learning about the problem to be examined. both appear to use similar possible sources of data, such as previous evaluations or previous data collection, existing documentation, conversations and interviews with stakeholders, process mapping, relevant research studies, and a review of the literature. if that is the case, then the skills needed to examine these kinds of data sources, such as how to conduct a needs-assessment for example, would be cross-cutting and a benefit for both. after that, defining the problem and what should be done to address the problem appears to be the next goal of each. the tools may differ in helping to see the system and understand the complexities of where the problem is located. a driver diagram or a root cause analysis may be used in improvement science, while a logic model is commonly used in program evaluation. however, both can use program theory, theory of change, theory of action, theory of knowledge, or theory of improvement to explain why an identified strategy might be effective (giancola, 2021; hinnant-crawford, 2020; langley et al., 2009) stakeholders and the value of recognizing researcher positionality both play a crucial role in developing and defining the problem (herr & anderson, 2005). both also value stakeholder engagement and buy-in, such as developing shared goals, implementing the initiative, and analyzing the data, and therefore, both include ways to connect them to these processes. next, both call for defining and developing measures that help with defining what success looks like under certain conditions. both program evaluation and improvement science support using smart indicators and targets that provide guidelines for what data will be collected and how it will be collected, analyzed, communicated, and disseminated so others can learn from the data cycle. there is a shared goal of systematically applying and using data to help bring about improvement. as a result, both call for methodological rigor and knowledge generation from these data collection cycles. consequently, both benefit from having an established monitoring and evaluation system which are well-documented and easily found in the evaluation field. having a system, either for a 90-day data cycle or longer, focused on monitoring and tracking crucial information on whether the theory of change, logic model, and evaluative questions guiding the intervention are accurate, appropriate, and adequate, provides extremely useful information. most plans have components for establishing clear roles and responsibilities, accountability checkpoints, and processes for sustaining capacity which i believe can easily be applied to improvement science efforts. the ability to communicate and disseminate effective ongoing program efforts and program results needs to be a crucial skill set within the educational doctorate. the importance of communication is also found in the literature, as authors in one study conclude that “the area for the greatest development is actually about action and use [in which students could have] hands-on opportunities to practice communicating findings and advocacy for conclusions” (firestone et al., 2021, pp. 97-98). others emphasize how “effective communication requires some depth of understanding of research, policy, and practice to help persuade others in decision-making processes” (firestone & leland, 2021, p. 14). this idea of persuading others to use results for social betterment can be found in a review of utilization evaluation research (henry & mark, 2003; patton, 1997; weiss, 1988). furthermore, weiss (1988) discusses the functions that evaluation serves, the structures that hinder the use of evaluation findings, and ways to get around these barriers and influence policy that can also be examined in the improvement science dialogues. in an attempt to cover a brief overview of these two, table 1 highlights a comparison of several elements discussed throughout this article. table 1. comparison of elements of program evaluation and improvement science element program evaluation improvement science types varies such as: formative, needs assessment, summative, process, impact, implementation, outcome, evaluability assessment formalized pdsa cycles to test for improvement within a local context purpose can vary such as: improvement in average outcomes, decisionmaking, degree of change, social accountability, use of findings, influence on social, economic, or political policy improvement through systematic study within a localized context: testing a change to help reduce variability in outcomes theoretical foundations similar such as: visualizations (logic models), theory of action, theory of change, theory of improvement similar such as: visualizations (driver diagrams), theory of action, theory of change, theory of improvement testing and data progression can vary: small to large scale testing and data collection of early, intermediate, and long-term outcomes smaller scale testing and data collection of early and/or intermediate outcomes within the pdsa cycle predominant fields using approach various fields: psychology, sociology, education, government, nonprofits, corporate education, healthcare marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 54 element program evaluation improvement science size spans from large-scale to smallscale contexts small scale in localized contexts methodological procedures similar data collection methods (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) similar data collection methods (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) process can vary but mainly a one-time occurrence multiple pdsa cycles time allotment can vary greatly: months to decades iterative pdsa cycles stakeholder participation can vary depending on the process selected, participatory and realist evaluation highly encourage stakeholder involvement necessary for improvement, need their local knowledge of how the systems work reporting can vary in format, length, audience dissemination, degree of fostering participatory analysis format is tailored to foster collaborative discussion to those involved in the pdsa cycles fear of failure high: if dealing with large-scale and long-term programs low: failure is expected in order to learn from the pdsa cycles one key skill i believe both improvement science and evaluation can benefit from is the growing field of data visualization in the communication and dissemination of user-friendly and accessible data. both methods collect, analyze, and allow the data to tell a story, so it would be meaningful for students to be aware of, practice creating, and practice disseminating a variety of effective data visualizations. i understand that time is always an issue and making room for this skill may prove difficult, even when i know that students still struggle with creating simple charts in word. while i imagine this skill will stretch both the professors and students, it is nonetheless a useful skill to help prepare students make data accessible and meaningful to stakeholders, so that they can apply minimal effort in deciphering the data. additionally, if the data are to be analyzed by the stakeholders, such as hosting data parties, the data must be clear and presented in an accessible way for the best use of time when analyzing data, rather than struggling with unorganized, poorly labeled data. as data are shared with stakeholders, there are cross-cutting skills such as how to manage and facilitate a group to get them engaged, motivated, and skilled in data analysis. moreover, i would imagine that being skilled in data visualization is a cross-cutting theme that could be used in courses beyond evaluation and improvement science. furthermore, it appears that dealing with unexpected and unintended consequences are additional areas that overlap. in both program evaluation and improvement science, the following can occur: unanticipated program or initiative changes, strained relationships with the stakeholders, negative findings, null findings, insufficient data, and barriers to obtain data. students working with program evaluations or improvement science would benefit from understanding these possibilities and the various misconceptions about obtaining and making meaning from null results. i wonder what the major differences would look like between a mini-pdsa cycle and a mini-evaluation. since the traditional time frame for a pdsa cycle is 90 days, this would then need to be shortened and scaled down to fit within a semester. whether or not a mini-pdsa or mini-evaluation could actually occur within a semester still brings up the challenge of a student having the influence, ability, and capacity to see one through to completion in time and conducted effectively. consequently, would it be worthwhile having a student plan for one, rather than be expected to actually implement it? i contend that it is extremely worthwhile based upon the last two semesters of having students create an evaluation plan, but would they get the same benefit from planning for a 90-day pdsa cycle? most likely, the answer would depend on the student’s professional context and which would provide them with more valuable information to prepare them for the day when these skills will used. perhaps then covering both the challenges and promises of improvement science and program evaluation might be a balance suited for doctoral students? common challenges that rise to the top for practitioners involved in either pdsa cycles or a program evaluation quickly discover the challenge of finding the time and resources needed to conduct either one effectively or efficiently without a full commitment from all those involved in each process connected to this initiative or program. developing and sustaining a learning organization with a growth mindset is another common challenge worth discussing. evaluation certainly has its fair share of being seen as a box-checking, compliance-driven, time-consuming, irrelevant, political, punitive, and useless activity that improvement science would like to evade (eagleston, 2020). lastly, creating the knowledge on how to scale programs to new settings can certainly cause challenges and opportunities for both the improvement science and evaluation field. not all evaluation types will have areas of alignment with improvement science, but i find that participatory, utilization-focused, empowerment, and realist evaluations have the most common elements with improvement science and, therefore, opens the door for further possible crossover learning. in particular, realist evaluations have a similar approach to improvement science in that it calls for asking how and why a program or initiative works, for whom, and under what conditions, in hopes of understanding how to adapt and scale up in new contexts (byrk et al., 2015; pawson & tilley, 1997; westhorp, 2014). pawson and tilley (1997) provide a framework for understanding how context, mechanisms, and outcomes explain why and how the program works, for whom, and under what conditions. realist evaluations and improvement science both give emphasis to the complexities and wide variations of contexts, the practical implications for society, and a call for interdisciplinary or networked communities to help carry out the evaluations (byrk et al., 2015; pawson, 2006; pawson & manzanosantaella, 2012). while improvement science calls for iterative pdsa cycles, pawson and tilly (2001) similarly call for speaking of evaluations in the plural, as to acknowledge this same iterative cycle and to ask big questions of small interventions. their belief also acknowledges the learn fast, fail fast, and improve quickly principle embedded in the improvement science methodology. christie et al. (2017b) assert that there are four areas, for what they refer to as a cross-fertilization discussion, between the two with more of a focus of what evaluation researchers can learn from the theory and application of improvement science including learning from error, examination of variation, appreciating context, and focusing on systems change. while each area can be explored at greater depth than provided here, i will discuss briefly how these four areas highlight possible future discussions. the authors assert that the evaluation field can learn from how improvement science carves out a trial-and-error environment that has a welcoming learning space for error instead of trying to rule out or adjust for error like role of program evaluation in edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 55 many evaluations do (christie et al., 2017b). i would add though that realist evaluations may be a bridge in this case since formative evaluations can offer real-time feedback to adjust if an initiative is not working as intended and if the involvement of the evaluator has this agreed-upon-role to make adjustments before starting the evaluation. most evaluators understand that variation among and between contexts will occur, that context matters, the problems that they attempt to solve exist within complex systems, and that systems thinking is vital to the conceptualization of the problem definition process (christie et al., 2017b). one key difference outlined by christie et al. (2017b) is that while improvement science has one purpose of seeking continuous improvement through systemic inquiry, the evaluation field has a variety of models which have different goals. while the goals may differ, evaluation methodological procedures may be similar, and in fact, be quite like those used in improvement science. since improvement science focuses on rapid, iterative pdsa cycles at the local level, christie et al. (2017b) claim that social accountability does not play as much of a role as it does in the evaluation field. accountability does not appear to have a major role in improvement science since the emphasis is on looking at what needs to improve, how to bring about that improvement, determining if improvement occurred, and planning the next steps. failure is expected and accepted. on the other hand, evaluators tend to experience internal and external pressure, perceived or actual, to demonstrate or prove that an implementation of an initiative worked, which can cause feelings of high-stakes. this is an interesting topic warranting a deeper discussion, since i imagine that at some point, the issue of accountability might arise throughout these iterative, rapid pdsa cycles. if the time, resources, and effort are afforded for these pdsa cycles, i could imagine that someone needs to account for each steps in the cycle being implemented as intended and that documentation of each step was thorough, detailed, and timely. a second key difference between program evaluation and improvement science is noted in the time frame in which both are conducted. improvement science pdsa cycles offer quick feedback on whether an initiative was an improvement, under what conditions, and for whom. this then allows for continued pdsa to help minimize variation in hopes of being able to scale the initiative reliably in new contexts. i wonder though if this difference can run into similar challenges as evaluations tend to show. for example, understanding the change process illustrates the complexity of attempting to measure change, let alone in a 90-day cycle. change takes time, and there may not be enough time to see the improvement actualize or if change did occur and if it had lasting results. the implementation of the program or intervention may not have been consistently implemented or implemented as planned. data collection may have been faulty, or the data analyzed inaccurately. human error can greatly impact the program or intervention from the very beginning to the very end. with careful analysis of why the results occurred as they did, even more, detailed and careful planning in advance for next time might result in a more successful outcome. possible action plans, such as piloting additional revisions, creating different target goals, or altering the data collection method, can be designed to help ensure that a program does not get discontinued. even with participatory or realist evaluations, people need time to process what the new initiative will look like, and how it will impact them. improvement science tends to support these possibilities by the very nature of why and how rapid, iterative cycles can collect this data to be used in the next cycle. however, hall and ford (1987) offer a concerns-based adoption model (cbam) to better recognize where individuals can be in a change process, as detailed in the stages of concern framework. the framework helps evaluators better acknowledge the training and support that may be needed. whether conducting evaluations or pdsa cycles, change is a highly personalized experience, people learn at different rates, and in different ways. reflection on what the data shows takes time. a healthy and heavy dose of patience is required across the board. implications due to the various professions and contexts of our students, improvement science not being the university doctorate program’s signature pedagogy, and the prevalence of organizational, local, or state programs that so many students engage with as part of their day-to-day responsibilities, i call upon cped-influenced institutions to engage in conversations about how doctoral students can benefit from learning both about improvement science and program evaluation philosophies, strategies, and tools. i believe this is a powerful opportunity to expose students to the richness, complexities, similarities, differences, and benefits of each as they attempt to solve problems of practice. scholarship coming from either improvement science or program evaluation both emanate from “curiosity, a love of learning, an appreciation for complexity, a tolerance for ambiguity and a relentless need to make sense of one’s experience” (piantanida et al., 2019, p. 17). in conclusion, i maintain that both program evaluation and improvement science have a tremendous capacity to provide the ideas, tools, and approaches to prepare students to be the change agents they hope to aspire to be in their present and future roles. references buss, r. r., & avery, a. (2017). research becomes you: cultivating edd students’ identities as educational leaders and researchers and a “learning by doing” meta-study. journal of research on leadership education, 12(3), 273–301. byrk, a., gomez, l., grunow, a., & lamahieu, p. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. christie, c. a., inkelas, m., & lemire, s. (2017a). editors’ notes. new directions for evaluation, 153, 7–10. christie, c. a., inkelas, m., & lemire, s. (2017b). understanding the similarities and distinctions between improvement science and evaluation. in c. a. christie, m. inkelas, & s. lemire (eds.), new directions for evaluation, 153, 11–22. cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. l. (2009). inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation. teachers college press. firestone, w. a., & leland, a. s. (2021). strategies for promoting evidence use through the education doctorate. impacting education, 6(4), 8–15. firestone, w. a., perry, j. a., leland, a. s., & mckeon, r. t. (2021). teaching research and data use in the education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 16(1), 81–102. giancola, s. p. (2021). program evaluation: embedding evaluation into program design and development (1st ed.). sage publications. hall, g. e., & ford, s. m. (1987). change in schools: facilitating the process. state university of new york press. henry, g. t., & mark, m. m. (2003). beyond use: understanding evaluation’s influence on attitudes and actions. american journal of evaluation, 24(3), 293–314. herr, k., & anderson, g. l. (2005). the action research dissertation: a guide for students and faculty. sage publications. hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. myers education press. marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.335 56 langley, g., moen, r., nolan, t., norman, c., & provost, l. (2009). the improvement guide: a practical approach to enhancing organizational performance (2nd ed.). jossey-bass. newcomer, k. e., hatry, h. p., & wholey, j. s. (2015). handbook of practical program evaluation. jossey-bass. patton, m. q. (1997). utilization-focused evaluation (3rd ed.). sage publications. pawson, r. (2006). evidence-based policy: a realist perspective. sage publications. pawon, r., & manzano-santaella, a. (2012). a realist diagnostic workshop. evaluation, 18(2), 176–191. pawson, r., & tilley, n. (1997). realistic evaluation. sage publications. pawson, r., & tilley, n. (2001). realistic evaluation bloodlines. american journal of evaluation, 2(3), 317–24. peurach, d. j., lin russell, j., cohen-vogel, l., & penuel, w. r. (2022). the foundational handbook on improvement research in education. rowman & littlefield. piantanida, m., mcmahon, p. l., & llewellyn, m. (2019). on being a scholarpractitioner: practical wisdom in action. wisdom of practice series, learning moments press. preskill, h., & torres, r. t. (2000). the learning dimension of evaluation use. new directions for evaluation, 88, 25–37. weiss, c. h. (1988). evaluation for decisions: is anybody there? does anybody care? evaluation practice, 9(1), 5–19. westhorp, g. (2014). realist impact evaluation: an introduction. methods lab. overseas development institute. zambo, d., buss, r. r., & zambo, r. (2015). uncovering the identities of students and graduates in a cped-influenced edd program. studies in higher education, 40(2), 233–252 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 26 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 predictive characteristics of adequate employment in baccalaureate-prepared graduates cynthia kiefer university of virginia kiefer@virginia.edu laura kottkamp virginia commonwealth university laurakottkamp@gmail.com jana mcquaid virginia commonwealth university jpmcquaid@vcu.edu justin moses norfolk state university jlmoses@nsu.edu abstract underemployment, which occurs when baccalaureate degree holders are employed in occupations that do not require or fully use a college-level degree (lederman, 2018), challenges the notion that a college degree alone adequately prepares a student for a satisfactory level of employment based on education level. during 2018 and 2019, the higher-ed capstone team conducted this study to identify predictive characteristics of underemployment among undergraduate alumni from a large, public, urban, tier-1 research university. although identifying underemployment characteristics was the primary impetus for the research, the team instead discovered three primary predictors of adequate employment from the analysis. higher education institutions and policy leaders may be able to better ensure students gain employment, particularly during challenging economic times, by encouraging student participation in internships, extracurricular activities, and the selection of stem majors. keywords predictors, employment, undergraduate, internship, stem introduction as inflation soars to nearly 10 percent and the country faces an unemployment rate of just under 4% (bureau of labor statistics, 2022), current and prospective students and families may ask is it worthwhile to pursue a costly higher education degree as opposed to entering the work force directly and pursuing certificates. in light of the cost of higher education as a percentage of household income, families may have shifted their expectations of higher education from teaching to one of teaching and career placement (national information center for higher education, 2018). students, parents, and graduates may expect higher education institutions to assume responsibility for preparing students for jobs and higher paying jobs after graduation. and arguably, preparing college graduates to enter the labor market as qualified workers could be seen by society and the marketplace as the most critical responsibility for higher education, especially with the historically low unemployment and the need for employees following covid-19 (ferguson, 2022). yet, educators themselves listed helping students to find employment as only the sixth of their top ten issues in recent years (mourshed et al., 2013). sixty percent of college and university administrators feel they are not responsible for students having professional goals and plans to achieve these goals; less than 40% of chief academic officers believe colleges and universities should be held accountable for the career success of their students (kelchen, 2016). plenty of educators care about student success, but as long as educators are not responsible for, evaluated on, or compensated on student employment outcomes, this downward prioritization trend is likely to continue (mourshed et al., 2013). there is a caveat, however, to equating every student’s graduation directly with one successful employment outcome. as society’s relationship with and access to higher education has shifted in the past fifty years, citizens in the united states embrace the notion that everyone who has the desire to attend college and perhaps get better compensation with this education should be able to do so (caplan, 2017). during the early decade of the 21st century, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4365-8262 kiefer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 28 nearly 60% of society now has some college education (carnevale et al., 2010), an astounding increase from the single digit statistics of the 1960s (u.s. census bureau, 2012). institutions of higher learning, once selected by students based on proximity or a preparatory curriculum for a desired profession today, have become mass-producing, degree-granting institutions (bankston, 2011). as such, graduating with a degree does not translate into a profitable career. even in a fiercely competitive labor market, underemployment accepting employment that does not require higher education qualifications poses a grave long-term threat to college graduates’ career success and advancement (burning glass technologies, 2018). critically, employers may view underemployed job applicants more negatively than those who have actually been unemployed (nunley et al., 2017). nunley et al. (2017) submitted approximately 9,400 fictitious resumes to jobs in the areas of banking, financial services, insurance, management, marketing, and sales positions between january 2013 and july 2013. the researchers discovered that underemployed applicants were 30% less likely to receive a callback from employers; however, they found no negative effect on callback rates for those who were unemployed. in fact, nunley et al. (2017) concluded underemployment can be perceived as substantially more harmful than unemployment because of the negative signal it sends to employers. the client challenge in light of the economic threat that underemployment poses to graduates and to society, the doctoral capstone team’s client asked: how might institutions in the commonwealth of virginia identify predictors of underemployment in baccalaureate-prepared graduates? ultimately, the capstone team sought to identify factors of baccalaureate graduates and actions that higher education institutions may take to help graduates avoid underemployment. in doing so, the capstone team hoped that the institutions could better prepare a skilled workforce, with the intent that a more skilled workforce could provide better wages for employees and could serve to attract and sustain employers in an internationally competitive labor market. economically, an adequately employed workforce could contribute more consumer dollars to the tax base. framing the problem through a review of literature while the literature highlighted numerous factors that may contribute to underemployment, the capstone team sorted the factors into two categories: uncontrollable and controllable predictors that may contribute to underemployment in baccalaureate-seeking college students. uncontrollable predictors the uncontrollable predictors include: the economy the students entered upon graduation and the demographics of the students, including race, gender, or first-generation status of the students. the economy the effects of entering the workforce during an economic recession, for example, are short-lived and long-lasting, including recession after-shocks. short-lived, adverse market conditions can also impact workers as long as ten years. in a study following canadian men for ten years following college graduation, oreopoulos et al. (2012) determined that the effects of a weak job market are strongest for new graduates with little or no work experience. as well, a depressed economy can have long-lived effects on graduates. entering the labor market in a skill-appropriate role rather than accepting and suffering through a perpetual low wage job may actually behoove workers in a recession-like economy (kahn, 2010). in a study seeking to understand the effects of the early 1980s recession on graduates entering the workforce, kahn (2010) tracked 513 workers from 1979 to 1994 and concluded that their wage losses ranged from 1% to 20% each year when compared to pre-recession graduates’ wages. thus, kahn’s (2010) results support forgoing a year or two of wages and accepting a job commensurate with a graduate’s education and skill level rather than trying to overcome low pay across a career from an initial entry-level role. demographic factors the team examined many demographic factors including gender, race, socioeconomic levels, and first-generation status in the literature. first-generation status, like race, is a byproduct of parental circumstances, and is, ostensibly, an uncontrollable factor for students. first-generation college students are likely to be hispanic (27%) or black (14%), and they are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than continuing generation students (redford & hoyer, 2017). even before enrolling, first-generation, college-bound students are often at a disadvantage among prospective college students. the parents of first-generation college students often have little understanding of higher education and are, therefore, often unable to assist their college-bound children in the college decision-making process (olson, 2016; tate et al., 2015). without family members who previously navigated college, firstgeneration college students are often left with little guidance on how to develop career plans. moreover, they often do not understand who, within the college setting, they can turn to for assistance. firstgeneration college students are particularly at risk of missing relevant experiential learning in college, whether because they are unaware of the opportunities and the importance of them, or they must work to pay for tuition and living costs and are forced to miss out on more extracurricular, unpaid activities. hence, first-generation students are more often underemployed years following graduation as a result of limited professional preparation (hirudayaraj & mclean, 2018). additionally, first-generation college students often come from low-income families (redford & hoyer, 2017), and their awareness of career aspirations is typically defined by their parents’ experiences (olson, 2016; tate et al., 2015). in an effort to encourage their children to have a better financial foundation than they had, parents often push students to choose a practical major – one that leads to a specific career such as engineering or nursing – further limiting the options that students consider or that might be a more optimal fit with their interests (olson, 2016; tate et al., 2015). predictive characteristics of adequate employment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 29 the controllable predictors the following are the controllable predictors found in the literature: experiential learning, extracurricular activities, academic pursuits, academic advising, and career support. experiential learning mentoring partnerships, internships, and cooperative educational jobs can provide valuable means to offset underemployment for new graduates. as part of a curriculum in higher education, experiences and a network of employed individuals can enhance students’ professional skill-building and allow for applying academic learning beyond the classroom (mcevoy, 1998; raelin, 2007). students’ work experiences outside the classroom may signal to employers their qualifications for employment after academia (caplan, 2017; moret, 2016). students who are matched with mentors, such as alumni or senior students, can informally and formally practice using professional language and decorum by networking (burning glass technologies and strada institute for the future of work, 2018). networking has been shown to help career success (haggard & turban, 2012). however, some college students lack inherent networking skills and may need guidance to develop their networks (tate et al., 2015). internships and cooperative educational jobs can provide students with valuable skills such as relationship building, networking, and creative thinking that can lead to higher paying job offers and overall job satisfaction (gault et al., 2000). internships and cooperative educational jobs also provide a means for individuals to find employment that matches their skill set (fogg & harrington, 2011; maertz et al., 2014). in addition to bringing classroom lessons to live situations, cooperative educational jobs have a positive earnings impact on new graduates (walters & zarifa, 2008). any type of work-program that lets students “learn and earn at the same time” (pascarella & terenzini, 2005, p. 410) reinforces classwork and professional learning, while helping reduce students’ debt loads. in fact, for low-income students, internships and cooperative educational jobs tend to bring greater financial benefit and awareness of the professional world than these jobs do for higherincome students (rogers, 2017). extracurricular activities students who engage in formalized, learning-specific, extracurricular activities demonstrate a willingness for new experiences beyond the classroom and indicate an awareness of higher education being more than classroom participation (bathmaker et al., 2013). in the workforce, career success is often tied to employees’ social performance, not solely their job performance. social capital depends on employees’ access to information, access to resources, and having a mentor to champion them on projects or promotions (seibert et al., 2001). extracurricular activities can also provide students with a chance to exercise leadership skills they can use as an employee. students with strong soft skills express greater confidence in their abilities to interact with others and experience higher job placement rates after graduation than those possessing only academic skills (winstead et al., 2009). employers value graduates who exhibit sound professional judgment through strong soft skills (robles, 2012; winstead et al., 2009) and deep emotional intelligence awareness (joyner & mann, 2011; sigmar et al., 2012) because these graduates are more effective in interacting and collaborating with others. academic pursuits skills and interest testing and resources exist that can help guide students to majors aligned with their skills and interests. yet, universities often are not adequately staffed in career advising areas to guide all students (auter & marken, 2017). thus, it is not surprising that many students, particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds pursue academic majors that may not fit their talents and skills (zarifa, 2012). these students may ultimately pursue and accept jobs that are unrelated to their major, but they recognize these jobs because non-degree holding family members and peers hold these jobs (deortentiis et al., 2021). many students, particularly those from lower social strata, cannot clearly see the pathway from a major to a profession, which is a disadvantage as they apply for jobs (burning glass technologies and strada institute for the future of work, 2018). as a result, many of these graduates are mismatched in their professional careers (abel & deitz, 2015; cappelli, 2015). studies have provided varying evidence on the underemployment outcomes and career outlook associated with various majors, such as science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) disciplines as compared to liberal arts (burning glass technologies and strada institute for the future of work, 2018). carnevale and cheah (2015) found that underemployment rates were high among baccalaureate majors earning degrees in liberal arts, sociology, and psychology during the great recession of 2007 2009. graduates with degrees in other disciplines, such as engineering and health-related sciences and services, had low rates of underemployment during the great recession (carnevale & cheah, 2015). academic advising and career support the importance of appropriate academic advising cannot be ignored, as advising has an impact on the retention of students at the undergraduate level, particularly with first-generation students (swecker et al., 2013). information regarding a specific academic major and its direct relation with career attainment is often absent from the undergraduate experience (herndon, 2006). similarly, academic advising has, until recently, been limited in its scope of highlighting skills and salaries for enrolled students as they explore major selection (burning glass technologies and strada institute for the future of work, 2018). research showed that college students reported that they are not satisfied with the academic advising that they received (allen & smith, 2008), suggesting a problematic approach in how students are advised. early discussions with students around major selection, their receiving regular academic and career advising, as well as their pursuing relevant work experience are critical for students to secure employment (fogg & harrington, 2011). exploration of careers early in the college experience can encourage student participation in conscious career exploration (savickas, 1999), which can develop into confidence and decisiveness when selecting a major (shin, 2010). thus, a greater connection among academic advising, career advising, and the formal curriculum can ultimately help offset underemployment even before a student actively launches a career search (fishman et al., 2017). kiefer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 30 methodology to test predictive factors after the team’s extensive review of the literature, the team chose to conduct a research study by administering a survey to baccalaureate graduates. the survey was designed to test which factors might influence or predict underemployment outcomes in baccalaureate graduates. the team collaborated with the state council of higher education for virginia (schev), which receives data on graduates from virginia’s higher education institutions and then compiles the data into a repository. while the database could provide valuable demographic and academic information on former students, it did not contain all of the variables the team sought to test as predictors of underemployment in baccalaureate-prepared graduates. to supplement schev’s existing data, the team chose to design and administer a survey to gather comparable data across a large population of graduates. research design the team designed this quantitative study based on existing literature and research around predictors of employment outcomes. yet, the team did not test all factors explored through the literature. instead, the team focused on variables that they believed would return adequate and accessible data from either survey responses or secondary data on a large scale. the participants in this study completed surveys with three primary areas: undergraduate collegiate experiences, post-graduation factors, and demographic factors. context and participants the following describes the site of the study, the targeted population, and the demographics of the participants. research site virginia commonwealth university (vcu) was the site for the study. vcu, which contributes an estimated $5.9 billion dollars annually of economic impact to the commonwealth of virginia (accordino et al., 2016), is the fourth largest higher education institution in virginia. vcu has over 31,000 students, and 92% of the students are residents of virginia. fifty-nine percent of the students are female. twenty-nine percent of the students identify as underrepresented minorities, and 33% are first-generation college students (institutional research and decision support, n.d.a). target population the target population was the approximately 45,000 vcu baccalaureate graduates from 2006 2016. the ten-year cap constricted the time period that graduates were likely to attribute their university preparation as the reason for their finding relevant employment. participants of those 941 respondents who indicated their sex, 60.7% (n = 571) identified as female, while 29.9% (n = 281) identified as male. of the respondents who indicated their race/ethnicity, 61.2% (n = 556) identified as white, 23.1% (n = 210) identified as black or african american, 8.6% (n = 78) of the sample identified as asian or pacific islander, and 4.7% (n = 43) of the sample identified as hispanics. respondents identifying as american indian/alaska native (n = 7) or multi-race (n = 12) comprised 2.1% of the sample. the race/ethnicity of the remaining 0.3% of respondents were non-resident alien. a significant majority of the respondents, 83.8% (n = 789), were between the ages of 18 and 24 when they graduated with a baccalaureate degree. data analysis the overarching approach to analysis was testing variables within the three themes that the team identified as possible predictors of underemployment from the literature: undergraduate collegiate experiences, post-graduation factors, and demographic characteristics. the team looked for those respondents who had either participated or not participated in certain undergraduate experiences, in certain majors, as well as their employment outcomes as indicated by their job and income level. the team then determined statistical significance to show possible predictors of underemployment for baccalaureate graduates. data analysis tools the team first analyzed the respondents’ answers through descriptive frequencies and then examined differences by employment status for each variable in the themes of collegiate experiences, post-graduation factors, and demographic characteristics. the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) software was used to conduct the analysis. chi-square the team conducted a chi-square test for independence on nominal and ordinal variables to determine if there were differences in employment level by collegiate experience, post-graduation factors, and demographics. the team identified variables within each theme that had a p < .05, which indicated a statistically significant difference in employment levels. if the test indicated a statistically significant difference or relationship, the strength of that association was tested using phi/cramer’s v. anova the team conducted an analysis of variance (anova) on interval variables to determine if there were differences in employment level by collegiate experience, post-graduation factors, and demographics. the team identified variables within each theme of collegiate experience, post-graduation factors, and demographics that had a p < .05, which indicated a statistically significant difference in employment levels. if the anova indicated a statistically significant difference, the strength of that association was tested using eta square. findings by research themes research theme one: undergraduate collegiate experiences the team wanted to understand which undergraduate collegiate experiences may have had a meaningful impact on graduates’ predictive characteristics of adequate employment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 31 employment level and thus conducted chi-square tests on each survey response related to undergraduate experiences. the six experiences that showed statistical significance in undergraduate collegiate years are discussed below. relevant work experience during undergraduate years graduates who had been employed in work related to their careers while they were undergraduates were more likely to be adequately employed than those who were not employed in any work related to their careers as undergraduates. this significance highlighted the value of a professional experience over work experience unrelated to a future career. academic advising those respondents who received academic advising during undergraduate years, and thus likely to be the beneficiary of counsel on class, major, or internships, were more likely to be adequately employed graduates than those respondents who did not. career services graduates who utilized career services or the events surrounding career services, such as skills assessment, career fairs, networking events, or resume assistance, were more likely to be adequately employed graduates than those respondents who did not. extracurricular activities graduates who participated in and understood the importance of extracurricular activities, such as serving in affinity groups, major or industry aligned clubs, mentoring, or volunteering, were more likely to be adequately employed than those graduates who did not. majors certain majors were more likely than other majors to indicate adequate employment. whether because of the high demand for stem graduates or from the indication of a stem degree that coursework was particularly arduous and challenging, stem graduates appear favorable to employers. graduates of a stem designated degree were likely to be adequately employed graduates. research theme two: post-graduation factors the team wanted to understand which post-graduation factors may have a meaningful impact on graduates’ employment level and thus conducted chi-square tests on each survey response related to post-graduation factors, such as what economic climate they entered upon graduation, their years of full-time work experience, their willingness to relocate upon graduation, if they had earned an advanced degree, and their total amount of school debt. the one factor that showed statistical significance was the economic climate the graduates entered upon graduation. in order to determine whether there was a difference in employment level for those graduating during the great recession and those who did not, the team recoded graduation years into two separate categories: recession and no recession. doing so showed that the economic climate impacted these graduates. therefore, undergraduates who entered the workforce during the great recession were more likely to be underemployed. research theme three: demographic factors the team desired to understand which demographic factors may have had a meaningful impact on graduates’ employment level and thus conducted chi-square tests on each survey response related to demographic factors. the one factor was the respondent’s first-generation status. first-generation the only factor that showed statistical significance in respondents was whether they were a first-generation student or not. first-generation students were not as likely as continuing generation students to be adequately employed. forming the regression equation the team entered all variables into the model, regardless of whether they showed statistically significant differences. yet, four variables from across two of the three research themes made statistically significant contributions to the model as predictors of employment outcomes. the equation can be written as: e = b0 + b1x1 + b2x2 + b3x3 + b4x4 where: x1 = whether the respondents worked or had an internship as undergraduate in career-related work; x2 = whether the respondents participated in extracurricular activities; x3 = whether the respondents graduated during a recession; x4 = whether the respondents earned a stem-designated degree; e = respondent’s (adequacy of) employment level. while the initial study focused on finding predictors of underemployment, the model correctly predicted 98.6% of cases of adequate employment and only 5.8% of cases of underemployment. the two categories of employment level are not necessarily opposite of one another. therefore, there is not an assumption that the model predicting adequate employment applies in the inverse to predict underemployment. logistic regression findings the logistic regression indicated that undergraduate students who worked at a job or internship in their field while an undergraduate were 1.7 times more likely to be adequately employed than those who did not. the graduates who participated in extracurricular activities as an undergraduate were 2.3 times more likely to be adequately employed than those who did not. the respondents who graduated during the recession were 2.5 times more likely to be adequately employed than those who did not. additionally, the respondents who graduated with a stem degree were 1.8 times more likely to be adequately employed than those who did not have a stem degree. limitations respondents may not be willing to share demographic and economic data. restricted access to graduates also can be a significant challenge in a highly cyber-securitized world. although the kiefer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.216 32 team examined employment predictive characteristics through the variables in a graduate’s collegiate experience, post-graduation factors, and demographics, the combined variables did not explain a large enough variance to allow the team to provide concrete recommendations. the team could not, thus, identify concretely the predictors of underemployment in baccalaureate students. yet, the team believes that by shedding light on an important topic and critical undergraduate experiences, a more robust model may emerge that could predict characteristics of underemployment in baccalaureate graduates. recommendations undergraduate students should engage in professional development activities before they graduate. students who participate in activities related to the transition from college to work fare better in finding relevant employment (blau et al., 2014) and thereby avoid underemployment. students also need the appropriate tools and support to be adequately employed after graduation. activities such as speed networking and informational interviews can be established easily as part of a course requirement. furthermore, establishing mentorships allow students to understand workplace expectations and professional decorum from alumni or senior classmates. in addition, students should be required to develop professional resumes and practice interviewing. student awareness of and participation in extracurricular activities and leadership positions should be encouraged by college staff and professors. college students participate in extracurricular activities as a means of establishing informal networks and leadership expertise. whether these extracurriculars are aligned with certain majors or industries, constitute study abroad, connected to special interests, or are organized through intramural or disciplined athletics, each opportunity allows for practicing skills that employers seek in applicants. first-generation students in particular need to be made aware of non-academic activities as a key employment factor, and activities need to occur during times when working students may also participate. participating in internships should be required. chief academic officers ranked internships as the most important qualification for new graduates finding employment (kelchen, 2016). completing internships provides students with an opportunity to gain exposure to various industries and workplace expectations. these students benefit, too, in that they are likely to receive offers to continue to work and understand if their chosen major and pursuit of a chosen career aligns with their perceptions (saltikoff, 2017). furthermore, seeking input from employers on their needed competencies and translating those needs into curriculum and extracurriculars can prove beneficial for graduates and employers (abel & dietz, 2015). conclusion adequate employment’s impact is noteworthy for individuals and society. graduates’ sense of empowerment, their allegiance to their institution, their ability to repay debt, their spending power, their support of the tax base at a higher level, and the region’s ability to attract further economic investment are all key benefits of adequate employment. ultimately, higher education leaders can help ensure students are well prepared for the job market through the awareness of factors that influence hiring: their selection of major, the importance of well-roundedness in the collegiate experience, and the necessity of an internship. while 43% of graduates may be underemployed in their first job upon graduation, nearly one-quarter remain underemployed a decade later. 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(2008). earnings and employment outcomes for male and female postsecondary graduates of coop and non-coop programmes. journal of vocational education & training. 60, 377–399. weissman, j. (2014). the growth of college grads in dead-end jobs (in 2 graphs): the rise of the baristas. the atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-growth-ofcollege-grads-in-dead-end-jobs-in-2-graphs/283137/ winstead, a. s., adams, b. l., & sillah, m. r. (2009). teaching the “soft skills”: a professional development curriculum to enhance the employability skills of business graduates. american journal of business education, 2(5), 35–44. zarifa, d. (2012). choosing fields in an expansionary era: comparing two cohorts of baccalaureate degree-holders in the united states and canada. research in social stratification and mobility, 30(3), 328–351. https://doi.org/doi.org: 10.1016/j.rssm.2012.06.003 https://opds.vcu.edu/eaar/facts-and-figures/data_sets/ https://opds.vcu.edu/eaar/facts-and-figures/data_sets/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1080569912450312 https://doi.org/10.12930/nacada-13-192 https://doi.org/10.12930/nacada-13-192 cynthia kiefer university of virginia laura kottkamp virginia commonwealth university jana mcquaid virginia commonwealth university (1) justin moses norfolk state university introduction the client challenge framing the problem through a review of literature uncontrollable predictors the economy demographic factors the controllable predictors experiential learning extracurricular activities academic pursuits academic advising and career support methodology to test predictive factors research design context and participants research site target population participants data analysis data analysis tools chi-square anova findings by research themes research theme one: undergraduate collegiate experiences relevant work experience during undergraduate years academic advising career services extracurricular activities majors research theme two: post-graduation factors research theme three: demographic factors first-generation forming the regression equation logistic regression findings limitations recommendations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 40 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 exploring place-based education while reflecting on my own place growing up in west virginia megan arthur radford university mdtarthur@gmail.com abstract place-based education (pbe) will be explored while weaving in my own experiences with place growing up in west virginia surrounded by the coal industry. pbe is a teaching method that provides meaningful instruction for students by transforming their community or place into their classroom. pbe can teach students how to truly inhabit their places and become contributing citizens by helping their communities or places improve and eradicate any prevalent issues. the coal industry is still predominant in west virginia even though it continues to bring destruction to the land and controversy among the residents. the coal industry was a prime example for pbe focus while i was student in k-12 schools in west virginia, and i will present information for why it should continue to be a focus for pbe. keywords place-based education, community-based education, community centered instruction, west virginia, coal industry introduction—beyond one-size-fits-all (or none) boxed curriculum meaningful instruction does not begin with worksheets and busywork. meaningful instruction begins with authentic, problembased, community-centered, student-centered activities. as a newcomer to the idea of place-based education (pbe), i want to make it clear that i am not an expert in pbe nor am i claiming to be one. the research i have read on pbe in my doctoral program has been presented by educators who have years of experience with pbe and are much more knowledgeable when it comes to implementing pbe. reviewing research conducted by experts and/or knowledgeable educators can be intimidating for others who are implementing new-to-them practices like pbe. pbe is not a new concept, as this way of teaching our youth has been around since before the formation of formal education (smith, 2016). for any educator looking to provide their students with meaningful experiences that goes outside the four walls of their classroom and beyond the one-size-fits-all, or none, boxed curriculum, i will use what i have learned from my research to provide a rationale for utilizing pbe and implementing ideas from a novice point-of-view. while learning about expanding the classroom into the community, i started to reflect on my own experiences with place in education. although pbe extends the classroom outside to local places, textbooks and boxed curriculums do not need to be completely discarded. if your school district requires the use of certain textbooks and/or provided curriculums, you can use the content found within these resources to expand into pbe practices. for example, if the textbook or provided curriculum focuses on ecosystems or immigration, you may want to explore these topics in the areas that are local to your school community to provide authentic experiences that include opportunities for learning across multiple content areas. what is place-based education (pbe)? pbe can be difficult to define because people implement it differently based on what their place has to offer and not everyone teaches the same way (gruenewald et al., 2010; deringer, 2017). gruenewald et al. (2010) explained that “…place-based education is not something that can be packaged and then disseminated. it depends on the creative interaction between learners and the possibilities and requirements of specific place” (p. 4). pbe is a teaching method that takes students beyond the classroom, boxed curriculums, and textbooks. this teaching method involves exploring your neighborhood or area, which can lead students to find issues. these issues can become the focus of lessons and activities that expand across content areas and may continue for weeks or months within a school year. pbe is not one field trip or isolated event that brings the outside into the classroom; however, these field trips and events may lead to a focus on pbe. gruenwald et. al (2010) used the following definition of pbe by david sobel as: the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum. emphasizing hands-on, real-world learning experiences, this approach to education increases academic achievement, helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the natural world, and creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens… (p. 7) http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2664-9866 exploring place-based education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 41 pbe is a method of teaching that incorporates interdisciplinary practices and results in transdisciplinary skills that will be applicable in multiple areas and the real world. experiences in real life are not necessarily linear and categorized by singular content areas (ark et. al, 2020). for example, paying bills may require the use of mathematics and reading; voting may utilize skills in reading, social sciences, and mathematics; and cooking or baking may combine math, reading and science skills. the experiences needed to improve our places to make them more sustainable and beneficial to all who reside or inhabit in a place is not necessarily found in the textbooks and boxed curriculums. furthermore, smith et. al (2010) explained place-based education as: an approach to teaching and learning that connects learning to the local…to prepare children to become participants in the local problem-solving…as humanity adjusts to the consequences of climate change, economic globalization, and resource exhaustion…replacing fossil fuels and reinventing sustainable farming and manufacturing processes will demand the intelligent involvement of large numbers of widely dispersed people. (p. viii) to thrive in the real world, our students must learn how to navigate, become change agents, and participate in the real world. why place-based education (pbe)? education as an impactful event on one’s life is not created by hundreds of worksheets or busywork. “engagement is a critical factor in improving academic achievement” (gruenewald et. al, 2010, p. 74). educators that have utilized place-based education have reported an increase in motivation and engagement and a decrease in discipline issues (gruenewald et. al, 2010; smith et. al, 2010; ark et. al, 2020). place-based education allows teachers and students to have autonomy and encourages students to embrace who they are as individuals in terms of experiences, perceptions, cultures, languages, and community. when teachers have autonomy, they are more motivated and invested in their instructional practices and students benefit from this investment. allowing students to have autonomy, increases student motivation and engagement. when students are engaged and motivated, they are less likely to have misbehaviors and are more likely to find success in academics. also, students classified as low performing achieve more when using placed-based education because they can utilize their strengths while working with others who can compensate for areas of weakness (bass, 2019; biviano, 2019; gruenewald et. al, 2010; smith et. al, 2010). when pbe is implemented in classrooms, students learn more than the expected content for achievement tests and tend to score higher on achievement tests. “an education grounded in place and community is connected to what is important in students’ own lives” (smith et. al, 2010, p. 35). when students are motivated in their learning, school becomes less of an obligation and becomes an experience that influences the lives of students. when pbe is implemented with students living in challenging places, they may become engaged in improving their communities rather than escaping them. additionally, pbe that incorporates local and global investigations provides opportunities for classrooms to be more culturally responsive than a teacher may be on his or her own (gruenewald et. al, 2010; bass, 2019; biviano, 2019, smith et. al, 2010; ark et. al, 2020). when looking back at my own experiences in public k-12 schools, worksheets are not what i remember. below are experiences i remember from my time as a student in public k-12 schools and how it may have impacted my life. while these experiences may have been isolated events and not true to pbe form, they are included as a reminder of how education can impact one’s life. additionally, some of the isolated events discussed below could have been turned into more long-term pbe topics.  my kindergarten teacher had a clawfoot tub filled with pillows in the reading section of the classroom. we took turns reading in the clawfoot tub, and i remember being so excited when it was my turn. i believe this early exposure to reading as a fun activity set me on a path to be an avid reader and a reading specialist. as an educator i hope to instill the same love of reading in my students.  in first grade, i remember going to a local nursery to learn about plants. this one experience did not necessarily prompt me to grow my own plants because i came from a family and area that grew our own gardens and flowers. however, i’m sure it was a small contribution to my love of gardening.  my middle school science teacher enlisted us to help build a wetland below our school to help reduce pollution from the coal mines. this activity combined with an appalachian literature class i took in college, which i will explain in more depth in another section, exposed me to the destruction caused by coal mines and how it goes beyond damage to the land. the wetland project, and stories i read in my appalachian literature class have impacted my response to my places. while i may not be able to eradicate coal mines, i do what i can to help make my places healthier and more viable by supporting renewable resources and recycling.  in high school, i shadowed a nurse at our local hospital for a day to see if i wanted to become a nurse. i, obviously, changed my mind and did not become a nurse, but at least i had the opportunity to go out into my community and explore career options. instead, i went on to become an english teacher, reading specialist, and an administrator. again, none of the above memories from my k-12 experiences are based on a worksheet or busywork. i cannot name one worksheet i completed and how it impacted my life. not all experiences above are related to place or place-based education, but the point is that meaningful instruction and opportunities can impact a student’s life, and worksheets do not make a lasting impression. students quoted in gruenewald et. al (2010), shared a similar reflection based on the projects they completed while collecting the history of their community. one student described his experience with place-based education this way: you learned about the history of our town through the stories of real people…i remember so much more from those interviews and research projects than from most of the courses i’ve taken in high school…where we just do work, pass the test, and then forget stuff we supposedly learn. (gruenewald et al., 2010, p. 66) meaningful instruction, like pbe, leaves an impact on a child, prepares them to be a contributing citizen in their community, and teaches them to be adaptable as the world changes. arthur impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 42 to reside or inhabit our society and advances in technology have created a lack of awareness of the here and now and involvement in our places. instead of being in the moment, exploring our places, and becoming truly involved with our places, we experience mindlessness (deringer, 2017) by being glued to screens and too afraid, or illprepared, to become involved with our surroundings. gruenewald et. al (2010) used david orr’s differentiation of residing and inhabiting from ecological literacy (1992); “the resident…lives in the indoor world of house, office, car, and television, and the inhabitant…knows their place, cares deeply about it, and has a mutually sustaining relationship with it” (p. 284). as a society we need to take pause, be in the moment, listen to the people in our places, understand the history of our places, and inhabit our places by building a relationship with them. relationship building with our places can create an awareness of the good and the bad that exists. awareness of the bad can help citizens, starting with our youth, eradicate the issues in our places that stifle progress or makes others unwelcomed. having a relationship with our place can be beneficial emotionally, mentally, socially, economically, and environmentally (gruenewald et. al, 2010; smith et. al, 2010; ark et. al, 2020). our youth, the future of our places, must be provided with experiences to inhabit their places and be trained on how to become contributing, democratic, decision-making citizens. additionally, we need to teach our students how to be mindful of their places. being mindful is defined by e. j. langer in mindful place-based education: mapping the literature, as being “implicitly aware of the context and content” (deringer, 2017, p. 338). once students experience the community as their classroom and are provided with opportunities to make a difference, they become more aware of how their place functions and are equipped to thrive in new places in an ever-changing world. “as students see that they are valued members of the community, they also begin to the see the role they could play as adults: as an employee, a citizen, a parent, or a volunteer” (ark et. al, 2020, p. 26). such change can begin in our schools by providing students with meaningful instruction focused on place-based education. my places—where i’ve been and where i am learning about place-based education has led me to ponder where i have been and where i am. i was born in a small-town in west virginia in 1987, and i have lived in various places in northern west virginia. in 2010, i moved to southwest virginia where i started my career in education. my reflections have led me to question if i truly know these places, the people, and the history. there are so many details i do not remember from places of my past or know about my current places. if i am so out of touch, then how am i truly involved and contributing to the greater good of my places? friends or foes of coal? (background) growing up in west virginia, my experience with this place is that coal was and is still very important to the livelihoods of many residents. many west virginians have coal dust running in their veins because the history of working in the coal industry extends so far back in their ancestry. many families in west virginia were started by immigrants who moved to the united states solely to work in the coal mines in west virginia. between 1880 and 1920, southern west virginia’s population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. the region’s first coal miners primarily were african americans, both enslaved and free… coal companies also recruited in europe… immigrants in southern west virginia comprised some 25 nationalities, including italians, hungarians, poles, austrians, and russians. (national coal heritage area & coal heritage trail, n.d.) as i read misiaszek’s, ecopedagogy as an element of citizenship education: the dialectic of global/local spheres of citizenship and critical environmental pedagogies (2016), my mind went to west virginia coal mines. despite the information available that coal mines destroy the land, houses, structures, and lives, my experience is that many west virginians continue to fight to keep the coal industry as a source of jobs. in west virginia, even today, the main career path for many is to become a coal miner. currently, west virginia is the second largest coal producer in the united states (independent statistics and analysis, 2020). there is a lack of emphasis on other careers related to what is available in west virginia. many west virginians believe that their livelihoods are being destroyed when renewable resources are presented as possible replacements to the coal industry. this fear and reluctance to replace the coal industry with renewable resources is aligned with the neoliberalism framework, which: ignore all biocentric (holistically nature-centered) perspective, unless there is a direct monetary value associated with nature to profit... an example of existing powerful interests is that alternative energy can lead to similar and even increased economic prosperity, but economic losses would occur within longstanding powerful entities such as oil industries. (misiaszek, 2016, p. 594) the oil industry example above is like the same fear west virginians have about the coal industry being replaced by renewable resources. however, coal culture and oil culture can be very different in terms of place. oil culture embraces the idea of moving around looking for oil, so there is movement among people from place to place. whereas people in coal culture become stagnant because of the history of coal companies making it very difficult for people to move from place to place. by 1922, nearly 80 percent of west virginia miners lived in company houses. coal companies stripped down the forests to erect simply designed houses, schools, and churches, all within close proximity of the mines. all life in company towns revolved around the company-owned store. since these towns were located in isolated areas, the company store offered the only option for buying groceries, mining tools and other goods. (national coal heritage area & coal heritage trail, n.d.) often coal companies paid miners in “scrips” which were only useful in businesses owned by the coal company (eggleston, 2017). coal scrips combined with the isolated locations made it nearly impossible for families to move to different places. this history of staying in one place has become part of the culture in west virginia. friends or foes of coal? (wetland project) after reflecting on growing up in west virginia and the importance of coal, i, now, understand how brave my middle school science teacher, mr. martin, was in 1999, as he tried to expose us to exploring place-based education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 43 the damage caused by coal mines. the most obvious damage was our water, which ran red, smelled like rotten eggs, and was undrinkable. he, also, tried to inspire us to correct this damage by showing us how to create a wetland to help filter out the pollution. with his guidance, we built a wetland below our middle school. i’m not sure if mr. martin knew he was utilizing place-based education, but he certainly brought awareness to me about the damaging effects of coal mines in my place. additionally, he provided us with an experience outside of our textbooks and provided curriculum that allowed us to try to improve our place, so it was more sustainable and beneficial to all who resided or inhabited our small town in west virginia. pbe is not a new method of teaching, as it was how most youth were taught by the elders before the formation of formal education (smith, 2016). when i go back home to visit, i cannot help but to look to see if the creeks, streams, and rivers still run red and smell like rotten eggs. unfortunately, some areas do still show signs of pollution from the coal mines. if i were an educator or administrator in west virginia today, i am not confident that replacing coal mines with renewable resources or highlighting the damage caused by coal mines, as my middle school science teacher had shared with us, is a place-based education topic that i would approach for fear of repercussion from colleagues, school administration, and/or the community. the replacement of the coal industry with renewable resources and highlighting the damage caused by coal mines is a politicized and an intense conversation for many residents in west virginia. many west virginians are passionate about coal and cannot see a future without it despite the damage it causes locally and globally. thus, “…the understanding that all environmentally harmful actions are likely to have some human benefit for someone…because otherwise the human action would not be initiated” (misiaszek, 2016, p. 590). the fear of losing their livelihood is far more important to many west virginians than the land being destroyed. coal as a source of income has been rooted in their past, present, and future. however, for any educator in west virginia wanting to implement pbe, the coal industry would most likely be an obvious issue that could arise when examining one’s place in west virginia and should not be ignored for fear of retaliation. the damage caused by coal mines would become more apparent later in my life while taking an appalachian literature class at west virginia wesleyan college and witnessing this damage firsthand as it effects relatives and neighbors who live near my family. friend or foe of coal? (appalachian literature) while attending west virginia wesleyan college from 20052010, i enrolled in appalachian literature to satisfy a credit for my english major. two books, storming heaven: a novel (1999) and the unquiet earth (1994), both by denis giardina, read in this class would expand my understanding on the severity of loss caused by coal mines. reading these two books, i would come to understand the destruction caused by coal mines was not isolated to the land. livelihoods were, also, devasted because of unfulfilled promises of coal mines that died out and no longer provided jobs in areas where the main source of jobs were coal mines. furthermore, lives were lost when the land could no longer bear the destruction caused by mining. the flood in the unquiet earth (1994), was based on the buffalo creek flood of 1972. coal mine officials knew about the risk of the coal slurry impoundment #3 dam bursting due to an abundance of rainfall, but they did not necessarily warn the residents with ample time to evacuate. when the dam at #3 failed, the dams at #1 and #2 also failed because they were downstream. millions of gallons of coal slurry came down buffalo creek destroying more than 500 homes and killing 125 residents (gee, n.d.). in storming heaven (1999), coal was the cause of many deaths when coal miners erupted in a battle, the battle of blair mountain, to unionize in southwestern west virginia to make deplorable working conditions safer, receive better pay, and to be treated more humanely (andrews, 2016). “in late august 1921, union miners and coal company supporters clashed near blair mountain, west virginia, in what has been called the largest armed uprising since the civil war (andrews, 2016).” west virginia has a culture and history that embodies the fight for coal and this fight continues today. examining the history of coal industries could lead to another focus for placebased education in west virginia. students could compare coal industry issues from the past with the current issues of today in one’s place and present and/or work toward solutions for these concerns. friends or foes of coal? (home among the hills— to leave or to stay?) many west virginians continue to depend on the coal industry for their livelihoods in 2022. the current governor, jim justice, has a long family history rooted in the coal industry and inherited a large coal company, bluestone industries, inc., from his father (office of the governor, n.d.). governor jim justice and coal organizations, like friends of coal, promote the utilization of coal mines in west virginia by promising jobs for the future. one of the mission statements of friends of coal declares, “by working together, we can provide good jobs and benefits for future generations, which will keep our children and grandchildren close to home” (mullins, 2021). as a reminder, many west virginians have continued to stay in one place because historically it was difficult to move out of coal company owned towns that were in isolated areas, and this mindset to stay in one’s place continues for many west virginians today. the forementioned mission statement from friends of coal, illustrates that coal companies continue to encourage west virginians to stay in their home among the hills because coal will provide for them (mullins, 2021). some west virginians, particularly the younger generation, do, eventually, leave their home among the hills for better opportunities because west virginia does not have a viable job market outside of coal. as a result, i was the first member of my immediate and extended family to move out of west virginia because jobs in education were not readily available and teacher salaries were far less than some surrounding states. my family, especially my mom, found this transition difficult, and aunts and uncles will occasionally ask me when i am moving back home, even though i have been gone for 12 years now. perhaps if place-based education had been fully utilized during my time as a k-12 student in public education, and even in my college years, my peers and i could have problem-solved issues in our community to help it become more prosperous and progressive. if my place were able to provide me with more job opportunities, then i would not have felt compelled to leave. people leaving and not moving into west virginia has become such an issue that in april of 2021, the state along with west virginia university and brad smith, a west virginia native and former ceo of intuit, “…launched a new initiative offering remote and self-employed workers $12,000 and a year-long pass for free outdoor activities—and all you have to do is arthur impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 44 relocate to the ‘wild and wonderful’ mountain state for at least two years” (lewis, 2021). the idea behind this initiative is to stimulate the economy in west virginia by putting money into the pockets of people to spend. this offer came during the covid-19 pandemic when many people were working remotely and enjoying more outdoor activities to avoid the transmission of the virus. notice those who qualify for this initiative must already have jobs outside of west virginia because the job market in west virginia is lacking. additionally, the team behind this initiative “…is hoping that the lower cost of living will encourage participants to stick around” (lewis, 2021). friends or foes of coal? (coal mine destruction hits home) damage from coal mines continues to happen today despite the awareness and advances in science and technology. because many west virginians are unable to see a future without coal, they are unable to: realize that coal companies and their organizations are not here for our benefit. their primary goal is to gain support and promote legislation that make it easier for them to rip coal out of the ground no matter the cost to coal miners or the people living nearby. (mullins, 2021) many west virginians gave their lives working in the unsafe conditions in coal mines or suffered years later from the effects of these unsafe conditions. my maternal grandfather was a coal miner, who suffered from black lung disease long after he retired from the mines and eventually died from complications due to this disease. furthermore, my family currently lives in an area in the northern part of west virginia that is atop a new coal mine. neighbors and family members in the area have experienced damage or complete destruction to their homes, pools, barns, and garages due to the ground shifting. driving down the country roads in this area, you will notice many homes, garages, and barns are currently being held up by frames made from 2x4s to help stop the structures from completely collapsing. my family worries about their house experiencing the same kind of damage. each time their house makes a noise, they cringe in fear that their home will start to show cracks in its walls and foundation. again, i wonder if place-based education had been utilized while i was a student in k-12 schools and in college in west virginia or with current students, if a large group of peers working together and truly inhabiting the place would have been able to problem-solve these issues created by the coal industry. pbe in your practice for any educator wanting to implement place-based education school wide, i caution you to not require it of everyone at once. school-wide initiatives that require educators to implement certain practices are rarely successful. not everyone is always in the right head space that allows them to welcome new practices. additionally, teaching is an art and not everyone teaches the same way. professional development (pd) that takes a grassroots approach and makes new ideas available to those who are open to the possibility of a new practice can be more successful (bertling et. al, 2018). pbe may become school-wide once others start to see successes from those more comfortable of implementing the new practice. pbe can be implemented in urban, suburban, rural, and virtual classrooms (gruenewald et. al, 2010; smith et. al, 2010; ark et. al, 2020), and pbe is not only for the students who come from highersocioeconomic households (ark et. al, 2020). pbe can be implemented by any educator who is willing to step away from the safe space of worksheets and busywork, explore the places around their school, allow students to have autonomy, and learn along with their students (gruenewald et. al, 2010; smith et. al, 2010; ark et. al, 2020). below in table 1 are ideas for implementing pbe with space for you to jot down if the idea is applicable to your class and how it can be applied in your school’s place. while reading about pbe, i found it helpful to make a chart of pbe ideas with notes on how it could be implemented in my school. while other resources used for this paper have ideas for implementing pbe, the ideas in table 1 are from the power of place: authentic learning through place-based education (ark et. al, 2020) because this book was full of ideas for implementing pbe. i am not discounting the ideas found in the other articles or books listed in my references. if you feel compelled to inquire about pbe further, please visit any of the relevant sources in my reference list. what i have presented in this essay is only a fragment of what pbe is, its benefits, and ideas for implementing this teaching method. table 1. pbe ideas pbe activity ideas is this activity applicable to your classroom? how so? presentations to school board/local government about how to improve parks/playgrounds explore ecological components of a place (i.e., parks, trails, creeks, schoolyard, etc.) “read the local paper and community notices, talk to business owners and employees, and introduce yourself to the library staff (if the community has a library) and other public officials (ark et. al, 2020, p. 24)” explore local museums, civic centers, fire station, etc. form partnerships with local government agencies, public library, nonprofits, businesses, and parks honor “neighborhood residents by celebrating their legacies with an exhibition of photos and stories (ark et. al, 2020, p.26)” invite guest speakers investigate/research local issues build a community/classroom map “survey your parent body for challenges worth addressing” (ark et. al, 2020, p.33) for educators wanting to implement place-based education, you may find yourself reflecting on your own places. although much of what i have written about pbe may seem like the main goal is to keep children in their current places, that is not the case. pbe is a teaching method that can teach our students how to become contributing citizens and change agents for their current place and provide them with the tools to navigate new places while continuing to contribute and be an agent of change. pbe is a teaching method that can help students and their places thrive as the world changes and brings more challenges. exploring place-based education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.246 45 reference office of the governor. (n.d.). about the governor and first lady. https://governor.wv.gov/about/pages/default.aspx andrews, e. (2016, august 25). the battle of blair mountain. history channel. https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising-the-battleof-blair-mountain ark, v. t., liebtag, e., & mcclennen, n. (2020). the power of place: authentic learning through place-based education. hawker brownlow education. bass, e. l. (2019). dialoguing with place: using writing instruction to inquire into place. the virginia english journal, 69(1), 21–26. bertling, j., & rearden, k. (2018). professional development on a sustainable shoestring: propagating place-based art education in fertile soil. discourse and communication for sustainable education, 9(2), 5–20. biviano, a. (2019). "i just ain't buyin it”: integrating place-based education into a rural high school. the virginia english journal, 69(1), 27–35. deringer, s. a. (2017). mindful place-based education: mapping the literature. journal of experiential education, 40(4), 333–348. eggleston, j. r. (2017, june). history of west virginia mineral industries coal. wvges geology. https://www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/geology/geoldvco.htm gee, n. (n.d.). buffalo creek dam (west virginia, 1972): description & background. asdso lessons learned. https://damfailures.org/casestudy/buffalo-creek-dam-west-virginia-1972/ giardina, d. (1999). storming heaven: a novel. ballantine pub. group. giardina, d. (1994). the unquiet earth. ivy books. gruenewald, d. a., & smith, g. a. (ed.) (2010). place-based education in the global age: local diversity. lawrence erlbaum associates. independent statistics and analysis: u.s. energy information administration. (2020, october 5). west virginia state energy profile overview. https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=wv lewis, s. (2021, april 15). west virginia is offering remote workers $12,000 to move there. cbs news. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginiaincentive-remote-workers-12000-relocate/ misiaszek, g. w. (2016). ecopedagogy as an element of citizenship education: the dialectic of global/local spheres of citizenship and critical environmental pedagogies. international review of education, 62(5), 587–607. mullins, n. (2021, november 24). friends of coal? might want to read this. thoughts of a coal miner. http://thoughtsofacoalminer.com/friend%20of%20coal national coal heritage area & coal heritage trail. (n.d.). company towns. https://coalheritage.wv.gov/coal_history/pages/company-towns.aspx national coal heritage area & coal heritage trail. (n.d.). coal miners. https://coalheritage.wv.gov/coal_history/pages/coal-miners smith, g. (2016, december 24). the past, present and future of place-based learning. getting smart. https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/11/pastpresent-and-future-of-place-based-learning/ smith, g. a., & sobel, d. (2010). placeand community-based education in schools. routledge. https://governor.wv.gov/about/pages/default.aspx https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising-the-battle-of-blair-mountain https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising-the-battle-of-blair-mountain https://www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/geology/geoldvco.htm https://damfailures.org/case-study/buffalo-creek-dam-west-virginia-1972/ https://damfailures.org/case-study/buffalo-creek-dam-west-virginia-1972/ https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=wv https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-incentive-remote-workers-12000-relocate/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-incentive-remote-workers-12000-relocate/ http://thoughtsofacoalminer.com/friend%20of%20coal https://coalheritage.wv.gov/coal_history/pages/company-towns.aspx https://coalheritage.wv.gov/coal_history/pages/coal-miners https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/11/past-present-and-future-of-place-based-learning/ https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/11/past-present-and-future-of-place-based-learning/ megan arthur radford university introduction—beyond one-size-fits-all (or none) boxed curriculum what is place-based education (pbe)? why place-based education (pbe)? to reside or inhabit my places—where i’ve been and where i am friends or foes of coal? (background) friends or foes of coal? (wetland project) friend or foe of coal? (appalachian literature) friends or foes of coal? (home among the hills—to leave or to stay?) friends or foes of coal? (coal mine destruction hits home) pbe in your practice reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 19 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.200 too few black male educators floyd jeter new jersey city university fjeter@njcu.edu john melendez new jersey city university jmelendez@njcu.edu abstract in the united states, schools and universities have too few black male teachers. although many factors contribute to this significant problem, one primary factor is the existing lack of black male educators to serve as role models for black male students. this literature review captures information from peer-reviewed research, public scholarship sources, and empathy interviews. the purpose of this literature review was to understand the reasons why so few black males are successful in school and why there are so few black male students pursuing careers in education. based on the literature review, the following themes were identified: a lack of financial resources, a lack of a sense of belonging, a lack of role models and mentors, and institutional racism. colleges need to consider these issues and determine ways to support black male students in school and encourage them to pursue a career in education. increasing the number of black male educators is one central way to increase opportunities among black students. to change this narrative, one needs to acknowledge the deficit of representation is due to the system itself. black males are not lacking in achievement. american schools are exclusive and racist in how they provide opportunities for black males. keywords black males, educator, role models introduction “to be a negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” james baldwin the lack of black men as educators and its impact on black male student success is a challenge that continues to plague american society. higher education does not recruit, retain, graduate, or employ blacks at the same level as their white counterparts (glenn, 2003; hughes et al., 1998; jones, 2019). if there were more black male educators, black boys would see themselves in roles of authority and could be inspired to take similar paths (underwood, 2019). shared experiences, shared culture, and shared backgrounds contribute to creating a trustworthy environment for students that provide a glimpse of what the future could be for students themselves (lynch, 2016). the failure to address the scarcity of black male educators contributes to the expansion of the equity gap and resulting social injustice issues (underwood, 2019). in the context of this article, the term “educators” refers to individuals within the confines of a typical school building, such as principals, administrators, teachers, and coaches. in the united states, black men make up less than 2% of the teaching population (underwood et al., 2019). in addition, there are three times as many black students as the number of male black teachers (dinkins & thomas, 2016; lewis & toldson, 2013). unfortunately, this number does not look likely to increase soon. in 2013, the u.s. department of education reported that only 9% of the students enrolled in teacher preparation programs in 2009-2010 identified as black, amounting to 1-2 black candidates in each cohort on average (bryan & williams, 2017). the black lives matter movement, founded in 2013, saw a drastic resurgence in 2020 and has helped shed light on these systemic inequities that many black americans face, especially black males. following the may 2020 death of george floyd, activists took to the streets and social media to articulate the injustices that black americans regularly face. reverend al sharpton (2020), a pioneer of the american civil rights movement and activist, spoke at floyd’s funeral, “[black americans] are not fighting some disconnected incidents. we are fighting an institutional, systemic problem that has been allowed to permeate since we were brought to these shores and we are fighting wickedness in high places.” activists like sharpton, through the black lives matter movement, have highlighted the ways that systemic racism permeates black american lives. black people in the united states face normalized discrimination from the top-down; they are more likely to be underinsured and misdiagnosed in the health care system, face a disproportionate amount of police brutality, historically misrepresented and suppressed by the government, and shunned by fellow citizens (gara et al., 2018). because of this overwhelming pervasion of racism in american culture, the education system is no exception; black students and educators across the country are thus vulnerable to marginalization, ostracization, and discrimination in http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ jeter & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.200 20 public institutions. as police brutality and murders continue unchecked without an end in sight, black people are reminded of their second-class status in america. injustice extends to education because of the impact it has on the way educators teach and children learn (yull, 2018). often, we learn and teach by example. the example america presents is one of dehumanization, violence, and greed (yull, 2018). black people often face the brunt of these atrocities. black men are endangered in american society. this affects black boys and their perception of themselves because police authority hunts them at a higher rate than the average citizen (edwards et al., 2019). black men face a 1 in 1000 chance of being murdered by the police (edwards et al., 2019). they are also two times more likely to be killed than men of other ethnicities (edwards et al., 2019). these distressing statistics are mirrored in our schools, where black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled in k-12 institutions than white students (u.s. department of education office for civil rights, 2014). furthermore, students who are suspended or expelled are three times more likely to enter the incarceration system (u.s. department of education office for civil rights, 2014). children going from school straight to prison is widely known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” in their study conducted at north carolina a & t state university, graham and erwin (2011) questioned why black male teachers are underrepresented in education. their analysis identified three themes reflecting why black males are dissuaded from pursuing a career in education. they found that black males have (a) negative perceptions of teaching, (b) beliefs that schools are oppressive institutions, and (c) a vision of black males as nonconformists (graham & erwin, 2011). these research themes are factors explaining why black males view schools as an unsafe place and potentially explain why black men are less inclined to become teachers. as evidenced by the recent black lives matters protest, the united states is unfair to the black man (anderson et al., 2020). if the system that governs all u.s. citizens is the same system that imprisons the black man and shows that they are not treated fairly, it is clear how these disparities in education produce the small number of black men employed in corporations, government, and education. thus, the not so rhetorical question, why would black males go into education, if there are no real examples of black men having significant positions of authority (sommeiller & price 2018)? metaphorically, the black male teacher is like a unicorn, they are myths because of their scarcity. this lack of presence throughout our educational settings has a negative impact on young black male students (wolfman, 2021). this impact of black males being underrepresented or not represented at all as educators contributes to black students not seeing themselves as future teachers or educators (department of education, 2016). black teachers are more likely to be familiar with the cultural needs of black students (underwood, 2019). black male teachers and students across the board are looking for diversity and inclusion to help foster a welcoming academic life that maintains and protects their own identity (hughes et al., 1998; madyun et al., 2013; mccoy & rodricks, 2015a). thus, diversity and inclusion initiatives within the education profession could mitigate the tension of black males feeling less than their white counterparts or their peers. the hope is that once we see more black male educators, black students will identify with those who look like them and feel a sense of inclusion as opposed to exclusion, especially on our college campuses. on u.s. college campuses, black men make up 3% of the overall faculty (mcfarland et al., 2018). this number is low compared to white men, who comprise 40% of the faculty population (mcfarland et al., 2018.). representation is a key factor in supporting enrollment and graduation of black men (eunyoung, 2013). this disparity is disconcerting given that in 2018 it was reported that black students make up 12.65% of the total undergraduate enrollment population (mcfarland et al., 2018), while white students encompass 52.4% of the population. how do we inspire more black students to enroll in college? we contend the answer is more black men as educators. nationally, the u.s. department of education indicates that 11.5% of black men will drop out in their first year of college (de bray et al., 2019). by year three, 48.9% will have left the community college without a certificate or degree. black males have consistently had the highest postsecondary dropout rate among every racial/ethnic and gender subgroup (wood, 2012). sixty-eight percent of black males who start college will not complete their curriculum within 6 years (center for community college engagement, 2014). this academic disparity puts black men at a disadvantage when seeking employment. in compiling this literature review, the researcher found that 30% of the working adult population (25–64 years old) holds a post-secondary credential compared to 18% among black adult men in the workforce (baber et al., 2015). black men are underrepresented in higher education, accounting for less than 6% of the entire u.s. undergraduate population in 2010 (aud et al., 2012). black male teachers are needed for the formation of a better society, and there are not enough black men majoring in education (rezai-rashti et al., 2010). from 2016-17, only 1,514 black males were conferred degrees in education compared to 12,087 white males. in 2017-18, that number was even lower with 1,470 black male’s conferred degrees in education compared to 11,087 white males (de brey et al., 2019). more black teachers are needed to intervene with the racist status quo of public schools and to serve as role models for black students (maylor, 2009). method to identify and ultimately synthesize the hurdles black men face when trying to graduate college and pursue careers in education, the researcher conducted a literature review including searches of library databases, publicly available websites and publications, and also conducted empathy interviews of black males and their experiences in education. the results included the identification of themes that served as the foundation for this article. this search criterion was focused on exploring the barriers black men face in the educational system. library based research the parameters of this research included demographic and career search terms centered on black males and education careers. the initial research utilized academic search premier, eric, and psych info databases with the following search terms: african american males or black males and educators or teachers or education, and community college or two-year college or junior college. only articles with full-text access were included because the inter-library loan was not available due to the covid-19 pandemic. too few black male educators impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.200 21 this search yielded 224 articles. after limiting the search to articles published in the past 10 years (2010-2020), there were 121 articles. a title review focused on ensuring that the article related to the need for and challenges related to the lack of black male educators resulted in 103 articles. an abstract review using these criteria resulted in 92 articles. after reviewing the full articles using these same criteria, the final number of articles reviewed was 59. in identifying the 59 articles reviewed, the researcher used exclusionary rules which exempted studies that looked at black women and other people of color. additionally, the researcher drew sources from peer-reviewed studies for most articles cited. however, not all the research was peer-reviewed. the researcher chose to include non-peer-reviewed research because these sources provided original perspectives on the problem of practice. for example, the article “why america needs more black teachers” by kimberly underwood was not peer-reviewed but was written by a leading voice in the field of education. underwood’s ethos ultimately influenced the researcher to include her article in the literature review. public scholarship research in addition to the traditional library research-based literature review, the researcher also identified and examined a wide array of publicly available websites for community colleges, higher education, and k-12 advocacy groups and research centers. these sites provided a vast amount of information and data for the researcher to consider. the websites reviewed included: the community college research center (ccrc), achieving the dream (atd), complete college america (cca), center for community college student engagement (cccse), the national alliance of black school educators (nabse), national education association (nea) and the black teacher’s project. seven articles from these sites were included in the review. empathy interviews to gain a personal perspective about the challenges facing black males in the educational system, interviews with three males who were not attending college were conducted. participants were chosen based on previously existing relationships with this researcher. the researcher had served as a mentor to each male over the years and had provided positive interventions in support of these young men’s lives. for example, one of the men was dealing with the problem of homelessness at the time of the interview. the researcher used the opportunity to introduce this young man to a professional contact who could direct him to housing resources within the local social service agency. as researchers, our positionality must be active and not passive in the lives of the people we study (holmes, 2020). the goal is for many black men to be enrolled in educational programs and eventually become teachers. for this goal to be accomplished, researchers must have a “boots on the ground” mentality, meaning that they must always be ready to distribute their resources and help, not just with school issues, but real-life issues that plague so many black males (strayhorn, 2016). while interviewing these young men, the researcher asked four questions to capture a portrait of their lives: (a) how did you decide what to do after high school? (b)who and what influenced this decision? (c) why aren’t you currently in college? and (d) are you planning to go to school again? it is important to acknowledge that interviewing acquaintances presents a set of limitations. the researcher could view the participants from a biased lens because of their existing relationship (ross et al., 2019). this could lead to biased responses that are influenced by the way the researcher perceives the participants. another limitation of this study is the social-desirability effect. the social-desirability effect refers to when people portray themselves in a better light to be more socially acceptable (latkin, 2017). the social desirability is often a catalyst for the self-reporting bias, where people choose to include or exclude certain materials that will portray them in a better light (latkin, 2017). the social desirability effect works in conjunction with a self-report bias to present a potentially skewed presentation of the participants. results the review focused on helping the researcher gain a better understanding of why so few black students are successful in college and why so few pursue education. the goal was to identify the major factors or themes contributing to this problem. the major themes identified were (a) lack of financial resources (i.e., poverty), (b) a sense of belonging, (c) lack of role models/mentors, and (d) institutional racism. lack of financial resources (poverty) money was a common theme preventing black males from completing school. when it comes to financial opportunities, racism is a barrier to black men earning enough money for any type of postsecondary education (watkins et al., 2016). while less than twothirds (63%) of white graduates from public schools borrow student loans, four of five (81%) of black graduates do (huelsman, 2014). in a study on education debt, 65% of black respondents were in debt, while only 49% of white respondents were in debt (grinstein-weiss et al., 2016). a burden that contributes to these financial issues is that many black students have family financial obligations that require them to work while in school. according to wood (2012), the lack of financial resources and the pressure to contribute to their family were key factors in black males dropping out. in his essay “who is qualified?,” stokely carmichael (1966) asserted that regarding colleges and universities, the financial barrier is too high for the poor even with state schools, which are exclusionary when it comes down to the price of attendance. this was consistent with what the researcher discovered in the empathy interviews. the idea of graduating from a community college in two to three years is not a reality for many black men (kim, 2014). a young man the researcher interviewed simply could not afford community college despite his passing grades in high school and desire to learn. if students cannot afford to graduate college, let alone go, how can they become teachers? black men in community colleges are more likely to be lowincome than their white counterparts (center for community college student engagement, 2014). this drastically affects enrollment, retention, graduation, and opportunity for employment. students without financial concerns were able to persist longer in universities and community colleges (hughes et al., 1998). lack of financial resources affects enrollment in a variety of ways. students who need to work while in school often become part-time students (carnevale, 2019). part-time students are more likely to drop out of school (glenn et al., 2004). additionally, when a student is under financial jeter & melendez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.200 22 stress, they may be forced into a position of discontinuous enrollment (glenn et al., 2004). discontinuous enrollment refers to when students take gaps between their education to save up money. in fact, 40% of black students reported that they needed extra time to finish their degree (white, 2020). according to white (2020), 70% of black students are under financial stress. the research supports the conclusion that the disproportionate dropout rates for black men is due to financial stress, which deters the population from becoming educators. without a doubt, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. while conducting the empathy interviews, the researcher observed that one of the young men’s main priorities in life is “making money” and being “as independent as possible.” unfortunately, black men are often excluded from the financial opportunities afforded to their white counterparts (love, 1993). another interviewee from the empathy interviews was experiencing homelessness. college was not this young man’s main priority— survival was. the researcher can conclude that if we want an equitable opportunity for black men in the educational system, we need to give this population the necessary financial backing. sense of belonging black males on community college campuses come in with a sense of not feeling as though they belong. according to dr. demond hargrove, this is a form of imposter syndrome (personal communication, july 30, 2020). imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success (ferguson, 2020). imposters suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence (corkindale, 2008). as reported by achieving the dream (2022), nearly two-thirds of all students who enroll in community college test below collegereadiness in math and/or english. of these students, 50% place two or more levels below college-readiness in at least one subject area (achieving the dream, 2022). each of these women and men enrolls in college with the intent of attaining a degree, yet 72% of them will not graduate, even after eight years (achieving the dream, 2022). evidence suggests that the high number of students testing into developmental coursework has a disproportionate impact on the black males’ experience in regard to feeling like he belongs in college (kuh et al., 2006). in their study of campus racial climate policy, hughes et al. (1998) reported that only 54.4% of black students graduated from that state’s high school system compared to 74% of their white counterparts. the researcher concluded that this low graduation rate and its negative reinforcement of the system not supporting black male students contributes to their sense of belonging. as such, scholars have come to the consensus that strategic, data-driven, and institution-wide efforts are needed to address the issues that hinder the success of men of color in higher education (baber et al., 2015; harper & kuykendall, 2012; wood et al., 2015). black males face unique difficulties on a university campus. schools that are supposed to be welcoming environments have increasingly turned into unwelcoming environments for black bodies (kim & hargrove, 2013). how could one expect these young men to feel welcomed? kim and hargrove (2013) reported that researchers are beginning to look at factors such as self-efficacy, campus engagement, and the ability to cope with campus racism in promoting black male student success. it has been suggested that these factors have far more impact on black male retention rates than previous educational experiences (kim & hargrove, 2013). the research suggests that black males are either shunned or feel detached from mainstream campus life (kim & hargrove, 2013). this shows how colleges and universities fail to engage their black male population inside and outside of student life. this results in black male students missing engaging or enriching educational experiences (kim & hargrove, 2013). these students also have a harder time feeling included and relating to their peers and professors because they cannot relate their own experiences within the college environment. as such many drop out (kim & hargrove, 2013). to help black men with enrollment, retention, graduation, and employment in the education system, institutional leaders must focus on promoting engagement initiatives as a catalyst for student success (ashe, 2014). one empathy interview especially focused on their lack of belonging as a minority male on a college campus. the young man felt disillusioned with community college professors who “talked at him for an hour” with no personal relationship. he felt he was being “pushed along” in school. he also felt that classes were mundane, and he was embarrassed by the success of his peers. in essence, community college would not allow this young man to be himself, which contributed to him dropping out. from the interviews and research, the researcher believes that colleges and universities must improve their campus racial climate in regard to student belonging if they want black men to succeed. lack of mentors and role models this literature review is dedicated to highlighting and evaluating the potential benefits of mentoring interventions to improve the academic success of black males. some benefits reported were reduced health-risk behavior, improved academic outcomes, socialemotional wellbeing, mental health, interpersonal relationships, and racial identity (hargrove, 2014). across the board, researchers have called for innovative and culturally responsive intervention programs to enhance black male academic achievement (hines et al., 2022). the benjamin e. mays institute (bemi) uses mentoring as an intervention to counter the effects of academic barriers for adolescent black males (ali, 2015). bemi succeeds in doing this by building an afro-centric model that relies on mentoring from role models and focuses on students’ cultural strengths (ali, 2015). according to ali (2015), students in the bemi program have had significantly greater academic success than their non-mentored peers (ali, 2015). interest convergence stipulates that black people achieve civil rights victories only when white and black interests converge. (shih, 2017). higher learning institutions are seen as “natural sites” to observe this theory because unjust access to quality education ensures white social advantage (shih, 2017). to combat this, some schools have started to implement programs geared towards their minority students, especially their black male students. for example, one such champion is the university systems of georgia (usg). in 2002, the usg initiated a research study with qualitative and quantitative data at three institutions (perry-johnson et al., 2003). they conducted this research because in 2000, the usg verified that their own institutions had a low percentage of black male enrollment compared to the percentage of black males in the population. in addition, they found that black females outnumbered black males 2to-1, even though the population for black males and females were too few black male educators impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.200 23 similar (perry-johnson et al., 2003). the purpose of this study was to identify the barriers to college graduation and attendance for black males (perry-johnson et al., 2003). from this study, recommendations were provided on how to increase enrollment of black males as well as to improve retention rates. one such recommendation was the creation of the african american male initiative (aami). the goal of aami is to increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation of black males within the university system through strategic interventions. they created a 52-person task force that was divided into six subcommittees that would tackle the issues that specifically affected black males. they also partnered with 10 other institutions granting them $10,000 each to be used towards programs for black males. one of the outcomes from this initiative was an increase in black enrollment. starting from 2002, the enrollment of black males has climbed by 84%, from 17,068 in fall 2002 to 31,413 in fall 2017. in addition, the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred rose from 2,294 in 2003 to 3,079 in 2018, which is a 137.94% increase (usg, n.d.). finally, the number of programs at the usg that focused on engaging young black men on their college campuses increased from 3 programs in 2002 to 26 programs in 2012 (usg, n.d.). usg showed that by taking the time to analyze and understand the plight that black males face in the educational institutions, and these interventions helped the institutions to better prepared to assist these black males. institutional racism institutional racism as a concept was initially introduced by stokely carmichael and hamilton. in black power: the politics of liberation, carmichael and hamilton (1967) wrote that institutional racism “originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society” (p. 4). the unfortunate reality is that after 64 years, the united states is still unable to deconstruct the forces of institutional racism that inhibit equal opportunity, especially when it comes to the black male (crenshaw, 1988). racism in the united states is not a past phenomenon. in fact, the researcher’s assertion is that racism dominates the nation’s infrastructure and is ultimately the fundamental reason why black males are not becoming educators. racism is so common in the united states that researchers are more surprised by its absence than its presence (ladson-billings & tate 1995; levin et al., 2013; mccoy & rodricks, 2015b; solorzano et al., 2000). black males are exposed to more violence than their peers (haggerty et al., 2013). black males do not have the same access to healthcare services as their peers (noonan, 2016). kim and hargrove (2013) suggested that these inequalities are the result of systemic racism often found in historically white institutions. black men experience unique stressors in the college environment (linzy, 2016). race-based stress can be defined as the psychological response to racism or the past experiences of what they have witnessed or the coping behaviors (polanco-roman et al., 2016). over time, students develop strategies to reduce the distress racism brings; however, these strategies may be a barrier to academic success (polanco-roman et al., 2016). black males may cope by taking school less seriously (lewis, 2016). the reality is that the stress of racial discrimination can explain the gaps in academic performance between the black male youth and their white counterparts. the belief and reasoning for the lack of black male teachers is due to the overwhelming racism they have experienced in school (sandles, 2020). one young man interviewed mentioned that he felt isolated in school after experiencing racism. he described the experience of this racism as a “disability.” thus, his experience provides an example of the need of black male educator. if this young man had the influence of a black male educator perhaps his educational experience would be positive, and he would not be deterred from his pursuing education (linzy, 2016). conclusion this article intends to shed some much-needed light on the factors that contribute to the few black males pursuing careers as educators. these factors include poverty, a lack of a sense of belonging, the lack of availability of role models or mentors, and existing institutional racism. as noted, black males in the united states continue to be disproportionately subject to poverty, undereducation, violence, and institutional racism. this plight is well documented in numerous journals, books, and the postings on social media outlets depicting these events often in real time. the hope is that this focus on the lack of black men as educators and its impact on black male student success can prompt interventions that promote role models and mentoring programs. such programs need to be developed and expanded to addresses some of the challenges to promote careers in education as a sustainable model for black male self-empowerment. references achieving the dream (2022). college readiness: improving equitable outcomes for all students through access and success. https://www.achievingthedream.org/focus-areas/college-readiness. ali, s. 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(2010). black male teachers as role models: resisting the homogenizing impulse of gender and racial affiliation. american educational research journal, 47(1), 37-64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645418 ross, p. t., & bibler zaidi, n. l. (2019). limited by our limitations. perspectives on medical education, 8(4), 261-264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-00530-x sandles, d. (2020). using critical race theory to explore the black men teacher shortage. the journal of negro education, 89(1), 67-81. https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.89.1.0067 shih, d. (2017, april 19). a theory to better understand diversity, and who really benefits. npr. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/523563345/atheory-to-better-understand-diversity-and-who-really-benefits/ solorzano, d., ceja, m., & yosso, t. (2000). critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: the experiences of african american college students. the journal of negro education, 69(1/2), 60-73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265?seq=1 sommeiller, e., & price, m. (2018). the new gilded age: income inequality in the u.s. by state, metropolitan area, and county. economic policy institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/the-new-gilded-age-incomeinequality-in-the-u-s-by-state-metropolitan-area-and-county/ underwood, k. (2019). black male educators have sounded the alarm, but will we listen? education post. https://educationpost.org/black-maleeducators-have-sounded-the-alarm-but-will-we-listen/ underwood, k., smith, d., lutz-johnson, h., taylor, j., & medgar roberts, j. (2019). having our say: examining the career trajectories of black male educators in p-12 education. http://www.nnstoy.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/07/having-our-say-v.-f.pdf university system of georgia (usg). 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(2020). the world they’ve been born into: black male teachers on blackness, masculinities and leadership. race ethnicity and education, 23(3), 307-326. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1663964 http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645418 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-00530-x https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.89.1.0067 https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/523563345/a-theory-to-better-understand-diversity-and-who-really-benefits/ https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/523563345/a-theory-to-better-understand-diversity-and-who-really-benefits/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265?seq=1 https://educationpost.org/black-male-educators-have-sounded-the-alarm-but-will-we-listen/ https://educationpost.org/black-male-educators-have-sounded-the-alarm-but-will-we-listen/ http://www.nnstoy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/having-our-say-v.-f.pdf http://www.nnstoy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/having-our-say-v.-f.pdf https://www.usg.edu/aami/assets/aami/files/aami_brochure_2011.pdf https://www.usg.edu/aami/ https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/1060826516641108 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-019-09531-8 https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2021/6/30/22557982/phillys-%09prodigal-son-the-making-and-near-breaking-of-a-black-male-teacher/ https://philadelphia.chalkbeat.org/2021/6/30/22557982/phillys-%09prodigal-son-the-making-and-near-breaking-of-a-black-male-teacher/ https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1663964 floyd jeter new jersey city university john melendez new jersey city university (1) introduction method library based research public scholarship research empathy interviews results lack of financial resources (poverty) sense of belonging lack of mentors and role models institutional racism conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) issn 2472-5889 (online) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.194 energizing activism: motivating activism within edd programs yasha jones becton university of south carolina yyjones@mailbox.sc.edu rhonda jeffries university of south carolina rjeffries@sc.edu do i believe in activism even in these dark days? yes. absolutely. i teach because i believe with all my being that teaching is the most powerful form of activism human beings have ever conceived. but we mustn’t teach merely for our own fulfillment. we teach to serve. it is not about me or you. it is not about us and them. we are partners, and we can help. it can be helped. we should help. (burns, 2020, p. 49) in a time when easy solutions are pervasive and the demand for answers to critical questions seems unrelenting, educators are often uniquely positioned to provide context for the shifts and the changes that are needed in our society. when we think about those who serve in graduate programs, particularly doctor of education degree programs, there perhaps exists an even greater opportunity to motivate and inspire others to become the transformation desperately needed in our schools and in our communities. while careful observation would reveal that there are numerous natural links between academic work and activism that can be exercised, oftentimes, they remain underdeveloped in higher education (rose, 2017). this dichotomy exists for several reasons. one reason is that embracing or pursuing activism is not for the faint of heart. it requires a degree of grit and commitment to outcomes that may or may not fully manifest despite the concerted effort. researchers in a related study denoted that there exists: an ongoing threat to the commitment to urban education, equity, and social justice within current trends in public education, yet again, there is much critical hope for awareness, advocacy, action and application to transform public education in an action that embraces equity, social justice, and culture. (hutchison & white, 2020, p.148) hence, the hope for a transformative future must outweigh any present challenges, hurdles or hindrances. another challenge in connecting the academic work with activism involves the fact that although activism denotes “activity” it also requires deep inner reflection and critical thinking. there is a dire need to think, and think quite carefully, before acting. ollis (2015) posited that the pedagogy of activism is critically cognitive and expressed in a practice that is intrinsically social. as educators we are challenged to spark a level of reflection and critical thinking that serves as a catalyst for moving beyond thinking, to ensure that students serve as agents of change. this level of reflection and critical thinking acts as the flame for igniting the type and level of learning that needs to take place. “when students care about something, they are on fire to learn. anatomically, when intensely focused, cells in the brain impact other cells, making connections faster, memory retrieval quicker, and shielding out extraneous stimuli easier” (rose, 2017, p.73). as part of the 2019 carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) october convening, the university of south carolina curriculum studies program wanted to gain a more in depth understanding of how the more than 100 participants conceptualized or created a platform for the emergence of an activist. one such program in the consortium posited that the “cped-influenced edd prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” (lewis, et al., 2020, p. 3). our overarching question was how is this all-important work accomplished? to answer this question, we turned to those edd programs that were doing the work. what emerged from our research was a “framework for the emerging edd activist”. the framework consisted of four themes related to an edd activist. the four themes were coalition builder, vocal risktaker, visionary leader and social justice champion (becton et al., 2020). these four themes were utilized to offer edd programs the option of viewing the four emerging themes as four distinct areas of specialization that each student could pursue or four distinct areas of specialization that each student should embody. in addition to the choice between the single or multi-profile model, programs were also provided with a list of 12 comprehensive considerations that demonstrated several key areas that programs could pinpoint as necessary areas of support for edd programs with an embedded goal of activism (becton et al., 2020). lastly, programs were provided with targeted outcomes and potential quality indicators to provide an on-going means of assessment and program evaluation. to culminate our focus on the edd activist, part two of this special themed issue is aptly entitled, “energizing activism: motivating activism within edd programs”. as outlined above, in the first edition of the journal, we explored the topic of activism and offered a plausible framework for the emerging edd activist based on the feedback from the colleges and universities that participated in the 2019 cped convening. as we delved deeper into this discussion, we explored how the goal of activism is realized in various cped-influenced programs across the nation. to embark upon this journey, we enlisted the assistance of several programs within the cped consortium. our colleagues from the university of south carolina, bridget miller, christopher http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ energizing activism impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 1 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.194 2 bogiages, jan yow and christine lotter, utilized the framework developed and published in part one of the special edition to examine their newly formed stem edd doctoral degree program against the 12 considerations outlined in the forementioned framework. the article entitled, “embedding activism in a stem edd program” offers a comprehensive explanation of how the program leaders designed a stem edd program that merged theory, research, and practice while positioning students to grasp their fundamental responsibility as it relates directly to social justice and activism. other articles in this issue focus our attention on the challenging topic of change. antoinette ryan and sheldon watson of central connecticut state university shared an article entitled “transforming an edd program in the crucible of systems change”. their study involved a thorough longitudinal analysis of dissertations in order to evaluate these studies in light of the stated principles of the program. their research sets the stage for further opportunity for the transformation of the edd program. continuing our discussion regarding change, aubrey statti and kelly torres of the chicago school of professional psychology explored their doctor of education degree program in educational psychology and technology. this article examined how the ept program provides students with the opportunity to become agents of change. the authors further examined how active learning strategies such as program residencies and peer mentorship are utilized to ensure that students are empowered to serve as advocates and understand the importance of taking action upon completion of the program. a third article demonstrates how east carolina university’s edd program, the redesigned ecu international edd program, empowers educational leaders from around the globe to confront equity challenges that exist within their local communities. the authors further explored how participatory action research (par) is utilized as the primary mechanism in addressing the various equity challenges that emerge. in “listening to and crafting stories: cultivating activism in online doctoral students” authors carey borkoski and brianne roos expounded on how john hopkins university’s online edd program ensures that their students become scholar-practitioners as activists. the authors delved into the importance of compelling storytelling and the need for students to be able to effectively articulate their problems of practice while using deficit-free language. utilizing a similar value or asset-based perspective, joy howard and timberly baker of the university of southern indiana drew from a critical race praxis framework to support students in community-based participatory action research (cpar). in their article entitled, “activating activism within the edd: connecting dip research and the community”, the authors explored the nuances and challenges in developing and sustaining university-community partnerships to ensure the practical application and involvement of scholarship within the community. our journey was further enlightened by the article entitled, “edd graduate perspectives: uplifting our own voices” by staci martin (portland state university), kara gournaris (western oregon university), zafreen jaffery (behavioral science research institute), lisa hatfield (oregon health sciences university), su-jin jung (portland state university), li xang (western michigan university), ingrid anderson and micki caskey (portland state university). this article highlighted voices of edd scholar-practitioners who were students of color and representatives of other marginalized student groups. creating a platform where students stand as exemplars, the authors provided insight into the lived experiences and undeniable victories of underrepresented students. our journey ended with an essay entitled, “creating a culture of activism in the education doctorate”. in this article, christine mcclure challenged us with the deeper and harder questions related to what it will take to demonstrate an energized commitment to activism. one thing we know for sure is that it will take collective and sustained motivation to reach these worthwhile goals. references becton, y., bogiages, b., d’amico, l., lilly, t., currin, e., jeffries, r., & tamim, s. (2020). an emerging framework for the edd activist, impacting education journal, 5(2), 43-54. burns, l. d. (2020). the trouble with social justice education: teacher identity, orthodoxy, and activism in distressed times. curriculum & teaching dialogue, 22 (1/2), 37-51. hutchison, l. & white, c. (2020). integrating culturally responsive and social justice pedagogy: a case study of an online doctorate of education degree program for instructional and professional leadership. journal of higher education theory & practice, 20 (2), 143-150. lewis, t., puckett, h. & ringler, m. (2020). changing the mindset from practitioner to scholarly practitioner: admission through the first two semesters of an edd program. international journal of education leadership preparation, 14(1), 1-16. ollis, t. (2015). chapter thirty-three: activism, reflection, and paulo freire-an embodied pedagogy. counterpoints, 500. in paulo freire: the global legacy (2015) (pp. 517-527), peter lang ag. rose, b. (2017). moving from chasm to convergence: benefits and barriers to academic activism for social justice and equity. a journal of educational research and practice, 27(1), 67-78. energizing activism: motivating activism within edd programs yasha jones becton university of south carolina rhonda jeffries university of south carolina (1) references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.7 no.2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 essential factors of a 15 to finish campaign: increasing ontime completion rates for community college students martine howard new jersey city university mhoward5@njcu.edu christine harrington new jersey city university charrington1@njcu.edu abstract the “on-time” degree completion crisis within the community college system is alarming. only 5% of students graduate in two years (complete college america [cca], n.d.-a). many community college students are lowincome and racially and ethnically minoritized, and their graduation rates are low (cca, n.d.-a). community colleges around the country have begun to implement intervention strategies to improve on-time graduation and close attainment gaps. one of the most successful interventions implemented across the country has been a 15 to finish campaign, a campus-wide effort aimed to increase the number of college students taking 15 credits per semester (cca, 2016a). a comprehensive review of the literature and conversations with college professionals were conducted to better understand the factors that contribute to a successful 15 to finish campaign. the findings indicated that a successful 15 to finish campaign includes: (a) maintaining a high level of institutional commitment and effective leadership, (b) making the case with data, (c) reaching all key stakeholders, including students and their support systems, (d) providing professional development to internal stakeholders, (e) avoiding a onesize fits all model and accounting for the unique institutional culture, (f) sending clear messages, (g) providing incentives, and (h) engaging in continuous improvement efforts. based on these findings, recommendations are provided for those who wish to increase on-time completion rates for community college students. keywords 15 to finish, completion, full-time enrollment, on-time graduation, academic momentum introduction only 5% of community college students complete their degrees in two years, according to complete college america (cca), a nonprofit organization that advocates for higher graduation rates and closing equity gaps in higher education for traditionally underrepresented populations (complete college america [cca], n.d.-a). it is vital that a sustainable solution to combat this low completion rate is implemented. the average degree completion time is four years (cca, 2016c). many community college students are low-income and are racially and ethnically minoritized (cca, 2016c). cca indicates community colleges graduate just 1% of blacks, 4% of hispanics, 5% white students, 7% asian students, and 4% of pell-grant students in two years (cca, n.d.-a). it is critical to understand the issues surrounding those low on-time completion rates and devise a plan of action to alleviate the root causes of this concern. it is crucial to our society that we provide an equitable education for those who often are left behind, enabling them to transition into high-potential jobs in the least amount of time with the lowest cost. barriers to timely completion four main barriers contribute to why community college students are not graduating on time. the first barrier is that students are not informed of the academic benefits of taking 15 credits per semester (attewell & monaghan, 2016). research in the last decade indicates that students who enroll in their first semester with 15 credits gain early momentum, attain a higher gpa, and are more likely to graduate than those who take lesser credits (attewell & monaghan, 2016; belfield et al., 2016). the second barrier to on-time completion is that students are not encouraged by the institution to enroll in 15 credits each semester. social norms within higher education institutions do not support credit loads above 12 credits (headlam et al., 2019). the culture at colleges across the country has been to ease students into college academics, especially minoritized students (spiva, n.d.). due to social influence, these students often emulate what their peers do and attend full-time with 12 credits (headlam et al., 2019). this creates an “anchoring” effect where students continue into their next semester with the same habit of enrolling in the number of credits http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-6352 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3188 howard & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 4 they did or were told to do by their advisor in the first semester (headlam et al., 2019). financial aid procedures contribute to the third and fourth barriers to finish on time. federal financial aid policies do not offer incentives for students to take 15 credits per semester. the policy created a default of 12-credits per semester as full-time (jones, 2015). this promotes a delay in finishing a degree on time. the fourth barrier is that students are unaware of loan benefits that allow them to finish in the shortest amount of time with the least debt and lowest wage loss. by not graduating on time, students add unneeded time and money, which adds to higher tuition and fees, expenses, and loss of opportunity and retirement wages (abel & deitz, 2014). 15 to finish: an intervention to timely completion community colleges across the country have begun to implement intervention strategies to diminish or eliminate institutional barriers to improve on-time graduation and close the disparity in attaining a college degree between low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized students known as attainment gaps. one of the most successful interventions being implemented is the 15 to finish campaign (klempin, 2014). this campaign increases awareness of the academic and financial benefits of enrolling in 15-credits per semester (klempin, 2014). merely 11% of students at community colleges are taking 30 credits a year to be on-time students (cca, 2016c). at least 30% of community college students are taking 24 credits, only needing one more course per semester to become on-time students (cca, 2016c). the first university system in the country to study momentum students, students attending 15 credits or more per semester, and initiate a strong intervention to increase students’ enrollment to 15 credits per semester was the university of hawaii system (uh system). in 2010, researchers at the uh system analyzed the firstyear student data and found that students were more likely to earn their degree on time if they completed 30 credits in their first academic year, declared a major by their second year, and completed college-level english and math within their first academic year (college career readiness and success center 2014). firsttime, first-year students at the uh system carrying 15 credits in a semester were not only more persistent but were more successful and did better than students taking less than15 credits across all levels of academic preparation (c. bio, personal communication, september 15, 2020). as a result of the study, the uh system embarked on a major initiative to change mindsets and pioneered a 15 to finish communication campaign. the uh system raised awareness of the academic and economic benefits of enrolling in 15 credits versus 12 credits. although the campaign was named 15 to finish, the uh system was interested in students finishing 30 credits per year. this included taking 15 credits each semester or taking 12 credits per semester plus six over two summers. the campaign was a great success, with on-time graduation rates at the two-year institutions increasing by 84% since its implementation (cca, n.d.-b). since the implementation at uh system, numerous institutions in the country have launched such a campaign increasing the number of students enrolling in 30 credits per year (cca, 2016a). cca vice president elston stated that the 15 to finish strategy sets the bar at the level needed for students to achieve on-time completion (cca, 2016c). the strategy is integrated into academic maps, metamajors, math pathways, structured schedules, corequisite remediation, and gateway courses in the field of study during the first year. elston asserted that the 15 to finish strategy is “the catalyst that moves the momentum for students to finish on time, no matter at what strategy one looks” (cca, 2016c). several institutions that implemented a 15 to finish campaign reported that their completion rates increased, and attainment gaps have narrowed or disappeared. for example, as of 2020, improvement in on-time graduation at the two-year institutions in the state of nevada has risen by 243% (cca, n.d.-b). jim mccoy, associate vice president of academic affairs for the colleges of southern nevada, stated that they had closed the achievement gap after implementing a 15 to finish campaign. the 12% of blacks at their colleges are now equaling their peers’ rate in taking 15 credits, and the 35% of hispanic students are exceeding their peers’ rate (personal communication, february 11, 2020). the uh system reported in 2017 that they also closed the equity gap, which is the inequality in educational achievement between low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized students, both at the two-year and four-year institutions with the 15 to finish campaign (cca, 2017e). given the extensive data that illustrates the 15 to finish campaign’s effectiveness, it is important to understand what the elements are that make a 15 to finish campaign work in higher education. it can shed light on what is needed to successfully implement a campaign to increase the on-time graduation rates and narrow attainment gaps in credit and completion between ethnic and racial minoritized students and their peers. methods a wide-ranging review of qualitative and quantitative information was performed to gain an understanding of the key success factors related to the implementation of a 15 to finish campaign at higher education institutions. the following three methods were used: (a) engaging in conversations with practitioners and administrators across the country, (b) an examination of peer-reviewed articles, and (c) the exploration of gray literature and public scholarship. this triangulated approach allowed for a comprehensive review of data related to 15 to finish campaigns. professional perspectives to better understand the implementation of a 15 to finish communication campaign at a higher institution of education, i engaged in conversations with administrators and practitioners across the country whose institutions implemented a 15 to finish campaign or who are part of the movement to have students finish college on time. i first sought out five experts in the field of the 15 to finish strategy who were posted as fellow experts on the complete college america (cca) website. cca is a nonprofit educational organization that launched a network 11 years ago composed of state and educational institutions committed to their cause of on-time degree completion and closing attainment gaps. they formed an alliance that includes 47 states and consortia in the country (cca, n.d.-c). i communicated with the associate vice-president of academic affairs at a community college in southern nevada, who contributed to scaling the implementation of a 15 to finish campaign in his state. i spoke to a former president of a cuny community college and a founder of cca who aided in implementing the 15 to finish strategy. 15 to finish communication campaign impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 5 to better understand how a university system successfully implemented a 15 to finish campaign and how they collected data to measure success, i connected with the associate vice-chancellor of the university system of georgia together with the research associate for the board of regents of the university system of georgia in the division of research and policy analysis. the chief of staff and senior vice president of strategy at cca, who has been a keynote speaker at numerous events nationwide on the benefits of 15 to finish, contributed to success stories in the implementation of the 15 to finish campaign across the country. a conversation with the executive director of student success and university initiatives at sacramento state university was instrumental in understanding the dramatic changes at that institution when he implemented a 15 to finish campaign as soon as he joined the institution. a few of the cca fellow experts suggested other prominent individuals whose viewpoints i needed to seek out. i connected with the president and chief operating officer of the gardner institute, who discussed the importance of looking through an equitable lens for students taking 15 credits per semester to finish on time. i sought the perspective of the student success director for community colleges in hawaii, which is the state that pioneered the 15 to finish campaign. she offered insight into the original campaign at the twoyear institutions within the uh system and how it has evolved. finally, i communicated with the director of strategic outcomes for the education foundation of mobile alabama, who provided insights on bishop state community college, which recently launched an extensive 15 to finish communication campaign. the limitation of conversing with practitioners and administrators who implemented the 15 to finish campaign is that the individuals might have a biased view as they all focused on the campaign’s success. peer-reviewed research i conducted a literature search by using the following five electronic databases: academic search premier, educational administration abstracts, education source, eric, and masterfile elite. the settings were set to search the databases for peerreviewed articles between the published dates of 2010 and 2020. using the boolean operation system, the search terms included “higher education” or college and “15 to finish” or “complete college america” or “early momentum” or “academic momentum.” the initial search produced 98 articles for review. after duplicates were removed, 41 articles remained. only articles that focused on higher education institutions that implemented an intervention requiring students to take 15 credits per semester as a strategy to on-time completion or launched a campaign to promote 15 to finish were included in this literature review. i first scanned the abstracts of the 41 articles for relevance to the criteria. twenty-three articles did not involve student enrollment in higher education and were therefore eliminated for further examination. the remaining 18 articles were maintained for analysis. i reviewed the full text of the 18 articles to serve for the research on implementing a 15 to finish campaign at a higher education institution. three articles were relevant to the intervention. they included initiatives for a campaign to have students graduate on time. i excluded all other articles as they discussed other college completion strategies or addressed the problem of not taking 15 credits per semester rather than the campaign intervention. gray literature and public scholarship the 15 to finish campaign started in 2011 and is a recent strategy implemented at higher education institutions across the country. many practitioners have discussed this strategy in blogs, interviews, and articles but have not published their findings and experiences in peer-reviewed literature. however, it is important to include their expertise to better understand the benefits of a 15 to finish campaign and what contributes to its success. i searched websites of the following educational organizations and nationally known universities to retrieve materials of professionals who published on the 15 to finish campaign: achieving the dream, community college resource center (ccrc), complete college america (cca), league for innovations, the university system of hawaii, the university system of georgia, and the tennessee board of regents. within those sources, i discovered four working papers from ccrc, five articles on the cca website, one article at the league for innovation in the community college, one article on the uh system website relevant to a 15 to finish campaign. through the snowball effect, which is a way of discovering articles that were not appearing in the search but are relevant to the research by consulting the references of already attained articles, i added an article from the college and career readiness and success center relating to time to completion with a 15 to finish strategy. i attained 11 forum discussions and presentations from the cca convenings between 2016 and 2018 on the intervention associated with the research. they represent the human voices of practitioners and administrators telling the story of institutions in the nation that have implemented a communication campaign that reaches students of all walks of life and clearly communicates the benefit of completing college in the least amount of time with a minimum cost. additional material with evidenced-based data on the 15 to finish strategy and the campaign was found through university websites and social media. results many factors that make implementing a 15 to finish campaign successful at community colleges emerged from the conversations with administrators and practitioners and the literature research conducted. these factors are bringing change to time-to-degreecompletion and have been organized by the following eight themes: (a) commitment and leadership, (b) making the case with data, (c) reaching students and their support system, (d) professional development, (e) one size does not fit all, (f) clear messages, (g) incentives, and (h) continuous improvement. commitment and leadership bruce vandal, senior vice president at cca, asserted that the way to establish conditions for change is to receive the institution’s commitment where the 15 to finish campaign will take place (cca, 2017d). numerous states formed an alliance through cca and demonstrated strong leadership starting from the governor’s office to implement game-changers in all their institutions, including the 15 to finish campaign (cca,2016a). other institutions’ leaders have also illustrated urgency to drive change. the president of bishop state community college (bscc) showed the campaign’s importance by holding a signing day on campus, indicating to the community that they were committed to launching a 15 to finish campaign (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). howard & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 6 commitment across campus is important. it is especially critical for key stakeholders from the academic affairs office, student affairs office, the institutional resource office, and the communication office to commit to these efforts (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). advisors, financial aid counselors, and faculty are at the onset of the needed culture shift and are also critical internal stakeholders who need to be included in initial conversations related to the vision, research, and plan (cca, 2016d). advisors are the staff members on campus immediately connecting with students, identifying their academic options, and providing them with resources and information (cca, 2016a). disclosing data to advisors is important to ensure that student success is “speeding up, not slowing down” (ancel, 2017, p. 11) enrollment in academic courses (ancel, 2017). chandra scott, director of strategic outcome in the mobile alabama education system, observed that at her institution, the financial aid staff needed to be trained as they had been automatically telling students during their entire career to take 12 credits to receive full aid (personal communication, september 21, 2020). in addition to advisors and financial aid staff, faculty are critical in implementing the campaign and need to be engaged from the beginning. kim beatty from houston community college reported that faculty are focused on learning and not necessarily focused on what is happening beyond their classroom. however, when faculty see the evidence-based data and notice the gaps, they become more committed to a 15 to finish campaign. (cca, 2016f). faculty serve in advising capacities and play an important role in the 15 to finish messaging. making the case with data data are the source of information to understand the problem, to identify interventions, and then to drive the innovation needed to obtain student success. institutional commitment to access, collect, analyze, and communicate the data associated with the campaign to stakeholders is essential (a. bell, personal communication, august 26, 2020). cca (2017) cautions in their scaling standard report that just data collection on its own will not drive change. the change comes when college professionals “interact and internalize the data, draw their own conclusions, and take action” (cca, 2017c, p. 9). when the uh system noticed the low graduation rates, they examined their data and discussed how they could create a culture change based on their data for student success. data showed that students taking 15 credits per semester did better in their courses and completed their degree on time (university of hawaii system, 2013). by disaggregating the data, they observed that there were no disparities between subgroups. students who took 30 credits in a year and completed a degree were students from all levels of academic preparedness, socio-economic status, first-generation students, and racially and ethnically minoritized students (university of hawaii system, 2013). collecting and disaggregating data by various student subgroups are vital to evaluate the educational equity outcomes. elston stated that disaggregated data are important to analyze as they give “voice[s] to the students who have been underserved by higher education” (personal communication, september 4, 2020). any decision made must be driven by data. when sharing data, wendy kallina, director of academic analytics at kennesaw state university and member of the complete college georgia initiative suggested that institutions find someone who is an empirical storyteller and a champion for the initiative that makes data come alive to stakeholders. kallina emphasized that every meeting should start with data because using data-driven results will show that interventions can affect change (cca, 2017b). it is fundamental for the implementation team on campus to work with the data professionals by first identifying the data and then identifying the right audience with whom to communicate the data (cca, 2017a). the indiana commission of higher education produced data sheets on 15 to finish for advisors that tell the story of their campuses. the commission produced a data sheet for ivy tech community college campus showing how many students were between 12-14 credits per semester, how grades improved when students took 15 or more credits, and how likely these students were to complete college (cca, 2016a). data can inspire faculty, staff, and administrators to take action and get involved in the 15 to finish campaign efforts (cca, 2017a). however, institutions need to go beyond creating a sense of urgency for action and also provide paths of action (cca, 2017a). the implementation team must introduce a plan of action that offers details of the campaign implementation to the institution’s stakeholders (cca, n.d.-b). reaching students and their support system jim dragna, the executive director of student success and university initiatives and the director of institutional research at sacramento state university, emphasized that communication directly to students, either through text or email messages, is important. students can make informed choices after being encouraged to take on the challenge of a full 15-credit load (personal communication, september 16, 2020). nia haydel, the current vice president at cca for alliance engagement and institutional transformation, pointed out that students want direction and, in general, want to finish on time. students typically follow the path suggested by advisors (cca, 2016e). therefore, colleges cannot rely on text and email messaging alone; it is also critical that they are being encouraged by their advisors to take 15 credits. although students are the most important stakeholders, another key factor related to increasing academic momentum for students is to involve parents and caretakers. a strong communication campaign providing this population with beneficial information on the importance of taking 15 credits per semester is needed (cca, 2016e). these messages position parents and caretakers to better support their children in making better academic and financial decisions (cca, 2016e). while at the university system of georgia, helen tate helped parents understand the benefits of 15 credits per semester during the summer orientation (cca, 2016b). parents and guests were in attendance when the institution played a short video clip created by complete college georgia on the financial benefits of taking 15 credits to finish on time. this often resulted in parents not allowing their children to leave the orientation session until they signed up for the 15 credits (cca, 2016b). ashley ruby, an advisor at a community college in western virginia, used the open-source materials from cca to engage in a 15 to finish campaign during the welcoming sessions for new students and their support system (cca, 2018a). her goal was to inform all stakeholders in attendance of the importance of taking 15 credits per semester. 15 to finish communication campaign impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 7 professional development institutions need to provide professional development to support college professionals in changing the advising culture that has prevented many students from taking 15 credits per semester (cca, 2016a). elston pointed out that the national academic advising association stated that implicit bias goes on within advisement. it is, therefore, vital that training happens (personal communication, september 4, 2020). advisors are part of the culture shift and must inform each student of what it takes to get to the finish line. elston asserted advisors must look at 15 to finish as a tool to start a conversation with the students on their trajectory while in college. nacada, the global community for academic advising, has been working closely with cca in sharing best practices for the academic advising community (waiwaiole & elston, 2017). they ensure that the key individuals responsible for providing students with guidance to an on-time completion provide the same message across the country (waiwaiole & elston, 2017). when the indiana commission of higher education produced data sheets on 15 to finish, it sparked conversations and discussions with advisors on shifting the bar to 15 credits and using an opt-out versus opt-in approach. students opting out did so with full knowledge of what this will mean to on-time degree attainment (cca, 2016a). nichole mann, an advisor at ivy tech community college, revealed that the indiana academic advisory network created a fall institute to share ideas and offer advisors strategies related to “how” and “why” when discussing 15 to finish with their students (cca, 2016a). the training was focused on how to tell a particular population at their campus about their options, how to help students with decision making, and how students can overcome certain barriers. an expert in financial aid offered a session on how to advise financial aid recipients taking 15 credits. the workshops and discussions resulted in advisors putting completion goals for each student at the center of the educational planning process from the start (cca, 2016a). faculty, both full-time and part-time, also need to be engaged in the on-time completion discussions and receive professional development on how to improve student on-time completion. often, according to a report on the faculty voices project done by the league for innovation in the community college (2018), faculty expressed a lack of information given to them by the institution with important data on student success. the faculty indicated a strong desire to be more engaged in institutional decision-making on how to improve completion rates. they requested faculty training that would allow for strong collaboration with advisors. colleges need to share completion data with faculty and assist them in accessing and interpreting it (league for innovation in the community college, 2018). to maintain a focus on equity, disaggregated data is important as it will help faculty understand the completion rates for the different demographics at their institution (league for innovation in the community college, 2018). one size does not fit all elston believes that there is no set procedure to implement a 15 to finish campaign. it depends on each institution’s culture. he advised starting by analyzing the institution’s data and then assessing the current situation at the institution. an analysis of the data will likely show that many students are not taking 15 credits (personal communication, september 4, 2020). this was a consistent message from conversations with practitioners. the common phrase conveyed during the communication was “let the data guide you.” the data and the institutional culture will drive the decision on how to proceed. many different approaches can work. for example, a traditional approach in the campaign is often to first engage the internal stakeholders. the indiana higher education institutions and bscc in alabama first communicated data to college professionals, offered them professional development, and then launched the campaign (cca, 2016a; c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). some colleges opt first to engage external stakeholders. the uh system first targeted the students and parents in their campaign before the internal stakeholders. risa dickson, vice president for academic planning and policy at the uh system, indicated they made the decision knowing they would receive opposition from advisors and faculty but were hopeful that once the data came in, it would speak for itself (cca, 2017a). faculty and advisors were offered the results and received workshops on implementing the 15 to finish strategy. a similar tactic was used at sacramento state university. dragna expressed that the institution blamed the students for not finishing on time due to their socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, and low academic preparedness. when he joined the institution, he immediately analyzed the data and created a communication campaign during the summer. messages went directly to the first-year students presenting all the positive aspects of getting a degree on time. after one semester, the leading indicators of 15 credits came back with positive results. the results were then shared for discussion with staff and faculty (personal communication, september 16, 2020). clear messages it is important that the college’s message is clear and that all stakeholders understand what the branding message entails. according to elston, the question “what does the institution mean by 15 to finish” must be answered the same by all parties to effectively communicate the message (personal communication, september 4, 2020). the original 15 to finish pioneered by the uh system did not literally mean a student had to take 15 credits per semester. the uh system implied message was to get students to graduate “on time” (university of hawaii system, 2013). this can also be accomplished by taking four semesters of 12 credits and 6 credits for two summers. the institution needs to have a communications strategy in place (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). messages need to be tailored to motivate different stakeholders, and data should be presented in the form of persuasive visualization (cca, 2017c). bscc used infographics posted on classroom doors as well as on their website and social media (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). the communications office of bscc assisted by advertising the 15 to finish messages on the college’s website. this office also created infographics, a tag in the footer of emails, and posted numerous quotes from students tailored to the stakeholders. bscc took advantage of the open resource material complete college america provides to everyone who intends to offer a 15 to finish campaign (personal communication, september 21, 2020). these include posters, brochures, presentations, videos, and social media ads found on their website to promote 15 credits per semester. the uh system incorporated public relations professionals to develop a strong media campaign to reach students and parents through television advertisements (c. bio, personal communication, september 15, 2020). they crafted howard & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 8 messages for their target audiences and posted the 15 to finish slogans on t-shirts, cups, and pens (korn, 2016). incentives incentives are a great way to promote the 15 to finish strategy. institutions can offer motivational incentives and financial incentives to increase the number of students taking 15 credits. for example, union county college in new jersey offered banded tuition as an incentive for students to take more than 12 credits. the tuition rate between 12-18 credits is fixed, allowing full-time students to enroll in 15 credits for the same price as enrolling in 12 credits. (m. mcmenamin, personal communication, august 30, 2020). at lorain county community college in ohio, the students enrolling in over 13 credits do not pay extra tuition (klempin, 2014). the legislature in west virginia capped the tuition cost. the full-time tuition is calculated per credit up to 12 credits. beyond that, students do not pay for extra credits taken (klempin, 2014). korn (2016) noted that the uh system incentivized students who take 30 credits their first year with a yearly drawing to receive free textbooks. bscc organized a day in the semester where students signed a pledge of taking 15 credits in the next semester (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). the institution offered incentives for students who pledged, such as having their name posted on the website, having a picture taken with the mascot, and enjoying free pizza. motivational incentives may only be needed when first launching the 15 to finish campaign. at bscc, incentives are no longer needed, and it is no longer a campaign (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). now, 15 to finish is a strategy that has been ingrained in the institution’s culture. taking 15 credits per semester or 12 credits per semester and 6 credits over the summer are normal conversations students have with their advisors and financial aid staff during registration (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). continuous improvement after the campaign has taken place, the institution must assess the campaign’s outcome to see if it was successful. specifically, it is important to assess effectiveness in terms of student performance, student experience, and narrowing equity gaps (l. hagood, personal communication, august 26, 2020). data analysis can determine changes in enrollment patterns and determine if there is an increase in students enrolling in at least 15 credits over the previous semester. when the uh system implemented its 15 to finish campaign, they saw a big rise in the percentage of students taking 15 credits (cca, 2017a). they went back to the data, making sure those students who were taking 15 credits were still performing well (cca, 2017a). they kept validating and revalidating their data (cca, 2017d). jenkins & bailey (2017) proposed using early momentum key performance indicators (kpis) to examine the success of the reforms at many institutions, such as the 15 to finish strategy. kpis are leading indicators that use short-term measurements to predict longer-term outcomes to assess the effects of the reform being implemented (jenkins & bailey, 2017). for example, kpis based on first-year students’ performance metrics can be correlated to longterm outcomes like higher completion rates. belfield et al. (2019) created early momentum metrics for colleges to assess and measure their students’ progress during educational reforms. by disaggregating data of student’ demographics in subgroups, they examined momentum measures that formatively assessed the effectiveness of institutional reforms such as a 15 to finish strategy. for example, they analyzed transcript data for first-time college students that had entered between 2010 and 2012 from three community college systems and followed them for six years. the researchers looked at the credit momentum metrics (cmm) to determine students’ progress towards completing their degrees on time when taking 15 credits per semester in their first academic years. student success was measured by credential completion using two subgroups to study if the equity gap would close when there was early momentum. the study investigated how many students met each of the cmm, how strong the association was between cmm and student success, and the predicted outcomes if students were to meet cmm. the study showed that cmm accurately indicated future degree completion regardless of the subgroup. if more students meet the cmm, the predicted outcome through this study was a substantial improvement in college-level outcomes. change in higher education is not easy, and thus changing the cultural mindset of students and college professionals cannot happen without significant intervention and will take time. cathy bio reveals that at the community colleges in hawaii (uhcc), the culture of taking 15 credits is more ingrained at four-year institutions as compared to the community colleges (personal communication, september 15, 2020). although there has been a shift, advisors at uhcc still sometimes ease students into the college experience. the onboarding works, she says, but there are not enough advisors to help them once the student is taking classes. she considers having coaches as a solution to encourage and remind students they need 15 credits to finish on time. benefits of the 15 to finish campaign must be expressed through data to the stakeholders, especially at community colleges (cca, 2017b). cca (2017c) implied in their scaling standards that measuring, monitoring, and mending are an important part of making sure the campaign continues to be successful. using the data, the institution can make adjustments to achieve the maximum impact of the campaign (s. evenbeck, personal communication, august 26, 2020). in 2013, union county college (ucc) in new jersey had the lowest graduation rate (6.8%) of the state’s 19 community colleges (m. mcmenamin, personal communication, august 30, 2020). to remedy this, ucc implemented a 15 to finish strategy. in 2019, ucc had the 6th highest graduation rate (33%) in the state (m. mcmenamin, personal communication, august 30, 2020). ucc president mcmenamin voiced that the work is not done. when disaggregating the data, there are still attainment gaps within race and ethnicity, even though each subgroup’s completion rate went up. this is when institutions must refine their 15 to finish strategy. jim koch, president of the gardner institute, explained that it is important to convey the message of taking the “right” 15 credits to finish on time and therefore refine the campaign when assessing data with the course and curriculum redesign (personal communication, september 22, 2020). bscc took action, adding strategies when they noticed attainment gaps between white students and black students taking 15 credits did not close even though credit attainment and gpa for blacks increased (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). bscc reassessed the data and noticed that the majority of students in developmental courses 15 to finish communication campaign impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 9 were black. they decided to refine their 15 to finish strategy by creating academic maps and offering corequisites aligning with the first-year college math and english courses. when scott showed the 2019 data to college professionals, they were astounded how these strategies were making such a difference (personal communication, september 21, 2020). the corequisite passage rate for the black students increased dramatically to 60%. bscc is starting to see the early momentum gap narrowing (c. scott, personal communication, september 21, 2020). kathy johnson stated that when the university of georgia system measured data from their campaign, they showed that there were students enrolled in 15 or more credits who did not complete those credits within the semester (cca, 2016e). the university of georgia system broke down these data into withdrawals, d and f grades, and used the information to better advise students. they found the biggest predictor of students not completing courses was the amount of non-academic unmet need. this allowed them to increase need-based aid and support programs at the institution. conclusion the 15 to finish campaign is a game-changer strategy that works. the literature review and conversations with practitioners and administrators provided insight into key factors contributing to the successful implementation of a 15 to finish campaign. students have and will continue to benefit academically and financially thanks to the post-secondary institutions that recognize the advantages of launching a 15 to finish campaign. colleges who wish to implement such a campaign should begin by seeking the commitment from internal stakeholders across the institution and offering professional development where evidencebased data proving the strategy works is shared and discussed (d. elston, personal communication, september 4, 2020). this professional development is critical in order to change the internal stakeholder mindset (cca, 2016a). college professionals who are fully aware of the benefits of and evidence for the 15 to finish campaign are more likely to encourage students to enroll in 15 credits per semester (headlam et al., 2019). institutions will need to establish clear campaign messages tailored to the external stakeholders such as students and parents so that the benefits of enrolling in 15 credits resonate with them (d. elston, personal communication, september 4, 2020). financial and other incentives offered by the institutions can contribute to students taking 15 credits per semester (waiwaiole & elston, 2017). implementing the features identified through this review will greatly contribute to a successful 15 to finish campaign. as a result, all students will receive valuable and critical information about getting to the finish line on time. it will position students to make better choices that will positively affect their future career, earnings, and savings. institutions that use the 15 to finish strategy are committing to creating an environment where students perform better academically and where race, ethnicity, and family income are no longer the predictors of student success (a. koch, personal communication, september 22, 2020). references abel, j.r., & deitz, r. 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(2018a, june 28). ashley ruby: 15 to finish, proactive advising, academic maps [video]. youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rraxilce3ri https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci20-3.pdf https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci20-3.pdf https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/new-rules-2.0.pdf https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/new-rules-2.0.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-015-9401-z https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentum-metrics-leading-indicators.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentum-metrics-leading-indicators.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/momentum-15-credit-course-load.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/momentum-15-credit-course-load.pdf https://ccrscenter.org/blog/15-finish-idea-action-part-1-%e2%80%93-time-completion-and-importance-advisors https://ccrscenter.org/blog/15-finish-idea-action-part-1-%e2%80%93-time-completion-and-importance-advisors https://completecollege.org/data-dashboard/ https://completecollege.org/strategy/15-to-finish/ https://completecollege.org/about-us/ https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cca-intensity-brief-april3-1.pdf https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cca-intensity-brief-april3-1.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4rbwkgubzm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ee1skj3hs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pno0kqivwxw&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96zz4_0wggg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%2315tofinish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irvhtczhwok&t=371s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnizi4onz8&feature=youtu.be&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnizi4onz8&feature=youtu.be&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cqd9onohto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8litiomaey&t=1s https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/alliance-compact-and-scaling-standards-final-web-3.15.18.pdf https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/alliance-compact-and-scaling-standards-final-web-3.15.18.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tht5jqtu-9y https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/hawaii-spotlight-2017-convening-presentation.pdf https://completecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/hawaii-spotlight-2017-convening-presentation.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rraxilce3ri howard & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.195 10 headlam, c., marano, e. & yu, j. (2019). using behavioral science to identify barriers to credit intensity and satisfactory academic progress. center for applied behavioral science at mdrc. https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/finishline_2019_reportfinal_0.pdf jenkins, d., & bailey, t. (2017). early momentum metrices: why they matter for college improvement. columbia university, teachers college, community college research center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentummetrics-college-improvement.pdf jones, s. (2015). the game changers: strategies to boost college completion and close attainment gaps. change: the magazine of higher learning, 47(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1018085 klempin, s. (2014). redefining full-time in college: evidence on 15-credit strategies. columbia university, teachers college, community college research center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/redefining-full-time-incollege.pdf league for innovation in the community college. (2018). untapped leaders: faculty and the challenge of student completion. https://www.league.org/project-resource/untapped-leaders-faculty-andchallenge-student-completion spiva, y.w. (n.d.). improving equity and affordability in higher education. education and career news. https://www.educationandcareernews.com/collegeaffordability/improving-equity-and-affordability-in-higher-ed/# university of hawaii system, institutional research and analysis office. (2013). impact of enrolling in 15 or more credits on selected performance measures: first-time freshmen at the uh community colleges; fall 2009 to fall 2012. http://15tofinish.com/reference/15_to_finish_uhcc_combined_reportseptember_2013.pdf waiwaiole, e., & elston, d. (2017). one question: can you attend full-time, one time? change: the magazine of higher learning, 49(6), 23-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1398998 https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/finishline_2019_report-final_0.pdf https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/finishline_2019_report-final_0.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentum-metrics-college-improvement.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentum-metrics-college-improvement.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2015.1018085 https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/redefining-full-time-in-college.pdf https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/redefining-full-time-in-college.pdf https://www.league.org/project-resource/untapped-leaders-faculty-and-challenge-student-completion https://www.league.org/project-resource/untapped-leaders-faculty-and-challenge-student-completion https://www.educationandcareernews.com/college-affordability/improving-equity-and-affordability-in-higher-ed/ https://www.educationandcareernews.com/college-affordability/improving-equity-and-affordability-in-higher-ed/ http://15tofinish.com/reference/15_to_finish_uhcc_combined_report-september_2013.pdf http://15tofinish.com/reference/15_to_finish_uhcc_combined_report-september_2013.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1398998 martine howard new jersey city university christine harrington new jersey city university (1) introduction barriers to timely completion 15 to finish: an intervention to timely completion methods professional perspectives peer-reviewed research gray literature and public scholarship results commitment and leadership making the case with data reaching students and their support system professional development one size does not fit all clear messages incentives continuous improvement conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.341 edd student research for scholarly practice sherisse g. jackson university of south carolina sherisse@email.sc.edu yuechen sun university of south carolina yuechen@email.sc.edu abstract this article introduces one design concept of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (2022) framework, which is the emphasis on students becoming scholarly practitioners. in addition, this article provides an overview of each article appearing in this issue. keywords student research, cped, dissertation in practice, edd the carnegie project on the education doctorate design concepts for the professional doctorate of education prepares students to make informed decisions to improve policies and practices in their professional settings. one design concept from the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (2022) framework is the emphasis on students becoming scholarly practitioners. as a scholarly practitioner, the student identifies and frames her problem within the scholarly literature. she develops conceptual and historical understandings as well as possible solutions to her problem of practice. she is now able to plan an innovative research design to address her problem. the data collected from her research are viewed through a critical lens for making recommendations and igniting future research ideas, because research is a continuous improvement process. an important role of scholarly practitioners is sharing their work, as other practitioners may grapple with the same problems at the local, state, and national levels. this themed issue presents edd student research and their discoveries to stimulate change in their professional settings. the following list provides an overview of each article. in lack of high-quality, frequent feedback contributes to low success rates for community college students, hankins and harrison explore the causes of infrequent and low-quality feedback for community college students and provide recommendations on utilizing feedback to support student learning. in onboarding effects on engagement and retention in the it sector, walker-schmidt and colleagues discuss the importance of onboarding for new employees, emphasizing the high-turnover rate for those in technical fields, and how companies can structure the onboarding process to improve long-term engagement and retention of the new employees. in is there a benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? a district level analysis, wyss and preston discuss the traditional contained elementary classrooms versus the growing trend of departmentalized classrooms and explore if academic achievement varies in relationship to socio-economic status and classroom type. these relationships are analyzed utilizing fourth grade achievement data in a florida school district and followed with recommendations to better serve the students. in predictive characteristics of adequate employment in baccalaureate-prepared graduates, kiefer and colleagues conducted a study to identify predictive characteristics of underemployment among undergraduate alumni from a large, public, urban, tier-1 research university, and they discovered three primary predictors of adequate employment to share with colleges and universities to improve the economic growth of the state. when completing research, the students gain an understanding of their problems and reflect to spark change within their professional settings. reference carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2022). cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ sherisse g. jackson university of south carolina yuechen sun university of south carolina (1) reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 13 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 forward momentum: providing supportive space for edd students’ dissertation progression through weekly online writing sessions laura g. maldonado north carolina state university lagarlan@ncsu.edu j. jordan dolfi north carolina state university jjdolfi@ncsu.edu james e. bartlett, ii north carolina state university james_bartlett@ncsu.edu michelle e. bartlett north carolina state university mebartle@ncsu.edu abstract this article describes online writing sessions developed for a cped community college leadership education doctorate edd program at a research-intensive, land-grant university. sessions were introduced during the summer of 2020 after the existing executive, face-to-face program shifted entirely to online delivery due to the covid-19 pandemic. the purpose of the writing sessions was to support students in the edd, who are practitioners, with dissertation writing productivity by offering multiple weekly opportunities for synchronous writing sessions via online video conferencing. although this program offering is in early implementation, initial feedback suggests the writing sessions supported students’ dissertation progression and established a sense of community and social support in an online environment. this model could benefit online, hybrid, and face-toface edd programs in supporting writing progression. design, delivery, and lessons learned are shared for the benefit of edd programs as we continue to navigate program delivery impacts from the pandemic. keywords online writing sessions, education doctorate, scholarly practitioner, dissertation progress, community building introduction writing is a necessary skill valued by academic, practitioner, and policy audiences (ferguson, 2009) and a skill scholarly practitioners need to disseminate their work and communicate findings from dissertation research. the education doctorate (edd) program is one type of professional research doctorate as defined by colwill (2012) in which coursework is rooted in both practice and practice-based research (perry & abruzzo, 2020). students in such programs are referred to as scholarly practitioners and often complete a practice-based research dissertation termed dissertation in practice (perry & abruzzo, 2020). there is a growing body of work on writing groups at the doctoral level (aitchison, 2009, 2010; ferguson, 2009; inouye & mcalpine, 2019, lassig et al., 2013; lim et al., 2019; maher et al., 2013; wegener et al., 2016). while the majority of this work has focused on doctoral students enrolled in doctor of philosophy (phd) programs, there is some work on writingrelated services or programs for edd students (capello, 2020; lassig et al., 2013; murphy et al., 2014). writing groups help students practice writing skills and develop as scholarly writers (aitchison, 2009, 2010; ferguson, 2009; lassig et al., 2013; maher et al., 2013; murphy et al., 2014; wegener et al., 2016), improve thinking (aitchison & lee, 2006), and build a community of peers (maher et al., 2013; mcalpine & asghar, 2010). perry and abruzzo (2020) wrote that for scholarly practitioners in particular, socialization is a necessary part of graduate programming. in discussing the importance of intentional socialization for edd students in programs redesigned with influence from the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) guiding principles, perry and abruzzo (2020) applied the weidman models to assert edd student socialization must take part through http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ maldonado, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 14 knowledge acquisition, investment, and involvement. this article focused on socialization via student investment as defined by weidman et al. (2001) as “time and energy put forth [by the student] in meeting program requirements” (p. 63) and applied by perry and abruzzo (2020) to edd programs as spanning from “applying to the program and ends with completion of the capstone requirement” (p. 138). this article provides an account of a new program development that could be of broad interest to cped edd program educators, specifically, weekly online writing sessions developed in 2020 for students enrolled in a cped-influenced community college leadership (ccl) edd program at a research-intensive, land-grant university. this newly developed program offering specifically contributes to the investment aspect of edd student socialization as described by perry and abruzzo (2020) in that it offers a new and innovative way to support edd students’ progression through the dissertation and other program-associated writing projects. this article begins with providing context of the ccl edd program and background literature on doctoral progression and writing group models. next, the edd program and writing session development and delivery is described. preliminary evaluative feedback about the sessions was gathered from students through a questionnaire and a journal kept by the session facilitator (first author). finally, lessons learned and considerations for the future are provided. context of ccl edd program the ccl program at north carolina state university has recently been redesigned to align better with the cped principles (bartlett et al., 2018). the edd program redesign efforts have been supported in part by a grant from a funder to provide resources to enhance the doctoral students’ experience. the edd program in reference is a three-year, cohort-based program geared towards education professionals interested in senior leadership positions in community colleges or workforce development. students enter the program with work experience as leaders, instructors, faculty, administrators, and accomplished professionals from community colleges, four-year universities, not-for-profit organizations, government, business, and other educational settings. a new cohort of 20-25 students is launched annually, with cohorts alternating distance education locations between two metropolitan areas in the state. coursework is completed year-round for two years (i.e., summer, fall, spring, summer, fall, spring, summer) in a fixed cohort model of two classes per term. dissertation hours are integrated throughout the program, beginning in the first fall semester. the majority of edd students hold full-time jobs in addition to being doctoral students. thus, this program is delivered in person every other weekend to maximize accessibility to full-time working professionals who prefer an in-person learning experience to online learning. the program refers to this scheduling as executive format because it is scheduled outside of the typical business day. classes are scheduled on fridays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. however, the program shifted to online delivery in march 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic. keeping in mind the students in this program opted for an in-person program delivery; efforts were made to incorporate new support features to mimic the in-person classroom experience of shared workspace with classmates and the built-in accountability that stems from that experience. background on doctoral progression and writing groups progressing through a doctoral program is complex and challenging. all students likely begin doctoral programs with the intention of completing their degree. however, around half of the students in the united states who begin a doctoral program do not achieve degree attainment (okahana & zhou, 2019). muirhead and blum (2006) wrote that while the doctoral dissertation is an intensely grueling experience for all doctoral students, the task is even more strenuous for online students who do not have the opportunity to work in person with faculty or classmates. further, high attrition rates continue to plague higher education, as many doctoral students remain all but dissertation (abd) (muirhead & blum, 2006; page, 2020; wegener et al., 2016). abd students are those who finish coursework but are stalled in the dissertation phase, resulting in additional anxiety (russell-pinson & harris, 2017). with many edd programs marketing suggested time frames for degree completion, writing groups or sessions are one way to enhance programmatic offerings for writing support without additional cost to the program. writing groups can engage students early in the academic process and support them in becoming successful scholars (aitchison, 2010; aitchison & lee, 2006; lassig et al., 2013; maher et al., 2013). enhanced motivation, increased confidence, and a more positive outlook on the writing process are some of the psychological benefits (ferguson, 2009). writing groups can also provide emotional support to those experiencing isolation (ferguson, 2009). it is common for graduate students to face isolation, and individuals may experience feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and fear when writing by oneself (lee & boud, 2003). additionally, there are more isolation challenges inherent to online educational programs as students are not able to see each other in person (rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2016). given the current covid-19 pandemic, these feelings may be further exacerbated. writing together provides an opportunity for engagement in an edd program to help students build community and avoid feelings of isolation. although writing may be thought of as solitary activity, it is often a communal activity (lassig et al., 2013; lee & boud, 2003). students enrolled in edd programs often have limited time for engagement and community building between their work and family commitments with partners, children, or parents (d’andrea, 2002). edd scholarly practitioners also bring significant professional experience from the workforce and tend to work full time in educational, government, not-for-profit, and other organizational settings while pursuing their degree (perry & abruzzo, 2020). establishing a social network is crucial to completing a dissertation (lim et al., 2019). supporting edd doctoral students cped-influenced edd programs are redesigned using the cped framework, which consists of six guiding principles and seven program design concepts (the carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped], n.d.). one program design concept of cped edd programs is, “scholarly practitioners blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and forward momentum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 15 solve problems of practice” (cped, n.d., “scholarly practitioner”). perry and abruzzo (2020) wrote: the cped consortium contends that the transformation of the field lies in the impact of the graduates applying their newly acquired skills and knowledge. impact on practice comes not only from their leadership abilities newly infused with innovative, scholarly thinking, but also from the work they generate through their dissertation in practice—a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice. (p. 135) demonstration of this achievement is through successful completion of a dissertation in practice—scholarly work that impacts a current problem of practice in the field (perry & abruzzo, 2020). in the edd program in reference, dissertation work starts in the first fall term and is integrated throughout the program. it is important for students to keep moving through coursework to candidacy to dissertation completion in three years. even with the incorporation of dissertation hours throughout the program, completing this large, independent project is often a challenge as doctoral students transition from a consumer of knowledge to a contributor of research (mcpherson et al., 2018; page, 2020). to face this challenge, it was observed that edd students in the program in reference organically developed face-to-face writing groups before and after classes or on weekends when classes were not held. the program began an intentional effort to offer writing sessions to all enrolled students to meet this initial, organic effort. the online writing sessions were part of a larger initiative to support edd students in completing their dissertations and improving their writing. it was also a way to maintain and build a sense of community while students were socially distancing during the covid-19 pandemic. weekly writing sessions were first implemented as part of the edd program in the summer of 2020 to develop early writing habits for students completing coursework and provide momentum for students in the dissertation in practice phases. the resources to design and launch the writing and data services are from the grant; however, they will be shifted to the program area over time. the writing sessions are facilitated by the edd program’s writing and data coach, a postdoctoral research scholar, who was hired to serve as a resource for students and support their progress toward completion. the writing and data coach, laura maldonado, participated in online writing sessions led by jordan dolfi, which were offered through a national research fellowship program in may 2020. these sessions served as the model for the writing sessions in the edd program. writing session development the structure of the writing sessions was adopted from the model consisting of multiple weekly offerings of two-hour writing blocks open to all program participants without prior registration required. as the edd program consists primarily of full-time working professionals, students were surveyed to better understand accessible times for the writing session offerings. based on feedback, four sessions (two morning and two evening) were offered each week, with each session running two hours in length. the groups met synchronously on three weekdays and every saturday through the zoom video conferencing platform. saturday sessions were offered as students were used to taking coursework in the executive format schedule. all students currently enrolled in the edd program, including both students taking courses as well as those working solely on their dissertations, were invited to participate in the writing sessions. participation was voluntary. to remove potential barriers, registration was not required to attend. rather, all current edd students were emailed the access information and invited to drop in to any or all sessions as they were available. the primary purpose of the offering was for students to have dedicated time blocked on their calendars to work on writing-related projects for their courses or dissertation, and the secondary purpose was to provide space for students to interact once they lost their regular in-person interaction during and between classes. sessions were structured using the pomodoro technique, a time management system to structure writing time (cirillo, 2018). time blocks were varied within the two-hour sessions to help students learn how much they could accomplish within a timeframe. students were given the option to pick their time block preferences if only one or two students participated in the writing session. writing session participants were encouraged, but not required, to keep their webcams on while writing to provide a sense of togetherness and support as well as to support the accountability of spending the writing session time focused on the writing project. the identities of participants were not reported to the program faculty or committee members. the program’s writing and data coach developed a writing, research, or productivity tip each week to share during the first five minutes of the session. additionally, the coach made the weekly fiveminute tutorials available to all current edd students, whether or not they participated in the writing sessions, by recording the segment and emailing it once per week. edd students could listen to the recording if they missed the writing session or wanted to hear it again. the email also provided a reminder to all students of the weekly writing session times. writing session delivery the sessions encouraged students to focus on tasks related to writing rather than having a discussion about writing. writing is a broad term used in this program to encompass any of the following tasks: brainstorming, outlining, reading, revising, editing, and writing. similarly, the writing sessions were not intended to be “office hours” for writing support. to that end, writing sessions were not led by program faculty, but by a postdoctoral scholar serving the program. this intentional decision was made to reinforce the purpose of the writing sessions being to offer protected writing time and space. students could ask questions through the chat feature but were instructed to schedule an individual meeting if questions were more in-depth in nature. a sample structure of a writing session is provided in table 1. the facilitator began each writing session by introducing a writing, research, or productivity tip in the first five minutes. then students were instructed to prepare for the session by logging into citation management tools, cloud storage files, computer files, and library websites. students were asked to set a goal or intention for the session and write it in the chat feature. the facilitator then started the writing sessions. the writing sessions varied from 25-minute to 50minute blocks within the two-hour session each week, which helped students think about what tasks they could accomplish in a specified number of minutes. the facilitator kept track of time and notified students when it was time to take 5-10 minute breaks. students were encouraged to move around and rehydrate during the breaks. at the conclusion of the writing session, students were asked to make a note about where they were at in their writing and write one or two maldonado, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 16 step items to accomplish for their next writing session. the structured writing time blocks were intended to model for students how they could set up successful independent writing sessions. time duration (2 hours) activity 5 minutes introduce the tip of the week 5 minutes prep: prepare for the session and set a goal/intention for the session 45 minutes write 10 minutes break: encourage students to move around and rehydrate 45 minutes write 10 minutes wrap-up: tell students to make a note for where they are in their writing project table 1. sample structure of a writing session data sources and collection the data sources utilized in this article included attendance records, an evaluation questionnaire, and a journal. the number of edd students in attendance and their doctoral stage was kept by the writing session facilitator throughout the summer. twenty-six edd students from five cohorts participated in the writing sessions in the summer of 2020. there was a range of 2 to 13 participants in each writing session. students were in various stages of the doctoral process: coursework, proposals, and the dissertation in practice. an evaluation questionnaire consisting of nine questions was emailed after nine weeks of writing session offerings to gather quantitative and qualitative feedback from participating students (see appendix). the questionnaire included five questions with a likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree), three open-ended questions, and one question indicating cohort group selection. the questionnaire was voluntary, and responses were kept confidential. evaluation questionnaire responses were received from 10 of the 26 (38%) summer writing session participants. finally, the facilitator also wrote in a journal to capture observations and reflections after leading each session. frequencies and percentages were used to analyze the quantitative feedback. data from the open-ended questions and the journal were coded and analyzed using a thematic approach. student perceptions ninety percent of questionnaire respondents (n = 9) either strongly agreed or agreed they progressed with their writing goals as a result of the sessions. all students either strongly agreed or agreed the tip of the week identified resources for students to explore. seventy percent of respondents (n = 7) agreed they were able to determine the length for writing tasks. students also became more aware of the dissertation process with 60% (n = 6) strongly agreeing and 30% (n = 3) agreeing. not all feedback was positive. only 30% of participants (n=3) agreed they had expanded their network of peers in the edd program. however, the respondents responded positively to the open-ended question on the writing sessions providing a sense of community with their peers, as discussed in the next section. of 10 questionnaire respondents, nine completed the qualitative section, and 100% of responses received reflected a positive response to the question, “would you recommend writing session participation to your edd peers? why or why not?” participants wrote the following comments to explain: “yes, the accountability is important. it was good to look forward to an appointment that i did not want to miss so that i would focus on the tasks.” (student 5) “yes, for the accountability, but also for the discipline of a set writing time,” (student 6) “yes; during this time where there are so many competing demands, having time set aside is necessary.” (student 9) these responses suggest the ongoing schedule blocking and dedicated writing time on their calendars is of benefit to participants. additionally, students reflected that the writing sessions provided a sense of community and provided the following examples: “yes! i appreciate having others present while writing because it makes the process less isolating and i feel more supported.” (student 2) “yes! i've already mentioned it to a few folks in our cohort. it is great to have the devoted time to just work on writing tasks or coursework, knowing others are there to do the same and help me stay accountable.” (student 7) as discussed above, despite the disagreement that the writing sessions expanded participants’ network of peers, qualitative responses indicated an impact on the sense of community in the program during the shift to online classes due to the pandemic. when asked, “what do you see as the strengths of the writing sessions?”, five of eight respondents reflected the benefit of dedicated writing time, with comments such as “structured time to focus with added support” (student 10) and “a specific time set aside to write” (student 9). further, one respondent (student 2) referenced the benefit of the weekly tips and dissertation guidance: “the tips have been very helpful, as has the dedicated time spent on dissertation matters.” gathering information through the questionnaire about program improvement was important as this was the first time the edd program offered weekly online writing sessions. while most of the feedback was positive, students suggested several ideas for the future: “it would be nice to have an online (accountability) journal to document goals for the next session…” (student 8) “it would be great if there were sessions where we could share with one another about our dissertation, especially for those who are done with coursework” (student 9) “possibly show video clips or ‘screen share’ tips...” (student 4) while feedback is in a preliminary and evaluative stage, the student perspective and voice has been both encouraging for this new program offering and thought provoking regarding improvements that could further enhance the sessions. lessons learned the lessons learned presented in this section are based on evaluation information and the facilitator’s reflection journal. sharing the lessons learned during the design and implementation of these writing sessions could benefit other cped programs that desire to provide students support by incorporating online writing sessions. forward momentum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 17 with the rapid shift online, the program was not sure what to expect when the writing sessions began, especially given the uncertainty during the covid-19 pandemic. however, the student feedback was encouraging, and revisions have already been made to the sessions based on feedback regarding time blocks, tips of the week, and expectations. the edd program plans to offer writing sessions over the next year and continue to gather additional data. insights from lessons learned relate to creating a space for students to write uninterrupted, communicating expectations, varying time blocks, brainstorming tips of the week, and maintaining community and social support. creating a space perry and abruzzo (2020) asserted the importance of edd student investment in their successful progression. the writing sessions provided a space for the students to work on their dissertations that is often lacking once coursework is completed, supporting students’ continued investment in their progression to degree. even though students start the dissertation process early in the program, the transition to the dissertation was often described as isolating as students’ progress at varying rates after cohort coursework completion. several students from earlier cohorts told the facilitator the writing sessions re-energized them to write as they had struggled to write since finishing coursework, a situation common among doctoral students (russell-pinson & harris, 2017). this is similar to what other online educational students have experienced in their doctoral programs (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2016). this re-energization illustrates a renewed investment in doctoral research and progression to degree. the writing sessions also provided students a space to interact outside of class time as well as to engage with the writing and data coach. further, the sessions offered support for student progression without additional investment from faculty, allowing faculty to focus more on the content and dissemination to the field. this space also supports challenges administrators face to manage resources to support programs. since the dissertation can often be a bottleneck in doctoral programs and require a significant amount of faculty resources, this model provides resources and could decrease students’ time to completion (page, 2020). additionally, program faculty have recognized the quality of the writing has also improved. communicating expectations deciding on the purpose and delivery surrounding the writing sessions at the beginning of the semester is important. students participated in the sessions with different expectations about how sessions or writing groups should run. the writing sessions described in this article focused on dedicated time for writing. cped edd programs could consider incorporating training components, peer review, or brainstorming exercises. in the future, the facilitator will spend more time explaining the delivery of the writing sessions in a brief orientation session before writing begins. students asked a variety of questions in the first few weeks of the semester (e.g., is there a dress code? do i have to keep my camera on? can i ask questions in the chat feature? is it okay to read literature and take notes instead of writing?). providing a handout of answers to frequently asked questions or recording these questions and answers are other alternatives. deciding how much time to devote to student questions during the writing sessions is another area to consider. students may ask different questions depending on who is facilitating. for example, students may ask questions about coursework assignments from a facilitator who is also their instructor. students may also ask individual questions to a facilitator serving as their dissertation chair or on their committee. facilitators will need to determine what questions to answer during the sessions and what questions need to be directed toward individual appointments and office hours. this decision may depend on the purpose and rationale of the writing sessions developed by the cped edd program. varying time blocks varying time blocks helps students learn how much they can accomplish within a timeframe. students were given the option to pick their time block preferences if only one or two students participated in the writing session. the facilitator observed students selected longer time blocks over shorter time blocks (e.g., 45 minutes versus 25 minutes) when given this option at the beginning of the session. the edd program offered writing sessions in 2-hour blocks, but programs could offer sessions of varying lengths. programs considering incorporation of online, synchronous writing sessions should invest in learning about the pomodoro technique of structured work blocks and breaks (cirillo, 2018) and determine the best time frame for the needs of their students. students in the program who were unable to attend the sessions due to other responsibilities suggested the sessions be recorded and shared so they could play the recording and follow the writing blocks and breaks on their own schedule. brainstorming tips of the week initially, the facilitator brainstormed a new tip each week to share at the writing sessions. this took more time than anticipated to develop a tip that could be explained in less than five minutes. now tips are based on suggestions submitted through an anonymous online form. the student questions posed in writing sessions can be used for future tips as they may determine where students may need additional assistance. this saves content development time for the facilitator and better addresses student inquiries. the tips also highlight ideas about services or programs available to edd students. audio recordings of the tips are saved in a shared folder accessible by all edd students. the recordings serve additional purposes in that the recordings can be shared with students posing questions in classes or during meetings about dissertation writing. less content may need to be developed after the first few months or year of creation. building community and social support the writing sessions provided an opportunity for the facilitator and students to engage with peers from several cohorts. given the program shift to online delivery due to the covid-19 pandemic, students were no longer able to see each other in person. the sessions provided virtual spaces to write among a community instead of writing by themselves (lassig et al., 2013; lee & boud, 2003; murphy et al., 2014). in addition to benefiting the students, the writing sessions provided an avenue to support the workload of faculty while still highly engaging the doctoral students with more contact points. maldonado, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 18 although only 30% of participants agreed they had expanded their network of peers in the edd program, this could be because students already knew each other. the facilitator observed many students knew each other’s names and were engaged in conversation before the first session officially started. however, other students commented they had never met each other before participating in the writing sessions. this varied from session to session depending on who was in attendance. edd programs could offer some special writing sessions before other program events or gatherings to encourage and attract different attendees. students from several cohorts were able to meet and interact with each other that would not have been formed without the writing sessions. considerations for the future writing sessions can be adapted for online, hybrid, and face-toface edd programs. for cped programs deciding whether to start writing sessions, consider the following questions: who would be available to lead the writing sessions? institutions may not be as fortunate to employ a postdoctoral scholar to support their edd program; however, the writing sessions could be run by another program staff member, graduate assistant, or doctoral student. students may be participating in self-managed cohort groups already and willing to host sessions with a larger number of edd peers. there could be one facilitator designated to lead the sessions or the responsibility could be rotated among several session participants. alternatively, the sessions could be run by a faculty member, but expectations should be made clear in advance about the purpose of the sessions. faculty members should be appropriately compensated or recognized for this workload. the sessions could allow the faculty member to spend the session working independently on their own projects. should the sessions be offered through online, hybrid, or face-to-face delivery? students and facilitators can participate in online sessions anywhere with an internet connection, which removes a substantial barrier for student participation as well as providing flexibility for facilitators. additionally, online sessions can be accessed by students enrolled in online, hybrid, and face-to-face classes. physical space will need to be reserved for face-to-face sessions, which could be integrated in several ways through cped programs. hosting a writing session on campus when students return to face-to-face instruction will allow students to reconnect or meet each other for the first time. sessions could then be offered before or after scheduled classes or during in-residence weeks. it is expected face-to-face sessions would increase the sense of community from participation but the extra time to travel to and from campus could present a barrier if not scheduled in conjunction with class or program times. what is the purpose or rationale of the sessions? the purpose of the sessions for the edd program in reference was threefold: to support students’ consistent progression to completion, to offer a sense of community for a typically face-to-face program during the pandemic, and to increase the interaction between students and the newly hired data and writing coach. cped programs need to consider the specific needs of the program, faculty, and students and align the design of writing sessions with those needs. how can facilitators ensure the time is spent on writing and not answering students’ questions or reviewing work? if the purpose of your program’s writing sessions is to provide space and blocked time for writing, facilitators should be strict with the time blocks and encourage students to schedule meetings or conferences outside of the dedicated writing time. other cped programs may find building in more time for questions will be beneficial during the writing sessions. students indicated the writing sessions offered benefits beyond making writing progress in the dissertation, such as a sense of community and social support. the program plans to continue to offer writing sessions over the next year and gather additional data. implementing or adapting program offering requires time and energy, but this could be an ideal time to offer online writing sessions to students enrolled in edd programs, especially since the pandemic will continue into the coming months. acknowledgements we would like to express our appreciation for the faculty who supported the launch of this initiative and the edd students who participated in the writing sessions. it has been an inspiration to write with them on a weekly basis. references aitchison, c. (2009). writing groups for doctoral education. studies in higher education, 34(8), 905-916. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902785580 aitchison, c. (2010). learning together to publish: writing group pedagogies for doctoral publishing. in c. aitchison, b. kamler, & a. lee (eds.). publishing pedagogies for the doctorate and beyond (pp. 83-100). https://is.muni.cz/el/sci/jaro2011/zd500/um/39424704/publishing_pedag ogies_for_the_doctorate_and_beyond.pdf aitchison, c., & lee, a. (2006). research writing: problems and pedagogies. teaching in higher education, 11(3), 265-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510600680574 bartlett, j. e., jr., bartlett, m. e., dolfi, j. j., jaeger, a. j., & chapman, d. d. (2018). redesigning the education doctorate for community college leaders: generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(2), 59-67. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.80 capello, s. (2020). leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 8-13. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.110 carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped]. (n.d.) the cped framework. retrieved january 15, 2021, from https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework cirillo, f. (2018). the pomodoro technique. currency. colwill, d. a. (2012). educating the scholar practitioner in organization development. information age publishing. d’andrea, l. m. (2002). obstacles to completion of the doctoral degree in colleges of education: the professors’ perspective. educational research quarterly, 25(3), 42-58. ferguson, t. (2009). the ‘write’ skills and more: a thesis writing group for doctoral students. journal of geography in higher education, 33(2), 285297. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260902734968 forward momentum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 19 inouye, k., & mcalpine, l. (2019). developing academic identity: a review of the literature on doctoral writing and feedback. international journal of doctoral studies, 14(2019), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.28945/4168 lassig, c. j., dillon, l. h., & diezmann, c. m. (2013). student or scholar? transforming identities through a research writing group. studies in continuing education, 35(3), 299-314. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037x.2012.746226 lee, a., & boud, d. (2003). writing groups, change, and academic identity: research development as local practice. studies in higher education, 28(2), 187-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507032000058109 lim, j., covrig, d., freed, s., de oliveira, b., ongo, m., & newman, i. (2019). strategies to assist distance doctoral students in completing their dissertations. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 20(5), 192-210. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i5.4532 maher, d., fallucca, a., & mulhern halasz, h. (2013). write on! through to the ph.d.: using writing groups to facilitate doctoral degree progress. studies in continuing education, 35(2), 193-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037x.2012.736381 mcalpine, l., & asghar, a. (2010). enhancing academic climate: doctoral students as their own developers. international journal for academic development, 15(2), 167-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601441003738392 mcpherson, c., punch, s. & graham, e. (2018). postgraduate transitions from masters to doctoral study: managing independence, emotion, and support. stirling international journal of postgraduate research spark, 4(2018), 1-24. https://spark.stir.ac.uk/ muirhead, b., & blum, k. d. (2006). advising online dissertation students. journal of educational technology & society, 9(1), 1-8. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3a12/6b8596c4841cf2b54bfbcb2158032 3a9c36e.pdf murphy, s., mcglynn-stewart, m., & ghafouri, f. (2014). constructing our identities through a writing support group: bridging from doctoral students to teacher education researchers. studying teacher education, 10(3), 239-254. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2014.949656 okahana, h., & zhou, e. (2019, october). graduate enrollment and degrees: 2008 to 2018. council of graduate schools. https://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/cgs_ged18_report_web.pdf page, c. (2020). influences on doctor of education students who have completed all program requirements but dissertation (publication no. 2458039647) [doctoral dissertation, university of the pacific]. proquest dissertations and theses global. perry, j. a., & abruzzo, e. (2020). preparing the scholarly practitioner: the importance of socialization in cped-influenced edd programs. in j. c. weidman, & l. deangelo (eds.) socialization in higher education and the early career (pp. 129-146). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33350-8_8 rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., spaulding, l. s., & spaulding, m. t. (2016). identifying significant integration and institutional factors that predict online doctoral persistence. the internet & higher education, 31, 101112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.07.003 russell-pinson, l., & harris, m. l. (2017). anguish and anxiety, stress and strain: attending to writers’ stress in the dissertation process. journal of second language writing, 43, 63-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2017.11.005 wegener, c., meier, n., & ingerslev, k. (2016). borrowing brainpower— sharing insecurities. lessons learned from a doctoral peer writing group. studies in higher education, 41(6), 1092-1105. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.966671 weidman, j. c., twale, d. j., & stein, e. l. (2001). socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: a perilous passage? (ashe-eric higher education report, vol. 28, no. 3). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed457710.pdf appendix writing session questionnaire q1 as a result of the writing sessions, i progressed with my writing goals. strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree strongly disagree q2 as a result of the writing sessions, i am able to determine time length for writing tasks. strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree strongly disagree q3 as a result of the writing sessions, i increased my awareness of the dissertation process. strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree strongly disagree q4 as a result of the writing sessions, i expanded my network of peers in the edd program. strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree strongly disagree q5 the tip of the week discussed at the writing sessions identified resources for me to explore. strongly agree agree neither agree nor disagree disagree strongly disagree q6 what do you see as the strengths of the writing sessions? open text response box q7 what ideas, if any, can you offer for how to improve the writing sessions? open text response box q8 would you recommend writing session participation to your edd peers? why or why not? open text response box https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037x.2012.746226 maldonado, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.186 20 q9 please select your cohort group. metropolitan area 2016 metropolitan area 2017 metropolitan area 2018 metropolitan area 2019 metropolitan area 2020 laura g. maldonado north carolina state university j. jordan dolfi north carolina state university james e. bartlett, ii north carolina state university michelle e. bartlett north carolina state university introduction context of ccl edd program background on doctoral progression and writing groups supporting edd doctoral students writing session development writing session delivery data sources and collection student perceptions lessons learned creating a space communicating expectations varying time blocks brainstorming tips of the week building community and social support considerations for the future who would be available to lead the writing sessions? should the sessions be offered through online, hybrid, or face-to-face delivery? what is the purpose or rationale of the sessions? how can facilitators ensure the time is spent on writing and not answering students’ questions or reviewing work? acknowledgements references appendix impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 49 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.239 action research: improving schools and empowering educators book review josephine peyton marsh arizona state university josephine.marsh@asu.edu debbie deibert tulsa community college debbie.deibert@tulsacc.edu craig a. mertler: action research: improving schools and empowering educators. 2020 (6th edition). sage publications. 329 pp. paperback: $57.00 or rent for 32.79 on amazon. isbn 978-1-5443-2439-5 our review of craig mertler’s textbook action research: improving schools and empowering educators is written from the perspectives of an experienced university professor and doctoral advisor (author 1) and a community college professor who is a graduate of a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) inspired doctoral program (author 2). the book is a comprehensive resource that offers step-by-step guidance to practitioner researchers and graduate students. in its 6th edition, action research has become a valued resource to many educators in doctoral programs, educators in master’s programs, and educators in other contexts who want to systematically improve their practice and grow as professionals and practitioner researchers. while the stated target audience is educators and practitioner researchers working in k-12 settings, we found much of the text relevant to community college and other higher education and community settings. action research: improving schools and empowering educators could be used as an anchor text for a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) inspired doctoral program or as a research methods text in practice-focused education graduate programs. university faculty leading such classes or advising students working on dissertations-in-practice will find this book and its available web-based resources well-organized and useful. graduate students and practitioner-researchers will also find this new edition a practical handbook and useful as they design and conduct action research. as in his previous editions, mertler highlights the how to of action research after clearly defining action research as the systematic inquiry of one’s own practice. action research, he states, is conducted for the purpose of learning about and improving one’s own educational settings and practices. mertler’s writing is professional, yet conversational, and includes many in-text examples and features such as figures, tables and links to web-based resources. in this edition, these features have been streamlined and formatted more clearly. the appendices provide resources for action researchers of all experience levels and include sample action research reports and templates developed to support the planning and implementation of action research described in the book’s four sections. part 1-what is action research? part 1 contains two chapters that provide an overview of action research. mertler introduces action research, describes the nature of action research as systematic and cyclical, and provides a model that is meticulous, yet flexible and methodologically sound. the importance of and applications of action research is presented in a concise overview with the stages and processes of action research delineated. new to this edition is a short history of action research. this history situates action research among different research traditions and will help practitioner researchers develop a better understanding of action research and justify its use to address problems of practice. we found that the inclusion of the history of action research provides a significant foundation to justify the use of action research in the school and college/university settings. a strength of this section is mertler’s emphasis on research rigor. he offers numerous ways to ensure it, and warns, “the extent to which it reaches a standard of quality is directly related to the usefulness of the research findings for its intended audience. in general, rigor refers to the quality, validity, accuracy, and credibility of action research and its findings.” (mertler, 2020, p.26) part 2how do i begin my action research? in part 2, mertler takes the reader through the steps of planning and developing an action research plan. they are reminded, “when you, as a teacher engage in classroom-based action research, you are doing it in order to benefit you and your students in your classroom” (mertler, 2020, p 116). he makes suggestions to assist practitioner researchers in identifying problems of practice and topics for research and provides a process to aid them as they think through the question, why does this problem occur? he advises them to examine research literature in order to develop a better understanding of their problem of practice and includes a section on how to search for relevant literature along with an updated list of searchable databases. also in part 2 is detailed information on research designs and research ethics and considerations. embedded in this section are exemplars http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-6102 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1793-7521 marsh & deibert impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.239 50 and templates for materials typically requested by institutional review boards. part 3-what do i do with all these data? the strength of part 3 is the inclusion of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques and tips for reporting the results. if graduate students and practitioner researchers only had one resource available to them for data collection and analysis, this section should be it. mertler includes samples and explanations of a variety of data sources, data collection methods, and ways to conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses. a concern is what could be considered as an overabundance of information related to quantitative and qualitative analysis procedures. however, the use of text features such as highlighted terms, tables, and in-text examples provide support for the reader and may make the large amount of information more manageable. new to part 3 is a table designed to assist practitioner researchers align their research questions and data sources. dissertation advisors may find this table helpful as they support students developing their action research plans. part 4, i’ve got results! now what? part 4 includes three chapters: next steps and developing future action research plans, writing up an action report, and sharing and reflecting. the chapter on next steps and future action research plans is most interesting and offers students and practitioners researchers guidance in formulating a plan of action for the continuing and extending their action research. students and novice practitioner researchers will find guidance in this part as they contemplate the “so what?” and the “what’s next?” of their research process. part 4 also offers readers ideas for disseminating their research projects and presents an updated list of refereed journals where practitioner research is often published. the organization of the text is what makes action research: improving schools and empowering educators stand out. first, the chapters are arranged sequentially, in the same order one might expect to approach an action research project. second and new to this edition, are excerpts from case study 1 used to foreshadow what is to come in each chapter. the first excerpt, for example, is presented at the beginning of chapter 1, introduction to action research. it describes why and how five educators identified a problem of practice and planned their action research to address it. excerpts from case study 1 are then included at the beginning of each subsequent chapter, so by the end of the book an entire case study has unfolded chapter by chapter. the third organizational feature we highlight is the newly organized section at the end of each chapter titled, conducting educational research. this feature includes an action research checklist and excerpts from two additional case studies. similar to the case study presented at the beginning of each chapter, these case studies follow two additional action research projects from start to finish. thus, readers are able to follow three different action research projects in each subsequent chapter that exemplify the topic of each particular chapter. also in this section are annotated excerpts from real action research reports that demonstrate how to write about their action research for academic purposes. graduate advisors will find these excerpts particularly useful as mentor texts. overall, we believe the reorganized conducting educational research feature will prove beneficial for novice practitioner researchers and graduate students who have little experience designing, implementing and writing research reports. we also believe that if short on time, the conducting educational research section could stand alone and provide a quick review or support for more experienced action researchers. practitioner researchers will find several ways to utilize this text. they can read it from front to back in its entirety; they can read selected chapters when needed in their research process; they can read the case studies only; or they can read the figures, tables, and the appendices. we would love to see the next edition as a spiral bound text in a flexible and tabbed version. another helpful feature would be to include areas for notes, as many practitioners will build their projects while reading the text. and last but not least, we would love to see dr. mertler expand his audience to include practitioner researchers who conduct action research in community college and other higher education settings. including a new case study and a few examples from these settings would provide the connection needed for these readers. in closing, we recommend action research: improving schools and empowering educators as a textbook and research manual to practitioner researchers, university doctoral advisors and instructors, and education graduate students conducting action research. it will be a book that students and practitioner researchers alike will keep close to them as they pursue their action research adventures. josephine peyton marsh arizona state university debbie deibert tulsa community college impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 27 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 addressing the need for an alternative education networking in rural school districts trina pettit doane university trina.pettit@doane.edu abstract recent legislative efforts have been aimed at increasing the accountability of schools to meet the educational needs and improve outcomes for students. states and districts across the nation have responded differently. one emerging pattern has been the rise in alternative schools which address the educational needs of students unsuccessful in traditional school settings. although alternative schooling is becoming more common, there is minimal guidance to establish programs and train professionals to teach and lead them. this dissertation in practice (dip) examined current alternative programs in a rural region of nebraska and then designed a collaborative networking system that could promote the growth and development of alternative programs through shared resources and expertise and meaningful inquiry into current practices. while this article is an obvious outcome of this dissertation research, so too is the still-incipient network of alternative educators who assisted with this inquiry. keywords alternative education, collaborative networks, rural statement of the problem of practice having roots in the experimentalism, idealism, and discontent of the 1960s (fink, 2000), alternative programs have consistently evolved over the past decades as an approach to address the increasing pressures on secondary schools and the growing demand to meet the needs of students who have not been successful in the traditional school setting (deeds & depaoli, 2017; rennie center, 2014; tissington, 2006; velasco et al., 2008). the no child left behind act (nclb) was signed into law in january 2002 and intended to increase accountability measures and improve academic standards for all students through various forms of testing. as part of nclb, congress included graduation rates in our accountability system for the first time (klemick, 2007). these more stringent accountability measures “may be a contributing factor to the increased number of students placed in alternative education programs” (tissington, 2006, p. 20). alternative education programs are designed to meet the same academic standards as a traditional school but offer unique settings and serve to address the barriers of the conventional approach to education (newton et al., 2022). nclb precipitated a variety of alternative education programs that were needed to create different avenues for students who were at risk of school failure within the traditional school system (lehr et al., 2009). while nclb was officially replaced by every student succeeds act (essa) in 2015, schools have continued to seek new and innovative ways to engage students where traditional schools have failed to educate effectively. although alternative education programs have been steadily on the rise, a review of literature indicates there is an absence of federal educational policy surrounding the programming of alternative education. state policies vary but many, including nebraska, focus on defining alternative education settings that are separate from the public school institution, such as juvenile facilities or charter schools. unlike special education programs, federal policies and often state legislation, do not address alternative education programs that are located within the public school systems (deeds & depaoli, 2017; lehr et al., 2009; porowski et al., 2014). in special education, the individuals with education act (idea) outlines guidelines that public schools must meet for children receiving special education services. recently, in the endrew f. vs. douglas county school district (2017) case, courts determined that students with disabilities must have an individualized education plan (iep) that is “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress in light of the child’s circumstances.” although somewhat nebulous, there is accountability and guidelines to implementing a free and appropriate public education (fape) for students receiving special education services. however, the lack of legislation and inconsistencies around alternative education programs leads states to create their own policies to oversee and examine statewide alternative programs (almeida et al., 2009; schlessman & hurtado, 2012). this leads to discontinuity between districts and amongst states and does not ensure that the students' needs are being met (almeida et al, 2009). to better understand the impact of alternative schools at a fuller extent, it is necessary to look more closely at alternative schools and the challenges they face in educating students that have not been successful in traditional school settings (lehr et al., 2009; newton, 2022). https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5682-1313 pettit impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 28 challenges in alternative education the lack of guidance from district or state officials leaves alternative schools to face unique challenges in addressing the diverse needs of students (deeds & depaoli, 2017). as a leader in an alternative education setting who has a passion for improving our programs, i have witnessed some of the challenges alternative schools face in meeting the needs of students. first, alternative schools in general face their own particular set of circumstances because they are situated within a unique ‘gray area’ in the field of education. currently, there are limited endorsements nationwide for alternative education that do not fall under the umbrella of special education. this results in disparities in the type of instructor who teaches students in alternative settings. through the federal policies such as essa and idea, our government has increased expectations and awareness regarding highly qualified teachers, including teachers of special education. however, the legislation only minimally outlined the expectations that teachers in alternative programs must possess in relation to content knowledge and teaching skills (u.s. department of education, 2004). currently there is very basic “legislative or policy language stating alternative teachers must be certified or comply with state standards” (lehr et al., 2009, p. 27) which, again, varies from state to state. this negligence in policy leads to the autonomy of alternative education, but also results in questions about the instructional and staffing needs (lehr et al., 2009) as well as the educational preparation needed to best serve this population of students. additionally, educators in alternative programs are faced with the challenge of having few other professionals in the field to turn to for advice or guidance. previous literature (e.g., flower et al., 2011; deeds & depaoli, 2017; rennie center, 2014) regarding alternative programs identifies research-supported practices that can be identified in well-run programs. however, despite the research on promising practices, it is still unclear to what extent these practices are consistently being implemented. without opportunities for professional development or networking amongst colleagues, these practices appear to be isolated and inconsistent. educators in rural alternative schools face additional challenges in meeting the needs of their students. alternative programs in these areas are scarcer and often have only one or two people per district assigned to the programs. in rural areas, the number of students alternative programs serve are often not enough to substantiate a separate campus for alternative schooling (government accountability office, 2019, para. 23) with like-educators in which to collaborate. the geographic isolation, small size, and limited resources available all impact the opportunities for educators to access professional development specific to unique contexts (battelle for kids, 2016). these factors amplify the isolation of alternative education teachers in rural areas. additionally, knowledge or availability of community partners and outside resources, such as social service networks, are lacking in rural areas (alliance for excellent education, (2010). as a leader of an alternative program, gaining access to additional resources proved to be a challenge which furthermore substantiated my sense that there needs to be more attention to alternative education, particularly in rural areas. but my dissertation was not a traditional dissertation that can just document a problem and be done. i had a stake not just in substantiating the challenge i faced, but also in doing something about it. purpose of the study a gap in research regarding the predominance and effectiveness of alternative education programs provides the context for this study. in my research, i located 15 school districts and one educational service unit (esu) that serve students in an alternative setting in rural areas. using surveys and interviews, i identified ways in which these schools implement strategies and access resources to provide at-risk students with an opportunity to engage in an alternate form of learning. this stage of the research sought to determine ways in which alternative programs do things differently than traditional schools to promote the success of students at-risk for dropping out. through this investigation, i identified the areas of strength and opportunities for growth that would allow us to focus our efforts on improving the educational experiences for students in alternative education. with this data, i demonstrated both an interest and a need to then create a regional networking system for sharing ideas, strategies, and practices with the goal of collaboration, improvement, and promotion of our alternative programs. i describe why educators talking with other similarly situated educators in a network can be a key mechanism for assuring the professionalism and nimbleness of our efforts. honest assessment and reflection into the role of alternative education and the outcomes for the students we serve are necessary to maximize the efforts of programs that are aimed at some of our most vulnerable youth. problem of practice questions the problem of practice questions for this study identify alternative education programs, evaluate the implementation of research-supported practices and establish a collaborative network for alternative education teachers and administrators. 1. how do professionals working in alternative education describe their programs? 2. how do professionals working in alternative education describe professional development opportunities specific to their context? 3. in what ways are alternative education programs in rural districts implementing and generating research-supported practices? 4. how can i organize a localized networking system for the collaboration of teachers and teacher leaders within alternative education aimed at improving the educational outcomes of students in these programs? conceptual framework in education, “one of the great values of the job, its diversity of experience, is also one of the biggest challenges” (brock & goodman, 2013, p. 1). for many students, there seems to be a mismatch between their lives and the educational system in which they are mandated to attend. the frequent incongruity between the school and the student may be viewed as a result of the structure of the schools. “schools as currently organized are much better calibrated to serve privileged groups than groups placed on the margin” (deschenes et al., 2001, p. 527). more optimistically, for the students who do not fit into this traditional model of schools, alternative programs can provide a diverse array of options that alternative education networking in rural districts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 29 expand beyond academics to address the barriers of traditional schooling (newton et al., 2022). to reach a vast number of students who have become disconnected from schools, alternative programs must consider “changing the current structures and philosophy of existing schools” (brock & goodman, 2013, p. 5). alternative schools and programs must seek ways to become fundamentally different from the foundation of traditional education with the goal of increasing academic performance, reducing dropout rates, and improving postsecondary outcomes. there is a need to “develop teachers and administrators who are knowledgeable, courageous, and motivated to challenge the old paradigms so that we can create models for success” (brock & goodman, 2013, p. 5). these changes in education are necessary and critical to a large number of at-risk youths whose futures may depend on our educational systems. the ultimate goal of this research was to create a context in which to engage practitioners in collaborative reflection that identify both the successes and challenges of operating these types of programs. dissertations in practice (dips) are to be more than diagnostic. they are to describe pursued action steps, efforts to attend to identified problems of practice, like a lack of clarity regarding how alternative programs could or should be structured and how ideas about how to operate could be shared. linking professionals from the same education discipline provides a space in which educators can reflect upon challenges, share ideas and resources, and develop solutions to improve our practices (battelle for kids, 2016; parsley, 2017). as teachers develop ownership, they become more involved in the planning of professional development opportunities that are based upon the individualized needs of their students and programs within their profession (longworth, 2006). this type of empowerment can lead teachers to become agents of educational change, calling “on their abilities to solve the problems and challenges they face” (voogt et al., 2015, p. 262). with minimal educational policy and legislation regarding alternative education, i would argue there is a need to implement a bottom-up reform approach (honig, 2004) to create a collaborative vision for alternative programs. in this approach, “schools become key decision makers” (honig, 2004, p. 528) and lead the charge in implementing effective communication efforts which embrace the future and progress of these programs. together, the key players in alternative education become the front-line policy makers that unite to further identify research-supported practices and policies that support individuals, families, schools, and communities. professional development and networking are the keys to collaboration and understanding the needs of our students. once we understand what is best, we will be better equipped to provide services for at-risk students. methodology research design this study used an ethnographically informed educational design research approach that used components of ethnography to develop insights and create practical solutions in a real-world context. the benefit of ethnography is the rich detail of context it provides through data. ethnography represents the perspectives of educators from within their own unique contexts (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009). through this research, practitioners were able to share their personal insights into the alternative programs they serve and the challenges and successes they face. as erickson (1984) states, ethnography “provides an inquiry process by which we can ask open-ended questions that will result in new insights about schooling in american society” (p.65). however, this isn’t the end of the road for educational practitioners. scholarly practitioners, like me, want to utilize research results to take actionable steps toward change (mehan, 2008). by adding design research, the researcher fostered a partnership with the practitioners and allowed them to collaboratively engage in the development of new understanding (voogt et. al, 2015). through the formation of a networking system, i created a forum for teachers and teacher leaders of alternative education to work together to improve the educational outcomes for the students within these programs. exploration of needs when i began this exploration into alternative education programs, i felt i needed more understanding of what other alternative programs existed and what these programs were doing to serve their students. preliminary research began investigating the types of alternative programs across the state and what those programs aimed to provide. in the summer of 2018, i began reaching out to schools to identify which ones had a need for alternative programming for students in need of credit recovery. it was also during this time that i contacted the nebraska department of education (nde) to understand what involvement they had with alternative education. through a conversation with one of the representatives in the office of accountability, accreditation and program approval1, i found that the nde had little information to share about alternative programs that do not fall within the jurisdiction of rule 17 or rule 18, which provide only limited information on programs for students that have been expelled or interim schools (nebraska department of education, 1997). alternative programs outside of these are only held to the same standards as the high schools in which they are embedded, but not identified separately. from my informal interviews and email correspondences with principals, teachers, and representatives from the nde, the pertinence of my problem of practice was confirmed; there was a growing need for alternative education programs but little guidance on practices that were effective. the schools i approached were describing similar dilemmas. there is a need to reach at-risk youth in alternative settings and improve their educational outcomes. these preliminary efforts became the foundation for the development of my research study. data sources and data collection in the southeastern region of nebraska where the research was conducted, there were three esus who served a total of 40 schools. within this region, i reached out to schools to identify which ones 1 this information was gathered in my preliminary investigation into alternative programs and information was given to me as a teacher from an nde representative and i do not wish to name this individual for privacy and anonymity. pettit impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 30 had alternative programs, looking solely for programs located in rural areas and that served secondary students within their public school system that were deemed at-risk for not completing their high school education. i found that 15 school districts and one esu had established alternative education programs. targeting esu directors, administrators, and teachers of these alternative education programs resulted in a total of 42 potential participants. surveys surveys were created and then distributed online to the 42 potential participants, using qualtrics software with an invitation to participate. survey data was collected from 17 participants for a 40% response rate. however, two participants did not complete the survey in its entirety and one respondent indicated their position within the school system was not directly related to alternative education. responses from the remaining 14 participants became my study’s first major data source. surveys used multiple choice and open-ended questions to collect information on the participant, programming in alternative schools, and perceptions of the participant in relation to the requirements of teaching in an alternative setting and access to professional development. surveys also included a section on the implementation of some noted research-supported practices in alternative education asking respondents to what extent they agreed or disagreed with the statements as they related to their alternative program. the final section of the survey asked the participants if they were willing to be contacted in the future for participation in an interview and for their interest as a potential participant in the networking system. interviews following the surveys, individuals that responded stating that they would be willing to be contacted for further clarification of their answers were approached to give consent to interview. of the fourteen survey respondents, nine people indicated they would agree to an interview and were sent a consent invitation to participate. four individuals subsequently confirmed an interview. the four interviews conducted represented 28.5% of my survey respondents used in this research and a total of 9.1% of the total number of potential participants. the participants were two teachers and two administrators. none of the four were part of my own alternative education program, so their insights broadened my sense of what was happening regionally. interviews were conducted using zoom and by phone (in one case). i chose to use semi-structured interviews (corbin & strauss, 2015) that consisted of a list of 20 open-ended questions which encouraged the participants to elaborate on their survey responses and give further clarification on the roles of alternative programs within public schools. the first set of interview questions sought information on the participants’ educational background. some of these introductory questions also helped me establish if there were themes in specific degrees, endorsements, or certifications teachers in alternative education held. following the introductory questions, the structure was based on the problem of practice questions, identifying types of alternative programs, perspectives on the implementation of research-supported practices, and interest in future networking. at the end of the interview, an audio file was created on my password protected laptop. data analysis after this two-phase data collection, i completed a descriptive report of the survey data. because the purpose of these ethnographic methods was identifying overarching patterns and themes to inform design, limited statistical analyses (modes, means) were conducted. the response data were organized by sections, collecting all survey questions and responses related to the research sections. i went through the data to “analyze smaller chunks of data” (bhattacharya, 2017, p. 150) and determined patterns in teacher/administrator demographics, program descriptors, access to professional development, and perspectives of the implementation of research-supported practices. using the audio-recordings i transcribed the interviews. while transcribing, i completed some pre-coding, taking notes on “thoughts, hunches, emotions, connections” (bhattacharya, 2017, p. 131) that would be beneficial to the creation of a networking system. following the transcription of the interviews, i compiled the interview data by problem of practice question in a document. i printed a hard copy of this document and coded, by hand, with a highlighting marker, and began reviewing all responses for segments that addressed each question. color-coding was used to highlight words or phrases that were repeated or ideas that stood out specifically to identify emergent themes or topics for each problem of practice questions. after coding the interview data, i combined the data from both the surveys and interviews for triangulation, “testing one source of data against the other, looking for patterns of thought and behavior” (creswell & poth, 2018, p. 205). interview data were compared to the survey questions in which they coincided. i examined survey data and coded interview transcripts for each component of the survey and took notes to present descriptive and interpretive data to present participants’ understanding of the context in which they educate students. analysis of this first phase of the project was then used to inform the design of a networking system for alternative education teachers and leaders in rural communities. findings this section presents a brief overview of the results of this study. it attempts to provide a comparative analysis of both the survey and interview data. the data show how interview participants were similar to or different from the survey respondents or represent when interviewee information was not available to support the survey data. program descriptors who is served survey data indicated that districts ranged from serving between eight to 40 students in their alternative education programs. five of the 14 total participants indicated their programs were unable to enroll students during the last year because of lack of resources. programs were serving several students in alternative education and providing new opportunities for students to engage in school. however, with the limited number of spaces available for students in the alternative programs, schools were still restricting the number of students that could be served, and potentially denying access to students who may benefit from these services. to identify who the alternative programs were serving, the survey data requested participants identify various subsets of alternative education networking in rural districts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 31 students their programs were designed to serve. table 1 shows the subsets of students being served in alternative education programs in the region of study. most notably, participants indicated they served a variety of students, but nearly all served students with discipline or behavioral issues (n=13), students with attendance issues (n=12), and students in need of credit recovery (n=12). table 1. subsets of students targeted survey (n=14) interview (n=4) students with attendance issues (truancy) 12 4 students in need of credit recovery 12 4 students with discipline or behavioral issues 13 3 students recommended by staff (e.g., counselor or teacher) 7 3 students re-entering after expulsion 8 2 what is provided table 2 shows the results of the survey in regard to the mode of instruction used in alternative programs. survey respondents reported that online instruction was the most commonly used mode of instruction (n=7). four districts reported they taught instruction-in person and three with blended learning (e.g., online with an inperson facilitator). one of the struggles revealed in interviews was the challenge of meeting the credit needs of a variety of students through in person instruction. one interviewee stated her program has 1-5 students per teacher and another interviewee stated his programs have 6-10 students per teacher. teachers were utilizing online instruction to meet the students’ different coursework requirements for graduation. however, it was noted in interviews that in-person instruction is an important aspect of establishing and maintaining relationships to keep students engaged in school. table 2. mode of instruction survey (n=14) interview (n=4) in person 4 1 online 7 1 blended learning (e.g., online with an inperson facilitator) 3 2 access to professional development as part of the larger design project, the survey and interviews probed respondents for their experiences relative to access to professional development opportunities related to alternative programs. survey data shown in table 3 indicates less than half of the districts had specific requirements for teaching in an alternative school beyond the regular teacher requirements. in interviews, one participant responded they had special requirements requiring teachers in the alternative education program to have special education endorsement. however, this school was specifically designed for students with special education needs. the programs that were serving students specifically for credit recovery did not have any other additional requirements. table 3. specific requirements for teaching in alternative program survey (n=14) interview (n=4) yes 6 1 no 7 3 unsure 1 0 another question in the category of professional development asked respondents to indicate any types of professional development opportunities they participated in the previous year. table 4 shows the results of this portion of the survey and indicates participants most frequently attended workshops, conferences or trainings as an attendee (n=6) followed by peer observation of other teachers in their district (n=4) or participating in a mentoring program within their district (n=4). three respondents indicated they had not participated in any professional development activities in the previous school year. table 4. participation in professional development the previous school year survey (n=14) interview (n=4) university course related to alternative education 1 0 university course unrelated to alternative education 1 0 visits to other alternative education programs 3 1 individual or collaborative research on a topic in alternative education 2 0 mentoring program in your district 4 0 peer observation of other teachers in your district 4 0 participation in alternative education collaborative network 3 0 workshops, conferences, or trainings as an attendee 6 1 workshops, conferences or trainings as a presenter 1 0 implementation of research-supported practices through the use of a survey and interviews, i sought to explore what respondents did within their alternative programs in relation to the best practices outlined by the national alternative education association (naea). this section of the survey was adapted from the naea’s exemplary practices 2.0 (national alternative education association, 2014) list and shortened to keep the survey to a reasonable length. the survey identified fourteen main components of exemplary practices with subcomponents that described these practices. for the purpose of my research, i chose to refer to these practices as “research-supported” to acknowledge that although we know these practices are supported by research, further advances in the field may indicate other practices that are equally effective or even more influential to the success of students. table 5 shows an overall mean score from the survey for the fourteen main components as derived from a five-point likert scale of 1 to 5 with 5 meaning strongly agree and 1 meaning strongly disagree. pettit impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 32 participants indicated two main areas for strengths: climate and culture, and policies and procedures. eleven out of the fourteen participants strongly agreed they had lists and procedures for conducting emergency drills in place in their programs. also, nine of the fourteen participants noted they strongly agreed they have established a thorough written code of conduct and comprehensive student discipline plan outlining rules and behavioral expectations, appropriate interventions, and consequences for infractions. through interviews, i learned some of the programs established their rules and behavioral expectations through contracts and felt that their programs overall had a positive atmosphere. the top three areas for growth that participants identified were in the following categories: school social work, collaboration, and program evaluation. the survey and interview data indicated that programs were recognizing the impact they were making but documenting particular student outcomes (graduation rates, credits earned, attendance, disciplinary data, and dropout statistics) was an area of need. data also noted an absence of school social work programs and a need to foster collaboration with community partners. most of the collaboration efforts noted in interviews were with employment-type agencies that assist in post-secondary employment support and representatives from the criminal justice system, including trackers, probation officers, and school resource offices. table 4. implementation of research-supported practices educational practice mean score vision and mission 3.81 leadership 4.03 climate and culture 4.28 staffing and professional development 3.85 curriculum and instruction 3.84 student assessment 3.98 transition planning and support 3.78 parent/guardian involvement 4.18 collaboration 3.47 program evaluation 3.57 school counseling 3.73 school social work 3.46 policies and procedures 4.32 nontraditional education plan 3.87 discussion the following section will discuss the key findings from the surveys and interviews conducted. this data will be used as a source of reflection within the context of an established, localized networking group to address the challenges we face as well as celebrate the successes. the findings will be addressed as they pertain to the problem of practice questions i was seeking to address. participants’ descriptions of programs survey and interview participants identified a wide range of descriptions for the alternative programs in which they work. but one thing remains consistent and that is these programs are serving students who have been academically unsuccessful in traditional school settings and there needs to be “flexibility to develop practices that meet students’ needs” (rennie center, 2014, p. 6). alternative programs need to provide personalized options for students based on his or her individual needs. it was identified that alternative programs target three main populations: students with behavioral concerns, students with attendance issues, and students in need of credit recovery. when thinking about the students these alternative programs served, i think it is important for programs to revisit their purpose. lehr (2009) questions whether districts have an underlying intent of utilizing the alternative schools to assist in behavior management in the traditional school setting versus truly meeting the needs of the students they serve. it is important to make these distinct clarifications so that alternative programs have a clear purpose and are not just being used as a ‘catch-all’ for students that are struggling without positive intentions to best meet their needs. another similarity i found was the use of online curriculum. the data from this survey closely matched a nationwide survey sponsored by the u.s. department of education (2018) which stated that credit recovery programs were most commonly provided online followed by a blended model and then in-person. online programs offer flexibility in serving students because students can access the instruction from various locations and at various times throughout the day (dessoff, 2009). it offers programs a chance to work around the personal needs of students which may include parenting, employment, or medical issues (franco & patel, 2011). it also allows students to work at their own pace and may help overcome some of the attendance challenges as students will not fall behind their peers. there are, however, some concerns with online programs. some students have difficulty because of their limited skills such as language skills, reading skills or computer usage skills or they may lack the ability to self-monitor their learning (franco & patel, 2011; oliver et al, 2009). it has been noted there are lower completion rates for students in online programs (clements et al., 2015). with students needing to meet different graduation requirements, online programs address the need for teachers to teach a variety of content areas throughout the school day. in various research studies (e.g., brown & addison, 2012; foley & pang, 2006) teachers most frequently indicated their background was in general education, usually a specific subject matter at the secondary level. if teachers are not qualified to teach the content subject matter of all these various courses, online programs also offer availability to rigorous content in areas the teacher does not have the background expertise. although online programs offer some flexibility in programming, it will be important for alternative teachers and leaders to continue to weigh the pros and cons of the options for instructional delivery and continue to reflectively evaluate the effectiveness they hold in meeting the needs of their students. professional development opportunities survey and interview participants were asked questions pertaining to the professional development opportunities they have had both prior to teaching and during their recent teaching career. the first set of questions investigated the specific requirements teachers of alternative programs must have. the second set of questions then sought to identify opportunities for professional alternative education networking in rural districts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 33 development that teachers have utilized in the previous year of teaching. requirements of teaching in alternative education through the surveys, i learned that less than half of the districts in my research area indicated they have specific requirements for teaching in the alternative school beyond the regular teacher requirements. this information was not unforeseen as i reported earlier the lack of endorsements nationwide for serving students in an alternative education setting. there becomes a problem in alternative education when considering the provisions of nclb which requires teachers to be highly qualified. as defined by the department of education, “to be deemed highly qualified, teachers must have: 1) a bachelor's degree, 2) full state certification or licensure, and 3) prove that they know each subject they teach.” (u.s. department of education, 2004, p.10). alternative programs have been under some scrutiny for not meeting the standards of highly qualified teachers set forth by nclb because of this exact issue (lehr et al., 2009). i would argue that this definition results in a narrow vision of what makes ‘good teaching’ and fails to account for the “professional knowledge and understanding teachers derive from their local experiences and relationships with students” (cochron-smith & lyle, 2009, p .81). it also fails to acknowledge the complexity that exists within our educational environments. this is an area i foresee continuing to be challenged and addressed through further legislation. opportunities for professional development survey and interview participants noted a lack of professional development opportunities specific to alternative education. through the survey, respondents noted they participated in a variety of other professional development opportunities but not in high numbers. attending workshops, conferences, or training was the highest recorded response, but less than half of the respondents stated they had participated in this type of professional development. the next two most common types of professional development were peer observation of teachers within their district and participating in a mentoring program within their district. from the interviews, i learned that professional development within the schools is geared toward the entire high school staff and not specific to alternative education. although these types of professional development are great ways to learn new instructional strategies, it may not specifically address the challenges teachers in alternative programs face. three teachers stated they have made visits to other alternative sites which i think would be more beneficial. one of my challenges has been trying to identify the location of other programs resulting in limited options for seeking professional guidance and advice from other practitioners. a study conducted by education northwest indicated significant positive effects of uniting teachers from similar disciplines for collaboration across rural districts (parsley, 2017). teacher involvement in collaborative design is increasingly being viewed as a form of professional development as they can engage in meaningful, reflective practice with peers (parsley, 2017; voogt, 2015). i believe creating a networking group will bring these people together and provide more opportunity to access professional development, particularly in learning from each other and visiting other alternative education programs. implementation of research-supported practices when reflecting on the survey and interview data regarding the implementation of research-supported practices, i noticed both strengths and opportunities for growth. i believe alternative programs have a relative strength in addressing what i view as the “here and now.” schools have established safe and caring alternative programs in environments that support student learning. these programs are finding ways to incorporate a positive atmosphere for behavioral management and student discipline that is encouraging for students and families. policies and procedures for alternative schools have been developed and implemented to ensure the safety of students and assist in maintaining a code of conduct. these alternative programs remain focused on helping students and there is promising evidence “emerging that efforts to redesign alternative education contributes to rising graduation rates” (almeida et al., 2009, p. 2). the survey and interview data suggested there was noticeable room for growth among alternative programs in southeast nebraska. as i described, many of the strengths in alternative programs seemed to be focusing on the “here and now.” additionally, i would argue many of the areas for growth were planning for the students’ futures. the top areas of need identified in the surveys as well as some additional areas within other categories show alternative programs must continue to make efforts to support the social and emotional needs of students to help them become successful adults. many studies are being conducted on the importance of these types of skills in the workplace and some studies suggest soft skills are the number one factor for success in employment and in post-secondary education (robles, 2012; schulz, 2008). if we want our students to be successful in whichever path they pursue after high school, we must be purposeful about implementing curriculum and activities that help develop these skills. the results from the survey also identified a specific need to connect with community agencies and build partnerships for students. partnerships with local community colleges and local businesses are opportunities to implement necessary and critical resources for alternative schools. understanding that students in alternative schools are some of our most vulnerable youth (lehr et al., 2009), connecting students to community supports becomes critical in building success beyond the school walls. in a national study, 84% of alternative programs indicated they collaborated with the juvenile justice system, the highest recognized partnership (foley & pang, 2006). through the interviews in this study, this information was corroborated as alternative programs in this region identified partnering most frequently with individuals such as police officers, probation officers, or trackers. i believe there is a need to identify additional community partners that will help students build positive relationships within the community context. another area for growth suggested by the data was the need to evaluate program effectiveness. in the interviews, none of the participants had information available on student outcome data (graduation rates, attendance, disciplinary data, and dropout statistics) and most of them stated they did not believe that information was being collected. it will be important to consider methods in which alternative programs will evaluate effectiveness. the current accountability and outcome measures used in traditional schools do not acknowledge the differences that exist in alternative programs (newton et al., 2022). policymakers attempting to improve alternative education must look at how policies align with the expectations of alternative education (almeida et al., 2009). as the pettit impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 34 term ‘alternative’ implies, these programs are taking different approaches to re-engage students and may also need to consider alternative methods to evaluate these programs. organization of localized network system for collaboration i believe the need for alternative programs to maintain some autonomy is critical to their success. these programs are serving students who have been academically unsuccessful in traditional school settings and there needs to be flexibility in designing programs that suit individual needs of students (rennie center, 2014). educators and administrators are recognizing alternative programs can offer some valuable options for students. a networking group can be one beneficial way to allow practitioners the opportunity to engage in discussion and build professional relationships to expand and enhance alternative education in rural areas. using the survey results and interviews, educators from alternative programs were invited to participate in the described networking committee. there was a total of 10 survey participants stating they would be interested in becoming part of a networking group. to increase the number of attendees, participants in this research study were encouraged to invite others playing a vital role in alternative education. the first date for the alternative education networking session was set for november 7, 2019, and held at one of the esu buildings included in the research. since this initial meeting, there have been additional meetings to maintain the network aimed at enhancing practices. as a networking group, one of our priorities must be to collaboratively define the purpose of alternative education and establish the goals, mission and vision for these programs. establishing purpose is important for a variety of reasons and lays the framework to make improvements in several categories of research-supported practices. we need to have discussions regarding the philosophy contributing to the foundation of these programs. to reduce the inequities of schools, we must first identify who alternative education is designed for (kim & taylor, 2008). is our philosophy that students are attending these programs because the educational system is not meeting their needs and require a new, innovative way at accessing curriculum and instruction? or are alternatives being viewed as an option for students that are not meeting the educational expectations of the traditional setting and utilized to displace the child to improve success of the traditional school? (rennie center, 2014 p. 16). these are necessary questions to address for the sake of our students. if we truly believe alternative schools are being utilized for the betterment of the students, we must “remedy this mismatch in public education” (deschenes et al., 2001, p.526) to create educational environments that meet the needs of our most vulnerable youth. creating a mission and vision allows us to have conversations relative to program service and delivery. if we believe our schools are responsible for reinventing an educational approach, then we must have access to the resources and supports necessary to make that happen. often districts show no hesitancy in sending students to alternative schools, but do not necessarily provide the appropriate resources to support them (brown & addison, 2012). through networking, we can work collaboratively to become advocates not only for our students but for ourselves as professionals. “we don’t want to exclude alternatives, but include them with purpose” (rennie center, 2014, p. 11). it also becomes important to discuss the purpose, mission and vision of these programs so we can seek appropriate and relevant professional development opportunities specific to our programs. for example, if we determine one of our goals is to help students develop the employability skills necessary for the world of work, then we can seek professional development opportunities to support that specific goal. or if we determine one of our goals is to “search for ways to make learning relevant and applicable to life outside of school” (brown & addison, 2012, p. 8), then what kinds of professional development are out there? we can also determine specific strategies our colleagues are using to support our goals, mission, and vision and use each other for the opportunity to grow. developing a specific purpose allows us to seek partnerships within the school and community for support. “critical educators who work toward social change endorse theories that are dialectical” (mclaren, 2003, p. 69). we recognize the issues these students face are the product of a larger social structure and require support beyond the educational institutions. having this dialectical thinking, allows us to begin to identify partners for change. we need to find a way to implement a more systematic transformation of services, which requires multiple stakeholders to come together to address the multifaceted needs of our students (newton et al., 2022). finally establishing this purpose allows us to think about our expectations for students. what are the outcomes we want for our students and how do our programs support these? alternative schools must be engaged in promoting positive, social change and having these expectations outlined, our networking group can begin to identify ways to evaluate our programs, improve our shortcomings, and celebrate our successes. i also believe, using our new knowledge, we can become advocates for change on a grander scale. recommendations for future research and practice the findings from this study suggested several areas for future research. first, identifying appropriate methods for evaluating the effectiveness of alternative programs could be valuable in program development. collecting information on outcome data such as graduation rates, employment rates, enrollment in postsecondary programs, and utilizing community agencies could be instrumental in transforming programs. compiling accurate data can allow districts to “develop a keen sense of which practices have the greatest potential impact for which students” (rennie center, 2014, p. 14). it will help to determine which modes of instruction and components of curriculum are most beneficial in supporting students in school and beyond. there must also be an effort put forth to identify ways to equip alternative programs with the necessary resources to be successful. the resources should include “adequate staffing, adequate instructional resources for teachers, remediation resources for students, and specialized training for teachers” (brown & addison, 2012, p. 19) as well as necessary funding. it will be important to identify options for professional development for teachers in alternative education, as this was a reported need in this research. with the understanding that the state of nebraska (and most other states) has no college-level programs addressing the needs of alternative education networking in rural districts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.231 35 teachers in alternative education, specific professional development opportunities should be available for teachers to build the skills necessary to improve their instructional practices within their programs. currently, these resources seem to be minimal at best. research should focus on the benefits of collaboration systems such as the one created in this system and empower others to assist in building their own learning networks. research could further focus on collegiate-level programs that strengthen the qualifications and skills necessary to be an effective teacher of alternative programs. teaching in an alternative program requires teachers to have a knowledge of the general education curriculum, but also have behavior management strategies and positive behavioral supports to enhance their classroom atmosphere. in addition, alternative teachers could benefit from additional training in communication and collaboration with school personnel, community-based professionals, and families. finally, future research may focus on the investigation of current laws and policies surrounding alternative programs in other states. this investigation could begin to outline the benefits and constraints these types of policies place upon alternative education programs. the networking group created in this study is one way that practitioners can support change within their own practice; however, continuing to address the larger systems that impact legislation will be important. conclusion alternative programs have been on the rise and are one way public schools are embracing the vision that the educational institutions must provide an appropriate education for all students. alternative programs seek to implement innovative methods to teach students who have not been successful with mainstream education and provide them a chance to re-engage with learning. research has shown effective alternative schools can “engage, retain, and graduate high-risk students” (franklin et al., 2007). however, schools must make an effort to ensure they are offering a genuine alternative with an allocation of appropriate resources, staffing, and opportunity for professional growth. these programs must remain attached to their purpose and design holistic programs that support these youth through a variety of services. through a collaborative network, practitioners can engage in meaningful work to establish goals that aim to improve alternative programs at the local, state, and national levels. the work in alternative schools may not be easy but is worth the effort to fight for our students who deserve this opportunity. references alliance for excellent education. 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(2015). collaborative design as a form of professional development. instructional science,43(2), 259–282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251014-9340-7 https://www.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/rule17_1997.pdf https://www.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/rule17_1997.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/piq.21358  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed546775.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/1080569912460400 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed534083.pdf https://ir.nust.na/handle/10628/39 https://doi.org/10.3200/psfl.51.1.19-25 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed483139.pdf https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:pd787ty1500/aeo_issue_brief.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-014-9340-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-014-9340-7 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 26 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 artful design: disruptions within the dissertation in practice peaches hash appalachian state university hashpe@appstate.edu abstract a student within a university’s ed.d. program is encouraged by her director to narrow her research focus; however, her interests in curriculum studies, arts-based educational research, and composition studies led her to design a practitioner action research study examining intersections between the fields. as she collected participants’ data, she experienced poststructural disruptions within all stages of the dissertation process, from designing and collecting data to formatting and identity as a researcher. this narrative, exploratory article showcases how dissertations in practice can follow nonlinear pathways to knowledge when researchers are open to possibilities. keywords practitioner action research; expressive arts; curriculum; poststructuralism; higher education during my first semester of doctoral coursework, i had so many ideas for my dissertation that i could hardly keep them straight. as i explained several of them to the former director of my ed.d. program, she stopped me. “eventually, you will have to pick which camp you belong to,” she said with a smile. i sat back in my chair, contemplating her advice. i knew that she meant well and was encouraging me to focus my energy on one idea, but i had heard a version of this statement all my life when faced with choices: art or english teacher, master’s in education or master’s in english, ph.d. or ed.d.? to be honest, the decisions i have made, especially when it comes to education, have always been bittersweet. when i open a door, why should i have to close it all the way? what if my journey is nonlinear? what if i want to go into multiple rooms? ed.d. programs can feel both intimidatingly restrictive and open all at once. you are provided with so many colors to paint, but are not immune to the pressure of painting what you already know. i came to my ed.d. program with two degrees in english, knowing that i could write a standard dissertation easily, but my coursework encouraged me to think of different ways to use the paint. my ideas for my dissertation were vibrant, bold colors that i could not imagine forcing into a unified final product. i wanted to splatter the paint. my two years of doctoral coursework were spent with the bound dissertations of cohorts lined up evenly on shelves before me. though ranging in size, most uniformly had a gold title on the spine that encompassed the entire study, five chapters within black binding, and so on. i knew what was expected of me, but does a study that truly reflects multifaceted educational leadership completely “fit” in this standard format? i had so many research interests within education that spanned different methodologies, theories, and writing styles. can someone with so many educational interests really pick a “camp” and never look back? eisner (2008) profoundly stated that “universities ought to be places in which doctoral students could explore imaginatively new methods and concepts, and if universities could not provide such a setting, there were few places that could” (p. 18). i needed to utilize my knowledge to manifest this setting for my dissertation study, one that allowed for my research to work within multiple “camps.” once i finished my coursework and no longer had to stare at those homogenous dissertations, i decided, “perhaps, i will eventually have to pick which camp i belong to. but, not yet.” my dissertation journey was one of disruption. by allowing my ideas to splatter, i disrupted my understanding of knowledge, process, and my identity. disruption of design when i began designing my dissertation study, i thought that it would fall solely within the constructivist paradigm. constructivism is utilized to explore how art-making contributes to the construction of reality for those interacting with them. efland (2002) explains that throughout history, the function of the arts has been to construct reality. visual arts are representations of worlds, whether they be realistic or interpretive. dewey (1934/2005) believed that art-making can deepen the construction of reality because “to perceive, a beholder must create his own experience” (p. 56). while externally creating, the brain is internally creating as well. in terms of what is occurring within the brain, malchiodi (2018) asserts that the arts are able to evoke different responses than what language and logic are able to do, as well as “expand the logic of the thinking brain to other possibilities and perceptions” (p. 72); thus, art-making can deepen and enhance previously constructed knowledge as well as provoke the formation of new knowledge. with these theories in mind, i sought to explore how curriculum could be used to facilitate knowledge construction, both knowledge of writing and knowledge of http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ artful design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 27 self. expressive arts theory also contributes to constructivism. it is based on the ancient greek word poiesis, “the act of bringing something new into the world” (levine, 2017, p. 10), with the “something new” being knowledge/understanding instead of a highly skilled artistic product. through this construction, or composition process, art becomes a way of knowing (allen, 1995). with this knowledge of constructivism in mind, i designed the following research question: how does art-making influence a collegiate rhetoric and composition course? i believed that the question contained enough openness for participants’ individual knowledge construction as well as covered the reason i desired to bring art-making into my writing courses: to support students’ writing skills. but as i began collecting data, i realized that my original dissertation was not open enough. even in my first round of participant interviews on their art-making processes, i was collecting meaningful data that did not directly connect to writing skills. the data did, however, contribute to participants’ educational experiences. figure 1 is a participant’s visual artifact from my dissertation study. jade chose the topic of couponing for her literacy narrative project, creating art that reflected her experiences with mixed materials of receipts, magazine clippings, and cardboard. with her materials, she formed them to look like the perspective of a person with a full shopping cart, looking down at the items. jade stated that creating the art supported her writing process through brainstorming of ideas, composing her experiences into meaningful ways, and generating excitement for the written narrative she would also complete as part of the assignment; however, she also identified other benefits of the art-making, including stress-relief, reflection, and expression of emotions towards her hobby that were not writing skills that i tried to facilitate. in her interviews, it was clear that my arts-based curriculum had an effect that extended beyond writing skills, opening opportunities for jade to connect parts of her identity with her coursework in a way that created pleasurable educational experiences. at first, i felt as if i should stick with my plan. i was unsure if i could revise my research questions for my dissertation and recognized that my paradigm would need to move from constructivism to poststructuralism. although i planned for my dissertation to fall within the constructivist paradigm, i should not have been surprised when my research moved into poststructural ways of knowing. sullivan (2005) explains that visual arts practice can be described as a form of research from a “sense of knowing and unknowing, and how we deal with it” (p. 115), which is evident in my dissertation’s movements from constructivism to poststructuralism. because i designed a study that would explore “the intersections between the visual and the verbal” (childers et al., 1998, p. ix), data relating to students’ educational experiences emerged that i had not anticipated. students’ visual data is a “[r]epresentation [that] stabilizes the idea or image in a material and makes possible a dialogue with it” (eisner, 2002, p. 6); hence, the dialogue provided new understandings that emerged once the data was analyzed. figure 1. jade’s literacy narrative on couponing hash impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 28 it was also clear from my findings that i needed to reconsider my research question under poststructural framework. eisner (2008) posed the question, “could there be [. . .] an approach to educational research that would rely upon the imaginative and expressive crafting of a form in ways that enlarge our understanding of what goes on, say, in teaching?” (p. 18). the answer is undoubtedly yes, but only if researchers are willing to take risks. my original single research question limited my ability to see the multiple ways artmaking was supporting my students’ learning. i thought that my question contained an openness to possible outcomes that is reflective in both arts-based educational research (aber) and the interpretive or constructivist paradigm, which “examines [how people engage in processes of constructing and reconstructing meanings through daily interactions” (leavy, 2017, p. 129) as well as the meaning people assign to their experiences. because i was interested in studying students’ experiences, processes, and reflections, my original research question fell under a constructivist framework. the question prioritized students’ “subjective understandings and multiple meanings in the research process” (p. 129). but as i began to collect data, i understood that my research questions needed to allow for openness, multiplicity, and disruption of my own constructed knowledge. i needed to let go of the rigid structure i created with one research question and be open to postructural ways of knowing; therefore, i added the following to research questions:  what kinds of processes do students go through when creating these activities?  what is unsettled, disturbed, or disrupted when students engage in art-making within a collegiate rhetoric and composition course? although it was intimidating to revise my research questions as my study progressed, i needed to let go of the restrictive design i created for myself in order to be open to possibilities. essentially, i had to disrupt my design in order to fully understand the effect artsbased curriculum had on my participants. disruption of knowledge when i designed my study, i did not anticipate that data would lead me to reshape my research questions that would then lead to an entirely different understanding of educational research. previous degrees in english and education made me feel that narrow, specific ideas would make for simpler writing processes, and i already had data that supported student engagement and construction of identity. figure 2 is a word art visual i created by pasting my dissertation prospectus into the program. the shape symbolizes my original study’s design; i thought everything would fall into neat, organized, balanced categories of meaning based on what i predicted before the study began. there would be clear directions, everything would branch out from one unified center point, and it would be symmetrical. i thought that my dissertation research had to have all of those features to be effective, especially since the models i had seen were very much standard five chapter products. but i did not want my research to conform to preconceived notions and predictable themes; i wanted my research to “open up conversations and relationships instead of informing others about what has been learned” (irwin & springgay, 2008, p. xxx). i wanted to contribute to the growing understanding of composition and the arts, including processes other than “generating words” (sharples, 1999, p. 90), which meant i had to welcome disruption in my own research process. figure 2. research prospectus word art artful design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 29 something i would have never predicted before beginning my research was one of my major themes. as stated earlier, i began my dissertation research with the idea of studying how art-making supported my students’ writing processes. but i continued to see in the data that my curriculum was not just supporting their writing; it was doing something more that transcended outside of writing classrooms. through participants’ data, i learned that my arts-based curriculum was facilitating therapeutic experiences for my students that were unplanned. figure 2 is miles’s art for his literacy narrative project. he chose the topic of loving himself after experiencing a breakup. using paint, a foam noodle, and writing, he created a sunflower with leaves labeled with qualities he recognized within himself such as “mature” and “intelligent.” although he admitted that reflecting on his breakup was still painful, he appreciated the opportunity to reflect on it for a school project and noticed that he enjoyed parts of the art-making more than he had anticipated. the art assisted miles’s writing by helping him consider stages of literacy, but it did far more in terms of creating a therapeutic educational experience where he could express, process, and reflect on his emotions. like with my research question(s), i had a choice: i could follow the course and stick to only focusing on what my students relayed about art-making and their writing processes, or i could allow for disruption. triangulating data in the forms of journal reflections, interview responses, and visual artifacts made it clear that students were experiencing therapeutic benefits within my curriculum; and to ignore those in favor of a unified, more succinct study would invalidate everything i was doing; i would not be displaying the full picture of my findings. in arts-based educational research, the researcher must be open to ways data can unfold, allowing for time and patience as she separates entangled threads of meaning and follows them (hofsess, 2016). through this process, i discovered that figure 2 is an inauthentic representation of what educational research should be. data should instead splatter naturally, and researchers should find ways to involve all the splatters. figure 4 represents my new understanding: a less unified form with different sizes, shapes, and parts that veer from the main area. interestingly, the word art moved the words “active” and “method” together. artsbased educational research is a messier process than other qualitative methods where researchers must take active methods to understand splatters of meaning and be willing to shape and reshape ideas. figure 3. mile’s literacy narrative figure 4. revised research prospectus word art hash impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 30 disruption of format despite the disruptions of design and knowledge i experienced while working on my dissertation, i still originally planned to write the standard five chapter product. but as i began to analyze my data, i found that there were threads of meaning that contributed to different fields of research. forcing these findings into a standard dissertation format with a “results” section would require me to make overarching connections between findings that are not as specific, useful, or valid for myself as a practitioner learning from her research or an audience; therefore, i decided to write three separate manuscripts that focused specifically on unique findings and how they connected to composition studies, curriculum studies, and arts-based educational research. through an overarching introduction, chapter introductions, and a coda, i was able to take the reader through my composition process and explain my rationale. i also included that i would submit my manuscript to journals for potential publication, and at the time of writing this, one has been accepted in my first choice journal. each article also reflects an aspect of my (current) three major educational interests as well as my past, present, and future roles within educational research: i have been a practitioner for some time, i have recently been involved in curriculum studies, and i intend to move further into arts-based educational research. along with seeing different threads of meaning across my research, i also noticed nuanced, individual experiences within my research participants. it would have been simpler to force their data into a standard analysis format by making general connections; however, when i attempted to generalize in the analysis sections, i realized that i could not. if i generalized their data based on themes, i would lose participants’ unique voices that reveal the extent artmaking influenced them. my study was impactful because it examined how art-making can influence students’ experiences on individual levels of mindset, motivation, personal connections, and therapeutic effects. in order for me to showcase what art-making can do for individual students, i elected to use narrative analysis. this method for analysis enabled me to maintain individual research participants’ voices and experiences. disruption of identity before i began my dissertation, i was kindly advised to pick a camp and stick to it. it may have made for a more linear, less timeconsuming process, but i could not pick one camp. instead, my dissertation manuscripts blend practitioner action research, artsbased educational research, and my personal voice to create a picture of camps in which i am interested but am not willing to be exclusive: composition theory, curriculum studies, and arts-based educational research. dunn (2001) once explained that she was “still working” on her philosophy of teaching because she was still “working through” (p. 9) her philosophy of life, and so am i. currently, my life, as with research in education, is filled with constructed knowledge, multiple meanings, and opportunities for surprise; hence, the manuscripts reflect that. although my dissertation involved disruptions of process, formatting, and knowledge, it was my identity as an educational leader that was disrupted the most. i defended my prospectus and my dissertation in less than a year of each other, and those months were a whirlwind of research, writing, thinking i understood something, and then realizing i have a lot to learn; however, my dissertation reflects who i am becoming as a practitioner researcher. though education often asks students to write to show proficiency in knowledge, i do not think anything is worth writing if the writer does not encourage readers to think differently. my dissertation reflects arts-based inquiry because it is a process of discovery that transforms the participants as well as the researcher. as leavy (2018) explains, arts-based research and inquiry have the potential to transform because they are creative forms of trial and error where the researchers must be willing to change course based on new insights as well as rely on their own “internal monitor” (p. 11). i took risks by formatting my dissertation in a nontraditional way, but took greater risks in taking on all of my interests, showcasing data in ways that it spoke to me, designing my own customized study for my students, and allowing my findings to move me into new directions of knowing instead of limiting my study to what i originally had planned. sullivan (2005) describes learning as a “destabilizing process that results in the emergence of an individual voice within a collective agency” (p. 189). i welcomed the disruption that arts-based inquiry provided and allowed it to reveal my individual voice. content-wise, my dissertation shows readers that art-making not only enhances the classroom as a whole, but offers depth in learning to students and practitioners. art-making disrupts processes and formats, but most importantly, understandings of knowledge and identity. my dissertation journey also showcases what i believe as an educational researcher. to a certain degree, it is easy to identify a problem, find a solution, and state that it worked. prior (2018) explains that students are often encouraged to conduct and display research in “safe,” “unimaginative” (p. 5) ways, but my dissertation took a nonlinear, imaginative format of a journey of knowing. the artistry is found not only within the study, but also in the way the researcher tells the story of constructing knowledge “in and through artistic practice” (prior, 2018, p. 7). it is far more difficult for an emerging educational researcher to not be complacent with one solution or the first one that emerges. we must push further, reexamining the data for nuanced meaning and meaning that we may have never anticipated, my dissertation is an act of living inquiry (irwin et al., 2018), showcasing how i negotiated intersecting fields of interest in curriculum studies, composition studies, arts-based educational research, and expressive arts in order to come to an understanding of my emerging personal pedagogy and role as an undergraduate instructor of writing. knowles and promislow (2008) explain that the “crucial question of identity for new practitioners” is “who am i? as a teacher? as a researcher?” (p. 3). my study explores this crucial question through arts-based inquiry within the dissertation as i welcome disruptions and allow for new knowledge to develop. conclusion now that i have completed three cycles of data analysis from my research study, where do i go from here? the simple answer would be that i am going to complete more cycles of the same study with revisions, as called for by practitioner action research. while many dissertations conclude a study, my dissertation keeps the door open for more ways arts-based inquiry can inform my teaching, and i am excited to go through it; however, one of the reasons why i selected an ed.d. program over a ph.d. was the flexibility of opportunities it affords. my dissertation committee members spanned three departments, curriculum & instruction, english education, and artful design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.229 31 art education, which created impactful mentoring opportunities that revealed ways my work can contribute to all three fields. my ed.d. coursework ranged from overviews of many interesting methods to social justice theories in education, and i have already been considering how i can try new approaches to arts-based research as i continue my learning. energized from defending my dissertation, i wrote new manuscripts that have recently been published in ncte’s english leadership quarterly (hash, 2020a) and the cea critic (hash, 2020b). now that i have more flexibility of deadlines, i am excited to see where my various interests and passions lead me and how i can contribute to knowledge in various fields. in the end, i really did not have to pick one camp; i just needed to thoughtfully consider how to make my ideas work together. though a dissertation is a “result” of research, it really showcases one journey, and if executed effectively, foreshadows the promise of future journeys to come. i look forward to my next journey. references allen, p. b. (1995). art is a way of knowing. shambhala publications, inc. childers, p. b., hobson, e., & mullin, j. a. (1998). articulating: teaching writing in a visual world. boynton/cook publishers. dewey, j. (2005). art as experience. penguin group. (original work published in 1934). dunn, p. a. (2001). talking, sketching, moving: multiple literacies in the teaching of writing. heinemann. efland, a. (2002). art and cognition: integrating the visual arts in the curriculum. teachers college press. eisner, e. w. (2002). the arts and the creation of mind. yale university press. eisner, e. (2008). persistent tensions in arts-based research. in m. cahnmann-taylor & r. siegesmund (eds.), arts-based research in education: foundations for practice (pp. 16-27). routledge. hash, p. (2020a). articulating literacy: art making and composition. english leadership quarterly, 43(1), 19-23. hash, p. (2020b). opportunity for expression: covid-19, online assignments, and expressive arts. cea critic, 82(3), 254-259. https://doi.org/10.1353/cea.2020.0008 hofsess, b. a. (2016). unfolding afterglow: letters and conversations on teacher renewal. sense publishers. irwin, r. l., leblanc, n., ryu, j. y., & belliveau, g. (2018). a/r/tography as living inquiry. in p. leavy (ed.), handbook of arts-based research (pp. 37-53). the guilford press. irwin, r. l. & springgay, s. (2008). a/r/tography as practice-based research. in s. springgay, r. l. irwin, c. leggo, & p. gouzouasis (eds.), being with a/r/tography (pp. xix-xxxiii). sense publishers. knowles, j. g. & promislow, s. (2008). inspiration to imagine: an invitation and an introduction. in j. g. knowles, s. promislow, & a. l. cole (eds.), creating scholartistry: imagining the arts-informed thesis or dissertation (pp. 1-11). backalong books. leavy, p. (2017). research design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research approaches. the guilford press. leavy, p. (2018). introduction to arts-based research. in p. leavy (ed.), handbook of arts-based research (pp. 3-21). guilford press. levine, s. k. (2017). preface. in e. g. levine and s. k. levine, new developments in expressive arts therapy: the play of poiesis (pp. 9-15). jessica kingsley publishers. malchiodi, c. a. (2018). creative arts therapies and arts-based research. in p. leavy (ed.), handbook of arts-based research (pp. 68-87). the guilford press. prior, r. (2018). introduction: artist-educator-researcher. in r. w. prior (ed.), using art as research in learning and teaching: multidisciplinary approaches across the arts (pp. 1-12). intellect. sullivan, g. (2005). art practice as research: inquiry in the visual arts. sage publications. sharples, m. (1999). how we write: writing as creative design. routledge. peaches hash appalachian state university disruption of design disruption of knowledge disruption of format disruption of identity conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 30 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org issn 2472-5889 (online) impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.188 building critical inquiry in the online edd: examining successes & challenges eric ludwig florida state university eludwig@fsu.edu courtney preston florida state university cpreston@fsu.edu abstract in this essay, we apply garrison et al.’s (2000, 2003) framework for critical inquiry in online learning to a review of a cohort-based online edd at a large public research-intensive university. we examine the technological, pedagogical, and organizational successes and challenges we have experienced and encounter in building and sustaining critical inquiry in a fully online doctoral program. includes considerations for faculty and administrators in developing and managing online edd programs committed to engaging in critical inquiry and reflection. keywords critical inquiry, online learning, online edd, education doctorate introduction online learning is not new to higher education in the united states. colleges and universities across the country have been offering individual courses and degree programs at a distance and through computer-mediated and digital technologies for the better part of the 21st century (moore & kearsley, 2011; saba, 2011; simpson & anderson, 2012). before the personal computer and internet made synchronous and asynchronous online learning a possibility for millions of students, institutions offered coursework at a distance to local and regional communities through correspondence courses and other non-computer mediated means (saba, 2011; sumner, 2000). but, over the last decade, the number of students participating in exclusively online academic programs has increased markedly (seaman et al., 2018). while undergraduate students have been responsible for the lion’s share of that growth, graduate and professional students have also been enrolling in online programs with increasing frequency. in 2018, nearly a third of all graduate students (31%) -and 25% at public institutions -were enrolled in academic programs offered exclusively at a distance (nces, 2020). a cursory glance at new and existing graduate programs offering exclusively online coursework provides a confirmation of this trend. whether as a means to generate new revenue or as a response to student demand (or, more likely, a combination of both), colleges and universities have created new programs and modified existing offerings that can be completed entirely online (blagg, 2018). indeed, this issue itself is dedicated to the online edd; of the current carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) member institutions, a significant number of edd programs are offered exclusively or almost exclusively online (i.e., with the exception of minor residency requirements). given the apparent growth of online edd programs over the last decade, we, as educators, practitioners, and scholars, must continue to explore ways to improve how we teach, interact, and learn in an environment mediated exclusively by synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies, digital tools, and virtual platforms. in this essay, we return to garrison et al.’s (2000, 2003) concept of practical and critical inquiry in distance education. using their community of inquiry (coi) model, garrison et al. (2000, 2003) considered how to encourage and sustain critical and reflective thinking in computer-mediated learning environments. in keeping with their framework of critical inquiry (garrison et al., 2000, 2003), we explore the technological, pedagogical, and organizational successes and challenges for the online edd program at florida state university (fsu). more specifically, we examine how faculty at fsu have worked to design, build, and improve the curriculum, instruction, and experiences within our online edd program to foster a “dynamic relationship between personal meaning and shared understanding” (garrison et al., 2000, p. 98). http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ mailto:eludwig@fsu.edu mailto:cpreston@fsu.edu ludwig & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.188 31 critical inquiry in distance education garrison and colleagues (2000) suggested that teaching and learning designed for computer-mediated environments did not necessarily guarantee the sort of deep and meaningful “thinking and acting” that “are essential to the educational process” (p. 98). indeed, they argued for a departure from prior models of distance education as independent and self-directed toward one that was communal, collaborative, and dynamic (garrison et al., 2003). their community of inquiry (coi) framework is built on this assumption, that students would experience and engage in more critical, more reflective, more meaningful thinking when participating in “collaborative, constructivist learning within a community of learners” (garrison et al., 2003, p. 115). in expanding on their original framework, garrison et al. (2000, 2003) proposed additional strategies for fostering critical thinking and engagement within each of the “three overlapping elements” of the coi model (2003, p. 115). those elements – teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence – represent interconnected domains within which the experience of teaching and learning online occurs. inside of each “presence,” we can design, build, and facilitate learning and interaction that creates “an educational community of inquiry” and expects “critical reflection and discourse” (garrison et al., 2000, p. 103). in subsequent work on critical inquiry, garrison et al. (2003) discussed issues that might hinder critical inquiry within online or computer-mediated learning environments. they classified those issues as technological, pedagogical, or organizational. in the remainder of this essay, utilizing garrison et al.’s (2000, 2003) conceptual framework, we will highlight some of the successes and challenges that we face in building, delivering, and maintaining critical inquiry in the experiences of our online edd students at florida state university. our program florida state university’s online doctor of education in education leadership and policy program is a 3-year cohort-based program that culminates in the completion of a dissertation in practice (dip) that aims to address a problem of practice in a specific local context. during the first two years of the program, students complete coursework in three strands 1) foundations/ policy, 2) methodological approaches, and 3) intensive academic immersion experiences. the intensive academic immersion experiences are focused on refining students’ problems of practice and developing components of the dip. every summer, students come to campus for a three-day intensive face-to-face institute that complements their coursework and dip development. technological successes and challenges garrison et al. (2003) draw on bruce and levin’s (1997) taxonomy of educational technologies to highlight potential technological issues that might constrain the organic development of critical inquiry in distance or online learning environments. in defining technologies as a form of media, bruce and levin (1997) considered “the ways that they alter the environments for thinking, communicating, and acting in the world” (p. 82). they organized those “mediative” technologies into four different categories: technologies for inquiry, technologies for communication, technologies for construction, and technologies for expression. within the fsu online edd program, we intentionally incorporate a variety of technologies for inquiry, communication, construction, and expression in our program. successes within the fsu online edd program, we rely on a number of technologies, both within and outside of the learning management system (lms), to engage with students, encourage peer-to-peer collaboration, and foster critical inquiry. in our introductory seminar for new edd students, they complete a number of asynchronous discussions (communication) in which they collectively examine the big questions around the purposes of education, education reform, and educational policy. in that same course, students later work in small groups to collect and review peer-reviewed journal articles related to their problems of practice and create a collaborative annotated bibliography (inquiry, construction, communication). throughout their first semester in the program, students meet synchronously with their instructor for individual meetings (communication) and are also introduced to various academic services and student supports at the institution through a series of synchronous q&a sessions with university representatives. as faculty, we aim to leave robust and timely feedback for our students through the scaffolded and embedded assignments that lead to the completion of their dissertation in practice (dip). feedback does not have to be limited to writing; we also provide recorded audio and video feedback and regularly schedule follow-up meetings with students for further discussion on our feedback (communication). throughout the program, students have regular opportunities to use technologies for expression; in our introduction to qualitative methods course, students use the introduction to tell a story about themselves using audio, video, or static media (i.e., an image). in that same course, students have the option of creating a visual artifact or recording a video presentation to review a foundational qualitative methodology. at its core, success in this virtual medium requires special care and attention to the technologies we are integrating into our courses and how students are using them. while asynchronous discussion boards seem quite antiquated as a form of interaction, not all asynchronous conversations are made the same. we have worked as a faculty to rethink not only the prompts that are supposed to drive student discussions, but also to consider the frequency, organization, and purpose of those activities. this might include paring back the number of asynchronous discussions in a course, more clearly linking those discussions to overarching course assessments or projects (construction), restructuring discussions as learning communities or reading groups with clearer outcomes and expectations for engagement (inquiry, construction), and offering student groups the choice to meet and record their conversation synchronously in lieu of the traditional asynchronous comment and response interaction (communication). individual and peer-to-peer communication and expression drive how we incorporate digital technologies and influence how we think about course design. but instructor-to-student (in both directions) communication and expression remain vitally important. some faculty have utilized integrated scheduling software (e.g., calendly) to allow students to more easily schedule individual meetings at times that work for them. students can specify whether building critical inquiry in the online edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.188 32 they would prefer to meet synchronously or via phone, attach documents or leave comments prior to the meeting, and receive an invitation with additional meeting details after submitting their request. although this sort of student-driven scheduling does present its own challenges (e.g., setting clear boundaries around when faculty are and are not available), it also offers opportunities to streamline communication between students and instructors and to facilitate more regular one-to-one interaction. while conducting individual meetings with students can be time-consuming and perpetual work, we have found that one-to-one interaction to be invaluable to building relationships and rapport with individual students across a cohort and throughout a program. challenges for better or for worse, the majority of the instruction within the fsu online edd program occurs within the virtual space of a learning management system (lms). the lms inherently offers opportunities for clear organization and structure, for uniformity of experience across multiple courses, and for institutional control and security (pomerantz et al., 2018). but, as others have argued (see, e.g., kim, 2018; watters, 2014), the lms is limiting in its own right; it constrains how we think about, design, and facilitate learning. as a closed system, the lms tends to not operate seamlessly with the open web (feldstein, 2017); faculty are often reliant on university staff and administrators to make significant changes to the environment or to integrate new or existing technologies into their instruction. these restrictions often funnel exploration and experimentation into a narrow lane of possibilities that must meet institutional requirements and expectations. more practically, the proliferation of platforms and technologies for inquiry (e.g., data access, file storage), communication (e.g., synchronous conferencing, asynchronous chat, collaborative file creation, social media), and expression (e.g., static and multimedia creation, editing, and sharing) means that faculty and students must sift through, agree upon, and become familiar with a range of digital platforms and software applications. edd students may be using one lms in their professional workplace yet expected to learn in a different environment within our program. faculty and students might have used a particular technology in the past, but that tool or platform is obsolete or no longer supported by the institution. small things, like a mid-semester update to a software application or lack of storage space for recorded video lectures or data, create headaches. moreover, technologies in and of themselves are not value neutral; digital platforms, applications, and services often rely on and profit from the extraction and commodification of student data and the erosion of user privacy (gardner, 2019; gilliard, 2017; raths, 2018). additionally, many of our edd students work in k12 districts and in colleges and universities in which they may encounter different learning or educational technologies in their daily work. whether it is a different learning management system or file sharing and creation platform, our students are often working across multiple platforms on multiple machines. while many of these tools and technologies have similar baseline functionalities, students must still learn, navigate, and manage professional and academic work across a variety of digital systems and applications. while we may desire to be innovative or creative in the tools that we use or the manner in which we design our courses, we must also remember that our students have to make sense of those virtual spaces that we build and must be able to use the digital platforms and technologies that undergird those experiences. pedagogical successes and challenges as garrison et al. (2003) remind us, “the simple adoption of technology does not resolve issues related to the teaching of critical thinking and metacognitive understanding” (p. 122). we have to design and structure our program – and the underlying courses, assessments, and activities – with those goals in mind. in examining the pedagogical successes and challenges of our own program, it might be helpful to return to those three elements at the center of the community of inquiry model: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence (garrison et al., 2000). successes the fsu online edd is a cohort-based program, with roughly 30-40 students admitted in a new cohort each summer term. typically, those students would meet face-to-face for an intensive 3day experience in tallahassee during their first (and subsequent) summers in the program. although this face-to-face requirement falls outside of the conceptual bounds of the coi framework, we believe that it is an important formative experience for new students’ socialization and orientation to doctoral education. this experience establishes the foundations of teaching and social presence – meaningful connections between faculty and students and among students themselves – so vital to later success and engagement in online coursework (garrison & arbaugh, 2007). outside of the intensive face-to-face summer workshop, we see teacher and social presence encouraged through regular synchronous and asynchronous communication. as we mention in the preceding section, faculty regularly meet with students individually within and outside of courses, whether that is the instructor meeting to discuss feedback on an assignment or a major professor meeting with a student to discuss revisions to their dip. they send weekly announcements and create video tutorials to keep students aware of what they should be doing and learning. within the individual cohorts, students regularly communicate across their group using asynchronous chat platforms (e.g., groupme) to ask questions, share ideas, and connect personally. in their coursework, students work together in small groups, like reading groups or learning communities, to complete collaborative projects. in our redesigned qualitative data analysis course, students participate in and complete a group data analysis project in which they analyzed how educational leaders described and explained state and institutional policy school re-opening policies amid the covid-19 pandemic. improving cognitive presence across the curriculum was one of the key drivers of our program redesign. students now complete the majority of the first 3 chapters of their dissertation in practice (dip) through assignments embedded into their first two years of coursework. assessments and activities are carefully scaffolded to build the skills, knowledge, and critical reflection necessary to prepare students to be successful when working on those embedded assignments. students have multiple checkpoints with instructors and program faculty along the way to receive formative feedback and have further discussions about the direction of their research. finally, given the focus of the edd on training scholar practitioners, we ludwig & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.188 33 endeavor to consistently connect the curriculum and experiences to the work that students do professionally. this might include multiple opportunities for reflection, outlets for professional growth and networking, or collaboratively analyzing and critiquing scholarship related to their own dip. in their third semester, students complete an audit of their local context and collect information and data relevant to their proposed study and research questions; they also interview key experts who have a deep understanding of or experience with their problem of practice. additionally, students now can choose elective coursework that is more clearly tailored to their practice and professional aspirations (i.e., coursework more clearly related to k12 policy or higher education policy) and they also have the opportunity to complete additional integrated certificates (i.e., program evaluation or institutional research) to further supplement their skills and experiences. challenges faculty from across the department of educational leadership and policy studies (elps) teach in the online edd program. this collaborative approach exposes students to multiple perspectives, areas of scholarly and instructional expertise, and pedagogical approaches. however, those faculty do not necessarily all have the same comfort or familiarity with designing online courses and teaching online. as a program, we must continue to explore paths to supporting faculty across our college in designing dynamic, accessible, engaging, and usable online courses. beyond course design, we need to regularly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in how our own curriculum and instruction encourages (or discourages) critical inquiry across the edd program. teaching online requires more frequent interaction with students in order to create and maintain social presence. further, as our students work full time, these interactions may need to occur outside of the typical 9-5 workday and with advanced notice. these are adjustments faculty have had to consider as they work with the online edd program. for example, we need to consider how we can schedule and organize virtual defenses for university milestones (e.g., a diagnostic exam) that do not require students to upend their professional or personal schedules with little notice. this might require that we open up more evenings (and, potentially, weekends) for synchronous interaction and engagement. this might imply less immediate temporal flexibility or a shifting of availability for faculty, but that might be a reductive conceptualization of how faculty working in exclusively online edd and professional graduate programs might alter the structure and rhythm of their own work. improving the student experience and fostering a more flexible and accessible learning environment for students might require rethinking how and when we work as instructors to be more aligned with the expectations and needs of our students. although we promote and champion the flexibility of the program for working adults, we must be aware of how individual students’ situations, backgrounds, and prior experiences shape their experiences within our program. students are juggling not only their professional responsibilities, but also their personal lives and obligations. in certain courses, we have started to offer students more choice in how they might complete select individual or group assignments and, across the program, faculty have tried, especially during the pandemic, to be more understanding and malleable with deadlines and due dates. this work needs to continue beyond the end of the pandemic. we are not the only online or graduate program that faces these challenges. we understand the time-intensive nature of teaching online, specifically when providing targeted and meaningful feedback and timely support for students in their work (kebritchi et al., 2017). this is even more critical in a writing-intensive doctoral program with formative and summative dissertation in practice (dip) assignments embedded throughout the curriculum; students rely on clear, thorough, and timely feedback to improve their own thinking and writing. it is an iterative process that is foundational to garrison et al.’s (2000, 2003) idea of critical inquiry in distance learning. organizational successes and challenges when garrison et al. (2003) originally considered this framework, distance learning did not quite have the strategic importance and institutional acceptance that it does in 2021. however, given the economic and ideological pressures facing higher education, their words still hold a kernel of truth: “online learning presents a crisis situation, in the classic sense of being both an opportunity and a threat” (p. 123). developing and expanding exclusively online programs is a key institutional enrollment strategy. but, after the rise and fall of the mooc and similar discussions of technological disruption within higher education, we appear to have agreed upon online learning simply as a different instructional mode – with its own benefits, challenges, and limitations; with its own good and bad – rather than as something that might upend the brick-andmortar foundations of higher education. this does not imply that there are not organizational constraints that we, as an online edd program, must confront within our department, college, and university. faculty from across the department of educational leadership and policy studies teach in the online edd program at fsu. our students learn from expert scholars and skilled practitioners with advanced knowledge and professional experience in a variety of contexts and institutional settings across the educational landscape. however, many faculty who teach in the online edd also have responsibilities and obligations to their own programs, which can present challenges to coordination and collaboration with curriculum, advising, and decision-making. our faculty, like many across higher education and not unlike those students with whom we work every day, are also juggling their personal and professional obligations and managing competing responsibilities and lofty expectations in their own academic lives. we must be acutely aware of policies, processes, and technologies that reinforce inequity and injustice in our curriculum and in our online spaces. however, we must also recognize those constraints that have largely been subsumed into broader institutional politics, policy, and decision-making beyond our control, recentering our focus on that which we can control. for example, graduate school or institutional policies might misunderstand or not fully capture how the structure, content, and purpose of the edd dissertation differs from its phd counterpart and how the institution might account for those differences in a way that encourages innovation and creativity in program design and organization. this misapplication of institutional policy to the edd has cascading effects for our students, faculty, and program writ large. although cped has worked tirelessly to promote and advance the cause of the edd as a degree capable of standing on its own, we building critical inquiry in the online edd impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.188 34 still must confront beliefs and policies – and the implications of those beliefs and policies – that do not consider and value the unique nature and purpose of the edd as a degree for scholarly practitioners. implications & conclusion in ways that we never expected, building and growing our online edd program, the only program in our department in which all tenure-track faculty advise students, has served as a catalyst to reexamine our curriculum, our advising, and our focus on equity and inclusion. thus, our work in this relatively new program, the first online doctoral program at florida state university, has served to refocus our faculty on the “dynamic relationship between personal meaning and shared understanding” (garrison et al., 2000, p. 98) in ways that impact students across our program and department. simplicity and consistency in design and empathy and presence in our instruction should still drive how we think about the technologies that shape our interactions and communication with students, the pedagogies that influence our curriculum and instruction, and the organizational structures and policies that uphold and support our work with each other and with our students. working towards those concepts might necessarily require that we reexamine some of our assumptions and expectations about how and when we do the work of teaching, but that reflection – and the subsequent action – should create virtual spaces and environments where students can better do the learning we expect of scholarly practitioners in pursuit of a doctorate of education. both students and faculty have different experiences, expectations, levels of comfort with, and access to the digital technologies and virtual environments that we use to foster critical inquiry in the online environment. going forward, our challenge and charge as an edd program working with scholarly practitioners is to continue to critically examine and build our program into one that consistently aligns with our values 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(2014). beyond the lms. hack education. http://hackeducation. com/2014/09/05/beyond-the-lms-newcastle-university https://www.urban.org/%20sites/default/files/publication/99501/the_rise_of_masters_degrees_1.pdf https://www.urban.org/%20sites/default/files/publication/99501/the_rise_of_masters_degrees_1.pdf https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/7/what-is-the-next-generation https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/7/pedagogy-and-the-logic-of-platforms https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/7/pedagogy-and-the-logic-of-platforms https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/technology-and-learning/5-ways-i-got-future-lms-wrong https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/technology-and-learning/5-ways-i-got-future-lms-wrong https://nces.ed.gov/programs/%20coe https://nces.ed.gov/programs/%20coe https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/foundations-for-a-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-faculty-students-and-the-lms/introduction https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/05/02/when-learning-analytics-violate-student-privacy.aspx https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/05/02/when-learning-analytics-violate-student-privacy.aspx http://onlinelearningsurvey.com/ http://hackeducation.com/2014/09/05/beyond-the-lms-newcastle-university http://hackeducation.com/2014/09/05/beyond-the-lms-newcastle-university eric ludwig florida state university courtney preston florida state university introduction critical inquiry in distance education our program technological successes and challenges successes challenges pedagogical successes and challenges successes challenges organizational successes and challenges implications & conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 36 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.197 reflecting on the journey towards identity and belonging during professional doctoral study christopher martin university of wolverhampton chris.martin@wlv.ac.uk abstract the professional doctorate in education (edd) is a doctoral level professional qualification for practising teachers that affords the opportunity to research an area of practice of particular interest. many edd students encounter mixed feelings, emotions and new identities as many could be leaders within their employment and seen as ‘experts’ in their role, however, they may find themselves on the periphery of a new community of which they are yet to feel a part. this reflective paper explores the role of ‘identity’ and ‘belonging’ in professional doctoral students with particular emphasis placed on situated learning theory (lave & wenger, 1991) and the notion of communities of practice. i discuss the idea of ‘identity congruence’ and how i experienced this in terms of my identity as a leader of learning and as a fledgling doctoral researcher. the paper concludes that communities of practice promote a sense of community and belonging that have clearly supported me through the doctoral journey. keywords identity, belonging, community of practice, identity congruence introduction the professional doctorate in education (edd) is a significant undertaking, particularly if an individual is also working in a full-time capacity whilst studying part-time. the aim of this article is to provide a reflection of both the taught (coursework) and research phases of the professional doctorate in education and how my identity was (re)shaped in terms of my position as an educator and as a doctoral researcher. emphasis will be placed on the idea of ‘identity congruence’ (hughes, 2010, p.47) and how my researcher identity developed from engagement with communities of practice (wenger, 1998, 2000). the taught phase: from leader to learner the thought of becoming a doctoral researcher in a professional doctorate programme was daunting as i was fulfilling a full-time teaching position in a secondary school, and i was also an associate school leader with responsibility for literacy across the school curriculum. these multiple roles presented me with new experiences, both positive and negative, and changes in identity that i was to negotiate in order to become part of a research community at the university and a new member of the extended leadership team at school. for me, this was to involve a shift in identity – in school, i was a senior leader with extensive experience in teaching and learning – in the research environment, i saw myself as being a novice on the periphery (lave & wenger, 1991) of this community as i was not yet an experienced doctoral researcher. for me to achieve my goal of earning a doctorate, it was necessary for me to address this shift in collective identity (vignoles, schwartz & luyckx, 2011) and for me to do this, participation and immersion in the research culture were key to my eventual success. ‘collective identity’ is defined by vignoles et al. (2011, p. 3) as ‘people’s identification with the groups and social categories to which they belong’. there is a notion in identity research (rattansi & phoenix, 2005) that an individual may not possess a single, unitary identity but multiple identities that are integrated and are seen as separate components of one identity. participation in the research culture at the university was the first steps to identifying with a specific group of people, researchers. teeuwsen et al. (2014) suggested ‘from a situated perspective, participation is a way of knowing’ (p.683) which aligns closely with my epistemological view of knowledge being shared and socially constructed. lave and wenger (1991) called this ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ which describes the action of participating and interacting with experienced members of a community of practice to learn from their expertise. ‘identity congruence’ is the coming together of aspects of identity formation; social, operational and knowledge-related identity (hughes, 2010, p.50). the notion of identity congruence aligns with rattansi and phoenix (2005) who posited that an individual may possess multiple components of a single identity. as a doctoral researcher, a key goal was to improve my engagement in the learning that was taking place in my professional doctorate courses, however, this was hampered by my existing teaching commitments and doubts i had with the quality of my academic writing. students’ preparedness to negotiate identity congruence could differ as a http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5967-9052 reflecting on the journey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.197 37 result of external factors such as employment and family pressures and this can affect the level of participation and engagement in learning. watts (2008) described this as a ‘fractured student identity’ where an individual exists in a variety of circumstances and has multiple responsibilities. they also may have psychological difficulty in switching from one mind-set to another: in my case, caregiver for my elderly mum, doctoral researcher and school middle leader. according to bhabha (1994), identity is not finite and there is no real end point; identities change according to the circumstances in which an individual finds themselves and these adapt and change over time. vignoles et al. (2011, p. 6) suggested that individuals may have ‘multiple group identities that may shift in salience depending on features of the intergroup context’. hughes (2010) used the term ‘belonging’ (p.48) which is a term that i believe is pertinent to how i felt at that time. students who have a low sense of belonging to a learning group and are not able to make ‘identity shifts’ (p.48) may tend to underperform or possibly leave the programme due to an inability to integrate new experiences into their identity. the fact that i was part of a cohort of doctoral students made this notion of ‘belonging’ a little easier to negotiate as we were all in the same situation and were a close-knit community with a common goal of obtaining a doctoral degree. as a ‘newcomer’ to the doctoral research community, i felt that i benefited greatly from interacting with other doctoral peers in my cohort as well as having the forum to discuss and share ideas with people from various academic backgrounds. i was in a cohort that consisted of individuals who were at the same point of their career and were in positions of leadership in their respective professions. it was helpful to me knowing that my colleagues in the cohort were undergoing the same experiences – being an experienced leader as well as entering doctoral study as a novice. we were able to share our thoughts on integrating new experiences into our identities on our journey to becoming a doctor of education and an academic expert in our respective fields. the thesis phase: from learner to researcher as the taught phase of the professional doctorate came to an end, it became strikingly evident how my initial thesis idea and positioning had changed through further engagement with taught modules and with communities of practice. this section will illustrate how engagement with the wider research community of practice supported me through the process of finalising my research idea before embarking on the thesis phase of the programme. in order to capture the thoughts and experiences of the taught phase, i created a haiku which is a japanese poem made up of three lines following a specific pattern of syllables. the haiku served as a mantra for me which i followed throughout the remainder of the edd programme. ‘the fog is lifting, perseverance, stick at it, engagement is key.’ this haiku captures how i felt at the end of the taught phase in terms of a clearing of thoughts and that my thesis proposal was taking shape. perseverance was necessary as there were indeed times when certain stages of the research process were taking longer than planned or finding a particular paper or concept challenging to understand. as discussed in the previous section, in order to maintain a sense of belonging and to continue learning from experienced researchers and other peers in my cohort, engagement was key in ensuring that i continued my inward trajectory to becoming an experienced member of the doctoral community of practice. the second year of the professional doctorate programme, for me, served as a period of reflection to refine ideas and try out potential research methods in preparation for the thesis stage. at the start of the year, i was still unclear as to the direction in which my research would take me. faced with conducting a literature review on a broad topic of motivation and language education, i thought it necessary to seek guidance from established scholars in the field of motivation theory and foreign language education, keeping in line with the haiku that ‘engagement is key’. the professional doctorate has presented to me a number of opportunities to engage with communities of practice made up of individuals from different disciplines and with differing degrees of expertise. an example of this was being given the opportunity to present my research idea to a group of doctoral students from across the faculty at a doctoral presentation event in january 2017. the audience comprised of doctoral supervisors and fellow doctoral students (phd and professional doctorates) from disciplines such as education, medical education and educational psychology. the participants were at different stages of their programme of study and i was made aware that i was the first professional doctorate student to present at such an early stage of the programme. i was apprehensive at first as my research idea was still developing and my pilot study was in a fledgling state. it was from discussion with other students in my cohort and my academic advisor that i was encouraged to present as it would give me the opportunity to obtain some valuable feedback on my research idea and my proposed methodology. this was indeed the case with some excellent constructive feedback being offered on the direction of my pilot study and my proposed methodology. for the purpose of the pilot study, i had designed a set of likert scale statements for use in a questionnaire which would be given to parents of children in secondary education. before creating the questionnaire, i approached an existing group of education professionals with whom i connect through a closed discussion forum on facebook in order to gather feedback on my statements. the rationale for this was due to the audience having a vested interest in my proposed research as well as having real life experience of interacting with parents about their child’s performance in modern foreign languages. discussions are posted regularly on the decline of language learning in secondary and further education due to changes in education policy and how this is affected by the qualification reforms and the general motivation of students to learn a language. by approaching this group, i was able to acquire comments and feedback from all over the world from both male and female teachers, experienced teachers and newly qualified teachers (nqts), primary, secondary, tertiary and higher education teachers and lecturers. the opportunity to gather thoughts and ideas from such a combined wealth of knowledge and understanding allowed me to refine my statements and make them more fit for purpose, knowing that i had received feedback from people for whom this research could be valuable in enhancing their own practice. this process was not only a phase that supported my research but was also key to the creation of an online community of practice. martin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.197 38 according to goodyear et al (2014), social media, such as facebook or twitter, facilitates working with multiple groups and overcomes time and financial implications. this was certainly the case in terms of using social media as the conduit for creating a community of practice since facebook is now seen as a global phenomenon and is also ‘positioned as an educative tool’ (goodyear et al, 2014; p.928). using the closed group on facebook for the purpose of the pilot study allowed me to post my research idea and the statements quickly and this was disseminated to thousands of individuals who could potentially comment on my work. the evolution of the community of practice started with a simple post using social media where i asked members of a closed group to comment on my statements. i stated that any posts made would be anonymous and would be taken as permission for them to be used in the data collection exercise. as the comments were posted, it became clear that these members were as passionate about my research as i was. being a linguist and a researcher, it was highlighted to me that my questionnaire statements were unintentionally biased which brought into question my positionality. there was a clear conflict of identity with my ‘linguist self’ influencing the language that i used. from doing this, i was more aware of how my position as a teacher and a linguist could influence my research and that this process has challenged me to become ‘reflexively vigilant’ (le gallais, 2008). my passion for languages and language teaching was clear throughout the statements as all of them were positively worded with no traces of negativity. this feedback had clear implications for the construction of the questionnaire as the data collected would be biased and there would be an imbalance of positively and negatively worded statements. when constructing the statements, this was clearly not considered and the implications for my research could have been profound in terms of validity and credibility and if it was not for engaging with the language professionals, i would not have been aware of this until it was too late. whilst the use of social media facilitated circulating my pilot study information, there were a number of constraints that i had not considered beforehand. the timing of the pilot study fell during the easter break due to a delay in receiving approval from the ethics committee. this meant that i had to rely on people checking facebook posts during a holiday period when most educational professionals are away and do not answer work-related posts. it could have been the case that no-one commented on my proposed statements which would have had severe consequences on the outcome of my pilot study. i had to therefore rely on the goodwill of fellow language professionals to comment on my post. however, given the nature of my research and the number of posts that my discussion thread received, it was clear that my proposed research was of great interest to others and could potentially shed light on an issue that has impacted negatively on language learning for a number of years. a further constraint was the reliability of internet connections and the social media network themselves. for example, should the website be unavailable due to technical faults or lack of internet connectivity, the gathering of information would not be possible, and i would have had no data for my pilot study. it was, therefore, necessary to ensure that the discussion thread was posted in a timely manner once having received ethical approval. one further consideration is that of including other language professionals who choose not to use social media. whilst i had access to a wealth of information and experience through the online discussion forum, i had not considered other professionals who do not use facebook but still could have offered some valuable feedback. i am a member of a network of teaching professionals in birmingham, uk with whom i could have discussed my research without relying on facebook. it would also have been a way of sharing my research with local teachers who could also be interested in motivation theory and foreign language learning. as highlighted by goodyear et al (2014), social media such as facebook and twitter are good tools for frequent and extended communication with others but should be supported by other forms of communication, such as face-to-face dialogue, telephone conversations and email correspondence. developing a digital academic identity through engagement with social media has allowed me to share my ideas and my work with academics in education and beyond as well as presenting me with opportunities to collaborate on projects and participate in events related to my research. it has also been pivotal in my work being validated by the research community which enhances my sense of belonging and identity as a researcher. conclusions there is clear evidence to suggest that communities of practice play an important role in supporting individuals with achieving their learning goal. as the thesis process involved less contact with others, it was necessary for me to develop ways of maintaining contact with the cops of which i consider myself a member. this was through contact via social media, email, telephone and other forms of electronic communication. for me, the engagement with the online community of practice of language professionals highlighted a number of issues which i had not considered previously as well as offering other avenues of thought and inquiry and this will be a key learning point when going into the thesis stage. studying for a research degree where there is little interaction with a cohort of students could be seen as lonely or isolating. the professional doctorate, however, promotes what nistor et al (2015) called a ‘sense of community’ and this is defined as a sense of belonging and a feeling of intimacy with the community. over the past five years, i have certainly felt a part of the edd group having contributed my thoughts and opinions as well as receiving critique and feedback from others. a central idea of a cop is that of ‘shared emotional connection’ (nistor et al, 2015, p.262). through shared emotional connections, there is a sense that the community becomes stronger; the more interactions there are, the closer members become. as the thesis stage requires fewer instances of face-to-face interactions with other students, i feel that the shared emotional connections that the cohort had during the first two years continued to fuel and sustain what has been a valuable support network for me. i also recognise the value of communities of practice within the workplace and as a result of my successful doctoral journey, i have supported practitioners in my own workplace by creating a ‘teaching and learning community of practice’, the remit of which is to share good practice across faculties as well as maintain rigorous quality assurance processes with the shared aim of delivering outstanding teaching to our students. reflecting on the journey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 4 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.197 39 references bhabha, h. k. (1994). the location of culture. routledge. deuchar, r. (2008). facilitator, director or critical friend? contradiction and congruence in doctoral supervision styles. teaching in higher education, 13(4), 489-500. goodyear, v., casey, a., & kirk, d. (2014). tweet me, message me, like me: using social media to facilitate pedagogical change within an emerging community of practice, sport, education and society, 19(7), 927-943. hughes, g. (2010). identity and belonging in social learning groups: the importance of distinguishing social, operational and knowledge‐related identity congruence. british educational research journal, 36(1), 47-63. lave, j., & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. cambridge university press. le gallais, t. (2008). wherever i go there i am: reflections on reflexivity and the research stance. reflective practice, 9(2), 145-155. nistor, n., daxecker, i., stanciu, d., & diekamp, o. (2015). sense of community in academic communities of practice: predictors and effects. higher education, 69, 257-273. rattansi, a., & phoenix, a. (2005). rethinking youth identities: modernist and postmodernist frameworks. identity: an international journal of theory and research, 5, 97-123. teeuwsen, p., ratković, s., & tilley, s. (2014.) becoming academics: experiencing legitimate peripheral participation in part-time doctoral studies, studies in higher education, 39(4), 680-694. vignoles, v., schwartz, s. j., & luyckx, k. (2011). introduction: toward an integrative view of identity. in s. j. schwartz, k. luyckx, & v. l. vignoles (eds.), handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 1-27). springer science + business media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9_1 watts, j. (2008). challenges of supervising part-time phd students: towards student-centred practice. teaching in higher education, 13(3), 369-73. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. cambridge university press. wenger, e. (2000). communities of practice: the organizational frontier. harvard business school press. christopher martin university of wolverhampton introduction the taught phase: from leader to learner the thesis phase: from learner to researcher conclusions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 43 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 reflexivity for restorying the ontological and epistemological truths in qualitative research yin lam lee-johnson webster university yleejohnson31@webster.edu katherine o’connor webster university koconnor93@webster.edu jennifer ono webster university jenniferono@webster.edu kerri fair washington university in st louis kerriwagesfair@gmail.com tamara rodney webster university tamararodney74@webster.edu trezette dixon webster university dixont@webster.edu abstract this article serves to contextualize and problematize reflexivity as a construct for restorying the truths told by doctoral students in qualitative dissertation research. first, it gives an overview of webster university’s edd program and its inception of requiring qualitative research coursework for contextualizing the importance of qualitative framing in doctoral research. then, the authors review and examine the definitions of reflexivity as a construct in qualitative research, the logic-of-inquiry required in dissertation research, the connections of reflexivity to the program ethos, global perspectives on worldview and knowledge construction, and the reframing of ontological and epistemological truths in the literature. the edd director and five doctoral candidates recount their positionality and intersectionality, and contest the status quo framings of worldview and knowledge construction in educational research. their resistance to the traditional ontological and epistemological truths and advocacy for restorying via reflexivity is a manifestation of their dedication to transforming the status quo ontology and epistemology in educational research. keywords philosophy, praxis, antiracism, critical inquiry, transformative learning introduction knowledge is constructed through the research process. who is allowed to participate in the knowledge construction process and research processes in and of themselves are rooted in power. when we think about the world view that we bring to our research and assumptions that we hold, how knowledge is constructed, and by whom matters (pasque et al., 2021, p. 7). this article tackles the status quo assumptions of ontology and epistemology in qualitative research. by giving an overview of the edd program’s transformation to a scholar-practitioner model, its ethos in social change, and its focus on interweaving theory and research with a personal and community voice, the authors share the importance of reflexivity and intersectionality in the process of reframing the truths that matter in qualitative research. doctoral candidates’ reframing of status quo ontology and epistemology is shared in the article as a collective manifestation of their dedication to disrupting the power structure of knowledge construction in educational research. overview of the edd program webster university was established in 1915, and it now has sites and locations around the world, including but not limited to: athens, china, geneva, georgia, leiden, tashkent, and vienna, with a unique ethos of global citizenship (webster university website, n.d.). the inaugural cohort of the edd program at webster university started in 2015, with a flagship emphasis called “transformative learning in the global community,” which was geared towards scholar-practitioners who were full-time professionals in the field (webster university program website, n.d.; webster university google site, n.d.). the edd program prepares graduates for careers such as university faculty, higher education administrators, officers and administrators in non-profit organizations and government agencies, and k-12 leaders and educators. apart from centering equity for disrupting the status quo, the edd was developed with a transformative frame that foregrounds personal and community-based contributions to social change. the theoretical frame of transformative learning stemmed from scholarly works of many authors and thinkers, including paulo freire, michel https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8945-2139 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6594-0092 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4155-7343 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0845-1797 lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 44 foucault, jack mezirow, kevin kumashiro, gloria ladson-billings, kimberlé crenshaw, elaine richardson, henry giroux, and rich milner. the revamped program, which was revised in 2018, foregrounds a holistic experience that is inclusive of scholarly and practitioner perspectives on transformative learning. qualitative research coursework is an important cornerstone that connects theory to research and practice. based on theories and scholarly works, scholar-practitioners design and conduct research for tackling a problem of practice and making transformative impact in the educational settings that the studies are intended for. this is the intentional logic-of-inquiry (dewey, 1938) developed by the director of edd and doctoral faculty in the program. qualitative research coursework in 2018 when the program was redesigned, a sequence of two research methods courses: one on quantitative research methods and the other on qualitative research methods, were created for strengthening the scholar-practitioner focus of the program. in spring of 2021, the qualitative research methods course was offered for the first time, following a quantitative research methods course in the fall. the qualitative research methods course focuses on the examination of logic-of-inquiry (dewey, 1938), particularly the epistemological and ontological framing of research using qualitative methods. the logic-of-inquiry, mentioned herein, is exemplified and operationalized as inquiry of practice with reference to the cped model as cited in bengtson et al. (2016). “inquiry as practice is the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice… inquiry as practice requires the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens” (bengtson et al., 2016, p. 82). also concerned with the inquiry of practice, denzin et al. (2006) asked: what are the moral and ethical consequences of these effects for lived human experience? do they contribute to an ethical self-consciousness that is critical and reflexive, empowering people with a language and a set of pedagogical practices that turn oppression into freedom, despair into hope, hatred into love, and doubt into trust? do they engender a critical racial self-awareness that contributes to utopian dreams of racial equality and racial justice? (p. 777). denzin et al. (2006) further constructed the purposes of the inquiry of practice and the meaningful impact on humanity of the dissertation research projects. dissertation research projects in the edd program are designed with a common goal of transforming the status quo realities in educational systems and improving the lives of all stakeholders. the qualitative research methods course includes an array of selected methods such as case studies, ethnographies, narrative inquiries, grounded theorizing, discourse analysis, etc. some key terms include: triangulation, reflexivity, intersubjectivity, memberchecking, systematicity, credibility, trustworthiness, and transferability. data analytical frameworks and the use of data management software such as nvivo, dedoose, maxqda are explored in the course. the course was sponsored by the beatrice and david kornblum institute for teaching excellence and doctoral students enjoyed two years of nvivo subscription for free. owing to the logic-of-inquiry and framing of transformative learning as both personal and community-based, personal voice is deemed inseparable from the logic-of-inquiry. thus, reflexivity is threaded throughout the dissertation process. for instance, a doctoral candidate may design a dissertation in practice that tackles a problem of practice originating from personal histories or lived experiences. many of the program graduates designed dissertation studies because of experienced trauma and intergenerational racism. their personal and family voice is critical in shaping the purpose of the studies. for example, a graduate from the edd program, dr. veronica clay, talked about her framing of dissertation on mental health resources for urban public schools in the st. louis metro area at the commencement ceremony in 2022. clay (2022) gave a speech about how the dissertation project originated from her family trauma due to a lack of accessible mental health resources at the time. clay was a professional counselor, and she became a voice and advocate for transforming the status quo of mental health resources in urban schools, upon graduating from the edd program. definition of reflexivity and its philosophical framing according to schwandt (2015), reflexivity is, “the process of critical self-reflection on one’s biases, theoretical predispositions, preferences, and so forth” (p. 224). strunk and locke (2019) further expand the definition of reflexivity as “an analysis of researchers’ positionalities within a study. they interrogate their social positioning and social location, especially in relation to the purpose of the study and their participants” (p. 303). as such, reflexivity can be considered as “introspective” (valandra, 2012, p. 204) internal dialogue that can reveal and unravel “uncomfortable realities” (woodley & smith, 2020, p. 2). though these definitions did not explicitly mention the ontological and epistemological assumptions behind what count as research and knowledge, reflexivity, as a key construct in qualitative research, is often viewed as the checks and balances required for claiming credibility in qualitative research (strunk & locke, 2019). centering reflexivity means that the dissertation is written with the first-person voice, i. it is a defiance from the positivistic worldview of generalizability and universal truths (davis & harrison, 2013). it is important to review the philosophical frame that this key construct evokes. like lakoff (2004), underscored, “every word, like elephant, evokes a frame” (p. 3). besides a logic-of-inquiry that originates from or is facilitated via a personal voice, the ontological, epistemological, and axiological frames that reflexivity evokes are deeply rooted and connected to criticality. schwandt (2015) mentioned, this is particularly true for many critical researchers concerned with the charge that their research can become nothing more than a self-serving ideology and for feminist researchers wary of duplicating androcentric perspectives and race and class bias in their investigations (p. 224). the definition of ontology as the “nature of being” (bracken, 2010, p. 2) and epistemology as what is knowledge and “how knowledge is shared” (bracken, 2010, p. 2) is rarely challenged with criticality. a critical reflexivity towards ontology and epistemology would include questions such as: who owns knowledge? is there a universal worldview? why is worldview and knowledge defined and perpetuated mostly by white europeans? whom do we cite when it comes to ontology and epistemology? other than perpetuating “selfserving ideology” (schwandt, 2015, p. 224), do we carry the professional responsibility to reflexively challenge the status quo of reflexivity for restorying truths impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 45 white-centered ontological and epistemological assumptions in educational research (stanfield, 1993; yancy, 2004)? and if we do, should our definition of worldview and knowledge be inclusive of various racial, cultural, and ethnic varieties? what does a global perspective on worldview and knowledge construction look like? axiology is defined as “the branch of philosophy concerned with the general problem of values that is, the nature, origin, and permanence of values” (tomar, 2014, p. 51). like our argument on ontology and epistemology, would axiological assumptions of what counts as values be transformed to be more inclusive? reflexivity has been widely discussed in qualitative research methods; specifically, autoethnography (humphreys, 2005), narrative inquiry (dubnewick et al., 2018), and case studies that are selfauthored (chiseri-strater, 1996). humphreys (2005) advocates for researchers to use autoethnographic vignettes as a methodological means for enhancing the reflexivity of their work as “the use of vignettes is explicitly reflexive” (p. 852). similarly, dubnewick et al. (2018), reference reflexivity as an essential element of autobiographical narrative inquiry. according to dubnewick et al. (2018), reflexivity provides “narrative inquiries with avenues to make clear their research justifications/puzzles, become wakeful and open in their inquiries, and support shifts in relational knowing and being” (p. 1). in addition to autoethnographies and narrative inquiries, reflexivity is important among case study and ethnographic researchers (chiseri-strater, 1996). chiseri-strater (1996) emphasizes the importance of reflexivity in case studies and ethnographies: turning in upon ourselves as researchers makes us look subjectively and reflexively at how we are positioned. turning in upon ourselves prevents us from removing ourselves from our research process, from our connections with our informants, or from our written translation of data to text (p. 119). as such, reflexivity has been widely adopted in autoethnographies, narrative inquiries, case studies, ethnographies, and many qualitative methodologies with self-storying elements due to its influence in supporting the researcher’s curation of significant and relatable data. how is reflexivity operationalized in the edd? at webster university, the reflexivity construct is operationalized as a critical review of intersectionality (crenshaw, 1989) and researcher positionality (milner, 2007) via qualitative methodological means such as reflexive journaling (lincoln & guba, 1985). crenshaw (1989) explained, “discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another. if an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them” (p. 139). crenshaw’s (1989) term, intersectionality, which demarcates the gendered and racialized experiences of african american women, is an important pillar for building reflexivity in educational research; because doctoral students, as emergent scholar-practitioners, need to recognize the multitude of race, gender, socioeconomic class, and other identity traits which have an intersectional impact on the psyche and emotional wellbeing of an individual. intersectionality laid down the groundwork for minoritized populations to articulate the complex and intricate discrimination that they experienced, and therefore, it is an important lens that foregrounds minoritized voices in educational research. also rooted in racial justice, milner (2007) advocates for educational researchers to “pose racially and culturally grounded questions about themselves,” (p. 395) and that researchers should “research the self,” (p. 395) and “the self in relation to others,” (p. 395) in the process. milner’s (2007) work contests and confronts the status quo of educational research which could be colorand culture-blind, and thus it is a relevant theoretical lens towards building a scholarpractitioner reflexivity. being informed with crenshaw’s (1989) intersectionality and milner’s (2007) researcher positionality, doctoral students, who are emergent researchers, also need a methodological tool for the manifestation of reflexive considerations. lincoln & guba’s (1985) reflective journaling provides a clear guidance towards how reflexivity could be carried out. lincoln and guba’s (1985) reflexive journals “record a variety of information about self (hence the term ‘reflexive’) and method” (p. 327). the journaling focused on how the researcher is making decisions in the research process with respect to “self” is a critical process for establishing “credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability” (lincoln & guba, 1985, p. 327). reflexive journaling is only one of the means for interweaving intersectionality and positionality in qualitative research. there are other methodological tools that serve a similar function. for example, solorzano and yosso’s (2002) counter-storytelling, which highlights the minoritized experiences and narratives as counter-narratives to the “majoritarian” (p. 28) perspectives. counter-storying the realities for minoritized population serves a similar goal of disrupting the oppressive power structures that exist in the system. for example, an asian american’s self-stories about anti-asian hate during the covid-19 pandemic count as counter-stories. the methodological means for researchers to narrate their intersectionality and positionality should not be limited to reflexive journaling and counterstorytelling. any methodological means that allow for the narrators to tell their lived experiences and how they position themselves in complex realities would work. challenging the status quo of ontology and epistemology scholars have criticized the ivory towers of higher education as a power structure that perpetuates “white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, classism, ethnocentrism, and rationality” (allen, 2012, p. 18). edd programs housed within the ivory towers are no exceptions, and we need program reflexivity when claiming social justice and equity as learning outcomes or program goals. are the program lead and faculty predominantly white? has each milestone been designed with equity-minded pedagogy and assessments? does the program offer equitable learning opportunities to diverse learners? does the teaching and research perpetuate white supremacy, classism, racism, and ableism? these are critical reflexive questions for all program directors, faculty, and students to think about. it is the white scholars and their social realities that created and constructed ontology, epistemology, and axiology (scheurich & young, 1997). any course or program can be racially biased because the philosophical framing was contextualized as such. racially biased ideologies transcend every aspect of the edd program, including coursework development, assessment, and academic socialization among doctoral faculty and students. the consensus is that the ontological and epistemological truths of educational research have been contested as being “whitewashed” lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 46 (lee-johnson, 2023, p. 519), as well as “colorand culture-blind” (milner, 2007, p. 392). it is therefore critical to reimagine the opportunity for emergent scholar-practitioners to employ and create research methods with reflexivity, so as to confront the status-quo of whitewashedness in the ontological and epistemological framing of their studies. in the following paragraphs, doctoral candidates’ narratives are shared and discussed, exemplifying how they interwove reflexivity with intersectionality for contesting status quo ontologies and epistemologies in their dissertation projects. reflexivity for restorying ontological and epistemological truths my (edd director) intersectionality as a first-generation immigrant mother-scholar in the united states shaped the revamping of the doctoral program in 2018. because of my intersectionality with triple jeopardy, i.e., being non-white, mother-scholar, speaks with an accent, and the microaggressions that i experienced in the ivory towers as well as my vision and mission to expand the diversity landscape of the edd program, i have intentionally revamped the program with faculty of color teaching in the program. in addition, i have built the edd to be equity-centered, with the vision and mission to transform the status quo of inequities among minoritized populations. at cped convening 2022, dr. valarie kinloch, dean of education of the university of pittsburgh, gave a definition of equity at the opening speech. kinloch (2022) said, “equity requires redistribution of resources to schools, communities, students, and families who need them the most.” as a woman of color and an immigrant mother, i am committed to redistributing resources for empowering minoritized populations. one of the ways, other than having program reflexivity on the equity-centeredness in each edd milestone (e.g., admission, content in coursework, comprehensive exam, prospectus, and oral defense), is to ensure an inclusive global construction of ontology and epistemology, so that the program embraces diversified perspectives in theory, research, and praxis framings of coursework and dissertation projects. kerri fair reflexivity has permeated my doctoral program journey in both traditional and creative ways. i have learned that pausing systematically, as well as spontaneously, to acknowledge my present state/stage in the research process, and to situate it within the process, is meaningful to the work. being reflexive involves “selfinspection” (schwandt, 2015, p. 224) throughout the research as the researcher “is part of the setting, context, and social phenomenon he or she seeks to understand,” (schwandt, 2015, p. 224). i practiced reflexivity at a pivotal point in the program by reflecting over my doctoral journey, considering how and when i chose to curate topics and resources as well as how each shaped my decisions. as a result, i wrote my own theory of the phenomenon (teacher burnout) as a participant for transparency. i am a white, married, christian, middle-aged, cisgender woman with three preteen/teenage children, raised on a farm, educated in the suburbs, and employed as a teacher in both suburban and urban settings. i have had formative experiences as a woman in both my personal and professional life that have contributed to my experience of teacher burnout. one of the most significant factors is my developmental age: middle age. it has become important to me to focus on women from a variety of settings who have experienced burnout during their midcareer/middle age stage of life to hear their varied stories. before i formally shaped my methodology, it was necessary to better understand myself and the ways in which my identity and intersectionality appeared during my experience of the phenomenon. to do so, i chose to participate in a pilot version. as i engaged as a participant during the semi-structured interview, i found myself peeling away the surface stories i had been telling myself, or that society influenced me to tell, about my experience. before engaging in my approach, i told and retold myself the story of my burnout experience over and over in my mind. it became a familiar song and elements of it popped up in places where it did not belong. my story was full of constraints, and in the retelling of it in my mind, it became a tool used to translate other stories/experiences that unfolded in my life after; unbeknownst to me. being untold and unexpressed, the story held more power over my life. through introspection and reflexive writing, i pieced together elements and experiences that were pivotal in creating an environment where burnout could take root and eventually thrive. what's more, i could better understand the choices i made that started the healing process and signs that indicated progress toward self-transformation, self-acceptance, and a return to a healthier self. it is my hope that my doctoral work provides a space for others of a similar age to engage in introspection and reflexivity to better understand their experience of the phenomenon as well as themselves. my dissertation title is stories most difficult to tell are the most vital to share: a phenomenographical investigation of teacher burnout theories and narratives. katherine o’connor i am a doctoral candidate in the edd program, and i self-identify as a biracial, white and african american woman, adopted by white parents. my intersectionality can be described as biracial, woman (cisgender), middle-class (sometimes lower-class), partnered, childless, heterosexual, liberal, and atheist/darwinist/humanist. because of my unique intersectionality, i grew up being minoritized because there were rarely any teachers or peers who looked like me. my sense of self as a doctoral candidate has been informed by my ontology and critique of the monoracial white ontological assumption that has been normalized in u.s.-american society. to examine my biracial ontological sense of self, i chose autoethnography as the method. in my prospectus, i wrote, “this is a journey that i am hoping others like me can see themselves in and relate and begin to see hope. it is a journey that i hope educators can take bits and pieces from and intertwine them in their teachings,” (o’connor, 2022). my ontological sense of self is to be explored with vignettes, photos, and a multimodal representation of myself. my reflexivity is deeply intertwined with my intersectionality and positionality with challenges on a monoracial, reductionist, and dehumanizing framing of my biracial identity that is perpetuated via social interactions and media representations. my dissertation title is shades of beige: an autoethnography on my biracial sense of self. tamara rodney i am a doctoral candidate in the edd program. my intersectionality is that i am black, female, muslim, an immigrant, and a mother. when naming my intersectional identities, my blackness is fundamental to who i am, and its place as first is an act of honoring. in my daily choice to honor my blackness, i am able to reflexivity for restorying truths impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 47 recognize the whiteness all around me. my gender and religious identity exist alongside my professional identity of teacher educator. as a high school teacher and an adjunct faculty member, i witness how white epistemology is intertwined throughout our education system, from grade school to graduate school. i’ve also witnessed how such white epistemologies suffocate and dehumanize black women, black muslims, black immigrants, black mothers and all diasporic african peoples. as a result, i argue for “epistemic freedom” (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018, p. 1) that can only be realized through a critical review of white epistemology in k-12 schools. my working dissertation title is confronting white-epistemology: a theoretical analysis of african american graduates of a predominantly white high school. the framing is predicated upon ndlovu-gatsheni's (2018) “epistemic freedom” (p. 1) which recognizes black epistemology, while simultaneously elevating its inclusion and validation in the knowledge base of k-12 experiences and curricula. as a black immigrant, i stand on the shoulders of my ancestors before me. ancestors who decided to uproot and transplant themselves and their families to the united states. in their sacrifice, live my accomplishments, especially in predominantly white spaces. i must name and confront epistemologies that are rooted in whiteness, to allow for the continued construction of established black epistemologies; this allows me and those who look like me to be seen as fully, and entirely, human. reflexivity allows me to acknowledge that my perceptions shape my "assumptions, values, political position and use of language" as a researcher (haynes, 2012, p. 72). thus, reflexivity demands an examination of one's epistemological and ontological assumptions (haynes, 2012). the corporeal recognition of these facets of oneself is what prevents bias and ultimately the influence i have on my research. as a student in this doctoral program, i learned to see reflexivity and the work on research positionality by dr. rich milner as valuable tools for how i situate myself in my research (milner, 2007). researcher positionality goes hand in hand with reflexivity because it leads to greater self-consciousness and subjectivity when engaging in qualitative research (milner, 2007, p. 389). i view any encouragement to remove myself from my work as the ignoring of reflexivity and positionality, and thus as a sterile and dishonest approach to research. positionality demands that we name and examine our many identities and how position us in the research, but it also leads us to a better understanding of our need, as researchers, to be reflexive practitioners. meier (1963) offers up what i posit as a definition of reflexivity. he says, “it is the way in which a person’s own individual experience intersects with trends in the larger social and intellectual milieu, that shapes the social consciousness and the direction of his/her scholarly research” (p. iv). i would be remiss if i did not recognize the trends in my current social and intellectual climate - a climate that i want to date back to the summer of 2020. the very first course in our doctoral program was a global histories course, where we studied social movements. the class afforded me the opportunity to study the modern-day struggle for black lives, known as the #blacklivesmatter movement. it was during the global clarion call of #blacklivesmatter, august 2020, that i was admitted into webster university’s doctoral program and began my doctoral journey. as all other social movements before it, the #black lives matter movement allows for the affirming of black lives, and this socio-intellectual movement continues to shape my own biography and my scholarship. scholarship that seeks to celebrate and affirm black lives; to do that we must regularly name and confront, the unnamed yet dominant, frames of whiteness that have always shaped the systems and policies in america. jennifer ono my professional and personal self is deeply intertwined with my dissertation topic. my intersectionality is white, lower to middle class, immunocompromised, woman (cisgender), divorced mother to two older teenagers, with 32 years of experience as a teacher in school systems around the u.s., and an instructional coach to adults in k12 schools. i have two biracial children who spoke hawaiian pidgin as they grew up in hawaii. as a mother and a scholar-practitioner, i witnessed firsthand how their speaking of hawaiian pidgin was not supported in schools and how their home language was lost because of the marginalization and lack of acceptance of varied languages in schools. as such, i reflected upon my educator experience. i constructed a mixed-method dissertation project entitled radical transformation of the power-language dynamic in the k-6 classroom: a mixed-methods study of elementary school teachers in the united states. my dissertation will collect descriptive statistical data regarding public school teachers' self-efficacy regarding support for other languages and qualitative interviews with participants to determine what strategies are in place for support. it challenged me, as i acknowledged the epistemological use of mainstream white english in classrooms. this caused deep analysis and reflexivity between my lifelong profession and my desire for language acceptance. my doctoral research was a calling that originated from my intersectionality as a mom, an educator in the field, and a passion to save the home languages of other children. it is a manifestation of my dedication to contest the whitewashing effect that continues to wipe out other languages inside and outside of schools. trezette dixon my intersectionality includes black/african american, woman, mother, first generation college graduate, former intern, and career development practitioner. many facets of my reality dominate my ontology. first, the realization that african americans have a unique experience in our world (dixon, 2022a). second, my mother often reminded me of the power of education. my mother always instilled in my siblings and me a love for education and being ‘one’ of the best. this vision for her children could be attributed to her difficulty achieving a high school education in the 1950s rural south, but she graduated with honors despite the challenges. she always told me stories of her education being interrupted to pick cotton in the fields of tennessee to contribute to the family. she made sure we strived to put education first to make available other valuable opportunities. it is truly empowering to embrace my transformation over the course of this doctoral program (dixon, 2022b). because of my intersectionality and calling to transform the status quo of ontological experiences of african americans, my dissertation project sought to investigate early career development support for african american students. my dissertation title is a fork in the road to graduation: understanding the african american undergraduates’ decision on whether to participate in academic internships. it is to affirm the rights of african american students and to contest the lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 48 predominantly white frame of reference when it comes to academic internship opportunities. conclusion this article aims at disrupting the white-centered knowledge construction in qualitative educational research. the writings of kerri fair, katherine o’connor, tamara rodney, jennifer ono, and trezette dixon are reflexive journals and counterstories that contest the status quo of the third person research report that is devoid of intersectionality and positionality. the unique intersectionality and positionality of each researcher contextualized and enriched the important stories being told. most importantly, these counterstories diversified the existing ontological and epistemological assumptions in qualitative research. in the following paragraphs, the doctoral candidates summarize their dissertation projects and conclude how their journeys are interwoven with reflexivity as they re-storied their versions of truths. kerri fair: teacher burnout is often viewed as a condition to be treated. the treatment often comes from the organization or leadership, who are removed from the individuals experiencing burnout, and in the form of a one size fits all approach. when considering my personal experience with teacher burnout through the lens of my intersectionality, i saw that one aspect of my identity (my age) was more significant than others. individuals experience burnout in ways that are unique to them, often connected to their intersectionality. my research hopes to show others that supporting teachers who are experiencing burnout requires an individual approach. katherine o’connor: as a biracial person, i have spent my life trying to find my place in a world that does not acknowledge my existence in the same manner as it does persons who are of one race. u.s. culture, and its educational system, are steeped in whitewashing history and racial experiences. utilizing an autoethnographic methodology allows me to reflect on my biracial life experiences, dissect them using scientific methods, and analyze them for their truth. as evidenced by florida’s house of representative’s bill, hb999 (the florida senate, 2023), as well as bills being passed or attempting to be passed in multiple other states, our normative culture often suppresses or eradicates minority voices. autoethnography allows me to tell my story in the hope that other minorities will begin to tell theirs and to show we are not alone. tamara rodney: du bois (1998) articulates so eloquently what i have frequently felt: this “two-ness… two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings" (p. 194). this duality exists in many places, but most markedly in my epistemological experiences as a student in the american education system. reflecting on my lived experiences while growing up jamaican in america, i realize that the duality of my epistemic journeys at home and at school have never overlapped. having learned and studied in american spaces much of my academic life, i am constantly in search of epistemic understandings that make room for black frames of knowledge. frames of knowledge which have always existed and go beyond the status quo of prevailing white epistemologies. being raised in a jamaican household, in america, by a rastafarian father meant that i lived in constant company with diasporic black epistemologies as examples of the intrinsic humanness and historic impact of black ways of knowing. it is from this two-ness of epistemological understanding that i shape and craft my qualitative research focus as a doctoral student. i do so in hope of reconciling this duality through the promotion of othered epistemologies; to do this, i must continue to name and confront the dominance of white epistemologies. jennifer ono: being a mother and an educator who witnessed firsthand the devastating loss of my children’s home language, hawaiian pidgin, challenged who i was… i reconsidered what i thought i knew as an educator and learned to push back against the language assimilation that still exists in elementary schools for speakers of home languages and dialects. my children lost their home language after moving out of our community and into a school system taught by under-trained educators to assist a linguistically diverse student population. i have the unique position and privilege of looking like much of the teaching force. yet having children, of a different race, who have lost their home languages because of the institution that i identify as home to my career and passion. all children, their culture, and their language should be validated, accepted, and supported in classrooms, not erased. as educators and educational researchers, we ought to confront and contest such loss which has been caused by whitewashedness (lee-johnson, 2023). trezette dixon: throughout my academic journey, my intersectionality has undergone a significant evolution, from black woman, daughter, first generation student, and intern, to wife, mother of college students, and doctoral candidate. my appreciation of this multifaceted identity enabled me to use reflexivity to better understand my study participants, their individual journeys, and the personal and cultural influences that have shaped their career development decisions. reflection on my intersectionality enabled me to recognize the similarities between my experience and that of my participants and to appreciate the formative role of my parental and cultural influences on my views of education. my educational trajectory further revealed the importance of support systems and experiences that enabled me to pursue and embrace my power and purpose of encouraging others. this has been expressed both through my research on the african american undergraduate experience and through my work as a career services practitioner. ultimately, i have come to understand that to truly comprehend the journey of my participants, i must first understand my own. in the above examples, doctoral candidates utilized reflexivity and intersectionality to restory (or reframe) the dominating and hegemonic realities of ontological and epistemological truths presented to them. each of the doctoral candidates critically examined their lived experiences and intersectionality when tackling a problem of practice, and they reconstructed alternative or multiple truths which were yet to be confirmed in studies. what is the significance of restorying the ontological and epistemological truths in qualitative research? echoing american educational research association 2023 conference theme, interrogating consequential education research in pursuit of truth, qualitative research should have “a real bearing on disrupting ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination,” (milner, 2022, p. 2). by restorying the truths, we stand on each other’s shoulders for contesting existing ontological and epistemological hegemonies that tradition placed on us. by restorying alternative truths in their dissertations, doctoral candidates transformed the status quo ontology and epistemology for 1) research participants and targeted audience of their dissertation findings, 2) minoritized populations that their projects empowered and advocated for, and 3) future scholar-practitioners and researchers in qualitative research when tackling problem of reflexivity for restorying truths impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.339 49 practice. most importantly, the edd director and the five doctoral candidates formed a collective transformative coalition for contesting the existing status quo philosophical frame and constructing alternative ontological and epistemological truths in edd qualitative research. to summarize, the importance of this article is threefold. first, it foregrounds the importance of reflexivity as a construct in qualitative research; reflexivity is a key construct that allows for first-person reflexive journaling or counter-storytelling and it contests the status quo assumption of a positivistic third-person point of view (see section on reflexivity). second, it reviews the existing structures of ontology and epistemology that need to be critically examined: the status quo assumption of ontology and epistemology has been criticized as whitewashed and eurocentric. third, it carries forward a momentum for scholar-practitioners to join the coalition towards transforming the ontology and epistemology that is whitewashed and therefore, not applicable to their intersectionality and lived experiences. the article could be referenced for qualitative research methods coursework design, program revision, dissertation and portfolio project design, and professional developments of faculty and students in the edd. with the reference to pasque et al. 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are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.428 25 collaborative advising: how faculty advisors and writing center professionals help online edd students thrive throughout the dissertation process jess smith bellarmine university jsmith89@bellarmine.edu ryann n. shelton baylor university ryann_shelton@baylor.edu corina r. kaul baylor university corina_kaul@baylor.edu nicholas r. werse baylor university nick_werse@baylor.edu brenda k. jones davis baylor university brenda_davis1@baylor.edu leanne howell baylor university leanne_howell@baylor.edu abstract this article describes a novel approach of integrating writing center professionals into online edd dissertation committees to enhance student success and writing proficiency. departing from the traditional “masterapprentice” model of doctoral studies, the study explores the rationale behind restructuring dissertation committees to better align with evolving programmatic outcomes and the diverse career trajectories of doctoral students. drawing on existing scholarship and theoretical foundations, it clarifies the ambiguity surrounding the roles of committee members beyond the dissertation advisor and advocates for a coalition of experts approach to dissertation committees. we describe the establishment and functions of a research and writing development center (rwdc), highlighting its role in supporting students throughout the dissertation process. emphasizing close collaboration between faculty advisors and rwdc professionals, the article shares the successful relationship forged to provide comprehensive feedback and guidance to scholarly practitioners writing dissertations of practice. programmatic overviews and outcomes underscore the efficacy of this collaborative advising model in enhancing student completion rates and addressing the evolving landscape of edd programs. this study offers valuable insight into reimagining dissertation committees to foster the holistic development of scholarly practitioners in edd programs. keywords dissertation writing, doctoral education, dissertation advising, graduate student success, problem of practice dissertation. although many variations on the defense committee exist, one common strategy for advisors and students is to form a small coalition of experts who lend their expertise to guiding the doctoral student to produce quality research. thus, a dissertation committee often consists of a combination of scholars who lend content matter or methodological expertise to the process (janesick, 2021). however, in response to recent changes to the form, function, and purpose of doctoral education and its corresponding terminal degree thesis (andrews & grogan, 2005; perry et al., 2020), some scholars have begun advocating for rethinking the composition of the dissertation committee as well. for example, lueck and boehm (2019) argue that dissertation committees should include committee members whose work is more oriented toward public engagement because many doctoral students pursue employment outside of the academy. aligning the form of the dissertation and the composition of the dissertation committee with the intended programmatic outcomes seems remarkably valuable, though this shift can introduce new complexities and uncertainties because different academics have different assumptions about what roles committee members should play (wiest & treacy, 2021). choosing to embrace this ambiguity and reconceptualize the dissertation defense committee composition, we recognized in our online, practitioner-focused edd program that writing development was an important programmatic goal. although the majority of our students do not go on to pursue academic careers, we saw clear and effective writing about complex problems of professional practice as an important skill for organizational and industry leaders to develop during their doctoral journey (werse, 2021). as such, we reimagined the dissertation committee to include writing center professionals called graduate writing coordinators, and we imagined ways to include methodology experts on particular documents when needed. this committee structure, therefore, resulted in a highly collaborative system involving dissertation chairs, methodologists, and graduate https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6930-1915 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3832-2032 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6374-3739 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5830-3421 smith et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.428 26 writing consultants working together to guide students to produce practical, actionable terminal degree studies presented with the clarity to speak to key target audiences and decision makers both inside and outside of the academy. in this article, we share the practical aspects related to how we build these collaborative relationships in our edd in learning and organizational change. literature review and theoretical foundation the roles of the defense committee members beyond the advisor remain ambiguous, which can often lead to misaligned expectations and committee conflict (wiest & treacy, 2021). part of the challenge emerges from the fact that the dissertation writing process takes place in the “master-apprentice” model of doctoral work, in which a single expert “master” mentors a small number of “apprentice” doctoral students. this system allows for the faculty advisor, or dissertation chair, to invest substantive, personalized time into the research and writing development of emerging doctoral students as they write their dissertations. it comes as no surprise, therefore, that the faculty advisor remains the most important influence in a doctoral student’s journey through the process of writing a dissertation (cockrell & shelley, 2011; creighton et al., 2010; lunsford, 2012; lyons et al., 1990; pritchard, 2018; west et al., 2011). in fact, some graduate faculty even suggest that the purpose of a dissertation defense committee is not to educate the student or to give advice to improve the document. rather, they say the purpose of the thesis examination or dissertation defense committee is only to “provide the department with a single score and brief summary report” (gruba & zobel, 2017, p. 28), and that education and advice are the responsibility of the thesis or dissertation supervisor. the highly individualized “master-apprentice” model is not without its shortcomings (boud & lee, 2005; johnson et al., 2000). it creates a system in which doctoral students become mentored and guided through the terminal degree research process by relatively few voices (delamont et al., 2000). given that many of the nuances of disciplinary expectation are unspoken (gardner, 2007; petre & rugg, 2011), as are the expectations for the terminal degree dissertation within the discipline (lovitts, 2007), the student experience throughout the doctoral process can become widely variable depending upon the approach of their advisor and their advisor’s assumptions about the process (lee, 2008). most chairs have no formal training in how to chair a dissertation (mirick et al., 2020). to help remedy these shortcomings, many graduate faculty often approach the dissertation defense committee more like a coalition of experts that each draw upon their expertise in some way to help ensure the quality of each student’s research (oltman et al., 2019; roberts, 2004). thus, content matter experts may provide guidance on content-specific material related to their areas of expertise in just the same way methodologists provide methodologyrelated guidance, even when the dissertation topic falls outside of their research focus (janesick, 2021). this approach to forming a coalition of experts who all contribute to the development of the student’s research in some way opens the door for graduate faculty to adjust the committee in light of the expertise that they think would benefit the student throughout their terminal degree research and into the beginning of their careers. thus, for students whose terminal degree will lead them to a vocation outside of the academy, lueck and boehm (2019) argue that their committees should include someone who can help the students think through public engagement with their research. within this model, therefore, the committee composition reflects the desired skills and areas of expertise that students need to conduct and communicate their research to key target audiences. crafting the dissertation committee to create a coalition of experts to shape the student’s research development and formation in light of their intended vocational goals allows for the inclusion of an expert on the committee to mentor the student in one of the most foundational skills needed to craft a dissertation: writing. however, the place of writing development support for doctoral students has an uneasy history alongside the traditional “master-apprentice” model of doctoral mentorship. on the one hand, the existence of writing development manuals for doctoral students reveals both the need and market for such support (aliotta, 2018; bell et al., 2019). one area of emerging interest is the potential value of graduate writing center support (summers, 2016; waring, 2005). on the other hand, some advisors have expressed distrust of supplement support of this nature (behm, 1989; clark, 1988; healy, 1993). for example, gruba and zoebel (2017) warn graduate student writers against seeking writing center support under the heading “plagiarism and research integrity.” such warnings against the use of a writing center for research work contribute to the recognized uncertainty among many writing center professionals about their institutional place within the university (behm, 1989; clark, 1988; healy, 1993), especially when it comes to mentoring graduate student writers who have formal mentors in their advisors—each of whom may have widely different expectations and assumptions about writing development. when designing our online edd program for scholarly practitioners, we recognized that past scholarship has demonstrated the importance of writing support for not just graduate students in general, but also, more specifically, for online scholarly practitioners who are often farther removed from their last degrees and may feel out of practice when it comes to academic writing (caffarella & barnett, 2000; nobles, 2019). we also recognized that in addition to equipping students to complete a terminal degree dissertation, this writing development support offered a very practical skill set that practitioners take with them into their industry leadership. while academic writing at the doctoral level is often complicated by the unique nuances and technicalities of discipline-specific discourse (becher & trowler, 2001; hyland, 2009), at its core, academic writing aims to communicate clearly and concisely to a specifically identified (generally academic or disciplinary-specific) audience (vanalstyne, 1999). while valuable for training future academics, however, the ability to clearly and concisely communicate about complex issues to a target audience is a skill that transfers across industries beyond the academy (werse, 2021). thus, given the academic tradition of crafting dissertation committees to function like a coalition of experts and given the immense value of writing development expertise for equipping our edd students to complete their dissertations and providing them with a transferable, communication skill that they will use in their industry leadership, we decided to reimagine the dissertation defense committee to include writing development specialists from our writing center. thus, just as the dissertation chair brings content matter expertise and the methodologist brings methodology expertise, so does the writing development specialist bring a technical expertise in academic writing to help guide the student to producing a clear and collaborative advising impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.428 27 coherent dissertation. in the following sections, therefore, we provide the relevant programmatic information for contextualizing this innovation as well as the outcomes of this collaborative effort. program and rwdc overview our doctoral program is a three-year online edd in learning and organizational change. students are in a cohort model (lively et al., 2021), with a new cohort beginning the program each trimester. each cohort includes 40–90 students, and we have nine active cohorts of students at any given time. we enroll more than 500 students, and typically about 300 of those students are working on their dissertations in any given term—with approximately half as doctoral students writing the first two chapters of their dissertations (literature review and methodology) and the other half as doctoral candidates collecting or analyzing data. almost all our students are working professionals, and as such, the program includes a problem of practice dissertation in which students conduct specifically defined and carefully crafted doctoral research on problems of professional practice in their organizations or industries (influenced by archbald, 2008; belzer & ryan, 2013; perry, 2013, 2016). students complete 18 three-hour courses on a trimester schedule so that they can complete the program in a target time of three years. four of these courses in the program are dedicated to the problem of practice dissertation, beginning in term five. during the first of these courses, students are assigned a faculty advisor to guide the dissertation process. to meet this heavy advising need, advisors, who serve as dissertation chairs, typically supervise 10–12 students from a cohort, and advisors may work with two cohorts at a time. to advise this many doctoral students and candidates, we developed a partnership between faculty advisors and writing center professionals so that we could provide the feedback students need to make progress toward quality dissertations. we developed the research and writing development center (rwdc), a program-specific writing center, because we recognized that many students felt out of practice or unfamiliar with academic writing. at the same time, writing a dissertation at an r1 institution with very high research activity required meeting high standards and expectations. to empower our students to succeed throughout this writing process, we built a robust team of seven full-time graduate writing coordinators who hold terminal degrees in their fields and four graduate assistant writing development specialists enrolled in advanced phd coursework. the rwdc team members work closely with faculty advisors across our program’s curriculum sequence to support student writing. the rwdc was designed to support our online edd students throughout the dissertation writing process. we do this in three key ways. first, we offer students writing consultations in the manner of a more traditional writing center. students can book a 30-minute appointment with the rwdc once every 21 days, subject to consultant availability, during which they seek help with class assignments, dissertation planning documents, or dissertation writing. the rwdc offers nearly 500 writing consultations per trimester and works closely with faculty advisors to craft individualized writing development plans that are uniquely tailored to students’ different learning styles and language proficiencies. second, we develop and deliver course materials. the rwdc team is integrated into the literature review and methodology dissertation writing course in term five as well as the findings and implications dissertation writing course in term eight to facilitate students’ writing growth across terms. in addition to this formal feedback, the rwdc team contributes materials to the construction of these courses including the oversight of an internal document called the composition resource guide and teaching workshops during class time. the composition resource guide is a document that we provide to students with guidance related to each chapter and the required sections in the chapter. it also includes support related to tense and formatting. additionally, a member of the rwdc team meets with faculty advisors weekly to discuss their students’ progress. third, we support students by providing iterative feedback on formal dissertation submissions, culminating in our membership on the students’ dissertation defense committees. any time that the student submits a dissertation chapter as part of their dissertation courses, it is collaboratively reviewed by both a member of the rwdc and the faculty advisor. when students submit their dissertation documents for review to their faculty advisors, the rwdc team first runs a turnitin.com report to look for potential plagiarism or parallels with existing literature and then provides preliminary feedback on the writing style, apa, and formatting before the advisor comments. this process allows them to carefully track statistics concerning student progress, such as the time spent with students, topics addressed, engagement with feedback, writing support needs, and research focus to inform program-level strategic planning. in term nine, when students defend, a member of the rwdc also serves as a dissertation committee member. dissertation and dissertation committee overview in our cohort-model program, students begin thinking about their dissertation topic early and often. on their admission applications, they include a potential dissertation topic, and they begin writing about their dissertations in their first term. students complete their methodology coursework, which includes qualitative research, statistical methods, and mixed methods, in addition to other courses in their first four terms. students receive their faculty advisors in term five when they take their first two dissertation writing courses, which are focused on the literature review and methodology chapters of their dissertations. during this term, they work closely with their faculty advisors to develop their dissertation content, focus, and design, while concurrently meeting with the rwdc to develop the writing practices and conventions for dissertation writing success. at each formal submission of a dissertation chapter as part of this course, we recognized that both the faculty advisor and a member of the rwdc needed to review the students’ documents and provide feedback (see figure 1), thereby normalizing the expectation that the student will receive collaborative feedback from all members of the committee. in some cases when the faculty advisor requested additional methodological feedback, we decided to include a methodologist in this process. after successfully writing the first two dissertation chapters, the students advance to doctoral candidacy and receive their full committee, consisting of their faculty advisor, a second reader who may also serve as the methodologist, and a member of the rwdc. the full committee then reviews and provides feedback on the dissertation in the two remaining dissertation courses. smith et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.428 28 figure 1. collaborative advising model for the dissertation in this collaborative advising model, the faculty advisor and rwdc reader serve different roles. the faculty advisor focuses on discipline-specific content, methodological soundness, and alignment across the dissertation chapters. the advisor also serves as the primary student contact, providing mentorship and support through the dissertation writing process. conversely, the rwdc team members primarily focus on quality writing, crafting an argument, mechanics, organization, formatting, clarity, and conciseness when providing student feedback, both for consultations as well as for formal dissertation feedback. the rwdc team member’s role in the dissertation defense is two-fold: they serve on the committee mentoring that graduate student’s scholarship and fill the role of the university graduate school to review for university-required formatting and facilitate university-required processes, such as proquest submissions. our close collaboration based on our experience, a positive working relationship between the faculty advisor and writing center professionals is vital to a successful student writing experience. because the rwdc team reads every problem of practice dissertation across advisors, cohorts, and courses, they have a broad perspective from which to support both students and faculty advisors throughout the writing process. the rwdc team can point to areas of writing concern in documents, share with advisors how previous cohorts and advising teams handled certain situations in the advising experience, and can help an advisor determine when a document is ready to move forward to the next stage in the writing process. by building collaboration throughout the writing process, the faculty advisors and rwdc team form an important synergistic force that provides a solid foundation for students to improve their writing skills while completing their dissertations. we highlight our close collaboration with three key points. first, we have frequent formal and informal timely communication about specific students or questions, which includes open communication by email and phone. faculty advisors and a rwdc team member meet weekly while students in that cohort are enrolled in problem of practice courses, in terms five and eight, to plan for courses and discuss student support. we communicate deliberately, particularly about course preparation, course resources, dissertation review expectations, our processes, and student progress. we also engage in continued communication through frequent follow-up emails. when students have an rwdc consultation, the rwdc team member sends a follow-up email and copies the faculty advisor on the email. we work diligently to remain on the same page through our continued communication. second, we have the same goal in that we want students to succeed, so we work as a united front with complementary responsibilities. in class, faculty advisors often encourage students to meet with the rwdc, and we remind students that we are on the same team, emphasizing that our common goal is student success. in terms five, eight, and nine, we provide students with a joint review of their documents. the rwdc reviews the draft to provide an initial evaluation of the writing with a focus on writing alignment across the dissertation, adherence to expectations set forth in the composition resource guide, writing quality and clarity, apa, and formatting. these comments often include links to embedded video tutorials. the faculty advisor provides feedback in terms of content, methodological soundness, and alignment. when we provide this feedback, we communicate with one another based on our areas of expertise, and we support and reiterate feedback from one another. meanwhile, the rwdc uses annotate pro, a free system that allows us to create a shared database of comments and logs key notes for each review or student meeting to provide consistency for students. we send this feedback to students in a joint document to show our support between faculty advisors and rwdc staff. in this same way, we make committee decisions taking together the faculty advisor and rwdc writing professionals’ feedback to determine candidacy and defense decisions, communicating to students that these decisions are not made solely by the faculty advisor. we also work together to provide students with two on-campus immersion experiences in terms three and five. in this same vein of wanting our students to succeed, many of us conduct research together, always seeking ways to improve the student experience. we share our research in professional conference presentations and in co-authoring publications such as this one. we work together, making student success and quality dissertations our priority. third, we are flexible in working with one another. we learn from one another and often have discussions about different components of the dissertation process, working with flexibility to meet our students’ writing needs. further, we work in conjunction with our evolving program. when new faculty advisors or rwdc team members are hired, we agreeably support one another to learn from one another. we include the graduate school and the library in our processes, and we work to ensure we are meeting department and institutional expectations. this includes a tailored technical review and the oversight of the defense process, including the required paperwork and communications with the university’s graduate school. the rwdc takes on this work to support the faculty advisors and provide consistency across cohorts. we support one another in our roles. conclusion reconceptualizing the committee structure in response to program needs and shifts in doctoral education at large represents a hallmark of our program. creativity within policy rather than student product marks a turn from the typical conversations surrounding collaborative advising impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.428 29 doctoral provision. the results of this highly integrated student support system into our course sequence have been successful. university leadership has supported our scholarly-practitioner problem of practice dissertation and advising model. further, the four-year completion rate has been consistently between 60–80%, while the attrition rate from doctoral programs has been reported at or slightly above 50% for decades (buss & allen, 2020; bowen & rudenstine, 1992; cassuto, 2013; council of graduate schools, 2008; lovitts, 2001). we recognize that this model represents a significant shift in the traditional composition and role of dissertation committees in doctoral education. while the conventional “master-apprentice” model has long been the norm, recent developments in doctoral programs, including the recognition of the importance of practical skills for non-academic career paths and the increased size of doctoral programs as online education has blossomed, prompted a rethinking of the dissertation committee’s composition. this shift towards forming a coalition of experts tailored to students’ specific needs and intended career trajectories reflects a more flexible and student-centric approach. the close collaboration between faculty advisors and rwdc professionals emerges as a key element in this model’s success. effective communication, shared goals of student success, and flexibility in working together have been instrumental in creating a synergistic relationship that benefits both students and advisors. our reimagined dissertation committee represents another option for doctoral education and acknowledges the significance of strong writing skills for all doctoral students, regardless of their future career paths. overall, this structure offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of doctoral education and the potential benefits of adapting the composition of dissertation committees 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(2021). the role of non-chair committee members in doctoral dissertations. national teaching & learning forum, 30(6), 6–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.30300 https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amh041 https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.30300 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 faculty mentors’ perceptions: evidence of applied practitioner research by edd candidates jennifer crystle marymount university jcrystle@marymount.edu shannon melideo marymount university smelideo@marymount.edu ruth boyd marymount university rboyd@marymount.edu clara hauth marymount university chauth@marymount.edu abstract the purpose of this research was to understand faculty mentors’ perspectives on the impact of cped-aligned methodology courses on doctoral students’ development as scholarly practitioners. this study was a pilot study and exploratory in nature. methods included distribution of a survey which included likert items, as well as open-ended questions. the study presents descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of the survey results. additionally, exemplar dips were analyzed to demonstrate alignment with cped principles. findings indicated that faculty mentors perceive that the cped-aligned methods coursework is having a positive impact on students’ learning and development as scholar practitioners. however, areas for growth and continuous improvement were identified. implications of the research indicate a need for ongoing program assessment and evaluation of the impact of methodological coursework as the institution moves forward in program redesign and improvement. this study also serves as a model for incorporating faculty mentor perspectives in course and program assessment. keywords methodology coursework, cped principle alignment, faculty mentorship, scholarly practitioners, educational leadership purpose as a recently inducted member of carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), marymount university is interested in understanding the impact of cped-aligned methodology courses on our doctoral students’ development as scholarly practitioners. scholarly practitioners identify a problem of practice through their experience in the field and “use practical research and applied theories as tools for change” (cped framework, 2019, para. 6). in assessing student development as scholarly practitioners, this pilot study specifically considers the lens and perspective of faculty mentors, as they guide students through the process of the dissertation in practice (dip). because faculty mentors directly observe student development and growth as researchers, they can provide unique perspectives on how methodology coursework is preparing students to apply practical research to solve a complex problem of practice. marymount university edd program design and development marymount university’s edd program in educational leadership and organizational innovation was launched in fall 2020. the curriculum, which strategically combines leadership theory coursework and research coursework, is designed to prepare scholar practitioners “to generate, transform, and apply professional knowledge and leadership practice” (marymount university, 2021, p. 1). marymount’s edd program is a fully online 48-credit program that can be completed in less than three years. the program is designed for working professionals in a wide range of diverse fields and industries. cohort members are professionals seeking to advance their careers within education, nonprofit, government, corporate, and healthcare industries, among others. while we are a fully online program, marymount prides itself on being a very highhttps://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9242-8906 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5880-4327 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9483-3737 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1104-8523 crystle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 2 touch program with an intentional design to support students as they balance work, school, and personal responsibilities. the edd program coursework is designed to provide frameworks on which students can reflect in order to conduct research that can bring about organizational change. the program coursework has been designed to achieve four overarching learning outcomes. throughout the program, students are challenged to:  use transformative leadership to promote change across diverse instructional and organizational settings,  collaborate with diverse audiences and stakeholders about organizational research, practice, and theories,  create innovative processes or systems that foster continuous improvement,  develop analytical thinking skills to evaluate change processes. (marymount university, 2021) although not formally accepted into cped until a year after program launch in 2021, the edd program and its curriculum were proactively designed according to cped’s guiding design concepts and six guiding principles, which states that the professional doctorate in education: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019, para. 3) several studies have been conducted on the value of using cped’s principles to guide edd programs during their program design (buss et al., 2017; gallagher, 2013; mayer et al., 2013; peterson, 2016). throughout our program design, and as we move forward in refining and improving our program, the cped principles remain at the forefront of our programming, particularly in the dissertation methods courses. as a consortium member, it is the duty of marymount’s school of education faculty to utilize the cped framework to redesign, evaluate, and improve our programs. per the three cped phases of design, our program is in the redesign stage. several faculty members are examining various aspects of our program through a multitude of data collection methods. with a newly minted, thriving terminal degree program underway, we find it sagacious to examine the perspectives of our lead doctoral faculty mentors (ldfm) as to the exposure and acquisition of the cped principles of their mentees. we seek to use data from our ldfm stakeholders as a means to make informed, purposeful, and evidence-based decisions when engaging in continuous improvement of our research courses (giancola, 2021). lead doctoral faculty mentor (ldfm) program a key focus of this study is examining students’ development as scholar practitioners through the lens of the ldfm. the ldfm program is integral to the marymount edd program, as we pride ourselves on offering a high-touch program with comprehensive student support, especially throughout the research and dissertation process. in accordance with the cped design concepts (2019), marymount’s edd is dedicated to providing a supportive learning environment” and comprehensive “individualized and cohort attention. the ldfm program is built on principles of mutual respect, equity and justice, and the fostering of a rigorous, yet flexible learning environment (cped, 2019). historically, only half of all doctoral students complete their degree, and dissertation mentorship plays an important role in those who achieve program completion (mullen, 2021). doctoral students often note that a positive mentoring relationship with their dissertation chair, one in which advisors exhibit dispositions acknowledging daily struggles (balancing school, work, and family responsibilities) and promoting mentee proficiency, leads to increased intrinsic motivation of the doctoral student (jameson & torres, 2019). mullen (2021) concurs, citing findings by maddox (2017) that a leading cause of program disruption is “lack of advising and mentoring” (p. 140). elmore (2021) also found that effective dissertation mentorship can help doctoral students overcome five common challenges of online doctoral learners, including “writing at a doctoral level, experiencing feelings of isolation, accessing online resources, establishing a professional and collegial relationship, and managing research” (p. 67). this study specifically focuses on the challenge of managing research, as demonstrated by doctoral students’ incorporation of cped’s guiding principles in their research methodology. simply put, a positive mentoring relationship promotes student success. the ldfm acts as a mentor and coach for the doctoral students, guiding them through the process of research and writing their dissertation in practice. ldfms work closely with the doctoral students as they journey through their research coursework, and thus are able to closely observe their development as research and scholarly practitioners. the ldfm is similar to what many may consider a dissertation chair; however, the ldfm goes beyond what is typically expected of this traditional role. ldfms are paired with doctoral students early in the program, during the fourth semester of coursework, undergo extensive onboarding training, and participate in ongoing professional development training. ldfms are expected to meet with students a minimum of three times each semester, and they observe first-hand how students are developing and applying their methodology coursework. their perspective is especially unique, as they see their mentee’s journey and growth over time, as opposed to coursework faculty, who may only see a snapshot of the student’s research skills in a given semester. the ldfm is integral in the transition of doctoral students to scholarly practitioners. edd research coursework throughout the marymount edd program, students take both content and research coursework to prepare them to become thought-leaders and research-practitioners in their respective fields. coursework is delivered asynchronously through the canvas faculty perceptions of applied practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 3 learning management system. all courses for the edd program were written, developed, and designed by various fulland part-time marymount faculty, with the assistance of keypath education instructional designers. content courses introduce students to theoretical foundations of leadership, ethics, and crisis/change management to prepare students to lead and affect change within their organizations. alongside these content-based courses, students also take a series of research and methods-based courses throughout their program. the research and methodology courses are scaffolded in a way that allows students to apply their knowledge and progress in their research for their dips. as discussed above, the design of these methods courses, like all the program coursework, was guided by the cped principles. in table 1, we draw on research from buss (2018) to analyze how the design of each methodology course aligns with the cped principles. as a second step, a colleague conducted original research with course designers and course instructors to verify their perspective of course alignment with the cped principles (marotta, 2023). table 1. mu methodology coursework and cped alignment course title course objectives cped principles ed 703: approaches to research methods  provides an overview of the research process  develops skills essential to conducting effective research  focuses on the construction of a sound literature review 1 2 3 4 5 6 x x x ed 712: program evaluation  examines the evolving field of program evaluation  evaluates ways to collect and analyze data, employ measurements (metrics), select research design(s) and establish a plan for program improvement  focuses on the importance of data collection and analysis prior to presenting recommendations to decision-makers 1 2 3 4 5 6 x x x x ed 713: applied research methods  develops transferable understanding of and facility with a range of social science research methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.  formulates an appropriate methodology for the investigation of an authentic and leadership-related organizational challenge  integrates research ethics into the research process. 1 2 3 4 5 6 x x x x ed 715: communicating research findings  further develops skills for conducting research in applied settings with real world challenges  refines research questions and methods to address problem of practice  emphasizes data analysis and communicating of findings 1 2 3 4 5 6 x x x x ed 801: doctoral seminar  guides student in conducting a feasible, ethical, and valid research project  focuses on the design of an intervention or process to solve a problem of practice in an approach aligned with the organization’s needs 1 2 3 4 5 6 x x x x as we seek to understand the effectiveness of our methodology coursework and honor our commitment to continuous improvement, it is imperative that we begin to evaluate the design of our methods courses and consider the preparedness of our students in their development as researchers and scholar practitioners. research questions and study objectives this study is intended to serve as a pilot and exploratory study to guide the development of a larger study as the program grows in both student enrollment and number of faculty mentors. these research questions guided the study: 1) what is the perspective of lead doctoral faculty mentors (ldfm) on how cped-aligned methodology courses have impacted students' learning and development as scholar practitioners? 2) how do lead doctoral faculty mentors (ldfm) perceive the impact of the course design, sequencing, and instruction of the research methodology courses on student learning and development? 3) how have students’ development as scholar practitioners and their dissertations in practice aligned with cped’s six guiding principles? methods this study is part of a larger project of edd program review and improvement for our institution. because the program was only established in fall 2020 and the number of students enrolled in research coursework was still limited at the time of this study, this research is exploratory in nature and is intended to guide the development of a larger study as the program grows and strives for continuous improvement. this research team sought the perspectives of the ldfms to determine the impact of cped-aligned methodology courses on doctoral students’ development as research-practitioners. an electronic survey was administered to ldfms for cohort one and cohort two of the edd program. the rationale for limiting the population to these cohorts was to ensure that at the time the survey was administered, students would have taken some foundational methodology coursework. the survey consisted of a questionnaire, in which ldfms would rate responses on a five-point likert scale, as well as a section of open-ended questions. the survey was sent out to 25 faculty mentors mentoring students in either the first and second cohorts, or both. of the 25 active ldfms at the time of the study, 12 responded, for a response rate of 48%. all responses were anonymous. according to the survey, the ldfm respondents were equally distributed in membership between serving cohort one (33.33%), cohort two (33.33%), and both cohorts (33.33%). we drew on descriptive statistics (cooksey, 2020) to present and analyze our data. we analyzed the likert scale data by looking at median and mode scores, as experts have argued that these are the best ways to measure central tendency for likert data (jamieson, 2004). we also looked at standard deviation as evidence of the variation or alignment in our ldfm responses. in addition to descriptive statistics, we use focused coding (saldaña, 2021) and applied thematic analysis (mackieson et al., 2019) to analyze the open-ended questions in our survey. we specifically looked for thematic patterns, repetition, and comparisons within our data (saldaña, 2021) to analyze possible growth and improvement areas for the program. lastly, we drew upon students’ dissertation drafts to analyze the ways in which students’ application of their methods coursework align with the cped principles. crystle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 4 findings and analysis the purpose of this research was to understand faculty mentors’ perspectives on the impact of cped-aligned methodology courses on doctoral students’ development as scholarly practitioners. a discussion of supporting research questions follows, examining indepth the data on ldfm perspectives, the impact on methodology course design, and examples of dip exemplars in which doctoral candidates demonstrated integration of cped’s guiding principles. ldfm perspectives our first supporting research question asked: what is the perspective of ldmfs on how cped-aligned methodology courses have impacted students' learning and development as scholar practitioners? to answer this question, we looked primarily at the quantitative data elicited from our likert-scale questions. our survey consisted of 16 likert-scale questions which were designed to understand students’ development as scholar-practitioners through the lens of the cped principles. each of the statements aligns with one or more of these principles. the questions sought to examine individual components of the cped principles to garner a more concrete understanding of ldfm perspectives on their mentees’ development as scholar practitioners. the response options were provided on a spectrum between strongly disagree (score of 1) to strongly agree (score of 5). while the available range of scores for each question was 4 (between 1-5), the actual range of the data was 3 (between 2-5). the response of “strongly disagree” was not selected for any survey question. the responses were primarily in the agree and strongly agree ranks. with an aggregate mean of 4.29, mode of 5, and standard deviation of 0.79, our data revealed that the ldfms believe their doctoral student mentees generally demonstrate facilitation of the cped principles via their coursework and the working drafts of their dissertations. if we delve deeper into the individual likert questions and corresponding cped principles in table 2, we notice some additional patterns that are important to note. in terms of strengths, our ldfms perceive that our methodology coursework is strongest in cped principles one, four, and six, as we work to prepare students as scholar practitioners. thus, our ldfms perceive that our students are generally strong in identifying a problem of practice grounded in equity and social justice (principle one), as well as generating new professional knowledge that is filling a scholarly research gap (principle six). additionally, our ldfms strongly agree that our students have opportunities to engage in relevant real-life applications in their field or profession through their coursework (principle four). in terms of areas of growth, our data shows that ldfms see an area for growth with respect to cped principle five. for all of the likert statements that align with principle five, we report a median of 4 and mode of 4, consistently lower than much of the data that aligns with the other principles. of particular note is the likert item which asked ldfms their level of agreement with the following statement: “the doctoral student(s) clearly articulates theoretical and conceptual frameworks to guide the research.” the range for this statement was a score of 2-5, and this statement also reported the greatest standard deviation with a value of 1.01. this data shows us that we may need to help our students better understand and articulate conceptual frameworks for their research. additional statements under principle four reveal that students may need further support in selecting and justifying a method that is appropriate for their research. however, we should also note that some of the students in these cohorts had not completed all of their foundational methods courses at the time of this research. table 2 provides an overview of the descriptive statistics of survey items as aligned to cped principles. table 2. descriptive statistics of survey items as aligned to cped principles cped principles/survey items median mode std. dev. cped principle one. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. the doctoral student(s) identified a complex problem of practice that is grounded in equity and social justice. the doctoral student(s) demonstrates a foundational understanding of research ethics. the doctoral student(s) constructed research protocols in which they were qualified by education, training, and experience. 4.50 5.00 0.64 5.00 5.00 0.88 5.00 5.00 0.66 cped principle two. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. the doctoral student(s) effectively applies knowledge learned through their methodology coursework to the process of preparing their dip proposal. the doctoral student(s) identifies research that will bring about solutions that will make a positive difference in the respective field, organization, or community. 4.00 4.00 0.91 5.00 5.00 0.78 cped principle three. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. the doctoral student(s) demonstrates the ability to collaborate and build partnerships (i.e., ldfm, cohort peers, community partners, etc.). the doctoral student(s) incorporates diverse perspectives into their dip. the doctoral student(s) demonstrates the ability to effectively communicate research purpose to a broad audience. 5.00 5.00 0.48 4.00 4.00 0.69 4.00 4.00 0.60 cped principle four. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. the doctoral student(s) have opportunities to engage in relevant real-life applications in their field or profession through their coursework (e.g., program evaluation). 5.00 5.00 0.66 cped principle five. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. the doctoral student(s) clearly articulates theoretical and conceptual frameworks to guide the research. the doctoral student(s) is familiar with common methods of data collection and identifies a method best suited for problem of practice analysis. the doctoral student(s) has a clear vision of appropriate methodology to implement. the doctoral student(s) is able to justify methodological process for inquiry. the doctoral student(s) incorporates research coursework to guide the dip proposal and presentation. 4.00 4.00 1.01 4.00 4.00 0.86 4.00 4.00 0.76 4.00 4.00 0.73 4.00 4.00 0.76 faculty perceptions of applied practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 5 cped principles/survey items median mode std. dev. cped principle six. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice. the doctoral student effectively generates new professional knowledge through their dissertation in practice. the doctoral student has generated research that fills a scholarly gap and offers a solution to a problem of practice. 5.00 5.00 0.65 5.00 5.00 0.78 impact of methodology course design our second research question asked: how do ldfms perceive the impact of the course design, sequencing, and instruction of the edd program’s research methodology courses on student learning and development? to answer this question, we relied primarily on data from the open-ended questions in our survey. one of these questions asked for ldfm perspectives on how the research methodology has impacted students’ learning and development as scholar practitioners. in addition, we looked at a question which asked ldfms for their feedback on the methodology coursework and student development as research practitioners. in summary, our findings indicate that ldfms perceive that the methodology courses generally have a positive impact on student learning and development as research practitioners. according to one ldfm, “students are aware of how to select the appropriate research tool to answer their questions and how best to implement that method with their selected population.” another ldfm noted, “i believe the students have received training in their research methodology necessary to develop their dips.” a response to note is that one ldfm pointed out that overall, the cped-aligned research methodology has had a positive impact on students' learning, but that “the extent of that impact varies depending on the skill and commitment of each individual student.” this reminds us that while methodology courses play a role in preparing students for research, we cannot overlook the importance of skill, experience, and commitment level of each individual student. while there was evidence that ldfms perceive a positive impact of the methodology coursework, there was also evidence that ldfms identify possible areas of growth and change with the methods courses and how we may be able to better prepare our students as scholar practitioners. a primary theme that emerged from the research is the need for an increased and earlier focus on developing a theoretical and conceptual framework to guide the research. out of this concern came another concern that the literature review may be completed too early in the program, as students may not have a sound idea of their theoretical framework at that early point in the program. another theme that emerged from the data is the need for students to hone their research to a manageable scale. many students start out with research ideas that are too big and unmanageable to complete within the expedited timeline of the program. lastly, a final theme that emerged was a consideration of program course sequence. some ldfms commented that students may need an earlier introduction to qualitative research methods, as well as conceptual and theoretical frameworks, before writing their literature review. table 3 outlines each of these themes, as well as the supporting evidence from our qualitative survey responses. table 3. identified growth areas to maximize the impact of the research methods courses growth area/theme evidence increased focus on theoretical/ conceptual framework “i think there needs to be more time spent on theoretical framework and conceptual framework earlier in the research classes' content.” “i think students would be served better if they were introduced to theoretical frameworks earlier in the process so they can incorporate their theory into their literature review and it would help them frame their problem through that lens.” “students struggle a bit with conceptual/theoretical framework, perhaps because the literature review is embedded so early and they don't identify a framework at that time” hone research to manageable scale “at first my students were thinking too big and this bogged them down.” “...helping the students realize a) it's ok to have a small project that's do-able, b) it's ok to build a conceptual framework as a project, and c) how a dip can be mined and used as a basis for further research would be good.” consider sequence/ content of courses “it was very hard for my students to begin writing the first three chapters last year before they had been introduced to qualitative research methods, to the concept of mixed methods, and to the idea of a conceptual framework.” “the literature review is embedded so early and they don't identify a [conceptual] framework at that time” “i found that some of my doc students were doing too many weekly assignments from the beginning that i did not think were directly aligned with and focused on planning and writing a dissertation” dip exemplars our final supporting research question asked: how have students’ development as scholar practitioners and their dips aligned with cped’s six guiding principles? while the overall results in our likert scale provides some feedback for this question, we specifically asked the following open-ended question: “do you believe any of your students provide exemplar dip proposal(s) that especially support the cped principles referenced above? please share the topic(s) and to which cped principle(s) they align.” via this item we prompted ldfm respondents to provide details of exemplar dips that especially supported the cped principles. ldfms reported their mentees are studying a wide variety of topics and their dissertation drafts demonstrate exceptional facility with a number of cped principles. table 4 showcases the data provided by our ldfms: table 4. exemplar dip drafts and their alignment with cped principles select dissertation in practice draft titles cped principles 1 2 3 4 5 6 appreciative inquiry, conflict of caring from an ethic of justice x x x x x when they lean on us: a phenomenological study of black male educators and their experiences. x x scaffolded post-secondary planning methods and their role in cultivating career decision x x x x anti-hazing curriculum efficacy in higher education: a program evaluation x x x x x a phenomenological study on the impact of covid-19 on face-to-face teachings in a k-8 catholic schools: what about the teachers? x x x x x crystle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 6 select dissertation in practice draft titles cped principles 1 2 3 4 5 6 how a comprehensive training program builds resilience in school administrators at a boarding school for students with learning disabilities x x x hispanics in higher education x x x frequency (f) 5 7 3 2 4 6 of the seven dips disclosed by the ldfms as exemplars, all were purported to exhibit principle two. six exhibited cped principle six. five dips exhibited cped principle one. cped principles three and four were the least commonly reported. two ldfms provided more extensive information regarding the work of their mentees by name. here, we provide an overview of four of these proposals and the cped principles to which they align, from the perspective of the ldfms who are mentoring the doctoral candidates, followed by a further explanation of the exemplary dip work. a qualitative phenomenological exploration of covid-19 impacts on face-to-face teachers in k-8 catholic schools: beyond the pandemic, how are the teachers? tanya salewski has served as principal for a catholic elementary (k-8) school in mclean, virginia for several years. during the covid-19 pandemic, it became apparent that classroom teachers needed additional support as they navigated the changing landscape of instructional delivery. as referenced in her dissertation proposal, the march 13, 2020 order by virginia governor ralph northam to temporarily close virginia schools, and then, the subsequent return to in-person education, began a two-year journey into ambiguity and flux for her school’s educators (salewski, 2023). although teachers and administrators were not prepared for this unprecedented crisis, research does indicate that schools can better prepare themselves for future potential crises (salewski, 2023). to that end, dr. salewski examined the lived experiences of classroom teachers who returned to face-to-face classroom instruction, seeking their perspectives on supportive structures that were provided, or those which they wished had been implemented. resulting data was used to establish a tool-kit of sorts, one that helps administrators develop a system of methodologies that can be used as resources in the event of future crises. dr. salewski’s ldfm believes that this approach aligns with cped principle two, preparing leaders to construct and apply knowledge that makes a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities (classroom teachers and their school communities) and cped principle four, using field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice. as the study evolved and dr. salewski authored her recommendations for the final chapter of her dip, her ldfm stated that she addressed cped principle six, generating and using professional knowledge and practice as a means of informing other educators in their preparation for future emergencies. efficacy of hazing prevention curriculum in higher education courtney white is a life-long educator who examined the effectiveness of anti-hazing curriculum for higher education students. after a hazing incident at virginia commonwealth university resulted in the death of dr. white’s cousin, adam oakes, dr. white and her family established the love like adam foundation. collaborating with other educational and counseling professionals, dr. white designed an anti-hazing program that can be shared with incoming freshmen students in higher education (white, 2023). the foundation partnered with virginia colleges and universities to integrate these educational workshops into freshmen orientation sessions, thus demonstrating cped principle three collaborative partnerships. since these workshops are offered on the college/university campuses, dr. white’s ldfm is confident she used field-based opportunities to analyze this problem of practice and that she used multiple frames (different higher education institutions and diverse student populations) to address cped principle five. this study builds upon prior research establishing a timeline for how hazing has evolved on campuses, why students engage in the practice, and how interventions might prove effective in eliminating the practice. study participants, freshmen higher education students, completed a pretest prior to the training, engaged in the workshop, and completed a post-test after the training, providing feedback on the program’s effectiveness. dr. white’s ldfm perceives that cped principle five (grounded in professional knowledge, integrating practical research knowledge) and principle six (generating and using professional knowledge to improve practice) are also embedded. how a comprehensive training program builds resilience in school administrators at a boarding school for students with learning disabilities jennifer scully completed a qualitative research study on the impact of the implementation of a professional development training program expected to help build resilience in the administrators at a boarding school for students with learning disabilities. in her study, she explored with more specificity, how administrators feel about their basic core of resilience, how they can build their resilience skills through a comprehensive professional development training program, and how they apply the learned resilience skills when supervising faculty and staff at this boarding school for students with learning disabilities (scully, 2023). dr. scully demonstrated integrity and clarity while exploring her stance in regards to positionality as leader, trainer, and researcher. her extensive data collection allowed for narrative and thematic analysis to ascertain insights, perspectives, needs, and themes for what specific skills from the training are effective, whether additional training or support is needed, as well as whether the training is building their resilience skills (scully, 2023). dr. scully’s work to help build resilience for educators who teach and care for students with special needs in a boarding school, exemplified her acquisition and effectuation of cped principles two, three, and six, as her work specifically focused on constructing and applying new knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of her staff and students. additionally, she intends for her work to yield new partnerships within the boarding school for the special needs community. the lack of hispanic leadership in higher education: a qualitative study of current leaders at u.s. universities nataly chandia viaño completed a qualitative ethnographic study seeking to describe the elements or experiences that helped current hispanic university leaders in the united states reach their executive positions. she conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews to capture and understand themes, patterns, and holistic faculty perceptions of applied practitioner research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 7 features specific to the journeys of said participants (chandia viaño, 2023). her review of the literature revealed significant gaps for latinx students in the completion of advanced degrees, thus even less attaining university leadership roles. as a spanish-speaking latina university leader herself, chandia viaño’s stance provided an additional opportunity to quickly build rapport with the participants. her work yielded rich, fascinating data which clearly contributes to the literature on hispanic representation in university leadership. dr. chandia viaño’s authentic study demonstrated her acquisition of and facility with cped principles one, two, and six. summary through our analysis of the above dip exemplars and the ldfm survey data, we were able to better understand ldfm perceptions on how our cped-aligned methods coursework impacts our students’ development as researchers. while this represents a pilot study that is exploratory in nature, the findings of our study indicate that ldfms perceive that doctoral students are successfully applying their study of practitioner research to their dissertations. findings further indicate that these cped-aligned methodology courses have positively impacted students’ learning and development as scholarly practitioners and their emerging dips. limitations because this research represents a pilot study, the sample size of this study was small and restricted to one particular doctoral program specializing in educational leadership and organizational innovation; thus, the opportunity to generalize results across other contexts is low. however, this study acts as a reflective practice for the institution, providing valuable information for continuous program improvement, as well as the development of a future study that will involve input from a greater number of faculty mentors as the program continues to grow and increase enrollment. additionally, this research can serve as a model to other institutions as they design or redesign their methodology coursework. since ldfms are integral to helping doctoral students synthesize the cped guiding principles into their scholarship and practice, it was important to seek their perspectives. implications a practical implication of this study is for the program to continue its work on aligning research block courses to the cped guiding principles. when this work is refined, training modules for ldfms should not only contain this information, but also provide concrete examples of how successful program graduates have demonstrated their mastery of the cped ideals within their dips. exemplar dip examples would be a valuable training tool. by increasing the knowledge and expertise of the ldfms, they will be of greater assistance in their mentorship of doctoral students, attending to their personal professional development within a culture of mutual respect and equity (cped, 2019; mullen, 2021). since the institution strives to offer a results-focused experience for its edd cohorts, future research implications should include continued practices of self-reflection. original research to clarify course alignment to the cped guiding principles should be revisited on a continuous basis (marotta, 2023). since ldfms consist of both full-time and adjunct faculty members, particular attention should be paid to ldfm training modules to ensure a firm foundational knowledge of the principles and an understanding of how scholarly practitioners might embed these ideals into their dips. conclusion in the continuum of program improvement, lingering questions always remain. for our program, three questions emerged from this study and are especially relevant: 1) should we reconsider the timing of the first research course and its embedded initial literature review? 2) how can we better serve students’ understanding and development of a conceptual/theoretical framework on which to build their original research? 3) how can we better assist students in designing a manageable research study, one that aligns with the cped guiding principles, to fit the timeline of the program? whatever the answers may be, continuous reflective practices will undoubtedly strengthen our program and student outcomes. as the program matures and evolves, faculty members and ldfms will remain collaborative, providing a learning community worthy of our emerging scholarly practitioners. references buss, r. r. (2018). how cped guiding principles and design concepts influenced the development and implementation of an edd program. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.57 carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2019). cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/assets/images/cped_infographic_5.png chandia viaño, n. (2023). the lack of hispanic leadership in higher education: a qualitative study of current leaders at u.s. universities. (publication no. 30318403) [doctoral dissertation, marymount university]. proquest dissertations and theses global. cooksey, r. w. (2020). descriptive statistics for summarising data. illustrating statistical procedures: finding meaning in quantitative data (3rd ed). springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5 elmore, r. l. 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(2019). increasing rigor and reducing bias in qualitative research: a document analysis of parliamentary debates using applied thematic analysis. qualitative social work, 18(6), 965–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325018786996 maddox, s. (2017), did not finish: doctoral attrition in higher education and student affairs [doctoral dissertation, university of northern colorado] https://digscholarship.unco.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1434&context =dissertations marotta, j. (2023). aligning an edd program with the cped principles: faculty and student perspectives. [unpublished manuscript]. school of education, marymount university. marymount university (2021, september 1). edd in education leadership and organizational innovation handbook. [unpublished manuscript]. school of education, marymount university. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.57 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/assets/images/cped_infographic_5.png https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2537-7_5 https://doi.org/10.1080/15363759.2020.1852132 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.02012.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325018786996 https://digscholarship.unco.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1434&context=dissertations https://digscholarship.unco.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1434&context=dissertations crystle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.365 8 mayer, a., lechasseur, k., donaldson, m., & casey cobb. (2013). organization learning as a model for continuous transformation. planning & changing, 44(3/4), 221–235. mullen, c. a. (2021). online doctoral mentoring in a pandemic: help or hindrance to academic progress on dissertations? international journal of mentoring and coaching in education, 10(2), 139–157. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce-06-2020-0029 peterson, d. s. (2017). preparing scholarly practitioners: redesigning the edd to reflect cped principles. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 33–40. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.30 saldaña, j. (2021). the coding manual for qualitative research (4th ed.). sage. salewski, t. (2023). a qualitative phenomenological exploration of covid-19 impacts on face-to-face teachers in k-8 catholic schools: beyond the pandemic, how are the teachers? (publication no. 30425013) [doctoral dissertation, marymount university]. proquest dissertations and theses global. scully, j. (2023). how a comprehensive training program builds resilience in school administrators at a boarding school for students with learning disabilities. (publication no. 30417779) [doctoral dissertation, marymount university]. proquest dissertations and theses global. white, c. (2023). efficacy of hazing prevention curriculum in higher education. (publication no. 30572248) [doctoral dissertation, marymount university]. proquest dissertations and theses global. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce-06-2020-0029 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.30 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 27 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 single-case design: a promising tool for improvement science john mckenna university of massachusetts lowell john_mckenna@uml.edu abstract this article provides an overview of single-case research design and how it can be used in concert with improvement science. hypothetical examples of using single-case design to inform improvement efforts are provided, as is a discussion of connections between this methodology and improvement science. resources for further study are also provided. keywords single-case research, change idea, school improvement, improvement science improvement science provides a framework and practical tools to support educational leader efforts to improve the provision of opportunity. through disciplined inquiry centering on a concerning variation of performance, practitioners of improvement science leverage local data, empirical evidence, student goals, and their professional judgment and values to (1) develop a nuanced understanding of a problem of school practice, (2) construct a theory of change that is likely to improve outcomes, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention, or “change idea”. although practitioners can potentially utilize a variety of research methods in concert with improvement science, they are limited by the training in which they receive: practitioner scholars can only utilize the methods that have been taught and sufficiently practiced during the coursework that contributes to their dissertation in practice. the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a well-established research methodology that is particularly well suited for improvement science: single-case research design. key features of this methodology are discussed, as are connections to core principals of improvement science. examples of potential applications of singlecase design and resources for further inquiry are provided. single-case design single-case research is a set of adaptable methods that, when executed with a level of precision, permit applied researchers to make causal inferences between the implementation of a change idea and changes in an observable dependent variable (maggin et al., 2021). by causal inference, i am referring to having a degree of confidence that observed changes in the dependent variable (ex: student outcomes) are due to the implementation of the change idea rather than other factors (kratochwill et al., 2013). single-case research differs from case studies by requiring evidence of an initial effect as well as evidence of effect replication at different points in time. replication of an effect could occur with the same student, class, or school, depending on the type of single-case design that is used. replication could also occur with a different student, class, or school. as part of this form of disciplined inquiry, implementation of the independent variable is carefully monitored, at least one dependent variable is repeatedly and consistently measured over time, and the accuracy of the data is established (e.g., data reliability). thus, single-case design investigations require sustained engagement in the school environment with the intended implementers and beneficiaries of a change idea. regarding improvement science, single-case investigations can focus on a concerning variability of performance at the student, teacher, classroom, or school level. in fact, this methodology is commonly used to test the effects of interventions in a variety of fields including school psychology (radley et al., 2020), special education (common et al., 2017; odom et al., 2005), and social work (kazi & wilson, 1996). syntheses of single-case investigations are also commonly performed to identify empirically supported practices for school adoption (mckenna et al., 2017; peltier et al., 2020). in its most basic application, single-case investigations are similar to the way academic or behavioral progress monitoring data are collected in response to intervention (rti; berkeley et al., 2020; furey & loftus-rattan, 2022) and multitiered systems of supports (mtss; national center on intensive intervention, 2020). thus, aspects of single-case research may be familiar to doctoral students who work in inclusive schools that utilize tiered systems of student support (see berkeley et al.., 2020; mckenna et al., 2021). hypothetical example consider a district level team that is concerned with the performance of disruptive behavior at a high school, and the degree to which it interrupts teaching and learning. to address this important problem of school practice, the school team focuses their initial efforts on a small number of classrooms within the high school that are of particular concern. these classrooms are of particular concern http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5420-6598 mckenna impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 28 due to the frequency in which disruptive behavior is reported to occur and the frequency of student office referrals. one of these classes is a 9th grade social studies and civics education class that is cotaught by an experienced general education teacher, an experienced special education teacher, and a paraeducator who is assigned to provide one to one support to a student with a disability who is enrolled in the class. overall, disruptive behavior is not a concern in the district, as evidenced by district level data including office referrals, disciplinary exclusions, academic performance data, and administrator observations. in this hypothetical scenario, student behavior in this high school represents a concerning variation in student performance within the district. to address this problem of teaching practice, building level leadership and the classroom team consult with the school’s positive behavior intervention and support (pbis) team. to better understand the nature of the problem, the pbis team informally interviews the classroom team to identify contextual factors that may be contributing to the performance of disruptive behavior and potential methods for remediation. the pbis team also requests that the classroom team collect data on the frequency in which disruptive behavior is performed so that these data can be used to obtain a better understanding of how frequently it is occurring. the pbis team also asks for these data so that it can be compared to data that are collected when the classroom team eventually tries a new method or strategy (e.g., a change idea). to facilitate data collection, the pbis team discusses and models how to perform a frequency count of disruptive behavior while providing academic instruction during each class session. when performing a frequency count, each observed instance of disruptive behavior is noted with a tally mark on a data collection sheet, and the tally marks are counted at the end of class. data from each class are then added to a line graph so that it can be later analyzed using visual analysis, as time series data that are visually displayed via a line graph is a defining characteristic of single-case research (tarlow & brossart, 2018). as part of this discussion, the team discusses examples and nonexamples of disruptive behavior to operationally define this dependent variable so that data collection is more likely to be reliable (e.g., accurate, consistent, and representative of the true frequency in which disruptive behavior is performed during instruction). the classroom team then collects data during the next few class sessions. figure 1 is a line graph that visually displays the frequency in which disruptive behavior was observed, the dependent variable of interest in this hypothetical situation. data on disruptive behavior are collected by the classroom team using frequency counts (e.g., a tallying system to count each instance of observed disruptive behavior) while the classroom team provides instruction. in this initial data collection phase (e.g., “business as usual instruction” or bau), referred to as phase “a”, data on disruptive behavior are collected for six consecutive class sessions. data collection documents the presence of the problem of practice, as evidenced by the frequency in which disruptive behavior is observed. this initial data collection phase also serves as a comparison condition, as data collected during this phase will be compared to data collected with the classroom team implementing a change idea. in this situation, we would expect a successful change idea to result in a decrease in disruptive behavior. figure 1. visual display of class data collected using an abc design: instances of disruptive behavior note. this graph shows data from an abc single-case research design. the graph is read from left to right, with numbers on the x axis noting class sessions over time, in this example daily. each letter represents a different classroom condition. “a” is data collected during typical classroom conditions (e.g., “business as usual”). “b” is data collected while the classroom team used pre-correction. “c” is data that were collected after the classroom team received support in the form of modeling and coaching with performance feedback (e.g., pre-correction plus coaching). for all three phases, data collection methods remain constant so it is more likely that any changes in class performance can be attributed to changes in staff behavior (e.g., implementation of pre-correction with fidelity) rather than inconsistent data collection methods. upon the conclusion of phase “a” or “baseline” data collection, the classroom team and the school’s pbis team meets to discuss the data, teacher observations and reflections, and potential reasons why disruptive behavior is occurring. this then leads to a discussion of potentially effective methods for decreasing the occurrence of disruptive behavior (e.g., development of a theory of change, centering on potential change ideas that are likely to be effective). during this discussion, practices with empirical evidence for reducing disruptive behavior are discussed. the classroom team decides to try a behavior management strategy called pre-correction. precorrection essentially involves correcting problem behaviors before they occur by reminding students of expectations and procedures associated with class routines before they are expected to comply or follow them. in essence, pre-correction is correcting errors before students make them (see evanovich & kern, 2018). this hypothetical single-case investigation then moves to the next phase. the classroom team uses pre-correction while providing academic instruction and continues to collect data on disruptive behavior in the same way. consistency in data collection methods is critical because changes in dependent variables need to be attributed to the change idea and not to potential changes or errors in data collection. in this hypothetical example, the classroom team continues to apply the same definition of disruptive behavior during each data collection session, to use frequency counts, and to collect data during observations of the same duration. data collected during implementation of pre-correction are visually displayed in phase “b”. this phase is labeled with a different letter than the first data collection phase because the data were collected under a different classroom condition. in phase “a”, data were collected under bau conditions. in this next phase, data were collected while the classroom team used pre-correction. “b” is used 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 b ca single-case design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 29 to label this phase because it is the second phase of this applied study and “b” denotes the use of pre-correction. looking at figure 1, we see that disruptive behavior did not improve. for example, the level in which disruptive behavior was observed did not decrease, and we do not see a decreasing trend over time. in fact, disruptive behavior appears to be increasing over time, from class session to class session. thus, the classroom team concludes that the change idea, as implemented, was ineffective. not to be discouraged, the classroom team meets again with the pbis team to discuss the data and their perceptions of how precorrection was utilized and student response. during the discussion, the classroom team has many questions about when and how to use pre-correction. the classroom team is also uncertain if they are using the strategy effectively and efficiently. perhaps pre-correction could be effective if implementation is more consistent (e.g., utilized in most if not all instances in which it should) and of better quality (e.g., obtaining student attention before using pre-correction; improving the clarity of verbal pre-correction statements; checking for student understanding of pre-correction statements). they then agree for a member of the pbis team to attend class sessions to model pre-correction while the classroom team provides instruction. a member of the pbis team also observes and provides feedback on the classroom team’s use of pre-correction. support and feedback are provided to the classroom team during class instruction and scheduled debriefing sessions. this support is provided for one week, after which the classroom team utilizes pre-correction independently. again, the team is careful to use the same data collection methods over time so that any changes in student performance are more likely to be attributed to the change idea rather than inconsistent or faulty data collection methods. data collected during this third study phase are labeled with the letter “c” in the line graph which denotes modeled pre-correction (see figure 1). as you can see, modeled pre-correction appears to have had the desired effect of decreasing instances of disruptive behavior. however, the classroom team must be cautious when making the claim that disruptive behavior decreased due to the use of pre-correction, as an abc single-case design does not permit causal inferences to be made from the implementation of a change idea and observed changes in dependent variables. this is because this design requires an additional a and c phase so that additional comparisons of student behavior in each condition can be made (e.g., additional opportunities to provide evidence of effect replication). to have an opportunity to make a causal inference between the use of pre-correction and improvement in student behavior, the classroom team would need to have an additional “a” phase (e.g., bau) followed by an additional “c” phase (instruction with teacher implementation of pre-correction). however, an abc design may be suitable for applied settings and may represent an improvement to typical school practice such as when data collection is unsystematic or absent (see etscheidt, 2006; vicente, 2021; stecker et al., 2008). figure 2 shows data collected from this hypothetical study. phase a documents the presence of an important variation in school performance, and phase b and c display data collected while the teaching team refines their implementation of the change idea (precorrection). with the refined change idea in place in phase c and the documentation of student benefit (e.g., an effect), the teaching team stops using pre-correction (e.g., a withdrawal of the change idea). collected data documents the return of disruptive behavior to baseline levels, providing evidence of pre-correction’s effectiveness (e.g., disruptive behavior increased in the absence of the change idea, providing evidence of the change idea’s effectiveness). during the last study phase, the classroom team uses modeled precorrection and lower levels of disruptive behavior are observed, providing additional evidence of the effectiveness of pre-correction. in this comparison, disruptive behavior data are compared to disruptive behavior in the previous phase (absence of precorrection). in sum, this hypothetical study design provides four opportunities to establish an intervention effect at four different points in time, which according to some professional guidelines for singlecase research is sufficient to permit a causal inference. figure 2. visual display of class data collected using an abcac design: instances of disruptive behavior additional types of single-case designs another type of single-case design study is the alternating treatment design. in this type of study, practitioners alternate between two different conditions, such as typical school practice and a change idea. practitioners might also alternate between two different change ideas to determine which is most effective and/or efficient. regardless, the idea is to alternate between conditions until one is determined to be superior to the other, based on the visual analysis of time series data. alternating treatment designs can also be performed in the absence of baseline data (e.g., data collected during bau), thus permitting the school team to implement a change idea more quickly. this design may be particularly beneficial when there are ethical concerns with delaying intervention or time constraints associated with the dissertation in practice. figure 3 is an example of data collected during an alternating treatment design. using our previous example, the practitioner scholar implementing this dissertation study is alternating between bau instruction and pre-correction, while systematically collecting data on disruptive behavior. in this hypothetical example, there are five opportunities to compare data collected during each of the two conditions: 1. session 1 for bau is compared to session 1 for pre-correction 2. session 2 for bau is compared to session 2 for pre-correction 3. session 3 for bau is compared to session 3 for pre-correction 4. session 4 for bau is compared to session 4 for pre-correction 5. session 5 for bau is compared to session 5 for pre-correction. when visually inspecting the data for each comparison, we see that pre-correction is more effective than bau, as evidenced by lower levels of observed disruptive behavior. in this hypothetical example, data are collected during sessions 6 to 10 to provide additional evidence of pre-correction’s effectiveness. alternating between conditions is no longer necessary, as sufficient replications of an effect were obtained in comparisons 1 to 5. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 a b c a c mckenna impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 30 figure 3. data from an alternating treatment design practitioner scholars can conduct larger single-case investigations by using multiple baseline designs. in this type, data are collected simultaneously over time for three or more participants, whether it be a student, pairs or small groups of students, a classroom, or school. figure 4 shows how a multiple baseline design can be used to investigate the effectiveness of pre-correction with three classes. data are collected over time each day for each class. data are collected under bau conditions, as well as when educators use pre-correction. for example, session 1 data for each class are collected on the same day. session 2 data for each class are also collected on the same day. data are collected in this manner consistently over time. however, educator use of pre-correction is staggered over time, with the independent variable introduced to each class at a different point in time. in this example, the practitioner scholar does not have the second classroom use precorrection until an effect is established with the first class, in the absence of an effect in two classes in the bau condition. this is a key element of multiple baseline designs: evidence of an intervention effect with the participant or participants that receive the change idea, and evidence of no effect for participants who do not receive the change idea. when implementing the change idea in the second classroom, the practitioner scholar is hoping to observe a decrease in disruptive behavior in this class, the absence of a decrease in disruptive behavior in the third class and continued lower levels of disruptive behavior in the first class. when sufficient data have been collected to establish an effect in the second classroom, precorrection is utilized in the third classroom while pre-correction continues to be implemented in the first two classes. evidence of an intervention effect is established when lower levels of disruptive behavior are observed in this class, while lower levels of disruptive behavior are maintained in the first and second class. connections to improvement science in the following section, connections between single-case research and improvement science are discussed. the following foundational principles are considered: (1) identify, describe, and address variability of performance, (2) making the work problem specific and user centered, (3) starting small but thinking big, (4) resisting the temptation of “solutionitis”, (5) focus on process variables, (6) learning fast to implement well, and (7) using a community-based approach. resources for further inquiry are also provided. figure 4. visual display of class data collected using a multiple baseline across classrooms design: instances of disruptive behavior single-case design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 31 identify, describe, and address variability of performance repeated measurement of a dependent variable over time contributes to the identification and description of concerning variabilities of performance. this proves particularly true when baseline data are collected systematically over time prior to the implementation of a change idea. time series data collected during single-case investigations can also be supplemented with other data sources such as stakeholder interviews or focus groups. for example, qualitative inquiry could focus on the intended beneficiaries of the change idea and/or the implementers. single-case research is also a type of intervention research, which is necessary to improve any concerning variability of performance. if carefully implemented, single-case research provides an opportunity to have a degree of confidence that observed improvements are due to the change idea. in consideration of the high stakes nature of improving the provision of opportunity, this degree of confidence is necessary to make informed decisions in school practice. making the work problem specific and usercentered improvement science and single-case research focus on a specific problem of practice, and this serves as the foundation for disciplined inquiry. in the first example, the classroom team was concerned with the occurrence of disruptive behavior in the classroom and sought to identify a strategy that could improve student behavior. single-case design investigations are also usercentered, in that they may focus on changing adult behavior (in this case, members of the classroom team) to change student behavior. the use of pre-correction, and the eventual provision of appropriate classroom team training and support, represent changes in adult behavior. in the first example, pre-correction was initially ineffective. upon further discussion between the classroom and pbis teams that was user centered, implementation challenges were identified and addressed. single-case research designs can also be used to investigate the effects of change ideas that are student or peer-centered, such as behavioral interventions that involve teaching replacement behaviors or peer tutoring to improve academic and/or behavioral performance (mckenna et al., 2016; reid et al., 2004; wang et al., 2021). problems of practice addressed through single-case designs can also be viewed from the perspectives of students and their parents/guardians. for example, the following research questions may be pursued: 1. what are the potential implications for student learning if a problem of practice is not addressed? 2. what concerns may parents/guardians have in this situation? 3. what concerns may students have regarding the performance of disruptive behavior in their class? 4. what are the characteristics of change ideas that students and/or parent/guardians perceive as socially valid and significant? 5. what are the characteristics of change ideas that students and/or parent/guardians perceive as being culturally responsive? these research questions can be answered through disciplined inquiry, such as reading relevant research, considering student data as a form of practice-based evidence, and holding student and/or parent/guardian focus groups to identify concerns and suggestions for school improvement. in this example, single-case research serves as a foundation for utilizing other data sources and methodologies to identify socially significant dependent and independent variables for investigation. starting small but thinking big single-case research can be used to investigate the effectiveness of change ideas with a single student, teacher, classroom, or school. investigations can be small and still provide a rigorous test of a change idea before committing resources to change at scale. this is particularly important for adapting change ideas to fit local contexts, which is a core principle of improvement science (bryk et al., 2016). in addition, scholar practitioners can collect various forms of process data to confirm and refine their theory of change before transitioning to larger scale change efforts. examples of process data that can be collected during a single-case investigation include, but are not limited to, stakeholder interviews, stakeholder focus groups, and fidelity of implementation data. regarding fidelity data, these can be collected through an analysis of permanent products associated with the implementation of a change idea, observation of persons implementing the change idea using a checklist that includes the key features of the change idea that are likely to be observed when it is used, or self-evaluation of change idea implementation using a similar type of checklist (mckenna & parenti, 2017). each of these data sources have the potential to provide context to time series data and is consistent with improvement science’s emphasis on considering process data in concert with outcome data. thus, by performing small tests of change using single-case research, practitioner scholars can refine and more fully develop their theory of change before engaging in larger scale investigations. resisting the temptation of “solutionitis” similar to practitioners of improvement science, single-case researchers engage in evidence-based practice as a decisionmaking process. according to this principal, applied researchers use scholarly research, their personal values, professional judgement, and their goals for students to make an informed decision on how best to address a concerning variability in performance (see cook et al., 2016 for a discussion of evidence-based practice as a decisionmaking process). selecting a change idea to test is not a reactionary decision, such as when practitioners engage in “solutionitis” (bryk et al., 2016). single-case research emphasizes leveraging empirical evidence in concert with information on the local context, which is consistent with improvement science’ emphasis on disciplined inquiry. learning fast to implement well evaluating the effectiveness of a change idea in a short period of time is essential to improvement science (bryk et al., 2016). single-case research can be utilized to achieve this goal. as previously stated, single-case research can be used to design tests of change that permit causal inferences. this level of evaluation rigor is beneficial as it helps prevent the allocation of resources to change ideas that are unlikely to be effective. rigorous evaluations can also be completed in a short period of time. for example, alternating mckenna impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 32 treatment designs can be used to quickly evaluate the relative benefits of two change ideas, or a change idea relative to bau. lessons learned from this investigation could then be used to inform a multiple baseline design study involving additional classrooms, students, and/or teachers. practitioners of improvement science can also elect to conduct simultaneous replication studies, which are essentially two or more single-case investigations that utilize the same design and focus on the same problem of practice, change idea, and dependent variables. thus, lessons learned from singlecase evaluations can be obtained quickly, inform efforts to take improvement efforts to scale, and can be viewed with a degree of confidence. community-based approach similar to improvement science, single-case investigations are best utilized when a community-based approach is employed. as in the initial example, single-case investigations involve engagement with the consumers and intended beneficiaries of change ideas. this engagement involves discussions of the characteristics of the problem of practice, the selection of a change idea that is likely to be effective and feasible, discussion of issues related to implementation, and methods for refining change ideas to improve effectiveness and feasibility. in this example, a community-based approach is used to inform the selection of a change idea and its implementation, to monitor the response of the interventionists and the intended beneficiaries, and to make timely and effective adjustments to change ideas as necessary. as additional single-case investigations are planned and implemented, a greater number and perhaps wider range of stakeholders may become involved in the practice of improvement science. closing comments the current social, political, and public health climate presents significant challenges to public institutions. educational leaders must be prepared to leverage available resources to inform improvement efforts. in turn, improvement efforts should focus on inclusion rather than mere integration. by inclusion, i am referring to equality of opportunity and outcomes for student populations that have historically struggled and/or been marginalized in public education. improvement science provides a framework to identify and investigate concerning variations in school performance, many of which are likely to conflict with inclusion and an emphasis on equality of opportunity and outcomes. single-case research provides a set of flexible methods that compliment improvement science by providing a means to conduct rigorous tests of change, identify contextual factors to consider in scale up efforts, and to refine theories of change in a timely manner. the appendix provides resources for faculty and doctoral students with an interest in considering single-case research as an additional tool for doctoral study. resources provide general information on single-case research and its implementation, examples of published studies, and resources for collecting academic and behavioral time series data. as with any research methodology, single-case requires careful study and practice. however, these resources provide a foundation for further disciplined inquiry in this area. references berkeley, s., scanlon, d., bailey, t., sutton, j., & sacco, d. (2020). a snapshot of rti implementation a decade later: new picture, same story. journal of learning disabilities, 53(5), 332–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219420915867 common, e., lane, k., pustejovsky, j., johnson, a., & johl, l. (2017). functional assessment-based interventions for students with or at-risk for high-incidence disabilities: field testing single-case synthesis methods. remedial and special education, 38(6), 331–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932517693320 cook, b., cook, s., & collins, l. (2016). terminology and evidence-based practice for students with emotional and behavioral disorders: exploring some devilish details. beyond behavior, 25(2), 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/107429561602500202 etscheidt, s. (2006). progress monitoring: legal issues and recommendations for iep teams. teaching exceptional children, 38(3), 56–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/004005990603800308 evanovich, l., & kern, l. (2018). precorrection: preventing predictable problem behaviors in school settings. beyond behavior, 27(2), 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/1074295618769892 furey, j., & loftus-rattan, s. (2022). actively involving students with learning disabilities in progress monitoring practices. intervention in school and clinic, 57(5), 329–337. https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512211032618 kazi, m., & wilson, j. (1996). applying single-case evaluation in social work. the british journal of social work, 26(5), 699–717. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a011142 kratochwill, t., hitchcock, j., horner, r., levin, j., odom, s., rindskiph, d., & shadish, w. (2013). single-case intervention research standards. remedial and special education, 34(1), 26–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932512452794 mckenna, j., flower, a., adamson, r. (2016). a systematic review of functionbased replacement behavior interventions for students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. behavior modification, 40(5), 678–712. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445515621489 mckenna, j., garwood, j., & parenti, m. (2021). inclusive instruction for students with emotional/behavioral disorders: service in the absence of intervention research. intervention in school and clinic, 56(5), 316–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451220963084 mckenna, j., kim, m. k., shin, m., & pfannenstiel, k. (2017). an evaluation of single-case reading intervention study quality for students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. behavior modification, 41(6), 868–906. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445517701896 mckenna, j., & parenti, m. (2017). fidelity assessment to improve teacher instruction and school decision making. journal of applied school psychology, 33(4), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377903.2017.1316334 national center on intensive intervention (2020). intensive intervention and multi-tiered system of supports (mtss). office of special education programs, u.s. department of education. https://intensiveintervention.org/special-topics/mtss odom, s., brantlinger, e., gersten, r., horner, r., thompson, b., & harris, k. (2005). research in special education: scientific methods and evidencebased practices. exceptional children, 71(2), 137–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290507100201 peltier, c., morin, k., bouck, e., lingo, m., pulos, j., scheffler, f., suk, a., mathews, l., sinclair, t., & deardorff, m. (2020). a meta-analysis of single-case research using mathematics manipulatives with students at risk or identified with a disability. the journal of special education, 54(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022466919844516 radley, k., dart, e., fischer, a., & collins, t. (2020). publication trends for single-case methodology in school psychology: a systematic review. psychology in the schools, 57(5), 683–698. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22359 ryan, j., reid, r., & epstein, m. (2004). peer-mediated intervention studies on academic achievement for students with ebd: a review. remedial and special education, 25(6), 330–341. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325040250060101 maggin, d., barton, e., reichow, b., lane, k., & shogren, k. (2021). commentary on the what works clearinghouse standards and procedures handbook (v. 4.1) for the review of single-case research. remedial and special education. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325211051317 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219420915867  https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932517693320  https://doi.org/10.1177/107429561602500202  https://doi.org/10.1177/004005990603800308  https://doi.org/10.1177/1074295618769892  https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512211032618 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a011142 https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932512452794 https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445515621489  https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451220963084 https://doi.org/10.1177/0145445517701896 https://doi.org/10.1080/15377903.2017.1316334 https://intensiveintervention.org/special-topics/mtss https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290507100201  https://doi.org/10.1177/0022466919844516 https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22359  https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325040250060101  https://doi.org/10.1177/07419325211051317 single-case design impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.260 33 stecker, p., fuchs, d., & fuchs, l. (2008). progress monitoring as essential practice within response to intervention. rural special education quarterly, 27(4), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/875687050802700403 tarlow, k., & brossart, d. (2018). a comprehensive method of single-case data analysis: interrupted time-series simulation (itssim). school psychology quarterly, 33(4), 590–603. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/bejd7 vicente, f. (2021). educating students with emotional impairment: a qualitative investigation of the facilitators and barriers to free and appropriate public education (fape) (publication no. 28416838) [doctoral dissertation, university of massachusetts at lowell]. proquest dissertations publishing. https://www.proquest.com/openview/9ec294999c0b27abf04dd03035890 0dd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y wang, j., maggin, d., & zarate, k. (2021). peer prompting and reinforcement for supporting positive behavioral development in students with ebd. beyond behavior. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10742956211022045 appendix resources for practitioner scholars single-case research design gast, d. (2014). general factors in measurement and evaluation. in d. gast & j. ledford (eds.). single case research methodology: applications in special education and behavioral sciences (pp. 85–104). kennedy, c. (2004). single-case designs for educational research (1st edition). pearson. krasny-pacini, a., & evans, j. (2018). single-case experimental designs to assess intervention effectiveness in rehabilitation: a practical guide. annals of physical and rehabilitation medicine, 61(3), 164–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rehab.2017.12.002 kratochwill, t., horner, r., levin, j., machalicek, w., ferron, j., & johnson, a. (2021). single-case design standards: an update and proposed upgrades. journal of school psychology, 89, 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2021.10.006 ledford, j., zimmerman, k., schwartz, i., & odom, s. (2018). guide for the use of single case design research evidence from the division of research of the council for exceptional children. cec-division of research. https://cecdr.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/cec-dr_scd_guide.pdf lobo, m., moeyart, m., cunha, a., & babik, i. (2017). single-case design, analysis, and quality assessment for intervention research. journal of neurologic physical therapy, 41(3), 187–197. https://doi.org/10.1097/npt.0000000000000187 maggin, d., cook, b., & cook, l. (2018). using single-case research designs to examine the effects of interventions in special education. learning disabilities research & practice, 33(4), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/ldrp.12184 examples of single-case investigations cade, t., & gunter, p. (2002). teaching students with severe emotional or behavioral disorders to use a musical mnemonic technique to solve basic division calculations. behavioral disorders, 27, 208–214. https://doi.org/10.1177/019874290202700301 cullen, j., alber-morgan, s., schnell, s., & wheaton, j. (2014). improving reading skills of students with disabilities using headsprout comprehension. remedial and special education, 35, 356–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932514534075 escarpio, r., & barbetta, p. (2016). comparison of repeated and non-repeated readings on the reading performance of students with emotional and behavioral disorders. journal of emotional and behavioral disorders, 24, 111–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1063426615574337 palmer, j., boon, r., & spencer, v. (2014). effects of concept mapping instruction on the vocabulary acquisition skills of seventh-graders with mild disabilities: a replication study. reading & writing quarterly: overcoming learning difficulties, 30, 165–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2013.818890 schrauben, k., & dean, a. (2019). cover-copy-compare for multiplication with students with emotional and behavioral disorders: a brief report. behavioral disorders, 45(1), 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0198742918808484 progress monitoring for behavior and academics dart, e., arora, p., collins, t., & doll, b. (2019). progress monitoring measures for internalizing symptoms: a systematic review of the peer reviewed literature. school mental health, 11, 265–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-018-9299-7 easycbm. https://www.easycbm.com/ foegen, a., & morrison, c. (2010). putting algebra progress monitoring into practice: insights from the field. intervention in school and clinic, 46(2), 95–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451210375302 fabiano, g., pyle, k., kelty, m., & parham, b. (2017). progress monitoring using direct behavior rating single item scales in a multiple baseline study of the daily report card intervention. assessment for effective intervention, 43(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508417703024 ford, j., conoyer, s., lembke, e., smith, r., & hosp, j. (2018). a comparison of two content area curriculum-based measurement tools. assessment for effective intervention, 43(2), 121–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508417736753 lam, e., kunkel, a., mckevett, n., & mcmaster, k. (2022). intensifying instruction to meet students’ early writing needs. teaching exceptional children, 54(3), 214–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/00400599211005165 https://doi.org/10.1177/875687050802700403  https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/bejd7  https://www.proquest.com/openview/9ec294999c0b27abf04dd030358900dd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://www.proquest.com/openview/9ec294999c0b27abf04dd030358900dd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://doi.org/10.1177/10742956211022045 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rehab.2017.12.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2021.10.006  https://cecdr.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/cec-dr_scd_guide.pdf https://doi.org/10.1097/npt.0000000000000187  https://doi.org/10.1111/ldrp.12184  https://doi.org/10.1177/019874290202700301  https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932514534075  https://doi.org/10.1177/1063426615574337  https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2013.818890  https://doi.org/10.1177/0198742918808484 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-018-9299-7  https://www.easycbm.com/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451210375302  https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508417703024  https://doi.org/10.1177/1534508417736753 https://doi.org/10.1177/00400599211005165 john mckenna university of massachusetts lowell single-case design hypothetical example additional types of single-case designs connections to improvement science identify, describe, and address variability of performance making the work problem specific and user-centered starting small but thinking big resisting the temptation of “solutionitis” learning fast to implement well community-based approach closing comments references appendix resources for practitioner scholars single-case research design examples of single-case investigations progress monitoring for behavior and academics impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 10 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 preparing scholarly practitioners to use improvement science: a systematic, iterative, and reflective approach to teaching applied quantitative research methods noelle a. paufler clemson university npaufle@clemson.edu abstract while doctoral leadership programs have widely adopted improvement science (is) as a signature pedagogy, few studies have examined how to best equip doctoral students with the knowledge and research skills they need to utilize is in practice. more specifically, research is needed to determine the most effective and meaningful pedagogy for preparing doctoral students to understand, analyze, and apply statistical theory and quantitative research designs in coursework and as part of the is dissertation in practice. this essay focuses on the systematic, iterative, and reflective approach of one faculty member to develop and refine a doctor of education program’s primary applied quantitative methods course to help students across three cohorts develop the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills they need to lead change. keywords doctor of education, improvement science, research methods, quantitative methods introduction doctoral leadership programs designed to prepare scholarly practitioners have widely adopted improvement science (is) as a signature pedagogy (hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020); however, few studies have examined how to best equip doctoral students with the knowledge and research skills they need to utilize is in practice (firestone et al., 2019). more specifically, research is needed to determine the most effective and meaningful pedagogy for preparing doctoral students to understand, analyze, and apply statistical theory and quantitative research designs in coursework and as part of the is dissertation in practice (dip). faculty in one doctor of education (edd) program have utilized an is approach to develop and refine research methods coursework and provide dip advising support with the academic, professional, and personal learning needs of scholarly practitioners in mind. this essay focuses on the systematic, iterative, and reflective approach of one faculty member to develop and refine the program’s primary applied quantitative methods course to help students across three cohorts develop the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills they need to lead change. program background this edd is an applied professional doctorate designed for leaders working full-time in educational settings. while some students work in higher education or for other education agencies, most are certified prek-12 practitioners with an education specialist (eds) degree (or equivalent) working in leadership roles in highneeds schools and districts across the state and region. the program seeks to develop these leaders as scholarly practitioners (perry, 2016) with a strong background in leadership, ethics, research, and is. coursework and field-embedded experiences are intended to prepare students to utilize is as part of the dip such that they can identify complex problems of practice, develop and implement innovative change, and measure the impact, most often in their work settings (bryk et al., 2015; hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020). the program is focused on helping leaders address problems of practice related to systemic educational inequalities, particularly those impacting historically underserved students and communities. the edd program is a collaborative effort supported by partnerships with three regional public institutions geographically located across the state. through this partnership, faculty have worked collaboratively to align their eds degree programs such that graduates can be prepared with the requisite knowledge and skills they would need for advanced doctoral studies. in this way, the edd offers graduate students in historically underserved areas of the state a pathway to earning the doctorate. since becoming an institutional member of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), educational leadership faculty across the partnership have utilized the cped (2022) framework© to engage in continuous program improvement efforts. faculty have been particularly focused on the design-concept of inquiry as practice (cped, 2022) in program improvement efforts. defined as “the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice,” inquiry as practice requires students to develop certain skills, namely “the ability to use data to understand the effects of innovation…[including] the ability to gather, organize, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2869-5495 teaching applied quantitative research methods impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 11 judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens” (cped, 2022, para. 8). while faculty have been working to embed is across the courses in the program, there are currently two research methods courses in which students primarily develop the quantitative and qualitative analytic skills they will need to use data to understand the impact of their dip interventions. thus, focused attention has been given to research methods courses as part of collaborative efforts to align curriculum across degree programs among partner institutions. research methods courses in the college of education at this institution are generally taught to students across the college by faculty in another department (i.e., outside the department of educational leadership in a department that includes educational psychology, counseling, and special education, among other programs). through coordinated efforts between both departments, educational leadership faculty had been able to teach the quantitative and qualitative research methods courses to the first two cohorts of edd students. these courses were initially offered using existing courses in the graduate catalog, which listed a prefix, number, and description for each course. thus, courses using the same prefix/number were offered in doctor of philosophy (phd) programs as well as the edd program, albeit edd students completed their courses as a cohort in a particular sequence. however, the existing research methods courses as described in the graduate catalog (i.e., based on the course descriptions and objectives, student learning outcomes, etc.) focused more on helping students understand statistical theory and develop technical skills for statistical analysis than how to conduct applied research in educational settings. it became increasingly evident to educational leadership faculty that the research methods courses need a more explicit focus on is as students struggled to draft the research methods chapter (i.e., the second chapter of a four-chapter dip model) in the first two cohorts. as an example, edd students struggled when trying to write about their plans for quantitative data analysis. rather than organize the second chapter by discussing their plans for data analysis according to phases of the plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycle, most students tried to write one large section on analysis toward the end, seemingly disconnected from the rest of the chapter. as a result, students often needed to make significant revisions, particularly in terms of the structure and organization of the chapter, before they could successfully complete a proposal defense, which ultimately delayed their progress to degree completion. as educational leadership faculty sought to integrate is into the pre-existing courses, it became increasingly evident that research methods courses specific to the edd program were needed. after discussions among faculty in both departments, new applied quantitative and qualitative methods courses with a focus on is were developed and have since been approved through the university curriculum review process. students in the third, fourth, and now the fifth cohorts have since taken the new research methods courses. there are currently approximately 65 students enrolled in the edd program across multiple cohorts. a new cohort of students is admitted annually in the summer. the first two edd cohorts, which had approximately 15 students each, were admitted in summers 2018 and 2019, respectively. their courses were delivered in an executive format with students meeting in person one weekend (friday evening and saturday) each month of the 15-week semester. faculty traveled to one of the university satellite locations around the state to teach these two cohorts of edd students, who completed their courses as part of a sequence. the quantitative and qualitative methods course were offered in the second and third semesters of the program, respectively. to expand access to students who could not easily travel to the satellite locations to attend class, faculty began preparations in fall 2019 (i.e., before the covid-19 pandemic) to transition the edd program to a fully online delivery model to begin with the incoming third cohort in summer 2020. the new model offered 8-week courses that blended synchronous and asynchronous learning activities in virtual spaces. as part of this transition, both quantitative and qualitative research methods courses were restructured as 8week courses, albeit still offered in the second and third semesters of the program. as part of this transition, the pacing guide and content for each course were adapted to align with an 8-week online format, which included a blend of synchronous and asynchronous activities via zoom and canvas. the third cohort, considerably larger than the previous two cohorts with approximately 30 students, was the first to complete their courses fully online using the new delivery model. the fourth and fifth cohorts with 15 students in each cohort have been admitted with the online delivery model fully in place. perspectives as educators, edd students need strong data literacy skills such that they can identify, analyze, and interpret data commonly available in educational settings (gummer & mandinach, 2015). with an enhanced understanding of data availability, access, analyses, interpretation, and appropriate use, they are better equipped to make inferences and leadership decisions (firestone et al., 2019; leech & haug, 2015; pogrow, 2018). my philosophy for teaching research methods is based on these premises. how to best equip students with the knowledge and skills that they need to apply quantitative and qualitative research methods as part of the is dip has been a primary focus of faculty in this edd program over the past few years. reflective of this commitment to continuous improvement, faculty who most often teach the research methods in the edd program have utilized is to develop and refine those courses in meaningful ways. this is approach is also reflected in the efforts of individual faculty members in the courses they teach, including my own as the faculty member who has taught the applied quantitative methods course to the most recent three cohorts of edd students (n=60 across the second, third, and fourth cohorts). using a systematic, iterative, and reflective approach, i developed, taught, and refined the course over three iterations. first, i developed the course to teach the second cohort, shifting from a traditional focus on statistical theory to practical application throughout (e.g., using analytic techniques and tools to explore local data related to the problem of practice). as part of initial course development, i selected the course texts, created materials (e.g., presentations, handouts, and other resources for students), and developed assignments (e.g., discussions, weekly application assignments) as well as a culminating project more closely aligned to the objectives and student learning outcomes for the course. in each subsequent iteration (i.e., to teach the third and fourth cohorts), i utilized multiple data sources (e.g., student outcomes, student and peer feedback) for refinement, particularly in terms of strengthening the integration of is throughout the course. my approach to developing and subsequently revising the course was systematic, iterative, and reflective. in each of the three paufler impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 12 semesters i taught the course, i systemically collected data from multiple sources, including evidence of student learning outcomes from assignments, common anonymous mid-semester surveys and end-of-semester course evaluations completed by students, and three formal reviews conducted by faculty peers using a common rubric. at the end of each semester, i iteratively analyzed the quantitative data (e.g., calculating descriptive statistics for individual items on the mid-semester surveys and end-of-course evaluations) and qualitative data (e.g., coding open-ended survey and evaluation responses and peer feedback on the rubric for themes). as part of this process, i reflected on what i had learned and planned for next steps by identifying aspects of the course that could be improved and developing a written action plan to make changes for the next iteration of the course. in this essay, i describe seven aspects of the course that i refined through this systemic, iterative, and reflective process over three iterations. these include (a) shifting the focus of the course objectives from theory to application, (b) making course content more relevant to practice, (c) helping students develop and apply analytic skills, (d) using technology to increase accessibility, (e) providing supportive structures for adult learners, (f) assessing student learning for mastery, and (g) embedding is. for each of the above, i share examples of revisions made and discuss the implications for students. reflections shifting the focus of course objectives from theory to application this quantitative methods course reflects a shift in doctoral leadership preparation from a traditional focus on statistical theory to practical application. the primary course objectives are to prepare edd students first to be critical consumers of research and second to be able to utilize quantitative methods to conduct research in practice. thus, the course objectives have three main foci: (a) an introduction to applied quantitative research methods, (b) technical and analytical skills, and (c) the application of quantitative methods to problems of practice. in terms of student learning outcomes, the course is intended to prepare students with the knowledge and understanding of research design and technical skills they will need to collect and analyze quantitative data when conducting a dip in educational settings. with each iteration, i refined the course content and assignments based on their relevance for scholarly practitioners who will apply quantitative methods within field-embedded investigations to solve problems of practice using is. making course content relevant to practice in order to teach students how to use data in their leadership roles to address problems of practice, i realized i needed to make the course content relevant to practice. when initially developing the course for the second cohort, i wanted to include texts and create resources specific to educational practice, which resulted in a curated list with some social sciences statistical texts as well as other sources students could use for reference. i also focused on creating course materials that presented theories of descriptive and inferential statistics in an applied way with in-class activities that utilized sample data sets aligned to the concepts, scenarios, and specific skills for each course topic. while the in-class activities utilized sample data sets from educational settings, some students provided constructive feedback in their responses to the mid-term survey suggesting that more opportunities to work with their data would be helpful. one student suggested, “it would be interesting if people could bring timely data sets to analyze.” another student responded, “i think the usage of real and practical data will make the processes mean more and make more sense at a deeper level.” for the remainder of the semester and in subsequent iterations, i looked for more opportunities within the discussion boards and during class for students to obtain and use their data for some of the statistical analysis. i also met with students individually and in small groups to answer questions about and work through analysis with de-identified data from their schools or districts. providing more opportunities for students to work with sample data as well as their data made the course more relevant to practice, according to student feedback on end-of-course evaluations. one student noted: this is a great introduction to statistics in a format that is easy to access and is not overwhelming. the opportunities for practice, review, and feedback are very supportive. additionally, the class is focused on the practical application of statistics to the field, which makes it much more relatable than simply working through a stats textbook. other students cited “the inclusion of school like data sets,” “handson examples and activities,” and “real-world scenarios” as “making the course content more meaningful.” another student explained that “making the information relevant specifically to their research and current jobs [with] lessons that build on each other in a meaningful way” was particularly valuable. developing and applying analytic skills as a whole class and in small groups, i modeled and engaged students in the process of skill development and application, including how to manually create or access existing data files and develop research questions related to the data. in small groups and individually, students worked to identify and conduct appropriate statistical analyses using software (e.g., microsoft excel and ibm® statistical package for the social sciences [spss]) as well as interpret output and display the results (visually and in narrative format using american psychological association [apa] style). i found that students often needed additional support, particularly in terms of selecting the most appropriate statistical test and reporting the findings, per apa style. based on student feedback in the first year, i developed a collection of resource sheets for various statistical analyses and corresponding examples of results written in apa style, which students in the second iteration noted they “would [also] refer to in the future.” however, one student suggested these resources could be better organized: “there were many resources and guides with regards to apa write-ups, but having one unified document, with apa formatting and statistical write-ups, would be incredibly helpful to have as a reference.” in response to this feedback, in the third iteration of the course, i created a comprehensive, unified document with guidance of how to choose an appropriate statistical test by variable type (e.g., nominal, ordinal, ratio, interval) and research question (e.g., describing data using measures of central tendency and variability, determining the relationship between variables, comparing means) with additional examples of how to write results in apa format for all the statistical tests students learn in the course. i teaching applied quantitative research methods impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 13 also spent more time providing feedback to students on the apa reporting aspect of their work. one student explained that the “outlines, examples, and other various resources helped the class understand statistics and enhanced the instruction in the class.” since in-class activities were often collaborative and based on real-world scenarios, students routinely reflected on the implications of their results for decision-making. students had opportunities to work in small groups to apply their learning. as part of this process, students often discovered limitations specific to the data (e.g., due to the structure of the data file, available variables, depth of analysis appropriate) that impacted their abilities to answer the research question(s) and make evidence-based decisions. a student appreciated “work[ing] in groups to solve relevant problems of practice by applying course content.” another student noted, “collaborative assignments allowed me to learn from my peers when i was confused.” using technology to increase accessibility the effective use of technology (e.g., spss, zoom, canvas) in each of the three iterations of the course was critical to increasing accessibility for students. while teaching the first iteration, i quickly realized that students who struggled to independently access and comfortably use spss had difficulty engaging in activities in class. the first year i taught the course in person at a satellite location where some students had difficulty accessing spss software through the university’s web-based application. in their end-of-course evaluation, a student noted, “the technology issues early on in the class with spss made some of the class meetings more frustrating than it needed to be.” some of the issues were addressed in the second iteration of the course because students were able to download a student version of spss directly to their device using the university license. even then, students who used mac devices still reportedly struggled. in their end-of-course evaluation, one such student described feeling “left behind to figure it [spss] out on their own.” in response, i developed detailed, step-by-step guides with instructions on how to access spss (i.e., by downloading spss to a device, using the web-based application) on different devices. i also provided video tutorials demonstrating how to access spss as well as perform other tasks (e.g., saving, locating, and opening files). i reviewed these resources at the beginning of the course and referred to specific guides and videos, when appropriate, during in-class activities. i also met individually and in small groups with students to troubleshoot issues. a student in the third iteration explained in their end-of-course evaluation that “taking the time to show us spss, run different analyses, and interpret the outputs was incredibly helpful.” as part of the transition from the first iteration (i.e., a 15-week course taught in an executive weekend format) to the second iteration (i.e., an 8-week course taught in an online format), i adapted the course pacing guide and content to include a blend of synchronous and asynchronous activities via zoom and canvas. in their end-of-course evaluation, a student explained how “adapting [the] class to fit a digital environment…allow[ed] students to feel comfortable with learning new content while also showing understanding and application of previous key concepts.” another student described the screen sharing feature in zoom as “an extremely helpful tool,” explaining that “shar[ing] our screen so [the class] could watch us walk through a task” helped them determine where they needed assistance. a third student commented on their experience learning to use statistical software in a virtual space: “the hands-on approach to learning how to use spss was beneficial for new users to the program.” providing supportive structures for adult learners to assuage any stress or anxiety students may have had about taking a quantitative methods course online, i tried to build additional supports into the course. for example, in the second and third iterations, i offered optional, synchronous virtual two-hour study sessions via zoom every saturday morning as well as virtual office hours on weekday evenings. the high attendance rate on saturdays and positive feedback suggested students found these synchronous sessions helpful. in their end-of-course evaluation, one student noted, “[the] saturday class and video recordings were extremely helpful. this was my very first experience with this type of class.” another student explained, “i really enjoyed the saturday sessions to look at the work that was done during the week. i also like the availability of office hours during the week, though i didn't take advantage of it often.” students, including those who did not attend, had the opportunity to view the saturday session recording (i.e., the zoom recording linked through canvas). one student explained, “the zoom meetings were especially helpful. being able to go back and rewatch the recordings to review material and fix mistakes was invaluable.” according to another student in their end-of-course evaluation, the structure of the course also fit the needs of working full-time professionals: “the weekly structure, with optional office hours, was predictable and flexible with regards to our work schedules.” during one iteration of the course, a student in the phd program also attended the saturday study sessions as part of their graduate assistantship. one student noted that the “addition of [the phd student]…provided balance and relatability as a practitioner and someone working on their dissertation.” i debriefed with the graduate assistant at the end of each saturday study session to gain their perspective on revisions for course activities (e.g., in-class activities where additional scaffolding would help students understand and apply new concepts) and assignments (e.g., how to increase clarity in assignment instructions, where additional sample data sets would be helpful for practice). these debrief sessions have been helpful to me in preparing for future iterations of the course. assessing student learning for mastery to help provide scaffolding and teach for mastery, students were required to complete a weekly application activity independently and submit the activity to canvas each friday evening as a formative exercise. i reviewed students’ submissions and made final modifications to the agenda for the next day’s study session, based on their mastery of the learning objectives for that week. during the saturday sessions, i worked with students as a whole class and in small groups on the activities, encouraging them to teach and learn from each other. all students, including those not in attendance, then had an opportunity to revise and resubmit their application activities to demonstrate mastery (i.e., posing research questions, conducting appropriate analysis, displaying output, interpreting results, discussing implications, etc.). a student explained the value of mastery learning while maintaining high expectations: the opportunity to resubmit assignments was a great component of this course. we knew that we were expected to read the material, attempt the assignment on our own, reach paufler impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 14 out for assistance during office hours if needed, review the assignments, and then submit any corrections. i think this relieved some anxiety and improved everyone's confidence. another student noted: “one thing that was helpful was completing the assignments on your own, listening to the lectures to review the homework, and being able to redo the assignment for mastery.” embedding improvement science for the culminating project in the first iteration of the course, students used sample data that i provided to demonstrate their learning. some students provided feedback suggesting a need to clearly connect the culminating project to their dips, specifically to better prepare them to independently analyze quantitative data related to their dips. one student highlighted this need in their midsemester survey, writing “…[please] help me realize how i will make this a part of my dissertation.” in response, i revised the culminating project such that students in the second and third iterations identified specific problems of practice in their schools or districts, ideally as a possible topic for their dips. they were encouraged to explore problems of practice related to issues of equity, a primary focus of the curriculum in this edd program. as a next step, students described their local contexts and provided abbreviated literature reviews related to their problems of practice. as part of what would be the plan phase of a pdsa cycle in their dips, students obtained de-identified school or district data related to the problems and specific to their settings, based upon which they developed one or more research question(s) to better understand the problems. using the skills they developed in the course, students identified and conducted appropriate statistical analyses aligned to their research question(s) using excel or spss. their analysis was intended to help them substantiate the extent to which this problem existed in their setting. they were also expected to interpret and display the results in ways that would be appropriate for their intended audience and discuss the limitations of their analysis and/or results and implications for decision making in context. in the first iteration of the course, some students also suggested that the final project was somewhat overwhelming. for example, one student noted, “it would have been nice to have the final project be scaffolded with checkpoints or scaled down to just an area of conducting a small study and reporting the findings.” another student explained that “including checkpoints for the final project or adapting the project to a smaller scale or narrow focus would be beneficial.” in response to student feedback, i divided the culminating project into smaller parts to further scaffold students’ learning throughout the course. i provided students with detailed feedback on each part, which they could revise for the final submission. in this regard, the culminating project served as a small-scale exploration of their problems of practice in preparation for their dips. discussion and recommendations as part of ongoing reflection, i have considered lessons learned and recommendations for other edd programs seeking to develop research methods courses for is. in terms of lessons learned, quantitative methods courses that blend statistical theory with practical application make the content relevant and accessible to students (ferguson et al., 2017). to help edd students build confidence in their abilities to conduct research (kerrigan & hayes, 2016), faculty can provide additional support in quantitative methods courses in the form of modeling and guided practice (wilson & onwuegbuzie, 2001) using sample data commonly available in schools and districts. virtual spaces, if utilized effectively, can enhance students’ abilities to collaborate and apply their learning (e.g., analyzing data in small groups using statistical software). to help reduce any potential stress and anxiety around using statistics (pan & tang, 2004), faculty can provide students opportunities to demonstrate mastery to assess their learning of course content. engaging phd students in graduate assistantships in these courses as class assistants, peer tutors, etc. can enhance the overall experience of edd students, who value the opportunity to connect with a peer who is already in the dissertation phase of their degree. educational leadership faculty seeking to develop and refine research methods courses might consider ways to collaboratively engage in this process. reviewing existing research methods course offerings, including objectives, learning outcomes, content, and assignments, can help faculty determine whether those align with the needs of edd students preparing to conduct dips. when there is misalignment, faculty might consider how to revise courses to reflect the content and skills edd students need or explore options for developing new research methods courses. collaboration in revision and development within and across programs and departments offers faculty the opportunity to align coursework to program-specific learning outcomes while avoiding redundancy. refining courses based on student feedback and faculty reflections can further strengthen the courses in terms of their relevance, accessibility, and support of student learning. engaging in a systematic, iterative, and reflective refinement process within and across courses in collaboration with other faculty can further enhance doctoral programs in ways that benefit students. references bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2022). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework ferguson, s. l., hovey, k. a., & henson, r. k. (2017). quantitative preparation in doctoral education programs: a mixed-methods study of doctoral student perspectives on their quantitative training. international journal of doctoral studies, 12, 137-–56. http://www.informingscience.org/publications/3789 firestone, w. a., perry, j. a., leland, a. s., & mckeon, r. t. (2019). teaching research and data use in the education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 16(1), 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775119872231 gummer, e. s., & mandinach, e. b. (2015). building a conceptual framework for data literacy. teachers college record, 117(4), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811511700401 hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. myers education press. kerrigan, m. r., & hayes, k. m. (2016). edd students’ self-efficacy and interest in conducting research. international journal of doctoral studies, 11, 14– 162. http://ijds.org/volume11/ijdsv11p147-162kerrigan1975.pdf leech, n. l., & haug, c. a. (2015). investigating graduate level research and statistics courses in schools of education. international journal of doctoral studies, 10, 93–110. http://ijds.org/volume10/ijdsv10p093110leech0658.pdf pan, w., & tang, m. (2004). examining the effectiveness of innovative instructional methods on reducing statistics anxiety for graduate students in the social sciences. journal of instructional psychology, 31(2), 149– 159. perry, j. a. (2016). the scholarly practitioner as steward of practice. in v. a. storey & k. a. hesbol (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework http://www.informingscience.org/publications/3789 https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775119872231 http://ijds.org/volume11/ijdsv11p147-162kerrigan1975.pdf http://ijds.org/volume10/ijdsv10p093-110leech0658.pdf http://ijds.org/volume10/ijdsv10p093-110leech0658.pdf teaching applied quantitative research methods impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.336 15 development and research methods (pp. 300-313). igi global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0.ch019 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. pogrow, s. (2018). authentic quantitative analysis for education leadership decision-making and edd dissertations: a practical, intuitive, and intelligible approach (2nd ed.). icpel publications. wilson, v. a., & onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2001). increasing and decreasing anxiety: a study of doctoral students in education research courses [paper presentation]. mid-south educational research association annual meeting, little rock, ar, united states. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed459214.pdf https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0.ch019 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed459214.pdf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 47 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.326 rigor and relevance in research methods: reflections from a professor and alumni of an online edd program carey borkoski loyola university maryland cborkoski@jhu.edu jeannie chipps montana state university jchipps3@jhu.edu brianne roos loyola university maryland bhiggins@loyola.edu abstract edd students represent diverse individuals with established professional identities who enroll in doctoral programs seeking relevant, useable content. instructors and program directors must find ways to incorporate rigor and relevance into the readings, assessments, and training for edd students. this essay explores the evolution of research methods courses in an online education doctoral program. hochbein and perry (2013) noted that “research training need not be diluted, but rather tailored to the specific needs of scholarly practitioners” (p.182). our narrative integrates the unique perspectives of a former edd research methods faculty member and two recent alumni to describe one program’s efforts to maintain the rigor of doctoral research methods courses and better align student experiences to their needs and professional context. relying on research literature and experiential evidence, we offer a rich recounting of a rationale for change and how these adjustments contributed to scholarly practitioner training and research journeys. the essay identifies requisite knowledge of scholarly practitioners and describes the integration of learning opportunities across the courses. keywords research methods, application-based methods, practitioner-scholar edd students represent diverse individuals with established professional identities who enroll in doctoral programs seeking relevant, useable content. instructors and program directors must find ways to incorporate rigor and relevance into the readings, assessments, and training for edd students. this essay describes the evolution of a sequence of research methods courses in an online education doctoral program. it includes a brief review of the program and discussion of the original design and changes that occurred over several iterations of the methods sequence. our narrative integrates the unique perspectives of three alumni of the program, including a former research methods faculty member in this edd program. relying on research literature and experiential evidence, this essay offers a rich recounting of rationale for change, descriptions, and examples of some of the changes, and how these iterations contributed to scholarly practitioners’ training and research journeys. this essay also identifies requisite knowledge and skills of scholarly practitioners and how changes to the research methods course support deeper learning and more effective integration of opportunities to learn and practice these competencies across the courses. moreover, we will share how meaningful pedagogical practices reflect theories of adult (knowles, 1978) and experiential (kolb, 1984) learning-informed instruction strategies to better facilitate practitioner development and growth as researchers. the discussion that follows includes some background about the program and motivation for the changes, specific examples of the changes and students’ experiences in and with those changes, and implications for the implementation of the course changes as well as learning that occurred because of the change process. background this program is a fully online, three-year doctoral program, with three required research methods courses including research methods i (rmi), research methods ii (rmii), and program evaluation (pe). rmi is an introductory course in research methods that explores quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods designs through readings, discussion posts, and assignments. rmii https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2375-7439 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9029-2304 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7212-6740 borkoski et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.326 48 represents the data analysis course where students take a deep dive into descriptive and inferential analysis techniques and qualitative coding through reading literature, discussion, and practical application. pe offers training in knowledge and techniques related to intervention research and evaluation. while this paper will touch on aspects of all courses in the sequence, much of the discussion will reference rmi and rmii and the changes in faculty approaches to teaching of research design and facilitating students’ engagement and practice with data analysis. the students in this online program, like the co-authors, are as diverse as the problems and research questions they examine, including differences in professional contexts, research interests, and the methods they use for inquiry. students represent professionals from myriad contexts, including faculty, administrators, and district leaders in k-12 and higher education, as well as leaders in areas adjacent to and supportive of education systems. the edd students are also diverse in ethnicity, country of origin, age, and reasons for enrolling in doctoral studies. furthermore, students also arrive to the program with a range of prior coursework and practical experience with using research methods. for example, the first author was trained in quantitative methods and entered the edd program with a ph.d. she joined the methods faculty in this edd program while completing her edd. the second author also came to the edd program with extensive quantitative training (but no qualitative training), while the third author was entirely new to the formal study of research methods upon entering the edd. the variety of edd students’ prior experience with research methods, coupled with the contextual nature of the research and the multiple research roles of practitioners may require different methodological approaches, knowledge, and skills. translated, this means that edd programs must include rigorous and evidencebased methods training that is relevant and applicable to varied contexts (lochmiller & lester, 2017). in fact, hochbein and perry (2013) suggest that the diverse needs of practitioners may call for deeper training to examine the complexities of localized research. using a faculty member’s and two alumni experiences and reflections, our essay explores how one edd program strengthened the research methods sequence while maintaining a high level of rigor and meeting the unique needs of practitioners. the program changes came about because of methods faculty and program leaders soliciting and listening to students’ feedback. aware of her positionality as a faculty member with extensive methods experience and the diversity of her students’ experience and comfort with methods, the first author regularly checked in with her students (including the second and third authors) to ask what they needed and how faculty could better support their learning. she was intentional about doing this in a way that set the conditions for honest feedback, and the third author and her classmates asked for a simple dataset to better understand the concepts in rmi and rmii. responding to students’ feedback and recognizing the need to integrate practice, learning, and context to make connections and deepen understanding, research methods faculty developed a simple dataset about puppies and offered multiple opportunities to engage with the puppy data. furthermore, students also questioned the volume and type of required work, and this was elevated during the spring 2020 semester as the pandemic began to be felt. demands on students’ time and cognitive bandwidth were extensive and consuming, and the faculty and program leaders reevaluated methods requirements to focus on what was most important to promoting students’ learning and success in the program and as emerging researchers. the methods courses, rmi, rmii, and pe, evolved into a place of pragmatism for the students. the revised methods courses discussed reflect a true acknowledgement of adult learning theory (knowles, 1978): addressing problems, relevance, and immediate application to their work. this approach to research integrates learning and experiences to improve a specific, real practice, rooted in rigor but not limited by disciplinary parameters that might be irrelevant to the goal (lochmiller & lester, 2017). the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to conduct application-based contextual research with a variety of stakeholders (i.e., scholarly practitioner research methods competencies) must be grounded in evidencebased science and flexible enough to address student needs, while providing time and space for students to practice and collaborate. there must also be opportunities for students to leverage their and their peers’ professional expertise and that of other relevant stakeholders to address a research question or problem of practice. guided by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) definition of scholarly practitioner as “[an individual who] blends practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice…they have an obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders…” (n.d., design concepts section, para. 1). to that end, edd research methods courses must include content, activities, and experiential opportunities to deepen students’ methods and data analysis skills beyond their dissertation research interests so that they might address other and different research questions after graduating from the doctoral program and engage meaningfully with a multitude of diverse stakeholders. originally, the dissertation dictated the methods sequence objectives, content, and activities. this often meant faculty taught students addressing 15-17 different research projects in a course. consequently, these courses tried to be all things for all students. this resulted in courses with extensive required readings, several textbooks, and many individual student meetings to support their learning and dissertation progress. moreover, the time spent in optional synchronous sessions required disseminating a high volume of information about research methods and answering diverse and student-specific questions about assignments and their dissertation progress. from the perspective of this former faculty member, the sessions included too much required reading (even for a doctoral program) and too little time for thinking, discussing, sharing, and peer-to-peer and instructor-peer learning (mezirow, 2003). this continued through the course sequence, with data analysis activities as a function of students’ research, rather than aligned with the overall research methods competencies for edd students. to be clear, students experienced rigorous and relevant content and gained required skills. however, their skills and competencies were often narrowly focused on their area of inquiry. paradoxically, the initial intent of customizing to meet the individual student needs resulted in information overload for both faculty and students, making it difficult for students to develop and practice skills most relevant to scholar practitioners. the changes implemented shifted the course foci away from centering the dissertation, created space and time for students both to gain scholarly practitioner competencies, and empowered students to engage in and reflect on course skills most relevant to their research. in the end, faculty and edd leadership understood that even with the rich diversity of student backgrounds, professional contexts, and rigor and relevance in research methods impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.326 49 problems of practice, there were skills and competencies that everyone needed. the faculty and leaders of this online edd program recognized that scholarly practitioners must gain knowledge and skills in the tenets of research design, learn the language of methods, and gain the skills to examine quantitative and qualitative data. student feedback and faculty experiences revealed that learning these competencies required space, time, practice, feedback, and independent and collaborative efforts. the following provides a description of some of the ways the research methods courses evolved to meet the needs of doctoral students in an online edd program. program changes changes in the methods sequence range from course objectives and assessments to learning opportunities and types of effort and engagement. as previously discussed, the sequence shifted away from trying to be all things to all students with expansive required readings, multiple textbooks, and many individual meetings and discussion forums. the revised sequence, in the spirit of hochbein and perry (2015), moved not to a diluted set of topics, but a series of courses that included intentional focus on scholarly practitioner competencies. this included time and attention to deliberate research methods and data analysis practices relevant to the edd students and their varied backgrounds and contexts. table 1 offers a brief overview of the changes discussed in the rest of this article. subsequent sections will use examples to describe the adjustments in some detail. objectives, assessments, and content the revision of the methods courses included realignment of course objectives, content, assignments and assessments, and a corresponding diverse array of learning opportunities. as previously noted, the primary objective of the courses shifted from teaching methods via a dissertation-focused model to an approach focused on teaching and learning the requisite skills for application-based, contextual education research to be conducted during and beyond students’ time in the program. consequently, assignments and assessments expanded beyond specific dissertation milestones and integrated the reality that graduates, over the course of their careers, will face multiple problems of practice. this necessitates skills to collect and analyze data related to the identified problem. finally, the content of the rmi and rmii courses was also redesigned to complement the revised approach. with the goal of affording students more time to think, apply, and understand the research methods content, reading lists were reduced and redesigned, textbooks were selected more judiciously. by embracing a definition of rigor that includes intellectual challenge, engagement, and opportunities for empowerment (nais, 2021), reducing the volume of required work did not change the high expectations of instructors of the level of academic rigor. diversity of learning opportunities perhaps the most noteworthy changes to the methods courses are found in the diversity of learning opportunities in the reimagined versions of rmi and rmii. changes were made to asynchronous deliverables, synchronous sessions, and students’ opportunities for data analysis and practice. upon review of and reflection on the research methods courses and student feedback, methods faculty determined that students needed more time to practice the skills and competencies of research methods. they also needed opportunities outside of their dissertation research to learn, practice, and collaborate on data analysis techniques and skills. to create time and space for this shift in focus, the methods faculty reduced the number of discussion forums in the methods courses, integrated practice and analysis activities into the remaining posts, and focused the discussion questions and responses on application of the doing of methods and analysis, rather than only reading about the methods. whereas the asynchronous work in previous courses included numerous required discussion posts focused on remembering and recounting important principles and learning from assigned readings, the new courses expanded to include activities that range from examining readings to creating data tables and evaluating other researchers’ discussions of findings in a research article. the change supports students in building methods efficacy and developing a researcher identity. moreover, graduates will be consumers and producers of research and must have skills to critically examine and use evidence. synchronous learning also changed, as students in each course are provided with optional opportunities to meet online to connect with faculty, teaching assistants (tas), and classmates. in the old model, these meetings were used to answer questions, share course logistics (e.g., schedules, due dates), and to review expectations for course deliverables. the approach was adjusted to a model in which faculty and tas host workshops on a variety of relevant topics, including writing research questions, defining, and measuring constructs, and coding qualitative data. the rationale for the change comes from the benefits of repeated practice (karpicke & roediger, 2007) and community building in a synchronous learning table 1. changes to the research methods sequence type of change original design change to design rationale course goals/ objectives focused on completing dissertation milestones (chapters and/or projects related to the chapters) focus on research methods competencies for scholarly practitioners, with dissertation and research support edd students need to build knowledge and skills to address a diversity of topics that will emerge over time. students must gain understanding and practice in technical skills and the contextualized nature of many of the research questions that emerge. assignments/ assessments dictated by progress on dissertation guided by scholarly practitioner competencies edd graduates live and work in diverse and everchanging professional contexts. need to prepare students to address issues that may extend beyond their current dissertation research. diversity of learning opportunities learning exclusively embedded in readings and centered in students’ problems of practice learning embedded across resources, research experiences, group discussions, workshops, and real-world data interprofessional approach to methods training. opportunities for students to engage in communities of practice and leverage student talent and experiences. borkoski et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.326 50 environment (borup et al., 2020). workshops offer more space, time, and scaffolding to examine and navigate the complexities of methods and data analysis. we also found that the restructured workshops resulted in strong attendance even when offered as optional. student presence and engagement may be attributed to their enjoyment and seeing the value of the time together. in informal feedback, students reported having a lot of fun working together and appreciated knowing and seeing that others also experience the productive struggle that is research methods. synchronous learning also changed, as students in each course are provided with optional opportunities to meet online to connect with faculty, teaching assistants (tas), and classmates. in the old model, these meetings were used to answer questions, share course logistics (e.g., schedules, due dates), and to review expectations for course deliverables. the approach was adjusted to a model in which faculty and tas host workshops on a variety of relevant topics, including writing research questions, defining, and measuring constructs, and coding qualitative data. the rationale for the change comes from the benefits of repeated practice (karpicke & roediger, 2007) and community building in a synchronous learning environment (borup et al., 2020). workshops offer more space, time, and scaffolding to examine and navigate the complexities of methods and data analysis. we also found that the restructured workshops resulted in strong attendance even when offered as optional. student presence and engagement may be attributed to their enjoyment and seeing the value of the time together. in informal feedback, students reported having a lot of fun working together and appreciated knowing and seeing that others also experience the productive struggle that is research methods. during these workshops, faculty and tas provide students with quantitative datasets and qualitative transcripts, and the opportunities to analyze quantitative and qualitative data live with a supportive community of learners. the time together is intentionally designed to allow for doing (i.e., using spss, engaging in coding and theme development), reflecting, practicing, and asking live questions. faculty, tas, and students model these practices for and with one another, thus building community (shea et al., 2022), increasing efficacy through repeated and successful practice (bandura, 1977), and learning. these workshops provided invaluable feedback and the opportunity for practice through what garrison (2011) refers to as “collaborative constructivism” (p. 4). it represents a space for online learners to connect synchronously and talk about their areas of challenge, celebrate achievements, and program milestones, and continue to develop relationships and connections that are vital sources of collegial support. the final category of change in the research methods course sequence was the intentional addition of multiple opportunities for data analysis training and practice. previously, students learned traditional quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques and relied on their problems of practice as both their project and example of research. now, in addition to their problems of practice, students collaborate to clean, review, analyze, present, and write about multiple real-world (and messy) data sets. this approach affords more opportunities to practice with data, and students support and learn from one another as they work with the same dataset. using the same dataset also provides opportunities for students to see a research process from start to finish. the real-world data sets that students now use in the research methods courses provide context and relevance to their learning of methodologies and are accessible within the program evaluation course to further extend their understanding. the first data set made available to students was labeled puppy data and the emphasis within this data set was collecting descriptive information that could be used when first learning the statistical software, descriptive statistics, and research method terminology. briefly, the puppy data, created by the methods faculty, included easy-to-follow and understand data about training puppies that represented a way for students to learn and practice unfamiliar and often confusing data analysis practices and techniques. the students first work within teams to identify constructs and variables within the data set, then consider these research terms within their own doctoral work. students also generate research questions that can be addressed through descriptive statistics, suggest techniques to answer these questions, and generate initial findings tables. by design, the puppy data provides scaffolding for learning research design steps, including research questions and summary statistics. revisions to rmii integrated an additional data set to scaffold inferential statistical analysis. this data set contained information gathered from students within the cohort during their entry to the program in year one and included demographic information (including binary gender options, which enabled discussion of the importance of designing inclusive surveys), information on the specialization, and online learning self-efficacy (zimmerman & kulikowich, 2016) as with the first data set, students work collaboratively to produce initial attempts at designing research questions and presenting results and conclusions. this data set offers opportunities for students to conduct a second analysis and advance their knowledge of data analysis. like rmi, students work in groups to both apply and discuss approaches to the analyses. throughout this process, students engage in feedback, reflection, and production of data analysis and research findings. the second data set extends student learning and practice with a broad range of data analysis skills and leverages the opportunity to collaborate and discuss with peers their approaches and reflections on the analysis processes. the use of these two data sets is intentional. the puppy data is somewhat clean and students can easily conduct descriptive statistics and learn the software program without concerns of missing data or the need to transform data. the second data set, however, includes missing data and a combination of categorical and numerical data, requiring students to decide on the appropriate inferential statistics and how to address missing data. the second data set also serves as more of a bridge to the students’ research and dissertation methods needs. finally, in addition to the survey data, focus group transcripts were included so that students can perform both qualitative analysis and mixed methods research. the combination of data sets provides students with the opportunity to engage in discussions as to the benefits or drawbacks of using different methodologies that would likely be considered for their dissertation work and within the field of education more broadly (libman, 2010). conclusion when designing research methods courses for a three-year online edd program, it is easy to focus on the dissertation as the outcome. in this format, students concurrently work on courses and their research, so it is natural and expected that their doctoral research should connect with the courses they take. what we have rigor and relevance in research methods impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.326 51 learned, however, through our collective experience, empirical research, and student and alumni feedback, is that while dissertation work is paramount to success in the edd, scholarly practitioners must also learn a depth and breadth of research methodology, practice with a diversity of real-world data sources and types, and collaboratively engage with faculty and their peers to understand the benefits and challenges of contextualized research. courses and other program experiences should integrate research experiences and professional expertise of edd students while also exposing students to contexts and data that may not be aligned with their current research interests. scholarly practitioners must engage in practice-based research that challenges them to think, discuss, and practice the traditional skills learned in research methods and how they can and when they should be used in localized research. unlike a traditional phd program, students and faculty should leverage and integrate the wealth of expertise and practical experience edd students bring into the program. in order for this to happen, course structures must include time and space for synchronous workshops for practice and collaboration, group discussions and work with data, and many opportunities to give and receive feedback on a variety of activities and assessments. like doctoral students, faculty in edd programs continually reflect, learn, and iterate and, as a result, the revised methods courses meet the diverse research interests, backgrounds, and needs of online edd students. with intentionally designed space to think, discuss, and practice, edd students consume and conduct research as well-prepared scholarly practitioners. references bandura, a. 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(2003). transformative learning as discourse. journal of transformative education, 1(1), 58–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344603252172 shea, p., richardson, j., & swan, k. (2022). building bridges to advance the community of inquiry framework for online learning. educational psychologist, 57(3), 148–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2022.2089989 zimmerman, w. a., & kulikowich, j. m. (2016). online learning self-efficacy in students with and without online learning experience. american journal of distance education, 30(3), 180–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2016.1193801 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09744-x https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203838761 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/j.jml.2006.09.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775116668525 https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2010.11889477 https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344603252172 https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2022.2089989 https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2016.1193801 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 51 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 intersections of identity, culture, and curriculum on the threshold of a latinx transforming edd program at a hispanic serving institution caroline a. hesse university of texas rio grande valley carolineahesse@gmail.com laura m. jewett university of texas rio grande valley laura.jewett@utrgv.edu abstract a constellation of emergent research is devoted to critiquing the institutional identities of hispanic serving institutions (hsis) as primarily hispanic-enrolling institutions and then exploring frameworks and practices aimed at transforming them into what garcía (2019) terms latinx-serving institutions. the purpose of this essay is to explore the intersections of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining approaches and as potentially decolonizing curricular spaces of edd program (re)design at hsis. this essay draws from two qualitative studies exploring critical approaches to curriculum and pedagogy and program redesign in order to re-align questions about serving latinx students toward practices of critical consciousness situated at the intersection of identity, culture, and curriculum. findings include the ways in which those notions are different and similar, and the unique lens each offers the teachers and edd program redesign. implications discussed in this essay highlight the possibilities and problems of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining approaches for edd program redesign and how they might look when applied in hsi edd programs. such findings are not only useful in lending insight into the specific complexities of hsi efforts to develop edd programs that better serve latinx students in transformative ways. these findings also indicate that the process through which this is undertaken benefits from critical consciousness aimed at individual and collective conscientization among students and faculty as well as curricular outcomes shaped by discourses of social justice. keywords critical consciousness, edd program redesign, hispanic serving institutions introduction hispanic serving institutions (hsis) embody complex territory. the hsi designation represents a liminal curriculum lived on fertile thresholds betwixt enduring yet damaging systems of power and privilege and the complicated aims of ameliorating the existential and practical challenges these whitestream systems pose for latinx students caught in-between ideals of equity and access and hegemonic traditions of higher education. existing policy holds that the designation hsi means that an institution has reached the threshold of 25% namesake student enrollment. however, what the letter of the law designates as “hispanic serving” may not correspond to the spirit of such a term. as garcía (2019) asserts, the hsi label is “a racialized designation, meaning it is connected to and evolves from the racial and ethnic identities of the students” (p. 2). despite hsis’ minority-serving designation and this designation’s explicit, discursive connection to notions of race and ethnicity identity, culture and curriculum at hsis are often basically indistinguishable from their whitestream peer institutions (garcía, 2019; garcía & okhidoi, 2015; núñez et al., 2016). on the other hand, hsis represent a terrain with significant potential to enact powerful change (espinosa et al., 2018; garcía, 2019; martinez, 2018; wong lau, 2017). it is no surprise that doctoral programs at hsis are positioned similarly. yet, literature pertaining to doctoral program identity, culture, and curriculum at hsis is scant. research regarding edd programs at hsis is scanter still. situated within this gap and between two larger in-progress studies, we draw from author one’s dissertation research exploring the ways in which critical consciousness is embodied in culturally sustaining curriculum and critical pedagogy by bilingual educators in k-12 settings and apply it to an ongoing, 3-year ethnographic case study critically exploring the process of edd program redesign and curricular transformation within the context of a large hsi located on the u.s./mexico border. in so doing, this essay explores how edd programs can embody and negotiate principles of culturally relevant, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining approaches framed by an ethic of critical consciousness. furthermore, this essay offers a different sort of http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8862-1842 hesse & jewett impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 52 mapping that re-aligns questions about serving latinx students toward practices of critical consciousness situated at the intersection of identity, culture, and curriculum in a latinx transforming edd program. towards these ends, this essay travels the intersections among notions of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining curriculum and pedagogy and what these interstices mean in terms of identity, culture, and curriculum of edd programs as framed by a praxis of critical consciousness. we end with a discussion of implications for practice and further research that might sustain an ongoing process of becoming a latinx transforming in contrast to a hispanic-serving edd program. data sources as discussed in the introduction, data sources for this article include a dissertation study exploring critical approaches to pedagogy and critical consciousness and an ongoing ethnographic case study on edd programs at an hsi in the u.s. southwest. one study on which this essay draws on is the first author’s dissertation research exploring the ways in which critical consciousness, culturally sustaining curriculum, and critical pedagogy are enacted by bilingual educators in k-12 settings. the main research question of this case study was “how does critical consciousness show up in dual language educator’s work?” data collection, which is still ongoing, included interviews with bilingual educators in dual language programs, document analysis of lessons, and other texts associated with their teaching. central to this study was an in-depth analysis of culturally-attentive approaches to teaching. this involved a systematic literature review (which is ongoing) that looked for the intersections and departures among the central ideas in this literature. through this analysis, nuanced differences between closely related notions became evident. in particular, it became apparent that scholars and practitioners sometimes misconstrued and understood three distinct notions as though they were interchangeable. it seems that in some cases, educators may draw on the various theories holistically, without attending to their distinctions (rodriguez, 2014). in this way, we became aware of the need and the utility of understanding the ways in which culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive pedagogy, and culturally sustaining pedagogy are different, the ways in which they are similar, and what this might mean in practice. understanding these nuances within the menu of options criticallyminded educators encounter when attempting to attend to culture in the classroom makes each item on the menu more useful and more actionable. understanding the differences make it clear what elements of culture are being attended to by certain pedagogical and curricular moves, and which elements require the educators’ further consideration and attention in order to meet the thresholds set by the definitions of each notion. in addition, in teasing out the nuanced differences and similarities, the notions themselves may be more faithfully put to use and subsequently, have a bigger impact in the classroom. in this article, we apply a triptych of frameworks from the above dissertation research to interpret data from stage one of a multistaged, ethnographic case study critically exploring the process of edd program redesign and curricular transformation at an hsi in which we both participated as researchers and participants. additional participants in this study included doctoral faculty and students in an edd program at the 2nd largest hsi in the u.s., located a literal stones-throw from the u.s./mexico border in one of the most economically depressed regions in the u.s. while over 92% of the total student population at the hsi under study is identified as hispanic or latinx, 87% of edd program students identify as hispanic or latinx and less than 50% doctoral faculty participants in this study identify likewise. in order to inform our study exploring—in an in-depth way— the process of edd program redesign and curriculum transformation at our hsi, this study used a qualitative, single case-study design (yin, 2009, p. 18). data collection began in spring 2018 and included a survey, a focus group, a semi-structured interview, and document analysis data. sources used for this article include content analysis of syllabi, curricular content analysis, dissertation thematic analysis, analysis of doctoral-faculty authored white papers around guiding questions of redesign, and aggregate and program-completer data. principles of culturally relevant, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining approaches framed by a praxis of critical consciousness shaped, and continue to shape, our work to become a latinx transforming edd program at an hsi. edd programs at hsis are an important part of a pipeline of potential latinx educational leaders who, through the pedagogical and curricular decisions they make, may end up reproducing or countering the eurocentric systems they likely struggled through themselves. it is key that edd programs at hsis create emancipatory curricular structures, employ critical pedagogical strategies, and foster critical inquiry that model ways that long-established systems can be decolonized, and decolonial experiences and eurocentric epistemology and ontology challenged. in turn, edd graduates can take these experiences and extend them to their professional and scholarly orbit after leaving the hsi. as hooks (1994) argues, theory can meaningfully assist in moving reflection along to productive ends. yet, as findings from both the studies that inform this article suggest, literature concerning practical applications of theoretical notions aimed at decentering eurocentric approaches to pedagogy and decolonizing curriculum represent a dense thicket of intertwining definitions and frameworks so dense in fact that these sometimes serve to impede rather than inform transformation both in terms of teaching and edd program design. in what follows, we hope to help navigate this thicket and untangle three tendrils of culturally attentive education most prominent in the literature: “culturally relevant pedagogy,” “culturally responsive teaching,” and “culturally sustaining pedagogy.” in untangling the thicket, we provide some clarity for how each is unique and uniquely useful for the hsi edd critical pedagogue or other critical stakeholders. culturally relevant pedagogy in this section, we draw from dissertation research on intersections of critical pedagogy and culture to introduce ladsonbillings’ (1995) ideas about culturally relevant pedagogy. we compare and contrast it with other approaches that attend to cultural matters in pedagogy in order to suggest that while notions of relevance are critically useful, they can fall short. drawing from our research of edd program redesign, we then show how this argument can be extended meaningfully to apply to edd programs by providing examples, from our research at our hsi, of what cultural relevance that might look like as a factor driving edd program redesign. according to ladson-billings’ (1995) seminal article “toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy,” culturally relevant pedagogy intersections of identity, culture & curriculum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 53 ought to “problematize teaching and encourage teachers to ask about the nature of the student-teacher relationship, the curriculum, schooling, and society” (ladson-billings, 1995, p. 483). furthermore, culturally relevant teaching must meet three criteria: an ability to develop students academically, a willingness to nurture and support cultural competence, and the development of a sociopolitical or critical consciousness. next, i [argue] that culturally relevant teaching is distinguishable by three broad propositions or conceptions regarding self and other, social relations, and knowledge. (ladson-billings, 1995, p. 483) since then, numerous scholars (brown-jeffy & cooper, 2011; cartledge, et al., 2016; choi, 2013; durden & truscott, 2010; esposito & swain, 2009; esposito et al., 2012; freire & valdez, 2017; howard, 2003; hyland, 2009; leonard et al., 2009; maye & day, 2012; morrison et al., 2008; ortiz, 2009; saint-hilaire, 2014; schmeichel, 2012; young, 2010; wortham & contreras, 2002) have taken up her term to write about issues one can view as interrelated with critical pedagogy and critical approaches to curriculum. some scholarship addresses ways to “do” culturally relevant pedagogy in practice (morrison et al., 2008; saint-hilaire, 2014; young, 2010), including work by ladson-billings (2008) herself. other prior scholarship addresses culturally relevant pedagogy and its intersections with special education (cartledge et al., 2016), dual language education (freire & valdez, 2017), at-risk students (maye & day, 2012), indigenous education (ortiz, 2009), notions of social justice and equity (esposito & swain, 2009; schmeichel, 2012), school reform (esposito et al., 2012), and teacher education, reflection, or professional development (durden & truscott, 2010; howard, 2003; hyland, 2009). in addition, some scholars have addressed culturally relevant pedagogy and its intersection with english-learning students (choi, 2013; leonard et al., 2009) and latino students (wortham & contreras, 2002). existing scholarship helps illustrate the uniqueness of notions of cultural relevance in education, a finding which emerged from the first author’s dissertation research process. ladson-billings (1995) notes that culturally relevant education includes support for the development of three things: academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. crucially, the second and third items set culturally relevant theory apart. for example, gay (2002) notes that culturally responsive teaching uses culture as a lens for teaching curriculum, but does not mention the development of cultural competence and leaves critical consciousness underexplored. paris (2012) notes that culturally sustaining pedagogy is infused with the potential to promote a multilingual, multicultural, and democratic society but places less emphasis on academic success or achievement. seen this way, making use of all notions of culture in education can contribute in unique ways, where use of a single notion may miss crucial critical details. each notion is one item on a menu of meaningful and useful cultural attentive resources. each is uniquely important and brings uniquely important critical elements to the menu of options for the critically minded pedagogy or stakeholder. applied in combination, but not treated interchangeably, they all hold promise. each draws the critical educator’s attention to important elements of curriculum and pedagogy that may be present or may be missing in their efforts, and all notions must be considered in combination in order to meaningfully attend to culture in the classroom. therein lies the importance of understanding the nuanced differences. in fact, ladson-billings’ notion of culturally relevant pedagogy has proven a durable curricular framework for linking academic success to cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness across a variety of k-12 and hsi settings (koontz & lewis, 2020). these studies indicate that cultural relevance is no less important for the graduate student than for the elementary, secondary, or undergraduate student. in the hsi and especially edd program context, a culturally relevant approach, particularly in terms of curriculum, helps us incorporate the work of scholars of color in the preparation of scholarly practitioners of color, cultivate research with an explicit focus on its value to communities of color, link issues of academic rigor to key knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to cultural competence and social justice, and think more deeply about what these mean to scholarly practitioners, the work they do, and the inquiry such work generates. the curriculum of what is sometimes called “ethnic studies” could facilitate a culturally relevant experience, for example. better yet, offering a series of such courses could be seen as a culturally relevant step. best and most relevant of all, “ethnic studies” content could be integrated into a wide array of existing courses that represent not only the humanities but also the sciences. in this way, namesake students at hsis could be the beneficiaries of a culturally relevant redesign, whether they be students in the colleges of education or in another field. for our majority-minority edd program, in which the majority of students teach and lead in latinx school and community contexts in u.s./mexico border regions, the notion of “cultural competence” provides a useful point of departure. but it stops short of encapsulating the degree and variety of cultural, social, and linguistic capital practitioners in our program expertly wield on a daily basis. professionally, students in our program cross multiple borders geographical, socio-political, cultural, linguistic, and emotional to name a few, each day in efforts to improve education in border regions. surviving such crossings and working to transform the educational terrain takes more than competence. it requires expertise. helping students translate this cultural expertise into the scholarly prowess needed to navigate the colonization higher education arguably entails (even at or perhaps particularly at an hsi) requires a curriculum that is beyond relevant. working alongside students to decolonize such curricular terrain as we inhabit it entails epistemological as well as intellectual rigor. first and foremost, all coursework offered at an hsi ought to problematize the systems around teaching and learning in the united states. an hsi doctoral education, and even more acutely an edd program, must reflect a critical bent. arguably, a doctoral program in social foundations is barely worthy of the title if it were not critical. even more remiss would be an edd hsi program that in fact reproduces problematic notions of teaching and learning the same ones that marginalize namesake students their whole lives instead of challenging them. still, we understand colonial notions of what a good education and a good program can withstand the test of time. garcía’s (2017) findings regarding the dearth of ethno-centric curriculum at hsis highlight this reality and painfully so. for this reason, curricular transformation that moves in the direction of critical theory, critical pedagogy, and critical consciousness is key. in alignment with ladson-billings’ (1995) vision, hsis may put cultural relevance into practice in a number of ways. they may find or expand coursework often called “ethnic studies,” and/or integrate such curriculum into a wide array of humanities and science courses institution-wide. they promote research and publication by minority hesse & jewett impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 54 identity students in order to create new knowledge and curriculum that responds to the need for cultural relevance across disciplines. such support might be flexible and concretely supportive in ways that target such minority-identity students’ needs, in order to further assure the production of new curriculum and knowledge. this would include the financial support as well as the academic and moral support needed for participation in authentic research and publication. whether at national and international conferences or in multilingual peer-reviewed journals, a culturally relevant edd program at an hsi ought to foster namesake students’ original knowledge production in ways that challenge the restrictions eurocentric academic traditions have historically placed on individuals with non-white, immigrant, non-english speaking people living in the u.s. who speaks and who listens? who writes and who reads? this matters. the importance of publication prestige and a scholarly audience for anyone in academia underscores just how much more important such prestige and audience could be for budding latinx or hispanic edd scholars. as members of a group or multiple groups whose voices have historically been overlooked, muted, and ignored, opportunities for research, publication, and presentation represent an opportunity to amplify knowledge production of traditionally marginalized people. this would indeed be relevant curricular transformation in service of namesake students’ academic needs. two decades after her seminal piece on the term, ladsonbillings (2014) embraced a shift in conceptualization of culturally relevant pedagogy, as manifested in a subtle but significant shift in the terminology to culturally sustaining pedagogy. however, inbetween this shift, gay’s (2002) conceptualization of culturally responsive teaching entered the milieu. gay (2002) extended ladson-billings’ work under the term “culturally responsive teaching” in ways that provided practitioners and scholars a framework for utilizing aspects of students’ cultures in pedagogical ways to boost academic success. the next subsection addresses this shift in the literature from culturally relevant pedagogy to culturally responsive teaching, what this looks like in practice and why this is significant, especially for edd program redesign, more specifically for edd programs at hsis with transformational aims. culturally responsive approaches this section addresses gay’s (2002) ideas about cultural responsiveness in education in order to illustrate its uniqueness as well as its utility in an hsi program (re)design and making such a program one that is latinx serving. we compare and contrast it with other notions that attend to cultural matters in education and examine where notions of responsiveness are useful and fall short. then, we show how it can be extended meaningfully from k-12 education to apply to higher education. finally, we provide examples of what that cultural responsiveness might look like in an edd program and from our own research and our own program at a borderlands hsi. we do so in order to demonstrate the usefulness and meaningfulness of understanding the nuanced differences and similarities between the triptych of culturally attentive approaches, particularly in hsi edd programs. an extension of culturally relevant pedagogy (ladson-billings, 1995) is culturally responsive pedagogy. culturally responsive pedagogy is in epistemological alignment with the notion of cultural attentiveness, but is more precise than culturally relevant pedagogy about the use of a cultural lens for better teaching. gay (2002) describes culturally responsiveness in education this way: culturally responsive teaching is defined as using the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively. it is based on the assumption that when academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly (gay, 2000). as a result, the academic achievement of ethnically diverse students will improve when they are taught through their own cultural and experiential filters... (p. 106) scholars who took up this term have written about its intersection with teacher education and professional development (gere et al., 2009; sleeter, 2011; warren, 2018), teaching in secondary (herrera et al., 2012), as well as post-secondary settings (ginsberg & wlodkowski, 2009), urban education (grant & asimengboahene, 2006), and literacy (moje & hinchman, 2004; soutomanning, 2009). some scholarship has focused on culturally responsive pedagogy in relation to the education of students labeled as puerto rican (irizarry & antrop-gonzález, 2007), latino (irizarry, 2007), indigenous or native peoples (bishop, 2008; savage et al., 2011), african american (howard & terry sr, 2011; ware, 2006), and english-learning (santamaria, 2009). memorably, ware (2006) equates culturally responsive pedagogy with the notion of being a “warm demander.” other scholars have suggested ways that it can be applied to improve various elements of a minoritized student’s experience from literacy to math to science instruction (taylor & sobel, 2011). for all the reasons we elaborated in the previous section on cultural relevance, notions of cultural responsiveness are just as applicable in higher education as they are in k-12 education. as previously noted, nuanced distinctions between the triptych of culturally attentive theories emerged in the process of conducting the first author’s dissertation research. understanding those nuances makes each more useful. while gay’s (2002) notion of culturally responsive pedagogy falls short of explicitly including language as a factor, her definition is useful to our context and our study in that she states that educators would do well to use cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students to teach those same students. this description is more specific than ladsonbillings’ (1995) encouragement of attention to cultural competence in culturally relevant teaching and thus more concretely useful to our work. on the other hand, culturally responsive teaching, as defined by gay (2002), mentions critical consciousness but does not center it as does ladson-billing’s (1995). in this way, both theories bring uniquely important elements to the menu of options for the critically minded stakeholder. applied in combination, but not treated interchangeably, they both hold promise. when the nuances of culturally sustaining pedagogy are added to the mix with the first two notions, the triptych of culturally attentive theories is the most powerful in the hands of the critical educator. no one in isolation will do, but together they weave the strongest threads of a rope to lasso “culture” and use it meaningfully and critically in classrooms of all ages. culturally responsive pedagogy also aligns with our professional stance, our thinking about our work at a borderlands hsi, and our thinking around this study. in fact, the thread that runs throughout all the literature cited here is the notion that educators intersections of identity, culture & curriculum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 55 should critically examine and question their practices and perspectives and turn their gaze to the practices and perspectives of their students who come from historically subordinated groups as do culturally and linguistically diverse students. does it matter whether the student is an 18-year-old outgoing high school senior, an 18year-old incoming college freshman, or a 22or 32-year-old graduate student starting an edd program? do people’s upbringing, family, and community cease to influence their identities and what is responsive for them? we argue that this is not likely. gay’s (2002) notion of culturally responsive pedagogy does well to go beyond notions of cultural relevance. its focus on the livedcurriculum joins notions of the personal, cultural, political, and professional in ways that make use of cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students to teach those same students. this entails an epistemological as well as a pedagogical shift. similar to the notion of culturally relevant curriculum, the notion of cultural responsiveness explores what transforming the edd curriculum might mean within a pedagogical context of hsis. but it also helps us think about the ways in which we are implicated as curricular workers, teachers, students, and researchers in concrete, discursive, and epistemological projects dominated and constrained by colonial logic. as literature regarding the curriculum of hsis demonstrates, most institutions labeled as such continue to be characterized by the same eurocentric curriculum that much of higher education employs. as pinar (2004) writes, “curriculum communicates what we choose to remember about our past, what we believe about the present, and what we hope for in the future. curriculum debates such as those over multiculturalism and the canon are also debates about the american national identity” (p. 20). garcía (2017) notes that currently only 2% of the curriculum at hsis focuses on racial/ethnic experiences. furthermore, she asserts that curriculum has been used to colonize latinx and other minoritized students and calls for curriculum to not only include but privilege raza experiences. according to garcía (2018), fulfilling these obligations in terms of curricular, discursive, and epistemological practice is the work of decolonization. she writes, “arguably, the coloniality of power must be recognized before hsis can reconcile the patterns of oppression and exclusion that have kept raza students on the margins at the postsecondary level” (garcía, 2018, p. 5-6). so too, with edd programs seeking to transform their practices. garcía, patron, ramirez, and hudson (2016) highlight the positive impact of a responsive, identity-supportive curriculum at an hsi. they found that coursework that explicitly focuses on the experience of non-dominant groups, often termed “ethnic studies approach,” was especially well received by hispanic students glad to see their own experiences acknowledged and validated in their day-to-day lives and formal studies. this can be seen to check the box of culturally relevant education, but what more might be done to make the same a culturally relevant and responsive education? in accordance with gay’s (2002) conceptualization of culturally responsive teaching, an initial examination of the nature of the institution’s mission would be a good starting point. if the examination shows that a critical bent does not infuse the curriculum institution wide, then wide ranging, large scale, long term, and well funded institutional planning and transformation should be the first consideration. this corresponds to ladson-billings’ (1995) notion of cultural relevance as well. however, applying gay’s (2002) notion in a higher education setting has implication beyond, for example, adding what might be called in some institutions “ethnic studies,” or “chicano studies,” to an hsi’s edd curriculum. it might mean that faculty receive long term, supportive, meaningful training in pedagogical moves that are responsive to the non-majority cultures their students may bring into the classroom, whether an ethnic studies classroom or otherwise. at a minimum, faculty should understand that lecturing might fall outside the bounds of culturally relevant (ladson-billings, 1995) and responsive (gay, 2002) methods. furthermore, they should be encouraged through training and evaluation structures to use more dialogical, interactive, flexible, and culturally competent structures to help deliver and help namesake students process the content at hand (garcía, 2013). while k-12 teachers receive continuous and copious ongoing education in this area, professors are required neither to have studies on how to teach the subject they are experts in nor be good at it (jensen, 2011). in fact, in some cases, being a good teacher is viewed as less than being a good grant writer or being a good researcher-publication-achiever. if hsis are truly trying to extend the pipeline of academically successful namesake students through doctoral studies and beyond, faculty at hsis must at minimum know that this effort is part of an institutional mission (garcía, 2013). faculty should know that they are expected to meaningfully support those students, and that doing so will be institutionally supported through appropriately adjusted tenure and service considerations (garcía, 2013). they must be supported to understand how they can meaningfully and responsively instruct their namesake edd students when they do not know how (garcía, 2018). ideally, they will strive to help all students but especially namesake students. they may do so by making themselves explicitly available for extra help, being responsive to student academic and personal difficulties, by providing authentic mentorship (garcía, 2013), and by telling students what they don’t know that they don’t know the secrets of academia and success in majority-culture, euro-centric spaces. in this section, we have addressed the notion of culturally responsive pedagogy and its intersections and divergence from culturally relevant pedagogy. we have shown how understanding and applying the nuanced distinctions of each theory can have meaningful impact on the curricular and pedagogical considerations of a critical educator or a critically-minded program coordinator. we have shown its alignment with the hope of what an hsi can be and should be in order to live up to its name. we have also given implications for action when a close examination reveals that an hsi and the edd program it houses falls short of cultural relevance or responsiveness. now, we turn our attention to the definitions and unique elements of the third theory in our triptych: culturally sustaining pedagogy. culturally sustaining approaches recent scholarship by paris (2012) as well as others has extended ladson-billings’ (1995) and gay’s (2002) work and presents us with the notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy. in this section, we contrast paris’s (2012) ideas about cultural sustenance with culturally relevant and culturally responsive pedagogy. then, we draw from our research of our own redesign efforts to suggest that although key facets of culturally sustaining pedagogy are most often discussed in terms of k-12 educational settings, these also have important curricular and pedagogical implications for edd programs. culturally relevant and culturally responsive pedagogy are closely related to the notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy. in fact, ladson-billings (2014) has embraced the shift to “culturally hesse & jewett impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 56 sustaining pedagogy” in her recent writing. however, the definition of sustaining pedagogy advances more specific arguments concerning the role of language and the support of students’ potential multiple cultures than either of its two relatives. it also posits the relationship between language and culture as a key pedagogical nexus. in so doing, paris’s work acknowledges the assertion of post structural criticalities that language acts in ways that are both culturally constitutive and expressive. in other words, language constructs culture as well as being constructed by it. according to paris (2012), this process is pluralistic and inextricably linked to pedagogy in which language, as well as culture, is plural. extending ladson-billings’ (1995) and gay’s (2002) prior scholarship, paris (2012) writes: culturally sustaining pedagogy...has as its explicit goal supporting multilingualism and multiculturalism in practice and perspective for students and teachers. that is, culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling. (p. 95) notably, paris (2012) expands on the concept of that which might be understood strictly “cultural” to include the linguistic element. while some stakeholders in education may already subscribe to the idea that language is inextricable and reciprocal in its relation to culture, applications of culturally relevant and culturally responsive frameworks too often approach language as a component of or expression of culture that needs to be addressed rather than as the life-source that sustains cultural pluralism. in this way, paris’s work serves to highlight language as an area in need of pedagogical attention for those who would otherwise overlook or even marginalize its role. paris (2012) advances notions of both cultural relevance and responsiveness, but extends them, through its explicit aim of sustaining culture in service of student’s identity rather than solely as a tool of traditionally defined eurocentric achievement. he also extends the work of ladson-billings (1995) and gay (2002) to substantively include pluralism of language and culture. literature regarding identity, culture, and curriculum at hsis points toward the promise of engaging bilingual students’ linguistic capabilities toward academic and professional success as a central part of serving latinx students (garcía, 2019). our review of edd program redesign literature and our assessment of current syllabi in our program, demonstrate there is much work to do in terms of situating language in relation to notions of either cultural relevance or responsiveness or sustenance within the tangible curricular structures of edd programs. while conducting the first author’s dissertation research and in reflecting on the results, we came to understand the nuanced difference and the importance of that understanding. in light of paris’s (2012) definition of cultural sustenance, language becomes more centered than in the previous two definitions of culturally attentive pedagogy. while our first and overarching finding remains the same as we noted in prior sections a critical turn in the philosophical underpinnings of the whole intuition we see that paris’s (2012) work suggest a bolder move: the implementation of bilingual education at edd level, especially flexible forms of bilingual education that protect and support a student’s home language instead of trying to erase it. it is bilingual coursework that meets this very condition sustaining instead of sidelining or erasing a first language that can be understood as a form of culturally sustaining pedagogy. considering that namesake students are potentially bringing one or various languages other than english into the classroom, it aligns with an hsi mission and the values of sustaining education to provide linguistically flexible and linguistically supportive coursework that multilingual capacities in socially and academically generative ways that encourage students to transform rather than simply conform to academic language. our analysis of syllabi from our own edd program demonstrates solid curricular efforts to offer a variety of linguistic experiences, from requirements to electives and from the start of the program to the completion of coursework. for example, there are course options in spanish and english. class discussions and message boards are often multilingual by design. there are assignments across coursework that can be completed in english or spanish or both. however, this linguistic support and flexibility halt dramatically at the comprehensive exam and dissertations are still monolingual in the product, even when, as in the case of much of the research produced by our program, is bilingual in process. of the various forms of culturally attentive approaches, culturally sustaining pedagogy’s emphasis on language (paris, 2012) stands to support and advance the capability of hsi students most fully and offers notions of a fertile nexus of language and culture in ways that advance a multilingual turn in higher education and position multilingual students at the curricular center as opposed to at the margins as in the case of white stream curriculum, even at hsis and often, especially, in edd programs. culturally relevant pedagogy contributes to the notion that culture and education are intimately connected and that sociopolitical consciousness is the task of an educator whose calling is social justice (ladson-billings, 1995). culturally responsive pedagogy acknowledges that students’ lived experiences should be centered in the curriculum (gay, 2002), though it falls short of explicitly addressing language and notions of social and political justice. culturally sustaining pedagogy reiterates the notion that culture and language are inseparable and casts an education with such a focus as a tool to sustain a layered, intersecting, pluralistic student identity (paris, 2012). all lend a useful lens to an examination of the experiences of “culturally and linguistically diverse” students who by definition form 25% or more of the student body of an hsi, and at times much more. as future leaders of their communities and also as likely role models for community members, edd students at an hsi ought to receive the benefits of a culturally relevant and responsive and sustaining education such that they can turn around and deliver some of those benefits to the next generations. what students experience in higher education should be at least as good as what they experience in k-12; certainly, it should not be worse. culturally attentive transformation could imply simple curricular and pedagogical tools perhaps even a campus-wide transformation in settings such as hsis and especially hsis in borderlands. this may mean a bilingual option is offered in all areas of study (not just in the humanities, but also in medicine, law, engineering, etc.). this may mean encouraging and meaningfully supporting bilingual scholarship among faculty. it could mean other transformative curricular and pedagogical tools that lead students to experience their higher education as a humanizing, democratic, culturally relevant and responsive and sustaining undertaking their education a self-decolonizing tool, if we chose to make it such. a tool for social justice. much of our own current edd program redesign efforts to “identify, name, and work to correct white dominance in curriculum design, intended outcomes, and resource material selection” (pete, 2016, p. 86) are taking place within fertile borderlands of culturally relevant, culturally responsive and culturally sustainable curriculum intersections of identity, culture & curriculum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 57 and pedagogy. new courses in action research, curriculum transformation, and decolonizing educational sciences were created, and courses in critical latinx disability studies and bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural curriculum are under development. redesign work has also focused on building connective tissue among courses aimed at supporting students in developing their own inquiry into what it means to be a scholar-practitioner in a latinx transforming doctoral program. critical dialogue around this process gave rise to the interweaving of a shared set of common readings and a suite of shared assignments that feature alternative epistemologies, encourage students and faculty to start from within to “deconstruct the construct of racism,” “deconstruct the neutrality of whiteness,” and, “practice challenging notions of colorblindness and meritocracy” (pete, 2016, p. 86) in terms of our own experience and embed pedagogies of place in our courses. however, this sort of self-work was not a priority at the start of our initially top-down program redesign efforts. similar to much of the literature on hsi pedagogical and curricular efforts as well as that exploring edd doctoral program redesign efforts, our work began firmly planted within the colonial logic of improvement and more specifically, the technology of power embodied in the discursive practices of “continuous improvement.” while this was a familiar discourse to much of the faculty in our nationally accredited college of education, it left us without adequate language to interrogate the way the redesign process and concomitant program transformations embodied colonial logics. in this way, while many faculty members began the process in the spirit of critical pedagogy, this redesign — while successful at boosting outcomes regarding recruitment, student retention, and time to degree — could be seen as in some ways “complicit colonists” (greene & oesterreich, 2012). while our redesign efforts proceeded with notions of cultural sustainability, they often seemed to circle back to curricular practices grounded in “dyed-in-the-wool notions of ‘progress,’ ‘advancement,’ or ‘refinement’ that were always white supremacist and eurocentric notions in the first place” (jupp et al., 2018, p. 12). point of departure: critical consciousness in writing about hsis, garcía and okhidoi (2015) assert that “we can no longer assume that the organizational structures of our current institutions will adequately meet the needs of underrepresented students” (p. 355) without significant changes. gonzalez (2015) asserts that hsis must decide to undertake an institutional mission to serve those students instead of merely adding the technical designation “hsi” to their materials. she suggests that hsis re-orient themselves toward a funds-of-knowledge approach. further, she suggests that hsi leaders support projects such as testimonio gathering and that hsi administrators consider disaggregated data around identity and student success and then respond with an affirmative initiative to improve the experience of those students not thriving in the current conditions (gonzales, 2015). as garcía (2018) notes, becoming a latinx serving institution requires that we confront and upturn colonial logic. becoming a latinx transforming edd program requires a similar upturn, not just in program design. it also requires a rigorous reconceptualization of ways inquiry is framed and a reinvigoration of the ways relationships which constitute knowledge are configured, aligned, and enacted. we end this essay, in much the same place as we began in the middle, betwixt and between curriculum and pedagogy and among the interstices among identity, culture, and curriculum. as this essay ends, we want to suggest as freire (1968) and anzaldua and moraga (1981) have that there is power in these in-between spaces and the critical consciousness they can give rise to. critical consciousness, a combination of reflection about and action against oppressive systems, led the first author to graduate studies and brought both authors together in shared reflection. freire (1968) writes about critical consciousness as the awareness of social, political, and economic realities and their role in maintaining systems of power and privilege, in addition to the pursuit of the transformation of those systems. in other words, critical consciousness implies knowledge as well as action. importantly, some scholars view the term critical consciousness as interchangeable with sociopolitical consciousness. freire (2016), who has written prolifically about the possibilities of dual language programming to challenge systemic inequities, uses both the terms “critical consciousness” and “sociopolitical consciousness” in various publications between 2014 and 2020 and sees rich potential for sociopolitical, or critical, consciousness to positively impact students’ lived experiences: “becoming sociopolitical conscious is the most important tool for educators to fight against oppressive language education policies. the development of sociopolitical consciousness, also called critical consciousness, focuses on the growth of students’ conscientization/conscientizaҫão” (freire, 2016, p. 45). though he applies the notion of critical consciousness to dual language and k-12 contexts, we argue that it can be meaningfully extended to examine higher education, hsis, and edd programs at hsis or otherwise. furthermore, valenzuela (2016) argues that all educators who work with latinx youth need expertise in critical consciousness. we argue that there is no sharp line dividing youthhood from adult-hood. work by gay and kirkland (2003) can be seen to support this notion, as they argue that critical consciousness ought to be part of teacher preparation programs. the connective tissue is clear after a moment of consideration. consider where a graduate of a dual language program might attend post-secondary schooling. consider how little an 18-year old changes from high school graduation until beginning college in the fall. an hsi education should be a humanizing, democratic, culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining experience a culturally critical experience, a truly decolonizing space. this essay suggests that the movement from a hispanic serving edd program toward a latinx transforming edd program must take place from the nexus of identity, culture, and curriculum. we find these notions useful in lending insight into the specific complexities of hsi efforts to develop edd programs that better serve latinx students. we also argue that they indicate that the process through which redesign and transformation are undertaken benefits from critical dialogue aimed at individual and collective conscientization among students and faculty as well as curricular outcomes shaped by discourses of social justice. we also assert that one role of critical consciousness is to serve as a threshold between the personal and the political, a mode of “institutional praxis that retools institutions” in which students and faculty work together to understand and transform “knowledge production and the curriculum as terrains of tactical and strategic struggle” (jupp et al., 2018, p. 13). critical consciousness, when applied throughout all stages of program redesign and beyond, can lead to a more humanizing, democratic, culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining hsi experience and decolonizing space therein where an edd can in fact become latinx transforming. elevating critical consciousness in hsi hesse & jewett impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.212 58 edd spaces can mean the difference between serving up a handshake, diploma, and loan repayment bill to latinx students and serving up a transformative opportunity that may positively alter the course of a life. implications for practice and further research we argue that there is value in accurately understanding the triptych culturally attentive theories we have just examined. they, and their nuanced distinctions, help think more deeply about the ways in which we as faculty and students are implicated together in the colonizing logic of curriculum and its redesign as well as the decolonizing potential of embedding dialogic conscientization in the curricular redesign process as well as in our research. culturally relevant theory (ladson-billings, 1995) focuses our attention and efforts on the curriculum of a given program and to what extent it may or may not yet reflect the cultural identity of the students it claims to serve. it also draws our attention and efforts to the need for supporting and promoting not only academic achievement, but also cultural competence and critical consciousness. culturally responsive theory (gay, 2002) focuses our attention and efforts on the potential pedagogical uses of students’ cultural norms as well as attending to students’ cultures in the curriculum of a given program that claims to serve those students. finally, culturally sustaining pedagogy (paris, 2012) focuses our attention and efforts not on the potential pedagogical uses of students’ cultures and languages (plural!), but also emphasizes pedagogues’ obligation to sustain those languages and cultures. this is all the more true when an educator or program claims to serve a certain group of students, as is the case in “hispanic serving institutions.” one implication of this research is the importance of a program (re)design that centers on non-dominant identities, cultures, and experiences. in accordance with ladson-billings’ (1995) notion of cultural relevance, one vehicle that may do so is called in some institutions “ethnic studies.” ethnic studies, in particular “chicano studies,” can open the door to a culturally relevant and potentially culturally responsive and sustaining teaching and learning in an hsi’s edd program. in fact, we argue that such a curriculum ought to be part of more than an ethnic study or education program or an optional course. ethnic studies must be a basic requirement for all doctoral students at an hsi that claims to live up to its name. another implication of our research lies in the delivery of curriculum, ethnic studies or otherwise. teaching through the lens of culture is a fundamental element of gay’s (2002) notion of cultural responsiveness, and therefore, pedagogy at the doctoral level must be meaningfully centered. faculty must understand that traditional lectures are neither expected nor celebrated (garcía, 2018). rather, the institution must make clear that more responsive methods are expected and celebrated (garcía, 2013). administrative support, collegial mentorship, and institutional buy-in are crucial, and instructors should receive ongoing mentorship in pedagogical methods that may be new and unfamiliar to them (garcía, 2018). otherwise, instructors may simply reproduce the eurocentric teaching they may have experienced in their lives. then, these students may graduate to become faculty and thus have the future power to teach their respective future subjects either in a more outdated or in a more critical fashion. to be responsive to existing namesake students of an hsi as well as future namesake students the institution must truly live up to its designation. to do so, the required curriculum and pedagogy ought to reflect the layers of the students’ historically marginalized identities (garcía, 2018). another implication relates to the language element of culture that is highlighted by paris’s (2012) notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy. crucially, some namesake students at hsis may be bilingual, multilingual, and/or english language learners in addition to learning a tsunami of new content. in order to promote academic performance of such students which aligns with both ladsonbillings’ (1995) notion of culturally relevant pedagogy as well as gay’s (2002) notion of culturally responsive teaching an hsi must provide edd coursework that explicitly blurs or blends language norms. this flexibility must extend beyond offerings considered “ethnic studies” or language-education courses. this may mean offering all-spanish coursework in any required subject or organizing courses to be taught by bilingual instructors who offer instruction and associated materials that cross-linguistic borders in both directions frequently. in our own edd program, we also hope to incorporate more indigenous languages alongside a critical examination of the ways that they are often omitted in bilingual and multilingual efforts. we know we have much work ahead to become more culturally relevant, more culturally responsive, and more culturally sustaining, and we know critical consciousness will illuminate the steps yet to climb. a critical examination begins with critical consciousness. critical consciousness, understood as freire (1968) cast it, is the combination of theory and action into praxis. critical consciousness is most directly operationalized through curriculum and pedagogy. since the aim of critical consciousness is the pursuit of social justice in order to enact more culturally relevant (ladson-billings, 1995), responsive (gay, 2002), and sustaining (paris, 2012) education, one must attend to social justice. it is necessary because, as we have seen in the literature and in our own course redesign efforts, social justice efforts can be subverted by neoliberal notions of educational achievement and success. taken together, notions of culturally relevant curriculum from ladson-billings (1995), culturally responsive pedagogy from gay (2002), and the multilingual discursive practices about which paris (2012) writes help us see how social justice might be operationalized in a k-12 teacher’s classroom, in an edd classroom, or beyond. however, our redesign efforts suggest that without critical consciousness as a praxis of implementation, these gains might be conflated with whitestream notions of student success that marginalize students of color. in an hsi, the frameworks from the first and second studies show that critical consciousness does not guide program design, even when aims of social justice are central, whitestream notions of student success can complicate or even dominate discussion of social justice. in turn, this may subvert the ultimate aims of a critical redesign that seeks to at minimum live up to the name hsi. likewise, initial analysis of our data indicates that lack of attention to critical consciousness may subvert efforts to go beyond “hispanic serving” to become “latinx transforming” institutions and programs that provide namesake students with transformational curriculum and pedagogy for a transformed edd experience and subsequent professional endeavors. taken together, these implications help edd programs attend to identity, culture, and curriculum content as well as the context in an hsi edd program to be more culturally relevant, more culturally responsive, and more culturally sustaining. intersections of identity, culture & curriculum impacting education: journal on 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(2010). challenges to conceptualizing and actualizing culturally relevant pedagogy: how viable is the theory in classroom practice?. journal of teacher education, 61(3), 248-260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109359775 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed512528.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/26390043.2014.12067778 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2014.900026 https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866x.2011.588311 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2011.591434 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1468798408101105 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0370-0 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0042085906289710 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0022487117712487 https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2017/summer-fall/wong%28lau%29 https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2017/summer-fall/wong%28lau%29 https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532771xjle0102_5 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0022487109359775 caroline a. hesse university of texas rio grande valley laura m. jewett university of texas rio grande valley (1) introduction data sources culturally relevant pedagogy culturally responsive approaches culturally sustaining approaches point of departure: critical consciousness implications for practice and further research references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 4 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.219 taking action: the dissertation in practice at northeastern university sara ewell northeastern university s.ewell@northeastern.edu joan giblin northeastern university j.giblin@northeastern.edu kim nolan northeastern university k.nolan@northeastern.edu cherese childers-mckee northeastern university c.childers-mckee@northeastern.edu joe mcnabb northeastern university j.mcnabb@northeastern.edu melissa parenti northeastern university m.parenti@northeastern.edu abstract this essay describes the development and implementation of the redesigned doctor of education program at northeastern university. in our new model, students implement and evaluate the effectiveness of their change work while enrolled in our program. our intent in moving from a traditional model to our alternative model was to focus on providing students the opportunity to create systemic, justice-oriented change guided by our faculty. the program now uses action research as its signature pedagogy and an alternative format for the dissertation in practice. we developed the alternative format for the dissertation in practice to privilege participants’ voices and to focus on the results of our students’ initiatives. this essay discusses the challenges and successes experienced in the creation and implementation of an alternative model for the doctor of education degree. keywords dissertation in practice, social justice, action research ideas about what an alternative approach to the doctor of education might look like had been percolating at northeastern university since the program joined the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) in 2014. after years of discussion, we launched our redesigned edd program, including an alternative format for the dissertation in practice, in fall 2018. at the heart of the shift away from a traditional five-chapter dissertation, was our recognition that students had the expertise, skills, and ability to create meaningful social justice-oriented change in their professional fields. a traditional dissertation was not supporting this work. in winter 2017, we started redesigning the dissertation and the entire curriculum to support social justice-oriented change work. there were many pieces to consider and account for in the initial phases of planning. the first was the size, scope, and modality of the program. our program is online with two in-person residency requirements. we have approximately 1400 students, 15 full time faculty members, 15 half time faculty members, and 30 part-time faculty members. all students complete seven core courses, four concentration courses, five elective courses and 12 hours of dissertation credits. the concentrations offered are: curriculum, teaching, learning and leadership; organizational leadership; and higher education administration. it was important to consider lessons learned from supporting students in traditional dissertation work over the past ten years since the program began. one of the most significant and continuous pieces of feedback we heard from students was their desire to work with dissertation chairs earlier in their studies. in the traditional fivechapter model, students completed coursework and were then assigned a dissertation chair. we knew this created feelings of panic and overwhelmed many students, and we wanted to ensure the new program addressed this issue. as we considered possibilities for shifting the curriculum, we found it critical to refocus on the goal of providing opportunities for students to create social justice-oriented change. it frustrated us that students only identified and researched a problem of practice in their professional settings. in the new program, students go a step further than investigating a problem of practice. they create change. by implementing change, students become change agents to create better systems. we also examined and reconsidered how we threaded social justice throughout the curriculum to ensure continuous opportunities for reflection and growth. we found it imperative to put our students at the forefront and consider their professional goals. the average age of our students is 45. they hold midto high-level positions within their organization. the doctorate of education provides students with the skill set and mind set to move into higher-level positions and into professional leadership positions. to best serve students, our faculty, who had http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5364-5553 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4940-7181 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5958-7999 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8956-0642 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0567-6574 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5768-551x taking action: the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.219 5 earned their phd or edd in traditional programs, had to set aside our assumptions about doctoral work and ensure the program best met the needs of the students. we are now about to see our first group of students in the redesigned curriculum graduate in the next six months. this essay is a reflection on the challenges and successes of our program over the last three years. it is not exhaustive, but our goal is to provide insight into northeastern university’s program so that other programs have a greater understanding of the road ahead as they consider moving away from a traditional dissertation. we organized this essay around three central themes. the first section explains the alternative format for the dissertation in practice. the second section focuses on scaffolding our curriculum through the development of the core courses. the third section examines challenges and successes of designing and implementing a dissertation in practice curriculum. northeastern university edd program timeline table 1. edd progression fall 2008 program inception with traditional five-chapter dissertation spring 2011 first graduates from program with traditional five-chapter dissertation fall 2018 first group of students admitted to redesigned action research curriculum, including dissertation in practice summer 2021 first group of students graduated from redesigned action research curriculum, including dissertation in practice dissertation in practice our program has four learning outcomes we adapted from the work of the denecke & mccarthy (2017) on articulating outcomes of doctoral education. the four learning outcomes are: (1) students develop, adapt, and implement research methodologies to redefine, clarify, or resolve local problems of practice; (2) students generate local and particular knowledge, framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to contribute substantially to an area of professional practice; (3) students disseminate and promote insights to peers and their communities of practice; and (4) students critically reflect on work in the program, scholar-practitioner identity, and next steps in change work. the dissertation in practice final representation requires three components, an action research report, a dissemination plan, and a critical reflection. this format is distinct from the traditional five chapter model. it gives students multiple ways to examine their work. the three components are intended to: (1) demonstrate the students’ ability to generate local and particular knowledge that contributes substantially to an area of professional practice; (2) disseminate and help promote new insights based on this work; and (3) engage in critical reflection and evaluation. this is a distinct and different model from the traditional five-chapter dissertation. we designed the model so that our students would intentionally privilege participants’ voices, and so that our students would focus on action and evaluation of their initiatives. the action research report has four sections which include an introduction, a results section, a literature review that represents a synthesis of current knowledge relating to the students’ problems of practice, and a contextualization section that situates the results of their initiative within their organization and within the broader, professional community. it is important to note that the literature review is situated after the results section. this placement enables the literature to be understood and reviewed in light of perspectives emerging from the students’ research. also, this placement “concedes the limitations of expert knowledge and emphasizes the importance of the participants’ experience” (stringer, 2021, p. 263). the relevance of contextualizing their results helps them prepare for the dissemination work they will do after writing the report. the dissemination plan can be a presentation to a specific target audience, a poster session following guidelines for a professional association, a multi-modal presentation for a broader audience, or a publishable article for a professional journal. creating a formal dissemination requirement allows students to get their first formal presentation or article done with faculty support. the critical reflection can be demonstrated in one of several ways and will encompass their work throughout the program, including their plans for next steps as scholar-practitioners. overview of curriculum curriculum in its broadest sense is used to denote the teaching and learning experiences that occur in the doctoral program. our conceptualization of curriculum as more expansive than a listing of skills or competencies taught in a course traces to the philosophies of scholars like dewey, freire, and horton and their understandings of curriculum as a means to address educational problems, as contextualized and embedded in a conversation about the influence of social, cultural, and political systems, and as a means to prepare learners to work for greater justice and equity (horton & freire, 1990; thayer-bacon, 2004; wergin, 2011). in our program, curriculum consists of an interactive network of teaching and learning in which students engage in “rigorous and systematic inquiry into practice, engaging in critical reflection with others in a manner that informs practice and model social action for the profession” (wergin, 2011, p. 130). to this end, the edd curriculum includes learning that occurs in coursework, residency experiences, and supplemental programming. within the program, students learn, practice, then bring to life new skills, dispositions, competencies, and ways of being that center inquiry and justice. action research emerged as the methodology well-positioned and driven to transform. it responded to our aim of preparing scholar practitioners who acknowledge and understand the role of equity, ethics, and social justice in enacting lasting change in an array of organizations. it became the core of our edd program and the sole methodology used in our dissertation in practice. we built coursework around expectations for solution-oriented action that honors diverse perspectives, different ways of knowing, and authentically evidences the dismantling of traditional systems in education. through an action research-based curriculum, students learn to build knowledge networks, engage in experiential learning, and promote collaboration, inclusivity, and change. a foundational tenet of the action research-based curriculum is the desire to create a better understanding of social processes to improve practice and fostering social justice (herr & anderson, 2015). as doctoral students engage in cycles of inquiry and action that occur collaboratively with partners, they promote new learning and break down existing hierarchies as knowledge is shared and co-created. ewell, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.219 6 we also introduce our learners to the skills and dispositions of scholar practitioners. their work as scholars includes a role as partner with academics, practitioners, and community (short & shindell, 2009). their work as scholar practitioners seeks to address individual accountability and social responsibility. this is accomplished through guided and deliberate reflection on positionality as an individual, professional, and researcher and exploration of the relational aspects linked to action research. learners approach their research with a lens that guides how they navigate power, privilege, and communications during their research and work toward solutions. action research requires scholars to engage in ongoing, systematic inquiry and to develop resolutions for addressing challenges that plague their organizations (stringer and ortiz aragón, 2020). this high level of interaction underscores the values of a democratic process in action research demonstrated through stakeholder involvement. action research is done in collaboration “with” stakeholders versus “on” stakeholders (herr & anderson, 20105). this interactive process is reliant upon continual cycles of observation, action, and reflection–all hallmarks of our dissertation in practice grounded in ideas of expertise, skills, and ability to create meaningful, social justice-oriented change (stringer and ortiz aragón, 2020). the core courses in the edd program develop action researchers and scholar practitioners who are prepared to meet complex challenges in organizations, schools, universities, and community contexts. the program comprises seven core foundation and research courses besides five elective and concentration courses. we structure foundation courses to provide dialogic spaces for scholar practitioners to discuss, challenge, and navigate multifaceted dynamics of enacting change in their unique context and organization. we designed coursework to support student progress through continual development of their problem of practice, purpose statement, and relationships in action research. exploration of positionality, power and privilege, systems thinking and change agency and its connection to social justice is central to this series. the relation between these elements and stakeholder engagement, collaborative leadership, and the continual reflexivity characteristic of the work of qualitative research occurs during the coursework. the world of action research is broad, varied, and can include both quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. in our program, students use an action research methodological approach that is contextualized and focused on a local and specific problem of practice at the research site. therefore, our research curriculum is qualitative dominant and focuses on privileging the voices of research participants and centering the stories of those most affected by educational problems. in learning research methods, students first learn about the theory and philosophy of qualitative research, then about the foundations of action research. then, threaded throughout all the courses, students learn the skills associated with collecting, examining, and analyzing qualitative data that supports systemic change. students learn to design an action research study, collect, and analyze data, write about findings, reflect on the research process, and promote evidence-based changes in a research site. as students learn about qualitative action research, they engage in fieldwork projects to practice and hone these skills, first in a general setting, and then in their irb-approved dissertation in practice research site. the core foundation and research courses represent a spiral curriculum or an “iterative revisiting of topics, subjects or themes…not simply the repetition of a topic taught…[but] also the deepening of it, with each successive encounter building on the previous one” (harden, 1999, p. 141). rather than being exposed to a skill one time in a single course, students have multiple opportunities to hone and deepen their development throughout several courses. for example, an important doctoral skill, writing a literature review, begins in the first foundation course when students create an annotated bibliography. then, in subsequent courses, they develop individual strands of the literature that will become the foundation for their future dissertation literature review. similarly, making meaning of data through coding and theming are important skills in qualitative data analysis. students build their understandings of data analysis through fieldwork projects in 3 of the required research courses—first by learning analytic memoing, then first and second cycle coding. challenges and successes of designing and implementing the dissertation in practice an action research-based curriculum necessitates the building of relational skills not always emphasized in doctoral education: collaboration, networking, embracing multiple perspectives, managing complex projects, negotiating action with stakeholders, managing scale and scope of a project, and navigating multiple roles as they move back and forth between researcher, participant observer, facilitator, and thought partner. this relational skill building, as well as a layer of navigating negotiations, begins at the onset of the program. challenges in contrast to the previous model in which students finished all coursework before beginning the dissertation, in the redesigned model, students begin work on their dissertation in the first year of the program. very early in their journey as doctoral students, they confront issues of securing site support for research, navigating the irb process, and adjusting their expectations to meet the needs of a potential research site. from a developmental perspective, some students enter the program more prepared for the intricacies of an action research dissertation; while for others, it has been a more arduous process. we have addressed these challenges by embedding research in coursework, matching students with a dissertation chair early in the process and creating more studentfacing resources and synchronous connections to orient and support students in their research endeavors. regarding chairing, this meant dissertation chairs would have to be matched early with students and take part in 3 cycles of research, rather than matching with the student at the proposal stage and supervising traditional research. professional development was critical to get all faculty proficient working with a action research and the new curriculum. as we implemented the program, it became clear that professional development was also needed to keep faculty up to date on changes to the curriculum and chairing process as we changed and improved. the chairing model was designed with a goal of connecting students with their chairs earlier in the program and to give the taking action: the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.219 7 students choice in selecting their chair. as the dissertation in practice was launched, we decided that the faculty member who taught the second research course in the second quarter of the student’s program would become the dissertation chair for the student and remain with them through the program. this coupling of a course (r2) and the chair would set the student up for consistent supervision through all three cycles of research. the chair would also serve as the faculty member for the final research course taken just before the independent research year. students and chairs would work through the program together, and there would be continuity to the advice students received on their research area. one benefit of coupling r2 with dissertation chairs was that students had several instructors to choose from, to facilitate this choice each faculty member posted a video introducing themselves. an additional benefit of coupling r2 was that students designed their baseline research with the guidance of their chair. students had ample time to work through the data collection process and analyze their baseline data. also, within the course students applied for irb for their cycle 1 research. as this process unfolded, the biggest obstacle for both students and faculty was the quantity of work that needed to be completed in a 12-week course; baseline data collection and analysis, development of a plan for cycle 1 and submit irb paperwork. after two cycles of coupling r2 and chairing, it became clear we needed a change to the model of chairing coupled with teaching. most students could not get everything done during the quarter, and faculty were creating individual learning plans for students to clarify what was left to be done. besides the struggle to complete required assignments, it became difficult to manage faculty workload. as a program with 1400 students, it became impossible for chairs to teach the same students in research 2 and 4 because of inconsistency in the pace at which students work. we decided to de-couple chairs and the faculty teaching research 2 and 4. to facilitate this change the curriculum of research 2 has been updated, registration process for dissertation chairs has been created and chairs working in this new model have been given professional development. the professional development to support the de-coupled chairing model has amplified the need for continued professional development on the curriculum. as with any new program minor changes are made each quarter a class runs to make it better, this requires faculty to be updated every few months on changes. with 15 full time, 15 half time and 30 part time faculty, it has been difficult to keep everyone up to speed on the changes as we continue to grow and improve. even a small change such as an additional form to collect research outside of a class or a change to an irb form requires a professional development session to give everyone the same understanding. one way that we are tackling this is with a standing bimonthly professional development schedule. faculty run the hour and a half session. they are recorded for half time and part time faculty who cannot attend. successes we have structured the program to support our students’ ability to engage in ongoing cycles of action research and to implement and evaluate a research-informed initiative during their last year of the program. during the last year of the program, students complete each of three components of the dissertation in practice which include the action research report, a plan for the dissemination of their results, and a critical reflection on their work throughout the program. at this stage, our first group of students are enrolled in their first dissertation in practice module, which includes implementing an initiative within their organization and beginning an evaluation process to determine the effectiveness of their initiative. our experience this year, with the first group of students, underscores the importance of, and the distinction between a professional research doctorate and the traditional model for doctoral education. rather than preparing a proposal following all coursework, this group of students completed two cycles of research prior to designing their proposal. they completed the draft of their proposal in the dissertation in practice seminar (r4) prior to entering the last year of the program. it is important to underscore the scaffolding of cycles of inquiry to appreciate the manner in which our students were able to implement an initiative in their own organization in the last year of the program. in research 2, during their first year in the program, students conducted cycle 0 of their action research study. cycle 0 included learning about, and then conducting participant observation and semi-structured interviews, as systematic approaches to data collection. following this, students prepared a fieldwork report that provided the foundation for a comprehensive data collection plan. throughout this program, students engaged collaborators and stakeholders and kept them apprised of their preliminary research activities. as an example, in the third foundation course in the first year of the program, an assignment requires our students to present their research interest to a group of stakeholders and to discuss with them potential areas of investigation within their organization. in research 3, during year two, and following authorization by northeastern university’s institutional review board (irb), our students conducted cycle 1 data collection and analysis. the findings from cycle 1 provided the foundation from which students began planning for the implementation of their initiative. their proposal development began in r4 in the last term of their second year in the program. students designed an initiative that they would implement, under guidance of faculty. based on the deliberate scaffolding of concepts and cycles of inquiry, specifically, cycle 0 and cycle 1, this group of students were well prepared to enter r4 and to begin developing their initiative’s action steps and evaluation plan. covid-19 restrictions on face-to-face interaction were mitigated, in the development stage by early irb notifications on conducting normal research and business operations remotely. when students entered r4, all covid-19 restrictions had taken hold and were part of the students’ normal daily activities in their work settings. all plans for implementation of their initiative had taken covid-19 workplace restrictions into consideration. in year three, students enrolled in the first of two dissertation in practice modules. we designed the first module to support cycle 2, specifically, the implementation and evaluation of their initiative. the first module has two benchmarks that need to be successfully passed to move onto the final dissertation in practice module. the first benchmark in the first module is having their final proposal approved by their chair and second reader and includes conducting a successful proposal defense. the second benchmark is providing a draft of section 2 of their action research report which includes a description of how their participants, collaborators, and stakeholders were engaged in implementing the initiative, and a preliminary draft of their evaluation work examining the effectiveness of their initiative. since students are currently enrolled in this module, our data is limited to the implementation of their initiative and initial aspects of their evaluation of its effectiveness. while r4 provided guidance on ewell, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.219 8 development of their proposal, one aspect of the first dissertation in practice module focused on finalizing and defending the proposal. students moved through this aspect of the module within two to six weeks. in their proposal defense, students demonstrated a clear understanding of how their cycle 1 findings were situated within the literature and had written out a clear set of activities associated with specific tasks involved in implementing their initiative. they all identified individuals who would be engaged in aspects of implementing their initiative and provided a clear timeframe for starting and finishing each task. in all instances, our students identified any additional resources that they needed to implement their initiative and identified plans for securing those resources. this attention to detail grounded their work and provided our students with a strong sense of motivation to succeed. to date, students have been able to implement their initiative within their respective organizations. faculty members have reviewed drafts of section 2 of the action research report and have reported that students have demonstrated ability to successfully implement their initiatives, and to begin the evaluation process. examples of our students’ initiatives include establishment of a mentoring program for black female students in a northeastern, private, research university; implementing an in-house coaching model to onboard and integrate new employees with managers as coaches in a northwestern, for-profit company; and designing and implementing a professional development series to improve the delivery of teaching and learning for students with autism spectrum disorder in a northeastern, urban, public, k-8 school. conclusion our learners are addressing current, pressing issues in the problems of practice they have chosen as the focus for their dissertation in practice research. action research takes place in the present and our edd program offers a direct invitation for this immediate, intentional change to occur in their organizations (coghlan, 2011). northeastern university is known for delivery of experiential education, the action research based edd situates our learners in the field, within their professional setting throughout their time in the program, running three cycles of exploratory, data collection, action step and evaluation processes. through tightly aligned coursework, students explore their problem of practice beginning with the very first course and culminating with their final dissertation in practice product. as we reflect on lessons learned over the past three years, we are constantly reminded of the importance of staying focused on our students. redesigning the program was not without challenges and it would have been easy to give up when we faced resistance from our some of our faculty members and the university. by continually prioritizing the needs of our students as change agents in their professional fields we were able to successfully design and implement a program that equips them to serve as leaders in their fields. references coghlan, d. (2011). action research: exploring perspectives on a philosophy of practical knowing. academy of management annals, 5(1), 5387. https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2011.571520 denecke, d., & mccarthy, m. t. (2017). articulating learning outcomes in doctoral education. council of graduate schools. harden, r. m. (1999). what is a spiral curriculum?.medical teacher, 21(2), 141-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421599979752 herr, k. & anderson, g. (2015). the action research dissertation: a guide for students and faculty (2nd ed.). sage publishing. horton, m., & freire, p. (1990). we make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change. temple university press. short, d. c., & shindell, t. j. (2009). defining hrd scholar-practitioners. advances in developing human resources, 11(4), 472-485. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309342225 stringer, e. t. & aragón, a. o. (2020). action research (5th ed.). sage publishing. thayer-bacon, b. j. (2004). an exploration of myles horton's democratic praxis: highlander folk school. educational foundations, 18(2), 523. https://doi.org/10.5840/thinking20021616 wergin, j. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119-140. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://doi.org/10.5465/19416520.2011.571520  https://doi.org/10.1080/01421599979752 https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422309342225 https://doi.org/10.5840/thinking20021616 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122  sara ewell northeastern university joan giblin northeastern university (1) kim nolan northeastern university (2) cherese childers-mckee northeastern university (3) joe mcnabb northeastern university (4) melissa parenti northeastern university (5) northeastern university edd program timeline dissertation in practice overview of curriculum challenges and successes of designing and implementing the dissertation in practice challenges successes conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 11 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 consultancy communities of practice: the group consultancy project as a promising model for scholarly practitioner development veselina s. lambrev university of south florida veselina@usf.edu abstract the last two decades have witnessed an ongoing effort to re-design the education doctorate to prepare practitioners to conduct research as a key aspect of their practice. as part of the reform, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) members have tried to ensure the delivery of a relevant practice-based curriculum that prepares practitioners to respond to local needs. this article examines how one u.s. edd program uses a practice-based pedagogy, called the group consultancy project, to develop students as scholarly practitioners, that is, educational leaders who conduct research to enact positive societal changes. the analysis draws from final consultancy reports and from the responses of 11 students in three consultancy projects. by examining how students learned within the projects, the study reveals that the consultancy model cultivated communities of practice that moved students from a practice community toward a community of scholars and researchers. keywords scholarly practitioner identity, research skills, communities of practice, education doctorate, consultancy project introduction professional practice doctorates have been launched in australia, the u.k., and the u.s., and mainly serve advanced practitioners who seek to address problems of practice in their professional fields through practitioner inquiry. to respond to this task, education doctorate (edd) programs affiliated with associations such as the international association of practice doctorates (iapd) and the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) aim to develop graduates’ capacities to conduct inquiries in practical settings rather than answering theoretical questions (mcclintock, 2004; storey et al., 2015). in cped-affiliated programs, such as the one that is highlighted in this study, graduates are envisioned as scholarly practitioners—educational leaders who use research and theory in collaborative, practice-based, and equity focused empirical ways (costley & fulton, 2019). golde (2013) describes edd preparation as transformational, while perry (2016) contends that scholarly practitioner identity encompasses critical and independent thinking in the commitment to serve as an agent of change. in other words, a successful edd program would result in an ontological change. the effort to re-design the edd and make it useful for the needs of the professionals enrolled in them has led to a consensus that the curriculum should engage students in work with immediate practical implications (boud et al., 2020). a central role is allocated to the use of signature pedagogies, methods of inquiry training used in various professional practice programs (e.g., medicine and law), that place candidates in realistic operational settings with the purpose of socializing them into the norms and identities salient for the particular professional community (golde, 2007). signature pedagogies serve as catalysts for identity development, a “preparation for accomplished and responsible practice in the service of others” (shulman, 2005, p. 53). studies have highlighted effective pedagogies that aid in the development of scholarly practitioner identity. for instance, examining leader-scholar communities (olson & clark, 2009) and capstone projects (smrekar & mcgraner, 2009) has yielded important lessons for program development. more recent research has examined dissertations in practice (dip), revealing that while the majority of edd programs are yet to reconfigure the traditional dissertation to the applied nature of the degree (costley & fulton, 2019), dips that address issues in students’ professional settings enhances graduates’ commitment to equity (kennedy et al., 2019; zambo et al., 2013). despite such growing interest in practice-based pedagogies in edd programs, there is still a dearth of empirical studies showing how students learn research expertise in their doctoral programs (dana et al., 2021). in addition, scholars have debated about how best to teach practitioner-research skills in ways that are relevant to the graduates’ local contexts and help them move toward becoming scholarly practitioners (firestone et al., 2019). this study highlights the group consultancy course (hereafter ‘consultancy’) at the university of hawai‘i (uh), to understand how this model may impact students’ development toward becoming scholarly practitioners. the study followed an interpretive qualitative research design (merriam & grenier, 2019) as a way to document “how people understand and experience their world in a particular point in time and in a particular context” (p. 4). the consultancy is a three-semester (18-credits) course that situates the learning of students into the social context of the https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3622-6485 lambrev impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 12 community. student teams provide service to local partners (e.g., public and independent schools, community organizations) by assisting them with solving a real problem of practice. unlike traditional doctoral learning, structured only in strictly academic spaces (i.e., university classrooms), the consultancy situates the learning of students in both uh and in partners’ sites. therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the social learning in the consultancy and to consider how the research preparation of students through this learning model may impact their identity development toward acquiring scholarly practitioner aspects. to do so, the study examined the perspectives of students from three consultancy teams (n=11 students) as well as student reflections from final consultancy teams’ reports. the study first describes the uh consultancy project course and then provides an overview of the analytical tools framing the investigation. the findings present student perceptions related to changes in their research practices as the result of their participation in the consultancy. finally, the study discusses how these changes have led to acquiring new aspects of scholarly-practitioner identity. it concludes with implications for the use of the consultancy model for creating authentic practitioner research experiences to support the transition of students toward becoming scholarly practitioners. context of study the university of hawai‘i edd program established in 2011, the uh edd program has so far prepared close to 100 graduates representing various educational professions, such as school leaders, community college faculty, and leaders in corporate organizations. like other edds, the program is cohortbased and employs a 64-credit curriculum spread over three years of study. it uses a blended format with saturday sessions during the regular semesters (fall and spring), one-month summer instruction on campus, and about 50% online asynchronous work. along with coursework (27 credits), students are required to conduct two research projects—the group consultancy (developed in the first three semesters) and an individual dissertation (completed in the final year). in 2018, the program received the cped program of the year award. the consultancy project was noted as “an exemplar for innovation” (award letter, june 1, 2018) and contribution to the overall reform in the edd field. the consultancy course as stated earlier, the consultancy provides a free advisory service to partner organizations across the state of hawai‘i. in the first semester of each new cohort, the program gathers proposals from local organizations outlining problems of their practice that need to be addressed through research (e.g., to examine ways to strengthen a teacher development program, to evaluate a new early college model at a local charter school, and to create an evidencebased assessment that is more culturally relevant than the current standardized hawaii school assessment mandated by the doe). the program faculty then selects seven to eight proposals, based on merit of proposals and diverse representation of local educational organizations, and assigns them to teams of three to four students depending on their expressed interests. the teams develop the consultancies in year 1 (summer, fall, and spring) and produce two deliverables– a written report and a presentation to the partner’s organization with recommendations based on the collected evidence. each group is assigned an advisor (university faculty who serve as a supervisor for the consultancy) and a mentor (an experienced community practitioner) who provide guidance throughout the consultancy process. the consultancy shares similarities with the final capstone project of vanderbilt university’s edd (smrekar & mcgraner, 2009). however, in the uh’s program, the consultancy is the first applied research training for students entering the program, not the final one. next, the individuals each develop a separate and unrelated dissertation. the consultancy is intended to provide research learning and an initial introduction to the four main program outcomes: educators in professional educational practice will: 1. work collaboratively to solve problems and implement plans of action. 2. be able to apply research skills to bring about improvements in practice. 3. reflect critically and ethically on matters of educational importance. 4. be able to take a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on a wide variety of educational issues. to this date, four cohorts have completed 27 consultancies serving various educational partners. table 1 presents examples of projects and partners. table 1. examples of consultancy projects area project title and partner public k-12 education formative assessment through the data team process. hawai‘i department of education public k-12 charter schools data-driven decision making. hawaiʻi public charter schools network independent schools & community groups a blueprint for digital badge in land stewardship. ea ecoversity indigenous research institute the present study originated after my program colleagues (advisors and mentors) and i (a former advisor) were informally observing identity changes in students as the result of their experiences in the consultancy course. however, because no systematic evidence existed regarding this observation, this study’s purpose was to collect data by examining the perspectives of students regarding research preparation and its link to scholarlypractitioner identity development. theoretical framings to frame the investigation, this study considers the concept of scholarly practitioner as a key objective for identity development in the education doctorate, especially for programs affiliated with cped. in addition, given the nature of social learning in the group consultancy, i chose lave and wenger’s (1991) communities of practice (cop) theory as a useful tool to investigate individual and professional identity change because it sees learning as “participation in the social world…[and] a process of becoming a member of a sustained community of practice” (lave, 1991, p. 65). participating in a cop is a process of constructing identity as “we define who we are by ways we experience ourselves through consultancy communities of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 13 participation” (wenger, 1998, p. 145). therefore, exploring the social practice of learning through the perspectives of edd students allows us to see the process of identity construction, i.e., how students change who they are “and create personal histories of becoming in the context of these communities” (wenger, 1998, p. 5). reflecting on the education of scholarly practitioners in the edd, shulman (2005) also links learning in signature pedagogies with a change in identity: “signature pedagogies make a difference. they form habits of the mind, habits of the heart, and habits of the hand” (p. 59). the concept of scholarly practitioner traditionally, the preparation of professionals has focused on teaching skills and knowledge to build “the capacity to solve technical problems” (sullivan, 2005, p. 4). key characteristics of a professional include the ability to use “professional judgement in the face of uncertainty” (tamir & wilson, 2005, p. 335) and the capacity to provide service to society (shulman, 2005). on the other hand, doctoral education has been viewed as having a different purpose – to develop students’ identity as scholars of the particular discipline (austin & mcdaniels, 2006). the term scholarly practitioner has emerged in the field of social sciences to reflect a different model of doctoral preparation that strives to blend the world of practice and academia (colwill, 2012). huff and huff (2001) perceive scholarly practitioners as “boundary spanners” (p. s50) between these two contexts, while mcclintock (2004) stresses the importance of professional excellence that is grounded in experiential knowledge. similarly, cped (2022) emphasizes the importance of research preparation in its definition of scholarly practitioners as individuals who “blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (cped framework, para 9). through a mentoring partnership between students and faculty, edd programs strive to equip graduates with the ability to implement and analyze evidence-based data at the intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice (firestone et al., 2019; willis et al., 2010). coursework and especially research courses have a central place in the process of identity development through pedagogies that reinforce learning by doing– a method that has been found to strongly influence the socialization of edd students (perry & abruzzo, 2020). there is a relational interdependency of personal values, ethics, and empirical knowledge because a scholarly practitioner identity is developed through “collaborative and relational learning through active exchange within communities of practice and scholarship” (mcclintock, 2004, p. 393). hence, becoming a scholarly practitioner means expanding the personal and professional values that one brings to their learning while growing a commitment to improve humans’ lives. connected to this view, another set of studies has argued that the purpose of edd preparation is to create opportunities for identity transformation so that graduates can become stewards of the profession (golde, 2013). stewardship in that sense encompasses the ability to create, conserve, and transform knowledge while taking responsibility of the future of the professional field (hochbein & perry, 2013). the key vehicle of identity transformation is the dissertationin-practice—“scholarly endeavour that impacts a complex problem of practice” (hochbein & perry, 2013, p. 306). the implication of this view is that the preparation of scholarly practitioners should be guided by deliberate pedagogical approaches. since the consultancy project explored here presents a novel pedagogy that engages students with authentic research on a real-world problem of practice, this study aims to contribute to our understanding of how the work that students generate within it may also lead to identity change. identity transformation through communities of practice the social perspective of learning, described above, resembles wenger (1998) and lave’s (1991) understanding of learning in cops. as outlined before, the purpose of the consultancy is to initiate students into the practice of doing practitioner inquiry. since the focus of this study is on identity change through that practice, it is worth exploring the process of acquiring knowledgeable inquiry skills (lave & wenger, 1991) as a way of becoming a member of the community of research practice that the program is trying to establish. for lave and wenger (1991), these are parts of the same process because learning is a means of gaining membership in a sustained cop, a “social phenomenon constituted in the experienced, lived-in world, through legitimate peripheral participation in ongoing social practice” (lave, 1991, p. 64). cops are defined as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (wenger-trayner & wenger-trayner, 2015, p. 1). earlier research in the field of higher education has identified diverse cops: knowledge networks (hildreth & kimble, 2004), tech clubs (wenger et al., 2002), and tech stewards (wenger et al., 2009), to name a few. however, wenger-trayner and wenger-trayner (2015) emphasize that a common feature of all cops is the way members shape and strengthen new identities through participation in a “learning trajectory” – a method of learning where students engage creatively with mastering a common domain. in this process, newcomers develop a new identity; they learn by absorbing the cop’s modes of action and meaning. learning occurs “through mutual engagement [such as conducting research] where meaning in what is learnt is negotiated both inside and outside the community” (fuller et al., 2005, p. 52), creating epistemic boundaries with the outside, non-member world. therefore, the three structural elements forming a cop are domain (a common passion for a real-world problem), community (relationships that support learning) and practice (a shared repertoire of resources, such as ideas, experiences, vocabulary) (wenger-trayner & wenger-trayner, 2015). this view closely aligns with sociological insights of the preparation of scholarly practitioners through learning by doing. applied to the consultancy, in tackling partners’ problems of practice in real-life research situations, students have the opportunity to think together, re-create new knowledge (dörfler & ackermann, 2012), and draw on each other’s experiences and performance as cues for action (pyrko et al., 2019). given this analytical frame, this study addresses the following research questions: 1) how did students perceive their learning in the consultancy course? in particular, how did the consultancy communities of practice influence students’ learning of research expertise? 2) how did this learning contribute to the development of students’ identities as scholarly practitioners? what aspects of scholarly practitioner identity (if any) were identified in the participants’ accounts? lambrev impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 14 methods to maximize variation in a small sample, such as the edd program that only supports seven to eight projects at a time in the small education landscape of hawai‘i, i chose a sample of three consultancies as representative of the program’s partner organizations. another selection criterion was the expressed desire of student team members to participate in this study. my experience as faculty advisor of consultancy projects allowed for familiarity with the course. however, i did not supervise the selected projects in an effort to mitigate a potential bias in the research. the study received an institutional ethics approval. the names of partners and projects were substituted with pseudonyms to ensure anonymity. each student participant was termed with a letter corresponding to the first letter of the project title. participants eleven students from the second cohort of the program participated in this project. the study was conducted in the semester following the completion of consultancies, allowing more time for reflection. all students worked full time as school principals and staff, community college faculty, as well as teachers. below each project is briefly described and assigned a pseudonym to secure anonymity. profiles of the three consultancies project 1: evaluation of a teacher training program project partner was aloha voyaging school, a double-hulled sailing canoe school serving as a living classroom. the school’s mission was to build a curriculum and canoe experience focused on polynesian voyaging and navigating, and the school requested help with determining how the teacher training program could be improved. four students took part in this consultancy and three of them agreed to participate in this study. students in this team are termed group e. project 2: looping at mahalo elementary school the project partner was a public elementary school that needed help with determining the benefits and drawbacks of looping—a practice of keeping students together with the same teacher for several years. the partner was observing that looping was impacting staff workload and morale at the school. as the results of the project, the school discontinued the practice. all five edd consultancy members took part in this study (termed group l). project 3: micronesian charter school five edd students examined the feasibility for establishing a culturally based charter school for children from the federal states of micronesia, as requested by four micronesian non-profit organizations that jointly submitted a consultancy proposal and served as one partner. the edd team developed a narrative inquiry analyzing parents’ stories on culture-based education. three of the students took part in this study, which was termed group m. data collection to answer the research questions, i developed a qualitative, open-ended questionnaire within the frames of cop and scholarly practitioner. first, i reviewed the projects’ final reports to develop an understanding about the selected consultancies. after this initial step, i distributed the questionnaire to the participants with the help of four students who served as points of contact for their respective groups. the questionnaire was anonymous and confidential. the questions asked the participants to describe their reasons for expressing interest in taking part in the specific consultancy, how students perceived the value of the consultancy model for learning, how (and to what extent) research expertise was achieved, and in what ways (if at all) they perceived themselves as scholarly practitioners at the completion of the course. analytic method i analyzed the data using both deductive (thematic) and inductive approaches (miles et al., 2014) having in mind the aspects of scholarly practitioner identity, namely exhibiting the skills to generate and use practitioner research in collaborative, ethical, and culturally relevant ways. first cycle coding included looking for reoccurring patterns. at the second cycle coding stage, i clustered the related codes into larger categories within the theoretical understanding of identity building as a situated learning, paying specific attention to how students described their learning trajectories of becoming full members of the community of research practice. at the final step, i invited the students, who served as points of contact for the participating projects, to review the preliminary data analysis to ensure that i accurately derived the meaning that the participants created about their collaborative learning experiences. finally, three themes that corresponded to aspects of scholarly practitioner identity developed through the consultancy model: 1) applied research capacities, 2) an equity lens, and 3) reflective practice were identified. findings applied research capacities while students were novices in the beginning, the consultancy cops created a learning trajectory for mastering the common domain of applied research. in the following quotes, the use of “researchers” and “consultants,” as new characteristics, strongly exemplifies participants’ awareness of learning new inquiry skills: “this gave me good practice to focus on a topic and create applicable and effective survey questions” (l 2), “i now feel skillful as a researcher, interviewer, and data analyst” (l 5), and “at our presentation to the [partner], we were given so much respect as researchers and consultants. it was a new feeling” (m 3). students created together new epistemic boundaries, which manifested themselves by learning new research-related skills: for example, preparing and submitting “human subject committee applications” (m 1), and “background reading, participation in focus groups, transcription, and writing sections of final report” (e 2). furthermore, students underlined the value of collaborative learning. for instance: “when it came to research, we each transcribed one of the focus group interviews and coded as a group” (m 3), and “we all shared the burden of this project equally but capitalized on each other’s strengths” (l 1). participants saw the most value of this type of learning for providing quality service to the partners: we established a relationship with each other. we held each other accountable. we had writing sessions where we sat in the consultancy communities of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 15 same room to work […]. we shared meals and made sure we had time to laugh together with each other (e 1). my recommendation for the next cohort is: take time to get to know your consultancy team members and your clients – it should not be taken lightly or assumed. we were blessed to have created strong connections that were cultivated at multiple levels. honesty, trust, and professionalism were important aspects we strived for in work together (m 4). having the guidance of faculty advisors and field mentors was seen as crucial for sharpening the research skills: “they challenged us from the beginning and forced us to think as researchers, which i feel is very important” (e 3). furthermore, students emphasized that advisors helped “deepen our understanding of concepts such as theoretical framework and methodology” (m 2). interestingly, the majority of participants felt that building agency in becoming independent researchers was mostly due to the hands-off approach to mentoring that the advisors took: it was not because they told us what to do; rather they asked clarifying questions to help us go deeper into our thinking and research. they were also there to gently guide without telling us what to do (m 5). another participant stated: “both advisor and mentor […] really let us struggle through the process and it helped all of us to grow in the process” (e 2). however, at that point of their edd journey, students found the most value of the consultancy for building capacities needed in the next doctoral step, the individual dissertation: “this was an extremely helpful process in preparation for the research done for our dissertations. doing this project as a group provided the support needed for novice researchers like us” (l 2). connected to this view are the following comments: identifying the focus of the project, narrowing the scope, applying for irb, working with advisors, collecting data, doing a literature review, and eventually preparing a report and presentation were all components of the group consultancy that are also part of the dissertation process (l 4). the consultancy […] allowed us to model the dissertation process with others and to learn/fail together. i have found this to be instrumental in the next phase of the edd program where i focus on my dissertation (m 3). an equity lens in addition to applied research capacities, students reported an enhanced commitment to promoting equity, particularly using newly developed research skills to serve historically disadvantaged students and communities. the consultancy was perceived as a focused work that aimed to help students understand persistent inequities and directly engage with advocacy: we did several client presentation meetings both on oʻahu and [the island of] hawaiʻi. each and every presentation was memorable. i was so encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm of the clients and their constituents. there was so much hope that each of them had for a better future for all micronesian children (m 1). other similar comments highlighted the consultancy as a key step toward developing a genuine interest in enacting positive social changes in the partners’ organizations. for instance, student l1 described the course as “a great way to provide service to our community and free research for our clients.” for other participants, the value of service made all the difference. for instance, “a memorable moment was seeing the emotion of the teachers, knowing how much our work was helping to give them voice in the decision” (l 2) and “we were there in service of our partners and their focus” (e 3). furthermore, providing free consultancy services gave the students the opportunity to enhance the scope of engagement with equity issues that were outside of their personal and professional lives, which in turn enhanced their equity perspectives: as a school leader, i can get so focused on the immediate needs of my school, my students, staff, and community. this project really made me think outside and beyond my small world to see that i have a responsibility to the overall community (e 1). students shared that their commitment to equity was influenced by both their experiences within the groups as well as by the life narratives of partners. this was depicted mostly by members of projects “evaluation of a teacher training program” and “micronesian charter school.” participants from these groups shared that they learned more about educational disadvantage. for some, joining a consultancy with a clear equity focus was aligned with a long-time interest in the situation of indigenous communities who represent new and historically marginalized hawai‘i populations. for others, choosing these consultancies came with the goal of learning more about a topic with which they were not very familiar. however, for all the students, working with the micronesian and native hawaiian partners had a profound impact on them committing their future work to social justice. this was summed up by one participant: for many [of us] this journey is extremely personal and enormously significant. we have an opportunity to make an important impact for the students and families who were part of the study as well as all micronesian students and families who will follow (m 2). by joining forces with indigenous individuals to achieve culturally responsive education in the public school system, learning in these teams was tied to the hope that it would be a further step toward making hawai‘i a more equitable space: “it is with humility and honour that we submit our findings. we hope that it may serve as a point of reflection as well as a catalyst for change” (final report, micronesian charter school study). very often, methodological decisions were made also by applying an equity lens: “from the onset of the study, we understood that our richest data collection would not only come from the literature, but by the actual voices and experiences of micronesian families” (m 1). students from projects 1 and 3 described building a sense of stewardship—a newly developed belonging to the cause of social justice. as one respondent put it, “the topic of study was personally fulfilling and enriching, and i am forever changed” (m 2). another comment was also indicative of this transformation: rewards are knowing that the work we did is being used by the client to secure new grants for their work, and the satisfaction lambrev impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 16 that their work can continue to serve native hawaiian children, informed, in part, by our findings (e 1). an interesting finding in the data coming from these two teams related to learning about indigenous protocol in research. this competence was built with the support of indigenous advisors: “our faculty advisor is a chamorro from guam. she offered invaluable insight and direction” (m 3). a similar observation emerged about sharing food, as an indigenous etiquette, that became an important research aspect: “we made time to eat together as a group and with our advisors, as sharing food is a part of our cultural practice as native hawaiians” (e 2). reflective practice a key feature of students’ learning was approaching the research with a high level of reflection. students depicted their engagement in reflective thinking in-action (schön, 1983) throughout the entire studies as essential in drawing from previous knowledge, looking at the problem from various perspectives, and discovering the unique features of each situation to design a plan of action. for instance, a participant noted: i had many uncomfortable moments doing different parts of the research: interview can we diverge from the script?, transcript what do i leave in?, analysis how do we know we coded consistently? this means i learned (m 1). for many of the students, this type of learning resulted in establishing a new sense of belonging to the community of research practice: i think this project is an essential part of learning to be a researcher in practice. you have to learn to work with a group to solve someone else’s question—this process brings forward issues of positionality and subjectivity and cultivates listening and reflection (m 3). as the above quote reveals, students drew from each other’s competence as a strong learning tool. moreover, engaging in reflective conversations (schön, 1983) with the group members, as well as with advisors and partners, was described by two participants as key in prompting deep reflection: “…advisor and mentor really acted as a resource and asked a lot of questions. it was their questions that forced us to go deeper into the research or help shape our understanding to frame the issue” (m 1), and “as a practitioner, i learned that each team member needs to be humble, positive, a hard-worker, a good communicator, a critical thinker, and a collaborator to get the project completed” (l 4). discussion this study applied a two-fold theoretical lens to learn how making research preparation more practical and including a service component may shape the identity of edd students. the study extends the discussion of how active participation in research cops can be employed as a social learning tool to develop scholarly practitioners. an important new learning that this research brings concerns the application of signature pedagogies that provide community-engaged service as a research methodology instruction that is more closely aligned with the practitioner focus of the edd degree. first, the findings confirm the benefits of practice-based education for the development of edd graduates’ applied-research skills (firestone et al., 2019; perry, 2016). for instance, bengston et al. (2016) examined the use of laboratories of practice in several us edd programs and found that this model “could result in having more of an impact on the performance of the individual as an education leader than perhaps more traditional, stand-alone research courses” (p. 98). the immersion of students into practice-based dissertations also showed that researching significant problems in students’ workplaces helped them to build an identity as learners and leaders (storey et al., 2015). likewise, the consultancy project examined in this study immersed students into authentic life situations and yielded a dual benefit: while it connected the edd program with the real world (students placed into partners’ environment), it also served its purpose as a research practicum to train students how to systematically tackle contextual research problems, such as those presented by the partners. from the perspective of the cop frame, the consultancy designed a learning trajectory for students to master the common domain of applied research and become more skillful in addressing authentic problems of practice. for instance, students working with the aloha voyaging school conducted a program evaluation. based on conversations with the client, the edd team focused on the areas of curriculum, marketing, networking, and funding. evaluation questions were developed in collaboration with the partner and the consultants then took a mixed-methods approach to gather surveys and interviews with members in each stakeholder group (e.g., teachers, staff, and community organizations). as a result, the edd team made four main recommendations, including collaborative planning with teachers and strengthening of partnerships with other indigenous organizations. as we saw in the participants’ accounts, students from this group reported an enhanced knowledge of the process of conducting and writing a literature review to frame the study as well as skills to conduct interviews and focus group and to analyse the data. similar results were achieved in the other two participant groups. the looping project team also developed a mixed-method study (a survey with 55 faculty members as well seven focus groups), while the micronesian group’s study was entirely qualitative, following an approach to apply indigenous methods in research. as it is evident in the findings, both groups reported an increased level of confidence as researchers (e.g., drafting inquiry questions, coding data, etc.). while the uh program offers a series of research courses during the summer semesters, intended to supplement the research learning in the consultancy, the participants were clear that engaging in the consultancy project led to growth in applied research capacities. unlike a conventional research course, students in the consultancy are not given first basic instruction in research methods; rather, they go in the field, negotiate project scope with the partner, and then they determine which research skills they need to learn. with the guidance of mentors and faculty advisors, students spend time in reading and learning the theory behind these research methods, which they apply in practice and when they conduct each step of the research during the project. a second important implication relates to the value of intertwining research and data-use preparation with a direct service to the community. it is evident from the responses that not only was community-engaged research effective (i.e., it served as a learning trajectory to move students from the peripheral to the center of the cop of doing research); but it also had a transformative impact on students’ identities as scholarly practitioners who understand the consultancy communities of practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 17 importance of equity and serving as agents of change. this finding leads to a recommendation that part of the training in the edd should include research with a direct benefit for communities. as is evident in the data, addressing equity issues in the partners’ practices influenced students’ confidence as becoming scholarly practitioners who can produce evidence-based knowledge and lead social innovations in their practice. this learning may be useful for practicebased doctoral programs concerned with solving a main problem in the field—namely that education leaders still “have trouble understanding various kinds of evidence” (firestone et al., 2019, p. 2) – by demonstrating a model of service-focused teams. furthermore, understanding how scholarly practitioner identity was built through a collaborative learning with peers invites into the discussion wenger-trayner et al.’s (2014) concept of knowledgeability. knowledgeability is defined as the complex relationships people establish in a landscape of practice that prompts outsiders to recognize the members as experts of knowledge and sources of information. wenger et al. (2014) argue that building such an identity aspect depends on the level of competence in one or more practices. we saw in this study that the shared repertoire and practice that was established (i.e., reification) led to a recognition (e.g., “we were given so much respect as researchers and consultants;” m 3). this process of learning designed a space for students to explore the role of scholarly practitioners. while students started the project as novices who lacked confidence in doing research, going through this experience helped them realize that they had the capacity to successfully complete a dissertation. this process involved vulnerability and reflection (e.g., “i had many uncomfortable comments doing different parts of the research,” m 1) as students referred to moments that helped them internalize the capacities developed through the consultancy (e.g., “the consultancy […] allowed us to model the dissertation process,” m 3). reaching this level of confidence in designing and executing an applied research study reminds of golde’s (2013) developmental trajectory where edd students “begin to develop dissertation mindfulness and internalize the identity of a scholar” (p. 151). the study also showed that students felt a higher level of competence not only in the realm of doing research but also in the different consultancy topics that were pertinent to the educational context of hawai‘i (i.e., micronesian culture-based education, equity, and culturally relevant educational practices). consistent with smith’s (2008) understanding of practitioner scholarship as “noticing, naming, and reframing” (p. 77) of local issues through reflective engagement with the community, students in this research exhibited both collaborative and personal reflections in creating new knowledge about dealing with their pressing educational issues. the implication of this finding is that the consultancy groupings can be used to help students develop knowledgeability to bridge the gap between research and practice and move towards developing an identity of equity-minded scholarly practitioners. nurturing applied research skills through the consultancy pedagogy presents a way to shift from traditional methods of research methods instruction (i.e., theory-driven courses) toward a more shared endeavour where students become active agents in their learning. moreover, while students’ engagement was first motivated by the program requirement of completing the project, an unexpected outcome was their change of perspectives and the emerging of new worldviews. this outcome captures the value of community-engaged scholarship that has the potential to assist practitioners in bringing social justice and professional responsibility way beyond the doctoral preparation stage (shulman et al., 2006; willis et al., 2010). i would argue, based on the findings, that this form of community engagement not only enhances research proficiencies (i.e., the accounts stating that it helps the transition to the individual dissertation); but also advances graduates’ competence in problemsolving generally (e.g., students’ remarks about the consultancy as “an essential part of learning to be a researcher in practice” and “a relevant and powerful way to gain experience as researchers,” e 2). as underlined by the participants, building trust is essential in this work and requires time. given the relatively short frame of the project, a recommendation for improving the model may include building more time in initial project activities to allow opportunities for team members and partners to get to know each other, understand partners’ needs, and develop trust. knowledgeability developed when students worked with the partners to ensure that community voices were implemented in the planning of a new school (the micronesian study) and when delivering recommendations for solving problems of practice (e.g., mahalo school decided to stop looping, aloha voyaging school was advised to collaborate with relevant local organizations, etc.). knowledgeability also played a role in the creation of stewardship— students learned about the educational and social disadvantages of minority groups in hawai‘i, used practical wisdom and new knowledge to create evidence to help partners secure grants for culturally-respective education, and developed a commitment to enact social change. they understood the importance of keeping the community’s needs in focus and their responsibilities to connect their future work with the larger community of hawai‘i. data showed that advisors played an important role: they helped students move from being novices to being experts in producing evidence-based data. this finding corresponds to similar observations in vanderbilt’s consultancy capstone (smrekar & mcgraner, 2009). implicitly, this finding is reminiscent of wengertrayner and wenger-trayner’s (2015) notion of legitimate peripheral to full participation. however, it should be noted that in this study, the role of advisors was somewhat limited—while they were, in one way, old-timers, (i.e., research methodologies experts who guided the learners), their knowledge of the consultancies’ topics was in itself peripheral. per students’ accounts, advisors and mentors adopted a hands-off mentoring role. this substantiates a recommendation that the mentoring students in practice-based research courses, such as the consultancy, should be uniquely aligned with the needs of adult learners – acquiring the form of reciprocal learning and respect for the practical wisdom that the practitioners bring. finally, wenger’s (1998) notion of identity as socially negotiated proved a useful tool for examining the learning dynamics in the consultancies. it is clear that students negotiated their identity as learners while working together as a group and as researchers when delivering consultancy services to the partner. this supports the discussion of zambo and colleagues (2013) who found that negotiating the identity aspect of a learner in the dissertation may be key to some students’ success due to their satisfaction with their learning journey. in the present study, negotiating an identity of learner and researcher was evaluated by the participants as a vital step in developing competence and earning pride in their role as consultants. furthermore, reflection-in-action (schön 1983) can serve as a tool for assisting scholarly practitioners in the process of becoming full participants in the research practice. lambrev impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.331 18 limitations and lessons learned: identity change in the making one limitation of this work is that it examines identity development at the stage of the consultancy project only and does not follow further changes in the next steps of the doctoral journey. future research can build on these findings to include a further examination of identity creation in the dissertation project and the overall program. a consideration of impact on partners’ practice (i.e., is the consultancy successful in helping the community partners improve their practice?) could further add to the effort of bridging the gap between research and practice in edd programs’ curricula. second, this research is not generalizable given the diversity in education doctorate formats in north america, australia, and the u.k., among others. i acknowledge the diverse contexts of higher education institutions, but one unique characteristic of edd preparation is the link between research training and real-world professional issues (perry, 2016). therefore, i suggest that edd programs pursue a framework of research coursework that immerses candidates in authentic research-pursuing settings as much as possible, and when possible and applicable for the institution’s context, they connect this work with educational issues proposed by members of the local communities. in sum, examining the social context of developing scholarly practitioner identity through community engagement is valuable, given that the practices of edd graduates mirror in rich ways their professional knowledge and personal norms. ultimately, they are also developed at the intersection of these values and the interest of community stakeholders (shulman, 2005). engaging and listening to students’ voices, therefore, brings individual, professional, and community views closer to our work as university teachers. as one of the uh edd graduates once wrote, “professors participating in the program agreed to help develop and implement a practice-based program, but their own academic experience may need to catch up with that reality” (demirbag, 2015, p. 244). therefore, as edd instructors who commit to teach a curriculum that prepares graduates to change the world (wergin, 2011), learning from our students can help us serve them and our communities better. references 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(2009). digital habitat: stewarding technology for communities. cpsquare. wenger-trayner, e., o’creevy, m. f., hutchinson, s., kubiak, b. c., & wenger-trayner, b. (2014). learning in landscape of practice. routledge. wenger-trayner, e., & wenger-trayner, b. (2015). learning in a landscape of practice: a framework. in e. wenger-trayner, m. fenton-o’creevy, s. hutchinson, c. kubiak, & b. wenger-trayner (eds.), learning in landscapes of practice: boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning (pp. 13-29). routledge. wergin, j. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. willis, j. w., inman, d., & valenti, r. (2010). completing a professional practice dissertation: a guide for doctoral students and faculty. information age press. zambo, d., buss, r., & zambo, r. (2013). uncovering the identities of students and graduates in a cped-influenced edd program. studies in higher education, 40(2), 233–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.823932 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.823932 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 47 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 reading research for writing: co-constructing core skills using primary literature genevive a. bjorn johns hopkins university gbjorn1@jhu.edu laura quaynor johns hopkins university lquayno1@jhu.edu adam j. burgasser university of california, san diego aburgasser@ucsd.edu abstract synthesizing academic literature into new knowledge through writing is a core skill that doctoral students engaged in research must learn. however, developing efficacy in synthesis skills as an academic writer is a culturally and cognitively demanding process that occurs over many years, requires abstraction, and draws upon critical reading skills. doctoral reading is an invisible part of training, despite large reading loads in doctoral coursework. further, reading, writing, and researching skills are co-constructed at the doctoral level as previously described by kwan (2008). the purpose of this essay is to describe how the primary author used her experience as an edd student, science teacher, and writer to develop a method that addresses doctoral reading challenges. the novel method described here combines categorical reading strategies with social collaborative annotation (sca). this method centers on active, categorial reading to deconstruct arguments in the primary literature by identifying claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, and context (ceric), which can serve as a critical reading pedagogy in existing courses, reading clubs, and seminars. combining ceric with sca tools—ranging from homemade variations of google suite to purposeful annotation software, such as hypothes.is.—can support an efficient doctoral reading process. this essay illustrates several worked examples and explores how this process supports retrieval, engagement, collaboration, inclusion, and community, particularly in online learning environments. significant implications of this work are to make hidden reading expectations explicit and transform professor-centered transmission models of learning to student-centered sociocultural models of learning. the essay proposes next steps for testing the approach's effectiveness in online doctoral learning. keywords critical reading skills, categorical reading method, doctoral education, reading for writing, sociocultural theory, social collaborative annotation, in graduate education, writing to create new knowledge is a primary learning objective most often assessed by a written dissertation. the process of reading, interpreting, and writing scholarly work requires considerable time, effort, and abstraction (alexander et al., 2009). critical reading skills are the basis for doctoral students’ critiques of primary research literature, which is fundamental to developing academic writing skills. doctoral students' writing skills, including reading, interpreting texts, and literature synthesis, are central to student progress (council of graduate schools, 2010). analyzing and synthesizing research is crucial to understanding a field's ideas and choosing a productive dissertation topic (aitchison et al., 2012). students then formulate their logical arguments, conduct research, and communicate their findings in papers and dissertations (cotterall, 2011). ongoing engagement with the primary literature as a reader and writer is essential for doctoral scholars. the programmatic assumption is that doctoral students can locate and evaluate scholarly arguments, synthesize the research in the field, and apply that understanding to a dissertation topic (boote & beile, 2005). however, not all doctoral students develop these core reading and writing skills because critical reading skills are assumed and unaided at the doctoral level (kwan, 2009) and are, therefore, a hidden expectation. in a seminal article, boote and beile (2005) note the "dirty secret known by those who sit on dissertation committees is that most literature reviews are poorly conceptualized and written" (p. 4). critical reading is not limited to understanding the text but also includes the abilities to (a) evaluate facts and opinion; (b) recognize http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2856-1067 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3598-6733 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6523-9536 bjorn, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 48 the author’s purpose, biases, and points of view; and (c) make assessments and inferences (darch & kameenui, 1987). thus, critical reading involves readers thinking deeply about a topic, going beyond what the text concluded to consider the author’s methods and accuracy (wheeler, 2004). critical reading of the primary research literature, whose context and methods beginning doctoral students may be unfamiliar with, is a particularly challenging skill set to acquire. little scholarly work focuses on critical reading skills at the doctoral level, where scholarly reading is a precursor to knowledge creation through writing and research. one entry point to critical reading is the use of annotations, defined as making notes on a text, an act that mediates reading and writing (kalir, 2020). annotations become more potent as learning tools when combined with new technological affordances, such as social collaboration and online databases. this essay demonstrates how an individual ed.d. student's struggle with managing a heavy reading load, combined with research and writing, generated a creative solution in the form of a categorical reading method combined with social collaborative annotation (sca) tools. this approach allows for the development of multiple core doctoral skills, beginning with critical reading of the primary research literature. the first author has taught her method to other doctoral students, and the second author includes the method in tutorial sessions, an ed.d. writing clinic, and in coursework. the third author uses the method to scaffold journal clubs, seminars, and research group discussions. the method can be integrated into existing instruction with primary literature to increase student engagement and build a learning community. theoretical and conceptual framework sociocultural theory provides a sound theoretical framework to investigate the relationship between language and learning at the doctoral level (vygotsky, 1978). doctoral learning occurs primarily from participating in discursive activities between professor and student or between students in a collaborative discussion that culminates in a written dissertation (brown & renshaw, 2000). students develop and refine their thinking through reading, writing, and feedback from more knowledgeable others, such as advisors, professors, and peers. written discourse is critical and serves as an act of authorial identity in which students align themselves with socioculturally shaped positions within the discipline (ivanic, 1998). a successful paper expresses an understanding of relevant knowledge situated in the disciplinary activities, contexts, literature, and culture in which it is developed and used (brown et al., 2007). in addition, students experience and learn disciplinary, cultural norms through coursework, during lectures and presentations, at conferences, and from reading the primary literature. primary research literature is a unique genre of writing. primary literature articles are not meant to be read from the ground up, startto-finish like novels, and beginning graduate students tend to be unaware of this academic norm (lie et al., 2016). this situation is not surprising because english courses rarely focus on strategic reading skill development for non-narrative texts to the same extent as narrative texts (zywica & gomez, 2008). likewise, many doctoral students are unaware that reading primary literature is “inextricably entwined with effective writing” (sverdlik et al., 2018, p. 368). moreover, without strong reading skills, writing and research skills do not fully develop because "reading and writing do not stand in a functional relationship with inquiry [i.e., research] but are constitutive of it–essential elements of the whole" (norris & phillips, 2003, p. 226). doctoral instructors often fail to take advantage of this interconnection between reading and writing (gay, 2004). the ability to read critically and funnel information is crucial for graduate and professional students because those who possess good critical reading skills can go “beyond the information given by asking questions, making hypotheses, seeking evidence, and validating assumptions” (anuar & sidhu, 2017, p. 164). hudson (2009) maintains that students exposed to critical reading strategies can identify and synthesize main points or compare texts critically. unfortunately, many graduate and professional students rely on reading strategies taught in high school or college for their academic work. one example is taking notes only during lectures and highlighting passages of academic texts. current technological tools allow for highlighting online text in apps such as additor (walnut, ca) and hylighter (tallahassee, fl). even with interactive features, highlighting does not require active engagement with the text, such as paraphrasing or summarizing, which help to consolidate learning (brown et al., 2014). more effective structured note-taking systems, such as cornell notes or reap, increase students' critical reading skills, including synthesis, analysis, and evaluation (ahmad, 2019). however, the ongoing struggle to develop literature synthesis at the doctoral level suggests that students’ critical reading skills are not sufficiently developed with commonly used strategies and methods (aitchison et al., 2012; boote & beile, 2005). this essay suggests a conceptual framework of critical reading pedagogy combined with social, collaborative annotation (sca) tools to build doctoral students' core skills. research on doctoral reading practices indicates that multiple sub-processes contribute to doctoral reading, such as reading for the literature review, reading for methodology, and reading for courses (kwan, 2009). these dynamic, constitutive interactions form the conceptual framework shown in figure 1. each of these reading processes using the primary literature (pl) is abstract and cognitively demanding, such that engaging with one causes the others to fade into students' mental backgrounds (kwan, 2009). finally, reading connects to researching and writing, moderated by arguments from evidence published in the primary literature. figure 1. conceptual model of reading research for writing at the doctoral level note. this conceptual model displays the nexus of coconstructed core skills at the doctoral level, adapted from kwan (2008). pl indicates primary literature. reading research for writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 49 the primary motivation behind categorical reading methods is to dissect each paper's structure and central argument using the above conceptual model (figure 1). this process begins with published research papers arguing from evidence (not arguing from rhetoric, which is a different domain that necessitates other approaches). dissecting an argument from evidence involves collecting/curating papers, iteratively reading each paper, comparing/categorizing the main arguments and methods, and writing. as kwan (2009) showed, these steps can happen sequentially, but students are more likely to use them dynamically as needed. literature review doctoral students spend most of their program time reading. for example, in a study of first-year medical students, self-reported estimations of studying activities involved 60% reading, 25% group work, and 15% lectures (van pletzen, 2006). in a study of ph.d. students in social sciences, students reported an even split between the frequency of reading and writing as learning tasks (mcalpine, 2012). however, students in the study expressed ambivalence about the value of reading, reporting it as a time-consuming hurdle to writing papers, which was a more urgent task because of deadlines and grades. other studies report that graduate students struggle in many dimensions with reading primary literature, including understanding the paper’s central arguments, background and terminology, techniques, experimental data, and conclusions (abdullah et al., 2015; lie et al., 2016). course discussions one immediate consequence of the combination of heavy reading loads and variable critical reading skills at the doctoral level is low-quality course discussions. second only to writing papers, formal disciplinary discussions, or discourse, are a central activity for making meaning of the primary literature, constructing new disciplinary knowledge, and making social connections (levine, 2001; tirado et al., 2015). before the covid-19 pandemic forced education online, a common practice in graduate and professional education was to form journal clubs, where professors and students sat around a table and critically reviewed the primary research literature. a review of journal clubs in medical education showed that students with critical appraisal skills reported paying more attention to the methods and conclusions, which increased their content knowledge. however, a review of research failed to demonstrate that the students who participated in journal clubs read more critically than students who did not (alguire, 1998). in online learning environments, threaded discussion forums appear via asynchronous interfaces, such as blackboard and canvas learning management systems. these forums are the most common forms of online, academic collaborative knowledge construction (galikyan & admiraal, 2019). however, some researchers question if discussion should be required at all in online courses because of formulaic responses and weak evidence about learning gains (cho & tobias, 2016). threaded discussion forums have myriad failures and pitfalls and “often fall short in supporting networked learning and collaborative discourse” (chen, 2019, p. 195). this evidence suggests that current tools for supporting course discussions may not be sufficiently supporting graduate student reading and writing skill development. reading and writing the intersection between reading and writing informs the suggested approach to doctoral reading. one report of doctoral students reading published papers critically in the context of a course showed that critical engagement with primary literature helped students develop a framework of knowledge helpful in self-assessing their writing (matarese, 2013). only a few studies consider the role of reading interventions as a means for improving writing. a metaanalysis of reading interventions at k-12 showed improvement in both reading and writing resulting from various reading interventions (graham et al., 2018). no such analyses exist for graduate and professional education. the bidirectional relationship between reading and writing is moderated by constructing an argument (krummheuer, 1995). kwan (2008) examined the relationships among these doctoral student activities and proposed a nexus approach to developing doctoral students reading, researching, and writing skills, where the three processes are co-constructed. mcalpine (2012) outlined pedagogies for supporting core skill development by, for instance, embedding seminar discussions with field-specific epistemologies. faculty take multiple approaches to developing critical reading skills in different disciplines/fields. the undergraduate level is an active area of current innovation. one strategy researched in undergraduate education focuses on teaching undergraduate students how to navigate and understand primary literature: the evaluating scientific research literature (esrl) method (letchford et al., 2017; lie et al., 2016). another strategy improves critical thinking skills using “think like a scientist” methods, such as the create method that focuses on a learning sequence, consider, read, elucidate hypotheses, analyze and interpret data, think of the next experiment (gottesman & hoskins, 2013; hoskins et al., 2007; kararo & mccartney, 2019). more broadly, the toulmin model is prominent for teaching evidence-based argumentation in many disciplines (osborne et al., 2004). the toulmin model centers on the factual basis for an argument, resulting claims, and counter-claims. despite these methods, the reality is that pre-doctoral training in critical reading varies widely, and without solid reading skills, writing and research skills do not develop properly (kwan, 2009). annotation at the doctoral level, most students have not directly experienced critical reading instruction or assessment. scholars have noted that reading appears time-consuming yet without much value; throughout an individual's schooling, the activity of reading lacks a coherent or explicit relationship to work that is assessed, unlike writing (du boulay 1999; saltmarsh & saltmarsh, 2008). reading assessment would provide essential support, and annotations can serve as such an assessment, including text or video notes that help "mediate reading and writing" (kalir & garcia, 2021, p. 182). practically, it is challenging to generate a quality annotation without reading critically. nonetheless, the internal process of reading makes it difficult to measure directly. a common measure of reading skill using annotations assumes that the reader is also skilled at expressing ideas in writing. still, annotations for doctoral instruction could function as an integrated resource and strategy for learning disciplinary content (zywica & gomez, 2008). annotations are a cognitive reading strategy that increases student engagement with and conceptual bjorn, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 50 understanding of reading (zywica & gomez, 2008). annotations offer students practice with considering a paper’s key elements and then writing a summary in their own words. summarizing can seed more sophisticated thinking processes, such as elaboration and compare/contrast, which precede literature synthesis (anuar & sidhu, 2017). prompting readers to identify specific types of information through annotation acts as a sociocultural guidepost by supporting novice readers through unfamiliar terrain, making explicit hidden expectations of what information is most important at the intersection of reading, research, and writing. by chunking reading into smaller tasks using scaffolding strategies (vygotsky, 1978), students’ reading compliance and comprehension improve (ritchey & list, 2021). examples of task-oriented reading activities include reading quizzes, journals, and annotations. these practices recursively layer reading, writing, and reaction by others to create meaning, exchange, and engagement with the text. annotation prompts can further reduce the overwhelming feelings students can experience regarding the level of detail available within articles, what information to include or exclude, and how to organize their ideas. embedding annotation into existing seminars and workshops, in-person or online, provides explicit support (mcalpine, 2012) and does not require faculty to design new courses. social annotation the highly interactional nature of current learning technology can facilitate student development and pedagogical innovations (larreamendy-joerns & leinhardt, 2006; moore & diehl, 2018), including social collaborative annotation. social annotation is defined as “mak[ing] reading visible and thinking collaborative for…knowledge production” (kalir & garcia, 2021, p. 1). in addition, collaborative annotation is a literacy strategy that engages students through a shared problem space in critical reading, thinking, writing, and co-construction of knowledge in one activity (kalir & garcia, 2021). combining strategies to form social collaborative annotation (sca) changes the situation to “require learners to establish shared goals and sustain a problem space whereby common understandings guide collective negotiation, meaning-making, and other group cognition processes” (kalir, 2020, p. 247). the following review considers both social annotation and social collaborative annotation. a review of the early scholarship on social annotation concluded that the benefits to learners are positive overall (cohn, 2018). a more recent comprehensive review of social collaborative annotation in the published literature included 249 studies, of which the authors analyzed 39 studies with empirical designs. most of these studies focused on undergraduate or k-12 classrooms, and only two studies focused on graduate students (chen, 2019; hollett & kalir, 2017). interestingly, both studies with graduate students compared, in different ways, two social app tools, slack (san francisco, ca) and hypothes.is (san francisco, ca), for annotation generation and management. both studies found increased engagement with academic texts and high quality discussions related to use of the social app tools. increased engagement with texts through social annotation can lead to skill and motivation improvement in higher education. in a study of 122 undergraduate students, social annotation increased engagement with course readings and community building (gao, 2013). reid (2014) also found improvements in reading comprehension, motivation, and mental effort required to read following the use of synchronous, collaborative annotation in 32 community college students. further, a review of 16 empirical studies in higher education by novak and colleagues (2012) concluded that the learning gains associated with social annotation included critical thinking, meta-cognitive skills, reading comprehension, and improved motivation and positive feelings. in addition to facilitating student skill development, social collaborative annotation is a tool for building a learning community that is not possible with individual reading activities. faculty can instruct students to take categorical reading notes in combination with one or more sca tools, such as one note (microsoft; seattle, wa), google suite (alphabet, inc; mountainview, ca), or hypothes.is. the notes become rich resources for retrieval practice. when shared with a group, annotations transform into socially constructed learning opportunities that generally have positive outcomes (cohn, 2019), such as improving student compliance and increasing engagement in course activities (berry, 2017; martin & bolliger, 2018). further, web-based platforms can be used together to “provide opportunities for learners to interact with rich web objects in different spaces, contribute ideas from different contexts, and move ideas freely to serve varied, shifting learning purposes” (chen, 2019, p. 196). for instance, google forms and sheets allow users to annotate using customizable tools. google forms offers a graphic organizer that can prompt student-determined categorical input and then feeds the information into a sheets database. sheets databases are taggable, shareable, and exportable to other software, such as overleaf (london, uk) for writing and python for coding. the result is a flexible, dynamic knowledge base with many learning applications for individual and group work. students can also share annotations of texts, including tagging and conversations, using a combination of social collaborative technology platforms (novak et al., 2012). in a pilot graduate course, chen (2019) replaced the online discussion forum with slack, a team communication tool, and hypothes.is, a social annotation tool. participants most frequently used slack for public conversations and hypothes.is for social annotations. this finding suggests that, for collaborative discourse about academic texts, real-time channels generate high activity. one important limitation to this research is student privacy. the student participants accessed the software platforms using their university’s single sign-on system, which kept usage data private. finally, learning complex skills—such as reading, writing, and research via primary literature at the doctoral level—requires high levels of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and other mature learner characteristics (kelley & salisbury-glennon, 2016). these characteristics are present collectively within working groups (koschmann, 1996). however, to the extent that these properties of group learning are beneficial to individuals, the nature of doctoral assessment through an individual thesis means that individuals also need to develop the group attributes to use when working alone. thus, group benefits of collaborative social annotation at the doctoral level are insufficient unless the individual can use the experience to develop core skills further and make degree progress. reading research for writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 51 improving reading research for writing skills in the ed.d. program at johns hopkins university (jhu), i (genevive) face a significant challenge with an intensive reading load for coursework and dissertation, averaging 20-30 articles per week. speed reading for 30 minutes on each article requires dedicating 10-15 hours per week to only reading. this reading volume feels overwhelming and makes it impossible for me to process the information from readings in any meaningful way. initially, i did what many doctoral students do and tried to read everything, taking notes using the gold standard annotation. this annotation took the form of a paraphrased summary stored in a word document, shown in figure 2. however, this approach proved untenable, as weekly article counts increased and competing time demands mounted. in response, i changed strategy and skimmed abstracts, taking notes on methods and findings. my notes were then a fragmented mess. this approach proved ineffective for drawing comparisons between papers when writing. figure 2. example of a traditional annotation connolly, s., & burn, a. (2019). the story engine: offering an online platform for making “unofficial” creative writing work. literacy, 53, 30–38. describes the development and implementation of story engine, an online, mentorassisted digital writing platform. uses theories of creativity to interrogate discourses surrounding the teaching of creative writing, both in and outside of the classroom. examines the implementation of a beta prototype of story engine with 120 adolescents in four british schools. uses case studies to investigate whether an online creative writing platform develops creativity and complements school-based writing programs. finds that story engine promotes schooled aspects of creative writing but can potentially allow for more creative freedom. concludes that the story engine environment provided a variety of opportunities for students to draw on cultural resources to produce texts for specific audiences. suggests that teachers can combine digital writing tools and offline engagement to bring together progressive classroom teaching techniques and online, playful pedagogies. note. annotation was adapted from frederick and colleagues. (2020). this annotated bibliography is organized as a paragraph in a word processing document. further, without a way to archive thoughts and notes for quick retrieval and comparison, producing written work on time was fraught. i quickly found the limit of microsoft word (seattle, wa) for annotation retrieval after scrolling through hundreds of pages of annotations, which sometimes caused the software to crash. a better alternative was storing annotations in an online database, such as sheets, with a good sort function, even though the interface is not great for reading. with faster retrieval and less crashing, having my own words and thinking readily sortable and searchable routed around the mentally paralyzing block of not knowing where to start. sorting and seeing every previously paraphrased summary of a particular topic bridged the tender transition between thinking and first draft. thus, the sorted annotations served as first draft thinking for papers. later i added keyword tags to enhance the sorting process. the first significant course assignment in the jhu ed.d. program was an annotated bibliography, for which i read more than 100 research articles. about halfway through, the process became tedious and repetitive. the pain of heavy reading made obvious a need for a more effective reading and note-taking system. an informal survey of ed.d. professors defined the essential elements for each article, such as study design, findings, and theoretical and conceptual frameworks. then i applied learning theory from the ed.d. coursework to prior experience as a secondary science teacher and science writer to develop a more efficient process that i share below. combining theory and practice exposed that primary literature forms a unique genre with specific formatting useful for efficient information retrieval and retention. i used this insight to generate sentence frames to capture critical information, much like math teachers use sentence frames to help children learn word problems (bresser et al., 2009). the language of categorical reading would come in later coursework, but the concept was developing in practice. i had begun to consider what categorical reading might mean at the doctoral level. the categorical reading method evolved in subsequent courses and teaching. a core set of argumentation concepts emerged from the primary literature, which i refer to as "ceric" (for claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, and context, and rhymes with "cleric"). ceric categories reflect high-order argument categories customizable to any academic discipline, including interdisciplinary fields like education (krishnan, 2009). shown in table 1, each ceric element is located in predictable sections of primary research literature, such as the introduction, results, and discussion (lie et al., 2016). for instance, the claim is the answer to the research questions and is often found in the title, abstract, and discussion sections. identifying and then annotating a paper’s main claim is critical because the claim is the center of the argument, and thus, the basis for comparing arguments. using this interdisciplinary lens expanded my clinical understanding of helping students argue from evidence at the secondary science level (bjorn, 2018) to reading critically at the doctoral level. table 1. summary of the ceric method for categorical reading ceric element definition location in the primary literature annotation prompt claim a plain language, declarative answer to a research question that defines the discovery, new method, specific relationship between variables, or rebuttal to prior findings. often found in the title, abstract, and discussion. there may be secondary claims found in the results section. what is the main claim? are there secondary claims? evidence data, test results, measurements, or observations that are either quantitative or qualitative. for theoretical research, additional evidence can include assumptions, model components, and theoretical framework. presented in tables, charts, graphs, or paragraphs in the results section. the methods section, including study design and research questions, build to evidence. what evidence supports this claim? be specific. bjorn, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 52 ceric element definition location in the primary literature annotation prompt reasoning theory or prior research that links the evidence to the claim and provides the logical basis for inferences and argument. reasoning is a series of logical steps in the analysis that connects the evidence to the claim. different types of reasoning include inductive, deductive, and counterfactual to rule out other interpretations. generally located in the discussion section and sometimes found in the results or abstract. what theory, methodology, and/or prior research connects the evidence to the claim? implications answers at least two questions: (1) how is the result significant beyond the immediate findings? (2) where do we go from here? can be its own section or part of the discussion. sometimes located in the abstract. what is the significance of the results beyond the immediate findings? what are the limitations, and how can future work address them? the struggle with reading-for-writing transformed into a pilot study research question, how do doctoral students approach reading academic articles as they prepare to write? the question was part of a national survey of u.s. doctoral students (n = 270) conducted in october 2020 (bjorn, 2020). the findings indicate that the top academic challenges for doctoral participants included writing in the discipline (50%), research (49%), writing papers/proposals (37%), and reading research papers (28%)—precisely the nexus of core skills described by kwan (2008). doctoral participants who reported support to develop these essential skills (n = 83) received it primarily through feedback and use of mentor texts (62%) with little or no instruction, strategies, or programmatic support. these findings suggest that dynamic, co-constructed skills of reading, researching, and writing become more intensive as students engage with dissertation work, reinforcing a need for pedagogical support appropriate to this level. these results motivated the creation of an accessible and inclusive process to better support core skill development. while developing the ceric method, the first author discovered powerful online social collaborative annotation tools, shown in table 2. among these options, google suite is attractive because it is free and useful. a google form can prompt ceric categories and feed the responses into a spreadsheet with tag, search, export, and share functions. this effort consolidated several essential processes, including: 1. focusing on what is most important in each paper using ceric prompts, while reflecting situated field norms and sub-purposes (i.e., reading for literature review, methods, argument elements, and more, shown in figure 1). 2. prompting and organizing reading notes to compare/contrast arguments efficiently, including claims, findings, implications, and tags. 3. generating a social collaborative annotation archive with search, tagging, export, sharing, and teamwork functions. table 2. comparison of software applications’ functions for managing categorical reading notes software application best use interface rearrange collaboration export word* writing low distraction copy paste text only cloud versions of documents no evernote (like bear and nimbus note) note-taking moderate distraction drag drop notebooks; copy paste text share notebooks; tags cloud apps google suite file-sharing high distraction drag drop files; copy paste text all files and folders; tags in files csv, pdf, xls hypothes.is private and social annotations high distraction copy paste text browser integration api tool for various formats notion integration of desktop low distraction drag drop blocks; copy paste text all files and folders; programmable; tags csv one note file-sharing moderate distraction drag drop files; copy paste text all files and folders; tags in files csv, pdf, xls trello project management moderate distraction drag drop cards; copy paste text all boards csv, json note. *word appears first out of alphabetical order because it is the gold standard for annotations in a word-processing environment. reading research for writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 53 evernote, bear, nimbus note, and one note are similar software applications that are searchable and organized into social collaborative notebooks, but they lack advanced collaborative functions. further, many tools have distractive environments, referring to the intrusion into the reading/writing screen environment by other social collaborative activities, such as checking email, social media, web browsing, and receiving computer alerts (johannsen & sun, 2017). high distraction screen environments, such as google suite, operate with most or all intrusions on attention, while low distraction screen environments, such as notion, operate with few or no intrusions. natural learning laboratories the first author began piloting the ceric method with google suite annotations during scientific writing courses at universities in the u.s. and europe. for instance, the method was a popular topic at a series of doctoral writing workshops in 2019 at the university of bern, switzerland. the participants explained that many doctoral students in europe speak english as a second or third language and must publish in english without formal or institutional support. thus, the perceived need for support was tremendous, and engagement was high. many participants revised and customized the tools to meet their contexts better. one participant in these workshops, a postdoc in physics, bemoaned using google sheets because of the hard-to-read output interface. during the session, he wrote some python code in a jupyter notebook (kluyver et al., 2016) that exported his sheets data to overleaf, a collaborative authoring software standard in physical sciences. before the end of that workshop, several other students were using overleaf to practice the ceric method, building a shared, collaborative annotations database. this clinical experience underscored how perceived usefulness and perceived ease are critical factors for an innovation’s adoption (davis et al., 1989). this insight led the first author to explore how to make annotation more useful and easier by combining ceric with current sca tools. meanwhile, the second author (laura) supports a writing clinic for doctoral students in the jhu ed.d. program as part of her teaching responsibilities. in this writing clinic, doctoral students have needed support with issues as varied as developing effective notetaking systems to difficulty with literature synthesis. drawing on schunk (2012) and the need for students to have effective information retrieval systems, she often begins writing consultations by asking students about their note-taking systems. students share that, in many of these consultations, they do not have note-taking systems beyond highlighting, including highlighting in digital texts. annotations are an ongoing challenge. however, students increasingly rely on microsoft onenote provided to jhu students for a searchable and fileable note-taking system for coursework. finally, the third author (adam) uses the ceric framework to train doctoral students to use and analyze primary literature in the physical sciences. this training occurs in the academic setting of topical graduate courses, where primary literature provides the core knowledge base; and in the research setting, where primary literature supports project and publication development. he has also applied ceric with various annotation methods, including those shown in figures 6a and 6b, to develop novel teaching methods. examples include using ceric as a structure for scientific presentations of the primary literature in formal settings (e.g., required course components) and informal settings (e.g., journal clubs, seminars, and research group discussions). worked examples in graduate and professional education using sca tools differs from collecting citations with notes into a citation manager, such as mendeley (london, uk), refworks (bethesda, md), and zotero (washington, dc). popular citation tools archive citations with some tagging and note-taking functions. however, they cannot replicate the custom prompts that students need to capture essential information consistently. further, citation managers allow for database export but not synchronization with other users. by comparison, categorical reading methods combined with sca tools, shown in the following worked examples in figures 3-6, are flexible and can accommodate endless cycles of customization as students advance. general research examples for novice students in graduate and professional education, research papers in every field share the same basic categorical information, including author, year, title, article type, digital object identifier (doi), methods, findings, and conclusions. students can add questions about the article, how the article connects to a research project, and topical tags, and then share or export the information. an example using first-year ed.d. coursework appears in figures 3a and 3b. in figure 3a, each article’s basic categorical information generates the input form fields, such as title and main points. then inputted information populates to a spreadsheet for editing, sharing, and export, shown in figure 3b. the specific categories can be prompted by instructors or determined by students. relevant prompts vary by discipline, field, doctoral level, and sub-purpose, and this tool’s customization features allow for the variation. the approach, shown in figures 3a and 3b, offers several affordances. categorical reading notes can be added to and edited in a social collaborative tool by an individual, a group, or a combination. for instance, the first author created a personal archive of first-year readings for the jhu ed.d. program and then later shared it with a study group preparing for the comprehensive exam. the group members added and edited a combined total of two years’ worth of crucial information about course readings. this process created discussion points for making meaning, clarifying misunderstandings, healing learning breakdowns, and generating a searchable archive for fast retrieval. bjorn, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 54 figure 3a. general categorical reading prompts inputted into google forms note. this illustration of a google form was customized for the level of reading detail typical of general research. however, spreadsheets are not intuitive interfaces for everyone. figure 4 shows an example of using notion to organize and store ceric notes as an sca with its clean visual interface. notion is programmable and built for customizable team use. notion's block design allows for infinite nesting of notes-within-notes using any media format and desktop functions, making it possible to capture every minute detail and related activity. other note-taking applications, such as bear, evernote, and nimbus note, function similarly to notion's note-taking and notebook functions. however, they lack notion's block and nesting functions, whole-desktop integration, and team collaboration. students more comfortable with basic coding may especially enjoy the flexibility of programming desired functions. one unique affordance of notion is a powerful platform for research groups to program, create, organize, store, and synchronize many types of data and documents. figure 5 shows an example of using trello to organize a general research project. the software functions as a project manager, which fits well with multi-step research papers. the highly visual interface is intuitive for many, using note cards with drag and drop functions. trello functions well for project management because of the multi-user options and calendar integration. one unique affordance of this software is that students who struggle with organization skills can integrate sca with project management cues and tools. figure 3b. output of the form shown in figure 3a as a social collaborative annotation in google sheets note. the resulting data file (csv or xls) can be exported to other applications, such as overleaf or shared with collaborators. sheets can also export data to jupyter notebooks for further analysis, such as programming in python. reading research for writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 55 figure 4. general categorical reading prompts using ceric inputted into notion note. this example shows notion as an sca tool customized for general research using the primary literature. there is a custom template with the search function highlighted (top right) and notebook organization (left). figure 5. general categorical reading prompts using ceric inputted into trello note. this sca example with trello was customized for general research using the primary literature. bjorn, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 56 advanced research example as students advance in their programs, they need more breadth and depth of understanding of the primary literature. this work includes efficiently deconstructing arguments and critical points in a growing body of research papers, storing large amounts of information for quick retrieval, and synthesizing new knowledge. traditionally, doctoral students are expected to implicitly absorb this argument structure through repeated reading or casual discussion. in reality, many students focus on the publication sections, such as abstract, methods, results, and discussion, instead of evaluating the main argument, which is the root of poorly constructed literature reviews described by boote and beile (2005). without cognitive strategies to deconstruct an argument from evidence, students struggle to apply and synthesize arguments into new knowledge, as is required for a literature review, proposal, and dissertation thesis. ceric concepts form every research paper's core. figure 6a shows the google forms input modified to an advanced research level. this advanced form includes ceric and other important, nuanced information, such as research design, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and peer-review status. again, the input form fields are fully customizable by disciplinary and project needs. figure 6b shows the output to a spreadsheet for editing, sharing, and export. the level of detail is much higher in this worked example, reflecting a more advanced understanding of the primary literature. a unique affordance of this combination is flexibility and capacity for growth and expansion as students’ needs and conditions change. another application of the advanced research approach shown in figures 6a and 6b is creative problem-solving. the following example emerged from interviews of 12 doctoral students concerning academic challenges and support conducted by the first author in october 2020 (bjorn, 2020). one participant, a fourth-year doctoral student in mathematics, explained that exporting ceric-sca data in sheets to overleaf allowed for real-time peer editing. two or three students joined synchronously in the same document, shared ceric figure 6a. advanced categorical reading prompts using ceric inputted into google forms note. this example of a google form illustrates customization for an advanced level of reading detail typical of doctoral research showing claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, and context (ceric), the core components of arguing from evidence in research sciences. notes, tags, citations, and databases. with these tools open to all, they wrote and then edited each other’s work in real-time. the participant explained that the process of live peer editing is “slower than writing on my own, but there is a big upside of not learning my mistakes for a month while waiting for my advisor to give me feedback on a section.” this insight underscores the power of creatively combining categorical reading with sca tools to draw upon more capable others and solve problems, such as long lag time for feedback. this work also suggests a future where live collaboration is the norm, particularly for students already immersed in the milieu of social media, sophisticated smartphone apps, and group work. figure 6b. output of the form shown in figure 6a as a social collaborative annotation in google sheets note. the resulting data file (csv or xls) can be exported to other applications, such as overleaf and shared with collaborators. sheets can also export data to jupyter notebooks for further analysis, such as programming in python. tags in addition to promoting critical reading and storing notes for quick retrieval, the sca tools shown in this essay utilize tags. tags are simple yet powerful forms of categorizing used in social media that further organize categorical information according to user needs and preferences (shimic, 2008). tags help people find and situate ideas, providing a mode of peripheral social collaborative participation (lave & wenger, 2012). tags also create flexible search tools, not available with traditional annotation tools, that support reading-for-writing by making the process of retrieval faster and more straightforward. table 2 provides a comparison of sca tools offering tags, such as evernote, google suite, notion, one note, or trello. many commonly used note-taking tools, such as bear, evernote, and nimbus note, offer tag functions. by comparison, commonly used storage tools, such as onedrive and google drive, lack the granular functions of tagging and exporting available in many sca tools. whichever tools are selected, critical reading skills, like other cognitive skills, benefit from spaced and interleaved practice (brown et al., 2014). after students complete their scas, they can tag and archive the annotations for later retrieval using the preferred tool(s). reading research for writing impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.237 57 implications and next steps the possibilities and empirical research described above carries several implications. critical reading methods, such as ceric, make hidden expectations of doctoral programs explicit. a structured approach to reading the primary literature creates a more equitable learning environment when integrated into existing coursework and learning activities. in combination with sca, ceric offers freedom from the transmission model of learning, where the professor lectures and the students regurgitate. sca can help build learning communities that increase students’ agency and power in constructing knowledge, realizing something closer to a constructivist learning ideal. thus, sca generates a unique opportunity to make classrooms more equitable by subverting the historically marginalizing higher education practices centered on the professor. another implication of sca is to challenge artificial academic course timelines and research silos to create a sustained community of contributors within research groups and department systems. sca can be integrated into coursework, but the learning community is not limited by calendars or enrollment. the immediate next step is that the first author is developing a dissertation study that incorporates the ceric method with sca tools as part of an online skills intervention with doctoral students. this project aims to investigate the relationship of ceric plus sca to critical reading skills, engagement, and competence. the second author guides this work as a dissertation committee member and director of jhu’s ed.d. writing clinic. the third author is exploring scaffolded applications of ceric in both classroom and research group environments. future studies should explore skills interventions at the doctoral level that focus on the co-construction of reading, writing, and research skills. conclusion learning writing in a doctoral discipline exposes the socially situated field norms of arguing from evidence in the primary research literature. using a categorical reading method that makes explicit the essential claim, evidence, reasoning, implications, and context (ceric) supports students' critical reading skills and learning to deconstruct arguments from evidence. further, the method provides a pedagogy for synthesizing and applying evidence-based arguments to create new knowledge. students' annotations can prompt first draft thinking, avoiding a blank page when writing and reassuring students that they have captured the critical information about the main argument from the reading. the main implication of categorical reading combined with sca tools is that readingresearch-for-writing becomes an efficient way to deconstruct scholarly arguments while potentially increasing engagement, collaboration, and inclusion, particularly in online learning environments. future studies should assess categorical reading methods, such as ceric, in combination with sca tools, and the relationship between reading primary literature, annotation, writing, and research. references abdullah, c., parris, j., lie, r., guzdar, a., & tour, e. 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(2018). the phd experience: a review of the factors influencing doctoral students’ completion, achievement, and well-being. international journal of doctoral studies, 13. https://doi.org/10.28945/4113 tirado, r., hernando, á., & aguaded, j. i. (2015). the effect of centralization and cohesion on the social construction of knowledge in discussion forums. interactive learning environments, 23(3), 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2012.745437 toulmin, s., rieke, r., & janik, a. (1984). argumentation in science. in an introduction to reasoning. macmillan publishing. van pletzen, e. (2006). a body of reading: making “visible” the reading experiences of first-year medical students. in l. thesen, e. van pletzen, & n. s. ndebele (eds.), academic literacy and the languages of change (pp. 104-129). continuum international publishing group. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. harvard university press. zywica, j., & gomez, k. (2008). annotating to support learning in the content areas: teaching and learning science. journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 52(2), 155-165. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/jaal.52.2.6 genevive a. bjorn johns hopkins university laura quaynor johns hopkins university (1) adam j. burgasser university of california, san diego theoretical and conceptual framework literature review course discussions reading and writing annotation social annotation improving reading research for writing skills natural learning laboratories worked examples in graduate and professional education general research examples advanced research example tags implications and next steps conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 9 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 more knowledgeable other(s): sensemaking and networking in digital ad-hocracies caroline b. rabalais georgia state university cbedingfield1@gsu.edu trevor aleo university of illinois urbana-champaign taleo2@illinois.edu dianne wellington suny cortland dianne.wellington@cortland.edu abstract vygotsky’s (1934; 1980) sociocultural theories of learning posit that learning is a socially negotiated activity. learners can sustain this activity, and specifically how they engage in literacy practices, through participatory experiences with experts, known in sociocultural theory as a more knowledgeable other (mko). however, hierarchies in academia can make these possibilities for collaboration scarce or difficult to break through for doctoral students, sustaining traditional hierarchies and bureaucracies of education. digital platforms, though, can afford the possibility of subverting these divisions of social order in the academy and make room for different interlocutors to not only better access these mkos but to also become an analogous mko. in sociallymediated spaces such as twitter, otherwise known as x, an acceptance of ontological and epistemological plurality can occur in virtual communities of practice. through three examples with the american educational research association’s (aera) writing and literacies monthly twitter chats, the authors showcase how vygotsky’s concept of the mko can appear in digital spaces, demonstrate the participatory nature of online writing communities, present the possibilities in providing opportunities for online collaborative experiences, and highlight the importance of a plurality of knowledge in public scholarship. keywords digital literacies, sociocultural theory, ad-hocracies, writing community according to pollard and kumar (2021), the relationship between students and faculty mentors is a key variable in determining the success and quality of graduate education. similarly, graduate students' abilities to form meaningful connections with peers plays a vital role in ensuring a sense of connectedness that fosters student wellbeing and creates future opportunities for productive collaboration (martin, 2021; roberts, 2010). with the recent covid-19 crisis shifting programs across the country into distance or hybrid formats, there has been increased pressure on doctoral students and faculty alike to cultivate those connections in virtual spaces. while most colleges use formal networks and platforms to facilitate those connections, ardichivili (2008) claims there are unique affordances to virtual communities of practice that form organically online. more specifically, there are a number of studies suggesting twitter is a particularly useful platform for fostering such relationships (ebner et al., 2010; gao et al., 2012; risser, 2013). considering edd programs are primarily designed to cater to working professionals (perry, 2012), online communities provide opportunities to better network and collaborate with scholars and fellow graduate students who would not be accessible otherwise. we posit that digital communities of practice can increase opportunities for networking, mentoring, and promoting one’s research and scholarship, and we offer our own experiences as doctoral students to illustrate this claim. as members of the american educational research association’s (aera) writing and literacies special interest group’s graduate student board, the authors of this article were uniquely positioned to explore the digital affordances offered by virtual communities of practice through organizing and hosting monthly twitter chats with senior scholars in the field of literacies research. on the last tuesday of every month, the board would invite prominent literacy scholars to tweet a series of questions based on a self-selected topic related to their research. respondents would reply to the provided questions using the #literacies hashtag, share resources related to chat topics, and engage with fellow chat participants. to access the chats, participants often view advertisements from various social media outlets, including facebook and twitter. within these platforms, members of the writing and literacies community, as well as the broader community, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3804-1153 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5300-5159 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-2757-479x rabalais et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 10 retweet and share the advertisements with the aim of reaching a diverse audience of participants. the writing and literacies twitter chats serve as an exemplar of how digital platforms can provide a context for scholars to form impromptu communities of practice and connect over shared research interests. additionally, the public nature of twitter chats means that practitioners, professional learning facilitators, and administrators were and continue to be able to access and join the discussion as the chats are archived. the brief intersection of knowledge, skills, and perspectives offered by these different groups allows for the creation of systems that doctorow (2003) refers to as ad-hocracies, which contrast sharply with the traditional hierarchies and bureaucracies of education. as emerging scholars ourselves, one a current edd student, one a phd student, and one a recent graduate of a doctoral program and current assistant professor, we have frequently been told or heard the stories of other scholars being told, "you need to read more, you need to do more research, you need to network." we have discovered that it is almost impossible to meet everyone we want to meet or read everything we need to read. serving on the special interest group’s communications team, we were exposed to researchers and scholarship via twitter chats, which transformed the game for us and encouraged additional research. we recall a conversation that highlighted how many graduate students experience intimidation while meeting with established scholars. over time, we learned twitter chats may assist with alleviating apprehension in this situation since they do away with the hierarchical structure of face-to-face dialogue and instead promote informal, pleasant conversation. in engaging with these digital literacy practices, emerging and practiced researchers can find more joy and opportunity for community and collaboration (hodges, 2017; hunter et al., 2018; loomis, 2018). in this article, we explore the possibilities of writing in the online world through illustrations of three monthly twitter chats, born from our experience as three doctoral students who are current or former members of the american educational research association’s (aera) writing and literacies graduate student board. as hunter and others (2018) argue, those in academia can generate connections between novice and veteran scholars and “contribute meaningfully toward new understandings that could emerge from such investigative partnerships” (p. 44). this article has implications for teachers, researchers, and emerging scholars, particularly edd students, who want to cultivate educational experiences to be more accessible, equal, and conducive to collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. sociocultural theories of learning we borrow vygotsky’s (1934; 1980) understanding of sociocultural theories of learning as a springboard of inquiry into graduate student experiences with online learning communities. hodges (2017) sustains that sociocultural theories “emerged from the work of vygotsky (1980) who posited that children learn about the world around them from more knowledgeable others (mkos) or those who have a greater mastery of the subject matter” (p. 140). sociocultural theories thus postulate that social interactions with those who are more expert, or rather those who are the mkos, aid learners in knowledge construction. further, vygotsky (1980) argues that learning does not only follow a top-down model, but it can follow horizontal or bottom-up structures, too, encouraging epistemological plurality in all learners. through the avenue of twitter, users can encourage this kind of meaning making with various opportunities, like “initiating new conversations, joining ongoing discussions, [and] revisiting and rereading portions of the text” (hunter et al., 2018, p. 43). thus, in connecting concepts of digital literacy with vygotsky’s sociocultural theories of learning on the focus of mkos, we propose that immersing oneself in nontraditional ways of networking allows one to share their thoughts and readily engage with mkos, engaging with the world around them through digital interactions. in this case, our experts or mkos at any point can be the host or a participant of one of our twitter chats. knowledge construction, as we showcase, happens in varying directions, and the twitter chats encourage a plurality of knowledge. with sociocultural theories of learning in mind, we exhibit how interactions in twitter chats can lead to growth in participants and hosts. additionally, we discuss how the participatory nature of digital culture de-emphasizes traditional hierarchies in ways that allow for more collaborative knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer learning (jenkins, 2006). as we showcase these twitter chats, one can find an important note on vygotsky’s connection to digital writing on the application twitter in smagorinsky’s (2024) work. he shares, “it’s hard to say what vygotsky would have thought of tweets, emojis, cultural dialects, and other compositional elements of the multicultural 21st century, especially in a society built around freemarket capitalism and its rapid changes, and the inequities it inevitably produces” (p. 237). even with the change in title of the application to x in 2023 and the change in ownership over time, the foundation of twitter remains the same despite its entrenchment in growing one’s followers through viral, sometimes funny, or shocking messages. though we cannot go back and ask vygotsky what he would think now about digital literacies or the evolution of 21st century online spaces, we want to offer these monthly twitter chats as examples of opportunities for collaborative knowledge building, reflection, and meaning making in the digital world. uplifting existing literature literacy is a process where writers learn to comprehend, connect, and question the world in which they live through use of their language and community (heath, 1983; smagorinsky, 2024; warschauer & tate, 2018). literacy exists offline and online, but many have found that online platforms afford greater opportunities for collaboration and even epistemological plurality (hodges, 2017). with the innovations of the 21st century, there are more paths to engage in digital literacy events with people from all over the world and from all walks of life. reddy et al. (2020) define digital literacy as “the use of digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge-based society” (p. 82). with digital literacies in mind, we went forward in this study with the understanding of the possibilities that online communities can afford. further, several studies posit that online communities allow space for subverting traditional expectations of learning and embrace participants’ many ways of being and knowing (cook & smith, 2004; kinloch, 2007; martin, 2021). yarris and others’ (2019) model of the anatomy of a virtual community of practice, presented in figure one, represents the ancillary nature of the twitter chats and the varying levels of participation. more knowledgeable other(s) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 11 figure 1. anatomy of a virtual community of practice (yarris et al., 2019) though focused on medical education, their model illustrates the possibilities of online communities of practice and the importance of supporting “members at all levels of engagement” so they can “experience benefits from participation and feel included and intrinsically motivated to continue” (p. 3). martin (2021) also highlights the benefits of finding one’s online community for purposes of support, guidance, and intellectual stimulation during and beyond one’s doctoral journey. martin (2021) argues, “[it] was necessary for me to develop ways of maintaining contact with the [communities of practice] of which i consider myself a member. this was through contact via social media, email, telephone, and other forms of electronic communication” (p. 38). in becoming digitally literate and growing with the new technology introduced in educational spaces each day, we can grow in community and participate in discourses that grow our collective knowledge base (reddy et al., 2020). despite the affordances of this technology to create safe spaces for networking, it is important to note that social media is not without drawbacks: increased anxiety (vannucci et al., 2017), exposure to toxic attitudes or perspectives (akram, 2017), and even hate speech based on race, gender, and ethnicity (matamoros-fernández, 2021) are all possible issues one might face online. in addition to understanding the tools provided by twitter/x to safely participate in chats and curate our audience, we have taken several steps to prevent these issues. by limiting our external advertising to academic spaces, using hashtags strategically, and focusing chat topics on identity affirming and culturally sustaining pedagogies, our chats have avoided the potential pitfalls of platform networking. context: experiencing experiences except for a pause during the month of the aera annual conference and for a holiday break, each month the aera writing and literacies graduate student board finds a host(s) for monthly twitter chats. the host(s) then chooses a critical topic of their choice, and the graduate student board members help them create a variety of questions to pose to the writing and literacies community on the last tuesday of the month to generate community, to support collaboration, and to advance our collective knowledge of that topic. this experience with online writing and with digital interactions with these expert scholars is one where many people from all over the world join to answer the questions with the #literacies hashtag and to communicate with other like-minded scholars. each month, the experience of participating in a twitter chat teaches participants something new and helps them to network with the mkos who were that month’s host or who were other users in this chat. this digital space provides users with 280 characters, up from 140, to respond to other participants; therefore, this forces users to be concise in their writing and to choose the most meaningful and impactful responses to questions (larson, 2017). the rules at play during these chats were that each time we responded to a question, we needed to respond with a tweet that showed which question we were answering. for example, for question one, we answered by starting our tweets with “a1” for answer number one (wellington, 2022). another rule of the twitter chat is that users need to write the hashtag #literacies with each tweet written. this helped all who were participating in the chat to see each tweet in one easily accessible space. the hashtag allowed users to tap the blue #literacies (see figure two) to generate a list of all tweets created with this hashtag. figure 2. rules of the twitter chat despite tweet restrictions, the chats are a friendly, intellectual space. smagorinsky (2013) writes of vygotsky’s idea of perezhivanie, a russian term which encapsulates what he has deemed the metaexperience, or “the manner in which people experience their experiences” (p. 195). he provides an example of a student who feels shame in schooling because his teacher often corrects his speech to a more dominant form of english. this situation makes this student associate learning with shame, and thus, this learner will feel inferior in education spaces and associate schooling with negativity. the way we experience participating in and helping to facilitate the twitter chats is meant to be completely counter to this example; instead, the chats are positive, uplifting, and welcoming. speech, as vygotsky (1934) defined it, is “a means of social interaction, a means of expression and understanding” (p. 45). as we operated in the chats, the precise language we used helped users to communicate with other participants hours and miles away and to cultivate a strong sense of community. the speech of the twitter chats is concise through its technological affordances and restrictions to the 240 characters. the dance in the digital space is an expression of social interactions and a mesh of different cultures; in the twitter application, rules of play are established, and through interacting with mkos, other twitter users strengthen their knowledge and widen their communities. we illustrate the rules of the twitter chats to show how at once these rabalais et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 12 chats are open to all languages and thoughts. however, they are still restricted by the digital avenue of twitter. despite the character restriction, we present these chats as a supportive online community that is both a learning network as well as a community that cultivates positivity and shows the complexity of the participatory nature of the digital world. methods the findings in this article stem from a post-hoc analysis (heaton, 2004) of experiences participating in three online twitter chats in 2022. these chats serve as sounding boards for important topics in literacy education, and as graduate students, being on the same metaphorical playing field as our hosts was new. we began to grow more confident in our own learning and writing and in discussion with each other, and in reading past chats, we began to create a line of questioning about the power of the digital space. these questions that guided this study included but were not limited to the following: 1. how can graduate students utilize digital avenues like twitter to interact with senior scholars in their field? 2. how do online communities of practice in academia encourage an acceptance of epistemological plurality? guided by these questions, we conducted an initial analysis of january’s, february’s, and march’s twitter chats to interpret our experiences. we narrowed our analysis to three chats conducted at the beginning of 2022 because of the rich diversity of experiences that our participants and our hosts offered and because january’s chat was the first one for two of the authors. we set out to analyze past chats with our own autoethnographic reflections of our community (hughes & pennington, 2017; schmid, 2019), which became cyclical in nature as we moved back and forth between our thoughts and connections to participants’ tweets. as we read through the tweets demarcated by #literacies, we more thoroughly read vygotsky’s (1934; 1980) words to help situate our analysis and findings. his words helped us to think more deeply and better understand our interactions with hosts and other participants. to gain insight into each other's comprehension of and involvement with the twitter chats, we also debriefed after our reflections. we reflected on our own positionalities and our initial interactions and understandings of the text of the chats. in doing so, we better ignited our understanding of the data. for reference of our identities, author one is a white, monolingual, and neurodivergent cis-gender woman, and she is a third-year doctoral student but was in her first year at the time the authors collected this data. author two identifies as a white, neurodivergent cis-gender male and third-year doctoral student. author three identifies as a transnational woman and was a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the time of data collection. understanding and interrogating our own identities helped us to better view the twitter chats with critical eyes, lending an element of reflection that strengthened our analysis. more specifically, our debriefing sessions operated as an extension of the chats themselves. we three as the writing and literacies twitter team met to discuss various topics that led to our analysis. these topics included our own participation, audience participation, moderation of the chat, shared resources, and host interaction with participants. our iterative reflections led to our discovering the collaborative, welcoming atmosphere that these digital spaces offered. while no formal coding took place in our analysis sessions, our debriefing conversations led us to discover critical junctures in each twitter chat as representative of their collaborative nature and their possibilities. our positionalities differently informed our participation, so our discussions afterward saturated what points in the conversation were most impactful and illustrative to our themes of the collaborative possibilities of the online community of practice. additionally, we want to explicitly underscore that we investigated potential ethical complications of our autoethnographic work, referencing edwards’ (2021) guidelines. before undergoing the analysis of our work, we made sure to receive consent from anyone, including our twitter hosts, whose names or tweets would appear in this study. if we did not seek permission but those users’ names appear in a conversation that we share here, we block out their names for protection of their identities. with the twitter participants whose names and handles we show, we provided them context for how we would use their tweets to further our analysis and offered to share excerpts from our writing with them. we also thank them for graciously lending their thoughts to this examination of twitter chats that follows. following our recursive analysis practices, we wrote the findings as reflections of our own experiences during these chats as we learned from the hosts and they from us in return. findings: the twitter chats from january-march 2022 vygotsky (1934) writes that “[the] meaningful word is a microcosm of human consciousness” (p. 284). the twitter chats themselves uplift each of the participants' ideas and connections into its own microcosm of the aera community. through the following presentations of january's, february's, and march’s twitter chats in 2022, we aim to show the unfolding knowledge of this small community and the potential for impact, connection, and breaking hierarchies of knowledge. changing faces, changing spaces: a thin line between study and reality january’s twitter chat, hosted by dr. rae oviatt, a former member of the aera writing and literacies graduate student board and now current assistant professor of teacher education, was the first chat of 2022. two authors, caroline and trevor, of this article were new to the twitter chat experience, but the welcoming nature of the host and the other participants helped create an inviting and lowstakes online community. as the only member of the team in a parttime online edd program, this chat took on even more significance for trevor. often, such students forgo the opportunity to network, engage, and collaborate with scholars outside their institution in exchange for more flexible programming and an emphasis on applied research. this first chat helped trevor realize the power of twitter chats to grow his network and connect with scholars with similar research interests. the first question of each month’s chat always asks for participants to introduce themselves and state where they are joining from to both establish a community and to ease into the chat’s more thought-provoking questions. the writing and literacies twitter account frequently reposts, or rather retweets, responses from twitter users participating in the chat to embrace community. more knowledgeable other(s) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 13 caroline’s first answer was retweeted by fellow board member and w&l media scholarship coordinator, dianne, who was moderating the chat (2022). users can find this retweet that was alongside so many others, from fellow doctoral students to full professors, to be a positive, productive start to the chat, and then those users can steel themselves to engage in the topic at hand. figure 3. example of a welcoming digital environment these chats allow for our hosts to highlight critical topics, and for january’s chat, dr. oviatt wanted to discuss self-care, subversive strategies in the classroom, and uplifting scholars who are critically engaging in literacy scholarship in moments of change. to illustrate the collaborative nature of the twitter chats, we want to highlight dr. oviatt’s answer to question three of the chat, which asked, “what are the subversive tools that we engaged in our classroom careers that could be recalled, remembered, and repurposed for our #literacies work in the academe?” (wellington, 2022). in her answer, dr. oviatt wrote of “creative insubordination” and shared a recent piece she authored (oviatt, 2022). in figure four, dr. oviatt engages in conversation with trevor, building on this user’s tweet to show where the term “creative insubordination” originated. their dialogue here represents the relationship of a host and a participant where both parties participate in sharing their thoughts that emerge from the chat. figure 4. the host engages in conversations with users in caroline’s response to question four, which asks participants to consider what it means “to take up subversive strategies in our current systems and institutions,” she answered with her emerging knowledge on “subversive strategies” from this chat’s host, dr. oviatt (wellington, 2022). caroline’s tweet generated more replies than she expected, one which was a positive affirmation to her thoughts and two replies that built off of her ideas, centering her in this conversation as an mko. see figure five for the partial conversation. in this discussion, spearheaded by caroline’s growing ideas from dr. oviatt’s knowledge she was sharing, participants responded to her tweet by discussing dr. gholnescar muhammad’s book cultivating genius (2020) and sharing their favorite ideas from this text. figure 5. digital conversation about humanizing practices in education through this chat, we learned more about approaches of self-care during a worldwide pandemic. with tweets promoted by the #literacies hashtag and by the @writinglit twitter account, participants were able to interact with mkos as well as be an mko for others in the social world of twitter. black lives and literacies: who’s included and who’s often overlooked? february’s twitter chat brought dr. patriann smith as the host, and her joyous interactions with participants further instilled the positive construction of knowledge brought on by these monthly events. dr. smith’s communication with participants that evening consisted of her sharing ideas from her newest book, affirming black students’ lives & literacies (willis et al., 2022), and our collective rabalais et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 14 knowledge of the black diaspora grew as a result of this chat. coincidentally, dianne pre-ordered dr. smith’s book, so the conversation with her furthered her understanding of what it means to affirm black students. after beginning with introductions, the chat continued by asking what scholars we know who affirm black lives and literacies in their research and practice. having just read bakerbell’s (2020) book, caroline eagerly typed a tweet and mentioned her, and dr. patriann smith shared her own list of scholars, consisting of “pat edwards, kisha bryan, april baker-bell, jamila lysicott, yolanda sealey-ruiz, gholdy muhammad, detra pricedennis, allison skerrett, cheryl mcclean, and so many other black scholars” (smith, 2022). only three of these scholars are ones whose work caroline had heard of in her so far brief experience in the academy, so she quickly added the other names to her growing to-read list. for dianne, she was affirmed by the list of scholars dr. smith mentioned as she was studying for her qualifying exams, and these were some of the scholars she had been studying. this positioned dianne as an expert in this respect, for she was able to share her growing knowledge of these scholars during the chat. april baker-bell was mentioned many other times throughout this chat, with many people promoting her knowledge from linguistic justice (2020) and sharing their takeaways. the public nature of twitter chats opens up opportunities for other voices to be “tagged in” to the discussion in ways that provide recognition for scholars' work and to provide them with the opportunity to comment, question, or critique the ways other participants are engaging with their ideas. baker-bell in this sense was also a proverbial mko during this chat, as we used her work to leverage our engagement with the chat’s topic. however, at one point during this chat, baker-bell herself joined and showed her support for our community’s ideas (baker-bell, 2022). in response, one of the writing and literacies members retweeted her tweet with excitement, shown in figure six (jones, 2022). the interactions of this evening brought dr. baker-bell to our discussion, and her support showed that our ideas were important and timely, as evidenced by her use of the dart emoji. figure 6 an aera w&l member retweets dr. baker-bell’s tweet an additional tweet we would like to highlight is one where caroline responded to the question of affirming, honoring, and respecting black lives and literacies in our current education system. caroline highlighted the work that her university engages in, and dr. smith replied to commend that work (see figure seven). from caroline’s positionality as a white woman, many of the concepts from this evening’s tweets were ones she was happy to learn from and to show her emerging ideas. figure 7. the host responds to a participant’s tweet esposito and evans-winters (2022) argue, “who we are ultimately shapes the analysis that we complete. there is no need to pretend that it does not or that we can bracket our subjectivities out” (p. 151). upon reflection, dr. smith’s connections to everyone’s thoughts and to the topic at hand helped caroline as a novice researcher learn from the more experienced host with her wealth of knowledge and with her support of black lives and literacies. further, her insight provided a deeper understanding of how trevor’s positionality might influence his future literacies research and scaffolded his efforts to write a full positionality statement in his first research methods class. dr. smith’s conversation also supported dianne’s research as she was completing her qualifying exams at the time of the chat. the chat affirmed dianne’s thinking and solidified some of her thoughts relating to her own research. possibilities of healing: moving towards foundations of restoration, joy, love, peace, and abundance for march’s twitter chat, dr. kakali bhattacharya joined us to discuss her expertise on healing, love, joy, and peace in one’s literacy practices. this chat on healing was also important in helping the writing and literacies group support each other and remind us to take time away from strict rules of academia. as we prepared for the chat, dianne found that some of her research overlapped with dr. more knowledgeable other(s) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 15 bhattacharya’s insight. dianne learned quickly in preparing for the twitter chat, she was not going to write that day but take a moment to learn. similarly, dr. bhattacharya’s expansive framing of both literacy learning and qualitative research blurred the boundaries between trevor’s academic research and his personal reading of thinkers and storytellers whose work falls outside the traditional parameters of academic scholarship. seeing as the planning of the call took place on zoom, we were afforded an informal space to connect, share, and learn from dr. bhattacharya outside the confines of traditional academic and institutional structures. in fact, trevor was able to join from his classroom in between classes during a normal school day, further demonstrating how the affordances of the digital word allow part time edd students the ability to have the same opportunities to learn from senior scholars as their full time phd peers. dr. bhattacharya’s insights were incredibly valuable for each of the special interest group’s members in different ways, but they were more than welcome in our shared corner of twitter. in our initial planning conversation for the twitter chat, dr. bhattacharya discussed border crossing via anzaldúa’s (2007) work with the members of the writing and literacies board. with dr. bhattacharya’s encouragement and ideas in mind, caroline replied to a question during the twitter chat asking about border crossing in the academy by noting anzaldúa’s (2007) book borderlands | la frontera: the new mestiza (see figure eight). figure 8. two users discuss literacies of healing via border crossing dr. bhattacharya’s expert knowledge on the sig members’ burgeoning knowledge gave caroline the confidence to mention anzaldúa during this chat, and dr. bhattacharya echoed their conversation by retweeting her answer with a comment of her own: “i love me some anzaldúa. if you liked borderlands, wait till you read light in the dark which was supposed to be her dissertation. that book changes as my awareness expands. i joke that she is writing and updating the text from the other side of the veil” (bhattacharya, 2022). her support and suggestion helped caroline to better understand borderlands (2007), and like other chats, dr. bhattacharya’s position as the mko afforded her the opportunity to grow other participants’ thoughts as well. dr. bhattacharya’s suggestion helped dianne to further conceptualize her dissertation study as dianne was interested in healing, joy, peace, love, and wellbeing. dianne went on to read light in the dark (keating & anzaldúa, 2015), and it changed her understanding of her work; she learned that gloria anzaldúa’s work influences her thinking. this chat even allowed dianne to build an ongoing relationship with dr. bhattacharya. during the chat, participants engaged with ideas of supporting research participants, crossing borders, and immersing oneself in care and joy in life. through the digital platform of twitter with the use of the hashtag #literacies, we were all able to comment on each other’s thoughts and build ideas based on the host’s initial questions and accept and learn from each other's knowledge. one particular tweet we want to showcase is where dr. bhattacharya notes the avenue we are all using to connect with each other, seen in figure nine. figure 9. the march host replies to a user about online spaces in this tweet, dr. bhattacharya acknowledges a person’s “unfolding” knowledge and being a witness to this work (bhattacharya, 2022). following sociocultural theories of learning, dr. bhattacharya is showing the interconnected web of knowledge generation happening in this social interaction. through this twitter chat, chat participants helped build each other’s knowledge and share resources to bolster the community. discussion and implications the graduate board members’ positive experiences coordinating and running twitter chats suggests social media networks have unique affordances for researchers and educators looking to connect with other scholars in the field. it allowed for participants to learn directly from mkos in an accessible and non rabalais et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 16 intimidating way and to even become an mko, for all participants learned from each other and not just the host. over the years, the graduate student board has received feedback about graduate students not feeling worthy enough to engage in conversation with well-established scholars in the field, so this non-intimidating factor was essential. importantly, the informal nature and virtual context of the twitter chats did more than provide a space for senior scholars to mentor graduate students. it also invited opportunities for shared knowledge creation and reciprocal sharing of ideas and resources. the interactions shared in this article complicate static conceptions of mkos as having sole epistemic authority and instead engender a more dynamic and equitable epistemic plurality. further, in the aera twitter chats, our hosts rejected notions of writing and speaking in only the idea of standardized speech (or what baker-bell (2020) writes is white mainstream english), and they instead uplift one’s flexible and multiple ways of speaking and engaging with our small corner of twitter. for example, dr. patriann smith in february 2022 chose to title the chat “black lives and literacies: who’s included and who’s often overlooked?” (smith, 2022). in this chat, dr. smith shared with the #literacies community how she affirms black lives and literacies in her work “[by] illustrating how race, language and immigration intersect to influence the languaging of black youth in border-crossing” (smith, 2022). she proceeded to share a visual of what she coined the transraciolinguistic approach to illustrate her answer. in sharing her current work with a community of scholars, dr. smith shared her critical practice and how we, on the spectrum of emerging to veteran scholars and educators, can engage in a multitude of linguistic approaches. thinking about public scholarship, we understand this platform creates spaces for humanizing approaches in the academy as it is one of the few times all scholars can be positioned equitably. working with senior scholars while utilizing this platform can promote and shift the audience’s consciousness to acknowledge the plurality that exists in public scholarship. it has the ability to encourage selfinquiry regarding what an individual considers scholarship and to help broaden the perspectives for others and their conceptualization of scholarship. utilizing this platform and learning alongside the hosts essentially recognizes the diverse worldviews and interactions that exist with the broader public like scholars, teachers, youth, and community members. as a note, while we continue to reiterate the supportive nature of the chats, it is possible that some participants had more negative experiences. namely, many members, including the authors, possess misgivings about hosting these conversations on the platform twitter/x. with x/twitter having a team of leaders with questionable values, we find it difficult to not feel like we are inadvertently supporting those views by continuing to hold these conversations. this platform could inherently give writing and literacies members uncomfortable feelings, leading to their nonparticipation. however, while the writing and literacies board has discussed finding a new application to hold our monthly chats, other options have not appeared as ideal as this one. its accessibility and its longevity make it difficult to move to another space, but we trust that wherever our chats happen that the collaborative nature between audience, host, and moderators will continue. limitations regarding limitations to this work, there are a couple to note. while we found that participation in these chats was collaborative and positive, it is possible that if this study analyzed non-graduate student board members’ experiences that our findings would be different. the three authors of this paper of course have a vested interest in the success of the monthly chats, so our preparation for each one was for their benefit. however, this likely is not the same for other participants who would not be privy to that evening’s questions beforehand. secondly, we have learned in the past that at times our chats go very quickly for participants. our chats last an hour once a month, and questions are paced about five minutes apart. for some participants, thoughtfully answering the host’s questions and interacting with others can be a lot to keep up with in a short time span. the authors have noticed this quick pace as well, and we typically write each question’s answers before the chat begins to give ourselves time to interact with others while moderating the conversation. we try to assuage this issue by reminding participants that the chats are available after the hour is up, and often people do decide to participate after the official time is over. still, we understand that time could have existed as a limitation to our understanding our audience participation. still, as noted, the questions and responses remain present even after the hour is up, so we hope that this solution alleviated some of that tension in our analysis. conclusion twitter as a sociocultural digital space during our monthly chats allowed for increased connection, meaningful engagement, and for the creation of ad-hocracies (doctorow, 2003). as doctoral students, we found that these chats provided us a widened access to scholarly activity that we previously did not have. these three illustrations follow vygotsky’s concept of the more knowledgeable other in sociocultural theory because, as vanderburg (2006) writes, “[vygotsky] strove to prove that social interactions enable humans to develop advanced thoughts through repeated interactions with more experienced individuals in the community” (p. 375). in interacting with mkos like dr. oviatt, dr. smith, and dr. bhattacharya, participants’ knowledge grew and caused them to interrogate their understandings about concepts such as literacies of healing and of translanguaging. further, participants became mkos in their own right as we shared knowledge and made room for discourse and collaboration. these chats allowed for a space where a community could come together and discuss topics of interest to generate constructive conversation through digital, collaborative discourse. hodges (2017) argues that “[historically,] writing has been viewed as a solitary activity, but with the significance of sociocultural theory, writing is now supported as a collaborative, social activity in which novice writers can learn from more experienced writers” (p. 141). with sociocultural theories of learning in mind, edd programs should look to twitter and other forms of social networking to help their doctoral students find community and find their own mkos to bolster their work and their own growing literacy practices. these opportunities for engaging in online literacy practices refer to “any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes,” (heath, 1983, p. 93) which we argue can happen in the space of twitter or other online more knowledgeable other(s) impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.413 17 applications. what these illustrations of the aera writing and literacies twitter chats 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(2019). finding your people in the digital age: virtual communities of practice to promote education scholarship. journal of graduate medical education, 11(1), 1– 5. https://doi.org/10.26438/ijcse/v5i10.351354 https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/07/technology/twitter-280-character-limit/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/07/technology/twitter-280-character-limit/index.html https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420982230 https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400108 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 31 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.224 what can we learn from early childhood theory and practice? leveraging early childhood models to prepare antiracist edd leaders samantha cohen american university cohen@american.edu jenni torres american university jennifert@american.edu abstract education doctoral programs have an essential role to play in this moment of american history, as we train, teach, guide, and prepare education professionals to learn, unlearn, and lead as antiracist education activists. edd program faculty and administrators sit in critical roles and must examine our own antiracist beliefs, while also facilitating anti-racist learning for our doctoral learners, who, in turn, must create anti-racist learning communities where they teach and lead. keywords anti-racism, edd, early childhood, humanity, humanagogy early childhood education, spanning infancy through second grade, typically and uniquely focus on social emotional learning, creativity, trust building, and community. child-focused programming for young learners often creates spaces for exploration, whether it is through finger painting or outdoor free play. within these early education structures and spaces, room for individuation and community naturally co-exist, along with experiences to support and teach relationship building and listening abound. early childhood educators look deeply to understand the strengths and interests of their young students, while teaching foundational skills like communication, compassion, and civility. these baseline skills serve as a necessary toolkit for empowering antiracist leaders and activists. while some higher education spaces, and namely, education doctoral programs (edds), aspire toward incorporating individuation, community, strengths-based learning, and compassion into their programming, edd program faculty, staff, and administrators ought to borrow from early childhood theory and practice. this could help catapult edd programs to more deeply center humanity and antiracism in their teaching, learning, and practice—supporting doctoral learners with transformative experiences, personally and professionally. dei (2005) states that antiracism requires us “to identify, challenge, and change the values, structures, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism and other forms of societal oppression” (p. 3). to be skilled at challenging and changing values, structures, and behaviors and creating a socially just education paradigm, education doctoral scholar practitioners must sharpen their tools and skills, with their early childhood fundamentals– listening, communication, and relationship building, while simultaneously focusing on systemic change. knowledge, theory, and practice from the early childhood arena can shed light on what higher education learning spaces could look like, what pedagogy or andragogy could entail, and what authentic creative play and community could include, so that we can support adult doctoral scholar practitioner learners, with their continued learning journeys. by intentionally building upon early childhood approaches, we can set in place foundations for creating antiracist, humanizing education doctoral programs. while much of this can be applied to higher education broadly, within this essay, we prioritize education doctorates, given their focus on practice, transformation, and creating socially just leaders for the present and future. through this essay, we set the stage by sharing the current opportunities and challenges within edd programs, ground our argument in learning theory, explore what higher education can learn from early childhood education (ece) spaces regarding humanity, space, and play, and we conclude with some questions and prompts for action for the edd community. edd programs–opportunity and challenge our existing education system, across pk-12 and higher education, has been designed to sort students, uphold classism and racism, and create compliance-oriented hierarchy. to understand and deconstruct these practices, doctoral students must deepen their knowledge of education’s history and reconceptualize what learning https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7943-2771 cohen & torres impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.224 32 can be. they must do this simultaneously for the students they serve and those teaching and serving within the programs. edd programs, which train, teach, and value doctoral learners, must support their edd leaders and learners to be in positions to re-imagine and deconstruct the remote and physical schools and classrooms that pk-12 students sit in today. the existence of educational doctoral programs and education at all levels, according to jon wergin (2011), is this de-construction and re-imagining, as it should be “emancipating, rather than indoctrinating” and serving as a “powerful tool for social change” (p. 121). wergin’s (2011) ideas build upon those of jean jacque rousseau, paulo freire, john dewey, eduard lindeman, and progressive educators, who all professed that education’s purpose was to transform our society and augment every individual within society. their call was for a third space, namely reconstructing one’s experience, mitigated through environment and dialogue, with the aims of education and democratization (vales & daneher, 2024). edd programs ought to exist to transform society, creating a more just, more democratic, and anti-racist society, not simply to uphold the white supremacist status quo. finding this new way, the third way, is paramount at this moment in history. edd programs must seize their raison d’etre: to prepare “practitioners—from principals to curriculum specialists, to teacher-educators, to evaluators—who can use existing knowledge to solve educational problems'' (shulman et al., 2006, p. 26). this disruption requires the creation of learning opportunities, spaces, and climates where every learner is valued and simultaneously the community of learners is fortified. this cannot be simply lecturing and teaching about what pk-12 classrooms can look like theoretically; this must be experienced and embodied within the edd programs themselves, such that learners grow to understand these practices and build their capacity to transfer them from higher education into pk-12. too often, within higher education and edd programs, the focus is on traditionally pedagogical, instructorcentered approaches, where the student is seen as deferential to the instructors’ knowledge and style (fornaciari & dean, 2014; pew, 2007). faculty, students, and staff must all consistently operate as learners and partners, deconstructing traditional roles and titles and conceptualizing together a third space. often, this can be challenging for adults, who default to traditional hierarchy and expectations. and this is needed, if we want to build a future education paradigm that is not a replication of sorting, classism, and racism. instead of prioritizing theory development and behaviorist approaches, education doctoral programs must consider learning in more holistic, human-centric ways. learning theory–adults, youth–how are we alike? the vast scholarship on learning spells out the distinctions between youth and adult learners, focusing on age as the critical consideration of how to teach. this dichotomy, while easy to measure, sets the stage for the debate between pedagogy vs andragogy: pedagogy as teaching techniques for youth and andragogy as teaching paradigms for adults. models for pedagogy are often teacher-centered and focused on transmitting simple skills and knowledge; models for andragogy are typically self-directed, problem-focused, and oriented toward self-actualization (holmes et al., 2000; jarvis, 2011; lee, 1998). while some debates continue about the contrasts between pedagogy and andragogy, others contend that this ageist categorization ought to be replaced with humanagogy, an amalgamation of pedagogy and andragogy, building a more holistic learning view and acknowledging that adults and children, alike, benefit from pedagogy and andragogy (holmes et al., 2000; jarvis, 2011; tisdell & taylor, 2000). while children may have fewer lived experiences to draw upon, youth and adults both benefit from primary and secondary learning experiences. primary experiences are those we can sense, through touching, tasting, seeing the meaning and secondary experiences come through interaction, mediation, and sharing (jarvis, 2011). those who ascribe to humanagogy claim that adults and children both benefit and learn from primary and secondary experiences. another segment of learning scientists considers learning on a continuum, ranging from more individual, autonomous perspectives on learning through more social, relationally directed perspectives. on the autonomy-driven philosophies side of the continuum, the focus is on individuals and their personal attainment of skills and practices. learning science theorists, jack mezirow and malcolm knowles, promote the idea of learning as technical and rational, with the aims of personal fulfillment and seeing difference based on personality (tisdell and taylor, 2000). on the opposite side of the continuum bell hooks’ feminist emancipatory philosophies, which engage learners through relational dialogue, considering the collective good, and viewing the educator as the one to “encourage students to confront inequity…and to mediate conflict in a relatively supportive environment” (tisdell & taylor, 2000, p. 9). the false dichotomies between pedagogy and andragogy set the context for what is consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously chosen as the learning paradigm or model within any learning environment. the more nuanced humanagogy is key for both adults in education doctorates and youth in early childhood, and this sets the stage for our analysis of what education doctoral programs can learn and borrow from early childhood. additionally, education doctoral programs ought to consider when more individual or more relational learning paradigms apply. given our contention that antiracist doctoral programs are critical for social improvement, we argue that while there is skill building that doctoral learners must do (i.e. communication, listening, etc.), these are skills that necessitate relational and affective learning (tisdell & taylor, 2000). what to learn from ece across the multitude of early childhood models and practices, spanning infancy through second grade, there is much to learn. we aim to spark exploration and dialogue, with a specific focus on three early childhood (ages 3-5) education paradigms, the montessori method, the reggio emilia approach, and the waldorf model, developed in europe and implemented internationally today. the models are euro-centric and typically implemented in high-quality, for-payment preschools, and their learning design centers humanism, honors individual development paces and paths, and focus on relationships. there is also much to continue to learn from indigenous communities, models developed by people of color, and early childhood spaces that have less publication focus. through the application of elements of these early learning models while explicitly naming and embedding anti-racism, there is potential to expand these best practices to the adult learning sphere, specifically graduate education, including teacher preparation, learning from early childhood impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.224 33 education policy, and doctoral education. the exploration of principles from these three models, specifically within the ages of 3-5, provides a compelling argument for further exploring the connections between best practices for our earliest learners and the most advanced of scholar practitioners. through the examination of these bookended time periods in our learning journeys, it may be possible to uncover insights that could impact how we re-imagine both doctoral programs in education and pk-12 learning. humanity: focusing on individuals and community an essential tenet of some early learning practice and research, across multiple theorists and school models, is the focus on humanity: relationships, community, and the individual needs and development of each learner. successful early childhood educators consciously attend to the learning styles and personalities of each unique human while simultaneously building and strengthening community (benavides et al., 2020; murray, 2015; stehlik, 2019). many early learning education programs intentionally teach social awareness, interpersonal awareness, and self-awareness through structure, play, creativity, and curriculum (naeyc, n.d.). these models by design center humanagogy, the bridge between pedagogy and andragogy, and the synergy between individual and social ways of learning. within the waldorf model, developed by rudolf steiner in 1919 in germany and with applicability to both early childhood, primary, and secondary education, educators focus on the development of the whole person, an emphasis on morality for the whole community, and creating deep knowledge and value of other humans, cultures, and perspectives (stehlik, 2019). the reggio emilia approach, a constructivist, child-focused early childhood and primary model focuses on creativity and the arts, for expression and relationships (hewett, 2001). reggio emilia draws upon the work of piaget, vygotsky, and others and prioritizes self-directed and facilitated learning, emphasizes the essential nature of relationships between learners, their families, their educators, and their community, highlights that learning unfolds through social construction and human relationships, values communication, conflict, and debate, and prioritizes the instructor as guide and facilitator (hewett, 2001). these early childhood models intentionally build relationships among and between learners and instructors. within these early childhood classrooms, relationships are seen as a valued end in and of themselves, rather than a bridge to some other learning objective. and relationships are built through deliberate communication and a focus on building social emotional learning (sel). sel focuses on empathy, social and relationship skills, and self-awareness across lines of difference (wood, 2020), and within antiracist learning settings, sel must be culturally and community oriented, to ensure that it is not white-washed, race neutral, nor avoiding conflicts and their roots in race, class, gender, and difference (simmons, 2019). doctoral programs must also intentionally focus on humanity, individualization, community, and relational thinking. within the american university (au) education policy & leadership doctoral program, these are integrally woven throughout. in semester one, students begin with a course on systems thinking, building their diagnostic and analytical skills and sharpening their abilities to see the interconnectedness of decision making, the patterns of organizational and global decisions, and expanding their own vantage points. within the course, learners analyze various external cases to build their systems skills first before turning to explore their own adaptive leadership challenges (heifetz, 2002). doctoral learners work in small teams to see the broader system and work through dialogue, pushing forth conflicting opinions and working through disagreement. additionally, this course creates a learning container and space to build trust, dialogue, and to begin to function as mini-learning organizations-enabling sub-teams, cohorts, and the entire program to each be concentric learning organizations. in semester two, students look even deeper at the self, through a course on exercising conscious leadership, where learners consider their own leadership strengths, challenges, and immunities to change (fisher, 2020; kegan & lahey, 2009). this course is personalized for each student, through coaching sessions, selfreflexive writing, and peer support through the self-discovery processes. these are just beginning points and even more time, space, and faculty and staff capacity must be spent on the humanizing, relational elements of community building. if we spent an hour or a day in an early childhood classroom, ample time would be spent on deliberately teaching conflict strategies, sharing techniques, cooperation exercises, and interpersonal relationship building. this time is well spent in these classrooms, and it needs to continue across primary and secondary schooling and also be central within doctoral programs. adult learners also need ample time and space to build community, to be comfortable being wrong, to have tools for healthy conflict, and to center humanity. this is essential and is the aspiration of the au edd program. additionally, it is hard work for busy professionals and faculty who have decades of unlearning to do, so they can be their most authentic, relational, and introspective selves. grappling with biases, critically analyzing the educational system at national and local levels, consciously analyzing one’s own beliefs about leadership and learning, and building a community of scholarly activists all require practice. the au program aspires to create these spaces in weekend residencies, team projects, and coursework and content on teaming, adult learning, and culture building. in addition, this is complex work and challenging to do virtually in a part-time program, particularly for adults who have built their experiences, convictions, and beliefs over their lifetimes in contrast to learners in their earliest stages of development. this also presents challenges within the pk-12 system for adult educators who do not prioritize the types of coherent learning experiences for adult learners, requiring us to move away from professional development hours and sessions and moving toward humanagogic, antiracist learning experiences. learning environment in the world of early childhood learning, many long-standing, broadly accepted theories unequivocally establish the environment as an integral part of programs and learning. the environment is seen as the physical space, the explicit and implicit norms and roles of participants, and the conceptual space or learning container that exists for community to flourish. early childhood educators, schools, centers, and parents all take great care to create environments that provide structure, encourage safe exploration, and adapt as children learn, create, and construct meaning. maria montessori called this the prepared environment stating that children need an enriched environment that is not overloaded but includes the unique and appropriate stimuli for cohen & torres impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.224 34 each child to encourage their next learning steps (catherine et al., 2020). reggio emilia explicitly names the environment as the third teacher that morphs and adapts to each child’s learning both informing and informed by the process of learning itself. in the reggio emilia approach, care for the environment and co-creation of learning change the space bringing even more opportunities to continue to construct new meanings (edwards, 1993; the scots college, 2017). bronfenbrenner (1977) centered these ideas emphasizing that learning context is impacted by micro and macro elements and cannot be isolated from the impact of a child’s family, school, or neighborhood. effective educators of young learners create physical and metaphysical spaces for community, and our youngest learners recognize the impact of their surroundings for exploring, learning, and interacting with each other and with their space. just as young children ought to grow and learn inside environments intentionally designed for their safe exploration of themselves and the world around them, so must adult learners. yet, as adults and educators, we often neglect to thoughtfully design learning environments that optimize interactions and exploration of new spaces. in education doctoral programs, and for adults generally, the spaces where learning occurs must be viewed as individually and collectively beneficial, with a focus on anti-racist and learner-driven strategies. we must be attentive to physical and virtual collective and individual learning spaces, and regardless of type of space, more attention must be paid by the learners and the instructors about these physical and virtual spaces. for example, the content, community, and types of expectations needed for learning that content ought to be tended to in the creation of zoom breakout room, in person spaces, and the overall dedication to a physical space that affords getting to know each other. continued advancement of technology and the challenges of the pandemic necessitate new learning options with greatly expanded virtual opportunities, with this new flexibility comes an even greater need to understand the impact of the learning context on learners’ experiences. in programs, such as au’s virtual doctoral program, boundaries blur between the classroom, home, and work creating a new third space (bhabha, 1994; schuck et al., 2017; soja, 1996). in this space, educators and learners come together to jointly create an environment where learning can happen–on zoom, in the cloud, synchronously and asynchronously. the constraints of walls, classrooms, and opportunity to easily form student cliques are removed. new possibilities provide learners with more agency over where they choose to work, and adaptivity for content to align with students’ interests and needs. one theory, the mobile pedagogical framework, states that collaboration, personalization, and authenticity, a new set of teacher behaviors, and an emphasis on ethics are all necessary for virtual learning (schuck et al., 2017). existing in this third space provides students with more independence requiring greater responsibility and self-initiated learning, just as illustrated in the works of montessori, reggio emilia, and waldorf. instructors must shift their views of their roles—within the design of the space and beyond. we need to borrow from reggio emilia and waldorf, seeing instructors as guides. we also need to remember, just as we do when children are three, four, and five, that students show up with unique personalities, talents, and gifts and are uniquely impacted by the larger context of circumstances. in the early childhood sphere, educators are often far more adept with personalization, community circles, restorative practices, and morning meetings. often in early childhood settings, restorative circles are both dedicated and organic time and space for discussing conflict, addressing hurtful statements, and exploring emotions. within our adult edd learning community, we need similar spaces. the learners and instructors need spaces for co-construction, time for deliberate space construction, and a recognition that our physical and virtual spaces impact and contribute to our learning. the contention is not that we should treat adult learners as though they are preschoolers; instead, we argue we need to return to the basics of human relationships and be aware that physical and virtual spaces can contribute or dismantle these. we also must recognize the unlearning needed for many adults, who traversed through less learner-centered educational journeys and the scaffolded support to embrace their own learning. another critical reality is that existing virtually can limit some of the unstructured interactions that occur in hallways and in passing during breaks during in-person classes, and the virtual space may need more attention by instructors, learners, and co-constructors. the current ecology including covid-19, the political climate, police brutality, and ongoing racism all infiltrate the learning context. the pandemic and social justice factors continually impact discussions during class and place a significant strain on the energy educators (students and professors) can bring to learning. during such an intense, emotionally draining season of life, the tendency can be to find ways to retreat rather than pushing forward to imagine and to create a new learning space. boundaries between public and private spaces are blurred creating the potential for greater authenticity; however, authenticity requires honesty which can be hampered by our positionalities and the political environment. play and imagination the majority of early childhood learning paradigms situate play and creativity as central. within many ece spaces play-as learning is the method by which young children explore, make meaning, and learn. within this paradigm, abstract thinking is developed, and imagination has the freedom to enable learners to visualize emancipation from constraints (nilsson et. al, 2018). while there are debates about whether play is in itself learning or learning is an outcome of play, there is wide recognition that play and exploration are natural for young learners (gibson, 2024). within the reggio emilia approach, natural objects become the basis of play and exploration and units of study (edwards, 1993). within waldorf, play-based learning is the only goal until children are 6, and play happens in groups, with natural materials, and in a learner-driven manner. in early childhood settings, painting, drawing, sculpting, and imaginative play are routine. play and creativity, where imagination and new possibilities can unfold, are also important for adults and doctoral scholar practitioners. piantanida et al. (2019) explicate that aesthetic knowing and aesthetic imagination invite a tapping into the intuitive, while encouraging us to allow creativity in language, ideas, and representation to unfold. play allows us to tap into our humanity, our youthfulness, and our sense of possibility. however, play is often limited within higher education and doctoral settings, and it is stifled by grades and systems of accountability and power, which prioritize compliance over creativity, exploration, and growth (stommel, 2023). if we endeavor to construct an antiracist education enterprise within pk-12 and higher education, creativity and innovation are learning from early childhood impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.224 35 essential. creativity can include new ways of thinking and new ways of scholarship, and creativity ought to include new ways to demonstrate knowledge, publish a dissertation in practice, acquire knowledge, and play in community with adults. play can look like curating musical playlists, having dance breaks during zoom sessions, and coming together for interactive, somatic ways of engaging. creativity and play must be further explored and elevated within education doctoral settings; we ought not to expect our doctoral scholar practitioners to foster imagination and play for their young learners and adult teams outside of the academy, while not fostering these within the academy. conclusion reconsidering the best practices implemented for our earliest learners can uncover ways to create a distinctly iterative learning environment that centers humanity and embeds social emotional learning alongside the academic content of the courses. fulghum’s (1998) title continues to ring true…. “all i really need to know i learned in in kindergarten” (p. 2). there are many nuggets to draw from the early childhood space discussed in this article, namely the prioritization of the humanity of the individual and the community simultaneously, intentionality about the learning space, and centering play. we also must consider why edd programs exist and respond to this moment in america where racism is overshadowing democracy (again). it is our responsibility to build edd programs that support edd learners with the repertoire of skills they need as individuals and as a community to lead our current and future education and community contexts. to do this, we need to grow our activist education community as edd programs and faculty. edd programs must reflexively consider some essential questions, and we would benefit from creating, learning, unlearning, and doing this together. we invite our community to collectively re-imagine our humanity, our learning space, and our need for play. how might we center and model this so that this ripples out amongst our programs and practices? perhaps, we can consider a few critical questions: • how does a program dedicated to anti-racism and equity design scaffolded support so that collective and individual success multiply? • what qualities or experiences do faculty members need to best create playful, humanizing learning spaces? • how can a program design an experience for educators that encourages exploration and play while centering learning, transformation, and antiracism? we believe that this work necessitates significant unlearning. some could call this unlearning imagination and others might call it individual, cultural and structural transformation. this unlearning process and re-orchestration of roles is a challenge for all learnersthe doctoral scholar practitioners, staff, and faculty. chris argyris (2003) argues that human beings are “skillful at non-learning,” avoiding double loop learning, which “requires that new routines be created that are based on a different conception of the universe”, and he claims that this is exceedingly true in research, where the focus on scientific and humanistic research both focus on generalizable propositions and seeking “complete knowledge” rather than focusing on individual cases, incomplete knowledge, or action (p. 1178-1179). our unlearning must force us to grapple with questions around program design and purpose, truly engaging in double loop learning. how should doctoral programs be intentionally staffed so that cohorts of educational practitioners who represent and serve people of color are seen, taught, and valued by faculty, especially in predominantly white institutions? 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(2007). andragogy and pedagogy as foundational theory for student motivation in higher education. insight: a journal of scholarly teaching, 2. piantanida, m., mcmahon, p. l., & llewellyn, m. (2019). on being a scholar practitioner: practical wisdom in action. learning moments press. rocky. (2012, october 15). waldorf vs. montessori. sgws blog. http://blog.sgws.org/waldorf-vs-montessori/ schuck, s., kearney, m., & burden, k. (2017). exploring mobile learning in the third space. technology, pedagogy and education, 26(2), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939x.2016.1230555 senge, p. (2006). the fifth discipline. doubleday. shulman, l., golde, c., bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35, 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025. simmons, d. (n.d.). why we can’t afford whitewashed social-emotional learning. ascd. retrieved january 12, 2021, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/apr19/vol 61/num04/why_we_can't_afford_whitewashed_socialemotional_learning.aspx soja, e. w. (1996). thirdspace: journeys to los angeles and other real-andimagined places. oxford: blackwell. stehlik, t. (2019). waldorf schools and the history of steiner education: an international view of 100 years. springer international publishing ag. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docid=5969450 stommel, j. (2023). undoing the grade: why we grade, and how to stop. hybrid pedagogy. the scots college. (2017, november 21). what is the reggio emilia philosophy? https://www.tsc.nsw.edu.au/what-is-the-reggio-emilia-philosophy/ tisdell, e. j., & taylor, e. w. (2000). adult education philosophy informs practice. adult learning, 11(2), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/104515959901100203 veles, n., & danaher, p. a. (2024). transformative research collaboration as third space and creative understanding: learnings from higher education research and doctoral supervision. research papers in education, 39(1), 50–66, https://10.1080/02671522.2022.2089212 wergin, j. f. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. wood, p. (2020). emotional intelligence and social and emotional learning: (mis)interpretation of theory and its influence on practice. journal of research in childhood education, 34(1), 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2019.1692104 http://blog.sgws.org/waldorf-vs-montessori/ https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939x.2016.1230555 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/apr19/vol61/num04/why_we_can't_afford_whitewashed_social-emotional_learning.aspx http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/apr19/vol61/num04/why_we_can't_afford_whitewashed_social-emotional_learning.aspx http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/apr19/vol61/num04/why_we_can't_afford_whitewashed_social-emotional_learning.aspx https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docid=5969450 https://www.tsc.nsw.edu.au/what-is-the-reggio-emilia-philosophy/ https://doi.org/10.1177/104515959901100203 https://10.0.4.56/02671522.2022.2089212 https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2019.1692104 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 46 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.227 the improvement science dissertation in practice book review samantha beth cohen american university cohen@american.edu jill alexa perry, debby zambo, and robert crow: the improvement science dissertation in practice. myers education press, 2020. 180pp. paperback: $29.95. isbn-978-1-9755-0320-8 we have an imminent need to adapt and transform pk-12 education. the education world we live in, filled with covid contingency planning, responses to critical race theory deniers, on the fly hybrid learning, and enshrined expectations that privilege status quo thinking must compel us to re-imagine pk-12 education. to achieve this transformation, we need educators, administrators, and systems to re-set their ways of being. to get here, we need to rethink the practices we implement to support and train education practitioners to lead. in their book, the improvement science dissertation in practice (2020), perry, zambo, and crow compile tools; provide analysis of what an edd program should be; and offer support to all those who wish to reframe and re-imagine the education doctorate to meet the complexities and pragmatic needs of learners enrolling in edd programs today. the first two chapters lay out an argument for improvement science and a practice-based doctorate with a practice-based product as its endcap. the remaining chapters build the reader’s repertoire of how to operate: either as this type of doctoral student or how to design and implement this type of doctoral program. the authors skillfully construct chapters three through eight with an explication of the elements and approach of an improvement science dissertation in practice (isdip), extracting from their experiences with edd programs and edd students at three distinct universities. improvement science is the signature methodology the authors explicitly advocate, stating that “improvement science is a methodological approach built on pragmatism and science that uses disciplined inquiry to solve [problems of practice]” (p. 27). they lay out a compelling case for the rigor and science behind improvement science and simultaneously explain its unique applicability for practitioners who desire to take action and see impact within their existing communities, spheres of influence, and professional roles. they situate the scientific practice by tying improvement science to deming’s (1993) work on systems theory, bradford’s (2017) definition of science, and connecting it with plan-do-study-act (pdsa) cycles. the central focus of a dissertation in practice (dip) is an actionable problem of practice rooted in personally meaningful work to the learner, focused on transforming education, and producing equitable educational outcomes. building upon both, douglas archbald’s (2008) argument that dissertations should have the goal of organizational improvement and community benefit, and rick mintrop’s (2016) thesis that a dissertation should be actionable for the dissertator, these authors assert that edd learners are scholarly practitioners who “attempt to solve tough educational problems” in a “systematic fashion” (p. 51). following their arguments about why an isdip ought to be the signature pedagogy of edd programs serving practitioners, perry, zambo, & crow provide more of a guidebook, with tools, to supporting students and faculty. they devote a chapter each to problems of practice, reviewing literature, theories of improvement, measurement, testing and writing, and implications—each of these are elements of the isdip, sections of the dissertation, and the authors state these also must be infused within edd coursework. within chapter 3 on actionable problems of practice (pop), the authors define an actionable problem of practice as one with a “perceived need by the individuals affected by the problem,” “conceptualized in a way that makes it actually improvable,” “large enough to be of strategic concern to the organization, yet limited enough in its nature that concrete and tangible improvements can be feasibly attempted and evaluated” (p. 55). within the chapter, they encourage edd programs to support learners to uncover pops that are actionable, through the introduction of critical tools that individual doctoral students or programs could utilize, including system maps (p. 58), conceptual frameworks (p. 59), fishbone diagrams (p. 60), and process maps (p. 64). each of these tools enable scholar practitioners to solidify and analyze problems of practice through multiple levels and various vantage points. these tools are valuable for the dissertating scholar practitioner, and they are useful for edd program teams to analyze and improve their own programs. chapter 4, reviewing the literature, differentiates between more traditional literature reviews and the type of review an edd student ought to conduct. while they share that this is where faculty can bring their scholarship and research skills, they also push hard on the idea that faculty and students must not see a literature review as an exhaustive, synthesis exercise, and instead must view the literature search as a place to situate the actionable problem of practice within theory, scholarship, and practice. they introduce a conceptual framework (p. 84) as a way that learners can depict the literature, practice-based knowledge, and professional knowledge base and how they inform the problem of practice and possible action. this conceptual framework is a valuable visualization tool for scholar practitioners to depict and explicate their work. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3076-272x the improvement science dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.227 47 chapter 5 focuses on theories of improvement and driver diagrams to represent these, and it explores what a theory of improvement is and why it is another important element for practitioner, educator, doctoral learners. a theory of improvement describes “how the scholarly practitioner will move from problem analysis to actually tackling the problem during the testing phase” (p. 90) and situates how the doctoral learner will take action and operate as a practitioner. the writers share multiple versions of the driver diagram (pp. 89-93), supporting doctoral learners to create these visuals as a means to articulate their theories and pushing edd programs to build these process steps into the course sequences and doctoral journeys of the learners. developing improvement measures is the content of chapter 6. the authors articulate four sets of measures within improvement science for doctoral learners writing an isdip: 1) outcome measures, 2) process measures, 3) driver measures, and 4) balance measures. given the short cycle nature of improvement science, various measures may be more apparent in different projects. nevertheless, the authors contend that inquiry courses should be infused into the program of study for edd students and a move away from traditional methods courses should be pursued. additionally, programs should set learners up to explore their own positionality, given the unique role and action-orientation that scholarly practitioners take and the caution they must exhibit when interpreting measures and results that they are often directly implicated within. chapter 7 focuses on theory testing; the presupposition is that scholarly practitioners ought to take action and test their theory of improvement and attempt to implement change within a 90-day cycle of change. the authors build from the pdsa model and create a doctoral student approach: siar: strategize, implement, analyze, and reflect. they share a siar template (p. 128) where learners can document their inquiry questions, hypotheses, measures, implementation plans, analysis, and reflections. their aim for the siar tool is two-fold: 1) support edd students with their isdip and 2) build their lifelong, practitioner leadership, by adding problem generation, problem solving, and problem analysis tools to their toolkits. chapter 8 is almost explicitly, a faculty-facing chapter, where more explicit university lessons learned are detailed, suggestions are offered on doctoral committee role and approach, and edd programs are encouraged to backwards map themselves—thinking about where they want their graduates to be in the future and therefore the dip, the courses, aligned admissions process, and mentorship that are needed as well. in their 2021 book review, hawkins and martens situate perry, zambo, and crow’s book and its call to action within the history of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and education doctorates, provide an overview of the chapter contents, and encourage the use of the text for students, faculty, and individuals considering edd matriculation. they lay out three critical uses of the text: “an introductory text for the first class,” “a reference text for other classes,” and “a tool to support the design and development of the isdip (improvement science dissertation in practice).” i wholeheartedly agree with this endorsement, and in our early years of edd program design, the text has been essential. similar to hawkins and martens, we have embedded the text within edd team meetings for faculty and staff and incorporated the text within our courses on applied methods and problem of practice identification. their sage recommendations to embed the text early within the edd curriculum and to share with outside committee members who will support edd scholar practitioners with their dissertations in practice ought to be heeded. additionally, the authors’ recommendation for a follow-up text that shares “vignettes of student and faculty experiences” that organically describe the experiences of the isdip would be a tremendous supplement to this text. this would serve as a critical next step in living out a doctoral program that centers the “already highly skilled practitioners” looking to “enhance and build upon that existing expertise” (p. 7). additionally, these vignettes being accompanied by examples of isdip and the range of products they could look like would be a great contribution to the field. hawkins and martens (2021) provide a strong synthesis of the improvement science dissertation in practice throughout their review. and on balance, their review highlights the numerous strengths and possibilities within the publication, and i agree with these. i also offer constructive ideas about the text. perry, zambo, & crow’s approach to their book is pragmatic and educative. they situate the edd and its evolution, and they create a burning platform for why edd programs must evolve, providing concrete tools for change. this text is a must read for those facilitating in, advising in, teaching in, studying in, and considering edd programs. and while it is a must read, the authors could have pushed their argument a bit more vocally as to why edd programs must change, situating our current education reality in context, namely identifying how poorly we are underserving black, brown, indigenous, and all minoritized students and families within pk-12. the authors could more directly assert that edd programs today, who are educating current and future leaders, must augment and change their approaches so that their graduates are equipped to serve and lead in all communities. edd learners and graduates must understand the systemic reasons our education system is flawed, have the skills to apply anti-racist research methods, and implement change efforts that create and sustain anti-racist education communities. additionally, the authors’ arguments about what practitioners need, seems wise, and yet, there is presumption that most edd students have full-time jobs, where they can apply and practice their improvement science work. this may or may not be true. additionally, some edd students with full or part-time positions, may face significant organizational pushback when attempting to address problems of practice that are entrenched within organizations, especially as they relate to race, class, or coming to terms with entrenched systemic behaviors. it is essential to support faculty and students through this adaptive work. a continued discussion of how to enact systemic, antiracist change as an actor and employee within the system is another important area for further discussion and would provide support for students, communities, and faculty. finally, the authors situate improvement science as distinct from qualitative and quantitative methods (p. 54, table 3.2), rather than depicting improvement science as overarching. this could fuel the critique that improvement science may not be rigorous enough, as it is distinct from established methods, and it situates improvement science as outside of qualitative or quantitative methods. the incomplete visual within table 3.2 provides potential fodder for critics and it obfuscates reality for those who understand the importance of improvement science in research, practice, and leadership. improvement science is more of an approach, a cycle, a way of thinking, rather than a type of research or a singular methodology. this nuance is important to bridge conversations between scholars, academics, and edd scholar practitioners. cohen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 3 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.227 48 notwithstanding these few critiques, this book is an essential, easy to read text, for those teaching in edd programs, leading edd programs, and for students in these programs and considering them as part of their future. it is relevant for this moment in time in america, and globally, to ensure our pk-12 schools serve all of our kids, and our edd programs set up the leaders who work in pk-12, higher education, non-profits, community organizations, and all of the spaces where we must collaborate to build the education present and future we needed centuries ago and need today. references archbald, d. (2008). research versus problem solving for the education leadership doctoral thesis: implications for form and function. educational administration quarterly, 44(5), 704–739. bradford, a. (2017, july 26). what is a scientific theory? live science. https://www.whsd.org/ourpages/auto/2017/11/8/39975610/hypothesis_n onfictionreading.pdf. carnegie project for the educational doctorate (cped). (2010). design concept definitions. http://cpedinitaitive.org. deming, w. e. (1993). the new economics for industry, government, education. the mit press. mintrop, r. (2016). design based school improvement: a practical guide for education leaders. harvard education press. hawkins, j. & martens, m. l. (2021). the improvement science dissertation in practice book review. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice,6(4), 53–55. perry, j., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice. myers education press. https://www.whsd.org/ourpages/auto/2017/11/8/39975610/hypothesis_nonfictionreading.pdf https://www.whsd.org/ourpages/auto/2017/11/8/39975610/hypothesis_nonfictionreading.pdf http://cpedinitaitive.org/ samantha beth cohen american university references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 70 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.355 challenges in (re)designing edd programs: supporting change with learning cases book review macey edmondson the university of mississippi maceye@olemiss.edu jill alexa perry (editor): challenges in (re)designing edd programs: supporting change with learning cases. myers education press, 2023. 98pp. paperback: $29.95. isbn 978-1-9755-0548-6 the first edd program was established in the 1920s, but these programs have morphed and spread nationwide serving students practicing in the field of education. edd programs have evolved to meet the changing needs of practitioner-students. the edd and phd are constantly compared despite having different purposes. often, the edd is perceived as having less rigorous standards creating challenges for higher education institutions designing or redesigning edd programs to meet the needs of students and demands of faculty and administration. dr. jill perry is the executive director of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and associate professor of practice in the educational foundations, organizations, and policy at the university of pittsburg. in her practice and research, she is committed to distinguishing the edd from the phd and to create space for edd scholar practitioners and their work. she has written on improvement science and organizational change in edd programs and has teaching experience in all levels of education. in dr. perry’s challenges in (re)designing edd programs: supporting change with learning cases, she presents five case studies involving edd program issues that are representative of universities across the nation. these case studies are designed for departments to digest and discuss finding common ground and consider new ways to move forward in redesigning programs. edd programs are designed to allow practitioner-students the ability to grow academically while remaining in practice or with the plan of returning to practice. however, development and implementation of edd programs can be challenging at times. the first case study involves a city university where challenges of equity and diversity in coursework are present. in this case, there is discussion on expansion of equity and diversity beyond a singular, elective course. to provide an example of how realistic the case studies are, the author provides the actual program coursework required at this city university edd program so that the reader can see where challenges in the curriculum may lie. courses that focus on multiculturalism or social justice in edd programs are common, but this chapter discusses moving beyond a course and integrating it further into all aspects of the program. this case provides a glimpse into leadership curricula and includes multiculturalism framework as a way to implement diverse perspectives into leadership preparation for students. a faculty member who is charged with addressing concerns from an edd evaluation presents in the second case. even though the program had been redesigned ten years earlier, state funding cuts, declining enrollment, and evaluation feedback precipitate the program to review future directions. like many programs revisiting the purpose of the program, a dichotomy develops. newer faculty members want to produce educational leaders and older faculty members want to focus on training future researchers, including using edd students to support research needs. the evaluation revealed, “no matter what research methods students used, they had trouble getting their research implemented in their professional settings to be able to generate action and change” (p. 28). because of this and other issues, coupled with layers of stakeholders, the chapter introduces the complexity of leading and managing change. managing change is necessary and the person tasked with leading the charge should “take both a micro political (bacharach & mundell, 1993; blasé, 1993) and a learning perspective on the task ahead” (louis & murphy, 2017, (p. 34). the third case study addresses a dean’s dilemma, whereby “there were concerns raised about the relevance of the programs for graduates and the lack of energy exhibited by faculty in both units” (p. 42) from two departmental units. here, a department has two edd programsone in teaching and learning and the other in higher education. however, both edd programs reflect a “phd lite” philosophy where there is little distinction between the curriculum and outcomes of the edd and phd programs. the dean approaches the two department chairs and asks if they would consider joining the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). both programs join cped, but with different goals and outcomes. both find cped, including cped principles, helpful in redesigning the programs. some he faculty are “concerned that some plans might diminish the rigor of the program, especially regarding research” (p. 44). issues around change leadership reemerge as being integral to any change or redesign to an edd program. the author provides suggested readings on change leadership to assist others facing similar situations. a state institution with a traditional phd program looking to expand to an edd program is presented in the fourth case. state funding and enrollment are declining, and more practitioner-students are applying, which, in turn, results in a longer time to graduation https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ challenges in (re)designing edd programs-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.355 71 with the current doctoral program. the dean asks a tenured, associate faculty member to attend a cped convening to determine whether the edd would be a good fit for their department. in considering the fit within the department, issues arise concerning the type of dissertation endorsed by cped, the dissertation in practice. cped (2010) adopted the term “scholarly practitioner” to reflect the skills edd students should have upon graduation with the dissertation in practice focusing on “problems of practice rather than ‘gaps in literature’” (p. 57) normally associated with a research-based dissertation. the program in this case identifies that the curriculum still reflects research courses that lend themselves more to traditional phd dissertations rather than dissertations of scholarlypractitioners. with the support of cped, the program established goals including: • blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice, • use practical research and applied theories as tools for change, • understand the importance of equity and social justice, • disseminate their work in multiple ways, and • resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university the education institution, the community, and individuals (p. 58). the fourth case emphasizes tools and skills that edd graduates should have so that they can implement them into practice. it further touches on the roles of administration and faculty in implementing change noting that a faculty member is often charged with leading change in the design effort, even though they do not possess the resources or power to implement change without the assistance of the dean or other authority. the term used for faculty members who create organizational change without much authority is coined, “tempered radicals” (meyerson, 2003, p. 61). these leaders are necessary, but face resistance from other faculty members as redesigning efforts take place. many faculty members are trained in traditional phd programs, so opposition to differing edd processes may occur which require tempered radicals being adept at collaboration and balancing department politics. the author of the fourth case extends her discussion into organization change, where recognition and commitment, response generation, response implementation, and institutionalization (gallant & drinan, 2008) are described as stages that faculty and administration travel through to ultimately have the change institutionalized, meaning “the change ‘has moved from the margins of the institution to the core’ (holland, 2009, p. 85) and has become part of the organizational and cultural structures where sustainability is perpetuated” (p. 63). the final case presented involves a midsized, private institution faced with redesigning its edd program. again, a course schedule is provided so that the reader understands what curriculum design issues might be present. the challenge facing this edd redesign relates to cohort model programs and preparing students to manage group dynamics. this edd program requires a group dissertation where students express concerns with participation and contribution among members in their group. additionally, the chapter points out issues related to “groupthink,” where students take on a particular idea without much independent critical thinking application. this can lead to “deficiencies in students only being able to understand their individual components of an assignment, rather than also being able to connect individual parts and understand the outcomes of a project as a whole” (scribner & donaldson, 2001, p. 79). the final chapter, “reflections on cases for program (re)design”, dr. gary crow outlines the major themes from the cases, perspectives on the uses of cases, pedagogical tools using cases, and future steps. he identifies the themes as purpose, process, content, and influences on change and he ties the issues from the cases together and suggests how to use them in redesigning edd programs. the themes are helpful in reflecting on the text’s cases, but also provide a way for the reader to reflect on the reader’s program and how the case may provide guidance and “fit” for issues within their program, department, and institution. i offer a few critiques for the text. first, the final chapter introduces the woven themes presented in the text’s cases and provides suggestions on how to implement them as guidance for the redesign of edd programs. if placed at the beginning of the text, it could prepare the reader and provide a mindset in which to read and interpret the cases in a more meaningful way. the themes provide mental “buckets” for both text cases and the reader’s edd program redesign issues. second, as dr. perry points out in her first chapter, the amount of work unrelated to research and writing by faculty members is steadily increasing. as such, giving more tasks in the way of professional development by having faculty members work on case studies might be met with some resistance, so the implementor should be a very skilled “tempered radical” or have support or direction from higher administration. as reiterated by the text, there is a balance in redesigning all aspects of an edd program. the actual case studies in the text reflect real-life issues presented in a variety of institutions and programs. i pondered if one of the cases was a case study of my institution’s program. i say this in jest but feel that any reader who is involved in an edd redesign will find a case study that resonates with them, and the issues faced at their institution. the case studies provide a way to discuss issues without being directly tied to individuals within a department which can lead to more thoughtful and open conversations. the questions following each case study guide users in conversation and can lead to more discussion regarding the reader’s program. in conclusion, it seems that the overarching theme of this text is change management taking a careful and systematic approach to implementing change so that it is ultimately institutionalized. i found myself wanting more discussion in the text around change and organization management after reading the cases. however, what i found to be most useful is each chapter’s author’s discussion and guidance about how to begin addressing some of the issues introduced in the case studies. towards these ends, several authors provided frameworks, resources, and references that can be tailored to the reader’s program making the text a valuable resource for faculty and administration tasked with overseeing edd programs. references barcharach, s. b., & mundell, b. l. (1993). organizational politics in schools: micro, macro, and logics of action. educational administration quarterly, 29(4), 423–452. blase, j. (1993). the micro politics of effective school-based leadership: teachers’ perspectives. education administration quarterly, 29(2), 142– 163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x93029002003 carnegie project for the educational doctorate. (2010). design concept definitions. http://cpedinitiative.org gallant, t. b., & drinan, p. (2008). toward a model of academic integrity institutionalization: informing practice in postsecondary education. canadian journal of higher education, 38(2), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.1723 http://cpedinitiative.org/ edmondson impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.355 72 holland, b. a. (2009). will it last? evidence of institutionalization at carnegie classified community engagement institutions. new directions for higher education, 147, 85–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/he/361 louis, k. s., & murphy, j. (2017). trust, caring and organizational learning: the leader’s role. journal of educational administration, 55(1), 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea-07-2016-0077 meyerson, d. e. (2003). tempered radicals: how everyday leaders inspire change at work. harvard business school press. scribner, j. p., & donaldson, j. f. (2001). the dynamics of group learning in a cohort: from nonlearning to transformative learning. educational administration quarterly, 37(5), 605–636. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131610121969442 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 4 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 reimagining research courses for scholar practitioners: rejecting methodological binaries angela hooser middle tennessee state university angela.hooser@mtsu.edu kimberly evert middle tennessee state university kimberly.evert@mtsu.edu kevin krahenbuhl middle tennessee state university kevin.krahenbuhl@mtsu.edu abstract this essay shares the ongoing efforts of faculty in one edd program to embrace applied research methodologies and the shifts made in research coursework to support our doctoral candidates as they explore problems of practice. framed by third space theory, our redesign work is positioned as the lived experience through which we were able to reflect on and change the traditional space of our advanced qualitative and quantitative method courses. we share our journey from conceptualization to teaching what began, but did not conclude, as two distinct courses including the challenges, successes, and subsequent strategies used in our teaching and development. we reflect on the tensions that arose from our preexisting beliefs about research and the needs articulated by our candidates as well as our navigation of those needs. keywords dissertation support, research methods, third space theory introduction in 2006, shulman and colleagues argued for a redesigned edd to prepare educational leaders able to use academic knowledge to solve educational problems. this proposal was followed in 2007 by the formation of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), which brought together institutions across the nation to begin collaborative cross-context work to redesign the education doctorate and build the capacity of educational leaders as scholar practitioners (perry & imig, 2010). scholar practitioners are educators who use academic, theoretical, and research knowledge to name, frame, and address problems in their local contexts (adams et al., 2014). with this idea of the scholar practitioner in mind, an intentional part of this redesign is honoring the expertise of doctoral candidates while simultaneously developing their capacities to use knowledge and engage in inquiry (cped, 2019). thus, an important part of the work of a cped influenced edd program is shifting the ways that research is critically read, used, and put into practice by candidates. this work presents dilemmas for faculty and candidates, as they attempt to engage in innovative and applied research within the confines of traditional methods courses that often position qualitative and quantitative as distinct and separate forms of knowledge and actions. it is our contention that many programs have undoubtedly faced similar challenges between traditional research methods courses and the innovation needed to support their doctoral candidates as scholar practitioners. our local context: an edd program for k-12 educators the assessment learning and school improvement (alsi) edd program began nearly a decade ago. its origins drew from conversations between middle tennessee state university (mtsu) leadership and educational leaders in the region. in particular, many felt that there were many options for doctoral programs but most seemed built more for the purposes of preparing future faculty. in those conversations and with guidance by educational scholars such as robert eaker, co-author of learning by doing, the idea emerged for creation of an edd aimed primarily for the purpose of educating school staff in broad settings to leverage resources and scholarship to improve practice in k-12 contexts. in other words, the origin of the alsi edd is rooted in an attempt to disrupt the traditional edd with a focus on preparing real world educators in real time to lead change in k-12 educational contexts. this disruption aligns with scholarly arguments presented to reimagine the edd as a distinct degree from the phd. however, even origins rooted in a somewhat disruptive nature proved to be insufficient as we engaged with enacting our https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3982-860x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1882-6412 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6759-2931 reimagining research courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 5 program with candidates. as the program evolved, some of the original program assumptions, namely the use of traditional methodology coursework to support educators to leverage resources and scholarship in k-12 contexts, were challenged. the addition of new faculty to the team led to a reconsideration of the original program purpose. this resulted in the clarification of collective commitments, a shared mission and vision, and a renewed intent to help candidates become scholar practitioners who are change agents for improving learning for all. this renewed intent has led to continued discourse among our faculty about what works, for whom, under what circumstances, and in what ways our program can best realize program goals for our candidates. one topic of continued debate is the role of methods coursework for scholar practitioners with a concerted focus on the utility of positioning quantitative and qualitative research as distinct. in this essay, we articulate the most recent iteration of seeking to disrupt these oppositional ideas with the aim of reimagining research design experiences for candidates in ways that honor the complexity of educational research in real-world contexts. to share and reflect on our redesign of the advanced methods courses, we center third space theory as a conceptual framework to consider and make sense of the utility of our continued positioning of qualitative and quantitative methods courses as distinct and oppositional. we then share the journey from conceptualization to teaching what began, but did not conclude, as two distinct courses including the challenges, successes, and subsequent strategies used in our teaching and development. we reflect on the tensions that arose from our preexisting beliefs about research and the needs articulated by our candidates as well as our response to those needs. finally, we share the ways navigating the advanced methods courses as complementary versus oppositional led to unexpected successes and new ideas for program improvement. conceptual framework: third space theory one way to make sense of our redesign and ultimate rejection of qualitative and quantitative research courses as methodological binaries is through third space theory. defined by soja (1996) third space is a “lived space as a strategic location from which to encompass, understand, and potentially transform all spaces simultaneously” (p.68). soja (1996) further positioned the third space as “the translation of knowledge into action in a conscious – and unconsciously spatial—effort to improve the world in some significant way” (p. 22). flessner (2014) added the notion of a third space as opening the possibility of developing new and important meaning of the initial binary spaces, such as our understanding as faculty of teaching qualitative and quantitative research. to capitalize on this possibility, remaining open to reinterpretation and reconstructed meanings in context is of vital importance. with this open stance, we collaborated to support the research of our candidates and opened a starting point to re-imagine methodological binaries while simultaneously changing the literal and conceptual space of our methods courses. our journey began as we struggled with the binary of qualitative and quantitative methodologies as historically understood. the binary of qualitative and quantitative methods courses the research sequence at the time directly preceding the advanced methods redesign was structured much like a phd program in which learning to conduct research was delineated by oppositional traditions. as such, doctoral candidates took three research methods courses that included introduction to qualitative research, introduction to quantitative research and either advanced qualitative or advanced quantitative research. the idea was one from a traditionalist mindset: namely, that candidates at this latter point would choose one approach either quantitative or qualitative that would drive their thinking on the culminating work of their dissertation. the three credit advanced methods courses are taught over three weekends with readings and tasks between meetings. while the three credit courses were defined in traditional ways, it is important to note that as a program we began to reject these binaries within three one-credit research seminars. these seminars are more fluid spaces and currently included an introduction to action research, writing strategies, and former candidate examples related to all dissertations regardless of methodology. the alsi program director led most research design courses in the past but two new members were identified to take the lead, initially in distinct areas of qualitative or quantitative research. this stemmed in part from the program director’s past experience which adopted the paradigm of these modes of inquiry as largely distinct, however, his research has often utilized mixed methods. in doing so, these binary paradigms were not as engrained into how things need to be. dr. hooser, has a history of teaching action research, introduction to qualitative and advanced qualitative research. both her personal epistemology and the positioning of these courses align mostly with qualitative traditions. for the newly created advanced methods course, her goal was for candidates to understand the elements of research design as parts of an interconnected whole and to provide opportunities for candidates to experience and deepen their understandings of research design to explore problems of practice. while dr. evert has a history of teaching quantitative methods courses (introduction to statistics and advanced quantitative methods), her research tends to engage in mixed methods research. her goal for this course was for doctoral candidates to understand how quantitative and qualitative methods can be complementary tools for approaching the study of problems of practice. as two educators who taught in the opposite introductory courses, we saw that our candidates were resisting making a declaration of their work as either qualitative or quantitative and were hesitant to register for courses as they were not certain which to choose. thus, we removed the barrier for our candidates and merged the two distinct courses into one crossover course. this decision was met with unanimous agreement and outright relief from our candidates. moving into a new semester, with a new course in play, we drew on our distinct areas of expertise as we planned ways to support our candidates in reaching a common end goal – a draft of their dissertation methods chapterregardless of the tradition they chose. as we planned for this merged space, we embraced a new logic drawn from our previous understandings of research while reimagining what research could be for our candidates. hooser et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 6 tensions in beginning the re-design: planning and enacting weekend one to prepare for the upcoming combined methods course, the lead faculty sent a pre-class template to the doctoral candidates, which was adapted from bhattacharya (2019). this template asked the candidates to identify their topics of study, to situate the topics within both their local contexts and the broader literature base, and also to share their thinking around the collection and analysis of data including descriptions of the purpose of their proposed work. the final questions on the template asked candidates to choose verbs often aligned with different traditions (e.g., evaluate, explain, interrogate) and to choose a preferred way of thinking (messy or linear). from the responses that the candidates provided to this preclass template, it became immediately apparent that our doctoral candidates were not ready to declare a methodological binary. in addition, while problems of practice were clearly named, although as expected were not yet fully developed, there was an overall inconsistency in responses designed to elicit ways of knowing that did not fall cleanly within one tradition, and at times, outright rejected our attempts in favor of more practical uses of research. these rejections of our attempts to probe for methodological alignment took varied forms. for example, three candidates chose all data collection strategies named. another candidate declared her preferred way of thinking was “messy and structured” versus choosing either messy and contradictory or linear and structured while over half of the candidates choose both. another way our candidates chose to align their research plans with their daily lives as practitioners was in describing the purposes of the studies. for example, one candidate shared her purpose as “to evaluate, understand and attempt to replicate.” while we had hoped this might provide us clues on methodological leanings, instead we were reminded about the ways she saw her research as a part of her practice as a data-driven leader. finally, one candidate blatantly declared her data collection as “wide open. i don’t really have a preference. i’m willing to do any of these for my study to be successful and for me to gather the information i need to gather.” she further stated that, “i am definitely drawn to more linear and structured thinking (very type a, i know this is shocking to everyone ha!), but i know that my topic can be very messy, ambiguous, and contradictory.” across their responses, our candidates clearly signaled the purpose of their research as grounded in practical ways of knowing that were embedded in the messy nature of schools and the routines of their lives as leaders for change. thus, we set out to help our candidates consider ways of knowing (both epistemologically and methodologically) that felt right for their work as scholar practitioners. we created a folder that included four empirical studies related to the candidate’s problem of practice that spanned qualitative and quantitative ways of knowing and an assignment that was part reflection on elements that resonated with their thinking and part annotated bibliography chart. as we planned for weekend one, the intended goal was for candidates to be able to name a specific methodology, within a mostly qualitative or quantitative space. at that point, faculty could lean into their expertise to support and help narrow candidate work moving forward with this selection of either/or as a hinge point in the process. in addition, despite creating the combined class as a literal third space, our organization remained aligned around somewhat traditional ideas of research and what we thought were the methodological interests of our candidates. we planned during the first weekend to share different research designs with candidates from more qualitative to quantitative ways of knowing. for each design, we shared an overview of the purpose of the method, data sources, analysis, and the role of the researcher. the designs we shared included, in this order, arts-based research, critical theory, action research, ethnography, narrative, phenomenology, phenomenological interviewing (seidman, 2019), grounded theory, improvement science, case study (yin, 2017), mixed methods, and survey methods. although many of these methodologies can be framed across the continuum of qualitative and quantitative research, we shared in this way based on our areas of our expertise as well as attempting to not overwhelm students with too many choices. navigating the re-design process: creating a fluid learning space as described above, alsi courses are taught in three weekends across the semester. in this course, we organized each weekend around general topics which were then individualized for each candidate. weekend one centered around the research design that candidates planned to use for their dissertations. common designs chosen by candidates included: action research, improvement science, case study, self-study, and arts-based. in this weekend, after reviewing the topics that they had learned in their introductory-level courses, candidates began to align themselves with different epistemologies, research designs, and data collection tools based on how they were envisioning their dissertations, of which an example can be seen in figure 1. this board became a roadmap for us as we planned how to meet the needs of each candidate. across weekend one, this occurred through individual conferences with candidates in which the instructors' helped candidates think through multiple research design and determine which best fit their problems of practice and vision for exploration. after deciding on a research design, candidates were then assigned customized methodological readings to examine during work time in class and before the next weekend meeting. for example, if a candidate had chosen case study, they were then assigned to read yazan (2015) which described three approaches to case study and then the book by either merriam (1998), stake (2020), or yin (2017). a second methodological reading was assigned if a candidate was unsure of an approach that met their needs. as we engaged in this individualized structure, we did not seek to require research that was either quantitative or qualitative. instead, conferences and candidate readings centered around different strategies candidates could use to understand their problems of practice. through taking this individualized approach, we had begun, but did not yet fully realize, to push back on the distinct methodological spaces. in their reflections after weekend one, candidates universally expressed an appreciation for the individual conferences that focused on their problems of practice first, while exploring multiple possible methodologies and ways of knowing. for example, in her post-weekend reflections, one candidate shared that in her conference: i appreciated the ‘guardrails’ that dr. e and dr. h invoked to give me freedom of thought, but within reason. i didn’t feel pigeonholed or stuck; i truly felt like my ideas were heard and respected which makes it possible for me to move forward with confidence. reimagining research courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 7 figure 1. board of candidate designs another candidate shared similar praise for the conferences reflecting that “the one-on-one conferences yielded great conversations and valuable insight for strategizing how to tackle my research. there are many methodologies to choose. selecting the right method to apply to your research yielded me a clearer vision for my topic.” furthermore, in these post-weekend reflections, we saw some evidence that through teaching this course together and focusing candidates on individual conferences around their problems of practice, that while problems of practice became more narrowed in focus, they continued to think about research in ways that both embraced qualitative and quantitative methods while resisting an alignment that was solely one space. for example, one candidate shared: what stands out to me about quantitative/qualitative research embedded in my thoughts on the dissertation design is how concepts work in tandem to match what we want to study. i’m also seeing there isn’t one way [to research] but one way that seems to fit best based on the research question and how we believe to make sense of answering it. in effect, our students were teaching us ways of making sense of qualitative and quantitative methodologies that centered their problems of practice and beliefs as educators as an entry point for understanding research. as instructors, we had similar thoughts at the end of weekend one. we wanted to make sure that candidates saw the research strategies and tools of each discipline as potential options to explore their research topics that they could use fluidly. this goal was reflected in how we structured weekends two and three as we leaned into conferences and presented multiple options for data collection and analysis strategies that celebrated the strengths of each tradition and honored the beliefs and sense-making of our candidates. teaching in the third space: experiences from coursework in weekends two and three in weekend two, we focused on data collection tools centered within different approaches to seeking knowledge and perspectives on their work. based on how candidates sorted themselves on the board in weekend one (see figure 1), we reviewed epistemologies and paradigms and then planned for different modules that candidates could attend based on their dissertation plans. for example, all 13 candidates planned to use interviews in their studies, so the two instructors co-taught the module regarding how to construct interview protocols. the quantitative researcher shared a more positivist approach to interview design, while the qualitative researcher shared a more interpretivist approach. in the second module, candidates chose one of three options: (1) they could attend a session on observation protocols led by the qualitative researcher, (2) they could attend a session on survey design led by the quantitative researcher, or (3) if they did not plan to use either method in their dissertations, they could remain in the original classroom and work on writing their interview protocols or methods draft. weekend three centered around data analysis and was constructed similarly to weekend two. the entire class was together for a conversation regarding terminology and strategies for analyzing their interview transcripts. the quantitative and qualitative researchers described different approaches and coding strategies based on their epistemologies. in the latter half of the weekend, candidates had the opportunity to attend a session on either: (1) observation analysis, (2) survey analysis, or (3) work on analyzing the transcript they came to class with or their methods chapter draft. the course culminated in a gallery walk of candidates' final research plans (see figure 2 for examples). these posters demonstrate candidate understanding of how to align a problem of practice, research questions, methodology and data collection, and hooser et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 8 figure 2. sample candidate posters analysis plans into strong working drafts to move forward in thinking about their dissertations. in our work across this course, we focused on building candidates’ research toolboxes by resisting the traditional qualitative and quantitative binary and embracing both as needed to be a potentially powerful way to connect research to our candidates’ experiences as practitioners. in their lives in schools, the teachers, coaches, and administrators in our program are very accustomed to finding ways to solve problems that arise in their contexts. we taught this advanced methods course by beginning with their problems of practice and honoring their ways of knowing. in addition, we presented a survey of data tools and analytic strategies as possibilities with consistent conferencing to negotiate ways knowing that could be applied to candidates’ problems of practice. in this way, candidates began to understand distinct aspects of their problems of practice and learned to approach research in manners similar to their practitioner lives. and we learned how to better support them as they engaged in this work. reflection on re-design and moving forward through engaging in this course, we found that creating a literal third space by combining courses and being open to a conceptual third space led by our candidates, allowed us to support their exploration of problems of practice at a deeper and more nuanced level. in this course, enacted as a literal and conceptual third space, advanced research methods learning was individualized through conversations across multiple epistemologies, paradigms, tools, terms, and examples. instead of building experts in one research methodology or the other, we began to build scholar practitioners who are able to align problems of practices with their epistemologies and preferred paradigms and then matched research tools and analytic strategies to their ways of knowing. in their final course evaluation forms, candidates shared that this more individualized structure helped them better prepare for the dissertation process. for example, one candidate shared “dr. h and dr. e provided opportunities that were intentional and unique to the needs of their candidates. i am very thankful to have had this course.” we feel that this intentional customization of the course allowed candidates to individually construct their research toolboxes with their contexts and sense-making at the core. as instructors, situating the work of our scholar practitioners as grounded in epistemologies and paradigms rather than methodological traditions gave us the opportunity to collaborate in ways previously not possible. we became thought partners with each other and the candidates who explored different approaches to study problems of practice of importance to their contexts while supporting each other as colleagues. in addition, we met their practical needs as educators, using methodologies as practitioners, while helping them see themselves as scholars able to position themselves within epistemologies and paradigms of research. through teaching this course, we were able to think with and beyond traditional binaries to promote dissertation designs meaningful to our candidates that reflected this third space. for the program, this course presented an opportunity to consider what it means to prepare scholar practitioners outside of the traditional inherited structures. initially for both us and the candidates, the traditional constructs of having advanced qualitative and advanced quantitative candidates were a difficult binary to think beyond. both the instructors and the candidates strived to classify the dissertations as either quantitative or qualitative. while we pride ourselves as faculty in being open-minded and critical about improving our program, unintentional assumptions about research were still present. we came to realize that the structures of the program and paradigms that had been embedded since its origin tacitly – and overtly – pushed candidates and ourselves to try to frame topics within these binaries but that in their local contexts our candidates were seeking to make meaning in more nuanced ways. we feel that this individualized approach to planning for investigations of problems of practice will better support our scholar practitioners to continue research in their space, and on their terms, beyond their time enrolled in the program. reimagining research courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.334 9 conclusion rejecting rigid structures inherited in traditional research design opened a space that allowed for the full exploration of candidates’ problems of practice. this combined advanced methods course permitted a more thorough exploration of research design possibilities and promoted a space that honored personal epistemologies and paradigms as ways of knowing. in this third space, doctoral candidates were able to understand research in ways beyond qualitative versus quantitative. instead, they were able to learn from two collaborative faculty members how the tools in each domain can complement each other to fully explore problems of practice in their contexts. thus, as faculty members, we are now thinking about what it means to situate candidates’ problems of practice and beliefs about knowing as the starting point engaging in research that resists the traditional binaries of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. references adams, a., e. bondy, d. ross, n. dana, & b. l. kennedy-lewis. (2014). implementing an online professional practice doctoral program in a phd environment: managing the dilemmas. journal of school public relations, 35(3), 363–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jspr.35.3.363 carnegie project for the education doctorate (2019). our vision and mission. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission flessner, r. (2014). revisiting reflection: utilizing third spaces in teacher education. the educational forum, 78(3), 231–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2014.912711 merriam, s. b. (1998). qualitative research and case study application. jossey-bass publishers. perry, j. a., & imig, d. g. (2010). a stewardship of practice in education. change: the magazine of higher learning, 40(6), 42–49. https://doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.6.42-49 seidman, i. (2019). interviewing as qualitative research: a guide for researchers in education and the social science (5th ed.). teachers college press. soja, e. w. (1996). thirdspace: journeys to los angeles and other real-andimagined places. blackwell. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 stake, r. e. (2020). the art of case study research. sage. yazan, b. (2015). three approaches to case study methods in education: yin, merriam, and stake. the qualitative report, 20(2), 134–152. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2102 yin, r. k. (2017). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). sage. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jspr.35.3.363 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2014.912711 https://doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.6.42-49 https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2102 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 23 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 exploring teachers’ well-being through compassion amanda tatum american university at0324a@american.edu abstract this mixed methods case study examined teachers’ levels of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue, or the combination of burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and strove to understand how teachers experience these phenomena and what supports could be used to alleviate some of the harmful symptoms of compassion fatigue. for this study, i used a healing centered approach and the compassion fatigue theoretical model, after reviewing previous literature around compassion fatigue and satisfaction, workplace well-being, school well-being, and context specific efforts in the district of columbia public schools system that involved teacher and staff well-being. the final research design produced findings around the importance of qualitative research in understanding well-being and compassion fatigue and satisfaction, suggestions for schools and districts to support teacher well-being, and the effect the pandemic has had, directly on teachers and indirectly through the pandemic’s effects on their students. keywords teacher well-being, healing centered, pandemic introduction this research came out of necessity: a necessity for teachers, including myself, to make sense of the effects the last few years have had on our well-being. the covid-19 pandemic had devastating effects sickness, death, social isolation – and caused many drastic changes since its beginning in march of 2020. the pandemic presented new challenges and exacerbated existing systemic problems, and the effects of teachers working virtually for a full year and students learning virtually for a full year have yet to be fully understood, not only regarding academic and instructional outcomes but also social and emotional effects. as a deeply personal investigation, as i was a teacher while doing this study, this research sought to understand teachers’ well-being through the lens of compassion and by utilizing a healing centered approach and explored the following research questions: rq 1: what supports have you received that help you to maintain your well-being? rq 1a: as one indicator of well-being, what contributes to the current levels of teachers’ compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue? rq 1b: how do the different aspects of one’s identity affect a teacher’s perception of well-being? rq 2: how can talking about well-being contribute to teachers’ experiences of well-being? the purpose of this study conducted at a school that is part of the district of columbia public school (dcps) system, was to elevate teachers’ voices, to learn their perspectives and experiences with well-being through compassion, and to empower teachers to advocate for themselves. though there were no changes to measure within this study, there were findings and correlations made between supports, levels of compassion satisfaction and fatigue, and demographic factors, which have implications for the school, the district, and the education community at large. problem statement the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years were completely unprecedented and full of unknowns as the entire world worked to live through the covid-19 pandemic. teachers experienced the loss of knowing how to best do their job. the dc policy center releases a state of dc schools each year in hopes of capturing the experiences of different stakeholders within the district. during focus groups for this report, teachers explained their lack of preparation for the virtual setting, especially since the district kept delaying making any official decisions, and the difficulties of adapting teaching materials and curriculum, which often had them feeling less effective (dc policy center, 2022). the stress of the first year of the pandemic, paired with new stressors the second year of the pandemic, such as everchanging policies related to the pandemic and excessive numbers of students missing school because of sickness or quarantine, changed some of the essential duties of the teaching profession, lowering teachers’ self-efficacy, causing some to burn-out and leave the profession. knowledge review: defining well-being beginning with definitions, well-being, or wellness, is broadly considered one’s positive affect towards their life satisfaction (diener et al., 1999; lee kum sheung center for health and happiness, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7160-7817 tatum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 24 2017), and further research considers how individuals are related to the larger systems, such as a teacher to the rest of the school (fox et al., 2020; song et al., 2020). drawing from the works of scholaractivists, dr. shawn ginwright (2016) and dr. bettina love (2019), this study advocates for a healing centered definition of well-being centering healing and hope in political and education policies. ginwright (2016) stresses the importance of hope and agency as components of well-being and explains it as an active set of practices that will sustain, maintain, and expand a person and their community’s health and hope. further connecting this definition to the field of education is love (2019), who wrote that wellness and well-being are a part of social justice work for teachers, aiding teachers in the fight against racism by arming them with love, grace, and compassion. adding healing, hope, and humanity allows for a broader understanding of how a teacher can sustain, maintain, and expand their well-being practices and grounds the definition in antiracism. in conclusion, these are the definitions i use in this study: well-being: an individual’s sense of sustainable hope, maintained by a set of community healing practices that help individuals acknowledge the humanity in themselves and others. teacher well-being: a teacher’s sense of sustainable hope, maintained by a set of community healing practices that help teachers acknowledge the humanity in themselves, their students, the families of their students, and their colleagues. this definition echoes cped’s (2021) call for the edd to be framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice, as teachers who are afforded the opportunity to heal will be better equipped to teach their students with grace and compassion. workplace well-being the pandemic caused a shift in how workplaces view well-being, recognizing the need for flexibility in the work environment. instead of merely thinking about job satisfaction, “today, employee well-being has expanded beyond physical well-being to focus on building a culture of holistic well-being [and] the growing need for flexibility in where, when, and how employees work” (meister, 2021, para. 4). in response to the pandemic, workplace leaders have expanded wellbeing opportunities offered to their employees to include workplace flexibility (especially because of the safety concerns of the pandemic), free online counseling sessions, trainings for leaders on empathic leadership, delegating time in workday to non-work activities, and counseling or meditation apps (jack, 2022; meister, 2021). instead of seeing workplace well-being as an unnecessary add-on, leaders are working to create environments where wellness opportunities are responsive to the needs of the employees to promote their performance and retention. well-being through compassion the compassion fatigue-compassion satisfaction (cf-cs) theory is a helpful indicator of teacher well-being and was utilized as the primary driver for teacher well-being. beginning this research with interviews and conversations with teachers, i started to realize that the student-teacher relationship is the center of this job, and that can be the reason teachers stay and contribute to why they leave. a healthy and caring student-teacher relationship has many positive effects for the student but also for the teacher, and compassion satisfaction (cs) is the descriptive term for the pleasure that one derives from doing work with people who need figure 1. theoretical model of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue (stamm, 2010, p.11) care (stamm, 2010). many teachers enter and stay in the profession because of the relationships formed with their students (christianbrandt et al., 2020; robertsbitar, 2021; steen, 2020), and the process of healing together helps build resilience in both. to maintain those higher levels of cs, organizational and leadership support, proper training, and resources are necessary. when teachers are given the tools they need to teach and support their students who are experiencing trauma, their self-efficacy increases, increasing their cs (christian-brandt et al., 2020; fox et al., 2020; yang, 2021; zee & koomen, 2016). bandura describes self-efficacy as “people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their own functioning and over events that affect their lives… and can provide the foundation for […] well-being” (self-efficacy theory | simply psychology, 2023, para. 1). in a study conducted with social workers who were working with clients with post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), those that were given opportunities to learn evidence-based practices showed lower amounts of compassion fatigue (cf) and greater amounts of cs (craig & sprang, 2010), which has implications for teachers who have had more training or exposure to evidence-based practices for teaching students who have experienced trauma and even more training on managing their own experiences. sometimes used interchangeably with the terms secondary traumatic stress (sts), secondary traumatic stress disorder (stsd) and vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue (cf) was first used to describe the experiences of professionals such as lawyers, therapists, nurses, and social workers, and their repeated exposure to hearing about others’ trauma and the effect it had on their mental health and well-being (figley, 1995; stamm, 2010). figley’s (1995) research shows that those who work closely with traumatized individuals sometimes begin to exhibit some of the same characteristics as their patients, noting that “those who have enormous capacity for feeling and expressing empathy tend to be more at risk of compassion stress” (p. 1), and cf has the potential to be widespread among educators because of the nature of this caring profession (steen, 2020). those experiencing cf may have elevated blood pressure, emotional dysregulation, interference with home life, may begin to become apathetic to the experiences of those they are helping, or their work performance may begin to suffer (figley, 2002), and repeated exposure to cf could lead to burnout (stamm, 2010). studies done in the medical field, centering on clinicians, nurses, and medical students, show how some of the symptoms of cf could be alleviated by providing positive coping strategies, such as social https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?igrflp exploring teachers’ well-being through compassion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 25 support, clinical supervision, and consultation (jacobson, 2006; kourkoutas & giovazolias, 2015; măirean, 2016; shoji et al., 2014). creating environments that will increase teachers’ cs, while mitigating the effects of cf, could lead to teachers improving their overall well-being. cf, as a phenomenon, is a combination of two experiences: secondary traumatic stress and burnout. sts is a condition that is typically associated with a triggering event or experience when working with a person who has experienced trauma. when one is exposed to sts often or is unable to mitigate the effect of it on their lives, it can begin to add to one’s experience of burnout. burnout (bo) is a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity (mayo clinic, n.d.), which leads to feeling exhausted and unable to cope, emotionally distancing from work, and a reduction in work performance (institute for quality and efficiency in healthcare, 2020), and when it comes to teachers, numerous factors can contribute to burnout, such as work environment, background, teacher preparation, and self-actualization. bo happens over a long period of time, but sts is typically associated with a specific exposure to the trauma or suffering of a specific client (figley, 1995, 2002). what connects these two things is that repeated exposure to sts or not knowing how to manage it will lead to bo, which may cause one to leave their profession. as seen in figure 1, the professional quality of life (proqol) theoretical model (stamm, 2010) outlines the positive and negative outcomes experienced by those in the helping profession. the model acknowledges that professionals do not only exist within the workplace, but they are shaped by their own environment, just as their clients, or in this case students, are shaped by their own environment. though the proqol is a helpful tool, it is not and should not be used as a diagnostic tool since there are no official diagnoses of burnout or sts, but this tool provides a helpful way to separate the different environmental effects, which is why it was chosen. this model will be used to look at teachers’ experiences of well-being and framed the design of this study. to summarize, for this study, the three measures of the proqol (stamm, 2010) are defined as follows:  cs positive feelings about a teacher’s ability to help their students  sts work related exposure to a student who has experienced a traumatic event; may include sleep deprivation, intrusive images, and avoiding reminders of the person’s traumatic experience  bo gradual feelings of hopelessness and difficulties in dealing with work or being an effective teacher  cf breaks into two parts: bo and sts; some trauma at work can be direct (primary) trauma and/or studentrelated trauma and both contribute to cf in different ways. method a case study design was chosen because the data collected are heavily dependent on the time and place. the research design began with a survey sent through qualtrics, which included demographic questions, the proqol measure, and an open-ended question regarding the supports teachers received to maintain their well-being. then, i proceeded with three interviews, including a researcher interview with myself conducted by a peer. beginning with the survey and then allowing people to open up and add meaning to the study’s phenomena through speaking about their experiences was an efficient pairing. a combined analysis of the three data pointsthe quantitative proqol scores, themes from the open-ended question, and themes from the interviewswas then explored to answer the research questions. data collection: survey to uncover certain aspects of these teachers’ experiences, a survey sent through qualtrics the was distributed to teachers to look at baseline levels cs and cf. the survey included demographic questions about race and gender and included the proqol as a likert scale, as it is typically presented, totaling 30 questions. after the proqol, the survey included an open-ended question that simply asked, “at your school, what supports have you received when it comes to maintaining your well-being?” the final question of the survey asked the participants if they were interested in participating in an interview. after talking to instructional coaches at the studied school, i designated time for teachers to fill out the survey during their ongoing professional development time, and the survey was sent through an email. the entire survey took participants between 9-15 minutes to complete. survey participants out of the 25 surveys received, five surveys were incomplete, which left 20 surveys completed for analysis, including mine. five people volunteered to participate in the interviews, and 17 of the 20 participants completed the open-ended question. the breakdown of race and gender is provided in the following table and discussed further in the following sections. table 1. final dataset breakdown of participants by race and gender participants by gender number percentage female 17 85% male 3 15% total 20 100% participants by race number percentage asian 1 5% black or african american 5 25% black or african american and native american 1 5% black or african american, native hawaiian or pacific islander, white 1 5% hispanic, latina/o/x and/or of spanish origin 2 10% hispanic, latina/o/x and/or of spanish origin and white 1 5% white 9 45% total 20 100% data set 1: proqol scores to score the proqol, i followed the procedure outlined in the proqol manual (stamm, 2010). after downloading the scores from qualtrics to an excel spreadsheet, i reverse scored the appropriate items, then created an excel formula to sum the indicated items to find the three levels the proqol measures: cs, bo, and sts, the tatum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 26 latter two comprising cf. i completed this process the resultsto ensure accuracy. i began by examining the data in the order of highest cs to lowest, and then looked at their level of cs compared with the two other measures. as seen in the table below, nine of the teachers surveyed were experiencing high cs and moderate to low cf, (bo and sts), while half of the teachers surveyed (n=10) were experiencing moderate cs and moderate to low cf. there was one outlier: a teacher experiencing low cs and moderate to high cf. these data profiles were used to examine the data across gender and race as well. table 2. proqol levels by cs cf-cs profile number high cs and moderate to low bo and sts 9 moderate cs, moderate to low bo and sts 10 low cs and moderate to high bo and sts 1 data set 2: open-ended question themes through inductive coding and based on prior experience coding the survey question from a pilot study, themes emerged that identified supports for teacher well-being. the first read of the survey responses was conducted to find evidence for supports and barriers to teacher well-being; the second read and coding was conducted to identify references to the different environments mentioned in the compassion fatigue theoretical framework (stamm, 2010): personal, client, and work or in this case, personal, student, and school. i then narrowed those to themes that related to identified supports, to help answer the first research question. figure 2. open-ended question from survey coding plan out of the 20 teachers who participated in the survey, 17 provided answers to the question, “at your school, what supports have you received when it comes to maintaining your well-being?” the themes are identified in the table below, along with samples of teachers’ responses. table 3. themes and sample teacher responses from data set 2 themes sample teacher response support from coworkers “veteran teacher colleagues just being there to vent and give advice” “talking to colleagues” professional development and coaching “wellness coaching from instructional coaches and administration” “additionally, some years instructional coaches have been very helpful” supports outside of the work environment “i have a therapist. my religious beliefs also help me.” “support from family” lack of support and appeals for more support “none” “there needs to be more support systems in place for teachers.” data collection: interviews the interview protocol was created using a tool that was specifically designed to measure staff well-being (swb) and adapted after a researcher interview. the resilience in school environments (rise) index: school edition, created by kaiser permanente (an insurance provider for dcps) and alliance for a healthier generation (2020), was created to empower schools to create safe and supportive learning environments by developing policies and practices that improve the social emotional health of all students and staff. the rise index served as a useful entry point when discussing teacher well-being, or as they are noted in the rise index, as staff well-being as the questions pertain to physical environments that support staff, personal wellness, and collective care. the role of the interviewer is key to creating meaningful interview experiences, which is why i decided to do a researcher interview. from the beginning i knew this study was going to be deeply personal, so careful consideration had to be made as to how my experiences shaped the data collection and analysis. i asked the instructional coach at my school, who also happened to be in a different cohort of the edd program, to conduct a researcher interview, so that i could “generate insight and reflection on the study topic and processes as well as to experience being interviewed, using a protocol that [may resemble] the one used with your research participants” (ravitch & carl, 2019, p. 120). by having a colleague conduct the interview, i was able to experience what power dynamics could be at play. i also strove to begin constructing my understanding of my own reality before i engaged with the interviewees, because “in qualitative research, an ontological assumption is that there is not a single ‘truth’ or reality […] and a goal of qualitative research is to engage with, understand, and report these multiple realities” (ravitch & carl, 2019, p. 6). through my own interview process and by using researcher memos throughout the process, i gained a deeper understanding of positionality and allowed the research to be iterative and responsive to the participants. interview participants teacher time is valuable, so interviewees were chosen according to their interest. i excluded some because i worked closely with them, and i wanted to maintain distance between myself and the interviewee, mitigating bias and assumptions. the next thing i considered was the score profiles, ruling out the volunteer who was an outlier experiencing low cs and high cf. that left two teachers, who both had high cs, but different levels of bo and sts, which allowed the exploration of these experiences and a deeper understanding of context. these teachers will be referred to as teacher 1 and teacher 2, as this was the order in which i interviewed them. their demographic information and proqol scores are seen in the table below, along with the my own. table 4. proqol scores of interviewees gender race cs bo sts researcher woman white 34 (moderate) 32 (moderate) 27 (moderate teacher 1 woman white 48 (high) 19 (low) 26 (moderate) teacher 2 woman black 45 (high) 25 (moderate) 21 (low) exploring teachers’ well-being through compassion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 27 data set 3: interviews themes in the interview manuscripts, i assumed i could find descriptions of how teachers were experiencing cs, bo, and sts, so to code the interviews, i used a reflexive thematic analysis (ravitch & carl, 2019). first, i used an inductive approach similar to the one used for the survey question, but as i got deeper into this approach, i realized i needed to focus on strategically mitigating my biases. i switched to a more deductive approach and looked for reoccurring ideas, which became the themes, within the interview transcripts. after naming those themes, i utilized nvivo to organize the data and view it by hierarchy, seeing which themes were most mentioned, as seen below. table 5. interview codes from nvivo name files references suggested and existing supports 3 35 how students affect teachers’ well-being 3 18 identity 3 10 the effect of coworkers 3 9 analysis moving from evidence to analytics, i used a combination of thematic analysis and phenomenology to help shape the narrative of interpretation. using ravitch and carl’s work (2019) as a guide, i identified methods of analysis that would be helpful:  phenomenology: focus on the experiences of the participants in an examination of shared experience; analysis remains as close to data as possible  thematic analysis: develop themes to answer research questions; used in multiple methodological approaches though i assumed this entire process would involve a thematic analysis, i realized the experiences of cs and cf are phenomena that varied with each teacher, so the interviews attempted “to obtain descriptions of the life world of the interviewee with respect to interpreting the meaning of described phenomena” (kvale & brinkmann, 2015, p. 150) and to make meaning of the cf and cs phenomena that teachers were experiencing or not experiencing at the time. the analytics brings me back to the research questions and how each of the data sets pertain to the research questions, as seen below. table 6. modified analytics of research questions by dataset proqol measures survey open ended question interviews combined interpretation rq 1 x x x rq 1a x x x x rq 1b x x x x rq 2 x rq 1: what factors do teachers name as supports to their well-being? with this question, i wanted to explore my hypothesis that teachers can identify supports for their well-being, either that exist or that they would like to see exist, and not every teacher needs the same thing. utilizing the themes created through coding, two categories could be created: supports suggested and existing supports. overall, the interviews allowed for an opportunity to explore existing and suggested supports, and the supports named were both a part of and outside of the work environment. as teachers identify supports for their own well-being, a platform must be made to raise their voices, and i hope that this study can help do that. some of these suggestions are doable, but they are not the only things that need to happen, especially when it comes to the systemic challenges that educators face. table 7. existing and suggested supports from data sets 2 & 3 supports suggested existing supports survey question professional development and coaching interviews administration and leadership knowledge space for teachers nutrition and exercise diversity and choice overlap breaks supportive team and coworkers supports outside of the work environment rq 1a and b: as one indicator of well-being, what contributes to the current levels of teachers’ cs and cf, and how do the different aspects of one’s identity affect a teacher’s perception of well-being? for this question, i began with a phenomenological approach, thinking about the experiences of each interviewee, how they described each phenomena: cs, bo, and sts. putting those data sets together specifically for these three participants, including myself, i sought to answer this question about what is contributing to these teachers’ cs and cf. i also hypothesized that the levels experienced could vary due to race and gender and that most of the experiences of bo were because of the effects of the pandemic. the interview questions were designed to give context and understanding to what cs, bo, and sts look like for teachers, and how they are experiencing them, and those themes from the interview are seen in a table, along with each interviewees’ scores, in the following sections. cf-cs for researcher as the only interview participant with moderate cs, i also had moderate bo and sts, making my scores both similar and different from other participants. a main theme in this interview that explains the levels of cs and cf was how the pandemic affected students and the work environment. during the interview, i mentioned how the pandemic has caused many students to quarantine for days at a time and the continued absences affect their learning and behavior, as it interrupts their routines, which made it feel difficult for me to do my job well, lowering my cs. the effect of the pandemic was a reoccurring theme throughout all three interviews, which is helpful in contextually understanding these different levels. https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?y5ilee tatum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 28 table 8. cs, bo, and sts for researcher compassion satisfaction (cs) burnout (bo) secondary traumatic stress (sts) proqol measures 34 (moderate) 32 (moderate) 27 (moderate) themes from interviews -positive effects of students on well-being -effect of coworkers -pandemic’s effect -effect of coworkers -student environment and families -pandemic’s effect on students cf-cs for teacher 1 what was notable regarding teacher 1’s interview was her emphasis on both the positive and negative experiences she has had with coworkers. she noted that having one or two people to talk to or with whom to share resources “can make your job so much easier,” but she also mentioned how other teachers’ negative attitudes have had an affect on her as well. also, she had a moment of self-reflection as she thought about her sts score, attributing it to the pandemic and the effect it has had on her and her students. she particularly mentioned one student who had recently experienced a loss in their family and how that was adding to her sts at the time of filling out the survey. table 9. cs, bo, and sts for teacher 1 cs bo sts proqol measures 48 (high) 19 (low) 26 (moderate) themes from interviews -positive effects of students on well-being -identity and passion -supportive coworkers and team -suggestions  exercise -pandemic  health concerns  effect on students -effect of coworkers -student environment and families connections for researcher and teacher 1 to survey as teacher 1 and i identify as white, i sought to make connections across race to the survey data, seeing what supports were identified. both interviewees mentioned the existence and importance of having a supportive team, and there was a significant number of white identifying participants who also identified their team or coworkers as a support (55%). after that, the second most mentioned support was personal environment (44%) supports, such as family and therapy. table 10. supports mentioned in survey response for white participants none coworkers/ team coaching/ pd personal environment breaks identified as white 5 2 3 1 identified as white and more races 1 1 total 1 5 2 4 1 connections for researcher and teacher 1 to proqol teacher 1 was one of two (22%) teachers identifying as only white that had a high level of cs, while six (66%), including me, identified as moderate cs and one (11%) as low cs. teacher 1 and i were the only two survey participants with a moderate measure of sts, while the rest were low (67%) and one was high (11%). the number of bo was evenly split between low and moderate (four of nine; 44%), while including the two teachers who identify as white and more racial identifiers would show that six of 11 (55%) were experiencing moderate bo and four of 11 (36%) were experiencing low bo. cf-cs for teacher 2 teachers 1 and 2 both had high levels of cs, but their scores of bo and sts were swapped. teacher 2, according to the survey, was experiencing moderate bo and low sts, which she partly attributed to it being so close to the end of the school year. she was quite surprised at her level of bo, but she was able to name some issues that affected her while at school. table 11. cs, bo, and sts for teacher 2 cs bo sts proqol measures 45 (high) 25 (moderate) 21 (low) themes from interviews positive effects of students on well-being aspects of identity suggestions: exercise and therapy lack of community and negative effect of coworkers pandemic: effect on students aspects of identity student environment and families teacher 2 discussed how outside supports helped her, such as religion and therapy, and her connections with work colleagues were typically professional, saying, “i think […] our school doesn’t seem to have the strongest sense of community […] i don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone at school with anything like deep and personal.” she also noted that her bo level could be attributed to the stress of teaching students who are significantly behind because of the pandemic and because of how late in the school year the interview occurred. connection to proqol measures teacher 2 was surprised at her moderate level of bo, but upon further exploration, all participants identifying as black or african american (including those with more than this identifier) were experiencing a moderate level of bo at the time of the survey. looking for other comparisons with teacher 2, i found that four of six (57%) teachers were also experiencing high cs, and teacher 2 was actually the only teacher identifying low levels of sts, while the rest were all moderate (86%). connection to survey in connecting the survey data to this teacher’s experiences, i noticed that of all the teachers who identified as black or african american, including those who identified as other races as well, none mentioned coworkers or their team as a support for their well-being. connecting this trend to teacher 2’s experiences with not having exploring teachers’ well-being through compassion impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 29 deep and personal connections with colleagues and her observation of a lack of culture within the staff, this could show a lack of community and support for teachers identifying as black. to the survey question, the majority (n = 4) of this set of teachers replied “none,” while three teachers answered with either coaching or supports from their personal environments. one of the teachers specifically identified “wellness coaching” as a point of support, as opposed to curricular support, which is an important distinction. further research is needed to reveal why these teachers mentioned coaching and outside support as opposed to their team or coworkers. table 12. supports mentioned in survey response for black or african american participants none coworkers/ team coaching/ pd personal environment breaks identified as black or african american 3 2 identified as black or african american and more races 1 1 total 4 2 1 rq2: how can talking about well-being contribute to teachers’ experiences of well-being? to address this question, i included a specific question in the interview protocol: “has talking about the survey and your wellness today made you feel better or worse about your well-being?” the response to this question was overwhelmingly positive, and each participant gave specific reasons as to why they think this experience was helpful. both teachers 1 and 2 saw the survey and this interview as a moment of self-reflection, such as when teacher 2 mentioned, “it makes me feel better, it makes me see some growth that i've had.” teacher 1 also called the interview experience a “mini therapy” explaining, “i think it's been really better because it gives you a check and a second to reflect.” self-reflection can be an important tool to leverage when it comes to supporting teachers’ well-being. limitations of the analysis approach the people who volunteered to be interviewed were limited, as was the time in which to complete the interviews and the study; representation was not as diverse as i would have hoped. in the analytics section and in response to rq1, since i only had participants who identify as white and who identify as black or african american, i focused on those two racial designations in the analytics process. even though the participants spoke of aspects of their identities as part of their experiences with well-being, they are only one representative of that group and do not represent all people who identify as such. implications the purpose of this study was to elevate teachers’ voices, to learn their perspectives and experiences with well-being through compassion, and to empower teachers to advocate for themselves. there were findings and correlations between supports, levels of cs and fatigue, and demographic factors, which have implications for the school, the district, and the education community at large. the first and perhaps most obvious implication is that teachers have been affected by the pandemic, mostly through their students’ experiences. the effects of the covid-19 pandemic have not been fully processed, but this study can provide insight into how it has affected teachers directly and indirectly through their students. prior to the pandemic, black and latinx students were already disproportionately experiencing adverse childhood experiences (ace) (merrick et. al, 2019; coffin & meghani, 2021). as the majority of students in the studied district are black (68%) and the majority of students at the researched school are latinx (90%), it can be expected that some students are coming to school with aces, leading to sts for teachers. the cf-cs scale combined with interviews was a helpful way to capture teachers’ experiences of bo and sts because it separates the student-specific sts from the gradual burdens and stress gathered throughout the school year. in the district, the academic delays of students, pandemiccaused absences, and the added pressure of the teacher evaluation system, have impacted teachers’ experiences of bo. students have experienced delays in academic progress, nationally and specifically in dcps, and teachers have had to find ways to bridge those gaps (dc policy center, 2022; northwest evaluation association, 2022). the pandemic caused increased absenteeism, for both teachers and students, and when multiple teachers are out, more responsibilities fall on the present teacher; when students are out, they not only miss academic content but miss out on the routine of the school day and socialization with peers. the pandemic has taken its toll on teachers and students, and using the compassion fatigue theoretical model, supplemented with qualitative interviews, has helped broaden the knowledge around the pandemic’s effect on teachers. another important implication in this study is that experiences of cf, cs, and sts vary among teachers, should be tracked throughout the school year, and can be explored further through qualitative methods. much like how teachers track, monitor, and respond to their students’ data throughout the year, the same should be done for teacher well-being. whether by leadership, school-based mental health professionals, instructional coaches, or a staff wellness committee, this type of data collection and analysis could be crucial to identifying when teachers need support and with what they need support, and aggregating this data by race, gender, grade level, or other demographics could help reveal trends and opportunities for growth that need to be addressed. creating opportunities for teachers to self-reflect and learn from their experiences of maintaining their well-being could be a tremendously effective tool. the key is to ensure the time for this process to happen, for example, by delegating time for teacher well-being during the weekly professional development. better teacher wellbeing has been found to positively impact students as well, so this time would be well spent for both teachers and students (laskowski, 2020). this study found trends within its small population size, such as four of five (80%) of the black identifying teachers experienced moderate levels of sts, and six of nine (66%) of the white identifying teachers experienced only moderate levels of cs. previous research on how race and gender affect experiences of cfcs are inconclusive; for example, in a study examining cf in the virtual setting during the pandemic, researchers found that white educators reported significantly higher cf than black educators (yang, 2021). some studies have found minority status and resilience serve as a protective factor against cf, while a study done with genetic counselors found a correlation between non-white https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?q28bso https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?q28bso tatum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.325 30 counselors and higher levels of cf (lee et al., 2015). a recent report by the rand (research and development) corporation found that teachers of color were more likely than white teachers to report symptoms of depression, and also found that black or african american teachers were significantly less likely to report experiencing frequent job-related stress (66%) than white teachers (74%), and hispanic or latinx teachers (76%) (steiner et al., 2022). other factors should be considered when studying cf-cs with teachers, such as years of experience, student demographic data, and organizational support, but for any of those variables, without qualitative data, it will be difficult to truly understand the trends across racial groups. qualitative methods are opportunities to add insight and perspective to observed phenomena and can be used to support equity-centered policies. it is not enough to understand the amount of cs and fatigue, but to truly inform change, qualitative research can be useful in understanding how and why a given program or intervention may or may not work as intended and how to improve that program from the perspective of a specific group of stakeholders (goger & ford, 2021), such as understanding the historical mistrust that systemically underserved communities have for the medical system because of discrimination from healthcare providers (lópezcevallos et al., 2014; sheehan & geyn, 2021). these opportunities for connection and story-telling can lead to more transformative relationships that center care and trust (ginwright, 2022), which needs to be felt between teachers, but also between leadership and teachers. through understanding the experiences of teachers and how their different environments-personal, school, and studentcan affect their well-being, policies for teacher well-being can lead to true healing. the last major implication is that flexibility in the workspace could help support teachers’ well-being. flexibility in the workspace is not a new idea, but it has gained more attention for schools and many other businesses out of necessity since the beginning of the pandemic. the national center for education statistics (2022) found that eighty-three percent of public school teachers reported that all or some of their classes normally taught in person were moved to online distance-learning formats during the covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. not only were schools closed, but many other workplaces, workers, and technology had to adapt quickly to identify how to effectively work at a safe distance. that learning, paired with the identified supports of breaks and days off identified by teachers in this study, has implications for schools, the district, and the education community at large. the pandemic caused businesses to rethink their workspaces, including options for working from home and engaging in virtual work. working from home can help employees find work-life balance and save people time from commuting, and on days when asynchronous offerings are required, people can work at their own pace. though there are many benefits to virtual work, threats to productivity include distraction challenges at home, isolation and limits on team building, and the planning that is required to ensure that employees know how to access and finish their work (kaushik & guleria, 2020; meister, 2021; stoller, 2021). the benefits of in-person school are substantial; yet having some flexibility on certain days could be helpful. for example, one school offers flexibility on the four designated records days (a day for teachers to report grades at the end of each quarter), allowing teachers the option to work virtually or to come into the school building. this simple offering for teachers has made them feel supported and trusted, while also giving them flexibility and autonomy. conclusion this research was a deeply personal process, as i was a teacher studying teacher well-being, at my own school. try as i may to mitigate the effects of my positionality as a researcher and a white woman, i recognize that these identifiers bring unearned power and privilege that are impossible for me to break down in the length of one interview. to address those issues, i did use more open-ended questions in the interviews and surveys, utilized a member check (allowing interviewees to read what i wrote before sharing), and used researcher memos to process and track changes made. also, as part of my doctoral program, i had many opportunities to engage with critical thought partners, both professors and fellow cohort members, to challenge and push the rigor of this work. as teachers continue to feel burnt out along with the joy of teaching, teacher well-being should be prioritized as a necessary lever for teacher retention and community healing. references alliance for a healthier generation and kaiser permanente. 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https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/rra1108-4.html https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?9e8fkr https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chest.2020.09.087 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?9e8fkr https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966x.2021.1903815 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?9e8fkr impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 8 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 onboarding effects on engagement and retention in the it sector wendi walker-schmidt baylor university wendi_walkerschmid1@alumni.baylor.edu corina kaul baylor university corina_kaul@baylor.edu lacy crocker papadakis baylor university lacy_papadakis@baylor.edu abstract employee turnover is costly to businesses; replacing one employee costs 90–200% of the employee’s annual salary (allen, 2008; cascio, 2006). business leaders know that ineffective onboarding may be a component of the problem. this quasi-experimental study compares results from three annual cohorts of associate software engineers who participated in a nine-month extended onboarding program (n = 184) and those who did not (n = 261). specifically, this quasi-experimental study used a chi-square test to compare retention. the extended onboarding group had significantly higher one-year retention than the control group. the results of this study suggest that longer onboarding may be a solution for the human resource community regarding long-term engagement and retention. keywords onboarding, engagement, turnover, organizational development onboarding effects on long-term engagement and retention recruiting, hiring, and retaining top talent is a strategic driver for organizations. to remain competitive for talent, tech companies must have innovative solutions to retain talent. a survey conducted by the institute of corporate productivity (i4cp) discovered a direct correlation between effective onboarding and increased engagement, retention, and productivity (martin, 2018). onboarding is the program or process that assimilates new employees into the organization by creating a psychological contract between the organization and new employees based on the unique needs of the new employee (caldwell & peters, 2018). the most effective onboarding programs focus on “personal identity socialization” (cable et al., 2013, p. 24). this concept emphasizes uncovering the new employees’ strengths and interests to channel into their work for ultimate success (cable et al., 2013). employee engagement has a distinct impact on employee retention (macintosh & doherty, 2010). employees with high levels of engagement emotionally identify with the organization and participate in meaningful work. these elements translate into employees who stay with an organization (eldor & vigoda-gadot, 2017). conversely, employees with low levels of engagement display an emotional disconnect with the organization and their work and are most likely to depart the organization (kahn, 1990). employees leave an organization for various reasons, with poor onboarding being a primary driver as the new employees miss the emotional connection with the organization (bauer, 2010). onboarding is the element that helps employees transition from being an outsider to an insider by gaining the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be successful (bauer & erdogan, 2011). according to the society of human resource management (shrm) data from surveys and exit interviews, most employees state they leave within the first two years because of poor onboarding, lack of training, and few advancement opportunities in the organization (allen, 2008). these three elements create a psychological contract between the employee and the organization and are part of the employee lifecycle. employee lifecycle the employee lifecycle explains where onboarding, engagement, and retention fall within an employee’s time with an organization. the employee lifecycle includes: attracting, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, managing performance, and offboarding (cattermole, 2019). onboarding and ongoing training encompass all the tools, training, policies, and procedures that support an employee’s total experience with an organization. beginning with https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8869-7903 onboarding effects in the it sector impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 9 initial recruiting, the employee lifecycle continues to orient the new hires, advances to ongoing skill development and connection to an organization, and concludes with offboarding to a new position either inside or outside of the original organization (smither, 2003). overseeing the employee lifecycle is vital to all organizations. employees make connections within each step of the employee lifecycle. when employees feel valued at each stage of the employee lifecycle, they will have higher engagement and retention levels (cattermole, 2019). research shows that onboarding is a vital part of creating an employee connection with the organization (bauer, 2010). onboarding the definition of onboarding varies throughout the literature. however, most definitions include the element of integrating with the organization. effective onboarding extends benefits to the new employee and organization by ensuring an emotional connection is established, thereby beginning the path to higher employee engagement (stein & christiansen, 2010). onboarding programs are designed to acclimate the new employee to the culture and expectations of the organization. organizational effectiveness is higher for those companies that create a valuable onboarding experience (bauer & erdogan, 2011). research shows that a comprehensive onboarding program that connects the new employee to the organizational culture and meaningful work leads to increased engagement, productivity, and overall retention (snell, 2006). yet, other research shows that most conventional organizational onboarding programs do not provide the culture connection or success on the job; rather, they supply new employees with a plethora of information that does not help them assimilate to the organization but rather overwhelms them (caldwell & peters, 2018). the cascading effect of successful onboarding enhances the overall employee experience, resulting in increased productivity and improved retention (metcalf, 2019). most organizations, however, do not have a formal onboarding process. this lack of onboarding has immediate implications for employee engagement and retention. only 32% of organizations have a formalized onboarding process (gillespie associates, 2016). the critical period to create an emotional connection between the organization and the new employee’s work occurs within the first 12– 18 months (grillo & kim, 2015). therefore, having an onboarding program that meets new employees’ varied needs should be a vital concern for employers. engagement employee engagement is the cornerstone of the relationship between the organization and the employee. many professionals in the corporate space use the terms engagement and satisfaction interchangeably, but they are not the same concept. employee satisfaction is how content an employee is with the organization (sageer, 2012). satisfaction influences engagement, but engagement encompasses much more. engagement includes organizational contentment but also encompasses employees’ level of commitment and discretionary effort (snell, 2006). discretionary effort is the level of effort that employees put forth going above and beyond their normal workload (schaufeli, 2012). this level of effort stems from an intrinsic motivation, which is internal to the employee and what they find enjoyable (ormrod, 2020). highly engaged employees regularly put forth higher levels of discretionary effort. however, most u.s. employees are not highly engaged. gallup (2007) cites that only 33% of u.s. workers are highly engaged. engagement begins in the onboarding phase as new employees begin to form a psychological contract with the organization (caldwell & peters, 2018). when employees feel engaged in their workspaces, the employees and organization will experience success (smith et al., 2016). key levers that influence employee engagement are personal growth, leadership support, communication, and corporate engagement initiatives. research conducted by lambert and colleagues (2001) cites that high employee engagement correlates with low employee turnover. organizations must understand that increasing engagement will help employees work at their maximum level (byham & wellins, 2015). by creating a trusting, supportive environment, employee engagement increases as new employees feel emotionally confident to bring their whole selves to work (cooper-thomas et al., 2018). the foundation for this level of trust and support begins on day one in employee onboarding. organizations that make certain employees are emotionally engaged in their work will increase the probability of their length of service intention (ormrod, 2020). engagement also links to retention as 70% of new employees decide to stay within their first six months based on their level of emotional connectedness with an organization (gillespie associates, 2016). onboarding and engagement organizations that ensure onboarding is effective increase the employee’s experience in their time with an organization, which creates a more connected workforce. starting a new job can produce high levels of anxiety. when roles are not clearly defined and the employee is uncertain about their duties, it can hinder the employee’s ability to connect with the organization (collins, 2019). employees who engage in a structured onboarding process are 20% more engaged than those who do not (grillo & kim, 2015). an i4cp report states, “when new hires experience effective employee onboarding, it will establish a sense of engagement connectedness with the organization and help new hires become productive at a much faster rate” (martin, 2018, para. 3). conversely, ineffective onboarding hinders engagement and productivity (nintex, 2018). onboarding, therefore, is a fundamental step in beginning the engagement and retention of a new employee (krasman, 2015; snell, 2006). retention u.s. employers compete in recruiting top talent. currently, there are more job openings than employees to fill the roles. employees within the technology sector control the job market and can be selective in where they want to work (sears, 2017). the most recent work institute 2019 retention report cites 35% of employees will leave their jobs to work elsewhere by 2023, and voluntary turnover exceeded 27% in 2018 (bearden et al., 2019). employees do not remain at an organization for a variety of reasons. there are two main types of turnover: voluntary and involuntary. an employee initiates voluntary turnover, while an organization initiates involuntary turnover (allen, 2008). human resource professionals categorize voluntary turnover in two categories: positive and negative. positive voluntary turnover occurs when an employee has amassed new knowledge, skills, and abilities that land them a new role. often, they are high-performing employees other walker-schmidt et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 10 recruiters entice with increased salaries or benefits packages that the current organization cannot match. in this scenario, the employee is leaving on good terms for a role that will further benefit them and potentially their family, therefore considered positive turnover. ultimately the organization upskilled the employees with a higher competency level, making them more marketable (smither, 2003). negative voluntary turnover results from a variety of reasons. an employee can experience a lack of connection with their everyday work duties, leader, or have a mismatch of ideals with the organizational mission, vision, and values. negative involuntary turnover are those employees the organization must dismiss because of performance, behavior, or both (allen, 2008). turnover is preventable in certain areas. organizations can utilize meaningful work strategies, creating a positive environment, and individual connectedness to increase retention (shrm, 2016). exit interview data shows employees leave an organization because of poor onboarding, negative relationships with leaders, and lack of contribution and meaningful work (heathfield, 2019). employees perform higher when there is mutual respect between their leader, themselves, and the organization (ma et al., 2018). byham and wellins (2015) state employees have a high need to feel as though they are contributing to the organization. employers must align employees with what they do matters. giving employees meaningful work results in a sense of purpose. a positive work environment is one of respect, collaboration, and trust (byham & wellins, 2015). organizations can leverage retention strategies to decrease the outflow of their employees. while it is a common misconception that compensation is a key driver in retention, research shows focus on meaningful work, creating a positive environment, and individual connectedness can considerably increase retention (ma et al., 2018). employees have options and to gain new employment. employers should invest in seeking to reduce turnover by engaging employees and connecting them to the organization. onboarding and retention onboarding is a critical step associated with increased employee retention. the first 45–60 days of employment are crucial. studies show that employees that do not receive thorough onboarding leave within this timeframe (llarena, 2013). organizations must focus time, energy, and effort on employees and the onboarding process to attract, develop, and retain top talent. employee-centric onboarding programs result in higher retention levels (namely-hr for humans, 2018). furthermore, according to the wynhurst group, 58% of employees were more likely to remain with a company at the three-year mark when they engaged in a structured onboarding process (allen, 2008). effective onboarding programs contain elements of cultural integration, organizational socialization, and connection between an individual’s strengths and meaningful work. cultural integration helps the new employee to understand how the organization functions (bauer, 2010). additionally, integrating into the culture assists the new employee in learning the written and unwritten norms that underlie the organization’s foundation (caldwell & peters, 2018). organizational socialization plays a critical role for the new employee as they move from an outsider to an insider within the organization. socialization begins during the onboarding process through orientation as new employees meet other newcomers and develop a sense of camaraderie. this process is further instilled in the new employee as they meet other team members and possibly even a mentor (bauer & erdogan, 2011). as the new employee joins their team, they often struggle to find their place. however, if the leader and team seek to understand the new employee’s strengths and match them to the appropriate work, the new employee builds confidence (cable et al., 2013). retention challenges in information technology although employee turnover is concerning in all industries, it is especially problematic in the information technology (it) industry. the it industry was selected for this study as consistently it appears in the top categories for turnover. in 2017, it had the highest turnover rate for any job sector at 13.2% (booz, 2018). according to forrest (2018), more than one out of five software engineers leave their jobs during the first year, representing a 21.7% turnover rate. accordingly, the present study focuses on turnover in the information technology sector as employee turnover is highest within the it industry. theoretical framework organizational development theory and kotter’s (2012) eightstep organizational change model combine to form the theoretical framework of this study. organizational development theory increases the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees within an organization to increase performance and move more readily through change. this theory helps individuals understand the change that is external to them and manage change through transition management, which is their internal mechanism to cope with the change (austin & bartunek, 2003). within organizational development theory, there are two main elements: implementation and change. implementation focuses on the plan and process to implement the change in an organization. change will focus on the people aspect of change and include activities such as communication and training to solidify the change. john kotter's eight-step organizational change model concentrates on the steps to move organizations through change and transition to adopt innovation (armenakis, 1999). integrating both models into this study will drive the focus on individual and organizational adaptation to change. organizational development (od) is the process of continuous improvement for an organization. od begins with examining gaps within an organization, then creating change action plans to address the gaps. within this process, od guides the implementation and evaluation of the organizational change plans. at the center of the organizational change plan are employees that must be an intricate part of the change. od enhances employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities to improve organizational performance and manage future change (farias & johnson, 2000). onboarding is a critical part of organizational development as it serves as the conduit for new employees to engage in organizational assimilation. participating in effective onboarding increases employees’ sense of self-efficacy (bauer & erdogan, 2011). additionally, kotter’s change model influences organizational change. dr. kotter (2012) created his eight–step change model after he dedicated time observing leaders and organizations executing their strategies. this work led to the book leading change (kotter, 2012). within this book, kotter (2012) laid out eight steps to organizational change. step one is creating a sense of urgency where change is onboarding effects in the it sector impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 11 presented as a solution to an issue. step two is forming a powerful coalition where stakeholders will back the change. step three is creating a vision for change, performing processes differently and more effectively. step four is communicating the vision. sharing the vision with the organization is key so all the employees become emotional stakeholders. step five is removing obstacles. obstacles can be people or processes; both must move to the new side of the change. step six is creating short-term wins. short-term wins are great motivators for those involved in the project and help to remove obstacles. step seven is building on the change. organizations should celebrate all wins and create and stretch goals to continue building the change. finally, step eight is anchoring the change into the culture. embedding the change into the culture influences the future of the organization (kotter, 2012). kotter (2012) cites when an organization’s strategy is mismatched with the culture, the organization will struggle. a vital competency for change management is assisting employees to understand the organizational strategy and culture. onboarding is a key element to set the foundational understanding of strategy and culture. the onboarding phase is the point that employees acclimate to the organization’s culture and encourage others to adopt it by modeling the behaviors outside of orientation to the job (harpelund et al., 2019). this study applies organizational development and kotter’s (2012) eight–step organizational change model to explore extending onboarding and its long-term effects on engagement and retention. as new employees begin a role with an organization, they experience change. the organization also experiences change when they integrate a new team member into a role. organizational development theory and kotter’s (2012) eight-step organizational change model connect with engagement and retention by balancing the change that occurs to the organization and the employee’s transition experience (walker-schmidt, 2021). primary researcher positionality the primary researcher has been a practitioner in the human resource space for over 20 years and has been exposed to many areas of specialty in human resources. the researcher has specialized in learning, organizational development (od), organizational effectiveness (oe), employee relations, life coaching, and recruiting. within organizational development and effectiveness, a segment of focus is employee engagement and retention. there are many metrics that measure employee engagement and retention. the annual employee engagement survey organizations administer measures overall employee engagement and satisfaction. the primary researcher has designed and implemented engagement surveys for organizations in many industries. employee engagement surveys are designed by od/oe practitioners based on alignment with the organizational mission, vision, values, and competencies. in most organizations, a third-party vendor deploys the survey to ensure anonymity to participants who take the survey. results are tabulated by the vendor and sent to the practitioner within the organization. the practitioner analyzes the results and designs performance interventions for the organization to increase engagement areas of opportunity. if engagement areas of opportunity are not addressed, employee retention is affected. the primary researcher has taken a great interest in the reasons engagement and retention affects an organization. as previously mentioned, engagement and retention are closely intertwined. those with lower levels of engagement are less likely to be retained by an organization. od/oe practitioners are also responsible for creating retention plans for an organization. often, when engagement areas of opportunity are addressed from the survey, retention increases. the researcher has worked with many organizations that were struggling with engagement and retention. she has developed a reputation for coming into an organization, conducting an engagement needs assessment, designing a plan to increase engagement and retention, and deploying the solution throughout the organization. many performance interventions have included designing and deploying onboarding and ongoing training programs. as a result, many of the organizations the researcher has worked with over the years have seen a significant rise in engagement and retention. conducting engagement surveys and creating retention plans has piqued an interest for the researcher as consistent themes have developed over the years. caldwell and peters (2018) cite research on exit interviews that employees leave because of poor onboarding, lack of training, and no career opportunities. the primary researcher has witnessed these themes as well. specifically, onboarding, the beginning of the organizational journey, seems to be a catalyst for engagement. the researcher has long suspected that extending onboarding can increase long-term engagement and retention. one of the primary objectives of this research is to obtain data to determine if extending onboarding increases long-term engagement and retention. the sample organization is looking at this data to potentially revise their onboarding strategy, thereby transforming the established professional practice of onboarding in the company. as the human resource body of research continues to grow, practitioners, including the primary researcher, are making datadriven decisions to further organizational effectiveness. furthermore, the primary researcher is incorporating scholarly research to help guide and direct strategic decision making. conducting this study helps enhance and inform the body of research for human resource professionals pertaining to onboarding. additionally, the primary researcher utilizes research conducted for this study to enhance the onboarding practices at her current organization and share the results with other organizations struggling with engagement and retention. purpose of the study the purpose of this quasi-experimental study is to describe the differences in engagement and retention between associate software engineers who were part of the extended onboarding program (eop) compared to those who were part of the control group. two research questions guided this study: (a) is there a difference in annual engagement scores of the extended onboarding group and the control group? (b) is there a statistically significant difference in retention between the extended onboarding group and the control group? method this study presented in this article is the first portion of a convergent mixed methods study. in a convergent mixed methods design, quantitative and qualitative data are collected, compared, and combined to gain a more complete understanding (creswell & plano clark, 2018). we used quantitative methodology to measure walker-schmidt et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 12 engagement and retention of newly hired associate software engineers. future publications will report on the qualitative and mixed methods results. we will use the qualitative data to compare to the quantitative results and gain further insight into employees’ perceptions using thick, rich descriptions obtained from the interviews. information on participants, the intervention program, the engagement survey, and data analysis for the quantitative portion of the study are presented herein. participants associate software engineers are recent college graduates or new to the industry with less than a year of experience. the majority earn bachelor’s degrees in computer science, engineering, or computer programming. all participants are employed in the technology division at a u.s. fortune 500 financial firm. the extended onboarding program served as the intervention for the associate software engineers, hereafter called eop participants. all other associate software engineers (non-eop) served as the control group. as displayed in table 1, u.s. technologists (those who work in all areas of technology) are 74% male and 26% female (daley, 2020). within this fortune 500 technology division, the overall maleto-female ratio is 76% male and 24% female. however, the eop program had slightly more females (27%), which exceeded the program’s gender diversity and inclusion target goal of 25% female. table 1. male to female ratio in the u.s., sample company, and eop participants sample male female breakdown of u.s. technologists 74% 26% sample company technologists 76% 24% eop participants 73% 27% extended onboarding program the extended onboarding program (eop) allows participants to partake in a nine-month onboarding program. during this time, they engage in an initial two-week boot camp to prepare them for their first days on their team, participate in ongoing technical and soft skills training, work with their designated mentor, and have an assigned life coach who meets with them once a week throughout the nine-month program. those who do not participate in the eop do not engage in the opportunities given to eop participants; instead, non-eop participants have one week of team-level onboarding. the eop began at a single location in september 2017 with the first cohort of three participants. the program expanded to six of the organization’s 10 locations throughout the united states. from 2017–2019 eop participants (n = 184) grew from 3% to 78% of the associate software engineers hired per year (see table 2). eop cohorts begin annually in january, march, june, and september. given that the program focuses on recruiting new college graduates for the associate software engineer position, cohorts begin the month after college graduation. the march cohort is the exception as it serves as a catch-up cohort for those who may have graduated late or had extenuating circumstances preventing them from joining in january. individuals in the non-eop are not part of a cohort. eop selection those who desire to be part of the eop cohort must apply and are selected using a comprehensive interview process. candidates for the associate software engineer position with the eop apply through the company website and are screened by the recruiter. if knowledge, skills, and abilities for the role match, an interview is scheduled with the recruiter. this interview consists of behavioral interview questions for organizational fit and technical questions. if the candidate does not do well during this interview, they are released from the hiring process. otherwise, eop candidates advance to round two interviews. round two involves a one-hour interview with a team of three employer representatives: a member of the onboarding leadership team, a technical team leader, and a senior engineer. senior engineers conduct a technical coding exercise as part of the one-hour interview. the recruiter informs the candidate of the committee’s decision. if the team decides to extend a job offer, the new hire will work with the technical team leader’s group. candidates who do not advance to the second round of interviews or do not receive a job offer have the option of applying for a non-eop associate software engineer position. the eop begins on the first day of employment. eop participants go through a twoweek boot camp to learn the tools and processes to function on a software development team. program participants continue gaining high levels of training throughout their program, including success skills (soft skills) training and technical training. the eop program provides approximately 50 hours of further training opportunities to those in the program. while all associate software engineers do the same type of coding work, eop participants receive additional technical and skill training and opportunities to work on challenging projects. therefore, the selection process is more rigorous. table 2. descriptive statistics for eop vs. non-eop participants starting year eop group (n = 184) control (non-eop) group (n = 261) total n n year% n year% start in 2017 3 3% 88 97% 91 start in 2018 31 19% 130 81% 161 start in 2019 150 78% 43 22% 193 184 261 445 onboarding effects in the it sector impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 13 data collection for this study, collected data included engagement and retention metrics. data was pulled from the human resource information system (hris) on retention metrics for the years 2017– 2020 for the job code of associate software engineer. the hris contains all business processes and employee data for the organization including hire date, eop status, and employment termination date. within the employee termination module, retention numbers are housed. when an employee leaves an organization, an offboarding process is initiated. on the employee’s last day their employment record is updated with a termination date, and any final pay and benefits are calculated and sent. instrument human resources data analyses from employee engagement surveys uncover what drives employees to perform their best and areas to help the individuals grow and the organization to evolve. the employee engagement survey measures elements that drive engagement: the overall organization, relationship with the leader and team, and the individual work (mcbain, 2007). furthermore, the survey measures employees’ motivation, and sense of purpose around the elements of organization, team, and leader dynamics. engagement data was pulled from the nexus system that deploys, tabulates, and analyzes the annual employee engagement survey for all employees for the years 2017–2019. the nexus experience is deployed by an organization which is a full-service human capital firm that anchors its survey work in research-based science from industrial-organizational practice. the employee engagement survey uses a five-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree). associate software engineers’ engagement scores represented are the overall averages of who participated in the eop and those who did not. for employees to feel comfortable expressing how they feel about the organization, only aggregated group scores were released to the researchers. data analysis the mean overall engagement scores were pulled from the employee engagement system for the years of 2017–2019 for the eop group and the non-eop group. the organization was not able to provide standard deviation measures or mean scores for any subscales. an inferential chi–square test of independence was conducted using the statistical software package spss 26 with two categorical variables: each participant was coded by group membership (eop = 0, non-eop = 1) and retention (yes = 0, no = 1). the chi–square test of independence is appropriate to determine if two categorical variables are related and can be used to predict the value of one variable if the other variable is known (field, 2018; vogt & johnson, 2016). the phi coefficient (φ) is reported as a measure of effect size for two dichotomous variables (vogt & johnson, 2016). results results from quantitative methods are presented to answer the research questions. first, descriptive statistics on employee engagement is provided. second, the results of the inferential test is provided. employee engagement average employee engagement scores for the eop and the non-eop group are presented by year in table 3. the mean engagement score for the eop group is slightly lower than the control group. this mean difference between the annual engagement scores is less than 5%. without access to variance in scores, it cannot be determined if there is a statistical difference between groups on perceived employee engagement. table 3. mean employee engagement scores by year for eop and non-eop groups year eop m eop n non-eop m non-eop n 2017 4.10 3 4.14 88 2018 4.15 31 4.18 130 2019 4.15 150 4.20 43 total 184 261 retention descriptive statistics for retention are presented in table 4. from 2017 to 2019, the retention rates for the eop group outperformed the control group. although the sample sizes between the groups vary by year, the eop group retains 10% to 43% more of participants than the non-eop control group. in 2019, a shift occurred where more associate software engineers elected to join the eop group compared to the non-eop group. table 4. descriptive retention statistics for eop vs. non-eop participants year eop group control (non-eop) annual n retained n retained % annual n retained n retained % 2017 3 3 100% 88 79 90% 2018 31 31 100% 130 116 89% 2019 150 135 90% 43 20 47% total 184 169 92% 261 215 82% walker-schmidt et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 14 next, retention was examined between extended onboarding participants and the control group. a chi-square test examined if there was a significant relationship between extending onboarding and retention. the results showed a statistically significant relationship between the two categorical variables extendedonboarding and control groups, x2(1) = 8.19, p = .004. the effect size (φ = .14) indicates a small effect. in order to determine if the shift to eop group selection in 2019 accounted for the significance, a second chi-square test conducted using only the 2017-2018 participants (n = 252) also demonstrated statistical significance, x2(1) = 3.947, p = .047 and a small effect (φ = .13). discussion based on the effect size, there is a small statistically significant effect between the onboarding group and retention. although reported engagement was slightly lower for the eop group, we cannot verify if this was a statistically significant difference as only summary statistics were provided by the employer. accordingly, further research related to measuring engagement and retention metrics is warranted as this study indicated that eop participants are more likely to stay with the company in spite of lower reported engagement scores than the non-eop participants. as stated previously, this study is part of an emerging dissertation. current literature indicates that engagement and retention are influenced by several factors, primarily the individual’s lived experiences. these lived experiences can vary based on organizational culture, leadership style, growth opportunities, and career progression (bauer & erdogan, 2011; macintosh & doherty, 2010). additionally, these factors can influence how an individual engages within an organization and whether they stay with the organization. reasons for engagement are highly personal to each individual and will also be explored with the qualitative data collection in this emerging mixed methods study. future research will engage a convergent mixed methods design. qualitative data will include individual interviews with each eop participant and focus groups by cohort. primary questions in the qualitative study will examine what factors kept the participants most engaged and encouraged retention with the organization. the remaining components of the mixed methods study will enhance the current information and provide a wholistic picture for engagement and retention. organizations that demonstrate high levels of employee engagement and retention show stronger financial and productivity gains (morgan, 2004). the most recent research shows companies that invest more in relationships and training during onboarding, rather than red tape and paperwork, have a powerful commitment from their employee base (hallak, 2016; smither, 2003). most companies state they do not have the time to extend the onboarding process past two weeks to thirty days (hallak, 2016). however, the skyrocketing costs of turnover to organizations are staggering. recruiting costs can range from $20,000–$50,000 to bring in an associate software engineer (shrm, 2016). implementing simple retention strategies could significantly impact the bottom line for many organizations. keeping top talent can impact whether a company maintains its competitive advantage or loses out to other companies (cardy & lengnick-hall, 2011). not only can retention affect the financial bottom line, but also the retention of institutional knowledge (ma et al., 2018). when a high performer leaves the organization, there is not only a replacement cost but also a cost of the knowledge that left with them. in the time that follows to recruit, hire, train, and develop their replacement, there will be a productivity cost associated with the initial employee loss (kim, 2019). limitations this study has notable limitations. first, this study does not include participants in other job codes besides associate software engineer. therefore, this study is not compatible with random sampling where all members have an equal opportunity to be represented in the sample. second, this study may not have transferable results to other industries. as previously stated, technology has high rates of turnover; the results of this study may vary according to industry. third, individual engagement data could not be obtained to compute variance, investigate if statistical differences exist between engagement scores, or to see which subscales of engagement differ. additionally, the engagement instrument does not cite specific information on validity and reliability. fourth, by selecting to only look at onboarding effects on engagement and retention, a boundary has been set only to discuss those criteria. many other elements can be affected by extending onboarding as research suggests that engagement is highly personal (caldwell & peters, 2018). fifth, those who apply to participate in the eop are driven individuals who are excited about the additional training and challenge of the program. therefore, these individuals may have innate characteristics that influenced their engagement and retention in addition to or rather than the impact of the eop. finally, the absence of qualitative data to provide depth and insight on the topic is a limitation that will be mitigated with the upcoming convergent mixed methods research that incorporates these findings. recommendations for future research future research could examine engagement more broadly or other elements that onboarding may impact. as previously mentioned, engagement is a highly personalized experience. the topic of engagement and what creates the emotional connectedness for individuals with an organization needs further research in the human resource field. furthermore, this study could be replicated in other positions at multiple levels beyond associate software engineers or in other industries to examine if similar results occur. lastly, this study could be extended to a longitudinal study to see farreaching effects on extending onboarding on career projection and long-term engagement. conclusion the research demonstrates that onboarding is the foundation for long-term engagement and retention. organizations know that ineffective onboarding is a problem, but there is no definitive solution in the evidence. engagement and retention are two target metrics for most organizations. turnover causes a huge loss of revenue on recruitment and hiring. clearly, turnover is an issue, is effective onboarding the answer? engagement and retention are influenced by many factors, primarily an individual’s experiences within an organization. the research demonstrates that effective onboarding is associated with long-term engagement and retention. organizations that create an emotional connection with their employees early in the process are more likely to have higher levels of overall engagement and retention. ultimately, this emotional bond impacts their productivity, and new employees will reach production efficiency onboarding effects in the it sector impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.220 15 quickly (martin, 2018). organizations realize that enhancing employee engagement and retention have an impact on the company’s overall financials. specifically, engagement affects retention and links directly to customer satisfaction and stakeholder 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(2021). onboarding effects on employee engagement and retention: a mixed methods study exploring extending onboarding and its impact on long-term employee engagement and retention [unpublished manuscript]. college of education, baylor university. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/documents/retaining-talent.pdf https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/documents/retaining-talent.pdf https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/documents/retaining-talent.pdf https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from-past-initiatives/documents/onboarding%20new%20employees.pdf https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from-past-initiatives/documents/onboarding%20new%20employees.pdf https://doi.org/10.1037/12171-002 https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/reinventing-employee-onboarding/ https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-10-2016-0202 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/shr-05-2019-0042 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/shr-05-2019-0042 https://builtin.com/women-tech/women-in-tech-workplace-statistics https://builtin.com/women-tech/women-in-tech-workplace-statistics https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1180312 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886300363007 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51c9e574e4b0bf9a1f48726f/t/57c098dbe3df28b64a4b8f79/1472241716593/why https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51c9e574e4b0bf9a1f48726f/t/57c098dbe3df28b64a4b8f79/1472241716593/why https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/student/79 https://books.google.com/books?id=bbucdwaaqbaj https://books.google.com/books?id=xpgx1ewl_emc https://doi.org/10.1002/ert.21493 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/dlo-11-2017-0094 https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)1532-6748(2003)3:1(19) https://doi.org/doi:%2010.1108/14754390680000925 wendi walker-schmidt baylor university corina kaul baylor university (1) lacy crocker papadakis baylor university (2) onboarding effects on long-term engagement and retention employee lifecycle onboarding engagement onboarding and engagement retention onboarding and retention retention challenges in information technology theoretical framework primary researcher positionality purpose of the study method participants extended onboarding program eop selection data collection instrument data analysis results employee engagement retention discussion limitations recommendations for future research conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 26 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 emerging scholarly practitioners: utilizing course-embedded research projects rebecca smith university of portland smithre@up.edu sarah fedoration university of portland fedorati13@up.edu janice francis university of portland francisj23@up.edu camille loken university of portland loken23@up.edu janice muench university of portland muench23@up.edu cathie bush university of portland bush14@up.edu maureen ference university of portland ference23@up.edu karen gartner university of portland gartner21@up.edu bev lyseng university of portland lysengb23@up.edu nicole ralston university of portland ralston@up.edu andrea cooper university of portland coopera23@up.edu sharon fischer university of portland fischers23@up.edu sherri humphrys university of portland humphrys21@up.edu randy lyseng university of portland lyseng23@up.edu kate syson university of portland syson23@up.edu abstract the purpose of this research project was to explore doctoral student learning and development as scholarly practitioners through one innovative method: a course-based self-study. this self-study empowered doctoral candidates in three key forms of data collection: 1) two project-based course assignments; 2) a survey on course-based student learning; and 3) a self-reflection on learning in the self-study. results indicate positive impacts in addressing real-life problems and in connecting students to cohort members. the application of skills and knowledge in a course-embedded self-study connects to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) principles of creating scholarly practitioners and also developing activist leaders who build coalitions and focus on researching real life social justice issues. this study can serve as an exemplar for similar edd programs who are developing scholarly practitioners. keywords self-study, doctor of education, scholarly practitioners, teacher as researcher adult learning theory and critical professional development call for active, critical engagement of adult learners, including for doctoral students. doctoral students develop in numerous ways, both professionally and personally, across their programs, often taking on new identities. buss et al. (2014) explored doctoral student development as learners, leaders, and action researchers, and then suggested a new identity status, scholarly and influential practitioners (saip). doctor of education (ed.d.) programs have a responsibility to develop educational leaders who are able to serve a diverse and dynamic landscape; programs must engage students as reflective, critical, and equity-focused scholarly practitioners and activists (carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped], 2021). research with 200 participants at 65 cped-member institutions revealed that an activist includes four facets: coalition builder, vocal risktaker, visionary leader, and social justice champion (becton et al., 2020). doctoral programs must “maximize impact on the field and cultivate activism among program graduates who will lead systemic transformation in education” (ryan & watson, 2021, p. 11). little research, however, has explored how doctoral programs most effectively implement this mission. research on doctoral student learning indicates that authentic, project-based experiences have the potential to lead to transformative learning. for instance, one ed.d. program that engaged graduate students with real-life district research projects found a mutually beneficial partnership between the districts and the emerging scholarly practitioners (ralston et al., 2016). additional research that utilizes course-embedded projects that help scaffold ed.d. learning and development have seen benefits in the growth of scholarly practitioners (caskey et al., 2020). this study provides https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5520-0072 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2795-3624 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4519-0990 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7784-2175 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5950-202x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7207-8697 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8127-3574 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6833-1752 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8713-2089 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3423-9012 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5605-2135 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9264-2777 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1771-2931 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8721-6418 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3563-434x emerging scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 27 another methodology to act as an exemplar for similar ed.d. programs who seek to incorporate project-based research that promotes equity, reflective practice, and helps students connect problems of practice and their dissertation research with the end goal of becoming activists who lead transformative change in education. purpose statement the purpose of this research project was to explore doctoral student learning and development as scholarly practitioners. this study entailed a dual approach to reaching this purpose: first, doctoral students were engaged in project-based learning within their ed.d. course; second, the doctoral students engaged in a selfreflective research project about their learning in the course activities. the second phase was a course-based self-study about doctoral student development. the research question for this study was: how did a course-based self-study research project impact student learning in the following areas: relevance, connectivity to their cohort, and identity development? theoretical framework the theoretical framework utilized in this study was andragogy or adult learning theory (knowles, 1970). this theory provided the foundation for the course itself, which was titled adult learning, organizational, and group dynamics. andragogy argues that adult learning must be (a) problem-oriented, (b) honor and include the adult learners’ experiences, (c) internally motivate the learners, and (d) self-directed (knowles, 1970). the pedagogies used within both phases of this study emphasized these four characteristics. additionally, this self-study sought to engage doctoral students in critical, active self-reflection and engagement with real world problems of practice, drawing on the concept of critical professional development (cpd) (kholi et al., 2015). cpd engages adults in their learning by providing them control of their learning experiences and focusing on shared needs of the learners. higher education faculty members who also engage in cpd can have positive impacts on their identify development as social justice educators (dover et al., 2020). practitioner inquiry, such as the self-study approach implemented in this study, is key for learning within a cpd framework (picower, 2015). methodology this research utilized a self-study methodology, where 13 doctoral students enrolled in a three-year cped-member, in person doctoral program were the participants and also the researchers. the professor served as a mentor and co-researcher in the teaching, learning, and research process. the goal of utilizing this methodology was to apply the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped, 2021) principles to develop scholarly practitioners, which involves using signature pedagogy (i.e., teaching and learning grounded in problems of practice, theory, and research), inquiry as practice, laboratories as practice, dissertation in practice, problems of practice, mentoring and advising, and embedding research into course-based assessments and learning. self-study in teacher education connects with calls from dewey (1933) to integrate reflective thinking as a form of critical learning practice and from schön (1983) to utilize real-world problem solving, both as means of becoming reflective practitioners. while self-study can feel like a “messy sandpit” (peercy et al., 2018, p. 259) to the researchers involved in a self-study, the learning outcomes can shape the direction of dissertation research and professional practice. additionally, the professor involved in a self-study project with students also aims to improve their practice in the midst of the research study as well (loughran, 2018; peercy et al., 2018). participants participants in this study included 13 doctoral students enrolled in the second year of a three-year ed.d. program, in addition to their teacher educator, who was the professor of the course. the doctoral students were well-experienced educators, with an average of 25.46 years of experience in education (sd = 6.55), primarily serving as principals, assistant principals, and teachers in alberta, canada. international review board (irb) approval was obtained from the participating institution prior to commencing the research, and all participants consented prior to participating. data sources there were three key forms of data utilized in this study: artifacts of learning from course-based assignments, a post-course survey about student learning, and reflective feedback following student engagement in data analysis in the self-study. the use of multiple data sources allowed for triangulation of the data, and the survey went through several iterations of peer review and revision to ensure trustworthiness (creswell, 2013). artifacts of learning first, artifacts of learning were collected from two project-based course assignments, descriptions to follow. the first assignment asked students to create a theoretical framework for future use in their dissertations. the second project-based assignment asked students to interview an educational leader they admired and create a technology-based presentation, such as a video lecture or podcast, to demonstrate connections from the interview to their theoretical framework and course-based readings. survey data the second data set was a survey about student learning related to the two project-based course assignments. this survey included 11 items; five of these items were quantitative with a scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree, followed by openended responses to the quantitative questions. for instance, one survey item was: this project-based assignment allowed me to make connections between theory and problems of practice, followed by an open-ended prompt: please explain how this project-based assignment allowed you to make connections between theory and problems of practice. the final open-ended question of the survey was: is there anything else you would like to share about the impact of this assignment on your learning? these items were developed based on the research questions: identity development, relevance, and cohort connectivity. data from the survey were analyzed by student research teams during a collaborative data analysis work session. reflective feedback after analyzing their survey data, which they compiled into written results for a research article, students completed another smith et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 28 reflective feedback questionnaire about their experience participating in the self-study research project. the items in this final questionnaire included: 1) what did you learn about yourself as a researcher from participating in this collaborative research writing project? and 2) what else did you learn from participating in this ongoing research project? this post-self-study written reflection from doctoral student participants was needed to capture participant learning from the self-study itself. context: course and course-embedded project the context for this learning research project was a doctoral course on adult learning theory, sequenced in the second year of a three-year, cohort-based doctor of education program. due to the covid-19 pandemic, this cohort began online in may 2020 but shifted to in-person instruction in september 2021. while in the course, students were also in the beginning stages of preparing their dissertation proposals, which is important to the context of the potential relevance of the research component of the course. the course that was part of this self-study included two project-based key assessments. key assessment 1: theoretical framework the first required students to create a theoretical framework that included a minimum of two theories and a visual conceptualization of how these theories intersected with their research topic. figure 1 shows an example of one student’s theoretical framework developed from senge’s (2006) learning organization framework in relation to their research on french immersion teacher language acquisition. the outer circle includes the five interrelated components of senge’s learning organization framework. they provide a lens through which the perspectives of key school division employees related to the language proficiency of figure 1. participant theoretical framework (adapted from senge, 2006) french immersion teachers can be explored. additional stakeholders and district teacher standards are also included in the framework. a second participant exemplar of a theoretical framework is included in figure 2. this student was researching social emotional learning in relation to teacher preparation. the framework touches upon several theories and pedagogical approaches: including (a) social cognitive theory (bandura, 1977), (b) self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 1985), (c) culturally responsive teaching (gay, 2002), and (d) the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning (casel) 5 framework (casel, 2020). the funnel shape of the framework demonstrates how pre-service teachers acquire skills and knowledge throughout their teacher preparation program. figure 2. participant theoretical framework on social emotional learning in teacher preparation language proficiency of french immersion teachers teacher standards emerging scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 29 figure 3. participant theoretical framework on parent involvement in education a third example of an ed.d. participant’s theoretical framework can be seen in figure 3, which is related to research on parental involvement in schools. bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory examines the principal influencers who affect the development of a child. epstein’s (1992) model points out how family involvement exists in education through six types of family involvement. finally, hooverdempsey et al. (2005) highlight why families get involved in their child’s education, including such things as motivation, perceptions of invitation, and life-context variables. a final example of a participant’s theoretical framework can be seen in figure 4. this student participant was researching teacher learning around guided reading instruction at the elementary level. figure 4. participant theoretical framework on teacher learning (adapted from bandura, 1971 and danielson, 2017) bandura’s (1971) theory is reflected in the triangle showing the personal determinants, environmental determinants, and behavioral determinants, which represent the factors influencing a child’s learning process and development. danielson’s (2017) framework for teaching components of planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities are shown in the center of the triangle as the central factor the teacher in the child’s learning. key assessment 2: educational leader interview the second course-based project was to interview an educational leader and analyze the interview through the theoretical lens of the student’s theoretical framework. this leadership interview had to be shared with the class on a forum using a digital platform of the student’s choice. the students were extremely creative in their platform choices and end products. one student, for example, created a playlist by choosing songs to represent each aspect of the interviewed leader’s style. other students created a documentary film, performed a video lecture, wrote a digital book, or recorded a ted talk. while students were only required to watch or listen to two other projects and respond to them in the forum, most students described watching or listening to all of them. self-study following completion of these two course-based projects, students were surveyed about their learning experiences in the course. following this data collection point in the course, the class intentionally became a self-study. the curricular decision to embed a self-study into this theory-focused course emerged when considering the timing of the course in respect to dissertation preparation. these ed.d. students had completed four research courses: introduction to smith et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 30 educational research, advanced qualitative research, advanced quantitative research, and a research for evaluation and action course, in which these students engaged with district-based research projects. at this point in the ed.d. program, they were preparing to defend their dissertation proposals. the goal of the self-study element of the course was to provide an opportunity for these developing researchers to collaboratively design and engage in a research project, allowing them to apply the course-based research skills and knowledge in a new setting. collectively, the class and professor determined the research questions, the data analysis methods, created a shared document from which to work, and separated into smaller research teams. student participants were grouped into micro research groups of two or three participants, and they were asked to analyze certain survey items from the data collected in the survey and report it for a research paper. following this experience of analyzing and reporting data, students were asked to reflect in writing one final time about their learning experiences participating in the collective research project. due to time constraints in that the course had completed, these data were analyzed by the teacher educator, who was the professor of the course, and reported in this paper. data analysis data were triangulated across the multiple sources to make sense of the research questions across the three domains: relevance, connectivity, and identity. quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics in excel to determine the mean and standard deviation of each likert-scale type survey item. qualitative data were analyzed in two cycles of open coding (saldaña, 2015). researchers worked independently within their micro research teams to identify emergent themes. after all openended items were coded by each researcher on the team of two or three participants, these data analysis teams came together to compare identified themes. the second cycle of coding then occurred, where research teams determined the most salient themes and re-coded data according to these themes. findings the purpose of this research project was to explore doctoral student learning and development as scholarly practitioners and activists through a course-based self-study research project. more specifically, the study sought to investigate the impacts in the following areas: relevance, connectivity to their cohort, and identity development. perceived relevance of course-based self-study first, the perceived relevance of the course-based self-study was explored. it appears these practitioner-scholars largely found participating in the self-study to be relevant, with 75% of students strongly agreeing that the project-based assignments allowed them to make connections between theory and practice, and 50% strongly agreeing that the projects were relevant to their dissertations (see table 1). the quantitative survey data results (n = 13) can be seen in table 1. likert-type items were scaled from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. this connection of theory to practice was evident when examining the products created through both the theoretical framework assignment and the educational leader assignment as described earlier. figures 1 to 4 show evidence of how students table 1. student perceptions regarding the relevance of participating in the project-based assignments survey item regarding relevance m (sd) percent strongly agree this project-based assignments allowed me to make connections between theory and problems of practice. 6.00 (0.91) 75 this project-based assignments are relevant to my dissertation. 5.25 (1.53) 50 linked the theories of various researchers together in meaningful connections that helped them make sense of their dissertation topics on a deeper level. when coding the qualitative data from multiple sources regarding relevance, three key themes emerged: real life connections, research practices, and approaches to problems of practice. one participant spoke explicitly to the connection between theory and practice, saying: “listening to the leader i interviewed brought some of the theories we have explored to light in a real lived experience.” another highlighted the value of the course learning in preparing for their dissertation research, specifically stating how “this project helped to shape how we evaluate and approach research,” while another described how it helped solidify learning around the entire process of interviewing: “this was great practice for developing interview questions, as well as presenting the information. it also gave me ideas of how much data i could get from a half an hour interview. the presentation as well was great practice for the upcoming proposal.” another practitioner-scholar described how the presentation component helped prepare them specifically for their upcoming dissertation defenses: “sharing the videos helps us to prepare for presenting information in a professional manner. i do believe that this helps us to polish our delivery of material in clear and concise ways which will help in our dissertation defense and in future presentations of our research.” these particular course-based projects appear to have been perceived as relevant by these scholars. perceived impact of course-based self-study on connectivity to cohort second, the perceived impact of the course-based self-study on connectivity to cohort was explored. this project was designed to be collaborative in nature in two different ways: both in pairings (i.e., micro research teams) and across the cohort overall (i.e., the collective research team of the class and professor). these mechanisms were designed strategically to increase connections, relationships, learning, and networks across and within the cohort. the impact of these attempts was measured through the survey item provided in table 2 (n = 13). it appears the project had a strong positive impact on connectivity within the cohort, with 83% of students strongly agreeing. this was the highest rated item of all the items. table 2. student perceptions of the impact of the project-based assignment on connectivity to cohort survey item regarding connectivity to cohort m (sd) percent strongly agree this project-based assignment impacted my connectivity to my cohort. 6.08 (0.86) 83 note. 1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree. emerging scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 31 when coding the qualitative data from multiple sources regarding connectivity to the cohort, the qualitative data identified various ways this project helped them connect to their peers. the participants seemed to find the interview and technology aspects to be especially community building. for instance, one participant said, “watching and commenting on my cohort work was extremely welcoming. it showed many different skills of people within the cohort as well as an opportunity to get a better understanding of their [theoretical] framework.” participants also described how “presenting the leadership interviews using technology that was new showed vulnerability,” which increased connectivity to the cohort and built relationships. in addition, these activities seemed to provide new insights into each individual’s leadership styles: “i loved watching all of the interviews. i feel that each cohort member was so creative. their choice of leader, their choice of platform, and their key takeaways also revealed a lot about who they are as leaders as well.” overall, the responses to the impact of this project on connectivity was positive. perceived impact of course-based self-study on identity development third, and arguably most importantly, the perceived impact of the course-based self-study on identity development was explored. it does appear participating in this project had an impact on students’ perceptions of themselves as a leader, with 75% strongly agreeing that the project impacted their learning about themselves as a leader. it also appears that participating in this project had a positive, although somewhat less so, impact on students’ perceptions of themselves as practitioner-scholars or researchers. this item was rated the lowest of all survey items (n = 13), with 50% strongly agreeing; see table 3. table 3. student perceptions of the impact of the project-based assignment on identity survey item regarding identity development m (sd) percent strongly agree this project-based assignment impacted my learning about myself as a leader. 5.50 (1.19) 75 this project-based assignment impacted my identity development as a practitionerscholar. 5.17 (1.57) 50 note. 1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree. when coding the qualitative data from multiple sources regarding identity development, the qualitative data triangulated these findings that these doctoral students did learn and grow as both leaders and scholarly practitioners through both the course assignments and the process of researching their cohort. in terms of growing as a leader, these results largely mirrored the previous findings regarding relevance and community building. several student participants described reflecting on their leadership values. for example, one student stated, “i learned more about my core values and beliefs and the actions that i take as a leader that is reflective of my values and beliefs.” others explicitly stated the values that were explored: “through analyzing the values of the leader i interviewed: [including] courage, compassion, capacity building, good listening… i was able to think about my identity.” these students also described identity development as researchers. for instance, one student said: i think working together on this project helped to define my role as a professional researcher. we learned so much just collaborating and making decisions together. i wish the entire course was collaborative work like this. we enjoyed coding together and learning from each other. another practitioner-scholar appreciated applying the research process in this project: “i think it helped show us more efficient ways to code data. it also helped to model how to write research papers. i found the writing part of this process extremely valuable.” students were able to practice skills and also reflect on how a research study can be developed and implemented in a real-life setting. another agreed, saying: i think that listening, reflecting, and commenting on the other projects created an opportunity to be a practitioner-scholar. i had to really listen to make connections to previous learning and connections throughout the interview projects. there were threads that ran through all of the interviews relationships, being knowledgeable in your field, high expectations, equity, communication, trustworthy, strength. while identity development is not a brief process, it appears participating in this course and associated projects enhanced these practitioner-scholars’ identities as both leaders and researchers. discussion it appears that a course-embedded self-study can help doctoral students apply concepts learned in research courses as a way of scaffolding future dissertation data collection and analysis. the application of skills and knowledge connects back to the cped principles of creating scholarly practitioners and also developing activist leaders who build coalitions and focus on researching real life social justice issues. this embedded self-study supports cpd, which advocates for learner control and a focus on shared needs. the applicable nature of the skills and knowledge applied in this coursebased research study, in addition to collaborative micro-research teams, are examples of cpd in action. the three key themes of relevance, connectivity, and identity explored in this research project have been researched previously in the limited research on ed.d. student development. for instance, labaree (2003) explored meaningful and relevant learning for ed.d. students, identifying the challenge of ed.d. students shifting their thinking from experiential practice to theoretical lenses. this projectbased self-study allowed ed.d. students to make direct connections between their dissertation theoretical frameworks and their practices furthermore, the explicit connections participants were able to make between theory and practice support andragogical principles of problem-oriented learning that honors the lived experiences of the adult learner (knowles, 1970). the identify development of ed.d. students is perhaps the most heavily researched aspect of literature on ed.d. students (i.e., buss et al., 2014; caskey et al., 2020; murakami-ramalho et al., 2008). one study (caskey et al., 2020) scaffolded student researcher identity development by asking students to draw pictures of their researcher identity and then write a reflective narrative with an understanding that doctoral students will be more successful when they have established their identity as researchers. the two key dimensions of developing a researcher identity were agency, or the ability to make changes, and the research process dimensions. in caskey et al.’s (2020) study, embedded reflective writing smith et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 32 opportunities aided student identity development, and students displayed a stronger researcher identity in the spring as compared with the fall. this self-reflective practice was also a beneficial aid in student development in this self-study. for instance, one participant said, “i think that listening, reflecting and commenting on the other projects created an opportunity to be a practitioner scholar.” the project-based self-study appeared to help students in their identity development as scholarly practitioners. the cohort-model for ed.d. programs is frequently mentioned in existing literature as an area of potential benefit for students and an area in need of future research (i.e., wagner, 2014). this increasingly popular program model has seen increased retention rates and can provide more support for students (lei et al., 2011). furthermore, fifolt and breaux (2018) found that students valued the peer and faculty relationships established within a cohort model. the diversity of cohort membership continues to increase, and martin et al. (2021) call on predominantly white faculty members to integrate diverse voices, particularly ed.d. practitioner-scholars who have shared their experiences developing as researchers, into the curricula. the community created in a cohort appears to be enhanced when members share their lived experiences and feel a sense of collectiveness (martin et al., 2021). in this self-study, ed.d. student participants frequently mentioned the impact of the cohort on their individual learning, particularly as they engaged with the leadership interview projects created by group members. for instance, one participant commented on how they “love learning from the brilliant people in my cohort. i have learned more about each individual as a leader as well as about their strengths as presenters and tech[nology] users.” the interactive nature of the project-based self-study helped to grow cohort connectivity. additionally, the self-study component of this research project also benefited from cohort collaboration, with one participant saying, “working with another person on the qualitative analysis was incredibly helpful. we could brainstorm categories together,” and another stating: “i think working together on this project helped to define my role as a professional researcher. we learned so much just collaborating and making decisions together…we enjoyed coding together and learning from each other.” there appears to be many potential benefits to collaborative, cohort learning. limitations several limitations must be considered when interpreting these results cautiously. this was just one case study of one course in one doctoral cohort of only 13 students. future research is necessary to understand how this course might operate differently under different conditions and with other cohorts of practitioner-scholars with varying research interests. further, while the findings described above reflect general overarching positive impacts of this particular course-based research project, it is important to note it was not perfect in implementation nor perceived impacts. in terms of implementation, one practitionerscholar described how “the project felt like a performance and felt forced and awkward.” as this was the first attempt at adding a selfstudy to the project-based learning, future improvement of the link between the two components would be helpful. in terms of perceived impacts, one student described little impacts in terms of identity development because “i think i had a really strong self-identity as a researcher going into this project.” students join graduate programs with various levels of research competency, and this variance must be considered when designing collective research projects. providing leadership roles around a self-study project for ed.d. students with more developed research skills could be a method for empowering and engaging students in the research process. recommendations despite these limitations, several recommendations arise for ed.d. programs to consider. the first recommendation is to consider implementing project-based learning into ed.d. courses. it appears project-based learning can provide ed.d. students with opportunities to make connections between theory and practice. this approach to learning integrates numerous of the cped principles (2021), including transforming the classroom into a laboratory of practice where students can engage with real life problems and enhance their scholarly expertise. the second recommendation is for ed.d. programs to consider embedding a self-study into non-research ed.d. courses. research skills take time to build, and a spiraled curricula (i.e., interleaving) may help scaffold ed.d. student learning and application of research skills (firth, 2021). ed.d. programs that continue to revisit and build on research skills learned earlier in ed.d. programs could help students be better prepared for future challenges such as the dissertation, better connect to their cohort, and enhance their identities as researchers and leaders. the third recommendation is for ed.d. programs is to consider embedded, strategic, and explicit ways to prepare practitionerscholars for future challenges (i.e., their upcoming dissertation), to help them better connect to their cohort, and to enhance their identities as researchers and leaders. other researchers have found unique mechanisms such as utilizing research-practice partnerships to help ed.d. students develop as scholarly practitioners (ralston et al., 2016). this ability to adapt and differentiate instruction to meet student needs is imperative in uncertain times. this study occurred during the covid-19 pandemic, which research has found added unique stressors for doctoral students and impacted dissertation work flow (ralston & smith, 2022). it is therefore critical that ed.d. curricula tailor course work to the unique needs of students and to consider the context of the learning experiences. conclusion it appears that a course-embedded self-study can help doctoral students apply concepts learned in research courses as a way of scaffolding future dissertation data collection and analysis. during the self-study data analysis work session, students were visibly excited about planning and engaging in the data analysis with their peers. one participant stated, “i enjoyed being both a participant and a researcher. it was fascinating to watch a research study unfold as we were working.” this self-study occurred in the spring semester of the second year of a three-year doctoral program, which seemed to be the perfect time to apply two years of learning prior to these students collecting their dissertation data. the application of skills and knowledge connects back to the cped principles of creating scholarly practitioners and also developing activist leaders who build coalitions and focus on researching real life social justice issues. this process provided demystifying clarity for students and helped participants to see that the role of the researcher is to tell a story with the data you have: “i really appreciate qualitative data and the story it tells.” the beauty of the self-study is that the researchers are the emerging scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.328 33 characters in their story; these doctoral students continue to develop as educational leaders, seeking truth within their research about themselves as learners. one practitioner-scholar summed it up well, stating: “i think i am beginning to see how research can be a part of my real life beyond the doctorate program.” references bandura, a. 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(2006). the fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. broadway business. wagner, t. l. (2014). a retrospective analysis of leadership identity development and career paths of doctoral student completers in one leadership program. ashland university. https://doi.org/10.1086/499194 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 50 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 engaging the community through a consultancy-based group practicum heather hurst frostburg state university hlhurst@frostburg.edu jerry kiel frostburg state university gwkiel@frostburg.edu michael r. williams frostburg state university mrwilliams@frostburg.edu abstract upon discovering inequities and foundational issues with the previous practicum projects completed individually by each edd student, frostburg state university transformed its practicum into a consultancy-based group project that students complete remotely. in this revised experience, student teams respond to problems of practice as presented by community partners within diverse educational settings. this article explicates the structure, format, and process of the new practicum experience, describes how it aligns with cped’s guiding principles for program design, and provides rich benefits for edd students and local educational organizations. we also explain how we have continued to revise the practicum to address challenges that have arisen. keywords edd practicum, field-based learning opportunities, collaboration, community engagement frostburg state university (fsu) launched its edd in educational leadership program in 2012. the program utilizes a cohort model, admitting one cohort of up to 25 students per year, and initially alternated the cohort location between main campus and a satellite campus. students enroll in one of our four specializations: higher education leadership, pk12 leadership, adult and professional learning facilitation, and leadership in health professions education. we consider the collaborative cohort model to be our signature pedagogy (carnegie project on the educational doctorate [cped], 2021) and incorporate collaborative learning activities throughout the program. our students are diverse in many ways, including age and stage of career, site of practice, race, sexual orientation, and geographic location. some of our students are early career, and although they have leadership qualities (e.g., time management, conflict negotiation, ability to inspire, ideation, work toward shared goals), they do not yet hold formal leadership roles within their workplaces. other students are in positions of senior leadership. about two-thirds of our students work in higher education; the remaining one-third is comprised of individuals in pk12 school systems, nonprofits, and other organizations. some of our students are in extremely rural contexts, whereas others live and work in urban locales including baltimore and washington, d.c. from the inception of the program, students have been required to complete two practicum experiences. each practicum is a threecredit course taken at the end of the second year and the beginning of the third year, concurrent with dissertation credits. in its original configuration, the practicum was an individualized experience that was designed and directed by each student. each student proposed a project within their current workplace to practice the leadership skills learned in the program. they were assessed primarily by a series of reflections, and at the end of the experience, someone from the workplace or site of the practicum signed off to confirm that the goals had been met. this model, however, was problematic in several ways. first, some students proposed projects that were already within their job descriptions, but the practicum instructor had no mechanism to know whether the project was beyond the tasks in the student’s job description. as program faculty, we did not ensure that these projects aligned with our learning outcomes or led to student growth. if they wanted to do a practicum outside of their workplaces, students were limited by their existing networks. some students had access to senior leaders who were willing to mentor the students through meaningful projects. other students lacked access to these sorts of mentors or, due to hegemonic power structures, were afraid to ask for an opportunity, leading to inequitable practicum experiences. additionally, a solo practicum was dissonant with our signature pedagogy, and indeed, our foundational belief that leadership should not be a solo enterprise. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9954-3333 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8428-5237 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0172-5436 consultancy-based group practicum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 51 in 2018, a confluence of events led the program faculty to consider the transformation of the existing practicum experience. the inaugural program director retired from the program, and heather was appointed as the program director. concurrently, university administration decided that the program should transition to a fully online modality for the upcoming 2020 cohort, which led the faculty to consider thoughtfully how a signature pedagogy of a collaborative cohort could be enacted in a mostly asynchronous online space. the new program director also attended her first cped convening; our program had been a cped member since 2014, but we had not engaged in any program redesign to align with cped’s guiding principles for program design. throughout the convening and afterward, heather found herself thinking about the fourth principle: that the program “provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions” (cped, 2021, para. 5). she began to wonder what fieldbased opportunities our students had and how the practicum might be redesigned to provide these opportunities to students who otherwise might lack them. field-based opportunities in doctoral programs although several articles cite the fourth cped principle, few explicate how they are incorporating or providing “field-based opportunities.” for instance, kochhar-bryant (2017) mentions “authentic field-based settings” (p. 7, emphasis added) but does not explain what constitutes a field-based setting or in what ways a fieldbased setting is more or less authentic. most articles seem to assume that the field-based settings are the students’ places of work, such as amrein-beardsley et al. (2012), who list “workplace-focused research” (p. 99) as a design feature of their program and later refer to this research as “fieldwork” and “action research in the field” (p. 106). similarly, buss (2018) conceptualizes the problem of practice as presenting in a practitioner’s workplace setting; in describing laboratories of practice, he argues that “students should be afforded opportunities for theory, inquiry, and practice to come together in productive ways in workplace settings” (p. 24). our experiences with our students have led us to trouble the conflation of field-based opportunities and workplace settings. first, our students have indicated in focus group data that they are applying what they learn in the program to settings well beyond their workplaces, such as their volunteer roles in community organizations. second, some of our students have expressed fears of losing their jobs or facing other serious repercussions for engaging in inquiry in their workplaces, as they have shared in class discussions and focus group data; these concerns are heightened for those in contractual or contingent roles. third, some of our students do not have a consistent workplace; during their time in the program, they may accept a new position, be laid off, or transition into a new role. fourth, we as faculty generally do not have access to our students’ workplaces, limiting our capacity for assessing and intervening. literature describing practicum for edd students is extremely sparse. boyce (2012) outlines a “supervised practicum at their local worksites” (p. 28); in these practica, students develop and implement action plans to address problems of practice in their workplaces through a solo project, although they do engage in collaborative brainstorming with their cohort. however, she does not clarify how these practica experiences are supervised. lambrev and cruz (2021) describe a practicum course in their edd program situated in students’ third semester of the program. in this course, students investigate “a real-world educational practice or program [that is used as the basis as a pilot study for the dissertation and that engages] the theoretical and research-based content learned in the previous semesters” (p. 570). kochhar-bryant (2017) provides a brief description of an apprenticeship program in which students apply knowledge and skills acquired during their coursework to a problem of practice through a project that is “designed to be of direct benefit in impacting a school system, organization, governmental agency, or community organization” (p. 7). this program requires “field-based research internships” (p. 9) in which students select and investigate a topic of interest; she then outlines the activities in which the students engage during the internship but does not clarify what the field-based setting is for these activities. we see an opportunity for cped to engage its member institutions in sustained discussions about the field-based opportunities we offer our students beyond their workplaces at convenings, delegate meetings, and workshop discussions throughout the year. our practicum is in line with what warren et al. (2016) describe as community-engaged scholarship (ces), in which “ces researchers work with school and community partners to design and conduct the research—from identifying questions to disseminating results—in order to produce findings directly relevant to advancing social change agendas” (p. 234). warren et al. (2016) argue for the need for “respectful and mutually beneficial relationships between partners” and students (p. 237). however, our students’ practicum projects expand beyond research to incorporate other skillsets acquired throughout the edd program, such as strategic planning and policy evaluation. our transformed practicum as we redesigned the practicum, we knew that we wanted it to provide field-based opportunities for our students to collaborate on problems of practice. we hoped to broaden our students’ networks and skillsets while they concurrently did work that really matters in the world. given that we are the only doctoral program at our university and within an 80-mile radius, we also imagined that the practicum would be an opportunity to challenge misconceptions some local educational leaders had about the edd and our students, as these educators would see firsthand the strengths and capabilities of our students. with these goals in mind, we created a consultancy-based group practicum that piloted in the summer of 2020 for our 2018 cohort. beginning in the fall semester, we share a call for proposals for practicum projects with community partners, including pk12 school systems, institutions of higher education, and nonprofits. in the description, we share cped guiding principles 3 (“provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships” [cped, 2021]) and 4 (cited above). we then provide this explanation: in the practicum experience, which students complete at the beginning of their third year in the doctoral program, students work in teams as consultants to local educational organizations (which may include nonprofits and other nontraditional educational contexts) to use the skills developed throughout the doctoral program to help meet your needs. for example, our students could help your organization develop and submit a grant proposal, conduct a program or project evaluation, or hurst et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 52 collect or apply empirical research to a problem of practice within your organization. project proposals selected by the edd program committee will be assigned threeor four-person teams of doctoral students, each of whom can allocate 113 hours to this project over the twelve-week summer session (may 30 to august 18, 2023). because our edd students all work full-time, this project must be able to be completed outside of business hours, and the community partner liaison must be able to meet virtually via videoconference with the team for occasional evening meetings. (fsu, 2022) we also include the timeline for the practicum projects. table 1. sample timeline for practicum experience monday, february 20, 2023 proposals for projects due wednesday, march 1, 2023 edd committee selects projects to be staffed wednesday, march 15, 2023 students notified of prospective projects late march 2023 final student teams determined late april 2023 initial meetings with student teams, practicum faculty advisor, and clients (community partners) scheduled early june 2023 memo of understanding between clients (community partners) and fsu teams developed and signed early june 2023 student teams begin practicum projects mid-august 2023 students complete practicum projects; liaisons submit evaluations of project teams we then ask the community partners to provide the following information in their proposals: • name of educational organization and website link • organization’s contact person/liaison contact information • one-paragraph overview of the project on which they would like our students’ help • preliminary objectives for the project; final objectives will be co-constructed during initial communications between the project team, liaison, and practicum faculty advisor. in addition to disseminating the call for proposals through mass email, the faculty members in the program listen attentively in discussions with other educational leaders for potential practicum projects and then solicit proposals from those individuals. after the deadline has passed, the edd program committee reviews and vets the proposals. in making its selections, the faculty consider the degree to which the proposal aligns with the learning outcomes of the program and the diversity in the proposals selected (in terms of the type of deliverables and the educational organizations). in a meeting with the cohort, the practicum instructor shares and explains the selected project proposals. the students discuss and ask questions about these projects, and then, over the course of the next week, each student ranks their preferred projects. the program director and practicum instructor form teams to staff each project. most students are assigned to their first choices, but occasionally, one project’s popularity requires some to consequently be assigned to their second choices. before the start of the first twelve-week practicum, each student team meets via microsoft teams with the course instructor and the representative from the community partner. in these meetings, the goals and deliverables for the practicum project are explained, clarified, and honed. these meetings lay the groundwork for the team and the community partner to develop a memorandum of understanding (mou) at the very start of the practicum. practicum process the instructor schedules a synchronous class session for the entire cohort during the first week of the summer term to assist the students in getting organized and underway in their assigned projects. the synchronous class session is designed to review the structure and content of the course and familiarize the students with key aspects of the client-consultant-instructor relationship. the students are informed that they will be working very closely and independently with their client, typically with only minimal direct involvement of the instructor. lastly, the student groups are tasked with accomplishing several vital next steps in the group consultancy process within the next week. first, each group is asked to identify a team lead, who will serve as the single source of contact with the client to facilitate communication, and a scribe, who will take and post notes of the group’s internal discussions and post them in the group’s assigned channel in the microsoft teams site for the practicum i course. each team also selects a back-up team lead who can assume responsibility for communicating with the client in the absence of the team lead as occasionally happens due to unforeseen circumstances or planned absences. second, the instructor thoroughly reviews the mou that each group is expected to complete with the assistance of its client. care is taken to ensure that the students understand that the mou should contain the project’s deliverables and the proposed timeline for completing the project during the twelve-week term. the template for the mou is provided in the course site, and the client, each student member of the team, and the instructor must all sign the mou for it to be complete. all involved with the project can access the mou in the group’s teams channel. third, each group is asked to schedule a meeting with its client within one week’s time to formally begin the practicum project. the instructor usually attends as well to get a sense of how communication and expectations are developing between the student group and their client at this important early point. during that meeting, the client learns who the team lead is and typically shares additional details about the project and the expected project deliverables, explains the resources that will be provided to assist the group, and answers any questions the group may have. the groups then begin their projects, knowing that they may reach out to the instructor at any time for guidance or assistance. to date, most groups have worked very independently, interacting regularly with their clients, sometimes on a weekly basis. notes of internal group discussions and materials provided to the groups by the client are uploaded into the appropriate teams channel so that the instructor can follow the groups’ progress. early in the class, the students are required to read several articles (e.g., twomey, 2017; white, 2017) that review projects completed by doctoral student groups at another cped-member institution to clarify what a groupconsultancy project can entail and reaffirm the cped (2021) principles. consultancy-based group practicum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 53 evaluation of the practicum experience by its nature, the practicum experience is a different kind of course than our doctoral students are used to in that they will be working as consultants and interacting more closely and regularly with the community partner for whom they are consulting than with the course instructor. the practicum course is graded on a pass/nonpass basis, and although the students have a few focused assignments to complete for the instructor, the primary evaluation of their efforts is based on their clients’ level of satisfaction with the group’s work. one of the primary means by which the student groups are evaluated in the course is the information the groups and the community partner share in a dedicated team channel in microsoft teams throughout the practicum term. other evaluative means are also utilized to assess how the students are performing both individually and collectively as a working group. at three points in the practicum term, each student is asked to complete a pulse check and a teamwork evaluation. the pulse check solicits their views on how well they think they are working as an individual who is part of a group. the teamwork evaluation helps pinpoint possible issues between group members as well as between the group and its community partner. the instructor monitors scores for each student and group and reaches out to individual students and/or groups if their scores indicate potential issues or problems interfering with the completion of the project. such contacts are made only after the instructor confirms that the individual or team lead desires assistance. in all cases, confidentiality is maintained by the instructor, whose role is to help facilitate the practicum experience for both the students and their community partners, bearing in mind that the nature of the consulting experience may be a new one for some or most of the parties involved. midway in the term, the instructor contacts each community partner via email to ask for their sense of how their student group is doing in meeting the project timeline and goals for the project. they follow up on any issues brought to light if the client approves of that course of action. the students complete several assignments for the practicum class. to equip students with knowledge they may not possess and which may be useful during their practicum experiences, the students are required to create an account on the university’s grantforward site; students choose a topic in which they are interested, complete a search using grantforward for relevant grants for which they might apply, and provide evidence of their successful use of grantforward to the instructor. at the conclusion of the term, each student writes a reflection paper on the learning they gained from serving in a consultancy role and the extent to which the practicum experience fulfilled the course learning objectives, which are based on cped’s (2021) guiding principles. the main task completed by each student group is a virtual presentation of the group’s findings and recommendations, the products of the consultative work performed by the group, and culminating experience of the first practicum experience. the group’s recommendations constitute their proposed solution(s) to the client’s problem of practice. often, the community partner invites key leaders in its home organization to attend the presentation so that they too can learn about the work that has been accomplished by the student consulting team. for instance, the student team might brief an organization’s board of directors or, in the case of projects done for frostburg state university’s college of education, the college dean, associate dean, and the appropriate department chair. afterward, each team provides a written report of its findings to the community partner and the course instructor, in keeping with the standard protocol and procedure for a consulting project. types of practicum experiences a. practicum i (2020-2022) since the change to the consultancy-based group practicum model was implemented in the summer of 2020, three cohorts of students (39 students total) have completed practicum i, in which all participants were required to participate as a member of a group. in those three years, the student groups completed 11 practicum projects, each of which represented a problem of practice for a community partner. the purpose and focus of the projects can be classified as follows: • research and data analysis (6) • system and process improvement (3) • feasibility study (2) some practicum projects have extended into the second practicum term with either a continuation of the original project goal or the addition of a second and related project. more information on practicum ii experiences follows. table 2. detailed information about practicum projects by summer frostburg state university practicum i consultancy-based group projects summers 2020-2022 summer 2020 project: analyze program data to determine impact of the fsu university promoting awareness of literacy skills (pals) program group: 4 students community partner: fsu’s university pals program offered by the college of education at the university system of maryland hagerstown (usmh) campus. goal: the director would like to have a team analyze the data sets to demonstrate how access to learning, books, and support throughout the summer can help decrease the real effects of summer loss in connection to reading levels. project: clarify, refine, and advance client’s research agenda on hub program efficacy group: 3 students community partner: fsu’s the hub@usmh and the hub@wolfsville (early childhood program to enhance school readiness of students and their parents) goal: the project directors are looking for doctoral students to assist in the project’s research agenda that includes: prek and kindergarten readiness, parent understanding of the prek and kindergarten standards, and grant goal achievement. hurst et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 54 project: conduct focus groups with graduates and employers and analyzing data to determine program strengths and weaknesses group: 3 students community partner: fsu’s college of education council for the accreditation of educator preparation (caep) accreditation project team goal: the college of education accreditation team would like a team to conduct focus groups with recent graduates and employers of our graduates to determine areas of strength and weakness in candidate preparation for their field of study. summer 2021 project: conduct focus groups with recent graduates and employers of graduates of the initial certification and advanced med certification to determine areas of strength and weakness in candidates’ preparation for their field of study group: 4 students community partner: fsu’s college of education caep accreditation project team goal: the college of education accreditation team would like a doctoral practicum group to continue the work of the previous cohort conducting focus groups with recent graduates and employers of our graduates of the initial certification and advanced med certification programs in the summer of 2021 to determine areas of strength and weakness in candidate preparation for their field of study. project: develop strategic marketing plan for the office of graduate services group: 4 students community partner: fsu’s office of graduate services goal: the office of graduate services needs assistance in designing and developing a marketing strategic plan for the institution’s graduate program offerings. project: conduct dei audit of hgi policies and practices group: 4 students community partner: horizon goodwill industries (hgi) hagerstown, md goals: develop an evaluation strategy to include analysis of hgi policies and practices with an equity lens, interviews with hgi staff and board of directors to evaluate current experiences with the organization and commitment to engage in this process, and analysis of goodwill international dei tool kit and other available resources; utilize data obtained to prepare an action plan for organizational change to center dei at core of hgi values. project: research feasibility of creating an entrepreneurship incubator to promote growth of small businesses in western maryland group: 3 students community partner: maryland small business development center (sbdc) western region, hosted at fsu goals: study feasibility of sbdc creating an entrepreneurship incubator to promote growth of small businesses in western maryland; explore funding options through grant funding. summer 2022 project: conduct focus groups with recent graduates and employers of graduates of the initial certification programs to determine (1) the satisfaction of employers and (2) the satisfaction of completers group: 4 students community partner: fsu college of education caep accreditation project team goals: the college of education accreditation team would like a doctoral practicum group to continue the work of the previous cohorts conducting focus groups with employers (principals) of our recent graduates of the initial certification programs to determine areas of strength and weakness in candidate preparation for their field of study. the department of educational professions collects survey data from completers and employers 1-year postgraduation and 3 years post-graduation. the focus group data would corroborate the student perception surveys. project: conduct research to determine the feasibility and desirability of a name change for the greater cumberland (md) foundation group: 4 students community partner: the greater cumberland foundation, cumberland, md goal: the student team would help the host organization determine whether it would be appropriate for the organization to change its name to one that is more compelling, inclusive, and evocative of the organization’s mission, which has evolved over time. the team would consider and present name change options and lay out a process and timeline for the change, if approved, to occur. project: develop a strategic plan for managing all of the different grants administered by eastern west virginia community & technical college group: 3 students community partner: eastern west virginia community & technical college goals: in creating the strategic plan, develop a timeline grid showing all grants and the reporting dates; since grants are managed by various departments (academics, workforce, finance) it would be helpful to have one master record of all grants and the resources required for effective grant management. project: collect, analyze, and present data about young children and families in allegany county group: 4 students community partner: allegany county (md) early childhood advisory council (ecac) goal: ecac has conducted surveys of families in its service region and needs the collected data to be tallied, analyzed, summarized, and presented to the council. consultancy-based group practicum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 55 the second practicum (2020-2022) during the second practicum experience, students can continue their practicum projects from practicum i or investigate new community partners for their second practicum experience. it is important to note that the program committee does not identify new practicum experiences for practicum ii; the practicum students must identify and secure their experiences before the semester begins. for students who decide to extend their practicum i experience, the outline follows the same. however, during the fall 2022 semester, the pulse check was revised to now require students to self-select how course competencies were utilized or develop during their practicum ii experience. the competencies for practicum ii are: • acted ethically and professionally during the practicum experience • strived for equity in educational opportunities in the practicum experience • provided and/or implemented culturally responsive practices in the practicum • developed communication and collaboration during the practicum experience • integrated both practical and research knowledge that can be linked to systemic and systematic inquiry during the practicum experience. students also had the ability to make note of any difficulties during their practicum experience and request an emergency meeting with the instructor. we decided to make the previous changes to the practicum ii experience to reinforce our program’s commitment to the cped (2021) framework and our collective commitment to promoting harmonious human interactions that celebrate our common humanity and foster a campus community where we value and embrace our various socialized identities. as another requirement for competition of the course, practicum students are asked to submit a final reflection on their experience as consultants and provide suggestions based on the five course objectives to remove, continue, or improve the practicum experience. the next section uncovers problems that have been mentioned by students or we have encountered as faculty with the practicum experience. problems encountered the new consultancy-based group practicum was piloted during the summer of 2020 as the nation was in the grips of the covid-19 pandemic. although the pandemic did not occlude our pilot, it significantly affected the capacity to submit project proposals for some potential community partners because organizations across the institution’s service region, as in the nation, were largely operating remotely and some faced personnel shortages. as a result, all projects during the pilot year ended up being directly connected to the institution’s college of education, the home of the edd program. in retrospect, that was fortuitous because the concept was new and societal conditions were especially challenging. also, it proved valuable to pilot the concept with known community partners; all three clients were faculty in the department of educational professions, in which the doctoral program also resides. the pilot program provided compelling evidence of several key problems and issues to be recognized and avoided or at least minimized in the coming years. first, the students in the pilot year found the twelve-week summer term challenging for completing their projects. getting the teams organized and holding their initial meetings with their clients took the first several weeks of the term and meant that some teams had issues with completing their project tasks by the time the term ended. to address this problem, the practicum team revised the timeline for the submission and review of project proposals, calling for earlier actions so that student team formation and initial introductions to the community partners and their projects could occur during the spring semester. the student teams could then begin their projects as soon as the summer term commenced. it also served notice to community partners that they needed to have necessary materials ready to share with their student team as soon as the summer term began, because every day mattered. as the use of the revised practicum model continued into the 2021 and 2022 academic years, the doctoral faculty issued the call for proposals earlier to allow potential clients ample time to consider and submit their project proposals for consideration. receiving a sufficient number of project proposals to accommodate the size of the student cohort each year has been an annual concern, but it has not been a problem to date. however, we recently have begun to admit two cohorts per year, and additional project proposals will be necessary. growth also means that the practicums will be offered over the entirety of the academic year, not solely in the summer and fall terms. the second problem encountered in the pilot year was related to the nature of the problems of practice and the availability of the community partners to fulfill their obligations to work with the student teams in a timely way. in this area, two issues were noted. the first problem presented when the data needed by the student team to evaluate and formulate its recommendations was not made available by the community partner during the timeframe for the project. the student team could only provide a final report on the work that they would have completed had the project rolled out as intended. in a subsequent summer, another project was hindered because its two clients were both off for the summer and not in regular contact with one another. in both instances mentioned above, the practicum instructor quickly learned of the necessity of close work with the community partners, especially at the onset of the projects, to ensure that they are meeting their commitment to the student team. feedback from the student teams on their progress is thus closely monitored, and if similar problems are mentioned, the instructor connects with the community partner to address the problem. entering into the pilot, some faculty and members of the edd advisory group expressed concerns that some student participants might not pull their weight on the team. this has rarely happened to date but is a third problem. students have communicated such issues to the instructor. when that has occurred, the instructor contacts the identified student to gently share the concern and to ask, if they agree that it is valid, what steps they will take to rectify the problem. this issue has never lasted for the entirety of a practicum term. finally, an issue that became clear during the summer pilot was the need for the instructor to engage with the instructor of the second practicum (held in the upcoming semester) to review progress on the projects that were underway and the likelihood that they would either continue into the second practicum or would be completed that term. in the case of the latter, the second practicum instructor would know to mentor those students wishing to work on a different project. here, again, lead time has proven helpful to perform necessary hurst et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 56 groundwork in advance of the start of the term so that ongoing projects can be continued without delay and new initiatives, whether solo or group activities, can be launched. this effort to coordinate between the first and summer practicums has become a standard operating procedure for the transformed practicum model. the most significant threat to the sustainability of the transformed practicum project is having a sufficient number of diverse projects for each cohort, especially as our program is experiencing growth in terms of the number of enrolled students. we have only begun to explore possibilities outside of the traditional contexts of pk12 school systems and institutions of higher education, but given our newer specializations in adult and professional learning facilitation and leadership in health professions education, we need to build our networks in relevant contexts. we have come to realize that much of the work of attracting practicum proposals is relational, and we are most likely to generate a practicum proposal through individual contact with potential community partners, such as alumni of the program and the well of previous partners, who often connect us to others within their own networks. we have opportunities to create more visuals to share via social media (e.g., a short how-to video explaining the proposal process for a practicum project), to form a practicum advisory board with invested parties beyond program students and faculty, and to develop content regarding the practicum on our website. conclusions frostburg state university’s edd program has now used the transformed consultancy-based group practicum approach for its doctoral practicum experience for three years, and it has shown to be an impactful improvement over the previous approach. the advantages to the students are significantly greater, and of special note, the practicum now enables the doctoral program to collaborate with community partners who receive tangible benefits from having the student teams identify solutions to real-world problems of practice. we have found that the transformed practicum is highly beneficial in providing real-world opportunities for students to operationalize cped’s (2021) guiding principles of promoting social justice, inclusion, and equity in diverse educational contexts. although cped’s (2021) guiding principles are a primary focus of the doctoral classes and incorporated in course readings, discussions, and assignments, providing students the opportunity to apply their learning into practice within community settings increases its relevance and meaningfulness. a subsequent article is planned that will provide data about the impact of the consultancy-based group practicum. several former practicum students and community partners will co-author the article with program faculty, and it will provide first-hand narrative accounts that attest to the value and impact of the experience from the student and client perspectives. our community partners have also benefited from the new practicum approach in several ways. first, participating organizations have used the student groups to address complex and vexing problems of practice that can advance the sponsoring organization in real ways. students, at no cost to the community partner except an investment of time to guide the student work, address problems that the organization may have had difficulty doing using its internal resources alone. working as consultants, the student teams provide solutions that carry great weight because they are objective and credible. it is common for student teams to present their findings and recommendations to organizational boards and leadership groups, which speaks highly of the quality of the work they have completed. we have been pleased to have several of our community partners participate for several years, a testament to the value the program provides to the community. as a bonus, those community partners share their experiences with others in the community, which helps lead to new partnerships through word-of-mouth. the students also experience many advantages from transformed practicum model. working in teams as consultants exposes students to a new role and enables them to make professional connections with their community partners. the experiences also permit the students to integrate what they have learned in their formal coursework, especially research, analysis, and problem-solving skills, into the processes used to identify solutions for their clients. the practicum helps students to better understand that their doctoral education has prepared them to improve practice in their professional setting because they have done so in the practicum. students also benefit from working in teams in a new way and with a different purpose than they have used previously in their classes. the program faculty feel that the practicum approach foreshadows and helps prepare students for the kind of work that the students are likely to do in their professional world. also, the use of small groups provides several opportunities for the students to assume leadership roles. although some of our students are already in formal leadership roles in their career, others are not, and the practicum provides an entrée for some students to assume a professional leadership role for the first time. lastly, the new practicum model provides both a capstone and transition experience for the students, coming as it does at the end of their formal coursework and prior to beginning the dissertation process. on many occasions, students have been able to use research methods they are considering using in their dissertation research in the practicum project. this early effort helps students learn how to use the methods and learn firsthand about how to use them most effectively. the practicum, then, helps equip and prepare the students for the dissertation journey. in summary, the transformed practicum has become a key component of the fsu’s edd program. each year, program faculty strive to identify ways to make the practicum experience even more beneficial to our students and community partners. references amrein-beardsley, a., zambo, d., moore, d. w., buss, r. r., perry, n. j., painter, s. r., carlson, d. l., foulger, t. s., olson, k., & puckett, k. s. (2012). graduates respond to an innovative educational doctorate program. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 7(1), 98–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775112440630 boyce, b. a. (2012). redefining the edd: seeking a separate identity. quest, 64(1), 24–33. buss, r. r. (2018). using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice abilities. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3, 23–31. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.46 cped. (2021). the cped framework. http://cped.memberclicks.net/theframework frostburg state university. (2022). call for proposals – 2023: community partner projects for frostburg state university edd practicum teams [document]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vxfv4p1dcqppv_dczag4jh_mbq4hbqpvciyfpsnwvk/edit?usp=sharing https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775112440630 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.46 http://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework http://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vxfv-4p1dcqppv_dczag4jh_mbq4hbqpvciyfpsnwvk/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vxfv-4p1dcqppv_dczag4jh_mbq4hbqpvciyfpsnwvk/edit?usp=sharing consultancy-based group practicum impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.354 57 kochhar-bryant, c. a. (2017). symbiotic space: exploring the nexus of rigor, problems of practice, and implementation. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.25 lambrev, v. s., & cruz, b. c. (2021). becoming scholarly practitioners: creating community in online professional doctoral education. distance education, 42(4), 561–581. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2021.1986374 twomey, s. j., lambrev, v., leong, k., watanabe, j., baxi, g.-v., noh, e., & hampton, c. (2017). the edd consultancy project: social justice leadership practice. educational perspectives, 49(1), 19–26. warren, m. r., park, s. o., & tieken, m. c. (2016). the formation of community-engaged scholars: a collaborative approach to doctoral training in education research. harvard educational review, 86(2), 233– 260. white, d. e. (2017). mentoring the consultancy project: lessons in collaboration and research. educational perspectives, 49(1), 6–8. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.25 https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2021.1986374 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.431 4 reflections on the education doctorate: a traditionally untraditional journey leann fong-batkin university of california, davis lfongbatkin@gmail.com abstract in this reflective essay, i explore learnings and reflections along my doctoral journey and analyze how this journey has been untraditional for an education administrator. as a scholar-practitioner, i include a section on the impact of societal changes since the covid-19 pandemic. i then document continuing challenges for women of color administrators and refine imposter syndrome theory in my own way. finally, i offer some thoughts about how to move forward. keywords doctoral program, imposter syndrome, women of color, leadership, peer-led mentoring beginning the doctoral journey at the start of my doctorate in educational leadership (edd) program over a decade ago, i had no idea what i would learn. i knew that i received admission to a great program from which i would learn many things and expand my network. however, i did not anticipate the depth and breadth of what my learnings would be, both during and after my program and the effect that those learnings have on me as a woman of color. seeing my dissertation come into existence was quite an experience. i knew that one of the things i wanted to do was to help the future generations behind me since mentoring and networking are necessary for women of color leaders and administrators. working full-time while working on an edd is admittedly one of the hardest things i did, along with changing employers during the doctoral program. when i began the program, i also had the familial responsibilities of parenting two preschool-aged children (who are now in college) and becoming part of the sandwich generation as my mother developed alzheimer’s disease. the sandwich generation is defined as “those who provide care to both their children and elders at the same time” (turgeman-lupo et al., 2020, p. 862). many colleagues told me “i don’t know how you do it all.” i could not have done it all without the support of my husband, family, and friends. many of us in my cohort were managing multiple responsibilities— but we were there for each other. our cohort became a second family and source of support to me. as i entered the dissertation phase, my advisor, a woman of color, was another amazing source of support to me, providing mentorship and talking through our experiences as women of color. she was one of the few faculty of color for the program at the time and provided resources and connections to others – one of whom also became my mentor. challenges in my traditionally untraditional career journey throughout my career, i have been fortunate to work for a variety of education-related organizations, including state agencies, research and nonprofit organizations, and institutions of higher education. i have been lucky enough to meet many of my mentors throughout my career who have supported me through this journey. over the years, i have worked to become a subject matter expert in several topics, including diversity, equity, and inclusion, legislative and statutory language, longitudinal data system development, and education and higher education policy, among others. i am fortunate to be mentored by many colleagues and administrators, encouraging me to “step outside the box” and have enjoyed networking, mentoring, and connecting people in my networks. as my career progressed through the year, i noticed that not only being a woman—but being a woman of color administrator and leaders has its challenges. i have personally seen and experienced racism, sexism, and bullying behavior in the workplace, along with microaggressions (sue, 2010). sue (2010) defined microaggressions as “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership (people of color, women of color, or lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender)” (p. 24). my own experiences include facilitating a group and being intimidated by one of my group’s members. i have been admonished by someone at the same level for doing something that they thought was wrong. in another experience, i was unprofessionally challenged by another person in front of others during a meeting. the stories that my dissertation interviewees shared with me were becoming true right in front of me as a part of my own experiences. after these incidents, i contacted my mentors and asked for advice. my mentors told me that i was not alone and shared their own personal stories. in certain cases, the pieces of advice i https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7239-5302 reflections on the education doctorate impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.431 5 received were to confront the individual, consider filing a formal complaint, and/or to leave the organization. don’t get me wrong—the advice provided was correct, but also anxiety-producing. mix these issues with the challenges of being a member of the sandwich generation and caring for my family, and it could have been a recipe for disaster. i still feel the traumatic effects of racism, sexism, and bullying, but i am slowly working through these issues. it took me a long time to recover from each of these events – and while i’m better at dealing with these issues, the anxiety still exists. each of these encounters led me to question myself. what am i doing here (at this organization)? do i belong? what did i do wrong? basically, i was blaming myself for the actions of others, which is wrong. in one instance, i remember debating whether to add “dr.” to my name tag. i contacted a colleague who has been my mentor for decades and asked her. she said yes – it provides a degree of standing, especially for academia. why was i questioning adding my earned doctorate to my name tag? it was not until later in my career that i identified the imposter syndrome as a theory that was playing out in my life. while working on this article, i came to another realization – as a third-generation chinese american (my grandparents immigrated to the united states, and both of my parents were also born in the united states) – i felt like i do not totally belong to either the western (american) culture or the chinese culture. although i was born and raised in california, i do not look like my husband who is caucasian and still do not understand idioms that well because my parents did not use them. i understand some cultural references, but they are also limited since i had limited exposure to them. for the chinese culture, i look chinese, but do not speak chinese. at chinese restaurants, the hostess would ask me questions in chinese, and i would have to tell them i do not speak chinese (i am “american born chinese”). my parents spoke two different dialects of chinese and they decided it would be too hard to teach us to speak chinese. i am truly chinese american—but never fitting into either culture could have been the start of when i noticed my version of the imposter syndrome. zhong (2023) examined the idea of bhabha’s third space theory that analyzes the gap between cultures in the context of the show american born chinese. zhong (2023) mentioned the tension between native culture and american mainstream culture in the main character, who is chinese american and struggles to fit in with his peers while dealing with a friend who is a chinese exchange student. by proactively finding his own balance between native culture and american mainstream culture and seizing the right to interpret his identity, wang jin can successfully break free from the “othering” gaze of american mainstream society and find the unique identity of a chinese american. (zhong, 2023, p. 41) this article provided me with some potential theoretical explanations of how the imposter syndrome may have started early in my life. zhong’s article highlighted that i have a right to interpret my identity in my own way. the impact of societal changes my doctoral program trained me to be a scholar-practitioner. i know how to analyze and see how theory plays out in our lives, but also know that society plays a large role in how women of color move through their careers. no one could have predicted the impact of the global covid-19 pandemic on our lives, families, and careers. the amount of trauma our society experienced together heightened many challenges. the effects of the global pandemic have also intensified the pressures of work and home, increasing the levels of stress, especially for women in higher education who had already been juggling the conflicting demands of work and home prepandemic (johnson et al., 2023). in addition to the theories discussed in my dissertation, i now needed to add anti-asian hate in society and culture, due to the speculation about the origins of the pandemic. zhang et al. (2023) identified the anti-asian sentiments as a “global phenomenon” during the covid-19 pandemic. one of my colleagues, whose parents own a chinese restaurant, had bricks thrown at it that broke their windows. another colleague’s mother, who is asian, was told to “go back to your country” as she rode the train to work. she refused to ever take the train again. anti-asian sentiments are not new and asian americans have dealt with xenophobic prejudice, bias, and discrimination (mcgarietypalmer et al., 2023; takaki, 1989). racism in today’s world has been felt by many of us. it is disconcerting and can take a toll on your mental health—especially when it happens again and again. people of color, especially women of color and asian americans have been, and continue to be under much scrutiny. there have been attacks on the ideas of critical race theory (crt), one of the theories used in my dissertation that acknowledges the complexity of the multiple identities held by people of color (solorzano, et al., 2000). hutchens and miller (2023) pointed out that in multiple states, legislation has been proposed or enacted to suppress ideas related to crt that can be traced by to donald trump’s presidential administration, although joseph biden rescinded those when he was elected. the attacks on crt made me angry because it acknowledges the multiple identities that people of color carry. making crt the “fictional boogeyman” that the media, certain pundits, and elected officials used to pass anti-crt legislation negates the experiences of people of color (hutchens & miller, 2023, p. 5). since the pandemic, racism has become more overt than covert, the opposite of my findings from my dissertation. over a decade ago, the racism and sexism that my interviewees experienced were more covert and occurred through microaggressions. how do women of color leaders address this racism and sexism and that is now more overt? one potential answer lies in the mentoring and support that women of color need in their careers. for example, what happens when a high-level administrator above your position makes a comment against you, such as “you are so well-spoken for an asian woman?” do you confront that individual in front of others or not? often, we are so surprised by microaggressions that it’s hard to respond in that moment. i often asked my mentors for tips on how to respond to these situations, and in each case, the answer depended on whom the person was and if this was the first time that things like this happened. continuing challenges for women of color administrators my dissertation, traditionally untraditional (2011) captured some of these challenges. through my qualitative study of 13 women of color administrators, i learned that my participants fong-batkin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.431 6 encountered racism, sexism, and cultural differences that affected their career journeys. applying the theoretical framework of the intersectionality of gender and racialization allowed me to deeply analyze the career trajectories of these women of color – many of whom were the first in their families to attend college and become administrators. without support systems, such as mentoring and networking, the participants would not have been able to move through their untraditional career paths successfully. my dissertation defines “untraditional” paths as those that do not follow the typical trajectory of someone becoming a faculty member, department chair, dean, vice president, and president. several of my interviewees worked outside of academia before they joined the academy. i use my own experience – is my own path untraditional? yes, because i am an education administrator, but not in a university setting. i do not have a background in teaching. however, my career has always focused on education – whether it was working for a computer training center, state agencies, academia, or nonprofit organizations. there are numerous reasons why many women of color may have untraditional career paths – especially in education and higher education. turner (2007) found that the pathways to the presidency for college and university presidents are “narrow for women of color” (p. 3) and identified barriers – not only for women of color faculty – but also those in senior-level administrative positions that include not being considered for administrative positions, having their scholarship devalued and ignored, and being torn between family, community, and career responsibilities. for example, one of the women of color i interviewed for my dissertation turned down a promotion because her family asked her not to work out of town, far from where their family was located (fong-batkin, 2011). many women of color struggle with being in academia. turner (2023) described the idea that faculty of color may feel that they are guests in someone else’s house. “in fact, being a guest contributes to feelings of exclusion and isolation which can create a toxic environment” (turner, 2023, p. 1229). one of my interviewees started her career during the time when affirmative action was being enforced in california. affirmative action allowed one’s race and gender to be considered in the hiring process in certain circumstances (fong-batkin, 2011). she felt that she had a target on her back and her colleagues would not talk to her because they thought that she got the position because of the color of her skin and would not speak to her (fong-batkin, 2011). turner (2021), in her review of presumed incompetent ii: race, class, power and resistance of women in academia, noted, “their narratives emphasize while one may be intelligent, resilient, and motivated, individual characteristics are not enough to counter the effects of unwelcoming and toxic work environments” (para.15). throughout my career, i have seen and experienced unwelcoming and toxic work environments. in most cases, i decided to leave these organizations because i placed my mental health first. one interviewee, who was a college president, attended many events where her qualifications were repeatedly questioned. “are you really supposed to be here? that’s the way it felt…but by the time you answer that for like the fifth or sixth or the tenth person at a public event, you just want to go up and say, ‘excuse me, i want to take the microphone and tell everybody all at one time what i did to become the president of the college” (fong-batkin, 2011, p. 139). this was not the only time this situation was brought up during my interviews. to this day, other women of color administrators told me that they have had to justify their knowledge and the positions that they held and have chosen to use longer versions of their biographies in conference proposals, presentations, and even in salary negotiations. many of us are still reeling from the suicide of antoinette candia-bailey, the african american vice president of student affairs at lincoln university. weissman (2024) noted in her article that many academics see candia-bailey’s passing as symbolic to their own challenges, such as racism and sexism candia-bailey’s passing occurred after the resignation of claudine gay, harvard’s first black woman president, who resigned after a hearing on campus antisemitism that was then followed by allegations of plagiarism (weissman, 2024,). these challenges for women of color in academia can be damaging not only to one’s mental health, but in candia-bailey’s case, her existence. where is the hope for future women of color administrators? one of my interviewees spoke about the pressure that she faced as a college president. “and i also realize that there is a whole group of women that are walking in with me. and if i fail in some ways, then i jeopardize their chances” (fong-batkin, 2011, p. 133). despite these challenges, the women that i interviewed spoke about their mentors and networks that have supported them throughout their careers. in my own experience, i know that i could not have gotten through my career without my mentors. redefining theory my way given the theories i have mentioned in this paper that include critical race theory, imposter syndrome, anti-asian hate, and others noted in my dissertation, i put my scholar-practitioner hat on to help me process the multiple traumas that i have faced during my career. as i was preparing to write this reflective essay, i saw this quote in the chief in brief newsletter and came to a full halt. “i don’t do imposter syndrome and none of us should,” said sally krawcheck, a former merrill lynch ceo (connley, 2023, para 2). krawcheck noted that she attended college and went straight to the wall street and was with the best, but that they were not much smarter than she is (connley, 2023). this quote made me spin around, like someone had hit me with a punching bag. here was a quote from a white, upper-class woman. how can she argue that no one should “do” the imposter syndrome? i started to compare krawchek’s experience to my own. she was a merrill lynch ceo and here i am, with a doctorate in education leadership and policy, and almost 30 years’ experience in education and higher education and this quote is making me question my own qualifications. is the imposter syndrome that began as a child when i noticed my two intersecting identities (being chinese american) continuing in my career? i needed to unpack this and dove into the literature on the imposter syndrome. ambri et al. (2018) covered the imposter syndrome, the glass ceiling, and other issues that affect women’s career progression and success. ambri et al. (2018) noted that the imposter syndrome causes women to undervalue their contributions and feel like a fraud where they consistently underestimate themselves. this article finally put a name to what i was feeling—underestimating myself. every time women of color experience the thousand paper cuts (mason & goulden, 2002) due to microaggressions, racism, sexism, and other issues, these paper cuts chip through your mental health and can cause you to underestimate yourself. reflections on the education doctorate impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.431 7 edwards (2019) explained how she overcame the imposter syndrome by reconceptualizing the definition of a scholar herself. “i now define scholar as someone who consistently strives to learn while concurrently educating others … ultimately, scholars decide what success and failure looks like for them” (edwards, 2019, p. 31). i took this to heart and am redefining what imposter syndrome means for myself. before i knew about the imposter syndrome, i thought it was me that was the problem. i finally have a name for many of the challenges i have faced in my career. when you finally reach that top position and become an administrator, you think you’ve made it. however, certain experiences, such as racism, microaggressions, being treated unprofessionally and unequally, and being continually questioned, chipped away at the career and my self-esteem. it’s not me. it’s the society and environments that we live and work in. i now categorize these challenges not only as racism but define these as the imposter syndrome for me. moving forward when i contribute to academic literature, i always want to leave practical tips behind. the recommendations for institutions from my dissertation, including offering mentoring and networking programs, still hold true. for edd programs, creating communities and networks so that faculty and students do not feel like guests in the academic house (turner, 2021) can help. these networks can consist of alumni who can be invited as guest speakers and mentors. i feel that it is important that edd program curricula also cover the issues of critical race theory and the imposter syndrome. for women of color leaders and administrators, acknowledge the experiences you have, reaching out to your mentors and support networks to decide upon further actions when you experience racism, sexism, and other issues. conclusion at the time of writing this reflective essay, my dissertation is almost 15 years old. i have experienced many personal and professional challenges—and possess the knowledge that i am still recovering from racism, sexism, and imposter syndrome (as i define it). my identities have evolved as i have gotten older, and my children are college-aged. my mother’s alzheimer’s disease continues to decline. i am still a part of the sandwich generation. but now that i have reconceptualized the imposter syndrome for myself, this has provided a sense of relief for me. i have moved onto a different space, acknowledged past issues, and am still processing things. we need to give ourselves and others grace and patience when things do not go the way we want. trust your mentors and support networks to help you when things get tough. more often than not, your mentors and colleagues have experienced similar issues and can share their experiences with you. acknowledgement thank you to sabrina sencil and dr. caroline turner for providing valuable feedback. dr. turner, we will miss you. your academic contributions to these discussions were invaluable. rest in peace. references ambri, s., tahir, l. m., & alias, r. a. (2018). an overview of glass ceiling, tiara, imposter, and queen bee barrier syndromes on women in the upper echelons. asian social science, 15(1), 8–13. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v15n1p8 connley, c. (2023, november 16). sallie krawcheck on embracing a growth mindset: ‘i don’t do imposter syndrome’. chief in brief. https://chief.com/articles/sallie-krawcheck-on-embracing-a-growthmindset-i-dont-do-imposter-syndrome edwards, c. w. (2019). overcoming imposter syndrome and stereotype threat: reconceptualizing the definition of a scholar. taboo: the journal of culture and education, 18(1), 18–34. https://doi.org/10.31390/taboo.18.1.03 fong-batkin, l. g. (2011). traditionally untraditional: the career trajectory navigation of california community college women of color administrators (publication no. 534012). [doctoral dissertation, university of california, davis]. eric. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed534012 hutchens, n., & miller, v. (2023). florida’s stop woke act: a wake-up call for faculty academic freedom. journal of college and university law, 48(1), 35–69. johnson, d. s., johnson, a. d., crossney, k. b., & devereux, e. (2023). women in higher education: a brief report on stress during covid-19. management in education, 37(2), 93–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/08920206211019401 mason, m. a. & goulden, m. (2002). do babies matter? the effect of family formation on the lifelong careers of academic men and women. academe, 88(6), 21–27. mcgariety-palmer, r., saw, a., tsoh, j. y., & yellow horse, a. j. (2023, january 5). trends in racial discrimination experiences for asian americans during the covid-19 pandemic. journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01508-y. solorzano, d., ceja, m., & yosso, t. (2000). critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: the experiences of african american college students, the journal of negro education, 69(1/2), 60–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265 sue, d. w., (2010). microaggressions in everyday life: race, gender, and sexual orientation. wiley. takaki, r. (1989). strangers from a different shore: a history of asian americans. little, brown and company. turgeman-lupo, k., toker, s., ben-avi, n., & shenhar-tsarfaty, s. (2020). the depressive price of being a sandwich-generation caregiver: can organizations and managers help? european journal of work and organizational psychology, 29(6), 862–879. turner, c. s. (2007). pathways to the presidency: biographical sketches of women of color firsts. harvard educational review, 77(1), 1–38. turner, c. s. (2021). diverse women as guests in the academic house. american association of university professors. retrieved january 20, 2024, from https://www.aaup.org/article/diverse-women-guestsacademic-house?link_id=4&can_id=f1858d5bcec13cdd8bb2b344f289 cc63&source=email-september-academe-newsletter-8&emailreferrer= email_1007269&email_subject=december-academe-newsletter turner, c. s. (2023). on marginality, socialization, and lessons learned for the future of faculty diversity. ethnic and racial studies, 46(6), 1227–1247. weissman, s. (2024). administrator’s suicide leaves campus reeling with ‘despair’ and ‘disappointment.’ inside higher education. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executiveleadership/2024/01/12/lincoln-university-administrators-suicide-roils zhong, y. (2023). the two-level construction of asian identity in american born chinese from a third-space perspective. international journal of education and humanities, 10(3), 40–43. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v15n1p8 https://chief.com/articles/sallie-krawcheck-on-embracing-a-growth-mindset-i-dont-do-imposter-syndrome https://chief.com/articles/sallie-krawcheck-on-embracing-a-growth-mindset-i-dont-do-imposter-syndrome https://doi.org/10.31390/taboo.18.1.03 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed534012 https://doi.org/10.1177/08920206211019401 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01508-y https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265 https://www.aaup.org/article/diverse-women-guests-academic-house?link_id=4&can_id=f1858d5bcec13cdd8bb2b344f289cc63&source=email-september-academe-newsletter-8&emailreferrer=email_1007269&email_subject=december-academe-newsletter https://www.aaup.org/article/diverse-women-guests-academic-house?link_id=4&can_id=f1858d5bcec13cdd8bb2b344f289cc63&source=email-september-academe-newsletter-8&emailreferrer=email_1007269&email_subject=december-academe-newsletter https://www.aaup.org/article/diverse-women-guests-academic-house?link_id=4&can_id=f1858d5bcec13cdd8bb2b344f289cc63&source=email-september-academe-newsletter-8&emailreferrer=email_1007269&email_subject=december-academe-newsletter https://www.aaup.org/article/diverse-women-guests-academic-house?link_id=4&can_id=f1858d5bcec13cdd8bb2b344f289cc63&source=email-september-academe-newsletter-8&emailreferrer=email_1007269&email_subject=december-academe-newsletter https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2024/01/12/lincoln-university-administrators-suicide-roils https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2024/01/12/lincoln-university-administrators-suicide-roils impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 9 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.7 no.1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 using mentor texts to develop disciplinary literacy of scholarly practitioners through dissertations in practice amy markos arizona state university ampost@asu.edu ray r. buss arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu abstract in this essay, we described how we use mentor texts (mts) to foster students’ disciplinary literacy—reading, writing, thinking, and performing abilities in an area related to their problem of practice. we did this by carefully creating scaffolded learning experiences affording them with multiple, situated learning opportunities over time that allow students to move to central roles as scholarly practitioners where they now contribute in meaningful ways to disciplinary-based literacy. in this process, students were transformed from being readers of mts where they were consuming the mts for content to being producers, writers, of mts that influenced others. this transformation was couched in wenger’s community of practice framework. we provided a detailed presentation of how we implement the mt process throughout the edd program. we discussed challenges and next steps and concluded with questions readers might consider as they contemplate whether using mts might be beneficial to students in their programs. keywords scholarly practitioners, mentor texts, dissertation in practice, disciplinary literacy, scaffolding in a relatively short amount of time, education doctorate (edd) students must learn the disciplinary knowledge and literacies of the field to become scholarly practitioners. edd students must learn what to include and how to design and implement a dissertation in practice (dip), while at the same time learning the literacies of their field so that they can create disciplinary text to inform their own practices and the efforts of others. in reflecting on our program and our work as faculty members in the program, one of the challenges we found was limited opportunities to develop edd students as dissertation writers. although much attention was devoted to ‘the what and the how’ of designing research studies, less time was allotted to developing students' abilities to create disciplinary texts. nevertheless, all students must create a disciplinary text, a dip, but their abilities to do so and the quality of texts they create vary. with limited space in the program of study, the challenge became how to develop students’ disciplinary literacy through existing program structures. in this essay, we have described how we employ mentor texts (mts), previously completed program dips, to support our students’ efforts as they develop their dip across the course of our edd program in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university. in particular, we have discussed how we use a disciplinary literacy approach, through mts, to develop students’ reading, writing, thinking, and performing abilities as scholarly practitioners. we organized this essay around four important topics including (a) describing disciplinary literacy and the mt strategy, (b) discussing a theoretical framework in which the mt strategy was situated, (c) illustrating how we implement a mt strategy to support students’ scholarly practitioner dip efforts in our edd program, and (d) offering challenges and next steps for using mts to foster edd students’ disciplinary literacy. disciplinary literacy via mentor texts disciplinary literacy has been defined as “the specialized knowledge and abilities possessed by those who create, communicate, and use knowledge” within a specific field (shanahan & shanahan, 2012, p. 7). students in our edd program must learn and master areas of disciplinary literacy (e.g., problem of practice, action research, theoretical perspectives, educational intervention/innovation, etc.) to become scholarly practitioners. although scholarly practitioner dissertations like the dip have shared some attributes with other dissertation styles, it incorporated its own unique literacy aspects, it had its “own purposes, its own kinds of evidence, and its own style of critique” (shanahan, 2017). using a disciplinary literacy approach has helped students examine and develop the specific literacy practices needed (ways of reading, writing, thinking, and performing) in the field of scholarly practitioner work so that ultimately, they became “core members” who were able to approach dip tasks with agency and shared practices that were appropriate to the specialized purposes, values, and demands of this http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-3027 markos & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 10 discipline (shanahan & shanahan, 2012). we assert that developing edd students’ disciplinary literacy requires different strategies. one such strategy used in our program was mts. mts have been high quality texts that students and teachers returned to again and again. they were examples that writers learned from and emulated. mts have helped students “take risks and be different writers tomorrow than they are today” (dorfman, 2013). mts have come in a variety of forms, such as picture books, essays, lab reports, journal articles, and have been chosen to match the genre or text type on which a writer was working. research results showed the use of mentor (or model) texts helped high school students learn disciplinary literacy and helped them improve as writers (graham & perin, 2007; pytash et al., 2014; pytash & morgan, 2014). although limited studies have been conducted in post-secondary contexts, rodriguez et al. (2017) found using mts helped doctoral candidates understand the dissertation genre and improved content learning. the mts we used were dip completed by graduates of our program. these mts offered relevant, specific illustrations of the disciplinary content and literacies appropriate for the development of scholarly practitioners through the dip process. as educators and mentors in an edd program, the use of mts allowed us to simultaneously teach disciplinary knowledge and teach how knowledge has been produced in our discipline, aka disciplinary literacy. a theoretical framework: communities of practice wenger’s (1998; wenger et al., 2002) communities of practice (cop) framework was valuable as we considered our approach for using mts to aid students in developing disciplinary literacies appropriate for doctoral work and completion of the scholarly practitioner dip proposal and final document. wenger et al. (2002) suggested cop were defined by three elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original). wenger et al. (2002) maintained the cop domain established common ground for participants to do their work and a “sense of common identity …. the domain inspires members to contribute and participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions” (p. 27-28). in the current context, the domain included carrying out tasks related to navigating aspects of the program; connecting with other students and faculty members; and engaging with coursework. notably, it involved developing students’ literacies as scholarly practitioners such as thinking, reading, discussing, and writing about their research work including developing, drafting, sharing, and revising initial dip drafts in courses, and later the dip proposal, and the final dip. with respect to community, wenger et al. (2002) claimed the community forms “the social fabric of learning. a strong community fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust” (p. 28). thus, in the community, students readily interacted with one another developing relationships, learning from and supporting each other throughout the edd program including the various aspects of the dip process. notably, faculty members were also part of the community sharing their expertise with students and supporting them in the multitude of tasks relevant to the doctoral program. this support from faculty members and peers extended to the development and writing of parts of the dip across the course of the program. finally, wenger et al. (2002) suggested the practice included frameworks, tools, ideas, and information shared among community members. in particular, “the practice is the specific knowledge the community develops, shares, and maintains” (wenger et al., 2002, p. 29). further, as wenger-trayner and wenger-trayner (2015, para. 8) noted cop participants “develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems— in short a shared practice,” which foster and support students’ development as scholarly practitioners. with respect to our focus on writing and the dip process, two noteworthy features of practice were (a) mentored aspects of developing students’ disciplinary literacies and (b) the resulting development of identity as influential and scholarly practitioners, while moving from a peripheral role to a central role as scholarly practitioners. first, with respect to the cooperative, mentored aspects of the writing process, students were engaged in writing activities early in the program with the strong support of faculty members across the course of the program. specifically, students engaged in carefully scaffolded reading and writing efforts, which were conscientiously overseen by faculty members. as part of these experiences, students engaged with mts to facilitate the learning process, initially to develop their content understanding of the discipline, and later, to support them in creating disciplinary texts. second, the concept of practice was crucial in our work because it helped us to characterize students’ movement from peripheral participation to full participation (lave & wenger, 1991) as a scholarly practitioner. lave and wenger suggested limited peripheral participation was the means by which those new to a discipline were partial, peripheral, participants who learned about the discipline from experts, full participants, in a cop by interacting with those more knowledgeable participants; in the same way, for example, that apprentices learn from their mentors. thus, in the current situation, those new to being scholarly practitioners and being able to write as scholarly practitioners would be ‘partially’ involved and learn from mentors, and mentor texts, about disciplinary literacy and its role in becoming and subsequently being a scholarly practitioner. notably, participation in a cop influenced identity (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger, 1998). thus, as students participated in these new practices and in the cop, they developed new identities and enhanced ones they held previously. for example, in the current situation, students moved from being peripherally involved to being more fully involved as scholarly practitioners. in doing so, they developed new identities as researching professionals, those who function as consumers and producers of research appropriate to their workplace settings (buss, 2019; buss & avery, 2017). in our program, a fundamental component of the work of becoming a researching professional has been developing the disciplinary literacies of a scholarly practitioner. thus, the reading, thinking, writing, and performance skills associated with the discipline played a critical role in shaping edd students’ identities in becoming scholarly practitioners. using mentor texts to develop disciplinary literacy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 11 illustrating our use of mentor texts in our efforts to support students’ disciplinary literacy, we have carefully crafted situated learning experiences to foster the process. as shown in figure 1, situated learning experiences have been scaffolded and allowed students to move from limited involvement on the periphery (lave & wenger, 1991) toward the center of the scholarly practitioner community. figure 1 moving from peripheral participation to being a core member as a scholarly practitioner progression across experiences did not have to be linear and allowed for movement towards and away from the center, as edd students navigated and developed the disciplinary content and disciplinary literacies of scholarly practitioners. in table 1, we summarized how we have used mts across the program to create situated learning experiences for students. table 1. using mentor texts across the edd program stage mentor text situated learning experiences on the periphery using mentor texts in coursework as students read and write to learn disciplinary knowledge a: reading to learn. mts are introduced and used to teach content (concepts and key vocabulary) of the discipline. b: writing to learn. mts are revisited as students practice applying content (concepts and vocabulary) of the discipline in coursework experiences. moving towards the center using mentor texts in leader scholar communities (lscs) as students read and write to create disciplinary texts c: reading to create disciplinary texts. mts are revisited with attention to author awareness (how texts are structured, ordered, crafted). d: writing to create disciplinary texts. edd students create sections of their dip and share them with peers and their dissertation chair and committee. center core membership: creation of a mentor text, dip early experiences helped students learn disciplinary content and later experiences developed edd students’ disciplinary literacies. reading to learn disciplinary content during the second term, near the beginning of the program, students have taken courses including innovations in teaching and learning and strategies for inquiry. in these courses, students have been provided with opportunities to engage with mts to learn about the content of scholarly practitioner dips in our program. additionally, they were afforded opportunities to begin to write about content in drafts of required parts of a dip. these initial opportunities constituted steps a and b outlined in table 1, which we have presented in finer grained detail in this section of the paper and the next. in reading to learn content, the initial step in the process, students engaged with mts, previous dips, to learn about the content of a scholarly practitioner dip. in this situated learning experience, we provided students with a group of mts and an initial mentor text guiding framework, a limited set of questions they were asked to use as they read and reviewed sections of the mts. we use the initial mentor text guiding framework, to guide students as they read and engaged in conversations about the mts. presented in a matrix format, the guiding framework included questions and opportunities for students to identify examples from the mts and engage in discussions about the content of the dips. see table 2 for an example of a matrix we shared with students. the questions were purposefully limited in terms of scope to encourage students to focus on content, organization, and cues for each section of the dip. this supported the engagement with the mts and was a good beginning point for peripheral participation. table 2. initial mentor text guiding framework for the leadership context and purpose of the study, chapter 1 of our dissertation in practice reading to learn: guiding questions for developing students content understanding of the concepts included in chapter 1 of the dip dip mentor text #1 dip mentor text #2 dip mentor text #3 1. what is the problem of practice in this dip? 2. how is the problem of practice situated within the larger national or state context? 3. how is the problem of practice situated within the local/researcher’s context? 4. what is the purpose of the study? 5. what are the research questions (rqs) and what do the rqs reveal about the study design (mixed methods, qualitative, etc.?) to contextualize this effort, consider the typical content of our scholarly practitioner dip initial chapter. in this chapter, students described the leadership context and purpose of their study. as students engaged with the mts, they were asked to consider the context for the study that was composed of elements such as the larger, national or international context and how the context and problem of practice were situated in that larger context. then, as they read, they were asked to consider the local, situational context including the problem of practice; the purpose of the study; and the markos & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 12 research questions guiding the study (buss & zambo, 2014). of course, these elements became more transparent as students engaged with several mts. following their review of these mts, discussions about them consolidated students’ learning and undergirded their efforts as they initiated construction of their own application of these concepts related to their personal contexts. moreover, other initial mentor text guiding frameworks have been used to aid students as they continued to examine the mts for additional sections/content of the dip. guiding framework questions were written to draw attention to the concepts and key vocabulary of the various sections of the dip. for example, chapter 2 of the dip in our program addresses theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study, along with previous cycles of students’ action research. notably, as they engaged with the mts, students came to see this chapter included a selective, focused discussion of theoretical frameworks relevant to the student’s problem of practice (pop) and its potential resolution, related research, and research conducted by the student in earlier cycles of action research prior to the dip proposal. thus, the chapter has been different from more traditional dissertations because of its narrower focus on theoretical frameworks and its incorporation of earlier action research that informed the dip. again, by using the guiding framework with specific questions related to this chapter, we have asked students to focus on the content and organization of these mts as they built their understanding of disciplinary concepts. moreover, we have continued to use mts and guiding questions with each section of the dip to build students’ content knowledge of the discipline. this provided the necessary foundation for their future work as writers and performers, and their movement from the periphery and towards the center of the cop of scholarly practitioners. writing to learn disciplinary content the early experiences of engaging with mts to learn the content of the discipline provided students with the foundation necessary to begin writing to learn. along with reading mts to learn about the content included in a scholarly practitioner dip, students also used mts as they engage with early writing in the program. as students developed an understanding of the key vocabulary and concepts specific to the discipline of a scholarly practitioner dip, they reviewed mts as guides for crafting writing assignments in coursework. these writing assignments allowed students to write to further their understandings about the concepts and vocabulary associated with the discipline of a scholarly practitioner dip. in these situated learning experiences early in the edd program, students revisited the mts as they applied what they were learning in coursework. although they were not yet designing or writing their dip study per se, students practiced with concepts from the program, such as defining a pop, defining a theoretical perspective, and applying data collection and analysis tools. in these experiences, students used mts as they wrote to express their understanding of concepts and skills needed to develop as a scholarly practitioner. engaging students with mts during these early coursework writing opportunities allowed us to review the vocabulary and content in the discipline and evaluate students’ emerging understandings of disciplinary concepts. using the questions/answers from an earlier situated learning experience (see table 2), we have revisited disciplinary content in a section of the dip, but this time, we asked students to apply the content to their personal context, problem of practice, and intervention ideas. in this engagement with the mt, students reviewed how others have presented content such that they could begin to apply concepts to their scholarly practitioner situation. the goal of these early writing experiences in coursework has been for students to demonstrate an understanding of concepts and begin to apply them. thus, early in the program students were writing to show they understood, the audience was their instructor. while they were gathering some early experiences with authoring text in this discipline, their development with disciplinary literacy was still somewhat on the periphery, as they were not yet writing a dip for others in the field. nevertheless, these peripheral learning experiences were necessary because it was through them that instructors and students determined whether students were progressing in their content understandings and were ready to start the process of writing their dip proposal. reading to create disciplinary texts near the end of coursework, students have been assigned to leader scholar communities (lscs) and provided with a faculty member who served as the students’ dissertation chair and who led the lsc (buss & allen, 2020). the students who have engaged with each other from the beginning of coursework were now separated into more intimate, smaller communities, narrowing the size of the group from 20-25 students, down to 5-7. the act of establishing lscs has been somewhat symbolic because it served as the time marker for when students moved from the periphery towards the center in the scholarly practitioner community. no longer were students just learning and practicing with concepts and ideas (i.e., disciplinary content), rather, in the lsc students and faculty members turned their attention to situated learning experiences aimed at creating disciplinary texts. in these lscs, students worked in a small community for the remainder of their time in the program, four semesters, as they designed, proposed, conducted, and wrote their final scholarly practitioner dip. during their first semester in an lsc, students and faculty members got to know one another and themselves as a community. although the students have interacted with each other since the beginning of the program, the move to the lsc afforded opportunities to get to know each other more closely so that they and their chair could support one another through the dip. part of the ‘getting to know you’ process included students sharing with their lsc their dip ideas. another part of the ‘getting to know you’ process has been learning about themselves and others as writers. in this first semester as an lsc, we explored questions like,  what value do you place on peer/instructor feedback?  how do you prefer to receive feedback on your writing?  what is an area of strength and an area of growth for you as a writer? areas could be, but are not limited to: planning/brainstorming/drafting out your writing; working ‘outside ideas’ smoothly into your writing; organization; voice; grammar/mechanics; revising your work; editing, etc.  which best describes how you manage your writing time: (a) time management is one of my superpowers! i set aside time for writing, i stick to the plan, and meet deadlines, no problem!; (b) my schedule is pretty fluid, but i find time here and there and seem to get my writing done without too much stress as a deadline approaches; or (c) i have a lot going on in my life, some using mentor texts to develop disciplinary literacy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 13 of which is out of my control, so managing time can be a challenge. i often find myself completing my writing at the last minute, which may lead to sleepless nights and/or requesting extensions. with attention to getting to know each other as people, as action researchers, and as writers, we have established community experiences that went beyond disciplinary content and laid a foundation for working together to create disciplinary texts. along with getting to know each other, during these situated learning experiences, the lsc chair took students back to mts they had seen previously in their earlier coursework. revisiting familiar mts saved time (students did not have to read for comprehension, they already knew the texts) and allowed us to place our attention on two areas: developing a shared understanding/language/expectation of the concepts and purposes for each section of the dip, and for beginning to read for an awareness of the author. see table 3 for the guiding questions we have used as we investigate the mts during the lsc. the questions have been purposefully centered on author awareness, giving students a new lens through which to further develop the content and vocabulary of the discipline. this revisiting of mts through an author awareness lens also allowed students to start imagining themselves as authors of this discipline. table 3. later mentor text guiding framework reading to create: guiding questions for author awareness dip mentor text #1 dip mentor text #2 dip mentor text #3 1. who is the author? what do we know about them? how do they describe themselves? how do they make themselves present in the text? why is how they present themselves important in this section of the dip? 2. what is the purpose of (section of dip) and how does the author make that clear? 3. what stands out to you about how the author (introduces the problem of practice)? 4. what thumb holds does the author provide for the reader (headings, subheadings, images, tables, definitions, etc.)? 5. how does the author use structure/organization to support the purpose of this section? 6. does the author write in first, second, or third person? what tense (past, present, present perfect, etc.)? passive or active voice? as an lsc, we explored mts together as a teaching strategy, but the mt strategy was not just a teaching strategy used during their work to design their dip. students individually sought out other mts to guide them in their specific author moves, in this way, the mt strategy became a learner strategy as well. students sought out mts from the dip database of all previously completed program dip that they wanted to review for specific author needs, e.g. who has written about conducting research with their own students and how did they write about their simultaneous role as a practitioner and researcher? who has used a critical theory lens for their study and how did they strike a balance between critique and hope? in these situated learning experiences, building on what they already knew about the content expectations of the dip, the edd students used their needs as writers to chart their own course for mt selection and investigation. as they progressed towards the center of the cop as scholarly practitioners, edd students looked for and investigated mts and shared what they found with others in the lsc. writing to create disciplinary texts up to this point, students have been using mts as they explored the content and literacies of scholarly practitioner dissertations. mt exploration has allowed students to understand what was expected in a scholarly practitioner dissertation (concepts, processes, key terms, etc.) and how to create this style of text (author awareness). in this last situated learning experience example, students moved even further towards the center, and authored their own disciplinary text, sections of the dip. unlike the earlier experiences with writing to learn, in these experiences students were writing to create. in these experiences, students approached thinking, reading, writing, and performing aspects of the dip through the lens of a more knowledgeable peer, being very close to the center of the cop, and taking on more and more traits of a core member. they were no longer navigating understanding about the disciplinary concepts, but instead, they were polishing the ways they performed the acts of a scholarly practitioner. as they did so, they shared their writing and performing, their literacies, with their peers in the lsc, with their chair, and with their committee. in these situated experiences, students were writing to create their own texts in this discipline and at the same time, creating mentor texts for others. across the lsc, students shared sections of the dip as peers needed support in creating similar sections of their text. the situated learning experiences that supported students writing to create extend from the creation of their dip proposal to the creation of their final dip and core member position in the scholarly practitioner cop. challenges and next steps for using mentor texts in the concluding section, we discuss the challenges we have encountered in using mts. additionally, we have described next steps in using mts in an edd program and offered some questions for those considering whether and how they might use mts in their edd programs. challenges in our own efforts using mts with our students, we found there were three major challenges. first, during the reading to learn process, getting students to attain the appropriate level of abstraction has been difficult for some students who tended to get bogged down in the detail of the content rather than seeing the content as existing within a larger thinking/writing framework. nevertheless, having them synthesize the material across mts has been helpful in moving them forward in the reading to learn mt process. second, presenting the completed dissertation as a mentor text has provided a soundly developed text, but with the limitation that students have not been able to see how the finished document has markos & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 14 emerged over time through various drafts. thus, students have gathered the impression that writing of their own dip did not require multiple revisions of their work. notably, students were reluctant to make substantial revisions in their texts because they too highly valued their current writing due to their previous, large investment of time and labor. this illustrated an example of what norton et al. (2012) have dubbed the ikea effect, when individuals were unwilling to change something because they have invested so much time and effort into a project. to address this challenge, we have decided to cultivate and use early drafts of the dips we employ with students, to show them the revisions and drafts that lead to the final dip. specifically, we have determined that providing students with paired versions of the mts, the proposal dip and the final dip, so that students can see how literacies develop over time, and that which constitutes performance at the proposal stage looks different than what constitutes performance of a scholarly practitioner in the final dip. third, some students have had difficulty dealing with the very dynamic nature of using mts and the resulting movement of the individuals from the periphery to the center of being a scholarly practitioner. for some students who have been disposed toward ‘linear, forward movement and this way of thinking,’ revisiting mts has made it seem like they were moving ‘backward’ to a less sophisticated level of performance. for example, when reading to create disciplinary texts, we have had to be certain to demonstrate that students need to ‘learn how to write the content,’ not merely review the content as they did in their initial work with the mts. we have decided to work on this by making our intentions clear across the mt strategy. while using mts with students through the cop theory in practice, we needed to do a better job of explicitly talking with students about the why’s and how’s, building their understanding of the process and its goals. next steps as we have implemented the use of mts, we have not systematically employed peer-to-peer feedback. although we have incorporated this process, we have not done so in a systematic way, nor have we provided adequate preparation for students to engage in this process. as a next step, we will provide more attention to developing students’ expectations and skills for peer editing to support our students in carrying out this effort. although we often have asked students to review one another’s work we realized that more scaffolding and support will be necessary to provide more worthwhile and higher quality experiences for our students. we have also thought about how we have been currently using mts and how we might extend the use of ‘mentor text like’ situated learning experiences in our edd program to further support students’ disciplinary literacy, beyond just writing text, to the other “specialized abilities possessed by those who create, communicate, and use knowledge within each of the disciplines” (shanahan & shanahan, 2012, p. 8). for example, in our edd program, students have been afforded opportunities to practice presentation skills related to being/becoming a scholarly practitioner in our annual, online doctoral research conferences. our students have regarded these opportunities as being very helpful because they learn from others and they learn about their own abilities of being a scholarly practitioner in these events (mertler & henriksen, 2018). with respect to extending our efforts to new opportunities for ‘mentor text like’ efforts, we believe students would benefit from observing videos of dip proposal and final defenses, which would aid students in dealing with stressful, major benchmarks in their programs of study. in these future situated experiences, the creation of a mentor text guiding framework for the defense videos (similar to that of table 1) would facilitate students understanding of this aspect of performing the literacies of a scholarly practitioner in our program. conclusion the strength of using mts is in creating situated experiences (lave & wenger, 1991) that support student growth as scholarly and influential practitioners. thus, the carefully scaffolded process affords them with multiple, situated learning opportunities over time that allow students to move to central roles as scholarly practitioners where they now contribute in meaningful ways to disciplinary-based literacy. in this process, students are transformed from being readers of mts where they are consuming the mts for content to being producers, that is to say writers of mts that influence others. finally, consider the challenges you experience in your edd program and how the mt strategy could allow you to more effectively deal with those challenges. some questions to guide this inquiry follow. first, in your program, what are the disciplinary literacy expectations? what are the disciplinary content and the literacy skills you want your students to exhibit at the conclusion of the program? next, how might mts be useful to your program to aid your students’ development of disciplinary content knowledge and disciplinary literacy abilities? which mts, dips and/or dip drafts, would you want to use with students and why? what would serve as your dip database and how would your students access it? where would you situate learning experiences with mts to best foster the development of disciplinary literacy abilities across your program? taken together, we hope you find the mt strategies we describe in this essay to be useful in fostering students’ disciplinary literacy—reading, writing, thinking, and performing abilities as you develop scholarly and influential practitioners in your program. references buss, r. r. (2019). graduates’ continuing work as scholarly practitioners after participation in a carnegie project on the education doctorate guided, edd program. international journal of doctoral studies, 14, 803-817. https://doi.org/10.28945/4451 buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1-7. https://doi/10.5195/ie.2020.98 buss, r. r., & avery, a. (2017). research becomes you: cultivating edd students’ identities as educational leaders and researchers and a “learning by doing” meta-study. journal of research on leadership education, 12, 273-301. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775116674463 buss, r. r., & zambo, d. (2014). a practical guide for students and faculty in cped-influenced programs working on an action research dissertation in practice. carnegie project on the education doctorate. available from ray.buss@asu.edu dorfman, l. (host). (2013, march 28). reading, writing, and mentor texts: imagining possibilities. [audio podcast]. national writing project. https://archive.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/4090 graham, s., & perin, d. (2007). writing next: effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools–a report to carnegie corporation of new york. washington, dc: alliance for excellent education. lave, j., & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.28945/4451 https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775116674463 mailto:ray.buss@asu.edu https://archive.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/4090 using mentor texts to develop disciplinary literacy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.222 15 mertler, c. a., & henriksen, d. (2018). creative and innovative solutions to accommodate the growth of a professional practice doctoral program. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(1), 36-44. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.55 norton, m. i., mochon, d. & ariely, d. (2012). the ikea effect: when labor leads to love. journal of consumer psychology, 22(3), 453-460. pytash, k. e., edmondson, e., & tait, a. (2014). using mentor texts for writing instruction in a high school economics class. social studies research and practice, 9(1), 95-106. pytash, k. e., & morgan, m. n. (2014). using mentor texts to teach writing in science and social studies. the reading teacher, 68(2), 93-102. rodriguez, r. c., griffith, b., & jaurez, l. m. (2017). engaging graduate students throughout the research writing process. journal of curriculum theorizing, 31(3), 55-66. shanahan, t. (2017, march 15). disciplinary literacy: the basics. https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/disciplinary-literacy-the-basics shanahan, t., & shanahan, c. (2012). what is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter? topics in language disorders, 32(1), 7-18. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge university press. wenger, e. mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. harvard business school press. wenger-trayner, e., & wenger-trayner, b. (2015). introduction to communities of practice. https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.55 https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/disciplinary-literacy-the-basics https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ amy markos arizona state university ray r. buss arizona state university (1) disciplinary literacy via mentor texts a theoretical framework: communities of practice illustrating our use of mentor texts reading to learn disciplinary content writing to learn disciplinary content reading to create disciplinary texts writing to create disciplinary texts challenges and next steps for using mentor texts challenges next steps conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 63 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 (re)designing a cped-oriented edd program to improve its emphasis on equity in a post pandemic world henry tran university of south carolina htr@sc.edu kathleen cunningham university of south carolina katiemwc@mailbox.sc.edu suzy hardie university of south carolina sehardie@mailbox.sc.edu peter moyi university of south carolina moyi@mailbox.sc.edu era roberts school district of newberry county era@dreraroberts.com abstract this paper focuses on the education systems improvement edd program (edsi) at the university of south carolina and how the program faculty utilize the signature methodology of the program, improvement science, towards its improvement efforts towards enhancing its equity focus, especially post-pandemic. we utilize the framework of improvement science including tools such as gap analysis, program evaluations, empathy interviews, and focus groups to better understand the problem and best design the appropriate improvement efforts. broadly, three program improvement foci were identified for the improvement arc: program purpose, curricular design, and continuous improvement processes. findings from this study provide details about program improvement efforts in improving an edd program’s equity focus post-pandemic, in a particular setting. in the spirit of continuous improvement, this work is never done. it will be forwarded by follow-up improvement endeavors and activities. keywords continuous improvement, education doctorate, program improvement and redesign, diversity, equity, inclusion introduction equity and diversity represent core values of the education systems improvement (edsi) doctorate of education (edd) program at the university of south carolina (usc). concurrently, our edd is guided by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), whose values include diversity, learning, partnership, people, social justice, and a student-centered disposition to inform a future where equity-minded educational professionals lead toward sustainable change for the benefit of local communities. several high profile racial and gender-based incidents empowered numerous social movements towards this end, including black lives matter, stop asian hate and #metoo (greene et al., 2019; kaskazi, 2021). institutions across most sectors responded with statements of solidarity with and/or commitments to improve equity-related issues in their respective fields, with education at the forefront given its influence on life opportunities for students. the pandemic exacerbated many of the issues of inequity. among the major consequences of the covid-19 pandemic was the exposing of deeply entrenched inequities embedded in our systems and structures—evidenced by the disproportionately poor outcomes for people of color in areas such as mental/physical health (bambra et al., 2020; gibson et al., 2021; krouse, 2020), and education (e.g., lack of wifi for remote learning) (goudeau et al., 2021; reimers, 2022). while change for improving equity was pressing before, it has become critical, especially for future education leaders. cpedoriented edd doctoral programs are designed to develop leaders with the dispositions and skills to evaluate and improve the systems and programs in which they work to respond to this change to be more just and equitable instead of fixing the individuals within them. this paper focuses on the edsi edd program at the university https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ tran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 64 of south carolina and how the program faculty utilize the signature methodology of the program, improvement science, towards its improvement efforts towards enhancing its equity focus, especially post-pandemic. while there have already been existing efforts developed to meaningfully integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) as part of the dna of this program, this article captures part of the program’s efforts to engage in continuous program improvement efforts to strengthen its emphasis on dei post-pandemic. knowing that they wanted to make improvements, the edd faculty applied for and was awarded an internal grant that supported some of the program improvement work. this article captures improvement efforts related to improvement efforts writ large, some of which were connected directly to the internal grant, while other improvement efforts took place external to the grant work. this paper captures one period of time reflecting the program’s current understanding and work progress; indeed, in the spirit of continuous improvement, the work is not done and will continue to evolve. program background the edd in education systems improvement (edsi) is one of four strands of a college of education-wide edd degree at usc. at the time of this paper’s development, the program has existed for only three years and therefore still in its beginning stages. housed in the college of education’s educational leadership and policy department (edlp), the edsi edd program emphasizes an improvement science framework as its signature pedagogy and methodology. this approach positions leaders who are educators, advocates, and improvers to address complex, adaptive problems of inequity by deeply understanding a problem and the system that is producing that problem, and then using different strategies to meaningfully disrupt educational systems of inequality to develop positive impactful changes (hinnant-crawford, 2020). at the time of edsi program approval, the stated edd program outcomes were: 1) develop scholar practitioners with a strong foundation and strategies for education systems improvement, 2) develop scholar practitioners with advanced understandings of district, state, and national policies, 3) develop scholar practitioners to use principles of improvement science to solve systemic problems of practice in their contexts, and 4) develop transformational leaders to positively impact student achievement, student engagement, school climate, students’ overall educational experience, and social change. edd faculty are committed to modifying these original outcomes for depth and articulation to more directly and impactfully align with the college of education’s priorities and cped’s vision of “...a future where equity-minded educational professionals lead lasting and positive change for the learning and benefit of everyone” (cped, 2021, para 2). while other educational leadership preparation programs in the department have articulated leadership dispositions (i.e., integrity, intellectual spirit, social justice, and initiative) that are included in course syllabi and aspiring leaders’ reflections and evaluation materials, the edsi edd is in the process of working to formally adopt its own. the edsi edd program employs a diverse, and knowledgeable group of approximately twelve full-time faculty members with additional educational advocates who serve as adjunct faculty. together, they promote interdisciplinary expertise, intellectual spirit, and scholarly excellence for all learners. students are organized into cohorts of 20-25 students, who are adult learners and work full time across p-20 contexts. the program offers 100% online courses on topics such as, but not limited to, anti-racist and transformational leadership, improvement science, data-informed decision making, research methods, educational policy, and organizational theory and systems design. students further participate in a two-part improvement science institute after semesters two and five, and take additional core courses in two other departments across the college of education. edd program redesign the edsi edd program emphasizes continuous improvement as described by park and colleagues (2013), who define it as frequent or part of regular practice, focused on positive changes in systems and the multiple levels within those systems, including the processes that exist within those different levels of the system. coupled with a continuous improvement orientation, faculty expertise in areas such as educational systems, leadership, policies, and improvement set the stage for identifying and addressing opportunities for improving equity in the field of education postpandemic. the commitment to continuous improvement of the program’s systems and processes invited the opportunity to focus on a specific area of the redesign effort: advancing the edd’s articulated emphasis on equity. the improvement team used various data sources to identify places and ways to improve. the multi-pronged approach to the redesign efforts included: (a) a syllabi review and gap analysis, (b) student feedback, (c) program evaluations, (d) faculty feedback, (e) empathy interviews and discussions, (f) literature, research, and examples from analogous settings, as well as (g) a root cause analysis diagram (i.e., fishbone diagram). these data were considered at different points of the redesign efforts. we will describe a portion of the edsi improvement efforts and actions in three phases: phase 1 includes the initial improvements made external to the grant-related efforts, phase 2 includes the improvement processes related to the grant-related efforts, and phase 3 offers future improvement efforts and actions beyond the grant. phase 1: initial program improvements under the leadership of the edsi edd program coordinator and the department chair, the first major component of the efforts to improve the program’s emphasis on equity and diversified perspectives included introducing new faculty and courses. for example, two new clinical faculty members with expertise in higher education (which was under-represented in the curriculum despite the program being a p-20 focus) and equity were hired to teach in the program. in addition, new courses focusing on inclusion were developed for students in the program during the improvement efforts. the first of these courses (i.e., inclusive talent management in education cultivating a work climate for inclusive excellence) will be offered next summer, with companion courses offered the year after. phase 2: grant-related improvement efforts the second major component of the program improvement efforts is led by a team that includes the edd program coordinator, the department chair, the med in k-12 leadership’s program coordinator, an assistant professor who teaches the improvement science courses, a current edd student, and a practicing educational improving equity focus in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 65 leader who serves as an adjunct professor in the med program with expertise in program improvement efforts. this team anchored their understanding of the improvement area (i.e., advancing the edd emphasis on equity) into three areas: (1) program purpose, (2) curricular design, and (3) continuous improvement processes. the next portions of this paper will illustrate the team’s approach to the (re)design process and draw on existing research in improvement science (e.g., anderson et al., in press-a; bryk et al., 2015; hinnantcrawford, 2020; langley et al., 2012) and in program improvement and redesign (e.g. young et al., 2022) to anchor these efforts. the approach to improvement improvement efforts were guided by improvement science dispositions and mindsets (e.g., anderson et al., 2023; biag & sherer, 2021), while drawing on some (not all) improvement science methods taught in the edd program. biag and sherer (2021) offer that improvers embody particular dispositions such as commitment to a learning mindset and a system’s perspective, willingness to take action for improvement, dedication to seeking additional perspectives, and perseverance in their priority to continuous improvement. these dispositions coordinate with the six principles of improvement as introduced by bryk and colleagues (2015):  make the work problem-specific and user-centered  focus on variation in performance  see the system that produces the current outcomes  measurement is necessary for scaling improvement efforts  disciplined inquiry drives improvement  networked communities can accelerate learning while the full improvement science methodology was not employed entirely, two of these principles– making the problem-specific and user-centered, as well as seeing the system that produces the current outcomes were and remain particularly helpful principles for the edsi edd improvement team. improvement science invites improvers to spend time deeply understanding the problem they want to address. strategies such as examining local qualitative and quantitative data, scanning outside the organization, and engaging in empathy interviews facilitate increased understanding (e.g., carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 2018; hinnant-crawford, 2021; nelsestuen & smith, 2020). we describe how each facilitated the group’s continuous improvement processes. the multi-pronged program design approach involved the examination and analysis of the program’s artifacts (e.g., syllabi review), soliciting feedback to determine the current state of the program (e.g., empathy interviews, guided interview focus group with faculty, student-led program evaluations), and arranging information into a fishbone diagram to better understand the factors impacting the improvement focus. understanding the current improvement area: program artifacts (i.e., program outcomes, edlp course information). informational artifacts (i.e., program outcomes) helped the team orient the curriculum to the program outcomes and dispositions. the process involved collecting multiple data sources including input from current edd students, course syllabi and seeking course information through clarifying interviews with instructors to capture details related to course design, topics, and enacted learning experiences. to identify specific directions for program and curricular improvement, the team needed to get a clear sense of the program’s state. determining whether students are studying the desired curriculum is of utmost importance. students are expected to learn; however, if they are not studying a curriculum aligned with program goals and values, their mastery will have a limited impact on equity. one way to determine this was by reviewing course syllabi to conduct a gap analysis process. guided by a review template developed by bryan (2021) at the office of diversity, equity, & inclusion at usc, the research team completed a review and gap analysis on the existing department offered courses (i.e., edlp courses) in the edd program. the analysis involved two distinct but related phases. first, the program goals and outcomes were revisited. then, additional program data sources (e.g., syllabi, faculty insights) were collected and reviewed to see how the sources aligned or diverged from the program outcomes. a key focus was to assess to what degree dei topics were currently woven throughout the edsi courses to represent a values-based cohesive core curriculum framed around equity. thus, the focus of the gap analysis was to systematically reveal how dei content was embedded in the readings, instructional activities, and the assessments. the med program coordinator facilitated the preparation and procedures for an associate professor, an edd student, and a practicing school leader for analyzing seven course syllabi from the edlp edd program. the med program coordinator facilitated an initial preliminary review. then, a more detailed review using the template (bryan, 2021) took place. during this stage, the depth of knowledge (dok) level definitions were used (webb, 2002) to assess the dok level of dei (a) topics and (b) assessments in each edlp course: introductory (i) indicated the presence of knowledge or skill where students are, for example, asked to recall or explain facts or concepts, advanced (a) knowledge or skill signaled that students were invited to apply a procedure or analyze how parts relate to or contrast from one another, or mastery (m) required students to evaluate or make judgments based on criteria or create a novel approach, product, or artifact. each team member was randomly assigned syllabi to assess and categorize based on the dok levels. their reviews were collected on the template. syllabi review and gap analysis results seven education leadership and policies courses in edsi were reviewed. from the preliminary review, the team made important observations that could inspire improvement directions. first, evidence suggested a lack of clarity around the program’s foundations or course details. specifically, the overarching program outcomes were not fully articulated, included, or operationalized, which signaled that these were unclear to syllabi/course developers. program outcome one states that the edd program will develop scholar practitioners with a strong foundation and strategies for education systems improvement. the gap analysis revealed that the students are expected to analyze and interpret the theory of organizational power, develop a transformative equity action plan, use improvement science tools like plan, do, study, act (pdsa) cycles and empathy interviews to disrupt inequities and articulate ethical and social justice dimensions of educational policies and practices. edsi edd students are expected to develop a research equity action plan, develop a project proposal, write a code of ethics, and develop a client task report based on available organizational data. instructional activities aligned with this program outcome included weekly readings and reflection, podcasts, and discussion posts. tran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 66 program outcome two states that the edsi edd will develop scholar practitioners with advanced understandings of district, state, and national policies. there was limited direct evidence across the syllabi (outside of the educational policy course) that students are developing advanced knowledge of district, state, and national policies. although it could be argued that the readings provide an understanding of the policy context and the research equity action plan, it is important to note that project proposal, code of ethics, and client task report can only be developed with an understanding of the policy context. program outcome three states that the edsi edd program will develop scholar practitioners to use principles of improvement science to solve systemic problems of practice in their contexts. the edsi program is centered on the principles of improvement science; hence, students take an improvement science methodology course and two summer improvement science institutes to develop their skills to address problems of practice in their contexts. students are also expected to create a data plan calendar and a data profile. program outcome four states that the edd program will develop transformative leaders to positively impact student achievement, student engagement, school climate, the overall educational experience, and social change. syllabi content suggests that courses provide examples of anti-racist and transformative leadership, further developing students’ improvement science skills. second, the information contained in some syllabi were incomplete (e.g., assignments, readings were not included). the gap analysis focused on to what extent dei topics (such as racism; classism; heterosexism, cisheterosexism, homophobia; sexism and patriarchy; anti-indianism; xenophobia; anti-semitism; bilingualism; and first-generation americans) were embedded in the program’s core courses’ readings, instructional activities, and assessments. since there was a deficit of all aspects of dei revealed, this information was presented to all edlp professors so they could analyze their courses to incorporate understandings of the policies. this could be the first step for professors to revise their syllabi to more purposefully incorporate dei’s comprehensive definition which could invite course design to reflect dei, and incorporate intentional diversity in their course readings, class discussions, and assignments. we make two assumptions about the syllabi: 1. that the syllabus is a tool that serves as an agreement between the instructor and the student about the expectations and content of the course and 2, we assume that what is explicitly included in a course syllabus is limited because syllabi are unlikely to exhaustively include all course information and fully articulate what is missing within the documents. in other words, an accurate depiction of the totality of what is happening in coursework and the class outside of what can be captured in syllabi was limited. these assumptions connect to our improvement purpose which was to use available artifacts and information (e.g., empathy interviews as described later in this paper) to help identify future directions for improvement and share those with the program’s core instructors. it was important to supplement the findings of the gap analysis since syllabi cannot capture everything that is covered in a course. therefore, beyond reviewing the syllabus documents, one team member facilitated a meeting with two other full-time faculty members who teach edsi edd courses to learn and discuss more about what is included in the course beyond what is outlined in the syllabi. information from this group revealed that there were indeed deliberately designed discussions within course meetings that threaded dei priorities into them. for instance, in the data informed decision-making course, students engage in a learning activity that requires them to review data from different example cases. in their reviews, students uncover inequities in the cases (e.g., trends in naep scores, underrepresentation of women in stem). in a similar way, in the economics of education course, the instructor facilitates multiple entry points for students to grapple with how current systems advantage and disadvantage people and how systematic and systemic processes do not allow certain populations to be able to enter pipelines of opportunities. further, this instructor highlighted how facilitating the personalization of the topics invites students to reflect on how course themes impact them and their leadership. this additional information illustrates why a multi-faceted assessment is needed when aiming to improve a program or a component of the program. a more holistic understanding of courses invites more precision when working to improve upon existing learning activities. understanding the improvement area: student-led program evaluations the improvement efforts for the program are informed and forwarded by annual internal program evaluations. specifically, through their coursework, edsi edd students engage in authentic learning through conducting a program evaluation on their own edsi edd program. the program evaluation instrument is the result of an adaptation and revalidation of kim and colleague’s (2020) quality of nursing doctoral education (qnde) instrument for the edd context, framed with the cped’s (2021) guiding principles of improvement, and focus group feedback from students. the data are collected from students in the program and give program faculty a benchmark of the program effectiveness, identification of program strengths to continue to emphasize, and refine areas for improvement. their perspectives are uniquely important because edd students were working and in edd coursework during and following the covid-19 shutdown. timely information is critical for facilitating effective responses to feedback. thus far, data from two cohorts have been collected and analyzed. the surveys were distributed online via the qualtrics platform and sent to the email addresses of each student in particular program cohorts. there was no time limit allotted for completion nor were there any incentives for completion other than the ability to provide feedback to improve the program. the first-year cohort questionnaire had 31 questions spread across five domains (one of which is focused on social justice and equity) and three open ended response questions. the survey for cohort one yielded a response rate of 59%, with a strong chronbach alpha (α=.98), and scale level content validity index (s-cvi = .97) based on agreement levels of a panel of experts. for cohort two, the questionnaire was revised and encompassed 30 questions spread across four domains (the domain of honoring community and context was removed from this iteration of the survey), with three open-ended response questions. the questionnaire for cohort two yielded a response rate of 78%, with strong internal reliability (α=.83) and content validity (scvi = .91). results from the data are shared with the cohort respondents and additional recommendations for improvement are also solicited at this time. those results and recommendations are then shared with the edsi edd faculty in the department’s annual fall retreat. the faculty discuss the quantitative and qualitative data, and ideas for action plans for each recommendation are generated improving equity focus in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 67 from the dialogue. shortly after reviewing the data and strategizing the responses from the fall retreat, the coordinator of the program follows-up with the cohort of edd students who responded to the survey via a zoom meeting and shares with them the data and action responses. this user-centered strategy (improvement science principle 2) creates a feedback loop between the students and faculty communicating how user inputs shape the ongoing improvement efforts. preliminary results from the two surveys in the area of social justice suggest areas of strengths and areas for growth. for example, one student noted in their survey response that a strength of the program was its “emphasis on social justice and equity and need to bring about change in educational systems,” while another noted that the program encouraged them to “question the status quo to better understand how the root cause of problems may be exacerbating inequity and social injustice.” in terms of areas of growth, one student shared that “[c]lasses on equity need to expand beyond race. we had one class that included immigrants and lgbt, but it was asynchronous and provided no room for us to talk about some of the issues facing our schools (transgender students and locker rooms, title ix and girls/boys sports teams, students and their pronouns and school's responsibilities for parent notification). seems we missed out on an opportunity to learn more about a wider lens of equity issues on our doorstep.” overall, the findings suggest areas to revise current courses’ learning experiences, opportunities for new course development to address the voids and opportunities to more effectively integrate dei across edd coursework and programmatic expectations (e.g., dissertation in practice). understanding the improvement area: empathy interviews empathy interviews are a strategy used to ascertain stories and experiences of people who are connected to an improvement area, and they help to learn more about variation in the system and how the system is working (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 2018; hinnant-crawford, 2020; high tech high, 2023; smith, 2020). the improvement team utilized empathy interviews with three edd program faculty members and one student to thoroughly understand the area of improvement as well as to identify potential areas to pursue to make effective changes. specifically, empathy interviews were used as an opportunity to provide the edd faculty improvers successful learning activities related to dei, faculty needs, and considerations. as empathy interviews go, the conversations were brief, each only 10-15 minutes, but revealed (1) how people felt successful integrating dei into class instruction, learning activity, or a successful learning moment and (2) suggestions for what faculty members might need, do, or keep in mind for deliberate incorporation of dei into the edsi edd courses. pedagogical design ideas for consideration included the incorporation of purposeful case studies and learning opportunities designed to invite authentic connections to context/system, practice, policies, or people. these ideas will be shared with edd course faculty as they engage in continuous improvement efforts for their courses. further, the empathy interviews also provided insight for what program and department leadership should consider to support their faculty. for instance, making space for faculty to discuss and come to common understanding of expectations and goals related to dei as it specifically relates to the program is one way to provide faculty with opportunities for improvement. understanding the improvement area: root cause analysis a fishbone diagram is one way to organize a root cause analysis of an improvement area as it captures potential causes leading to a particular effect (hinnant-crawford, 2020; institute for healthcare improvement, 2023). the fishbone contains the improvement area (effect) in the head and the elements (causes) that lead to or exacerbate the problem become the different thematic bones of the fish with specific related causes listed under each. for instance, since the improvement focus was integrating dei more explicitly and effectively in the edd program, the bones of the fish could include themes connected to this problem of practice such as program coherence or faculty experience. the fishbone diagram develops iteratively, because as the team learns more about the improvement area, the new learning is incorporated into the fishbone (e.g., see larosa, 2021). the fishbone below was developed and updated to reflect new understandings from program-related data. figure 1. fishbone diagram note. an organizational cause-and-effect schemata such as the fishbone helps the team see specific target areas for targeted improvement efforts to integrate equity and social justice learning opportunities across the edsi edd. tran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 68 phase 3: a path forward for edsi edd program improvement the edd students have experienced seismic shifts in the p-20 educational contexts, especially post-pandemic. programs that prepare scholar practitioners to make improvements in those spaces need to be responsive to successful meet their program outcomes and visions for their graduates, making program improvement and redesign efforts imperative. engaging in program improvement and redesign is a collaborative, iterative, complex endeavor (young et al., 2022). the future improvement work for the edsi program change efforts (current and future) will map onto the recommendations provided by orr and colleagues (2013) and young and colleagues (2022) related to engaging in program redesign. scholars who have done work in this area note that the process involves preparing for redesign through understanding of the current program–which we outline above, building a team of key stakeholders who are willing to engage in program improvement (edsi faculty), committing to dedicating the necessary resources (e.g., time, space, funding, talents) to the effort, and charting a path forward that embraces an inquiry approach and is dedicated to monitoring and celebrating the improvement efforts (big and small) throughout the process (see orr et al., 2013; young et al., 2022). program improvement and redesign includes developing a profile of an exemplary graduate of the program (similar to the future iterations of edsi’s program outcomes and leadership dispositions). aligned with the research on backwards design (mctighe & wiggins, 2012; reynolds & dowell kearns, 2017; wiggins & mctighe, 1998), clarity on who a graduate is and what they are able to do (i.e., improve educational systems and structures), inspires the next phases of program improvement, which involves determining the organizational complements that need modification, adjustment, or redesign to facilitate powerful, transformative learning for students in order to create the educational environment for students to develop successfully (young et al., 2021). when it is clear to program faculty who the graduates of the program are and what the program outcomes and goals, and leadership dispositions are, then areas like student recruitment and selection for admission can also become more purposeful. researchers in program redesign and improvement also recognize that this work is never done. continuous improvement is not another thing to do, it is the work of preparing leaders itself. over the course of its three-year existence, the edd program has aimed to make adjustments and positive change towards equity based on multiple sources of information (e.g., faculty and student feedback and evaluation). more recently, the fishbone development captured above highlights improvement areas that are both changeable and in the direct control of edsi edd faculty. for instance, some of the sub-bones under the program structure, faculty learning, course development, and student experience themes are and will continue to be the first areas for targeted improvement. table 1 below includes some of the key findings synthesized from the findings from syllabi review, empathy interviews, et cetera in the left column and suggestions for improvement that stem from professional recommendations and existing research in the right column. items that are crossed out indicate past or current efforts by the team. non-struck through items are for future consideration. table 1. program understanding results and suggested steps for syllabus and course refinement program improvement finding potential response action steps edd faculty hold varying understandings of the program outcomes as evidenced by a lack of clarity and focus.  program faculty collaborate to rewrite program outcomes  participate in a series of professional learning opportunities to build capacity in program understanding including improvement science and dissertation and practice clarity  develop a dissertation in practice (dip) guide  update admissions decision procedures to reflect program purpose and outcomes  identify and higher faculty members who can deepen the educational experiences of our scholar practitioner edd students lack of clarity around dissertation in practice process, organization, and expectations.  communicate a focus for equity and social justice dip focus  faculty will plan how to support the dissertation process  develop a dissertation in practice guide overarching program outcomes are not fully articulated, operationalized, and/or communicated to syllabi creators.  plan opportunities to come to a collective understanding of program outcomes and leadership dispositions  develop a set of edd leadership dispositions for the program that reflects the core values of the program and how graduates should approach leadership  include leadership dispositions in edsi edd syllabi  make intentional connections between program outcomes and course activities and outcomes  continue to develop the program’s online learning informational resource hu  edsi edd handbook revisions/update  dissertation in practice outline development equity topics in courses were limited.  equity focus includes topics such as race, gender, (dis)ability, lgbtqia+, nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, citizenship, language, and beyond  intentional selection of course materials to support the foundation of systems improvement through justice, equity, and inclusion  make syllabi revisions to incorporate an intersection of systems improvement and equity  incorporate opportunities to bridge learning about dei topics and values and authentic connection to practice, policy, and people (e.g., case development for student individual or collaborative engagement) one course clearly addresses how the class will further the students' understanding of district, state, and national policies. • all courses incorporate policy at different levels (i.e., local, state, federal) faculty need common understanding of what dei in the edd program looks like. • integrate dedicated, regular time and processes for collaborative discussions to develop this understanding • emphasize diversity and equity-oriented improvement and outcomes for the dip by edd students to lead improvements directed towards disrupting problematic systems to promote equitable and socially just practices need for regular evaluation of the program outcomes so that it is culturally responsive to current societal challenges. • integrate dedicated, regular time and processes for purposeful continuous improvement • intentional improvement of syllabi informed by syllabi evaluation protocols that reveal if the equity curriculum is introductory, advanced, or mastery improving equity focus in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 69 broadly, three program improvement foci are included in the improvement arc: program purpose, curricular design, and continuous improvement processes. program purpose edsi edd program faculty need to refine the program outcomes and leadership dispositions to describe an edd graduate more clearly and to emphasize a justice, equity, and inclusion lens. these then can be applied to coursework to develop students’ skills in leading change to dismantle, eliminate, and then improve institutional and individual injustices. to this end, the program faculty recognize they need to be prepared to help students identify and combat inequities and oppressive systems. thus, the faculty will collaborate to develop outcomes and adopt leadership dispositions to be more relevant and more explicitly address dismantling inequities through continuous improvement work and aligning to the college of education’s overarching goals of diversity, justice, equity, and inclusion. a clear sense of program purpose and who students will be upon graduation helps calibrate admissions decisions (young et al., 2022). aligned with the focus of the revised program outcomes and leadership dispositions, the edsi edd faculty are working to further refine their edd cohort member selection through updating student admissions criteria and application materials. for example, based on the emphasis on social justice and equity, applicants will now include a description of their potential to positively impact social justice and equity outcomes in their personal statement for the next admission cycle (2023-24). application reviewers will determine whether the description defined by the applicants aligns with the values defined by the edsi edd and college of education to determine this potential. curricular design curriculum cohesion will more effectively support edd students’ abilities to make bold, equitable system changes in their spheres of influence (captured in their dissertations in practice). with the findings from the process of gaining deeper insight of the program as outlined above, edsi program faculty can be provided a promising improvement picture of how course syllabi and activities might be revised. currently, edsi faculty are actively working to develop new courses and content to align with the program’s equity-focused goals. for instance, in response to needs identified by our preliminary gap analysis, a new course, inclusive talent management: cultivating education workplace inclusion, was developed to explore how educational leaders nurture diversity, inclusion, belonging, and equity in their p-20 work environments. students in the course will read topics related to diversity and inclusion (e.g., training, leadership, hiring, micro/macro-aggression, and creating a workplace that promotes belonging) from perspectives that are traditionally marginalized (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation, ability) in the curriculum, improving equity and social justice opportunities for students and proactively working to diversify hiring and retention. continuous improvement processes it is anticipated that in upcoming semesters, faculty will engage in facilitated, collaborative, and independent opportunities for additional program-related improvements. an important consideration for sustaining continuous improvement is to incorporate professional practice and habits into the regular work and expectations of the faculty (anderson et al., in press-b). it is necessary to foster the conditions for edd program faculty to regularly evaluate outcomes so that the program is culturally responsive to local and global societal considerations, including the fallout from the pandemic. continuous improvement as it relates to program design diversity, equity, and inclusion are a part of edsi and the department’s dna. as this work unfolds and progresses, faculty with the program coordinator will ensure that social justice and equity will be embedded into all of the edd program’s courses and dissertation in practice processes. from engaging more often in this process, it has become clear that continuous improvement should be woven into the norms of the department's professional practice through existing channels (e.g., monthly department/program meetings). a continuous improvement approach to programmatic design is also being infused throughout the department’s other programs (e.g., med principal preparation), and there is thus an opportunity to build off these routines. conclusion in the spirit of continuous improvement, this work is never done. it will be forwarded by dedicating time and resources to continuous improvement efforts, and the user-centered approach will continue to include using a constellation of program-related information for analysis of the current curriculum, gathering additional input from stakeholders connected to the program (e.g., faculty, edd students), iterating and revisiting the root cause analysis diagram to guide improvement effort focus(es), surfacing opportunities and specific strategies for improving equity and social justice learning experiences for students, and proactively working for inclusive retention of faculty and matriculation of edd students. as mentioned, the program aims for equity and diversity to be built into the dna of our program and the edd, and this emphasis has become increasingly critical in a post-pandemic world where we have seen the exposure and exacerbation of the chasm created by inequity between the privileged and the marginalized. continuous improvement steps help sharpen program focus and further strengthen a program that cultivates socially just and equitable leaders to make positive impacts in their contexts. references anderson, e., cunningham, k. m. w., & eddy-spicer, d. h. (2023). leading continuous improvement in schools: enacting leadership standards to advance educational quality and equity. routledge. anderson, e., cunningham, k. m. w., & richardson, j. w. (2023). designing a multi-level learning trajectory for sustaining continuous school improvement: lessons for transformative organizations. in e. anderson & s. hayes (eds.) continuous improvement: a leadership process for school improvement. information age publishing. bambra, c., riordan, r., ford, j., & matthews, f. (2020). the covid-19 pandemic and health inequalities. journal of epidemiology and community health, 74(11), 964–968 biag, m. & sherer, d. (2021). getting better at getting better: improvement dispositions in education. teachers college record, 123(4), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300402 bryan, m. (2021). diversification gap analysis. office of diversity, equity, and inclusion. university of south carolina. bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching (2018). empathy interviews. teaching commons. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812112300402 tran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.386 70 carnegie project for the education doctorate (2021). our vision and mission. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission gibson, b., schneider, j., talamonti, d., & forshaw, m. (2021). the impact of inequality on mental health outcomes during the covid-19 pandemic: a systematic review. canadian psychology/psychologie canadienne, 62(1), 101. goudeau, s., sanrey, c., stanczak, a., manstead, a., & darnon, c. (2021). why lockdown and distance learning during the covid-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. nature human behaviour, 5(10), 1273–1281. greene, l. s., inniss, l. b., crawford, b. j., baradaran, m., ben-asher, n., capers, i. b., james, o. r., & lindsay, k. (2019). talking about black lives matter and# metoo. wisconsin. journal of law, gender, & society, 34 (109). high tech high graduate school of education (2023). empathy interviews. https://hthgse.edu/resources/empathy-interviews/ hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. meyers education press. institute for healthcare improvement (2023). cause and effect diagram. tools. https://www.ihi.org/resources/pages/tools/causeandeffectdiagram.aspx kaskazi, a. (2021). the crises of 2020: the effects of intersectionality and virality on marginalized youth in the us. journal of children and media, 15(1), 105–108. kim, m. j., mckenna, h., park, c. g., ketefian, s., park, s. h., galvin, k., & burke, l. (2020). global assessment instrument for quality of nursing doctoral education with a research focus: validity and reliability study. nurse education today, 91, 104475. krouse, h. j. (2020). covid-19 and the widening gap in health inequity. otolaryngology–head and neck surgery, 163(1), 65–66. langley, g. j., moen, r. d., nolan, k. m., nolan, t. w., norman, c. l., & provost, l. p. (2009). the improvement guide (2nd ed.). jossey-bass. larosa, d. (2021) coaching elementary educators’ culturally sustaining teaching. [doctoral dissertation, university of pittsburgh]. https://dscholarship.pitt.edu/41486/1/larosadenise_etd_2021_dschol.pdf mctighe, j., & wiggins, g. (2012). understanding by design framework. alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. nelsestuen, k., & smith, j. (2020). empathy interviews: an effective tool for understanding the user experience. virtual presentation at the carnegie summit. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/summit/embedding-equityin-continuous-improvement/data-measurement-and-equity-of-voice/ reynolds, h. l., & kearns, k. d. (2017). a planning tool for incorporating backward design, active learning, and authentic assessment in the college classroom. college teaching, 65(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2016.1222575 webb, n. l. (2002). depth-of-knowledge levels for four content areas. language arts, 28(march). http://ossucurr.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49691156/norm%20web%20do k%20by%20subject%20area.pdf wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2011). the understanding by design guide to creating high-quality units. ascd. young, m. d., o’doherty, a., & cunningham, k. m. w. (2022). redesigning educational leadership preparation for equity: strategies for innovation and improvement. routledge. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/vision-mission https://hthgse.edu/resources/empathy-interviews/ https://www.ihi.org/resources/pages/tools/causeandeffectdiagram.aspx https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/41486/1/larosadenise_etd_2021_dschol.pdf https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/41486/1/larosadenise_etd_2021_dschol.pdf https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/summit/embedding-equity-in-continuous-improvement/data-measurement-and-equity-of-voice/ https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/summit/embedding-equity-in-continuous-improvement/data-measurement-and-equity-of-voice/ https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2016.1222575 http://ossucurr.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49691156/norm%20web%20dok%20by%20su http://ossucurr.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49691156/norm%20web%20dok%20by%20su http://ossucurr.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49691156/norm%20web%20dok%20by%20subject%20area.pdf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 35 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org issn 2472-5889 (online) impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 asynchronous online course designs: articulating theory, best practices, and techniques for everyday doctoral education michael m. grant department of educational studies, university of south carolina michaelmgrant@sc.edu abstract early online course materials were text-based and relied heavily on discussion forums as the de facto tool for interactions. faculty members today, however, have many other choices for course design and course materials. there is not consensus for online course design guidelines or principles, though. choices in course design by faculty members directly impact the quality of instruction and student learning experience. this article shares some of our theoretical and practical decisions faculty members at the university of south carolina employ for online course design. our experiences and decision-making may be useful for other members of the online ed.d. cped improvement group (online ed.d. cig), as well as other programs who may be experiencing emergency remote teaching as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, making an evolutionary transition to online or blended education, or considering a future transition to a fully online program. links to the strategies and tools mentioned throughout this essay are collated in a list at the end. keywords online course design, asynchronous courses, doctoral education, instructional design, teaching online early online course materials were predominantly text-based and relied heavily on discussion forums as the de facto tool for interactions (anderson, 2003; garrison et al., 2000). faculty members today, however, have many other choices for course design and course materials. faculty members primarily use institutional course management systems (cms), such as instructure canvas and blackboard learn (baldwin & ching, 2019; edutechnica, 2020), to structure courses, deliver learning contents, facilitate learning activities, communicate with students, and assess and evaluate student learning. across these many course decisions, faculty members also select a variety of pedagogies, generate novel instructional content, curate existing digital resources, require students to use web-based tools, create and repurpose assessments and rubrics, and communicate with students through course announcements, discussion forums, social media, audio/video recording and conferencing systems, and feedback (martin, budhrani, et al., 2019; martin, ritzhaupt, et al., 2019). the decisionmaking for online course design and course materials is complex. there is not consensus for online course design guidelines or principles, though (martin, budhrani, et al., 2019). choices in course design by faculty members directly impact the quality of instruction and student learning experience. well-designed online courses can increase student satisfaction of the courses (alizadeh et al., 2019; alqurashi, 2019; sadaf et al., 2019). therefore, to address issues of online course quality, colleges and universities have implemented a number of strategies to improve course design. for example, institutions use or require a course design template because it provides students a common, or standardized, navigation experience (collins et al., 2014; mcghan et al., 2015). other institutions mandate online courses pass reviews for quality standards (see e.g., baldwin et al., 2018; gilliham & williams, 2020; mcgee & reis, 2012). still, there are few published descriptions of effective online course designs with enough rich detail for other online faculty members to repurpose or translate into their own courses (cf. strecker et al., 2019). the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) member institutions, however, hold both the responsibility and opportunities to foster and share resources, curriculum, and tools to support ed.d. redesign. to that end, this article is a contribution to support effective online course design and course materials development. background the learning design and technologies concentration (originally educational technology) of the educational doctorate at the university of south carolina began in fall 2016. our program began fully online and asynchronously. as of fall 2020, our program faculty had admitted 13 cohorts of students with approximately 150 students enrolled at any one time. we have previously described the structures of our program, strategies we have used to develop novice researchers and academic writers, and how our program is evolving (arslan-ari et al., 2018, 2020). currently, our curriculum contains different types of asynchronous courses. we have technical skills courses that focus on students developing foundational knowledge and skills of instructional design and technology competence with current http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3062-686x grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 36 technology tools. these courses include instructional design and assessment, instructional media development, online course design and development, and developing learning and instruction for diverse learners (e.g., accessibility). these courses are specific to our ed.d. concentration, and they combine theory, research, and principles with significant technology tools applications. these courses typically have a significant number of applied projects, and they often build to a culminating instructional product. other courses are typical of those in education doctoral programs, such as learning theory and instructional models, applied research methods, evaluation and synthesis of research, and dissertation preparation courses. online teaching and learning are an essential branch of our field. we have extensive professional knowledge and skills in this area. therefore, while our field is aware of conventions, best practices, and research to support effective online teaching and learning, many cped programs’ faculty members may not attend consistently to professional practice, publications, and professional development that address distance education. as such, i felt this special issue of impacting education themed to online ed.d. programs may be an apt outlet to elucidate some of our purposeful theoretical and practical decisions for online course design. our experiences and decision-making may be useful for other members of the online ed.d. cped improvement group (online ed.d. cig), as well as other programs who may be experiencing emergency remote teaching (hodges et al., 2020) as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, making an evolutionary transition to online or blended education, or considering a future transition to a fully online program. links to the strategies and tools mentioned throughout this essay are collated in appendix a at the end. acknowledgements and subjectivities i have been teaching online or through blended methods for approximately 18 years. as a result of this extended experience, many of the course design strategies we currently use in our education doctorate program were developed previously in collaboration with past colleagues at the university of memphis, namely lee allen, trey martindale, and clif mims, and with current colleagues at the university of south carolina, including fatih ari, ismahan arslan-ari, and erin besser. in addition, i was trained as a secondary education career and technical education teacher for graphic communications at clemson university, subsequently teaching there as a graduate teaching assistant and an instructor. so, much of my pedagogy and syllabus design were informed by mentors and colleagues there, particularly nancy leininger, page crouch, sam ingram, and john leininger. moreover, it would be disingenuous for me to fail to acknowledge critical friends, specifically john curry (idaho state university) and charles b. hodges (georgia state university), who have informed and improved my course designs through peer reviews, informal discussions, and sharing sessions at professional conferences. reflexively, my own lines of research focus on inquiry methods, such as project-based and problem-based learning, and instructional message design, so these are inherent within my course designs. cognitivist (ertmer & newby, 1993) and constructionist (papert, 1991) pedagogies have informed my instructional designs, and these are discussed in depth further below. as such, i state these subjectivities to concede to readers that while the strategies, techniques, and pedagogies presented are theoretically-sound and practically tested, the resulting designs and materials are not the only best practices in which online course designs can be implemented successfully. indeed, other designs may be equally effective with differing pedagogical beliefs (ertmer & ottenbreitleftwich, 2010) and constraints. for example, across all of the universities i have worked, none have been subject to union contracts, which may impact academic freedoms, instructional designs, and faculty evaluations (e.g., mcghan et al., 2015). so, the extent to which these course design methods can be applied, that is with any practical or internal generalizability, in other contexts is situated with the reader. planning an online course design course design is student, context, and content dependent. initially, our faculty analyze our students’ goals, their background knowledge and skills, and their preferences for adult learning (e.g., collaboration, choice, rationales for learning) (knowles, 1975; morrison et al., 2013). in addition to considering our students, we also consider contexts — both the learning context, where and how online learning will occur, and the students’ work contexts. what we can discern from our students about how they learn online informs what we know about how adult students learn online in general. for example, students reported to us that consistent writing groups across multiple courses was valued, and the students preferred to choose their communications mediums. students also reported they tended to work in concentrated segments of time, which were often at night or on weekends and typical of other adult online students (glazier, 2016). moreover, we consider the applicability and adaptability of new knowledge and skills within constraints students may have in their work contexts to apply any new skills or affect change. finally, we consider the content, identifying terminal objectives or performances and aligning instructional content, activities, and assessments. these front-end analysis considerations impact our course designs for function and form. however, there is no commonly agreed upon list of course design components or characteristics. one of the most common findings, though, from literature is effective online faculty members clearly organize and structure learning contents (crews & butterfield, 2014; dipietro et al., 2008; martin, ritzhaupt, et al., 2019). structuring and organizing an online course effective online instructors report using a systematic approach to their course content designs (martin, ritzhaupt, et al., 2019), and they focus on alignment among course learning goals, activities, and assessments, which is commonly referred to as backwards design (wiggins & mctighe, 2005). kearns and mancilla (2017) reported the most common finding from online course instructors participating in their faculty development was an awareness of and “attention to alignment of course components” (p. 194). so, a course’s structure and organization should communicate and facilitate the learning contents. more granularly, online faculty members generally structure their courses with units, modules, or weeks (bates, 2019; bonfiglio et al., 2016; martin, ritzhaupt, et al., 2019). for example, mcgee and reis (2012) presented a typical course planning table that allows structuring course content and ensuring alignment as described above. see figure 1 for a template i have used to design my own courses and have used in professional development with faculty members. a similar template is available from the city university of new york and the course mapping guide. asynchronous online course designs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 37 figure 1. course design planning document to align objectives, readings/media, interactions, and assessments (adapted from university of maryland-college park) our courses are organized around weeks, modules, or units based on the course content, course sequencing, or instructor’s preferences for clarity. while our university has not mandated a specific course template (although they do provide one), we use a consistent structure and in-house template described in detail below. this strategy reduces cognitive load for students and supports usability. a specific theme (i.e., colors, fonts, graphics) may change depending on the course, though, (see figures 2 and 3 for two examples). an introductory unit in our online courses contains separate pages for a welcome message, the course syllabus, instructor’s contact information, course expectations, a getting started assignment focused on preparations as an online learner for the doctoral student and the student’s computer, and a getting acquainted assignment to quickly engage our students. the structure of each unit is consistent across all of our courses. an overview page presents the structure of the unit to the student. figures 2 and 3 depict overview pages from two different courses. the overview contains the following sections and components: • a short introduction of the unit or topic is presented. text and embedded media (e.g., slideshows, videos, graphics, graphic organizers) are purposefully used to arouse student’s attention or stimulate recall. • standards and/or objectives are listed. professional association standards are listed here for alignment and for accreditation reviews. terminal objectives are listed for students to acknowledge expectations. • required readings and media are noted, including any texts and other media learners should engage with. • an additional learning resources section is included for optional texts, supplementary resources, collections of curated bookmarks to tools or instruments, and links to relevant sites or examples. • an activities or assignments section briefly lists the activities students will engage in to apply and process the new knowledge and skills from the required readings and media. these activities may include projects, discussions, or assessments. so, while the structure is consistent for students, the design and content are adjusted based on the learners’ needs and curriculum goals. figure 2. example of a module/unit overview pages in an introductory instructional design course. a common course template and structure is used across all units and courses. grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 38 figure 3. example of a module/unit overview pages in an introductory action research course. a common course template and structure is used across all units and courses. integrating theory, pedagogy, and design our field is founded in instructional design, and as such, it is firmly rooted in the practice of design (smith & boling, 2009). therefore, many of our course assignments employ design or designerly thinking. johansson-sköldberg and woodilla (2013) categorized the practices of design and designerly thinking as five processes or activities: (a) the creation of artifacts, (b) reflexive practice, (c) problem-solving, (d) reasoning or making sense of designer actions, and (e) creation of meaning. instructional design problems are complex and ill-structured, and many design decisions are based on constraints that become evident as the problem evolves. course assignments, specifically for our technical courses, are guided by constructionist learning theory (kafai & resnick, 1996; papert, 1991), where students learn best when building or making. as an extension of constructionism, project-based learning (grant, 2018; krajcik & blumenfeld, 2006) frames the process for the production of a public, shareable learning artifact that represents student learning. using theories of design and constructionism with a model of project-based learning, we create activity and assignment web pages. web pages translate both the structure of project-based learning but also professional standards for message design and web page development. each of these are described further. translating the theory and pedagogy activities and assignments outline a product and the process for accomplishing the project, where the project — both process and product — align with the learning goals for the unit (e.g., saundersstewart et al., 2012). like the unit overview pages, activity and assignment web pages also employ a consistent structure across a course and across our program. the activity and assignment web pages typically include the following sections and components: • a brief oneto two-sentence description of the assignment. • a list of requirements, components, or steps in the assignment. • curated resources, such as articles or media to support the assignment or exemplars, templates, or models to scaffold performance. • clear directions for submitting the assignment. • a grading rubric, which may vary in its complexity depending on the assignment. contingent on the complexity of the assignment or based on previous feedback, two other sections may be included on the assignment page: • a suggested strategy to provide conceptual and strategic scaffolds (hill & hannafin, 2001) for students to work through the assignment. • a screen recording of the faculty member talking through the assignment purpose and requirements, indicating common errors or misunderstandings. for example, in an introductory instructional design course, students follow a well-established model to design and develop computer-based instruction (i.e., morrison et al., 2013). one assignment in this course requires students to generate performance objectives and accompanying assessment items. this assignment as seen in figure 4 follows the assignment description provided earlier: • a brief statement of the assignment and its connection to prior work; • a list of requirements for performance objectives, classifications, and objective test items; • a suggested strategy to scaffold their performance; • a template for organizing students’ work; • exemplars from prior students to depict variation in topics and work contexts; • explicit instructions for submitting the assignment inside our cms; and • an assessment rubric that is replicated inside of our cms assignment grading function. asynchronous online course designs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 39 figure 4. example of an assignment page with common sections across courses. this example is from an introductory instructional design course. message design and web page development instructional message design employs principles of visual design and strategies for cognitive information processing together to support learning. applied strategies for cognitive information processing are also used to support learning. such strategies include (a) signaling in text through using text structures, section headers, text transformations, and signaling words (morrison et al., 2013); and (b) selection of graphics and multimedia based on their functions (clark & lyons, 2011). the instructional message design often culminates in a template, like the one we use and seen in figure 4. technically, we generate the templates for our course materials as web pages. we use professional web design software, such as adobe dreamweaver, and we adjust the underlying html code and cascading style sheets (css) as needed for the template design. many of our stylesheets were collected years ago from free or open source repositories, and their simplicity has served us well over many years, courses, and different institutions’ cmss. we build our course materials as web pages for three reasons. first, message design and web page development are topics and skills relevant to our curriculum. so, we purposefully model these for our students, so they can see their utility and versatility. second, by designing a significant portion of our course materials outside of our institution’s cms, we have made our course materials durable and interoperable (day & erturk, 2017; gonzalez-barbone & anido-rifon, 2008). durability means that the learning materials can withstand changes and updates in systems, such as changes in institutional cmss or when faculty members change institutions. interoperability means the learning materials can be used across a number of different types of systems. for example, our course materials web pages work within our institution’s cms but they would also function as a stand-alone web site on the internet or as a zip package sent to a student or colleague. finally, because we have used html to build the structure and contents of a web page and the css separately to style the web page, we can change the css style to alter all pages across an entire course. these are significant advantages over learning contents built wholly inside of an institutional cms. however, institutional requirements for online courses and intellectual property may limit some of these advantages (day & erturk, 2017; zawacki-richter, 2017). it would also be misleading, however, if i did not acknowledge the limitations of the methods we use for creating content. building course materials this way does not account for many functions cmss do afford faculty members and students, such as textbook integrations, assessment strategies, or embedding tools, such as discussions, directly into the course contents at the point of need (dron & anderson, 2014). developing learning materials the development of our various individual course learning materials is informed by mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia. mayer’s (2008) theory is grounded in information processing and the limitations of working memory (emory, 2019; kirschner et al., 2006), dual coding theory for processing visual and verbal information (paivio, 1991; reed, 2006), cognitive load theory (sweller et al., 1998), and instructional message design principles (fleming & levie, 1993; ramlatchan, 2019). multimedia, mayer asserts, can be more effective for learning because it can be encoded through dual channels and actively processed from working memory to long-term schemata. these principles and theories are embedded within our curriculum and we are obligated to model them for our students. grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 40 developing rich media throughout an online course, students repeatedly interact with learning materials in learning interactions. while there are three types of interactions — that is, (a) student-content, (b) studentinstructor, and (c) student-student (anderson, 2003) — this section on developing multimedia is most aligned with student-content interactions, which occur with various media. students-content interactions can occur with various media, including text, hypertext, graphics, audio, video, and other dynamic media such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, simulations, and microworlds (clark & lyons, 2011; tuovinen, 2000). so different media function in distinctive ways and afford distinct student-content interactions. where possible, we embed rich media into our course materials. rich media blend “text, audio, video, and dynamic motion …. [to increase] student interaction and engagement” (havice et al., 2010, p. 54). these media can include screen recordings for technical instructional development skills or how-to tutorial videos. videos and slideshows may be embedded from popular sites, such as youtube and slideshare. audio narrations and podcasts can also be hyperlinked or embedded. because recorded lectures are so common in online course materials, i have included a subsection that addresses these media directly. recording lectures there are a number of current technologies that afford online faculty the ability to create recorded lectures, including screen recording software such as screencast-o-matic and screencastify; video recording inside of web conferencing software such as blackboard collaborate ultra and zoom; and audio narration in digital presentation software such as microsoft powerpoint and apple keynote. one strategy that has worked well for recorded lectures has been to use ispring suite. the full-featured ispring suite is a plugin to windows-only microsoft powerpoint with much functionality to create interactive elearning courses. specifically for recorded lectures, though, i have found the primary functionality of publishing narrated slideshows to html5 web pages to be successful for our students. also, in planning for future reuse, individual slides can be changed/updated and narration re-recorded, and the file is quickly ready to publish again. see figures 5 and 6 for an example of using ispring and publishing to html5 from ispring. figure 5. example of audio narrated slides with ispring suite tab in the microsoft powerpoint ribbon (left) and publishing the slides to html5 web pages (right). figure 6. playing narrated slides in a web browser after publishing in ispring. navigation buttons are added automatically asynchronous online course designs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 41 ispring as an authoring tool is not inexpensive; however, they do offer a fully functional free version without watermark, which only limits the number of assessment questions, types of questions, and number of slides. the use of ispring is similar to other software packages, such as adobe presenter and camtasia. the newest version of adobe presenter may be most comparable to ispring (in case an institution has already licensing through adobe). creating accessible media creating accessible media for all students is an important characteristic. accessible course content is mandated through federal law (americans with disabilities act, 1990; section 504 of the rehabilitation act, 1973; section 508 of rehabilitation act, 1973). the web content accessibility guidelines 2.0 (wcag) were informed by section 508 of the rehabilitation act of 1973 requirements, and they are often used by institutions as standards. there are three levels to wcag, and the second level (i.e., level aa) is a typical level standard for institutions (mcalvage & rice, 2018). web accessibility is, of course, appropriate for individuals who are blind or deaf. however, individuals who have color blindness, low vision, progressive loss of vision, cognitive impairments, or some physical disabilities also benefit from web accessibility accommodations. assistive technologies, such as screen readers and screen magnification, aid individuals with disabilities to navigate online courses and course materials (singleton & neuber, 2020). indeed, non-disabled students can also receive utility from changes made for improving web accessibility. common strategies for making media accessible include (a) formatting text; (b) tagging images, charts, graphs, and maps; (c) formatting hyperlinks; (d) preparing pdfs; (e) formatting and tagging tables; and (f) adding transcripts and captioning for audio and video. each of these is addressed in more detail. formatting text text in general is very accessible to assistive technologies; however, additional formatting can be added to improve its navigation and usability. faculty members can assign hierarchical headings in word processing documents and in web pages to improve their accessibility. headings provide students using screen readers and students with low vision the ability to jump directly to specific content on a page (e.g., singleton & neuber, 2020). microsoft word and google docs provide styles to build hierarchical structure into documents. the text formatting in styles can be edited for non-disabled students to adjust the visual formatting. when formatting text, it is commonplace to use color and textual variations (e.g., bold, italics) to create contrast and indicate emphasis or importance. screen readers do not read or interpret color, bold, italics, underline, or strikethrough; therefore, these formatting options should not be used as the singular method to express importance or communicate meaning (blackboard, 2020). wcag 2.0 also sets requirements for contrast between body text on a page and its background. wcag 2.0 level aa requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between a text color and its background color. online tools like the webaim color contrast checker (see figure 7) can be used to test the contrast between colors. increasing the contrast between text color and its background color also improves readability for adults with decreasing vision (mcginty, 2020; rummler et al., 2011). figure 7. color combinations from the red-templated web page from figure 2 were analyzed with the webaim color contrast checker. the resulting contrast was rated too low. tagging images, charts, graphs, and maps additional text descriptions can accompany charts, graphs, and maps. the descriptions can be (a) written by faculty members in the surrounding text; (b) added to a web page, cms page, or word processing and digital slideshow’s alternative text, or <alt>, tags; or (c) hyperlinked to another page for extended text descriptions (coolidge et al., 2018). adding <alt> tag descriptions is a routine strategy, and it is easy to accomplish. see, for example, figure 8, where <alt> tags can be added in a cms, such as blackboard learn. the <alt> tags can also be added in microsoft word and microsoft powerpoint, which aid screen readers (see figure 9). images can also be identified as “decorative,” which will embed appropriate tags/code for web pages and documents informing screen readers to skip these images. figure 8. the 'insert/edit image' dialog in blackboard learn allows for adding <alt> text in the image description field. grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 42 figure 9. accessibility checks can be conducted in microsoft word (left) and in microsoft powerpoint (center). alternative (<alt>) text descriptions can be added in microsoft word and powerpoint (right). images can also be marked as decorative to inform screen readers to skip the image (right at bottom). formatting hyperlinks for screen readers to provide the most appropriate information to students with disabilities, hyperlinks should be descriptive, indicating where the link is directing the student. instead of listing a long web link (i.e., url) on a page or slide, provide text that indicates where a link is taking the student and hyperlink that text. on slides when providing links, it is best (a) to provide the hyperlinked descriptive text and (b) to provide in parentheses the url without the hyperlink. best practice to also include file type information as part of the link text to inform students what happen when they select the link: download the apa 7th edition manuscript template [.docx] preparing pdfs using pdfs can often be problematic for accessibility. best practice is to provide the native (i.e., original) microsoft word or powerpoint file along with a properly exported pdf. using the accessibility checker in microsoft word and powerpoint as described above and shown in figure 9 aids in correctly formatting a pdf as well. microsoft word and powerpoint allow faculty members to save/export to pdf and retain all tagging (i.e., <alt> tags, headings, pages). see figure 10. however, at the time of this writing, microsoft powerpoint for macos does not match this functionality (see figure 11). at this time, downloading google docs files does not create an accessible pdf (portland community college, 2020). workarounds include using a grackle suite (see https://www. grackledocs.com/) add-on and downloading as microsoft office documents and using the “save as … pdf” function. scanned images or book pages converted to pdf should be avoided whenever possible. these pdfs are a series of images without text and raise substantial accessibility obstacles. these types of pdfs also prevent all students from conducting keyword searches within a document and using copy-paste features for notetaking (blackboard inc., 2020). if possible, use optical character recognition (ocr) converting the scans back into text. this works best with high quality scans, which are primarily text, with good contrast. figure 9. in microsoft word and powerpoint, "save as ... pdf" retains any document tagging. select “best for electronic distribution and accessibility,” and there is no charge or storage to use microsoft’s online service. this functionality is not currently available in microsoft powerpoint for macos. figure 10. microsoft powerpoint for macos does not currently offer functionality for retaining any tagging when exporting as a pdf. a workaround is to open the slideshow in microsoft 365 online and use “download as…pdf” to retain the tagging. formatting and tagging tables when using tables to display data, results, and categorize information, it is best to use the table functions within microsoft word and powerpoint. assistive technologies, like screen readers, can use the table header row to communicate cursor positioning to students. in particular, use row headings in tables and indicate the table has a header row (see figure 12). asynchronous online course designs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 43 figure 11. in microsoft word and powerpoint, indicate a table has a first row with headings. after inserting a table and on the “table design” tab, select “header row” to add tagging for assistive technologies. adding transcripts and captioning for audio and video for audio narrations or other audio recordings, such as podcasts, add a text transcript to accompany the audio. however, including the transcript text on-screen with the audio narration has been proven to be less effective for non-disabled students, violating mayer’s redundancy principle (clark & mayer, 2016). so, it may be better to provide the transcript on a separate web page or as a download. when possible include textual descriptions of instructionally relevant non-speech, such as relevant music, background sounds, or intonations (coolidge et al., 2018). for video that includes synchronized audio narration, captioning should be used. captions include a textual transcription of the spoken audio along with other audio sounds, such as laughter, applause, or music, and any other relevant information for understanding the video (macy et al., 2018). when the language is set, youtube will automatically generate a transcript (see figure 13). the transcripts should be edited for accuracy and difficult disciplinary vocabulary or jargon. recently, microsoft powerpoint added captioning as subtitles when slideshows are presented live. unfortunately, at this time, these captions are not stored and cannot be saved. to publish a microsoft powerpoint presentation with the subtitles, the presentation would need to be screen recorded as a video. closing comments in this essay, i have described the theories, principles, pedagogies, and techniques i and other program faculty members at the university of south carolina use to create asynchronous online courses and course materials for students in our concentration. my purpose was to make transparent how we translate theory and professional practices into everyday online teaching and learning. the practices i describe here have been developed and refined over many years and use professional practices from industry. however, many of these strategies can be adapted within other frameworks and with other readily available tools. as such, two reminders are essential for readers to scrutinize further before applying these practices into their own contexts. first, the theories described throughout the paper heavily emphasize cognitivism. for example, information processing theory, dual coding theory, mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia, cognitive load theory — all are referenced to support best practices for the development of online course materials. however, it should not be assumed that these theories alone represent the lens and framing for our teaching and learning. indeed, they are not. other constructivist pedagogies are also employed throughout our program as well. for example, during courses that emphasize academic writing, that is evaluating and synthesizing research, a cognitive apprenticeship approach (collins et al., 1991) is used to teach the craft of writing syntheses. as described above, much of the constructionism and project-based learning used throughout our program also foster personal meaning construction. so, these strategies are not all predicated on a particular theoretical or pedagogical lens. other topics, units, and courses use various pedagogy depending on the content and context. therefore, i would be negligent to leave readers with the notion that the approaches presented here were the only pedagogy we use. figure 12. the captioning function in youtube requires the language to be set. then youtube will automatically generate a transcript (left) and synchronize the text to the video (bottom). the captions can be edited directly in the text fields (left). the captioning then must be published (top right). grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 44 second, as stated early in this essay, these practices do not represent the only methods in which to do this work. there are many possible ways in which effective and successful asynchronous online courses and course materials can be designed and created. for example, john curry, a colleague and critical friend at idaho state university, has explained to me the design of some of his online course units/modules. he prefers to use a linear, step-by-step approach, where he asks students to accomplish certain activities in a specific order, inserting readings, tools, assignments, or discussions into a specific sequence. this means students may read articles and generate or respond to discussion prompts multiple times during a course unit’s sequence of activities. i can see this would be particularly effective when wanting to document student’s prior knowledge, new knowledge and application after a specific course reading, and subsequent reflections at the end of the unit/module in a kwl-chart approach. so, i encourage readers and other cped-member faculty to use the strategies presented here to inspire their own work and contextual these approaches within their own pedagogical beliefs, online or blended courses, and programs, which are all unique. references alizadeh, m., mehran, p., koguchi, i., & takemura, h. 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(2020). accessible digital learning materials for inclusive adult education. adult learning, online first, 1045159520961470. https://doi. org/10.1177/1045159520961470 morrison, g. r., ross, s. m., kalman, h. k., & kemp, j. e. (2013). designing effective instruction (7th ed.). wiley. paivio, a. (1991). dual coding theory: retrospect and current status. canadian journal of psychology/revue canadienne de psychologie, 45(3), 255287. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0084295 papert, s. (1991). situating constructionism. in i. harel & s. papert (eds.), constructionism. ablex publishing corporation. portland community college. (2020). pdf document accessibility. https://www. pcc.edu/instructional-support/accessibility/pdf/#tabexporting-google-files ramlatchan, m. (2019). multimedia learning theory and instructional message design. in m. ramlatchan (ed.), instructional message design: theory, research, and practice (pp. 1-29). kindle direct publishing. reed, s. k. 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(2019). five inspiring course (re-)designs: innovating teaching and learning in higher education. business information systems engineering, 61, 241-252. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599019-00584-5 sweller, j., van merriënboer, j. j. g., & paas, f. (1998). cognitive architecture and instructional design. educational psychology review, 10(3), 251296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09465-5 tuovinen, j. e. (2000). multimedia distance education interactions. educational media international, 37(1), 16-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 095239800361473 wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design (2nd ed.). association for supervision and curriculum development. zawacki-richter, o. (2017). distance education. in m. peters (ed.), encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. springer science + business media. appendix a: list of tools and resources course planning • city university of new york course planning template: https://spscoursedesign.commons.gc.cuny.edu/planning-out-yourcourse/ • course mapping guide: https://www.coursemapguide.com/ developing rich media • embedding youtube videos into web pages: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en • embedding slideshare into web pages: https://www.linkedin.com/help/slideshare/answer/53686 • screen recording with screencast-o-matic: https://screencast-o-matic.com/ • screen recording with screencastify: https://www.screencastify.com/ • screen recording in zoom: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362473-localrecording • recording audio narration in microsoft powerpoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/record-a-slide-showwith-narration-and-slide-timings-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7e47d8741161c • recording audio narration in apple keynote: https://support.apple.com/guide/keynote/record-audiotan8a5df9cc5/mac • exporting a microsoft powerpoint slideshow with audio narration as a video (windows): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-your-presentationinto-a-video-c140551f-cb37-4818-b5d4-3e30815c3e83 • exporting a microsoft powerpoint slideshow with audio narration as a video (mac): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-your-powerpointfor-mac-presentation-as-a-different-file-format-0547523c-56c44799-b5f7-6257907c09ee https://doi.org/10 https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-9795/ https://doi/ https://www/ https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1177/ https://doi.org/10.1177/ https://doi.org/10.1080/ https://spscoursedesign.commons.gc.cuny.edu/planning-out-your-course/ https://www.coursemapguide.com/ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/help/slideshare/answer/53686 https://screencast-o-matic.com/ https://www.screencastify.com/ https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362473-local-recording https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/record-a-slide-show-with-narration-and-slide-timings-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c https://support.apple.com/guide/keynote/record-audio-tan8a5df9cc5/mac https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-your-presentation-into-a-video-c140551f-cb37-4818-b5d4-3e30815c3e83 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-your-presentation-into-a-video-c140551f-cb37-4818-b5d4-3e30815c3e83 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-your-powerpoint-for-mac-presentation-as-a-different-file-format-0547523c-56c4-4799-b5f7-6257907c09ee https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-your-powerpoint-for-mac-presentation-as-a-different-file-format-0547523c-56c4-4799-b5f7-6257907c09ee grant impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no.3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.191 46 • ispring suite: https://www.ispringsolutions.com/ • ispring free version: https://www.ispringsolutions.com/ispring-free • adobe presenter: https://www.adobe.com/products/presenter.html creating accessible documents • indiana university site for creating accessible microsoft office documents: https://kb.iu.edu/d/auim • webaim color contrast checker: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ • webaim link contrast checker: https://webaim.org/resources/linkcontrastchecker/ • colour contrast analyzer free software for macos and windows: https://developer.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser/ • color.review website contrast checker: https://color.review/ • see coolidge et al. (2018) for an accessibility checklist • adding <alt> tags to microsoft word and powerpoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-alternative-textto-a-shape-picture-chart-smartart-graphic-or-other-object44989b2a-903c-4d9a-b742-6a75b451c669 • create accessible pdfs in microsoft word and powerpoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessiblepdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed • webaim word and powerpoint accessibility checklist: https://webaim.org/resources/evaloffice/ • saving/exporting microsoft word and powerpoint documents to pdf and preserve tagging: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessiblepdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed • create accessible pdfs from google docs: https://www.pcc.edu/instructional-support/accessibility/pdf/#tabexporting-google-files • using ocr in adobe acrobat pro: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/edit-scanned-pdfs.html • using ocr in google docs: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692 • using ocr in microsoft onenote: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/copy-text-frompictures-and-file-printouts-using-ocr-in-onenote-93a70a2f-ebcd42dc-9f0b-19b09fd775b4 • opening a pdf in microsoft word: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/edit-a-pdf-b2d1d7296b79-499a-bcdb-233379c2f63a • free ocr software: https://www.easepdf.com/topics/top-free-ocr-software.html • using automatic captioning in youtube: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6373554 • using subtitles in microsoft powerpoint: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/present-with-realtime-automatic-captions-or-subtitles-in-powerpoint-68d20e49aec3-456a-939d-34a79e8ddd5f https://www.ispringsolutions.com/ https://www.ispringsolutions.com/ispring-free https://www.adobe.com/products/presenter.html https://kb.iu.edu/d/auim https://kb.iu.edu/d/auim https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ https://webaim.org/resources/linkcontrastchecker/ https://developer.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser/ https://developer.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser/ https://color.review/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-alternative-text-to-a-shape-picture-chart-smartart-graphic-or-other-object-44989b2a-903c-4d9a-b742-6a75b451c669 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed https://webaim.org/resources/evaloffice/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed https://www.pcc.edu/instructional-support/accessibility/pdf/#tab-exporting-google-files https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/edit-scanned-pdfs.html https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/copy-text-from-pictures-and-file-printouts-using-ocr-in-onenote-93a70a2f-ebcd-42dc-9f0b-19b09fd775b4 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/edit-a-pdf-b2d1d729-6b79-499a-bcdb-233379c2f63a https://www.easepdf.com/topics/top-free-ocr-software.html https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6373554 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/present-with-real-time-automatic-captions-or-subtitles-in-powerpoint-68d20e49-aec3-456a-939d-34a79e8ddd5f michael m. grant department of educational studies, university of south carolina background acknowledgements and subjectivities planning an online course design structuring and organizing an online course integrating theory, pedagogy, and design translating the theory and pedagogy message design and web page development developing learning materials developing rich media recording lectures creating accessible media formatting text tagging images, charts, graphs, and maps formatting hyperlinks preparing pdfs formatting and tagging tables adding transcripts and captioning for audio and video closing comments references appendix a: list of tools and resources course planning developing rich media creating accessible documents impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 36 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.361 the tension between rigor and relevance: redesigning edd applied research methods coursework within an r1 institution christine m. neumerski university of maryland cneumers@umd.edu abstract this essay examines the tension between rigor and relevance in a newly designed edd program in school system leadership in a research 1 institution. after a three-year redesign of this program that prepares students to become superintendents, our faculty continue to wrestle with questions around how to make methodology coursework meaningful, impactful, timely, and useful. this article examines the perspective of one of the edd faculty leading the redesign of the program and concludes with lingering questions and tensions around best practices. keywords edd, improvement science, research methods, education leadership, leadership preparation shulman’s (2006) call for two separate, distinct education doctorate programs provided the field with a framework for how to improve both the edd and the phd in education leadership. yet, universities are still grappling with how best to develop edd programs that strike a balance between relevance and rigor (perry, zambo, & crow, 2020). on the one hand, edd programs that focus on relevance for practitioners often suffer from the critique that they are phd lite, lacking the appropriate methodological rigor to remain credible within higher education institutions (perry, zambo, & crow, 2020). on the other hand, edd programs that focus more exclusively on rigor often suffer from the critique that they have become too similar to the phd, teaching edd students the research methodologies that were developed for aspiring researchers rather than for practitioners (hochbein & perry, 2013). where is the right balance that shulman and colleagues (2006) urge us to consider? in this essay, i draw on a three-year redesign of an edd in school system leadership in a northeast research 1 university that has tried to strike this balance, maintaining both relevance and rigor (hochbein & perry, 2013; shulman et al., 2006) for an edd for aspiring superintendents. although the tension around relevance and rigor is evident throughout the entire edd, i center this article on the program’s approach to applied research methodology. i focus on research methods because: 1) they are a programmatic area of intense debate in the field (berliner, 2002), 2) they are an area of debate among edd faculty, and 3) they form the anchor courses that lead to our program’s capstone. in what follows, i briefly describe the overall edd redesign, examine the ways in which we approach research methods courses, and conclude with questions around rigor and relevance that have emerged during the ongoing redesign. a note about methods and positionality note that this is not a formal research article, but instead an essay in which i draw on my experience over the past three years as part of a collaborative team of faculty members engaged in edd program redesign. i utilize my reflective practice (malen, 2016; metz, 2001) in crafting this essay, and the points i make throughout represent my understanding of and sense-making behind the redesign process (weick, 1995). i use the first-person plural of “we” in order to reflect the collaborative nature of our redesign, noting that although i was one of four faculty members leading the programmatic overhaul, this was embedded in a larger team approach. while i draw on the collective work and thought-processes of the faculty that comprise our edd team, the assertions in this article are mine. i also acknowledge that each member of that team likely understands and makes sense of our collaborative redesign efforts somewhat differently (weick, 1995) and that includes me. my position (holmes, 2020) is as a faculty researcher who has been trained in traditional quantitative and qualitative methodology at a research 1 institution and has subsequently worked as a researcher in multiple research 1 institutions. i began my career as a practitioner, a teacher and teacher educator in urban northeast and midwest schools. currently, i work as a scholar of policy and leadership, not as a practitioner. my prior and current positions and experiences will, of course, color my perspectives. that said, i offer my reflective practice on this work as part of the ongoing conversation in the field about how to best approach research methods within edd programs in education. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9520-1141 the tension between rigor and relevance impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.361 37 overview of the edd redesign over the past three years, eight faculty members have engaged in the redesign of a 36-month edd in school system leadership. led by 4 faculty – 2 phd research scholars and 2 edd former district practitioners – our team has debated how to respond to the university’s shift away from a more traditional dissertation to a capstone for all advanced practitioner degrees. the freedom to redesign the edd opened the door for innovation; however, like many programs wrestling with what the ideal doctorate for practitioners should encompass (perry, zambo, & abruzzo, 2020), we were plagued with several stubborn questions. what should leaders know and be able to do by the time they receive their doctorate? how should students demonstrate their knowledge and skills in a culminating capstone that is rigorous and credible within the university, while also relevant for practitioners? furthermore, what research methodology courses would appropriately prepare students for this type of capstone work? the diversity of the edd faculty including former policy makers, teachers and school board members, improvement science experts and traditional research experts, former school and district leaders, and clinical and tenure-track faculty enhanced our conversations and debates and likely led to a more well-thought out program. however, that diversity also led to some unresolved and ongoing tensions, particularly around research methodology. as we explored these tensions, different faculty camps emerged. some lobbied for improvement science (bryk et al., 2015) as the sole methodology for the new edd, while others pushed for the inclusion of some traditional research methodology coursework. yet, all of us advocated for the development of students who would become critical thinkers, consumers of research, and leaders who could actively solve local, pressing problems of practice. that led to a decision akin to the ways in which hochbein and perry (2013) describe the use of research methods in an edd: “…explicit instruction of high quality research skills should be a hallmark of professional doctorate programs. the definition of high quality need not, and possibly should not, be identical to that of a phd research sequence… [it should include] tools that not only connect the knowing-doing gap, but also empowers the ‘foot soldiers’ to empirically attack problems of practice” (p. 192). to this end, we created a newly designed version of the edd, one that encompasses national educational leadership preparation (nelp) standards, a portfolio assessment based on the practice of leadership in students’ day-to-day work, mentorship from local district leaders, and a capstone grounded in a problem of practice. in sum, our program would build the capacity of our students as foot soldiers doing the on-the-ground work of leadership every day. in the newly designed program, students can work individually or in small groups of 2 or 3 to build their capstones, which includes two stand-alone products: 1) a scholarly-practitioner paper based on a study of a problem of practice (pop) and 2) an impact product that targets specific practitioners and enables the use of the study findings. the former includes many of the traditional aspects of a research paper (e.g. introduction, literature review, methods, findings), while drawing on an improvement science framework (bryk et al., 2015) to push students to develop a practical aim (e.g. reduce district-wide disproportionate suspension rates 5% by 2025) and to investigate a pop that is meaningful to their leadership contexts. the latter includes actionable recommendations to a district or other organization based on study findings (e.g. recommendations on what to do to reduce disproportionate suspension rates) and can take any number of formats. for example, students might create a presentation to the board of education, a white paper for a think tank, recommendations for a district, a policy brief for an office on capitol hill, an edweek article, or another medium of their choosing. the proposal defense must include the edd students’ articulation of how the entire capstone is meaningful, relevant, timely, and useful for a defined practitioner audience. in what follows, i describe the research methodology coursework that our program developed to prepare students to engage in this type of capstone. i couch the investigation of research methodology in the tensions that have emerged throughout our program redesign, and the lingering questions that we continue to ask ourselves as edd faculty. we see this questioning not as problematic, but as essential to the iterative nature of redesigning and refining the new program. year 1: the problem of practice: developing critical thinkers one challenge we noticed with our edd students is that many of them came from compliance and accountability driven districts, in which they must often implement directives. we suspected that this might be related to their desire for us to tell them what to do for their capstone. to put it differently, our hunch is that many of our students are highly-skilled in making quick decisions, following directives in school districts, and leading complex organizations. we want to put them in a space in which they can slow down, wrestle with, rethink, and reexamine their ideas over time. we want our students to develop critical thinking skills as potential future superintendents and allow them to experience the sometimes uncomfortable role that comes with having full autonomy over designing their capstones. to do so, we grounded their applied research methodology around an exploration of problems of practice throughout the three years of the program. we introduce students in their first course to the concept of a pop and the tools of improvement science (bryk et al., 2015). although some edd programs have students identify a pop immediately so that they can begin building their dissertations in year 1, we decided to instead scaffold students’ exploration of different problems that were relevant to them and to their contexts. our theory was that providing space for students to contend with different pops and to rewrite and refine them will build their critical thinking skills and become comfortable with the ambiguity of this type of undefined space in year 1. we built support into their year 1 coursework for various touchpoints to offer check-ins around their thinking. year 2: credible evidence: developing consumers of research after a first year of exploration, students begin year 2 with a public presentation to their edd cohort and faculty on the pop they have chosen to pursue for their capstone. during this “evening at the pops,” students briefly describe the importance of their problems to their work as practitioners. this is followed by an applied research methods course, in which they examine the importance of their problems to the larger field, focusing on understanding what counts as credible evidence. they move from exploring the importance of neumerski impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.361 38 their pop within their own contexts to exploring what is known about their pops in broader contexts; they do so by beginning their literature reviews. part of their investigation into credible evidence is an introduction to quantitative and qualitative methods. the scaffolding in this course is designed not to teach these students how to become formal researchers, but to become consumers of research as they dig into the literature, identifying the tenants that make particular studies more or less salient to their work, and to discriminate high quality studies from those that are poorly done. students are supported to begin exploring the research questions they might want to pursue for their capstones, working first to examine the literature, brainstorming questions, engaging again in the literature, and further refining their questions. we emphasize the iterative nature of this process to our students, namely that both the pops and research questions are refined – or sometimes altogether changed – as the student builds her expertise around not only her practitioner knowledge but knowledge in the field. this course is followed by an advanced improvement science course, in which students use the framework of continuous improvement to develop a causal systems analysis, a driver diagram, an aim statement, and a theory of improvement (bryk et al., 2015; lewis, 2015). this shifts the students’ focus from their perspectives as practitioners – and the perspectives of the field writ large – to considering the “micro details as to how any proposed set of changes is actually supposed to improve outcomes” (bryk et al., 2015). this type of on-the-ground systems thinking provides a set of tools for students to begin to think more closely about the potential impact they can make through their capstone work (bryk et al., 2015). it is the shift in research from being consumers to being foot soldiers charged with actionable change. table 1. the arc of research methodology in the redesigned edd year 1 introduction to problems of practice and improvement science pop “check-ins” occur in each course in year 1 year 2 evening at the pops applied research methods 1 advanced seminar in improvement science and theory of improvement night year 3 applied research methods 2 & advisor assignment defend capstone proposal implement capstone study year 3: grounding in impact: meaningful, relevant, timely, and useful in year 3, students take their second applied research methods course, which has the explicit goal of helping them build their capstone proposals. this course is designed as a workshop in which students receive individualized support from their instructor and advisor/mentor). throughout the course, students refine their research questions, align those questions with the study purpose, and explore methodological options. during this process, they review improvement science tools, as well as qualitative and quantitative methods. the emphasis in this course is on thinking about a study design that will ultimately lead to an impact on a specific practitioner group. students are asked to constantly evaluate and reevaluate how their proposed work is meaningful, relevant, timely, and useful for practitioners. they build a capstone study and accompanying methods, while simultaneously considering an impact product. this product is their choice, but it must convey or use findings from the capstone to impact a specific practitioner audience. the two-product capstone, therefore, requires students to demonstrate proficiency in the rigor of conducting studies and relevance to practitioners. the course instructor and advisor ensure that the student’s capstone committee consists of experts on the student’s pop content, methodology (e. g. an expert in plan do study act cycles, focus groups, surveys, interviews, etc.), and includes a practitioner perspective. the goal is for students’ coursework to culminate in the second applied research methods course in order to ensure they have the tools needed to move forward in their individualized work of implementing a capstone study and drawing on the practitioner expertise in their cohorts as they design impact products and mechanisms for sharing them. returning to rigor and relevance: unanswered questions our first cohort of the new edd in school system leadership is in the midst of their third year of the program. as such, we have had an opportunity to reflect and further refine our program, but this has not yet given us the answers to our initial questions. we do not yet know if we have struck the right balance between rigor and relevance. we do not yet know if we have succeeded in creating a program that is appropriately tailored for school and school system leaders. we do not yet have evidence as to whether this redesign will work as intended. time will tell. and in the meantime, the redesign process has left us with new questions. one question that remains is if in our effort to maintain rigor within a research 1 institution, we have designed our capstone scholarly-practitioner paper to look too much like a traditional dissertation. is it necessary for students to undertake their own research studies in order to demonstrate proficiency for the edd in school system leadership? on the one hand, they are unlikely to conduct original research in the future; instead, we are preparing them to be consumers of research, disentangling high from low quality studies, and as leaders, to know how and when to hire professional researchers for their district. on the other hand, the process of engaging with a set of research questions grounded in a real pop and determining how to study it in a way that leads to impact appears to be fruitful in developing students who are critical thinkers, critical consumers of research, and ultimately, informed doers. a second question lies at the opposite end of the rigor and relevance tension. our edd program is completely separate from our phd program. these two groups of students do not take coursework together; their research methodology coursework is not taught by the same faculty members. in fact, our edd and phd faculty have no formal interaction with one another, nor do our edd and phd students. we have achieved what shulman and colleagues (2006) suggested is important – two separate and distinct programs with two separate and distinct aims. and yet, i continue to wonder if it is possible to err too far, if separate and distinct might have an unintentional consequence: that of perpetuating the researchpractice divide. in a field in which we struggle to find ways for researchers to engage in studies that are truly meaningful for practitioners, to translate findings in ways that are digestible for the tension between rigor and relevance impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.361 39 practitioners, and to focus their work on that which is useable and timely for practitioners, should we be doing more in graduate programs to build those bridges? would providing opportunities for our current practitioners (edd students) to learn and study and socialize alongside our aspiring researchers (phd students) help bridge the research-practice divide? could we maintain separate and distinct preparation programs while also teaching a shared language for researchers and practitioners? and if they learned this shared way of communicating and learning together around problems of practice from the field, would they be more likely to carry that with them into the real world? i question whether we truly want to prepare our edd and phd students to be so separate in doctoral programs that they maintain that separation as practitioners and researchers – or whether our edd programs should prepare scholar-practitioners to critically engage with researchers in the service of problems of practice. put differently, is our drive for relevance perpetuating a divide that plagues our field of education? clues to the answers to these questions are unfolding as i write, as students provide their ongoing feedback around the ways in which the program is supporting them and in the ways they need more or different support. we plan to formally assess the quality and content of our redesigned edd through an external review of the program that will include surveys and interviews with faculty, current students, and alumni. we will continue to seek input as we untangle the rigor and relevance questions pervading our redesign. references berliner, d. c. (2002). comment: educational research: the hardest science of all. educational researcher, 31(8), 18–20. bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. hochbein, c., & perry, j. a. (2013). the role of research in the professional doctorate. planning and changing, 44(3/4), 181–194. holmes, a. g. d. (2020). researcher positionality--a consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research--a new researcher guide. shanlax international journal of education, 8(4), 1–10. lewis, c. (2015). what is improvement science? do we need it in education?. educational researcher, 44(1), 54–61. malen, b. (2017). enriching the preparation of education researchers and practitioner-scholars: linking school district research priorities and university-based policy evaluation research courses. journal of research on leadership education, 12(1), 97–115. metz, m. h. (2001). intellectual border crossing in graduate education: a report from the field. educational researcher, 30(5), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x030005012 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & abruzzo, e. (2020). faculty leaders challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. shulman, l., golde, c., bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 weick, k. e. (1995). sensemaking in organizations (vol. 3). sage. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x030005012 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 is there a benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? a district level analysis amity wyss florida state university amity.wyss@gmail.com courtney preston florida state university courtney.e.preston@vanderbilt.edu abstract the shift from the traditional self-contained classroom to the departmentalized classroom structure in upperelementary classrooms is increasing as the pressure to maximize student outcomes is higher than ever for public schools. teachers prefer departmentalization but findings as to its benefits for students are mixed. this study considers the relationship between classroom structure and student achievement and whether the relationship varies by student socio-economic status. using fourth grade data from one school district in florida, we use ordinary least squares (ols) regression and logistic regression to examine the relationship between departmentalization and three measures of student achievement based on the florida standards assessment. the findings indicate a negative relationship between all three measures of student achievement and classroom structure with some variation by student socio-economic status. keywords classroom structure, departmentalization, achievement introduction the pressure on traditional public schools to help students perform to their maximum potential is higher than ever before as they battle varying entities and lobbyists competing for elusive funding (kim, 2020; labree, 2018). despite increasing pressures on the public schools to perform, achievement gaps between white students and students of color, as well as between students from low socio-economic status (ses) families and those from wealthier families, continue to grow (carnoy & garcia, 2017). accordingly, the stress level of teachers has reached an all-time high with high rates of turnover and shortages prevalent across the country (mccarthy, 2019). to simultaneously meet the needs of students while working to structure schools in ways to recruit and retain effective teachers, decision makers in education are trying a variety of strategies. the strategy analyzed in this study is departmentalization. a departmentalized classroom structure is in contrast to the traditional self-contained elementary classroom structure. in a self-contained classroom, students receive instruction in all academic content areas from the same teacher (lobdell & van ness, 1963; markworth et al., 2016; otto & sanders, 1964; parker et al., 2017), whereas in a departmentalized classroom, students receive instruction from a different teacher based on the academic content (gewertz, 2014; lobdell & van ness, 1963; markworth et al., 2016; parker et al., 2017; webel et al., 2017). in the current educational climate, there are an increasing number of upper elementary classrooms implementing the departmentalization strategy. (barseghian, 2011; gerwertz, 2014; mulvahill, 2016; parker & rakes, 2020). this trend holds true in the district of this study, with 58% of fourth graders engaging in departmentalized classes for the 2019 school year. seventy-six percent of fourth graders in departmentalized classes are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch (frl), higher than the 70% of the overall fourth grade population who are eligible for frl. this district works to cluster students by many of their needs, including having both prior-year low performing clusters and gifted and high achieving clusters, but the classroom structure students are exposed to does not intentionally vary based on their needs. as a district whose own mission statement includes priding itself on providing exceptional educational opportunities that motivate and engage each student, this study asks, can student demographic information be used to schedule students more strategically into a specific classroom structure? the intent of this study is to learn more about current classroom structure practices and if they could be applied more strategically to certain groups of students. in this study, the focus is on students from low socio-economic backgrounds and the relationship between student achievement and classroom structure. to do this, the proficiency and gains scores for fourth grade students within one specific district on the 2019 florida standards assessment for math https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2575-4047 benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 17 and english language arts (ela) were examined. proficiency refers to measuring whether or not a student is working at grade level. gains scores measure if a student has made one year’s academic progress during the year. to address the relationship between student achievement and two classroom structures, this study asks, 1) what is the relationship between classroom structure and upper elementary student achievement? 2) does this relationship vary by student socio-economic status? literature review although compounded with issues of school choice, teacher burnout, and employee shortages, educational decision makers need to ensure that classrooms are structured to meet the needs of both the students and the teachers. the data consistently show that teachers prefer departmentalization (gerretson et al., 2014; liu, 2011; minott, 2016; strohl et al., 2014), but, is that the classroom structure most beneficial to students? and, if so, is the level of benefit the same for all types of students? the opportunity to focus on planning lessons for fewer content areas is consistently cited as a teacher-perceived benefit of departmentalization. across multiple studies, teachers who engage in departmentalization have higher levels of job satisfaction and low levels of leaving the profession due to job-induced stress (gerretson et al., 2008; liu, 2011; strohl et al., 2014). it is critical that students receive accurate and effective instruction, and teachers who engage in departmentalization have the additional time to focus on dissecting the standard, choose appropriate resources, and write efficient and effective lessons (webel et al., 2017). however, despite these benefits, departmentalization continues to generate student performance levels that are similar to those in self-contained classrooms (parker et al., 2017). defining departmentalization and self-containment departmentalization, for the purpose of this study, is defined as any variety of a teacher instructing one content area to multiple groups of students. this includes any variation where the homeroom teacher for the student and the teacher of record for either ela or math is different. departmentalization as a classroom structure is increasingly becoming prevalent in elementary classrooms in comparison to its counterpart, the traditional self-contained classroom structure, where one teacher instructs all content areas to one group of students for the entire school day (gerretson et al., 2008). the decision to structure classrooms as departmentalized versus self-contained varies from district to district and school to school, both in methods of implementation as well as who ultimately makes the decision. there are reports of parents being wary of departmentalization when it has been introduced in the elementary level, but the method continues to increase in prevalence across schools that serve students from all socio-economic backgrounds, even when parents raise concerns (delvisco & muffs, 2007; gewertz, 2014). given the increased prevalence of departmentalization at the upper elementary level for students of all socio-economic statuses, it is critical to examine knowledge of the effectiveness of this structure and the student it benefits. educator preferences the perspective of potential and practicing educators is important to consider. pre-service teachers have mostly positive feelings towards departmentalization as they appreciate the ability to specialize in an area and have focused planning time, but there are concerns about teaching larger numbers of students as well as logistics of ensuring there is enough dedicated time for each content area (liu, 2011; minott, 2016). the administrative perspective on departmentalization continues to showcase the ideological preference educators have for the idea of departmentalization as a classroom structure. educators currently in the classroom as well as the district and site based administrative supervisors share the philosophy that engaging in departmentalization streamlines the content a teacher has to prepare, leading potentially to increased lesson quality (american association of school administrators, 1965; rogers, 2012). self-contained classrooms and content connectedness the prevalence of departmentalization as a structure used in grade four is increasing in comparison to its counterpart, the selfcontained classroom (gerretson et al., 2008). however, when comparing overall student achievement as measured by standardized tests, the research comparing departmentalized classrooms to self-contained classrooms at the elementary level shows no statistical difference between the two classroom structures (gewertz, 2014; lobdell & van ness, 1963; parker et al., 2017). however, self-contained classrooms have readily accessible opportunities for teachers to connect information across content areas, an important strategy for increasing student achievement for students from low ses backgrounds students from low ses backgrounds have been shown to have poor background knowledge and lower ability to make crosscurricular connections without explicit instruction (neumen et al., n.d.). these cross-curricular connections occur more often in the self-contained classroom which naturally has cross-curricular connections and have been shown as an effective strategy for building background knowledge in students of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds (aslan, 2016). in order for students to synthesize knowledge across content areas, the interrelatedness of content areas needs to be explicitly addressed. specifically, each of the different strands of knowledge requires reinforcement through the lens of the other content areas, a process which has shown to be most effective and occurs with highest frequency in a self-contained classroom (lobdell & van ness, 1963). socio-economic status and educational outcomes socio-economic status is frequently studied in relation to educational outcomes, with students from low ses backgrounds having lower achievement as compared to students from backgrounds with average ses backgrounds (carnoy & garcia, 2017; faaz & khan, 2017; quinn et al., 2016; zhang et al., 2020). this pattern is also demonstrated specifically in fourth grade students (faaz & khan, 2017). although the relationship between low ses and lower levels of student achievement is consistent across studies and age groups, the relationship between race and student achievement is inconclusive (quin et al., 2016). although there are patterns as to the relationship between race and student outcomes, with students of color typically underperforming their wyss & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 18 white peers, the most consistent demographic predictors of student achievement are the socio-economic background of the family and school the student attends (carnoy & garcia, 2017; faaz & khan, 2017; quinn et al., 2016; zhang et al., 2020). carnoy and garcia (2017) found that while the achievement gaps between white and black students and white and hispanic students are decreasing, the achievement gap between students from higher ses and lower ses backgrounds has increased. however, ladson-billings (2010) cautions that when discussing ses, high ses is often associated with whiteness and low ses associated with blackness. to be clear, this study only considers the ses of the students, and not their racial background. academic outcomes there are few peer reviewed studies that analyze differences in student achievement between departmentalized or self-contained classroom structures. the studies that do have mixed findings, with studies finding student achievement higher for a specific content area in one classroom structure and another finding student achievement lower for that same content area in the same classroom structure (baroody, 2017; kent, 2010; koch, 2013; mcgrath & rust, 2002; nelson, 2014; webel et al., 2017; yearwood, 2011). this supports the need for additional research to add to the base of knowledge, especially given the inconsistency in the research findings of benefits to student achievement. mcgrath and rust (2002) analyze student achievement levels across content areas. their study found an increase in student achievement levels for selfcontained classes in the area of ela but no difference for math (mcgrath and rust, 2002). a peer reviewed study conducted in 2017 by baroody also looked at ela and math scores and found slightly higher scores for students who engaged in reading instruction in a departmentalized structure, but no difference in math scores; this is a juxtaposition to other studies by yearwood (2011) and nelson (2014) which found higher achievement levels in math. similarly, one of the few peer reviewed studies on this subject by webel et al. (2017) also found higher achievement scores for math within the departmentalized classroom structure. taken together, the existing research base is mixed as to the benefits of departmentalization for student achievement. educators are striving to ensure outcomes are equitable for all students across all demographics by providing for the needs of each student. students from low ses backgrounds typically have lower levels of background knowledge, that is, prior exposure to related content, than their more affluent peers (carnoy & garcia, 2017, faaz & khan, 2017; quinn et al., 2016; zhang et al., 2020). for students from a low ses background, it is critical that they not only receive explicit instruction in relevant background knowledge, but that the connections between content areas are specifically taught (neumen, et al., n.d.). self-contained classrooms more frequently provide for explicit instruction of background knowledge and strategic teaching of the interrelatedness and reinforcement of the varying content areas (aslan, 2016; lobdell & van ness, 1963). it has repeatedly been found that self-contained classrooms engage low income students at a higher level in part because of the cross-curricular connections and reinforcement through all content areas (aslan, 2016; lobdell & van ness, 1963; neumen et al., n.d.). in order to analyze the relationship between student achievement and classroom structure, this study seeks to analyze the relationship between departmentalization and self-contained class structures and student achievement and discern if that relationship varies by student ses. methods to address the relationship between departmentalization and fourth grade student achievement, scores were compared across fourth grade standard curriculum classrooms within the district and a regression analysis was conducted specifically looking at students receiving frl. all fourth grade students and classrooms in traditional public elementary schools in the district were analyzed. at the time of the study, individual school administrations and staffs choose the type of classroom structure, and this can vary both between grade levels as well as within one grade level. the study examines the student data collected after the students completed the 2018-2019 academic year in the chosen classroom structure. the sample choice of all fourth classrooms (n=29) in the district allows for data on numerous classrooms and ensures that there is a sampling of both types of classroom structures. local context the district is located in a large state and has a student population just under 50,000. the demographics of the district are diverse, with 52% of students of hispanic descent, 33% white, and 11% black. sixty-five percent of the students are from homes with a low ses background as indicated by those students receiving frl, and 55% are from homes where english is not the primary spoken language. sixteen percent of students are current english language learning (ell) students demonstrating limited english proficiency. there are schools with high populations of migrant students, who make up almost 7% of the district population. almost 14% of students receive exceptional student education (ese) services, not inclusive of an additional 7% of students who receive gifted services. however, these demographics are not evenly split among all of the schools in the district. of the twenty-nine elementary schools, seventeen are currently title i schools with over 75% of the students eligible for frl. proficiency levels in the district’s elementary schools are consistent with the expectations based on demographics, with most title i schools underperforming the schools that serve families with high ses. the lowest performing school in the district has a reading proficiency level of 30% and is also a title i school. the lowest performing non-title i school has a reading proficiency level of 67%. table 1. sample school demographic percentages within the district school 1 school 2 school 3 male 52.78 50.69 50.79 female 47.22 49.31 49.21 frl 99.4 60.74 34.68 ese 19.85 14.29 14.65 ell 43.16 12.8 7.33 seventeen of the elementary schools are title i. five of the schools are located within a small, rural, migrant farm worker town, three within one incorporated city, one within another incorporated city, and the remainder in the unincorporated areas of the county. table 1 shows a sample of the demographic differences across the district. it showcases three schools from the district including the benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 19 highest and lowest percentage of students on free or reduced-price lunch (frl) and the percent of their student populations in each category. the demographics of the schools above demonstrate the full diversity of students engaged in each classroom structure. without a district-wide directive on classroom structure, it is determined at each school by administrative staff and teacher input. departmentalization as a classroom structure has been in the district for some time now. this increase in popularity began after the implementation of the florida standards in 2012. this study is viewing the results after departmentalization has been implemented. sample the sample is the fourth grade students who took the spring 2019 ela (english language arts), florida standards assessment (fsa), and math fsa in a district in south florida from the twentynine traditional public elementary school standard curriculum classrooms. the decision to departmentalize is determined at the school level. for that reason, the demographic makeup of the sample is not identical in the treatment, departmentalized, and control, self-contained groups. district wide demographics are presented in table 2. descriptive statistics for the analytic sample are presented in table 3. of note is the difference between the overall district eligibility of all students, pre-k to grade 12, for frl at 64% and the sample of fourth grade students at 69%. analytic strategy broadly, student achievement is the dependent variable for both research questions. student achievement is measured in three different ways using the spring 2019 ela fsa and math fsa test results. we use 2019 fsa data because state testing was cancelled in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. the three data measures are the fsa scale score, whether the student is proficient, and the state determination if a student made achievement gains. scale score is a three-digit continuous scale score. the definitions of proficiency and gains come from the florida department of education (fldoe) (2019). proficiency is defined as a score of at least a level three on the five-level scale. learning gains are determined to have happened if a student meets any of the following criteria: moves up a level, maintains a level five, maintains a level three or four while increasing their scale score by at least one point, or by moving up a sub-level, from low to mid or mid to high one, or from low two to mid two. the learning gain designation is determined if a student moves up from one level designation to another (fldoe, 2019). the relationship between the levels, scale scores, and gains is displayed in table 4. the independent variables vary by research question. for the first research question: “what is the relationship between the departmentalized and self-contained classroom structures and upper elementary student achievement?” the independent variable is the classroom structure. classroom structures is a binary variable where departmentalized classroom is as any variation of at least one academic content area instructed by a teacher other than the one instructing the remainder of the academic content areas. selfcontained classrooms only include classrooms where all core academic subjects are taught by the same teacher or teachers all day. departmentalized classrooms include any deviation from all core academic subjecting being taught by the same teacher or teachers all day. the variables included for research question one are summarized in table 5. table 2. demographics of the district demographic group overall district male 51.59% female 48.41% hispanic 52.35% white 32.38% black 11.43% eligible for free or reduced-price lunch 64.09% ese status: active 14.1% ell status: active 15.38% table 3. demographic descriptive statistics of the sample overall self-contained departmentalized mean (sd) mean (sd) mean (sd) sex (male) 0.51 (0.500) 0.50 (0.500) 0.53 (0.499) white 0.28 (0.451) 0.36 (0.480) 0.23 (0.420) black 0.11 (0.312) 0.09 (0.282) 0.13 (0.331) hispanic 0.57 (0.495) 0.50 (0.500) 0.62 (0.486) ese status 0.17 (0.374) 0.15 (0.356) 0.18 (0.386) ell status 0.35 (0.478) 0.30 (0.459) 0.39 (0.489) eligible for frl 0.69 (0.462) 0.60 (0.489) 0.76 (0.430) table 4. learning gain eligibility vs. scale score range fsa level minimum requirement for learning gain scale score range for 2019 fsa ela levels scale score range for 2019 fsa math levels low 1 move from low 1 to mid 1 4th grade: 251-296 4th grade: 251-298 mid 1 move from mid 1 to high 1 5th grade: 257-303 5th grade: 256-305 high 1 move from high 1 to low 2 low 2 move from low 2 to high 2 4th grade: 297-310 4th grade: 299-309 high 2 move from high 2 to 3 5th grade: 304-320 5th grade: 306-319 3 scale score + 1 and maintain level 3 4th grade: 311-324 4th grade: 310-324 5th grade: 321-335 5th grade: 320-333 4 scale score + 1 and maintain level 4 4th grade: 325-339 4th grade: 325-339 5th grade: 336-351 5th grade: 334-349 5 maintain level 5 4th grade: 340-372 4th grade: 340-376 5th grade: 352-385 5th grade: 350-388 wyss & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 20 table 5. variables for research question 1: what is the relationship between classroom structure and 4th grade student achievement? variable categories type of variable range dependent variable classroom structure self-contained binary 0 departmentalized binary 1 independent variable student achievement fsa scale score continuous 4th grade ela 251-372 5th grade ela 257-385 4th grade math 251-376 5th grade math 256-388 proficiency binary no 0 yes 1 fsa gains made binary no 0 yes 1 the independent variables vary by research question. for the first research question: “what is the relationship between the departmentalized and self-contained classroom structures and upper elementary student achievement?” the independent variable is the classroom structure. classroom structure is a binary variable where departmentalized classroom is as any variation of at least one academic content area instructed by a teacher other than the one instructing the remainder of the academic content areas. selfcontained classrooms only include classrooms where all core academic subjects are taught by the same teacher or teachers all day. departmentalized classrooms include any deviation from all core academic subjecting being taught by the same teacher or teachers all day. the variables included for research question one are summarized in table 5. for the second research question, there is an additional independent variable of interest. this question seeks to provide further analysis as to the relationship in the first question by analyzing if the relationship between classroom structure and student achievement varies by student ses. this is also a binary variable, with 0 being no and 1 being yes. in order to determine the classroom structure, the definition of departmentalization as having a different teacher for any scheduled academic content area was used. in this district, students are scheduled specific time blocks for three subjects, ela, math, and science. we looked at each student’s scheduled teacher for each subject, ela, math, and science, as compared to their homeroom teacher. if a student had a different teacher for any one of those subjects, then that student was determined to be receiving instruction in a departmentalized classroom structure. if the teacher was the same for all three academic components the student was determined to be in the self-contained classroom structure. the name, job title, and school of each homeroom teacher was compared to ensure that any scheduling irregularities, including teachers of record being those who provide ese support services versus full time instruction, were categorized correctly. one of the measures of student achievement analyzed is gains. in order to determine gains, the student’s scale scores from the previous year, the 2018 fsa, as compared to their 2019 fsa score were used. if the students increased by one level, as determined by the fldoe, it is determined that the student made gains. a descriptive analysis of all of the variables in order to give context to the data set using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) was provided. for each variable, the mean and standard deviation were calculated. the first research question seeks to measure the relationship between classroom structure and student achievement. to control for demographics also related to student achievement, the ordinary least squares (ols) and logistic regression were used. the general regression equation takes the following form: yic = 0 + 1classi+ 1racei + 2sexi + 3sesi + 4esei + 4elli + 5ghai + 6low25i + 7fy18ss+ i (1) where yic is the measure of student achievement as measured via scale score for student i, class is a binary indicator for student i's classroom structure, race is a vector of binary variables indicating if student i’s race as being a member or not of the three most populous races in the district, white or not, black or not, or hispanic or not; sex is a binary indicator of student i’s sex; ses is a binary indicator of whether student i receives frl; ese is a binary indicator of whether student i has an individualized education plan; ell is a binary indicator of whether student i is categorized as an english language learner; gha is a binary indicator of whether student i is categorized as gifted or high achieving; low25 is a binary indicator of whether student i previously performed in the lowest twenty-five percent of students in either ela or math; fy18ss is a continuous variable of the student’s scale score for the prior year; and i is an error term. the second research question seeks to understand if the relationship in the first research question varies by student ses. to do this, we use ols and logistic regression with the following general equation: yic = 0 + 1y+ 1racei + 2sexi + 3sesi + 4esei + 4elli + 5ghai + 6low25i + 7fy18ss +i separate models for students who are eligible for frl and those who are not were estimated. results there were 2,945 fourth grade students in the analytic sample. of those, 1233 (42%), received instruction in a self-contained classroom, while 1712 (58%) participated in a departmentalized benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 21 class. there is a greater number of students in departmentalized classes who are on frl, with 76% of departmentalized students receiving frl, as compared to only 60% of students in a selfcontained class. this data is displayed in table 6. table 6. sample descriptive statistics overall self-contained departmentalized mean (sd) mean (sd) mean (sd) classroom structure 0.58 (0.49) sex 0.51 (0.50) 0.50 (0.50) 0.53 (0.50) ela proficiency level 0.59 (0.49) 0.66 (0.47) 0.55 (0.50) ela scale score 315.09 (19.22) 318.11 (18.93) 312.91 (19.14) ela made gains 0.57 (0.49) 0.61 (0.49) 0.55 (0.50) math proficiency level 0.68 (0.47) 0.73 (0.44) 0.65 (0.48) math scale score 319.28 (21.56) 321.93 (21.44) 317.38 (21.45) math made gains 0.69 (0.46) 0.73 (0.44) 0.65 (0.48) white 0.28 (0.45) 0.36 (0.48) 0.23 (0.42) black 0.11 (0.31) 0.09 (0.28) 0.13 (0.33) hispanic 0.57 (0.50) 0.50 (0.50) 0.62 (0.49) ese status 0.17 (0.37) 0.15 (0.36) 0.18 (0.39) ell status 0.35 (0.48) 0.30 (0.46) 0.39 (0.49) eligible for frl 0.69 (0.46) 0.60 (0.49) 0.76 (0.430) gha status 0.43 (0.50) 0.46 (0.50) 0.42 (0.49) ela low 25% 0.28 (0.45) 0.28 (0.45) 0.29 (0.45) math low 25% 0.28 (0.45) 0.28 (0.45) 0.28 (0.45) n 2945 1233 1712 research question one tables 7 and 8 display the regression results for research question one. the data show statistically significant results for all measures of achievement for both ela and math. departmentalized classroom structures are associated with a statistically significant decrease in student achievement in both content areas, no matter the outcome measure of academic achievement. comparing ela and math, while there is a negative relationship of departmentalization to achievement across the board, the magnitude of relationships is slightly less in math than ela. for ela achievement, the departmentalized classroom structure is associated with a scale score that is 1.790 points lower than the selfcontained classroom structure, about 9% of a standard deviation. additionally, students in departmentalized classrooms are 0.589 times less likely to show proficiency and 0.756 times less likely to make gains in ela. in the area of math, departmentalized classroom structures are associated with students whose scale score is 1.335 points lower, about 6% of a standard deviation, and those students are 0.703 times less likely to be proficient and 0.653 times less likely to make gains. table 7. overall relationship between classroom structure and academic achievement – scale score ela math scale score scale score classroom structure -1.790*** (0.352) -1.335*** (0.397) sex -1.648*** (0.345) 0.888** (0.391) white -1.469 (0.918) -0.417 (1.037) black -3.022*** (1.035) -2.640** (1.172) hispanic -1.903*** (0.920) -1.636 (1.040) ese status -1.754*** (0.495) 1.138** (0.555) ell status -1.507*** (0.415) -1.395*** (0.464) eligible for frl -1.507*** (0.415) -3.639*** (0.510) gha status -4.292*** (0.454) 4.861*** (0.510) ela low 25% -13.940*** (0.479) -1.723*** (0.516) math low 25% -2.555*** (0.445) -14.428*** (0.542) fy18 scale score 0.467*** (0.14) 0.599*** (0.15) n 2951 2948 r squared 0.771 0.768 note: standard errors in parentheses table 8. overall relationship between classroom structure and academic achievement – proficiency and gains ela math proficiency gains proficiency gains classroom structure 0.589*** (0.000) 0.756*** (0.004) 0.703** (0.011) 0.653*** (0.000) sex 0.745** (0.017) 0.689*** (0.000) 1.074 (0.589) 1.041 (0.694) white 1.569 (0.246) 0.749 (0.259) 1.436 (0.415) 1.217 (0.522) black 0.904 (0.806) 0.415*** (0.002) 0.736 (0.508) 0.746 (0.370) hispanic 1.186 (0.653) 0.648* (0.088) 0.815 (0.635) 0.827 (0.527) wyss & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 22 ela math proficiency gains proficiency gains ese status 0.875 (0.446) 0.615*** (0.000) 1.126 (0.488) 1.250 (0.103) ell status 0.610*** (0.000) 0.686*** (0.001) 0.730** (0.030) 0.789** (0.040) eligible for frl 0.269*** (0.000) 0.489*** (0.000) 0.356*** (0.000) 0.463*** (0.000) gha status 2.625*** (0.000) 2.325*** (0.000) 2.397*** (0.000) 2.334*** (0.000) ela low 25% 0.048*** (0.000) 0.074*** (0.000) 0.828 (0.205) 0.678*** (0.002) math low 25% 0.627*** (0.001) 0.626*** (0.000) 0.083*** (0.000) 0.066*** (0.000) fy18 scale score 1.084*** (0.000) 0.965*** (0.000) 1.113*** (0.000) 0.986*** (0.001) n 2951 2951 2948 2948 note: odd ratios are provided with p-values in parentheses research question two when considering students eligible for frl in comparison to those who are not, there is a statistically significant negative relationship between student achievement and departmentalization for both groups of students in both subjects and across all outcomes. the results of the second regression analysis looking specifically at student achievement across ses is presented in tables 9 and 10. these models demonstrate statistically significant negative relationships between student achievement and departmentalization that does vary by student ses. there is a negative relationship between departmentalization for all students across all models. however, students from low ses backgrounds in departmentalized classrooms perform worse on the ela fsa than their peers from higher ses backgrounds in departmentalized classrooms. on average, ela scale scores are 2.132 points lower, about 11% of a standard deviation, for low ses students in a departmentalized classroom than their low ses selfcontained peers. in comparison, there is a non-significant result for departmentalized students from a high ses background compared to like peers in self-contained classrooms. when looking at both proficiency and gains, the relationship varies slightly. for ela, departmentalization for low ses students has a more negative relationship with student achievement than for high ses students, but the difference is small. high ses students are 0.518 times less likely to be proficient when in departmentalized classrooms rather than self-contained compared to low ses students at 0.595 times less likely. the gains scores follow the same pattern, with high ses students 0.749 times less likely to have made gains compared to low ses students with a 0.778 times less likely chance to make gains. the relationship between ses and achievement is different for math. for the math scale score, the relationship is opposite to that in ela achievement: high ses students in a departmentalized structure score 1.959 points lower, about 9% of a standard deviation, than their self-contained high ses peers. in contrast, departmentalized low ses students only score 1.114 points lower on average, about 5% of a standard deviation, than their self-contained low ses peers. proficiency and gains are also higher for students in departmentalized classrooms from low ses backgrounds as compared to their high ses background peers, but the relationship between departmentalization and student achievement remains negative for both groups. the difference between proficiency and gains levels is more pronounced for math than for ela. for math proficiency, high ses students in departmentalized structures are 0.611 times less likely to be proficient than their high ses peers in self-contained classrooms. in comparison, low ses departmentalized students are 0.732 times less likely to be proficient than low ses students in self-contained classrooms. the difference in gains is even more pronounced; high ses students are 0.537 times less likely to make gains when departmentalized as compared to low ses students who are 0.684 times less likely to make gains when departmentalized. taken together, this suggests that both high and low ses students in departmentalized classrooms fare worse in terms of student achievement than their peers in self-contained classrooms. discussion and implications the data show a negative relationship between student achievement and departmentalization. this is consistent across all measures of student achievement and both ela and math. in ela, students from a low ses background fare even worse in departmentalized classrooms on average compared to their high ses peers. for math, although low ses background students in a departmentalized class still perform worse than their self-contained peers, there is a less negative relationship between achievement and departmentalization than their high ses peers. put simply, departmentalized students across both high and low ses backgrounds were less likely to be proficient in comparison to their self-contained peers. in both the areas of ela and math, fourth grade students have higher levels of student achievement when engaged in the self-contained classroom structure. benefit to upper elementary departmentalization? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 23 table 9. relationship between classroom structure and academic achievement by ses – scale score ela high ses ela low ses math high ses math low ses classroom structure -1.027 (0.639) -2.123*** (0.423) -1.959*** (0.723) -1.114** (0.477) sex -1.570** (0.641) -1.651*** (0.410) 0.750 (0.730) 0.940** (0.463) white -0.922 (1.227) -2.042 (1.454) -0.400 (1.392) -0.007 (1.636) black -0.218 (2.163) -3.774**** (1.450) -4.813** (2.439) -1.512 (1.638) hispanic -1.326 (1.326) -2.485 ** (1.372) -2.904* (1.504) -0.565 (1.546) ese -2.220** (1.062) -1.626*** (0.559) -0.169 (1.206) 1.534** (0.623) ell -1.977 (1.227) -1.454*** (0.422) 0.768 (1.381) -1.751*** (0.492) ela low 25% -12.673*** (0.995) -14.337*** (0.545) -2.325** (1.075) -1.576*** (0.587) math low 25% -3.528*** (0.949) -2.418*** (0.503) -13.710*** (1.122) -14.588*** (0.620) gha status 3.210*** (0.837) 4.988*** (0.552) 4.093*** (0.955) 5.224*** (0.605) fy18 scale score 0.505*** (0.205) 0.450*** (0.017) 0.602*** (0.028) 0.598*** (0.018) n r squared 0.704 0.746 0.711 0.750 note: for scale score models, standard errors in parentheses table 10. relationship between classroom structure and academic achievement by ses – proficiency and gains ela high ses ela low ses math high ses math low ses prof gain prof gain prof gain prof gain classroom structure 0.518** (0.021) 0.749* (0.089) 0.595*** (0.000) 0.778** (0.027) 0.611 (0.102) 0.537*** (0.003) 0.732** (0.047) 0.684*** (0.002) sex 0.618* (0.086) 0.644*** (0.009) 0.782* (0.078) 0.716*** (0.002) 0.815 (0.496) 1.057 (0.794) 1.164 (0.306) 1.045 (0.709) white 2.390 (0.109) 0.838 (0.580) 1.195 (0.753) 0.680 (0.358) 1.205 (0.790) 1.209 (0.651) 1.833 (0.297) 1.384 (0.458) black 0.749 (0.744) 0.649 (0.433) 0.748 (0.602) 0.317*** (0.006) 1.921 (0.526) 0.855 (0.809) 0.934 (0.904) 0.952 (0.910) hispanic 1.417 (.0539) 0.792 (0.500) 0.948 (0.920) 0.487* (0.070) 0.443 (0.257) 0.530 (0.147) 1.149 (0.800) 1.092 (0.831) ese 1.081 (0.840) 0.380*** (0.000) 0.818 (0.313) 0.750* (0.064) 0.765 (0.482) 0.688 (0.186) 1.220 (0.302) 1.498** (0.010) ell 1.092 (0.846) 0.775 (0.434) 0.567*** (0.000) 0.724*** (0.006) 1.313 (0.551) 1.224 (0.577) 0.677** (0.013) 0.740** (0.017) ela low 25% 0.033*** (0.000) 0.069*** (0.000) 0.051*** (0.000) 0.069*** (0.000) 0.776 (0.425) 0.776 (0.350) 0.829 (0.271) 0.638*** (0.001) math low 25% 1.424 (0.280) 0.187 (0.726) 0.505*** (0.000) 0.593*** (0.000) 0.081*** (0.000) 0.074*** (0.000) 0.081*** (0.000) 0.062*** (0.000) gha status 2.565*** (0.010) 1.413 (0.125) 2.691*** (0.000) 2.833*** (0.000) 2.117* (0.082) 1.738* (0.051) 2.494*** (0.000) 2.638*** (0.000) fy18 scale score 1.017*** (0.000) 0.956*** (0.000) 1.088*** (0.000) 0.968*** (0.000) 1.099*** (0.000) 0.978** (0.006) 1.116*** (0.000) 0.989** (0.019) n 908 908 2043 2043 909 909 2039 2039 r squared note: for proficiency and gains, odd ratios are provided with p-values in parentheses wyss & preston impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 4 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.218 24 at the local level, the greatest potential impact is on future scheduling practices, especially when attempting to increase proficiency and gains. for florida, both proficiency and gains determine a school and district’s rating by the department of education. this makes decisions that have a potential impact on those areas critical for increasing student achievement to increase school and district’s fldoe ratings. based on this study, both students from low ses and high ses backgrounds in fourth grade have lower levels of student achievement when instructed in the departmentalized structure. for this reason, the recommendation is that fourth grade students not be scheduled into departmentalized classes. the results of the study are limited in that the study only focuses on student achievement. the application of the results is also limited by the study’s relatively small size, as it focuses on only one school district representing one geographical area. the decision of classroom structure relies heavily on the teacher’s school administration. prior academic proficiency data of the teacher and school as well as reasons for engaging in either classroom structure were not a part of this study. additionally, the secondary results pertain to individual student ses, which, as shown in table 1, vary significantly throughout the district, whereas a further area of study would be seeking to compare the classroom structure and achievement levels by school wide ses, title i designation, as well as the prior academic proficiency and gains performance of the school. conclusion the purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between student achievement and classroom structure and to see if that relationship varies depending on student ses. in summary, there is a statistically significant relationship between classroom structure and student achievement with a negative relationship between departmentalized classrooms and ela and math scale scores, proficiency, and gains as measured on the 2019 fsa. the relationship remains consistent when analyzing students from high and low socio-economic backgrounds separately. however, the relationship does show a slightly more negative relationship between student achievement and departmentalized classroom structures for students from a low socio-economic background in ela and a higher socio-economic background in math. new ideas, which come from the continual process of improvement in action research, could expand the study by adding in reasons for engaging in classroom structure, teacher and school prior performance, and title i status of the school the student attends. a field-based approach would 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(2020). family socio-economic status and children’s academic achievement: the different roles of parental academic involvement and subjective social mobility. british journal of educational psychology, 90(3), 561–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12374 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131725.2017.1314569 http://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/1846 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x16677965 https://doi.org/10.5296/jse.v4i1.4802 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2016.12.006 https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/441 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12374 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 31 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.369 centering the scholarly practitioner within the edd: lessons learned lee d. flood texas christian university l.d.flood@tcu.edu abstract the educational doctorate (edd) is designed to meet the needs of current practitioners who aim to expand their professional expertise by leveraging deep knowledge and research methods to address specific and contextualized problems of practice. this approach centers on developing scholarly practitioners that are equipped with the skills necessary to bridge the knowledge-to-doing gap and contribute meaningfully to school improvement (cped, 2020; donovan, 2013; hochbein & perry, 2013; jackson & sun, 2022; lewis et al., 2020; perry, zambo, & crow, 2020). to achieve this goal, program faculty and their respective thinking must be concerned with and oriented to the scholarly practitioner and their unique positionality. this paper explores two considerations related to centering scholarly practitioners and their impact to illustrate the possibilities inherent within edd programs. keywords scholarly practitioner, program development, informed consumer of research the educational doctorate (edd) is designed to meet the needs of current practitioners who aim to expand their professional expertise by leveraging deep knowledge and research methods to address specific and contextualized problems of practice. this approach centers on developing scholarly practitioners that are equipped with the skills necessary to bridge the knowledge-to-doing gap and contribute meaningfully to school improvement (carnegie project on the education doctorate [cped], 2020; donovan, 2013; hochbein & perry, 2013; jackson & sun, 2022; lewis et al., 2020; perry et al., 2020). however, to achieve this goal, program faculty and their respective thinking must be concerned with the unique positionality of the edd student as knowledge-seeker, change agent, activist, and applied researcher (buss et al., 2014; firestone et al., 2021; perry & abruzzo, 2020). this paper explores two ways which faculty can do so in relation to research courses. the first is to consciously forefront the lived reality of the scholarly practitioner when developing course content and throughout course sequences. course content and sequencing should center the scholarly practitioner and carefully consider the types of knowledge and skills that are needed within applied contexts (firestone et al., 2021). faculty should demonstrate a willingness to prioritize the funds of knowledge that students bring from their professional contexts and find ways to support their practice within courses. theory and practice should work in concert with the reality of scholarly practitioners from day one of their program by carefully constructing course content, experiences, and assignments to be useful and meaningful. the second is to emphasize the creation of informed consumers and users of research. this includes ensuring that the types of research skills and knowledge that are delivered over the course of a program are directly relevant to students in their professional contexts. additionally, programs have an obligation to foster a relationship of utility between practitioners and the extant research literature that goes beyond crafting a literature review for the purpose of completing a dissertation. research courses within edd programs should be designed with the needs of current practitioners who aim to utilize these methodological skills to address specific and contextualized problems of practice at the forefront (kerrigan & hayes, 2016; wergin, 2011). this paper serves to share some of the paradigm shifts that occurred in my thinking as a new faculty member at a cped institution and the importance of reframing/reorienting for faculty. additionally, i hope to encourage dialogue among cped colleagues regarding their own programmatic perspectives and innovations. some of the greatest growth in my thinking about our program has come through candid discussions with fellow faculty members on similar journeys and the reflection that follows. the ideas that will be explored include: the importance of prioritizing the lived realities of scholarly practitioners within course design and curricular decisions and reorienting research course perspectives to better serve and align with these realities. program context augusta university’s (au) doctor of education in educational innovation (2023) program is 10 semesters in length and utilizes a hybrid delivery format that “prepares educators to lead effectively in the teaching and learning environment, to advocate for solutions to problems, to foster innovation, and to be responsive to the evolving expectations placed upon educational systems.” students meet on six fridays and saturdays during each semester. the friday sessions are held online during the evening, and the saturday https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9475-6295 flood impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.369 32 sessions are held in-person and on-campus from 9 am to 5 pm. the program has two concentration areas: teaching and curriculum and educational leadership. the degree requirements for each concentration are similar except for 9 hours of concentration-specific coursework. students take 12 hours of research courses and the remaining coursework is dedicated to the core curriculum. the degree culminates with a group dissertation in practice (dip). considering the lived realities of scholarly practitioners faculty should strive to understand what it means to be a scholarly practitioner situated within a given time and space (honig & walsh, 2019). while the idea of the scholarly practitioner is a fundamental design-concept of the cped framework (jackson & sun, 2022), it truly references a dynamic state of existence and being-ness that is in need of ongoing evaluation and consideration rather than a static role. the realities of scholarly practitioners today are undoubtedly different than the realities of scholarly practitioners even five years ago. there have been significant changes related to the shifting political landscape, the impact of covid-19, and advances in technology. faculty must posit the reality of the scholarly practitioner at the forefront of their work and (re)frame their curriculum, pedagogy, and instruction to reflect and best inform the multifaceted and fluid nature of the work of the educational professional. to that end, three considerations for faculty to ponder as it relates to the realities of the scholarly practitioner are: drawing connections to their current/future work, displaying an openness to step outside of the ivory tower, and acknowledging that the problem of scholarly practitioner research may look different than the problems that they are accustomed to seeing in more traditional scholarly pursuits. faculty can prioritize scholarly practitioners’ current/future work and demonstrate a willingness to move outside of the ivory tower through all courses and curricular design, not just in courses that seem to be natural fits. for example, quantitative methods courses can be taught in creative ways that mirror the types of problems that they might encounter within their professional settings including the use of relevant data, logical scenarios, familiar language, and the opportunity to present results in practical ways. coursework and content should draw connections to the lived realities and roles of the scholarly practitioners within the program. similarly, the dissertation problem may arise through a very different mechanism than the practice of identifying a gap in the literature (gap-spotting) that is standard practice in phd programs. faculty have to be willing to step outside of the common conception that the literature is the sole support for the existence of a problem and lean into and trust that their students are tapped into and sensitive to problems that exist within their own context. this does not free the scholarly practitioner from engaging with the literature, but forces them to use “multiple modes of evidence” in concert with the literature to help “identify, define, and frame” the problem of practice (leach et al., 2021, p. 2). this requires a great deal of trust between faculty and students as well as a willingness to step outside of the comfort of the literature, and perhaps, the familiarity of their own academic training. furthermore, faculty have to display the same willingness to step outside of their own methodological comfort zones to support scholarly practitioners. cped has a number of examples of institutions that are leveraging specific types of applied and signature methodologies (e.g., action research, improvement science, implementation science, etc.) to investigate complex problems of practice. some of these approaches may be novel to faculty members, but provide creative and nuanced ways for scholarly practitioners to engage in inquiry. faculty must be willing to, at a minimum, pursue training and development in applied methodological traditions that are becoming increasingly popular in edd programs, and in an ideal world, try some of these approaches out within their own research. this would allow faculty to mentor and assist from a place of experience and expertise. creating informed consumers and users of research research faculty should also consider crafting a research course sequence that adopts a pragmatic perspective and focuses on building a deep, rather than broad, skill-set in applied research skills that are commonly being used in dip. when research faculty approached the redesign of the research sequence at au, they made one idea central: scholarly practitioners will utilize their research skills in applied contexts. this shift in approach ensures research is at the forefront of the curriculum rather than treated as an afterthought. in this model, students are not left to sort out and sift through research strategies by themselves during the dissertation phase. to make this change, research faculty utilized a backwards design process to focus in on the knowledge and skills that scholarly practitioners need in their professional roles and to successfully navigate the dissertation. once research faculty had an idea of that knowledge and skill profile, they critiqued the research sequence to see if it was set up to successfully scaffold and imbue those characteristics. unfortunately, there were a series of research courses that were not aligned with this goal nor were they vertically aligned with each other. the initial course on research design was sprawling and covered a vast array of elements: research in educational contexts, diverse methodologies employed in these contexts (e.g., narrative, ethnographic, case study, ex post facto, correlational, experimental, and quasi-experimental), ethics, design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of educational research. after reviewing the course description and course, research faculty felt that this course would better serve the vision of developing scholarly practitioners if it was narrow and focused on the foundational elements of designing a research study. the revamped course emphasized the following elements: alignment between research elements, including identifying a research problem, reviewing the literature, specifying a purpose, and writing research questions. refocusing the course led to more specific methodological elements being moved to later in the research course sequence, where they would be more relevant to students. for example, the quantitative course that followed built off of the students’ abilities to write elements typically found in chapters one and two of a traditional five-chapter dissertation. by scaffolding learning, the course could emphasize methodological components while sharpening students’ skills to craft arguments, write research questions, and survey the literature. however, the course description of the introductory statistics course emphasized multivariate data analysis, including a variety of regression techniques, which seemed centering the scholarly practitioner impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.369 33 out of step with this aim and student needs. this was especially true when the students were entering the program with little to no statistical background from which to build upon. after conducting research on the most popular statistical approaches used in dips, research faculty redesigned the course to emphasize statistical literacy/efficacy and mastery of the most popular analyses. the student response and subsequent outcomes have been positive and validating. students do not feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that the course purports to cover. additionally, students have articulated that they are more comfortable with reading and utilizing articles that utilize quantitative methods within their scholarly work. furthermore, there has been an increase in the use and proposed use of quantitative designs in their dips. as a whole, the reorientation has helped the program avoid creating a chasm between our research design and methodology courses and the problems of practice of scholarly practitioners. summary this essay has provided two examples of considerations that faculty should ponder when critically examining course or programmatic elements. hopefully, these specific examples prompt further thought and conversation related to how edd programs orient themselves to their students. by taking the lived realities of the scholarly practitioners that they serve into account, programs can ensure that they are giving their students authentic, meaningful, and relevant experiences. this includes crafting courses that are designed with the specific needs of the scholarly practitioner and linking those learning experiences towards the dip. in particular, thoughtful attention should be paid to the content, flow, sequence, and perspective of the research course sequence to ensure that students are prepared to create an impact with their dips and in their professional role following graduation. references augusta university. (2023). doctorate of education (ed.d.) in educational innovation. https://www.augusta.edu/education/research/edd-ei.php buss, r. r., zambo, r., zambo, d., & williams, t. r. (2014). developing research professionals in an edd program. higher education, skills and work-based learning, 4(2), 137–160. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2022). the cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework firestone, w. a., perry, j. a., leland, a. s., & mckeon, r. t. (2021). teaching research and data use in the education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 16(1), 81–102. foster, h. a., chesnut, s., thomas, j., & robinson, c. (2023). differentiating the edd and the phd in higher education: a survey of characteristics and trends. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 8(1), 18–26. hochbein, c., & perry, j. a. (2013). the role of research in the professional doctorate. planning and changing, 44(3/4), 181–195. honig, m. i., & donaldson walsh, e. (2019). learning to lead the learning of leaders: the evolution of the university of washington’s education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 14(1), 51–73. jackson, s. g., & sun, y. (2022). edd student research for scholarly practice. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 7(4), 1. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.341 kerrigan, m. r., & hayes, k. m. (2016). edd students’ self-efficacy and interest in conducting research. international journal of doctoral studies, 11, 147–162. lewis, t., puckett, h., & ringler, m. (2020). changing the mindset from practitioner to scholarly practitioner: admission through the first two semesters of an edd program. international journal of educational leadership preparation, 15(1), 1–16. perry, j. a., & abruzzo, e. (2020). preparing the scholarly practitioner: the importance of socialization in cped-influenced edd programs. in j. weidman & l. deangelo (eds.), socialization in higher education and the early career. springer international publishing. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. wergin, j. f. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. https://www.augusta.edu/education/research/edd-ei.php https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.341 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 grounding the dissertation in practice (dip) in dialectic pluralism: improvement science as a metaparadigm for the edd lester a. c. archer western kentucky university lester.archer@wku.edu abstract the use of improvement science (is) for the dissertation in practice (dip) must be encouraged because the questions and concerns addressed in these projects go beyond answering basic research. authors of dissertations in practice will bring philosophical assumptions, select research designs, and situate themselves somewhere along the practitioner continuum. dip authors should be aware of the larger philosophical questions relating to the ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, and rhetorical grounding of improvement science. grounded in these large philosophical questions, the improvement science project should be identified as a metaparadigm and counted among other research methodological paradigms. keywords methodological paradigm, dissertations in practice, improvement science, practitioner-scholar before starting their research project, the scholar-practitioner considers many elements. for instance, there is consideration for identifying a system problem, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. from the interpretation, there may be implementation of viable solutions to expedite change. other considerations should include a purpose and research question(s). important components include the methods. notwithstanding, the key component that grounds the project relies on the choice of methodology. the methodology provides the oikos—the overarching structure in which the project is understood. the methodology frames “the research strategy that outlines the way one goes about undertaking a research project” (howell, 2013, p. ix) which impacts the methods and consequent outcomes of the investigation. methodological differences, nuances, and similarities must be teased apart, and teasing apart research approaches affords us an understanding of the methodological paradigm. in the context of social sciences, research in the methodological space involves understanding human behavior. one approach is the use of quantification of human behavior. other approaches include non-quantitative data such as interviews and observations (creswell, 2009). differences between quantitative and qualitative data have been delineated within paradigms (creswell, 2009; johnson 2011; lincoln et al., 2011). given the recent encouragement to reimagine the edd, doctoral students engaging in the dissertation in practice (dip) should understand how improvement science (is) fits into the methodological space. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), on their website, defines the dip as a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice (cped, 2022). in addition, cped mentions a problem of practice (pop) as a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes. the dip is used to organize and present possible answers to a pop. perry et al. (2020) mentioned that the dip graduate signifies they have engaged in a rigorous process, focused on framing their expertise, and obtained a doctorate (edd) distinguished from the phd. a host of methodological approaches for the dip includes action research (jackson, 2019), program evaluation (varga et al., 2022), and is (barnes, 2021). perry et al. (2020) advanced the discussion for the use of is. hinnant-crawford (2020) succinctly stated that is can be distinguished from other educational research because it serves as a guide “through the process of improving” (p. 23). recognizing the roots of is in healthcare and business, crow (2019) highlighted multiple frameworks within the is project such as the system diagram, fishbone analysis, with the plan, do, study, act (pdsa) model as the cornerstone of the methodology (p. 9). the primary use of the pdsa cycle, as the cornerstone, is to test changes by moving ideas to action, and it can be used to answer the question: how will we know that a change is an improvement? (langley et al., 2009). currently, authors differ in their descriptions of is with respect to methodology. for instance, hinnant-crawford (2020) referred to is as a methodological framework “undergirded by foundational principles” (p. 1), while hannan et al. (2015) wrote that is provides “a structure for learning about how work systems produce outcomes— this methodology allows users to learn rapidly about the function of their system by introducing and testing changes” (p. 496). similar to crow (2019), hannan et al. (2015) noted is as a methodology. yet, perry et al. (2020) described is as “a methodological approach built on pragmatism and science that uses disciplined inquiry to solve problems of practice” and further elaborated, “improvement science focuses on high leverage problems and the systems that surround those problems” (p. 27). the use of approach evokes ambivalence. would novice researchers such as authors of the dip interpret is as a specific methodology, or is it possible they may understand is as a https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5061-0200 archer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 2 process? these three constructions—methodological framework, methodology, and methodological approach—portray and provide the essence of is; however, the nomenclature needs clarity. these constructions recognize the logic, principles, structure, and word methodology. however, there is a point of departure: how best to name is in the methodological space. should is be understood as either a methodological framework (hinnant-crawford, 2020), a methodology (hannan et al., 2015), or a methodological approach (perry et al., 2020)? reimagining the edd requires a reexamination of the nomenclature. since dip authors using is need care when selecting a methodology, the shared understanding of is needs clarity. care in choosing the methodology helps to frame the inquiry and narrow the dip’s scope, guides the dip author in knowing where the change is occurring and how to evaluate any changes, and informs any data collection as well as analysis (capello et al., 2024). viewed as a framework, the early or novice researcher may miss the idea of multiple methodological approaches that can be used to structure the project. indicating is as methodology suggests distinguishing features setting it apart from others. from the perspective of an approach indicates ambivalence as a path or how to proceed. using is, dip authors need to embrace how they view reality, how they incorporate theory, and how they come to know. purpose statement the purpose of this essay is to describe is as dialectic pluralism (dp). dp could be defined as a philosophy that pushes competing theories and practices not only toward confrontation but also resolution of differences (mccaffrey, 2024; mitchell, 1982). as elaborated by johnson and schoonenboom (2016), dp is a process philosophy and theory that views reality as an ontological pluralism and “uses a dialectical/dialogical/hermeneutical epistemology and theory of inquiry” (p. 592). the dialectical epistemology uses a reflexivity, the dialogical epistemology includes a continual discussion, and the hermeneutical epistemology “involves a continual process of interpretation and building on past interpretations” (p. 592) that leads to synthesis. the paper provides insight into reframing is as dp which grounds mixed methodology as a methodological paradigm (johnson, 2011). the discussion serves to advance the nomenclature of the cped community. the paper fills a gap in the literature since little to no discussion has been found that substantiates is as a distinctive research methodological paradigm. the article is organized as follows. the first section presents an overarching discussion of is. the next section provides a brief discussion on is as dp. here, the discussion focuses on the answers to five fundamental philosophical questions that distinguish the underpinnings among paradigms. the last section includes suggestions for faculty advisors and edd students. improvement science hinnant-crawford (2020) noted that is should be thought of as a methodological framework that is undergirded by foundational principles. is affords the examination of a system, identifying problems, and applying solutions for change(s). is guides scholarpractitioners not only to define problems and to understand how systems produce problems but also how to recognize the needed changes and to test the efficacy of those identified changes (hinnant-crawford, 2020). in other words, the scholar-practitioner poses three fundamental questions: 1) what is the exact problem that needs to be solved? 2) what changes might be introduced and why? 3) what knowledge will be needed to recognize improvement occurred? (hinnant-crawford, 2020; spaulding & hinnant-crawford, 2019). these questions suggest that careful approaches to the dip are needed. identifying the exact problem means avoiding nebulous and poorly defined problems (hinnant-crawford, 2020). introducing possible changes means “to recognize the system that is producing the results” (hinnant-crawford, 2020, p. 101). and recognizing improvement suggests that after deploying the theory of improvement dip authors need to examine system indicators. they need to examine driver measures (is the theory of improvement working?); process measures (how is the theory of improvement working?); outcome measures (did the theory of improvement work?); and balancing measures (is the theory of improvement working as intended?) (hinnant-crawford, 2020). the designs of the dip need to go beyond traditional single focus methodologies, especially with more complex problems. some single focus methodologies that come to mind—case study, mixed methods, action research, and phenomenology. as the cped community continues to engage in thinking about the dip and its nomenclature, the effort and energy expended will necessitate a closer examination of is as beyond a methodological framework that attends to single focus methodologies. according to wasserman and kram (2009), each of quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, action research, and evaluation methodologies are within the scholar-practitioner continuum. while these methodologies provide for natural overlaps (mertens, 2015), they do not guide the scholar-practitioner “through the process of improving” (hinnant-crawford, 2020, p. 23). while i agree that single focus methodologies are acceptable and useful for a dip, my argument leans on advancing is as philosophically and theoretically grounded in dp (johnson, 2011). the process of improving suggests that is has its philosophical underpinnings that can be distinguished among research methodologies. improvement science as dialectic pluralism mitchell (1982) constructed dp as a pluralism that “pushes divergent theories and practices toward confrontation and dialogue” (p. 613). this push should get us to something new. inayat and mccaffrey (2024) noted that dp can resolve conflicts arising out of differences among worldviews and may even help developing [nursing] knowledge by incorporating multiple worldviews. they highlighted multiple worldviews can result in ontological and epistemological conflicts when scholars rigidly remain devoted to their favorite worldviews. for scholars and practitioners, points of conflict may include clinical settings, sociocultural differences, and methodological approaches (mccaffrey, 2024). in the healthcare milieu, mccaffrey (2024) noted that clinical settings have values and beliefs that may not align with patients, sociocultural backgrounds may not be common among colleagues, and training in quantitative methodologies may conflict with using qualitative insights. for dip authors, similar tensions may exist. they may be pursuing projects in settings where colleagues defend quantitative data, but they do not value qualitative data. these moments call for dialogue. grounding the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 3 dp provides a space to develop nuanced and comprehensive knowledge. johnson (2011) positions dp as a philosophy designed to produce the “mixed methods perspective” (p. 31). johnson (2011) referred to metaparadigm as dp. for johnson (2011), the key idea is to “understand and purposively, dialectically, and dialogically engage with difference and interact with multiple paradigms, disciplines, positive values, and concepts” (p. 31). is can be viewed as a metaparadigm. the is project gets us to something new. engaging is, dip authors need to make connections to multiple perspectives as it relates to seeing the system for what it is. they need to understand the system (hinnant-crawford, 2020). this understanding can be identified during the iterative plan, do, study, and act (pdsa) cycle. according to langley et al. (2009), this cycle turns ideas into action, which connects action to learning. the system interacts with people who identify with different paradigmatic beliefs. johnson noted that dp “can dialogue with multiple ontologies, multiple epistemologies, multiple ethical theories and values, and multiple methods and methodologies” (p. 31). since the dip project could bring together many epistemological and methodological backgrounds (e.g., transformative and postpositivist paradigms) to address broad issues (e.g., social justice) for building additional research, is fits as a metaparadigm grounded in dp in which the key idea “is to understand and purposively, dialectically, and dialogically engage with difference and interact with multiple paradigms, disciplines, positive values, and concepts” (johnson, 2011, p. 31). here, we need to recognize that an is project may be intentional or grounded in social justice with a methodological paradigmatic stance situated in the critical or transformative (creswell 2009; mertens & wilson, 2018) while including a postpositive methodology. fundamental philosophical questions posed by theorists provide guidance as it relates to the underpinnings among research paradigms (johnson, 2011). for instance, the argument by lincoln et al. (2011) provides for “three fundamental questions” (p. 108) that can be summarized in response to questions relating to the ontological, the epistemological, and the methodological. these guiding questions are: 1) what is the ontological? 2) what is the epistemological? 3) what is the methodological? in discussing paradigms as worldviews, creswell (2009) added two: 4) what is the axiological? and 5) what is the rhetorical? the answers to these five questions assist in the shared understanding of a research paradigm. ontology derived from the greek word, ὄντος (ontos), ontology is the study of the nature of reality. what is the nature of reality? how do we construct our reality? is truth within us or external to us? quantitative researchers view reality as objective. in this research paradigm, truth is external. ergo, there exists an external reality. positivism may be defined as a paradigm “guided by the claim that only sense-confirmed knowledge is affirmed knowledge” (maksimović & evtimov, 2023, p. 209). for positivists, there is a unity in science grounded in discovery and guided by laws using measurement to test theory (maksimović & evtimov, 2023). however, not all quantitative methodologists should be identified as positivists. postpositivist understandings exist. critical analysis of positivism led to postpositivism. postpositivism extends the argument of positivism to include the understanding of truth as probable—reality is not absolutely objective because of too many interacting causal factors, reality is constructed, and there is possible researcher influence (maksimović & evtimov, 2023; onwuegbuzie, 2002). ontologically, a point of departure for postpositivist, among others, is critical realism which recognizes reality as imperfect (lincoln et al., 2011). qualitative researchers recognize subjective reality. truth is within the individual. mixed methods researchers rely on singular and multiple realities. these researchers appreciate the objective and the subjective (creamer, 2017). creamer (2017) positions mixed methods as fully integrated in which the dialectic engages qualitative and quantitative strands. the intersubjective nature of reality, called the dialectic, fits mixed methods (creamer, 2017). program evaluators and action researchers share more in common; however, the purpose of the evaluator is to make a judgment about the program, policy, or product, for instance. for evaluations, each evaluator will bring a worldview, and each project will be grounded in a paradigm that depends on the goal. evaluators draw on quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods ontological interpretations. evaluators rely on objectivity, subjectivity, pragmatism, or transformative approaches (mertens, 2015; mertens & wilson, 2018). mertens and wilson (2018) used the metaphor of four branches on a tree to map postpositivist evaluations onto the methods branch, constructivist evaluations onto the values branch, transformational evaluations onto the social justice branch, and pragmatist approaches onto the use branch. for mertens and wilson (2018), methods branch evaluators understand “reality can be known within a certain level of probability” (p. 56); values branch evaluators understand truth as subjective; social justice evaluators view reality “in terms of power relations….shaped in social, cultural, and historical contexts” (p. 164); and use branch evaluators value evaluations based “on the demonstration that the results ‘work’ with respect to the problem that is being studied” (mertens & wilson, 2018, p. 86). because of the nature of the kinds of research questions pursued within a specific milieu, action researchers’ ontological position can be distinguished from solely quantitative or qualitative methods. is researchers and practitioners would rely on pragmatism. perry et al. (2020) have recognized the role of pragmatism as the ontological positioning. hinnant-crawford (2020) concurs. humans make meaning of a system’s existence. among the tools of is include empathy interviews, questionnaires, fishbone diagrams, systems diagrams and charts, and value stream mapping (vsm). the data collected using these tools include quantitative and qualitative data that combine to provide a holistic understanding of the system needing change. epistemology the study of knowledge and its justification, ἐπιστήμη (episteme) concerns, among other things, the conditions, sources, and structure of knowledge as well as justified beliefs. more broadly, epistemology is the study of the creation and dissemination of knowledge (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#sou). epistemology can be distinguished among quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods researchers. quantitative researchers believe that scientific knowledge is progressive and that we can predict phenomena from theories. for these researchers, a true state of the world exists. hypothesis testing, either by confirmation, as noted by thomas kuhn, or refutation (finding evidence contradicting predicted results), as proposed by karl popper, affords us the amount of support for a theory, as we search for truth (omar, 2012). from the quantitative worldview, universal standards exist which are “out there.” however, for postpositivist, archer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 4 objective findings are juxtaposed with subjective realities. qualitative researchers acknowledge that knowledge is relative to the knowers. there is no universal truth out there waiting to be discovered. hypothesis testing is not the concern. the knower is the one who knows. each knower is subjective and their own agent. as a result, reality exists in varying standards, which suggests that the justification of our knowledge is an individual and a group enterprise. knowledge builds, and there is shared understanding. for mixed methods researchers, pragmatism affords allowing what works for whom in each context (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). mixed methods researchers find subjectivity and objectivity commensurable. in other words, mixed methods research theorists recognize that qualitative data can complement, supplement, or offset the quantitative. morgan (2019) noted that convergence occurs when the two sets of data are pursued separately until integration; divergence uses differences between the data sets “to produce a richer interpretation” (p. 9) of original contradictions; and, complementary recognizes that each method “offers something that would be difficult for the other to produce” (morgan, 2019, p. 8). however, because of multiple outcomes engendered in mixed methods projects, authors need to be accountable in their claims (morgan, 2019). as noted earlier, program evaluation projects will have objectives and designs selected by the evaluator. each project will be designed within a worldview (mertens & wilson, 2018). evaluators can then rely on their epistemological stances from among quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, or transformativeemancipatory approaches (mertens & wilson, 2018). for action researchers, knowledge is not exclusive to scientists—expert and local knowledge are combined (brydon-miller et al., 2003). action research has more of a liberation and democratic underlying theory of epistemology. masters (1995) noted four major themes defining action research: 1) empowerment of participants, 2) collaboration through participants, 3) acquisition of knowledge, and 4) social change. using action research, the participants plan, observe, and most importantly self-reflect. is relies on shared knowledge of system tools and system dynamics. the relationship between the knower, when considering is and reality, would be filtered through three major questions: 1) what is the exact problem that is going to be solved? 2) what changes might be introduced and why? 3) what knowledge will be needed to recognize improvement occurred? (spaulding & hinnantcrawford, 2019). is requires a combination of subject matter knowledge and profound knowledge to gain a better “understanding of the properties of a system” (langley, et at., 2009, p. 76 77). shared understating of the system among the people interacting within the system creates the reality. there needs to be credible inferences and justifications for optimal operation of the system. the shared and taken for granted is identified in how well the system continues to function, and the knowledge of the system is grounded in the pragmatic. the use of is tools (e.g., five whys technique and empathy interviews) and run charts highlight the pragmatic. methodology methodology is best described as generating and justifying knowledge. howell (2013) noted that methodology may be thought of as the overarching philosophy underpinning the use of specific methods. tan (2018) describes methodology as “the link between theory and evidence” (p. 4). methodology should be tended to by both researcher and practitioner. methodology is recognized in the scenario in which a researcher with an interest in testing a theory may control for a specific variable, and they may use basic research, given a phenomenon of interest. for example, the researcher may set up different stressful scenarios to explore stress and its effects on behavior. methodology could also be recognized when a practitioner, with the same interest and focus on the applied, may not be able to control a particular variable. the practitioner may focus on different variables and analysis. a practitioner may be interested in whether a new procedure added stress and impacted job satisfaction. in this scenario, they may not be able to control, say, the number of hours worked by a participant. investigators apply methodology when they link theory to evidence, despite the particularized methods. researchers use particularized methods according to the research questions and the design. quantitative researchers principally collect categorical and numerical data. for quantitative approaches, causal explanations, predictions, and descriptions necessitate the use of experiments, quasi-experiments, and questionnaires, among others. quantitative researchers focus on the deductive. qualitative methodology includes the examination and exploration of data for themes and gaining a better understanding of perspectives from individuals. qualitative data methods include interviews, images, and observations. qualitative researchers focus on the inductive. mixed methods researchers collect multiple kinds of data. these researchers integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches to gain a better understanding of “context, perspectives, or conditions” (johnson, 2011, p. 34). mixed methods researchers include the inductive and deductive. given the focus and aims of an evaluation, evaluators can use methods from among quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches. methods available for evaluators and action research include those from quantitative and qualitative research. action researchers engage in an iterative process. this process is unlike that of researchers and evaluators because the former can conclude a study and the latter concludes with a judgement of the evaluand. like evaluators, action researchers may draw on multiple methods. methods for data collection for is include tools to map out goals and actions such as driver diagrams, the five whys technique, system maps, process maps, and fishbone diagraming. a driver diagram can help to answer the question, “what change can we make that will result in improvement?” (langley et al., 2009). driver diagrams describe the theory(ies) of improvement and can be used as a tool to help organize ideas for improvement (hinnant-crawford, 2020; langley et al., 2009). the five whys technique, developed by sakichi toyoda, examines a problem by iteratively asking why five times—after the initial response to the first why, the interviewer then asks why. this technique helps in understanding a problem or situation (hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020). system and processing maps are two types of tools to help to identify boundaries, components, and activity in system. they help to recognize the system that is producing the results (hinnant-crawford, 2020). fishbone diagraming, also called cause-and-effect diagrams, helps to identify, collect, and organize “current knowledge about potential causes of problems or variation” (langley et al., 2009, p. 412). fishbone diagrams allow for exploring and uncovering causes contributing to the problem (perry et al., 2020). taken together, these methods help to identify possible causes and effects within a system. in addition, value stream mapping is a unique tool for use in system improvement (langley et al., 2009). for is, multiple data collection methods are necessary. grounding the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 5 axiology from the greek word, ἀξία (axia), axiology is the study of values. axiology is a branch of philosophy that addresses what we have come to understand as ethics. a simplistic interpretation of ethics would describe our actions and explain how they may influence or affect others. paradigmatic stances create grounds for differing perspectives on values. quantitative researchers deploy objective standards of validity and reliability (creswell, 2009). researchers in this space take steps to minimize their biases and make attempts to ensure that these biases are minimized in order not to affect data collection, interpretation, or conclusions, among others. qualitative researchers acknowledge researcher bias as they study phenomena from the perspectives of participants. these researchers recognize that data collection and interpretation could be laden with “personal, cultural, and historical experiences” (creswell, p. 8). qualitative researchers embrace subjectivity. in the mixed methods research space, there is combining of quantitative and qualitative worldviews which afford researchers the flexibility to choose methods and procedures that fit the goal of the specific project. mixed methods researchers value the subjective as well as the objective and the interplay of these perspectives (creamer 2018, johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). for mixed methods researchers, what works as truth is what works at the time. the diversity of perspectives among evaluators and their axiological interpretations would be reflected within the respective evaluator’s belief. these beliefs have been termed branches (mertens, 2015; mertens & wilson, 2018). for mertens and wilson (2018), four branches exist, and each branch maps to a methodological paradigm. the methods branch maps onto the postpositive paradigm; the values branch maps onto the constructivist paradigm; the use branch maps onto the pragmatic paradigm; and the social justice branch maps onto the transformative paradigm. these branches can be aligned with quantitative research (methods branch), qualitative research (values branch), and mixed methods research (use branch). additionally, mertens and wilson (2018) included the social justice branch, which highlights the concerns, perspectives, and voices of marginalized groups. for mertens and wilson (2018), the inclusion of social justice in the evaluation paradigm reflects axiological assumptions highlighting awareness of discrimination and the need for understanding the mechanisms that perpetuate oppression, and these assumptions are grounded in the explicit mandate to change and to influence the status quo. action researchers would incorporate value judgments since among the goals of action research include democratic participation. action research and the participants in the project have a voice as they engage in the project to improve their lives (díaz-arévalo, 2022). the values and ethical concerns of is is not as overt in its democratic aims. is projects can be beneficial to participants; however, the aims and intentions are not necessarily about social justice since not every system meets those ends. in a generalized view, system change can be developed by examining the current system or inventing a new system (perla et al., 2009). however, it is well-known within the cped community that social justice is of importance, which is addressed in the first guiding principle of the cped framework. this principle addresses the notion of framing questions grounded in equity, ethics, and social justice. the cped guiding principles provide support for positioning ethics for dip authors. with the focus on social justice, most edd dips that use is should be an investigation about a system and how best to diagnose existing problems, analyze practical solutions, and create meaningful change. because the issues of democracy will naturally emerge, participants in the is project may not be directly concerned with political agendas, per se. participants in the is project appreciate that systems affect behavior, and they value cooperation. as a methodological paradigm, is focuses on the system. the actions and values of the researcher, as well as other stakeholders affected by the system, are answered by three principal questions. these questions provide directions for the dip. the first question, “what are we trying to accomplish?” the answer connects with ethical ideas and rides on the notions of justice and equity. the second question, “how will we know that a change is an improvement?” relates to fidelity and the extent to which the right actions were conducted, at the right time, with the right intent. the third question, “what changes can we make that will result in improvement?” suggests a connection to beneficence. here i use beneficence to mean changes should tend to nonmaleficence. rhetoric rhetoric, from the greek word ῥητορικός (rhētorikós) relates to the oratorical. drawing on herrick (2017), i use rhetoric to mean a structure that helps to organize our thinking and use of voice (lincoln et al., 2011). using this broad notion, i note that structure and the accompanying nomenclature differs for each paradigm (see table 1). engaging the quantitative methodological paradigm, authors use rhetoric to structure a deductive argument. authors begin with theories and test these by way of hypotheses. specific nomenclature includes words and phrases such as randomized control trial, inferential statistics, replicability, and validation. for qualitative approaches, authors rely on inductive thinking. authors may start with specific observations or other qualitative data, and they use analytical techniques such as coding and thematic analysis to build theory. nomenclature includes words and phrases such as axial coding, saturation, and trustworthiness. in the qualitative methodological paradigm, researchers acknowledge their biases. in fact, authors sometimes are encouraged to report how they specifically situate themselves in the study. lincoln et al. (2011) identified voice that belongs to the researcher and participants. voice can be the researcher(s) or the participant(s) or shared between the researcher and participants. voice enables objectivity when used in the (post)positivist paradigm. for the interpretive (qualitative), voice is shared and representative of the participants and researcher. is would use voice in similar ways as the interpretive—voice is shared and representative of the participants and researcher. mixed methods research, program evaluation, and action research will approach rhetoric differently. in mixed methods research, the rhetorical structure will require a bilingual understanding to convey and to integrate statistical and qualitative data. mixed methodologists incorporate pragmatic approaches to data. theory requires abductive reasoning, moving back and forth between inductive and deductive reasoning (morgan, 2007). in mixed methods, the expected nomenclature would include those from the quantitative and qualitative. however, novel approaches to validation are called legitimation (onwuegbuzie & johnson, 2006). the use of legitimation moves away from the use of controversial terms such as validity and credibility, allows for multiple points to provide validation, and supports paradigmatic mixing (creamer, 2018). archer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 6 evaluations would be designed with concerns that include identifying inputs, processes, and outcomes of evaluations (mertens & wilson, 2018; patton, 1975). evaluators will use the respective rhetoric drawn from quantitative research (methods branch), qualitative research (values branch), social justice (transformative branch), and mixed methods research (use branch). action researchers will recognize the “more pluralistic scientific enterprise” (chesler, 1991, p. 766). for action researchers, the rhetorical approaches will be sensitive to the larger democratic goals of the project outcomes. these projects recognize the voices and relationships with participants. there are a variety of tools and rhetorical devices available for the is project. given the assumption that pluralism fits is, the rhetoric here will focus on context-based problems and solutions. the language is inclusive and has multiple perspectives. similarly, as in mixed methods approaches, there is an understanding as it relates to the language of quantitative and qualitative data. is draws from many methodologies and transformative perspectives. for instance, the use of the five whys and system mapping helps in the organizing of the dip. in addition, the use of the pdsa and how situated with the dip project should help the reader. voice becomes important for the is project because the tools used in the is project capture the perspectives of participants. suggestions for dip committees committees and dip authors need to have conversations about the methodology. the importance of methodology cannot be underestimated because it brings together the philosophy, design, and methods of the dip. when relying on is, the committee and dip author(s) should discuss and bring clarity to the ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, and rhetorical positionality, which lay the groundwork and create conditions for the underpinnings of the project. the underpinnings provide the support for assurances that the problem is identified, proposed changes are implemented, and evidence exists to show whether change occurred. in other words, the purpose, research questions, and methods will be situated. table 1 positions is among well-known methodologies that may be of interest to dip authors. committees need to ensure that the iterative process of is can be identified through the pdsa cycles. the practitioner-scholar needs to carefully select and to use many of the tools available for data collection methods. authors who rely on is for their edd dips need to orient their readers to is and should be encouraged to provide a brief treatment as it relates to positioning is as a metaparadigm. once this is provided, then discussion relating to the use of other methodologies within the is project becomes clearer. the is ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, and rhetorical understanding must be conveyed, discussed, and table 1. positioning improvement science is quantitativea,c (post positivism) qualitativeb mixed methods evaluation ar (par)d ontological -pluralism -holistic view of the system change -objective reality -truth/reality is external -(critical realism) -subjective reality -truth is within the individual -objective and subjective -reality is dialectic -depends on the goal -objectivity, subjectivity, pragmatism -pragmatism -reflexivity -(emancipatory transformation) epistemological -subject matter and profound knowledge -credible inferences -predict from theory -true state of world exists -hypothesis testing -(modified objectivism) -knowledge is relative to knowers -no universal truth -subjectivity and objectivity in proportion -qual data complement, supplement, or offset quan data -quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and transformative/ emancipatory -knowledge not exclusive to scientists or experts -(subject-subject) methodological -multiple possibilities -categorical and quantitative -causal explanations, predictions -(diversify sources) -exploration of data for themes -dialectic -integrate quantitative and qualitative -quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches -iterative process -multiple methods axiology -appreciate systems affect behavior -cooperation -privileges the system -objective standards of validity -minimize biases -acknowledge bias -data collection laden with experiences -subjective and objective -truth is what works at the time -reflected within the project -social justice highlights marginalized groups -democratic participation -(people in foreground) rhetoric -draw from the language of any paradigm -nomenclature on context-based problems and solutions -deductive argument -nomenclature includes randomize control trial, inferential statistics, replicability, and validation -inductive argument -nomenclature includes axial coding, saturation, and trustworthiness -acknowledge biases -integrate statistical and qualitative data -draw on quantitative and qualitative; novel approach to validation -draw from quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods -democratic goals of the project outcomes -recognize voices and relationships note. adapted from creswell, j. w. (2009). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. sage. a,bsee lincoln, y. s., lynham, s. a., & guba, e. g. (2011). paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences, revisited. in n. k. denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 97–128). sage. csee sławecki, b. (2018). paradigms in qualitative research. in m. ciesielska & d. jemielniak, d. (eds.). (2018). qualitative methodologies in organization studies. palgrave macmillan. dsee díaz-arévalo, j. m. (2022). in search of the ontology of participation in participatory action research: orlando fals-borda’s participatory turn, 1977–1980. action research, 20(4), 343-362. ar = action research. par = participatory action research grounding the dissertation in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 7 understood. these philosophical questions and answers can be pursued throughout the dissertation process. formal in-class and informal discussions are appropriate venues. the dip author should assume that their committee members may or may not share common constructions of reality, given differing paradigmatic stances. given the positioning of differing ontological stances, clear communication becomes necessary. the dip author should discuss with committee members how each views the world. naturally, reading prior academic work by committee members, or if possible, taking at least one course with each committee member would assist. epistemologically, the committee shares in the endeavor. the relationship between the knower and the known is situated by gaining knowledge of the system. the committee should assist the dip author to recognize the importance of the creation and dissemination of knowledge. the dip that relies on is and how the project is articulated becomes part of knowing there is an improvement. the dip author and the committee should work together to identify the exact problem to be solved as well as how to recognize changes. hinnant-crawford (2020) provides four questions which help to tease apart knowledge about change of the system: 1) did it work? 2) is it working? 3) how is it working? and 4) is it working as intended? in concurrence with hinnant-crawford (2020), perry et al. (2020) noted that knowledge about change is grounded in outcome, process, driver, and balance drivers. these metrics assist to answer the question: how will we know if the change was an improvement? pursuing the pop should get us somewhere. methodologies are the underpinnings of scientific investigations. although there is an understanding that is shifts research from the laboratory, the project is based on rigorous scientific investigation (hinnant-crawford, 2020; langley et al., 2009; perry et al., 2020). the committee and the dip author should ensure that they take time and work together to identify and understand the complexity of the pop (perry et al., 2020). these actions should lead to identifying the change ideas and how best to know it occurred. multiple methodologies are possible. dip authors have the flexibility to identify appropriate methodology which underpins their project. multiple possibilities exist. axiology must be explicit because issues of justice and equity, executing the right actions, and ensuring beneficence are among the items that committees must manage. although axiology may be implicit, is projects are concerned with improving not only the system but also creating change. the committee needs to assist in identifying and connecting the project with the notions of social justice and equity, which aligns with the cped framework. dip authors, particularly for the use of is, are encouraged to appreciate that systems affect behavior. behavior also relates to fidelity to the project and the extent of the right actions conducted, at the right time, with the right intent and connected to beneficence. with respect to rhetorical positioning, the dip draws from any methodology. rhetoric, in this context, relates to structure that helps in organizing thinking. using this broad notion, dip authors have the flexibility to use nomenclature drawn from differing paradigms. the nomenclature will center on context-based problems and solutions. in fact, nomenclature would be used appropriately. for instance, the dissertation committee would check and read how terms such as validation, trustworthiness, and legitimation are used in context and appropriately applied. rhetorical use also includes use of voice. in their treatment of differentiating paradigms, lincoln et al. (2011) identified voice. they recognize (post)positivist voices belong to the researcher and not the participants, which enables objectivity. for the interpretive (qualitative), voice is representative of the participants and researcher. voice is mixed. the importance of mixed voices becomes important for the is project. the tools used in the is project capture the voices of the participants and the researcher. conclusion the purpose of this essay was to describe why is should be identified as a metaparadigm. authors of dips will bring to their projects basic philosophical assumptions and will ground themselves somewhere along the practitioner continuum (wasserman & kram, 2009). however, given the cped focus and its encouragement on developing scholar-practitioners, is as an approach, framework, or a paradigm needs clarity. the discussion centered on five grounding questions that should be posed to help identify research methodological paradigms. methodological research paradigms can be examined from the ontological, epistemological, methodological, axiological, and rhetorical. the answers to these questions assist in the shared understanding of a research paradigm. is can be counted among quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, evaluation, and action research. in the cped community, not only is there a need for “consensus about which questions are worth asking and which methods are most appropriate for answering them… [but also there is need to] …share a consensus about the bases for warranted assertions about the workability of different lines of action” (morgan, 2007, p. 66). now, i revisit the points of departure (see figure. 1). i reimagine is. now, hinnant-crawford (2020) can mention is as a metaparadigm “that is undergirded by foundational principles that guide scholar-practitioners to define problems, understand how the system produces the problems, identify changes to rectify the problems, test the efficacy of those changes, and spread the changes (if the change is indeed and improvement)” (p. 1). hannan et al. (2015) can hold their position that is provides “a structure for learning about how work systems produce outcomes—this figure 1. reimaging the use of metaparadigm hinnantcrawford (2020) improvement science is a metaparadigm that is undergirded by foundational principles that guide scholar-practitioners to define problems, understand how the system produces the problems, identify changes to rectify the problems, test the efficacy of those changes, and spread the changes (if the change is indeed and improvement). hannan et al. (2015) improvement science methods provide a structure for learning about how work systems produce outcomes—this allows users to learn rapidly about the function of their system by introducing and testing changes in their existing practice. perry et al. (2020) improvement science is a built on pragmatism and science that uses disciplined inquiry to solve pops. improvement science focuses on high leverage problems and the systems that surround those problems. archer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.405 8 [metaparadigm] allows users to learn rapidly about the function of their system by introducing and testing changes” (p. 496). perry et al. (2020) are positioned to acknowledge is as a metaparadigm “built on pragmatism and science that uses disciplined inquiry to solve problems of practice. is focuses on high leverage problems and the systems that surround those problems” (p. 27). the use of is for the dip works as dp. is should be noted as a metaparadigm. nomenclature matters. references barnes, r. s. (2021). transforming school-wide professional development utilizing culturally relevant pedagogy to engage black boys. 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(2009). enacting the scholar—practitioner role: an exploration of narratives. the journal of applied behavioral science, 45(1), 12–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886308327238 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00938043 https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503221103571 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487115602126 https://doi.org/10.1177/10784535231213843 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x033007014 https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617479 https://www.iier.org.au/iier16/mackenzie.html https://doi.org/10.5937/lstrped2301208m https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689818780596 https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503030011002 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.226 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886308327238 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 23 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 from reacting to re-imagining: using pandemic adaptations for program advancement amy markos arizona state university amy.markos@asu.edu ray buss arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu josephine marsh arizona state university josephine.marsh@asu.edu abstract in this practice-based essay, we illustrated how our program, a charter member of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and a recipient of a cped program of the year award in 2018, has moved from reacting to pandemic-era needs, to reflecting on pandemic-era adaptations, to re-imagining our edd program. focusing on three areas: program growth, changes to students’ professional contexts, and student well-being, we have reflected on our pandemic-era experiences and how we have drawn upon them as we re-imagined and advanced our program. we have included reflective questions for program coordinators and faculty members, with the hope that the information we have shared can help others consider how they might re-imagine aspects of their programs. keywords pandemic, program re-imagination, student well-being, edd programs the covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on various facets of our edd program. our students encountered disruptions in their professional lives as workplaces underwent substantial changes. moreover, the pandemic altered the landscape of work itself, compelling students to adapt to remote environments while learning and employing new tools for their practitioner and researcher efforts. these disruptions had a cascading effect on students' dissertation in practice (dip) endeavors. connected to, but somewhat distinct from the scholarly practitioner realm, the pandemic deeply affected the well-being of our academic community. as disease, isolation, and fear took hold, the mental, social, and physical health of students, faculty, and staff plummeted. although individuals grappled with the pandemic's impact in distinct ways, collectively, we found ourselves struggling to maintain the routines of daily life, work, and school. despite the global disruptions to educational systems and various aspects of daily life caused by the pandemic, our program experienced unexpected enrollment during this challenging period. while experiencing these challenges, our program reacted with pandemic-era adaptations. although reactionary changes are no longer needed, many have served as opportunities for re-imagining our edd program. in the essay, we have focused on three key areas that were affected in our program during the pandemic and how we are using each to re-imagine our program moving forward. those areas were (a) program growth, (b) changes to students’ professional contexts, and (c) student well-being. we have described each of these areas in the next sections of the essay. edd program context we have designed our edd in leadership and innovation program at arizona state university to develop scholarly and influential practitioners who can lead change and improve practice in their professional workplace settings. in particular, four program outcomes have guided our work with students as we sought to foster program graduates’ (a) leading in their settings, (b) innovating to resolve local problems of practice, (c) conducting practice-based research, and (d) collaborating with others in these efforts. to facilitate the attainment of these outcomes, faculty members have implemented program components such as cycles of action research and leader scholar communities (lscs), two signature pedagogies of the program (buss, 2018; buss & allen, 2020; shulman, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). additionally, we have organized and implemented program delivery using a cohort structure, focused coursework on leadership, innovation, change, and action research, linked coursework to students’ professional work, and required students to conduct action research on their own problems/issues in https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-3027 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-6102 markos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 24 their workplaces. leadership, innovation, change, and action research have been pervasive aspects of our edd program. program growth during the pandemic our program was launched in 2006 and graduated its first group of students in 2009. since that time, we have graduated over 360 students from our program. as it was initially envisioned, the program was designed to admit and enroll 20-22 students per year and involve 60-70 students over a three-year period. these students would continue to work in their professional roles in k-12 settings, higher education, and other informal educational settings. after nine years of operating at this level, in 2015 the program was expanded to include online offerings to cohorts of students. with the addition of the online offerings, the program began growing. it expanded from enrolling 20-22 students per year to enrolling 60-66 students each year with a concomitant increase of faculty members to deliver the program and advise students as they conducted their dissertations. as the pandemic was wreaking havoc on educational systems everywhere, our program experienced unexpected growth. in spring 2020 and fall 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, we received more applications than normal and admitted double the number of qualified students, 80 instead of 40. this was consistent with arizona state university’s charter to accept all qualified applicants and provide them with opportunities and support as they pursued doctoral education. additionally, we were asked to engage internationally with a cohort of 18 students from a university in south america and a cohort of seven students funded by a special education training grant. as a result, during the pandemic, we went from offering one section per course each semester to as many as three sections per course (with individual cohorts of about 20 students enrolled in a dedicated course section) each semester. it also meant as we have explained below, we needed additional dip instructor-chairs. like any problem, this also afforded us an opportunity. we responded to this problem by reviewing our efforts and adapting them to meet students’ and program needs in the short term and revising and re-imagining the program in the long term. reacting to program growth during the pandemic we quickly integrated more faculty members into the program to serve as instructors and dip chairs. we hired a student advisor to work solely with the students in our edd program, moving away from the previous model in which the student advisors in our college supported students across all doctoral programs. we hired an additional full-time clinical professor who served as a faculty advisor to the special south american cohort, taught classes for the program, and became a dip instructor-chair. we also hired new adjunct faculty members as lead and co-instructors to aid in delivering courses to the growing number of students. most courses were led by two instructors--a lead or primary instructor and a co-instructor. two instructors in each course allowed for substantive and critical feedback to be provided to students in a timely and professional way. notably, the soaring enrollment and the need for additional faculty and staff members revealed systemic changes were warranted. as new students, faculty, and staff were brought on quickly, the infrastructure to promote and sustain quality experiences for our students needed to be created just as fast. some of the reactionary practices we implemented during the pandemic included utilizing course coordinators, faculty members who designed and typically taught a course, in more strategic ways. we asked course coordinators to create and disseminate instructor guides which included course overviews, module breakdowns, integration of program outcomes, and examples of student feedback for various experiences across each course. the guides were instrumental in helping to quickly bring instructors on board for the new courses they were teaching. we also asked course coordinators to facilitate regular meetings with full-time and adjunct lead and coinstructors teaching the same courses across each semester. paired with the instructor guides, these meetings promoted collaboration and discussion about course content, experiences, and student learning and provided new faculty members teaching in the program with powerful resources and consistent support opportunities. the lsc experience, a hallmark of our program, has been employed since the beginning of our program to support students as they developed, conducted, and wrote about their dips. each lsc has been composed of a faculty member who served as the instructor-chair and worked closely with a group of six to seven students guiding and directing their dissertation work during the final two years of the program. during that time, instructor-chairs held regular meetings of the lsc as students developed an action research dip including writing and defending a proposal, implementing their action research work, gathering and analyzing data, and writing and defending their final dip. during the pandemic, the number of lsc instructor-chairs grew from eight during prepandemic fall 2019 to 32 in fall 2022. many of the lsc instructorchairs brought on during the pandemic were unfamiliar with the program, with the concept of a dip, and were new to mentoring edd students. notably, the lsc has been a four-semester commitment in which the instructor-chair and students established and maintained close working relationships while the instructor-chair supported students in developing, implementing, and writing their dips. thus, bringing on new faculty members to serve as lsc instructor-chairs necessitated a high degree of faculty onboarding and ongoing support. in an attempt to onboard and support lsc instructor-chairs, during the 2021-22 academic year, we began to hold monthly lsc instructor-chair meetings. for an hour at the start of each month, all lsc instructor-chairs were invited to a virtual meeting during which we would spend the first 30 minutes going over general questions and ideas related to the action research process and the dip. then, we would spend 30 minutes in break-out rooms. lsc mentors met with other lsc instructor-chairs supporting students at the same point in their dissertation journeys–lsc 1, lsc 2, lsc 3, or lsc 4– to facilitate discussions. these meetings were a good first step in supporting new faculty members’ service as lsc instructor-chairs, but we quickly realized that each of the four semesters of the lsc had individual needs and questions and required more support. thus, we added information and resources to course shells to serve as repositories of information relevant to each semester. re-imaging the program based on what we learned from program growth during the pandemic we have continued to work with faculty members serving as course coordinators to create and refine instructor guides. we have been engaged in considering how to effectively use co-instructors in using pandemic adaptations for program advancement impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 25 courses. as course coordinators met with course instructors and collected information about courses, we have been using those data to further inform alignment across the program, reimagine the order of courses, and see where and how we can improve course experiences for students and faculty members. during the lsc instructor-chair meetings, we learned about what the program was doing well to prepare students for their dips and what they lacked in curriculum content and research experiences. these informal conversations advised our thinking about course content and made us begin reimagining how lsc cohorts were created. we also learned about the importance of providing support to lsc instructorchairs themselves. the monthly meetings and the lsc instructorchair mentors have helped to create a community among the lsc instructor-chairs that has become a space in which to safely ask questions and share successes and problems they were having as dip dissertation instructor-chairs. reflective questions about dealing with growth for program leaders and faculty members 1. what tensions have you been experiencing as your program has grown? 2. what current supports have you put in place to onboard new faculty /staff/students? 3. what opportunities have been or could be systemically built into your program to support faculty collaboration and faculty mentoring? students maintaining, changing, and losing employment during the pandemic across our program, from coursework through defending their dips, students have centered their work within their workplace, i.e., their local contexts. notably, based on their leadership roles and experiences within their local contexts, students have identified a problem of practice (pop) on which they engage through their dips. students’ knowledge of and familiarity with their local contexts support them in designing and implementing an intervention/innovation as they conduct practice-based research. during the pandemic, our students experienced disruptions in their places of work. some were moved into new roles or new departments within their workplaces. some had to take a new job in a new context. others lost their jobs and were not able to quickly, or ever, find another place of employment. those who were able to maintain their job across the pandemic were also affected. the pandemic changed how work was conducted in employment contexts. students found themselves working from home and having to learn and use new tools for conducting their work remotely. these pandemic-era disruptions to students’ professional workplace settings and changes to work modalities, caused a myriad of disruptions to students’ dips efforts. changes in where they worked or how they worked, for example, in the school/office or remotely, forced many of our students to change their pops and or to change their intervention/innovation design. in response to workplace changes, some students made minor revisions to their pops and moved forward readily during their program and dissertation journeys. by comparison, others engaged in much more substantive changes including having to redefine their pops later in their doctoral journey or be creative to continue research on a pop while transitioning to new workplaces. almost all students had to make changes to their intervention/innovation design and data collection plans. these efforts entailed considerable flexibility on the part of students and faculty members, especially lsc instructor-chairs. reacting to disruptions within students’ professional contexts we have provided various examples illustrating the nature of these revisions. for example, during the pandemic, the institution essentially suspended in-person implementation of the innovation/intervention for dissertations and in-person data collection. these changes were readily accomplished by employing videorecorded modules to deliver the innovation/intervention, which were beneficial in terms of subsequent use and sustainability of the innovation/intervention. notably, quantitative data were collected using online surveys, and qualitative data, generally interview data, were gathered using the audio feature of zoom, which meant students had the benefit of transcript files being available from these interviews. thus, these adaptations, albeit reactionary and often stressful for the student, actually supported students’ efforts. moreover, they afforded opportunities for the intervention/innovation to live on, providing ways to sustain the intervention/innovation. additionally, due to the pandemic, students employed google docs to support and document the implementation of their intervention/innovation across their dip efforts. several students used google docs as a means to gather participants’ reflections and or create a space for virtual collaboration. other students created online communities of practice using slack as a means to provide online interaction and support to those participating in their intervention/innovation, which also served as another source of data for their dips. by comparison, some students were obliged to make major changes such as changes from working with k-12 students and gathering data from them to working with teachers because students were much less accessible from home settings during the pandemic. and in studies where students were examining how k-12 teachers were delivering lessons, which were supposed to be in-person, students had to pivot to explore virtual lessons or later hybrid lessons, which required major revisions of their intervention/innovation implementation and data collection. these major revisions were not limited to k-12 settings. students working in higher education and informal educational spaces and who had planned on implementing their intervention/innovation in person also were required to implement their action research virtually. through all of these experiences, it became evident that faculty members offering coursework and lsc instructor-chairs supervising students’ dip work needed to allow for much more flexibility in how students defined the local context for their dips, revised or changed their pops, and conducted their practice-based research. re-imaging the program based on what we learned from disruptions within students’ professional contexts in re-imaging our program, program leaders and faculty members have advocated for and supported greater flexibility for students’ efforts as they developed their dips by creating opportunities for students to play with their dissertation ideas across the program. for example, students have been asked, allowed, and markos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 26 encouraged to conduct cycles of research in contexts other than their workplace or conduct additional cycles of research to explore a new problem of practice or innovation within courses in the program or during the first semester of their lsc. asking students to imagine other possibilities, provides experiences to fall back on if students need to change their pops or the innovative process for addressing a pop. reflective questions about disruptions within students’ professional contexts 1. how has your program responded to students’ needs for adaptations to their research as they experienced disruptions to their professional workplaces during the pandemic and subsequently? 2. what adaptations presented here might be helpful as you consider your program coursework and research experiences? student well-being during the pandemic during the pandemic, as disease, isolation, and fear set in, the mental, social, and physical well-being of students, faculty, and staff plummeted. individually, we were experiencing the pandemic in distinct ways, and collectively, we were struggling to maintain life, work, and school routines. programmatically, moving in-person courses online left our face-to-face students feeling disconnected. our online students were craving more opportunities to connect with their peers about things within and beyond program learning. our faculty and staff members were struggling to support students who, due to the pandemic, were experiencing multiple layers of compounding issues affecting their efforts in coursework and dips. reacting to student well-being in responding to the course delivery needs of students in our face-to-face program, our initial response was consistent with university directives. we migrated the delivery of our face-to-face courses to synchronous weekly zoom class meetings with an asynchronous online component, which continued through the spring of 2021. using zoom in this way afforded opportunities for us to learn more about the synchronous delivery of coursework, and it hastened the deployment of a hybrid format that replaced face-to-face program delivery. hybrid delivery afforded students greater flexibility and allowed the program to reach a broader state-wide audience as compared to a phoenix-metro, area-based cohort. moreover, the use of synchronous virtual discussions in these hybrid courses provided students and faculty members with connection opportunities weekly to support students’ learning and well-being. to respond to face-to-face students’ perceptions of feeling disconnected, program faculty members offered regular time during zoom class meetings for small group work and asked instructors to hold virtual office hours. students also used zoom to hold study group meetings or cohort meetings. moreover, those students working on their dissertations met frequently with their lsc peers and instructor-chairs using zoom. students used various methods to connect with their peers such as slack, private facebook groups, and other social media platforms, and explored new tools for creating and sharing ideas related to their dips such as miro. notably, it was not just our in-person students who were craving personal connections with others. during the pandemic, our online students desired more personal engagement with their peers because face-to-face interactions in which they typically had engaged at their workplaces were severely curtailed or eliminated. online students, who before the pandemic preferred emails and asynchronous experiences, began to seek out opportunities to connect synchronously with faculty members, staff members, and fellow students via phone and video conferencing tools. during the pandemic, online students in one of our courses asked their instructor if they could conduct course discussion board activities in a new way. they proposed that instead of writing initial and peer response posts on the board, they meet with a group of classmates using zoom and hold virtual conversations. students would record these meetings and submit a link to their recorded conversations as evidence. the synchronous conversations extended students’ learning in powerful ways because the discussions were more authentic, more effectively connected to their practices, and tended to be more thoughtful and thorough in scope. this student-initiated pedagogical shift provided opportunities for learning while simultaneously providing opportunities to connect with their peers. students were grateful for these opportunities. before the pandemic, it was not out of the ordinary for students in the program to experience something that affected their coursework or dip journey. for example, students might have changed jobs or needed to care for an elderly parent. our faculty and staff members were accustomed to supporting students through these experiences. nevertheless, during the pandemic, our students were not just experiencing one thing at a time that affected their doctoral education. instead, the pandemic-era norm was that students were experiencing multiple layers of compounding issues all at the same time (s. till, personal communication, june 8, 2023). for example, students were learning how to teach their high school curriculum remotely, supporting the remote/home school experiences for their children, and dealing with the death of loved ones all at the same time. under such high stress and high anxiety, some students needed to step away from their studies or seek extensions on coursework or dissertation milestones. before the pandemic, program policies and practices supported students if they needed to take a leave of absence or more time to finish a course. as originally intended, students had to meet certain criteria to receive an extension for completing a course, i.e. students had to be in good standing in the course and have completed the majority of the coursework or get approval for a leave of absence, i.e. a student was experiencing a medical emergency, a natural disaster. during the pandemic, program faculty members offered more flexibility in when and how these practices were used. across the pandemic, faculty members approved more incomplete and leave of absence requests than ever before. while providing more flexibility in the approval process was an easy and understandable thing to do. normalizing these supports proved to be a harder task. our students, much like most students in graduate school were high achievers and self-starters. they were used to handling multiple responsibilities successfully and with ease. in many instances, asking for and receiving help was a new experience for our students and one with which most were not comfortable. our faculty and staff members, advisors, and at times, other students in the program, worked collaboratively to offer counsel and support to students. for students who needed extra time to complete a course, faculty members worked with one another across using pandemic adaptations for program advancement impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 27 semesters to provide time and space for students to get caught up while not losing ground in the next semester's courses. faculty members, while keeping course outcomes in mind, re-imagined how assignments in a course could be adjusted, i.e., combined or done differently so that students could complete a course. supporting students in taking a leave of absence also necessitated some new practices. for students in the early stages of the program, before the start of the lsc-1, taking a semester off and returning later was relatively easy to manage. although students who stepped away at this stage left their original cohort of peers, they joined a new cohort and through the remaining courses, were able to build friendships and support systems with their new peers. students taking a leave of absence after already completing lsc-1 required more care and attention. because the lsc has been a small group of students who worked closely with one faculty member to develop, implement, and write their dips, the decision to step aside for a semester had greater consequences. lsc students typically had become very close with their small group of peers and on a tight timeline toward graduation. convincing students that taking a leave during this phase of the program was a good idea and appropriate to their situation, was a harder sell. in response to the larger-than-normal number of students taking a leave of absence during their lsc experience, we modified our lsc structure and created lsc groups that were still led by one faculty member but that were made up of students from different cohorts and different stages in the lsc process. this adjustment afforded students the benefits that come from the lsc experiences: to build and sustain relationships with peers (buss & graves, 2021), to present and receive feedback on their work (buss, 2022), and to receive academic, professional, and emotional support during their dissertation efforts (buss, 2022; buss & allen, 2020). similar to the flexibility we developed to deal with disruptions to students’ professional work contexts, we became more flexible in responding to students' needs for completing coursework and/or taking a leave of absence. keeping student well-being at the center of our efforts during the pandemic promoted successful, innovative practices for supporting students. re-imaging the program based on what we learned about student well-being during the pandemic throughout the pandemic, we learned we could do more and do things differently to support our students and faculty members. we have been focusing on using humanizing language in our policies to support students in our program as they encounter life disruptions. for online students, we have been building opportunities for synchronous connections early on and throughout the coursework. we created a student advisory council so program students have an avenue for voicing concerns. a focus on well-being has been built into meetings, events, and courses. as we considered the matter of students’ well-being, we have been developing additional opportunities for students to interact with their peers. for example, we have modified our doctoral research conference to include student-focused, student-led co-peer mentoring sessions that allow students to interact with one another in areas of their choice. some of the co-peer mentoring sessions have been related to student well-being including sessions such as school, work, and life balance and practicing self-care. these sessions were specifically included to respond to students’ expressed concerns about being afforded more opportunities to connect with others in the edd program. this modification to the doctoral research conference has been implemented on a trial basis, and we have been gathering data on its effectiveness, which has been used to make refinements to the process. finally, we have continued to revisit and revise our practices and policies surrounding incompletes and leaves of absence. although we may be post-pandemic, students in our program still have been in the process of building up their stamina for balancing work, life, and school. some still have been experiencing stress and anxiety that began during the pandemic. faculty and staff members and advisors in our program have continued to prioritize the socioemotional well-being of our students through the addition of new support services and continuing the conversation around the wellbeing of our students and faculty and staff members. reflective questions about student well-being 1. what changes have been noticed regarding student well-being across the pandemic? 2. how has your program responded to student well-being during the pandemic and subsequently? 3. what adaptations presented here might be helpful as you consider supporting student well-being in your program? conclusion in conclusion, we have benefitted from drawing on the theme of re-imagining our program to move beyond reactionary, pandemicrelated, and rapid growth decision-making and onto considerations and adaptations related to program advancement. in the spring of 2023, the faculty program committee began to set aside large chunks of time for program re-imagination. we stepped away from day-to-day teaching and management of the program to think deeply about what we valued about the program, our core values. we considered what curriculum and learning experiences and practices related to our core values and what rapid growth, reactionary pandemic practices, and experiences had taught us. to do this work, we mapped out our meetings for the semester and the objectives for our work together. we brought in an outsider to our program committee to help us see what we could not see as insiders. this individual had participated in the original design of the program in 2004-2006 but had not been associated with the program for over 10 years, and much had changed. she asked us questions we may not have thought to ask ourselves and sometimes made us uncomfortable and defensive. we surveyed students, alumni, and faculty about what to keep, what to cut, and what to add to the program. we discussed what had worked well during the pandemic and what we had learned about flexibility and addressing the wellbeing of our students and faculty members. we ended the semester with a statement of our core values, an analysis of the survey, and more work to do. the pandemic pushed us to make changes quickly and to think differently about our program and our students. what we learned encouraged us to continually re-imagine and improve our program to meet the ever-changing needs of our students, faculty members, college, and community and to prepare for future growth. taken together, responding to program growth and the pandemic provided opportunities for us to carefully consider how we might re-imagine our program to make it more powerful and effective. markos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.394 28 we leave you with a few thoughts for your consideration as you think about re-imagining your programs.  set aside time beyond the usual meeting time for program reimagination including mapping out meetings for the year and determining objectives for the work you will undertake.  bring in outsiders to help you see what might be missing from your insider perspective.  engage in collaborative reflection on pandemic-era challenges, your program’s reactions to those challenges, and which pandemic-era reactions you want to sustain and why.  survey current/former students and faculty members on ideas related to current program strengths and areas for improvement.  consider more flexibility for students including sequencing of their research efforts and allowing for abrupt changes in their local contexts and what that means in terms of their research work in your program.  incorporate a focus on student well-being while designing program adaptations.  revisit and revise your program’s core values to reflect any post-pandemic insights.  as you engage in re-imagining work, keep your core values close and ground all your decisions in your values. references buss, r. r. (2018). using action research as a signature pedagogy to develop edd students’ inquiry as practice skills. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(1), 23–31. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.46 buss, r. r. (2022, april 22). supporting edd students’ dissertation efforts using leader scholar communities ii. [paper presentation]. annual meeting of the american educational research association, san diego, ca. buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.98 carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (n.d.). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.46 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.98 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 59 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 improvement science as a frame for the dissertation in practice: the johns hopkins experience stephen j. pape johns hopkins university stephen.pape@jhu.edu camille l. bryant johns hopkins university cbryan16@jhu.edu ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university rmjohnbull@jhu.edu karen s. karp johns hopkins university kkarp1@jhu.edu abstract the johns hopkins university doctor of education program was developed with the expressed program outcome of developing leaders who possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to rigorously examine educational problems of practice with stakeholders within their context of professional practice using a social justice lens. the purpose of this article is to describe how improvement science principles depicted by bryk et al. (2015) served as a frame for our applied dissertation to support scholar-practitioners to partner with their colleagues in educational institutions and to independently take on the challenges and opportunities they will encounter in their future work. we outline the dissertation through a discussion of these principles and provide three examples of the resulting dissertations and their impact on the scholar-practitioner’s context of professional practice and on them as educational leaders. keywords applied dissertation, dissertation in practice, improvement science, scholar-practitioner rather than a doctoral program that sends education professionals out to transform education from the top-down, our doctor of education (edd) program holds the goal of developing leaders who study, observe, and work in partnership with their colleagues to improve and transform their professional contexts from the inside out. from the preadmissions identification of the problem of practice (pop) to the development of the context-based needs assessment study, the examination of the problem from multiple disciplinary and theoretical lenses, and the design of pilot solutions, our students engage in a doctoral journey that helps them develop their educational diagnostician knowledge, skills, and insights. rather than outsiders telling insider educators what they should do, our program has evolved into one that facilitates the doctoral journey so that our graduates can accurately identify educational problems and opportunities for growth within their organizations, understand the systems within which those problems and opportunities are situated, decipher between the driving factors that are immediately actionable, and calibrate and design potential solutions and policies to pilot, test, improve, and examine both the process of implementation as well as the outcomes of their intervention for participants. not only are the voices, opinions, and experiences of the doctoral students valued in the development of their applied dissertations, but the voices, opinions, and experiences of their practitioner partners are essential in the doctoral journey. our program did not reach this point all at once, this evolution occurred across the first years of the program as we examined, revised, and improved our own program each year, with each new cohort of students, to facilitate the best doctoral experience as our student population continued to grow in diversity of personal backgrounds and professional contexts. the johns hopkins university (jhu) school of education revised its edd degree program in 2012. prior to this time, the goal of our face-to-face edd program was the development of scholars for academic positions. thus, the program was structured and initially functioned similar to doctor of philosophy (phd) programs. to distinguish this newly conceived edd from the phd, we evolved the program to reflect the important work of scholar-practitioners. we established a coherent curriculum provided to our candidates in a cohort model with wrap-around support services to ensure student http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5738-2981 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9326-7665 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5068-7256 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3639-8597 pape, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 60 success. the edd was established to be completed online in three and a half years with the expressed goal of supporting the transition of practitioners to scholar-practitioners who had the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to deliver educational change in a variety of settings. in fall 2012, a faculty committee engaged multiple stakeholders to envision a program that would powerfully grow and enhance the practice of the educational leaders who enrolled and thereby engender growth and improvements in and with their professional organizations. we focused our initial brainstorming efforts on structuring the program using the guidelines set forth by the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped, n.d.) combined with our beliefs in an interdisciplinary foundation. the final product reflected several cped guiding principles, including creating positive change for individuals and communities, providing field-based opportunities to explore contextualized problems, and grounding the doctorate in practical and research knowledge to foster strong profession knowledge (cped, n. d.). in this way, the edd evolved to be more integrated and coherent, more contemporary, and more relevant to the authentic work of those involved in an array of education-related endeavors. furthermore, and surely a foreshadowing of needs to come, the program format was imagined as a virtual experience to extend to a worldwide pool of inspired leaders in education seeking a program that offered greater accessibility with faculty poised to teach an international audience of learners and change agents. finally, unlike the traditional doctoral dissertation, the group imagined an applied dissertation that focused on a significant pop within the doctoral student’s context of professional practice. the pop is the underlying issue identified by students, in agreement with their professional partners in practice, through ongoing observation as they have worked within their context of professional practice. to ensure the support of the organization and to ensure that the pop matched the concerns of the organization, the students identify an executive sponsor within their organization who supports the student in navigating organizational barriers. thus, our graduates are prepared to set a high standard for transformational leadership in education, to apply evidence-based practices to improve educational outcomes, and to meet the vast challenges associated with improving learning outcomes in both public and private educational environments. the purpose of this article is to describe how improvement science principles depicted by bryk et al. (2015) served as a frame for our applied dissertation to support scholar-practitioners to gain the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to partner with their colleagues in educational institutions and to independently take on the challenges they will encounter in their future work, which reflects the third cped guiding principle. we provide evidence of these journeys through three stories of our graduates’ transformation from their voice and perspective. the johns hopkins university edd applied dissertation the jhu edd was designed to develop scholar-practitioners’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions to intensely investigate educational problems of practice and affect consequential and targeted outcomes in education-related enterprises such as software development, instructional design, private for-profit and not-for-profit professional development organizations, as well as prek-16 educational contexts. to do this, we developed the program with several goals for students’ learning, including understanding the system in which pops are situated, empirically examining the factors associated with the pops using rigorous mixed methods research designs to ensure that their intervention accurately reflects the needs of their context, synthesizing literature to understand the potential of interventions given the variation of contexts in which the interventions are enacted, and rigorously understanding both the impact of the intervention on stakeholders as well as proximal outcomes. the jhu edd scholar-practitioner doctoral journey was established on a melding of research and practice. specifically, research outcomes for students involve evaluating and synthesizing extant literature; empirically exploring the contextualized pop; identifying, crafting, and executing an intervention; gathering, organizing, analyzing, and translating findings; and sharing results of their change project as well as an assessment of their approach. the jhu applied dissertation was designed to provide evidence of a doctoral student’s ability and knowledge of the skills necessary to frame an important educational issue, build relationships within the organization to be able to implement an intervention, and evaluate both the process of implementing an intervention as well as outcomes of this intervention. improvement science as a frame for the jhu applied dissertation journey in their description of the evolution of the edd within cped, perry and colleagues (2020) discuss early conversations about the distinguishing features of the dissertation in practice (dip) as it would be termed. several central tenets were agreed upon, “the major focus should be problems of practice, the research should be applied, and development of the product should be built throughout and across coursework” (p. 1). this focus was intended to develop the requisite expertise to effectively impact change in educational organizations as a direct result of the scholar-practitioner’s doctoral training. the expressed goal of the jhu edd was that they would replicate the process of their dissertation beyond the program to examine and intervene with intractable issues observed within the workplace. thus, they would avoid what bryk and colleagues (2015) call “solutionitis, [which] is the propensity to jump quickly on a solution before fully understanding the exact problem to be solved” (p. 24). to achieve the goals of the program, we used bryk and colleagues’ (2015) principles of improvement science as an explicit framework for our dissertation. this use of improvement science in what perry et al. (2020) call a “new mindset and a new dissertation frame” (p. 23) helped us to evolve the focus, nature, and final product of the dissertation within our edd program. the first principle of improvement science requires that we “make the work problemspecific and user-centered” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 21). the jhu program instantiates this principle by focusing on a pop that emanates from the student’s direct and lived observations within their context of professional practice. this principle is implemented as part of the jhu admissions process. students begin their doctoral journey by submitting a personal statement and video responses to questions in their admissions application that describe a significant pop, indicate its importance within education generally as well as specifically in the applicant's context of professional practice, provide initial thinking about factors that may contribute to the pop, situate improvement science as a frame impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 61 their work in a social justice perspective, and articulate how the pop aligns with the candidate’s chosen area of specialization. these specializations are four-course sequences that provide depth in content and research in one area. these specialization areas, including mind, brain, and teaching; entrepreneurial leadership in education; urban leadership; instructional design and online teaching and learning; and technology integration in k-16 education, are a unique feature of the jhu edd program. our students apply to and engage in specialization courses as a cohort. during the first year in the program, our doctoral students develop and refine the pop. program documents shared with students as a resource define three main elements of the pop statement: (1) the broad problem in society; (2) at least three evidentiary statements of the problem, including citations that provide evidence the problem exists in various forms; and (3) how this problem manifests itself in their professional context. in addition, they focus on providing a rationale for the importance of the pop and establishing the pop broadly through the research literature as well as locally through systematic observation and data collection within their professional contexts. once the problem has been established, students investigate factors associated with or potentially contributing to the pop from integrated disciplinary and organizational perspectives. this examination of the literature is framed using systems approaches such as an ecological systems theory (e.g., bronfenbrenner, 1994; bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006; neal & neal, 2013) or related systems perspectives (e.g., cabrera & cabrera, 2015; cabrera et al., 2015), which mirrors the systemic and systematic inquiry reflected within the cped guidelines (cped, n. d.). this focused literature review presents a conceptual framework that proposes interrelationships between the pop and a select number of key factors to establish a rationale for the empirical needs assessment study. the first-year courses also challenge students to investigate their pop from multiple disciplines, including historical, economic, anthropological, and sociological lenses as well as various learning theories. finally, students are introduced to the principles of improvement science (bryk et al., 2015) as a frame for thinking about a potential process for their dissertation. all of this work results in the first chapter of their dissertation, a synthesis of the literature examining the factors related to their pop. students’ work to understand their pop and associated factors is also user-centered as they conduct a needs assessment study (chapter 2 of the dissertation) in their professional context to empirically describe the salient factors from the literature synthesis. students gather empirical evidence through systematic observation, existing data analysis, and the collection of new data to describe the pop and to understand how the potential contributing factors are functioning within their context of professional practice. this examination of the pop supports students’ understanding of the second principle of improvement science, “focus on variation in performance” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 35). through the needs assessment study, students explore the extent to which factors in the literature are manifested within their contexts and under what conditions. by situating the pop within their context of professional practice, this approach allows the practitioner to recognize the variation within their system and the variation between the factors in empirical studies’ contexts and their own contexts. together the synthesis of the literature related to the factors that potentially contribute to the pop and the empirical study to describe the factors within their professional context supports the students to “see the system that produces the current outcomes” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 57), the third principle of improvement science. finally, the students’ work is problem-focused and usercentered by focusing the intervention on the factors in the context of professional practice that may be amenable to improvement based on the practitioners’ position in the organization, their sphere of influence, their development of relationships and partnerships through the doctoral journey, and their empirical study of the factors that are contributing to the pop within their professional context. during the fall of year 2, candidates begin to pursue specialization coursework as they use the factors they identified as pop contributors to pinpoint an existing or curate a bespoke intervention for their specific context, which is the focus of chapter 3. these courses are twofold in purpose as they: 1) build knowledge of a unique specialization and 2) supply the theory and organization for the journey to revealing the final intervention for implementation. by embedding their dissertation components within their specialization courses, students can draw upon new professional knowledge and insights to collaboratively explore potential solutions with their specialization faculty members and their advisors, a hallmark of the jhu edd journey. the fourth principle, “we cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 87), and fifth principle, “use disciplinary inquiry to drive improvement” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 113), are instantiated within our pre-program summer orientation research modules, three-course research methods sequence, dissertation research, and specialization courses. measurement is central to the needs assessment study and rigorous analysis of the intervention through process and outcome evaluations. students begin to build their knowledge of the research process through a distinct learning experience to augment their baseline research methodology knowledge through online summer orientation research methods modules. these modules focus on two essential areas; 1) applying research in the context of professional practice and 2) building the background of the language and specific features of the three main research paradigms used by our students— qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. the goal is to provide students with a strong foundation to launch their coursework as we prepare them as consumers of the vast amount of research they will be exposed to within the program. these include such topics as the language of research, research ethics, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, measurement, research questions and hypotheses, and statistical analysis. each module develops these ideas using a combination of required readings and asynchronous videos by jhu instructors. within their research methods and systematic inquiry i course, students learn the methods that are necessary to empirically examine factors that may contribute to the pop. this course provides a more in-depth look at the three major research paradigms (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodology), than was provided in the pre-orientation modules, and corresponding methods with respect to developing research questions, sampling, operationalizing factors, data collection, and data analysis, to name a few. in this course, students begin applying this knowledge by developing a research plan that will be implemented in the subsequent summer when students take dissertation research credits. that is, during the first summer students make progress on determining the factors from their literature review that manifest within their professional context (year 1 paper). students use this pape, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 62 knowledge in their second year to develop a targeted intervention that addresses the contributing factors of the pop. within the year 2 research courses, candidates focus on learning and applying data analysis approaches for the three research paradigms in research methods and systematic inquiry ii. this course prepares students for their intervention study and supports the refinement of analyses from the year 1 paper. students learn about parametric and non-parametric inferential quantitative analyses for experimental and non-experimental studies such as the t-test, mann-whitney u-test, anova models, correlation, regression, and chi-square tests to name a few. students are also exposed to qualitative analyses focused on establishing trustworthiness such as inter-coder agreement and member checking, as well as coding using first and second-cycle approaches (miles, huberman, & saldaña, 2020). the students then take what they have learned from analyzing quantitative and qualitative data and apply that knowledge to analyzing data using the mixed methods convergent parallel design. finally, in evaluation of education policies and programs, students begin to consider how they will document the process of implementing the intervention and examining both the process of intervention implementation and proximal outcomes of their intervention, which is the focus of chapter 4 of the dissertation. in this course, students learn about theories of treatment, logic models, process and outcome evaluation questions, threats to validity, and the role of improvement science and mixed methos research in conducting a process and outcome evaluation. the third year continues the focus in a candidate’s area of specialization as they write about their intervention implementation and research results (chapter 5). in their final specialization courses, candidates develop multiple products for disseminating their findings to both practitioner and research audiences, including conference proposals, research posters, policy briefing papers, and more. these courses not only provide essential knowledge and experiences for the scholar-practitioner's academic development, but they provide products that are applicable to both their dissertation and their professional practice. the following sections provide examples of students’ stories that exemplify the potential outcomes of this dissertation process. living out the principles: examples from the field in the following section, we illustrate the dissertation process and outcomes for several of our students by providing examples of our students’ dissertation stories that align with improvement principles and consider the impact of the program anecdotally on the individual and the organization in which the individual works. for each of these stories, we point to the ways in which elements of these projects exemplified the improvement science principles. rachna shah, special educator, india dr. rachna shah was a special educator within a special needs private school in an urban district in india. the students’ profiles ranged from mild to moderate disabilities, including learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, down syndrome, fragile x, and others. within this context, students’ english comprehension achievement revealed consistently low outcomes over a three-year period. further, many students were not making progress despite the inclusion of improved english comprehension as a goal of their individual education plans. a mixed methods needs assessment study was conducted with 24 students, 4 special educators, and 30 parents. the student researcher examined students’ comprehensive exam scores, teachers’ self-efficacy, beliefs about the role of the learner and teacher in the learning process, and parents’ perceptions of the home literacy environment. the review of literature informed the factors explored. the needs assessment results indicated teachers’ instructional practices and beliefs hindered students’ english comprehension achievement. these factors were targeted by the intervention. the intervention was implemented with nine english language arts (ela) teachers and included modifying the current traditional workshop-oriented professional development model (with insufficient teachers’ active participation, fixed schedules, and lack of follow-up support structures embedded within the teacher’s classrooms) to embed it in constructivist principles, which emphasized the active involvement of participants (desimone, 2009; guskey, 2002; ng & tan, 2009). in addition, the model offered the ela teachers at the school opportunities for reflection (farrell & ives, 2015; schön, 1983) using three different platforms, participant-driven workshops, professional learning community meetings, and coaching sessions. the findings revealed that teachers regarded the intervention pd sessions as positively impacting their reflective practices, increasing their awareness of discrepancies between their beliefs and classroom practices, and enhancing their perceptions of knowledge and skills in constructivist teaching and learning. this further led to significant changes in teacher’s beliefs from traditional to more constructivist approaches and self-efficacy when compared to the needs assessment findings. further, the teacher’s classroom practices improved as examined using an observation protocol based on the danielson framework (danielson, 2013). dr. shah commented the following in an email reflecting her experience through the dissertation: the study allowed school leaders and teachers to better understand the associated drivers of the stagnant and low reading comprehension of students. it allowed me to plan the intervention based on research findings rather than assumptions. it significantly influenced the school’s approach to pd as the focus shifted from content delivery to teacher’s beliefs about learning and teaching. as a result, the school substituted the traditional workshop model of pd to incorporate active learning opportunities. also, the plc meetings were extended beyond the english department to other subject areas. the coaching sessions also continued after the study, as the teachers and leaders found coaching to positively influence the teacher’s beliefs and instructional practices. the intervention also highlighted the need to redesign the preservice teacher training program to address teacher’s beliefs and efficacy. personally, the study revealed the need for data collection prior to intervention, the importance of addressing implicit factors (teacher’s beliefs) to improve pedagogical practices in the classroom, and provided me with several opportunities to appreciate a research-based approach in learning and teaching (r. shah, personal communication, september 4, 2020). dr. shah’s professional context includes students whose learning needs require the special education staff to “focus on improvement science as a frame impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 63 variation in performance” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 35), the second improvement science principle, rather than focusing on an average success score of one general type of intervention. because students' needs are highly diverse amongst this school population and the classroom settings were each unique systems, the intervention integrated an adaptive approach that included a variety of options. while the foundational content of the pd remained consistent, the modality of supporting teachers’ learning and practice improvements varied based upon their needs. this multi-tiered approach to supporting teachers’ professional learning illuminates how a “focus on variation in performance” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 35) can help schools adapt interventions to specific contexts rather than apply a generic solution to a problem. further, this study exemplified the fourth and fifth improvement science principles, “we cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 87) and “using disciplined inquiry to drive improvement” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 113). through a rigorous mixed methods research design, dr. shah was able to show a significant change in teacher’s beliefs from traditional to more constructivist approaches, improved self-efficacy, and improved classroom practices as examined using the danielson framework (danielson, 2013). jacob giessman, assistant principal, maine dr. jacob giessman was an assistant principal in maine when the issue of disciplinary disparities surfaced within his school. there was an over-representation of black male students involved in school disciplinary matters, and he was particularly concerned because discipline within the school was part of his role. during his needs assessment study, he examined quantitative disciplinary data to establish that black males were over-represented, and this over representation was not explained by other demographic factors such as free and reduced lunch or english language learner status. this finding raised the question about some common internal narratives excusing the problem. through his needs assessment study, he highlighted for the school community that staff attributed the problem to cultural differences although students attributed it to adult racism and sexism, which he reported wasn't very easy for the adults to hear or process. for his intervention, he worked with various stakeholders and allies to help students and families assert culturally responsive behavioral norms that they believed in for themselves. the intervention resulted in a set of guidelines for behavior that emanated from the students and families themselves. these guidelines continued to evolve as a frame for the disciplinary system within the school. in follow-up communication, jake reflected that it was misguided to accept the adult narrative and to make student stakeholders do the labor of articulating and executing solutions. the dissertation was a personal journey for jake as he explored both his work as assistant principal and the community’s reactions to this ongoing examination of the school community and its disciplinary practices. he reported the following about the work the year follow completion of the dissertation. we regrouped as a school the following year and tried a slightly different tactic, engaging a wide variety of stakeholders in crafting culturally responsive behavioral norms that apply to all stakeholders, including teachers and staff. this is happening in tandem with ongoing equity trainings and is part of a general troubling of the concretized power dynamic between adults and kids in our school. i would say that the dissertation was one in-depth and formalized step in an ongoing iterative process. where it didn't affect the change it hoped for, it at least shook up problematic narratives. it certainly brought the topic of discipline disparities to the community table repeatedly over the course of several years and primed the community to engage ever more deeply with the problem. the project was yet another impactful professional moment of destabilizing my worldview. it repeatedly unsettled me in ways that i needed to be unsettled. it made me more conscious of what i don't know, what i am at risk of getting wrong, and what i need to dig into. i came into the program ready to write a theoretical or critical dissertation. having to ground it in actual action in the field was an important stretch for me. it would have been much easier to read a bunch of things and just saying something smart about them. i appreciated that the jhu applied dissertation jhu applied dissertation didn't let me off that easy. i also appreciated the level of rigor that was expected. (j. giessman, personal communication, february 3, 2021) dr. giessman’s doctoral journey allowed him to examine the disparities in the disciplinary outcomes data and find an overrepresentation of black students experiencing disciplinary penalties. rather than design an intervention to address student behavior, dr. giessman explored the perceptions of this situation from different levels of the system, which included the educators’, students’, and parents’ perceptions. these opposing opinions about the causes of the disparities in disciplinary outcomes provided an opportunity for the school community to better “see the system that produces the outcomes” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 57), an example of the third principle in practice. these opposing opinions about the causes of the disparities in disciplinary outcomes provided an opportunity for the school community to “focus on variation in performance” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 35) to better “see the system that produces the outcomes” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 57), an example of the third improvement science principle in practice. seeing the system factors allowed dr. giessman to begin “an ongoing iterative process” of dismantling and destabilizing former ways of thinking, knowing, and acting between teachers and students, an approach that he may not have taken without the applied dissertation work. thus, the systems approach allowed dr. geissman to catalyze an ongoing community change process toward a more culturally responsive and socially just school community. razia kosi, facilitator, school district office of diversity, equity and inclusion, maryland dr. razia kosi began her career as a social worker in a midatlantic public school district where she currently is employed. she is an immigrant who came to this country as a child and is the first woman in her family to attend college. she spent the last 15 years leading cultural proficiency professional learning teams and at the start of her edd program at jhu, she was a facilitator in the district’s newly formed office of diversity, equity, and inclusion. the district, along with the nation, was grappling with understanding and changing the impact of systemic racism in education. the district’s focus on the achievement gap was unfortunately contributing to a deficit mindset in which black and brown students and their families were viewed as problems that needed to be fixed rather than pape, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 64 examining the district’s systemic barriers affecting educational outcomes. from the needs assessment study, she identified evidence of a lack of understanding about the historical context and current policies supporting systemic racism. these results pointed to the district’s educational leaders needing to increase their understanding of the systems of oppression and privilege affecting disparate outcomes between black and brown students as compared to white and asian students. additionally, it was important to build learning communities among school administrators so they could practice shared vulnerability through discussions about their own racial identity development and how it affects their efforts in leading their staff toward equity and racial justice. dr. kosi developed a professional learning intervention during the dual pandemics of racial injustice and covid-19 that built on the three areas of cultural competence, equity, and social justice. the face-to-face sessions shifted to a summer virtual experience for 21 school administrators to change from initial self-awareness to collective efficacy. the study resulted in the following findings: (a) school administrators reported a need for additional professional learning on equity and social justice, (b) transformative learning increased both the participants' engagement and culturally proficient leadership practices, (c) reflecting on racial identity development increased leaders' understanding of how racial identity affects their leadership and the students' experiences in schools, and (d) professional learning communities among school administrators offer a vital opportunity for leaders to increase collective efficacy in discussing racial justice and equity. additionally, arts integration, through poetry writing increased the leaders' empathy and understanding of others’ experiences. this activity increased the school administrators' willingness to model vulnerability with their staff to examine inequitable practices within the school and classrooms. in an email from dr. kosi, she stated: the jhu edd experience was one of the most challenging and rewarding endeavors i have participated in. one unexpected benefit was how well-prepared i was to adjust to a virtual learning environment during the 2020-21 covid 19 pandemic. i shared tools and strategies to engage participants with online professional learning. we were even able to have conversations about highly sensitive issues, such as discussing race and racism. my own intervention for my study had to quickly pivot from a face-to-face pd to wholly online within a matter of weeks. i was able to revamp the training using the online tools and best practices for adult learning. the courses in the entrepreneurial leadership in education program specialization better prepared me to co-author and lead state and district policy on educational equity, which codified the important changes needed to actualize equity in our district and state. mixed methods research has influenced how i support administrators in their leadership fellows projects and professional learning. the administrators see the value in talking with students and staff to collect qualitative data and give voice to the quantitative data showing disparities in student discipline and enrollment in upper-level courses. the pain and frustration expressed by the students through this data collection offers insight into the students beyond the numbers. i’m excited to be an jhu soe doctoral alum, not only because it means that i completed my doctorate, but also because i (and others in my context) value what i gained from the program. (r. kozi, personal communication, february 3, 2021). through her work at the school district level, dr. kosi conducted her needs assessment by examining perceptional data from school leaders about their knowledge and understanding of the history and the policies that were producing racist outcomes within her system. she knew that the district “[could] not improve at scale what they could not measure” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 87), the fourth principle. by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data to provide a holistic view of the systemic problems, the school leaders came to a consensus on how to approach the improvement of this problem. thus, she “used disciplined inquiry to drive improvement” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 113), the fifth principle. ultimately, this comprehensive mixed-methods inquiry catalyzed a district-wide intervention to improve personal growth, professional practices, and system-wide dismantling of racial inequities. conclusion as we finish our 9th year of the program, we strive to embody the ideals and principles that we uphold for our students in the continual examination of the successes and challenges of our work in this program and in the development of the doctoral journey for our scholar-practitioners. their stories illuminate how these doctoral dissertations aligned with the principles of improvement science as outlined by bryk et al. (2015). each of these stories depicts a pop that was the focus of the student’s dissertation making each dissertation “problem-specific and user-centered” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 21), the first principle. further, the information they gained by reviewing the literature related to their pop and by conducting a descriptive empirical needs assessment study informed by this literature enabled them to “focus on variation in performance” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 35) within their contexts, the second principle. these activities supported the scholar-practitioner to “see the system that produces the current outcomes” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 57), bryk and colleagues’ third principle. finally, each of these stories was embedded within a rigorous process and outcome evaluation, which exemplify the fourth and fifth principles, “we cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 87) and “use disciplinary inquiry to drive improvement” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 113). the sixth improvement science principle, “accelerate learning through networked communities” (bryk et al., 2015, p. 141) has been more elusive to instantiate. in a couple of instances, groups of students have been working together with some advisors in structures that approximate networked improvement communities (nics). this model is being piloted within the program to allow some groups of students to share resources such as instruments so that we may be able to draw stronger connections across dissertations leading to more generalizable outcomes. through this pilot of the nics, we hope to explore how building networks of students focused on improvement within sectors of the educational enterprise may nurture the relationships and structures that will lead to far-reaching educational improvement amongst and between our graduates. we will look to these students’ stories, their narratives, and their insights to help partner with us in the growth and improvement of our own organization to continue to point the way forward in our contributions to the field of education and educational organizations improvement science as a frame impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 65 around the world. our work provides several important implications for the field that exemplify the principles of improvement science. to enact such projects, students need to be supported early in the program to examine their pop within their context well. this is often problematic as students’ research acumen is nascent when they begin the program. we have struggled to strike the right balance within the research methods sequence between the needs of the scholar-practitioner and the canon of the research community. other programs are encouraged to consider the types of research methodological training needed to support scholar-practitioners across their careers. we have found the sequence of experiences, however, to be powerful for our students who report that their professional work becomes “dissertation like” as they emerge from our program. we have learned through their challenges and successes that this principled approach to applied scholarpractitioner work can not only result in improvements in education in general, but also contribute to dismantling systems of oppression and constructing socially just education communities. references bronfenbrenner, u. (1994). ecology models of human development. in t. n. postlewaite & t. husen (eds.), international encyclopedia of education (2nd ed., vol. 3, pp. 1643-1647). elsevier. bronfenbrenner, u., & morris, p. a. (2006). the biological model of human development. in w. damon & r. m. lerner (eds.), handbook of child psychology: theoretical models of human development (6th ed., vol. 1, pp. 793-828). john wiley & sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0114 bryk, a. s., gomez, l. m., grunow, a., & lamahieu, p. g. (2015). learning to improve: how america's schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. cabrera, d., & cabrera, l. (2015). systems thinking made simple: new hope for solving wicked problems. (2nd ed.). plectica publishing. cabrera, d., cabrera, l., & powers, e. (2015). a unifying theory of systems thinking with psychosocial applications. systems research and behavioral science, 32(5), 534-545. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2351 carnegie project on the education doctorate (n. d.). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework danielson, c. (2013). the 2013 framework for teaching evaluation instrument. charlotte danielson. desimone, l. m. (2009). improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: toward better conceptualizations and measures. educational researcher, 38(3), 181-199. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08331140 farrell, t. s. c., & ives, j. (2015). exploring teacher beliefs and classroom practices through reflective practice: a case study. language teaching research, 19(5), 594-610. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814541722 guskey, t. r. (2002). professional development and teacher change. teachers and teaching, 8(3), 381-391. https://doi.org/10.1080/135406002100000512 miles, m.b., huberman, a. m., and saldaña, j. (2020). qualitative data analysis: a methods sourcebook. sage publications, inc. neal, j. w., & neal, z. p. (2013). nested or networked? future directions for ecological systems theory. social development, 22(4), 722-737. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12018 ng, p. t., & tan, c. (2009). community of practice for teachers: sensemaking or critical reflective learning?. reflective practice, 10(1), 37-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802652730 perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for committee members, and their students. myers education press. schön, d. a. (1983). the reflective practitioner-how professionals think in action. the basic books, inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2351 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08331140 https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168814541722 https://doi.org/10.1080/135406002100000512 https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12018 https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802652730 pape, et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.241 66 stephen j. pape johns hopkins university camille l. bryant johns hopkins university (1) ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university (2) karen s. karp johns hopkins university (3) the johns hopkins university edd applied dissertation improvement science as a frame for the jhu applied dissertation journey living out the principles: examples from the field rachna shah, special educator, india jacob giessman, assistant principal, maine razia kosi, facilitator, school district office of diversity, equity and inclusion, maryland conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.436 48 supporting latinx first-generation professionals enrique velasco fuentes san josé city college evelasco37@gmail.com abstract institutions must adequately support latinx first-generation professionals if we are to make significant progress in our racial equity work. while in the educational leadership doctoral program (candel) at the university of california, davis, my personal and academic experiences led me to conduct qualitative research on the experiences of latinx first-generation professionals in student affairs. i sought to understand how institutional norms influenced their self-efficacy and how latino and latina professionals experienced them differently. among the findings was the pervasiveness of professional invalidation and how latina participants viewed their perceived shortcomings as personality traits, compared to latino participants who viewed them externally and more skills based (fuentes, 2021). these are critical findings that colleges and universities need to assess to understand how workplace norms contribute negatively to their experiences. as higher education institutions continue to work towards better serving latinx first-generation students, latinx-first generation professionals must not be ignored or taken for granted. keywords latinx, first-generation professional, institutional norms first-generation experiences for latinx students can continue as professionals. institutions approach support for latinx firstgeneration students with distinct culturally relevant strategies. there is an understanding that more than the status quo is needed. however, this intentional support has not been developed for latinx first-generation professionals in student affairs. it seems to be assumed that their first-generation experience simply ends when they graduate. for institutions to better support students, they must also understand the experiences of the latinx first-generation professional staff at their institutions. they are the first in their families to work in a “white-collar” role and as a result have many new experiences, expectations, decisions, and conflicts that their parents never had to navigate for work. it is inadequate for institutions to hire latinx first-generation professionals and then ignore them. institutions need to cultivate and consistently nurture a professional environment and structures where they can grow and thrive. my first-generation journey my family moved to california from colima, mexico shortly after i turned 5 years of age. my parents were primarily agricultural workers and performed arduous manual labor for low pay. occasionally they would take my brother and me with them to help. on these occasions, they made it a point to explain that this was our future if we did not pursue an education. that message, or ultimatum, stuck with me. i knew i had their support as i navigated undergrad, but i also knew that there was only so much help they were able to provide because they did not know how the american higher education system worked. as the oldest of two, i was the first in my family to graduate high school, the first to earn a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, a doctoral degree, and become an academic professional. my parents consistently emphasized the importance of education but were not able to help with the specifics of the process. they were understandably disconnected from what my day-to-day looked like during my undergraduate studies. how do i explain my stress about the financial aid process every year? how do i explain my thought process around majoring in latin-american studies and my growing annoyance with “what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that” type of questions? how do i explain to them that, despite their assumptions, not everyone who graduates strolls into a full-time job the day after? i graduated in the summer of 2008, at a time when the job market and economy seemed to be getting worse by the hour. how do i express my panic as i approached graduation and prepared to head out into the “real world”? i knew i had family and friends rooting for me, but it continued to feel like the pressure was solely on me and i felt alone. like my student experience, as a latino first-generation professional, i didn’t know what i didn’t know. for example, trying to figure out the differences and choosing between 457(b), 401(k), and 403(b) savings accounts seemed like a massive decision that could have big implications for me later in life. this felt not too dissimilar from the daunting task of selecting a major as an undeclared student. my parents never had the opportunity to choose between retirement options. they were extremely limited in their ability to share advice around job searches, professional development, on-boarding, negotiating salary, and career advancement strategies that were relevant to my career goals. as i settled into a career in higher education, i began having a sense of déjà vu. while i was gaining valuable experience, i felt like i was having to figure things out professionally on my own. the experience felt familiar to me, because i was in a sense reliving my https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5583-7965 velasco fuentes impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.436 50 journey as an undergraduate student. just as i felt the university had somehow made a mistake in admitting me, i was just as sure there might have been some kind of error when i got hired for a new role. it was conversations with colleagues and their frustrations about a lack of onboarding, training, and support when i became conscious of a pattern. it was noteworthy that many of my colleagues were also the first in their families to hold a white-collar professional position. i couldn’t help but see a split screen with one side showing the way higher education talked about and supported latinx first-generation students and the other displaying the lack of support provided to latinx first-generation professionals. it is understood that we need to meet latinx students where they are academically and humanize them to support them holistically. we need to see them as students with just as much promise as anyone else, while acknowledging their socio-economic background and how they may be racialized in the american educational system (rodriguez, 2021). however, this approach seems not to be applicable to latinx first-generation professionals. institutional norms dictate that we see them as workers with no context outside of their job, and whose only role is to produce (fuentes, 2021). it was the exception when relationship-building was prioritized. knowing who the person was, and understanding their motivation for working in higher education, did not seem to be prioritized. my candel reframe candel’s cohort structure and experience was vital because it connected me to colleagues from various professional and personal backgrounds. through discussions, i had the opportunity to learn from their professional experiences, including their goals, hopes, fears, and frustrations. seeing some cohort-mates transition into different roles also gave me insight on how they approached the interview process, the expectations they had of themselves, their teams, and their supervisors as they began new positions. what was also beneficial for me was understanding everyone’s concept of what leadership was. there were examples of leadership being demonstrated every time we met through brave conversations in the classroom and sharing strategies on managing challenging circumstances. most importantly, my time in candel through courses, discussions, and dissertation work, gave me the tools, opportunity, and confidence to begin finding my voice. the tools included theoretical frameworks such as critical race theory, latcrit, and social cognitive career theory. additionally, the ability to actively listen to understand viewpoints i disagreed with was a skillset that was further strengthened throughout the course of the program. when i began candel in july of 2017, i saw myself as a fly on the wall. i was there to learn, be a sponge and soak up as much knowledge as possible. i did not see myself as someone who could offer up ideas, perspectives, or information that would be meaningful to conversations. before the program, i also viewed education policy and its administration too simplistically. i did not fully appreciate the social constructs and assumptions imbedded in how education is structured in the united states. during the program that slowly changed, thanks to my professors, cohort-mates, and advisor who pushed me to further critically analyze these structures and find my voice in the process. every candel course contributed immensely to my transformation into the scholar practitioner i am today. one of those courses was organization structures and change: curriculum and instruction issues. this course was helpful for me as a student, not only because it was primarily facilitated discussions, but because we were strongly encouraged by our professor to question educational norms by “noodling” on subjects and reflecting on our assumptions about them. for example, we were pressed to think through the need for grade levels. must we organize students in this way? although our professor was not necessarily arguing for or against grade levels, he guided us as a group to a space where we could re-imagine and question fundamental norms about our education system. for me, this was a liberating exercise. it reminded me that the many rules that act as roadblocks to racial equity are human-made. we do also have the power to reimagine what the future can look like. it can sometimes be difficult to envision the future that you are fighting for. if your vision of it becomes blurry, in practice our work may suffer and feel stale. i appreciated the course, culturally relevant media experiences and teaching, for stretching the way i think. the graphic novel, unflattening by nick sousanis (2015) was used as text for the class, which was something i had not seen used before in a course. candel expanded on the complexity and nuance of how education is a society mirror and a catalyst for change. an example is how educational policy and law can play out in practice compared to what was expected theoretically. the curriculum and discussions with cohort mates were validating reminders of how complicated our profession can be. i want to also express my gratitude for my dissertation chair, dr. marcela cuellar. i intentionally delayed my research to have the opportunity and privilege of working with her. i learned how much work goes into writing clearly and precisely. i am grateful that no shortcuts were allowed to be considered. it was at times challenging to meet the high expectations asked of me for the literature review, writing, data collection, analysis, and presentation of findings. however, along with that rigor, it was incredibly rewarding to meet the big and small milestones while receiving her amazing support. i will always be appreciative of this transformative experience. the candel program and the dissertation research i conducted has increased my focus on how latinx first-generation professionals in higher education experience their workplace. this is also critical for me because understanding their experiences grounds my leadership. now more than ever, this allows me to intentionally work backwards from their experiences when providing coaching and leadership. my own leadership has been centered deeper around the “how”. this is not in a logistical sense, as in how we could modify or build a program, event, or support structures, but in how latinx firstgen professionals may be experiencing the work that goes into the building of support structures along with the environment they do this in. through my dissertation research, i sought to dig deeper and understand what the experiences are for latinx first-generation professionals in student affairs. the experiences of latinx firstgeneration professionals in student affairs for my research, i interviewed five (5) latina and four (4) latino first-generation professionals and used two questions to guide my work (fuentes, 2021): supporting latinx first-generation professionals impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.436 51 1. how do institutional norms influence the professional selfefficacy of latinx firstgeneration student affairs professionals? 2. to what extent do norms influence latinos and latinas differently? social cognitive career theory (lent et al., 2002) and critical race theory (delgado & stefancic, 2001) frameworks were used to understand how institutional norms influenced participants in my study. one of the findings included the ways participants perceived the support they received. divisions, departments, colleges, and whole institutions may have strategies to support staff, but ultimately the support that is felt is in the day-to-day work and its implementation by managers. this is where participants had mixed experiences. as one participant described, “i think that the thought of support [from the department] is there, but it’s not always felt.” this inconsistency was also experienced during onboarding, which was primarily the responsibility of their direct supervisor. some received what they felt was great onboarding, while others did not believe theirs was helpful. at times this was a result of being just as new to their role as their supervisor was to their own, or the supervisor position being vacant when they began their role (fuentes, 2021). the onboarding experience was important for participants, because there was a lot to navigate both in their new role and in understanding their new working environment. in the most challenging of scenarios, participants felt they were left to figure things out on their own. they felt they had to have the agency needed to seek out support on their own. this was analogous to what they needed to do during their undergraduate experience. in fact, some participants explicitly connected their experience of figuring things out on their own as first-generation professionals to their experience navigating undergraduate life. one participant explained, “to me that was nothing new, because those skills were built as i grew up and being a first-gen student. you didn’t have those help agents in your corner” (fuentes, 2021). this is an example of how participants displayed their navigational capital (yosso, 2005). yosso (2005) described this as a skillset drawn on to “maneuver through structures of inequality permeated by racism” (p. 80). beyond onboarding, another important element of support was professional development. most participants cited professional development as a key element to feeling supported by their department. they valued the opportunity to grow in their roles and be more involved in their departments, college, and/or university. those that had supervisors who made professional development opportunities available to them felt appreciative of this. one of the more interesting findings involved the way participants perceived workplace politics and how they navigated them. politics was seen as a negative, and something to be avoided if possible. from this norm of avoidance, a type of advocacy paradox emerged. participants noted that they would only speak up if they absolutely needed to advocate for students. many latinx professionals work in the higher education field to support and advocate for students. advocacy can be considered something central to the work. however, speaking up for students’ needs was not considered the norm by participants. it was seen as a last resort because it was considered to be engaging in politics. something in their work environments seemed to dissuade them from engaging in the valuable act of student advocacy. while the existence of the advocacy paradox is troubling, perhaps the most concerning finding is the manner in which professional invalidation can be an insidious institutional norm (fuentes, 2021). professional invalidation came in the form of experiences that communicated to participants that they were not seen as legitimate professionals in the spaces they were in. for example, some participants were consistently mistaken for students where they worked, and/or not having the knowledge needed to do their job because of their perceived youth (fuentes, 2021). this is concerning because it can erode a sense of belonging within an institution for latinx first-generation professionals. in her work, rendon (1994) found that latinx students can feel invalidated as students and not seen as capable. this seems to show up yet again in the professional realm. if we are working towards better staff retention, less burn-out, and a more supportive atmosphere, this form of othering must be acknowledged and addressed. in understanding the experiences of latinx first-generation professionals, it is also important to understand how latino males and latina women experience their workplaces differently. for latinas in my study, there was a greater internalization of perceived shortcomings compared to their male counterparts (fuentes, 2021). latino male participants framed their perceived shortcomings externally as skills they can work on to develop as professionals. alternatively, one latina participant noted that she did not have a very good “poker face” which she felt may cause misunderstandings (fuentes, 2021). another mentioned that she needed to be more assertive. latina participants appeared to connect their perceived professional shortcomings with who they were as people. higher education as a workplace needs to fundamentally transform if latina first-generation professionals feel they need to change who they are as people to be accepted in their professional spaces. leadership and racial equity work in higher ed how can higher education lead towards racial equity for students while not subjecting staff to an environment of professional martyrdom that disincentivizes rest, sustainability, and mental health? professional inequities in the form of unrealistic expectations, toxic work environments, and limited support runs counter to the goal of providing equitable services for students. the opportunity to better understand how institutional norms impact latinx first-generation professionals in student affairs can shed light on some of the challenges that arise for them. with a better understanding comes the capacity to partner in improving support structures, including professional development, on-boarding, and performance evaluations practices, and help address these challenges. the support structures can also consist of campus/district-wide processes or policies to more individualized support. districts may already have structured support such as an orientation where retirement options are provided along with the process for selecting them. if it is only a review of the steps needed to set up an account, this is insufficient. it should consider the latinx first-generation professional experience. the current process assumes that new colleagues are minimally familiar with the context or generalities of what it means to set up a retirement plan and the financial planning that accompanies it. it also fails to consider the potential distrust of financial institutions due to the history of latinx velasco fuentes impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.436 52 low-income communities being the targets of predatory lenders (alvarado, 2021). retirement and financial planning training that acknowledges cultural and socio-economic context is one in which latinx first-generation professionals will benefit the most from. the ability to navigate one’s work environment is important for a new professional. understanding what kind of skillsets are needed to not only survive but to thrive is key. just as important for new professionals is learning how to critically analyze and understand the different types and norms of the learning environments in which they work. is it the norm to speak about experiences as “sink-or-swim”? is the culture primarily one of collaboration or competition? this is an instance where a formal mentorship program within a district/college can be beneficial. there is a lot to navigate and having at least one mentor can alleviate the potentially isolating feeling of starting a new role, particularly if one is new to the institution. mentorship can also increase job satisfaction and provide insight on career advancement (underhill, 2006). understanding that some professionals of color may have the tendency to under-sell themselves can help leaders and mentors identify or develop professional development opportunities that guide latinx firstgeneration professionals through the process of resume and cover letter revisions, as well as mock interview opportunities. it is important for first-generation professionals to acknowledge their own accomplishments and growth. institutions must provide growth opportunities that go beyond job-specific training. professional development was identified as one of the more impactful pieces in how latinx first-generation professionals felt supported (fuentes, 2021). participants valued the ability to grow professionally and personally, and they appeared to value the fundamental existence of the opportunities (fuentes, 2021; dinise-halter, 2017). these opportunities should go beyond training on excel or new software. it is important to also provide opportunities to attend conferences, networking, and tuition reimbursement for graduate school. seminars or structured trainings should include the norms and procedures of committee work, task forces, and governing boards. additional opportunities can include access to professional development related to being on community non-profit boards. one of the biggest opportunities for structural change revolves around the performance appraisal process. it is an important point of convergence where multiple factors influencing self-efficacy for latinx first-generation professionals (fuentes, 2021). professionals already are in their roles with a high sense of responsibility especially if they are working with marginalized communities (garcia, 2015; wesley, 2018). they are not only providing mental and physical labor but also emotional labor (mena, 2015). if a performance appraisal notes that someone did not meet certain goals, this has the potential to be internalized, affect self-efficacy, and how professionals see themselves. as one participant in my study noted: it’s really frustrating as well to know, “well, i really did a lot, and you’re telling me that i’m not doing enough [...] it’s also difficult to give more when you’re already tired of giving your all [...] you’re overextend[ed at] your work, and you’re staying longer; you’re doing all of this, and it’s not reflected as you [would] like it to be reflected. (fuentes, 2021, p. 53) when working with latinx first-generation professionals, it is key to center how they experience their workplace in any conversation around the evaluation of their work and projects. they do not work in a vacuum. an evaluation of how projects are going also should not happen once a year, or even once a quarter. this should be an ongoing conversation, and one where the onus is not solely on them to provide their supervisor a list of accomplishments for an entire year. additionally, the experience should not feel like a negotiation. an evaluation of their work should leave them feeling supported, challenged, validated, and proud of their work. the process should be one where everyone understands next steps, how they will work towards ongoing or new goals, and how these goals will be measured. conclusion reimagining the workplace and being intentional about how we can better support latinx first-generation professionals is more important than ever. we cannot expect to sustainably work towards equitable experiences and outcomes for black and brown students if we are not considering the work environments these professionals are navigating. this is especially true for latinx first-generation professionals as the number of latinx students continues to increase. representation is critical in retention and success of students of color, and the effects of not supporting the staff who mirror the students will perpetuate inequities. references alvarado, j. v. (2021). predatory lending in low-income latinx communities. [university honor’s program thesis, california state university, long beach]. scholarworks. delgado, r., & stefancic, j. (2012). critical race theory: an introduction (2nd ed.). new york university press. dinise-halter, a. (2017). challenge and support: the needs of first time professionals in student affairs. college student affairs journal, 35(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1353/csj.2017.0009 fuentes, e. v. (2021). exploring the experiences of latinx first-generation professionals in student affairs [doctoral dissertation, university of california, davis]. garcia, g. a. (2015). exploring student affairs professionals’ experiences with the campus racial climate at a hispanic serving institution (hsi). journal of diversity in higher education, 9(1), 20–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039199 lent, r. w., brown, s. d., & hackett, g. (2002). social cognitive career theory. career choice and development, 4(1), 255–311. mena, t. c. (2015). a few of us (algunos de nosotros): a multiple case study using critical race theory to examine lived experiences of latino/a senior student affairs officers at selected public and private two-and four-year colleges and universities. [doctoral dissertation, florida atlantic university]. rendon, l. i. (1994). validating culturally diverse students: toward a new model of learning and student development. innovative higher education, 19, 33–51. rodriguez, s. (2021). “they let you back in the country?”: racialized inequity and the miseducation of latinx undocumented students in the new latino south. the urban review, 53(4), 565–590. sousanis, n. (2015). unflattening. harvard university press. underhill, c. m. (2006). the effectiveness of mentoring programs in corporate settings: a meta-analytical review of the literature. journal of vocational behavior, 68(2), 292–307. wesley, a. (2018). managing multiple identities: the intersection of race and gender for black female student affairs professionals in predominantly white institutions. [doctoral dissertation, capella university] yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1353/csj.2017.0009 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039199 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no.1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.228 clearing the clouds: finding motivation and clarity in a nontraditional dissertation using arts based educational research (aber) angela m. kramer lincoln southwest high school akramer@lps.org abstract by crafting a dramatic script about struggling high school readers that i then shared with real students in my reading classes, i applied arts-based education research (aber) methods. through the writing, presentation, collection, and reflection on student feedback, as well as during the script rewriting process, i was allowed to engage in a unique and motivating research experience. this approach allowed me to attend to three challenges with my dissertation in practice (dip). first, instead of being part of this big, scary, abstract world called ‘research’, it allowed me to demonstrate inquiry though a means that i was more familiar and confident with—writing and theatre. my confidence working in these areas allowed me to initiate and remain engaged throughout the dissertation work. second, it allowed me to take on a problem in my practice—the skepticism of many high school students in reading classes about being in those classes. this helped me better understand my students, and thus inform and guide in the identification of best practices. third, it positioned me to work with colleagues and administrators in my building and across our school district to rethink how we offer reading support to the heterogeneous cross-section of students who currently are being identified as needing such support. this account summarizes my dip and, i hope, positions other classroom teachers who double as edd students to imagine new and effective ways forward as they engage with problems of practice. keywords aber, dissertation in practice (dip), teacher as researcher, adolescent literacy, reading intervention, high school, carnegie project on the educational doctorate-informed edd program (cped). for me, the dissertation loomed over the entirety of my doctoral journey like a heavy cloud, ominous, but not yet consequential. just the notion of having to confront such a task made me hesitate to apply to what the university of nebraska-lincoln directly refers to as ‘cped’ (i.e., their carnegie project on the educational doctorateaffiliated edd program). when i began courses, i pushed that fear to the back of my mind, reassuring myself that i was in a practitionercentered program where i would be supported and guided. and i did like that i could still primarily identify as a practitioner, even if i was an increasingly restless one. still, as i wrapped up course work and was expected to focus on a problem of practice, the dissertation darkness closed in. i found myself nearly paralyzed despite the support of my cadre and the university personnel who believed in my abilities. as margaret macintyre lata and susan wunder (2012) explained in placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education: rethinking the policy and practice of the education doctorate, cped works to foster and create agents of professional practice who then become creators of change. it is a tenet of cped that institutions of higher education should honor and cultivate practitioner knowledge, promoting educators’ exploration of various dynamics in their professional environments. it is there, in their classrooms and daily work spaces, where practitioners are best able to re-envision policy, practice, professional learning, and goal setting in the 21st century. ahead of my dip, throughout my doctoral studies, i found that my daily work in the classroom was valued. my coursework aligned with the real-life needs of and questions created in my day-to-day interaction with staff, students, and curriculum. but in regard to engaging myself in the research, analysis, and writing of a formal dissertation, there remained a disconnect. my experiences did not seem to fit within the parameters of the traditional dissertations that i had learned about up to that point. mares’ tails and mackerel scales finding my problem of practice an old weather adage goes, mares’ tails and mackerel scales make tall ships take in their sails. i knew early on that i wanted to explore high school reading but taking on such a wide topic had me floundering. in a sense, i took in my sails and made little initial progress in my dissertation work because i didn’t know where to start research within this great sea of literacy-related information. i knew that my problem of practice was important, not just for my students, but for students across my district. the experiences in http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ clearing the clouds impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.228 21 my city were likely not so different from those across the country, and the consequences of inadequate reading intervention with adolescents continue to be concerning (meltzer & hamann, 2004; 2005; wilhelm, 2016). acknowledging that this term is often used pejoratively, ‘illiterate’ individuals can find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty with few options for employment. en masse, globally, this population strains health and welfare programs and contributes to higher crime statistics (cree et al., 2012). as a developed nation, the united states is not immune from illiteracy, nor aliteracy (referencing those who technically can read but don’t [decker, 1986]). according to an american psychological association study, a third of u.s. teenagers have not read a book for pleasure in at least a year (ducharme, 2018). reading scores for students in high school continue to decrease, with only a third of u.s. students finding themselves “college ready” after high school graduation (camera, 2016). each year the test scores are reviewed revealing the ever-widening opportunity gap between those who are college ready and those who were denied the chance to have the experiences necessary to reach that goal (ladson-billings, 2006). still, teens are putting down books and picking up their phones to text and scroll through social media posts and other forms of digital media (ducharme, 2018), so an unwillingness to engage with text is not exactly the problem. the solution in most schools is an attempt to remediate these low achievers to help them catch up. in my district this often occurs through placement in reading classes, including my own. while the mission of the adults who make these placements is to narrow the achievement gap and build students up, the reality is that the patterned and widespread placement in intervention classes creates greater problems. (i am intentionally using “achievement gap” here rather than “opportunity gap” [ladson-billings, 2006; carter & welner, 2013] to convey the dominant framing of the problem, even as i find “opportunity gap” to be a more equityoriented stance and use it elsewhere.) still, the problem confronted by reading classes is not the act of intervention per se. intervention for students who struggle in reading at the high school level is necessary. this is especially true for students with disabilities in the areas of reading and language, as lovett et al. (2012) noted, “it is easier to address reading disabilities in the primary grades, but it is important not to abandon the hundreds of thousands of adolescents and young adults who are reading impaired and who will still commit to reading instruction” (p. 164). to understand the problem of current reading intervention practice, one must look past the well-intentioned policy makers and instead look critically at the students this intervention is focused on. it will take only moments for a perceptive ‘teacher eye’ to identify that students of color, students with disabilities, students identified as ell (english language learners), and students receiving free and reduced lunch are disproportionately represented in these courses. a break in the clouds the process of inquiry despite my passion and clear understanding of what quality reading instruction should look like and my strong desire to ‘make a difference’, how to illustrate these ideas within the confines of a traditional dissertation continued to puzzle me. thankfully, i had the good fortune to take a class that focused on critical and anticolonizing theories in education. it was in this class that some of the clouds cleared, and i made a breakthrough in my thinking. inspired by the writings of scholars who work to raise the voices of underrepresented populations (e.g., anzaldua et. al., 1987; bhattacharya, 2016; espinoza-dulanto, 2017; huber, 2009, and ladson-billings. 1995), i found the means to get to the heart of the problem of practice within my high school reading classroom. the problem of reading instruction in high school was not mine alone to solve, but something to be conquered by all stakeholders. in order to address the negative aspects of the current system of intervention, i knew i had to hear my students’ voices, and provide them with a means to speak, and be heard. yet i also knew (even before the covid-19 epidemic made everything much more complicated) that getting an irb to focus on my own students and their vulnerable status would be difficult. in lieu of that more conventional route, i realized that i could create a curriculum product and see if students thought it sufficiently described their various realities, aspirations, and struggles. moreover, i could see if, as their teacher, such a product effectively engaged them. teacher-created and teacher-implemented improvements in instructional practices can do much (latta & wunder, 2012), but in my own classroom, despite my whole-hearted and professional investment in the process, the work i was already doing was only getting my students so far. i knew that i had to learn their opinions, experiences, and needs to implement more effective reading interventions. the question was then: how could i go about involving students in the research process? i feared my reluctant and struggling readers would not be able to provide me with the rich narrative data i was hoping for. countless attempts at collecting student interest inventories about reading have taught me that students who do not like to read also do not like to talk about their reading. i had to find a way to present the concepts and ideas of what it means to be a struggling reader in a way that would urge (dare i say “trick”?) them into talking and writing about their reader identities. i found the solution in art based educational research (aber). aber dissertations involve an inquiry-rich process and value the perspectives of both researchers and research subjects. such dissertations offer a: commitment to creative ways of knowing and researching as a journey of transformation. they are seeking to spell out in theory and practice how poetry, drama, fiction, visual art, and performance all contribute to ways of knowing and becoming, to conceptions of epistemology and ontology (sinner et.al., 2006, p. 1237). using my years of experience working with high school students as inspiration, i decided to author a ‘non-fiction fiction’ script, which was composed using the personalities and reader identities of various high school students in my past classes as well as incorporating traits of struggling readers i have encountered through professional readings. (non-fiction fiction was the strategy used by the late educational reformer theodore sizer, in his widely-read horace trilogy [sizer, 1984; 1992; 1996] that argued for substantial changes in american high schooling. in it, fictitious aggregations of real experiences are used to convey key points without risking any given individual's privacy.) kramer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.228 22 the skies broke open: inquiry in the time of covid my excitement had been restored, but just as i was crafting timelines for writing, reading, and processing the feedback of my students, i found myself, along with the rest of the world, in a state of lock down. the covid-19 pandemic influenced this research and our school in several ways. after a disrupted spring that ended with almost two months of remote instruction, all our district high schools began the fall semester of 2020 on a hybrid schedule with roughly half of students attending in-person two days a week and half the students attending three days per week (and then alternating the next week). on the days that students were at home, they were to participate in synchronous zoom instruction. because the split was alphabetical and systemwide (a’s-l’s last names one day, m’s to z’s the other), ‘halves’ were not always equally sized. sometimes the splits were pretty equal, but for some of my sections, one half of the alphabet ended up significantly smaller than the other with one of my groups having only two students. i drafted my script over the summer, but i had students use it in the unusual and distracting circumstance of our fall hybrid model. i presented the students with a rough draft of my script, complete with spelling errors and miscopied pages. while not initially intentional, the errors proved to add an informality to the material that helped put the students at ease. my classes then read the scripts together, taking time to identify the parts of the piece they connected to personally, as well as sharing what aspects of their reader identities were missing from the short play. this input allowed me to rework and expand the script to better represent the students. because of this experience, i, as a teacher-researcher, felt better about my abilities to make informed instructional decisions related to curriculum and specific classroom interventions. i also had a new resource with which to engage colleagues and administrators as we try to troubleshoot our current challenges with teaching reading at the high-school level. this lack of balance and the challenge of engaging students on zoom—some would turn off their cameras and go back to bed, or, as one student confessed, to go fishing—made the initial readings of the play lack-luster. because students were not present daily in person, i also found that building a classroom community was a slower process. still, we persevered. at the time of data collection, i did have concerns that the students did not yet feel comfortable enough to provide the open honest feedback essential for the success of this project. so, i was very proud that when it came time to commit to the task, they took their role as critical agents of change seriously and provided engaged, useful feedback for my script revision. chasing away the clouds: the work takes shape during the summer, as i began to write the script, the pieces began to come together, and i was able to begin to see my problem of practice developing into an actual dissertation. in the writing of the full script, i made notes of characteristics i wanted to include. i also had a list with daily instructional strategies and activities that could help create a realistic classroom situation. beyond that, i let my imagination do the work. at the risk of sounding a bit crazy, i admit that, like many writers, i ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the characters i write about. this phenomenon has been described by scholars at durham university. their work was conducted at the edinburgh international book festival in 2014 and 2018 (foxwell et.al., 2020). in their interviews, they discovered that nearly two-thirds of the authors said that they heard their characters voices. half identified that they could sense them by other means. over half reported that their characters possessed agency, making their own choices, even if those wishes went against the author’s own. i cite this research in hopes to help the reader understand the process in creating this piece of non-fiction fiction. as the characters “told me” their stories (in my head), i was connecting to my brain’s rich catalog of observations and memories of specific children. for additional ideas, i also pulled reader traits from authors who describe struggling readers well (e.g., beers, 2003; mueller, 2001; strommen & mates, 2004; tovani, 2000; wilhelm, 2016; willingham, 2009; woods & jociou 2013, and likely others). this premise of a researcher being “in the midst” of the research is not a new concept to academia. clandinin and connelly (2000) discuss the concept of the three-dimensional inquiry space and how it allows researchers to move between “intimacy with field participants and a reflective stance” (p.95). in this, they were referring specifically to field texts. while i was not recording in-themoment live experiences, making the tie to clandinin and connelly more analogous than literal, i was immersed and responding critically within the fictional reality i created. there was intimacy and i took reflective stances. it was in this creative mode that other characters came to me. characters with rich stories of their own. i could imagine us (teacher and students) in my classroom with students interacting and reacting to instruction. it is through this imaginary that i determined this script was no longer separate student profiles, but in fact an extended one act play, one with stage directions that could further illustrate student and teacher actions that were not captured through dialogues or monologues alone. i found this intersection between academic knowledge, personal experience, and creative expression to be one of deep reflection. while in the midst of writing, i was fully immersed in the work and able to experience all aspects of the research (researcher and student perspectives, research readings, and practitioner knowledge) i had encountered up to this moment of writing. in the writing i was able to interact with each element simultaneously. here comes the sun: research and its outcomes my students were introduced to the script in different ways, depending on the needs and comfort levels of each class. with one group, student volunteered to read parts, with another i read the script aloud to them. the students were aware that this script and their feedback were part of my dissertation work and that i would be sharing their thoughts and opinions about both the writing and their feelings about reading with people at the university. students noted their concerns and likes by hi-lighting and annotating the script. i asked that they use one color of hi-lighter to indicate if something was “like me”, and another color to indicate if they found a section of the script to be “not realistic”. they were also encouraged to write notes about content within the script. i was delighted to find how seriously they took the read through, and how much feedback they were willing to provide. clearing the clouds impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.228 23 that fall, with student feedback on the script and the regular day-to-day reading activities, such as reading interest inventories and reading profiles that i also use, i was able to see that students’ perceptions about reading varied based on their needs, their ability to manage the demands of school and society (assignments, expectations, procedures, attendance), their perception of self, and their attitude about the specific class and school more generally. i was surprised to discover just how many students didn’t mind reading class and who thus felt underrepresented in my initial script. in my re-write, i attempted to address the identities of students who like reading and feel like reading is helping them improve their skills. i did so by developing the character liam, who was added to the second version of the script. still, the main story line remains that a broad and heterogeneous group of students did not particularly like reading and/or what it implies about them, their futures, and how they are positioned to negotiate school, but they did like seeing their discomfort, struggles, and anxiety made visible in a script. this research helped illustrate the complexities of high school reading. it is more than ever evident to me that there is not a oneshot quick-fix solution for the diverse array of needs facing struggling readers (deshler et.al., 2004; shanahan, 2004). one thing prevalent in the literature and in the feedback i received from students, is a need for support to go beyond the walls of the classroom. there is an overwhelming amount of evidence for the increased practice of shared responsibility for literacy (brozo, 2011; deshler, et. al., 2004; fuchs et.al., 2008). teachers in the content areas should not dumb down their texts to meet the needs of struggling readers but should instead partner with reading specialists and special education experts in reading intervention to develop and teach reading strategies that will allow all readers to access text in the content areas. there has been an explosion of research in regard to the importance of explicit and sustained practice in code-based reading strategies for students with dyslexia. (bhattacharya, 2020, hanford, 2020, kilpatrick, 2015; lewin, 2003; willis, 2018). the lines of my script that addressed this important (but limited intervention) in high school classrooms were affirmed by my students who struggle with reading because of dyslexia. these students acknowledged teachers’ inability to provide one-on-one intensive intervention within a large and busy reading class. they marked the text in agreement that they appreciated such interventions when they were provided in lower grades. additional teacher preparation in this area would contribute to the success of these students and students like them. good content reading instruction includes practices to increase student motivation and engagement, generic literacy and learning practices, and content-specific literacy practices (meltzer & hamann, 2004; 2005). within the area of literacy practices, four broad areas should be addressed; they are word knowledge/vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing (shanahan, 2004). within this range of interventions, code-based reading strategies should not be overlooked, particularly for students with dyslexia, as their instructional needs cannot be met by broad comprehension or segmented phonics instruction (willis, 2018). this population requires intensive, systematic, multi-sensory instruction if they are to make sufficient gains in reading. referencing the script and my students’ resonance with it, perhaps we should note, as a third dimension of where the research literature and my classroom experience overlap, that students in reading classes agree that the challenges identified are challenges and thus that responses need to be comprehensive. they too agree that high school reading cannot just confront one problem. the opportunity gap persists for young people of color and those of poverty (carter & welner, 2013). i acknowledge that reading intervention classes can be a positive intervention, but i, as a white woman of some means, cannot alone assume what is best and i know that students in my class can feel stigmatized, a stigma that may be reiterated in other school experiences they have too. the education-debt remains unpaid (ladson-billings, 2006) and we can no longer see students as a problem to be fixed, or a bill to be paid then forgotten. young people who have been consistently underserved deserve to have teachers and administrators fighting to make sure that their placement in intervention courses brings them closer to their goals, not farther from them. “too many young people leave our schools with identities as poor readers and failures, a situation that cautions us, first to do no harm. programs that exacerbate youth’s negative identity constructions abound ...and there are more positive alternatives” (greenleaf & hinchman, 2009, p. 11). reading classes are not the enemy, but these reading classes must be places where students can receive high academic challenges, asset-oriented teaching, and inquiry-based environments. they should be places where reader identities are bolstered positively, not cut down by reminders that who they are is not good enough. they need to be able to see themselves, see their voices and experiences respected, and know that you (i.e., me or a teacher like me) see them. my acts of editing in response to their feedback literally showed that i was listening and responding to their expert feedback (and they are experts on what it is like to be in a reading support class). at least for the script and script-editing processes, i proved that i was an educator they could trust, which is not automatic in a class that can feel stigmatizing. through this project, i hope that their voices were heard, and it is my hope that the world will keep listening and including them in the important conversations that shape their futures. their words are honest, hopeful, and contain answers for better educational practices. blue skies: looking back and looking ahead as i wrote the last words on my dissertation, one of my great disappointments was that in the end, i was unable to solve the problems of high school reading instruction. given that my time at the university was coming to an end, i accepted the humble findings of the study and committed a final draft to the care of my committee. then, two weeks before my defense, i received an unsettling email from my building principal. in this email, i learned that major changes in reading instruction had been enacted by district level leadership. reading classes as i knew them were to change drastically. i was delighted to see the very directives for best practice outlined in my dissertation were being put into action. reading courses were not to be dissolved entirely but reduced to serve only special education students. placement would be highly data driven and the intervention’s impact evaluated regularly. this improved process would reduce if not eliminate the unnecessary remediation and consequential limiting of access to challenging educational opportunities for students who have traditionally been marginalized. kramer impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 1 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.228 24 in efforts to provide the best instruction for these students, the district purchased the newest version of the scholastic reading program, read 180. the research-based program provides a quality reading program able to flex to match student reading levels and provides teachers with the materials and guidance needed to meet the diverse needs of high school students. moving forward, buildings were encouraged, but not required to have reading courses taught by reading specialists, and special education staff with a strong background in reading instruction. these positive changes were wonderful but reading teachers across the district were asking an important question, “what about the kids who don’t have ieps who are still not proficient readers?”. when the question was shared with district level leadership, their response was to push the responsibility to the multi-level systems of support (mtss) teams found in each building. as a member of my building mtss team, i was quite aware that while our mtss behavioral (mtss-b) team was a leader in the district, with data to support our success. the mtss academic (mtss-a) branch of the program was yet to be fully developed. so, here lies my opportunity for the future, or the “next steps” not included in my dissertation (but nestled neatly in an afterword). i have been asked by my district curriculum specialists to help create materials, training, and intervention plans that will hopefully bolster building mtss-a services. i am thrilled to be able to put what i have learned from my research into meaningful action. while i have no definitive links between my research and the changes happening in high school reading instruction, i’d like to think that practitioner insight built from years of experience, knowledge gleaned from current research, and most importantly the role of students in my dissertation journey have somehow created a ripple leading to positive change. as i reached the close of my doctoral journey, i credited many aspects of the program to my success, caring professors, rich course offerings, and a supportive cadre to name a few. but i credit the opportunity to learn about and explore a non-traditional approach to research as the power source that energized me in the last stretch of my studies. it is known that 50% of doctoral students leave graduate school without finishing their programs (cassuto, 2020). looking back on my own experience, i could have easily ended up as one who stopped my pursuits as ‘all but dissertation’ (abd). that dark cloud of a looming dissertation easily could have ended with me ending my academic journey early. some may argue that my final project with its traditional chapters and familiar tables of contents did not stray all that far from the popular prescribed format academics have found comfortable, but that structure hides the cathartic unorthodoxy of turning to aber to craft a script about students and then to use their feedback to revise it. i hope that other doctoral students who, like me, may struggle to imagine themselves and their work within the confines of a traditional dissertation, see aber as a pathway out. that struggling 50% may, with the grace of their committees and university leadership, find inspiration and motivation to move beyond the daunting clouds of a dissertation to enjoy the blue skies of hooding. to do that, they may find that familiar teacher moves (like planning a unit), combined with less familiar ones (like having the unit for struggling readers be a script about struggling readers) is the key means that allows them to persist and finish. references anzaldúa, g, saldívar, s., & valle, c. 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(2013). combating “i hate this stupid book!”: black males and critical literacy. the reading teacher, 66(8), 661-669. doi:10.1002/trtr.1177 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/51/ http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/51/ http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/53/ http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/53/ http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/teachlearnfacpub/53/ angela m. kramer lincoln southwest high school mares’ tails and mackerel scales finding my problem of practice a break in the clouds the process of inquiry the skies broke open: inquiry in the time of covid chasing away the clouds: the work takes shape here comes the sun: research and its outcomes blue skies: looking back and looking ahead references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 49 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 consensus is a journey: a programmatic framework for edd-activism elizabeth currin university of south carolina ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu suha tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu yasha becton university of south carolina yyjones@mailbox.sc.edu abstract edd programs affiliated with the carnegie project on the education doctorate encourage dissertations in practice (dips) focused on equity, social justice, and transformative practice. conversations in our program revealed surface-level or late-stage social justice connections in our students’ dips. therefore, inspired by an existing framework that aimed at empowering edd-activists, and needing more data from our own program, we formed a committee to design a program-specific edd-activism framework. through surveys, structured discussion, and other sources of qualitative data, an edd-activism definition emerged that informed a programwide equity statement and catalyzed changes in our practice as educators. this essay presents our process, applications of our work, and our next steps. keywords action research, activism, dissertation in practice, social justice on may 25, 2020, the social climate shifted when a minneapolis police officer murdered george floyd, as the united states was already grappling with the profound tragedy of over 100,000 deaths from the covid-19 pandemic (brimmer, 2020). as brimmer argued, the pandemic shed light on pervasive racial disparities in health care, and floyd’s murder brought scrutiny to another inequitable system— the criminal justice system. what to do in response may not have been completely clear, but the need to do something was undeniable, and many took to the streets to demand change. these pivotal events occurred shortly after our program began delving into the concept of activism, in support of a sober assessment of our capacity to produce equity-centered educational leaders. the inhumanity and injustice of george floyd’s murder fueled the urgency of our discussion and similar discussions happening elsewhere. educators from kindergarten through the college level joined with students and colleagues to identify systemwide changes that could yield “more equitable outcomes for all students, regardless of race or ethnicity” (wise, 2021, p. 107). longstanding conversations about social justice and equity brought activism to the forefront—not as a superficial band-aid, but the kind of activism that comprehensively considers community members’ shared responsibility “to recognize structural inequalities in ways that prepare us to change them” (sensoy & diangelo, 2017, p. 2). edd programs are distinctly suited to this work. like many institutions affiliated with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), we require students to complete dissertations in practice (dips), demonstrating their responsibility as scholarly practitioners to pursue social justice in their communities (perry, 2012; shulman, 2005). the fall 2019 cped convening theme, interaction & activism in the education doctorate, invited us to another level: whereas social justice can be “diluted, trivialized or coopted” (cochran-smith, 2010, p. 445), activism is bolder, suggesting a path for moving students’ dips beyond technical or managerial topics (charest, 2019; fulmer & bodner, 2017) to focus on systemic inequities. program-wide conversations leading up to, during, and following the convening acknowledged examples of surface-level or late-stage social justice connections in our students’ dips while highlighting how some students enter the program predisposed to engage in equity work. by surveying our cped peers during a convening session, we developed a tentative framework for meeting students where they are and promoting their growth as edd-activists (becton et al., 2020), yet the lack of data from our own program troubled us. as facilitators of the session that gave rise to the cpedwide framework, we saw a need to ask ourselves the same questions we had posed to others to determine what edd-activism https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7318-0052 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1664-747x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4889-3787 currin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 50 means to us and for our program. this task, although smaller in scope, was strikingly complex. as in cochran-smith’s (2010) effort to theorize teacher education for social justice, we saw complex and interconnected aims with implications for our practice. just as a dip centers on a problem of practice (pop), a job-embedded dissatisfaction demanding urgent action (ma et al., 2018), we faced a context-specific challenge: we needed to deepen students’ commitments to social justice in ways that would be more discernible in their dissertations—and more likely to impact communities beset by racial tensions, economic woes, and other inequities. our program offers an edd in educational practice and innovation with a concentration on curriculum studies. our students are mostly k–12 teachers, some are higher education faculty, and others have administrative roles in both settings. occasionally, we have students who work in corporate, military, or health settings. as educators, they all navigate daily challenges to improve the learning experiences and outcomes of their own students. while eager to address these challenges in their dissertations, they seldom see themselves as activists and agents of change. moreover, they often view their pops solely from an academic lens whereas we strive to prepare them to function as education activists. this essay describes our development of a programmatic framework for edd-activism in response to this pop. aspiring toward more impactful practice, we adopted the same pose expected of edd students (ravitch, 2014). after discussing scholarship that guided our approach, we share our effort to augment our program’s social justice emphasis with a more precise and personalized focus on activism. background conceptualizing edd-activism required engaging its constituent concepts: edd and activism. activists operate outside of edd programs, and edd programs function without activist-oriented frameworks. to merge these concepts in ways that would expand our graduates’ capacity to serve as change agents, we consulted related scholarship, bolstered by cochran-smith’s (2010) three-part framework for social justice teacher education. to arrive at a theory of teacher education for social justice, cochran-smith first articulated a theory of justice and a theory of practice, cognizant of their overlap. similarly, this section surveys existing understandings of the edd and activism, and figure 1 illustrates the concepts’ interdependent nature. rather than beginning with activism to parallel cochransmith’s initial focus on justice, we start by exploring the edd—the existing entity we sought to transform. the education doctorate distinct from phd programs, edd programs cater to practitioners positioned to apply their learning in real time, gleaning knowledge for the sake of change, as opposed to for knowledge’s sake (arslan-ari et al., 2018). such an orientation requires edd students to identify as researchers and educational leaders, or scholarly practitioners in cped parlance, yet dominant conceptions of research can inhibit that process (buss & avery, 2017; dailey et al., 2016). the history of practitioner research highlights teachers’ tendency to feel more comfortable consuming rather than producing research (cochran-smith & lytle, 1993; corey, 1952), reinforced by figure 1. edd-activism at the overlap of existing concepts methodological critiques of educators’ alleged inability to meet rigorous scientific standards (hodgkinson, 1957; huberman, 1996; kemmis, 1980; wiles, 1953). thus, edd programs must make research applicable and accessible to students, endowing them with sufficient scholarly confidence to obtain the degree. however, cultivating scholarly practitioners without focusing on equity risks reinforcing the status quo (weiler & lomotey, 2021). by definition, “practitioner researchers draw upon their identities and experiences to question established systems and create more equitable arrangements” (simon et al., 2012, p. 9), yet edd students and their mentors must balance institutional expectations for terminal degree-seekers with these guiding principles. like some cped colleagues, we pursue that equilibrium via action research (buss, 2018), a version of practitioner research flexible enough to serve a diverse population of educators and historically employed for social justice aims (neilsen, 2006). according to beaulieu (2013), action researchers are “not necessarily scholars who are trained in research, or activists who understand political maneuvering,” but rather, people “struggling with [local] power structures” and seeking collaborative solutions (p. 34). by meeting students in that middle ground, where pops surface, we can gradually encourage them to identify as scholars and activists. activism an extensive review of literature on activism is beyond the scope of this essay, but three subtopics help situate edd-activism: educator activism, student activism, and scholar-activism. educator activism although teacher activism may be a more familiar phrase, educator activism is inclusive of our program’s diverse population. looking beyond isolated, individual actions, valdez et al. (2018) conceptualized the latter term as “struggle for rather than only resistance against” (p. 246), a distinction that might guide edd students to see beyond their dissertations. recognizing the common roots of their pops could illuminate the societal implications of their action research. similarly, sachs (2000) described practitioner research as “shared inquiry into patterns of practice,” foundational to the collective project of “activist professionalism” (p. 89). across both texts, activism is integral—as much about being as doing. even so, we recognize the copious scholarship on the history of teacher activism, exploring seemingly discrete instances with broad consensus is a journey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 51 resonance. fultz (1995) identified a clear pattern of black teacher activism in the u.s. south prior to world war ii, echoed in alridge’s (2020) compelling account of teacher activism during the civil rights movement, which itself acknowledged the potential ripple effect in contemporary classrooms. even more direct, hale (2019) attributed recent teacher strikes to 20th-century antecedents: the efforts of black educators in the segregated and notoriously anti-union south, who “tilled the soil for larger movements” (p. 854). likewise, baker’s (2011) earlier study of black educators in the mid-20th century articulated their then-overlooked role in the long civil rights movement—including their inspiration of nascent student-activists. focusing on two such teachers, and examining gender as well as race, ramsey (2012) illustrated how leadership experiences furthered their activist aims and reflected “caring as a form of activism” (p. 262). d’amico’s (2017) work on teacher organizing in the early 1900s also employed a gendered lens, elucidating the harmony of women’s economic and social interests. existing scholarship thus outlines the legacies edd-activists can inherit—and maintain. departing from traditional historiography, loder-jackson (2011) adopted a multigenerational approach, interviewing a broad sample of black educators in birmingham, alabama to consider how activism evolves. the participants contrasted “the activism heralded during the 1960s (e.g., marches, sit-ins, organized protests)” with “more subtle and at times, clandestine activism” (loder-jackson, 2011, p. 163). their nuanced views, shaped by distinct histories, manifested in their everyday practice, showcasing “activist strategies in their own right” (loder-jackson, 2011, pp. 164–165). other empirical studies of contemporary educator activism exhibit a range of methods, from collay’s (2010) life history of teacher leaders’ origins, which positioned activism as a combination of commitment and capacity; to gilbert’s (2021) intentionally participatory approach; to dematthews and tarlau’s (2019) unique focus on activist principals, which also illustrates the global reach of educator activism. race, gender, and class continue to motivate 21st-century educator activism (brown & stern, 2018; lund, 2003; picower, 2012), which also has discipline-specific variations (kokka, 2018) and distinct policy catalysts (warren & ward, 2020). despite consistent emphasis on grassroots efforts, scholars have also attended to teacher educators’ responsibilities for inspiring and supporting activism, focusing primarily on pre-service programs (ho, 2015; montaño et al., 2002; riley & solic, 2017). a notable exception, sachs (2000) called for “new kinds of teacher educators, new cultures in schools of education, and altered university structures” to fuse activism and professionalism (p. 92). student activism scholarship on student activism can also inform edd-activism, reinforcing our roles as teacher educators and recognizing edd students’ vulnerability within institutional hierarchies. unsurprisingly, undergraduates loom large in this literature (e.g., logan et al., 2017; reynolds & mayweather, 2017), yet dodd and mizrahi (2017) illuminated how social work graduate programs can be conducive to activism, and other scholars have described how activism can be an important outlet for marginalized graduate students (cadenas et al., 2022; lantz et al., 2016; phelps-ward, 2021). we see the same potential for edd programs. reflection is one means of moving students along “the continuum from problem identifying to problem solving” (jacoby, 2017, p. 4). acknowledging the danger of inertia, cabrera et al. (2017) outlined several reflective prompts for helping students avoid slacktivism, activism’s ineffectual, performative impostor. much like valdez et al.’s (2018) emphatically nuanced definition of educator activism, cabrera et al. (2017) insisted that students envision the broader social resonance of their “localized actions” (p. 8). similarly, cole and heinecke’s (2020) critical discourse analysis of campus activists’ demands surfaced their self-identification as both outsiders and insiders and their view of higher education as both “a flawed community” and “a potential site of re-birth and revolution on a societal scale” (p. 102), paradoxes on par with the complex work of scholarly practitioners. scholar-activism as doctoral students, scholarly practitioners also share common ground with their phd counterparts and faculty mentors, making edd-activism a form of scholar-activism, which necessitates an audience. preferring the term activist scholarship, davis et al. (2019) applied it to “researchers with a desire to put their scholarship to work in service of the marginalized” (p. 94). although the quality criteria they proposed were designed for higher education faculty, edd-activists can benefit from the guidance to employ intersectional analyses and remain “grounded in the work of activism […] rather than simply the words” (davis et al., 2019, pp. 99–100). edd students are less likely to experience the ivory-tower pressures davis et al. and others have decried (flood et al., 2013; grey, 2013; smith, 2007), yet those in k–12 spaces certainly risk backlash, further reinforcing our protective responsibilities (dunn, 2016). other texts expound on such tensions, like the intense emotionality and blurred boundaries of scholar-activism (askins, 2009; cann & demeulenaere, 2020; couture, 2017). describing the painstaking task of cultivating and maintaining community support, cook (2014) warned of the “sacrifice, vulnerability, and accountability” (p. 221) required of scholar-activists. as insiders, edd students may be less prone to some of these challenges, but fellow scholaractivists’ accounts could be instructive, modeling autoethnographic and reflexive coping mechanisms (hughes, 2020; valente, 2019). our process constructing a program-specific framework for edd-activism enabled us “to model the commitment to continuous improvement that we seek to build in students while also learning from the process ourselves” (leach et al., 2020, p. 15). we took a pragmatic approach, cognizant that knowledge is experiential and therefore socially constructed (kaushik & walsh, 2019). we three authors began in earnest in april 2020 by forming a committee devoted to the eddactivism framework; establishing a shared space for cloud storage; and scheduling virtual meetings the first, second, and third tuesday of each month, knowing we would be accountable to our colleagues during program-wide virtual meetings at the end of each month. in addition to the background literature we reviewed, self-study scholarship also guided us, such as laboskey’s (2009) application of a social justice framework to a course for pre-service teachers and ritter et al.’s (2019) endeavor to foster students’ critical inquiry. in may 2020, we developed an anonymous digital survey (figure 2). before posing the questions to our colleagues, we first answered them within our group to ensure the instrument’s accessibility and alignment with our aims. intrigued by the range of currin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 52 figure 2. initial survey questions 1. discuss your understanding of activism. what does it look like? what does it encompass? 2. how would you describe the edd degree? in other words, how is an edd different from other degrees (m.ed., ph.d., etc.)? 3. how, if at all, does the addition of the eddprefix to the term activism (i.e., to create a new term, edd-activism) influence your view of activism? 4. based on your interpretation of the term edd-activism, how is it similar or different from other forms of activism? 5. what do you think are the characteristics or attributes of an edd-activist? 6. do you see our students as activists? why or why not? 7. do you see yourself as an activist? why or why not? 8. what additional ideas would you like to share with the committee at this time? our responses in this pilot phase, we made no changes before distributing the survey to our colleagues, assuring, “we want to include your voice in this work,” and noting, “the questions are all open-ended, so feel free to share as little or as much as you want.” five of seven colleagues (71%) completed the survey. in june 2020, we individually coded the survey data and met to discuss, combine, and refine our codes, enacting collaborative constructivist grounded theory (charmaz, 2009). rather than expecting to eliminate all biases, we sought committee-wide (and ultimately program-wide) consensus, achieved with respect to everyone’s views (anderson et al., 2016). agreeing to a holistic approach motivated by conceptual clusters (aronson, 2017), each of us made an initial pass to identify salient ideas within and across responses, note any patterns for each question, and arrange similar patterns in categorical groups. we had gone through a smaller-scale version of this process with our own responses prior to disseminating the survey link. table 1 illustrates elizabeth’s approach, using one participant’s response to one question. this complex, iterative work extended into july, and as anticipated, we observed both shared and divergent understandings of edd-activism and its constituent concepts. using one of the more straightforward questions, table 2 exemplifies our efforts to reach consensus. some colleagues questioned the need for edd-activism as a distinct concept, suggesting activism is inherent in education and that all activism is equity-oriented. others indicated the new terminology would not require much change on our parts, given our reputation as a social justice program. few colleagues voiced concern. however, rather than dismiss the survey response that prompted elizabeth’s use of the code “unwelcome change” as an outlier, we redoubled our commitment to consensus. at the committee level, continually juxtaposing our analyses yielded, for example, five major descriptors our program associates with activism: (a) voluntary, (b) goal-oriented, (c) service-oriented, (d) equity-focused, and (e) change-seeking. hitting a word-choice impasse, we drafted two possibilities: “intentional engagement in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity and improve the lived experience for a group or an individual” or “choosing to engage in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity to improve the lived experience of a group or an individual.” using the same procedure, we proposed a programmatic definition of the edd as “a unique, terminal degree for those who intend to improve, transform, or better understand educational practice through the application of theory, research methods, and collaboration with stakeholders in diverse educational contexts.” finally, we posed a definition of eddactivism: “a personal decision to apply advanced knowledge of table 1. example of elizabeth’s coding process process output raw data for question 1—discuss your understanding of activism. what does it look like? what does it encompass? my understanding of activism is broad encompassing actions (sometimes strong, vigorous and sometimes more low key) related to making a difference or encouraging changes in one's setting, community, region, state, nation, etc. while social justice is a focus in our program, activism can focus on social justice as well as other areas to encourage better practices for the greater good (or that is the hope—it can also be used negatively). reduced/coded data—using bold for key phrasing, italics to indicate paraphrasing or naming the observed concept, and colors to show commonality with other respondents o requires actions (sometimes strong, vigorous and sometimes more low key) i.e., varies in style o aim = making a difference or encouraging changes in one's setting, community, region, state, nation, etc. (i.e., varies in scope) o can focus on social justice o aim = to encourage better practices for the greater good (or that is the hope--it can also be used negatively) example of a category—creating a conceptual cluster of multiple codes from looking across participants’ responses and drawing on the analytical paraphrasing/naming illustrated above aim/impact of activism • (social/political) change • awareness • betterment (better/greater good) • equity • making a difference • better practices • de-marginalization critical theory, research, and practice to resolve injustices or inequities through collaboration with diverse communities.” this complex, iterative work extended into july, and as anticipated, we observed both shared and divergent understandings of edd-activism and its constituent concepts. using one of the more straightforward questions, table 2 exemplifies our efforts to reach consensus. some colleagues questioned the need for edd-activism as a distinct concept, suggesting activism is inherent in education and that all activism is equity-oriented. others indicated the new terminology would not require much change on our parts, given our reputation as a social justice program. few colleagues voiced concern. however, rather than dismiss the survey response that prompted elizabeth’s use of the code “unwelcome change” as an outlier, we redoubled our commitment to consensus. at the committee level, continually juxtaposing our analyses yielded, for example, five major descriptors our program associates with activism: (a) voluntary, (b) goal-oriented, (c) service-oriented, (d) equity-focused, and (e) change-seeking. hitting a word-choice impasse, we drafted two possibilities: “intentional engagement in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity and improve the lived experience for a group or an individual” or “choosing to engage in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity to improve the lived experience of a group or an individual.” using the same procedure, we proposed a programmatic definition of the edd as “a unique, terminal degree for those who intend to improve, transform, or better understand educational practice through the application of theory, research methods, and collaboration with stakeholders in diverse educational contexts.” finally, we posed a definition of eddactivism: “a personal decision to apply advanced knowledge of critical theory, research, and practice to resolve injustices or inequities through collaboration with diverse communities.” consensus is a journey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 53 table 2. assemblage of analyses survey question elizabeth’s analysis suha’s analysis yasha’s analysis 3. how, if at all, does the addition of the eddprefix to the term activism (i.e., to create a new term, eddactivism) influence your view of activism? improvement -moves students/faculty forward -adds skills, theory, perspectives, knowledge -intentionality -adds a degree qualifier -implies a focus for the activism -implies a process -implies who is engaged in activism -program implications (refines our mission) no change -activism is inherent in education -all activism is a/b equity -not different -needs a context unwelcome change nature of activism -move students on a continuum -become an agent of change -faculty support the development of strong action plans in the real world activism grounded in scholarly practice -linked to theory and concepts -linked to socio-cultural historical understanding -linked to the doctoral degree -embedded in theory, skills, and knowledge related to education -incorporates critical feedback from peers and professors -primary focus on education or educational reform -provides a focus for the degree as a possible complement to social justice theme -uncertainty around what it means -disagreement about the use -not necessarily needed because the emphasis is inherent in the degree figure 3. follow-up survey questions activism definition 1: activism is intentional engagement in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity and improve the lived experience for a group or an individual. or definition 2: activism is choosing to engage in service to, for, and/or with others to promote equity to improve the lived experience of a group or an individual. 1. do you see yourself in either of these definitions of activism? a. yes, i prefer the first one. b. yes, i prefer the second one. c. no, i do not see myself in either definition. 2. are these definitions compatible with our program’s commitment to social justice? a. yes b. no 3. use this free-response space to add ideas you would like to share at this time: edd the edd is a unique, terminal degree for those who intend to improve, transform, or better understand educational practice through the application of advanced knowledge of theory, research, and practice in diverse contexts. 4. does this definition reflect your understanding of the degree? 5. use this free-response space to add ideas you would like to share at this time: edd-activism edd-activism is a personal decision to apply advanced knowledge of critical theory, research, and practice to resolve injustices or inequities through collaboration with diverse communities. 6. does this definition of edd-activism reflect your understanding of the term? currin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 54 these definitions anchored a second anonymous survey (figure 3), which we distributed to our colleagues in august 2020. akin to member-checking (merriam, 2009), this approach, like our no-outliers policy, fostered democratic validity (herr & anderson, 2015). the survey’s preface emphasized the definitions’ “tentative” status and informed our peers, “we want to ensure these definitions reflect your contributions and invite any additional comments.” again, five of seven colleagues (71%) completed the follow-up survey, but 100% participated in the subsequent focus group we conducted to examine the results. using a structured protocol (national school reform faculty, 2004), we acted as facilitators and note-takers, rather than participants, inviting our colleagues to “notice” and “wonder” in response to the follow-up survey data, which indicated total agreement for questions 1, 2, and 4 and 80% in favor of question 6 (see figure 3). along with the open-ended responses to questions 3, 5, and 7 as possible discussion starters, the focus group instructions articulated our intentional selection of the protocol to focus the group’s attention, respect everyone’s time, welcome all voices, and ensure a supportive atmosphere. the virtual meeting platform, which enabled recording and transcription, also served our needs through the chat box and hand-raise features. although our colleagues were reticent during the “noticing” phase, likely because of the consensus reflected in the data and the unfamiliar protocol, as we transitioned to the “wondering” phase, every faculty member spoke. our committee’s subsequent reflection throughout september and october yielded the modified definitions in figure 4. figure 4. program-specific understandings applications as we reflected on our journey, suha noted how our colleagues’ remarks during the focus group “echoed the discussions we’ve had,” and yasha reiterated, “we’re more on the same page than not, suggesting we can embrace this as a program and incorporate it in what we’re already doing.” however, although we had learned a lot about ourselves and each other through near-weekly conversations about activism, we did not want our committee to be a bubble. intentional application of the framework was vital to transcend the committee’s boundaries. for example, suha redesigned a course on curriculum leadership to integrate social justice and activism. instead of focusing on leadership theories in advance of students’ generating their own position statements, the course extended students’ repertoires as change agents. first, students reviewed, summarized, and synthesized literature on leadership, activism, and social justice in separate groups and presented their knowledge to the class through screencasts. second, regrouped with experts from the other groups, they prepared virtual panel discussions of their vision of the interplay among these constructs in educational settings. taking ownership of their learning while making connections to their practice, students shared their and complemented each other’s knowledge, embedding their insights in collective artifacts (hecker, 2012). as in previous years, students submitted individual leadership position statements—but in relation to activism and social justice. additionally, realizing the need for students’ perspectives on the edd-activism framework and sensing a high level of student engagement in the redesigned curriculum leadership course, suha initiated a participatory action research (par) study with volunteer students to explore how the framework might look from their positionalities and unveil both strengths in our program that cultivate change agents and challenges that need addressing. initially, nine students volunteered to participate in the study, but due to busy schedules and work commitments, only three persisted. mirroring the work of our committee, the par study group responded to a survey geared toward their views as graduating students on edd-activism. based on the survey data, the group developed a definition of eddactivism and generated a list of edd-activism attributes to turn into a framework. additionally, they reflected on the coursework that strengthened their understanding of social justice. data analysis is still ongoing, but the group hopes to share their findings and reflections with the program faculty and in other avenues. likewise inspired by our group, elizabeth intentionally adapted some of the program’s dissertation-embedded courses. in an introductory action research course in which students begin to draft a tentative prospectus, assigning dejaynes and curmi-hall’s (2019) illustration of youth activism helped students imagine more radical possibilities for their own eventual projects. providing a blueprint worksheet later in the term placed such possibilities even more in reach: the resource cites the programmatic definition of activism and encourages students to articulate how their current best thinking about a potential dissertation topic reflects such a commitment. in a course on curriculum inquiry, wherein students draft research designs, the new definitions also proved useful, informing a syllabus rife with examples of activist-oriented research. such texts reinforced action research principles while highlighting relevant methodological skills: upton’s (2020) endorsement of decolonial, coconspiring approaches; rademaker’s (2021) conversation about feminist lenses; and vivid illustrations of critical data collection techniques (e.g., asakura et al., 2020; caraballo & lyiscott, 2020). discussing these texts with peers and applying pertinent insights to individual assignments, students demonstrated their capacity to connect their learning from content-focused courses to the not-soneutral methodological logistics of a dip. beyond these individual efforts, our work also led to three distinct program-wide shifts. first and foremost, as a program, we experienced the benefits of collaboration, in contrast to our prior habit of working in isolation, a byproduct of the program’s asynchronous online format. as drago-severson et al. (2020) argued, team members are better positioned to meet one another where they are and unite as individuals committed to shared goals when they give voice to their commonalities and differences. our increased interaction around edd-activism has led to joint publications and presentations, thus benefiting individual faculty members and the consensus is a journey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.293 55 figure 5. overall aims overall program. the collaborative work even led to revamping our admissions process. second, our small-group meetings demonstrated the need for more intentional dialogue about program objectives. to that end, monthly program meetings during the 2021–2022 school year included a book study of is everyone really equal? (sensoy & diangelo, 2017), which prompted strategic conversations on critical social justice. each month, different faculty members led a discussion around designated chapters. to extend this dialogue to students, we adopted the book as the primary text for one of our introductory courses. third, our increased communication also spurred more intentional communication with students, anchored by an equity statement based on program-wide faculty input. students sign a copy upon entering the program and see the pledge in each course syllabus. the statement thus conveys our unified commitment to equity, social justice, and activism. despite these promising examples, we recognize that developing a program-wide conceptualization of edd-activism was but the first step in a longer process of resolving our pop. therefore, reminiscent of continuous cycles of action research, figure 5 also recalls cochran-smith’s (2010) recognition of the interconnected theoretical complexities of teacher education. the journey continues. next steps our early committee meetings followed a loose protocol, designed to ease us into the complexities of our shared task: what have we done? what now? what next? this essay adopted a similar structure: we articulated the process through which we arrived at a shared understanding of edd-activism, our ongoing efforts to implement that understanding in our everyday practice, and our clear-eyed view of our unfinished journey toward the social justice associated with high-quality edd programs (weiler & lomotey, 2021). among our long-term goals, we hope to synthesize the results of the par study with the faculty-driven framework into an action plan to guide continued reflection on the courses we offer to enrich students’ learning about social justice and activism. we consider our fellow cped members partners in this regard and encourage readers to adapt our working model of edd-activism to their own contexts or engage in similar processes to construct their own program-specific understandings. the collective project of edd-activism is never done because teacher education, like the world at large, is ever becoming (cuenca, 2010; kaushik & walsh, 2019). indeed, our program has experienced an ebb and flow of students and faculty members since edd-activism first entered our lexicon. although we have learned that consensus is a journey, we must invite others to walk with us and be willing to explore new paths they illuminate. note we wish to thank our former colleague, chris bogiages, who was an invaluable team member during the early phases of this project. references alridge, d. 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data were collected from 34 university websites where both a phd and an edd degree in leadership were available through a school of education. results indicated statistically significant differences were found between edd and phd programs in regard to total credits t(66) = -2.05, p = .022, d = -0.5; research credits, t(50.38) = -5.38, p < .001, d = -1.32, and culminating projects, t(63) = -1.79, p = 0.039, d = -0.44. qualitative analyses revealed similarities and differences between the programs. this study reinforces the concept of a practitioner degree for the edd and the research / faculty degree for phd. keywords edd program, phd program, practitioner degree, doctoral degree in many united states post-secondary schools of education, two doctoral degrees can be offered to students: the doctor of education (edd) and the doctor of philosophy (phd) (foster et al., 2023; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). the edd degree has been considered as the degree for working professionals (capello, 2020; flood, 2024) or, more broadly, as the “practitioner” degree for those working in administrative roles (brown, 1990; courtenay, 1988; leist & scott, 2011; toma, 2002), while the phd degree focuses on how to conduct research and train future faculty (courtenay, 1988; leist & scott, 2011; toma, 2002). historically, edd degrees were first granted in 1921 (andersen, 1983; perry, 2012) and preferred by students in schools of education until the 1960s and then declined in favor of the phd (brown, 1990). however, as of 1993, in the united states, there were a similar number of edd programs and phd programs (osguthorpe & wong, 1993). with separate goals for the programs, many practitioners in the field of education believe that these degrees offer two unique forms of preparation and that there are distinctions between the degrees; however, the extant literature shows few differences between these doctoral programs (andersen, 1983; dill & morrison, 1985; foster et al., 2023; guthrie, 2009). despite the notion that the edd is the “phd-lite” (buttram & doolittle, 2015), foster et al. (2023) notes that the variability between the edd and phd degrees “were and are still negligible” and that the programs “have been relatively stable over time” (p. 20). researchers have studied potential divergence between edd and phd programs based on program requirements in regard to multiple factors like the number of credit hours, the number of research courses, and the type of dissertation. in reviewing this potential divergence, prior literature that included both edd and phd programs was identified to understand the relationship. regarding total credit hours, researchers have found there were not statistically significant differences between edd and phd programs in the number of credit hours required of students for graduation (andersen, 1983; foster et al., 2023; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). yet, leist and scott (2011) did note a “subtle” gap with phd programs having more credit hours. within the credit hours discussion for research courses, brown (1990) found no statistically significant differences between the number of required research courses in edd and phd programs. however, other studies contradict those findings. for example, card et al. (2016) did find a statistically significant difference between research courses in edd https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9771-0222 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0479-2594 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3386-6930 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1452-6794 lamont–manfre et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 20 and phd programs. osguthorpe and wong (1993) found that an advanced research course – in the category of “advanced inferential statistics” (p. 55) was statistically significantly different between the programs, with phd programs having more advanced statistics courses. additionally, guthrie (2009) found that edd programs had more of an “elementary research understanding” (p. 4). culminating projects in these programs have different descriptive names, for example, dissertation, capstone, culminating project, etc. (brown, 1990; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). dissertations, or culminating projects, were found to have negligible differences between the edd and phd programs (brown, 1990; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). edd programs were noted to have more flexibility (foster et al., 2023) or were allowed to focus on a “practical problem” instead of research (andersen, 1983, p. 56). walker and haley-mize (2012) studied dissertations specifically in special education and found differences in the type of research design, with phd programs using more experimental and correlational designs while edd programs used more descriptive and qualitative methods. having discussed the logistical concerns such as credit hours, course differences, and culminating projects, it remains important to next introduce the conceptual philosophical bases of the program. osguthorpe and wong (1993) stated that edd and phd degrees have a “philosophical premise” which may differ (p. 47). some researchers have vocalized what should be done to differentiate these programs (carpenter, 1987; courtenay, 1988; dill & morrison, 1985; leist & scott, 2011; perry, 2012; toma, 2002). toma (2002) calls for only offering an edd program asserting that having both the edd and the phd “diminishes our credibility as a discipline in the broader community of scholars by affixing a pure label on what is clearly applied education” (p. 16). the comparison is made that medical, law, and other fields have their own doctoral degree, therefore education should as well (brown, 1990; guthrie & marsh, 2009; perry, 2012; toma, 2002). carpenter (1987) argued to leave the landscape untouched, as the phd is preferred by students. courtenay (1988) argued for a two-track phd program, arguing for the prestige of the phd program, stating, “if it doesn’t really matter what you call the degree, then why not choose the phd?” (p. 18). courtenay (1988) continued to say that the two-track phd should be defined by student career goals: “one for researchers/professors and one for administration/teachers” (p. 19). other researchers have not argued for one primary degree, instead they believe there should be better distinctions between the programs (dill & morrison, 1985; leist & scott, 2011). dill and morrison (1985) listed several components (e.g., research, career, internship) on where and how the programs should differ. organizations have also appeared to help support differentiating the degrees. for example, the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) created a program with the goal “to redesign the degree to make it the highest-quality degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and clinical faculty, academic leaders, and professional staff for the nation’s schools and colleges and the organizations that support them” (perry, 2012, p. 42). schools involved in cped work towards developing distinct edd and phd programs (aiken & gerstl-pepin, 2013; buttram & doolittle, 2015; perry, 2012). one university only offered the edd, but through work with cped, began to offer the phd (aiken & gerstl-pepin, 2013). by offering both the edd and phd there was the chance to “build a collaborative partnership between applied researchers (who would conduct research to inform practice) and practitioners-scholars (who would utilize research to address problems of practice)” (aiken & gerstl-pepin, 2013, p. 163). the national policy board for education administration (npbea) also is noted as an external force that advocates for “a reduction of the number of programs [and] differentiation between the edd and phd degrees” (buttram & doolittle, 2015, p. 283). while cped and npbea advocate for differentiating the degrees the distinctions and similarities between programs are not clear in the prior literature (dill & morrison, 1985; foster et al., 2023). based on the preceding discussion of the lack of clear understanding of the differences between edd and phd programs and degrees, the purpose of this study is to study the potential differences between edd and phd programs in the united states. the current study addresses the following overarching research question: are there significant differences in edd and phd programs in schools that have both programs? conceptual framework foster et al. (2023) present a conceptual framework that focuses on the potential differences and areas of overlap in program details for edd and phd programs. their framework includes five areas of comparison between the edd and phd programs: “course hours to degree, research hours to degree, culminating experience requirements, entrance/exit requirements, and admissions requirements” (foster et al., 2023, p. 20). the results from extant literature indicate that there is conflicting information on potential differences in these areas when comparing edd and phd programs (andersen, 1983; brown, 1990; foster et al., 2023; osguthorpe & wong, 1993). the conceptual framework used in foster et al. (2023) was used as a foundation in this article as it summarizes the literature’s findings on potential overlaps. based on foster et al. (2023) framework of these articles, our framework was built on the notion of programs that share similar titles and outcomes where a student has the option of choosing an edd or phd from the same school. while these programs share similar resources, prior literature (dill & morrison, 1985) suggests there should be an observable difference between why a student would choose one degree or another if the title is the same. using this as our framework, a methodology was developed to compare only schools in the u.s. where a shared program title could be obtained with either a phd or an edd. methods this study is a concurrent, partially mixed, equal status mixed methods design (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009). this is a mixed methods study due to the utilization of both quantitative and qualitative data (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009). the quantitative and qualitative data were obtained concurrently. the study is partially mixed which means the quantitative and qualitative data were mixed at some, but not all stages of the research process (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009). and the study is considered equal status because the quantitative and qualitative data were considered to be of equal value to the study. once the data were fully collected, the quantitative and qualitative data were mixed (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2009). the goal of the study is to add to the current knowledge base (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2010) of information regarding differences in edd and phd programs. the mixed methods research objective (johnson & christensen, 2004) is to identify and describe the programs, explaining the relationship and differences. the rationale differences between edd and phd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 21 for using a mixed methods study is significance enhancement (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2010) to maximize the understanding of the results. based on the conceptual framework of foster et al. (2023), the overarching research question is: are there differences in edd and phd programs in schools that have both programs? the quantitative questions include: what are the average credits (total, research, content, culminating project) for each program? are there differences in types of culminating project credits? are there differences in the number of credits (total, research, content, culminating project) between programs? are there differences in the word count of program descriptions between edd and phd programs? and the qualitative questions include: how are the edd and phd programs described on the websites? how do the descriptions compare to one another? procedure to determine sample size, a power analysis using g*power (faul et al., 2019) was conducted. the results indicated that a sample size of 34 schools were needed. to find the schools, a spreadsheet was downloaded from the integrated postsecondary education data system through the national center for education statistics (u.s. department of education, n.d.). the list initially started with 1658 schools but was filtered and reduced. first, the list was filtered down to 517 schools that were categorized as having a doctoral program. to reduce the list further, 118 public institutions that have both an edd and phd in education were found. the list of 118 was further narrowed by comparing the edd and phd programs for similar sounding programs in educational leadership. educational leadership programs (encompassing policy, student affairs, and other similar programs) were picked due to the frequency in available overlapping programs compared with other kinds of doctoral programs (such as math education, special education, or research and evaluation methods). for example, if there was an “educational leadership edd”, there had to be an educational leadership phd at the same school. this produced a list of 39 schools: from this list 34 schools were randomly selected. a few schools were excluded because their programs had closed, or their websites offered not enough information to evaluate. if one school was excluded, another was randomly selected so that the sample size would be large enough to have adequate power. once the schools were selected, the data were collected from the programs’ websites. the variables collected are total credits, research credits, content credits, culminating project credits, internship credits, and other credits. the credits were counted for doctoral programs, and did not include credits for master’s degrees. the data were stored in an excel file. the culminating project was broken down further into dissertation, dissertation in practice, and capstone. the other credits category was for credits that did not fit into research, content, internship or culminating projects, such as licensure credits. the program descriptions were copied to word documents and the word count was calculated. the descriptions were also used for the qualitative analysis. analyses to answer the question “what are the average credits (total, research, content, culminating project) for each program?” descriptives including the sample size, mean, standard deviation, and skewness were run using spss (version 29) on the following variables: total credits, research credits, content credits, dissertation credits, dissertation in practice credits, capstone credits, culminating project credits, internship credits, other credits, and word count. to answer the questions: “are there differences in the number of credits (total, research, content, culminating project) between programs?” and “are there differences in the word count of program descriptions between edd and phd programs?”, t-tests were conducted using spss. assumptions on normality and homogeneity of variance were checked prior to the analysis. the credit hours and number of words used for describing the programs on the websites were compared between edd and phd programs. due to dissertation in practice and capstone credits being solely used in edd programs, these two variables could not be compared across degree options. prior to running the t-tests, assumptions were tested. table 1 includes skewness for the variables. “other” credits, internship credits, and description word count had a skewness greater than 1, therefore normality was not met. levene’s test for equality was used to test for homogeneity of variance. the research credit variable violated homogeneity; therefore, equal variances were not assumed. the remaining variables (total, content, dissertation, and culminating project) did not violate homogeneity of variance. to answer the qualitative question: “how are the edd and phd programs described on the websites?”, a classical content analysis (berelson, 1952) was conducted. the program descriptions were read, chunked, and coded by the researchers. the codes were then counted. to answer the question: “how do the descriptions compare to one another?,” a constant comparison analysis (corbin & strauss, 2014) was conducted to count the codes. the researchers reviewed the descriptions and coded each sentence with an in vivo word or phrase summarizing the data (corbin & strauss, 2014). as coding progressed, the codes were constantly compared so codes were used for similar passages in the data. once the codes were finalized, they were categorized, counted, and compared between the data from the two degree types. the codes were then grouped by categories suggested by dill and morrison (1983): distinctive objectives, intended professional careers, research methods, and thesis. the category for thesis included codes regarding culminating projects. the last category, internships, was broadened to include program features, where codes like internships, assistantships, etc. were grouped together. these categories did not encompass all codes, so an additional two other categories were added: skills taught and other. results quantitative to answer the question: “what are the average credits (total, research, content, culminating project) for each program?”, the descriptive statistics were run through spss. table 1 provides the sample size, mean, and standard deviation for each variable broken down by edd, phd, and total (combining both the edd and phd). total credits for all programs was an average of about 70 credit hours to complete the doctoral degree. the credits broke down into research, content, internship, other, and culminating project credit hours. phd programs had a higher average for total credit hours (m = 73.15) compared to edd programs (m = 66.59). as well, phd programs had a higher average of research credits (m = 17.09) than lamont–manfre et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 22 edd programs (m = 12.12). both edd and phd programs have content credits that combined averaged 38 credit hours. in the sample, more edd programs had internship and other credits than did the phd programs. credits that were defined as other included superintendent or other administrator preparation credits, seminars for culminating projects, or “professional studies.” as for final or culminating projects, all programs had credits listed for a culminating project. both edd and phd programs had dissertations with an average of about 15 credit hours. more phd programs had dissertations than edd programs. although both programs had the aforementioned dissertation, only edd programs had capstone or dissertations in practice credits. table 1. means, standard deviations, and skewness of credits between edd and phd programs variable degree n m sd skewness total credits edd 34 66.59 14.00 0.70 phd 34 73.15 12.40 total 68 69.87 13.54 research credits edd 33 12.12 2.61 0.72 phd 33 17.09 4.64 total 66 14.61 4.5 content credits edd 33 36.79 12.21 0.76 phd 33 39.27 11.21 total 66 38.03 11.70 other credits edd 10 11.2 7.90 1.86 phd 4 4 1.41 total 14 9.14 7.42 internship credits edd 8 5.25 2.12 2.08 phd 4 9.75 5.68 total 12 6.75 4.07 dissertation credits edd 14 14.64 5.26 1.00 phd 33 15.82 5.48 total 47 15.47 5.39 dissertation in practice credits edd 10 15.10 4.98 0.21 phd 0 total 10 15.10 4.98 capstone credits edd 7 8.86 3.58 -0.69 phd 0 total 7 8.86 3.58 culminating project credits edd 32 13.44 5.25 0.78 phd 33 15.82 5.48 total 65 14.65 5.46 description word count edd 34 186.91 129.12 2.36 phd 34 153.18 78.43 total 68 170.04 107.38 to answer the questions: “are there differences in the number of credits (total, research, content, culminating project) between programs?” and “are there differences in the word count of program descriptions between edd and phd programs?”, multiple results were found. for total credits, a statistically significant difference was found between edd and phd programs: t(66) = -2.05, p = .022. there was a medium effect size of d = -0.5. for research credits, a statistically significant difference was found between edd and phd programs t(50.38) = -5.38, p < .001, with a large effect size d = -1.32. for culminating projects, a statistically significant difference was found between edd and phd programs t(63) = -1.79, p = 0.039, d = -0.44. table 2 presents the means for the groups: for total credits, research credits, and culminating projects, phd programs had a higher average than edd programs. table 2. differences in research credits, total credits, and culminating project credits between phd and edd programs edd phd variable m sd m sd p cohen’s d research credits 12.12 2.61 17.09 4.64 < .001 -1.32 total credits 66.59 14.00 73.15 12.40 .022 -0.50 culminating project credits 13.44 5.25 15.82 5.48 .039 -0.44 qualitative to answer the research question of “how are the edd and phd programs described on the websites?” the qualitative codes that emerged from the websites through constant comparison analysis (corbin & strauss, 2014) were categorized based on prior literature. the seven categories were distinctive objectives, intended professional careers, research methods, thesis / culminating project, program features, skills taught, and other. there were a large number of codes (phd n = 355; edd n = 407). table 3 presents the number of codes per category for phd and edd programs. table 3. category code count category definition phd code count edd code count distinctive objectives purposes and objectives of the program 69 33 intended professional careers future careers 96 50 research methods research topics and methodologies 5 3 thesis / culminating project the final project for the program. 2 28 program features logistical aspects of the program 81 129 skills taught skills taught in the program 56 94 other codes that did not fit into other categories 46 70 to answer the research question, “how do the descriptions compare to one another?,” the codes were compared between edd and phd programs. for the code categories, the phd programs had more codes relating to distinctive objectives (n = 69) and intended differences between edd and phd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 23 professional careers (n = 96). edd programs had more codes relating to thesis (n = 28), program features (n = 129), skills taught (n = 94), and other (n = 70). within each of the categories, notable differences were found when counting the total count of the codes and organizing the codes by highest numbered count of the codes to the least. figures 1 to 7 include the codes and code count for edd and phd for each category. because there were so many codes for the phrases used by both types of degree programs and yet so many differences in the frequencies of use, the researchers highlighted major differences by the use of arrows in the tables. bolded arrows indicate a difference in code counts by 5 or more. solid, non-bolded arrows indicate a difference in code counts of less than 5. dashed arrows indicate the same code count. if there is not an arrow, then there is not a similar code to the other program. figure 1. distinctive objectives codes within the subcategory of distinctive objective, figure 1 shows the cross-comparison between the phd codes and the edd codes. notable differences appeared when looking at the highest two counts: specialization area and diversity, equity and inclusion (dei) /social justice for the phd and edd, respectively. dei/social justice appeared in the phd category as second most frequent; however, the code count was still higher than the edd with a discrepancy of 12 appearances of dei/social justice language appearing in the objective statements for the phd programs compared to 8 for the edd programs. similarly, the highest appearing code for the phd programs of specialization area (n = 14) did appear in the edd list with a frequency count of 3. as can be observed in this entire subcategory of distinctive objective shows that all of the code counts for the edd programs were less frequently stated in the program objectives listed on the website than in the phd program statements. under the category of intended professional careers, displayed in figure 2 above, the program descriptions on the website listed several possible careers or career paths for both the post edd and post phd professional. the most notable differences were that the three highest phd intended career codes research, faculty, and policy, respectively all corresponded to edd intended careers at significantly lower counts. research for phd had 25 mentions across the schools, compared with 4 for edd school websites. similarly, faculty (10) and policy (9) for phd both corresponded to only a single mention for edd under this category, unlike the previous category, there were careers listed on edd program websites that appeared at a higher frequency than phd program websites. leadership careers were noted in the phd programs 7 times compared with 13 times for edd programs. similarly, a combination of admin careers appeared 9 times for the edd whereas for the phd it was listed several times across three categories: k12 administration (n = 3), administration non-specific (n = 2), and higher education administration (n = 2). at 13 mentions for the edd compared with 25 mentions for the phd, this category continues to have uniformly higher consolidated mentions across phd program websites than across edd program websites. figure 2. intended professional careers codes compared to all other sections, figure 3, research methods, contains the fewest amount of code counts, as well as no distinguishable difference. both phd and edd code counts were small (2 or fewer). research methodology was not described in descriptions for either phd or edd programs. figure 3. research methods codes similarly to the research methods category, thesis codes also appeared much less frequently across both programs. as seen below in figure 4, for the phd only two mentions of a research dissertation were mentioned across the websites. compared with the phd program descriptions, many more kinds of theses were mentioned by edd programs. edd programs mentioned 8 different kinds of thesis projects ranging from action/problem based dissertation (n = 8) to optional culminating project (n = 1). lamont–manfre et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 24 figure 4. thesis codes figure 5 shows the program features code category. arguably the most complicated of the categories appearing in this paper, this displays features of the programs as mentioned in program description paragraphs on the websites of each school. these features encompass enticing, unique, or special features that attract students to a particular program versus another. such codes include modality of the program (such as hybrid, on-campus, or online), number of credits, options for the degree (edd or phd), class times (such as weekend classes), admission times (such as rolling), and even extra curricular activities. notable differences include the amount of times modality is mentioned for the edd compared with the phd hybrid (n = 12) and online (n = 8) appear significantly more times than the phd with hybrid (n = 1) and online (n = 4) times. the most significant difference of this category, and therefore between program features themselves, was the mention of “cohorts”. cohorts was mentioned 18 times across all the edd programs, and was not mentioned even once for phd. figure 5. program features codes figure 6 displays the codes associated with skills taught. interestingly, this grouping contains the most uniformity among code names, with less divergence of code counts than the other categories. the top two codes in both edd and phd program descriptions for skills taught were research skills and leadership skills, however, they appeared inverse from one another in the programs. research skills was counted 23 times for the phd and 19 times for the edd leadership skills was counted 12 times for the phd and 23 times for the edd with both programs featuring the highest code count equal to one another at 23 counts, the skills taught category was relatively equal. other notable differences were the second two highest phd codes of policy skills (n = 9) and theory skills (n = 4) appearing in the edd column as well, albeit less frequently at 5 and 1, respectively. figure 6. skills taught codes finally, the other category was created to filter in any other mentions of codes that didn’t correlate to any of the above categories. such codes included collaboration, time commitment, faculty, impacts, and more. one of the biggest discrepancies and observations that can be seen in this category is the frequency of the edd counts compared with the phd “collaboration” was mentioned on edd program description websites 9 times compared with the phd at 6 times. as well, “working adults” was mentioned 7 times for the edd compared with only once for the phd. figure 7. other codes differences between edd and phd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 25 discussion through the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the results differ from previous literature around edd and phd program aspects. despite prior literature being divided, there were important differences found in various aspects of the program. in answering the overarching research question, differences were found in program credits, descriptions, culminating projects, and in the skills and intended careers after the completion of the program. findings from this study, as discussed in the following paragraphs, support the labeling of the phd degree as the researcher/future faculty degree (courtenay, 1988; leist & scott, 2011; toma, 2002) and the edd as the leadership degree, similar to how other researchers have designated the edd as the “practitioner” degree (brown, 1990; capello, 2020; courtenay, 1988; leist & scott, 2011; toma, 2002). total credits and how those credits are distributed across coursework and other requirements are important to students as they determine what program to choose. this study found that phd programs have significantly more overall credits than edd programs with similar degree focus. prior literature is divided regarding differences in total credits hours. andersen (1983) reported that edd credit hours were only slightly higher. yet, other studies found that phd programs have more total credits (foster et al., 2023; leist & scott, 2011). additionally, phd credit-driven requirements were distributed differently, with focus on policy and research, theory, and research, while edd credit-driven requirements focused more on practice. similarly, dill & morrison (1985) examined objectives of programs and found that edd programs focused on application and research literacy, while phd programs focused on “pure” theory and original research. total credit hours also could impact the depth to which knowledge and skills are developed. one consideration for phd students would be whether the additional credits and the focus of those credits would better prepare them for their ambitions and careers. given the program research requirements and the emphasis of credits on research skills in phd programs found in this study, prospective students may well see the need for a higher number of credit hours. other studies have found similar results with higher research credit hours in phd programs (foster et al., 2023; leist & scott, 2011) and more focus on developing research skills (leist and scott, 2011). while other types of credit hours were noted, the assumptions were not met for quantitative analysis; however, codes were found qualitatively that could influence a student’s decision on a degree type. edd programs, in general, had more codes in the other and program feature categories. one code, working adult, appeared seven times for edd and only once for phd. the ability to work while attending classes could be an important influence on how a student decides on what degree type to pick. additionally, cohorts was coded in edd programs 18 times and only twice in phd this is similar to prior research (buttram & doolittle, 2015). while buttram and doolittle (2015) go more in depth about the type of cohort, it may be helpful for potential applicants to know there is the support of a cohort within a program when they are choosing programs. toward the end of doctoral program, each requires credit hours for a culminating project. both quantitative and qualitative results found that edd programs had more variety in the type of culminating project. while phd programs had credit hours for the dissertation, edd programs listed dissertation, dissertation in practice, and capstones. however, for edd programs with traditional dissertations, dissertation hours were not significantly different from phd programs. the existing literature on culminating project comparisons varies. literature prior to 2012 indicates little differences between edd and phd credit hours for culminating projects (brown, 1990; leist & scott, 2011), yet later literature indicates differences in culminating projects, more in line with the findings in this paper. andersen (1983) found larger differences and noted that the flexibility to study a “practical problem” was found in half of the edd programs surveyed, while phd programs did not allow this flexibility. similarly, other studies also found flexibility and variety in culminating edd projects, whereas phd programs did not (buttram & doolittle, 2015; foster et al., 2023). as more programs define edd and phd programs, culminating projects will be a defining difference. allowing edd programs to focus on action and practical problems lends further credence to the historical nature of the edd program being referred to as the practitioner degree. once students have completed the degree, career options may be dependent on the type of degree earned. research careers and faculty careers were most noted in phd descriptions and administration/advance career were often noted in edd descriptions. edd programs could be marketing to students already established as practitioners in education seeking to advance their career as opposed to changing careers. the findings in this study combine both quantitative and qualitative analyses on the type of credit hours and information in program descriptions. this can provide information to future students as they navigate the differences between edd and phd doctoral degrees and what it can mean for the type of classes, program features, and future careers. this study adds to the body of literature that has a variety of results surrounding the difference in doctoral education programs. a possible limitation of this research paper is that the list of schools was initially narrowed down to only public schools, eliminating all private schools that might have been included. furthermore, this study is based on website materials and did not include follow-up conversations. another limitation is the information was pulled from websites at one given time so it is possible that the websites were going through updates and that the data could be outdated or incorrect. future research would benefit from additional analysis of types of classes and perceptions of edd and phd programs. the program websites provided much information regarding the credit hours, but did not elaborate further into what is taught in the classes. as such, it would be helpful to also survey administrators at schools to verify and ask follow-up questions to the information found on the websites. since the research credits were found to differ between edd and phd programs, future study on the type of research courses could inform students about the research methodology they could expect in their respective programs. additionally, surveying students and faculty on their perceptions of edd and phd programs can provide insight into the perceived differences in the programs. since the literature on program differences has been divided, it would be useful to universities to understand how students and faculty feel about each degree and why they would pick one degree over the other. identifying where the differences are and are not between edd and phd programs can provide students with information so that they make informed decisions about which type of program to choose. this information is also crucial to universities as they lamont–manfre et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.465 26 navigate the changing educational landscape to become more attractive to students in an economic environment where school programs have to be considered in conjunction with both current work status and future career options. implications for doctoral programs ultimately, after reviewing websites for analysis, the authors suggest that programs revise their websites for more engagement and explanation so students may be better equipped for picking one program or another. in preparing future websites for recruitment of doctoral students, faculty, administrators, and other decision-makers should reflect on what makes each program edd or phd unique and what makes the school unique. consider what qualities incoming students should have, and with what qualities students will leave the program. then, with that knowledge, examine the website to make sure that these features are clearly stated and that these features portray why a student would choose this particular program. the authors suggest schools utilize a flowchart to explain why a student would choose an edd versus a phd at your school. qualities like time commitments, modality of classes, research credits, and final project are all features to consider embedding into the flowchart. additionally, utilizing the figures embedded into this paper (figs 17) should guide schools based on keywords/features most common across similar schools and programs. in summary, the authors recommend the following key features for websites: 1. clearly define your program with credit hours, modality, and concentration focus; 2. link to course catalogs and handbooks to provide more information; and 3. provide contact information and faqs as resources for learning more about programs. references aiken, j. a., & gerstl-pepin, c. (2013). envisioning the edd and phd as a partnership for change. planning & changing, 44(3/4), 162–180. andersen, d. g. (1983). differentiation of the edd and phd in education. journal of teacher education, 34(3), 55–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/002248718303400311 berelson, b. (1952). content analysis in communicative research. free press. brown, l. d. (1990). a perspective on the ph. d.-ed. d. discussion in schools of education [conference paper]. annual meeting of the american educational research association, boston, ma. buttram, j. l., & doolittle, v. (2015). redesign of edd and phd educational leadership programs. international journal of educational reform, 24(3), 282–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/105678791502400306 capello, s. (2020). leveraging phd students to support edd dissertation writing. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 8–13. card, k., chambers, c. r., & freeman, s., jr. (2016). is there a core curriculum across higher education doctoral programs? international journal of doctoral studies, 11, 127–146. http://ijds.org/volume11/ijdsv11p127-146card2042.pdf carpenter, d. s. (1987). degrees of difference?: the phd and the edd the review of higher education, 10(3), 281–286. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1987.0024 corbin, j., & strauss, a. (2014). basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. sage. courtenay, b. c. (1988). eliminating the confusion over the edd and phd in colleges and schools of education. innovative higher education, 13(1), 11–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00898127 dill, d. d., & morrison, j. l. (1985). the edd and the phd research training in the field of higher education: a survey and a proposal. review of higher education, 8, 169–186. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1985.0027 flood, l. d. (2024). centering the scholarly practitioner within the edd: lessons learned. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 9(2), 31–33. foster, h. a., chesnut, s., thomas, j., & robinson, c. (2023). differentiating the edd and the phd in higher education: a survey of characteristics and trends. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 8(1), 18–26. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.288 faul, f., erdfelder, e., lang, a-g., & buchner, a. (2019). g*power (version 3.1.9.4). heinrich heiner universitat. https://www.psychologie.hhu.de/arbeitsgruppen/allgemeine-psychologieund-arbeitspsychologie/gpower guthrie, j. w. (2009). the case for a modern doctor of education degree (edd): multipurpose education doctorates no longer appropriate. peabody journal of education, 84(1), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/01619560802679526 guthrie, j. w., & marsh, d. d. (2009). strategies for elevating the public and professional regard of the edd peabody journal of education, 84(1), 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/01619560802679773 johnson, r.b., & christensen, l. b. (2004). educational research: quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches. allyn & bacon. leech, n. l., & onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2009). a typology of mixed methods research designs. quality & quantity, 43, 265–275. leech, n. l., & onwuegbuzie, a. j. (2010). guidelines for conducting and reporting mixed research in the field of counseling and beyond. journal of counseling & development, 88(1), 61–69. leist, j., & scott, j. (2011). differentiation... but to what degree? the ed. d. and ph. d. in higher education programs. academic leadership: the online journal, 9(3), 7. https://doi.org/10.58809/cenr4928 osguthorpe, r. t., & wong, m. j. (1993). the phd versus the edd: time for a decision. innovative higher education, 18(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01742197 perry, j. a. (2012). to ed. d. or not to ed. d.?. phi delta kappan, 94(1), 41– 44. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400108 toma, j. d. (2002). legitimacy, differentiation, and the promise of the ed. d. in higher education [opinion paper] annual meeting of the association for the study of higher education, sacramento, ca. u.s. department of education. (n.d.). institute of education sciences. national center for education statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data walker, d. w., & haley-mize, s. (2012). content analysis of phd and edd dissertations in special education. teacher education and special education, 35(3), 202–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406411431168 https://doi.org/10.1177/002248718303400311 https://doi.org/10.1177/105678791502400306 http://ijds.org/volume11/ijdsv11p127-146card2042.pdf https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1987.0024 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00898127 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1985.0027 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.288 https://www.psychologie.hhu.de/arbeitsgruppen/allgemeine-psychologie-und-arbeitspsychologie/gpower https://www.psychologie.hhu.de/arbeitsgruppen/allgemeine-psychologie-und-arbeitspsychologie/gpower https://doi.org/10.1080/01619560802679526 https://doi.org/10.1080/01619560802679773 https://doi.org/10.58809/cenr4928 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01742197 https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400108 https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406411431168 marisha lamont–manfre university of colorado denver patrick munnelly community college of aurora nancy l. leech university of colorado denver carolyn a. haug university of colorado denver conceptual framework methods procedure analyses results quantitative qualitative discussion implications for doctoral programs references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 58 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.346 organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education book review heather hurst frostburg state university hlhurst@frostburg.edu colleen capper: organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education. new york: routledge, 2019. 239 pp. paperback: $52.95. isbn 978-0-415-73622-0 colleen capper’s (2019) organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education was the text i longed for when re-designing our program’s introductory research course, applying theory and research to practice. theory felt especially important to me, as our students were struggling to identify and articulate their theories in their dissertations and virtually never spoke of theory when describing their own practice. i was drawn to capper’s text initially because equity and diversity frame her exploration of educational organizational theory; as she writes, “understanding a range of epistemologies can help leaders/scholars determine the epistemological underpinnings of various educational practices and, in so doing, identify the limits and possibilities of those practices toward equity” (pp. 1-2). in this review, i share both the contributions that this text makes to the field and its meaning within our ed.d. program, particularly in terms of how we have used it pedagogically to further align our program with the carnegie project on the educational doctorate (cped), as well as our students’ experiences with it. our ed.d. program in educational leadership features diverse cohorts as its signature pedagogy; our students are employed in many roles in educational contexts across higher education, pk12 schools, nonprofits, and the government, and they themselves represent a wide range of generations, years of work experiences, races, genders, and sexual orientations. capper’s (2019) text has now become a benchmark in our program. in recent data collection for different studies related to our program, students use her name as if she is a familiar cohort member and not merely the author of a course reading. for instance, when reflecting on the course in which capper’s (2019) text is used, grace said, “i’ve referenced capper so frequently, and i think about that text when i’m thinking about the idea of restorative practices challenging the structural functionalism of academic – that’s all from capper.” capper’s text is unique in that she positions diversity and equity not as topics tangential to our work as leaders but as the primary drivers of our work. for instance, a similar text, organizational theory: modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives (4th ed., 2018, by mary jo hatch) lacks any substantial discussion of equity or diversity; these topics are not even listed in the text’s index. additionally, capper maintains keen focus on what theory means for the practice of an educational leader, whereas many other theoretical texts focus on framing a research process, such as thinking with theory in qualitative research (2nd ed., 2023, by alecia y. jackson and lisa a. mazzei). although texts such as higher education administration for social justice and equity (2020, edited by adrianna kezar and julie posselt) frame their exploration of the practice of educational leadership through social justice concerns similar to capper’s, they lack her attention to organizational theory. her text uniquely synthesizes educational leadership practice, organizational theory, and social justice. capper has had a distinguished career in socially just educational leadership. she is professor emerita at the university of wisconsin-madison and has published three other texts, including leading for social justice: transforming schools for all learners, co-authored with elise frattura. she is the editor of the routledge series, educational leadership for equity and diversity. spanning three decades, her peer-reviewed publications explore poststructural feminist leadership, lgbtiq school leaders, and critical race theory in education. capper’s first two chapters introduce and provide a history of educational organizational theory. chapters three and four describe the two dominant epistemologies in educational organizations: structural functionalism and interpretivism. chapters five through eleven introduce epistemologies that are oriented toward social justice: critical theory, feminist/poststructural/feminist poststructural theory, critical race theory, latcrit/tribal crit/asian crit, black feminism, disability studies, and queer theory. the concluding chapter explores “individual and organizational identity formation toward social justice.” for some students, capper’s first two chapters are intellectually and emotionally challenging. they understand better after reading more of the book, and so i have learned to instruct them to have patience with the introduction, to read the entire text recursively, and to expect to need to read the entire text to understand the introduction fully. capper’s second chapter provides a history of organizational theory and outlines several beliefs about the benefits of organizational theory for social justice leadership, such as that theory can lead “prospective educational leaders to examine the larger context, or ‘bigger picture’ within which their work is taking place” (p. 17), as well as “help leaders become conscious of the epistemologies that guide their values and leadership practices” (p. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9954-3333 organizational theory for equity and diversity-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.346 59 18). throughout this chapter, capper explores how theories have been used in published educational research with extensive citations of articles utilizing different theories; these citations serve as a guide for students interested in learning more about particular theories – from “definitions of trust” to “theories of absenteeism” (p. 25). capper offers numerous opportunities for the readers to actively engage, many of which we have adopted as course assignments. at the end of her second chapter, she asks readers to write a case study about “an organizational/professional event or experience that was significant or challenging for you” (p. 30). we use this case study as an introduction to cped’s problem of practice framework for the dissertation in practice. instead of asking students to conceptualize this activity as connected to their dissertations, which might add anxiety and weightiness to the task, developing a “case study” allows students to begin to consider how a research idea might emanate from a daily challenge that they face. chapter three, structural functional epistemology, and chapter four, interpretivist epistemology, tend to be revelatory for our students, as these chapters help them recognize the implicit theories undergirding their organizations. they begin to understand how the taken-for-granted practices and assumptions of their organizations – such as the prevailing reliance on data-informed decision-making wherein only certain types of data are deemed useful or relevant – are not only patterned but also theoretical. prior to learning about structural functionalism and interpretivism as organizational theories, most of our students conceptualize theory as individually held mindsets or approaches – which they are – but too highly personal to be systemic. recognizing how individual and collective decisions within the organization are driven by organizational theories helps our students begin to imagine other ways of thinking and being within their organizations. capper provides numerous activities to guide students to consider how these theories are utilized by their organizations, including a critical reflection on their own leadership practice, and guided (individual and group) analysis of their previously composed case studies through the lenses of these epistemologies. for instance, she asks the readers to consider what issues in their case studies are from a structural functional epistemology and what solutions structural functionalism would present. i particularly value that she suggests that this work be done with a partner, both because doing so “provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills” (cped, 2021, para. 5) and because each reader is bound to “add additional ideas they [see] that you may have missed” (capper, p. 48). the collaboration demonstrates the value of diverse and outsider perspectives. some students are surprised and respond emotionally to capper’s representation of structural functionalism. when this course was taught face-to-face and allowed for extemporaneous discussion, i became accustomed to hearing some students describe capper as “angry” and “bitter.” one student wondered what terrible life experiences she must have had to write a chapter like this one. yet, when i have asked these students to share specific examples from the chapter demonstrating this purported anger, they have been unable to do so. i suspect that the students themselves are reading emotion into the text because capper demonstrates how some taken-for-granted educational practices are deficit-based and “expect all students to assimilate to this white, middle/upper class core” (p. 43). her challenges to structural functionalism, and, to a lesser degree, interpretivism are experienced as personally threatening because she unequivocally states that “i no longer believe that structural functional and interpretivist epistemologies can be joined with critically oriented epistemologies to view or analyze organizations or to guide leadership practice” (p. 10). students must wrestle with the dissonance between their personal values of equity and justice and the implicit theory of their organizations. chapters five through ten, spanning from critical theory to queer theory, are structured similarly. capper provides a brief introduction of the history of each theory and explains where it is situated in her epistemological framework. she examines how the theory has been used to date in educational research. she shares an overview of the key tenets of the theory and explains the relationship between the theory and diversity/difference. she explores in greater detail what the theory means for educational leadership for social justice. each chapter concludes with several learning activities and an extensive list of discussion questions. based on our use of this text over several semesters, her questions for case study analysis through the lens of critical race theory have shown to be particularly useful for some of our students who have been socialized not to recognize the ubiquity of race and racism in their work; even if their case study is not ostensibly about race, they are challenged to consider issues of property, majoritarian narratives, and interest convergence. as instructors in the program, we find her chapter on feminist, poststructural, and feminist poststructural epistemologies to be particularly strong and feature it in a module. in this chapter, i particularly appreciate the guidance she provides for understanding the implications of the theories as more than just “topical.” for instance, feminist theory is concerned with gender, but it also suggests different ways of thinking and being, and so she asks students to reflect on their case study to consider “how and to what extent are process, emotion, cooperation, nurturance, intuition, the relational, and experience suppressed in the situation?” (p. 95). our students repeatedly reference her introduction to poststructural understandings of power within this chapter and cite it as useful in troubling some taken-for-granted assumptions about power within their organizations. capper’s final chapter, individual and organizational identity formation toward social justice, is a strong culmination to the work students do throughout this course in weaving together their leadership practice, their nascent understanding of practitioner research, their newly identified epistemologies and theories, and their commitment to educational equity and justice. she demonstrates the relationship between personal identity and organizational identity and provides extensive activities to frame students’ identity explorations. it is not hyperbole to describe capper’s text as transformational for our program. beyond those resources provided by cped itself, her text was the single most profound resource in achieving our goal of implementing the cped guiding principles for program design. her thoughtful questions have challenged and guided my own leadership of the program; she has influenced us as faculty in the program to consider issues of power, representation, voice, process, and policy; she has provided all of us with a common language to use across our program. she has helped our students articulate their own theories and to imagine new possibilities for the structure of their organizations – and especially to understand how small, wellmeaning initiatives within the existing structure are unlikely to disrupt the status quo. grace, for instance, described how she always knew that she was a feminist but that she had not previously considered what that meant for her work. capper’s text led her to ask, “why do i hurst impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 1 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.346 60 lead the way that i do?,” and this exploration led to her identifying how, in her daily practice, she relied on distributive power and the lifting of voices. she said that she “didn’t really know what [those kind of ideas] were to name them,” and capper helped her leave the course with clarity: “this is my identity as a leader.” reference carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2021). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.422 designing, developing, and sustaining doctoral programs in a post-pandemic age rebecca harper augusta university rharper7@augusta.edu abstract this special themed issue of impacting education, designing, developing, and sustaining doctoral programs in a post-pandemic age, focuses on ways in which educators have used the pandemic as an opportunity in their doctoral programs for reimagination and reflection. although this was a disruptive time in education, it also allowed time for transformations and opportunities within doctoral programs. instead of ignoring the challenges presented by the pandemic, the contributors in this issue used their observations and experiences for improvement and refinement, and emerged from the pandemic with programs that were more robust and reflected the needs of their students. keywords pandemic, doctoral program, program evaluation this special themed issue of impacting education, designing, developing, and sustaining doctoral programs in a post-pandemic age focuses on ways in which our colleagues have used the pandemic as an opportunity in their doctoral programs for reimagination and reflection. as you’ll see in the essays that follow, what was certainly a disruptive time in education yielded several transformations and opportunities within doctoral programs. instead of ignoring the challenges presented by the pandemic, these contributors leaned into them and used their observations and experiences for improvement and refinement and emerged from the pandemic with programs that were more robust and reflected the needs of their students. while i have included a brief summary of each article below, i hope you will take the time to read this issue in full and learn what our carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) friends are doing at their home institutions, as their work is both impactful and inspiring. in jessica marotta’s essay, transformative learning and professional advancement during an edd program, she explores the rationale and justification for candidates’ enrollment in an online doctoral program post-pandemic. the article written by cherese childers-mckee, sara ewell, joan giblin, joseph mcnabb, and melissa parenti, developing and sustaining northeastern’s edd program during and post pandemic, focuses on northeastern’s response to social justice issues in the world and how their program integrated these concepts in their programs of study. in reimagining the edd in a time when the future of public schooling is at stake, laura flores shaw, juliana paré-blagoev, and laura quaynor address their critical reflection process as they reimagined their institution’s edd. from reacting to re-imagining: using pandemic adaptations for program advancement, authored by amy markos, ray buss, and josephine marsh explores their journey through the pandemic as they used these experiences to reimagine their edd program. in pivoting from problems to possibilities in response to dual pandemics, jarrod druery, melissa jones, and brandelyn tosolt focus on their experiences addressing dual pandemics (covid-19 and racial injustice) and share how these shaped and changed their doctoral program. mechanisms for change: infusing the edd with change-making practices, a metaphoric essay written by nicholas husbye, tachier rezac, stephanie wessels, and guy trainin, explores how programs might be designed in order to equip candidates with the necessary skills for success. jacqueline hawkins and monica martens wrote about their program evaluation results in a model for program improvement using reflections by edd scholars about adaptation during a pandemic time and how this helped them address their program needs. in the article penned by chery lucarelli, amy murzyn, matthew ridenour, and neil witikko, the architecture of the unknown: constructing a flexible edd program, the authors share ways in which they created an inclusive, innovative, flexible structure, as validated (and challenged) by the covid-19 pandemic. from room to zoom: co-constructing doctoral community in pandemic and post-pandemic times, enda donlon and fiona king reflect on a cohort of doctoral students and their thoughts on community building engagements in the virtual setting. lastly, henry tran, kathleen cunningham, suzy hardie, peter https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ harper impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.422 2 moyi, and era roberts focus on their process for program improvement in re)designing a cped-oriented edd program to improve its emphasis on equity in a post-pandemic world. thank you to all our contributing authors for their work on this issue and the production staff for getting the journal ready for publication. we could not do this without your hard work and assistance. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.368 part one of the themed issue on reimagining research methods coursework for the preparation of scholar-practitioners sarah capello radford university scapello@radford.edu maxwell yurkofsky radford university myurkofsky@radford.edu edwin nii bonney radford university ebonney@radford.edu abstract ongoing efforts to distinguish the edd from the phd as a professional practice doctorate have important implications for how research methodology courses are designed, sequenced, and taught in cped-inspired edd programs. currently, there is much debate and little consensus as to what the purpose and outcomes of these courses should be and how the courses might differ from traditional doctoral-level methods preparation. in this first installment of the themed issue on redesigning research methods for cped-inspired edd programs, edd faculty and students share their current redesign work and experiences implementing revised methodology courses as part of larger, practitioner-oriented program revisions. keywords cped, education doctorate, research methodology, research methodology coursework introduction the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) has transformed conceptions of the edd degree from either indistinguishable from the phd or a phd-lite degree (levine, 2005; shulman et al., 2006) to a professional practice doctorate (cped, 2022; hovannesian, 2013; perry, 2016; perry et al., 2015). cped and its members have argued vociferously that the edd is a distinct degree for the preparation of educational leaders who are scholarpractitioners with the ability to inquire into problems of practice, apply justice and equity-oriented framings, integrate research and professional knowledge, and collaborate with diverse communities and partners to bring about solutions to persistent problems (allen et al., 2016; cped, 2022; perry, 2016). despite the transformative and rapid progress that edd reformers and cped member institutions have made toward reenvisioning the edd (bengston et al., 2016; foster et al., 2023; perry et al., 2015), debates remain as to how the edd is distinct from the phd (see foster et al. (2023) for a more complete discussion.). intertwined in these debates, and a key component of them, is the role of research methods (hochbein & perry, 2013). the phd is often referred to as a research doctorate whereas the edd has been referred to as a practice or professional practice doctorate. the edd has been derided as a phd-lite (allen et al., 2016; shulman et al., 2006) due to perceived lax research methodology training and less rigorous dissertations (levine, 2005; shulman et al., 2006). conceptually, the difference between the purpose of research in the two degrees is simple: phd programs use research methods courses to prepare their students for careers in which they investigate gaps in the knowledge base while re-envisioned edd programs use research methods courses to teach their students how to identify, inquire into, and solve local problems. however, operationalizing these designations in practice is more challenging. to date, there is no consensus around what edd students or scholar-practitioners need to know about traditionally taught research methodologies or the research skills they should have. doctoral research methods courses have historically been designed and structured for phd students around quantitative, qualitative, and more recently mixed-methods paradigms (bengston et al., 2016), and they are frequently taught by phd-holding faculty who are either unfamiliar with revised conceptions of the edd and new methodological approaches or resistant to proposed program or course revisions (bengston et al., 2016; perry et al., 2015; yurkofsky et al., in press). furthermore, institutional obstacles, existing school or departmental structures, and faculty resources can also hinder innovation and faculty buy-in for redesigned methods courses (bengston et al., 2016; yurkofsky et al., in press). https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9124-9543 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7147-4092 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3537-7188 capello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.368 2 a changing tide? despite these challenges, recent research indicates that the field may be shifting towards more practitioner-oriented research methods preparation. for example, in a study looking for differences between required research methods courses and research credit hours in the phd and edd, foster et al. (2023) found that phd programs required significantly more research hours than edd programs. the difference was greater at institutions that offered both degrees, which suggests those institutions are working to differentiate the degrees. similarly, perry et al. (2015) found that students in cped institutions take less research methods hours; however, they argued that the courses students do take are “targeted and useful to student practice” (p. 75) and centered on developing leaders who can make decisions and solve problems of practice. as several papers in this themed issue discuss, many cped member institutions are transitioning to practitioner inquiry courses specifically designed to align research methods with the work scholar-practitioners do in their practice, especially as fluency in educational data and evidence become more imperative for school leaders (firestone et al., 2021). there has also been an uptick in the use of practitioner-oriented methods in edd programs like action research (barnett & muth, 2008; buss & zambo, 2016; zambo, 2011), program evaluation (mertens & wilson, 2018; rohanna & christie, 2023), and improvement science (capello et al., in press; hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020). foster et al. also reported that approximately one-third of edd dissertations in practice (dips) were described as an “action oriented or applied research project” (p. 22). interestingly, some programs appear to be shifting how they define the success of the edd program from the production of a rigorous capstone project (e.g., a dip) to the development of effective scholar-practitioners (bengston et al., 2016). although there have been positive developments in designing methods courses specifically for the edd among cped institutions including shifting courses from focusing on research to inquiry, embedding inquiry in practice and coursework, and impacting students’ practice (bengston et al., 2016), the purpose, design, and content of research methods courses remain one of the most challenging aspects of edd program (re)design. given the ongoing conversations regarding the content, design, and teaching of research methods in edd programs, this themed issue was designed to: (1) promote dialogue around new, revised, and innovative practitioner-oriented research methodology courses and course design sequences and (2) offer theoretical and empirical insights into such changes. in this first installment of the themed issue on redesigning research methods, edd faculty and students share their current redesign work and experiences implementing revised methodology courses as part of larger, practitioner-oriented program revisions. a second installment of the themed issue is forthcoming later this year. below are summaries of the eight papers included in part one of this themed issue:  in their article, “reimagining research courses for scholar practitioners: rejecting methodological binaries,” hooser et al. describe how two edd faculty merged quantitative and qualitative courses into one “third space” advanced methods course and how blending content from two methodological traditions can complement students’ dip inquiry.  in her article, “preparing scholarly practitioners to use improvement science: a systematic, iterative, and reflective approach to teaching applied quantitative research methods,” paufler details one instructor’s reflections on developing and teaching quantitative research methods in a program that uses improvement science for the dip.  in their article, “developing leadership for improvement: iterative cycles as opportunities for learning,” lozano and colleagues provide an in-depth look at the redesign of one applied methods course as part of a larger program revision to reflect the cped framework. the authors describe their own theory of improvement in redesigning this course— focusing in on the use of two instructional strategies: learning logs and workshop protocols. the authors offer a detailed illustration of how two students iterated upon their driver diagrams throughout the semester as they engaged in these course activities.  in their article, “research methods courses redesigned for an edd in instructional and performance technology,” handley and colleagues describe how they designed and redesigned the 3-course research methods sequence (fundamentals, data collection, and data analysis) in their edd program. the authors provide an in-depth explanation of the purpose and strategies of each course as well as some of the lessons they learned about what skills to emphasize (e.g., descriptive versus inferential statistics) and the sequencing the courses across the edd program (e.g., the importance of having the data collection course earlier in the program).  in their article, “honor, build, and restructure: preparing transformative school leaders as equitable changemakers through doctoral research methods courses,” demartino and renn describe how their edd program drew on transformative adult learning theory, cped signature pedagogies, and research on building transformative capacity to redesign two methods courses that students take before beginning their dip. they outline numerous changes they made to these courses to prepare students to embark on team-based dips that follow mintrop's (2016) designbased school improvement cycle.  in her article, “the tension between rigor and relevance: redesigning edd applied research methods coursework within an r1 institution,” neumerski offers a reflective account of how faculty at an r1 institution redesigned the methods sequence in their edd in a school system leadership program to move away from a traditional dissertation and towards an applied capstone that centers improvement science. in addition to outlining the revised methods sequence, neumerski centers in on how faculty navigated—and are still navigating—enduring tensions between rigor and relevance.  in their article, “inquiry as practice: the pathway to redesigning an educational leadership doctoral research seminar series,” tolman et al. redesigned a research methods seminar to help students who get stuck at the abd (all but dissertation) stage. the redesign allows students to receive support from different faculty throughout the program rather than concentrating it earlier in the program. research methods for scholar-practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.368 3  in their article, “rigor and relevance in research methods: reflections from a professor and alumni of an online edd program,” borkoski et al. detail how program faculty, based on student feedback, worked to redesign two research method courses in the edd program to make space for students to practice actually analyzing data so that students could build competencies in doing data analysis. original courses breezed through the lessons, which students found overwhelming. references allen, j., chirichello, m., & wasicsko, m. (2016). the practitioner-scholar doctorate: not a phd lite. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path (pp. 105-130). information age publishing. barnett, b. g., & muth, r. (2008). using action-research strategies and cohort structures to ensure research competence for practitioner-scholar leaders. journal of research on leadership education, 3(1), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277510800300101 bengston, e., lasater, k., murphy-lee, m. m., & jones, s. j. (2016). the role of research courses. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path (pp. 79-104). information age publishing. buss, r. r., & zambo, d. (2016). using action research to develop educational leaders and researchers. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path (pp. 137-152). information age publishing. capello, s. a., bonney, e. n., & yurkofsky, m. (in press). the practitioner inquiry course sequence: centering improvement science in the design of an edd program. in c. benedetti & a. covarrubias (eds.), critical inquiry and applied research in ed.d. programs: moving beyond traditional methods. myers education press. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2022). the cped framework©. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework firestone, w. a., perry, j. a., leland, a. s., & mckeon, r. t. (2021). teaching research and data use in the education doctorate. journal of research on leadership education, 16(1), 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427751198722 foster, h. a., chesnut, s., thomas, j., & robinson, c. (2023). differentiating the edd and the phd in higher education: a survey of characteristics and trends. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 8(1), 18–26. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.288 hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. myers education press. hochbein, c., & perry, j. a. (2013). the role of research in the professional doctorate. planning and changing, 44(3/4), 181–195. hovannesian, a. (2013). cped: reshaping perceptions of the scholarly practitioner. planning and changing, 44(3/4), 308–316. levine, a. (2005). educating school leaders. the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation. mertens, d. m., & wilson, a. t. (2018). program evaluation theory and practice. guilford publications. perry, j. a. (2016). the new education doctorate: preparing the transformational leader. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path (pp. 1-10). information age publishing. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & wunder, s. (2015). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations, 36(1), 58–85. https://doi.org/10.3138/jspr.36.1.58 rohanna, k. l., & christie, c. a. (2023). a problem-bound evaluation approach. evaluation and program planning, 96, 102187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2022.102187 shulman, l. s., golde, c., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 yurkofsky, m. m., bonney, e. n., & capello, s. a. (in press). integrating improvement science into leadership preparation programs: enduring challenges and promising strategies. in e. a. anderson & s. d. hayes (eds.), continuous improvement: a leadership process for school improvement. information age publishing. zambo, d. (2011). action research as signature pedagogy in an education doctorate program: the reality and hope. innovative higher education, 36(4), 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9171-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2022.102187 sarah capello radford university maxwell yurkofsky radford university (1) edwin nii bonney radford university (2) introduction a changing tide? references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.437 53 equity in action in community college leadership neue y. leung university of california, davis nyleung@ucdavis.edu abstract equity in action starts with a leader’s critical consciousness in relation to their identities, ideologies, and positionalities. in this essay, the following factors: ideologies, identities, and positionalities are explained and emphasized as they are essential factors that impact equity work. leaders who center equity must explore their own critical consciousness through an equity lens so that they prioritize equity at the forefront while leading, collaborating, and making decisions in their leadership positions. the positionality of leaders is also critical on how they use their power to influence their community and amplify the voices of the underrepresented. one subset of the findings, equity in action, from my dissertation, asian american community college presidents: the power of identities, ideologies, and positionalities is included in this essay. to set the foundation of the dissertation, the sel framework, also known as the shared equity leadership framework (kezar et al., 2021) is used to analyze how leaders build their own capacity in equity work. in addition, my positionality and development as an equity leader are reflected in this essay. keywords equity, social justice, equitable, equity leadership, identity, ideology, positionality, community college leadership, higher education leadership, community college presidents, asian american, native hawaiian, pacific islander in this essay, i will share one of the themes, equity in action, from the findings chapter of my dissertation, titled: asian american community college presidents: the power of identities, positionalities, and ideologies in equity and social justice. i will also reflect on the shared equity leadership (sel) framework (kezar et al., 2021), which was used in my study to explore how community college presidents lead, implement, and promote and support equity, and how they engage with their communities in connection with their identities, positionalities, and ideologies. additionally, my essay begins with my own development and positionality as an equity leader in relation to the sel framework. equity and social justice are shaped by the individual’s contextual experiences that influence their beliefs and how they understand diversity (wilson, 2005). for the purpose of this essay, i define equity-mindedness, social justice, and equity as follows: “equitymindedness is conceptualized as being evidence-based, race-conscious, institutionally focused, systemically aware, and equity advancing” (dowd & bensimon, 2015 as cited in kezar et al., 2021, p. 2). additionally, “equity-minded leaders pay attention to patterns of inequity in student outcomes by different social identities like race, class, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion, and the systemic, historical, and political nature of such inequities” (kezar et al., 2021, p. 2). social justice is defined by theoharis (2007) as “leaders to make issues of race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other historically and currently marginalizing conditions in the united states central to their advocacy, leadership practice, and vision. this definition centers on addressing and eliminating marginalization in schools” (p. 223). furthermore, equity is defined as “becoming culturally and linguistically responsive, eliminating deficit thinking, addressing racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and other prejudices” (shields & hesbol, 2020, p. 3). understanding and applying each of these definitions in the work of a leader who aims to prioritize equity, are essential. my positionality and development as an equity leader i started my equity journey in 2018 at my community college where i serve as a teaching faculty member and faculty coordinator of a learning community that serves asian american, native hawaiian, and pacific islander student populations. i’ve been working on my own self-reflection through an equity lens. in addition, while i was analyzing the data from my dissertation, i did some deep thinking and reflection as a leader. the following are my reflections that encompasses my growth as an equity leader and professor. through my own journey of equity, i learned that equity begins with me. this means that i have to be cognizant of my identities and how each shows up in the various spaces i work and engage in. my identities are: asian american, a first-generation college student, second-language learner, refugee, immigrant, hmong woman, professor, and leader. i know that, depending on the space i am in, my multiple identities come with either power, privilege, or marginalization. throughout my life, whether a student, daughter, professor, or leader, i struggled moving from a space where i am to follow directions from my parents and elders as a hmong daughter, to being independent and a leader as an american student and https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0662-5935 leung impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.437 54 professional. in the hmong culture, being independent and a leader are discouraged, because hmong is a patriarchal society, which makes it a challenge for me to be independent and a leader in my school and workspaces. to be hmong, is also to be collaborative. my decisions reflect my family and my community. it has taken me many years to learn to alternate between being a hmong daughter – to listen and follow, and a leader – to take charge and be independent in my career. i need to alternate between the two identities so that in my hmong community, they accept me. meanwhile, i must take charge and be independent in my professional career so that i thrive as a leader. learning about equity has affected me on how i reflect on my own ideologies and how they came to be; my ideologies impact how i approach, process, frame, and make decisions. i have also come to realize that, depending on which space i am working in, my positionality(ies) come with a certain degree of power. and with this power, i am able to engage or disengage with the communities i serve. overall, i learned that in order to work on equity and social justice, i must be color conscious. asian american, native hawaiian, and pacific islander (aanhpi) are such ethnically diverse groups of people. each of these groups have their own discrete cultures, customs, languages, nationalities, and/or origins in operation. as a hmong, asian american woman, i am very conscientious of my identities in all of the spaces i work and engage in. i also recognize that there is a lack of aanhpi individuals representing high-level leadership positions in education. for instance, more aanhpi individuals have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to other racial minority groups such as latinx and black. this discrepancy partially contributes to aanhpis being seen as the “model minority” (lee, 2019). with the same comparison of these minoritized racial groups, aanhpis are also found to be in high-status, high paying careers such as in postsecondary education positions and other careers in the medical and engineering field. however, regardless of aanhpis educational and professional success, we remain underrepresented in high-level leadership positions in higher education (lee, 2019). in academia, faculty who identify as aanhpi, hold 7% of full-time faculty positions, 3% are in dean positions, 2% in chief academic officer positions, and 1.5% as college presidents (davis et al., 2013). for these reasons, it is important for me to share my own experiences as an equitable leader, who represents aanhpi communities, and who have faced many challenges in my leadership position. my positionality as a coordinator/leader who oversees and coordinates the aanhpi program as well as peer mentors, who are student employees, my shared equity leadership approach is to be inclusive of the voices of not only the peer mentors and staff who serve the program, but also the students in the program we serve. we offer student engagement activities that are developed in collaboration with our students. additionally, providing a space for our aanhpi that exhibits a sense of belonging is essential so that students and peer mentors are willing to show up authentically, as well as contribute to the goals of the program. knowing this, i must approach my engagement and decision process through the lens of equity, emphasizing inclusivity. as faculty and coordinator of a learning community in a california community college, i recognize that there are opportunity gaps at my college campus. native american, latinx, black/african american, laotian, pacific islander, and native hawaiian students are disproportionately impacted. according to the california community college chancellor’s office, “disproportionate impact is a condition where some students' access to key resources and supports and ultimately their academic success may be hampered by inequitable practices, policies and approaches to student support” (california community college chancellor's office, n.d.). these groups of students are valuable individuals that contribute rich experiences to the community colleges. because these groups of students are disproportionately impacted, my pedagogical approaches and leadership engagement must first provide an equitable learning environment where these students of color thrive. this includes providing a safe space for them to engage, and a space that validates their voice and experiences. additionally, i seek to understand where my students and peer mentors of color come from so that i can support them. overall, equity cannot be something institutes do sparingly; it needs to become part of what we eat, breath, and sleep in our entire community, from students to staff, faculty, and administration. lastly, the sel framework focuses much on community engagement and collaboration. coming from a hmong woman and hmong daughter identity, this approach is quite familiar to me. i recognize that, no matter which program i am leading/coordinating, or whichever project i am leading, collaboration is key to delivering an equitable process, leading to an equitable outcome. i recognize that my willingness to collaborate and provide space where my community i serve is fully engaged, and their voices are amplified, equity becomes part of the process from start to finish. background of study the purpose of my dissertation was to gain understanding of the experiences of three asian american, native hawaiian, and pacific islander (aanhpi) community college presidents’ recognition and consciousness of their identities, positionalities, and ideologies as they work on equity and social justice at their campuses. these factors are critical to how leaders lead, guide, engage, and communicate with their constituencies to create equitable learning experiences for students. i also focus on institutional change and engagement from a community college president’s perspective, which reflects how they prioritize and work on equity and social justice at their campus. therefore, one of my research questions was: how do the identities, positionalities, and ideologies of asian american community college presidents influence how they prioritize and implement equity and social justice in their campus context? shared equity leadership framework the shared equity leadership (sel) posits three critical components: (1) individuals who have undergone some sort of personal journey toward critical consciousness or built a critical consciousness, cementing their commitment to equity; (2) values that are shared among members of the leadership team or group; and (3) a set of practices that leaders continually enact which both enable them to share leadership and to create more just and equitable conditions on their campuses (kezar et al., 2021). as portrayed in the sel framework, the commitment to equity needs individuals to critically reflect on their critical consciousness. this personal journey process involves exploring and revisiting one’s identities, a process by which individuals can become vulnerable equity in action impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.437 55 through a humanizing process of connecting with others on their experiences. what brings these experiences to light are their identities, especially their marginalized identities. these identities include, for example, race, class, and first-generation college status. individuals with a strong critical consciousness recount experiences in navigating institutions and systems that are inequitable and discriminatory. a critical consciousness in equity reminds individuals of their own experiences that have at some point represented “exclusion, isolation, and not belonging” (kezar et al. 2021, p. 12). overall, leaders will enter the work of equity at different points, but their personal journey of equity is critical for how leaders approach their work in shared leadership. the second component of the shared equity leadership are the values of shared equity leadership. values are developed through personal experiences (kezar et al., 2021). based on the sel model, these values include the following components: love and care; vulnerability; humility; transparency; and being comfortable with uncomfortable. the third component, practices of shared equity leadership, is that the leader operates in a way that is “inherently collaborative and inclusive” (kezar et al. 2021, p. 6). kezar and colleagues (2021) argued that leadership should not focus only on one individual, the leader, who makes all the decisions and guides the directions of the institute. rather, shared equity leadership is operated by the individual and collective community simultaneously. additionally, the foundational piece of shared equity leadership is the notion that everyone collaborates as they work towards the shared equity goals (kezar et al., 2021). decision making does not rely on the person with the highest title or authority, instead decision making requires collaboration and values the voices of community members. the sel theoretical framework was an important frame of reference for my research because understanding how leaders recognize their own level of critical consciousness is imperative to the work of equity. secondly, this framework provided a theoretical and methodological context that was particularly fitting as i engaged in a multi-case study designed to understand the thought processes of several leaders and how they led and engaged with their respective communities as they worked to provide an equitable education for students, particularly students of color. equity in action findings: asian american community college presidents and the power of identities, positionalities, and ideologies in equity and social justice one of the themes from my dissertation was equity in action. in this section, i address the practices and decision-making processes of the three community college presidents who choose to center equity and social justice on their campus. there are three subthemes which include, 1) leadership style: from positionality to collaboration and inclusivity, 2) student voice, and 3) challenges in equity and social justice work. all three sub-themes encompass equity in action for leadership in equity and social justice work. lastly, each sub-theme coincides with specific components from the theoretical framework, shared equity leadership (kezar et al., 2021). portraitures of the three community college president each president in the study identifies as asian american and has served as college president for several years. each participating president is closely connected to their cultural heritage and customs. because of being a person of color, the presidents expressed that their identities are always a part of their conscious while serving their community. these identities include their racial, ethnic, and gender identities. sub-theme: leadership style-from positionality to collaboration & inclusivity the type of leadership style is critical to how a college president or ceo leads their campus. in my interviews with these three community college presidents, all of them had a similar mantra carried out in their leadership style. each president is cognizant and implements leadership that encompasses at some level a combination of collaboration, inclusivity, engagement, building trust, and is attentive to communities of color. they use their positionality to influence their community and share the power alongside their teams. the work of equity and social justice is shared amongst varying levels of staff, faculty, and students. the following are summaries of qualitative data i collected from each of the community college presidents i interviewed for my study in the first sub-theme, leadership style. through the lens of an equitable leader, there are more reasons as to why the community needs to come together and work towards creating a more inclusive culture. for instance, creating a space for those who are underrepresented to be represented at the table because making decisions that focus on a particular group of people or groups of marginalized folks, is injustice when the purpose is to serve them after all. to take this a little bit deeper, one of the presidents shared that in collaborating with folks, particularly those with differing views, it’s about learning where others are coming from. this includes their backgrounds and perspectives. specifically, one president stated, “the only way to do the work is to actually have to change the hearts and minds of people. and to do this, we need to give them the capacity to do it.” overall, all three presidents understand the unique needs of bringing people of diverse backgrounds together. they also understand the need to put in the effort, dedication, and setting goals for creating communities based on collaboration and inclusiveness. that is why these are their top priorities in moving an agenda or initiative forward. collaboration and inclusive leadership aren’t only about the president initiating, creating, and fostering spaces of belonging on their campus (kezar et al., 2021). in fact, staff, faculty, and student groups on campus are highly encouraged to initiate and create spaces of their own. one of the presidents interviewed, noted that she makes an effort to prioritize and show up for these spaces to support her campus. furthermore, creating spaces for collaboration and inclusiveness isn’t left only to the president. the power is shared (kezar et al., 2021). each president’s positionality is used or practiced on how they influence and share their power in the work of equity and social justice. in fact, all presidents interviewed articulate that staff, faculty, and students know that they are encouraged and supported to bring more people to the table to do equity work within their own groups and parts of the campus organization. such collaboration has had some positive effects, as reported by the leung impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.437 56 presidents. this makes people feel that they do have a seat at the table and that their opinions really do matter. sub-theme: student voice the sub-theme, student voice, as shared by two of the three presidents, means that students from all diverse backgrounds are included in the campus community. their input is essential in the development and decision processes, and of initiatives or goals of the college. student voice aligns with a major component of the shared equity leadership framework in which the leader operates in a way that is “inherently collaborative and inclusive” (kezar et al. 2021, p. 6). in the following analysis, i explain how student voice is incorporated on each campus from the presidents’ point of view. in summary, each president prioritizes student voice as being most important and their decisions all surround student input. the students are who they serve, and they know how critical it is to embed student voice in all aspects of their leadership. student voice is essential to the work of equity. as shared by one of the president’s, “listening to student voice is always key to every approach.” student voice is centered in every step of the planning process, especially for college initiatives. incorporating student voice is more than being inclusive in the development and decision-making process. one of the presidents emphasized that student voice is to incorporate their perspectives and to “foster students to develop agency and leadership.” part of this strategy is to “self-empower” these students so that they learn how to advocate for themselves when they take on their own roles at their workplace or in the community. additionally, engaging students, particularly students of color, is a priority for the each of the college presidents. this means being attentive to the multiple different communities and treating their needs as essential. sub-theme: challenges in equity and social justice work in this next theme, i will address the multiple challenges each president faced, endured, and addressed while leading their campus on their equity and social justice journey. equity and social justice work can be very personal, draining, and requires a lot of dedication. at times, individuals might feel alone while going through their equity and social justice journey, but the key is to continue the work because they believe in the work. the challenges addressed in this section include having influence as a president, understanding the meaning of equity and social justice, taking equity and social justice to a deeper level, working with resistors, and dealing with stereotypes of aanhpi women. in connection to kezar’s (2021) theoretical framework, the fourth component notes that courage is “standing up for equity and remaining dedicated even when it’s not popular or easy” (kezar et al., 2021, p. 18). having courage in this work is one of the foundational pieces in doing, leading, and actualizing the work into reality, especially when you have resistors. in one particular interview, a presidents noted listening as one of the key strategies. he described listening that encompassed reflection upon oneself and processing the voices of the community. as you process, “you sort in your mind the strengths and challenges.” in addition, he added: equity and social justice work requires one to fully be cognizant of their own identities as they do the work. having influence is another challenge. with courage, it comes with many internal feelings a president might feel, but it’s important to keep the community moving forward. therefore, i found that as president, having influence is a major factor, especially when you are alone in a room with people who have the opposite view from you. having strategies on how one might influence their community is imperative in carrying this work forward. and of course, having allies in the room is always a positive approach. understanding equity and social justice is another challenge, although, challenges differ from college to college, and for some, it may be similar in some ways. centering equity and social justice has been a long-standing goal of one of the community college’s whose president i interviewed. however, this president admitted that though it has been a long-time goal of the college, not everyone understands the definitions of equity and social justice. this has been a challenge for her perspective since joining the college. in addition, historically, the college has embedded equity and social justice in the vision and mission, including job postings, which means that the college values it. there are policies and procedures surrounding equity and social justice, too. according to this president, on the exterior, it looks great. this goes to show that the college values and speaks the language of equity and social justice, but she described that “this work needs more.” next is another challenge, which is taking equity and social justice beyond the surface level. as stated in the transformative leadership theory, pedagogical changes are also a key element in equity and social justice work: “it is the essential work of the educational leader to create learning contexts or communities in which social, political, and cultural capital is enhanced in such a way as to provide equity of opportunity for students as they take their place as contributing members of society” (shields, 2010, p. 572). for example, curriculum that speaks to equity and social justice needs to be intentional. in addition to curricular needs, working with leaders on campus to better understand themselves, how their brain operates such as how feelings are developed in certain parts of the brain is tied to one’s growth on equity and social justice was shared by one of the presidents. leaders need to develop skills and comfort in talking about equity and social justice, and it starts with having conversations focused on race. one president expressed that for some folks, it can be difficult when they operate from a deficit mindset. knowing oneself and recognizing how their brain operates in building relationships is the first step in one’s equity journey. equity and social justice work are more than talking. it is the actions and inactions that speaks volume about how an institution values this work. it encompasses how students are viewed, how staff, faculty, and administrators are willing to come together to talk and make changes through an equity lens. and though some leaders may have a lot of patience like one of the presidents interviewed, sometimes an institution just has to keep moving forward but always provide opportunities for resistors to join in at any point. while opportunities exist, there will always be folks in the community that choose not to join the efforts in equity and social justice work. or there will be folks doing the work while operating from a deficit mindset. in connection to one of the president’s responses about recognizing students’ valid experiences, those who operate from a deficit mindset “place the burden of change on the students rather than the institution” (kezar et al. 2021, p. 2). so, to center equity and social justice, the people creating the culture of the school need to undergo their own reflective process in their equity journey, which equity in action impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.437 57 requires them to reflect on themselves and their institution. without this process, working on equity and social justice will remain a challenge. the willingness to always learn and grow is one of the biggest components in the shared equity leadership framework and transformative leadership framework. but when a leader runs up against individuals in a community who feel that they have done enough or are already doing the work to the max, it becomes a challenge to teach, share, and foster a community that refuses to grow. for example, one president shared that one of the challenges is that some practitioners already feel “woke” and that “they don’t have things to learn.” this president went on to elaborate that every time professional development opportunities are provided and your own community questions “why do i have to learn all of this? why do i have to keep doing this when i’m already down right? i already have anti-racism down.” instead, this president shared that at some point “i just don’t want to burn my energy on that.” so as a result, she turns to her new hires and focuses on hiring folks who understand the equity and social justice goals and responsibilities of the college and go from there. these are some continuous challenges ceos have to be attentive to and be proactive about and lastly, to never give up. working with resistors is always present and always a challenge. one president faced faculty resistance during her tenure as faculty at another community college. her goal was to do multicultural infusion in the curriculum. however, the pushback from faculty came from a place of confrontation. comments such as, “how can i be biased when i’m treating everybody exactly the same? or “why should i change my evaluation and grading?” further complaints from faculty such as, “i’m not doing equity work because i’m not just prioritizing latinx students or black students in the classroom.” these examples show that these faculty come from a place where they either do not understand equity and social justice or do not care about it for the sake of their students. lastly, stereotypes of asian american, native hawaiian, and pacific islander women are a challenge in itself. both female presidents endured stereotypes in their role as college president. stereotypes such as asian women being quiet and submissive was one of the challenges. for example, there were several instances when one of the female presidents was touched inappropriately and had to speak up to defend herself. specifically, in casual conversation, her colleagues, board members she was serving with, touched her shoulder or back and she had to remind them that it was making her uncomfortable or that it was inappropriate. prior to this incident, the dean of her department decided to take off his shirt in his office during their one-on-one meeting and she had to speak up for herself. conclusion though this study had a small sample, the findings reaffirmed that the identities, positionalities, and ideologies individuals have, particularly leaders of the aanhpi community in ceo positions, do affect the work of equity and social justice, particularly on how they prioritize this work. each president had a consciousness of their identities, and their equity and social justice experiences were connected to their contextual experiences. this resulted in how they understood the diversity of their students. individual experiences, identities, ideologies, and positionalities all influence one’s capacity to understand and lead equity and social justice work. furthermore, equity and social justice work is collaborative at all levels (kezar et al, 2021). planning and decision making should not be top down. instead, everyone in the community, including students, have a voice, and everyone has a role in what to do and how to carry out this work. overall, the work of equity and social justice is shared. in order for the campus to reach its goals, everyone needs to do their part in moving the needle. references california community colleges chancellor’s office. (2022). methodology note 2022 update: percentage point gap minus one. https://launchboardresources.wested.org/resources/113 davis, g. p., huang, b. l., lee, k., yamagata-noji, a., & suzuki, b. h. (2013). raising voices, lifting leaders: empowering asian pacific islander american leadership in higher education. american council on education. kezar, a., holcombe, e., vigil, d., dizon, j. p. (2021). shared equity leadership: making equity everyone’s work. american council on education. usc rossier. lee, f. (2019). asian american and pacific islander faculty and the bamboo ceiling: barriers to leadership and implications for leadership development. new directions for higher education, 186, 93–102. shields, c. m. (2010). transformative leadership: working for equity in diverse contexts. educational administration quarterly, 46(4), 558–589. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x10375609 theoharis, g. (2007). social justice educational leaders and resistance: toward a theory of social justice leadership. educational administration quarterly, 43(2), 221–258. https://launchboard-resources.wested.org/resources/113 https://launchboard-resources.wested.org/resources/113 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x10375609 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 transformative learning and professional advancement during an edd program jessica a. marotta marymount university jmarotta@marymount.edu abstract the purpose of the study was to examine education doctoral student perspectives on their experience of enrolling in a fully online edd program during a global pandemic and achieving career advancement during their enrollment through the lens of transformative learning theory. a qualitative study of 12 participants was conducted to examine in what ways the pandemic influenced their decision to enroll in an online doctorate program, in ways their thinking progressed throughout the program, and the factors affecting their decision to take on a career advancement while enrolled in the program. the findings indicate that there were elements of transformative learning that occurred for many of the participants. faculty teaching in doctorate programs are encouraged to explore how they might foster transformative learning experiences for their students. keywords education doctorate, transformative learning theory, career advancement, pandemic introduction whether apparent at the outset or realized later, doctoral program enrollees are likely to encounter the awareness that nearly 50% of students do not complete their degrees (rockinson-szapkiw, 2019). these statistics were compiled during what is commonly termed as normal circumstances, a label ill-fitting for the global pandemic. while the latest completion rates for doctoral students during the pandemic are still in the process of calculation, it is conceivable that heightened demands on students’ academic, emotional, and mental well-being became pervasive. numerous studies documented the measures adopted by doctoral programs to pivot from in-person to fully remote models, adapting to the shifting landscape of higher education in response to the pandemic (brochu et al., 2021; bukko & dhesi, 2021; capello, 2023; demartino, 2021; hutching & stevenson, 2021). with the reopening of physical classrooms in higher education, there arises a contemplation of the path forward—whether to continue online or revert to in-person learning. regardless of the chosen mode, the objective of carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) influenced doctoral programs remains steadfast: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge and for the stewardship of the profession” (n.d. para. 6). however, despite the pre-pandemic discouraging attrition rate in doctoral program completion, limited research delves into why students opted for enrollment in online doctorate programs amidst the peak uncertainty of the pandemic. this study sought to examine doctoral students’ perspectives concerning their decision to enroll in a fully online edd program during a global pandemic and attain career advancement while enrolled, employing the lens of transformative learning theory. educational context of the online edd program the edd program at my university had a unique journey during this tumultuous time. leading up to the closure of university classrooms in spring 2020, our school of education had been diligently creating a brand new, fully online education doctoral program to launch in fall 2020, with admittance interviews starting in spring 2020. the inaugural cohort to the online doctoral program began in fall 2020, with the second cohort beginning in spring 2021. each fall and spring semester, a new cohort enters the program, with cohort 7 starting in fall 2023. in spring 2021, the program became a cped member. it is a three-year part-time program based upon a cohort model to help create a community of practitioners from a diversity of geographic locations and professions, such as k-12, higher education, non-profit organizations, healthcare, and government sectors. the program is structured around asynchronous classes supplemented by optional synchronous sessions, coupled with social gatherings hosted twice by instructors during each semester. students complete a dissertation in practice (dip) by the end of their program. in my role as faculty teaching the first and second cohorts, i was curious to explore if we were fostering and triggering transformative learning for our inaugural cohorts of students. furthermore, i aimed to assess whether these learning experiences https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4920-1823 marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 4 were perceived by students as significant factors in their decisions to pursue a career advancement while still actively enrolled. the review of existing literature emphasizes the suitability of transformative learning theory as a theoretical framework for investigating students’ experiences during this specific period. theoretical framework my research was guided by transformative learning theory to explore the experiences of doctoral students during this unique period. transformative learning theory, as delineated by mezirow (1978, 1992, 1996, 2000), has previously been explored in diverse settings and contexts prior to the pandemic (ginsberg et al., 2014; pugh, 2011; stevens, 2010; stevens-long et al., 2012; taylor & cranton, 2012). transformative learning, with its foundation with mezirow’s (2000) theory, has been widely accepted as a theory of adult theory that guides both research and practice. according to research (cranton & taylor, 2012; mezirow, 1990, 1996; taylor, 1990), as students enter the educational setting, they all bring different assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions to make sense of the world around them. transformational learning experiences encompass profound shifts in their perspectives, beliefs, and understanding. these experiences often arise from encounters with disorienting dilemmas that challenge their existing beliefs and that prompt critical reflection and reevaluation of existing knowledge. in this process, learners engage in self-reflection, challenging assumptions, and exploring new perspectives. transformational learning involves a deep shift in perspective, from a more routine or habitual mindset to a more open, adaptable, and reflective one (mezirow, 2000; mezirow & associates, 1990). this type of learning can lead to personal growth, expanded consciousness, and enhanced problem-solving abilities. it often occurs in contexts where individuals are exposed to diverse perspectives, engage in dialogue, and confront their preconceptions. in particular, mezirow (1978) identified 10 phases of learning that reflect the transformative learning process: 1. a disorienting dilemma, 2. self-examination, 3. a critical assessment of assumptions, 4. recognition of a connection between one’s discontent and the process of transformation, 5. exploration of new roles, relationships, and actions, 6. planning a course of action, 7. acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plan, 8. provisional trying of new roles, 9. building competence and selfconfidence in new roles and relationships, and 10. a reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspective. the overall essence of mezirow’s (date) transformative learning theory is summarized as such: “to make meaning means to make sense of an experience; we make an interpretation of it. when we subsequently use this interpretation to guide decision making or action, then making meaning becomes learning” (p. 1). while mezirow’s work in 1978 delineated ten phases of transformative learning, taylor (2009), underscored six core elements that construct a transformative teaching approach, aligning cohesively with mezirow’s (date) aforementioned ten phases. in the context of this research, taylor’s (date) articulated six core elements were adopted as the theoretical framework to facilitate the analysis of interview data from doctoral participants. taylor’s (2009) framework identifies six core elements: individual experience, promoting critical reflection, dialogue, holistic orientation, awareness of context, and authentic relationships. taylor (2009) notes that these fundamental elements have been synthesized from numerous literature reviews and remain a work in progress. these six core elements will be further elaborated upon with supporting in vivo coding derived from participant responses. cranton and taylor (2012) provide a more detailed explanation that while transformative learning results in a profound shift in perspective characterized by inclusivity and critical thinking, the way individuals undergo this kind of learning can differ based on their individuality, context, or specific circumstances. “it may be that for one person in one context, transformative learning is a rational endeavor; for that same person in another context, it could be emotional and intuitive; in some contexts, social change may need to precede individual change, and in another context, individual transformation drives social transformation” (cranton & taylor, 2012, p.3). the chosen in vivo quotes aim to partially capture the distinct manners in which the participants conveyed a transformation in their learning during the program. in addition to taylor’s (date) six core elements of fostering transformative learning, jarvis (2006) offers an additional model and insights into adult learning. according to jarvis (2006), a learner can go through a continuous process of transformative learning by thinking, doing, and feeling, each occurring in any combination, and producing different types of learning: critical thinking, problem solving, reflective learning, and action learning. learners can change because of these three different types of learning: increasing selfconfidence and self-esteem, placing new meaning on the world and events, and becoming more capable and experienced in handling similar situations. the analysis of research and selection of in vivo quotes to capture participants’ personal and descriptive articulations of their learning experiences were informed by jarvis’ learning process (2006) and mezirow’s (date) transformative learning theory as aligned with taylor’s (date) six core elements. these frameworks facilitated a comprehensive exploration of the participants’ narratives. this literature review led me to question whether the pandemic could be conceptualized as an example of mezirow’s (date) disorienting dilemmas that could apply to all students. certainly, one can even imagine that enrolling in a doctorate program could constitute a disorienting dilemma by itself; however, i was curious about those individuals who made the choice to introduce a potential additional disorienting dilemma into their lives for the ensuing three years, alongside the already challenging backdrop of the pandemic. participants and study design this study aimed to employ a qualitative approach, enabling students to delve deeply into their experiences and offer nuanced insights regarding the situational intricacies underpinning their decision-making, rational thoughts, and emotional responses. to comprehend the participants’ experiences comprehensively, the research questions, aligned with specific prompts within the semistructured interview protocol, were examined through thematic analyses as they aligned with taylor’s (2009) six core elements of transformative learning. the following research questions guided the data collection and analysis: research question 1: in what ways did the pandemic influence your decision to enroll in an edd program? research question 2: in what ways did the edd program influence your decision to accept a career advancement while being enrolled? transformative learning in the edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 5 participants data were gathered from 12 participants who were actively enrolled in an online edd program at a private institution situated outside a metropolitan area on the east coast. the researcher initiated the data collection process by disseminating an announcement via canvas to students in both cohort one (commenced in fall 2020) and cohort two (commenced in spring 2021), inviting their participation in a semi-structured interview. the recruitment criteria stipulated that participants must be affiliated with either cohort one or two and should have achieved career advancement during their program enrollment. the resultant response comprised six participants (four females, two males) from cohort one (n=28; yielding a 21% response rate) and a similar number (five females, one male) from cohort two (n = 44; generating a 14% response rate). i adopted an open-ended method to ascertain the participants’ individual interpretations of career advancement, ensuring inclusivity across various professions and roles represented among our students. this approach acknowledged the potential divergence from the conventional administrative trajectory within the k-12 school system. the institutional review board (irb) of the university granted approval for the research proposal, and all interviews were conducted during the fall semester of 2022, resulting in one or two subsequent semesters until their program completion. to safeguard confidentiality, each participant was designated with a unique identifier (p1-p12). data collection and analysis the participants engaged in a semi-structured interview consisting of 16 questions conducted via zoom by the researcher. the interviews were subsequently downloaded into panopto for the purpose of adding captions. coding and thematic analysis techniques were employed to capture the participants’ experiences and thoughts as they aligned with taylor’s (2009) six core elements of transformative learning. notably, in vivo coding was predominantly utilized to accurately capture the participants’ experiences, thoughts, and expressions in the most direct manner possible, reflecting how they made sense of their lives, assigned significance to their encounters, and interpreted those experiences (merriam et al., 2009). the interview responses, transcribed using panopto, were imported into delve and initially categorized based on the responses to the survey questions. following several rounds of coding, distinct themes surfaced, and the researcher subsequently chose quotes that most aptly represented the six core elements delineated by taylor (2009). disorienting dilemma and decision to enroll for the participants in focus, the pivotal decision to enroll in an inaugural, fully online education doctoral program during the midst of a global pandemic carried a great deal of significance. all participants engaged in reflection regarding the rationale behind their decisions and the aspirations they hoped to achieve by enrolling. transformative learning often includes the learner experiencing a disorienting dilemma, causing them to question their deeply held assumptions and beliefs. consequently, this sparks the individual to engage in critical discourse and critical self-reflection related to their changing assumptions and beliefs (mezirow, 1992; 2000; 2009). in this instance, i theorized that the global pandemic served as such a disorienting dilemma. while some shared specific challenges encountered by the pandemic, others recognized it as an opportune moment for action. while a subset attributed their program enrollment directly to the pandemic’s influence, others conveyed that the decision was aptly timed, irrespective of the pandemic’s circumstances. upon enrollment, participants held the subsequent roles: three participants were school principals, two were public school district administrators, two held positions as higher education administrators, two were classroom teachers, one was a professional coach, one was a program director in higher education, and one was a public school teacher on sabbatical. the following list comprises aggregated factors reported by participants for their enrollment in our edd program during the pandemic academic year (fall 2020 spring 2021): the fully online nature of the program, expedited time to completion, financial considerations, family support, the cohort-based structure, geographical proximity and the presence of a physical campus, the university’s reputation, the program’s name, lack of emphasis on superintendent endorsement, and the personalized interactions with the recruiting office and faculty. the global pandemic afforded participants an increased opportunity to engage in critical selfreflection, analyzing their own capabilities and possibilities. this introspection afforded them the opportunity and motivation to determine the most suitable steps to advance their progress toward achieving both their professional and personal aspirations. findings the findings of the in vivo coding and thematic analysis of the participants’ responses to the semi-structured interview protocol were synthesized to address the two research questions. analyzing the coded responses entailed investigating potential transformative learning themes taking place during the participants’ coursework, through their time of career advancement, and to the scheduled fall 2022 interview. this section presents taylor’s (2009) six core elements of transformative learning with supporting in vivo quotes. although i chose quotes that i believed closely resonated with the six core elements, it became apparent that there exists a notable degree of fluidity among these elements. this fluidity emerged due to the nuanced nature of participants’ responses, which often exhibited compatibility with multiple core elements simultaneously. moreover, it is crucial to acknowledge the interconnected nature of all six core elements, which are intricately linked to the overarching theoretical framework of transformative learning theory (taylor, 2009). each of the core elements, woven interrelatedly into the theoretical framework, provides a lens to help guide transformative learning in the education setting. six core elements of transformative learning 1. individual experience each learner brings prior experiences, which serves as a starting point for critical reflection and discourse, as well as experiences that are created in the classroom. having both of these experiences are not enough in that the learner must self-examine these experiences through critical reflection and dialogue. it appears that the depth of life experiences that students bring to the classroom offers them a richer source for reflection. prior experiences, coupled marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 6 with course activities, readings, and dialogue with peers and the instructor, can serve as a catalyst for a new perspective. a participant shared her account of grappling with her leadership capabilities stemming from past experiences, wherein a lack of comprehensive understanding of leadership hindered her perceived success in those roles. nevertheless, enrolling in the program afforded her a fresh perspective. she detailed how her valuable prior experiences, coupled with a new understanding of leadership, were harnessed to equip her with the tools to emerge as an effective leader. the biggest aha was the way everybody can be an incredibly successful leader…making sure that they have a team around them. that makes the leadership work…it was like completely perspective changing for me…i could be autistic and be a leader…that was the greatest moment for me the first semester was that i actually could, despite my disabilities, absolutely be a leader. (p2) another participant reflected upon the program’s capacity in enabling her to enhance her identity and skill set, both within the program and in her professional world. this significant connection of personal and professional advancement was highlighted as a meaningful achievement resulting from the program. one of the biggest aha moments for me personally is how much i’ve already accomplished outside of the program…this just added a lot of validation not just from all of you, but just for myself. i’m getting the information i need from the program to go out and create that myself. (p8) in reflecting upon an extensive and successful career, a participant confessed that she still battled with professional insecurities. yet, the academic achievements realized through the program, coupled with career progression and a reduction in pandemic-induced fears, collectively empowered her to embrace a fresh outlook on life. i’m probably not the only person that shared the sort of that imposter syndrome sort of not really having a sense of …can i really do this? do i really have that skill set and made up for this? “and i think it’s a battle i fight regularly, if not daily and so being in this program and progressing academically is providing some validation for me that i actually am …okay as a student…and getting a position that i never imagined that i would ever be qualified for. this is something i personally never imagined…that fear of my mortality during the pandemic is gone… it’s absolutely life changing. (p7) these reflections support the importance of encouraging students to reflect on their previous experiences, how they relate to new concepts, and how they can begin to envision new personal and professional possibilities. creating opportunities for students to take part in these types of reflective classroom experiences optimizes student engagement but also respects their individuality and their own learning journey throughout the program. 2. critical reflection promoting learners to engage in questioning the integrity of deeply held assumptions and beliefs based upon prior and classroom experience. this form of critical reflection involves how students perceive, think, feel, and respond to the course content. this type of questioning can be prompted in response to an awareness of conflicting thoughts, feelings, and actions, and at times can lead to a perspective transformation (mezirow, 2000). berger’s (2004) research uses the phrase “edge of knowing” as she was looking for “the kind of reflection that seeks to create new forms of thinking, new discoveries reflection that takes us to the edge of our meaning” (p. 338). a participant explained that engaging in critical reflection compelled her to envision herself as a leader extending beyond her current role. this account seems to resonate with berger’s (2004) notion that reflection should push students to discover their broader significance. i do think that having confidence to do something that you’re not comfortable with is different. you can have confidence in something that you are familiar with or, you know, but having confidence to stretch yourself in something that is very new. and i think that part of the program has you constantly reflecting and thinking about things you know differently. i think that the opportunity to constantly reflect about self as a leader probably had me not think of self as a leader necessarily of just school and education. when i got out of the mind of me being a leader at my school to just being how am i a leader? (p11) an additional participant expressed how her deeply held beliefs and assumptions regarding leadership were subjected to questioning, resulting in a transformative shift in her perspective on the subject. i was able to see some subtleties in leadership and that it takes all sorts. leadership takes on different characteristics at different times. it’s just it’s not just the highest paid person in the building, necessarily…i really developed a more encompassing definition of leadership. (p1) this participant acknowledged that her previous strategies to handle conflict needed to change if she were to be an effective leader for her program. by honestly evaluating her capabilities and limitations, she explained how she knew that she needed to actively work to improve a particular area of growth. had to come face to face with the fact that i avoid conflict…i needed to start pushing back and not just going with the flow because i don’t like conflict and don’t like people getting angry. if i wasn’t in this program, i think that where i am now and where the team is now, would look very different because i don’t think i would have been as competent to try to intervene or try to do things differently…i definitely would say that my confidence has increased…i do think that being in this program has helped me be able to start to push back differently. (p12) in these accounts, the participants have underscored the significance of critical self-reflection within the program, which facilitated a heightened self-awareness essential for ongoing learning and adaptability in response to evolving circumstances. 3. dialogue with the self and others by becoming the arena in which experience and critical reflection play: “dialogue becomes the medium for critical reflection to be put into action, where experience is reflected on, assumptions and beliefs are questioned and habits of minds are ultimately transformed” (mezirow et al., 2009, p. 9). learners must be offered conducive circumstances for dialogue to facilitate their expression of how they are constructing meaning in the world. berger (2004) encourages finding the learner’s “edge of meaning” to create a “space that we can come to terms with limitations of our knowing and begin to stretch those limits” (p. 338). transformative learning in the edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 7 diverse learners will each find unique methods to challenge themselves in order to facilitate the transformation of their learning and decision-making. one participant acknowledged the realization of how powerful qualitative research can help in fostering critical reflection to help make positive change beyond an individual’s organization. she states that she learned to: get involved in more qualitative research opportunities…helping to give voice to people’s stories so that they can be heard in a different way and to create change. to facilitate change, then that’s what i want to do… it’s that ripple impact that… creating change within the organization is one thing but being able to create change or facilitate change through finding a way to amplify people’s voices and their stories and their experiences through a qualitative research mechanism, then i think that that can have an impact that ripples out far beyond just the organizational walls. (p5) another participant echoed this sentiment of wanting to make positive change beyond individual and organizational confines. this sentiment is driven by a commitment to uphold personal values on consistently making ethical decisions. i want to make change for all. society. not just for myself. not just for my kids. not just for our future. but for everybody. to make life different… it’s made me a more confident leader, more credible leader, a lifelong learner…never give up on things that you know are right. and i think that’s a value that’s instilled in me…for the rest of my life...to empower people’s voices. (p9) another participant detailed the interrelatedness between selfreflection and impact on actions, emphasizing that transformative learning requires a noticeable and tangible outcome from this reflective process. you have to be a leader in all spaces and if you don’t have the awareness around your impact and the way that you say things and what you’re saying on others, then how is this really sitting with you? do people actually want to be different or not? a requirement around awareness. reflection is important. what meaning are you making out of this? how are you connecting it to what you’re doing? it’s the effort of self-reflection… it’s more than just learning what it means to be a leader from a theoretical perspective is like, how are you actually modeling this?...i don’t know that you can be a leader without being open to learning and reflecting. it’s been such an important part of me being in this program is the real reminder that i need to be honest with, you know, my impact on other people and how things impact me, because otherwise i can’t show up and be present to people. (p12) these quotes exemplify a fundamental aspect of transformative learning theory, which revolves around “teaching for change, not simply understanding as a purely cognitive insight, but where there is a desire for learners to act within and on their world in more empowering ways” (merizow et al., 2009, p. 277). creating classroom experiences that foster student self-dialogue and with others empowers them to engage in critical self-reflection which is a cornerstone of effective leadership, as it contributes to personal growth, self-awareness, ongoing learning, and a more positive impact on their teams and the wider professional world. 4. holistic orientation how one engages with their learning that is beyond the cognitive level, such as at the affective and relational level. affective knowing is described as having an awareness of one’s feelings and emotions during the reflective process of engaging in critical reflection that prompts the learner to question deeply held assumptions. taylor (2009) summarizes from brown (2006) that “learners rarely change through a rational process (analyze-thinkchange) but rather they are ‘more likely to change in a see-feelchange sequence” (p. 10). numerous participants in this study noted that assuming the role of researchers and gaining confidence in that role represented a profound shift in their self-identity. one participant articulated how program enrollment correlated with a seeing and feeling of heightened self-confidence culminating in an observable change: their choice to pursue a promotion earlier than initially planned. the reality of the pandemic and the stresses that that brought both personally and professionally, i think shifted my mindset. i think that there was an element of confidence that was developed by being in a doctoral program and knowing that i was progressing towards the final stages…i definitely used that in my cover letter, i used it when i talked about my dissertation topic…in my interviews as well. i think everything just got bumped up by a year because of those factors of the pandemic and probably the element of competence that i had within the program. (p6) this participant described how the program played a pivotal role in shaping their self-identity, emphasizing the emphasis on evolving as a scholar practitioner. attaining the ability to perceive oneself in this capacity stimulates a transformative self-perspective, fostering ongoing commitment to professional pursuits through research beyond program enrollment. get students to start seeing themselves as research practitioners…not separate, but that’s who they are. i think that could be pretty profound. it is a shift in how you see yourself. you really go from whatever you were when you came into the program and you still may be doing that at the end of the program, but you were now a scholarly practitioner…there’s something to be said for that, because i think if there’s not that shift, there’s always the danger of short changing yourself. (p5) while discussing the program’s impact on their learning journey, this participant highlighted a significant transformation in their approach to coursework. they emphasized a shift from perceiving coursework as merely transactional to instilling it with profound significance and relevance, recognizing its potential to enrich both their personal and professional worlds. fostering a holistic orientation to teaching encourages learners to develop heightened awareness of their emotions, delve into their distinct processes of meaning-making, and cultivate a deeper comprehension of their personal self-perception. “i’m going to really focus on topics that are interesting, things that i need to learn. i’m going to do it in such a way that it has some type of meaning for me… it was not about the grade or the score. it became much more about how is this relevant or meaningful for me? (p11) for doctoral students in particular, contreras and bedford (2023) highlight how the journey of developing research skills, growing as an academic, and responding critically to problems of practice is marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 8 transformative in nature. “the doctoral candidate transforms from an expert in their respective field to a scholar-practitioner by absorbing new ideas, information, and experiences. their interpretation of what they need and how they themselves in the process grows and changes” (p. 25). the chosen quotes help support that this transformational process encompasses cognitive aspects but also involves shifts towards heightened awareness and emotional responses as they reevaluate their experiences and envision a new self-identify. 5. awareness of context developing a deeper appreciation and understanding of the personal, professional, and sociocultural factors that could influence the transformative learning process. “these factors include the surroundings of the immediate learning event, the personal and professional situation of the learners at the time (their prior experience), and the background context that is shaping society” (taylor, 2009, p. 11). taylor (2009) claims that “participants with recent experiences of critical incidences in their lives seemed more predisposed to change” (p.12). undoubtedly, the pandemic could be regarded as a critical incidence; however, numerous students were also encountering supplementary significant events that played a role in reshaping their learning experiences and triggering a change in mindset. while conveying the transformative influence of an ethics and social justice class within the program, this participant communicated how it shaped their perception of their potential to bring about positive change for others. ethics and social justice…the empowerment that i felt through taking that course was life changing because i never would have done the things that i did. you had to stand up for the injustices and you had to be courageous and you had to have those courageous conversations in order to enact change…i really wouldn’t have been prompted to be an advocate…i really wouldn’t have been prompted to see myself as a leader. i feel like in that class i had this shift in mindset. (p9) this participant detailed a profound shift in their perspective concerning the challenges confronting the educational landscape, as well as their motivation and values driving them to effect positive change that extends beyond a single organization. i want instead of one school doing a great job, i want to see the archdiocese look at this as something that honestly… we are morally obligated to implement because we say these are our values and i’m just not going to stop saying it…i never really saw this as a civil rights issue. but it is. (p1) reiterating a comparable sentiment regarding the program’s impact on their view of equity, this participant described a transformative shift in their self-concept and perspective that will continue to influence and shape their future actions and decisionmaking. how i treat other people relationally, how i orient myself to my vision, how i see social justice… i’ve always been an advocate for social justice, but being very intentional about how that looks like in processes is going to be a part of my professional rhythm and already is really from a curricular standpoint and an instructional delivery standpoint, teaching kids how to relate to each other, but whenever i have a larger organization that might have inequity built into it, what am i going to do to change that? (p10) these participants conveyed a fresh sense of self-awareness and comprehension regarding their values, motivations, and behaviors in connection with comprehending the societal context in which they operate, as well as in broader future contexts. this transformative shift in self-awareness and insight enables them to make informed decisions that align with their authentic selves and lead with integrity. 6. authentic relationships refers to the importance of developing positive and productive relationships with others as a key factor in fostering transformative learning experiences. “it is through building trusting relationships that learners develop the confidence to deal with learning on an affective level, where transformation at times can be perceived as threatening and an emotionally charged experience” (taylor, 2009 p. 13). through authentic relationships, teachers develop a deep awareness of the needs and interests of their learners, help learners develop a strong sense of self-awareness, create an environment to be genuine with them and their peers, foster opportunities for learners to engage in critical reflection and critical self-reflection, and demonstrates an awareness of how context shapes practice (cranton & carusetta, 2004). while describing the academic and emotional hurdles encountered during the program, this participant underscored the vital importance of faculty offering essential support to foster their achievement. this is too much work and i have to redo everything and i’m melting down and i don’t think i can do it. i think every semester, i’ve had about two weeks where i just fall apart and can’t do anything and i’ve never had a professor do anything other than say, hey, that’s cool. you want me to help you? like, no, you take the time you need…and that comfort has been everything to me. (p2) numerous participants remarked on effectiveness of the cohort model and the power of the relationships created throughout the program. a participant elaborated on how cultivating genuine connections influenced their professional growth and personal development. these quotes are consistent with transformative learning literature of the positive effects of peer dynamics (capello, 2023; ginsberg et al., 2014; taylor, 2007) and supportive learning environments (cranton, 2006; cranton & carusetta, 2004). we are still close, thick as thieves, and we do our work togetherw e connect on things outside of class. so the edd program, just by structure and by academics, have helped me really connect in very different ways personally with my colleagues and my classmates by structure and by design…[they] provided a huge support for me and still do…has helped maintain [me] through both the pandemic and the civil unrest. (p7) other participants observed a transformative change in their perceptions of the significance of establishing genuine relationships beyond the educational setting and within their professional roles. this change in mindset can be described how a “personal transformation leads to alliances with others of like mind to work toward effecting necessary changes in relationships, organizations, and systems” (mezirow, 1992, p. 252). this change in perception transformative learning in the edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 9 can lead to more informed, thoughtful, and strategic decisions that benefit both the team and the organization. it also taught me that i needed to build credibility. i feel like those things really shifted everything. you can’t make decisions without having the right people at the table and by right people is who’s being impacted by the decision you’re about to make... who’s not at the table that should be and who’s going to be impacted by the decision i’m about to make…i feel like those are also those principles i’ve installed in my office too. we slowed down and we built the relationships. i do just feel like a different person, a different leader because of it. (p9) there is value in making connections and especially with people who value the same things that the program values…adjusting the internal mindset towards…i’m not just going to stay in the position where i’m at, but i’m actually going to take this and use it to help change the world. (p10) this participant echoed a parallel shift in perspective, emphasizing an increased recognition of the significance of cultivating compassionate relationships. i look at everything very differently now…i think more selfaware... care for others. care for the people that you are leading…i think that’s been my one of my really bigger shifts is genuinely understanding and caring about the people in the work, including myself. (p11) participants reflected upon a mindset shift that fosters empathy and understanding through building authentic relationships. leaders who reflect on their experiences and perspectives are more likely to empathize with the challenges and viewpoints of their team members. this empathetic stance nurtures positive relationships, effective communication, and a supportive work environment. throughout these narratives, participants referred to their changing self-identities, mind shifts, and worldviews and what they needed to confront within themselves in order to grow personally and professionally. jarvis (2006) explains transformative learning occurs when a learner “encounters an experience in her social context, one that cannot be automatically accommodated or assimilated. this creates a disjunction between one’s biography and the experience, a state of unease that can trigger learning” (merriam et al, 2007, pp. 101-102). with several references to the emotions that the participants were feeling, jarvis (2006) explains that “it is perhaps through the emotions that thought can be transformed into action…the emotions can have a considerable effect on the way we think, on motivation and on beliefs, attitudes, and values” (p. 11). discussion a qualitative analysis of 12 edd participants’ responses provided rich evidence related to the theory of transformative learning. the study supports the notion that transformative learning was fostered in a cohort of online education doctoral students, as not only evidenced by their career advancement during their program but also by the reflective responses provided during the interview. participants reported personal development, heightened selfawareness, and a recognition of the shift from initial apprehension and self-doubt to a more confident self-perception. participants also noted the impact of the program on their professional trajectory by describing an increase in self-confidence, increased sense of selfefficacy to become a leader, shift in mindset, and ability to apply and reflect upon coursework that was aligned with their professional aspirations. the core elements of teaching transformative learning, according to taylor (2009), include individual experience, critical reflection, dialogue, holistic orientation, awareness of context, and authentic relationships. all core elements were reflected throughout the participants’ responses but looking across the data, i found that it was difficult to claim that all participants underwent transformative learning through their program. while some participants expressed several ideas that could easily align with the different elements of transformative learning, it might prove difficult to disaggregate them into particular elements or to generalize them across several elements. the research on this topic has shown how complex each core element (individual experience, critical reflection, dialogue, holistic orientation, awareness of context, and authentic relationships) can be for individual learners and for faculty hoping to foster these practices in their classrooms (mezirow et al., 2009). nevertheless, my analysis leads me to believe that numerous narratives corroborate the premise that enrolling in an online doctoral program during the pandemic and progressing through the coursework potentially facilitated transformative learning experiences for many. numerous accounts recounted shifts in mindset, heightened self-confidence and self-efficacy, and the acquisition of a new lens through which to perceive oneself, the workplace, society, and the world. kegan (1994) posited that transformation occurs when a learner alters “not just the way he behaves, not just the way he feels, but the way he knows not just what he knows but the way he knows it” (p. 17). i believe that this notion was echoed in certain narratives, encapsulating the essence of transformative learning while leaving the door open for much added additional research. taylor (2009) describes two theoretical orientations to transformative learning found in the literature on this topic. one framework emphasizes personal transformation and growth through critical reflection and self-critique of deeply held assumptions, which result in greater personal awareness in relationship to others. the second orientation emphasizes how individual and social transformation are linked, with learners developing a greater awareness about social change, how to transform society, and their role in it. i support the claim that participants articulated both of these theoretical orientations, expressing their own individual development as well as their aspiration to question, influence, and take action to foster a more just society. drawing a definitive conclusion that all participants underwent transformative learning throughout their program proves challenging. even for narratives supporting the assertion of transformative learning experiences, measuring and observing potential impacts beyond the program’s duration present considerable difficulties. limitations there are several limitations to this study, but in particular, the most pronounced is the timing in which the study took place. the primary aim of this study was to investigate whether the global pandemic influenced students’ decision to enroll in an online doctorate program and to explore the factors that shaped their path toward achieving career advancement while being enrolled. since the role of the pandemic played a significant role in the design of these research questions, and considering the improbable reoccurrence of a similar global event, the timing of this study is a clear limitation. additionally, participants from different cohorts (fall marotta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 10 2020 and spring 2021) engaged with the doctoral program during distinct phases of the pandemic, which might have influenced their responses. an additional limitation is the sample size. these perspectives were solicited from a specifically chosen cohort of students who met the interview criteria. participants had to be enrolled in either cohort 1 (enrolled in fall 2020) or cohort 2 (spring 2021) and who selfreported as obtaining a career advancement during their enrollment in the fully online edd program. therefore, due to the narrow sample size, the results may not be generalizable to other online programs. the data for this study stemmed from self-reported insights shared during interviews, wherein participants were prompted to recall past events and thoughts from memory. under normal circumstances, this would be considered an impact, let alone asking participants to recall emotionally laden and stressful events during a global pandemic. lastly, the study did not ask questions about or explore the potential influence of race, class, gender, able-bodiedness, sexual orientation, or power dynamics on participants’ decisionmaking and learning experiences. while outside the scope of this research, these inquiries hold promise for future investigations. recommendations the study’s potential for replication is constrained by the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic. however, several viable recommendations can be proposed. one such suggestion involves conducting follow-up interviews with the same participant group to investigate the ongoing impact they perceive from their doctoral program after graduation. mezirow (1990) acknowledges that not all learning is transformative; it is plausible that this type of learning might necessitate a lengthier period to materialize or for individuals to introspect and articulate this form of learning. subsequent interviews could be purposefully designed with more targeted questions, focusing on program elements pertinent to transformative learning experiences. additional aspects to explore might encompass detailing the specific roles played by components such as disorienting dilemmas, cohort-style enrollment, communities of practice, faculty and student relationships, fostering of trust, encouragement of critical reflection, and engagement in discourse throughout the program. furthermore, there is potential for conducting studies that explicitly employ the transformative learning theoretical framework to shape interview questions for both students and faculty engaged in doctoral programs. this approach would facilitate eliciting viewpoints from both these integral stakeholders. by doing so, a more profound comprehension could be garnered regarding how faculty can enhance the design of transformative learning experiences, resonating more profoundly with students in terms of their personal and professional growth. it is crucial to acknowledge that transformative learning experiences are complex, do not adhere to rigid prescribed methodologies or activities guaranteeing specific outcomes, or even have a high degree of consistency among researchers (coulter & mandell, 2014; cranton & taylor, 2012). cranton and taylor (2012) explain further the importance of continued research in this area: without time spent making sense of these strategies and deconstructing them in relationship to current research, the context where they are applied, and a related theoretical framework, they continue to contribute to the ongoing difficulty of understanding the relationship between fostering transformative learning and “good” teaching. it may be that some teaching practices have more potential to foster transformative learning than others, or it may be that good teaching always has the potential to foster transformative learning and transformation is dependent on the readiness of the learners, the context in which the teaching takes place, or other factors outside of the teaching practice. (p.15) nevertheless, engaging students in dialogues with faculty regarding factors that might foster transformative learning experiences would be a meaningful step. desapio (2017) emphasizes the need for sustained transformative learning and calls for further research on fostering this type of learning in educational contexts. this entails bridging the gap between theory and practice, transforming observable transformation into replicable experiences. the concept of establishing consistent, replicable, and sustainable transformative learning experiences holds significant potential for both faculty and doctoral students. contreras and bedford (2023) further explain the significance of involving doctoral students in the discourse regarding the transformative nature of their educational journey, both within the program and in their future endeavors. “the dissertation process, like doctoral course work and the experience as a whole, is a training process meant to assess how adept the doctoral candidate adapts to circumstances, meets challenges, and solves complex problems” (contreras & bedford, 2023, p. 25). nurturing an understanding among doctoral students about the transformative character of their educational journey will empower them to welcome significant shifts in their perspective, adjust their thinking in response to evolving situations, approach decision-making from a fresh standpoint, and act in alignment with their authentic selves. conclusion research on transformative learning provides valuable insights into the processes of change, growth, and learning among adult learners across time. the participant narratives collected for this study help add to this body of research by sharing specific examples of where transformative learning may have transpired and detailing the ways it occurred. as a cped-influenced institution, it is clear to see a strong alignment between the cped guiding principles and core elements of transformative learning. does our edd program truly foster transformative learning experiences that facilitate the cultivation of new perspectives, influencing both thinking and action in support of leadership endeavors? have participants transformed their habits of mind through experiential learning, facilitated by critical reflection and dialogue (jarvis, 2006; mezirow, 1996)? the narratives give me hope that the program is doing just that, yet numerous questions remain unexplored. researchers have emphasized that, despite the limited clear signposts or guidelines for understanding the complexities of transformative learning, it fundamentally involves “educating from a particular educational philosophy, with its own assumptions about the purpose of education, the role of the educator, and the nature of knowledge (cranton & taylor, 2012, p. 15). as a result, the study of transformative learning presents both opportunities and difficulties for researchers seeking to add to this body of research. there seem to be multiple avenues for further research, assumptions to question regarding transformative learning theory itself, and ongoing discussions about the consistency of how transformative learning can be cultivated. researchers may transformative learning in the edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.402 11 need to strive for more cohesive assertions regarding the practice, research, and theory of transformative learning. designing transformative learning experiences to help guide learners through the cped’s guiding principles will certainly continue to influence the design, content, and activities of my doctoral classes. faculty within cped-influenced institutions who are dedicated to cultivating scholar-practitioners capable of solving complex problems of practice rooted in equity, ethics, and social justice—while emphasizing the creation, transformation, and application of professional knowledge and practice—are encouraged to delve deeper into transformative learning theory to enrich and expand the cped (2023) guiding principles. despite the need for further research, it remains crucial to persist in the pursuit of transforming students through an educational program, given the remarkable and exciting potential for such transformation. references berger. j. g. 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(2012). the handbook of transformative learning: theory, research, and practice. jossey-bass. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.263 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.466 34 considering the impact of standardized testing on workforce diversity lyndon huling university of california, davis lahuling@ucdavis.edu cynthia sommer sacramento city college sommerc@scc.losrios.edu ira young university of california, berkeley iyoung@berkeley.edu abstract today, we revisit our initial stance of eliminating standardized test scores from the college admissions process to improve equity and student diversity. with refreshed data about test-optional admissions, we address the import of institutional responsiveness to redress persistent equity gaps that impact our state’s workforce diversity and hiring challenges. leveraging data to inform advocacy is representative of the skillset cultivated in the candel program for evidence-based decision-making. moreover, the pre-pandemic position over standardized testing exemplifies how candel encouraged us to explore novel approaches to address persistent and troublesome equity issues. with leadership roles in the community college and the university of california systems and a particular emphasis on workforce development, we reflect on the candel ethos of scholar-practitioner leadership in our practice areas to promote equitable educational and career outcomes. keywords standardized tests, college admission, workforce development, candel historically, standardized testing has played a critical role in college admissions throughout the united states, ostensibly providing a standardized metric to gauge academic aptitude and college readiness. however, substantive test-score differences for ethnic and socioeconomic groups have prompted lingering apprehensions about the fairness and equity of standardized tests (zwick, 2021). in 2016, as cohort members in the candel education leadership doctorate program at the university of california at davis, the authors collaborated on a paper for a course on data-driven decision-making for educational change, positing that eliminating standardized test scores from the college admissions process could improve equity and student diversity. the data presented indicated better measures of college success, and we described how standardized test scores serve as a sorting mechanism based on a false model of meritocracy that disproportionately benefits those with privilege and preserves the elitism of the institutions that require it for admission. at the time, eliminating standardized testing was improbable given the longstanding tradition—and business—of student testtaking and submitting scores for college admission. our position for the assignment, which was to explore novel approaches to address persistent and troublesome equity issues with standardized testing, is now plausible. the current debate now can encompass the merits or flaws of test-optional admissions, including the 2021 decision by the university of california system to no longer require these tests. this decision, backed by our research and the growing body of evidence, instills confidence in the potential of test-optional policies to improve diversity and equity in college admissions. candel has engendered a community of practice with equityminded professionals uniquely situated to manage the complexities of educational organizations, effect policy change, and shape the academic and workforce outcomes for our region and state. with leadership roles spanning the community college and uc systems and a particular emphasis on workforce development, we opted to revisit our initial stance with refreshed data about admissions and equity, which led us to a discussion of retention efforts and the import of institutional responsiveness to redress persistent equity gaps that ultimately impact our state’s workforce diversity and hiring challenges. in short, our position is that alterations in college admissions policies directly affect the composition of the workforce. the arc of standardized testing introduced in the early 20th century as an adaptation of the u.s. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0861-6980 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8233-828x https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5300-2204 standardized testing and workforce diversity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.466 35 army iq test (zwick, 2007), the initial scholastic aptitude test (sat) was developed by the college board, a consortium of colleges formed in 1900 to establish a uniform test "based on the curricula of the boarding schools that typically provided graduates to the colleges of the ivy league and seven sisters" (lemann, 2004). thus, the inception of standardized tests was intended to benefit students who could afford boarding school and attend ivy league colleges. the gi bill substantially increased the number of collegegoers, leading to mass higher education expansion in the united states. in this context, the american college testing (act) exam was introduced in 1959, and college entrance exams were widely adopted, as colleges needed a consistent mechanism to screen large numbers of applicants. modern critics of these standardized tests argue that despite the presumptive use of these exams to expand socioeconomic diversity, today's strong scores on the sat or act are likely markers of privilege, as wealthier students can more readily prepare for the exams, hire tutors, purchase additional books and training, and retake tests on route to achieving those scores. indeed, sat taking correlates with student socioeconomic status (avery et al., 2004), and retaking college exams are associated with improved performance in both u.s. and non-u.s. contexts (frisancho et al., 2016; goodman et al., 2020). additionally, the substantial test-score differences among ethnic and socioeconomic groups continue to cause concern. asian and white test takers score higher on average than their black, latiné, and native american counterparts, and test takers from higher-income families perform better than lower-income test takers. while differences do not demonstrate that a test is biased or unfair, a heavy emphasis on test scores in admissions decisions will result in lower selection rates for candidates who identify as black, latiné, native american, or are from low-income families (zwick, 2023). as specified in our 2016 class assignment, a different response to the barriers and inequities created by entrance exams should be introduced. since 2020, institutions have suspended their use entirely (as enacted by the university of california system) or implemented test-optional policies, allowing applicants discretion in reporting scores from these assessments. test-optional policies began in the early 2000s as a niche practice primarily among liberal arts institutions. these policies have continued to grow in popularity, with institutions that varied substantially on various attributes aiming to increase socioeconomic and racial diversity among their students. the college entrance exam landscape is shifting rapidly, with changes hastened by the disruptions to standardized testing brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. while some colleges are reverting to pre-covid practices as the pandemic subsides, the pandemic has pushed institutions to make admissions decisions in a test-optional context or without standardized test scores. still, the u.s. news ranking of institutions—a recognized driver of institutional decision-making —continues to rely on student sat/act performance as a factor in their ratings of colleges and universities. in 2022, us news announced a modest change to its methodology regarding college entrance exams. specifically, if less than 50% (down from 75%) of an institution's entering class of 2020 submitted test scores, the institution's sat/act percentile distribution value would be deflated by 15% before use in rankings calculations (dynarski et al., 2023). such a policy creates a strong incentive for ratings-sensitive institutions to work to admit more of their incoming cohorts from among applicants who report standardized test scores. test-optional admission test-optional policies could affect college-going outcomes via at least four potential channels (bennett, 2021). first, students may add to their institutional choice set one or more schools that adopt a testoptional policy. second, test-optional policies remove sat/act taking as a step in the college application gauntlet (klasik, 2011). third, more students may see themselves as college-qualified without the sat/act metric. finally, students may view test-optional colleges as better aligned with their ideals, as test-optional policies may signal that institutions value applicants’ unique contributions. critics of test-optional admissions argue that these policies may lead to increases in institutional selectivity and ranking status, driven by an increase in applicants without a corresponding change in the average test scores used in rankings, as lower-scoring applicants may withhold their scores (ehrenberg, 2003). a key challenge to investigating the effects of test-optional policies is that such policies often need to be implemented in collaboration, resulting in conflicting findings. for example, the university of chicago introduced simultaneous efforts to increase diversity, including test-optional. these efforts included providing full scholarships for applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds and increasing recruitment activities in rural and urban areas (dynarski et al., 2023). still, evidence suggests that test-optional policies may not help colleges achieve goals of increased diversity but may boost the indicators used in college rankings. first, belasco et al. (2015) found that at several u.s. liberal arts colleges, test-optional policies increased applications but did not affect the share of students from low-income or minority backgrounds and positively affected average sat scores among enrolled students. examining a broader set of 4year institutions, saboe and terrizzi (2019) found that test-optional policy adoption did not affect diversity, and in contrast to belasco et al. (2015), found no effects on average sat scores. conversely, in a study examining 100 private institutions that implemented test-optional policies between 2005 and 2015, bennett (2021) estimated that test-optional policies among these institutions increased the share of students who were pell grant recipients or ethnic/racial minorities each by one percentage point, with no effects on application volume and no evidence of heterogeneity by institutional selectivity. complicating efforts to identify apparent trends resulting from test-optional policies during the pandemic are the varied approaches colleges have taken to implement them. based on interviews at 16 colleges and universities, researchers found admissions officers were overwhelmed with the volume of applications and worried about replacing test scores with metrics that “were even more biased toward wealthier students, such as letters of recommendation and expensive extracurricular activities” (barshay, 2022). the effects of eliminating college entrance exams from admissions processes may differ, and future research should explore how policy and pandemic-related disruptions to standardized testing practices may affect the distribution of students across institutions going forward. research at the university of california, berkeley suggests that the 2021 entering cohort of first-year students was the first cohort under the test-optional policy, and the 2023 entering cohort is the first cohort under the test-blind policy. therefore, it is too early to tell the impact on graduation rates; the university will only know at the end of the 2024-25 academic year to get our earliest hint. regarding applicants, admits, or applicants who have committed to attend, huling et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.466 36 there must be a clear signal that removing the test requirements had demographic implications. a move away from college entrance exams may also lead colleges and universities to put even more weight on students’ high school rank and gpa in making college admissions decisions. a concern related to this point is that grading practices in u.s. public schools indicate steady grade inflation trends, particularly in schools that serve more affluent students (gershenson et al., 2022; hurwitz & lee, 2018). regardless of the cause of admissions test score gaps, a heavy emphasis on test scores in the admissions process will result in lower selection rates for candidates who identify as black, latiné, native american, or are from low-income families. therefore, less diversity in our educational institutions affects lower diversity rates in our state’s workforce pipeline. the role of community college in workforce development california community colleges (cccs) are open-access campuses, with “admission open to all who can benefit” (california community colleges, cccapply). regarding access, cccs can be a touchstone for comparing student diversity with test-optional admissions. for example, the percentage of latiné students in our community college system is double that in the university of california (uc) system, at 46^ and 23.3%, respectively. black/african american student population at cccs is 6%, compared to 4% at ucs. (see table 1 students by ethnicity.) table 1. student enrollment by ethnicity in california higher education system percent population of student body ethnicity/race ccc-community college csu-state university uc-university of ca american indian/alaska native 0 0.2 0.6 asian 10 16 33 black/african american 6 4 4.7 filipino 3 5 3 latiné/hispanic 46 47.7 23.3 pacific islander/hawaiian native 0 0.3 0.3 white 24 21 21.6 sources: california community colleges, launchboard https://www.calpassplus.org/launchboard/community-collegepipeline.aspx; the california state university https://www. calstate.edu/csu-system/about-the-csu/facts-about-thecsu/enrollment/pages/student-enrollment-demographics.aspx; university of california, https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/ about-us/information-center/fall-enrollment-glance while open access may engender diversity, institutional responsiveness is critical for ensuring student success as cccs transition from primarily white institutions (pwi) to serving a more diverse student population. a stated goal for community colleges is to eradicate institutional racism, discrimination, and biases from our system (ca title 5 ccr § 51201 1(c)). the complexity of doing so is reflected in the pernicious and persistent equity gap that persists in latiné and black/african american completion rates, which continue to lag behind that of asian and white students (california community colleges chancellor's office, data mart, student success scorecard). vision 2030 outlines priorities for cccs to serve students better and foster california’s economic competitiveness (california community colleges, vision 2030). one of the strategic directions is to ensure equitable workforce development. with over 200 career education (ce) programs, cccs are also the “largest provider of workforce training in the world” (california community colleges chancellor’s office, cccco.edu). career education certificates and degrees prepare students for the workforce, either as new entrants, returning skills builders, or through incumbent worker training. further, federal and state funding for ce programs involves work plans designed to enhance participation and completion by targeted or disproportionately impacted student populations, with regular required reporting on expenditures and progress toward regional strategies and statewide goals. per california education regulations “establishing and maintaining a richly diverse workforce is an ongoing process that requires continued institutionalized effort” (ccr title 5 section 53024.1). this includes acting locally, relying on local labor market data, and coordinating with regional workforce initiatives. in healthcare, student demographics for these programs in the north/far north and greater sacramento regions differ from statewide enrollment in healthcare programs: most notably, latiné at slightly more than half the statewide rate and white at double (table 2). furthermore, while the enrollment rates by ethnicity superficially align with the race and ethnicity breakdown for the greater sacramento microregion, white students are overrepresented regarding completion (i.e., earning a certificate or degree) (california community colleges, launchboard, www.calpassplus.org). consider too the exclusion of data for some student populations due to “insufficient data,” represented only by dashes or asterisks. the implication of these inversed enrollment ratios and overand underrepresentation of students completing a health program of study is a less diverse pool of trained allied health professionals to serve the greater sacramento area. there are people in our communities for whom access to healthcare and healthcare education should be accounted for in local strategies and initiatives for services and education access and attainment. appropriately, the health sector is a priority for local community colleges to meet the pressing need for nurses, technicians, and other caregivers, notably those trained in culturally competent caregiving and from historically under/improperly served populations to serve the region's diverse population and healthcare needs. acting locally the community colleges serving the greater sacramento region offer an array of ce programs in health professions pathways, and partner with health systems and employers to identify and address local workforce needs. recently, education and healthcare workforce representatives engaged in a talent pipeline management initiative, employ the model developed by the u.s. chamber of commerce foundation to identify critical jobs such as surgical and cardiovascular technicians for which the colleges are now revising or developing targeted academic programs. another effort is the lvnto-rn apprenticeship program, a collaboration with industry and community partners to build and diversify the nursing pipeline by preparing licensed vocational nurses to earn an associate in science degree and eligibility to take the licensure exam needed to practice https://www.calpassplus.org/launchboard/community-college-pipeline.aspx https://www.calpassplus.org/launchboard/community-college-pipeline.aspx https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/about-the-csu/facts-about-the-csu/enrollment/pages/student-enrollment-demographics.aspx https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/about-the-csu/facts-about-the-csu/enrollment/pages/student-enrollment-demographics.aspx https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/about-the-csu/facts-about-the-csu/enrollment/pages/student-enrollment-demographics.aspx https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/fall-enrollment-glance https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/fall-enrollment-glance http://www.calpassplus.org/ standardized testing and workforce diversity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.466 37 table 2. population and ccc healthcare enrollment by ethnicity (2020-21) percent of population percent of student population ethnicity/race greater sacramento (microregion) statewide north/far north (macroregion) greater sacramento (microregion) american indian/alaska native 1 asian 15 10 10 12 black/african american 7 6 6 6 filipino 5 3 4 latiné/hispanic 23 45 27 28 pacific islander/hawaiian native 1 1 1 white 48 26 42 38 source: california community colleges, launchboard, community college pipeline https://www.calpassplus.org/ launchboard/community-college-pipeline.aspx u.s. census profiles, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/ 31000us40900-sacramento-roseville-folsom-ca-metro-area/ as a registered nurse. the nursing pathway continues with the rn to bsn and rn to msn programs, where students concurrently earn units and eligibility to transfer to a participating institution to earn a terminal degree. the intent is to offer cost and time savings to pursue career mobility in nursing leadership roles. at los rios community college district, with four colleges and outreach centers serving the region, initiatives are underway to improve student success in allied health programs, particularly for black/african american and latiné students. focus groups were conducted to hear directly from students about their challenges and the best practices they encountered during their study. follow-up work with select allied health programs involves students and faculty co-creating approaches to address specific concerns and develop recommendations to improve retention and achieve more equitable outcomes. these efforts to better support underrepresented students ultimately benefit all students, leading to living-wage careers for completers who join the local workforce to meet the region’s healthcare needs. workforce development and diversity a diverse workforce is crucial for addressing health disparities among different patient groups in healthcare. research has shown that patients receive superior care when attended to by healthcare professionals who share their racial or ethnic background (gomez & bernet, 2019). the transformation of college admissions policies carries profound implications for the composition of the workforce, with potential ramifications for diversity and inclusion. a preliminary analysis might suggest that removing standardized tests could lead to more diverse student populations, resulting in a more varied pool of college graduates and a corresponding surge of well-educated, diverse job seekers. however, it is crucial to recognize that the effectiveness of this approach depends on mitigating other forms of academic malpractice that may inadvertently favor individuals with privilege. failure to address such issues could perpetuate a lack of diversity in the workforce, particularly in professions requiring bachelor's degrees. drawing parallels to the impact of proposition 209, which eliminated affirmative action as a tactic to diversify the workforce, the recent move to eliminate standardized testing in university of california admissions is poised to have significant implications for workforce diversity recruitment strategies. while these changes are still in their early stages, it is imperative to anticipate potential impacts on various sectors, and one area that stands out is healthcare. consequently, eliminating standardized testing from college admissions may influence the diversity of healthcare professionals, ultimately affecting the quality of care provided to diverse patient populations. the talent acquisition unit at uc davis health, a prominent healthcare provider in the sacramento region, has been proactive in implementing innovative recruitment strategies to diversify its workforce, even within the constraints imposed by proposition 209. these strategies include incorporating health equity, diversity, and inclusion messaging into outreach materials, using inclusive language in job descriptions, providing training to mitigate implicit bias, and engaging in train-the-trainer sessions with community leaders to demystify the recruitment process. additionally, the organization has collaborated with community-based organizations, organized targeted outreach events, and established pathway programs with local partners to facilitate entry into healthcare careers. as the consequences of eliminating standardized testing from university of california admissions unfold, organizations like uc davis health must remain vigilant in monitoring the impact on admissions, leveraging workforce projections for graduating students, and instituting innovative programs to source diverse talent within an evolving higher education landscape. eliminating standardized testing from the university of california admissions process undeniably reshapes the higher education landscape. as the repercussions of this paradigm shift continue to unfold, it is crucial to scrutinize its influence on workforce diversity, especially in pivotal sectors such as healthcare. striking a balance between equity in admissions and the imperative for a diverse and proficient workforce demands careful consideration and continuous evaluation to ensure that the university of california persists in fostering an inclusive and representative workforce for the future. this ongoing assessment is vital to navigate the evolving higher education landscape and address potential challenges while championing diversity and equity. reflection as scholar-practitioners, candel has distinctively positioned us to engage in a community of practice with equity-minded professionals who are uniquely situated to interrogate the validity of current and future practices that affect school change and share the educational policies that bear on the practice of the diverse educational settings in northern california. this community of practice allows us to tap into and nurture thought partnerships that enhance the educational experience of all students from the entry point into higher education and continue through successful entry into the workforce. such touchpoints are unique because they enable us to serve at the nexus where theory meets practice. this engagement allows us to collect and analyze data that helps us https://www.calpassplus.org/launchboard/community-college-pipeline.aspx https://www.calpassplus.org/launchboard/community-college-pipeline.aspx https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000us40900-sacramento-roseville-folsom-ca-metro-area/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000us40900-sacramento-roseville-folsom-ca-metro-area/ huling et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.466 38 develop informed opinions about the value and implications of standardized tests. author’s note thank you for reading our work. your support and feedback are greatly appreciated. if you have any questions, comments, or would like to discuss our work further, please feel free to reach out. contact information:  email: lahuling@ucdavis.edu  email: sommerc@scc.losrios.edu  email: iyoung@berkeley.edu we are always open to engaging with readers and fellow scholar-practitioners. don't hesitate to connect. references avery, c., kane, t. j., & sacerdote, b. 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new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 76 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.457 challenges in (re)designing edd programs: supporting change with learning cases book review siyuan gu johns hopkins university sgu0914@outlook.com jill alexa perry (editor): challenges in (re)designing edd programs: supporting change with learning cases. myers education press, 2023. 98pp. paperback: $29.95. isbn 978-1-9755-0548-6 abstract this review assesses dr. jill perry's (2023) text challenges of (re)designing edd programs: supporting transformation through case learning in terms of its relevance to its intended audience of educational practitioners and its contributions to the field. by spotlighting the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) -associated teaching cases, it examines each for insights into the redesign process and offers meaningful discussion questions for further reflection. addressing challenges like equity integration, defining research roles, and managing program differences, perry’s text assesses their impact on edd program development. it emphasizes the need for cohesive, outcome-oriented program development and positions case-based earning as a practical tool for faculty development and for promoting critical thinking. the text urges readers to reflect on these cases and uses them as an instrument for fostering discussions on edd program design challenges in an effort to ideally guide institutional transformation. keywords edd, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), teaching cases, educational leadership, program redesign doctoral programs in education can be classified according to two types: doctor of education (edd) and doctor of philosophy (phd) programs, with the traditional phd programs generally being more widely recognized by both the general public, governing bodies, and other accrediting institutions (doran, 2021). traditional phd programs are typically characterized as research-intensive, as offering a rigorous curriculum, and as using comprehensive exams and a dissertation as methods for measuring student learning. yet, many traditional doctoral programs are plagued by extended completion times, low graduation rates, declining student enrollment, and a lack of real-world application. to overcome these deficits, several institutions have introduced edd programs, which are characterized by a shorter 3-4 year duration, as well as a curriculum tailored to practical educational contexts and dedicated to continuous content refinement for practitioners' evolving needs. despite the promise and potential of the edd programs, they have nonetheless encountered substantial skepticism from some veteran educators and faculty regarding their perceived efficacy and relevancy (see buss et al., 2017), in addition to external critics questioning the presumed leniency of edd standards (schulman et al., 2006). to overcome the challenges posed by such skepticism, many edd programs are therefore undergoing a redesign process to bring about transformative change within higher education. the authors featured in perry’s (2023) challenges of (re)designing edd programs are well-qualified to weigh in on such matters, as they bring with them extensive histories within the field. one of the book’s greatest strengths is how it effectively draws upon the individual contributors’ diverse areas of expertise. gary crow, professor emeritus at indiana university, specializes in school leadership, reform, and professional identities. william firestone, also a professor emeritus out of rutgers university, offers insights into leadership and educational reform. andrew leland, a professor at southern illinois university, specializes in methods for preparing today’s educational leadership. perry herself serves as cped executive director and associate professor at the university of pittsburgh and has an accomplished background in international education policy. the cped program, of which dr. perry is a part, is dedicated to transforming the edd degree into a doctor of professional practice in education degree by reimagining existing curricula. this new framework centers around questions of social justice and ethics, problems of practice explored in field-based environments, and tangibly preparing educators to engender meaningful change within their communities. the book begins with perry’s critical appraisal of the existing gaps in doctoral training for educators. the core objective of this chapter, as well as the book as a whole, is to equip faculty with practical tools for professional development in redesigning edd programs. in the past, faculty have typically focused on prioritizing teaching and service over research and publication. for today’s edd https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8200-7544 gu impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.457 77 programs, however, perry suggests a redesign that encourages faculty to equally divide their efforts and change the way they view doctoral preparation. to illustrate what these changes might look like in practice and with the tone for the following chapters thus established, perry then introduces five real-world cases drawing upon edd faculty members’ experiences working in universities throughout the u.s. together, they provide a comprehensive narrative on conceptualizing—but more importantly, actualizing—the (re)design of edd programs. the first case, written by andrew leland, presents a scenario detailing a faculty member’s efforts to lead the redesign of the edd program with an eye towards diversity and equity. this faculty member, professor ittunga, specializes in critical race theory, making her poised to lead the redesign of the edd program by addressing issues of equity, diversity, and social justice, specifically. after supplying the reader with this context, leland outlines the innovative ways in which ittunga strengthened her university’s edd curriculum. the new core coursework focuses on developing students’ ability to lead change effectively with evidence-based decision-making, which is achieved in part by immersing students in the process of applying and conducting research. prior to ittunga’s interventions, the edd program was marked by three significant shortcomings: (1) topics on diversity and equity were only integrated into the curriculum in the form of elective, (2) the concept of diversity as it appeared in the curriculum was nominalized and narrowly define in terms of only race and ethnicity or socioeconomic status, for example, and (3) there was only one system in place for assessing the curriculum (i.e., via standardized test scores). in ittunga’s redesigned version, however, diversity and equity were no longer relegated to an optional subject area for study, but a core requirement. furthermore, this new curriculum broadened the scope of studies of diversity to now conceptualize it through the lens of gender and gender identity, religion, and much more. one of the more appealing features of this chapter, from an instructional standpoint, is that the author provides the reader with a sample curriculum, so that one can see exactly how these ideals and initiatives translate into practice. the reader is then left with a series of thought-provoking, guiding questions. these questions not only provide tangible instructional resources for facilitating in-class discussion but also prompt the reader themselves to engage with these concepts to further reflect on what diversity means to them. the next case, written by bill firestone, details the case of western state university's (wsu) edd program and the countless challenges it faced. the edd degree offered by wsu was the only terminal degree in education the institution was allowed to offer, due to state politics that designated phds in education a right reserved for larger state universities. this, coupled with the fact that the edd students at wsu experienced high drop-out rates and lowcompletion times, prompted the faculty and administration at wsu to charge that the edd degree was not a serious pursuit. these troubles were compounded by accusations that the edd faculty let students “slide by on subpar work,” making this more of a “phd lite” degree (p. 23). firestone’s solution to these problems was to make the program more evidence-based, but also more geared towards preparing students to be educational practitioners rather than educational researchers. this meant that students who were admitted to the program already had a problem of practice that they wanted to tackle in mind, and so they identified a specific context for the application of the educational theories and methods they learned in the program. and to counter accusations that the edd lacked rigor, those leading the program’s redesign implemented standardized rubrics for evaluating students’ comprehensive exams. however, one challenge remained, and this had to do with the faculty being divided on the program's future directions. the core faculty was committed to career preparation developing skilled practitioners, but the "old guard" (p. 29) was more focused on developing future researchers. the emphasis on evidence is in line with the edd programs’ preference for action research (buss & zambo, 2016; mertler, 2017; osterman et al., 2014), which inherently seeks to balance the rigors of academic research as it is traditionally conceived with practical applications. under this new framework, firestone argues that program leaders must know how to design and operate data collection systems, analyze outcome-related data, and wisely monitor the outcomes observed. these assessments may be further augmented by seeking out research partners within local communities and making educational decisions with the cooperation of colleagues. he also advises that those involved in redesign efforts reach out to peers doing similar work, as they can provide an invaluable, if not often overlooked, resource in learning. in many ways, the third case, written by gary crow, builds off of the ideas presented in the second case. here again, the reader sees familiar tensions outlined, such as those between methodological rigor and practical applications, as well as a reverence for the established way of doing things and a desire for change. at the forefront of this desire for change is dean rutledge of western university. this case presents a comparative analysis between two edd programs, one in the department of teaching and learning (tl) and the other in the higher education (he) department. as dean rutledge observed, both programs were struggling, despite adopting different approaches to curriculum design and instructional practices. the tl edd program was subject to many of the “phd lite” criticisms that surfaced in the previous chapter, whereas students enrolled in the he edd program had trouble distinguishing it from the phd program. the answer to both departments’ troubles came in the form of the cped and its corresponding principles. it allowed the tl department to promote critical thinking among the student body, which was facilitated by the creation of a distinct cohort, by fostering a community of scholars and by focusing on the issues they might actually encounter in their practice. the he department likewise found the cped framework to be a great help in redesigning their work; students reported feeling as though they had learned more about methodology and had increased opportunities to interact with faculty. through the use of the cped framework to redesign the edd, the tl department had, so far, proven more successful than the he department. in the he department, the cped-led redesign efforts were met with a fair amount of faculty who expressed concerns about their productivity when their time and attention were being allocated towards revamping the program. so, as with previous cases, this one does not wrap up with a definitive conclusion, but more questions, designed to spur further thought about how to continue the relative successes witnessed in the tl department and encourage the he department to change course. the fourth case, written by perry, explores the challenges of institutionalizing change and accounting for an institutional culture that redesigning an edd program entails and moreover, highlights the effort it requires faculty to put forth and the toll it takes on leaders throughout the redesign process. this case delves into dr. silvi bell's challenges in (re)designing edd programs-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.457 78 transformation of central state university's (csu) edd program and her efforts to address low completion rates and enrollment decline by moving to an cped-aligned edd. it also introduced the notion of a dissertation in practice—that is, a dissertation that was less focused on addressing “gaps in the literature” (p. 56) and more focused on engendering actionable and meaningful changes to educational policy and practice. the dissertation became a key point of contention, as many of the more seasoned, tenured faculty members argued that a dissertation required the extensive collection of empirical data through involved fieldwork. but such a dissertation model would inevitably be at odds with actual needs of practitioners. this discrepancy between the needs of the edd students and the goals of the program administrators is what led perry to question, “is the professional practice doctorate (ppd) model fully institutionalized if only some elements cater to practitioners?” (p. 56). in other words, is a dissertation in the traditional sense a requisite for the edd to be recognized as a legitimate academic pathway? for perry, institutionalization refers to the integration of organizational practices, processes, and structures to the point that they come to be regarded as normative. she points out that while existing structures, processes, and policies are difficult to change, resistance does not mean that change is not possible. it is in this regard that it may be helpful to think of change in terms of a pendulum. as gallant and drinan (2008) note, structural and procedural obstacles can be viewed as “swings of the pendulum rather than insurmountable obstacles” that might cause a full collapse or abandonment of the innovation (p. 34). change happens at the individual, program, and institutional levels, with resistance driving the process and bringing clarity to the concept of the ppd. the good news is that once a change has been thoroughly adopted by an institution (i.e., it has been institutionalized), it is no longer viewed as a change, nor is it met with the resistance that often accompanies change (rogers, 1995). in the case of the ppd, however, achieving this degree of institutionalization requires fundamental shifts in mindset, as well as a curriculum and dissertation overhauls. perry leaves the reader with questions pertaining to how to convince hesitant faculty of the merits of this new dissertation format, in addition to specific methods for achieving full institutionalization in light of it. the final case, written by andrew leland, is grounded in the context of tech university's cohort model and dr. williert's attempts to bring about transformative leadership and full cped integration. the cohort model practiced by tech university is oriented towards supporting faculty in their efforts to help students enhance their academic and social experiences and improve group cohesion among the student body. one of the key differences between the cohort model and more traditional graduate education models is that with the former, students are following a predetermined coursework trajectory at the same pace. a primary advantage of the cohort model is that it provides ample opportunities for “collective sensemaking” (p. 71), but it is nonetheless vulnerable to groupthink (janis, 1972) and an inability to see the big picture, when group work is divided up into individual tasks. leland then closes the chapter by questioning how tech university’s unique cohort-based edd program may be redesigned for the better. in the final chapter, gary crow summarizes the contributions of all the cases and emphasizes the importance of a critical and collaborative approach that uses instructional cases to move beyond simply seeking a single right answer. in line with the merits of casebased learning that crow extols, i too saw the diverse case studies introduced here as the book’s greatest strength. i came to understand edd programs as much more than just an edd versus phd debate as a result of the breadth of topics addressed through these case studies. the edd programs presented here are nuanced and highly varied. what’s more is that the case studies, as such, impact the specificity and relatability that allow the reader to sense their applicability to a wide variety of contexts, all while avoiding the pedantic tone seen in some textbooks. finally, for a book whose subject matter is concerned with how to make academia more inclusive for educational practitioners, i think it does an admirable job of practicing what it preaches. the narrative style and straightforward language make this accessible to a wide audience composed of both educators and scholars in education. that said, the text is careful to tie the narratives introduced to the extant literature but operationalizes and unpacks academic terminology so that anyone could follow. my only criticism is that the case study approach seemed to prevent the authors from interjecting their own rich experiences with educational programs. in this way, the case studies functioned more as a summary, but i would have liked to hear from the direct experiences of such an accomplished group of authors. all in all, i believe that this text provides an invaluable roadmap for ensuring that the edd is not only seen for the promise it holds, but that it becomes accessible and fruitful for both practitioners and scholars alike. references buss, r., & zambo, d. (2016). using action research to develop scholarly practitioners. in j. a. perry (ed.), the edd and the scholarly practitioner (pp. 137–153). information age. buss, r. r., zambo, r., zambo, d., perry, j. a., & williams, t. r. (2017). faculty members’ responses to implementing re-envisioned edd programs. studies in higher education, 42(9), 1624–1640. doran, e. (2021). an edd in a phd world: developing a scholarly identity in a world that may not always recognize you as legitimate. in e. templeton, b.h. love, & o. johnson (eds.), elevating marginalized voices in academe: lessons for a new generation of scholars (pp. 110-114). routledge. janis, i. l. (1972). victims of groupthink: a psychological study of foreignpolicy decisions and fiascoes. houghton mifflin. mertler, c. a. (2017). action research: improving schools and empowering educators (5th ed.). sage publications. osterman, k., furman, g., & sernak, k. (2014). action research in edd programs in educational leadership. journal of research on leadership education, 9(1), 85–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775113498378 gallant, t. b., & drinan, p. (2008). toward a model of academic integrity institutionalization: informing practice in postsecondary education. canadian journal of higher education. 38(2), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.1723 rogers, e. m. (1995). diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). the free press. barnett, b. g., basom, m. r., yerkes, d. m., & norris, c. j. (2000). cohorts in educational leadership programs: benefits, difficulties, and the potential for developing school leaders. educational administration quarterly, 36(2), 255–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x00362005 https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775113498378 https://doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.1723 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x00362005 book review siyuan gu johns hopkins university references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 12 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.409 developing and sustaining northeastern’s edd program during and post pandemic cherese childers-mckee northeastern university c.childers-mckee@northeastern.edu sara ewell northeastern university s.ewell@northeastern.edu joan giblin northeastern university j.giblin@northeastern.edu joseph mcnabb northeastern university j.mcnabb@northeastern.edu melissa parenti northeastern university m.parenti@northeastern.edu abstract northeastern university’s edd faculty faced unique challenges during the pandemic and racial reckoning following george floyd’s murder. during this period, however, we found opportunities to adapt and improve our program. we prioritized compassion and connection. we made significant strides in curriculum development through design and implementation of three new concentrations. we focused all program elements on how social justice works in a variety of educational settings. we altered our approach to data collection and doctoral supervision. in so doing, we were able to maintain consistency for our students and develop a closer bond with our faculty colleagues. keywords education doctorate, racial justice, pandemic, online program, curriculum northeastern university’s edd program faced a distinct set of opportunities related to the pandemic and to racial reckoning following the murder of george floyd. while other programs moved to remote education, our program, online for over ten years, found opportunities to develop a more compassionate approach to our students, to create closer connections between and among faculty, to refine social justice elements within our curriculum, and to reimagine approaches to student networking and conducting research. our work began with the following question: how can we adapt our program to better serve our students considering the pandemic and the racial reckoning following the murder of george floyd? we formed an academic program review learning community (hoare & hondzel, 2022), allowing us to engage in a curriculum refresh process through this time. consistency, creativity, and connection during the pandemic the pandemic demanded creativity and flexibility. we knew our students needed to balance work, school, and home responsibilities. our students, often in lockdown status and working asynchronous from areas around the world, began to seek solace in consistency. our program became one space to offer consistency. we were intentional in accomplishing this through increased faculty and program outreach. we responded by offering more synchronous sessions and saw a tremendous increase in attendance. it became the norm to hold doctoral advising sessions with a 2-year-old child on a student’s lap or a 10-year-old child throwing legos in the background. we understood that our students and our colleagues had increased caretaking responsibilities. that knowledge allowed both students and faculty to develop a more considerate, realistic view of everyone’s responsibilities. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8956-0642 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4940-7181 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0567-6574 northeastern’s program during and post pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.409 13 not only did the pandemic help us grow our connection with students, but it also amplified a bond among our faculty as well. each author held a faculty leadership position within the edd program; collectively, we were responsible for the edd’s program review and continuous improvement. we worked closely together for several years, prior to the pandemic and george floyd’s murder, building the program. we were the magnificent eight, a name bestowed on the first eight faculty to teach in the program, responsible for evaluating and improving the new curriculum. we met frequently to revise syllabi, ensure connections between the core classes, and discuss pedagogical approaches to the curriculum. as such, we established professional relationships with each other, but as professional colleagues. prior to the pandemic, our work was primarily remote, gathering a few times per year for in-person meetings, conferences, and residencies. as such, we were mainly online and maintained a professional distance. our families were kept away from our workspaces and experiences. we rarely saw each other’s families on-screen, despite working online nearly full-time. during this period, as things changed, our program maintained a sense of normalcy and stability because it was already online. however, the pandemic blurred family and work lines. it allowed for deeper relationships among faculty which, in turn, fostered greater ingenuity, creativity, innovation, and risk taking. this inspired a newfound confidence for doctoral teaching and chairing. at the basic level, we shared pieces of ourselves that had not felt appropriate in the past. for example, young children often said hello at the start of meetings and led to conversations about the challenges of being a working parent. other faculty colleagues would share perspectives on living alone during such uncertain times. there were also opportunities to share about passion projects and hobbies. these occurrences springboarded closer personal connections that led to deeper and more empathetic relationships. as a result of these deeper relationships, there was a willingness for us, as faculty, to take risks and be more creative in our work. in meetings, faculty members offered new, out of the box ideas and shared solutions that may not have been previously considered. when we shared ideas, there was additional consideration and thoughtfulness in responses, reflecting our improved relationships as faculty colleagues. we also strengthened our ability to collaboratively work through programmatic challenges. for example, after the first few groups of students completed their coursework, it became clear that having dissertation chairs teach research courses to all their advisees was not a sustainable model based on workloads and fiscal matters. this was an aspect of the program that many faculty members felt was critical and had spent considerable time and effort designing program outcomes and coursework around. making this change required difficult conversations and compromises that required patience and consideration of all stakeholders’ viewpoints. ultimately, a decision was made that reflected the expertise of the group and the needs of the students and program. faculty members believed that despite this difficult change, their voices were heard and understood. faculty relationships, both personal and professional, continue to reflect the deep connections that were formed during the pandemic. as a program, we are strengthened by these relationships and continue to better serve our students as a result. equity, engagement, and empowerment in curriculum revision the pandemic was a time of intense turmoil in the nation. during this time, we turned inward to reflect on our program and identify spaces needing improvement. it is difficult to say what urged us forward whether it was being sheltered for long periods of time, the change in the pace of our lives and schedules, the racial unrest that the country was experiencing, being bombarded with social media messages about the pandemic being a time to do something new, or simply our stubbornness and insistence that we would not let the pandemic change how hard we have always worked for our students. as a collective group, continuous improvement of the curriculum was foremost in our minds, given our roles and responsibilities of ensuring our students received the best possible doctoral education. we worked closely with program faculty, leadership, and the result was a curriculum refresh. the process described above aligns with hoare and hondzel’s (2022) conceptual model of the program review team for academic program review learning community. in contrast to centralized models and hierarchical models common in higher education (holcombe et al., 2021), hoare and hondzel (2022) advocate for a community-based model utilizing the principles of distributed leadership situated within the best practices found in professional learning communities. the program review team, typically made of three to five members, forms the nucleus of the community. hoare and hondzel (2022) specifically note the socialness of learning as key to a successful, community-based approach to a program review team. the model contains five additional layers, each focused on supporting the program review team. these layers include an interdisciplinary program cohort, senior leadership, quality assurance practitioners, alignment with the mission and vision, and regulatory requirements (hoare & hondzel, 2022). of relevance to our experiences, we focused on amplifying the social justice mission and vision of our program through the curriculum refresh. our experiences confirm hoare and hondzel’s (2022) reflections that structural conditions which enable the building of relationships, distributed leadership, and on-going faculty conversations creates more effective change and a more efficient approach to continuous improvement in the end. our experiences through the pandemic and the summer of racial justice created more opportunities for relationship building, which in turn, led to increased peer support amongst the faculty (hall & hord, 2015). through spending increasingly vulnerable moments together, our relationships grew and strengthened, and our bonds allowed us to engage in communal sense-making of what the curriculum was and should be. prior to the curriculum refresh, students in our program took seven core courses, four concentration courses, and two electives. the concentrations available to them were higher education administration, curriculum, teaching, learning, and leadership, and organizational leadership studies. students took one core course entitled leadership for social justice and other social justice topics scattered throughout the concentration courses. our students engaged in action research, a methodology with social justice underpinnings, and frequent conversations about privileging the voices of the marginalized in their dissertation research. as a program, we valued social justice, a core value, one of our program’s learning objectives, and a part of our value propositions. however, as is common in many liberal academic circles, we also fell victim to childers-mckee et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.409 14 some dangerous assumptions: our students knew we were committed to social justice, social justice was integrated in our coursework, and we were centering justice and the needs of marginalized learners in our pedagogy. we formed an academic review learning community. it was tested early and often. when george floyd was murdered and racial unrest of 2020 shook the nation, we asked ourselves some tough questions; in what way does our current curriculum address issues of race, inequality, and social justice; are there gaps that need to be filled; how can we support students of color within our program; does our faculty reflect a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; are we incorporating diverse perspectives and voices in our coursework and reading materials. and our students held us accountable. in a series of student focus groups, we learned that many of our students of color felt marginalized and unsupported in the program. our efforts at centering justice in the program were not as apparent to them as we thought. and many believed that as a program, we were doing little to support equity and justice. we committed to understanding these viewpoints, both from the perspectives of the students and honoring the perspectives of our diverse faculty community. these realizations, though harsh, urged us forward. as scholar practitioners, we wanted to fix this—we wanted to do better. since those moments of reflection and reawakening, we convened new curriculum committees, created three new concentrations – which included 11 new courses. we shifted our pedagogy to include transparency in assignment design (winkelmes et al., 2019). additionally, we increased our percentage of faculty members of color and supported the creation of a graduate student organization. our concentrations now include workplace learning, transformative school leadership, innovative teaching and learning, in addition to higher education administration. in each of these, we pushed ourselves beyond mentions of social justice to centering justice and diving deeply into how social justice work looks in a variety of educational settings. in creating our new concentrations, we went into the field and collected data from a diverse array of alumni, educational leaders, business leaders, and current students. then, we worked to create a curriculum that directly addressed identified needs. with policy, equity, and innovation as guiding pillars, we created new courses that did not just mention social justice and change agency but sought to tackle tough educational issues. in designing educational systems for justice and equity, students learn to be, not just allies, but coconspirators (love, 2019) as they engage in dialogue about radical and humanizing educational change movements (andrews et al., 2019). in courses like landscape for educational leadership and landscape of teaching and learning, students develop knowledge of transformative and justice-oriented models of leadership, teaching, and learning. then, they learn how to create, shape, and mold change initiatives as curricularists, school leaders, or learning officers in the courses, leading and managing change, leading the learning strategy and designing transformative curriculum and professional development. finally, in the elective courses, they have an opportunity to work collaboratively with a diverse array of network partners on real-life, educational challenges confronting schools and communities. we worked hard to broaden our lens on diversity to expand beyond the black/white binary. for example, in the higher education administration concentration, we increased conversations and connections to scholars studying tribal colleges. to better support our students, we supported the creation of a graduate student educational research association (gsera) which has created a mentorship program between recent alums and current students. to provide greater student choice, we created the integrated studies concentration where students create their own concentration experience from the available options. we made significant strides in curriculum development during a time of intense crisis. however, federal and state mandates during the pandemic and northeastern university’s institutional review board impacted our students’ abilities to conduct doctoral research. guidance, growth, and stability in doctoral supervision the pandemic impacted our normal supervision of doctoral student research. our program is 100% online, with a once a year two to four day residency requirement for over a decade. our students, despite attending courses online and meeting with faculty synchronously via video conferencing software, had conducted their doctoral research activities face-to-face. faculty advised students to conduct face-to-face interviews, our research protocols dictated paper informed consent forms, and observations took place in onground classrooms. despite a high level of comfort in the faculty and the students around online interactions, the pandemic necessitated a shift in how we supervised doctoral research. given our familiarity with remote coursework, faculty initially assumed the transition to remote research would only be technical in nature. one example of this shift included moving to a survey form check box to replace the paper informed consent forms. however, as the pandemic progressed, faculty realized that conducting research online created unique challenges and opportunities. our students conducted their research under novel situations, became experts at remote recruiting, and surfaced questions and observations unfamiliar to the faculty. dissertation chairs, accustomed to guiding students through their first research efforts, adjusted their mindset to learn from students about the intricacies of recruiting and conducting data collection in a remote setting. faculty recognized the need for students to network and learn from each other was vitally important during the independent research years. faculty created more spaces for synchronous student networking, which garnered little interest from students in pre-pandemic times. along with small, informally organized student groups, larger department wide conversations took place. faculty intentionally created space in residencies and classes to discuss online data collection, recruitment, and analysis. these efforts to network students and faculty together continue today. one of the unexpected benefits of remote data collection included richer data. many of our students observe staff meetings, classrooms, and student gatherings as a part of their data collection. dissertation chairs adapted observation checklists and encouraged students to record the observations. unexpectedly, this led to richer and more robust data. students no longer felt frazzled trying to record everything via field notes, but instead could focus on following the threads of conversation. reviewing the recordings allowed individuals to record, pause, and pay attention to several types of actions or to follow diverse individuals’ non-verbal communication patterns through the meeting. student researchers also noted when northeastern’s program during and post pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.409 15 participants were “checked out” or not paying attention to the issue at hand. student researchers could more easily detect exactly when participants became disengaged, and isolate when and why this occurred. this switch led to richer data collection for observations. despite the benefits from recording, challenges also quickly surfaced. without being physically in the space, student researchers faced challenges in detecting nuances in emotions, especially when engaging group data collection methods such as focus groups or observations. large groups amplified this challenge, as did issues with technology. for example, if participants sat with only their side profile visible, detecting non-verbal communication became more difficult. once dissertation chairs became aware of this issue, they encouraged research designs that began with an observation, followed by semi-structured interviews. they worked with the student to carefully craft interview protocols that could delve into the nuances of participant responses, the overall atmosphere of the room, and the diverse emotional or non-verbal signals that might have been overlooked during the initial observation phase. this blended approach of observation followed by targeted interviews in an online environment provided a more holistic understanding of the research participant, ensuring that subtle yet significant aspects of non-verbal communication were not missed. an unexpected benefit was the availability of transcription tools through zoom, which improved equity in data collection by eliminating the financial barrier to transcription services. northeastern university provides all students with zoom accounts, and zoom automatically creates transcripts from the recordings. with this transcription tool available to all students, length of time in the program was no longer connected to paying for transcriptions. previously, only those students with disposable income could afford transcription services. other students transcribed their qualitative data on their own. this led to an increased amount of time analyzing data for some students and increased their time in the program. thus, this unexpected benefit addressed an issue that concerned faculty for many years. finally, our model is a two cycle action research model. cycle 1 is the investigative phase of the research study in which students collect and analyze data; cycle 2 is the phase in which students implement and action step and evaluate its effectiveness. the pandemic forced the faculty to clarify and crystallize what prolonged engagement meant. how does one create prolonged engagement in a situation where everyone is remote, everyone is dealing with multiple issues, and everyone has to balance work, home, and life? we found that smaller groups, with increased time between the researcher and the participants, provided an excellent way to create prolonged engagement to move forward. this created greater consistency for students and continues today. the implication from our experience as an academic program review learning community is simple, yet powerful. as hoare and hondzel (2022) theorized, structural elements that provide the time and space to enable relationship building allowed us to undergo a significant curriculum refresh during the pandemic. in our case, the pandemic provided a catalyst, which decreased barriers and increased relationship building. these relationships formed the foundation that developed trust in our shared leadership within the group. harmonizing innovation and stability in conclusion, the edd faculty at northeastern university faced distinct challenges during the pandemic and the societal reckoning prompted by george floyd’s murder. however, we seized the opportunity to adapt and enhance our program, placing emphasis on compassion, connection, and social justice. we made modifications to our data collection methods and doctoral supervision approach, ensuring continuity and consistency for our students while fostering stronger relationships among faculty members. looking back on those pandemic years, we are grateful for our students’ accomplishments. notably, in 2021, we celebrated the graduation of 221 students, most of whom were part of the inaugural class of our revamped action research program. alumni surveys revealed that 92% of those graduates actively participated in change initiatives focused on social justice, and all disseminated the outcomes of their research. we continue to use their dissertations in practice as exemplary models for our current students and immensely impressed by the profound impact and wide-ranging scope of their work. references andrews, d. j. c., brown, t., castillo, b., & jackson, d. (2019). beyond damage-centered teacher education: humanizing pedagogy for teacher educators and preservice teachers. teachers college record. 121(6). 1– 28. https://doi:10.1177/016146811912100605 hoare, a., & hondzel, c. d. (2022). forming an academic program review learning community: description of a conceptual model. quality assurance in education, 30(4), 401–415. https://doi: 10.1108/qae-012022-0023 holcombe, e. m., kezar, a. j., elrod, s. l., & ramsley, j. a. (eds.). (2021). shared leadership in higher education: a framework for responding to a changing world. taylor & francis. love, b. (2019). we want to do more than survive: abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. beacon press. winkelmes, m. a, boye, a., & tapp, s. (eds.). (2019). transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership: a guide to implementing the transparency framework institution-wide to improve learning and retention. stylus. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 42 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 generative ai use in an edd program: informal, independent student use and formalized, instructor-directed use ray buss arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu amy markos arizona state university ampost@asu.edu josephine marsh arizona state university josephine.marsh@asu.edu abstract generative ai has emerged as a tool to assist doctoral students as they conduct academic research and writing. in this study, we explored two ways ai has been used by students in our edd program—informally and independently and in a more formalized, guided manner. first, we found students have been engaged in selfdirected, informal, independent use of ai tools like grammarly and wordtune to aid them with writing. other students used ai to summarize information from research studies and locate research articles. to be competitive, they believed that they needed to learn more about ai and its use. second, we obtained data for students’ use of ai as they searched for theories to inform their research efforts. they were more confident to try out and utilize ai when instructors introduced it. results indicated students found this use to be extremely helpful and a necessary tool for students in edd programs. keywords generative ai, research and writing, edd program, edd students, generative ai and writing and research the purpose of our research was to explore how students use generative artificial intelligence (ai) in our edd program. in this article, we describe two ways generative ai has been used in our program. first, we depicted how students have engaged in selfdirected, informal, independent use of ai in the program. second, we discussed a more formalized, instructor-directed use of ai to solve a persistent problem about identifying relevant theories and locating theory-based literature related to students’ problems of practice (pop) and their resolutions. in the first section, we reported data on our students’ initial, general use of generative ai in our edd program. in the second section, we described a faculty-directed effort and students’ use of ai to identify theories appropriate to their work. we concluded with implications for continued use and support of generative ai within edd programs, which may provide some considerations for readers as they reflect on the potential and use of generative ai in their own programs. some initial research on students’ use of generative ai in our edd program in the research of our students’ use of generative ai, we drew upon the technology acceptance model (tam), a theoretical framework that has been used to assess adoption and use of technology innovations (davis et al., 1989; teo, 2009, 2011; teo et el., 2009). in our case, the technology innovation was generative ai. tam has substantial appeal as a model of technology adoption because only four to eight variables have usually constituted the model and researchers constructed instruments with limited numbers of items, around 20 for simpler models. in these parsimonious models, the four variables typically have been (a) perceived ease of use of the technology (peu), (b) perceived usefulness of the technology (pu), (c) attitudes toward the technology (att), and (d) intention to use the technology (int). more complex versions of the tam have incorporated variables like self-efficacy for using the technology (seff), normative influences of others, and facilitating conditions such as availability of technology and support. in our work, we chose to use five constructs including att, pu, peu, seff , and int. tam has been used as a causal model framework in which peu influences pu and att, pu influences att, att influences int, and finally seff influences peu and int. given our sample size and the early use of ai by our students, we have only offered information about the correlations among these variables in the results section. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-3027 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-6102 buss et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 43 method participants in all, 45 students completed the online survey and six of those who volunteered were interviewed. of those who completed the survey, 23 (51.1% of the sample) were second-year students, 18 (40%) were first-year students, 3 (6.7%) had just begun the program and 1 (2.2%) did not identify their status in the program. students came to the program from various workplace settings including 22 (48.8% of the sample) from pk-12 settings, 21 (46.7%) from higher education settings, and 2 (4.4%) from other settings. quantitative survey instrument and procedure we constructed a survey with four major parts. the first part was a checklist of ai tools in which we asked respondents to check the ai tools they were using. in the second section, we asked respondents to indicate their level of ai tool use (a) for coursework, (b) to aid academic writing, (c) for academic research, and (d) in workplace settings. for these questions, respondents provided ratings using a 5-point scale where 5 = always, 4 = often, 3 = sometimes, 2 = rarely, and 1 = never. the third part consisted of a 20-item likert scale survey in which four items were used to assess each of the five constructs from the tam—peu, pu, att, seff, and int. examples of items included “for me, ai tools are easy to use in the leadership and innovation (l & i) edd program,” which was an item assessing peu and “i feel using ai tools to aid my work in the l & i edd program has great potential,” an example of an item assessing att.  respondents indicated their level of agreement using a 6-point likert scale, where 6 = strongly agree, 5 = agree, 4 = slightly agree, 3 = slightly disagree, 2 = disagree, and 1= strongly disagree. in the fourth part, we asked students to respond to open-ended questions about their (a) use of ai tools in coursework, (b) use of ai tools in academic research or writing, (c) views on how ai should be used in our edd program, and (d) topics on using ai in research and writing about which they were interested in learning more. we constructed and administered the survey electronically using questionpro. qualitative interview instrument and procedure in addition to the survey, we developed an interview protocol consisting of nine questions, which included general questions as well as some questions based on the tam constructs. examples of interview questions included “tell me about your use of ai tools in the l & i edd program,” “from your perspective, how beneficial is using ai tools to you as a doctoral student in the l & i edd program,” and “how confident are you in using ai tools in the l & i edd program?” two of the three authors conducted the interviews with students via zoom. each interviewed three students for a total of six. quantitative data analysis and results responses from the first three sections of the survey were analyzed using spss 27. for the first two sections, we analyzed frequency data for the use of various ai tools and the frequency of use of ai in four settings. respondents indicated they were using various ai tools. of the 45 respondents, 35 used chatgpt, 28 used grammarly, and so on. the complete list of ai tools used by these participants and the frequency of their use have been provided in table 1. table 1. frequency of ai tool use by tool (n = 45) chatgpt 35 ai overviews 4 semantic scholar 2 grammarly 28 scite 3 tableau 2 perplexity.ai 15 atlasti 2 insightful 1 research rabbit 8 wordtune 5 quillbot 2 litmaps 1 data about students’ settings for ai use and how frequently ai tools were used in those settings have been summarized in table 2. for example, with respect to the use of ai tools for coursework, three individuals indicated they “never” used ai, 11 respondents indicated they used ai “rarely,” whereas, 21 individuals used ai “sometimes,” and eight employed it “often.” in general, the levels of ai tool use reflected the emerging use of ai tools by respondents. table 2. frequency of ai tool use across four settings (n = 45) setting never rarely sometimes often always coursework 3 11 21 8 1 aid to academic writing 3 12 17 12 1 academic research 3 8 23 9 1 workplace 4 6 16 14 4 for the third section of the survey, we determined the reliabilities of the constructs from the tam portion of the survey, which ranged from .88 to .96, and calculated descriptive statistics for the five constructs. the means and standard deviations for these constructs from the tam portion of the survey have been provided in table 3. generally, the means were in the moderate to moderately high range and varied from 3.82 to 4.81, what would be equivalent to a “low slightly agree” to a “low agree.” of particular interest, the mean for peu ai was very modest at 3.82 and likely attributable to early use of ai by the respondents. by comparison, means for pu ai, att ai, and int ai were all trending toward the “low agree” levels indicating respondents viewed ai as being useful, had positive attitudes toward ai, and intended to use ai. table 3. means and sds for the five technology acceptance model (tam) variables for use of ai (n = 45) tam variable mean sd perceived ease of use of ai (peu ai) perceived usefulness of ai (pu ai) attitude toward ai (att ai) self-efficacy for using ai (se ai) intention to use ai (int ai) 3.82 4.69 4.81 4.45 4.73 1.21 1.04 0.85 0.92 0.98 we also presented information about the correlations among the variables from the tam in table 4. these correlations indicated strong relations among the tam variables and indicated our results were aligned with earlier results on technology acceptance. generative ai use in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 44 table 4. correlations among the five technology acceptance model (tam) variables (n = 45) tam variable peu ai pu ai att ai se ai int ai perceived ease of use of ai (peu ai) .73 .55 .71 .63 perceived usefulness of ai (pu ai) .74 .75 .79 attitude toward ai (att ai) .84 .86 self-efficacy for using ai (se ai) .84 qualitative data analysis and findings to ensure trustworthiness of the data, we have described our qualitative data collection and analysis efforts in terms of their credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (lincoln & guba, 1985). for example, neither interviewer interviewed students with whom they were currently working in courses or the dissertation writing process. moreover, triangulation of the data and the in-depth interviews including follow-up probes provided for rigorous data collection that accurately represented the experiences of participants supporting the credibility of these data. transferability was supported by the thick description of the findings. dependability was afforded through well-documented, rigorous data collection and analysis procedures noted throughout the article. confirmability was supported through triangulation and because two researchers conducted the data analyses by checking and rechecking their data analysis and interpretation processes, employing reflexivity throughout the whole procedure. to analyze the qualitative interview data, we used a collaborative, inductive, thematic analysis process (braun & clark, 2006; richards & hemfill, 2018). first, we familiarized ourselves with the interview and open-ended survey question data by cleaning up and reading through the interview transcripts and reading through the open-ended survey responses. next, we divided the transcripts and independently coded transcripts using open and axial coding. after this first coding round, we met to discuss our codes. at this point in the process, we reached a consensus on the codes and developed a shared code book with codes such as menial tasks, confident for now, activation barrier, ethics, not if but when, decrease scholarly skills, and student use. next, we uploaded all the data into dedoose, a software package for conducting qualitative analysis, and used these initial codes to collaboratively code the data. as we coded the data, we created sub-codes (for example, sub-codes for activation barrier included comprehension check and gathering resources) and new codes (e.g., help with theories) as needed. after coding all six interview transcripts and the open-ended survey responses, we collectively reviewed the coded data and grouped codes into three themes to illustrate how and what students thought about using and potentially using ai tools during their doctoral studies. our first theme, students using ai tools in the program was robust. we found that they were using them in a variety of ways. some used it to save time on menial tasks like outlining and copyediting and others used it to activate their thinking and to help them understand or check their understanding of challenging and complex topics or texts. the second theme, not if, but when, chronicled students’ belief that ai was here to stay. moreover, to stay competitive and influence the next level of their scholarship, they felt that they must learn about it and use it. they voiced concern about how ai may have affected the development of scholarly skills of a doctoral student. respondents were confident in using the tools they knew how to use and wanted to learn more about how to engage with them ethically. they were more confident using ai after being introduced to it or as they tried it out. students revealed that when their instructors introduced them to an ai tool, they were more apt to try it out. in the third theme, ai, an invitation to try, we highlighted how students reacted when faculty members introduced them to different ai tools, suggested ways to use them, and guided their ethical use of them. in the example offered here, integration of ai tools into coursework enabled students to efficiently explore and apply relevant theories to their research projects, enhancing their abilities to articulate theoretical foundations in their scholarly endeavors. theme 1: students using ai tools in the program ai as a time saver “it’s taking care of kind of the thoughtless menial stuff that’s kind of superficial. that’s a huge time-saving tool. and then we can use that time on more important things.” as full-time students who were also working professionals, students discussed the benefits of using ai tools to save time on “less important” tasks. students used grammarly to edit their work before submitting papers or posting to discussion boards and to check for passive voice and verb tense agreement across their writings. they used ai tools to help with apa formatting for references and in-text citations. students also used tools, like chatgpt and perplexity, to save time as they looked for research and resources connected to their pops. for example, one student shared, “i think that ai can take some of the grunt work out of research, the hours spent going down rabbit holes with little or no relevant research found.” although students were happy for help with tasks that they felt were not as important as others, they added a caveat to the time-saving value, noting they still “have to check it,” referring to apa and edits suggested by ai. in reference to aisuggested research and resources, students noted the need to “read the articles to determine their relevance.” ai for ‘getting over the activation barrier’ “i think, the way i mostly use it, is it gets me over that activation barrier … it just kind of makes me go, ‘oh, yeah, yeah, okay, fine. okay. i can calm down and just do it myself now. so, i use it as this kind of overcoming the activation barrier and then get started.” by activation barrier, we meant students used ai to start a task when they were stuck or not sure how to start a task or needed help with remembering or reviewing a concept. whether they needed information or clarification on what they already knew, using ai tools, such as chatgpt, as a thought partner allowed students to get unstuck and move forward in their thinking, planning, or writing. one student shared how ai helped when she needed reminders or help to move forward: … when i am looking at something, and i just think, just give me a quick overview. so, i’ll say to ai something like, ‘remind me again, what is grounded theory?’ or something like that. or buss et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 45 sometimes … you know, i skim through things quickly, and i’m just like, ‘hey, quickly remind me, what’s the difference between self-efficacy and self-determination?’ students used ai tools to support their understanding of concepts or ideas, to “provide direction and an extra resource for understanding …. when an instructor or classmate is not available.” or, when students were engaging with a complex text such as an article, passage, etc., they used ai tools as a prereading strategy or comprehension checks as they read. they may have asked ai, “explain this to me in like 3 to 5 sentences,” or to explain a term or concept “in a way that a high school or undergrad student would be able to understand.” wondering where to start and what to include in their writings has also been an activation barrier for students. using ai tools helped students get ideas for what to include and how to organize written texts. one student suggested, “i’ve said to it (bing) things like, ‘can you generate an outline for me? i’m interested in you know, writing about the stay interview and using self-determination theory. what do you suggest for an outline?’” students noted they may have deviated from the outline or key points suggested but working with ai in this way gave them ideas and helped with the brainstorming process. overall, students have been leveraging ai to expedite their learning processes, from summarizing complex theories to brainstorming and searching for relevant academic resources. although ai offered efficiency and convenience, students still combined these tools with traditional research exploration methods and expert consultations to ensure accuracy and relevance to their work. theme 2: not if, but when ai as “the future is now” “i think it’s [ai] so inevitable that i just want to learn how to use it now to see what’s possible, and also see what the drawbacks are.” students in the program told us they realized generative ai was here to stay. although there were concerns about engaging with ai tools, they told us they must learn to use ai to remain competitive in the program and beyond. as one student remarked, i think we have to use it. we have to learn how to use it in both [the] real world, the outside world, and in the program and other programs around the country. other grad students are using it all the time now. and so, in order to remain competitive in the program, to be able to compete with anybody else out there. everybody’s going to be using ai. this student continued by explaining that you had to use it, so, you could be more efficient, learn more … go to the next level of learning … which i don’t know what that is right now, but you go to the next level, where you do faster, better, higher, whatever it is. such comments underscored the perceptions among students to embrace ai as an integral tool for their doctoral student journeys and their futures as practitioner scholars. although students acknowledged ai’s utility, they expressed reservations regarding its potential to overshadow their developing scholarly skills. one participant was not sure, “... where that line is between like [being] helpful … you know and inhibiting or preventing that true-like learning process.” likewise, another suggested that ai might take away “… from some of the learning like … developing your analytical skills and your skill set for interpreting and analyzing things.” and another participant wondered, i think that one of the skills we are trying to cultivate in higher education is the ability to examine a variety of documents and see, with your own eyes, patterns that exist between them. and if we're using ai to write papers and such, then you’ve robbed yourself of the experience of being exposed to different resources and coming up with original ideas because it’s never going to include any nuances. it can only be factual, i guess. these introspections reflected their concerns about the balance between ai’s assistance and its influence on their critical thinking and analytical skills as well as their identities as developing scholars and practitioner researchers. ai and students’ concerns: confidence and ethics “i think i’m confident in using it to the extent that i want to use it right now. and i think it’s pretty user-friendly. but again, if you don’t know how to use it, that might be a different [matter]. so, i don't know what i don’t know, but i’m confident [in using it now].” participants reflected on their confidence as ai users, but voiced uncertainties about their proficiencies using it and for what purposes. for instance, they were confident in using the tools with which they had already engaged, such as grammarly and wordtune and recognized the need for subject-matter expertise when using ai for higher level tasks like locating references, summarizing, and synthesizing. for example, one participant claimed, “... if you don’t have that true content expertise or subject-matter expertise, it’s really dangerous. because i think then you’re kind of floating along with this inflated sense of like understanding.” still others were less confident when factoring in ethical concerns, especially in more complex academic tasks such as gathering references, checking for understandings, and writing the dissertation. as one participant explained, like, i feel very confident about the organization of the research i have. very confident in areas of, like, where to look for things. but to organize my writing processes, i’ve used the outline feature on smaller papers to just kind of get it going. but on something as big as, like, the dissertation that just concerns me, of like, how much i’m willing to trust it. or once again, in the ethics of how much of it can i use before it’s a thing [an ethical issue]? i just don’t feel as confident in that part. concerns about the ethical use of ai, particularly in the context of trustworthiness and reliance on ai-generated content, underscored participants reservations, confidence, and highlighted the need for greater ethical guidance in ai utilization. ai use and program responsibility “i believe ai will be an important tool for use in almost all present and future careers. i think it would be helpful to teach edd program students how to use the tools ethically and appropriately to support their work.” in their responses, participants asked that program faculty members and leaders integrate ai usage into coursework and guide students on how to use it ethically. this call for additional education underscored the importance of equipping students with the necessary tools and frameworks to navigate the ethical complexities generative ai use in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 46 of ai utilization and gain more confidence in the use of ai. in addition, when professors recommended and integrated the use of ai tools in courses, students viewed it as a license to explore and experiment with the tools and were, then, more inclined to investigate and utilize chatgpt for their projects. for example, one student reported, “if the professors say, ‘hey, like, check this out. you should use it for this, but not for this.’ then, that’s like a tentative license to try something out.” their requests for the integration of ethical ai usage into coursework had the potential to not only foster confidence in ai utilization but also ensured that students would remain vigilant in adhering to ethical principles, ultimately guiding them towards responsible and effective scholarly practice. students were less tentative after being introduced to ai by the faculty with the recommendation to integrate it into their work. theme 3: ai as an invitation to try … finding theories to inform students’ research work “… someone had suggested i use counter narrative ... and i was like, okay, counter narrative. that’s an interesting thought. and then i started looking at counter narrative. i was like, ooh, wait a second counter narrative seems to come out of critical race theory, and that doesn’t at all fit with my demographic. and so then, then i asked ai, i said, ‘do you know, are there any applications of counter narrative that don’t involve critical race theory?” in a three-year program, students have limited time to explore theories to inform their research. historically, students have gravitated towards theories presented in courses or theories program faculty members used in their own research. sometimes, this resulted in students finding a theory that was a good fit for their research, while other times, students have chosen theories to which they were exposed in the program that might not necessarily be the best fit for their personal epistemologies and research. in these cases, some students have gotten to their proposal defense semester and struggled to articulate how and why those theories informed their research. in response to this and coupled with a desire to see how ai tools had the potential to support our students in their coursework and scholarly practitioner endeavors, in the spring of 2024, program faculty members, in three courses, started integrating learning experiences for students to use ai tools to explore theories connected to their research ideas. not surprisingly, students referenced those course-level experiences when discussing using ai in their coursework and research. students shared that they used ai to summarize theories, which allowed them to grasp the core concepts quickly without having to spend excessive time reading extensive materials. one student commented, i used ai to summarize theories. it was helpful in that i could get a basic understanding of the theory … in a short amount of time. if not, i would spend hours doing reading for theories that i may not use. it helped me narrow down the theories i wanted to use. it is efficient. they also used ai tools to brainstorm possible learning theories for their projects or innovations. for example, one respondent maintained, professors … provided instructions on how to use chatgpt to assist with finding applicable theories to apply to our problem of practice and action research project. i followed these instructions and was led to many useful, relevant theories to research further. chatgpt also assisted me with generating introductory explanations of the relevant theories, and provided suggestions on how these theories might apply to my problem of practice. although the use of ai had the potential to generate a good list of theories, students still relied on consultations with professors and peers to refine their choices. students learned that although ai suggested research articles on specific topics or theories, ai had the potential to hallucinate and provide false or misinformation as fact. nevertheless, even when this occurred, students still found value in the fake ideas ai provided as suggested by one student who said, i entered this prompt in chatgtp: provide research articles that used psychosocial theory with respect to community college success in stem, including author’s name, title of article, and doi. one of the articles seemed particularly interesting so i searched for it in the asu database. no luck. turns out the article does not exist, but i did use the fake title to search for related articles in eric and google scholar and found some great papers related to my topic. students have been using ai tools to find and apply relevant theories to their problems of practice and action research projects. the course-level experiences helped students explore and research various applicable theories and generate introductory explanations and suggestions on how the theories might apply to their specific issues. these course-level efforts to guide students in their use of ai have been exemplified in faculty members’ efforts to support students as they searched for theories relevant to their efforts. discussion in this section, we discuss our results, present implications for research, and suggest implications for practice. first, with respect to the results, the quantitative and qualitative data demonstrate a high degree of complementarity (greene, 2007), that is, they point to the same conclusions. the lower scores on the perceived ease of use (peu) and self-efficacy (seff) variables on the tam are consistent with concerns respondents raised in the interviews. for example, one participant claimed, “so, it’s been a pretty big learning curve, so that would detract from the ease of use. .... you gotta [sic] figure out how to talk to it, and that’s been an ongoing journey.” consistent with the modest quantitative seff scores, which reflected their limited confidence in using ai, during the interviews, one student maintains, i mean fairly confident [in using ai]. i’m kind of learning as i go. ... i’d feel more confident if from the very beginning i knew what the tools were, and i could build them into my research, and how i do things. and another participant shares, “if there was a confident scale of 1 to 10, i think i would be like around a 6 or 7.” moreover, the lower scores on all the quantitative tam variables are likely to be due to respondents’ emerging use of ai that is not yet fully developed, which is also illustrated in the qualitative data. for example, one participant indicates, “i’ve ... just started looking into those [various ai tools]. i haven’t really started using them.” another states, “i have only started using it [ai] recently.” this was also apparent in interview responses when students asked for clarity and direction in using ai effectively and ethically. as one buss et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 47 participant states, “how much of it [ai] can i use before it’s a thing [ethically improper use]? second, with respect to implications for research, we offer three implications. the results of this study indicate the newness of ai use by our students. this suggests continuing to closely examine ai use by students is warranted, for example, by gathering longitudinal data. further, as program faculty members increase requirements for student use of ai, programs will want to monitor those efforts to ensure optimal, ethical use. finally, case studies of students who are very high users of ai, i.e., early adopters, may offer insights about specific ai tools and uses that would benefit others. third, there are several implications for practice. for example, students indicate a high degree of interest in using ai. moreover, they want to use it appropriately and ethically. so, faculty members should work to embed the use of ai, and in doing so, they should clearly specify how and when it can be used. specifically, providing guidelines about ethical use of ai is of the utmost importance to ensure students do not hesitate in using ai and that they do not use it inappropriately. to us, this is the most important matter to resolve so that students are empowered to use ai in appropriate and beneficial ways. in the example we provide about having students search for relevant theories to guide their work, we offer one concrete way in which we show students how to use ai to benefit their efforts, while using ai in an ethical manner. using generative ai in coursework to aid students’ identification of relevant theories in this next section, we provide a detailed description of one course-level experience for using ai that was facilitated by faculty members. we explain our efforts to use generative ai to assist students in identifying and writing about theories appropriate to their pops, their contexts, and mitigating the pops through an intervention/innovation. we have illustrated our efforts to use chatgpt and perplexity, two generative ai approaches by providing examples including prompts that we and our students have used. additionally, we have described strategies such as using chatgpt first to identify theories and then using chatgpt output in perplexity to conduct more extensive, refined searches in which students have been able to identify research studies employing those theories, which they have used as they crafted their written work. the chatgpt prompt to initiate the search for relevant theories we have provided the prompt we used to initiate our chatgpt search for relevant theories in figure 1. we are indebted to and thank dr. jim dunnigan for allowing us to use the prompt he developed. notably, the specificity of this prompt, and for that matter any prompt, has been critical to effectively obtaining relevant information. specifically, note that the prompt indicated both a specification of the pop and required a precise articulation of the context by the students. students used chatgpt 3.5, a free version of the product. following the input of the prompt in figure 1, chatgtp continued the conversation by asking for a description of the student’s pop, which was specified in the initial chatgpt prompt. figure 1. the original chatgpt prompt you will provide guidance for helping graduate students at a university develop an awareness of educational learning theories. the students are writing an action research dissertation. you will assist a student in discovering what educational learning theories are appropriate to use given a specific problem of practice. you will respond in a conversational, helpful tone. do not guess. only provide answers that you are sure are based on facts and research. first, ask the student to submit their problem of practice before you attempt to answer any questions. wait for a response. after the student has provided you with their problem of practice, ask them to provide a short paragraph that describes the context of their environment where they want to create their intervention. be sure the context is specific and describes the demographics of the participants, the environment, and other relevant information. if you find their context is insufficient, politely ask for more details using the criteria i just outlined. in your response, summarize what you have learned. respond: “thank you for this information, i will now research applicable educational theories related to your problem of practice and your specific context.” produce a list of the educational learning theories that might be applicable to this problem of practice and this particular context. for each theory listed provide at least two researchers who are most commonly associated with being the expert on this theory. for each theory, name the specific aspect of their problem of practice that relates to this theory. after you have provided this list ask: “do any theories on this list look like a particularly good match to your problem of practice? if so, please tell me which one so i can provide you with more details.” wait for a response. if they provide a specific name research, using bing if necessary, more details about the theory. if they answer no then generate another list of potential theories based on their problem of practice. respond to a no answer with: “ok, no problem, let me give you a few more theories to consider. then repeat the same question about if the theories are a good match. the student responded by stating the pop. here is an example, “my problem of practice is mediating roommate conflict by residence assistants.” next, chatgpt asked for a description of their context. here is an example of context, “my context is a four-year university. firstyear students who are 18 years of age are roommates with one another living in dormitories. sometimes these first-year students have conflicts with one another. these students are overseen by residence assistants who are several years older, about 21-22 years of age. the primary concern is how these residence assistants can mediate the conflicts that occur among the first-year students.” following the student inputs of the pop and the context information, the output from one of the chatgpt searches included the following text as illustrated in figure 2. given this output, the instructor told students to eliminate the first four theories because they did not deal directly with roommate conflict. then, students were asked to play with this output in chatgpt a bit by making statements like, “tell me more about conflict resolution theory” and they may have continued the dialog with other statements. nevertheless, given the limitations of chatgpt including not being linked to the internet, generating references that did not exist, and so on, the instructor asked students to take the chatgpt output and input it into perplexity.ai. students input information into perplexity by offering a statement like, “tell me about conflict resolution theory.” the output from perplexity was very helpful and included five models of conflict resolution with a brief explanation such as the cooperative model, conflict transformation model, human needs model, interests-based model, and dual model. notably, output from perplexity included a “related section,” which provided additional information such as, for example, “what are the main theories of conflict resolution,” and when students expanded that section by simply clicking on the “+” sign more information on conflict resolution theories became generative ai use in an edd program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.476 48 figure 2. output from chatgpt 1. social learning theory: key researchers: albert bandura and julian rotter. …. a brief description of the theory was provided …. 2. zone of proximal development (zpd): key researcher: lev vygotsky. …. a brief description of the theory was provided …. 3. constructivism: key researcher: jean piaget. …. a brief description of the theory was provided …. 4. behaviorism: key researcher: b. f. skinner. …. a brief description of the theory was provided …. 5. conflict resolution theory: key researchers: kenneth thomas and ralph kilmann. in relation to your problem of practice: this theory provides a framework for understanding and managing conflicts constructively. residence assistants can use this theory by familiarizing themselves with different conflict resolution strategies (e.g., collaboration, compromise, avoidance) and helping first-year students choose the most appropriate strategy for their specific situation. 6. interpersonal relations theory: key researcher: harry stack sullivan …. a brief description of the theory was provided …. available, which was beneficial to students as they explored more details related to their theory(ies). perplexity has served as one ai tool that was used as a follow-up tool to chatgpt, but others like semantic scholar, scite, and so on could have been used. conclusion in conclusion, we offer several questions to consider about how you might use ai in your edd programs. what are some of the perplexing and continuing problems in your program and how might generative ai be used to deal with them? for example, is the development of a problem of practice a concern? or is the development of research questions something that could be sharpened? alternatively, do students struggle with identifying theories relevant to their work? or do students need help with various aspects of their writing? as we demonstrate in various sections of this article, using ai tools offers solutions to these and other on-going concerns arising in edd programs. references braun, v., & clarke, v. (2006). using thematic analysis in psychology. qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa davis, f. d., bagozzi, r. p., & warshaw, p. r. (1989). user acceptance of computer technology: a comparison of two theoretical models. management science, 35(8), 982–1003. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2632151 greene, j. c. (2007). mixed methods in social inquiry. jossey-bass. lincoln, y. s., & guba, e. g. (1985). naturalistic inquiry. sage. richards, k. a. r., & hemphill, m. a. (2018). a practical guide to collaborative qualitative data analysis. journal of teaching in physical education, 37 (2), 225–231. https://doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.2017-0084 teo, t. (2011). factors influencing teachers’ intention to use technology: model development and test. computers & education, 57(4), 2432– 2440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.008 teo, t. (2009). modelling technology acceptance in education: a study of preservice teachers. computers & education, 52(2), 302–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2008.08.006 teo, t., lee, c. b., chai, c. s., & wong, s. l. (2009). assessing the intention to use technology among pre-service teachers in singapore and malaysia: a multi-group invariance analysis of the technology acceptance model (tam). computers & education, 53(3), 1000–1009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.05.017 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa https://www.jstor.org/stable/2632151 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1123/jtpe.2017-0084 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2008.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.05.017 ray buss arizona state university amy markos arizona state university josephine marsh arizona state university some initial research on students’ use of generative ai in our edd program method participants quantitative survey instrument and procedure qualitative interview instrument and procedure quantitative data analysis and results qualitative data analysis and findings theme 1: students using ai tools in the program ai as a time saver ai for ‘getting over the activation barrier’ theme 2: not if, but when ai as “the future is now” ai and students’ concerns: confidence and ethics ai use and program responsibility theme 3: ai as an invitation to try … finding theories to inform students’ research work discussion using generative ai in coursework to aid students’ identification of relevant theories the chatgpt prompt to initiate the search for relevant theories conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 65 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.392 the depth and breadth of improvement science: a review of the improvement science in education series christopher benedetti texas a&m university–corpus christi christopher.benedetti@tamucc.edu abstract the improvement science in education series, initiated in 2019 by robert crow, brandi nicole hinnantcrawford, and dean t. spaulding, seeks to broaden and strengthen the understanding and use of improvement science in education. interest in improvement science in education has sharply risen in recent years, positioning this series to support the field and those interested in improvement science. this review of the improvement science in education series is organized by brief summaries and discussions of the six currently available books in a suggested order based on their content (not necessarily publication date), followed by a conclusion considering the books’ significance, relevance, and target audience. keywords improvement science, book review, edd the improvement science in education series, initiated in 2019 by robert crow, brandi nicole hinnant-crawford, and dean t. spaulding, seeks to broaden and strengthen the understanding and use of improvement science in education established in existing publications such as the frequently cited 2015 book, learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better, by anthony s. bryk, louis gomez, alicia grunow, and paul lemahieu. with its foundations in quality improvement work historically associated in business management and healthcare, improvement science prompts careful and detailed examination of complex issues in educational systems through an iterative process designed to generate impactful, continuous change. interest in improvement science in education has sharply risen in recent years, positioning this series well to support the field and those interested in improvement science. as a faculty member in a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) program, i, too, have become increasingly interested in utilizing improvement science to support scholar-practitioners and their desire to pursue impactful and measurable change as part of their program work, seeking sources such as this series to assist in this effort. while the series does not suggest a specific sequence, the content varies from conceptual introductions, specific applications, and university faculty considerations. there are currently six books published in this series, which include: • crow, r., hinnant-crawford, b., & spaulding, d. (2019). the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection. isbn 9781975500955. • hinnant-crawford, b. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. isbn 9781975503550. • perry, j., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. isbn 9781975503208. • peterson, d., & carlile, s. (2021). improvement science: promoting equity in schools. isbn 9781975504670. • peterson, d., & carlile, s. (2022). improvement science as a tool for school enhancement: solutions for better educational outcomes. isbn 9781975504793. • spaulding, d., crow, r., hinnant-crawford, b. (2021). teaching improvement science in educational leadership: a pedagogical guide. isbn 9781975503758. summaries and discussion the review of the improvement science in education series is organized by brief summaries and discussions of the six currently available books in a suggested order based on their content (not necessarily publication date), followed by a conclusion considering the books’ significance, relevance, and target audience. overview of improvement science hinnant-crawford’s, improvement science in education: a primer, furnishes a brief overview of improvement science for readers new to improvement science and those in need of a quick refresher. the book’s introduction establishes a shared understanding of improvement science for the reader, which allows for the transition into the second section of the book that provides a thorough, and important, discussion of problem identification needed to initiate the improvement science process. it is here that the complexity of improvement science begins to emerge, with the commonly referenced, but sometimes intimidating, step of root cause analysis (rca) and related fishbone diagram. rca, conceptually and in practice, can be overwhelmingly complex based on need and intent, but hinnant-crawford clarifies https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2469-2289 benedetti impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.392 66 rca through the included tool of the five whys by sakichi toyoda. this tool, as presented, allows for a simple one-sentence identification of the problem, which is then expanded by asking “why” five times. this tool could serve as a great first step into problem identification before shifting to the more systemically analytical fishbone diagram, created by karou ishikawa and named for its shape and structure that loosely resembles a fish skeleton. the head of the fishbone diagram contains the simply stated problem with the bones each containing a possible cause to the problem. fishbone diagrams have become arguably synonymous with improvement science, so their inclusion in a primer on improvement science is essential. hinnant-crawford demonstrates the creation and evolution of a fishbone diagram, including how the five whys tool can be used to expand the contents of the fishbone diagram. this expansion is particularly important if the initial fishbone diagram is too limited, as this will weaken or stall rca efforts. hinnant-crawford concludes the discussion on problem identification with equity audits, which are useful in gaining insights on possible causes, especially those related to inequities, that may be difficult to identify or codify through internal brainstorming. equity audits also encourage broader and inclusive stakeholder engagement in the early stages of the improvement science process. the final section of the book gives an overview of implementation-related strategies of improvement science. as improvement science emerged from the statistically grounded quality improvement work commonly found in business management and healthcare, hinnant-crawford appropriately makes this connection at the start of the section, showcasing several ways to visualize statistical patterns to capture and analyze process and outcomes related to the identified problem. these statistical underpinnings of improvement science could be uncomfortable to readers not quantitatively minded, but the included narrative explanations help to ease this discomfort. systems and process mapping, a set of tools that can help to see the interconnectivity between previously unseen parts, are included to illustrate how the understanding of process and outcomes are more than just the aforementioned statistics. hinnant-crawford concludes the book with creating a plan for change using improvement science, moving from theorized solutions via driver diagrams to measurable implementation plans, including the plan do study act (pdsa) cycle. along with the fishbone diagram, the pdsa cycle is commonly synonymous with improvement science. the pdsa cycle, popularized by w. e. deming, is a core component of continuous quality improvement that encourages iterative innovation and evolution through learning from previous cycles. hinnant-crawford illustrates the connection between pdsa and traditional research thinking, including the scientific method and inductive/deductive inquiry to establish useful parallels for readers beginning to explore this methodological approach. while the four phases of pdsa can be intuitive to understand, concise explanations of each phase are included to clarify understanding. given the importance of measurement in improvement science, several ideas about measures and designs are discussed to ensure that the pdsa cycle, and the improvement science process, is supported and fruitful. applications of improvement science the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection, edited by crow, hinnant-crawford, and spaulding, features 17 chapters, organized into three sections, that share varying thoughts and applications of improvement science throughout educational leadership. educational leadership can be broadly inclusive of any context in which education and leadership are key components. as a result, this book features perspectives from both inside and outside traditional education contexts, which demonstrates the wide-ranging value of improvement science in practice. the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection was the first book published in the improvement science in education series. the first section of the book is situated to help the reader acclimate (or reacclimate) to improvement science as a concept before the more context-specific discussions of the other chapters. the first section could arguably be viewed as a multi-part introduction to the book, with each chapter in this section written by a combination of the book’s editors furthering that view. crow’s chapter, considering improvement science in educational leadership, is particularly effective in its introductory approach, providing snapshots of the components and history of improvement science. spaulding and hinnant-crawford’s chapter, tool’s for today’s educational leaders: the basic toolbox, includes detailed overviews of improvement science essentials, such as rca, the fishbone diagram, and the pdsa cycle. finally, hinnant-crawford’s chapter, practical measurement in improvement science, demonstrates how the measurement aspects of improvement science function in practice via two case studies, making this sometimes-complex part of improvement science more palatable. the second, and largest, section of this book includes nine chapters that focus on a range of contexts within higher education, highlighting conceptual and practical discussions about improvement science. conceptual chapters give accessible insight into the connection between systems thinking and improvement science (chan hilton & cruz, ch. 4) and addressing equity concerns through improvement science (biag, ch. 5). other chapters illustrate how education organizations, such the carnegie project on the education doctorate (perry & zambo, ch. 7) and university council for education administration (cunningham, young, & spicer, ch. 6) are using improvement science to support university students and programs. real-world examples of improvement science components, such as rca, the pdsa cycle, and emergent theories for improvement can also be found throughout this section. specifically, these implementation-oriented chapters detail how university faculty used improvement science to enhance principal preparation (peterson & carlile, ch. 8) and medical (hubner, robinson, & lawson, ch. 12) program practices, refine universitywide student retention (smith, ch. 11) and organizational culture (corman, ch. 9), and increase the equity focus of university curriculum and instruction (carlile & peterson, ch. 10). the final section shifts to k-12 education, which further showcases the potential impact of improvement science in practice. as before, these chapters include examples, as well as templates, to help the reader understand the related concepts and prepare them to use improvement science. unsurprisingly, given the focus on k-12 education, the overarching theme of these chapters is on using improvement science to help k-12 students, such as addressing high failure rates of males and students of color (thonstad, ch. 13) and developing ways to provide social-emotional support (facin & dailey, 16). some chapters highlighted the notable impact of integrating improvement science within professional learning communities to improve student learning (carpenter & peterson, ch. 14), while also providing an additional benefit of meaningful professional improvement science in education series-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.392 67 development for teachers (hawkins, henry, jones, santi, & butcher, ch. 15). spaulding and hinnant-crawford’s chapter, the methodology for educational leaders, concludes the book with a summation of the chapters’ overall content by reaffirming the value of improvement science as a beneficial form of inquiry for readers interested in something beyond traditional research approaches. improvement science: promoting equity in schools, edited by deborah s. peterson and susan p. carlile, expands upon a broader premise of their chapter, improvement science in equity-based administrative practicum redesign, from another book in this series, the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection, through 15 chapters that explore the intersection of improvement science and equity-based practices that target or benefit us and international k-12 education. peterson and carlile set this k-12 context in their introductory chapter, noting that the authors of the book chapters either work directly with or are k-12 practitioners. chapters use an approachable voices from the field tone in describing their improvement science endeavors, which should increase the comfort for readers not intimately familiar with improvement science. the chapters in this book are organized by common k-12 subject areas, including reading, writing, math, science, and health, each showcasing how improvement science can be used to target problems of practice in specific subject areas. equity-minded improvement science tools, such as equity audits and empathy interviews, can be found in each section throughout the book, solidifying the connection to the book theme of promoting equity. due to the timing of this book, many chapters noted the limiting impacts of the covid pandemic, though these limitations did not lessen the quality of the chapter content. chapters in the reading section discuss how increasing diverse representation in collaboration (rasberry, odell, kennedy, dyer, pedersen, & simmons, ch. 3) and reading materials (young, ch. 5) can increase student reading performance. other reading-focused chapters show the benefits of merging other methodological approaches with improvement science, such as design thinking (zhao, anderson, lochead, & vasta, ch. 2) and participatory action research (tredway, militello, machado, & bossette, ch. 4) to increase literacy among underrepresented race and ethnic groups of students. the writing section features chapters that share strategies to improve writing performance in male students (meyer & bendikson, ch. 7) and student with disabilities (stimson clark, ch. 8), while also highlighting ways to overcome classroom management challenges to increase student engagement in writing (barnard, ch. 6). the math and science subjects are combined into a single section, with some chapters including content on both and other related subjects. chapters in this section largely focus on closing achievement gaps that exist in underrepresented student groups, such as through building a district-wide inclusive vision (grosse, ch. 13), improvement science driven iterative change (pedersen, odell, kennedy, dyer, simmons, & oliveras-ortiz, ch. 9), increasing access to advanced instruction (larkin & jenks, ch. 10), creating targeted small intervention groups (altiero, ch. 11), and utilizing problem-based learning (brown, ch. 12). the health and wellness section contains one chapter, which offers how incorporating a culturally response lens with improvement science can increase physical engagement in underrepresented groups, namely indigenous students (milko, ch. 14). thonstad, carlile, and peterson’s final chapter, moving forward, concludes with a call to action to seek the equity-minded change that is exhibited throughout the book. improvement science as a tool for school enhancement: solutions for better educational outcomes is the second book in the series edited by peterson and carlile and continues the equity focus on improvement science in k-12 education found throughout improvement science: promoting equity in schools, though without the specific emphasis on k-12 education subject areas. peterson, carlile, and mcdaniel-hall further the point in their introduction that improvement science is well suited as a methodology to examine and promote equity in k-12 educational contexts. as with the previous book edited by peterson and carlile, the 18 chapters included in this book feature real-life experiences of us and international k-12 practitioners who have used improvement science to target a specific problem of practice in their decidedly diverse school or district. the format and tone of the included chapters will be instantly recognizable to readers of peterson and carlile’s previous book in this series, including the use of practitioner-friendly lessons learned style conclusions. frequently used improvement science tools, such as rca, theories for improvement, and the pdsa cycle, are included and demonstrated, as well as equity audits and empathy interviews often associated with equity-focused improvement science initiatives. while the chapters are not organized into sections, chapter topics include how improvement science was used to examine school or district-wide problems of practice related to socialemotional learning, student attendance and discipline, academic success, school culture, and family engagement. many of the included problems of practice are complex, as is typical for improvement science, and address more than a single issue or area. student equity and inclusiveness are predominant foci throughout the book, with improvement science being used to facilitate increased k-12 student equity in social-emotional learning (cieminski & morgan, ch. 2; carpenter, hargrave, & oropallo, ch. 4), discipline (thonstad, ch. 7), behavioral interventions (brown, ch. 8), advisory programs (bennett, ch. 9), high school graduation (rahaman, ch. 10), academic supports (eagle & connolly, ch. 11; melloy & king, ch. 12), and disability-related assessment (birmingham & sanders, ch. 13) in ways that are applicable to all students, regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, language, or disability. school culture is another featured focus in the book, with specific chapters sharing the value of an equity-focused, studentcentered school culture (li, ebersole lacroix, & braun, ch. 17), including how changing the school culture can impact student achievement (carrillo rowley, odell, & kennedy, ch. 3) and reduce or remove power hierarchies to allow for authentic engagement of student voice (waters, ch. 14). engagement of, and collaboration with, families is also shown in some chapters to be a key strategy in efforts to reduce absenteeism (nelson, ch. 5; anderson, ch. 6), improve student reading performance (abayomi, ch. 16), and create a collaborative school culture (mcdaniel-hall, mccarty, & brown, ch. 15). while many of the ideas and strategies shared throughout the book will be familiar to readers from k-12 education contexts, the use of improvement science to discover and unpack these ideas and strategies provides a novel perspective of the familiar, as well as a roadmap for those faced with similar problems of practice. the book concludes with peterson’s, sustaining one another while leading equity-focused improvement science efforts, which frames a set of behaviors and dispositions to help continue the equity work shared throughout the book. benedetti impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.392 68 improvement science for higher education faculty as previously discussed, other books in this series provide overviews and examples of improvement science, but the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students, written by jill alexa perry, debby zambo, and robert crow, adds a detailed layer of support to university-based programs seeking to support student research using improvement science. organized into eight chapters, this book takes the reader from developing a doctoral program that can support the use of improvement science to the key components of a dissertation in practice (dip). the dip is mentioned throughout the improvement science in education series, as it is a common vehicle and product for the use of improvement science in education doctorate (edd) programs. perry, zambo, and crow use the introductory first two chapters of this book to explain the dip, laying out its origins with detailed rationales for its use in edd programs, which conveniently serves to also define and advocate for improvement science quickly for the reader. connections between improvement science, the dip, and cped are included, such as cped guiding principles and related terminology, but the content is sufficiently general and applicable to still be useful to readers not affiliated with cped. perry, zambo, and crow initiate the multi-chapter journey through the components of the improvement science dip (isdip) with chapter 3 and the identification of a problem of practice. common improvement science tools such as fishbone diagrams, empathy interviews, and process maps are presented to be well suited to systematically identifying a problem of practice for the isdip. the next chapter builds upon the problem of practice by connecting this concept to the literature review, comparing the purpose of the literature review between traditional dissertations and the isdip, including the nuanced relationship between the problem of practice and the literature review. while the comparison between the two types of dissertations reveals language and concepts that will be more similar than different, the practice-oriented intentionality of the isdip is evident to show the reader some distinction between the dissertation types should exist. the development and inclusion of a theory of improvement discussed in chapter 5 begins the stark departure from the traditional dissertation. the theory of improvement is the articulation and formalization of ideas for changing the problem of practice, the development of which is facilitated using the driver diagram that organizes a plan for measurement as discussed in the following chapter. the plan for measurement serves as the empirical research part of the dissertation process, though unlike most traditional dissertations, is multi-staged (occurring in cycles) and multifaceted (utilizing outcome, process, driver, and balance measures), which represents a rigorous empirical process. the pdsa cycles, another common improvement science tool, is used to organize the data collection process. perry, zambo, and crow provide an alternate, more intentional, form of the pdsa cycle, the strategize, implement, analyze, and reflect (siar) cycle, and while overall similar the pdsa cycle, has some subtle differences that may be more logical for some readers when applied to a dissertation-formatted project. as part of the conclusionary content, perry, zambo, and crow provide a discussion on how the isdip fits within edd programs, which includes an informative comparison between edd and traditional phd programs to help readers distinguish between the two program types. a suggested plan for incorporating the isdip within a typical three-year edd program is also included, noting that work towards the isdip starts in the first semester of the program to signal the importance of a program-wide commitment to improvement science at the onset. the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students ends with summative arguments for why improvement science is useful as an inquiry tool for the edd dissertation, sharing several helpful suggestions related to admissions, teaching, course structure, and student mentoring intended to help readers facilitate a smoother transition from the traditional dissertation to the isdip. teaching improvement science in educational leadership: a pedagogical guide, edited by spaulding, crow, and hinnantcrawford, reads somewhat as an extension to the pedagogical suggestions from the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students by offering 11 chapters that showcase a variety of examples for both beginning and experienced faculty of how improvement science can be integrated in curriculum and instruction, as highlighted in spaulding, hinnant-crawford, and crow’s introduction. in this book, readers will find several chapters that share strategies and experiences related to program-wide use of improvement science, including a resource-oriented tips and tricks discussion for instructors teaching improvement science in support of the development of student research projects (perry & zambo, chapter 3), such as the improvement science dissertation in practice (isdip). another chapter shares a specific multi-step, program-wide project that efficiently frames the improvement science process to maximize learning (crow, chapter 1), which could also be helpful to readers structuring an isdip. the carnegie foundation’s networked improvement community (nic) initiative, mentioned in several chapters in other books throughout the improvement science in education series, is detailed here with recommendations for teaching improvement science based on nic-related experiences (parkerson, mcmahon, & shreve, chapter 7). other chapters in the book emphasize the benefits and impacts of teaching improvement science throughout a program to increase the skill and confidence of educational leaders in using improvement science in their practice (peterson, carlile, olivar, & thonstad, chapter 6) and to enhance targeted support of partner school districts (eubanks, mclaughlin, snell, & coleman, chapter 8). readers of this book will also find specific instructional practices that demonstrate different ways that improvement science can be taught in the classroom, including a set of activities and assignments that can be used to develop leaders as change agents in complex systems (hawkins & martens, chapter 9). illustrative cases of improvement science in action are shown to be helpful in developing educational leaders (carpenter & oropallo, chapter 10), including in analysis via improvement science-organized, problem-based learning to teach specific elements of the improvement science process (lochmiller, chapter 4). as is revealed throughout the improvement science in education series, improvement science can be an effective methodology in the examination of problems of practice related to inequity and social justice. chapters in this book continue, both explicitly and implicitly, to demonstrate this methodological compatibility, through the explanation of the process to change a course using improvement science to make students’ work more actionable to address issues of inequity in their educational contexts (carlile & peterson, chapter 5) and using a pedagogical framework for the teaching of improvement science with an educational justice improvement science in education series-book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.392 69 lens to encourage connections with those most impacted by an identified problem of practice (hinnant-crawford, nazario y colon, & wiggan davis, chapter 2). heath, shreve, gomez, & lemahieu’s conclusionary chapter summarizes the broader themes of the book and challenges the notion of teaching and scholarship existing separately for faculty by explaining that the infusion of improvement science into courses makes, and solidifies, teaching as a scholarly endeavor. significance and relevance though other books and publications exist that present and discuss improvement science (many of which are cited throughout the series), the improvement science in education series exhibits the most comprehensive coverage of improvement science currently available. crow, hinnant-crawford, and spaulding have curated a collection of books that showcases the breadth and depth of improvement science appealing to a variety of audiences, regardless of backgrounds, expertise, and readiness levels. for those new to improvement science, improvement science in education: a primer (hinnant-crawford) provides a concise overview of improvement science, including definitions of related terms and tools that would help readers to navigate the sometimes foreign language of improvement science. for those looking for what improvement science looks like in action, the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection (crow, hinnant-crawford, & spaulding), improvement science: promoting equity in school (peterson & carlile), and improvement science as a tool for school enhancement: solutions for better educational outcomes (peterson & carlile) feature dozens of real-world examples that would be informative to both the inexperienced and experienced reader. at its core, however, the improvement science in education series is consistently focused on the instruction of the concepts presented to help readers use and adapt improvement science, which is exemplified by the inclusion of discussion questions, activities, and lessons learned throughout the series. for higher education faculty interested in more explicit connections to instruction, the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students (perry, zambo, & crow) and teaching improvement science in educational leadership: a pedagogical guide (spaulding, crow, & hinnantcrawford) include guides and suggestions for incorporating improvement science in both university classroom and program contexts. books in this series feature several chapters that could also serve as illustrative cases for the purposes of instruction, which would be effective companions to the teaching of improvement science. when teaching something conceptually and technically complex, such as improvement science, parsimony is imperative to promote and maximize learning. all books in the series are commendably restrained in their complexity, allowing for a level of accessibility that is inviting, not intimidating, and should greatly assist in helping readers learn more about improvement science. readers may notice the repetition of names serving as editors and authors throughout the series. while some may note this as a limitation, it can be argued that this reflects the relative infancy of improvement science in its use in educational contexts. the featured editors and authors in this series have established themselves as experts in improvement science, which is showcased by the different ways improvement science is discussed, with minimal repetition, throughout the series. with the help of the improvement science in education series, perhaps additional experts will emerge that can contribute to the series’ future volumes. additionally, the current books in the series may not sufficiently connect with those readers interested in improvement science and may not be affiliated with the field of education. improvement science has potential use across disciplines. yet, the content throughout the series maintains a through line of education-specific language and contexts, which is likely attributable to the affiliated disciplines and programs of the contributing editors and authors. this relatively singular focus may limit scope and impact beyond those in education, though this could be addressed with future additions to the series, including those already planned. ultimately, the improvement science in education series encourages readers to take on the complex problems that are increasingly common in education by offering scaffolded, multifaceted, flexible, and systematic strategies that are purposefully designed for the demands of complexity. books in this series consistently emphasize that included strategies work best in collaboration with diverse voices within the target system, which should comfort readers, no matter their background or context, to know that they do not take on the burden of complexity alone. certainly, improvement science is a challenging undertaking, but this series empowers those ready and willing to try. the improvement science in education series has an active slate of planned texts. forthcoming books in this series include: • improvement science: methods for researchers and program evaluators by robert crow, brandi nicole hinnantcrawford, and dean t. spaulding, 2023. • improving together: case studies of networked improvement science communities by robert crow, brandi nicole hinnant-crawford, and dean t. spaulding, 2023. • improvement science across the disciplines: business, health, and social sciences robert crow, brandi nicole hinnant-crawford, and dean t. spaulding, 2025. the cost of the books in this series currently ranges from $24–$43 in paperback and can be ordered directly from the publisher’s website: https://myersedpress.presswarehouse.com/ references crow, r., hinnant-crawford, b., & spaulding, d. (2019). the educational leader’s guide to improvement science: data, design, and cases for reflection. isbn 9781975500955. hinnant-crawford, b. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. isbn 9781975503550. perry, j., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. isbn 9781975503208. peterson, d., & carlile, s. (2021). improvement science: promoting equity in schools. isbn 9781975504670. peterson, d., & carlile, s. (2022). improvement science as a tool for school enhancement: solutions for better educational outcomes. isbn 9781975504793. spaulding, d., crow, r., hinnant-crawford, b. (2021). teaching improvement science in educational leadership: a pedagogical guide. isbn 9781975503758. https://myersedpress.presswarehouse.com/ impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 73 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.474 barbara dennis: walking with strangers critical ethnography and educational promise book review bailey j. bontrager virginia commonwealth university bontragerbj@vcu.edu jill alexa perry (editor): walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise. peter lang, 2020. 324pp. hardcover: $36.25. isbn 978-1-4331-8023-1 abstract this book review critiques barbara dennis’s walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise, which tells the story of her engagement with a midwestern school district that was experiencing challenges with the increase of their transnational population. dennis’s portrayal is an intimate and thorough example of the emotional, personal, and methodological processes involved in conducting critical participatory ethnography. this review explores the chapters in the text as they provide insight to various components of the project and provides a discussion of the strengths and challenges presented within the book. keywords research methodology, critical theoretical frameworks, participatory research as an emerging scholar who is passionate about the explication of theoretical frameworks and models for practitioner use, i am intrigued by the application of critical perspectives to methodologies. of particular interest is considering how to apply a critical perspective when methodologies have employed techniques that hinder the ability to fully analyze circumstances and experiences. for example, quantitative analysis approaches tend to categorize in ways that limit the ability to understand the intersections of race and educational opportunities (teranishi, 2007), while qualitative approaches often use software to code and organize, both of which are driven from the researchers’ personal ideologies and assumptions (sampson & wong, 2024). walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise illustrates not only the application of critical theory to a qualitative research methodology – specifically ethnography – but shines light on the deep and complicated work of implementing research techniques in a way that upholds the principles of the utilized critical theory. i read this text alongside engaging in a course on critical methodologies and found it to be a helpful example of authentically employing a critical methodology. the goal of this review is to provide an emerging scholarly perspective in understanding the critical application of participatory ethnography as presented in walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise by barbara dennis. background summary in walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise, dennis (2020) shared the story of her engagement with a midwestern school district that was experiencing challenges with the increase of their transnational population. instead of simply sharing the study results, dennis (2020) presented the experiences and methodological decisions in which she and her team engaged as they worked to understand the heart of the school district’s challenges. the chapters present in-depth and thoughtful discussions of navigating relationships with school district stakeholders (i.e., students, faculty, and staff), the implementation of varying techniques such as boal’s (1979) theatre of the oppressed and narrative reconstructions, and changes observed throughout their time with the district. the goal of the book is to reveal the intimate processes involved in developing participatory research relationships in order to support both a) transnational students entering into a new community that is hesitant to welcome them and b) community members, including school staff, in increasing empathy, knowledge, and skills needed to welcome these students into educational and local spaces. audience walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise is written for qualitatively-focused researchers and graduate students who are interested in gaining insight into the complexities of navigating relationships and established ideologies in order to conduct critical participatory ethnographic research within educational settings. the discussions are full of methodological content, so a basic understanding of qualitative research methods is needed. individuals interested in engaging in transformative work aimed at supporting marginalized student populations will enjoy https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7382-2636 bontrager impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.474 74 dennis’s (2020) reflection and the space she created for the reader to engage with these ideas as well. author dennis is a professor of qualitative inquiry in the inquiry methodology program at indiana university bloomington’s school of education. her research takes a critical, often qualitative approach to centering individual experiences with a range of topics, such as chronic pain, conceptions of peace, and safety and trust in emerging adult relationships. she describes herself as “methodologically creative,” focusing on “understanding people’s experiences as members of unequal and oppressive societies” (indiana university bloomington, 2024, para. 3). critical theory as metatheory following a preface that presented the nature of the project, dennis (2020) used chapter one to dive into the theoretical foundations of the project. she explained her use of the term metatheory instead of lens or framework as it 1) emphasizes that there is something guiding the choice of theories, 2) “suggests reciprocity,” in which “the theory both impacts and is impacted by all aspects of the study,” and 3) provides “criteria through which its own merits can be assessed, whereas ‘frameworks’ and ‘lenses’ must be justified by reasons external to their own claims” (dennis, 2020, p. 11). dennis (2020) named critical theory as the metatheory guiding the work and further identified habermas’s (1985, 1987) theory of communicative action (tca) as a metatheoretical guide to the project. tca is a theory of society that identifies principles related to meaning, understanding, truth, and validity that assist in understanding how groups of people interact, and as such was an appropriate choice for this ethnographic study focused on understanding the dynamics of transnational students entering into a community that is not welcoming their arrival. dennis’s (2020) first chapter also introduced the pensive tone that continues throughout the book. she held herself accountable to the theoretical choices by acknowledging the challenges they present, namely the choosing of critical theory and tca. she explored misconceptions (e.g., critical theories only explicitly focus on power and inequity), the need to be clear about alignment with particular critical theories as there is a wide range of origins, perspectives and goals within different strands,and critiques of utilizing particular theories as guidance (e.g., habermas wrote only using male pronouns, excluding women). through her first chapter, dennis (2020) not only provided the background and essential workings of the critical metatheories driving the project but also provided an example of the dialogue of research, where “assumptions and commitments are brought under examination in the process of conducting the research itself” (p. 11). engaging in critical ethnography dennis (2020) moved seamlessly from presenting the theoretical perspectives driving this project to discussing the navigation of relationships (chapter two), ethics (chapter three), and understanding the historical context of unityville (chapter four, written by project team member dini metro-roland). through the initial building of relationships with unityville school faculty and staff, dennis (2020) and her team began to identify prevailing beliefs that the transnational students should assimilate, particularly by speaking english (e.g., the school’s english-speaking only policy). in chapters two and three, dennis (2020) discussed how the team wrestled with insider-outsider dynamics and working the slash (i.e., exploring the “” between) as their team and the transnational students were outsiders with the potential of moving towards insider status. this carried over into the conversation of ethics where the team had to navigate themes such as ethics as self-care/care for all of us and ethics as seeking justice in everyday mistreatment of students. through working with these themes, dennis and her team conceptualized their position within the spaces they embodied in unityville, as well as the specific methodological approaches to research that would enable them to further understand unityville’s challenges. dini metro-roland authored chapter four and provided an illustration of the historical perspective-taking that supported the critical ethnography project. it is within this chapter that dennis and her team identified a need to fully (as much as possible) understand the perspectives of all stakeholders in unityville schools in order to understand deeply seated beliefs and values directing the dynamics in this community. the following excerpt, shared by metro-roland, conveys the historical recognition and situated perspective the team embraced in order to further their work: [some] ethnographers treat the process of historical analysis in a way that invites the emergence of new questions and avenues of investigation. for these ethnographers, historical context both grounds and informs their research questions and analyses. it is this latter understanding of historical context that is more characteristic of our project at unityville. while our team of researchers felt a natural affinity with transnational students and were certainly supportive of their right to maintain cultural and personal integrity, we also sought, in principle, to take seriously the claims of those who saw the matter differently. we did not do so simply for tactical reasons – to better know your enemy – but because we genuinely sought to better understand the concerns, fears, and hopes of all participating conversation partners from the schools and community… it was in response to conversations we had in the field during our research that eventually convinced us of the need to better understand the sources of the monoculturalist narrative that helped form the town’s selfimage and the dominant approach to the transnational students (dennis, 2020, p. 104). metro-roland followed with a narrative analysis of unityville’s historical events and the inevitability of a monoculturalist perspective taken up by many of the citizens of unityville. understanding this historical perspective not only allowed dennis and her team to more fully consider the perspectives of those in favor of assimilation, but also enabled them to better decide on methodologies that would further the uncovering of values and beliefs on which these perspectives were built. dennis (2020) returned as the author of the remaining chapters and presented a few methodological approaches utilized to explore the dynamics within the unityville school system. the first process involved exploring monocultural tales through narrative reconstruction (chapter five). dennis (2020) explained, “[a]s ethnographers, we watched and listened closely to the ways in which monoculturalism was being sustained [through]… dropped references (‘story seeds’)… i reconstructed the narratives from seeds, articulated deep structural contexts, and claimed critical insights” (p. 134). example meaning fields (i.e., sentences written by the researcher from the perspective of the actor), tables organizing inferences and claims, and figures organizing the structure of story walking with strangers–book review impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.474 75 seeds support the narrative reconstruction performed and the themes that became apparent to the research team. in chapter six, dennis (2020) explained the use of boal’s (1979) theatre of the oppressed to give unityville educators opportunities to explore transnational students’ bullying experiences as they roleplayed scenarios that students had described. reenacted scenes went through many iterations, filled with pauses in which the leaders (researchers) encouraged conversation and transparent reflection of emotions from participants embodying the bully and the bullied. many teachers expressed the empathy they gained and the understanding of the role they played in transnational students’ oppression. in chapter seven, the final chapter on methodological processes, dennis (2020) conducted an analysis of time to explore interpretations of the changes that were occurring in unityville during the project. for example, she explained, “[e]xploring the data for generative conceptions of time involved looking for something akin to deep structures in grammar at work in the background beliefs about change itself” (dennis, 2020, p. 205). dennis (2020) noted that there was a “strong ‘principle of addition’” in which teachers referenced the “‘addition’ of ‘newcomers’” and the “‘adding’ [of] [english-as-a-newlanguage] classes to the curriculum,” typically presented in a negative light (p. 205). however, further into the project, teachers began to comment on the increase (i.e., addition) in a) positive attitudes among staff and students, b) understanding of students’ perspectives, and c) students’ success. this form of analysis, along with the other methodological processes, enabled dennis and her team to explore and understand all stakeholders’ perspectives while also supporting the developing perspectives that supported the transnational students. dennis’s (2020) final chapter reflected on the project, asking questions such as how was the project transformative and in what ways was it complicit with the status quo. discussion of strengths and weaknesses dennis (2020) provided an intimate and thorough example of the emotional, personal, and methodological processes involved in conducting critical participatory ethnography. one of the strengths in this text is the transparency with which the project and involved activities are discussed. dennis (2020) made claims in the book that those participating in critical theory must both make visible their positions and actively “reflect on and investigate their own claims to knowledge, power, and truth” (p. 19). dennis (2020) applied this reflective process throughout the text (reflecting as she wrote) and made clear that these processes guided the activities and methodological decisions. i found this book to be incredibly helpful as i developed an understanding of how these varying methodologies are applied and put into practice. some of dennis’s (2020) guiding metatheories and methodological examples, such as the analysis of time and narrative reconstruction, were quite new to me and were challenging to understand at times. however, she included appendices that elaborate on some of these ideas (e.g., habermas’s tca) and encouraged readers to return to sections to review. while my understanding was fuzzy at times, i found these applications demonstrated the creative approaches that critical theories often encourage; critically analyzing a context requires individuals to push beyond traditional approaches, exploring avenues that will allow dynamics generally invisible or intentionally ignored to be brought to the surface. in line with the goal of critical theories and their application, this study challenged the accepted beliefs and perspectives in unityville and sparked transformation among staff, students, and the surrounding community. at the same time, dennis (2020) critiqued her own work, recognizing the ways the project failed to support black students and address gendered norms that oppressed the students. she recognized the “risk in being transparent” (dennis, 2020, p. 242) – being complicit in upholding the status quo in any way does not look good – but also acknowledged the essential need to critique any attempt as transforming society as it brings its own goals and values. dennis (2020) conveyed an authentic attempt to uncover and understand the context of unityville schools, as well as to support the transnational student population through the implementation of critical participatory ethnography. towards the end of the book, dennis (2020) claimed, though the substantiative richness of the study was not the focus of this book, it is possible to see how the methodological orientation was tightly connected with the emergence of substantive insights. most specifically, we were able to locate the role of empathy in the transformation toward a more inclusively thriving school community (p. 243). this quote provides an accurate summary of the text. walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise is not a methodological text in the sense of being a textbook, but it provides rich descriptions and examples of the implementation of a critical participatory ethnography. additionally, dennis (2020) demonstrated the humility, self-reflection, and accountability needed to implement this work authentically, which is required if one hopes to promote social and educational transformation. references boal, a. (1979). theatre of the oppressed. theatre communications group. dennis, b. (2020). walking with strangers: critical ethnography and educational promise. peter lang. habermas, j. (1985). truth and method. crossroad. habermas, j. (1987). the theory of communicative action, volume 1: reason and the rationalization of society (t. mccarthy, trans.). beacon press. indiana university bloomington. (2024, april 12). barbara dennis. https://education.indiana.edu/about/directory/profiles/dennis-barbara.html sampson, c., & wong, l.-s. (2024). using qualitative data analysis software to help explore critical research questions: a tool, not a replacement. in m. d. young & s. diem (eds.), handbook of critical education research: qualitative, quantitative, and emerging approaches (pp. 637-654). routledge. teranishi, r. t. (2007). race, ethnicity, and higher education policy: the use of critical quantitative research. new direction for institutional research, 133(2007), 37–49. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.203 https://education.indiana.edu/about/directory/profiles/dennis-barbara.html https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.203 bailey j. bontrager virginia commonwealth university background summary audience author critical theory as metatheory engaging in critical ethnography discussion of strengths and weaknesses references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 30 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 honor, build, and restructure: preparing transformative school leaders as equitable changemakers through doctoral research methods courses linsay demartino illinois state university lademar@ilstu.edu dianne gardner renn illinois state university dcrenn@ilstu.edu abstract school leaders enrolled in cped-influenced and practitioner focused doctoral programs require specific research-based skills and knowledge that bridge both educational scholarship and practice in order to be relevant for both their dissertation process and school practice. in doing so, these doctorate in education (edd) programs must critically exam their qualitative research methods courses to honor the professional practice of their adult learners and usher in innovative, collaborative, transformative, and participatory research design courses to meet this demand. as such we present our methodological course sequence built on principles of adult learning and a signature pedagogy, the first course is a reimagination of the qualitative research course and the second is a reconceptualized transformative capstone. keywords edd, qualitative methodology, transformative capstone school leaders enrolled in the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) -influenced and practitioner-focused doctoral programs require specific research-based skills and knowledge that bridge both educational scholarship and practice in order to be relevant for both their dissertation process and school practice. in doing so, these doctorate in education (edd) programs must critically exam their qualitative research methods courses to honor the professional practice of their adult learners and usher in innovative, collaborative, and participatory research design courses to meet this demand. in fact, the restructuring of these courses is fundamental for the development of future transformative school leaders. in illinois state university’s (isu) edd program for pk12 leadership, students prepare to serve as transformative leaders and practitioner-scholars working in cohorts of 10-14 students. the final semester of the edd course sequence, prior to the dissertation process, we offer a two-course sequence, a qualitative research methods course and a capstone course, intended to integrate earlier studies and provide students with the initial elements of a proposal. isu’s dissertation in practice (dip) uses mintrop’s (2016) cycle of inquiry to be completed within 90 days as an approach to professional learning that allows for school-based collaborative teams to learn more quickly and completely, resulting in transformative change in schools and districts. edd students develop school teams of three or more site-based practitioners and work through the mintrop (2016) seven-part cycle. aligned to cped’s guiding principles, the final semester course sequence crowns the three-year program with support for pursuing a team-based dissertation process in the candidates’ laboratories of practice based on problems of practice (pops) developed within each team. in both courses, the initial three phases of the cycle include defining and refining pops, raising team assumptions about the pops with the possibility of further refinement, and bringing scholarship into practice to inform students’ pops. these three collaborative tasks together become a theory of action that the dip will implement and test. the two courses work synergistically, by cooperatively interacting and wrapping student support between these two courses, to reinforce cped-inspired elements of the program. for example, we utilize guiding principles, such as a transformative leadership with a social justice imperative, emphasize collaborative research designs, and adopt program design concepts that place the practitioner-scholar in a community to understand complex pops by taking deep dives into analyzing those problems and developing testable, equitable responses. built on principles of adult learning and signature pedagogies, the first course is a reimagination of the qualitative research course, and the second course is a reconceptualized transformative capstone. in each case, three features exemplify the common approaches in the two courses, transformative adult learning theory, cped program design concepts (2021) as signature pedagogies, and building transformative capacity. each is discussed in turn below. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7674-0847 https://orcid.org/0009-0002-5363-910x honor, build, restructure impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 31 honoring adult learners: transformative adult learning theory unlike graduate students in times past who were “solitary scholars” (kasworm & bowles, 2010, p. 224), current students enter graduate studies with more life commitments, including family, career, and other individual engagements, rather than focusing solely on intellectual research pursuits in the ivory towers of the academy. further, the composition of graduate students is more diverse in relation to gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, religious affiliation, ability, international cultures, family provider commitments, and other specialized backgrounds (kasworm & bowles, 2010). given the specialized needs and array of expertise our current students bring to graduate studies, it is perplexing that institutions of higher education struggle with the adoption of asset-based pedagogies, which honor the lived experiences of students and mobilize the insights of a diverse student population by intentionally drawing on student assets. honoring the professional expertise of adult learners is oftentimes overlooked in doctoral programs. because cpedinfluenced and practitioner focused doctoral programs typically enroll practicing school leaders and administrators, it is imperative for programs to align their courses to both meet the needs of adult learners by informing their practice with transformative adult learning theory and adopting asset-based pedagogy, which places the adult learner as one among many experts in the room. within our program, after several iterations of course programming, we adopted systems to leverage our students’ expertise as part of our instructional approach of honoring the expertise of our adult learners in our programmatic educational spaces. because these systems became the norms in course work with adult sense-making as a primary focus (mezirow, 1991; 2000), students were provided with great latitude in selecting projects, offered practice-based cases for critical examination, participated in deep analysis, and engaged in praxis. cped’s (2021) principles inspired our attempts to provide a context in which the adult learner as educational leader is offered “real-life, context-specific, tactical, anti-racist work in our schools” (skrla et al., 2001, p. 239). additionally, we approach this work through the lens of signature pedagogies, characteristic of professional education, serving adult learners with attention to their professional status, and ongoing commitment to professional learning. program design concept: signature pedagogies cped (2021) offers signature pedagogies as one of seven program design concepts. in coursework, signature pedagogies encourage students to enact their professional roles in a low-risk learning environment embracing design-based school improvement (bryk et al., 2004; mintrop, 2016). since our students are working professionals, design approaches as signature pedagogies engage them in collaborative practices within the courses as real-life cases used to elevate distinctive leadership challenges as complex pops. assignments and assessments tie scholarship to the work of transformative leadership under an equity imperative. repetitive cycles of inquiry engrain this approach, insisting on development and analysis of a pop that meets cped’s (2021) criteria. that is, the problem is situated in a specific context that represents a common but serious dilemma which, if addressed in multiple cycles of inquiry, would make a great contribution to education’s knowledge base in both theoretical and practical spheres (bryk, 2020). practice is honored by applying design approaches coupled with critical analysis, reflective praxis, and accountability as they are seldom observed outside a professional preparation setting. the adult learners are honored for their experience and expertise but also gently challenged to stretch their current understandings. in sum, school and district improvement would change to align with design principles intended to make professional learning a new norm within schools. in short, we want more from our students than successful dissertations, rather we seek to alter practice in alignment with cped-informed approaches that apply the principles and concepts and enhance the transformative capacity of educational leadership to help education learn faster (bryk et al., 2015). building transformative capacity moreover, educational leadership is intended to be a collaborative process with people working towards common goals for the formation, capacity building, and sustainability of just and equitable conditions (shields, 2020). because transformative leadership begins with questions of justice and democracy and critiques inequitable practices that offer a better individual life and one lived in common with others (shields, 2010), it aligns with the critical need to transform the perspectives of scholar-practitioners enrolled in cped-influenced and practitioner focused doctoral programs. that is, our doctoral students may need to unlearn in order to relearn, a concept embraced by the transformative learning approach. to meet the needs of adult learners, a transformative learning approach (kasworm & bowles, 2010; mezirow, 1991; 2000), where students are provided the opportunity to transform their preconceived perspectives, habits of mind, mindsets, and mental models in favor of critically inclusive, equitable and reflective beliefs and opinions that serve as a transformative guide towards sustainable change in prek-12 schools. in fact, through content analysis, hoggan (2016) identified six categories of transformative learning outcomes: (1) changes in worldview encompassing a new awareness or understanding, including questioning assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations, (2) modifications in a student’s sense of self, such as changes in one’s purpose, personality, or identity, (3) epistemological changes or different ways of knowing, (4) ontological shifts, including ways of being and adjustments to affective attributes like empathy, and kindness, (5) behavioral shifts aligned with a new perspective, including commitments to social action and professional practices and, (6) the ability to further build their capacity that reflects their transformative experience. lastly, franco (2019) reminds us that people who have participated in transformative learning come out of the experience different, as recognized by themselves and others. restructuring research design courses: an innovative two-part model in addition to honoring the professional expertise and building the transformative leadership capacity of scholar-practitioners, it is recommended that cped-influenced and practitioner-focused doctoral programs restructure their qualitative research design courses to bridge both educational scholarship and practice. we offer our two-part qualitative research design course sequence as a viable model. demartino & renn impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 32 because adult learners have fewer opportunities to build relationships with their peers and faculty potentially resulting in uncomfortable uncertainty and isolation to demystify the doctoral journey in community, ideally, this cped-driven model should be delivered within the same semester in a co-teaching or teamteaching model, but delivery through two consecutive semesters will work, as well. the first course will cover an introduction to qualitative research with an emphasis on participatory action research (par) (bhattacharya, 2017), a deep dive into the pops (mintrop, 2016) to include school improvement tools, such as the 5 whys, fishbones, and driver diagrams. the school improvement tools derive from improvement science, further informing the foundations of cped and is acknowledged as a third suite of research methods for dips (perry et al., 2020), and we have integrated this understanding into what was a more traditional qualitative methods course. the second course will provide the students the opportunity to explore their funds of identity (esteban-guitart & moll, 2014), revisit the cped guiding principles (cped, 2021), apply social justice as a crosscutting theme, and learn the fundamentals of writing a literature review and conceptual framework. the first course: reimagining qualitative research for the dissertation in practice in illinois state university’s (isu) phase iv edd program for school and district leadership, alignment of research methods courses generally has been a challenge. for one thing, not all faculty are equally invested in cped, and research methods faculty often only teach edd students in a stand-alone methods course with clear distinctions between qualitative and quantitative methods. given this preparation, cped students and edd candidates are challenged to imagine doctoral research as collaborative and more rooted in pops than in research questions or gaps in literature that imply familiar affinities in terms of research methods. and, of course, faculty may have the same assumptions working against the practitioner-scholar model and the par model it implies (bhattacharya, 2017). traditional texts and approaches to qualitative research embody these assumptions of solo scholarship responding to literature and asking questions for a study of some phenomenon, discouraging deeper analysis of the pop from its roots in leadership praxis. finally, the use of improvement science (is) tools is outside the purview of research faculty and viewed as a novelty but not an opportunity to employ innovative methodological tools. in the end, if student candidate research projects are disconnected from their lived experiences as adult learners, then the opportunity for adults to learn together in a practice setting is lost. former iterations of our qualitative research course offered qualitative methods variously from the social sciences based on a scholar asking research questions and/or going into the field as a more-or-less connected observer. the most common research method was the interview. texts chosen by faculty reflected their preferences, always rooted in traditional research paradigms. in the reimagined, paired qualitative course, development of a pop is paralleled to the work in the capstone and qualitative methods emerge while working through the first three phases of the cycle of inquiry (mintrop, 2016). settling on and developing a complex pop elicits just-in-time qualitative methods as the students complete a needs assessment and gather preliminary evidence to enhance the pop. the conceptual barriers for students about to be doctoral candidates derived from several sources, chief among them is the requirement to work collaboratively within the laboratory of practice, the need to learn how to embark on par, analytical development of a complex pop as a signature pedagogy and using is tools analytically. each of these requirements represents design-based improvement as a signature pedagogy of our edd program. we take each challenge in turn, drawing upon cped’s (2021) program design concepts. practitioner scholar as collaborator to begin, even though there are commonly collaborative structures in schools, many do not function effectively to address problems or contribute to adult learning as design-based shared learning requires (bryk et al., 2015; mintrop, 2016). the cped program design concepts (2021) are clear on several points that position edd practitioner-scholar research: (1) theory and practice are mutually informative within laboratories of practice, (2) scholarship is invariably applied to inquiry in schools and districts, and (3) complex pops are ongoing and worthy of addressing collaboratively as a new norm of practice deriving from cycles of inquiry as a signature pedagogy. practitioner-scholars apply the parameters of mintrop’s (2016) collaborative cycle of inquiry to raise the tacit assumptions of the collaborative research team as they study a problem and apply scholarship to generate a theory of action to be tested. in this course, we see our students frequently surprised to learn their school collaborators’ assumptions about an emerging pop. naturally, this is practical scholarship as the student learns more about the collaborative team. for example, when exploring a pop regarding the lack of attendance in particular classes by high school students who identify as black, teachers expressed the view that the students were unmotivated and immature, surfacing a deficit framing approach by the white teachers of these students. upon initiating par, the group determined that students skipped class because of the poor relationships with certain teachers. collaborative exploration allowed our edd students to further understand root causes of their pop and for teachers to examine their views and question them as transformative learners in an adult space. few traditional qualitative studies accomplish as much, and this was just the first phase of the collaboration. further, when practice-based teams work analytically, they can deeply explore the problem in context, use scholarship to further their understanding, and develop initiatives or strategies as theories of action to study in a complete cycle of inquiry. additionally, schools and districts are at widely varied levels of preparedness for collaboration as a foundation for par, an approach from the qualitative tradition well-matched with the expectations for a cpedoriented dip. between the two courses, practice-based collaborations are supported and the possibilities for ongoing designbased learning enhanced. again, we seek to build these habits of analytical collaboration as a new norm in the laboratories of practice where our edd graduates lead, providing them with the conceptual and practical tools to do so. participatory action research in our context of practice, the previous qualitative research course was situated in the anthropological tradition. for example, the text described going out into the field and working as a participant observer in detail (glesne, 2016). while its participatory nature met our expectations, some elements of the methodology and methods would not serve our students as transformative leaders or edd honor, build, restructure impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 33 candidates. when we united the qualitative and capstone courses, we realized our signature pedagogy, the design-based approach to collaborative research, was our best chance to alter both the expectations of the dissertation and the realities of school practice using par. the mintrop (2016) cycle of inquiry provides a par framework structured to enable even novice teams to begin analytical work on complex concerns in their laboratories of practice. par surfaced as the most promising framework for most of our students’ projects. leaders were not independent researchers coming around asking questions or sending out surveys. from the developing the pop to the testing of a theory of action in the cycle of inquiry, the researcher is immersed in the conditions surrounding the problem with others. in many cases, everyone contributes, even in a small way, to the problem and its sustenance, and the recognition of this reality is key to adult transformative learning. supplementing the cycle of inquiry are resources on par that situate it in the broader qualitative tradition of action research with attention to application in pk12 settings (mctaggart, 1997). gathering evidence arises as a feature of the cycle rather than a preordained design. in short, this first course is not a survey of qualitative methods. rather, the course introduces qualitative methods as they emerge in the cycle of inquiry. problem of practice (pop) and mintrop’s cycle of inquiry in the program design concepts, the pop is defined as “a persistent, consistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, 2021, para. 13). the two-course sequence focuses on this definition and how pops are analytically defined and understood in a specific context. indeed, the pop, defined, framed, and reframed through mintrop’s (2016) cycle of inquiry, united the two courses as a foundation for par and for fulfilling the requirements of cped’s (2021) guiding principles for social justice dips. with that shared focus, the transformative learning in the course sequence is enhanced. much of the work we have committed to centers on the cycle of inquiry model developed by rick mintrop (2016) which specifies parameters for collaboration and offers direction that dovetails well with par, although there is methodological variation among our students’ projects, including the use of is tools. in mintrop’s (2016) design-based school improvement: a practical guide for education leaders, four case studies demonstrate a process by which a theory of action is collaboratively developed, and a cycle of inquiry completed. our dips consist of a single 90-day cycle of inquiry that follows this model, and the two-course sequence finalizes the approach and supports the soon-to-be edd candidates to fulfill design-based school improvement demonstrated in this culminating assessment. school improvement tools many cped edd programs use is within the suite of research tools (perry et al., 2020). our revised qualitative research course introduces is tools, and the students begin their collaborative work in earnest. first, the is tools fit the practitioner-scholar paradigm and provide a practical means of convening teams that are perhaps unaccustomed to the rigors of analytical collaboration. second, mintrop’s (2016) work dovetails with is tools as pops develop into theories of action to be tested. their hands-on nature makes them appealing to educators, and their flexibility allows for revising the pop as mintrop (2016) presents it. it is not a once-and-done. the transformative learning potential in collaboratively defining, framing, reframing, and analyzing through scholarly lenses is enhanced by is as the educators can return to the tools over and over, as they are stumped to clarify and generate a pop sufficiently robust to take root as a testable theory of action. even with accounting for personal preference, our practitioner-scholars find use of is tools more useful for defining and addressing problems than qualitative research not enhanced by this suite of tools. chief among our students’ preferred tools are those that are used early in the mintrop (2016) cycle including the 5 whys, fishbones, and driver diagrams. these tools assist our scholarpractitioners and their teams to fully consider the proposed pop by drilling down to the root of the cause. that is, the 5 whys asks a series of five why questions. fishbones are a visual way to conceptualize cause and effect as applied to the problem. driver diagrams assist teams by listing perceived changes coupled by possible solutions that may result in improvement. we believe our students prefer these tools for several reasons: (1) practice-minded educators can use them easily, (2) the edd student can surface assumptions that may block equity-based pops and theories of action, and (3) the tools can be used repeatedly and in a variety of situations. as the development of the revised qualitative course continues, we hope to incorporate more tools and explore how they enhance the full cycle of inquiry, perhaps suggesting some tools over others for certain parts of the process. the second course: reconceptualized transformative capstone because we have both students who begin their doctoral studies with us and students who come to us with their superintendent’s endorsement seeking further advancement by attaining their edd, the second course was conceived as an initiative for both groups of students to build community within their educational spaces and remedy any gaps in their current and past doctoral studies. more specifically, in this course, students will grapple with their identities, embrace social justice as a cross cutting theme, revisit cped’s (2021) guiding principles and concepts, and complete a preliminary literature review and conceptual framework. funds of identity in our pk12 schools, more than 50 percent of students, less than 20 percent of teachers, 22 percent of principals, and 6 percent of superintendents identify as black, indigenous, and/or people of color (bipoc) (radd et al., 2021; u.s. department of education, 2016). moreover, it is expected that the composition of the pk12 student population will continue to diversify while the teaching and administrative force remains predominately white (irwin et al., 2022). therefore, to best serve the needs of our increasingly diversified and underrepresented student population, it is critical for our school leaders to become more responsive to the needs of their students and families rather than further perpetuating inequity (riveramccutchen, 2014). in order to embark on this critical work, it is imperative that our doctoral students and practicing school leaders become well versed in grappling with their individual identities in order to best serve all students and families within their pk12 spaces. funds of identity (esteban-guitart & moll, 2014) provides a structure to participate in demartino & renn impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 34 this critical work and serves as a catalyst for our practitioner-scholars to bring this self-work into their schools. because identity is a social construct, where “it is not possible to state any specific definition of identity is the correct one and other wrong...funds of knowledge become funds of identity when people actively internalize family and community resources to make meaning and to describe themselves” (esteban-guitart & moll, 2014, pp. 32-33). we utilize the practitioner friendly examples provided in this research, including the self-portrait, a visual display describing who you are in this moment, and significant circle which is a summary using a single-page representation of their most important objects, activities, people, institutions, and hobbies (esteban-guitart & moll, 2014). these foundational strategies begin the process of grappling with one’s identity. following this self-work, in community, we dialogue about not only our individual identities but relate these social constructions to the students’ prior understanding of the levels of systemic inequity, including the historical, structural, institutional, and individual/interpersonal facets (radd et al., 2021). social justice as a crosscutting theme given our previous dialogue on funds of identity and because our space, place, and time demands it, it is critical for our practitioner-scholars to critically engage in social justice as a crosscutting theme in their dissertation journey. although we try our best to infuse social justice throughout our students’ program of study, we intentionally block social justice as a crosscutting theme in this second methodology class because the students are in the process of authentically engaging with their school communities to develop their pop, where social justice resides as the heartbeat of their future research. based upon the input from our previous doctoral students, we include the following social justice thematic blasts: transformative leadership, culturally responsive pedagogy, countering deficit thinking with asset-based practices, equitable assessment, and justice-based community collaboration. revisiting the cped guiding principles and concepts as a learning community, we revisit the cped guiding principles and concepts (cped, 2021). that is, based upon these principles and concepts, we further process out and crosswalk our preliminary understandings of framing our questions around equity, ethics, and social justice as applied to our developing pops, making a positive and sustainable difference within our schools and with our greater school communities, enhancing our research-in-collaboration plans with a keen eye on authenticating the collaborative process, developing our practitioner-scholar expertise by integrating our practical and research knowledge in an effort to transform our prek12 educational spaces (cped, 2021). writing a literature review and conceptual framework given the work completed in the first course coupled with the activities in the second course, our students revisit the processes of writing a literature review and conceptual framework. this activity is designed as a writing salon. that is, the students are placed in peer writing groups and have scheduled salons with agendas set by their professor, participate in at least two 1-to-1 writing review sessions with their professor, and writing workshops facilitated by our university librarians. though the students are coached that they are developing preliminary literature reviews and conceptual frameworks where these parts are organic and will be updated across their dissertation journeys, this process is beneficial for them because they are writing in community, an important skill when they are writing their full dissertations and are given the opportunity to have multiple sets of eyes review their work to offer constructive criticism. given the restructured design introduced in this essay, we pivot to some practical recommendations when transitioning to a restructured two-part methodological course sequence. transitioning to a restructured twopart research design course sequence realistically, because our plates are overflowing, restructuring research design courses in cped-influenced and practitionerfocused doctoral programs seems like a daunting task. it does take work, commitment, and collaboration at the university that mirrors what we prescribe for schools, resulting in less time for other professional and personal obligations, but this work is necessary. to paraphrase one of our colleagues, sometimes we forget the overarching reason we became faculty was to serve as transformative leaders ourselves. that is, we must continuously selfreflect on the notion that as facilitators of knowledge in academia, we must strive to serve and support our students through innovative curriculum and pedagogical choices in order to provide the doctoral experiences our adult learners deserve and the transformative leaders the schools require. one recommendation is to embark on this work as a collaborative endeavor. only with curricular coherence and commitment to core principles on our part can the edd candidates make the shift to transformative leadership praxis that is our aspiration for them all. to kickstart this collaboration, we highly suggest attending the annual cped convening with your colleagues to energize your team as they begin or continue this work. in our department, we have had success with this strategy, across several years through multiple memberships, because we bottle our synergy from the convening and extend our conversations from the convening space to the departmental conference room. similarly, to keep the momentum going, our team is actively involved in the multiple supports sponsored by cped, like the improvement groups (cigs), recurring webinars, and online resources. our vision for our edd graduates places upon us the responsibility to provide ways to build transformative leadership capacity, and we have taken the step of integrating two finalsemester courses as one way to accomplish this. we are asking our candidates to change their ways of working and to shift their thinking about the nature of the dissertation even as we face the same challenges as a pk12 leadership preparation faculty. this collaboration between the capstone seminar instructor and the qualitative methodologist is a beginning for us, as we continue to develop our edd program as a practitioner-forward, rigorous, and transformative experience that supports more equitable educational systems in pk12 and higher education. references bhattacharya, k. (2017). fundamentals of qualitative research: a practical guide. routledge. honor, build, restructure impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8, no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.364 35 carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2021). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework esteban-guitart, m., & moll, l. c. (2014). funds of identity: a new concept based on the funds of knowledge approach. culture & psychology, 20(1), 31–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x13515934 glesne, c. (2016). becoming qualitative researchers: an introduction. pearson. hoggan, c. d. (2016). transformative learning as metatheory: definition, criteria, and typology. adult education quarterly, 66(1), 57–75. irwin, v., de la rosa, j., wang, k., hein, s., zhang, j., burr, r., roberts, a., barmer, a., bullock mann, f., dilig, r., and parker, s. (2022). report on the condition of education 2022 (nces 2022-144). u.s. department of education. national center for education statistics. kasworm, c., & bowles, t. (2010). doctoral students as adult learners. in gardner, s. k. & mendoza, p. (eds.), on becoming a scholar: socialization and development in doctoral education (pp. 223-241). stylus. mezirow, j. (1991). transformative dimensions of adult learning. jossey-bass. mezirow, j. (2000). learning as transformation: critical perspectives on a theory in progress. jossey-bass. mintrop, r. (2016). designed-based school improvement: a practical guide for educational leaders. harvard education press. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. radd, s. i., generett, g. g., gooden, m. a., & theoharis, g. (2021). five practices for equity-focused school leadership. ascd. rivera-mccutchen, r. l. (2014). the moral imperative of social justice leadership: a critical component of effective practice. urban review, 46(4), 747–763. shields, c. m. (2010). transformative leadership: working for equity in diverse contexts. educational administration quarterly, 46(4), 558–589. shields, c. m. (2020). transformative leadership. in c. m. shields, oxford research encyclopedia of education. oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.632 shulman, l. s. (2004). the wisdom of practice: essays on teaching, learning, and learning to teach. jossey-bass. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. u.s. department of education. (2016). the state of racial diversity in the educator workforce. u.s. department of education, office of planning, evaluation and policy development, policy and program studies service. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x13515934 https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.632 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 47 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 building and sustaining community in an online edd program ray r. buss arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu leigh graves wolf arizona state university leigh.wolf@asu.edu abstract in this essay, we have described how we build and sustain community in our online edd program. initially, we discussed our understanding of community and its influence on our efforts. then, we discussed three important theoretical frameworks—wenger’s community of practice, garrison et al.’s community of inquiry, and morris and stommel’s critical digital pedagogy—and how those frameworks helped to shape our efforts in building and sustaining an online community. next, we discussed strategies/processes that we have successfully used to build and sustain community in our online program. these strategies were grouped around three kinds of relationships that have been central to community formation, interaction, and continuation—student-to-student, student-to-faculty, and student-to-broader-community. we discussed specific strategies such as the leadership challenge, doctoral research conference, an online program “hub,” comprehensive and immediate feedback, mentoring, and leader scholar communities, that we have found to be particularly useful in building and sustaining an online community. keywords building online community, online community, edd program, sense of community, connectedness three theoretical perspectives have guided and continue to influence our efforts in building community in our online program. wenger’s (1998; wenger et al., 2002) communities of practice (cop) framework has served as one of the theoretical perspectives guiding our online efforts for building and sustaining community. garrison et al.’s (2000) community of inquiry (coi) has provided the second theoretical framework that has directed our efforts with respect to developing and maintaining community in our online program. additionally, morris and stommel’s (2018) work on critical digital pedagogy has influenced our efforts in developing community. before examining the theoretical perspectives more closely, we have offered a brief discussion about community. community to begin, our own notions of community have been influenced by the work of mcmillan and chavis (1986) and rovai (2002a, b, c). mcmillan and chavis maintained that there were four elements of community including (a) membership, feelings of belonging and relationship to others; (b) influence, making a difference in the group and the group mattering to the individual; (c) integration of members; and (d) emotional connections based on shared thoughts, feelings, and experiences. their model has encouraged us to consider a range of factors that have been essential to the establishment and maintenance of community. rovai (2002a, c) extended these important components of community, which were developed outside of the context of online learning, to the online learning environment. in his important work, rovai (2002c) added the concepts of (a) connectedness and (b) learning in online settings. rovai’s (2002c) definition of connectedness was quite broad and incorporated concepts like a feeling of belonging and acceptance, cohesion, and bonding that resulted in trust, which fostered group member interaction and support within the group. by comparison, rovai (2002c) suggested learning was “the feeling that knowledge and meaning are actively constructed within the community, that the community enhances the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and that the learning needs of its members are being satisfied” (p. 322). thus, for rovai, learning was something students in an online class did together. in our own efforts, we have extended rovai’s concepts about connectedness and learning to the whole online program. the importance of community to students engaged in doctoral study has been recognized by others writing about doctoral students’ program experiences, as well. lovitts (2001) recognized the importance of community in student retention and program completion. consistent with this overall notion, ali and kohun (2006, 2007) found that students who were more strongly integrated into graduate programs with peers and faculty members were more likely to be retained and complete the program. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ buss & wolf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 48 communities of practice in their writing on communities of practice (cop), wenger et al. (2002) suggested cop were characterized by three elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original). in the next sections, we have discussed these aspects more fully. wenger et al. (2002) maintained that the domain helped to establish a common ground that encouraged “members to contribute and participate, guide[d] their learning, and [gave] meaning to their actions” (p. 27-28). in the current context, the domain consisted of various matters associated with students’ efforts in an online edd program. for example, the domain included a broad range of issues such as course content, course activities to learn the content, logistical aspects of working online, connecting with peers in an online setting, and many other features associated with the program or working in the online environment. with respect to community, wenger et al. (2002) claimed, “the community creates the social fabric of learning. a strong community fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust” (p. 28). thus, the community afforded members opportunities to interact with one another and develop relationships that facilitated and supported their actions in the program. for example, community members including students and faculty members shared information and ideas about courses, coursework requirements, and research efforts, which provided students with academic support. further, student-to-student and faculty-to-student relationships afforded opportunities in which community members provided emotional support. by comparison, “the practice is a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories, and documents that community members share. … the domain denotes the topic… [whereas] the practice is the specific knowledge the community develops, shares, and maintains” (wenger et al., 2002, p. 29, italics in original). thus, the practice component of the cop consisted of the various ideas, tools, information, processes, and so on relevant to completing coursework, engaging with students and faculty members, carrying out research efforts, and completing other aspects of the program as they connected with one another in the online setting. more specifically, practice included knowledge about how to respond to class discussions, how to extend research efforts across the program, how to structure sections of the dissertation in practice, and so on. community of inquiry (coi) garrison et al.’s (2000) coi has focused on three components of online learning—teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. anderson et al. (2001) defined teaching presence as “the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (p. 5). accordingly, anderson et al.’s discussion of teaching presence was focused on instructional design, developing understanding, and instruction in the subject matter. although such a definition was appropriate for individual courses, it had limited utility when programs were being considered. more recently, kumar and dawson (2018) suggested, “teaching presence in an online professional doctorate can be more accurately termed faculty presence, [because] … multiple faculty members not only teach, support, and mentor online doctoral students … but also administer the program” (p. 54). notably, kumar and dawson claimed faculty presence was essential to ensure effective instruction and mentoring, comprehensive curriculum design, and sound program leadership, which were necessary components related to the design and implementation of a successful online professional, doctoral program. thus, kumar and dawson’s notion of faculty presence extended teaching presence in a more comprehensive fashion to all facets of programs, not just program design and instruction. consistent with these ideas, faculty members in the edd in the mary lou fulton teachers college at arizona state university carefully designed and implemented a program featuring strong instruction and highly supportive mentoring. moreover, consistent with the concept of strong instruction, they developed and implemented a well-articulated, sequenced curriculum that facilitated students’ development as scholarly and influential practitioners. in doing so, they fostered and supported a strong online community by using various classand research-related components such as thorough feedback on assignments, on-going communications, an edd program hub, virtual group and individual mentoring in leader scholar communities, and so on, which are described more fully in later sections of the article. garrison (2009) maintained social presence was, “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop interpersonal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (p. 352). at its core, garrison noted social presence entailed several critical elements including open, effective communication and group cohesion. notably, group cohesion involved building social relationships, which have influenced students’ interaction and persistence in doctoral programs (kumar & dawson, 2018). further, kumar and dawson claimed communication and trust were critical in establishing a sense of community, which was essential to providing an environment characterized by collaboration and mutual support. relationships in the program have been developed by implementing a strong cohort model using cop as a foundation, fostering engagement with one another through class and program requirements such as the leadership challenge fishbowl and doctoral research conference, which exemplify several program features. in their definition of cognitive presence, garrison and his colleagues (2000) claimed cognitive presence was “the extent to which participants … are able to construct meaning through sustained communication [discourse]” (p. 89). thus, the focus of cognitive presence has been on students’ engagement with course content. sustained discourse has been a key component of our edd program. in our program, two types of sustained discourse have been fostered including student-to-student discourse and student-tofaculty discourse. both types have been essential to student engagement with the material. notably, the sustained discourse and reflective aspects of cognitive presence exhibited by students in our program have been fostered, supported, and sustained by faculty and social presence. critical digital pedagogy in their recent work on critical digital pedagogy (cdp), which built upon the work of hooks (1995), inman berens (2015), and building and sustaining community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 49 weinberger (2002), morris and stommel (2018) claimed a crucial aspect of cdp was focusing “its practice on community and collaboration.” in particular, morris and stommel maintained cdp encouraged new perspectives about how teachers and students were connected socially, politically, and emotionally in an online learning environment. further, they suggested that high levels of engagement and interaction would be foundational to effective outcomes in online and hybrid settings. taken together, these assertions were consistent with our thinking and program efforts about how to build and sustain community in the online setting. notably, morris and stommel (2018) asserted that those using technology for learning have been overly focused on efficiency and effectiveness, a tool-based orientation for using technology. instead, they suggested putting the learner first by reconsidering the human and interactive aspects of learning as students and faculty members learned alongside one another. this perspective was captured powerfully when the authors advocated that cdp provided open educational milieus in which the focus was on dialogue between students and faculty members. in our own efforts, we have focused on providing opportunities for students and faculty members to engage in consequential dialogue throughout the program as evidenced in the next sections of this essay. student-to-student connections fostering community in this section, we offer examples of program components that are designed to foster and sustain community in our program. the first, the leadership challenge fishbowl occurs fairly early in the program, during the second term, and affords students opportunities to make connections, build relationships, and engage in consequential dialogue with their peers. the second, knowledge building google site also transpires during the second term and gives students an opportunity to collectively construct a resource for theories relevant to problems of practice. the third, the doctoral research conference (drc), is experienced by students throughout the program and affords opportunities to make connections with those at various stages in the program and with those who are working on similar problems of practice. finally, we briefly discuss the use of social media to support connections among students in our edd program. leadership challenge fishbowl the purpose of the leadership challenge is to foster development of collaboration and leadership skills and to build community. the work of the leadership challenge is deeply rooted in the ideas of wenger’s cop (wenger, 1998; wenger et al., 2002). the leadership challenges help students realize that their action research will not be done in isolation. we want to scaffold the collaboration and leadership skills through the activity that will be necessary for the students as they conduct on-going course and research work. to complete the assignments students are divided into small groups of five (cohorts are typically comprised of approximately 20 students) and two of the four groups are asked to record a 15-minute discussion based upon a provocative question (e.g., “how can i positively influence my cop through participation in a ‘broader configuration’ of networks?”). students prepare for the discussion by gathering quotes from wenger’s (1998) text and course readings and then meet to record a video using zoom. the video is then shared with the other groups who were not tasked with recording so they can view “the fishbowl.” after participating in (or viewing) the recordings, all students are asked to identify a leadership behavior with which they want to experiment over the next week or two in their workplace and to enact that change. for example, students may develop a community of learners in their workplace, collaborate with school colleagues in their work setting, or lead implementing improvements at work. then, as the culminating task, students are asked to write about how their change in behavior affected others in their cop to briefly tell the story of what happened and then reflect on their efforts. students report enjoying the leadership challenge fishbowl activity for several reasons. first, they appreciate the meaningful peer interaction when preparing for and recording the video. although the video is only 15 minutes long, the students meet for a while before recording it to discuss their approach, giving online students the rare opportunity for casual interactions. further, students report being surprised at the results of incremental and intentional changes in behaviors, setting them up for success in their future cycles of action research. finally, as online instructors, it serves as a unique opportunity to engage with students in an asynchronous-synchronous way, giving us an opportunity to glimpse into their learning and their work with one another. knowledge building google site the purpose of the knowledge building google site assignment is to collectively construct knowledge to expand personal perspectives and build a repository that can help generate change in the existing conditions of students’ practice contexts. the site can serve as a starting point for frameworks relevant to teaching, learning, leadership, and innovation. it is impossible to cover all theories and this activity gives students an opportunity to focus on concepts relevant to them, in a shared and open space. over the course of a semester, students contribute several pages to a shared google site which lists several learning, leadership, and innovation theories, frameworks, and models. students generate and co-edit entries, allowing them a scholarly and collegial opportunity to collaborate and make connections around similar theoretical interests. doctoral research conference the doctoral research conference (drc) https://drc.asu.edu is an online forum for students in the edd program in the mary lou fulton teachers college to share and receive feedback on their ongoing doctoral research with members of their respective cohorts, as well as members of other cohorts and teachers college faculty members. the drc represents an academic forum for doctoral students to disseminate their ongoing research. the conference has been held online since the spring of 2017 and serves as an opportunity for the face-to-face and online cohorts to interact to build community as one cohesive community. keynote speakers for the drc have included cped officials, asu administrators, and edd alumni. the day of the conference, students present for 10 minutes about the progress of their research. students are grouped based on similarity of the problem of practice and each presentation “room” of four to five students has a range of experience (some recently began the program, some are preparing to defend their dissertations, and buss & wolf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 50 so on). a faculty moderator is assigned to each room, allowing the students to connect with the wider mary lou fulton teachers college academic community. the conference takes place at the end of each spring semester and is a celebratory experience for all involved. generally, students have reacted positively to the drc as evidenced in the following students’ comments: • “it was great to see students who were at the end of their edd program and their presentations. it was helpful to see where we’re headed.” • “i liked the camaraderie that was ... present in each room i went to. such a supportive environment. i liked seeing the process and the presentations of cohorts ahead of me and receiving advice from more experienced students.” • “the diversity of research and problems of practice was amazing. i also liked hearing people at different [levels] of their research those who had just defended versus those who were in their first cycle of research. as a first semester starter, i have a long way to go!” • “i enjoyed being mixed with people i did not know and were in different parts of the program.” • “students and moderators are all very kind and supportive. this reflects the culture of the edd program. please continue the unwavering support and further develop the student-centeredness of the program.” social media: #asuedd and facebook groups social media fills a gap for informal connections between students in online graduate programs (greenhalgh et al., 2016). there is an “official” facebook group for the program, however, many cohorts create closed facebook groups which they report using frequently to support each other throughout the program. there has been light (yet increasing) use of the #asuedd hashtag on twitter. we have been tracking the use of the hashtag over the past two years and use tends to swell during the doctoral research conference—and then a small group of students across cohorts (and some faculty) use the hashtag to connect and tag each other in communications. student-to-faculty member (and program) community connections in addition to fostering student-to-student connections through various approaches, students in the edd program are afforded many opportunities to connect with faculty members and support staff members. these opportunities include a hub, podcasts, slack collaboration application, feedback, and leader scholar communities, which are discussed in this section of this article. edd in leadership & innovation information canvas hub the hub is intended to be a “one stop shop” for the edd community. it is a continually developing space curated by the edd program committee, with input from the broader edd community. the hub is located in the university course management system, canvas. all edd students, faculty, and staff members are enrolled in the hub and have access to all of the resources. the key feature of the hub is a digital repository of every asu leadership and innovation edd dissertation. the repository uses a technology called leganto reading lists that connects directly to our library and the proquest dissertation database. the dissertation archive is a powerful programmatic artifact and helps students see their work as a part of a larger legacy. in addition to the dissertation archive, the hub houses advising resources and serves as a vehicle for program announcements. podcasts in an effort to continue to strengthen connections in the edd community, a podcast was piloted in the fall of 2019. podcasting as a medium has great potential for connecting online students (ferguson, 2010). to date, four episodes of the podcast have been produced, and one of the episodes was coproduced with a student who voluntarily expressed interest in helping with the production. additionally, the program has received emails from students suggesting topics (and also expressing interest in assisting with production). the program plans on continuing the podcasts in the spring of 2021. slack arizona state university has a university-wide installation of slack. slack is “a collaboration hub that enables real-time communications and connections in a searchable platform for realtime messaging, content sharing, learning, and more” (arizona state university technology office, n.d.). several edd courses use slack as an alternative to (or extension of) canvas discussion forums. through slack, students can participate in threaded discussions, respond with emojis, and share various multimedia. additionally, they can contact the instructor through direct messaging. some instructors are now holding office hours via slack. the medium provides faculty with another platform for maintaining connections with students. feedback high quality interpersonal interactions with instructors are a strong indicator of student success in online programs (jaggars & xu, 2016). feedback is paramount to our instruction and mentoring in the online edd program. we facilitate high quality feedback in several ways: • scheduled mentor check-in meetings • google docs including reading reflection journals and key understandings, muddiest points, burning questions, and connections/applications (kmbc) journals • weekly videos mentor check-in meetings in each course, students are encouraged to contact their instructors at any time, however, we purposefully embed at least two scheduled meetings into the coursework to allow an opportunity for synchronous connections. often, students will discuss their on-going action research efforts and receive feedback and direction from their mentor (course instructor or leader scholar community faculty mentor). building and sustaining community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 51 reading reflection journals (rrj) and key understandings, muddiest points, burning questions, and connections/applications (kmbc) journals and google docs the commenting feature in google docs is an invaluable tool for creating and sustaining relationships with students and supporting them with their writing. once students realize that faculty are deeply invested in their work (literally at a line by line basis at times in a google doc) then, they start to see this as a supportive and individualized space to learn. we highlight two assignments (rrj and kmbc) that take advantage of these interactive features in google docs. the specific purpose of the rrj assignment is as follows: • to give students a baseline understanding of implicit theories of teaching, learning, and innovation • to deepen understanding of the challenges of defining and facilitating learning • to make connections to things already known. what we can learn from new information and new experiences depends on what we already know. learning is enhanced when we explicitly and intentionally create links between old knowledge and new knowledge. in a similar way, the kmbc allows the instructor to comprehend how well students have understood the material in the reading(s). in the kmbc assignments students are asked to: • identify “key understandings (k)” from the reading(s) using six to eight bullet points. • identify the “muddiest point (m)” for you in this week’s readings (i.e., what are you having problems understanding?). explain what you think might be your struggle with this idea. to what do you attribute this difficulty? (e.g., is the writing unclear? do you have inadequate background knowledge? does it counter your previous beliefs?). • identify at least one “burning question (b)” related to the readings. what do you want to know more about or understand better? why? • make at least one “connection/application to scholarly practice (c).” how do these ideas relate to your workplace, community of practice, research work, or problem of practice? this powerful learning and reflection pattern creates opportunities for dynamic weekly dialogues between students and instructors within a google doc. for example, faculty members who have taught the earlier research and inquiry classes have advantageously used these dialogue opportunities to clarify and respond to students’ questions related to research, research designs, and research procedures. leader scholar communities--sustaining communities although leader scholar communities (lsc) are not strictly speaking a faculty-to-student connection because students also develop strong student-to-student connections during the lsc, we discuss it here as a means to sustain the community, which we have earlier developed among students. lsc are groups of five to six students and one faculty member who work together in a small cop during the last two years of the program to ensure students make timely progress on their dissertation in practice (dip) including devising a proposal, implementing the dip by collecting and analyzing data, and writing and defending the final version of the dip. as students undertake the dissertation, they typically feel more isolated and that they are receiving less support than when they were engaged in their coursework (ali & kohun, 2006, 2007; lovitts, 2001). thus, lsc are implemented to provide academic, social, and emotional support to students throughout the dissertation process (buss & allen, 2020). the faculty member chairs all the students’ committees, facilitates their dip work, and supports the dissertation process. buss and allen (2020) have written extensively about lsc. the focus of our description of lsc will be on implementation of lsc in the online setting to ensure continued connections to other students, faculty members, and the program, which were central features of dissertation support proposed by ali and kohun (2007). in our online program, lsc meetings have been conducted using zoom and structured to provide content appropriate to the dip work. for example, substantive content related to theories, research methods, data collection and analysis, and so on continued to foster connections to faculty members and the program. similarly, logistical matters like securing committee members, completing graduate college paperwork, meeting timelines for writing, and so on also supported on-going connections with the program and faculty members. notably, lsc continue to support student-to-student connections as well, in both formal and informal ways. in a more formal way, students are encouraged to secure a student, peer/critical friend to provide feedback on their writing. informally, some students convene before or after their scheduled online lsc meeting to begin or resume discussions of content, logistical issues, and so on from the lsc meeting (craig mertler, personal communication, nov. 15, 2017). “these actions, both formal with the chair and [peers and] informal with peers, attested to the power of ... fostering a community among online lsc participants” (buss & allen, 2020, p. 5). student-to-broader-community connections we have primarily focused our efforts on fostering connections of students with faculty members and students with students as discussed, above. nevertheless, we have also helped students to connect with other communities that are critical to their success in our edd program. these community connections include associations with (a) the broader arizona state university community, (b) those in their own workplace setting, and (c) individuals from the larger research community. to assist our students in connecting to the broader arizona state university community, we require them to reach out to a faculty member who has expertise in the area of their problem of practice. early in the program we have students engage in an assignment where we provide a mentored opportunity and discussion to help students feel comfortable searching for and reaching out to faculty (both inside the institution and beyond). students search through the internal faculty directory and online for researchers related to their emerging areas of expertise. they then draft (and eventually send) communications to the faculty members and researchers. for online edd students, this is especially important since forging these connections online is one of the ways (beyond coursework and the buss & wolf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 52 doctoral research conference) to meet faculty who may be able to serve on their dissertation committee. with respect to fostering student connections to their workplace settings, we promote those efforts in the leadership challenges that we ask students to complete. students’ action research work and efforts on their dip necessitate that students be engaged in collaborative efforts in their workplaces. by participating in the leadership challenges, students are provided with affordances for them to build and enhance their collaborative relationships with their workplace peers whether those peers are teachers, advising staff members, student workers, or whatever the roles of those who will be collaborators/participants in the projects. we also help students to build connections with the professional community who are working on research related to the students’ problems of practice. in one of the leadership challenges, we require students to connect with someone virtually to build their professional connections and network. specifically, we ask them to reach out to someone to make online connections by using linkedin, joining a blog, or sending an email to connect with a researcher who is doing work in their area of interest. this has led to some remarkable opportunities for students. first, they have had opportunities to discuss with prominent researchers, the researchers’ perspectives and garner resources to inform students’ efforts. second, in some instances, individuals have agreed to serve as one of the dip committee members. notably, students have benefited personally and professionally from these connections. conclusion in this essay, we describe how we have enacted various strategies and processes to build and sustain an active learning community in an online edd program. our efforts at community development are guided by three theoretical frameworks including wenger’s (1998; wenger et al., 2002) communities of practice, garrison et al.’s (2000) community of inquiry, and morris and stommel’s (2018) critical digital pedagogy. we also describe specific strategies/processes that we have successfully used to build and sustain a community in our online program. these strategies arise from three kinds of relationships that have been central to community formation, interaction, and continuation—student-tostudent, student-to-faculty, and student-to-broader-community. with respect to applying these community building and sustaining strategies to other programs, we offer the following questions for consideration. what strategies are you currently using in your program to foster student-to-student discourse? which of the ones discussed here might be used to increase student connections with one another? for example, would use of less formal, but student-directed approaches using social media increase a sense of community among your online students? additionally, would use of a small-group strategy similar to the leadership challenge fishbowl or knowledge building google site activities be helpful in building community? or would implementation of a doctoral research conference aid students in being connected to one another and the program? moreover, what strategies are your programs using to support student-to-faculty member interaction and discourse? would the use of a program “hub” be beneficial in connecting your scholarly community? similarly, would providing podcasts, offering weekly videos, conducting check-ins, or using slack or a similar tool help to connect students in your program with faculty members? notably, do assignments and coursework afford opportunities for faculty members to dialogue with students to facilitate learning and the community building that can occur through feedback? specifically, would the use of carefully crafted assignments like reading reflection journals (rrj), key understandings, muddiest points, burning questions, and connections/applications (kmbc) journals, and google docs aid faculty members in providing feedback to create dialogues that develop and sustain online community with students? further, would employing leader scholar communities or a similar approach aid your program to sustain community during the dissertation in practice phase of your program? finally, what strategies are you currently using to facilitate student-to-broader-community interaction and discourse? do you ask students to connect with other faculty members at the institution? are students required to make stronger local workplace connections as part of your program? additionally, do you ask students to make connections to scholars in the broader research community, especially those who are working on research related to students’ problems of practice? taken together, we hope you find the strategies we describe in this essay to be productive in inspiring ways to build and maintain community in your online programs as well. references ali, a., & kohun, f. (2006). dealing with isolation feelings at is doctoral programs. international journal of doctoral studies, 1, 21-33. http://ijds.org/volume1/ijdsv1p021-033ali13.pdf ali, a., & kohun, f. (2007). dealing with social isolation to minimize doctoral attrition—a four stage framework. international journal of doctoral studies, 2, 33-49. http://www.ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p033-049ali28.pdf anderson, t., rourke, l., garrison, d. r., & archer, w. (2001). assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 5(2), 1-17. arizona state university technology office. (n. d.). https://uto.asu.edu/slack buss, r. r., & allen, j. g. (2020). leader scholar communities: supporting edd students’ dissertation in practice efforts. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 5(3), 1-7. doi: 10.5195/ie.2020.98 ferguson, l. a. (2010). the effects of podcasting on student perceptions of community within the online learning environment. (umi number: 3407166) [doctoral dissertation, tui university]. proquest dissertations and theses global. garrison, d. r. (2009). communities of inquiry in online learning: social, teaching and cognitive presence. in c. howard et al. (eds.), encyclopedia of distance and online learning (2nd ed., pp. 352-355). igi global. garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a textbased environment: computer conferencing in higher education model. the internet and higher education, 2(2-3), 87-105. greenhalgh, s. p., rosenberg, j. m., & wolf, l. g. (2016). for every tweet there is a purpose: twitter within (and beyond) an online graduate program. proceedings of society for information technology & teacher education international conference 2016 (pp. 2044-2049). http://www.editlib.org/p/171972 hooks, b. (1995). teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. routledge. inman berens, k. (2015, january 5). want to ‘save the humanities’? pay adjuncts to learn digital tools. disrupting the digital humanities. http://disruptingdh.com/want-to-save-the-humanities-pay-adjuncts-tolearn-digital-tools jaggars, s. s., & xu, d. (2016). how do online course design features influence student performance? computers and education, 95, 270–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.01.014 http://ijds.org/volume1/ijdsv1p021-033ali13.pdf http://www.ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p033-049ali28.pdf https://uto.asu.edu/slack http://www.editlib.org/p/171972 http://disruptingdh.com/want-to-save-the-humanities-pay-adjuncts-to-learn-digital-tools http://disruptingdh.com/want-to-save-the-humanities-pay-adjuncts-to-learn-digital-tools https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.01.014 building and sustaining community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 6 no. 3 (2021) doi 10.5195/ie.2021.192 53 kumar, s., & dawson, k. (2018). an online doctorate for researching professionals: program design, implementation, and evaluation. au press. lovitts, b. e. (2001). leaving the ivory tower: the causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. rowman & littlefield. mcmillan, d. w., & chavis, d. m. (1986). sense of community: a definition and theory. journal of community psychology, 14(1), 6-23. morris, s. m., & stommel, j. (2018). an urgency of teachers: the work of critical digital pedagogy. pressbooks. rovai, a. p. (2002a). building sense of community at a distance. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 3(1). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/79/152 rovai, a. p. (2002b). development of an instrument to measure classroom community. the internet and higher education, 5(3), 197-211. rovai, a. p. (2002c). sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. the internet and higher education, 5(4), 319-332. weinberger, d. (2002). small pieces loosely joined: a unified theory of the web. perseus pub. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge university press. wenger, e., mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. harvard business school press. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/79/152 ray r. buss arizona state university leigh graves wolf arizona state university community communities of practice community of inquiry (coi) critical digital pedagogy student-to-student connections fostering community leadership challenge fishbowl knowledge building google site doctoral research conference social media: #asuedd and facebook groups student-to-faculty member (and program) community connections edd in leadership & innovation information canvas hub podcasts slack feedback mentor check-in meetings reading reflection journals (rrj) and key understandings, muddiest points, burning questions, and connections/applications (kmbc) journals and google docs leader scholar communities--sustaining communities student-to-broader-community connections conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 49 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 unlocking the future: how are edd faculty using generative ai in doctoral research ellana black drexel university esb79@drexel.edu kristen betts drexel university ksb23@drexel.edu abstract this convergent mixed methods research study investigated how a small, non-representative sample of educational doctorate (edd) faculty perceive and use generative ai and how they have leveraged the technology to support edd students. a cross-sectional survey was used to gather data from 27 edd faculty members to assess their generative ai perceptions and use as of april 2024. findings revealed widespread generative ai use among participants, with 89% utilizing the technology for a variety of tasks related to supporting edd students, including brainstorming, lesson planning, building students’ generative ai knowledge, and supporting dissertation research and writing. generative ai use did not differ significantly based on demographic or background factors, but perceptions varied between users and nonusers, with users holding much more favorable attitudes about the technology. both groups perceived it to pose a relatively low threat to their career, but nonusers perceived an even lower threat. this study illustrates diverse generative ai use among participants, underscores the need for ongoing exploration into how perceptions about generative ai shape faculty’s adoption and use of the technology, and calls for future research into generative ai integration and its impact on faculty and student learning and satisfaction. keywords artificial intelligence (ai), generative ai, doctoral research, faculty perceptions, mixed methods research, survey research artificial intelligence (ai) and generative ai are transforming education and the global economic landscape. unlike other technologies where the integration and usage have been progressive such as with the internet, microsoft’s operating system, and the smartphone, generative ai has been explosive. in november 2022, openai released chat generative pre-trained transformer (chatgpt), an ai chatbot. within one year, chatgpt had more than 1.7 billion users (devon, 2023). while chatgpt and other generative ai tools have been embraced by many sectors globally, higher education in the united states has been slower to adopt generative ai (ascione, 2023). as generative ai is being increasingly used within the workforce, there is a critical need for higher education institutions to balance caution with keeping pace with ai digital literacy skills needed for faculty and students. literature review although ai has been used within higher education for decades (lodge et al., 2023), generative ai has introduced unprecedented possibilities that seemed all but impossible, outside of science fiction, just a few years ago. furthermore, it has prompted an abundance of discourse about the opportunities, challenges, concerns, and potential impact of this technology on higher education (sebesta & davis, 2023). while the use of generative ai within higher education has been increasing, the adoption has been slower, particularly for faculty. existing studies suggest that students are using generative ai at vastly higher rates than faculty (bharadwaj et al., 2023; shaw et al., 2023) and many students plan to continue such use even if they believe it poses ethical or academic integrity issues (intelligent, 2023). a 2023 study by wiley, which included 1,078 instructors in the united states, reported that 58% of instructors shared their students were already using generative ai in their classroom. a 2023 study sponsored by turnitin, which included 1,600 faculty and 1,000 students, revealed that 49% of students were using generative ai tools while just 22% of faculty members were using them (bharadwaj et al., 2023). the pace of which higher education is embracing ai and generative ai compared to the employment sector is also raising concerns for recent graduates. according to a 2023 survey of 1,000 recent graduates by cengage group (2023), 46% reported they felt threatened by ai and 52% questioned their workforce readiness. for students to gain the necessary ai digital skills to thrive in the workplace following graduation, faculty must possess competence and literacy in generative ai (moorhouse et al., 2023; sun & hoelscher, 2023). research from quinn (2024) suggests that while institutions have attempted to provide training to help develop faculty’s generative ai literacy, a significant gap remains. faculty and https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8392-6420 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3523-1450 black & betts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 50 staff at over 90% of the institutions represented in quinn’s research have requested additional support and professional development related to the technology. furthermore, despite a wealth of conversation about the potential opportunities and pitfalls of generative ai, existing research appears to have yet to examine the perceptions and use of generative ai among faculty teaching in educational doctorate (edd) programs specifically in the united states. purpose of the study the purpose of this mixed methods research study was to investigate edd faculty’s perceptions and use of generative ai. the study also examined the ways in which edd faculty are using generative ai to support edd students with their coursework and dissertation. using data collected through a cross-sectional survey of higher education faculty in the united states, this study addressed the following research questions: 1. how do faculty perceive and use generative ai to support edd students? 2. how are faculty using generative ai to support edd students in their course work and dissertation writing? 3. is there a significant difference in faculty’s use of generative ai based on background or demographic factors? findings from this study shed light on the current landscape of generative ai among faculty teaching in edd programs and the ways in which they are leveraging this technology to support student learning, engagement, and career preparation.the recommendations from this study provide critical insight educators can leverage to support doctoral student research within edd programs and prepare graduates to successfully navigate a dynamic and evolving digital global workforce. methods this study employed a convergent mixed methods design with equal weight given to the quantitative and qualitative approaches, and an online cross-sectional survey was used to efficiently gather the data from a range of edd faculty members at a single point in time. in line with the convergent mixed methods design, the quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the same time and analyzed separately before being integrated in the results stage (creswell & plano clark, 2018, fetters et al., 2013; zhang & creswell, 2013). this design provided the quantitative data needed to explore perceptions and differences in generative ai use across various demographics while also capturing qualitative insights into how faculty are using the technology. the mixed methods approach offered a more comprehensive understanding of current trends and attitudes towards generative ai among these faculty members, providing a comprehensive and timely snapshot of their perceptions about and use of the technology. the following subsections detail the survey design, population and sample selection, data collection and preparation procedures, and the data analysis techniques employed. survey the survey included 49 main questions related to participant’s background and demographic information and their perceptions about and use of generative ai. the first portion of the survey asked participants to self-report various demographic factors (e.g., gender and highest degree earned), institutional factors (e.g., university type and university focus), and professional background factors (e.g., primary discipline). the remainder of the survey employed three instruments to assess faculty’s perceptions about and use of generative ai. table 1 summarized the details of these instruments. table 1. description of survey instruments instrument purpose number of items scale adaptation ai attitude scale (grassini, 2023) assess perceptions about generative ai’s impact on humanity and individual’s life and work 4 adapted from 10-point to 5point scale stara awareness scale (brougham & haar, 2018) measure perceptions about the threat generative ai poses to faculty’s work 4 adapted to focus on generative ai generative ai use score (developed for the larger study) assess the frequency of and purposes for faculty’s generative ai use 8 n/a perceptions about the technology were assessed using modified versions of the ai attitude scale (grassini, 2023) and the stara awareness scale (brougham & haar, 2018). grassini’s (2023) ai attitude scale consists of four items that assess an individual’s perceptions about the technology’s impact on their life and work and on humanity overall. the items were adapted from the original 10-point scale to a 5-point one to prevent convergence toward scale midpoints and employ a consistent 5-point scale throughout the survey. brougham and haar’s (2018) 4-item stara awareness scale examines the extent to which employees feel their job could be replaced by smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and algorithms. in the current study, the scale was adapted to focus on generative ai specifically and used to measure faculty’s perceptions about the threat generative ai poses to their work. generative ai use was assessed using three main questions developed by the authors, with one being a complex question that included a likert matrix table to assess the frequency of participants’ generative ai use for a variety of general purposes related to their work. likert options ranged from never to very frequently and the eight general usage purposes assessed were communication tasks, brainstorming, helping students learn about and use the technology, lesson planning, curriculum development, generating feedback for student work, supporting students with dissertations, and creating culturally responsive classes. responses to this complex question were also totaled to create an overall generative ai use score. additionally, participants who reported using generative ai for any of the eight purposes were asked to provide specific examples. population and sample the population included faculty in edd programs across the united states. the criteria for inclusion required participants to be currently teaching or have taught in an edd program during the past 12 months and to have earned a master’s degree or higher. convenience and purposive snowball sampling were utilized to recruit as many qualified participants as possible. specifically, email invitations were sent to faculty from a variety of backgrounds to help the survey reach a broad and diverse audience. email invitations included general information about the study, a link to the online survey, and a request that participants share the opportunity with edd faculty use of generative ai impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 51 others meeting the inclusion criteria. the study call was also posted on linkedin and shared on carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) social media page to further target a broad and diverse pool of participants. in total, 27 edd faculty members from a diverse array of demographic and professional backgrounds participated in the study. just over half of all participants (n = 14) held clinical or fixed-term faculty positions and over 75% of participants reported currently working at a research university. approximately half of all participants had been teaching in higher education for over 10 years. there was a fairly even distribution between public (48%) and private (51%) institutions. while all participants were teaching in an edd program and the majority (74%) reported teaching in education as their primary discipline, 26% noted the humanities, social sciences, or natural and applied sciences as the primary discipline they teach. notably, 11% of participants identified as american indian or alaska native, making this the second most represented racial group in the study after white (67%). participants in pennsylvania were the most represented (n = 11) followed by two participants in each of the following states: florida, maryland, new york, virginia, and washington. the remaining six participants were from alaska, louisiana, minnesota, new mexico, south carolina, and washington, dc. table 2 provides a detailed breakdown of the sample’s distribution. while the sample included faculty from a diverse array of backgrounds, it is important to note that it is not representative of the broader edd faculty population in the united states due to the small sample size, limited geographic representation, and varied professional and demographic factors represented. data collection we gathered data for this study from a larger project. after receiving irb approval in march 2024, we sent email invitations to faculty and publicized the opportunity on linkedin. those who accessed the link to participate provided their informed consent on the first page of the online qualtrics survey before advancing to the survey questions. the online survey was open for three and a half weeks. we did not ask study participants for their names, phone numbers, institutions, or other personal information, but those interested in entering the incentive entry (a drawing to win a $25 amazon gift card) were required to submit an email address. data preparation following the close of data collection, we cleaned and prepared the data for analysis. all 27 survey responders who reported teaching edd students also met all other inclusion criteria. while four of these participants did not complete survey questions related to their perceptions about the technology, we decided to include them in the sample to showcase their generative ai adoption and use. any other missing values were incredibly rare, comprising less than 3% of the overall sample, and thus were not imputed. cases with missing data were included in the analyses wherever possible. to ensure the reliability of the survey instrument, cronbach’s alpha was calculated for each of the instrument’s subscales. internal consistency was found to be excellent, with cronbach’s alpha of .91 on the ai attitude scale, .95 on the stara awareness scale, and .92 for the generative ai use score. table 2. distribution of sample by demographic factors (n = 27) factor n valid percent role tenured faculty tenure-track faculty clinical or fixed term faculty adjunct faculty 2 8 14 3 7 30 52 11 primary focus in role research teaching other 6 19 2 22 70 7 discipline humanities education social sciences natural & applied sciences 3 20 3 1 11 74 11 4 institution type 4-year public 4-year private 13 14 48 52 institution focus research university teaching university 20 6 77 23 institution size small medium large 1 3 2 4 11 85 highest degree earned masters doctorate phd edd dnp md jd more than one terminal degree 3 24 8 10 1 2 2 1 11 89 30 37 4 7 7 4 years teaching less than 12 months 1-4 years 5-10 years 11-15 years 16-20 years more than 20 years 1 2 10 8 2 4 4 7 37 30 7 15 age 25-39 years old 40-59 years old 60 years old or older 7 14 6 26 52 22 gender male female prefer not to say 11 15 1 41 55 4 race american indian or alaska native asian black or african american hispanic/latino native hawaiian or other pacific islander white prefer not to say 3 0 2 1 2 18 1 11 0 7 4 7 67 4 data analysis data analysis was conducted using statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 29, with descriptive and inferential statistics used to answer the guiding research questions. means, standard deviations, and percentages were used to analyze data related to faculty’s perceptions and use of generative ai and to answer the first two research questions. thematic coding following an inductive data analysis approach was also used to address the black & betts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 52 second research question (miles et al., 2020; saldaña, 2021). process, in vivo, and descriptive codes were used during first cycle coding to label actions, give voice to participants’ experiences, and summarize additional noteworthy data, and pattern coding was used during the second cycle to synthesize the data (saldaña, 2021). finally, a series of kruskal-wallis h tests were used to determine whether there were significant differences in faculty’s current level of generative ai use based on background or demographic factors. the selection of this test was due to several dataset-specific characteristics that necessitated a nonparametric approach. namely, preliminary analyses indicated that categories for several independent variables, such as institution type and focus, gender, teaching experience, and age, were nonnormally distributed. additionally, the relatively small sample size meant that most groups of independent variables included fewer than 15 participants, further necessitating the use of this approach. all necessary assumptions for kruskal-wallis h test were checked and met, confirming the approach’s suitability for addressing the final research question. results the vast majority of study participants (89%) reported currently using generative ai in their work, with just three of the 27 total participants (11%) indicating they have not used it. of those who use the technology (n = 24), the largest percentage (38%) indicated they have used it for more than 12 months, followed by 9–11 months (33.5%), 3–5 months (19%), and 6–8 months (9.5%). overall, participants held positive attitudes about generative ai and perceived the technology to pose a low level of threat to their job. table 3 presents descriptive statistics for the 23 participants who responded to the survey items assessing their perceptions about generative ai. a mean score of 3.0 indicates participants were neutral about the item or attribute, with a mean above 3.0 signaling agreement with the factor and a mean below 3.0 signaling disagreement with it. notably, perceptions differed between faculty who used the technology compared to those who did not. nonusers held somewhat negative attitudes about generative ai and believed it posed a lower threat to their job compared to generative ai users. though there were only a few nonusers in the sample, this suggests that, compared to nonusers, generative ai users tended to hold more favorable perceptions about the innovation’s impact on their life and work and on humanity overall while simultaneously perceiving the technology to pose more of a threat to their career and position within higher education. general generative ai use results revealed that participants had broadly adopted generative ai to support various tasks in their work. table 4 details the purposes and frequency with which adopters used generative ai in their work. the majority of participants used generative ai frequently for most general purposes listed. brainstorming emerged as the top use, with 71% of participants using the technology frequently or very frequently for this purpose. several participants referred to generative ai as “a thought partner” they could utilize for a wide variety of brainstorming tasks. examples specifically related to supporting edd students included drafting rubrics for assignments, discovering novel approaches to course content, and sparking creativity in lesson and assignment planning. one participant shared, “i use ai to help draft assignment rubrics. i ask for a “three level rubric” that aligns with an assignment. from there i am able to adjust as needed,” while another indicated using the technology to support brainstorming a variety of topics, including “ideas for curriculum content, lessons for class, and alternative strategies for problem solving.” notably, several participants also encouraged students to leverage generative ai in their own work when brainstorming research topics and questions, particularly when they are feeling stuck or “after they have exhausted their own brainstorming.” another prominent use of generative ai was for lesson planning, with 58% of participants reportedly using the technology frequently or very frequently for this purpose. responses indicated that many participants used generative ai to incorporate evidencebased practices and increase lesson effectiveness. for example, one participant noted that they use the technology to “generate new case studies,” which they would then integrate into lessons to illustrate concepts and increase engagement. another mentioned using generative ai to “generate content ideas and interactive activities for math” related topics and courses, noting that the technology often “suggests creative ways to explain the complex concepts,” which helps make their lessons more engaging and effective. table 3. perceptions about generative ai for the sample and comparing users and nonusers total sample (n=23) gen ai users (n=20) gen ai nonusers (n=3) mean standard deviation mean standard deviation mean standard deviation generative ai attitudes 3.91 0.99 4.15 0.49 2.17 1.81 1. i believe that generative ai will improve my life. 3.87 1.18 4.15 0.81 2.00 1.73 2. i believe that generative ai will improve my work. 4.00 1.13 4.30 0.66 2.00 1.73 3. i think i will use generative ai technology in the future. 4.26 1.10 4.50 0.69 2.67 2.08 4. i think generative ai is positive for humanity. 3.52 1.08 3.75 0.79 2.00 1.73 threat of generative ai 2.59 1.24 2.70 1.29 1.83 0.29 1. i think my job could be replaced by generative ai. 2.74 1.42 2.90 1.45 1.67 0.58 2. i am personally worried that what i do now in my job will be able to be replaced by generative ai. 2.61 1.37 2.75 1.41 1.67 0.58 3. i am personally worried about my future in my organization due to generative ai replacing employees. 2.57 1.20 2.60 1.27 2.33 0.58 4. i am personally worried about my future in higher education due to generative ai replacing employees. 2.43 1.31 2.55 1.36 1.67 0.58 edd faculty use of generative ai impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 53 other uses included refining assignment instructions for clarity; ensuring alignment between outcomes, activities, and resources; and formulating probing questions to deepen student thinking and understanding. given the technology’s ability to “save time and enhance communication efficiency” as shared by a participant, the use of generative ai for communication-related tasks was also quite common and included creating announcements and reminders and checking assignment feedback for clarity. it has also been leveraged for assistance with verbiage, with one participant explaining that “on occasion i have asked for suggestions on how to phrase something that is particularly challenging.” additionally, 87% of users reported engaging with generative ai at least occasionally to educate students about the technology. many of these example uses shared by participants centered on helping students (a) understand the technology’s possibilities and limitations and (b) improve their work by using generative ai as a “thought partner” and “another set of eyes.” example activities included having students compare and contrast their data analysis with that of chatgpt, explore ways to improve weak or underdeveloped areas in a sample lesson plan, practice drafting, revising, and refining articles with generative ai, and identify gaps in their own thinking, writing, or research that they had not considered. one participant reported demoing “ways students can use it, practice providing prompts, and using it to improve weak areas” in their work. similarly, another participant noted having students “input topics and then revise and refine the output to understand generative ai’s application in content creation.” furthermore, generative ai has been leveraged to understand the technology itself and its ethical and legal considerations, with one participant stating, “i have used it to understand its background and current status in higher education and its ethical and legal issues, to identify policies (student use, academic integrity, privacy) at other institutions, and to just learn about potential uses” that can better support students. though less common, the use of generative ai for curriculum development, the creation of culturally responsive classes, and the generation of feedback on student work were still significant, with over 70% of users leveraging the technology at least occasionally for these purposes. this included participants’ efforts to find or create materials that “span different cultures, backgrounds, and interests” and “incorporate diverse stories and perspectives” to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, ensure students could learn from experiences that mirror their own, and help students recognize the “importance of positionality and their own lived experiences.” additional uses included leveraging generative ai to find various ways to deliver similar feedback, evaluate faculty’s feedback for clarity and wording choice and provide feedback on students’ academic writing, including grammar, structure, clarity, and cohesion. one participant noted running their “feedback statement through to check the wording.” another commented that they sometimes are not sure how to most effectively “provide clear and concise feedback that is supportive and coaches the student to think a little differently. so, i'll provide a little section of the student work that i'm stuck on and ask it to provide feedback.” further expanding on this practice, they noted “i don’t give specific identifiable information about the student, but i do provide info on the course and the goal of the assessment. generative ai use for dissertations participants use of generative ai to support students with dissertations ranged from never to very frequent, with notable applications for a variety of dissertation-related tasks and processes. as shown in table 4, the vast majority of participants (83%) reported using generative ai at least occasionally to support students in their dissertation writing. fifteen faculty provided specific examples of how they have leveraged generative ai when guiding students through dissertations or other culminating projects. their responses revealed four main themes. the first theme, idea generation and topic development, involved using generative ai to brainstorm ideas and develop a topic. example uses included generating potential topics of interest and gaining guidance on potential research methods. one participant, for example, encouraged “students to use generative ai to help assist with their brainstorming” and topic development. the second theme, literature review and proposal writing, referred to the use of generative ai to support the foundational stages of the dissertation process, such as creating outlines, establishing timelines, and broadening literature reviews by gaining suggestions on additional topics to explore. speaking to this process, one participant mentioned leveraging the technology to help expand “students’ perspectives on what literature should be guiding their problem of practice inquiry,” while another indicated having students “create outlines or drafts” for their initial proposal. yet another noted having students “check their literature review and generate research questions aligned with their research.” the third and most prevalent theme, academic writing assistance, centered around using generative ai to review and improve paragraphs and sections for cohesion, coherence, synthesis, and logical structuring. numerous participants table 4. number and valid percent of adopter’s generative ai use by purpose and frequency purpose never rarely occasionally frequently very frequently n % n % n % n % n % communication tasks 2 8 3 13 6 25 9 38 4 17 brainstorming 1 4 2 8 4 17 13 54 4 17 helping students learn about & use it 2 8 1 4 8 33 8 33 5 21 lesson planning 2 8 1 4 7 29 12 50 2 8 curriculum development 1 4 5 22 5 22 9 39 3 13 generating feedback for student work 4 17 3 13 5 22 8 35 3 13 supporting students with dissertations 2 8 2 8 8 33 7 29 5 21 creating culturally responsive classes 3 13 3 13 4 17 10 42 4 17 black & betts impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 54 specifically mentioned using the technology as a “writing tutor.” another noted, “i tell students to argue with generative ai to get better results and have it improve their writing by revising sections” of their dissertation to strengthen their academic writing. one participant also reported soliciting first drafts from students, then using “generative ai to provide suggestions on academic writing, such as optimizing the structure and enhancing clarity and the argumentative strength.” the fourth and final theme, refinement and quality enhancement, included numerous examples of using generative ai to gain feedback that would refine and improve the dissertation’s overall quality. specific examples included seeking support related to writing, structure, and overall quality, ensuring alignment between research questions and methods, checking for consistency across chapters, and identifying any gaps in the literature review that needed to be addressed based on the findings and results. notably, responses included both recommendations that students use generative ai for these purposes as well as reports of faculty themselves using the technology to generate this feedback for students. for example, one participant noted having students “complete all of their own work and then use generative ai as a companion to provide ideas on how to refine their work.” other participants mentioned using the technology themselves to help give students “suggestions on wording refinement and clarity” and to check for alignment between “chapters 2 and 5 to determine where there are gaps in the literature review based on the final results in a study” in order to further enhance the overall quality. usage differences based on background and demographics no significant differences in level of generative ai use were found among participants based on demographic or professional background factors. table 5 presents the results from kruskalwallace h tests, which examined differences in generative ai use by demographic factors (e.g., age, gender, highest degree earned), institutional factors (e.g., type, size, focus) and the factors related to faculty’s professional background (e.g., current role, primary discipline, number of years teaching in higher education, generative ai knowledge). the analysis did not identify any significant variations in usage between the groups. table 5. kruskal-wallace analysis of generative ai use by demographic and background factors variable kruskal-wallace h df p-value age 2.79 2 .248 generative ai knowledge 0.49 2 .782 gender 2.79 1 .248 highest degree earned 1.76 3 .624 institution focus 0.90 1 .342 institution size 0.41 2 .815 institution type 1.61 1 .204 level 2.31 2 .315 primary discipline 4.37 3 .224 role 5.87 3 .128 role’s focus (research, teaching, other) 4.39 2 .111 years teaching 0.37 3 .946 note. *p<.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 discussion the results from this study provide significant insights into the perceptions, adoption, and use of generative ai among 27 faculty members working in edd programs in the united states, with 89% of participants indicating they currently incorporate generative ai into their work to support edd students. this high adoption rate may be explained by rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovations theory. this theory suggests that greater visibility of the technology’s benefits, coupled with increased communication about the technology within academic communities, played a crucial role in participants’ adoption. additionally, positive testimonials from early adopters and greater access to training, workshops, and generative ai tools, may have also contributed significantly. collectively, these factors may have helped move generative ai from a niche innovation to a mainstream tool within a remarkably short period of time (rogers, 2003). however, the high adoption rate must be interpreted with caution due to the small, non-representative sample. furthermore, the snowball sampling approach employed may have resulted in selection bias, whereby those who were more interested in generative ai opted to participate and share the opportunity with their colleagues, contributing to the high adoption rate found. while the high adoption is somewhat surprising, it echoes findings from a broader study by black (2024), which surveyed a larger population that included faculty teaching in doctoral programs. that study found that 86% of higher education faculty from a wide array of disciplines, institutions, and levels currently used generative ai in their work, with 63.5% having used the technology for at least nine months (black, 2024). in comparison, 71.5% of the edd faculty in the current study have been using the technology for the same duration. this suggests that the edd faculty who participated in this study may be early adopters of the technology, further contributing to the high adoption rate found. generative ai was shown to be frequently used by participants for a variety of tasks related to supporting edd students with findings revealing concrete examples of how these faculty members have leveraged the technology in alignment with the possibilities outlined by sebesta and davis (2023), such as supporting equity and access to knowledge, improving instruction and student learning, and increasing faculty efficiency. participants frequently embraced the technology for lesson planning and creating culturally responsive classes as well as leveraged it to help students learn about the technology and to support students through the dissertation research process. several participants regarded generative ai as a “thought partner” in brainstorming tasks, a use that was not only incredibly popular but may also enhance creativity and student success. according to recent findings by joosten et al. (2024), ideas generated by ai during brainstorming sessions were comparable to human-generated ideas in terms of feasibility but scored higher in client benefit and novelty. the varied uses demonstrated by participants highlight the potential of generative ai to significantly aid faculty in supporting edd students in their coursework and dissertation, though the findings should be interpreted with caution due to the study’s sampling limitations. interestingly, perceptions about generative ai differed significantly between users and nonusers. while those who use the technology reported strong positive perceptions about its impact on their life and work, nonusers held somewhat negative views. notably, while both users and nonusers perceived generative ai to pose a relatively low level of threat to their job and future in higher edd faculty use of generative ai impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.475 55 education, nonusers perceived even lower levels of threat. this suggests a potential positive correlation between perceived threat of generative ai and its adoption. that said, the overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards generative ai among edd faculty in the study and its sustained use, as indicated by the high percentage of participants using the technology for at least nine months, suggest that participants viewed generative ai as a valuable tool that can be leveraged in an array of tasks aimed at supporting edd students. though this finding cannot be generalizable to the broader edd faculty population, the lack of significant differences in generative ai usage based on demographic and background factors suggests that, within this sample, generative ai adoption was not significantly influenced by these factors. limitations and future research while this study provided significant insights into participants’ perceptions about and use of generative ai and revealed concrete examples of how they are leveraging the technology to support edd students, there are several limitations that highlight opportunities for future exploration. given the purposive snowball sampling approach employed, it is not possible to ascertain exactly who participated in the study, making it challenging to know the representativeness of the sample to the broader edd faculty population. another significant limitation was the small, nonrepresentative sample, which significantly limits the generalizability of the findings. moreover, the significant imbalance between users and nonusers may indicate selection bias. this disparity further constrained the statistical analysis and potentially led to an oversimplified or incomplete depiction of the broader landscape. these limitations underscore the need for future research with a more representative and balanced sample of users and nonusers. future studies should aim to address these limitations by employing more robust sampling techniques and ensuring a larger, more representative sample size. such research is essential in gaining a more generalizable understanding of edd faculty’s perceptions about and use of generative ai and how they are leveraging the technology to support students. furthermore, since generative ai is still relatively new in educational settings, longitudinal research is needed to assess the long-term impacts of generative ai on educational outcomes, faculty development, and programmatic and institutional practices. this would help in understanding not only early adopters’ perceptions and use but also the evolving adoption and use of generative ai among edd faculty broadly. conclusions and recommendations given the study’s limitations, particularly the small, nonrepresentative sample and potential selection bias, conclusions should be drawn carefully. a high adoption rate and variety of uses were reported by participants, including supporting dissertation research and writing, lesson planning, enhancing culturally responsive classes, and engaging in brainstorming sessions. these applications highlight generative ai’s potential utility in improving instructional quality and student learning and contributing to a more inclusive, equitable, and engaging learning environment. however, these findings should not be taken as indicative of widespread adoption among all edd faculty and instead suggest study participants were early adopters or held a particular affinity for generative ai. building on insights gained from this research, several recommendations are proposed to further enhance the integration and effectiveness of generative ai among edd faculty. first, future research should employ more robust sampling techniques to ensure a large, representative sample and thereby provide a clearer picture of generative ai adoption and use across the broader edd faculty population. additionally, future studies must monitor the long-term use and impacts of generative ai integration on faculty and student application, learning, and satisfaction to better understand the full scope of its influence. additionally, it is essential for faculty and administrators to enhance their generative ai literacy to ensure its ethical and equitable use. to this end, continued training and support related to generative ai should be provided to higher education faculty broadly. these measures will ensure that the benefits of generative ai are fully harnessed and the technology positively contributes to the higher education landscape. references ascione, l. 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(2013). the use of “mixing” procedure of mixed methods in health services research. medical care, 51(8), e51-e57. https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0b013e31824642fd https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.8695 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2023.100151 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2024/04/16/provosts-survey-shows-need-ai-policies https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2024/04/16/provosts-survey-shows-need-ai-policies https://wcet.wiche.edu/resources/wcet-report-supporting-instruction-learning-through-artificial-intelligence-a-survey-of-institutional-practices-policies/ https://wcet.wiche.edu/resources/wcet-report-supporting-instruction-learning-through-artificial-intelligence-a-survey-of-institutional-practices-policies/ https://wcet.wiche.edu/resources/wcet-report-supporting-instruction-learning-through-artificial-intelligence-a-survey-of-institutional-practices-policies/ http://www.tytonpartners.com/time-for-class-2023/genai-update http://www.tytonpartners.com/time-for-class-2023/genai-update http://www.doi.org/10.1097/nne.0000000000001390 https://newsroom.wiley.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2023/generative-ai-already-being-used-in-majority-of-college-classrooms-according-to-instructors-in-new-wiley-survey/default.aspx https://newsroom.wiley.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2023/generative-ai-already-being-used-in-majority-of-college-classrooms-according-to-instructors-in-new-wiley-survey/default.aspx https://newsroom.wiley.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2023/generative-ai-already-being-used-in-majority-of-college-classrooms-according-to-instructors-in-new-wiley-survey/default.aspx https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0b013e31824642fd ellana black drexel university kristen betts drexel university literature review purpose of the study methods survey population and sample data collection data preparation data analysis results general generative ai use generative ai use for dissertations usage differences based on background and demographics discussion limitations and future research conclusions and recommendations references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 doctoral student perceptions of a project-based learning approach in an instructional design course madelon mccall baylor university madelon_mccall@baylor.edu ryann n. shelton baylor university ryann_shelton@baylor.edu brandy n. crowley emporia state university bcrowley@emporia.edu kenley ritter baylor university kenley_ritter1@baylor.edu abstract the purpose of this single case study was to determine how a project-based learning approach to instructional design supported education doctorate students’ acquisition of new knowledge and practical application of skills in their current and future professions. participants included 58 students in an online edd instructional design course. we found that 72% of students credited the design project for scaffolding their learning about instructional design and 80% saw an immediate application of the instructional design project to their current professional roles. further, 93% of students could foresee the application of new knowledge and skills to future professional opportunities. this study has implications for those who teach edd courses and are interested in providing a project-based approach to content acquisition and teaching skills students can apply in their professional organizations, both current and future. keywords project-based learning, instructional design, edd students, professional application introduction university students often assume the role of receiver of knowledge due to lecture-style, teacher-centered instruction, which can create a gap between what students learn in class and what they need to learn as a professional (alorda et al., 2011; guo et al., 2020; holmes, 2012). doctoral students are typically older and may be accomplished professionals; therefore, the instruction requires a different approach from lecture style. adult learners value their experiences and may view lecture-style teaching as “rigid, uncompromising requirements of authoritative, conventionalized instructions of teaching” (knowles et al., 2011, p. 38). adults learn best when they see a need for course content, can make a relevant application to their professional responsibilities, and have opportunities to socially construct new knowledge (knowles, 1980; kolb, 2015). project-based learning (pjbl) is an active learning strategy that is student-centered and inquiry-based, a stark difference from lecture-focused instruction (beier et al., 2019). pjbl allows learning opportunities in which students become active participants inspired by constructing knowledge through the application of new knowledge and skills (bereiter & scardamalia, 1993). this constructivist-based approach to solving relevant problems is the foundation of pjbl (barrows, 1986). the decision to teach an online edd instructional design course using pjbl, which was the focus of this study, was based on the effectiveness of using student-centered, non-traditional experiential learning with adults, including the application of course content to their professional roles. this instructional design course is completed in an online edd in learning and organizational change program, which was designed using the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework (perry, 2013). the inclusion of the instructional design course in the course sequence supports student understanding of first identifying a problem in their professional practice that can be resolved through the implementation of instruction. in the following literature review, we examine the difference between pjbl and problem-based learning (pbl), share research related to pjbl, and focus on pjbl in online higher education courses. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1025-2354 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4126-0998 mccall et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 2 literature review as an instructional method, pjbl has its roots in problem-based learning (pbl). pbl is based on work by barrow (1986), who utilized real-world problems to promote experiential learning with medical students. pjbl and pbl are experiential learning models designed around identifying challenging real-world problems to construct solutions through investigation and critical thinking (beier et al., 2019; brundiers & wiek, 2013; savery, 2006; thomas, 2000). this type of experiential learning engages students to cultivate their understanding of a topic by applying specific methods and principles (thomas, 2000). in pbl, however, students focus on a pre-defined problem that may not reflect real-world or relevant challenges (strobel & barneveld, 2009; walker & leary, 2009). pjbl differs from pbl in that it culminates in a practical student-constructed product situated in a real-world problem (blumenfeld et al., 1991; brundiers & wiek, 2013). situated learning theory, or situated cognition, is an instructional approach that connects what students learn and how they apply the knowledge through interaction with a professional community (lave & wenger, 1991). according to hung (2002), situated cognition in conjunction with problem-based learning can provide a different approach to support learning and instruction. teacher-centered rote learning does not promote higher levels of thinking that are promoted in situational learning using pbl, “relating learning to authentic practices relevant to the students’ future pragmatic goals” (hung, p. 411). the authentic and purposefully situated tasks used in pjbl allow students to independently research and problem-solve to produce realistic solutions to problems (thomas, 2000). in addition to promoting higher-level thinking, pjbl improves students’ understanding of content and can positively impact student efficacy (beier et al., 2019; thomas, 2000). guo et al. (2020) highlighted how students process knowledge differently in pbl and pjbl. for pbl, knowledge is reflected in the application, while pjbl focuses on knowledge construction “that allows students to test and achieve their ideas in the way they want, which promotes their innovation competence” (guo et al., 2020, p. 6). the differences between pbl and pjbl are important if the course goal is to construct knowledge and develop a practical solution to a real-world problem. pjbl structures instruction around solutions to real-world problems through student-constructed projects (brundiers & wiek, 2013; thomas, 2000). holm (2011) described pjbl as “studentcentered instruction that occurs over an extended period, during which students select, plan, investigate and produce a product, presentation or performance that answers a real-world question or responds to an authentic challenge” (p. 1). thomas (2000) identified five distinguishing characteristics of pjbl: centrality, a driving question, constructive investigations, autonomy, and realism. first, in pjbl the projects are key to learning the curriculum and must be central to the content taught. second, projects are structured around significant questions known as “driving questions” (blumenfeld et al., 1991, p. 371) or poorly defined problems (stepien & gallagher, 1993). these questions or problems in pjbl encourage students to wrestle with the key concepts and develop an individualized understanding of the content and the identified problem. third, pjbl requires students to investigate a problem by designing, problemsolving, or discovering solutions. through the project, students should gain new understanding and skills and produce a final product such as a report, presentation, or model. fourth, projects are student-centered. teachers guide students as they complete their projects, using strategic instruction as needed, therefore maximizing students’ autonomy (holm, 2011; moursund, 1999). finally, pjbl projects are authentic efforts to explore real-world problems and investigate or solve those problems. pjbl in higher education courses provides opportunities for students to engage with authentic projects within their current professional settings or to influence future career interests (beier et al., 2019). lucas and goodman (2015) argued that pjbl “brings promise to deepening students learning about leadership and their leadership development while engaging them in examining and solving real problems that are relevant and important to them” (p. 148). instructors who use pjbl in higher education support students in preparation for their professional careers (shpeizer, 2019). while researchers acknowledge the support of pjbl to promote professional preparation of students through higher education courses (beier et al., 2019, lucas & goodman, 2015, shpeizer, 2019), using pjbl through online learning is less researched. online learning programs have experienced enormous growth in higher education, leaving educators to discover how to engage students in active learning in an online classroom (çakiroğlu & erdemir, 2019). incorporating dewey’s (2004) constructivist method, educators have turned to pjbl for a student-centered approach to online learning (çakiroğlu & erdemir, 2019). scholarly practitioners have discovered that pjbl can be effective in an online learning environment with minimal teacher guidance (morales et al., 2013). when shih and tsai (2016) examined students’ perceptions of an online pjbl flipped classroom, findings showed the implementation of pjbl increased students’ learning effectiveness, motivation, and interest. according to reiser and dempsey (2007), instructional design is “a system of procedures for developing education and training programs in a consistent and reliable fashion. instructional design is a complex process that is creative, active, and iterative” (p. 17). using pjbl within an instructional design model enhances students’ creativity and encourages critical thinking and innovation (lou et al., 2012). in the current study, we examined the use of pjbl to support student learning of instructional design in an online edd instructional design course. we wanted to know how the doctoral student participants described their understanding of instructional design after completing the project and their perspectives on using the pjbl approach in an edd course. the information was important to determine if situating the instructional design content in students’ professional contexts was an effective way for the students to learn course content. the following questions guided the study: 1. how do doctoral students in an edd program describe their understanding of instructional design after completing an instructional design project? 2. how do doctoral students in an edd program perceive that an instructional design project informs their present and future professional skills and responsibilities? 3. how do doctoral students in an edd program describe their perspective on the use of project-based learning in a doctoral course? methodology the purpose of this single case study was to determine how a pjbl approach to learning instructional design supported doctoral students’ understanding of the course content and provided opportunities for professional application in students’ current and a project-based learning approach to edd courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 3 future professions. we chose a case study approach as it is wellsuited for exploring a “real-life, contemporary bounded system” (creswell & poth, 2018, p. 96). as the course instructors, we wanted to know how the edd students described their understanding of instructional design after completing the project and their perspectives on using the pjbl learning approach. this single case study was bounded by students completing a one-trimester course in instructional design in an online edd program in learning and organizational change (edd-loc), which is a practitioner-based program with students from a variety of professional backgrounds and experiences. doctoral students typically complete the instructional design course in the fourth trimester of the three-year program. participants fifty-eight doctoral students in a 54-hour edd program consented and participated in the current study. although the program was online, students engaged in required asynchronous tasks such as watching lecture videos, reading assigned articles, and responding to guided prompts each week to prepare for a 90-minute synchronous session with their instructor. the students in this study were enrolled in one of the four sections of an instructional design course, taught by the researchers. the participants had diverse professional roles (see table 1), and many had little to no previous experience designing instruction. table 1. participants’ professional roles profession participants (n) percentage of participants pk–12 education 23 39.7% college/university 17 29.3% government/military 8 13.8% corporate 5 8.6% agency/consultancy 3 5.2% nonprofit 1 1.7% other 5 8.6% note. the number of participants appears greater than 58, as three participants noted more than one professional role. course and project description most students complete the instructional design course in the fourth term of the nine-term program. this program uses a cohort model with a three-year time to completion. the instructional design course in term four immediately precedes courses focused on the literature review and methodology chapters of the research-based problem of practice dissertation, which are typically completed in term five. the course in this study was designed to support the examination of issues related to instructional design in many different professional contexts, including pk–12 education, post-secondary education, corporate, military, and health care. given that our doctoral program is based on the cped framework (perry, 2013), this course “prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” and integrate “practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry” (p. 1). taking together, the instructional design plan (see morrison et al., 2019, p. 14) in conjunction with students’ professional experiences and content expertise, we guided students using instructional design and pjbl to identify a problem in their professional context and propose an instruction-based resolution in support of improvement in their institutional and company structures. after identifying a professional problem, students engaged in pjbl to design instruction to address the problem. the pjbl approach provided the format for students to learn the course content and apply their knowledge and skills to resolve a current and relevant problem situated in their professional context, thereby connecting theory and practice (lave & wenger, 1991). it is important to note that while students had a choice about the problem which becomes the focus of their instructional design project, some students chose to focus on the same problem they planned to examine in their research-based problem of practice dissertation. the students applied the content to their identified professional problem while meeting weekly with classmates and instructors to discuss their projects and receive feedback. the project consisted of six components: professional context, needs assessment, learner analysis, task analysis, objectives and sequencing, and instructional strategies. the students engaged in required asynchronous content and reading related to each component every week. for the first component, students completed the asynchronous tasks and readings, including a case study from ertmer et al. (2019), drafted the first component for the instructional design project based on the project instructions, and submitted it to their instructor for review. the instructor provided feedback, typically in a 24-hour timeframe, so that students received the feedback before the synchronous session. during the synchronous session, the instructor and students discussed the content, and students engaged in peer discussions to revise and improve their projects. in the next week, the students made revisions based on instructor feedback and course discussions, engaged in the course content related to the second component, and added that component to the project for instructor review. this process repeated until all six components were included in one continuous document. in addition to weekly instructor feedback, each synchronous session included two breakout rooms, one of which was dedicated time for students to provide peer feedback related to their projects. during breakout rooms, we gave the students prompts related to the required weekly readings to discuss the information and apply it to their projects. each week, we purposefully organized the breakout room groups so that some weeks students worked with peers in similar professional roles, and in others, they worked with peers in different professional roles. this allowed students to learn about one another’s projects and provide peer feedback in the context of their professional expertise and in other contexts. the instruction in the synchronous sessions was flipped so that students engaged with the content, completed the required weekly project component, and prepared to engage in continued discussion about the course topics during class. this pjbl approach provided a format in which students applied the course content about instructional design to a project situated in their professional context, thereby connecting theory and practice to address a current and relevant problem. students were informed that this was a project-based course, but the instructors did not provide information defining pjbl. data collection and analysis the data source for this study was a final reflection questionnaire (see table 2) administered during the last week of the course. we crafted the questions to learn more about students’ mccall et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 4 experiences with pjbl in the edd instructional design course as it related to their professional roles. we aligned the research questions in this study with the questionnaire. table 2. question research question (rq) alignment 1. provide your name and email. – 2. what is your present job title? rq 2 3. in which professional sector do you currently work? pk–12 education college/university corporate nonprofit government/military agency/consultancy other (leave blank) rq 2 4. have you designed instruction in your previous or present profession? if yes, explain. – 5. how has the id project in [this course] supported your understanding of instructional design? rq 1, rq 2, rq 3 6. how does the id project in [this course] inform your present professional responsibilities? rq 2 7. how does the id project in [this course] inform your future professional responsibilities? rq 2 8. the instructors in [this course] implemented a project-based learning (pjbl) approach to teaching instructional design. provide your perspective on the use of pjbl in a doctoral course. rq 3 to analyze the final reflection questionnaire data and to address qualitative reliability, each researcher reviewed the data related to one of the three research questions (creswell & poth, 2018). first, we individually coded the responses using in vivo coding to develop emerging themes (creswell & poth, 2018). second, we discussed each reviewer’s coding to confirm or disconfirm the codes for all three questions. we discussed the codes until we were in 100% agreement with the coding for each question. third, we collapsed the codes into categories and determined the final themes as part of a thematic analysis. to address qualitative validity, we used thick, rich descriptions to present our findings (creswell & poth, 2018). findings the data collected from the questionnaire provided evidence for how a pjbl approach to learning instructional design supported edd students’ understanding of the course content and provided opportunities for professional application in students’ current and future professions. there were four findings determined from responses to the questionnaire related to the three research questions. first, the study revealed that all students gained knowledge of instructional design during the course and 72% credited the project for scaffolding their learning. second, 80% could see an immediate application of the project to their current professional roles, and 93% saw an application to future professions. third, students’ perspectives on the use of an instructional design project in a doctoral-level course indicated that students valued the opportunity to apply what they were learning to their professional roles. finally, the students appreciated that the project approach allowed the course content to be addressed by mastering individual instructional design components sequentially. in the following sections, we share these findings by providing evidence for each research question. edd students’ description of their understanding of instructional design questionnaire item five provided evidence of the edd students’ perceived understanding of instructional design after completing an instructional design project, which was related to the first research question in this study. many students described their understanding as new knowledge gained about the instructional design process using a pjbl method and appreciated the course structure in scaffolding that learning. all students responded positively to the question, yet there may have been some misunderstanding, as the question asked “how,” and several students responded as if the question asked “if” the project approach supported their understanding of the course content. of the 58 students, 42 (72%) identified an increased understanding of the components, vocabulary, or process of instructional design. responses provided evidence of their broader understanding. for example, students referred to their “better understanding of the components” and understanding of “the essential steps needed to create effective instruction,” recognizing that the experience “helped [them] understand the process needed to design instruction.” one student shared, “in the past, i have created content to present to others without a true instructional design process. this project has guided me into a new understanding of instructional design for future projects.” other student responses provided evidence of their understanding of specific components of the instructional design process. seven students referred to their understanding of learner analysis. one student recognized the importance of developing training that “aligns with the needs of the learner.” similarly, another student “learned to format instruction to meet the needs of a variety of learners.” other students recognized their new awareness of the need for a learner analysis or recognized the analysis as part of a strong instructional design. four students mentioned the importance of evaluation to the instructional design process. two students provided evidence of their understanding using evaluation to improve the design or to assess its effect. in listing the instructional design process steps, one student referred to evaluation as “follow-up” and recognized that evaluation was used for “modifications or changes” to instruction. another student described their new awareness of “the different types of evaluations that are necessary to capture the effectiveness of a program.” two students used the term evaluation without context to their understanding of that term. a few students also referred to the problem, needs assessment, and task analysis components of instructional design. the two students who specifically referred to the problem discussed how the project helped them “be more analytical and thoughtful in identifying a problem” and “clearly identify[ing] the problem.” one student recognized the “amount of energy that needs to be spent” on components such as the needs assessment and tasks analysis. the students chose to discuss specific components they considered important to their project. a project-based learning approach to edd courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 5 edd students’ perceptions of instructional design informing professional roles questionnaire items six and seven provided most of the data related to the second research question in this study, which focused on how edd students perceived an instructional design project informed their present and future professional skills and responsibilities. of the 58 students, two were retired and had no present professional responsibilities. of the remaining 56 students employed at the time of the study, 45 (80%) indicated that the project informed their present professional responsibilities, yet the students provided various reasons. one reason was that the design project provided a framework or systematic approach to designing instruction for the professional development of employees, students, or colleagues. several students suggested that the framework provided the correct terminology, steps to identify learner needs, and a plan for both design and delivery of the instruction. one student suggested the project prepared her to better fulfill her professional roles by expanding her training abilities: it helps significantly because now i can design training in a systematic way that makes sense. prior to taking this class, anytime, i had to train others, i either outsourced the function or guessed at what i should be doing. another student suggested: i have done similar trainings for groups of people but this class was helpful to see the process that takes place prior to the training and provides context and terms for things i do in my role. it also provided context to the steps so that i am able to move about the process with intentionality. the project allowed students to work purposefully through the steps for designing instruction in their professional context and they could see the value of working systematically through the process. a second reason that completing a project specific to their professional context supported students’ professional skills and responsibilities was that it provided them with the confidence and experience to identify workplace training needs and tackle the instructional design to address those needs. students indicated that before taking the course they did not feel they had the expertise to confidently contribute to workplace discussions of instructional design. one student indicated that the project they designed for the course supported how they would propose new training at work: it really is a mission of mine to expand our student trainings, so i will be able to use my instructional design as a part of my proposal to leadership. i want to make all incoming first-year students at my university required to take a dating violence workshop, so designing a training for additional workshop facilitators will help make my proposal a realistic goal. several students directly applied what they learned from the project to their current professional roles. one student stated, as an instructor and program director, i need to be able to create training for college students and faculty. i am also the curriculum analyst for all cte [career and technology education] departments at the college, this course has helped me in my knowledge to look at new course development. the identification of a need specific to their present professional context allowed the students to learn the instructional design process through the design of a project to address that need and support their individual professional growth. while 80% of the students indicated that the requirement of a professional context-specific project informed their professional roles, some students did not see a present application. one student stated, “it was difficult as the id [instructional design] project was focused on a process skills/knowledge. all of our employees come with the knowledge necessary for their jobs or they wouldn’t be hired.” other students indicated that they were not in a professional role that would allow them to design instruction. of the 11 students who stated the project did not support their professional roles, five indicated that completing the project supported learning the course content and possibly informed future professional roles. one student explained, “this project helped me apply what i learned in class. i won’t be implementing my project in my place of employment, but i now know how to apply the steps i learned for future potential projects at work.” another suggested that the content learned could be applied to areas outside of instructional design: the connection isn’t strong for my current role, but i think this course will be very helpful for the career i am working for. i think that the focus on learners, context, and problem are transferable to areas outside of instructional design as well. two students did not provide reasoning for responding “no” to the questionnaire item regarding application to their current professional role. only 13% of the students who were employed at the time of the study could not see a correlation between the course content and their current professional roles. specific to questionnaire item seven, 54 (93%) of the students indicated that the instructional design project would inform their future professional responsibilities, even when they were unsure of that next professional step. the data provided supporting evidence through statements such as, “the project has given me tangible experience in designing instruction, and that experience will be helpful to me in future projects that i do in this position and beyond.” the students felt that the project provided the background knowledge and tools to design instruction for future professional training, as summed up by one student, this entire project has taught me the basics on how to create an instructional program which i believe i will need to know in my future professional responsibilities. knowing the basics will provide a great foundation for creating training programs and instruction for students and staff members. students shared how the successful design of a project provided them the confidence to pursue future responsibilities. for example, “i feel more confident not only in leading initiatives but in asking the right questions and ensuring that each phase will be executed efficiently and effectively,” and “i feel confident i can be an instructional designer at a big corporation.” the design of a project as a course requirement that addressed the students’ present professional context provided the background knowledge and confidence for those students to see the application of that process to possible future professional responsibilities. of the four students who did not see an application to their future professional responsibilities, one provided insight into why that might have occurred, “there is little to no correlation between the id project and my professional responsibilities. everything i created for my id project was made up for this class, and it will not be used in any capacity professionally.” this student did not see an application of the content or project to any future professional responsibilities. mccall et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 6 edd student perspectives about project-based learning questionnaire item eight provided most of the data related to the third research question for this study, which focused on exploring how edd students describe their perspective on the use of pjbl in a doctoral-level instructional design course. we identified two responses from students: students valued the opportunity to apply what they were learning to their professional roles, and they appreciated how the project was organized into components. first, students valued the opportunity to connect the course content in the instructional design course to their professional roles and responsibilities. of the 58 students, 27 (47%) positively noted their ability to apply the learning to real-world contexts. one student wrote, i enjoyed having a project to focus on and made sure to select one that i can apply to my workplace. if i had not selected a topic or project that needed to be addressed it may have felt frustrating to spend so much time on such a “problem.” however, i am excited to share this project with my administration and better support our staff with adequate training moving into the 2022–23 school year. another student explained, using a project based learning approach allowed me to take on new information and apply it to a relevant issue in my own area. although i may not be using the project right now, it helps solidify the new information i was learning. in response to questionnaire item five, one student recognized that this method allowed them to have a “better understanding of each step” because it was “manageable information” that was “applied instantaneously” to their real-world problem. by offering students an opportunity to connect their learning to their profession, they engaged with the content of the course, as they considered how they could address a problem in their workplace in a timely manner. second, students indicated that because the project was broken into components, it was manageable, allowing them to receive ongoing feedback. of the 58 students, 15 (26%) pointed to benefits related to these components and instructor feedback. one student, who noted the ability to apply the content and the project components, described it in this way, the project based learning was an excellent strategy in this course. we had an opportunity to focus our work on a topic of our own choosing (which addresses the needs of adult learners for choice/autonomy and immediate application of learning). the material was chunked it into formative steps resulting in a final project at the end. this made the work feel “do-able” and less stressful… we got good individual feedback at each stage of the id project, which was also encouraging and motivating as we went along (there’s no big surprises as to your progress or overall grade this way). overall, my experiences with project based learning stretch me to think about how i might integrate them into my own courses. similarly, in response to questionnaire item five, students described their understanding of instructional design by situating it in the context of the course structure. four students reflected on the impact addressing each component separately had on their understanding of the instructional design process. whether they were referring to this method as “chunk[ing] throughout the term” or “working on the instructional design in parts throughout the course,” these students identified their success with this approach. one student reflected on the time they had to “delve into each section and obtain a more thorough understanding of each section.” similarly, another student described their ability to “focus on particular steps and components” making them “more meaningful and important.” the responses provided by these students provide evidence that the structure of the course impacted their understanding of instructional design. as part of a scaffolded structure, we provided feedback for each project component so that students could strengthen their projects, which students perceived to be valuable. however, 6 of the 58 students (10%) did not seem to value the pjbl approach or gave short questionnaire responses that appeared neutral. although students selected their project topic, one student wished the project was more relevant to their profession and professional aspirations, while two others wished it was more closely connected with their dissertation topic. one wished they were in the same breakout discussion group for the entire term while another student shared, “most [pjbl] is done in groups. some people are not willing to work in groups.” while most students valued the opportunity to apply what they were learning to their professional roles and appreciated how the project was organized into components, not all students perceived the project to be valuable. we discuss these findings in the following section. discussion the purpose of this study was to determine how a pjbl approach to learning instructional design supported edd students’ understanding of the course content and provided opportunities for application in students’ current and future professions. the analysis of the questionnaire data in application to the three research questions resulted in findings in support of using pjbl as an instructional method in doctoral-level coursework. these findings contribute to the research on the efficacy of using pjbl in higher education and contribute to the ongoing improvement of the instructional design course on which this research is based. student descriptions on the application of pjbl to course content understanding the finding related to the first research question focused on the doctoral students’ perceptions of the use of pjbl to increase their understanding of instructional design. while every student responded positively concerning their improved understanding of instructional design, 72% of the students recognized that completing the instructional design course using pjbl provided them with an increased understanding of instructional design. these studentdriven, realistic projects that were the focus of the course and curriculum provided the students with a positive experience in which to increase their understanding of instructional design. similarly, thomas (2000) found that pjbl improves the quality of students’ understanding. the doctoral students’ responses to the questionnaire signaled their differentiated understanding of the instructional design process. in choosing their own “driving question” (blumenfeld et al., 1991; stepien & gallagher, 1993), these students developed an individualized understanding of the content (thomas, 2000). this understanding was evident in the varied aspects of the project that the students described in their responses. the specific focus on a project-based learning approach to edd courses impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 7 various aspects of instructional design is evidence that pjbl differentiated their learning, heightening their knowledge of specific aspects of the instructional design process. student perceptions on how pjbl informs professional skills and responsibilities the findings related to the second research question focus on how the use of pjbl informed students’ current and future professional responsibilities. beier et al. (2019) and shpeizer (2019) indicated that pjbl in higher education was beneficial in providing opportunities for students to engage with real-world projects both in current professional contexts and as an influence on future career possibilities. the situated cognition approach of allowing students to connect what they learn and then apply that knowledge to a project within their professional community supports the pjbl instructional method. the findings of this research indicated that most students supported that using pjbl informed both their current and future professional responsibilities. eighty percent of the students indicated that the project informed their present professional responsibilities, and 93% indicated that it informed their future professional responsibilities. the students who could see a future application can be explained in part because students could envision the use of instructional design in their next professional role, even though they may not have the opportunity in their present role. the students referenced that mastering the systematic approach to instructional design through the application of a professionally situated project provided them with the framework and the confidence to identify and address workplace training needs. this finding concerning support for a pjbl approach to solving real-world problems through studentconstructive investigations echoes brundeirs and wiek (2013) and thomas (2000), who identified that experiential learning models designed around student-identified challenging problems promote student understanding of specific topics. the participants in this study identified a problem in their workplace and engaged in experiential learning to learn about instructional design to address that problem with instruction. in line with lucas and goodman (2015), the students in this study could envision themselves as leaders of projects in both present and future professions due to the application of pjbl. a small percentage (7%) of students indicated that the project supported their understanding of the course content, but they could see no future professional application. while this is a small percentage, it is important to higher education instructors that students complete their coursework with a deep understanding of the content. it is important that we, the instructors of the course, determine how to better scaffold the learning experience for students who may not be presently employed or those who cannot see a future need to understand the instructional design process. student perceptions on the use of pjbl in an edd course there were two findings related to the third research question, which was focused on edd student perspectives about pjbl. first, students valued the opportunity to connect the course content in this instructional design course to their professional roles and responsibilities. this finding is interesting because as part of the id project, we addressed knowles’s (1980) principles of andragogy. in the same way that we ask students to consider the principles of need to know, self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation when they are designing instruction for their own learners, they seemed to appreciate that they could apply their work in this class to their professional settings almost immediately. because students selected the problem in their present professional context and because they were able to make connections between the instructional design and their workplace, they became invested in their project. students in beier et al.’s (2019) study “engaged in realworld, client-centered problems within the courses, and these experiences provided them with valuable insight into jobs and job tasks in natural science and engineering fields” (p. 18). similarly, the students in this study pointed to the value of being able to connect the course content to their professional roles. the pjbl approach oriented students’ application of the new content related to instructional design to their familiar professional role, as they worked to address a real problem in their workplace. this finding aligns with previous studies highlighting the importance of an authentic, relevant project in a pjbl (beier et al., 2019; lucas & goodman, 2015; moursund, 1999; thomas, 2000). second, because the project was organized into components, students reported that it was manageable, allowing them to receive timely feedback. again, this relates to knowles’s (1980) principles of andragogy and particularly readiness to learn. because the feedback was ongoing, timely, and related to the professional roles, the students could address instructor feedback before moving to the next component of the project. maor (2010) pointed to the importance of instructors’ pedagogical role in online settings “providing feedback and instruction, probing, asking questions, stimulating the discussion, synthesizing students’ comments, and referring to outside resources or experts in the field” (p. 135). the ongoing feedback in this study supported students’ successful completion of their projects. in this study, we uncovered that students valued timely feedback and saw merit in the structure of the project and the process to complete it with iterative feedback. the students mastered the instructional design content through the development of the project, and many saw immediate and future applications in their professions. the positive student perceptions of using pjbl as a course requirement support prior research concerning the use of a constructivist approach to active learning in an online classroom to promote student learning, motivation, and interest (çakiroğlu & erdemir, 2019; shih & tsai, 2016). it is interesting to note that all of the 58 participants in this study passed the course. the structured approach, timely and iterative feedback, and the relevance of the project to students’ professional context contributed to the students’ success. in the following section, we discuss the implications of our findings. implications this study has implications for those who plan and teach instructional design courses, particularly for those with a problembased focus in edd programs. for those who teach edd courses, this study informs the choice of instructional methods for courses intended to inform professional responsibilities. a pjbl approach is often more time-consuming and more difficult to implement than traditional models such as lecture (holm, 2011), yet that approach will provide a relevant application of the course content. the data from this study provide evidence that it was the pjbl approach to teaching instructional design and the timely approach to feedback that supported student understanding of the content and application to their professional context. mccall et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.366 8 students noted that components of the instructional design project supported multiple areas of professional growth. one step in the instructional design process was to complete a needs assessment. a student noted that the project “gives me the ability to see what areas may need to be approved through needs assessment” while another indicated that they were unsure of how the project would apply but that learning the process “will help in any position at the college where i work.” the students noted that the content and process were important and applicable in their professional context regardless of whether they were involved in designing instruction or training. only four students (7%) in this study did not see a connection between the course project and either their present or future professional roles. it is important to note that students got to choose their instructional design problem to address in the project. the inability of some students to apply the course content and project to their professional context presents an opportunity for instructors to remind students of ways each can instruct others in their professional context, including new hires or in mentoring. for example, as one student shared that they did not engage in instructional design, it may be worth exploring if that student provided instruction to others in the context of supporting new hires or mentoring, or if they manage those who do. purposeful discussion of professional roles may allow students to see connections between their roles and the course content. the instructional design course offered for this research was part of a sequence of courses that prepare edd students to support learning and organizational change in both their current and future professional roles. because the program is practitioner-based, students must understand the role of each course in preparing them for professional opportunities. the students begin a research-based problem of practice dissertation early in the edd program and most students address a problem in their professional context. it is imperative that students understand that their coursework is relevant and applicable to them currently and in the future. pjbl provides the instructional method for conveying course content in a relevant format. in an instructional design course, pjbl enables students to master the content, understand the process of developing instruction, and understand how people learn through the construction of their knowledge in a situated context (lave & wenger, 1991). many students in the instructional design course connected components of their project to their problem of practice dissertation topic. while students develop their dissertation research around a problem in their workplace, the instructional design project has the potential to help them think about post-graduation plans and how to solve that problem using instruction. understanding how knowledge is constructed is key to promoting learning and organizational change. as stated by one student, “i think problembased learning is the entire point of our program and problem of practice. if we truly want to be change makers in our fields, we have to be able to identify problems and work through solutions that are best for everyone involved.” while this student misidentified the course project as pbl rather than pjbl, the student perceived a possible application of the pjbl approach for those who want to catalyze organizational change. we found that student responses in this study were meaningful for us as instructors as we considered the possibilities for our course to support edd students in making connections to their learning and their professional practice, particularly in thinking about how we could encourage them to create change with instruction based on their problem of practice findings in their post-graduation plans. conclusion and next steps instructors of instructional design courses in higher education may want to consider the pjbl approach, particularly if they teach edd students from varied professional contexts. one limitation of this study was that not all students agreed to participate in the study. however, of the 71 students enrolled in the course, 58 students (82%) participated in the study. as such, the instructors of the course in this study are continuing our use of this approach and the related research because of the positive student responses related to pjbl in this course. we embedded the final reflection questionnaire in the required asynchronous work so that we can continue to help students make connections between this course and their professional roles. a delimitation of the study was that our analysis focused on one data source, the final reflection questionnaire, which reflected one term of this course. although student responses were confidential, the final reflection questionnaire responses were selfreported, which may have impacted students’ responses. to mitigate this concern, we did not review student responses until after we published course grades. in the future, we will collect additional data sources such as following up with additional interviews to see how students are applying what they have learned from the course in their professional roles. we might further explore student responses according to specific professional roles. additionally, we can explore how students connect instructional design concepts to the distribution of findings section we require in their problem of practice dissertations, particularly given that many students focus on a problem related to their problem of practice. this research will help us to further examine the use of pjbl in doctoral-level courses such as our instructional design course in an online edd program. references alorda, b., suenaga, k., & pons, p. 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https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1061 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 27 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 navigating new frontier: ai’s transformation of dissertation research and writing in an educational leadership doctoral program mubina khan schroeder molloy university mschroeder@molloy.edu joanna alcruz molloy university jalcruz@molloy.edu abstract the landscape of generative ai in education doctorate (edd) programs is multifaceted and rapidly evolving, demonstrating a significant impact on educational methodologies and student engagement. in the molloy university edd program, ai is leveraged extensively for a range of purposes, from assessment tools like perusall to advanced platforms like roshi.ai. these technologies not only streamline the assessment process but also offer a personalized learning experience. furthermore, ai's role in assisting student research is pivotal, providing sophisticated data analysis, trend prediction, and comprehensive literature review capabilities. the use of ai for writing assistance further exemplifies its utility in enhancing academic rigor and student productivity. this integration of ai tools within the edd curriculum represents a forward-thinking approach, preparing educators and leaders to harness the power of ai in their future professional practices. keywords artificial intelligence in education, doctoral research practices, cognitive apprenticeship model, ai-driven academic writing, ethical use of ai in academia, educational leadership development with the advent of artificial intelligence (ai) tools, there has been a profound impact on the process of research and writing in dissertations within molloy university's doctoral program in educational leadership for diverse learning communities. these tools have revolutionized how students are engaging with text, how they are developing their research questions, enhancing writing processes, and have led to the adaptation of coursework to incorporate these advanced tools. the molloy educational leadership for diverse learning communities (edd) program is designed to prepare a wide array of educational professionals—including teachers, school administrators, and future professors—for pivotal instructional leadership roles that emphasize diversity, social justice, and equity. with its comprehensive, rigorous, and research-based curriculum, the program accommodates the varied needs of our students by offering flexible hybrid and online pathways allowing them to earn their edd in a manner that best suits their lifestyles and commitments. reflecting our commitment to inclusivity, many of our students come from diverse backgrounds, including adult learners who are re-engaging with academic programs after extensive periods in professional practice, enriching our learning community with their varied perspectives and experiences. however, the diversity of our student body also means that research and writing tasks can pose unique challenges, necessitating tailored support and resources to ensure all students can successfully navigate their academic journey. the transformative role of ai in the dissertation research and writing process within molloy university's doctoral program in educational leadership for diverse learning communities over the past year has been significant. tools such as grammarly, perusall, scispace, chatgpt, and scholar ai have changed the way research questions are formulated, literature is reviewed, data is analyzed, and dissertation projects are managed in our program. the molloy edd program has evolved to incorporate ai technologies, spotlighting the necessary pedagogical shifts for effective integration and improved academic workflow. in this essay, we explore the pivotal roles of ai tools in doctoral programs, focusing on the critical skills and knowledge that both educators and students must acquire to excel in ai-enhanced research and writing. we delve into the significant effects of ai proficiency on the professional practices of education doctorate graduates, highlighting how it has reshaped the competencies of scholarly practitioners. this discussion is crucial for expanding the conversation around the preparation of future educational leaders, providing academic authors and practitioners with tangible examples of ai's influence on academic processes. by illustrating the ways ai has advanced educational research and writing, we aim to demonstrate how ai equips future educational leaders with the capabilities to leverage these technologies in their careers, enabling them to effectively address the challenges of the evolving educational environment. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7452-9430 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0645-302x schroeder & alcruz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 28 historical context and evolution of ai in academia the journey of ai into the academic sphere began with its foundational theories in the mid-20th century, initially explored by pioneers such as alan turing, who questioned whether machines could think (turing, 1950). from its conceptual beginnings, ai has evolved dramatically, becoming an integral part of various sectors, including education. in academia, ai's integration has transitioned from simple automated tasks to complex processes that involve generative thinking and deep learning, fundamentally altering the educational landscape. the journey of ai into the realm of education began amidst a landscape of both intrigue and apprehension. initially, when ai started to make inroads into educational settings, there was significant anxiety among educators and administrators (chan, 2023). concerns centered around the potential for ai to replace human teachers, the implications for student privacy, and the accessibility of advanced technologies for all students. this unease was compounded by a lack of understanding about how ai systems work and their potential impact on the educational process. at molloy university, there was much discussion on how ai usage among students, particularly students in writing-heavy programs, such as the doctoral program, would be governed. despite these initial fears, the trajectory of ai integration into education has shifted significantly towards more widespread acceptance and implementation, particularly in higher education. this transition was facilitated by a growing recognition of the benefits ai could bring to educational settings, including personalized learning experiences, enhanced administrative efficiency, and more robust research tools. as educators and institutions gained a clearer understanding of ai’s capabilities and limitations, the focus shifted from anxiety to opportunity. higher education institutions began to embrace ai as a critical component of their strategic educational tools. this acceptance was driven by the need to stay competitive in a rapidly changing educational landscape and by the possibilities for enhancing student engagement and outcomes. universities and colleges started to deploy ai in various forms, such as learning management systems that use ai to provide personalized feedback to students, and aidriven analytics to predict student performance and improve retention rates. ai’s adoption in educational settings, particularly in advanced studies like molloy’s edd program, reflects a shift from traditional pedagogical methods to more dynamic and interactive approaches. the molloy edd program's embrace of ai tools underscores a commitment to leveraging technology to facilitate a more engaged and personalized learning experience. these tools not only assist in administrative and evaluative tasks but also enhance the pedagogical process by enabling customized learning paths and insightful academic research. the cognitive apprenticeship model and ai pedagogical assistants in the molloy edd program, some of our faculty in their teaching actively engage with the cognitive apprenticeship model (collins et al., 1991), which espouses constructivist thinking, to guide students into becoming academic writers and researchers. the cognitive apprenticeship model extends traditional apprenticeship methods to intellectual skills, making thinking visible to the learners. it involves teaching processes that experts use to handle complex tasks, guiding learners through several stages: modeling, scaffolding, fading, and coaching. this approach emphasizes the importance of situated learning and is structured to occur in a context that reflects the use of knowledge in real-life tasks. the model is particularly effective in teaching complex cognitive skills that require navigating ambiguous situations, as it not only involves explicit teaching of the tacit knowledge that underpins expert performance but also provides a systematic approach to mastering these skills through observed practice. the cognitive apprenticeship model includes six pedagogical approaches, which help students shift from gaining knowledge and skills through modeling, coaching, and scaffolding to more active and critical application of newly acquired competencies through articulation, reflection, and exploration. (see figure 1 for more details.) figure 1. approaches to the cognitive apprenticeship model note. kurt, s. (2021, january 30). cognitive apprenticeship. educational technology. https://educationaltechnology.net/ cognitive-apprenticeship/ integrating ai tools with the cognitive apprenticeship model in the context of doctoral dissertation writing, integrating ai tools can greatly reinforce the principles of the cognitive apprenticeship mode (collins et al., 1991). these tools help make the invisible elements of writing and research processes visible to students, who can observe and mirror these practices in their work. for example, tools such as scholar ai can model deep research techniques, showing students how to traverse vast databases, synthesize information, and generate insights. similarly, grammarly can demonstrate real-time feedback on writing, offering suggestions that align with the norms of academic writing, thus acting as a form of scaffolding. as students' skills improve, the support from these tools can be gradually reduced (fading), enabling students to take more control of their research and writing processes. ai tools are particularly adept at providing a type of interaction that mirrors the mentoring relationship found in traditional apprenticeships. these digital tools offer continuous feedback and facilitate a learning process where revision and improvement are part of building competence in writing and research. the iterative feedback from ai simulates the coaching stage of the cognitive https://educationaltechnology.net/cognitive-apprenticeship/ https://educationaltechnology.net/cognitive-apprenticeship/ navigating new frontiers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 29 apprenticeship model, allowing students to refine their drafts more effectively and develop a better understanding of academic writing standards. moreover, ai tools can adapt to the individual learner’s pace, providing personalized scaffolding that supports their unique learning trajectory. perusall one powerful pedagogical tool used in the molloy edd is perusall, an innovative ai-powered platform designed to transform the way students engage with reading materials, particularly in rigorous academic settings like doctoral programs. developed to enhance the learning experience through a social and interactive framework, perusall allows doctoral students to interact with their reading materials in a more engaging and collaborative manner. at its core, perusall allows for community-based annotation of texts with insightful questions, comments, and explanations, turning a traditional solitary reading assignment into an active learning experience (adams & wilson, 2020). it uses ai to analyze the content of the texts and predict which parts might cause difficulties or require deeper discussion. this functionality helps in scaffolding the reading process, guiding students through complex research materials by clarifying, questioning, and elaborating on key points. perusall extends its capabilities beyond just prompting discussion by incorporating a sophisticated algorithm that encourages peer-to-peer learning. as students annotate texts, they can see comments from other students, respond to them, and engage in discussions, using emojis, real-time reactions, and other ways of commenting/annotating. these social media-like features foster a community environment where doctoral students can collaboratively dissect, understand, and critique research papers, which is particularly valuable in developing critical thinking and deep analytical skills necessary for high-level academic work (see figure 2). doctoral students using this ai-driven collaborative tool consistently report engaging more with text, reading texts more deeply and meaningfully, and gaining insights from community discussion. one doctoral student reported to us: “perusall makes an article into a class project!” additionally, for doctoral students, who often deal with dense and complex academic writings, perusall proves to be an essential tool. it assists in breaking down scholarly articles and research papers into more digestible segments, highlighting crucial arguments and data while prompting students to think critically about the content. by facilitating easier navigation through challenging materials, perusall ensures that students are not just passive recipients of information but active participants in constructing knowledge. perusall’s ai-driven insights help to identify common themes and queries among students, allowing instructors to understand where students struggle and what interests them. this insight is invaluable for doctoral program instructors who aim to tailor their teaching strategies to meet the specific needs of their students effectively. it also enables instructors to provide targeted feedback and support, aligning with the educational goals of fostering independence and depth in research skills among doctoral candidates. perusall acts much like a digital tutor that is available around the clock. its algorithm is tailored to anticipate common problems and questions that might arise from the text and provides preemptive explanations and context to smooth over these potential stumbling blocks. this preemptive assistance helps maintain a steady flow of study and comprehension without the frequent disruptions that tough scholarly texts might pose. figure 2. sample perusall interface note. screenshot of the perusall platform interface from edu 6120 learning, cognition & diversity, delivered via perusall, molloy university, [2024]. reproduced with permission. schroeder & alcruz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 30 perusall’s ability to adapt to individual user interactions and learn from them allows it to offer more personalized assistance over time. as students interact with the system, it fine-tunes its responses and prompts to better suit each student’s learning style and pace, making it an invaluable tool for doctoral students engaged in extensive and often solitary research work. perusall exemplifies how ai can be seamlessly integrated into the academic workflow to enhance understanding and engagement with complex research materials. by leveraging ai to foster active learning and community interaction, perusall not only enhances the reading experience for doctoral students but also significantly contributes to their overall academic development and success in navigating the demands of doctoral research. scispace for some molloy doctoral students, finding connected research, organized by themes can help them visualize the dimensions of their research topic. for that area, some students use scispace, an aipowered research assistant, into their academic endeavors. developed by typeset, scispace represents a significant advancement in the domain of academic research, providing a suite of tools designed to enhance the research experience by simplifying the digestion and analysis of complex scientific literature. scispace distinguishes itself by offering more than just traditional research assistance. it employs advanced ai algorithms to decode intricate research papers, transforming the way doctoral candidates interact with scientific publications. the platform offers real-time explanations and reduces technical jargon, thus democratizing access to scientific knowledge and fostering an interactive learning environment. this is particularly beneficial for molloy’s diverse student body, which includes those returning to academia after significant professional experiences, as it allows them to bridge knowledge gaps more efficiently. one of the standout features of scispace is its copilot tool, which integrates directly into the students' workflows through a chrome extension. this tool is instrumental for doctoral students as it summarizes research articles in real time while browsing online databases, significantly saving time and effort. copilot enables students to upload documents for data extraction, ask detailed questions about specific paragraphs or sections, and receive concise explanations directly in their workflow. this seamless integration ensures that students can maintain focus on their research without being bogged down by the often daunting volume of information. faculty have demoed how scispace enhances the research process through features like instant explanations of texts, mathematical equations, and tables. it can translate academic jargon and complex paragraphs into clear, understandable terms, which is invaluable for students working to develop their dissertation research questions or to refine their methodologies; the ability to clip unfamiliar equations or data sets to understand their implications further empowers students to tackle advanced topics with confidence. additionally, scispace offers organizational tools such as the ability to save articles and pdfs in a personal library, note-taking capabilities, and options for highlighting and annotating texts. these features support molloy’s doctoral students in creating a structured and efficient research process, accommodating their individual schedules and learning preferences. scispace has become an integral part of the research toolkit for doctoral students at molloy university, streamlining the exploration of scientific literature and enabling a deeper, more accessible engagement with complex research topics. by integrating scispace into their academic routine, students are better equipped to navigate the challenges of doctoral research, ensuring they are well-prepared to contribute meaningful insights to their fields of study. scholar ai normal scholar ai, a custom version of chatgpt oriented towards academic and scholarly contexts, is an advanced ai platform designed specifically to support academic research and writing processes. it is particularly beneficial for doctoral students and educational professionals. this ai technology serves as a crucial tool in an academic environment where the demands of doctoral research and writing can be overwhelming due to the complexity and breadth of required knowledge (see figure 3). figure 3. scholar ai interface and features note. scholar ai. (n.d.). scholar ai. https://scholarai.io https://scholarai.io/ navigating new frontiers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 31 for molloy doctoral students, scholar ai simplifies the daunting tasks of navigating extensive literature, synthesizing diverse data, and developing complex ideas into well-structured dissertations. one of its key features is the automated literature review capability, which scans through thousands of documents rapidly, summarizing relevant information. this not only saves significant time but also ensures comprehensive coverage of existing research, potentially revealing crucial studies that could influence the direction of a student's research. additionally, scholar ai aids in data analysis and visualization, providing students with tools to easily interpret complex data sets and present findings in understandable formats. scholar ai can assist in refining research questions by analyzing existing literature and identifying gaps in the field. this guidance is invaluable as it helps students formulate precise and impactful questions that define the scope of their projects. the platform also enhances the quality of academic writing by offering real-time feedback on grammar, style, and consistency, essential for maintaining the professional standard expected in doctoral dissertations. beyond aiding students, scholar ai extends its capabilities to professors, acting as an ai teaching assistant that enhances educational delivery. it assists in course preparation by providing upto-date research articles, summaries, and potential discussion topics based on the latest trends in the field. for student assessment, scholar ai analyzes written submissions to gauge understanding and engagement, enabling professors to customize their feedback and teaching strategies accordingly. in seminar settings, scholar ai can stimulate richer discussion by posing insightful questions and prompts based on the course material. this not only fosters a deeper engagement among students but also encourages critical thinking and debate. additionally, the ai tool tracks individual student progress, pinpointing areas of difficulty and suggesting targeted resources or assignments to enhance learning outcomes. in the molloy edd program, scholar ai embodies a significant evolution in the use of ai technology within higher education. it provides molloy doctoral students with a set of streamlined tools that make research and writing processes more efficient and less burdensome. additionally, for the faculty, it offers supportive features that improve instructional methods and facilitate a more personalized learning experience. grammarly as mentioned before, many of the molloy doctoral students report finding academic writing to be difficult. the doctoral program at molloy integrates the use of grammarly into the doctoral curriculum. grammarly, a sophisticated writing enhancement tool powered by advanced ai, has become an indispensable asset for doctoral students at molloy university, particularly those who are non-native english speakers or who struggle with academic writing. this tool supports students through various stages of their writing process, from initial drafts to the final submission of their dissertations, by ensuring clarity, correctness, and sophistication in their use of language. for doctoral students, especially in a diverse academic community like molloy university, mastering the nuances of academic writing in english can be a formidable challenge. grammarly addresses this by providing real-time grammatical correction, punctuation, style, and vocabulary suggestions, which are crucial for students to express their research findings clearly and effectively. the ai-driven tool goes beyond basic spell-check functions offered by typical word processors by analyzing the context and nuances of language usage, making it an excellent aid for those who might not be native speakers or who may have gaps in their understanding of academic writing conventions. grammarly's features are particularly beneficial for improving the readability of complex academic texts, which is a common requirement in doctoral-level writing. it offers suggestions to enhance sentence structure, which can be pivotal for constructing logical and persuasive arguments—a core aspect of dissertation writing. moreover, the tool includes a tone detector, which helps students ensure that their writing adheres to the formal tone typically expected in scholarly communication. the integration of grammarly into the writing process at molloy university has shown significant benefits in terms of boosting the confidence of doctoral candidates. students who might previously have felt hindered by their linguistic capabilities find that grammarly acts as a supportive co-writer, guiding them through the intricacies of english grammar and style. this support is not just about correcting mistakes; it's about learning and adopting better writing habits over time. for doctoral students whose primary focus must be on the content and quality of their research, grammarly alleviates the cognitive load associated with proofreading and editing their texts for grammatical accuracy. this allows them to dedicate more attention to refining their research, developing their arguments, and engaging deeply with their subject matter. as a result, students can produce dissertations that are not only substantial in content but also polished and professional in presentation. grammarly has proven to be a valuable tool for molloy university’s doctoral students, especially those who face challenges with english proficiency. by enhancing their writing skills, grammarly helps level the playing field, ensuring that all students, regardless of their linguistic background, have the opportunity to succeed and excel in their academic endeavors. this contributes significantly to the overall goal of fostering a supportive and inclusive academic environment where every student can thrive. conclusions the faculty of the education doctorate (edd) program at molloy university has proactively embraced ai tools as both pedagogical aids and support mechanisms for doctoral students. this strategic adoption stems from a recognition of the transformative potential of ai in enhancing academic practices and supporting diverse student needs, especially in complex areas such as research and writing. the decision to integrate ai tools like scholar ai, grammarly, and perusall into the curriculum reflects a broader commitment to utilizing technology to enrich learning outcomes and streamline the research and writing processes. these tools are carefully selected and curated to ensure they complement the educational objectives of the edd program, providing students with sophisticated resources that enhance their capabilities as emerging scholars and researchers. molloy’s culture around the use of ai is grounded in transparency and integrity. faculty members educate students on the appropriate and ethical use of ai tools, ensuring that they understand not just how to use these technologies effectively, but schroeder & alcruz impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.477 32 also the importance of maintaining academic honesty. an essential component of this education involves the proper citation of ai tools in their academic work. when ai platforms like scholar ai contribute to literature reviews or data analysis, students are instructed to acknowledge these contributions explicitly in their dissertations and other scholarly outputs. this practice of citing ai tools is crucial, as it maintains the scholarly rigor of their work and upholds the academic standards of the university. students are taught to treat ai tools as they would any other source of information — as valuable inputs that need to be critically evaluated and appropriately credited. this approach not only fosters a responsible use of technology but also encourages a deeper understanding of the material, as students must engage thoroughly with the content to determine how best to integrate and attribute aigenerated insights. in addition to fostering an environment of academic integrity through the appropriate citation of ai tools, the molloy edd faculty also emphasizes the ethical dimensions of using ai in research and writing. this includes educating students about the potential biases that may exist within ai algorithms, which often stem from the datasets on which these tools are trained. recognizing and understanding these biases is critical, as it impacts the reliability and validity of the research findings derived from ai analyses. students are taught to critically assess the output from ai tools, considering how underlying data biases might influence their research conclusions and ensuring that these insights are balanced with other scholarly sources. the faculty addresses the issue of plagiarism in the context of ai use, a concern that is becoming increasingly pertinent as ai capabilities expand. students are reminded that while ai can greatly assist in the process of generating content, the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the work is original and properly attributed lies with the individual scholar. they are instructed on how to use ai as a support tool rather than a source, which involves transforming aigenerated content into original analyses and arguments that reflect their unique perspective and scholarly voice. this careful approach to using ai not only helps prevent academic dishonesty but also encourages students to develop their independent critical thinking and writing skills, essential for their growth as scholars. by embracing ai tools within their pedagogical strategies and supporting the ethical use of these technologies, the molloy edd faculty is not only enhancing the educational experience but also preparing doctoral candidates for a future where ai plays a significant role in academia and beyond. doctoral students report academic research and writing as formidable tasks and are often reasons for doctoral program dropouts (wollast, et al, 2018). this forward-thinking strategy ensures that molloy graduates are not only proficient in their disciplines but also adept at leveraging technology to foster academic and professional excellence. references adams, b., & wilson, n. s. (2020). building community in asynchronous online higher education courses through collaborative annotation. journal of educational technology systems, 49(2), 250–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047239520946422 burkhard, m. (2022). student perceptions of ai-powered writing tools: towards individualized teaching strategies. proceedings of the 19th international conference on cognition and exploratory learning in digital age (celda 2022), lisbon, portugal, november 8–10. chan, c. k. y. (2023). a comprehensive ai policy education framework for university teaching and learning. international journal of educational technology in higher education, 20(1), 38.  https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00408-3 collins, a., brown, j. s., & holum, a. (1991). cognitive apprenticeship: making thinking visible. american educator, 15(3), 6–11, 38–46. kurt, s. (2021, january 30). cognitive apprenticeship. educational technology. https://educationaltechnology.net/cognitive-apprenticeship/ turing, a. m. (1950). computing machinery and intelligence. mind, 59(236), 433–460. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/lix.236.433 wollast, r., boudrenghien, g., van der linden, n., galand, b., roland, n., devos, c., de clercq, m., klein, o., azzi, assad, & frenay, m. (2018). who are the doctoral students who drop out? factors associated with the rate of doctoral degree completion in universities. international journal of higher education, 7(4), 143–156. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v7n4p143 https://doi.org/10.1177/0047239520946422 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00408-3 https://educationaltechnology.net/cognitive-apprenticeship/ https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/lix.236.433 https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v7n4p143 mubina khan schroeder molloy university joanna alcruz molloy university historical context and evolution of ai in academia the cognitive apprenticeship model and ai pedagogical assistants integrating ai tools with the cognitive apprenticeship model perusall scispace scholar ai grammarly conclusions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 18 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 to crt (in your dissertation) or not crt? that is the question! reginald d. wilkerson the college of william & mary rdwilkerson@wm.edu jill alexa perry university of pittsburgh jperry@pitt.edu abstract recently the notion of critical race theory (crt) has come under fire by those with a limited knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings surrounding the intersection of education, law, and race in american society. to support those students eager to incorporate crt as a framework within their research, the authors analyzed the dissertations of students receiving education doctorates (edd). the researchers set out to determine how edd students used crt, how they framed problems of practice (pop), how they operationalized crt, and to understand how those former students interrogated their findings in the pursuit of truth. the authors intend for this work to expand the knowledge base on crt and inform scholarly practitioners on how to operationalize crt to create sustainable change in the american education system. keywords critical race theory, education doctorate, applied research, cped purpose recently the discipline of critical race theory (crt) has endured a withering attack by american citizens who are only tangentially familiar with the framework of crt. in the years from 2021–2023 numerous u.s. states banned the teaching of critical race theory or intend to propose legislation against crt (alexander, 2023; sawchuk, 2021). emanating from the malicious attacks directed towards crt in educational settings and the preparation of educational leaders in education doctorate (edd) programs, this study sought to understand how crt was used as a theoretical framework in educational doctorate programs and in the professional spaces in which edd students worked. as we noted, with the controversy around crt continuing to intensify, we began to wonder how and how often edd candidates used crt to frame their understanding of the problems encountered in their professional settings. additionally, we sought to understand to what extent edd candidates employed applied research methodologies alongside crt in their dissertation studies to go beyond general investigations of these problems and to address them in ways that changed their leadership practices in the long run. specifically, we asked: to what extent do edd students (who are most often educational professionals that remain in practice while studying) use or operationalize crt and applied research with their dissertations? in addition to crafting our guiding research question, we also made a strategic decision to initially focus solely on dissertation abstracts. because so many abstracts (2,000+ bound from the years 2010-2022) fit our initial search criteria, we made the decision to initially examine dissertation abstracts. focusing on dissertation abstracts in our initial data analysis phase allowed us to access a more linear set of data as opposed to examining complete dissertations in their entirety. while we realize that focusing solely on abstracts is a limitation in our study at this early juncture of our work, we also felt that examining entire dissertations in our initial data observation would be a cumbersome enterprise and not an efficient usage of time considering the number of edd students who used crt as a theoretical framework. in our initial review, we sought to examine the inclusion of crt in the content of dissertation abstracts. this initial review, focusing on content rather than quality in terms of student abstracts led to the creation of this study. for the more holistic version of our study, we intend to examine the complete dissertations of our remaining data set after the abstract data has been narrowed based upon our search criteria. therefore, armed with a guiding question and a streamlined data set, we set out to better understand our research question. however, as we began our data analysis, preliminary findings gave us pause as our early findings were very much unexpected or anticipated. as a result, we dug deeper into these early findings to help shape our larger study. the purpose of this article is to report on our early findings. here, it is important to note we use the terms scholarly practitioner (defined below), graduates, and edd students/candidates interchangeably throughout this study. these terms all apply to the students who remain in practice while pursuing a professional practice education doctorate and describe the various stages they will hold during the doctoral experience. in addition, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1529-2133 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4803-9946 to crt (in your dissertation) or not crt? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 19 these terms seek to underscore the edd journey– from professional practitioner, to student, to graduate, to scholarly practitioner who brings back into practice the skills, knowledge, and dispositions to impact and improve educational experiences. understanding this distinction early in this study may help to ease navigation and understanding of this work. critical race theory critical race theory, for the purposes of this paper, was framed from the viewpoints of the late legal scholar, derrick bell who introduced the framework. bell (1995) framed critical race theory (crt) as a separate and distinctive branch from the field of critical legal theory. differing from critical legal theory, critical race theory allowed for a deeper, more focused, nuanced interrogation of the intersection of race and aspects of american society. areas such as economic, legal, or social issues for example (or for the purposes of this paper, the american education system) were key elements for examination. at the core of crt are the notions that the gains of the civil rights movement were muted, that race is an artificial concept often used to marginalize and oppress people of color, and the law and the legal system is inherently flawed and biased (taylor, 1998). noted crt scholar jamel k. donnor (2021) stated crt is “an intellectual movement that originated in legal academia during the 1970s” [as] “an amalgamation of critical perspectives” (p. 262) which interrogate the notions of race and racial power in america. crt as posited by bell and other scholars such as kimberle crenshaw, charles lawrence, gloria ladson-billings, william tate, richard delgado, mari matsuda, and patricia williams (taylor, 1998) explores the tenets of a) race operating as a social construct, b) the permanence of racism, c) the idea of interest convergence, d) the intersectional nature of the theory itself, and e) the use of counternarratives to spotlight under-researched experiences and viewpoints. as we thought about scholarly practitioners who graduated from edd programs, we reflected upon these tenets which only increased our curiosity about how these tenets were used (or applied) in edd student dissertations. in addition to examining the abstracts for the tenets of crt, our analysis investigated the application of crt in each dissertation examined. for us, we understood and appreciated the practical, applied nature of the edd doctorate. as a field that seeks to produce scholarly practitioners, we felt the practical nature, the applied grounding, and the actual “do something with” aspect of the edd doctoral journey was essential to the student learning experience. consequently, a key concept of our analysis of edd dissertations was the active engagement of crt in the edd dissertation. to meet our examination criteria, a student had to do more than mention crt in their abstract. rather, they had to show, define, or present how they operationalized, how they used, and how they brought to life crt in their dissertation study. we focused on the dissertation experience because it is the culminating experience of doctoral programs that do not require licensure exams (e.g., law, medicine). historically, the dissertation has been defined as an “elaborate thesis [or] rigorous test of intellectual mettle” (loss, 2015, p. 3). in professional programs specifically, a dissertation is an endeavor that “investigates a particular professional topic or existing problem” (colwill, 2012, p. 13). in either sense, a dissertation is a culminating experience that ensures the student has mastered a body of knowledge and set of skills. the dissertation experience, therefore, is a high-impact educational practice in which students “devote considerable time and effort to purposeful tasks” (kuh, 2008, p. 1) such as problem definition, empirical investigation, etc. as a professional doctorate, the edd dissertation experience provides the opportunity to support students in learning high impact leadership practices such as applying research and inquiry to change educational practice. further, by integrating crt as a lens for the research process, students may build an equity-minded skill set for framing and solving the problems of practice they encounter beyond the dissertation experience. in our larger study, we set out to determine how former education doctorate students used crt in their dissertation work, how they framed and addressed problems of practice in their studies, how they utilized applied research in their dissertation study, and how these students (now graduates) have been able to elicit sustainable, high impact leadership practices as a result of their doctoral experience. conceptual framework carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework as faculty in edd programs that are both members of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), we view the dissertation process through the cped framework. the cped framework includes a set of guiding principles and design-concepts that (re)design the edd program of study to prepare graduates to become scholarly practitioners, or leaders who “use practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice” and “disseminate their work in multiple ways” (cped, 2010, para. 1). as noted in this definition, the cped framework centralizes equity and justice in defining all components of the framework. for example, principle one states edd programs are “framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (cped, 2009, para. 1). additionally, cped principle three states edd candidates are taught “to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships” (cped, 2009, para. 1). as part of the development of cped-influenced edd programs, these three design-concepts help shape the dissertation process. first, students engage in work focused on a problem of practice defined as a “persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes” (cped, 2010, para. 6). next, student investigations are done through a process of inquiry as practice which is “the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice; using data to understand the effects of innovation; and gathering, organizing, judging, aggregating, and analyzing situations, literature, and data with a critical lens” (cped, 2010, para. 3). the result of applying inquiry as practice to a problem of practice is a dissertation in practice (dip), or a “scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (cped, 2010, para. 4). these three definitions bring together the notions of professional practice, localized problems, critical lenses, and impact or change which result in preparing leaders with the skills to apply research to practice as a means of improvement. often, such dissertations in practice employ critical theories that reframe persistent, yet complex problems found in educational practice and engage in applied wilkerson & perry impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 20 research methods (e.g., action research, improvement science, evaluation) to ameliorate these problems. while no two cped edd programs are the same in their design of courses or dissertation process, many are guided by this framework which stresses equity and applied research. therefore, we chose to narrow our inquiry to dissertations produced in cped member edd programs. our aim was to understand how (and how often) crt and applied research methods were utilized together to frame and address problems of practice and how the dissertation process helped shape leadership skill development capable of improving educational practices. scholarly practitioner scholarly practitioners are boundary spanners. they sit between the world of educational practice and the world of academia. in this role, they are charged with deciphering literature and communicating it to stakeholders (hochbein & perry, 2013). they may find themselves in situations where they must “advocate for their stakeholders and organizations” (perry 2015, p. 4) using empirical evidence. and they must be able to apply literature and theory in the design of practical solutions to solve problems of practice (archbald, 2008; perry, 2015; shulman et al., 2006; willis et al., 2010). the skills of a scholarly practitioner are often learned in edd programs where students “learn to see important questions in the world of practice, frame those questions in terms of rigorous inquiry, answer those questions by generating and analyzing data, share what they have learned with other stakeholders, and directly apply what they have learned in settings of practice” (golde, 2013, p. 145). the learning process for becoming scholarly practitioners is different from the learning process in other, more traditional doctoral programs, however. piantanida and colleagues (2019) described this process as one of meaning making where learning is experiential, relational, situated, recursive, deliberative, and discursive. following these authors' thinking, we sought a deeper understanding of the learning process by which scholarly practitioners embark upon learning crt and the process upon which they make crt operational, in an effort to make meaning of how equitable educational spaces can be created and sustained…by any means necessary. methods to address our research question, we looked at edd dissertation abstracts across cped member edd programs. in looking at the edd dissertation abstracts, we first had to decide how we would review the abstracts. moving beyond the dividing of research tasks, we engaged in substantive dialogue around what we expected a crt grounded, operationalized, problem of practicebased, applied research dissertation would, should, or could look like. these conversations allowed us to establish our baseline for reviewing the edd dissertations that we hoped to find. what follows is our framework of a crt grounded, operationalized, applied research dissertation. at the very onset, we examined dissertation abstracts that prominently mentioned employing crt as a theoretical framework. crt, as defined above by donner (2021) “challenges the ways in which race and racial power are constructed and represented in american legal culture and, more generally, in american society as a whole” (crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiii; delgado & stefancic, 2017; ladson-billings & tate, 1995; matsuda et al., 1993). consequently, as an initial screening criteria, all abstracts had to exhibit an explicit usage of and reference to crt. however, for us, a mere mention of the concept of crt was not enough for a dissertation abstract to be included in our final data set. more to the point, we sought to not only see the tenets of crt (race as a social construct, the permanence of racism, interest convergence, intersectionality, and counternarratives) referenced in the abstracts, but also, we looked for evidence of a practical application of crt in the study and not simply a theoretical description and application of crt in the abstracts. to explain, in examining the abstracts provided we first reviewed all selected abstracts that referenced crt. we then looked at each to see how crt was employed. abstracts that met our framework (see figure 1 below) used crt to create something, to do something, or implement a program grounded in crt (e.g., a hip hop music experience, a study hall/tutorial program for division 1 college-bound athletes, or a support group for women in higher education). the creation of these programs, integrated with the specific tenets of crt, met our definition of operationalization regarding the concept of crt. in short, we wanted to see that students had done something with crt, in addition to elaborating upon it theoretically. figure 1. framework for determining inclusion of abstracts data sample we began this study from an inquisitive space seeking to find out how pervasive the use of crt was in edd dissertations. to facilitate a deeper understanding of this question, we conducted a simple keyword search using the google search engine, focusing on to crt (in your dissertation) or not crt? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 21 the words “critical race theory (crt)” and “dissertation” (january 12, 2022). our initial search yielded over 2,500 dissertations. the high volume of the crt themed dissertations validated our contention that many students used crt as their theoretical framework or used crt to craft a framework from which to view the findings of their dissertations. however, even bounding the time frame to the period from 1990-2022 still yielded over 2000 dissertations. in an attempt to narrow down our data sample, we reached out to a colleague at proquest to see if they could further refine our crt based dissertation search. using the same time span and thematic parameters, the proquest search yielded 1,759 dissertations. further refining our search criteria to include the term “education doctorates” / edds and further narrowing our search by bounding the time period from years 2010-2022, we then found a total of 508 dissertations that utilized “crt”, were from the years of 2010-2022, and were “education doctorates.” seeking to further narrow the data pool we were working with; we conducted another level of narrowing and sought to only look at dissertations from cped member institutions. this additional search criteria led us to the final number of 247 dissertations reviewed for this study. analysis and findings both authors read and coded the 247 abstracts (one author read 123 and the other author read 124 before switching to read the other author’s portion) to ensure inter-rater reliability. a first round of coding (saldaña, 2013) focused on whether abstracts demonstrated sensemaking (or the need for the student/leader to understand how exactly race is central to the problems they face), advocacy, (or giving voice to the those who are marginalized by local politics and policy) and critical thinking (teaching student/leader to think critically about race and privilege). in this initial round of analysis, the authors looked for evidence of the presence of crt tenets in the abstracts. in our first round of coding, we used the following basic coding structure; an abstract received a “1” if the abstract “used crt”, a “2” if the abstract “used crt and applied it to practice”, and a “3” if the abstract “used crt and did not apply it to practice.” this first round reduced the number of abstracts from 247 to five, further narrowing our sample. a second round of pattern coding (saldaña, 2013) utilizing these five abstracts focused on the use of crt in applicable, actionable, and sustainable ways in practice—all five demonstrated this aspect. at this point of our data analysis, we acknowledged more than five abstracts may have included the tenets of crt, and more than five abstracts may have used crt in applicable, actionable, and sustainable ways; however, only five abstracts met both of the criteria we were interested in discovering. the importance of this discovery is discussed below where we reflect on how students are taught to craft abstracts as this point holds significant importance for the scholarly practitioners we teach and for the faculty that guide them on the dissertation journey. from the initial two rounds of coding, a set of themes emerged. these themes highlight an edd student/graduate’s (scholarly practitioner) understanding and application of crt for the improvement of practice. these themes will guide the next two steps of the larger research project (discussed below). however, we found it necessary to stop and reflect on these initial findings given the wide gap between 247 initial abstracts and five final abstracts that met our framework. below we describe these themes and identify the questions that have arisen relevant to our larger research and to the teaching of crt in edd programs. the first theme that emerged was–educational practitioners embark upon and travel through doctoral journeys without a clear understanding about how they will apply their learning, specifically crt, to their practice. to explain, reflecting on the 242 dissertation abstracts that did not meet our selection criteria: all referenced crt in some aspect. we did not differentiate between abstracts using one crt tenet or three crt tenets (or more tenets; these numbers are for example only). we did, however, select dissertation abstracts that referenced the crt tenet(s) and operationalized them. we would like to elaborate on this latter point and propose a deeper analysis of these findings. in short, it was apparent the scholarly practitioners in these edd programs understood crt as a theoretical framework; but maybe forgot, were not told, or did not care to operationalize the application aspect of the edd degree. the lack of application stops short of cped’s definition for scholarly practitioners and the first guiding principle of program design, both of which center equity and justice and the application of theory to practice for change. further, it was unclear if the doctoral program specifically explained how and why edd work would be applied or should reflect applied learning. the absence of this knowledge further diminishes the applicability of crt to address a problem of practice or in professional practices post-graduation. reflecting upon the definition of scholarly practitioner and the aim of edd programs to prepare practitioners with applied research skills, we noted only five of 247 provided clear examples of our criteria. that is, we found most of the abstracts (242) used traditional methodologies that were exploratory in nature such as critical narrative inquiry, interpretive phenomenology, case study, and generic qualitative methods. much like the traditional fivechapter dissertation, these 242 students’ work were focused more on building and advancing knowledge about a specific phenomenon rather than on applying research and inquiry to improve educational practice in a particular setting. though we did find a handful of abstracts that mentioned action research, the authors did not clearly indicate if an action or what action was taken as part of the research process or any results of an intervention employed. we specifically chose to look at cped member graduates and employ the cped framework to guide our study because we wanted to see how crt and research methods were being applied together in actionable ways to prepare students/graduates to “use practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice” as the cped definition of scholarly practitioner explains (cped, 2010, para. 1). often the abstracts would identify a problem of practice (a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in their work) rather than a traditional gap in the literature. however, when addressing their problems, the authors chose traditional inquiry to deepen learning about the phenomenon rather than choosing inquiry as practice as described by cped to have an impact on the problem. reflections on this theme led us to additional questions such as: are edd programs truly providing the skills, knowledge, and dispositions for graduates to become scholarly practitioners? if not, where is the disconnect? are students learning to apply crt and inquiry to improve their practice settings even after the dissertation is completed? the second theme that emerged was–educational practitioners are not being taught the tenets of crt in ways that are deep, meaningful, and applicable. while many of the 242 abstracts not selected for our final study did reference crt in some way, most of the abstracts did not demonstrate a clear understanding of crt or its tenets. the difference between referencing crt and employing a wilkerson & perry impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 22 deeper understanding of crt was striking. to explain, an abstract would reference storytelling as a crt tenet, which is true. however, any discussion of findings in the abstract did not distinguish between the scholarly practitioner simply interviewing the participant or allowing the participant to engage in storytelling as an action that practiced some form of advocacy or offering a narrative that was counter to the dominant narrative. a keen understanding of crt and a keen understanding of the actionable nature of an edd dissertation most often were not seen. another example of the 242 dissertation abstracts we reviewed, demonstrated the scholarly practitioner employed crt to understand the problem of practice female students of color face in advanced programs of study in high school spaces. the scholarly practitioner interviewed the students and conducted an analysis of the narratives offered; but, we asked, to do what? how was the data gained operationalized? how was the data used to do something to make these female students of color lives (or those to come after them) better? these questions highlight the missing operationalization piece we sought to find in the abstracts, one essential aspect we felt supported the differentiation between the phd and the edd. we also noted crt was often listed as part of a conceptual lens to frame the particular study. for example, we observed scholarly practitioners often simply stated the importance of race as a construct in their research; but the ability or the opportunity to truly interrogate and synthesize the importance of race as it applied to their problems of practice or to the issues they sought to address was often missed. this discrepancy led us to wonder if there was backlash to the student’s use of race and crt, either at their institution or at their workplace (or wherever they conducted their study). did external factors limit the scholarly practitioners' depth of engagement with the concepts of race and crt? as a result, we were led to believe crt was not a meaningful component of the study nor applied appropriately. that is, we did not see crt being operationalized in the study as we have outlined above. this was most strikingly noted when one student of the five graduates interviewed for the larger study when asked “why did you chose crt as a framework” responded “because my chair told me i was doing a crt dissertation. and to be honest, i was ready to be done”. this finding raised additional questions such as: are edd faculty prepared to teach crt? are students provided the space to deeply learn, process, and apply crt? is crt a buzzword being tossed into edd studies to gain recognition? the third theme that emerged was–only five dissertations fit the coding criteria, offered examples of the application of crt to practice, and demonstrated the transformation to become a scholarly practitioner who leads for the improvement of those who are marginalized. based on our criteria for this study, we found it interesting that only five dissertation abstracts demonstrated the definition of a scholarly practitioner. we compared these five abstracts to the cped definition of dissertation in practice (dip) which reads a dip is a “scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (cped, 2010, para. 5) and to the tenets of crt to guide our understanding of how this exercise prepared these five students to become scholarly practitioners. in examining the use of crt in the abstract, we looked for language that clearly described the theory and demonstrated crt tenets were employed to frame the problem of practice and to analyze the findings. examples included: “using critical race theory… can be an effective approach to teaching students,” “operationalizing crt as a framework for this study,” and “crt was used to explore…” the remainder of abstracts tended to mention crt as a theoretical framework but did not indicate how the theory was used in the study. for example, these abstracts noted, “the framework of crt provided the lens through which to analyze resulting data,” “interview results were analyzed through the theoretical lens of crt,” or “crt is used as a conceptual framework.” the distinction between these two types of abstracts (operationalizing crt versus employing crt as a lens) might seem minor at first glance, but in actuality it shows a gap between understanding crt as a theory and using it to impact change. next, we examined the design of the study for types of methodologies used, actions taken, or the implications of results listed in the abstracts to determine if the methods were applied methods and if the results indicated action taken on the problem of practice. examples included: participants “engaged in a one-day workshop,” “undergraduate students facilitated a [minority student] meet up club,” and “findings informed organizational change efforts to build inclusive communities.” the research methodologies these five studies employed included some sort of intervention where the author implemented and investigated an idea in their workplace (i.e., a workshop) and gathered data on the impact of that intervention through qualitative means. because the abstracts included in our clearly met our criteria, we began to wonder if the student’s skills and abilities were related to their edd programs or to their professional experiences. therefore, this finding raised additional questions such as: were these authors already good leaders to begin with? how did the edd experience with exposure to crt, scholarship, and inquiry impact their leadership post-edd? finally, an observation that perhaps has led to these findings and was significant to our learning was focused on the writing of abstracts. we found the majority of the abstracts we read were not effectively written and perhaps this led to our misunderstanding of the use of crt and the study designs. for example, we surprisingly found that some abstracts had not been updated from what was written during the proposal phase, meaning we were reading the proposal abstract (e.g., i will study; i will recruit participants). we found others were overly filled with literature and lacking in substance about the proposed study design offering the reader more of a mini-literature review than an intriguing insight as to what would follow. we also found unclear terms to describe the data used or the methods applied making it difficult to determine if the author had done a case study or a narrative analysis. finally, we saw varied lengths and little structure to support the reader in understanding and identifying what the dissertation was about, what was done, and what the results were. this wide variety of abstract writing led us to wonder: are edd students being taught how to properly write an abstract, one that is reflective of their study and inclusive of the necessary components that support the reader's understanding? according to tullu (2019), “the ‘abstract’ needs to be simple, specific, clear, unbiased, honest, concise, precise, stand-alone, complete, scholarly, (preferably) structured, and should not be misrepresentative” (p. s12). in other words, the abstract should be what the american psychology association (apa) publication manual 7th edition (2020) explained as “a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the paper” which is often the “first contact” with the research and often determines if one will read the piece (p. 73). in this space of 250 words, scholarly practitioners are asked to provide coherent and concise language about their studies. seeing that we found the majority of abstracts did not clearly provide an understanding of the to crt (in your dissertation) or not crt? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.424 23 study, then we wondered if students were not properly being taught to communicate with various audiences the work that they have done or if they had been given the scholarly tools of apa writing relative to abstract construction. next steps the themes and questions generated from this early analysis guides the next two aspects of our larger research project. we have used these preliminary findings to develop a set of interview questions that allow us to conduct a deeper exploration into the experiences of the five dissertation authors. currently, the researchers have found and interviewed four of the five authors and are analyzing these data. the aim of these interviews is to gain a more nuanced understanding of how these former students: ● were taught or learned about crt and how to apply it theoretically, ● applied crt to frame their applied research studies, and ● have transferred the theoretical aspects of crt and their applied dissertations into practical and continued application in their chosen vocation (namely k-20 leadership). our goals for the next iterations of the study are to develop individual cases for each of the four authors. we will then conduct a cross-case analysis seeking to produce additional findings that can support the teaching of crt in edd programs. significance in a time when crt remains both critical and threatened, we initially anticipated the research results from both our early findings and our larger study would support students and faculty engaged in edd programs in learning how to use crt in the dissertation experience. in particular, we hope these preliminary findings stress the importance of combining crt with applied research methodologies to support educational leaders in building better practices for addressing equity issues in their educational settings beyond their edd programs. in these early findings, we hope to shed light on the complicated nature of introducing crt into professional practice doctoral programs, particularly if the intent is to help marginalized populations. we seek to share findings with edd faculty / colleagues about the need for providing clear, practical applications of crt in educational spaces. we believe these findings may better enable scholarly practitioners and the faculty who guide these students, to employ the tools necessary to withstand the attack under which crt has found itself in an effort to truly create equitable and sustainable leadership environments. conclusion this exploratory study examined the intersection of k-20 educational leadership, crt, and the dissertation experience as a means to understand how crt scholarly work translates into applied work in practice among edd graduates. initially, we sought to simply understand the usage of crt and its application in edd dissertations in the context of the blistering and unwarranted attack crt finds itself facing. however, our analysis led to us uncovering findings that will help us shape our work with scholarly practitioners and our programs in general. for example, while often the abstract may be considered by some an afterthought, especially after having penned a more substantive dissertation in practice; from our vantage point, we saw an even greater importance on helping students craft an effective abstract. after all, the abstract was for us and was for many readers of our students’ research, the first glimpse of the work; the front porch if you will for the remainder of the work. and as such, this first glimpse needs to showcase the scholarly practitioner’s work effectively and accurately rather than come across as an afterthought. in addition, this preliminary study has caused us to reflect on program design and how theoretical frames are presented to students, and even more so this work has allowed us to reflect upon how we would provide students with an understanding of what the edd journey could be and what it should entail. it is our hope that this exploratory study will provide you space to reflect upon practices as you operate either as faculty supporting scholarly practitioners or as a scholarly practitioner yourself. abstracts have tremendous value as does the framework of crt; it is our hope this study spurs both scholarly thought and discussion as you seek to infuse actionable outcomes and sustainable change in the american education system. we must tell our own story; if not us—then who? references alexander, t. n. 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(2010). completing a professional practice dissertation: a guide for doctoral students and faculty. information age publishing. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05 http://www.doi.org/10.4103/sja.sja_685_18 reginald d. wilkerson the college of william & mary jill alexa perry university of pittsburgh purpose critical race theory conceptual framework carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework scholarly practitioner methods data sample analysis and findings next steps significance conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 59 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.486 the impact of a diversity and social justice course on a higher education assessment professional’s practice jeremy p. reich new jersey institute of technology jeremy.p.reich@njit.edu abstract this essay discusses the impact of a diversity and social justice course on the assessment philosophy and practice of an early-career higher education assessment professional. the author, who directs institutional assessment practices at a public 4-year institution in the northeastern united states and is pursuing an online doctorate in higher education, reflects on the impact of this course. the experience of the course prompted significant reflection on the author’s inherited privilege and the need to incorporate equity for social justice into their professional practice. this essay tracks the author's journey through this course from a self-described ally to an aspiring co-conspirator, reinforces the need to incorporate equity for social justice into higher education assessment practices, and argues for the inclusion of a diversity and social justice course as a standard offering in higher education doctoral programs. keywords assessment, equity, social justice, co-conspirator, higher education in early 2021, i was recruited to revitalize my 4-year public institution’s assessment practices and culture as their higher education assessment professional. despite the leadership's preference for a candidate with a terminal degree, i was selected based on my skills and availability, although i only held a master’s degree. to address this qualification gap, i enrolled in an online doctoral program in higher education. since then, i have leveraged the program’s coursework to benefit my institution and am developing a dissertation with the same aim. each course has significantly enhanced my professional development and improved my institution’s assessment processes and culture, with a recent course having an exceptionally profound impact. in the spring 2024 semester, i enrolled in an elective course on diversity and social justice in higher education. with two history degrees and a habit of staying informed, i anticipated that the class would be important for my role as a higher education assessment professional. however, i did not anticipate the emotional, intellectually taxing, and profound journey that the course would facilitate. this essay tracks my development through the course, from a self-described ally to an aspiring co-conspirator. i will describe how the course facilitated this journey while providing a supportive environment for confronting a fraught history and the pressing issues of privilege and oppression in the united states and american higher education. i will discuss the course’s impact on my philosophy and practice as a higher education assessment professional and emphasize the need to incorporate equity for social justice into institutional assessment practices. furthermore, i will argue for including diversity and social justice in higher education courses as a required component of doctoral programs in higher education. confronting privilege and oppression my experience in this course on diversity for social justice in higher education progressed through three distinct phases: understanding the history and modern issues of privilege and oppression in the united states, confronting my own place in the contemporary social hierarchy of privilege and oppression, and incorporating equity for social justice into my professional practice. the initial learning phase was facilitated primarily through the course’s texts, supplemented by articles and videos. the major texts of the course were paulo freire’s (2018) pedagogy of the oppressed, beverly tatum’s (2021) why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: and other conversations about race, khyati joshi’s (2020) white christian privilege, and frederick engram’s (2023) black liberation through action and resistance: move. although i was already familiar with the issues of equity and social justice, the course provided me with an academic framework and language to discuss these issues in the context of my role as a higher education assessment professional. the second phase of the course was the most emotionally and intellectually taxing experience of my educational journey thus far, yet also the most profound and impactful. this phase involved the first two course assignments, an inventory and timeline of critical incidents and a racial identity development reflection paper. the first assignment prompted students to connect a list of critical incidents, such as the assassinations of jfk and mlk, 9/11, and learning about, discrimination and the social constructs of gender and race, to points in their lives. this timeline was complemented by an autobiographical essay contextualizing these incidents through the matrix of oppression (office of equity, 2020), which is based on patricia hill collins’ (2022) matrix of domination. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6677-1898 reich impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.486 60 this exercise compelled me to explore my own story in the context of these critical incidents and the issues of equity and social justice they imply. for example, the juxtaposition of the assassinations of jfk and mlk prompted reflection on which tragedy i subconsciously considered more important and which one i knew about. although i was relieved upon reflection that i had been conscious of mlk’s assassination significantly earlier than that of jfk, i realized that this was based purely on the inherent diversity and urban nature of the environment in which i went to primary school, and not the result of some intentional philosophy of raising a child. the exercise brought past traumas to the forefront, providing an opportunity to contextualize them through the lenses of equity and social justice. placing myself within the matrix of oppression (office of equity, 2020) highlighted my inherent privileges as a white heterosexual and upper-middle class male, and my few categories of oppression due to my jewish upbringing and atheism. as a result, i reaffirmed my concerns that my efforts as a self-described empathetic ally were insufficient and resolved to become a coconspirator (engram, 2023), leveraging my privilege and professional career to help address the damage inflicted by a history of racism and oppression in the united states. in the current academic discourse on equity and social justice, the term ally has come to signify a passive form of anti-racism practiced by individuals with racialized privilege, often perceived as performative. consequently, a stronger term, co-conspirator, has emerged to describe those who actively engage in anti-racist efforts. a co-conspirator makes a significant personal investment in antiracism by leveraging their racial and class privilege and challenging their own privilege to advance equity (engram, 2023). while the term co-conspirator may carry uncomfortable and negative connections from its use in criminal justice contexts, it is an established term in the field of equity and social justice. therefore, it is used in this essay to replace the outmoded term, ally. the second assignment involved reflecting on my racial identity development through a series of questions based on the janet helms’ (2001) statuses of racial identity development, as discussed by beverly tatum (2021) in chapter 6 of why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: and other conversations about race. the provided questions prompted reflection on my understandings of racism, race as a construct, discrimination, the connection between religion and white supremacy, whiteness, colorblindness, and how these understandings shaped my worldview. building upon the experience of the critical incident inventory timeline and essay, this exercise expanded my contextualization of past experiences in the context of my current worldview regarding equity and social justice. it facilitated reflection on my racial identity development by forcing me to confront my identities, privileges, oppressions, and traumas, leading me through the statuses of racial identity development: contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independent, immersion/emersion, and autonomy (tatum, 2021). racial identity development, as defined by beverly tatum (2021), is the process by which an individual defines the personal significance and social meaning of belonging to a particular racial group. this concept also extends to ethnic and cultural identity development (tatum, 2021). helms' (2001) six statuses of racial identity development are universally applicable, but for white individuals, the process involves three key tasks: abandoning individual racism, recognizing institutional and cultural racism, and opposing that racism (tatum, 2021). the initial status, contact, occurs when an individual is exposed to new experiences or knowledge that trigger the active exploration of their racial identity. this leads to the disintegration status, marked by an increased awareness of racism and white privilege and their impact on oppressed groups. the discomfort arising from this awareness may cause a regression into the reintegration status, where feelings of guilt and shame are transformed into fear and anger towards oppressed peoples. however, progression to this status is not inevitable (tatum, 2021). in the pseudo-independent status, the individual's understanding of institutional racism deepens and the threat of reintegration diminishes. at this stage, white individuals often experience a sense of guilt for their inherited privilege. the immersion/emersion status follows, wherein this guilt and shame are alleviated as the individual realizes the necessity of being actively anti-racist. the final status, autonomy, is achieved when the individual internalizes their new understanding of their racial identity, driving their efforts to confront racism and other forms of oppression (tatum, 2021). reflecting on my racial identity development through this assignment reinforced my awareness of my privilege through the disintegration status and helped me navigate the shame associated with that privilege characteristic of the pseudo-independent status. the exercise supported my transition through the immersion/emersion status to overcome that sense of shame, empowering me to begin shifting my focus on using my privilege productively and positively, thus reaching the final autonomy status (tatum, 2021). although preparing the first two assignments was both emotionally and intellectually taxing, raising personal traumas and insecurities, it was transformative in allowing me to confront these issues, move beyond them, and to grow as an individual. incorporating equity into my assessment philosophy the course structure built on the personal growth achieved through the initial assignments to facilitate professional development by prompting students to articulate a social justice philosophy and to undertake a research project on equity and social justice. the social justice philosophy assignment required students to articulate a philosophy of social justice based on the course’s readings, discussions, and assignments. i expanded this assignment to incorporate equity for social justice into my philosophy of assessment, which guides my professional practice and thus my institution’s assessment practices. the modern higher education assessment profession began developing in the 1980s in response to state and federal calls for greater accountability for learning outcomes and internal pressures to improve curricula through scholarly processes (niloa, 2019). the resulting tension between assessment for compliance and assessment for continuous improvement persists (ewell, 2009). effective assessment processes are not designed to simply achieve compliance, but rather to yield meaningful student outcomes data to inform their continuous improvement (suskie, 2018). my work has focused on establishing processes that facilitate assessment for continuous improvement. equity in assessment has been a background consideration since early in my career. however, i postponed the explicit incorporation of equity into assessment while i focused on impact of social justice course on assessment impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.486 61 revitalizing assessment processes and culture. my experience in this diversity and social justice in higher education course compelled me to reconsider that strategy. the social justice philosophy assignment allowed me to explore the ongoing discourse on equity in higher education assessment. in 2017, the national institute for learning outcomes assessment (niloa) launched its initiative to explore equitable and culturally responsive approaches to assessment (2023). the initiative was a response to increasingly diverse student enrollment and the vast differences between the needs of different student populations. in the niloa occasional paper that launched the initiative, montenegro and jankowski (2017) argued that student learning outcome statements, assessment approaches, and the use of assessment results must be responsive to students’ diverse backgrounds and that assessments should be about demonstrating learning rather than enforcing a narrow vision of how that learning should be demonstrated. the resulting discourse established equity as a major theme of higher education assessment scholarship. montenegro and jankowski (2020) reflected on this discourse in a subsequent niloa occasional paper, further arguing that higher education assessment professionals needed to embed equity in all aspects of institutional assessment practices to address inequities and avoid perpetuating them by meaningfully involving students, disaggregating, exploring, and acting on assessment data and adopting context-specific approaches and responses to advance equity through assessment. before this course, my philosophy of assessment stated that assessment processes must be (a) effective, efficient, and meaningful, (b) facilitated centrally through community engagement, and (c) transparent. through the social justice philosophy assignment, i articulated a statement acknowledging my inherent privilege and affirmed my racial identity development autonomy status by declaring my intention to advance equity for social justice as a co-conspirator (engram, 2023) by incorporating social justice into my philosophy of assessment. my revised philosophy of assessment now includes a fourth component, stating that assessment must also be (d) designed to actively identify and address inequities. in practice, this means ensuring that all categories of assessment address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. the data provided to institutional stakeholders is disaggregated to facilitate the identification of inequities, and procedures are designed to promote action towards resolving identified inequities with social justice in mind. incorporating equity into my assessment practice the final assignment of the course, an equity and social justice project, provided an opportunity to immediately implement my updated philosophy of assessment into my practice as a higher education assessment professional. at my institution of higher education, the next phase in developing the data infrastructure for informing processes of assessment for continuous improvement involves designing data visualization dashboards. these dashboards will empower academic program directors to analyze student learning outcomes data, identify opportunities for continuous improvement, and plan actions accordingly. considering recently updated institutional accreditation standards that require institutions of higher education to disaggregate student outcomes data, these dashboards must necessarily incorporate outcomes data disaggregation features that effectively inform assessment for continuous improvement (kelderman, 2023). my equity and social justice project aimed to determine how higher education assessment professionals can account for intersecting identities (bolding, 2020) in these dashboards to facilitate equity-minded assessments and improve all students’ outcomes (montenegro & jankowski, 2020). assessment data must not be disaggregated solely by individual student subpopulation categories, as this approach fails to accurately identify equity gaps. rather, equity-minded assessment must consider students’ unique characteristics and needs that result from the intersection of identities. kimberlé crenshaw (2016) pioneered the concept of intersectionality, which highlights the compounded impact of multiple identity factors, particularly the specific experience of black women, whose combined racial and gender identities create unique challenges not faced by either black men or white women. this concept has since expanded to address various combinations of oppressed identities and the broader notion of intersecting identities, which includes intersections of both privileged and oppressed characteristics (bolding, 2020). in preparing my equity and social justice project, i discovered a lack of existing research on accounting for intersecting identities in assessment data dashboards. current research often combines intersecting identities into visualized categories rather than integrating intersections within the data visualizations themselves (sloan-lynch & morse, 2024). i concluded that the best way to account for intersecting identities in assessment data visualizations was to utilize a heat map, as they are particularly suitable for visualizing intersecting factors (ryan, 2023). for example, figure 1, a heatmap disaggregating student outcomes data by intersecting identities was created using 2022 cohort and completion data from the integrated postsecondary education data system (ipeds) for a four-year private institution in the northeastern united states (nces 2024). although this is a simple example, it allows users to quickly analyze data through literal intersections of student identities, thereby identifying inequities in outcomes. figure 1. 2022 graduation rates by race/ethnicity and gender the scope of the equity and social justice project was constrained by the page and time limitations of the assignment, necessitating a focus on identifying a data visualization mechanism that accounts for the intersection of two identities. further research is recommended to explore how to analyze changes over time in student outcomes and to effectively account for more than two intersecting identities, thereby deepening the equity analysis of student outcomes. in alignment with my updated philosophy of assessment, i have resolved to expand the original scope to address these questions, with the intention of submitting the results for publication in a scholarly journal focused on higher education reich impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.486 62 assessment. additionally, beyond the scope of the equity and social justice project, i am committed to embedding processes that facilitate equity-minded assessment. this includes prompting academic program directors to engage with disaggregated assessment data and encouraging them to adopt context-specific action plans to advance equity through continuous improvement. the importance of diversity and social justice courses in edd programs as discussed throughout this article, the diversity and social justice course had a profound and immediate impact on my assessment philosophy and practice as a higher education assessment professional. by the end of the course, there was a consensus among my fellow students and myself that such a course should be a requirement for doctoral programs in higher education rather than an elective. while i was notably the only white male enrolled, the course profoundly impacted all participants. this anecdotal sentiment reflects a broader need within higher education doctoral programs. as philis george (2017) argues, the evolving demographics of higher education raise critical issues of access, accountability, affordability, and attrition that institutions must address. consequently, higher education doctoral programs should aim to develop staff and administrators into co-conspirators who understand and are committed to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. these programs must equip professionals with the motivations and tools to strive for equity for social justice in their practice. relevant scholarly discourse surrounds the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) framework, which calls for edd programs to reimagine how students are prepared to be educational leaders (2022). a core element of the framework is to frame the programs around issues of equity, ethics, and social justice to promote the development and implementation of solutions through the study of problems of practice (cped, 2022). much of this scholarship calls for the infusion of social justice, among other critical concerns, across edd curricula (arrows, 2017; becton et al., 2020; george, 2017; strom & porfilio, 2017), which are also supported by scholarship unrelated to the cped framework itself (capper et al., 2006; guerra et al., 2013). although i concur that the infusion social justice across the whole of a curriculum is an impactful means of implementing the cped framework, fewer researchers have called for the inclusion of specialized courses that focus deeply on issues of social justice as has been recommended by becton et al. (2020) and capper et al. (2006). in my own anecdotal experience, encountering issues of social justice throughout a curriculum is not nearly as powerful as undertaking a guided journey of racial identity development, as described in this article, and being equipped with the motivation to develop meaningful solutions through my problem of practice as called for in the cped (2022) framework. conclusion throughout this article, i have outlined how the inclusion of a course on diversity and social justice in my higher education doctoral program facilitated a transformative journey. this course enabled me to confront issues of privilege and oppression, evolving from an ally to an aspiring co-conspirator for equity and social justice. it prompted me to integrate equity for social justice into both my assessment philosophy and my professional practice as a higher education assessment professional. the course had an immediate, profound, and lasting impact on all students who elected to enroll. however, i contend that such courses should be a fundamental component of doctoral programs in higher education, mandated for all students. the higher education assessment profession acknowledges the critical importance of addressing equity (montenegro & jankowski, 2017). this recognition should be embraced and acted upon by the broader higher education doctoral community. references arrows, f. 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(2018). pedagogy of the oppressed. bloomsbury academic. george, p. (2017). toward a social justice model for an edd program in higher education. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.29 guerra, p., nelson, s. w., jacobs, j., & yamamura, e. (2013). developing educational leaders for social justice: programmatic elements that work or need improvement. education research and perspectives, 40, 124– 149. helms, j. e. (2001). an update of helms’s white and people of color racial identity models. in j. g. ponterotto, j. m. casas, l. a. suzuki, & c. m. alexander (eds.), handbook of multicultural counseling (1st ed., pp. 181198). sage publications. joshi, k. (2020). white christian privilege: the illusion of equality in america. new york university press. kelderman, e. (2023, april 3). how accreditors are measuring colleges’ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. the chronicle of higher education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-new-accountability montenegro, e., & jankowski, n. a. (2017, january). equity and assessment: moving towards culturally responsive assessment (occasional paper no. 29). national institute for learning outcomes assessment (niloa). https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/02/occasionalpaper29.pdf montenegro, e., & jankowski, n. a. (2020, january). a new decade for assessment: embedding equity into assessment praxis (occasional paper no. 42). national institute for learning outcomes assessment (niloa). https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/01/a-new-decade-for-assessment.pdf national center for education statistics (nces). 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(2019, january). a historical overview of assessment: 1980s-2000s (assessment brief). national institute for learning outcomes assessment (niloa). https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/ab_nov2019. pdf national institute for learning outcomes assessment. (2023, october 25). equity in assessment. national institute for learning outcomes assessment (niloa). https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/equity/ office of equity. (2020). matrix of oppression. university of colorado denver anschutz medical campus. https://www1.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider102/default-documentlibrary/matrix-of-oppression.pdf?sfvrsn=252e31b9_2 ryan, l. (2023). visual analytics fundamentals: creating compelling data narratives with tableau. addison-wesley. strom, k., & porfilio, b. (2017). centering social justice in edd programs. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.43 tatum, b. d. (2021). why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: and other conversations about race. penguin books. sloan-lynch, j., & morse, r. (2024). equity-forward learning analytics: designing a dashboard to support marginalized student success. in proceedings of the 14th learning analytics and knowledge conference (pp. 102-115). https://doi.org/10.1145/3636555.3636844 suskie, l. a. (2018). assessing student learning: a common sense guide (3rd ed.). jossey-bass. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/institutionbyname.aspx?gotoreportid=1&sid=e3c2348b-05e4-4cd4-ad2f-79052476d3bd&rtid=1 https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/institutionbyname.aspx?gotoreportid=1&sid=e3c2348b-05e4-4cd4-ad2f-79052476d3bd&rtid=1 https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/ab_nov2019.pdf https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/ab_nov2019.pdf https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/equity/ https://www1.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider102/default-document-library/matrix-of-oppression.pdf?sfvrsn=252e31b9_2 https://www1.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider102/default-document-library/matrix-of-oppression.pdf?sfvrsn=252e31b9_2 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.43 https://doi.org/10.1145/3636555.3636844 jeremy p. reich new jersey institute of technology confronting privilege and oppression incorporating equity into my assessment philosophy incorporating equity into my assessment practice the importance of diversity and social justice courses in edd programs conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.445 44 centering educational equity in a primary leadership role andrea rodriguez university of california, davis andvreyes@gmail.com abstract before the edd program through uc davis, my own decisions and thinking process perpetuated an inequitable system that seemed to be working to support and uplift marginalized communities. when beginning my personal journey through the doctoral program and throughout the pandemic, there were epiphanies that awakened me to new institutional versions that empowered my ways of approaching education and leading future generations to question, early and often, the systems that were supposed to increase their ability to become leaders themselves. the concluding research recommendations support the implementation of culturally sustaining pedagogical practices to increase authentic historically marginalized student selfexpression and empowerment of students and community. this work is done through understanding the priorities of the community, offering transparency, communicating, and listening while promoting health and safety as a means of cariño. communicating that our priorities on site are children first, rather than test scores and attendance percentages, i seek creative means to empower our young scholars to bridge a gap between site and community and authentically celebrate the diversity on our campus. keywords cariño, culturally sustaining pedagogy, historically marginalized community, diversity, primary education, educational leadership, scholar practitioner the educational system is already set up to be inequitable, meant for historically marginalized students to continue to jump through hoops as their counterparts maneuver a system that is meant to help them succeed. creating a more equitable educational system would require courageous conversations about focusing on the foundational issues that need changing to ensure long-lasting academic results for all students. as a leader in the educational system, we contribute to the inequitable educational system, whether intentional or not, as we stripped pieces of our identity to conform to acceptable academic expectations that resulted in our role within academics. not until we are in this role that we find that the components that we left outside of the academic setting, can be the strongest contributors to effective, long-lasting, equitable change. educators looking to contribute to a more equitable system, as historically marginalized students themselves, are met with unwavering demands within the field. these demands include but are not limited to developing student’s social-emotional health, balancing, and managing large caseloads of students, catering to individual learning styles, communicating home to families, and teaching to standards that often do not reflect their lived experiences or cultural background. educators and site leaders are often challenged to balance the desire to authentically educate and support the whole child while taking on an educational system that values test scores and attendance rates. this challenge has been a part of my educational career since it began in 2005. throughout my many roles in education in grades tk-12, many trends changed, yet there was one constant: decisions must be made about allotting time for what is most important in the educational world, and uplifting authentic culturally sustaining campus culture didn’t seem to make the priority list. throughout my educational journey i have been a visual arts educator between grades tk-12, an assistant principal at a secondary site and most recently an elementary school principal. although the role and responsibilities have changed throughout the years, there was a constant amongst all my roles and sites: i worked with a highly diverse student population both culturally and socialeconomically. i concentrated my curriculum on the topic of assisting students develop their personal definitions of identity both through artistic expression and through literature. my own scholastic goal as an educator remained the same: uplifting historically marginalized voice and empowering students. throughout my most recent role as a site principal, which occurred a year after obtaining my edd, i was more empowered than ever to lead a site that offered a dual language immersion program and uplift student voices as a foundation to the decisions that would be made on our school site and with the community. through the candel program, i was empowered numerous times by both the professors and content shared to solidify the belief that a more culturally sustaining academic setting was possible in an educational system that did not make equity a priority. the role of primary educators is not only crucial in its foundation, but also weighs heavy in understanding that without starting a student’s education career in support and care, it may result in long term effects that they may never recover from. although an educator can continually evolve as a teacher, there is no reset button for https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2166-546x centering educational equity in a primary leadership role impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.445 45 students. the academic years for students go by quickly and “mastery” of content is often fleeting as teachers are met with the expectation at the primary level to teach multiple subjects, introduce state testing, and keep oversized classes meeting grade level standards or above. at a primary site with a dual language immersion (dli) program, understanding and setting standards for dual language at an early age in a system that is only meant to measure english proficiency through state testing is faced with endless obstacles. through a dli program students and their families are sold an idea that they can meet grade level standards in addition to the mastery of two languages all before leaving the 6th grade. as the educational leader (principal) of a dli elementary program, our goal as a site is to uplift the cultural knowledge of our students, while also preparing them for the secondary schooling that is awaiting them when promoting from our site. upon taking this role, soon after the candel doctoral program at uc davis, the roles and responsibilities continued to be a fine balance among state standards, communication home and uplifting historically marginalized voices to preparing a teaching staff to understand the weight they carry in preparing young minds to be academically successful. this current role consists of understanding a new community that is widely diverse both in socio-economic status, race, parental educational levels, and home languages. i now can apply theory into action by collaborating with site and community to build a bridge that authentically reflects the diversity that encompasses the tk-6th grade school site of 485 students. the center of all decisions while leading a campus continues to be in equitable practices. real equity work attempts to repair, undo, heal, and atone for generations of violence, trauma, and racial, educational, and economic inequities while recognizing black people as a mighty people with a beautiful history of resistance, refusal, strength, and creativity who also deserve ease and grace. (love, 2023, p. 216) after the candel program, the difference in my approaches now lies in the confidence of questioning approaches that continue to perpetuate an inequitable educational cycle that does not reflect the lived experiences of the students and community it is meant to serve. although the journey will be complex, and is by no means a quick fix, decisions are made with intention. through the professional development opportunities given to site leaders on a four-hour basis per month, i work to find educational trends that are occurring on my site and lead the choices that are being made on an individual basis. through classroom observations, plc (professional learning committee) meetings, and professional development, work is done to align the decision-making process of backwards mapping intentional community events, increasing parental involvement, developing a sense of campus belonging, and implementing routines and procedures campus wide that align with an equitable lens. this work is done through understanding the priorities of the community, offering transparency, communicating, and listening while promoting health and safety as a means of cariño. “[a]uthentic cariño [is] a potent combination of familial, intellectual, and critical care-that pervade[s educators’] interactions with youth and contribute[s] to a culture of engaged learning” (curry, 2021, p. 1). cariño is rooted in genuine love for other people’s children, the students that fill classroom seats, occupy school halls, and come with a variety of experiences that enhance a campus culture. communicating that our priorities on site are children first, rather than test scores and attendance percentages, i seek creative means to empower our young scholars, bridge a gap between site and community and authentically celebrate the diversity on our campus. the measurement of an equitable education would require significantly greater attention to qualitative assessments of schools and classrooms to determine the specific needs of the community and how those are being met, or not. as it stands, we have an almost exclusive commitment to quantitative ‘equal’ assessments through state and national testing and measurement of the allocation of human and monetary resources. (duncan-andrade, 2007, p. 618) though this role as an educational leader is a multifaceted position, we must genuinely welcome our students where they are and seek to lift them higher to obtain equitable educational experiences. this process begins with genuinely caring for the community we serve and the students who fill our seats daily. through the research of my dissertation through candel project, one of my mentors introduced the concept of authentic caring/cariño to my work. through this lens, i was able to link my approaches to education to theoretical approaches that spoke to academia. authentic caring for those educators who have made and continue to make an impact in the lives of historically marginalized student populations, a commonality among the traits that persist is cariño. like culturally sustaining pedagogical practices, cariño theory is rooted in a network of care and justice, a variety of support systems that encouraged student to challenge the inequitable social norms through a commitment of support by educators on campus. fueled by a desire to interrupt inequity and promote social justice, schools infused with critical cariño challenge students to examine how race, ethnicity, social class, and gender shape history and day-to-day living. additionally, they involve explicit attention to cultures of power with an aim toward helping students master dominant discourses while still valuing and sustaining their home cultures. (curry, 2021, p. 14) authentic cariño can hold many places on a school campus and is truly implemented when all three forms of cariño are present: familial, intellectual, and critical, thus taking into account the whole student and weaving together a variety of tools to support them in all aspects of their life. it involves: invit[ing] educators to push the narrative of what we teach by drawing on the fok (funds of knowledge) that students bring from home-traditions, family histories, parental occupational knowledge, home language, skills, and popular culture-to challenge racism by retelling their stories and drawing on the cultural wealth of our communities. (yosso, 2005 as cited in garcia, 2012, p. 41) within a primary school campus, there are a variety of opportunities to build these supportive relationships that not only link to academic engagement but promote positive, caring and authentic relationships rooted in a genuine desire to work alongside students to sustain their rodriguez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.445 46 cultural wealth and develop critical consciousness to disrupt the dominant culture of white middle-class centered educational norms. building positive relationships with students that extend beyond the classroom, with real world experiences within the community help students understand authentic caring, “cariño”. these practices increase students' success, especially among historically marginalized students who struggle to maintain their personal identities within an oppressive educational system. “for teachers aspiring to enact authentic care, political clarity entails recognizing oppressive structures and ideologies and grappling with how macroeconomic and sociopolitical realities impact day-to-day life, especially the school experience of subordinated groups” (curry, 2021, p. 9). this goal of creating a sense of belonging within the educational world and on a primary school campus is rooted in building relationships. this is key in increasing student engagement and overall academic success through culturally sustaining decisions in both academics, extra-curriculars and professional training. reiterating the importance that if educators do not get to know their students primarily, the effectiveness of any type of education will more likely be lacking. as an educational leader, i work to have the idea of “cariño” as the foundation of all decisions within our campus. how will our educational decisions of today, whether it be the literature, state standard or supplemental curriculum affect our students, and will it support the idea that we truly care about them beyond just academics. “schools have also been accused of being insensitive to students’ cultural backgrounds and thus of failing to serve some student populations because curricula are designed for middle class white children” (howe & lisi, 2014, as cited in knight, 2015, p 71). authentic cariño consistently implemented, takes care of the whole child, working to balance academic expectations, rigor and high achievements while taking into consideration the mind, body and spirit of their personal/mental well-being. cariño acknowledges that students, like their educators, balance more in their personal lives than what occurs within the classroom setting, and with this sense of balance, is a core value to increasing individual student empowerment, supporting their freedom to express, and creating realistic experiences for students where a world may not be so supportive. this work is done intentionally, as a core value for our site. “i could not serve the children and the system. the system was not about helping children; it was about helping the system, by default, you are helping to maintain the system” (love, 2023, p. 46). we cannot educate those we do not care for, and we cannot be in a role that affects a person’s life trajectory if they are not consistently uplifted, valued, and understood authentically. professional development through the candel program and my research on culturally sustaining pedagogical practices, my new approach to leadership sought to affect a site’s underlying norms, beliefs, mission, vision and principles, the way in which an entire campus could be structured. to begin the process, i designed professional development that works alongside the community we serve by communicating often, inviting them to make decisions with us and finding programs that reflect the dli program we offer to our students. this process also requires teachers to share their findings about their students’ academics, maintain an open-door policy to see each other’s approach to education and be willing to give and receive feedback. “the role of education and schooling is to equip students with tools not only to learn how to participate in this society, but also to challenge the oppressive structures that limit their lives” (oakes & lipton, 2007, p.30). our responsibility as educators is to create an equitable experience for all students to engage in a broader perspective of an advanced environment, that has yet to be created. this would include a blend of cultural values, environmental values and equitable exposure to educational direction and guidance. this process has educators shifting their data conversations away from test results and practicing the use of equitable educational practices, having conversations around race/gender, community environments, and cultures on campus and identifying equitable educational outcomes as a new instructional indicator where they “assume responsibility for the elimination of unequal results” (bensimon, 2005, p. 105). although uncomfortable at first, the results from these implementations, bensimon (2005) argued, would intensify learning, motivate further inquiry, and spearhead change; all resulting in a more equity minded staff. this approach does not come without its barriers, or levels of discomfort. yet, it is through this discomfort and calling out our contributions to a perpetual inequitable educational system that results in long-term effective change. leading an elementary school site, staff is asked to collaborate in grade level teams and focus on unequal academic outcomes of students, consistently analyzing and collecting data, focused on grade level assessments and benchmarks which are directly linked to the choices they are making in an academic setting daily. adding a reflection component when going through the curriculum cycle on what they are teaching and who it represents, leads to understanding how care/cariño and cultural sustaining choices have a greater academic impact on students that are long lasting. alignment with equity my role as a leader, prior to this candel course, depicted the roles and responsibilities that were assigned to someone to complete and check off a list mandated by those in a position to delegate work. priding myself in completing tasks, and moving on, i often gave little thought to the skills, experiences and best practices associated with the tasks that i was assigned to complete. rarely voicing my concerns of purpose; if i could be better utilized in a different area to effectively shift educational practices, i felt that completing these tasks was a display of a “successful” leader. at my core, and as part of my identity, is a caring, dedicated, passionate educator who works to create an all-inclusive, meaningful academic environment for all students and staff. i value the importance of maintaining transparency with educational partners, honesty through vulnerability and a willingness to reflect on my personal decision-making process to sustain those values. therefore, many of the decisions i make in my leadership role are due to my personal upbringing, experiences, and identity, which i would define as not only a latina woman, but a mother, and now as a scholar practitioner. the first identity piece was a role i was born into, the second a choice, and the third a lifelong journey. all positions are of great importance, and each have a significant impact on my daily decisions, the way i view my world, and the role i play in others’ lives. workers of color, especially women of color, are the backbone of equity work and anti-racism in education. their work is laid centering educational equity in a primary leadership role impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.445 47 against a backdrop of anti-racism and dei on an institutional, individual, and societal level that is too often made painstakingly ornamental. (love, 2023, p. 216) there is a strong internal desire to help others find these roles within themselves and empower them to lead the change in a structurally discriminating system. standing back and allowing others to define my role as a leader, is no longer an option. equitable education is at the core of my career as a leader, and although i have experienced marginalization in my position, i no longer sit silently and allow it to define who i am. as a leader and scholar practitioner, i have often been silenced when voicing my opinions, offering solutions for equitable experiences for students or suggestions for professional development for a school site. empowered through the doctoral program of candel, i understand the work that needs to be present to help others feel valued, represented and seen in a position of employee, student, and/or community member. working on a school site that is predominantly latinx, within one of the most diverse districts in the nation, there are times where my personal experiences and ties to culture and community can benefit the direction of our professional development and data analysis to better serve our students. there is also awareness that this implementation of diversification is not limited to our lived experiences as identifying latinx culture, and that we continued our role within education because the inequitable educational system worked for us to lead in the educational world. the difference is as educational leaders, we need to continue to reach out and hear from our community on their needs and experiences to not perpetuate the need to leave pieces of our lived experiences behind to become a successful educational leader. the cycle of reflection, evolution, care and understanding is a path that must continually be explored. although tackling marginalization can be an area for perseverance, i am often empowered through the growth of my diverse staff. i consistently advocate for my staff, acknowledge the work of my administrative peers, and note the academic success of our student body. i have been empowered through the candel program to no longer allow myself to be silenced and have engaged in numerous conversations, although uncomfortable, to advocate for a voice in the decision-making process, leading professional development around equitable education and increasing diversity awareness on our campus and within the district. i feel that through this empowerment i am more respected by my students, staff, and community. as an educational leader, i support our school site collaboratively, responding ethically and responsibly to a variety of points of view and leading our staff to one common goal which will align to our site values of celebrating diversity. to ensure effective practice i prioritize self-reflection, peer input, and utilizing multiple points of view to determine best practices for students. “education should be a space where children, our greatest gift, learn to love, understand difference, communicate inside of disagreement and conflict, find joy in learning, and have the time and resources to be guided by their imagination” (love, 2023, p. 269). throughout this process, i also ensure that we do not ask others to give up their personal beliefs, identities or roles and only empower their strengths by helping them to inquire more information on how to sustain a progressive academic culture. it is without question that they will be cared for, seen and validated through the educational journey we are on together. references bensimon, e. (2005). closing the achievement gap in higher education: an organizational learning perspective. new directions for higher education, 131, 99–111. curry, m. w. (2021). authentic cariño. teachers college press. duncan-andrade, j. (2007). gangstas, wankstas, and ridas: defining, developing, and supporting effective teaching in urban schools. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 20(6), 617–638. garcia, l.-g. (2012). making cultura count inside and out of the classroom: public art & critical pedagogy in south central los angeles. journal of curriculum and pedagogy, 9(2), 104–114. howe, w. a., & lisi, p. l. (2023). becoming a multicultural educator: developing awareness, gaining skills, and taking action. sage publications. knight, w. (2015). culturally responsive teaching in art education. international journal of arts education, 38(1), 70–89. https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.4800 love, b. l. (2023). punished for dreaming: how school reform harms black children and how we heal. st. martin’s press. oakes, j., & lipton, m. (2007). teaching to change the world. mcgraw-hill. yosso, t. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.4800 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 61 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 developing pre-service teachers: a social justice approach for educating culturally and linguistically diverse students elizabeth alsen mesa community college beth.alsen@mesacc.edu ray r. buss arizona state university ray.buss@asu.edu abstract in this article, we describe a dissertation in practice (dip) conducted by the first author. the dip focused on a social justice issue—providing pre-service teachers with highly effective preparation for working with culturally and linguistically diverse (cld) students. as part of the article, interludes have been inserted prior to each major section of the article. these interludes have been used to discuss the thinking and research processes that were considered as the dip unfolded in a program that employed an action research approach. the intervention was multi-faceted including teaching about orientations toward cld students, providing pre-service teachers with pedagogical knowledge and skills, and employing a community of practice-based, servicelearning approach. quantitative and qualitative results from the study indicated pre-service teachers increased their knowledge, self-efficacy, and projected use of culturally responsive pedagogy. discussion focused on connecting results to the literature, implications for practice and research, and extensions to current work. keywords dissertation in practice, social justice, culturally and linguistically diverse students, action research in this study, the first author examined the use of a multifaceted intervention to prepare pre-service teachers (psts) to work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse (cld) students. this comprehensive intervention incorporated three distinct components—teaching psts about orientations toward cld students, providing psts with pedagogical knowledge and skills, and employing a community of practice-based, service-learning approach. results indicated the intervention positively affected psts’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and projected use of culturally responsive practices in their future classrooms. in this article, we report on the dissertation of the first author, but we do so in a way that allows the reader to get a glimpse into the dissertation in practice (dip) process undertaken in this study. specifically, these glimpses are chronicled in the interludes where we focus on the thinking and research processes related to this dip. we have reported these interludes throughout the article. in the first and longest of these interludes, we report on reciprocal interactions occurring among (a) thinking about her problem of practice (pop) and ways to effect change in it, (b) reading and assimilating the research literature related to her pop, and (c) conducting action research that was designed based on her understanding of the literature and her pop. these processes were ongoing and influenced one another, reciprocally. this initial, longer interlude was necessary for readers to consider the broad scope of the first author’s work as she drew upon three perspectives that influenced her thinking about her pop and as she progressed through various cycles of action research seeking resolutions to her pop. the three perspectives were (a) villegas and lucas’ (2011) framework on culturally and linguistically responsive teaching (clrt) of cld students, (b) service learning, and (c) wenger’s community of practice (cop) framework. their emergence and essential roles in defining, organizing, and directing the work have been captured in the first interlude. the interludes were written in the first person to demonstrate the transformative, evocative nature of the work being undertaken by the first author. interlude 1: applying the research literature and cycles of action research to inform the dissertation in practice as i approached my first doctoral class, i stood outside the mary lou fulton teachers college building and, “snap, snap, snap” quickly took a selfie to remember who i was and to ponder, just for a moment, of who i might become. then, i smiled to myself and took the next step that would forever change my life as i began my journey in action research. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 62 figure 1. cycle 0 framework showing independence of coursework and field experience note. all figures were developed by the first author based on her interpretation of the written research literature and her understanding of how they connected to practice. each figure illustrated the major features of the model, for example, pedagogical knowledge and skills with its components denoted in the same color within rectangles. early in the first semester, i quickly realized how little i knew about action research as i doodled “pop” over and over again in my notes. when my peers confidently and succinctly described their pops, self-doubt crept in as i grappled with determining mine. at that moment, i was too naive to understand this was part of the inquiry process. and, over time through cycles of research, i would untangle my pop and ways of dealing with it using a powerful, multi-faceted intervention. by delving into the literature and adopting theoretical perspectives, clarity of my pop took hold as did the emergence of multi-faceted frameworks and concomitant interventions as i progressed through various action research cycles. within each cycle, i used an action research inquiry approach to better understand what the data meant by intentionally (a) studying and planning, (b) taking action, (c) collecting and analyzing data, and (d) reflecting on the data (buss, 2018; mertler, 2014). through this process of critical reflection, i was able to develop a stronger theoretical understanding of how to approach my research cycles and design my interventions. cycle 0: reconnaissance it all began with cycle 0 during the first fall semester. at this point, my pop focused on preparing psts to teach cld students. during this cycle, my framework and the intervention focused on two aspects (a) pedagogical knowledge and skills and (b) field experience as seen in figure 1. the first, pedagogical knowledge and skills emphasized planning lessons by using second language acquisition theory and technology. the second, field experience was intended to provide psts the opportunity to apply theory to practice in real-world classrooms. psts employed self-selection processes and placed themselves with in-service teachers based on familiarity and proximity to home. as seen in figure 1 above, my initial framework proposed two aspects that worked separately, without connections. yet, the flaws of this framework did not become apparent until much later in the semester after reading, discussing, and exploring the literature. thus, at the conclusion of cycle 0, it became apparent that i needed to revise my intervention. after reflecting on the data, psts’ selfselection of field placement settings failed to have a noteworthy influence on their ability to apply theory to practice because they frequently chose to work as schools with limited numbers of cld students. further, i noticed psts did not relate to each other’s experiences because they were placed in different schools with varied approaches to teaching clds. cycle 1: a theoretical framework shift toward linguistically responsive teaching (lrt) while i reflected on the theoretical perspectives presented in class during the previous semester, wenger’s (1998) cop had a profound effect on me as it transitioned from words on the page to theory in action. as my peers and i shared, discussed, and reflected on the literature to extend our understanding of our pop, a cop emerged. and, as we fostered caring relationships that went beyond the classroom, i could not help but wonder whether my own students would not benefit from the same authentic learning experiences by closely collaborating with one another that i was afforded in the edd program. keeping this in mind, i reviewed the literature and realized my theoretical framework had flaws beyond those related to the field experience. first, my current framework did not take account of psts’ sociocultural perspectives or views about cld students. as a result, i revised my intervention based on clrt to include psts’ orientations and pedagogical knowledge and skills (villegas & lucas, 2011). second, i intentionally selected a school with (a) a high cld population, (b) a culturally responsive teaching approach, (c) a title i classification, and (d) close proximity to the college. subsequently, i grouped psts in pairs based upon their preferred grade level with a cooperating in-service teacher. taken together, the new intervention for this cycle included added features related to (a) psts’ orientations about cld students and (b) pairing psts at a selected school site as shown in figure 2. at this point, the field experience component worked alongside the course curriculum giving psts the opportunity to apply theory by sharing ideas and experiences that occurred in the real-world classrooms. developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 63 figure 2. cycle 1 framework showing coursework features alongside field experience figure 3. cycle 2 framework showing connections among coursework features and service learning as a result, the quantitative data indicated a positive change in dispositions toward cld students, and an increased understanding of pedagogical knowledge of how to teach cld students. additionally, i discovered two factors that i had not considered before when pairing students: (a) experience with cld students and (b) consistent attendance in class. both of these factors limited the psts’ experience connecting theory to practice and, more importantly, demonstrated the need to redesign the framework. cycle 2: using culturally responsive and linguistic teaching (crlt) with a team-based, servicelearning approach in response to the findings from cycle 1, i reviewed the literature again delving more deeply into authentic service-learning experiences by incorporating guided reflection. building on the work of villegas and lucas (2011), i expanded their framework to include a team-based, service-learning component. with this, a clrt framework began to emerge as i envisioned each component: (a) dispositions, (b) pedagogical knowledge, and (c) service learning working in tandem influencing each other. although each had their own features, they remained interconnected, strengthening psts’ ability to move fluidly from theory to practice as seen in figure 3. in addition, i intentionally created a team-based approach to service learning by grouping the psts based upon their linguistic background and experience with cld students. each team consisted of a pre-service teacher who was a native english speaker, another who was a bilingual speaker, and at least one member with prior experiences working with cld students in k-12 classrooms. organizing the teams in this manner provided them with different perspectives about teaching clds as they grappled with how to apply theory to practice both in and outside the classroom. thus, the intervention added a new feature, a team-based, service-learning component, to the course curriculum. alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 64 cycle 2.5: moving from observing to teaching by capitalizing on a community of practice based on the findings in cycle 2, it was clear the team approach had a strong influence on psts’ knowledge and dispositions toward cld students. as i reflected on the literature, i realized a cop began to emerge as teams established a community with their teammates. as they entered class, their demeanors changed with welcoming one another and open discussions. as these conversations emerged, questions were asked, and tips were shared about supporting their cld students in their classrooms. nevertheless, not all groups had the same experience. as i read their reflective journals, i discovered psts who were actively engaged and working directly with cld students, rather than observing them, had a much different experience and depth of understanding about clrt. from these data, i realized all psts must have authentic conversations and learning opportunities to work with cld students. only one question remained, how? to answer this question, i thought about my personal experiences of how a cop continued to support and propel me through the program as i considered what differed. i realized the psts built relationships with one another as well as their in-service teachers and the cld students, but they lacked a shared experience in practice. therefore, i implemented a micro-teach lesson to be planned and taught by the psts teams. by enacting this requirement, the stakes were more like actual teaching and so were the consequences. as a result, psts became more actively engaged as their dispositions and knowledge about how to teach cld students changed both in and out of the classroom. thus, the intervention added a new feature, a cop team-based approach, which enhanced the service-learning component as seen in figure 4. theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study grounded in the work of lucas and villegas (2011), the clrt framework served as the theoretical perspective that guided the intervention to develop psts’ critical consciousness and emerging practices in teaching cld students. proponents of clrt drew upon earlier work on culturally relevant pedagogy advocated by ladsonbillings (2009). ladson-billings (2009) described culturally relevant pedagogy as “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (p. 382). moreover, clrt also incorporated culturally responsive pedagogy (crp) championed by gay (2010) who suggested learning became more relevant and effective when teachers incorporated their diverse students’ “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles” (p. 3). as a result, gay (2010) concluded teachers who implemented a crp approach to intentionally plan lessons responsive to the students’ social, cultural, and linguistic identities provided students with more opportunities to succeed academically. culturally and linguistically responsive teaching although the work of proponents of crp provided a foundation to support diverse students, lucas and villegas (2011) expanded upon this by claiming that being responsive was not enough by itself to close the achievement gap for cld students. they recognized the importance of culture and language as essential aspects in teaching cld students. thus, clrt was employed to overcome the deficit perception that a “dominant american english” existed (lucas et al., 2008; paris & alim, 2017). dominant american english refers to restrictive school policies requiring students to become figure 4. cycle 2.5 framework showing connections among coursework features and community of practice approach to facilitate development of culturally responsive psts developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 65 proficient in english at the expense of losing their own native language (irizarry, 2017). in contrast, those using clrt recognized the linguistic knowledge, skills (gonzález et al., 2006), and cultural wealth (yosso, 2006) cld students brought to the classroom. placing students’ cultural and linguistic experiences as a central component of lesson design brought attention to the essential orientations, knowledge, and skills needed to teach cld students (lucas et al., 2008; lucas & villegas, 2011). lucas and villegas (2011) proposed culturally and linguistically responsive teaching which emphasized the importance of gaining an awareness of and integrating the principles of second language acquisition theory into the curriculum. the clrt framework (lucas & villegas, 201l) included two key attributes: (a) orientations of and (b) knowledge and skills of culturally responsive teachers. lucas and villegas (2011) defined the first component orientations as “tendencies or inclinations towards particular ideas and actions, influenced by attitudes and beliefs” (p. 56). the focus on orientations engaged psts in (a) reflecting on their personal cultural and linguistic background experiences, (b) affirming students’ prior learning experiences as assets, and (c) embracing the opportunity to advocate for more equitable learning experiences (lucas & villegas, 2002b). the second component of the clrt framework included the knowledge and skills of culturally relevant teachers. four types of pedagogical knowledge and skills were identified: (a) strategies for learning about the linguistic and academic backgrounds of english language learners (ells), (b) key principles of second language acquisition, (c) identifying language demands of academic tasks, and (d) scaffolding instruction for ells. to become an effective clrt, psts needed to develop both the orientations and pedagogical knowledge and skills. authentic service-learning experiences to foster authentic learning, bringle and hatcher (1996) maintained psts must have engaged in meaningful service connected to real-life situations in schools. through these experiences, psts gained the pedagogical knowledge and skills to make connections to the course content in an authentic manner (mason, 1999; villegas & lucas, 2002a). thus, engaging psts in classrooms with linguistically diverse learners whose backgrounds and experiences differed from their own was critical (bennet, 2012; lucas & villegas, 2011; paris & alim, 2017; ramirez, 2017). with required service-learning hours, psts gained first-hand knowledge of cld students’ daily experiences, interac tions, and linguistic and academic challenges in classroom settings (lucas et al., 2008; villegas & lucas, 2002a). as psts actively worked alongside cld students, they began to see them as individuals with varied cultural, linguistic, and academic experiences (lucas et al., 2008; villegas & lucas, 2002a, 2002b). as this occurred, caring relationships took root that challenged psts to reflect upon their previously held assumptions about teaching cld students. these authentic learning opportunities extended the college curriculum as psts’ appreciation for and knowledge of cld students expanded. guided reflection to bridge service and learning further, bringle and hatcher (1996) emphasized guided reflection was a critical component to provide psts with opportunities to analyze what they saw in practice as they considered how it related to theory. because most psts had limited field experiences, scaffolding discussions with their peers maximized learning (ballantyne et al., 2008; villegas & lucas, 2002a). working with their peers afforded them insights about their experiences they would not have developed on their own (jimenez-silva & olson, 2012). required academic tasks such as journaling, blogging, and class discussions deepened the learning process as they analyzed their experience within context (villegas & lucas, 2002a). this type of reflection was critical because it allowed psts to co-construct knowledge about teaching cld students, which they readily applied in working with their students during service learning (jimenez-silva & olson, 2012). developing a cop through service-learning according to wenger (1998), learning was considered to be a social endeavor in which participants actively engaged with each other and their communities. moreover, wenger et al. (2002) defined three critical elements of a cop: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original). each of these elements played a critical role within the context of this study. as defined by wenger et al. (2002), the domain provided a common ground and “inspires members to contribute and participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions” (p. 28). with respect to this study, the domain was the clrt curriculum, which students learned in their coursework, further developed in their service-learning field experience settings, and solidified as they incorporated ideas they gleaned from one another while they reflected on their field experience observations and teaching efforts. wenger et al. (2002) suggested the community provided opportunities for learning by “foster[ing] interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust” (p. 28). in this study, students engaged in a community as they reflected on and shared information about working with cld students that aided their learning of clrt. by comparison, the practice “is a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories, and documents that community members share. whereas, the domain indicated the content, the practice is the specific knowledge the community develops, shares, and maintains” (wenger et al., 2002, p. 29). thus, the practice component consisted of the various ways that psts developed in learning about using and sharing about clrt in their classrooms. of course, as noted in interlude 1, the cycles of action research also heavily influenced and informed my efforts over time. building on the knowledge gained from each cycle, i ultimately added a cop service-learning component. this afforded psts with opportunities to develop a domain of clrt knowledge, a community with others who cared about clrt, and a shared practice to apply clrt, allowing them to envision themselves as culturally and linguistically responsive teachers in their future practice. taken together, these cyclical efforts informed the final dip and led to a much richer study. purpose of the study and research questions the purpose of the study was to examine how a clrt framework influenced psts’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions towards teaching cld students. therefore, in my innovation, i implemented a clrt framework that combined two approaches to prepare psts: (a) a clrt curriculum and (b) a cop-focused alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 66 service-learning experiences with cld students. three research questions guided the conduct of the study including: 1. how and to what extent did a clrt curriculum influence psts’ knowledge about teaching cld students? 2. how and to what extent did a cop service-learning experience influence psts’ knowledge about teaching cld students? 3. how and to what extent did psts feel prepared to teach cld students in the future? interlude 2: contemplating methodological matters as i entered my classroom, there was a buzz of excitement in the air as teams of students grouped in fours sat huddled together sharing their experiences with photos on their phones. conversations emerged spontaneously as they questioned and pondered, “hey, so what did you see? and what did i observe?” responded cesar. as i brushed by their tables and listened to the hum of their discussions, i silently noted the importance of the team structure. i balanced the teams between varied linguistic backgrounds as well as prior classroom experiences which afforded them insights that they may not otherwise have had on their own. through these informal conversations and interactions with my students, i gained a deeper understanding of my pop. as the instructor of the course, i was completely immersed within the study because i could not separate myself from the context in which it occurred. due to the participatory nature of action research, i was cognizant of my “insider” position as the researcher (herr & anderson, 2015). in that role, i developed the photovoice (digital diary) prompts, administered the surveys, and conducted the interviews. in addition, i kept a research journal jotting notes after each class to critically and systematically reflect on them. shifting between practitioner and researcher allowed me to engage in a reflective and iterative process as i continued to learn from my research with each passing cycle. to capture the psts’ insights about how theory from the course applied to practice in the classroom, i applied a concurrent mixed methods approach (creswell, 2015; ivankova, 2015). this method allowed me to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches to increase the credibility of my research study. to determine the psts’ growth and to inform the results from the qualitative findings, i employed retrospective, preand post-intervention surveys. to allow for a richer, deeper understanding of the psts’ experiences with clrt, i collected data from a variety of qualitative sources such as photovoice diaries as well as semi-structured interviews (creswell, 2015; greene, 2007; mertler, 2014). nevertheless, it is important to note that two critical aspects arose from the previous cycles of research. first, psts did not enter educational programs as “blank slates,” instead they held their own biases about teaching based on their background experiences as students in the k-12 system. as a result, psts rated themselves higher on the pre-intervention survey and lower on the postintervention survey. this occurred because they initially overestimated their understanding about the constructs, whereas after the intervention, they relied on more stringent criteria resulting in decreased responses. to counteract this response-shift bias (sibthorp et al., 2007), i used retrospective, pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys to maximize the validity of the survey results. second, my study focused on guided reflection, so i selected photovoice, a visual and textual technology used to create digital diaries in this study, to authentically engage psts in discussions about their classroom experiences. psts created a digital diary to reflect upon how theory from the course applied to practice in classrooms. in earlier cycles of action research, i relied on discussion boards and blogs. because these were not easily accessible on a mobile device, psts failed to post their reflections immediately following their service learning. further, i found that psts wrote with a more authentic voice, much like a diary in blogs. with this, i selected class dojo, a secure mobile digital portfolio that psts could easily access in their classroom to post pictures, audio, and typed journal entries. with these reflective entries, i was able to gather data capturing how their knowledge, skills, and dispositions changed throughout the semester. method in this section, we have provided information about the participants, the role of the researcher, the intervention, instruments, and procedures used in the study. participants the psts participating in the study were taking coursework at a community college. of the eighteen enrolled at the end of the add/drop period, all participated in the study. the majority identified as white native english speakers, 78%; female, 72%; younger than 28 years old, 89%; and selected elementary education, 67%, as their major. in addition, more than half of them, 61%, did not have prior experience working with cld students. the cop-oriented, servicelearning teams were created before the add/drop date based on the psts’ grade level interest, their language backgrounds, and experience working with cld students. of the 18 participants, eight were interviewed. intervention the multi-faceted intervention included instruction in orientations (or) including: (a) sociolinguistic consciousness, (b) value for linguistic diversity, and (c) advocacy for ells. the intervention also included instruction in pedagogical knowledge and skills (pks) including: (d) learning about cld students, (e) learning about language demands, (f) principles of second language acquisition, and (g) scaffolding instruction. the or and pks were mapped onto 1-2 week units in the course and culminated with a 4week group teaching exercise conducted in their service-learning placement. additionally, the intervention included the community of practice through service-learning feature, which was comprised of three components: (h) authentic service learning with observation, one-on-one work with elementary students, and a team planning and teaching experience, (i) guided reflection, and (j) a community of practice approach. in figure 4, we have represented the intervention diagrammatically. developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 67 instruments and data collection i used a variety of quantitative and qualitative instruments such as surveys, photovoice diaries including photos and reflections, and semi-structured interviews. retrospective, preand post-intervention surveys the knowledge, self-efficacy, and use (kseu) survey was employed to gather the retrospective, preand post-intervention survey data for this research study. this survey was adapted from the knowledge, confidence, and use survey originally developed by barton-atwood et al. (2005). the kseu survey assessed three constructs: (a) knowledge about clrt, (b) confidence to use clrt, and (c) anticipated use of clrt in future practice, with each construct having 20 questions. to illustrate, an item that assessed knowledge about clrt was, “i have the knowledge to use a warmdemand approach to create a respectful learning environment.” an item used to assess self-efficacy was, “i can identify effective strategies to access background experiences to make content culturally relevant and meaningful.” finally, a third item to assess their use of clrt in future practice was “in my future classroom, i will use language functions and stems to develop academic discourse.” participants responded using a 6-point likert-scale ranging from 6 = strongly agree, 5 = agree, 4 = slightly agree, ... to 1 = strongly disagree. a retrospective, preand post-intervention assessment was selected over a more traditional preand post-intervention procedure because participants’ ratings in this survey presented a high likelihood for response-shift bias, participants’ criteria for assessing the construct being measured changed between the preand postintervention survey (drennan & abbey, 2008; lam & bengo, 2003; sibthorp et al., 2007). for example, after using less stringent criteria at the pre-intervention assessment, participants would shift to using more stringent criteria at the post-intervention assessment and their scores would decline due to response-shift bias. photovoice digital diary for this study, participants created a digital diary to demonstrate their understanding of clrt in theory and practice. using photovoice, participants created a digital diary by taking photos that represented theory to practice applications, and additionally, they responded to reflective prompts about those photos. this allowed participants to record and reflect on their communities’ efforts, and it promoted critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through group discussion of the photographs. an app, class dojo, was used to create the digital diary. psts documented their experiences in the classroom by collecting photos of the physical layout, norms, bulletin boards, graphic organizers, and so on and adding captions. they were not permitted to take pictures of any k-12 students or their work due to ferpa regulations. the photos were used to stimulate conversations with their peers, especially their service-learning teammates. toward the end of each unit, psts connected theory to practice by responding to reflective prompts in their digital diary in class dojo. with these reflective entries, i gathered data capturing how their knowledge, skills, and dispositions changed throughout the semester. semi-structured interviews one-on-one, semi-structured interviews provided the researcher with opportunities to learn more about participants’ perceptions and experiences of a phenomenon (plano clark & creswell, 2015). the questions were designed to elicit a discussion about psts’ views about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions gained as a result of their coursework and service-learning experiences. examples of questions included, “describe what you have learned about teaching clds from your coursework” and “what have you learned about teaching clds from your service-learning experience?” procedure the intervention was conducted over a 14-week period. during this period, photographs and reflective discussion photovoice data were gathered eight times. drawing upon second language acquisition theory, each entry included various sentence starters to assess theory in practice (echevarría et al., 2008; villegas & lucas 2002a). the online, post-intervention survey was administered to the psts after the intervention was concluded. one week after completing the post-intervention survey, psts were given time in class, once again, to complete the retrospective, pre-intervention survey. i used purposive sampling to select eight interview participants based on the psts’ linguistic and cultural assets and limited experiences working with cld students. interviews were recorded using an app on my iphone. interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes and were held in my office to avoid any disruptions (brinkmann & kvale, 2015). interlude 3: considering the data analysis as the offices emptied at the end of the semester, i remained alone, sifting through pages of qualitative data until hours long past midnight. my excitement dwindled as i became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information gathered. nevertheless, as i read and re-read the texts, i began to relax as i jotted notes in the margins about my initial reactions, impressions, and thoughts. these constituted my first analytic memos, a process that i continued to use throughout the qualitative analysis. eventually, the words on the page seemed to come together as the data unraveled to reveal a story—a powerful story. after familiarizing myself with the text, i imported the journal entries from class dojo and the semi-structured interviews into hyperresearch (hyperresearch 3.7.5, 2017). during the first cycle of coding, i used open coding to create initial codes capturing the participants’ voices through their words, phrases, and comments (saldaña, 2013). next, i analyzed and sorted codes together by similarities, importance, and frequency using focused coding (saldaña, 2013). as categories emerged, i analyzed the data into higher-level theme-related components and aligned them to the theoretical framework guiding my intervention. this provided me with a richer, deeper perspective with respect to the data, which eventually led to themes and the creation of assertions, which were supported by quotes in the original text. the framework method, increasingly more popular, allowed me to use the theoretical framework guiding my study as a lens to deductively explore the data while leaving space to inductively discover the unexpected (gale et al., 2013). therefore, i created a matrix to organize and align the data to the theoretical framework: alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 68 orientations, pedagogical knowledge and skills, and cop service learning. as i mapped the data, a new strand unexpectedly emerged focused on creating a culturally responsive classroom community. as a practitioner-researcher, it was important for me to document the learning process as it occurred in my research journal. after each class session, i jotted memos about the class session noting the lesson and psts reactions. additionally, i used reflexivity to self-disclose my own bias and assumptions through a process of bracketing to set them aside. moreover, i used member checking to validate the interpretations of my participant’s responses by asking them to read the findings to determine if they realistically represented their views. together these processes enhanced the credibility of the study’s findings (herr & anderson, 2015). because my study used a mixed methods approach, i also analyzed the quantitative data from the retrospective, preand postintervention surveys. using spss (ibm, 2017), i computed cronbach’s alpha reliabilities to determine the reliability of the scales assessing the constructs. next, i conducted a repeated measures analysis of variance (anova) to analyze the differences between the retrospective, preand post-intervention knowledge, self-efficacy, and use scores. results/findings quantitative results cronbach’s alpha reliabilities for the retrospective, preintervention assessment were .95, .95, and .98 for the three constructs, which were well above .70, indicating the data were reliable (nunnally, 1978). i employed a repeated measure analysis of variance (anova) to analyze whether there were differences between the retrospective, preand post-intervention scores for the three dependent variables. the overall repeated measures anova was significant, multivariate-f(3, 15) = 67.46, p < .001, with η2 = .931, which is a very large within-subjects’ effect size based on cohen’s criteria (olejnik & algina, 2000). follow-up, individual repeated measures anovas were conducted for the three dependent variables and indicated the differences were significant and substantial as shown in the eta-squared values. those statistical results and the means and sds have been presented in table 1. table 1. statistical test information, means, and standard deviations* for preand post-intervention scores for the three dependent variables from the survey (n = 18) variable f(1, 17) = p < η2 pre-intervention score post-intervention score knowledge 189.51 .001 .918 1.94 (0.86)* 5.42 (0.44) self-efficacy 192.78 .001 .919 2.12 (0.88) 5.43 (0.47) projected use 51.44 .001 .752 3.19 (1.49) 5.72 (0.41) note. *standard deviations have been presented in parentheses. qualitative findings findings from the photovoice and interview data have been summarized in table 2. codes were gathered into theme-related components, which were aggregated into themes. subsequently, themes and theme-related components led to assertions about the data. quotes were used to support the interpretive work. given the space limitations for a journal article, we have illustrated how the data were interpreted by presenting information representing assertions 1 and 2 only and reducing the number of quotes. use the following link to read the more detailed version of findings from the qualitative data. https://keep.lib.asu.edu/items/157431 table 2. themes*, theme-related components, and assertions from qualitative data themes and theme-related components assertions developing a critical consciousness to teach cld students (related to orientations in clrt framework) 1. identifying as a culturally responsive teacher 2. valuing language diversity 3. developing a clrt mindset 1. as psts developed a critical consciousness, they became more aware of how to become a culturally responsive teacher. creating culturally responsive learning environments (related to professional knowledge and skills in clrt framework) 1. building empathy for and awareness of cld students 2. recognizing warm demand 2. psts identified how to structure authentically caring learning environments to attain high levels of achievement. developing culturally responsive instructional practices (related to professional knowledge and skills in clrt framework) 1. planning instruction for cld students 2. teaching academic language resourcefully 3. scaffolding instruction to make content meaningful 3. psts identified how to apply clrt to develop meaningful and relevant lessons for cld students. growing culturally responsive teachers (related to team-based service learning) 1. shifting sociocultural perspectives 2. co-constructing clrt from theory to practice 3. awakening the culturally responsive teacher 4. psts influenced one another as they collectively worked toward becoming culturally responsive teachers. note. *themes have been presented in italic font. https://keep.lib.asu.edu/items/157431 developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 69 developing a critical consciousness to teach cld students in assertion 1, i stated, “as pre-service teachers (psts) developed a critical consciousness, they became more aware of how to act as a culturally responsive teacher.” responses from the semistructured interviews and digital diary entries resulted in the following three theme-related components that comprised the theme leading to assertion 1: (a) identifying as a culturally responsive teacher, (b) valuing language diversity, and (c) developing a crp mindset. identifying as a culturally and linguistically responsive teacher psts entered their teacher preparation programs with their own preconceived notions about teaching cld students based on their prior experiences. tara (all names were pseudonyms) was a native english speaker, also attended predominantly affluent, white schools throughout her k-12 experience. during the interview, she commented, they [students] were all white. i think we had one african american kid. my service learning was a game changer. we had a complete mix of hispanic, white european, and arabic refugee students. i didn’t expect to find these kinds of students in mesa, arizona. it was shocking. it was nothing i experienced before. as she continued, she discussed how her views changed, “i had to overcome the fact that the cld students were speaking another language. that’s not something i should be afraid of. why was i thinking that it’s all about me? it’s not.” she explained that she had to go through this experience, and because of it, she began viewing cld students’ linguistic backgrounds as an asset. she stated, “all right, these kids, they speak other languages. they’re insanely smart because they can do everything i can do, but do it twice.” by comparison, bilingual psts shared that their sociocultural perspectives remained the same. for example, césar explained “i don’t think i really changed. i felt that i remained the same just because i came from that. i had that background.” instead of their views changing, they felt they were affirmed because of their prior schooling experiences. valuing linguistic diversity consistent with the clrt framework, psts demonstrated emerging ideas about how cld students brought many assets to the classroom, including their languages. for example, roger stated, “at first i would have thought correcting student’s language would make them more apt to change, but now i understand that this can cause frustration when their home spoken word differs from standard english.” bao said, “just saying it’s wrong makes them feel inferior to their peers,” and as alma described, “[it] embarrasses them.” instead of correcting them, maría isabel described how her mentor teacher valued her cld students by incorporating their language into the classroom. she explained, “during a writing assignment, a student shared, ‘i like playing with my nana y papa.’ instead of stating that “nana and papa” were incorrect, the teacher clarified by paraphrasing, “oh, your grandma and grandpa.” she stated, “using language gives them a sense that you do care because you come from that background or you are at least interested in their background.” pam summed it up best when she said, “learning a new language is hard. and, we need to make them feel important and valued throughout the process!” developing a clrt mindset psts also developed a mindset as they began to exhibit beliefs that all students can succeed. they advocated for their cld students by firmly believing teaching was not about changing the students but revising the practices that can keep students from reaching their full potential. sylvia explained this when she said, “seeing the classroom through the student’s eyes,” which meant “changing your practice to mirror the students’ needs.” in response, camilla explained, “we teach content, but in a way for all students can learn. if it means we have to change our teaching style, then so be it. we need to do what we can so every student can succeed.” similarly, ruby stated, “a good teacher is someone who makes the curriculum responsive to their students who helps them develop the knowledge and skills they will need in their everyday lives.” this team clearly captured the essence of teaching to meet their students’ needs when they illustrated their commitments to change in their photovoice photo, “change begins with us! because the influence of a good teacher can never be erased.” creating culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments with respect to assertion 2, i maintained, “psts identified how to structure authentically caring learning environments to attain high levels of achievement.” in the clrt framework, creating culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments was dependent on cultivating authentically caring teachers who held high expectations and beliefs that cld students could succeed. two theme-related components contributed to the theme that led to assertion 2: (a) building empathy for and awareness of cld students and (b) incorporating a warm demand approach, which included respectful, caring relationships that were accompanied by high expectations of students. building empathy for and awareness of cld students within the clrt framework, culturally responsive teachers built strong relationships with their students and developed a sense of empathy for their cld students by understanding their experiences. because the majority of the psts were native english speakers, a language simulation lesson was taught in spanish during the second week of the course. the first part of the lesson simulated an english only approach, whereas the second was a culturally responsive one. after this experience, tara, a native english speaker, described how she felt devalued during the spanish-only portion of the lesson, which she inferred would be how cld students’ felt in their classrooms when only english was used. she stated, “to prevent a student from being consumed by anxiety, i would create an environment where students don’t feel completely isolated due to a language barrier; using contrastive analysis and valuing bilingualism to involve the student’s language and culture.” camilla, another native english-speaking pst, realized “telling a student that their home language is wrong or bad makes them feel lower than everyone else” because of how she felt during the lesson when her language (english) was not valued. she explained “i understood how a student might feel not knowing any english. if i never did that frankenstein group work, i would never have alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 70 understood how ell students felt.” in contrast to the native english speaker psts’ experiences, maría isabel, a bilingual pst, explained how empowered she felt by having her language valued. she wrote, “the activity … got me … valuing bilingualism because you had to know spanish ... to complete this activity. so, for those who are bilingual, they felt comfortable … it created a more positive environment for those who spoke spanish.” taken together, psts demonstrated greater empathy and adopted an asset-based approach to teaching focused on creating classrooms that valued bilingualism. in summary, judy wrote, “i will encourage my cld students to use their native language to preserve it.” recognizing warm demand as psts became more critically conscious, they focused on how to use clrt to teach cld students. as a result, psts discussed using a warm demand approach as a recurring topic in their digital diary entries. maría isabel wrote, “i found warm demand to be interesting because the meaning behind it is to balance care and discipline in order to help students achieve.” to accomplish this, she explained further, “this is done by building relationships (caring) followed through with expectations (demand). this lets them know how you work as a teacher building trust and respect.” to foster a classroom based on warm demand, psts referenced a strategy called “high help.” they noted the importance of using “high help,” providing strong support to demonstrate their care and high academic expectations. for example, duncan reflected, as a student, i remember many of my teachers holding the ‘high expectations,’ this did not always translate well with students since many did not use ‘high help.’ that is a very important step in the teaching process, ‘high help’ with ‘high expectations’ will develop each student and show stronger achievement. similarly, sylvia, a native spanish speaker, also emphasized the importance of including high help. however, she expanded upon it by empowering students with strategies to support themselves through the learning process. she claimed, i’m very caring. i love kids. i will do anything for them, but now i have the understanding of how to give my learners the strategies to do things themselves. high help shows your students that you are there to help them, not just there to spit information out at them. further, roger noticed that in addition to using a warm demand approach, teachers also needed to scaffold support for their students to meet the classroom norms and expectations. he stated, “my [inservice] teacher refuses to allow students to slide.” he described how she set high expectations by scaffolding the support to help them achieve. in sum, psts developed an understanding that being empathetic and using warm demand were critical in structuring the learning environment to support learning for all students. interlude 4: interpreting the findings and revising the model in earlier cycles of action research, i relied heavily on qualitative methods, but later, i realized that when used in concert, quantitative and qualitative data together provided a more complete understanding of the results than when used separately (greene, 2007). with each cycle, the qualitative data extended my understanding of the quantitative data being complementary at times and disconfirming at others, which triggered changes in the model (see figures 1-4) and led me to revise the intervention. notably, the data from the study revealed high levels of complementarity. specifically, the quantitative data indicated that the knowledge, selfefficacy, and projected use of clrt increased significantly. likewise, i found the qualitative data demonstrated similar growth. from this, a story unfolded because the words from the qualitative data “put meat on the bones” of the quantitative data. when i began the last cycle of my study, i had confidence in the intervention because it was developed over a series of action research cycles. notably, the findings revealed the need for another revision of the framework. in analyzing the results, i noticed what a profound effect learning about a classroom community had on the participants. consequently, as relationships among psts advanced, a process of learning and knowing developed over the course of the semester based on their shared experiences inside and outside the classroom. much to my surprise, a new strand emerged as shown in figure 5 below as “classroom community,” which was related to the pedagogical and skills component because it aided psts’ development of understanding of the other components in the pedagogical knowledge and skills area. discussion the purpose of this action research study is to explore the influence of a clrt framework that combined two approaches for preparing psts: a clrt designed curriculum and a team-based, service-learning experience with cld students. in this section, i present a discussion of the findings with respect to (a) complementarity and the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, (b) explanation of results based on the extant literature, (c) limitations, (d) implications for practice, (e) implications of research, (f) personal lessons learned, and (g) conclusions. complementarity and the integration of quantitative and qualitative data complementarity between quantitative and qualitative data contribute to the credibility of the results because together they provide a more complete understanding than using a single approach (green, 2007). results and findings from the study reveal high levels of complementarity. specifically, the quantitative data indicate that knowledge, self-efficacy, and use of clrt increase significantly. likewise, the qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews and photovoice indicate similar growth. combining the two approaches provides a deeper understanding by “telling a story” about the numerical data. for example, increases in quantitative self-efficacy scores are substantiated and enhanced by psts’ photovoice reflections and interview responses, which indicate their confidence increased. for example, tara explains, “i’m confident that i would be able to go ahead into a classroom and incorporate what i’ve learned and then build on that.” similarly, findings for qualitative photovoice comments and interview data complement and explain the outcomes noted for knowledge and use scores from the quantitative data. taken together, the quantitative and qualitative data are highly complementary, pointing to the same conclusions. developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 71 figure 5. final framework showing new classroom community strand along with connections among coursework features and community of practice approach to facilitate development of culturally and linguistically responsive psts explanation of the results drawing on the literature as shown in figure 5, the final framework draws upon three lenses: (a) orientations, (b) pedagogical knowledge and skills, and (c) service learning. these perspectives act synergistically to foster the development of culturally and linguistically responsive psts who can work more effectively with cld students. see figure 5. orientations villegas and lucas (2011) suggest three specific orientations on which to focus when preparing psts: (a) sociolinguistic consciousness, (b) value for linguistic diversity, and (c) intention to advocate for clds. in this action research study, i teach a culturally responsive curriculum with readings and lessons focused on preparing psts to become culturally and linguistically responsive teachers. further, as part of the curriculum, i implement experiential, service-learning activities that allow psts to apply theory to practice. in particular, the qualitative data attest to psts development of the three orientations espoused by villegas and lucas (2011). for example, there are many rich discussions about newly emerging perspectives about how cld students bring rich language and cultural experiences with them to the classroom setting. for example, judy comments, “my team members helped me substantially gain new perspectives about the class [teaching cld students].” pedagogical knowledge and skills additionally, villegas and lucas (2002a, 2002b) claim culturally and linguistically responsive teachers integrate the principles of second language acquisition theory into the curriculum. these principles include: (a) understanding and drawing on linguistic and academic backgrounds, (b) establishing appropriate language demands and tasks, (c) using key principles of second language acquisition, and (d) scaffolding instruction. as i explained above, i incorporate experiential learning activities to model clrt that aligns with the modular activities and readings. gay (2000) contends teachers’ expectations of their students influence students’ motivation to learn and ultimately succeed. consistent with gay’s outcomes, the results of this study strongly suggest the importance of developing psts who value students’ language and culture that allows psts to relate to students, hold high expectations, and employ appropriate instructional approaches. qualitative data, in particular, suggest psts understand the need for and begin to develop knowledge and skills related to (a) learning about cld students, (b) building relationships with students to employ warm demand, (c) holding high expectations for academics and behavior, and (d) scaffolding instruction to support student learning. service learning villegas and lucas (2002a, 2002b) contend psts need to be placed in classrooms with experienced teachers practicing clrt. in the final framework of this study, the third component emphasizes a service-learning experience that draws on two factors—authentic experiences and guided reflection. nevertheless, i maintain results from this study suggest a third factor, teams, must be considered when preparing novice psts. see figure 5. notably, i combine what i learned from the research with a team-based approach to service learning to support psts’ learning. by placing psts with in-service teachers who practice clrt, they gain first-hand knowledge about teaching cld students. during each class session, psts enter and meet with their teams sharing their service-learning experiences with one another. through these conversations, they bond as a team and authentically care about one another as they define how to become better prepared and more alsen & buss impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 72 effective in their service-learning classrooms. as a result, they explore ways to apply what they learn to practice. in addition to their impromptu conversations, purposeful guided reflection activities are carefully included at the end of each unit. during these sessions, students apply theory to practice with their teammates. as they coconstruct their understandings about teaching cld students from their experiences, they become more socio-linguistically aware and pedagogically knowledgeable about how learning is a social endeavor (wenger, 1998). the team-based, service-learning experience affords these opportunities as a cop begins to emerge for the teams that assists them to connect theory to practice. consequently, learning and knowing develop over the course of the semester as relationships advance based upon their shared experiences inside and outside the classroom (wenger, 1998). limitations there are several limitations in this action research study. as with any action research, the context, the setting of the study, deeply affects it. for example, the team-based, service-learning component plays a critical role in the outcomes of this study. thus, the context affects and limits the transferability of the study to other contexts (lincoln & guba, 1985; mertler, 2014). another limitation focuses on my role as both the practitioner and researcher in the study. as the practitioner and course instructor, psts may have “shaped” their responses because i was their instructor, even though i asked them to respond as they thought. additionally, as the researcher, i may have had some biases in interpreting the qualitative data, but i minimized them by careful reflection at each step of the process, use of analytic memos, and member checking. implications for practice this study offers information about how to prepare pre-service teachers to engage with cld students using a clrt teaching lens. in particular, study findings suggest it is effective to use (a) a clrt curriculum with novice psts and (b) a team-based, service-learning approach in classrooms with cld students. notably, because psts enter their teacher preparation programs lacking knowledge about and experience with cld students, such coursework should be strategically placed early in their programs of study. this affords psts with opportunities to challenge their sociocultural beliefs and biases and to develop affirming attitudes toward teaching cld students. further, the findings suggest a critical component of the study is the team-based, service-learning experience. the qualitative data indicate teams have a strong effect on psts’ understanding of clrt. there is great value in purposefully grouping the psts based on their assets (language, culture, and classroom experience as, or with, cld students), which affords richer discussions by the teams. moreover, with guided reflection activities, the teams collectively overcome some of the challenges they face as they grapple with how to translate theory into practice to support cld students. implications for future research there are several implications for future research. first, given the outcomes of this study, other teacher preparation programs may choose to build on this by exploring how an introductory course based on clrt and a cop-based, service-learning component could better prepare psts for working with cld students. second, i suggest collecting longitudinal data about the influence of the clrt framework on psts as they progress through their coursework to determine its influence beyond the single semester of this study. lessons learned: using cped principles and extending the work beyond the dissertation in this section, i address cped principles 1 and 4 and discuss how i am extending this work beyond the dip. cped principle 1 on equity and social justice is the focus of this action research work on better preparing psts to work with cld students. additionally, i emphasize work based on cped principle 4 by engaging in a fieldbased opportunity to analyze a pop and use multiple frames, i.e., clrt and cop-based service learning to develop meaningful solutions to it. across the united states, cld students continue to be recognized as the fastest growing and, at the same time, the lowest performing group of students as evident in the achievement gap across every level of the education pipeline (solórzano & yosso, 2006; yosso, 2006). in arizona, cld students mirror these statistics as they consistently perform lower than their peers (arizona department of education, 2018). further, the arizona department of education decreased teacher certification requirements to prepare psts to teach cld students. in response to these issues, these action research efforts sought to examine how a course focused on clrt curriculum with a cop service-learning approach could influence psts’ perceptions about cld students, their knowledge and skills to teach them, and their abilities to act on their behalf in their roles as future educators. to facilitate their learning, psts were grouped in teams of four and placed in elementary classrooms with cld students and in-service teachers who practiced clrt. in this situation, psts draw upon cop-developed knowledge about clrt with their teams and determine how to apply it in practice to teach cld students in their classrooms. since my dissertation, i have continued to utilize the clrt framework to effectively prepare psts to teach cld students. before my action research study, our education department provided service-learning opportunities to our psts, but students placed themselves in the classrooms they selected. after my study, we developed a department initiative in which we have partnered with our local school district creating professional development schools to provide enriching experiences aligned to the courses being taught. to maintain communication and relationships with the schools, we also created a liaison position last summer. additionally, we have continued to leverage every opportunity to increase the awareness of and the value about preparing psts to teach cld students. these efforts have resulted in the introductory course outlined in my dissertation becoming a required course rather than an elective course that counts toward psts’ teaching certificates. going forward, i expect to continue this work to provide psts with opportunities to examine thoughtfully their beliefs and prudently craft their practices to support cld students in their future classrooms. developing pre-service teachers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 7 no. 2 (2022) doi 10.5195/ie.2022.213 73 references arizona department of education, oleas department, (2018). el demographics 2016-2017. http://www.azed.gov/oelas/el-demographics-2016-2017/ ballantyne, k. g., sanderman, a. r., & levy, j. 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(2016). growing critically conscious teachers: a social justice curriculum for educators of latino/a youth. teachers college press. villegas, a. m. & lucas, t. (2002a). educating culturally responsive teachers: a coherent approach. state university of new york press. villegas, a. m. & lucas, t. (2002b). preparing culturally responsive teachers: rethinking the curriculum. journal of teacher education, 53(1), 20-32. villegas, a. m. & lucas, t. (2011). preparing classroom teachers for english language learners: the policy context. in t. lucas (ed.), teacher preparation for linguistically diverse classrooms: a resource for teacher educators (pp. 35-52). routledge. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning meaning, and identity. cambridge university press. wenger, e. mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice. harvard business school press. yosso, t. (2006). critical race counterstories along the chicana/chicano educational pipeline. routledge. http://www.azed.gov/oelas/el-demographics-2016-2017/ http://www.azed.gov/oelas/el-demographics-2016-2017/ http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/3/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/42899863 http://www.jstor.org/stable/42899863 http://www.researchware.com/ http://www.researchware.com/ http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/publications/report-brief/leaks-chicana-and-chicano-educational-pipeline http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/publications/report-brief/leaks-chicana-and-chicano-educational-pipeline elizabeth alsen mesa community college ray r. buss arizona state university interlude 1: applying the research literature and cycles of action research to inform the dissertation in practice cycle 0: reconnaissance cycle 1: a theoretical framework shift toward linguistically responsive teaching (lrt) cycle 2: using culturally responsive and linguistic teaching (crlt) with a team-based, servicelearning approach cycle 2.5: moving from observing to teaching by capitalizing on a community of practice theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study culturally and linguistically responsive teaching authentic service-learning experiences guided reflection to bridge service and learning developing a cop through service-learning purpose of the study and research questions interlude 2: contemplating methodological matters method participants intervention instruments and data collection retrospective, preand post-intervention surveys photovoice digital diary semi-structured interviews procedure interlude 3: considering the data analysis results/findings quantitative results qualitative findings developing a critical consciousness to teach cld students identifying as a culturally and linguistically responsive teacher valuing linguistic diversity developing a clrt mindset creating culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments building empathy for and awareness of cld students recognizing warm demand interlude 4: interpreting the findings and revising the model discussion complementarity and the integration of quantitative and qualitative data explanation of the results drawing on the literature orientations pedagogical knowledge and skills service learning limitations implications for practice implications for future research lessons learned: using cped principles and extending the work beyond the dissertation references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 33 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 dissertation 2.0: an action research study on adapting with ai vassa grichko university of south dakota vassa.grichko@usd.edu betsy schamber dakota state university betsy.schamber@dsu.edu kari termansen university of south dakota kari.termansen@usd.edu david barker university of south dakota david.barker@usd.edu shanice hall university of south dakota shanice.hall@coyotes.usd.edu david swank university of south dakota david.swank@usd.edu erin lehmann university of south dakota erin.lehmann@usd.edu abstract universal guidelines for ai’s use in the context of higher education remains unestablished. despite this, doctoral students utilized ai to help in forming research ideas and with editing manuscripts. thereby, the socialization of doctoral students into ethical ai use became imperative. this action research study had faculty and edd students test ai tools to then make recommendations for guidelines on ai use for dissertation writing. results showed ai use needed to be made clear and transparent alongside adopting a flexible approach to ai incorporation, given factors such as differing journal requirements. furthermore, as doctoral students constituted novice researchers, they needed to realize that they would be responsible for ai’s output. keeping the doctoral identity at the forefront was core to advising doctoral students into the new era of responsible research. keywords artificial intelligence (ai), dissertations, doctoral students, ethics, higher education artificial intelligence (ai) promoted critical thinking by allowing a user to shift from basic to cognitively challenging tasks (essien et al., 2024; nguyen et al., 2024). for example, if using ai for editing, the user could then focus on strengthening arguments. importantly, a researcher’s ability to delegate tasks to a co-author or ai required experience and expertise, precisely what doctoral students were working towards acquiring. for example, a doctoral student’s experience level could impact the quality of a literature review. hsin et al. (2016) found less-experienced doctoral students engaged in shallow literature searches, including selecting few articles and relying on their references for the remaining literature. if these initial articles were suggested by generative ai, the resulting dissertation could lack quality if seminal articles were omitted and/or articles with poor methodology were integrated. to ensure quality dissertations in the age of ai, higher education institutions need clearly defined policies on how doctoral students should use ai. however, across higher education institutions, there were no universally adopted policies on generative ai use (barrett & pack, 2023). the study herein sought to explore the perspectives of faculty and students, namely developing considerations for using ai in dissertation writing. this research sought to answer: what would recommendations for ai’s use in dissertations comprise when co-developed by faculty and students? framework as noted by gardner (2008): “socialization is generally transmitted through the existence of the organizational culture, and in the case of graduate students, through the culture of higher education” (p. 127). accordingly, socialization was seen as core in guiding students towards responsible research practices in the age of ai. as noted by hall and burns (2009), when students had mentors who intentionally guided them through the process of becoming researchers, they gained more from doctoral training. accordingly, advisors were responsible for socializing students into academic norms, such as how to develop theoretical arguments (hall https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2631-5129 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9101-590x https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8434-8781 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9769-9051 grichko et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 34 & burns, 2009) and how to publish their work (odena & burgess, 2017). however, socialization was not a process that solely involved faculty imbuing knowledge onto students. tierney (1997) remarked: “the coherence of an organization’s culture derives from the partial and mutually dependent knowledge of each person caught in the process and develops out of the work they do together” (p. 6). culturally, for the program studied herein, faculty believed supporting student use of ai in the dissertation writing process was indispensable. however, doing so had to ingrain students with the idea that ai, like a problem of practice, needed to be examined critically. further, the faculty believed students’ firsthand experiences with ai needed to be core to guideline formation since students would be directly impacted. further, according to lovera et al. (2023), ai guidelines had to be clear and promote its ethical use. literature review as ai’s capabilities continued to advance, the role of advisors needed to evolve. the responsibility of faculty was no longer primarily to guide students into producing quality research but faculty now needed to teach doctoral students how to conduct research with ai involved in the process, especially since doctoral students constituted novice researchers. this premise relied on students being critical of both scholarship and ai, necessitating the need for guidelines for research and writing. guiding ai’s use there is little guidance on ai use for students. notably, barrett and pack (2023) found that nearly 95% of university instructors did not guide students on the (in)appropriate use of ai. however, ai could enhance productivity and spark new scientific discoveries (alasadi & baiz, 2023), if used appropriately. this necessitated mindfully using ai in research. yet, with ai being a black box, outputs could be biased or even incorrect (dwivedi et al., 2023). in other words, zheng and zhan (2023) state, “chatgpt [an ai platform] simply extracts relevant data through literature searches, processes them, then creates its own story without considering the logic or accuracy of the story” (p. 726). gao et al. (2024) found users who viewed chatgpt as more credible were more trusting of the output. if students uncritically accepted ai output, they ran the risk of acquiring a shallow understanding of concepts (yang et al., 2024). to capitalize on using ai, humans need to be conscious of how they integrated it (fui-hoon nah et al., 2023). further, hosseini et al. (2023) recognized ethical issues raised by ai included plagiarism and accountability concerns, whereas tang et al. (2024) expressed disclosing ai’s use might eventually constitute responsible research practices. for this to be possible, one would need to be cognizant of ai’s presence across the scholarly writing process. becoming researchers during the dissertation writing process, doctoral students learned to become researchers (weatherall, 2019). when writing their dissertations, doctoral students developed subject expertise; however, questions of expertise could arise if ai aided in dissertation writing (o’leary, 2023). for example, meyer et al. (2023) noted there could be issues in discerning the researcher’s voice from ai when the latter aided in writing. thus, instructors were encouraged to adopt pedagogical strategies to tactfully foster human-ai collaboration (nguyen et al., 2024). employing a human-in-the-loop approach to using ai constituted such an approach, where humans needed to check for quality (longo, 2020). students found ai helpful on tasks such as summarizing articles; furthermore, ai-driven research tools enhanced students’ critical thinking by assisting in refining ideas (yang et al., 2024). nevertheless, nguyen et al. (2024) asserted that higher level cognitive skills were necessary for a synthesis and critical review of literature, which was a level of scholarly engagement that ai could not achieve. accordingly, khalifa and albadawy (2024) purported there needed to be a balance between the efficiency allowed via ai integration and human oversight. such oversight would be critical for doctoral students who were also turning to ai for assistance in writing their dissertations, including guidance in designing studies (carless et al., 2024). feedback provided to doctoral students was core in developing their written identities (botelho de magalhães et al., 2019). given this, advisors and faculty were seen as central to socializing doctoral students into the research process (khalid et al., 2023). however, there was minimal research on doctoral students’ perceptions of chatgpt for scholarly writing (zou & huang, 2023). thereby, the study herein examined students’ perceptions, alongside faculty’s, in how ai could be incorporated within the dissertation process. this would allow one to understand how faculty could guide the development of researchers, and action research was employed as the method. methods this study employed collaborative action research, where the aim was applying research practically (mitchell et al., 2009). within action research, participants engaged as co-researchers across each phase of study (merriam & tisdell, 2015). importantly, herein, all participants were co-authors/co-researchers, actively working together from the proposal to the write up. this study sought to integrate the perspectives of both faculty and doctoral students to create recommendations for ai’s use in dissertation writing. nguyen et al. (2024) remarked that “the use of ai in academic writing necessitates a reevaluation of pedagogical approaches to ensure that students develop critical thinking and analytical skills” (p. 2). accordingly, action research comprised a method that allowed enhancement to areas such as programs (bennett & brunner, 2022), which aligned with this research herein since the aim was to revise guidance for the edd program studied. in this sense, by involving advisors and advisees, perspectives of both experienced and novice researchers could direct discussions of how to involve ai meaningfully and ethically in the dissertation process. research context and participants/coresearchers stringer (2014) highlighted that action research sought meaningful interactions that were “nonexploitive and enhance the social and emotional lives of all people who participate” (p. 23). accordingly, departmental socialization aligned with tierney’s (1997) view in the sense that culture was built as a larger collective, where students were core to it. in other words, the department sought to dissertation 2.0 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 35 enhance the doctoral experience by involving students in guiding their own process of socialization. as such, the faculty’s stance on socializing doctoral students underscored a culture of transparency and open dialogue with students to drive continuous improvement to the edd program. collectively, the participants/co-researchers of this study comprised four faculty in an educational leadership department along with three doctoral students who worked with these faculty members. all faculty members advised doctoral students. the faculty ranged from having one to five years of university teaching experience, including advising. additionally, three of the faculty members taught dissertation-specific courses to students, including the student coresearchers herein. among the faculty, there was one who regularly used ai, continually reading about new advancements. another faculty member casually used ai for drafting emails. the two remaining faculty were familiar with ai but did not regularly use it. demographically, among faculty, there were two white males and two white females in the study. among the doctoral students, two co-researchers were simultaneously full-time employees and edd students while the third was a graduate assistant and full-time student. all student participants had college-level teaching experience. one of the students, who was working on their dissertation’s literature review, was an ai enthusiast, with ai as their research agenda. another student, who was nearing their dissertation proposal defense, dabbled in the use of ai and incorporated it in their research as well. the last student, who was deciding their dissertation topic, minimally used ai. demographically, all students were female with two white and one black. data collection and analysis the research team recognized that ai tools needed to be tested before guidelines could be meaningfully discussed, which necessitated a multi-layered approach to data collection. prior to data collection, the research team assessed different categories of ai (e.g., literature search tools and data visualization tools). the choice for including divergent ai categories was because there was a recognition that specific software might eventually cease to be updated or exist, but broader ai categories would remain. categories included those for searching for/within articles, editing, examining biases/consensus, summarizing literature, and general-purpose ai tools. this would reflect the different stages of the dissertation process, ranging from the initial literature search to final edits. accordingly, a shared google doc permitted everyone the opportunity to propose potential platforms for review, with around 20 total tools suggested. each member of the research team independently reviewed at least one ai tool in-depth. a group meeting determined the final tools for study. the final tools reviewed included askyourpdf, chatgpt, consensus, editgpt, microsoft copilot, researchrabbit, and scite.ai. phase one in the first phase of data collection, data were collected from journals and a focus group. specifically, each member of the research team wrote in an individual google doc journal, describing their experiences, potential concerns, considerations for faculty and students, and any comments for each tool over the span of about a week. after journaling, a focus group interview was conducted, following a social constructivist perspective, where the process of meaning making encompassed a social act (ryan et al., 2014). accordingly, a 75-minute focus group interview was held over zoom in an unstructured format. notably, unstructured interviews strived to enrich understanding (fontana & frey, 1994). seeing how coresearchers could re-direct the dialogue to provide a breadth of perspectives on ai, the unstructured format allowed for “free-flowing conversation” (mueller & segal, 2015, p. 1). the overall aim of the journals and focus groups during this phase was to both familiarize all participants with ai tools for dissertation purposes and to allow ample reflection on potential guidelines for ai use. after member checking the focus group’s transcript and applying pseudonyms, analysis began. the coding team consisted of a faculty member and two students. the focus group’s transcript and journals were analyzed inductively, following the steps of thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). analysis began with an immersive phase, where all written documents were read and re-read. memoing occurred alongside each readthrough. preliminary themes were assigned and reviewed. for example, trust was found during the inductive analysis when discussing privacy issues. coding was then reviewed reflexively, with multiple coders discussing whether interpretations were accurate while reflecting on potential biases (byrne, 2022). themes were then member checked, which coresearchers reviewed to aid them during phase two. phase two during the second phase of data collection, all co-researchers were invited to contribute to a collaborative guideline draft, which was followed by another focus group discussion. this guideline draft contained the initial recommendations for guiding ai use for dissertations from the first focus group round in a google doc. participants were encouraged to add their feedback and additional recommendations. after collective input from all co-researchers on the draft, a second 75-minute focus group was held in an unstructured manner via zoom. analysis of the collaborative guideline draft and second focus group followed the same thematic analysis steps described above, ensuring consistency or dependability—a rigor consideration. rigor and authenticity trustworthiness was core from the onset of this study. notably, for a line of inquiry to be rigorous, conceptualization and realization required being scrupulous throughout (merriam & tisdell, 2015). to address credibility, member checking occurred across all transcripts and themes. triangulation of documents and focus groups provided a richer, more holistic understanding of co-researchers’ perspectives (merriam & tisdell, 2015). further, transferability was achieved with thick description (geertz, 1973), including the context and direct quotes. additionally, dependability and confirmability were addressed through memoing and maintaining an audit trail (lincoln & guba, 1986), allowing for consistency and reflexivity. concerning authenticity, fairness included recognizing all perspectives were valuable, actively encouraging participants to speak, and including faculty and students during all phases of this research project. constant use of member checking helped ensure fairness by representing all participants’ perspectives in the write up (lincoln & guba, 1986). the incorporation of focus groups and the guideline draft aided in ontological and educative authenticity, where differing beliefs could be shared and appreciated (lincoln & guba, 1986). finally, catalytic authenticity was a key goal of the study as an grichko et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 36 initial draft of ai guidelines were sought to be created after the study’s conclusion. phase one findings: testing ai tools the initial phase of data collection focused on testing ai tools for potential inclusion in dissertations. analysis of journals and the first focus group resulted in five themes. these themes comprised: (a) ethical ai use, (b) trust issues, (c) needing ai literacy, (d) thoughtful ai incorporation, and (e) ai for sparking collaboration. ethical ai use plagiarism was seen as a central issue in integrating ai for dissertation purposes. seeing ai as harmful and consequential was expressed by trisha, a doctoral student, asking, “will i get penalized? will this be not considered mine because i put it in there?” trisha’s journal accentuated a need for clarity surrounding plagiarism: “instructors should help students determine what is plagiarism and what isn’t. for information that is generated by the ai (like [an] image) should that be cited? and how do you cite it?” alan, a faculty member, echoed trisha’s take when journaling, “we have to consider when and how to attribute work to ai… ai doesn’t have ethics or morals.” during the focus group, alan reiterated the importance of considering ethics, “you can’t just say ai made this for me, i’m washing my hands of it.” however, plagiarism could be unintentional. for marie, a doctoral student, ai dramatically revised her writing, testing her confidence: “my prompt was, ‘can you proofread this?’ and it completely rewrote it. i was like, ‘jeez! i didn't want you to rewrite it.’ …i don’t always love my writing, and to me that’s a slippery slope.” unintended rewriting also led to misattribution. jake, a faculty member, detailed, “it also changed the citation… it said, ‘well, it should be this…’ i wanted to make sure that, ‘okay, is this, actually…?’ nope, it changed it to the wrong citation.” ethical concerns surrounding ai extended into conversations about cost. trisha emphasized apprehension over money: “i also didn’t like the fact that it was $20 a month. respectfully, i’m broke.” sam, a faculty member, repeated this unease, “i don’t think students are gonna [sic] like cost at all… it wasn’t terrible, except for that cost.” financial tensions were heightened by platforms that offered trials. marie commented free trials could be especially dangerous to students’ budgets as they might forget to cancel: “i constantly am like, ‘oh, yeah, i gotta [sic] cancel that when i see it go across my bank account,’ so i don’t like that for students.” taylor, a doctoral student, agreed on the likelihood of forgetting to cancel free trials, “if i don’t write it in my calendar, then it will be like two months from now, and i’ll be like ‘oh, they got me.’” hearing all the doctoral students raise questions over the price, alan reflected on how there was “an ethical piece for us as faculty asking people to use [paid ai].” blake, a faculty member, shared a counter-perspective, seeing ai as an investment: “how are we preparing you for a career and to go forward as a researcher? …this is where things are going. you need to be prepared for this.” collectively, costs needed to be weighed against the idea of incorporating ai literacy to prepare students. additionally, transparent conversations with doctoral students were necessary to clarify when ai use crossed into plagiarism. given the plagiarism discussion, it was unsurprising that using ai sparked trust concerns among participants. trust issues ai was a convenient option, but one that was somewhat mysterious and potentially incorrect. alan recognized how ai existed to serve a purpose, even at a user’s detriment, “we don’t know how it’s working. it’s really easy to think of it as the easy button… you can tell it it’s wrong. it’ll be like, ‘oh, yeah, you’re right. i’m wrong. i’ll give you another answer.’” jake immediately chimed in, adding that the revised output “could also be wrong.” jake’s journal similarly relayed, “writers would need to be aware that chatgpt may provide erroneous information.” in her journal, trisha expressed how trusting output was potentially troublesome: “a student would have to take what was said at face level” if sources were not provided. even when references were present, they might lead nowhere as marie informed the focus group, “it gave me seven articles, and two of the links were broken. how accurate is it really?” when output was correct, the information sources could still be suboptimal. blake’s experiences in clicking led to sources that were not even journals, expressing: “it literally gave me blogs.” taylor noted the same issue, “it would bring me to things like an [article], which probably was over the content but not peer-reviewed, not scholarly.” alan described how his output was not dissertationquality, “i do worry a little bit about some of the sources that it kicked back. i got one, and i went to the link, and the journal had misspellings in its title and logo.” trisha expanded on this idea, remarking journal output could be problematic in content as well, conveying: “looking at the methods, it might not be quality.” lastly, a point was made about being wary to provide ai with one’s data. trisha conveyed anxiety in uploading her dissertation work, “i was scared to put my stuff in there.” alan made the point there was one platform that could be trusted since “the version we’re using is through [the university], we know they’re not training the [large language model] on our data.” as such, understanding platform security should be embedded within ai literacy. needing ai literacy prompting struggles were prevalent across the entire team, where frustrations with ai use largely stemmed from a need for training on how to provide ai with commands or input. prompting lessons were noted as necessary by marie, “my biggest concern is, and i felt this too, there’s really no how to or what to do, and the prompting is the part that you have to learn how to do.” her journal furthered the need for continuing engagement with ai, “not everyone is going to understand that it may take a few times of sparring with the ai to get what you need.” blake’s journal emphasized a call for prompting lessons, “prompt engineering definitely needs to be taught. i mean, thoroughly.” in the focus group, trisha repeatedly articulated prompting had to be “very specific.” sam furthered this comment, remarking on output resulting from poor prompting, “if you do not give it really good directions, it gives you really weird outcomes.” jake further remarked that there were ai platforms that were “not intuitive.” accordingly, trisha insisted on tutorials, such as “a quick snippet or a video.” marie agreed with trisha as tutorials provided “some direction.” however, this relied on tutorials existing. dissertation 2.0 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 37 taylor tried to find a tutorial for one tool to no avail: “i’m gonna [sic] sound like a true student here, because i could not get it to work… i tried to look for tutorial videos, and i couldn’t… all i could get was a blank screen.” blake adopted a similar tactic, but did not find videos helpful, “i did watch their [video]. i was like, ‘well, that helped with nothing.’” overall, not only was training necessary in introducing ai to faculty and students alike, but it needed to be done in an accessible and understandable manner. the need for ai literacy then expanded into a recognition that ai had to be integrated thoughtfully. thoughtful ai incorporation both faculty and students agreed ai needed to be adopted in stages during the dissertation process. trisha explained that a dissertation’s status required different ai tools: “what process [you are] within your dissertation will matter a lot.” agreeing with trisha, alan noted how introducing ai at the right time was imperative, “i had a student this past week… who is really struggling with a brief. i shared [ai tool] with them at that point. …they needed it in that moment, and it was super helpful.” the timing of ai tools necessitated a program-wide approach in adopting ai. sam narrated that the doctoral program was working towards this, “what we’re trying to do… we want them to start it in [101] and be able to be finished with it by the time they graduate. we don’t want [ai] for just like one and done.” interweaving ai throughout the program was recognized as beneficial by taylor, especially for literature reviews: a number of [the professors] said, “don’t recreate the wheel. keep using the same topics in all of your classes…” and i think this would be a great way to build that repository of articles, and then draw from it in each of your classes and not constantly search. thoughtful ai incorporation further extended into its actual use. blake was cognizant of ai’s potential in helping students identify biases: “what if somebody’s really, strongly biased on a topic? …i thought, for [101] specifically, it would be a good place to just start to say [to ai], “hey, what’s out there?” sam saw the value in this, especially seeing that a student would put a claim in a dissertation draft and then put “insert citation” as opposed to searching the literature. thus, students were “writing towards their bias.” in this sense, ai could be a research collaborator. additionally, ai could also promote collaboration among researchers. ai for sparking collaboration ai functioned as a facilitator of collaboration with various sharing mechanisms. accordingly, co-researchers appreciated ai tools for their collaborative capabilities, including across doctoral committees. taylor declared that ai allowed for sharing with faculty, “i thought it was a great way to share with my advisor, ‘here’s what i looked at.’” blake similarly expressed, “it would be really cool to have students create a collection and then invite their faculty members, so we could see all the research you’ve done. is it comprehensive? are you being biased?” alan agreed with blake, remarking that being able to “quickly add to a collection was really nice” along with the ability to “share [collections] with colleagues.” beyond sharing, marie noted how using collaborative tools such as “little notes” was “really easy.” despite recognition over ai’s abilities to spur collaboration, trisha added the perspective that ai could present tension in advising relationships: “if we start depending on these things, then i will kind of lose my dependence on my professor or my advisor.” it became clear it was imperative to include faculty and students in decisions surrounding ai to ensure enduring respect and relationships. phase two findings: drafting ai guidelines after testing ai tools, co-researchers were able to discuss their impressions of ai and then ruminate on what guidelines should constitute ai use within dissertations. thus, the second phase of research involved collaborating in drafting considerations for ai guidelines. analysis of the guideline draft and the second focus group arrived at five themes. these themes included: (a) flexibly incorporating ai, (b) the human is responsible, (c) responsibly teaching ai literacy, (d) transparency in guidelines and ai uses, and (e) learning to become a scholar. flexibly incorporating ai a need for flexibility in incorporating ai was seen as paramount for dissertation writing guidelines. alan illustrated this with a metaphor: “i don’t think that ai will fit everybody’s work in exactly the same way… there’s more than one way to frame a house. you can use nails or screws. they both do the job.” jake further highlighted that flexibility with ai was key because of varying exposure levels: “some of them will not have had much experience with ai and some others will have a lot.” seeing a need for flexibility with ai incorporation, alan acknowledged ai guidelines could be adapted for each doctoral course, “taking each of these bullet points… in a sort of program-wide set of guidelines and saying, ‘here’s the specific use cases within [601: identifying your research problem]. here’s the specific use cases within [602: writing the literature review].” further, there was some disagreement as to what adopting ai in a flexible manner entailed. alan commented on “not insisting that people use ai but providing this as a resource.” however, trisha argued for ai literacy for doctoral students, allowing them to decide the flexible portion: “if we’re trying to make sure that we’re promoting literacy equality across the board, then yes, it would be good for everyone to understand the capabilities of it. what they choose to do with it, it’s their own essentially.” needing flexibility was especially pertinent for students who were pursuing the multiple article dissertation format. taylor proclaimed, “some journals don’t allow ai or don’t want to accept anything with ai.” sam vocalized a personal experience with such requirements, sharing a declaration for submission: “at no point did i use ai to write any part of this manuscript.” however, trisha recognized that ai was allowable for some outlets, “we also need to be very, i wanna [sic] say careful, but, at the same time, somewhat flexible… is someone targeting a specific journal? …then we should be kind of lenient because that is acceptable for their target audience.” blake reinforced that selecting specific journals would be imperative to guiding ai use for articles: “we need to know [what journal] you’re targeting pretty early on… so we know whether or not to use ai.” moreover, ai’s writing would ultimately be attributed to a human, necessitating an understanding of the weight of human responsibility. grichko et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 38 the human is responsible the human being responsible was repeatedly mentioned throughout the focus group. alan called attention to human responsibility being made explicit in guidelines, “across the board is that whatever the output is from the ai should not be the final word.” jake suggested making it explicit that the student bore responsibility for ai’s output, “i don’t know if it goes on the bottom of everything in bold [is] the student is responsible for this.” blake added to this by drawing attention to salience in human responsibility when using ai: “really make it clear that, at the end of the day, you’re responsible for this.” blake further stressed the need to verify an ai tool’s output, “you better check it, because, ultimately, if that’s your downfall, that’s on you.” however, emphasis on the ramifications of humans using ai was moot without students realizing this. taylor remarked that the idea of a human holding responsibility had to be internalized by students: “but do you understand what it’s saying? …is it still in my voice? is it still the message that i’m intending?” within the guideline draft, taylor illuminated, “i like the idea of using an ethics prompt/lesson to help clarify, understand citation and disclosure, and reinforce the human feedback loop. this seems to be needed early in the program.” trisha explained an approach to training during the focus group: i think there’s use in it. i don’t want to say that there’s an absolute “no, don’t do it.” i think it’s just a matter of training and educating us on what it does and how we can use it appropriately and efficiently. sam summarized this facet of the conversation in real-time by commenting, “it all comes down to the human.” to grasp the researcher’s responsibility in integrating ai’s work, ai literacy had to be taught in a responsible fashion. responsibly teaching ai literacy teaching ai literacy required broad considerations, including explicit programmatic aims. marie asked what the larger purpose was in inviting ai into the dissertation process: “what are your goals as a program for your doctoral students? and is one of them ai literacy?” blake’s response was that ai literacy was imperative since students were pursuing doctorates in educational leadership: “the audience that we’re catering to is principals, superintendents, and people who work in higher education… if we don’t teach them how to be ai literate, they’re going to assume that these [tools] can accurately detect ai.” to illustrate this, marie reflected on how being new to higher education could be detrimental without a solid understanding of ai: if i would come in two years from now versus now, i wouldn’t know anything about ai, and i would probably feel at a disadvantage. i do think it’s important that people do get that literacy ‘cause [sic] i know there’s still a lot of people that i hear talking about it all the time that don’t know anything about it, and don’t necessarily even want to have the conversation. i don’t think that’s an option at this point. thus, programmatic aims needed to span the broad scope of ai literacy, including how to use ai and the limits of detection tools. further, timing was key with respect to adopting ai tools. taylor expressed the need to start the doctoral program with ai literacy, “beginning the program with some type of literacy, how to do what this can do, what this might look like in general is a great starting point.” trisha added that ai discussions would also need to be dynamic, “i think it would be helpful to require it… to guide other individuals that they’re going to be interacting with on how to use the tool… as it evolves.” alan reiterated trisha’s point by noting “there’s a lot of gray still” with ai. alan continued, saying, “what’s ethical in [101] in terms of using an output versus what you do in [102] may not be the same.” divergent stances on ai ethics in coursework became more complicated by having doctoral classes that were required in other programs, where faculty outside our edd program might not be receptive to ai. marie noted how this was a difficult situation for driving guideline recommendations: “not sure how to deal with other professors.” during the focus group, sam recognized the difficulty of having outside doctoral students within our classrooms, “talk about our program, we’re so cohesive. where to me it’s like, ‘oh, we can give and take. we can share… we’re pretty much on the same page.’ but when you start having other students from other programs…” thus, faculty’s differing views on ai could present a source of tension on ai incorporation from an interdisciplinary perspective. this interdisciplinary perspective extended beyond faculty members. trisha noted that outside fields could have competing conceptualizations of ethics and ai: “you don’t know who you’re getting from whichever program and maybe ai usage is something that’s not encouraged from their discipline.” blake remarked that choosing not to teach ai literacy to all students could be unethical, despite their fields: “for our students, if they’re ai literate that gives them a kind of edge. it’s ethical to teach them that edge. by not doing that to the other students, we’re disadvantaging them.” thus, the ethical concerns of using ai were compounded by whether depriving students of ai based on their fields could be detrimental. despite uncertainty regarding how to address ai with other program’s students, both faculty and researchers recognized the need for transparency in using ai for dissertation purposes. transparency in guidelines and ai uses transparency of ai use was seen as instrumental, including documenting use across the dissertation process. disclosure throughout one’s dissertation was recommended by alan, “continual journaling throughout the process of working through their dissertation and coursework… documenting the ways in which they’re using ai.” taylor relayed documentation could be presented in a journal format: “how much did you use ai? how much [changed]? if you use a reflexive journal or portfolio, can you note in your reflexive journal where you started and where you ended up?” alan, in the draft, supported the argument for citing ai: “i also like the idea of a statement somewhere in their work—we would need to come to consensus on the degree of disclosure/citation.” having a collaborative draft to outline ai use for dissertations was valued for achieving transparency. taylor appreciated having the collaborative guideline draft as a reference for what responsible ai use encompassed for dissertation writing: “this is a really nice, explicit document that, regardless of the course… here’s the things we want to keep in mind here are kind of the basic guidelines, so to speak, of what we’re trying to do.” trisha noted the timing of guidelines was key, conveying it would be a “great thing to say at an orientation.” additionally, trisha recommended a larger conversation on ai ethics when onboarding doctoral students: “this encompasses how ai is going to be used in our program…” dissertation 2.0 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 39 transparency was additionally recommended by sharing ai writing guidelines across an institution. taylor encouraged distributing ai guidelines to potentially interested faculty, “a suggestion that i have is a kind of an onboarding or a place where this can all live… because if there… are some other professors that are interested in getting involved… that would be a great supportive tool.” sam succinctly conveyed, “taylor, i love that idea.” the conversation then took a turn to discussing faculty being transparent in their own ai uses. trisha asked, “will professors or will the courses also be using ai in the evaluation of students’ work?” alan asked if this was something that students desired: “as a student, would you want that information disclosed the way that i may or may not use it on any given assignment?” here, trisha pointed out a larger ethics issue surrounding ai being used for students’ work unknowingly, “i worry just about the privacy issue. you never know who’s gonna [sic] type in something similar and get my results.” alan clarified the need for transparency with students’ work: “when we’re talking about actual student work, uploading an entire document or something like that needs to be done with the absolute utmost caution… and certainly not done without the student’s knowledge.” the focus on students was the crux of the final theme, where the novice identity was central to crafting ai guidelines. learning to become a scholar there were concerns expressed in needing to be cautious in ai use with doctoral students, especially as they were still learning to become researchers. in the guideline draft, trisha commented that ai needed to be warily approached by doctoral students, “students should still know and understand how to write strong research questions… prior to using ai for this purpose. if we are only teaching them to do this with the use of ai, we could aid their reliance.” trisha expressed a fear of students becoming dependent on ai in the focus group: “if [students are] seeing a tool that’s producing something that they perceive to be better than they could be overly reliant on it or just kinda [sic] use it to judge their material as if mine is bad.” similarly, blake made a point that considering students’ identities should remain at the forefront of faculty’s minds when implementing ai, “what’s really important to remember is that doctoral students are novice researchers. they are learning how to do research, and they don’t know what’s okay or not. and we’re socializing them as faculty into these norms.” importantly, ai could be perceived as a threat to students becoming researchers. taylor gravely discussed this issue: one of the deeper implications of using ai is the end result for me as a student is, i want to come out of my research feeling like i’m somewhat of an expert on a topic. i want to be able to propose thoughtfully and be able to answer questions. i want to be able to defend and be able to answer questions. if i’m using ai to cut corners… i do put myself in jeopardy of not being an expert at the end of not knowing what i’m talking about… and i think it could be easy to cut corners. this demonstrated that socializing students into the use of ai had to be mindful. otherwise, it could be ai becoming the expert as opposed to the student. therefore, teaching students research skills prior to incorporating ai was seen as valuable. jake noted how non-ai skills also needed to be learned by doctoral students, “even if all you do is use the interlibrary loan, knowing how to do that is important.” trisha echoed the need for “grunt work” before ai would be introduced. she went on to add: “i feel like we as growing scholars, as growing professionals, still need to know how to do it on our own before we introduce technology into it, especially because it keeps evolving.” implications and discussion given the dearth of universal guidelines on ai use for higher education (barrett & pack, 2023), doctoral programs need to clearly stipulate what ai use is (in)appropriate for dissertation writing, especially when it comes to research ethics. plagiarism concerns need to be an ongoing, dynamic conversation when it comes to ai, especially considering its capabilities will only continue to evolve. notably, meyer et al. (2023) argued that it could be difficult to ascertain contributions when ai becomes involved in scholarly writing. similarly, tang et al. (2024) argued that, when implementing ai, it could be difficult to know how to properly cite these tools. the students studied herein echoed these concerns. therefore, guidelines for ai in dissertation writing should “ensure clarity and facilitate the responsible use of ai-generated content” (lovera rulfi & spada, 2023, p. 6). within this conversation, doctoral students should have clarity on how to assign attribution and what contributions are theirs. importantly, ai impacted the developing researcher identities of doctoral students herein. specifically, doctoral students expressed concerns as to how using ai impacts the perception of them as experts. since dissertations represented the voices of writers (botelho de magalhães et al., 2019), ai’s use could bring up the question of whose voice is represented. accordingly, the intersection of identity and ai constituted an area that faculty needed to concern themselves with when advising. in other words, using guidelines to clearly state when a dissertation is no longer the student’s voice is necessary. this will help students recognize their developing expertise, ensuring students are socialized into the new ai-related norms of academia. there was a repeated stress herein that it had to be made salient to doctoral students that they would be responsible for any ai outputs in dissertation writing. this reinforced gao’s (2024) and yang’s (2024) point on the need for students to be critical of research, especially when employing ai. otherwise, doctoral students might not become true experts. thus, it is key to adopt a human-in-the-loop approach to ai guidelines for dissertation work, where human verification would be key to robustness (longo, 2020). this can be aided by adopting ai for dissertation writing in a collaborative manner. faculty can socialize students into (in)appropriate use of ai throughout the dissertation process, enhancing ai literacy on both sides, if ai use is a negotiated process among faculty and students. this would adopt tierney’s (1997) socialization stance with respect to ai use. while updating the collective understanding of gray ethical areas, guidelines can be jointly, with faculty and student input, revised to reflect the current state of ai. further, via this approach, students’ developing expertise can be understood, ensuring they are becoming researchers. building on hall and burns’ (2009) commentary on how advisors can help students gain more from their doctoral journeys, socializing students into what a researcher is and when ai has become the researcher is core to a doctoral student’s development. grichko et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.468 40 future research this study aimed to engage in a collaborative approach to first try ai tools and then arrive at ai guideline considerations with the input of both faculty and doctoral students. however, this study was limited to one department of educational leadership. notably, a point was made that ai acceptance could vary based on the respective concentrations of doctoral students. thus, future research should involve ai conversations with faculty and doctoral students from other departments and fields to explore differences based on both institutional cultures and respective fields. moreover, a question was raised as to how ai could affect doctoral-student advisee relationships. accordingly, future research should examine the level of ai use by advisors and how this affects relationships with advisees. such information would be critical to a larger understanding of how to socialize students into ai from the perspective of higher education institutions. lastly, future research should examine how doctoral students engage with scholarly sources versus ai. understanding how doctoral students critique, verify, and synthesize information based on the source (i.e., peer-reviewed articles vs. ai) will aid in both how to socialize doctoral students into becoming researchers and how to craft guidelines on assessing sources for dissertation incorporation. references alasadi, e. a., & baiz, c. r. 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(2023). to use or not to use? understanding doctoral students’ acceptance of chatgpt in writing through technology acceptance model. frontiers in psychology, 14, 1259531. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1259531 https://doi.org/10.1177/1098214013508300 https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12938 https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507618799867 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2327003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2023.02.011 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1259531 vassa grichko university of south dakota betsy schamber dakota state university kari termansen university of south dakota david barker university of south dakota shanice hall university of south dakota david swank university of south dakota erin lehmann university of south dakota framework literature review guiding ai’s use becoming researchers methods research context and participants/co-researchers data collection and analysis phase one phase two rigor and authenticity phase one findings: testing ai tools ethical ai use trust issues needing ai literacy thoughtful ai incorporation ai for sparking collaboration phase two findings: drafting ai guidelines flexibly incorporating ai the human is responsible responsibly teaching ai literacy transparency in guidelines and ai uses learning to become a scholar implications and discussion future research references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 64 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 mapping aect standards framework: implications for instructional technology programs daisyane barreto university of north carolina wilmington barretod@uncw.edu sheri conklin university of north carolina wilmington conklins@uncw.edu abstract program alignment with professional standards ensures that students gain competency-based skills that can be transferred to the workplace environment. employers continue to place a greater value on these skills. establishing curriculum alignment with professional standards can assist with annual program evaluations, student learning outcomes, and competencies. this article focuses on aligning a graduate-level instructional technology program curriculum with the professional standards of the association for educational communications and technology (aect). provus’ discrepancy evaluation model was implemented to identify gaps and adjustments to the program curriculum. the program evaluation assisted in identifying areas where the curriculum needed to be updated, coherence and organization needed to be adjusted in the program, and students and key stakeholders needed to be addressed. the recommendations and suggestions provided in this study can assist other programs in planning and implementing similar alignment processes, thereby contributing to the advancement of the understanding of assessment and evaluation practices in higher education. keywords assessment, competency, curriculum mapping, professional standards graduate-level programs in higher education institutions are often developed based on the needs and demands of the workforce, which calls for specialized professionals. these programs are supported and funded by sponsors, including legislators, donors, and university leaders (arrington & darabi, 2018). establishing such programs can result in the creation of new and emerging careers (maratovna et al., 2021). however, conducting systematic reviews and evaluations of these programs is crucial for ensuring their relevance, impact, and attractiveness to potential students (mardis et al., 2018; wright et al., 2014). given the current changes in the workforce and the demand for new job positions and skills, graduate programs must adapt their curricula to address societal changes and remain competitive in the job market. for instance, the world economic forum's 2020 future of jobs report predicted that by 2025, half of the global workforce would require reskilling (schwab & zahidi, 2020). reskilling may require academic and workplacerelevant curricula that programs should provide (tan et al., 2018). there are certain controversies regarding whether this applies to all programs. certain industries and professional organizations have debated whether graduates are adequately prepared to enter the workforce, leading organizations to invest additional resources, such as time and money, to train new employees (stavredes & herder, 2014). moreover, prior studies on educational and instructional technology (eit) programs have indicated that curricula may be decontextualized from professional environments and may not provide adequate opportunities for practical experience (howard & benedicks, 2020; larson, 2005; larson & lockee, 2004). consequently, it is essential for programs to design and update their curricula to equip graduates with skills readily applicable to their employment (tan et al., 2018). according to some scholars, an essential metric of a program's efficacy is its ability to equip graduates with applicable skills in the job market (arrington & darabi, 2018). prospective students generally seek programs that align their curricula with the current job market or industry standards, thus equipping them with relevant competencies and ensuring their preparedness to excel in the workforce (fong et al., 2017). preparing graduates with such skills involves realigning the curricula with professional organizational standards and adjusting the program of study, goals, and courses to address them. efforts to revise and enhance eit programs (and courses) have been made to cater to interdisciplinary needs, online modalities, and learners’ practical field experiences (richardson et al., 2020). to foster curriculum relevancy, student preparedness for the workforce, and alignment with professional organization standards, a graduate-level program in eit at a 4-year public institution has undergone a comprehensive curriculum review and mapping process to ensure alignment with current professional standards in the field. a specialized curriculum evaluation model was implemented to identify gaps in and adjustments to the program curriculum. this curriculum evaluation aims to align the program with industry practices and ensure that the course of study builds on competencies for the workforce. furthermore, this evaluation can reveal discrepancies in curriculum design, such as gaps and/or misalignment with professional standards, which provide areas for https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4479-1046 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1356-4265 barreto & conklin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 65 the improvement and strengthening of the curriculum. the outcomes of this process can benefit the main stakeholders (e.g., department chairs, program coordinators, advisory boards, faculty, etc.), who may consider conducting similar evaluations of their programs to strengthen and improve their curriculum. standards for eit programs professional organizations often establish standards to guide the curricula and instruction of professional and educational programs. the standard criteria state the competencies expected of future employees or recent graduates as they transition from the academic sphere to workspace. different standards are in place for eit programs. some standards are more k-12 oriented, such as the international society for technology in education (iste); others are broader, such as the association for educational communications and technology (aect), encompassing higher education and corporate settings. the aect is a well-known organization in instructional design and technology. established in 1923, aect has grown to become an international organization in the field, guiding and shaping current trends and curricula in instructional design and technology. aect’s focus has also been on enhancing skilled educators, trainers, and proficient personnel in instructional technology (earle, 2000). as a leading organization, aect has defined and redefined the field over the years to respond to changes in emerging technologies, curricula, and instruction, as well as the theories and functions of instructional technology professionals in the field. with a collaboration of the professors in instructional design and technology (pidt), the aect's committee revised the definition of the instructional technology (it) field in 1994 to reflect the contribution of each domain in the field to the theory and practice of designing, developing, using, managing, and evaluating processes and resources for learning (seels & richey, 1994; seels & richey, 2012). this definition has served as the official political stance of both the organization and the field for a long time. however, with the evolving nature of it domains and professional roles in the workplace, aect has felt the need to redefine the field. the fifth formal field definition was approved in 2008, replacing the 1994 definition. this new definition describes the ethical application of technology-driven processes and resources such as creating, using, and managing to foster learning and enhance performance (richey et al., 2008). the term study included in the definition refers to the knowledge base that comes with the research and reflective practices; meanwhile, the ethical application refers to “an approach or construct from which to work” (januszewski & molenda, 2008, p. 3). in 2023, a task force team from aect established the latest definition of it, defined as the “ethical study and application of theory, research, and practices to advance knowledge, improve learning and performance, and empower learners through strategic design, management, implementation, and evaluation of learning experiences and environments using appropriate processes and resources” (aect, 2024, para. 1). similar to the it definition, field standards have undergone multiple iterations. aect standards were introduced in the 1970s to guide professional programs and have been updated several times to meet the evolving demands of the field (aect, 2012). the 2008 definition of the field, as defined in the previous paragraph, played a significant role in the development and approval of the 2012 aect standards, which are currently the most up-to-date for guiding educational and professional it programs (aect, 2012). for a considerable period, the aect standards acknowledged that ethical considerations are intertwined with appropriateness (januszewski & molenda, 2008). however, according to the 2008 definition, ethics became more explicitly emphasized in standards. ensuring that students acquire competency-based skills transferable to the workplace environment may be significantly facilitated by aligning programs with professional standards. employers continue to place a greater value on these skills. establishing a curriculum alignment with aect professional standards can also assist with annual evaluations of a program, as well as student learning outcomes and competencies. curriculum mapping a curriculum can be defined as a program of study in a school or college that includes a series of courses that guide learners to complete a degree or certificate (kopera-frye et al., 2008). the term is comprehensive enough to encompass everything a student encounters throughout their educational journey, such as instructional materials, teaching methods, activities, and assessments necessary to achieve the intended learning outcomes (siyam & hussain, 2022). program stakeholders often conduct reviews, assessments, evaluations, and analyses to ensure that the curriculum’s learning outcomes are met. curriculum mapping can be one of the techniques that stakeholders can implement to determine whether the curriculum components (e.g., goals, course objectives, instructional materials) are aligned and whether adjustments need to be made (kopera-frye et al., 2008). a misalignment between program standards, outdated curricula, and courses may lead to a lack of coherence in teaching (gashi, 2021), teaching practices overcoming the curriculum, a curriculum illsuited to meeting course objectives (james & ladue, 2021), and limitations in determining whether students meet curriculum standards (wallace & ke, 2023). instructors can include updated and relevant content in their courses to improve student learning and meet educational needs. when this occurs, it is important for program coordinators and faculty to engage in curriculum mapping, a systematic process designed to use a data-driven approach to make informed decisions and changes to the curriculum (altmiller, 2023). this process can assist departments and programs by reviewing and updating their curricula to address student requirements based on industry and organizational standards (wang, 2015). curriculum mapping is a valuable tool that can aid in overcoming obstacles and maintaining programs, particularly in situations of rapid growth (khailova, 2021). many programs use curriculum mapping for quality assurance, compliance, and renewal (watson et al., 2020). however, the quality and effectiveness of curriculum mapping can vary significantly across different programs depending on factors such as the depth and complexity involved (holmes et al., 2018). by aligning its outcomes with professional standards, a program can enhance its capacity to generate the requisite evidence to substantiate intended outcomes (henri et al., 2017) and customize learners’ professional aspirations. those responsible for program development and revision in higher education must conduct ongoing systematic reviews and evaluations of programs, identify potential areas of expansion, and adjust where possible to change professional needs (perera & pearson, 2013). additionally, curriculum mapping (a) demonstrates the individual-level standards required by students to meet the goals of individual courses and (b) demonstrates program-level standards, which ensure that the courses meet the goals set forth by the mapping aect standards framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 66 program. moreover, curriculum mapping supports program evaluations. programmatic assessment is crucial for evaluating program effectiveness and planning improvements (clements & cord, 2013). although research has concentrated on curriculum mapping (oliver et al., 2007; sumsion & goodfellow, 2004) and program-learning outcomes (lawson et al., 2013), standardized approaches to professional standards are lacking. if professionals endorse and encourage the use of standards, program assessments should adhere to these practices. according to finney and horst (2019), academics “are unaware of the assessment-related competencies of professionals” (p. 311) in their field, and this unawareness can compromise students’ academic and professional success. eit is a complex field that encompasses diverse student career opportunities. given this complexity, learners' knowledge and experience of a program can be divergent. while students in a program may be on the same journey, their destinations may differ. for example, two students from the same program could land in two different positions (e.g., multimedia developers and instructional technology specialists) and two different settings (e.g., higher education and k-12). therefore, a program's curriculum must be well mapped to guide faculty and learners along their educational journey, providing the content to be taught and career paths to be taken within the curriculum. as a result, program mapping should be transparent (harden, 2001), aligned with professional outcomes, and challenging learners’ subjectivity (hale, 2008; jacobs & johnson, 2009). therefore, it is essential to include both content and professional standards. this allows learners to connect the dots in their journey toward completion. the graduate program the program analyzed for curriculum mapping was an eit graduate program located in a college of education at a public university. this program was first introduced to the college in 1998 and established to meet the demands of local and state-level communities. based on archival data from 2004, the program curriculum was designed according to a set of documents and competencies critical to the field of instructional technology, including the task force in the instructional design certification of the aect in 1981. the program was originally delivered face-to-face, moving to a hybrid model in 2009 and shifting to asynchronous online delivery mode in 2019. the program goals were created based on several sets of documents that identified key competencies in the field of eit, including the following: • core competencies for instructional/training development were generated by the task force in instructional design certification of the association for educational communication and technology (aect) division of instructional development in 1981, • competency lists generated in a study conducted at florida state university concerning academic program requirements in 1993, • competencies developed by the aect definition and terminology committee in 1994, and • professional standards by national council for accreditation of teacher education (ncate). since its inception, the program has undergone significant development by creating new courses designed to address industry needs, certifications required for job qualifications, and incorporation of additional faculty members as a result of the program's growth. these changes have occurred slowly over the years; however, no formal or comprehensive curriculum mapping of the program has been conducted. currently, this program offers a master’s degree in which some courses are cross listed with the doctoral program in the college. the doctor of education (edd) program at the college is housed under the educational leadership department, and there are a few concentrations within their program such as higher education, curriculum and instruction and others. the cross-listed courses provide the master's students with the unique opportunity to engage with advanced coursework and collaborate with doctoral students, enriching their academic experience and broadening their perspectives. moreover, due to the practitioner-orientated nature of most edd programs, the master’s program in eit offers an opportunity for doctoral students to use evidence-based research to solve authentic challenges and issues in educational settings. for instance, doctoral students can identify practical problems in educational settings, conducting research and developing instructional technology and design solutions to solve and address the needs of their school or educational setting. the initial goals of conducting curriculum mapping for this program include keeping the curriculum modern and relevant to the field by updating and aligning it with the most current aect standards, identifying any gaps or discrepancies in the curriculum and verifying whether the curriculum program supported student learning. an example of the necessity for curriculum mapping in this program is a course focused on web-based instruction, which is also the course title. over the past few decades, web-based teaching has transitioned to focusing on course design from the web to a learning management system (lms), which means that students must exhibit proficiency in designing within an lms rather than creating content for the web. thus, a thorough program evaluation is needed, in which the program goals are mapped and aligned with the most current standards in the field. in addition, mapping all courses and aligning them with competencies from industry standards can benefit the annual program evaluation process. for this curriculum mapping, the most current aect (2012) standards are used as a framework to update the program goals and map the curriculum to ensure a tight connection between instruction, assessment, and student learning, consequently supporting program evaluation. by aligning course goals with program goals and aect standards, program coordinators and evaluators can accurately track student progress throughout the program. furthermore, the ability to determine whether students meet course and program goals is clear, as student artifacts can be linked to specific program criteria. although the program discussed in this article values and adopts the use of professional standards since its inception, mapping to the most current standards in the field with courses and alignment with assessment-related competencies can be beneficial in strengthening and supporting the program's effectiveness. curriculum evaluation framework curriculum evaluation is a systematic process of studying the merits and effectiveness of a curriculum in achieving its intended outcomes (makanya, 2019). this is essential for improvement, renewals, and long-term achievements (bazrafshan et al., 2014). the focus of curriculum evaluation may include curriculum design, the learning environment, the instruction process, and resources and materials. for curriculum mapping in this program, our focus is on barreto & conklin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 67 curriculum design, resources, and materials. according to bharvad (2010), two common categories for evaluation models that align with curriculum evaluation are (a) curriculum product evaluation and (b) curriculum program evaluation. the curriculum product evaluation category, which focuses on the course of study, syllabi, text, and assessment, was selected to guide this realignment as the aforementioned course items were identified and realigned with the new aect (2012) standards. within this category, there are two models: (a) the eight year study evaluation model and (b) provus’ discrepancy evaluation model. the latter model has been used as a conceptual framework to analyze the program in this study through “constantly judged in terms of fixed standard criteria already established” (bharvad, 2010, p. 73). the provus’ discrepancy evaluation model involves identifying any dissimilarities among the components in a standard and determining whether there are divergences (bulkani et al., 2022). the model emphasizes the existing gaps. any discrepancies identified can be resolved “between a pre-determined set of standards and what actually the current status of a particular area being studied” (ambida & cruz, 2017, p. 94). following provus’ discrepancy evaluation model, we analyzed the following: (a) determined program standards, (b) determined program performance, (c) the performance was compared with that of the standards, and (d) determine whether a discrepancy exists between performance and standards. for the first step, the program standards are determined previously (i.e., aect standards) but need to be updated according to the aect 2012 version. in the second step, program performance is determined not only by the program goals or outcomes, but also by the learning outcomes established for each of the core courses in the program. the 2012 aect standards and program performance were compared to determine whether there were any discrepancies or gaps in the curriculum. in this model, the operation program is constantly judged in terms of fixed standard criteria already established (bharvad, 2010). the evaluation process commences with an examination of the courses' assessments to determine their compliance with aect standards. subsequently, the learning outcomes from each course were scrutinized to determine whether they corresponded to the summative assessments. next, each course instructor assessed whether the instructional materials and formative assessments aligned with the summative assessments and the course learning outcomes. if any inconsistencies or gaps are detected between the standards and the actual course status (e.g., learning outcomes and assessments), the subsequent step involves identifying the reasons for these discrepancies (e.g., a missing link to a particular standard, outdated objectives, etc.). discrepancies were rectified by modifying and adjusting the identified curriculum areas. moreover, the faculty acting as an action researcher, is another approach implemented. this form of evaluation evolves from the implicit aspects of reflective pedagogical practices to a more explicit research plan, wherein faculty members can specify and execute a research agenda of immediate relevance to their practices. this approach involves pursuing change and improvement at the course level (leathwood & phillips, 2000). applying provus' discrepancy evaluation model the provus' discrepancy evaluation model was applied to assess and refine the program's curriculum (uysal, 2022). the curriculum mapping process systematically examined program objectives, student learning expectations, aect standards and indicators, and program course materials (e.g., syllabi, lms course content, course assessments, and activities). initially, we scrutinized the aect 2012 indicators for each standard. we also assessed whether these indicators were implicitly integrated into the curriculum or not. although this may seem simplistic, it is crucial to determine what is already in place to evaluate a curriculum at a more profound level. subsequently, we identify the performance criteria for the remaining indicators. finally, we aligned the courses' learning sources and assessments with each indicator, enabling instructors to identify discrepancies and gaps in the program. figure 1 depicts the phases of the analysis, review, and curriculum alignment process. figure 1. phases of the process of analyzing, reviewing, and revising curriculum alignment with aect standards phase i analyzing the aect standards during the analysis of the aect 2012 indicators, we determined whether they were appropriate at the program level. since this is a master’s level program, we focused on practical applications for practitioners moving into the field of instructional design in a variety of sectors (e.g., k12, corporate, higher education, and non-profit). although the ethics indicator was included in all five standards, for the purpose of our program, we removed ethics from standards 1-4 and combined ethics under standard 5. additionally, standard 5 focused on research, which was not the basis of this program; therefore, the indicators of method and assessing/evaluating were removed. the final standards were as follows: table 1. list of standards and components list of standards standards’ components standard 1 content knowledge • creating • using • assessing/evaluating • managing standard 2 content pedagogy • creating • using • assessing/evaluating • managing standard 3learning environments • creating • using • assessing/evaluating • managing • diversity of learners standard 4 professional knowledge and skills • collaborative practice • leadership • reflection on practice • assessing/evaluating standard 5 research • theoretical foundations • ethics mapping aect standards framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 68 subsequently, we established the criteria for each indicator. a rubric was developed for each indicator since the intention was also to evaluate the program outcomes. the objective was to formulate the criteria for outstanding performance. following approval from all faculty members, proficiency and revision performance criteria were drafted. for instance, criteria were devised for academic products under standard 4, professional knowledge and skills: leadership (see table 2). table 2. criteria for professional knowledge and skills: leadership indicator outstanding proficient revise leadership (4.2) candidates apply leadership styles to an instructional context and reflect on the effectiveness of their leadership skills in a thorough and well-written reflection. candidates apply leadership styles to an instructional context and reflect on the effectiveness of their leadership skills in a partial reflection. while the style applied is clear, the impact is not made explicit or sufficiently justified. candidates apply leadership styles to an instructional context and reflect on the effectiveness of their leadership skills in an incomplete and poorly written reflection. the leadership style and impact are insufficiently discussed. phase ii analyzing courses to aect standards by defining each indicator, we can evaluate each course based on the course goals from the syllabi and apply the standard indicators to the course goals. an excel framework was used to apply these indicators (see table 3). this was an iterative process. first, we analyzed and aligned the course goals with the aect standards. next, we held program meetings in which we revisited the course goals and revised the alignment. next, using a backward approach, we mapped all course assessments with the learning outcomes, indicators, and aect standards. summative assessments were conducted to determine the close alignment of components. finally, we analyzed the matrix for gaps and addressed any overlap of indicators or areas where aect indicators were not addressed. phase iii course goal revisions and analysis while evaluating courses and aligning them with aect standards, it was crucial to ensure transparency by involving all faculty members in the process. each faculty member teaching a course was asked to examine the course goals created by the instructor to confirm that they were comprehensive and broad enough to serve as a course-learning outcome rather than a module objective, which was attained by completing a course module. following this, the faculty discussed and reviewed the assessments for each indicator to ensure that the assessment aligned with each course goal and aect standard. in many instances, faculty members had to review the rubric for the course project to guarantee alignment with the course goal and aect standard. some projects aligned with multiple standards. for instance, in one course, the final project was extensive and aligned with three aect standards (table 5. the goal of mapping was to align program outcomes with the 2012 aect standards. in this process, verifying a holistic alignment with the program and ensuring a deep alignment with each course and its components (e.g., learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessments) are also important. during the initial mapping of the courses, learning objectives were revised by updating the wording or removing extraneous learning outcomes based on alignment with aect standards. the objective was to review, revise, remove, and change the statements for this project. the objectives were designed to create appropriate instruction, devise approaches to evaluate student learning, and guide the learners into knowledge and skills to be mastered as part of a course or program (morrison et al., 2007). the revision or deletion of these course objectives was based on an analysis and comparison of the components used for mapping or alignment. during this process, researchers/reviewers noticed that some learning objectives were not high level or designed to assess the learning gained upon course completion. these learning objectives were designed to be module objectives but were used as course objectives. then, those objectives were revised to module objectives given the following: (a) content presented was specific to a module or (b) content presented was assessed in one module of the course only via a low-stakes activity/assignment. for example, in one of the courses, the following learning objective demonstrate an understanding of accepted standards for website design, including style and accessibility, was removed and placed as a module objective because it was covered in only one of the modules of the course, that is, the web design module. other higherlevel objectives in the course will still be aligned with this content. moreover, in the same course, the original number of learning objectives in the syllabus was nine, which was higher than the usual recommendation when designing online courses, that is, 3-5 learning outcomes (stavredes & herder, 2014). in addition, other revisions were made to remove objectives that were not explicitly assessed in a course and to combine or modify them to make them higher level or broader to address the content being built and assessed in the course. while mapping and aligning courses, researchers and reviewers typically compiled a spreadsheet containing all existing course learning objectives. they meticulously evaluated each assessment and activity included in the course to determine whether they aligned with the learning objectives. if an alignment was not found, the learning objectives were revised to enhance their clarity and precision and were deleted or modified if they were outdated or did not adequately address a specific assessment item. additionally, the assessments can be revised to align more effectively with learning objectives. after this process, each faculty member had a list of revisions to their course. course revisions were made after each meeting by the individual faculty members. this process not only strengthened the individual courses and the alignment of the outcome assessment with the course goal, but also ensured that the course goals were aligned appropriately with the aect standards. thus, the courses were also sequenced to build students’ knowledge throughout the duration of the program and ensure that there was no overlap in learning outcomes between courses and no gaps in knowledge acquisition. barreto & conklin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 69 table 3. degree framework matrix example course prefix course name course description course learning outcomes aect standard aect indicator course assessment mit 101 trends and issues course description analyze instructional design models aect standard 2 content pedagogy creating final project table 4. course alignment analysis example 500 510 511 520 530 creating candidates demonstrate the ability to create instructional materials and learning environments using a variety of systems approaches. x using candidates demonstrate the ability to select and use technological resources and processes to support student learning and to enhance their pedagogy x x assessing/evaluating candidates demonstrate the ability to assess and evaluate the effective integration of appropriate technologies and instructional materials. x x table 5. degree framework matrix example mit 110 fea course description describe and apply procedures for assessing performance problems within operating systems (systems environment) aect standard 1 content pedagogy aect standard 2 content pedagogy aect standard 2 content pedagogy managing creating managing front end analysis project students are to analyze a system and use multiple methods of data collection to determine a problem and determine a solution. discussion program evaluation can help stakeholders identify the strengths and weaknesses of a program by providing data-driven evidence to guide program improvements. additionally, engaging in a curriculummapping process can structure a program based on data-driven and competence-driven information (wang, 2015). in our case, the program evaluation assisted in identifying areas where the curriculum needed to be updated based on the realignment between program outcomes and the current organization standards. updating a program's curriculum is an important process as knowledge is dynamic and evolving, i.e., “knowledge that is currently considered true might be considered false 10 years from now” (wang, 2015, p. 1556). the program evaluation process also establishes coherence and organization in the program curriculum, facilitating connections between disciplinary knowledge, practice, and assessment, as well as industry and organizational expectations. through this process, the program can become more responsive to the needs of the students, faculty, institutions, and society. moreover, curriculum mapping can aid the analysis of expected student competencies based on industry or organization standards at the curriculum level. the advantages of conducting this type of program analysis include better understanding of students’ skill progression in the curriculum, identifying potential discrepancies to improve the curriculum, and determining competencies for a new course (gottipati & shankararaman, 2018). for the evaluated program presented in this case, it is crucial to ensure that learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessments are aligned but also lead to students’ competencies based on aect standards. this was performed throughout the course of the study to ensure sequence and progression. analyzing any discrepancies has improved the program’s curriculum, especially in identifying redundancy across learning objectives and courses, which may jeopardize the program sequence and the mastery of skills necessary to build across courses (kopera-frye et al., 2008). finally, based on this curriculum evaluation, the program has identified competencies for new and future courses. based on this experience, other programs can learn the importance of curriculum mapping and alignment to strengthen their courses and goals. a common side effect when designing and teaching our own courses is to experience a “tunnel vision” (stavredes & herder, 2014, p. 174) effect in which we cannot perceive any problem with our courses. therefore, it is essential to have other faculty members or external reviewers assess courses for alignment and provide suggestions for improvement. curriculum mapping and alignment can also be important in helping students to connect what they are learning, how they are being assessed, and how they are tied and connected to industry standards, which consequently builds the competencies that learners need to be practitioners in the field. this corroborates with similar practices and studies (lam & tsui, 2016), in which the anticipated students learning outcomes (slos) “can be achieved in the study program by the list of courses offered, and whether actions need to be taken to adjust or modify the course curriculum” (pp. 1385-1386). additionally, students can track their progress throughout the program to determine whether they are meeting program goals and at what level they are meeting them (e.g., entry-level courses). program evaluations can also provide data demonstrating program effectiveness for both internal and external stakeholders. mapping aect standards framework impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.461 70 the data can be used to inform accreditation processes, demonstrate compliance with institutional goals, and provide a case study of program funding. in addition, program evaluation can provide valuable data for faculty scholarships and research. one note for programs to consider is that standards, including aect standards, are usually broadly written. it is important for other programs to consider their outcomes and write criteria for standards in their fields that would align with their program outcomes. the criteria written for the aect standards of this program focus on practitioner-based outcomes. this was one of the most timeconsuming steps in the process, but it ultimately ensured that the student outcomes could be tracked. best practices for curriculum mapping our program is relatively small compared with others in larger institutions in the field. a small number of faculty members are associated with the program, which can facilitate the tracking of courses, syllabi, and course materials. however, the curriculum mapping process can be arduous, as curriculum reviewers must constantly compare and contrast learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessments with industry or organization standards within and across courses to ensure alignment. thus, gaining faculty buy-in and support in this process can be challenging because of time, effort, and concerns regarding how a course evaluation for curriculum mapping can reflect and be used for faculty evaluation (kopera-frye et al., 2008). to mitigate these issues and secure faculty support, program coordinators or chairs may plan for multiple meetings with program faculty and discuss and explain the purpose of this process, which is to improve the curriculum and students’ outcomes leading to the required competencies in the field. faculty incentives may also be important for ensuring faculty support. depending on the program budget and time allocation, small stipends or course releases may be offered as incentives to support faculty. another practice that can decrease faculty work and increase student involvement is to invite senior graduate students to participate in the curriculum mapping process. programs that implemented this practice have indicated the invaluable contributions of students, and students have reported the experiences gained from a better understanding of educational theories, the development of interpersonal skills through the collaboration process with faculty, and practical experiences for the career and profession (j kapadia & al-nusair, 2022). although this practice has not been implemented in our curriculum-mapping process, we see this benefit. for instance, our program has recently begun to implement new initiatives, such as vodcast sessions with our alumni, to highlight their work and engage them in our program. we shared these sessions with current students in the program to expose them to practical experiences in our field, thus addressing the necessity of eit programs (howard & benedicks, 2020; richardson et al., 2020). the alumni and students in the program provided positive feedback on this initiative and areas for improvement. their feedback has been essential in shaping future sessions and topics for the vodcast but also in areas in which the program can better address their needs in meeting industry standards. future directions the evaluation and review of a program involves iterative and reflective processes. transparency is important to ensure that each course in the program is aligned with the program goals and to build knowledge as students progress through the program. additionally, conducting periodic program reviews can help to avoid potential knowledge gaps, content overlaps, and/or inconsistencies across courses. faculty need to be open to change and constructive feedback from their peers or students as well as flexible in revising their online courses, whether the changes are small (e.g., adjusting the course goals) or larger (e.g., revising assessments or course concepts). these changes and revisions can not only improve course organization and facilitation but also student success in achieving the required competencies in their field. as mcdavid and colleagues stated (2019), “program evaluation is not a one-time event but rather an ongoing process of monitoring and feedback to ensure that a program is achieving its goals and objectives” (p. 2). by continually assessing program effectiveness, the program can adapt to the changing needs and trends in higher education, ensuring that it remains relevant and effective. the next steps for this program include: (a) conducting a more thorough evaluation of the program with further data collection and analysis to verify whether the changes and revisions to the program curriculum have been successful or effective, (b) designing and developing program assessment instruments to be implemented throughout students’ progress in the program (e.g., these assessments could be included toward the end of each course in the program), (c) program goals into a system to track student progress and streamline reporting, and (d) digitizing all documents from past, current, and future courses to ensure digital curriculum mapping for future program coordinators and faculty. further evaluation of this program may include surveying students to determine their level of comfort or ability to track their progress toward the program goals. in addition, the continuing program evaluation process may determine any gaps in the curriculum, which can lead to the design of new courses to address industry standards. further studies in this area should include students’ and instructors’ reflections and feedback on the alignment of learning outcomes with the delivered and learned curriculum (lam & tsui, 2016). currently, the program is implementing a survey in the exit course to collect data from key stakeholders (i.e., clients in students’ final project and faculty) assessing students’ competencies in the program according to aect 2012 standards. the aforementioned strategies will be implemented in the next phase to determine the effectiveness of this process. finally, in the future, the program plans to design and develop an instructional technology and design 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(2021). measuring instructional design competencies of future professionals: construct validity of the ibstpi® standards. educational technology research and development, 69(3), 1701–1727. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10006-7 https://doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v34i1/116-135 https://doi.org/10.2146/ajhp130657 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10006-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10006-7 daisyane barreto university of north carolina wilmington sheri conklin university of north carolina wilmington standards for eit programs curriculum mapping the graduate program curriculum evaluation framework applying provus' discrepancy evaluation model phase i analyzing the aect standards phase ii analyzing courses to aect standards phase iii course goal revisions and analysis discussion best practices for curriculum mapping future directions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.442 18 challenging the notion of the pipeline problem in stem rebecca k. andersen university of california, berkeley rander@berkeley.edu abstract it is widely known that women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem). we have a lack of women who choose stem careers and women leave these careers at a higher rate than men. women of color are especially underrepresented and face additional hurtles in building their stem career. while interventions often focus on increasing female interest and confidence in stem, my work addresses the lack of research on how stem recruiting and hiring practices impact female career progression and career decision making (friedmann & efrat-treister, 2023). through identifying barriers women face during the recruitment process, i seek to break down societal inequities that limit female career progression in technology roles and lead to women feeling insecure about their career prospects despite having confidence in their technical skillsets. keywords women, stem, career search, pipeline, self-efficacy i'll just be really honest, since this is research, there's a little bit of imposter syndrome. like i have a clear record of success in these roles that have always been dominated by males. and it used to not really affect me much, but. i don't know. i'm a bit nervous about my skill set. i don't know. yeah, i don't know. maybe you've heard that. or maybe you haven't. but now you have. i remember listening to this research participant give voice to imposter syndrome. she was halting in her language and there were long pauses. throughout the interview, the phrase “i don’t know” was repeated in reference to what she could do to create her path forward in her chosen area of stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). like many women i talked to, she talked about her love of technology and engineering and expressed confidence in her skillset, but there was also an expressed sense of hopelessness in how she could actualize her career goals. i felt a kinship listening to this successful, ambitious student talk about imposter syndrome; she was giving voice to something i personally had felt and heard countless times before. and even though it was a common experience, it was also a lonely experience and one that is not often highlighted. it is widely known that women are underrepresented in stem, and particularly in engineering and mathematics (national center for science and engineering statistics (ncses), 2023). in the past, this was attributed to a pipeline problem (speer, 2023). the pipeline is a metaphor for how individuals enter the stem profession, and it has been said that if we had more women enter the pipeline— that is if more women were interested in stem— we would have more female engineers. more recently, there is an awareness that the pipeline leaks, that women start out with interest in stem but end up leaving (speer, 2023), and that because women enter the stem field from many directions, the pipeline metaphor may be outdated (cabay et al., 2018). many interventions focus on increasing and affirming women’s interest in stem (friedmann & efrat-treister, 2023) or building confidence in ability to succeed in stem, which is seen to contribute to female persistence in degrees and careers (fouad & santana, 2017). as a former engineer and current career development leader working with graduate students in technical degrees, i knew firsthand that we have more than a leaky pipeline problem. women do not merely need to stay the course in a pipeline towards technology careers; they also need to navigate a labyrinth of barriers when trying to complete their job search and establish their careers. eagly and carli (2007) used the metaphor of a labyrinth to describe barriers women face while navigating towards leadership. the labyrinth metaphor acknowledges that reaching one’s goal is attainable and that barriers exist. barriers such as having access to a smaller network of referrals to job opportunities, being judged through criteria that is colored by bias and discrimination (which can be related to multiple identity factors, including gender and race), and simply having your identity as a woman not seen as being compatible with the identity of an engineer or technology leader. to dismantle the labyrinth and create pathways for all women in technology, we must first understand the barriers that foster imposter syndrome and prevent women, and especially women of color, from being able to thrive and find belonging in stem. it is this that drove me towards my educational journey in the edd. my identity as a female engineer i distinctly remember when i realized that i was not an engineer, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4201-6535 challenging the notion of a stem pipeline impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.442 19 but rather a woman working in engineering— that i didn’t really belong, despite my stem undergraduate degree and graduate degree in engineering. my first job outside of graduate school was working as an environmental health and safety engineer at a tech company in silicon valley. from the beginning, there were lots of signs that i was ‘different’ from others, in a way that did not fit in. i worked with all men on my team and many of the jokes or office banter and conversation were stereotypically male. certainly, an effort was made to include me, but it was hard to feel like ‘one of the boys’ when there were also pinup calendars showcasing women in toolbelts or when everyone had a hobby that i found unrelatable. i also had a hard time looking like an engineer and dressing the part; for example, finding steel toe boots that were comfortable (not to mention fashionable), or safety equipment that wasn’t too big — it felt like i was playing dress-up with an adult's clothing. my company issued jacket (which was required to be worn during emergency response activities) was particularly large on me and came down to my knees with the sleeves far overhanging my arms, as it was unisex and not made for someone of my short stature. all these little things contributed to a sense that i didn’t belong, but there was a particular moment where i stopped thinking of myself as an engineer and instead, thought of myself as a female who worked in engineering. it was an environmental health and safety networking lunch at a hotel restaurant; folks were seated at round tables with white tablecloths — i say ‘folks’ but in my memory, it was mostly older men. i was late because i had something that held me up at work. a male specialist from my company who reported to me was planning to arrive at lunch on time and said he would save me a seat. as i approached the open seat next to my colleague, the man sitting on the other side of the open spot tapped me on the shoulder saying something like, “oh misscan we get some more water at this table? my glass is empty.” i remember being confused about what he was saying and why, and then my employee laughed and gently chided the man, “she isn’t the waitress, she is my boss!” that incident was small, perhaps not notable to anyone else, but it marked a change in my self-identity. i had always had confidence in my skill set and ability to fulfill my job responsibilities, but i began to question my place in stem. despite my engineering graduate degree and nearly a decade of engineering experience and multiple credentials and awards, i eventually left the engineering profession. for a long time, i believed my career change was because i didn’t have enough interest in engineering, it just wasn’t right for me. my male colleagues all had hobbies that felt related to engineering— they loved to tinker and build things in their garages, while i liked to craft and knit in my living room. i felt like i didn’t belong, i was an imposter whose identity wasn’t right for an engineer. while it may be true that engineering wasn’t my calling, i will never know because like many women, i was unable to navigate barriers such as imposter syndrome, facing discrimination regarding my credibility as an engineer, and i was pushed out of the stem pipeline. background my situation as ‘the only’ female engineer wasn’t unique 20 years ago when i was starting my career, and it remains a common experience for women today; especially in the mathematics and engineering fields, womenand especially women of colorare underrepresented. in 2022, women accounted for only 28% of the total engineering workforce (national center for science and engineering statistics (ncses), 2023), and their relative representation in technical roles has recently declined (mckinsey & company, 2022). in 2021, only 26% of the computing workforce was female, and only 3%, 7%, and 2% of this workforce were africanamerican, asian, and hispanic women, respectively (national center for women and information technology, 2022). female representation in technology careers is lacking despite the fact that women have increased their share of science and engineering degree attainment (national center for science and engineering statistics (ncses), 2023). in fact, computing is the only stem field in which women’s representation has steadily declined in the past few decades (martinez & christnacht, 2021). the gender imbalance in stem has wide-ranging effects, including restrictions on workforce size, innovation, and equity. even with recent economic fluctuations and workforce cuts in the technology industry, occupations in technology have a lower than national unemployment rate and predicted growth (comptia, 2023). women are necessary to meet the occupational demands of this industry. gender inclusion is also important for innovation and there are related financial benefits of a diverse workforce (herring, 2009). most importantly, the gender imbalance in stem prevents women from accessing high-paying stem careers and reinforces existing inequities within the stem industry and the technology products which are produced. for example, we see gender and racial bias in search engines (nobel, 2018), which is an example of how a lack of gender and racial representation in the workforce can result in biases and prejudices in products (nobel, 2018). the lack of female and racial representation in technology workers harms us all. there are a variety of well-documented barriers in the labyrinth women must navigate in establishing their careers within areas where they are underrepresented such as in stem. stereotypes and biases present as barriers, causing women to be evaluated differently (cabay et al., 2018) or seen as less competent in stem because of their gender (carli et al., 2016). this is particularly true for women of color who must overcome stereotypes and biases related to both gender and race (mckinsey & company, 2022). the lack of diverse representation in stem increases the stereotypes that women do not belong (carli et al., 2016). together stereotypes and the lack of female representation can create the barrier of a chilly environments for women, which can be exemplified in microaggressions, incivility, and other unwelcoming and demeaning cues that are sent to women (pew research center, 2018). stereotypes may also result in discrimination including facing less salary, receiving less support, and microaggressions (pew research center, 2018). women with intersectional identities (such as lgbtq+ women and women with disabilities) report even more discrimination than other women (mckinsey & company, 2022). women may also receive unwanted sexual attention and harassment (pew research center, 2018). all of these factors may lead to another barrier present in restrictions in accessing social capital, which means women can face hurdles in using social capital to gain access to career opportunities or gain recognition (twine, 2018). here again, women of color can face a double-barrier in how gender and racial characteristics (e.g., stereotypes and discrimination) lead to their increased underrepresentation in stem, which causes even greater barriers in accessing social capital (twine, 2018). it is true that we need more women in the stem pipeline, however there is a lack of research and attention on how the barriers andersen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.442 20 above affect diverse female career progression and how stem hiring practices impact diverse female career progression and career decision making (friedmann & efrat-treister, 2023). in particular, there is a lack of research on interactions students have during their career search and how these barriers push women out or encourage feelings that they do not belong. recent studies on career search interactions have not been gender specific (behroozi et al., 2020) and most interventions within higher education focus on increasing interest and involvement in stem. my edd journey taken one way, my story could be an example of a woman who leaked out of the stem pipeline, who decided that i didn’t belong. but i didn’t really have a desire to leave stem and while i let go of my identity as an engineer, i did not want to (and in fact could not) let go of being a woman in technology. i was proud of my skillset, and i loved the impact that technology and stem could have on society. today my work is stem adjacent — leading career development for a technology graduate school in silicon valley and challenging the notion that we have a pipeline problem in stem. as a career development professional, it wasn’t long before i became unsatisfied with helping students and alumni shoulder the burden of belonging and navigate the numerous barriers they faced in stem careers. i needed to find a way to highlight student and alumni experiences that identified ways we could dismantle barriers and build support structures that help them thrive and fulfill their career goals. i decided to attain my educational doctorate so that i could become a scholarpractitioner and bring to the forefront stories and learnings from women who were pushed out of the stem pipeline. stories of women who perhaps felt like it was their fault for not being able to stay the course or that they were imposters who needed to increase their confidence to advocate for themselves and carve out belonging in environments that were structurally not designed for women, and especially not designed for women that had intersectional identities (e.g., racial, disability status, parental status, returning student status, etc.). as someone who works in leadership and career development, i often feel a need to solve problems— to fix things. while the beginning of my edd journey feels like a lifetime ago, i remember how i entered the program seeking solutions i could implement or new ideas that i could propose which would empower my students and led to the creation of systemic change in technology career development. in my experience this need to 'solve’ or ‘fix’ is common; when i talk about equity in stem careers, people want to know what they can do to make a difference and create meaningful change. everyone feels like they know what the problems are already, they want solutions. to lead with equity can feel like you need to have answers, but the edd taught me how true leadership means listening and creating space for agency. rather than being solution focused, i had to be inquiry focused. when i approach with inquiry, i am open to experiences and viewpoints which are outside of my individual and/or the dominant culture perspectives. although i am a woman in technology, i do not speak for all women or represent all intersectional identities and experiences. through my edd learnings, i developed a constructivist view of knowledge and understanding of how knowledge is shaped into being by humans who are influenced by their environment and context. because knowledge is constructed by people, knowledge does not represent a neutral perspective – it comes from somewhere (kincheloe, 2005). approaching with inquiry means not advancing solutions from my own limited perspective as a white woman who is adjacent to stem and holds positional power in my role as a career development leader. instead, i seek to learn from others and work in community to bring forth the unseen and co-create the future together. i found that it was also important to take a critical lens so that i could understand how dominant power and culture can influence the process of knowledge creation, along with what is deemed important and not important (kincheloe, 2005). the stem career development processes were created by those in power. my goal was to uplift the ways that dominant power influenced the meaning created by those who are marginalized and how it affected their experiences. for me, approaching with inquiry meant centering the narratives of underrepresented and marginalized women, and highlighting their stories which can pave the direction for the future. leading with equity my dissertation study examined the career search experiences of mid-career female students and recent alumni in an online master’s degree focused on data science who were seeking to make a career change into technology and aspired towards roles in leadership. i focused on graduate students, because these students were demonstrating a commitment to stem by their enrollment in a professional degree where the natural outcome is to take up roles in the related domain. graduate degrees in mathematics and computer science have seen significant growth in the percentage of women enrolled (national center for science and engineering statistics (ncses), 2023). these were women who were already interested and invested in advancing their stem career; no one had to convince them to stay in the stem pipeline. i used a qualitative approach in my study, specifically looking at interactions female students and alumni had with career agents (i.e., recruiters, hiring managers, interviewers). i conducted four semistructured focus groups and ten interviews, with a total of 18 participants. i sought to include participants who represented diverse intersectional identities, including but not limited to women of color and those of varied socioeconomic backgrounds and geographic locations. this criterion of diverse participants was a priority because the current research on female career progression in stem tends to prioritize the experiences of white women (twine, 2018), which then leads to policy and practice recommendations that privilege this population. the study focused on the participants’ constructions of reality – participants’ views of their own interactions with recruiters, hiring managers, or interviewers – with a goal to accurately picture the participants’ experiences and meaning. to this end, i employed practices such as having participants review findings, creating an audit trail, and using rich descriptions to establish trustworthiness. my research makes several contributions to challenge institutional inequalities and help us dismantle the job search labyrinth for women. first, i identified seven structural factors that may present as either barriers or supports in interactions that women face during the stem career search (or recruiting) process. table 1 outlines a brief description of barriers as well as descriptions for the corresponding support that could be adopted in exchange. having awareness of these factors allows us to audit our recruiting processes, talent development systems, and university career services for the presence of barriers and work towards establishing support structures, thereby dismantling the labyrinth, and creating career pathways. when auditing our systems and seeking to challenging the notion of a stem pipeline impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.442 21 table 1. barriers and supports that may be present in interactions during the stem career search (recruiting) process barriers supports unclear, misaligned expectations transparent and relevant expectations lack of clarity on expectations on how candidates can successfully move through the recruiting process and/or recruiting expectations feel misaligned to expectations for successful job performance. transparent expectations on how to successfully move through the recruiting process; interviewing and recruiting expectations are aligned to what is necessary for successful job performance. unclear or absent feedback timely and actionable feedback subjective or absent feedback during the recruiting process as well as no opportunity to provide feedback on the process. specific, timely and actionable feedback is provided during the recruiting process and anonymous feedback is invited from candidates (including rejected candidates) on the process. rigid evaluations holistic evaluations rigid set of qualifications to evaluate applications and performance during interviews (e.g., direct match to certain criteria such as related work experience and years of experience) and rigid set of qualifications to demonstrate cultural fit. expanded criteria used to evaluate qualifications, including considerations for demonstrated potential and transferable experience; evaluations are based on cultural add rather than cultural fit. critical interactions collegial interactions interactions during the recruiting process are impersonal, lacking in respect, or overly critical. interactions during recruiting seek to foster personal connections and a welcoming atmosphere, demonstrating respect and support. stereotypes, biases, & discrimination equity & inclusion stereotypes related to gender, race, ethnicity, and other identity-based factors (e.g., microaggressions, usages of biased cultural norms, discrimination in terms of evaluation or salary) are present. the recruiting process involves regular, ongoing dialogue and reflection around the potential for stereotypes, biases, and discrimination, including how they show up, their effect, and how they can be mitigated. lack of social capital availability of social capital there is a lack of access to networks for information or assistance in the recruiting process. candidates are isolated. access is provided to networks for information and assistance in the career search process and referrals are used sparingly. lack of representation presence of representation lack of gender, racial, ethnic, or other diverse identities represented during the recruiting process. “chilly” environment pervades and sends cues that women are unwelcome. diverse representation is present during the recruiting process, while not tokenizing or overly burdening workers with underrepresented identities. the recruiting process is regularly examined for signs of a chilly environment and seeks to send signals of inclusion. dismantle barriers and establish supports in career development, we need to keep in mind that women do not all have the same experiences in the career search process. barriers have different effects depending on a woman’s identity and it’s important to consider processes with the lens of intersectional identities so that we do not end up prioritizing a white female experience and perspective. my research also adds depth to the social cognitive career theory (scct), identifying how structural barriers that are unique to career search learning experiences can negatively affect female career self-efficacy while stem self-efficacy relating to stem learning experiences remains high. in other words, women could have high confidence in their stem skill set, but lower confidence in their ability to achieve career goals due to the presence of barriers i identified during their job search interactions. structural barriers during interactions in the job search can lead to lower career selfefficacy and contribute to imposter syndrome. this nuance of considering both stem self-efficacy and career self-efficacy in scct can be used to shift our thinking from needing to develop stem interest and confidence in women (which can be a deficit frame) towards instead breaking down barriers that push women out and limit their ambitions. we can look at imposter syndrome as a structural problem rather than an individual one. taken together, my research revealed how structural barriers can be transformed into structural supports during the career search to positively impact female career progression and career choices in stem, increasing female career self-efficacy and supporting female stem identity. since completing my research, my work has been immediately useful and applicable in my role as a university leader. i have used the findings as an audit for our career programming and processes within the university, to ensure that the impact of our work is meeting our intent. for example, one of the barriers i found in my research is unclear or misaligned expectations that women face in evaluations. in this barrier, women may not understand how they are being evaluated or they may face evaluations that are misaligned to the needs of actual job responsibilities. in this example, we had a resume review process whereby students could submit resumes along with their stated career objectives and receive a review by one of our team members. while we had helpful information available on our website that students could use to learn about best practices in resume writing, my team found themselves identifying the same mistakes repeatedly on resumes. students were not meeting the expectations of a successful resume. by looking at this process through the lens of potential barriers, i could identify how we were andersen impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.442 22 not providing information that helped students learn the expectations for their resumes. this insight led us to revamp our materials and process to add clarity and consistency. this is a small example, but it shows how taking time to understand how students may interact with our work can present barriers that we cannot predict, and how we can increase overall quality by redesigning the interaction to ensure support scaffolding is place. my research has also shifted my advice and language when i lead workshops, teach classes, or coach students and alumni. i seek to call out intersectional-identity related barriers explicitly and help students to identify how they can dismantle barriers and build support structures for themselves and others. for example, we recently had conversations around negotiation, but instead of focusing only on teaching negotiation skills, we talked about how negotiation isn’t a level playing field and that women of color and non-binary individuals face barriers amplified by intersectional identities. more specifically, women face the penalty of being labeled aggressive when the negotiation, which leads to disempowerment (dannals et al., 2021). i encouraged students and alumni to find ways to practice allyship in negotiation, such as finding ways to uplift colleagues whose contributions may not be recognized, being transparent during negotiation and sharing information, and being aware of how unconscious bias can influence a negotiation. another example is how i discuss the way expectations can feel unclear and how students can ask questions that generate transparency, even in interview interactions. i coach around what to do when you feel expectations might be misaligned and how to engage in conversations which can lead expectations to be revised and made more relevant. overall, i am more cognizant of taking an asset-based approach when working with students and alumni and cultivating conversations around barriers and how those of us in positions of privilege can serve as allies so that we can lead towards equity and inclusion together. to create real change, educational leaders must work together with industry. before starting my edd journey i had the opportunity to present a workshop on personal branding at grace hopper conference, the largest technical conference for women. it was inspiring to speak to so many women, but also maddening to realize we were working on modifying ourselves to navigate a broken job search system— a career labyrinth designed to sap our confidence and led to imposter syndrome. during my last semester in the edd program when as i was finalizing my dissertation with my committee, i had the chance to present again at grace hopper conference. this time, i shared the stories of women which highlighted how our community could come together to address transforming barriers into support structures, and lead towards belonging and gender equity. engaging in events like grace hopper conference gives me the chance to talk with technical leaders, hiring managers, and recruiters about how we can work together to address the challenge of establishing gender equity in areas structured to privilege dominant identities. looking towards the future i will never know why i left engineering, but my goal as an educational leader in career development is to ensure that others are able to make purposeful decisions about their career pathways and build their way forward rather than getting stuck or pushed out by structural barriers. the national career development association (ncda) (2011) outlined in a policy statement the importance of career development, and how work is an essential and protected freedom; ncda defined work as something “which represents the need to do, to achieve, and to know that one is needed by others” (p. 1). our goal in higher education career services is to ensure students can engage in meaningful work (national career development association, 2011) and in order to meet this goal, career services departments have evolved over the years from focusing on job placement to becoming dynamic centers providing specialized career development support and meaningful connections to employers (dey & cruzvergara, 2014). the edd has helped me lead with equity and call on other educational leaders to bring forth a further evolution in career services, shifting from helping students navigate existing barriers in stem recruitment processes and instead seek to work together and break down the career search labyrinth that underrepresented and marginalized students and alumni face in building their stem careers. references behroozi, m., shirolkar, s., barik, t., & parnin, c. 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(2021, january 6). women are nearly half of u.s. workforce but only 27% of stem workers. census.gov. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/01/women-making-gains-instem-occupations-but-still-underrepresented.html mckinsey & company. (2022). women in the workplace 2022 (pp. 1–61). https://womenintheworkplace.com/ national career development association. 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(2023). diversity and stem: women, minorities, and persons with disabilities 2023 (special report nsf 23-315). national science foundation. https://ncses.nsf.gov/wmpd national center for women and information technology. (2022). women and information technology by the numbers. https://ncwit.org/resource/bythenumbers/ nobel, s. u. (2018). algorithms of oppression. new york university press. https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression pew research center. (2018). women and men in stem often at odds over workplace equity. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wpcontent/uploads/sites/3/2018/01/ps_2018.01.09_stem_1-09.png speer, j. d. (2023). bye bye ms. american sci: women and the leaky stem pipeline. economics of education review, 93, 102371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102371 twine, f. w. (2018). technology’s invisible women: black geek girls in silicon valley and the failure of diversity initiatives. international journal of critical diversity studies, 1(1), 58–79. https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.1.1.0058 https://www.ncda.org/aws/ncda/asset_manager/get_file/39958?ver=29369 https://www.ncda.org/aws/ncda/asset_manager/get_file/39958?ver=29369 https://ncses.nsf.gov/wmpd https://ncwit.org/resource/bythenumbers/ https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/01/ps_2018.01.09_stem_1-09.png https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/01/ps_2018.01.09_stem_1-09.png https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102371 https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.1.1.0058 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 49 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 the role of theory in a practitioner-based edd program: a braided dialectical interplay between professor and scholar-practitioner theresa l. burriss emory & henry university tlburriss@emoryhenry.edu elizabeth mayers radford university eamayers@radford.edu abstract in this exchange between an edd professor and one of their practitioner-scholars, the two recount their respective and overlapping journeys in critical social theories for just schools and communities. while the professor was trained as a philosopher and has embraced the theoretical throughout her career, the practitioner-scholar enrolled in the class with much skepticism about the usefulness of theories, especially coupled with the word “critical” in our politically divisive society. they share the educational unfolding that occurred for both of them as they navigated various challenges of infusing theory into a practitioner-based educational doctoral program. the professor offers insights into their pedagogical strategies when presenting sometimes contentious topics, and the practitioner-scholar provides an honest unveiling of their self-awareness. keywords critical theories, critical pedagogies, practitioner-based program “as part of the language of hope and possibility, i develop a notion of critical pedagogy that addresses the democratic potential of engaging how experience, knowledge, and power are shaped in the classroom in different and often unequal contexts, and how teacher authority might be mobilized against dominant pedagogical practices as part of the practice of freedom. […] i also argue for developing a language for thinking critically about how culture deploys power and how pedagogy as a moral and political practice enables students to focus on the suffering of others.” (giroux, 2011, p. 5) according to the purdue university online writing lab, or purdue owl (n.d.), a braided essay, which is a form of creative nonfiction, contains multiple ‘threads’ or ‘through-lines’ of material, each on a different subject. the essay is broken into sections using medial white space, lines of white space on a page where there are no words (much like stanzas in poetry), and each time there is a section break, the writer moves from one ‘thread’ to another. (para. 2). although braided essays are not typically found in academic peer-reviewed journals, we, a professor and scholar-practitioner duo, decided this genre was the most effective in communicating our journeys into various theoretical realms, into the challenges and triumphs of applying theory meaningfully to practice. scholarly writing need not be devoid of creativity. thus, we welcome you to join us as we braid our respective threads to weave a holistic narrative inquiry. professor during thanksgiving break of my sophomore year of college in 1985, i announced to my father that i was declaring philosophy as my major. ever the practical engineer, he sincerely, albeit pointedly, queried, “what are you going to do with that?!” although i don’t recall my immediate reply, his question eventually led me to law school to demonstrate the value of such a degree. because i attended only to appease my father, i am a law school dropout, lasting only one year after enduring sheer drudgery. however, my training in philosophy has served me in profound ways throughout my career as a lifelong learner and educator. when i returned to graduate school to pursue a master’s in english, a much better fit with my humanities-based interests, the canonical philosophy foundation i obtained in college prepared me to embrace and apply myriad literary theories to the texts i studied. in fact, i took great delight in the required literary criticism class. similarly, once in my interdisciplinary studies doctoral program, with a dual focus on appalachian studies and women’s studies, i was poised to deepen my application of theory in all my coursework and incorporate various theoretical perspectives into my dissertation on three affrilachian writers, frank x walker, crystal wilkinson, and nikky finney. a shorter version was published as a book chapter, “claiming a literary space: the affrilachian poets” (burriss, 2005). thus, when i was asked to teach critical social theories for just schools and communities for radford university’s edd program, i welcomed the opportunity. my study of philosophers such https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8285-5842 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1832-1265 burriss & mayers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 50 as frantz fanon (1961/2005), helene cixous (1990), and bell hooks (1991, 1994, 2009) enabled me to create a class especially for practitioner-scholars, where theory was applicable and useful in their educational settings. the students, on the other hand, were skeptical about such applicability and usefulness, at least at the start. scholar-practitioner after years of teaching in elementary classrooms, seeking a challenge, i shifted to a central office position as an early childhood education specialist. while i acclimated to the nuances of central office life, i realized quickly that my new colleagues all sported a “phd” or “edd” after their names. as i grew in my current position in a large suburban school division, i didn’t relish the thought of being a student again, but knew in order to be competitive, i needed to. when i did apply and was accepted into a program, i was pleasantly surprised when i realized the content was easily connected to my day-to-day work. in fact, work and school merged so well that the addition of a graduate program didn’t even feel as if it were extra. i coasted through the first few semesters of my program confident that i was already a well-rounded, open-minded leader – capable of seeing the perspectives of all people. i wrote essay after essay espousing my abilities to see life through multiple lenses because of my acknowledgement of my own identity. in short, i knew all the buzzwords and believed them, and i thought that was enough. as the beginning of my second year started, i read the syllabus for critical social theories for just schools and communities. “this is all political and opinion,” i lamented to a friend. “it even says ‘critical’ in the course title,” and finally, “this has nothing to do with the day to day running of schools.” the truth is, though, i was scared. this was going to be it. the class that would expose that i wasn’t doctorateworthy. the syllabus made it very clear that this was not just a course on diversity. this was a course on humanity. professor after researching various texts, i selected darder et al.’s the critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed.) (2009), which is now in its fourth edition. to prepare the students for what to expect from the class, i provided the following course description: in this course, students will be immersed in critical theories, primarily focused on pedagogy, analyzing not only how these theories apply to their professional lives and problems of practice, but also how they may be employed in their personal lives. based on the frankfurt school’s critical theory (celikates & flynn, 2023), critical theories of today have continued to evolve and respond to contemporary oppressions manifesting in a variety of forms, including political, physical, racial/ethnic, gender/sex, intellectual, social, environmental, and economic. thus, critical theories require action/praxis to challenge power and domination for liberation from repression, oppression, and subjugation. student learning is grounded in inquiry, exploration, writing, and discussion. with my background in the humanities, i require students to submit reading reflection logs, no matter the course. writing about reading, particularly challenging reading, enables students to better understand the material and to engage with it in a deeper way. for this seven-week class, students submitted five logs on the readings of their choice. i provided the following in the syllabus to guide their approach to crafting the logs: i suggest you identify one or two issues/concepts/arguments in the readings that resonate with you and enhance or challenge your understanding of critical theories. you may incorporate class discussions into your responses, as well. how do the theories’ tenets apply to your problem of practice? in what ways do the theories encourage you to reframe your context? the logs should enable you to think deeply about systems of power and oppression and how they operate in your professional and personal lives. additionally, the logs will allow you to explore your roles in the systems, provoking you to consider ways to disrupt structural inequities in professional yet substantive ways. be sure to cite direct quotes incorporated into logs, not only for attribution but also for ease in identifying relevant material for your final paper or project. while the logs are intended to aid students in their comprehension of the readings, they also provide me an opportunity to be in one-onone conversation with the students, responding to their queries, challenging their thinking, and problematizing their assertions. in many instances, i ask probing questions to invite the students to think more deeply about a topic and to examine their preconceived ideas about ways of being and believing. such epistemological inquiry can prove uncomfortable at times; thus, it is vital that i provide a safe space for students to engage in these exercises, both in their reading reflection logs and in class discussions, particularly in an all-virtual joint synchronous/asynchronous class. scholar-practitioner i perused the syllabus and felt conflicted. i could handle reflection. i prided myself on self-assessment and shifting perspectives based on new information. i could handle this! but that word – “critical” – was woven throughout the assignments and guidelines. while i understood there was nothing ominous about the word critical, it had become politically charged and thus gently ignored in day-to-day educational talk. i danced around it, acknowledging critical theory openly with close colleagues, but shying away in mixed company. i realized much further into the course that my discomfort was not because i didn’t believe in critical frameworks. it’s because i didn’t understand critical frameworks. there is a difference between knowing what something is and understanding it as it applies to real life. i knew that critical pedagogy was a framework that helped expose and challenge social structures in classrooms. i knew it was often misunderstood. but i also knew that given the political climate of the country, even in isolation, the words critical and “theory” were often misconstrued to mean “antiwhite,” or “anti-american.” at the time, i didn’t understand what that meant for my personal or professional life. i looked at the copious amount of reading, diving into the first assignment with much trepidation as i read the opening chapter of darder et al.’s the critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed.) (2009). i recall finishing that week’s reading and promptly googling darder and torres to see what ethnicity they were. i think that was an example of my unconscious (or conscious?) bias. i thought that if someone who was not the same ethnicity questioned the intent of the concerns and arguments of another ethnicity, that they must be racist. even using the words race and ethnicity interchangeably confused me, especially after reading darder and torres. they asked, “what analytical value or utility does the concept of ‘race’ have in our struggle against racism and inequality? (darder & torres, 2019, p. 151) and questioned whether racism could even exist if race role of theory in practitioner-based program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 51 did not exist. i was flabbergasted. i spent years dismantling my ‘70s and ‘80s upbringing being taught that we’re all the same – that brown and white eggs all had the same color yolk. i’d worked hard to understand that differences were important and valuable. i didn’t know how to consider the idea of “no race.” professor perhaps one of the most profound experiences for the scholarpractitioners in the class centered on their acknowledgment that they were experiencing similar feelings to their own students; namely, they struggled to understand a new discourse, unfamiliar concepts, and previously unexplored ideas. in many reading reflection logs, i responded to my students’ frustrations of feeling inadequate and incompetent, while urging them to give themselves grace. as i have learned myself and stressed to my students, “there is no finish line.” learning, in all forms, is a lifelong journey that requires perseverance, patience, and diligence, with a constant meta-awareness of our own positionality, which draws from feminist standpoint theory (bowell, n.d.). such personal probing can be taxing, especially when students bravely admit to blind spots in their thoughts about and perceptions of others unlike them. the scholar-practitioners began questioning their own educational backgrounds, what they were and were not taught and how they were taught. they reflected on control and power over curricula, as well as who holds such control and power, both in their personal k12 experiences and in their current positions. scholar-practitioner while i read and reread many of the theorists and still struggled to understand their passive voices in writing, paulo freire’s “banking” analogy yielded a physical response. i felt seen and heard. it triggered a frustration i long felt having benefited from a communicative and interactive early school experience that became the banking experience freire discussed as i grew older (freire, 2009). as i read, i realized that teacher and child interactions, an endeavor that should be transformative, are largely transactional. instead of exploring the whys and hows of life, we’re handed the who and whens of life. as i reflected, i realized that’s why i dedicated my career to early childhood education. because we’re allowed to engage in problem-posing education. when i coach preschool teachers, i’m not looking at assessment scores or attendance data. i’m looking for how and why questions. i’m looking for analysis and reasoning and comparing and contrasting. i’m listening for feedback loops where a persistent teacher is genuinely trying to understand the child and scaffold him or her to a place of critical and reflective thinking. our coaching team frequently reminds teachers, “an openended question is the question you ask a child that you don’t know the answer to.” i can’t imagine this going over well in an upper grade classroom. our teachers are genuine play partners with children, entering and becoming a part of the child’s thought process and experience. many of the practitioners i work with have post-it notes on their plan books reminding themselves, “the person doing the talking is the person doing the learning.” while this is my daily education experience, i am acutely aware that it is not the experience of most. i know that the moment young children leave our preschool classroom and enter kindergarten their experience shifts to that banking approach freire discusses, with deposits being made by someone who is only providing information (freire, 1970). the reciprocity of the adult and child interactions in preschool is lost to the transactional nature of “big school.” when teachers are able to be truly creative and are empowered to be responsive to their students’ ideas and inquiry, when educators are collaborators in human development, both partners grow and benefit. reality stops being the perspective of the educator or adult and becomes simply what is. freire noted, “the more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of the reality deposited in them (freire, 1970, p. 53). professor some students pushed back against certain theorists, for example when the theorists investigated tenets of capitalism and nationalism taken as inevitable, and not as socially constructed concepts. in one reading reflection log, a student vehemently railed against peter mclaren (2009) and several of his assertions in his chapter, “critical pedagogy: a look at the major concepts”. the student was offended by mclaren’s (2009) claim, “to be an ‘american’ carries a certain set of ideological baggage. americans generally think of themselves as lovers of freedom, defenders of individual rights, guardians of world peace, etc.; rarely do americans see themselves as contradictory social agents” (p. 68). understanding that educators, no matter the level, must strive to not alienate students and to respond in respectful, caring ways, i acknowledged the student’s feelings while gently challenging them: i understand why you feel this way. however, i believe mclaren is arguing that americans need to remain vigilant in and critically minded of blind nationalism. he’s not arguing that we shouldn’t be proud americans. i agree that some folks blanketly disparage being american. that is not useful. but we must look to history to see that america is not innocent in certain conflicts, even recent ones. i think about the school of americas, which is now closed due to the american public’s outcry against the us military training foreign military officers and personnel in terror tactics. the military junta in several south american countries enacted horrendous, egregious human rights violations based on what they learned there. this is just one example. because i am acutely aware of the triggering potential of many of the theorists, i stress to my students that i am available to talk with them individually over the phone or via zoom to listen to their concerns. the above student, as well as several others, accepted this offer over the seven weeks, which proved useful in many ways, including to solidify trust. in addition to hearing my students’ uncertainties and sometimes anger, i shared some of my personal stories to help us identify with each other. with the above student, i explained that i am a proud american, whose two grandfathers served in wwii, whose father served in vietnam, and whose brother attended the u.s. naval academy and traveled to the gulf during conflicts. scholar-practitioner i was challenged by the perspective of some of the theorists, questioning their writing skills, their investigative processes, and assuming the espoused opinion and not fact. i lamented about stanley aronowitz (2009) in a reflection log: i struggled with much of aronowitz’s piece and found myself noting in the margins frequently, “where did he get this information?” and, “this is uninformed and offensive,” and a few, “has he ever been inside a school?” comments. i think there is value in opinion and up until this reading, i genuinely respected burriss & mayers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 52 the theorists’ ability to couple opinion and perspective with evidence. it felt as if aronowitz didn’t do that. he references new york city a lot (one small portion of the country) and other examples of cited evidence include, “a friend” or unnamed critics. while new york city is large and well known, it should never be (nor should any one location) be used as the foundation of critique for the entire country. he and giroux felt very similar to me – more political centered than education centered and i think if you are going to critique pedagogy (which we should) it must be well rounded. dr. burriss encouraged me to sit on the ideas conveyed in the readings. i took her advice, and not only sat on the ideas conveyed in the readings, but also on my own ideas. when i looked back at this assignment, it occurred to me that my own thoughts were much more unfounded than the careful work of a labor scholar and activist. i did appreciate his stance on schooling and labor. my criticism was largely based on my lack of understanding. the labor movement was something that i did not truly grasp in my adult life. i’ve been alive for half of a century, and i didn’t understand the function of the labor movement until my 40s! my only reference for labor unions was the mention of the teamsters in 11th grade us history. my teacher spent a few moments weaving the teamsters and the mobster jimmy hoffa together, and they were never mentioned again. that one lesson created a connection between organized labor/unions to organized crime that made me assume unions were criminal entities until very recently. early in my education career, my mentor and elementary teammates encouraged me to join the local affiliate of the larger virginia education association and national education association. nobody ever explained why, and admittedly, i never asked. the organization was fighting to represent certified and non-certified teaching staff in the collective bargaining process, and i began to pay attention as they relentlessly advocated for educators in the commonwealth of virginia. despite this new knowledge about the overall stressful work conditions of teachers and despite learning that i was gravely misinformed that day in 1992 in my us history class when i perceived that labor organizations and organized crime were connected, it took me 15 minutes before voting closed, to vote “yes” to collective bargaining. even as i researched and educated myself on collective bargaining, i still felt as if i were selling myself to the mafia every time i opened the ballot to vote. over 30 years since that lesson in us history and years of trying to unlearn that lesson, i still struggled to vote yes. this experience yielded two thoughts for me. one was that all people, educators included, are very likely to bring their own perspectives and beliefs into the classroom and teach that to children either implicitly or not. i don’t know if any curriculum or policy can result in humans being able to let go of who they are and what they believe and not impact students’ futures. there will always be an imbalance of what is comforting and confirming to one group and frightening and dangerous to another. how do we find a balance between fact and personal belief and value systems? professor some students expressed gratitude in their logs for studying scholars who validated their lived experiences, particularly those related to marginalization and oppression. reading about paulo freire’s (2009) banking concept of education, whereby students are passive receptacles taught predetermined material by “expert” teachers, several students applauded freire’s (2009) problem-posing educational approach, as it fosters creativity, and ultimately, liberation. in their reflection log, one student shared, “critical pedagogy offers teachers an opportunity to transform the education system from a place that reproduces the status quo to a place that, with question-based learning, identifies and investigates questions in order to uncover the various perspectives and alternatives that can transform systems of oppression.” applying freire’s (2009) ideas to their dissertation in practice (dip), another student queried in their log, “how does an assistant principal (ap) work with a teacher who may be stuck in a banking concept mindset to embrace the 5cs (collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, citizenship, and communication)? how does an ap build a culture in their school that prides itself on 5c-based experiences for students?” indeed, as each week of class passed, students became more confident in their comprehension of the various theories, scaffolded their new knowledge, and effectively applied theory to praxis, both personal and professional. they began to acknowledge how theories serve as frameworks for critiquing everyday practices historically promoted as logical, inevitable, and true. scholar-practitioner i’m not sure if it was the fact that spring semester was beginning to feel like spring, but by early march, things began to feel lighter. the readings, the reflection – while they still sometimes felt like a jumble of passive voice and rhetoric, they more often felt applicable and relative to my work. i not only was able to connect philosophers we studied such as paulo freire to my work in early childhood, i began to see the alignment of the work of these philosophers to those known in early childhood, such as lev vygotsky. my dissertation in practice (dip) is centered on the unique stressors of publicly funded preschool educators. a challenge in this field is truly understanding the development of the whole child – the whole human before being able to apply any form of practice. many of our early childhood educators’ feelings of stress stem from having expectations of children that are unrealistic for their stage of development. understanding who a child is, where they come from, and where they currently are is the very first step of supporting growth, and critical theory supports that. it’s easy, though, to look at lists of state standards and expectations of where children should be and begin to question our abilities to meet these fixed standards with fluid children who have a variety of backgrounds and experiences. professor in the final week of the class, when we dove into principles of critical literacy, we started by reading ira shor (2009), now professor emeritus in english at the cuny graduate school. in his essay, “what is critical literacy?” shor (2009) asserts, essentially, then, critical literacy is language use that questions the social construction of the self. when we are critically literate, we examine our ongoing development, to reveal the subjective positions from which we make sense of the world and act in it. all of us grow up and live in local cultures set in global contexts where multiple discourses shape us. (p. 282) while i featured this poignant quote in my last lecture for class discussion, several students had incorporated it into their reading reflection logs and final papers, including betty. clearly, the message role of theory in practitioner-based program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 53 resonated with them as they expressed a meta-awareness of their ongoing development influenced by myriad messaging that must be constantly critiqued. shor’s (2009) words enabled me to stress the importance of imagination in critical literacy. i shared quotes from bell hooks’s (1991) essay, “narratives of struggle,” in mariani’s (1991) critical fictions: the politics of imaginative writing, a text i read in my doctoral program, which prompted me to pose the question, “what do oppositional discourses look like?” hooks (1991) proclaims, “[i]f the mind was to be the site of resistance, only the imagination could make it so. to imagine, then, was a way to begin the process of transforming reality. all that we cannot imagine will never come into being” (p. 55). the students and i engaged in lively discussion about society’s seeming disdain for the imagination as we age. the realm of the imaginative is only appropriate for the very young. hooks (1991) continues: globally, literature that enriches resistance struggles speaks about the way individuals in repressive, dehumanizing situations use imagination to sustain life and maintain critical awareness. in oppressive settings the ability to construct images imaginatively of a reality not present to the senses or perceived may be the only means to hope. (p. 55) thus, the imagination in dehumanizing situations is necessary for people’s very lives as they strive to maintain hope and reclaim their humanity. my segue to romanian artist and writer, lena constante, who was unknown to all the students, flowed seamlessly from hooks’s (2019) declaration. in constante’s (1995) hauntingly poignant memoir, the silent escape: three thousand days in romanian prisons, she describes her multiple years in solitary confinement, during which she was tortured repeatedly under order of the communist regime led by gheorghe gheorghiu-dej. constante (1995) explains, the reason i speak time and again of poetry is that my whole life in prison was infused with it. i had nothing. no paper or ink. the books lasted only a short while. but in this vacuum i had struck a rich vein. words. the force of words. i had the words and i had the time. a huge amount of time. […] time lost. […] to allow it to become lost in vain was to lose a part of my life and i wanted to live my life. with this joining of words and time i lived. survived. i even managed to be happy. sometimes. (p. 52) suddenly, words took on greater meaning for my students. they critiqued society’s apparent disregard of the power of language. they questioned their own desensitization to words. and they vowed to remain vigilant in their quests to maintain critical literacy as a guiding principle in both their personal and professional lives. scholar-practitioner as i became more comfortable with critical theory, self-doubt began to creep in. did i really understand this? were the critical theorists cringing? this is what they wish to avoid – the long-range planning of an individual’s life by a system or someone outside of the individual. isn’t that what education was, specifically publicly funded preschool? was i dedicating my life to shape children who’d experienced both horrible and wonderful things in their lives to be who i, a middle-class white woman, wanted them to be? who was i to define their experiences as horrible or wonderful? was i robbing children of who they were in the name of helping them be “better?” was my perspective on better the same perspective as the children’s families and communities? i still ask myself these questions every day as i continue to learn more about theory. i know with thoughtful integration of theory and industry, we can honor both the individual and society. these don’t have to be two isolated paths. philosopher ira shor (2019) speaks to the relevance of reformer john dewey’s stance on integrating the “ideal” and “real,” the “liberal arts” and the “vocations.” he notes that these can be, “…collapsed into a unified learning field” (shor, 2019, p. 289) shor (2019) continues that dewey specifically is speaking in the context of language, which he purports is a “social activity where theory and experience meet for the discovery of meaning and purpose” (p. 289). this is very similar to vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory and the idea that a child’s environment will influence how and what they think about. i will never proclaim being an expert in critical theory. but i know when i build relationships with communities, families, and individual children and celebrate where they come from, where they wish to go, and most importantly, who they are in this moment in time, we can all move forward together. i know when i interact with children – when i provide opportunities for them to be heard – when i listen, they will grow into who they are meant to be, not who everyone else wants them to be. i cannot support children in growing if i am not growing, too. professor for the final class assignment, i gave students three options from which to choose: a traditional scholarly paper, a braided essay, or a professional development series on critical theories. i introduced them to the braided essay concept in a previous class, noting that two of their peers in the first and second cohorts had published braided essays from my class in an international and national journal respectively. regardless of their choice, the students had to incorporate several critical theorists into their work and deeply explore how the theories informed their leadership practice, whether they occupied a position in a school, detention center, or central office. my syllabus contained guidance and clear expectations for each assignment, and i encouraged the students to consult with me about their choices and sense of direction. no matter their choice, the students embraced the challenges of critical theorists and navigated their complexities in our current politically charged society, where even the word critical has become demonized and weaponized. while one student intertwined imagined dialogue from their enslaved ancestors into their braided essay, another shared the perspectives of one of their english-language learners, both compelling approaches to engaging readers in demanding topics. even those who selected the traditional scholarly paper option shared their vulnerability and willingness to be challenged. as betty confided to me in our final email exchange of the semester: this was one of the most challenging papers i have ever written because i had to tackle something that i genuinely did not (and still not entirely) understand. it's not often i have to "read, wonder, wander, and ponder," and i had to do that a lot this semester i loved every moment of truly being required to think and challenge some perspectives i had that upon reflection, don't make much sense! thank you so much for being a part of burriss & mayers impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.449 54 this powerful part of my story! (b. mayers, personal communication, march 6, 2023) and i am all the richer for students like betty being a part of my life story, for their trust in me and in the process of critical interrogations. i return to ira shor (2019) here as his words aptly conclude betty’s and my braided essay: a critical writing class is a zone where teachers invite students to move into deepening interrogations of knowledge in its global contexts. […] critical teaching is not a one-way development, not ‘something done for students or to them’ for their own good. […] rather, a critical process is driven and justified by mutuality. (p. 291) indeed, i continue to learn and grow from my students in ways critical theorists value, for in this process both student and educator find their voice, share their lived experiences, and exert agency. references aronowitz, s. (2009). against schooling: education and social class. in a. darder, m. p. baltodano, & r. d. torres (eds.), the critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 106-122). routledge. bowell, t. (n.d.). feminist standpoint theory. internet encyclopedia of philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/fem-stan/ burriss, t. l. (2005). claiming a literary space: the affrilachian poets. in d. miller, s. hatfield, & g. norman (eds.), an american vein: critical readings in appalachian literature (pp. 315-336). ohio university press. celikates, r., & flynn, j. (2023). critical theory (frankfurt school). stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/criticaltheory/ cixous, h. (1990). three steps on the ladder of writing. columbia university press. constante, l. (1995). the silent escape: three thousand days in romanian prisons. translated by phillip, f. university of california press. darder, a., & torres, r. d. (2009). after race: an introduction. in a. darder, m. p. baltodano, & r. d. torres (eds.), the critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 150-166). routledge. darder, a., baltodano, m. p., & torres, r. d. (eds.) 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(n.d.). finding your footing: sub-genres in creative nonfiction. retrieved may 23, 2024, from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/creati ve_nonfiction/sub_genres_of_creative_nonfiction.html shor, i. (2009). what is critical literacy? in a. darder, r. d. torres, & m. p. baltodano (eds.), the critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 282-304). routledge. vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. harvard university press. https://iep.utm.edu/fem-stan/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/creative_nonfiction/sub_genres_of_creative_nonfiction.html https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/creative_nonfiction/sub_genres_of_creative_nonfiction.html impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 73 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 the education doctorate in the context of generative artificial intelligence: epistemic shifts and challenges to practical wisdom danah henriksen arizona state university danah.henriksen@asu.edu punya mishra arizona state university punya.mishra@asu.edu lauren woo arizona state university lauren.woo@asu.edu nicole oster arizona state university nicole.oster@asu.edu abstract the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (genai) fundamentally shifts how educational knowledge is created, shared, and validated. through the lens of epistemic technologies—tools that transform knowledge creation and dissemination—we analyze how genai challenges traditional notions of practical wisdom in education doctorate (edd) programs. drawing on parallels with previous epistemic shifts like written language, print, and digital media, we explore how genai, as a generative, dialogic, multimodal, and sometimes unpredictable technology, transforms practitioner knowledge and decision-making. we discuss implications for edd programs, emphasizing the need to balance ai integration with the preservation of human judgment and ethical decision-making to maintain practical wisdom for scholarly practice. keywords ai integration, ai, generative ai, genai, education doctorate, edd, curricula, learning, teaching, knowledge epistemologies, technology, practical wisdom the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (genai) technologies may mark a pivotal shift in educational paradigms and practices, impacting education doctorate (edd) students and programs. this essay explores the role of practitioner knowledge via the concept of practical wisdom (shulman & wilson, 2004) in the age of genai. amid rapid educational changes, the ancient concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom, remains central to effective teaching and educational leadership. it involves using knowledge to make contextually informed decisions and navigate complex educational realities (stenberg & maaranen, 2022). this foundational knowledge is vital in edd programs, where the goal is to prepare leaders to transform environments through deep understanding, contextual knowledge, and ethical judgment (shulman, 2007). practical wisdom—as practitioner-focused, applied knowledge—is essential to educational practices and edd programs (wergin, 2011). within this context, it is important to consider the deep connections between technologies and the ways we acquire, organize, and share knowledge. technologies influence educational practices as well as the broader understanding of what it means to know (kaplan, 2017), and technology’s ability to affect cognition and knowledge did not originate with computers or digital media. as roy pea (1987) defined cognitive technologies, they include “any medium that helps transcend the limitations of the mind…in thinking, learning, and problem-solving” (p. 91), including written language and mathematical notation. thus, every new technology, whether oral, written, or digital, has transformed thinking and education. genai is one of many technologies throughout history that have disrupted practitioner knowledge and how it is studied. for instance, the printing press revolutionized the dissemination of knowledge, while the internet democratized access to information and transformed research methodologies. more recently, social media has altered the landscape of knowledge sharing and educational collaboration [for more elaborated examples of technology and education shifts, see kaplan’s (2017) anthology]. genai’s ability to process vast data and generate content on an unprecedented scale introduces new dimensions to human thinking, especially in https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5109-6960 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9300-4996 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8154-8243 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2196-956x henriksen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 74 education (wang et al., 2024). this could significantly impact edd programs, offering new tools to transform or expand existing practices, from conducting literature surveys and developing research questions to designing instruments and analyzing data (storey, 2023). however, technological innovation also brings tensions and concerns. while genai can enhance aspects of educational knowledge development and research, it also raises critical questions about its alignment with practical wisdom. educational technologies are often discussed in tool-centered ways as objects that support different purposes and tasks (henriksen et al., 2022). for instance, dynamic software, mobile games, and simulations have been viewed as tools to improve learning outcomes in specific areas (lai & bower, 2019). this tool-centric tendency is understandable, as technology encompasses a broad array of tools, each enabling different tasks or thinking and learning modes. however, popular discourse in educational technology sometimes fails to consider how new technological paradigms (e.g., the internet, social media, or more recently, artificial intelligence (ai)) can shift the nature of knowledge itself. new technologies impact education not just through immediate, direct effects, but by transforming the world education exists within (koschmann, 2012). edd students and programs will develop new habits, practices, and expectations as ai expands, but its larger impact involves longer-term transformations of the world that students live in. the rapid dissemination of genai may signal an epistemic shift (dunnigan et al., 2023). to effectively prepare scholarly practitioners, it is critical to understand technology and how it may influence existing epistemologies. our goal in this paper is to consider the effects of genai on the knowledge ecologies of edd students and programs, and some possible implications. as edd programs aim to keep pace with technological and societal changes, it is also vital to support the irreplaceable foundations of practical wisdom. this essay explores practical wisdom as essential knowledge in edd programs, examining how technological phenomena like ai can shift human values and beliefs about knowledge. by examining historical technological shifts, we consider genai’s potential influence on education and the training of educators and leaders. understanding how genai tools operate, interact, and differ from human cognition suggests they might reshape societal views of knowledge. finally, we will explore the implications for edd programs, the knowledge and skills to emphasize, and the challenges and cautions ahead. practical wisdom in education practical wisdom, a concept rooted in the aristotelian notion of phronesis (wisdom of action), involves the ability to navigate complex situations and make informed decisions that balance ethical considerations with practical knowledge (goodfellow, 2003; shulman, 2007). in professional practice, the concept involves a blend of theoretical knowledge with insights gained from direct experience (shulman & wilson, 2004). nearly 20 years ago, shulman and colleagues (2006) laid out a vision for a more robust edd, rooted in scholarly principles from the carnegie project on the education doctorate. in a follow-up essay, shulman (2007) emphasized practical wisdom as central to scholarly practitioners, focusing on judgment, intuition, and ethical reasoning in complex, real-world decision-making. in edd programs, practical wisdom enables educators to manage the challenges and tensions of educational settings with adaptable decision-making that fosters innovation and inquiry. practical wisdom involves balancing pedagogical theories with the dynamic realities of real-life education contexts (lunenberg & korthagen, 2009). this wisdom extends to reflective practice, where practitioners continuously refine their approaches based on subtle cues and outcomes (schon & desanctis, 1986). ethical decisionmaking is also crucial as leaders navigate complex moral dilemmas, considering the best interests of those affected. edd curricula aim to integrate theoretical knowledge with methodological learning, helping students develop context-sensitive innovations and research around practical problems. in edd contexts, practices may become embedded within technologies that reshape how we engage with information, inquiry, and each other, whether face-to-face or digitally (chu et al., 2017). for example, learning management systems (lms) like canvas have redefined faculty and student interactions with course materials and feedback. additionally, tools like zoom have transformed traditional face-to-face interactions by enabling virtual classes, collaborative research, dissertation defenses, advising meetings, and more, increasing program accessibility and diversity. these technologies have become integral to how knowledge is created, shared, and assessed in edd programs. certain technologies, termed epistemic technologies, are critical to how we build, represent, and share knowledge (anthony, 2018). they can be distinguished from production technologies, which primarily focus on speed and efficiency because “the primary role of an epistemic technology is to enable the ongoing generation of knowledge” (anthony, 2018, p. 663). in other words, such tools are used in epistemic contexts or for purposes of inquiry, i.e., used to ask questions, seek answers, and generate knowledge (alvarado, 2023). according to alvarado (2023), examples of epistemic technologies include books, microscopes, slide presentations, search engines, and telescopes. as an epistemic technology, genai offers a lens to examine the transformative impact of genai on education practices and research. this technology poses critical questions about the future of knowledge generation and the role of scholarly practitioners in a world where ai becomes a central player in the intellectual space. epistemic technologies, epistemic shifts, and genai major leaps in epistemic technological capacity can set in motion profound changes in how societies think and learn, altering the fundamental nature of knowledge (postman, 1998). media theorists, like ong (1982), postman (1992), and mcluhan (1964), have argued that new media fundamentally change human knowledge and practices. consider how the advent of an epistemic technology like the printing press, or even the written word (mcneil, 2002), marked a significant shift from oral cultures, where traditions relied on memory, improvisation, and rhetorical skill, fostering deep personal connections through face-to-face interactions. in such cultures, knowledge is transient and communal, conveyed through storytelling and anchored in shared experiences (henriksen et al., 2021). these dynamics form the foundation of cultural identity and structure social hierarchies around skilled orators (cohen, 1989). oral traditions also play a crucial role in cultivating rich linguistic edd in the context of genai impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 75 expressions and preserving folklore that continues to influence future generations (ong, 1982). written language, though fundamental today, was once a transformative technology in human history (mcneil, 2002). the word technology, derived from the greek techne, meaning art or craft, emphasizes tools and creativity rather than just devices (hunt & melrose, 2005). this concept connects to the idea of technique, implying knowledge gained through making or doing. the notion of techne as art, skill, and expertise was central to plato’s dialogues. in the phaedrus (circa 370 bce), plato recorded socrates’ discussion of the egyptian myth of the creation of writing (sawyer & henriksen, 2024). for socrates, writing was a revolutionary technology—an invention that extended the mind (as per pea’s 1987 definition of cognitive technologies). however, he believed writing would weaken memory, causing people to seem to understand rather than truly understand, as he explained: this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. you have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding. (plato, quoted from the phaedrus, cited from the perseus catalogue, n.d.) his concern was that teaching writing, rather than relying on oral traditions, would weaken memory by causing people to depend on external techne rather than their own cognitive abilities. while socrates’ concern may seem unfounded 2,000 years later, the decline of oral traditions and the rise of written culture have indeed transformed how knowledge is preserved and transmitted. however, adopting the techne of writing has also allowed ideas, knowledge, and creativity to spread and flourish in ways oral traditions could not. the technology of print was another epistemic technology leap that enabled the inscription and dissemination of ideas in tangible form, catalyzing major cultural and intellectual movements like the renaissance, the reformation, and the scientific revolution. by democratizing access to information, print challenged established authorities, popularizing revolutionary ideas and fueling social changes, reshaping history and resonating in society today (kaplan, 2017). a notable consequence was the solidification of idea ownership and establishment of textual authority to resolve disputes (eisenstein, 1979). in print culture, ideas became commodities to be owned and cited definitively to settle arguments. this starkly contrasts with oral cultures, where meanings are closely linked to speech and shaped by communal interactions without fixed arbitrators (sawyer & henriksen, 2024). as the printing press reshaped knowledge discourses, it led to a new framework for organizing and exchanging ideas (mishra et al., 1996). socrates’ concerns about new technologies have persisted through history, and before discussions around genai, similar ones emerged around the internet and social media. for instance, firth et al. (2019) highlighted how the internet has negatively impacted human cognition around issues of attention, memory, and social awareness. yet, the internet also offers affordances for vast information resources and instant connections, driving rapid discoveries, collaborations, and advancements. the internet, as the most significant digital development of the late 20th century, has profoundly impacted social, political, economic, and cultural life. from its early days as a network of computers, it has grown to encompass nearly all aspects of human existence. this evolution paved the way for the rise of social media platforms like facebook and twitter (now x), which have further reshaped society and created new professions, such as social influencers and search engine optimizers (hu, 2018). as social media grew more dominant into the early 21st century, its influence extended, with many platforms boasting user bases larger than the world’s biggest nations. for example, facebook, whatsapp, and youtube each have more users than the populations of china or india (hu, 2018). peer-to-peer technologies have fostered a culture of content sharing—whether it is files, opinions, or knowledge—on platforms like twitter (now x) and youtube (smith, 2020). an explosion of digital self-publishing, from youtube videos to ebooks, marks a significant shift in the global creative landscape (dredge, 2016)—all of which has influenced how knowledge is stored, accessed, gained, shared, lost, and accumulated. thus, throughout human history, epistemic technologies and their shifts have dramatically affected human cognition and knowledge cultures—altering what it means to learn and know along the way. similar to language, the printing press, the internet, or social media, genai as a new epistemic technology can lead to seismic shifts in how we acquire, gather, and disseminate knowledge and what we consider to be knowledge in the first place. thus, it is important to consider questions about genai as an epistemic technology, including the types of knowledge and modes of being it supports in educational practice and inquiry and where it may fall short. more specifically, we need to address the implications for how we engage in education, the types of research we conduct, and the role of edd programs, which are closely tied to scholarly practice. these considerations also raise important questions about the role of human practical wisdom in education, the potential for ai overreliance, information quality and bias, misinformation, and the necessity of ai literacy. understanding genai is crucial, as its impact could reshape how knowledge is created, shared, and valued, influencing the work of practitioner-scholars and underscoring the need for ethical considerations and human oversight. understanding the nature and impact of genai genai, and particularly large language models (llms) (e.g., chatgpt, claude ai, bing), represent a significant leap in technological capabilities. fundamentally, these systems are predictive, not conceptually aware. they operate by analyzing vast datasets—text, images, and more—to generate content that mimics human output (kasneci et al., 2023). unlike human cognition, which integrates conceptual understanding and real-world context, genai operates primarily through algorithms that predict the next data sequence (zhao et al., 2023). zhao et al. (2023) identified three characteristics unique to genai. first, it is generative, creating outputs from scratch rather than regurgitating existing responses, and these outputs, though confidently delivered, are not always truthful (alkaissi & mcfarlane, 2023). second, genai is dialogic, simulating conversation-like interactions. finally, it is increasingly multimodal, engaging across text, voice, image, and other data forms (mishra et al., 2023). genai, with its multimodal, generative, and dialogic nature, is a quintessential example of an epistemic technology. it can potentially fulfill the criteria of supporting the acquisition, generation, and dissemination of knowledge. thus, it continues the tradition of using innovative tools to expand human understanding and capabilities. just as the printing press was a tool henriksen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 76 of knowledge, genai represents the modern evolution of epistemic technologies. alvarado (2023) described ai as a distinctive, paradigmatic form of epistemic technology, not only because it acquires, generates, and disseminates knowledge but also due to its internal capabilities, writing: other epistemic technologies are not epistemic to the extent that ai is. this is because while they may deal with epistemic content, they do not do so in an epistemic manner; while they may be deployed in epistemic settings, they may not perform epistemic operations. (p. 32) ai is unique from other technologies because it deals with epistemic content like propositions and symbols. tools like microscopes or telescopes can be used for inquiry, but they do not perform epistemic (i.e., knowledge-oriented) operations on content. ai, however, manipulates semantically laden information (data) through processes like inference, prediction, and decision-making, making its operations inherently epistemic (alvarado, 2023). yet, ai systems are disconnected from the real world and are conceptually unaware. their knowledge capabilities are quite different from practical wisdom, which stenberg and maaranen (2022) describe as context-driven and reliant on nuanced judgment based on real-world experiences. the nature of genai cognition is such that it tends to hallucinate or sometimes produce fabricated information (e.g., nonexistent references) (alkaissi & mcfarlane, 2023). thus, genai is essentially a multimodal, generative, dialogic, and predictive algorithm that is not concerned with the truth (ji et al., 2023; zhao et al., 2023). llms, for instance, can generate instructional material, give feedback on literature reviews, or analyze educational data but lack the ability to understand these operations beyond a surface level. they are, in essence, hallucination machines that produce content without grasping underlying concepts (ji et al., 2023), thus missing the nuanced, interconnected nature of practitioner knowledge, which is often non-digital and steeped in human experiences and ethical or social considerations. they can have an important place in edd students’ work, but we must recognize their nature and ensure that students are also aware in order to engage with them responsibly. implications for the education doctorate: using genai as an epistemic technology as an epistemic technology, genai presents opportunities, challenges, and specific implications for educator knowledge and the edd (mishra et al., 2024). much like the introduction of the printing press, radio, and the internet (mcneil, 2002), genai is poised to significantly alter the landscape of education. these past technologies transformed academia by democratizing access to information, reshaping research methodologies, and challenging the role of educators, often leading to a reevaluation of what constitutes authoritative knowledge. while genai lacks the capacity to engage in the ethical, conceptual, and contextual reasoning that defines practical wisdom, it can confidently simulate this capacity to a degree (alkaissi & mcfarlane, 2023). however, the predictive nature of ai, based on patterns and probabilities, cannot fully account for unique individual and situational factors. this means that practitioners must critically foreground their own knowledge and wisdom when using genai, engaging their instincts and making thoughtful judgments about ai outputs, like educators in prior eras had to adapt to new tools while maintaining their judgment. ai can support scholarly practitioners across many tasks, with affordances to strengthen and complement research and innovation work (e.g., automating routine tasks, providing data-driven insights, enhancing literature reviews, identifying educational trends, managing tasks, improving writing through revision suggestions, driving possibility thinking, and more) (storey, 2023). however, just as the printing press and the internet required a reevaluation of how knowledge is generated and validated, the integration of ai into edd programs requires students to develop awareness of their own practitioner wisdom, to avoid deferring to technologies. genai tools can appear entirely confident, even when providing incorrect or offbase information, which could lead students to assume its analyses or suggestions are accurate or ideal (alkaissi & mcfarlane, 2023). thus, building curricula that explicitly focus on the humanistic side of practical wisdom is essential, alongside engaging digital criticality and contextualized awareness. such curricula are needed to develop practitioners’ trust in their own expertise, which cannot be replaced by ai. as stewards of scholarly practitioners and to begin assessing our ai readiness, edd curricula must actively engage with concepts like practical wisdom and ensure that students know how to integrate this knowledge sensitivity fluidly alongside concrete methods, skills, and academic theories. core considerations involve whether edd programs aim to develop not just research and scholarship skills in practice, but also a sense of social-emotional awareness about practical contexts and how to navigate ethical dilemmas within them. engaging practical wisdom skills requires students to be critical and thoughtful about technology use, particularly ai. it is crucial that we educate students on the fundamental nature of ai tools to help them avoid ethical quagmires and ensure humanistic rigor. additionally, our curricula and programs must engage metacognition about using these tools effectively without being deterred by fear and to transparently acknowledge their use. these considerations are essential for any edd stakeholder to revisit and grapple with in the age of ai. many edd programs are considering how to evolve to critically evaluate and ethically integrate ai tools into their practice. as we use these tools in edd settings, another key point is to explicitly build students’ awareness of the hallucinatory errors these technologies can make and the possible biases that can be hidden within their training data or algorithms. just as prior epistemic technologies, like social media (barberá, 2020), introduced biases and required new forms of digital literacy, genai models often show biases when used in educational contexts or research. for instance, warr et al. (2023) described how genai’s biases can be insidious, happening not through obvious statements but through subtle and non-obvious inferences and cues that it picks up from large sets of training data drawn from humans. such biases are baked into ai models just as they are into human cognition. a human scorer or researcher might be just as likely to hold implicit biases. however, people may miss these flaws with computational technologies, assuming them to be neutral or infallible, partly due to the perceived objectivity of algorithms and the confidence with which ai systems present information (eubanks, 2018). thus, edd programs also need to account for and address biases in ai models by integrating tools into the curriculum alongside ethical use skills and critical thinking. for instance, assignment structures can encourage students to use ai edd in the context of genai impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 77 while relying on their practical wisdom to critically assess and complement ai-generated outcomes (michel-villarreal et al., 2023). furthermore, ai tools are designed to be opaque to users, making it difficult for people to understand how they reach conclusions. bearman and ajjawi (2023) describe ai technologies as ‘black boxes’ due to their lack of transparency. therefore, pedagogies for ai-mediated learning would need to teach users to navigate opaque, partial, and ambiguous situations that reflect the complex relationships between people and technology (fawns, 2022). in edd programs, curricula should ensure ai is used in socially-bounded ways, always contextualized within its use. while building curricula, programs need to engage with two key points: (a) orienting students to quality standards for ai use, i.e., the tacit and explicit rules of the game, and (b) giving them opportunities for meaningful but critically engaged interactions with ai systems (bearman & ajjawai, 2023). ai’s emphasis on data-driven knowledge can overshadow other forms of knowing that are essential in practitioner research. for instance, qualitative research methods are common in edd programs, given their insights into the lived experiences, beliefs, and perspectives of learners and practitioners, particularly with small samples and context-centered studies (hatch, 2023). these nuanced understandings cannot be fully captured by genai, although such tools could contribute insights that students might not otherwise see (e.g., noticing a subtle trend or spotting a powerful but non-obvious theme in the data). however, practitioner-researchers cannot expect to lean on technologies as primary analysts/sources, but must see themselves as the primary thinkers and innovators, with technologies serving as amplifiers. this also means understanding that anything offered by ai must be carefully checked, considered, and critically evaluated. thus, teaching students how to use ai as a (potentially useful, but sometimes flawed or hallucinatory) supporting research partner can amplify their work without replacing their practical wisdom or leading to technological overreliance and deskilling (rafner et al., 2022). cautions about the use of genai technologies do not negate their use in edd contexts since these tools have the computational capabilities to offer new insights and improve research and practice. but, students cannot enter into the use of ai tools uncritically or unquestioningly without risking the quality and ethical foundations of their work. by developing scholarly practitioners who trust their own understanding about nuances in human learning, behavior, and development, edd programs can help them resist the epistemic authority of algorithms. without such criticality, we risk marginalizing practical wisdom or stripping the contextual sensitivity, practical awareness, and ethical social justice orientation that is central to edd programs and students. edd programs might consider supplementing curricula with specific considerations for ai literacy in scholarly practice, highlighting the possibilities and limitations of ai technologies. this includes providing training in ethical considerations and ai biases, particularly centered on the social justice foundations in our work. additionally, edd programs should stress the importance of professional intuition and creativity just as strongly as rigor and datadriven approaches. while ai can support human creativity, it cannot replace it. human creativity shines in addressing new and uncertain challenges in which people need to be flexible, try new ideas, or innovate—deviating from past experiences (henriksen et al., 2021). just as past technological shifts required educators to innovate and adapt, the current ai shift will require a similar commitment to creativity and adaptability. certainly, data and existing information are important, and ai can offer benefits in its ability to handle lots of data. however, data are just one among many indicators that help us consider what to do in practice, or how to develop or design innovations, particularly for the future and unforeseen paths. as clay christensen (2012) (originator of the theory of disruptive innovation) noted: data is only available about the past. and when we teach people that they should just be data-driven and fact-based and analytical as they look into the future, in many ways, we condemn them to take action when the game is over. (6:497:07 minutes) relying on data, structured information, or models—as ai does—can be helpful, but it is an incomplete approach for addressing the novel and unpredictable future. positioning students to develop and explore their creativity and capacity to innovate is a critical aspect in the development of scholarly practitioners in an aidriven world. so, edd programs need to promote ai use that pushes human thinking creatively forward, not replacing but augmenting it. along these lines, education researchers are exploring how ai can support possibility thinking by guiding ideation, asking critical questions, and encouraging the imagination of future scenarios. for example, beghetto (2023) developed possibility thinking gpts to assist with brainstorming and creative exploration. it can be challenging for faculty to push students toward more creativity, but ai might offer a valuable tool to support this work. given that edd programs often seek to propel students’ innovation in practice, ai might be engaged thoughtfully to amplify human creativity. conclusion: the broader consequences the integration of genai in education raises concerns about its fit within the framework of practical wisdom. the challenge lies in leveraging genai’s capabilities without undermining essential humanistic elements of educational innovation and inquiry, like empathy, ethical reasoning, and deep contextual understanding. as with every new epistemic technology, the advent of genai raises more questions than answers, particularly for educational practitioners and researchers. not only will genai play a role in educators’ practice, challenging their knowledge and wisdom, but it will also influence the world outside of the classroom and inquiry practices. these changes should be factored into how practitioners and researchers view education, its goals, and the role of educational research. it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the consequences of the widespread use of genai in the world of professional practice and society overall. however, experiences with previous epistemic technologies, from print to radio, from television to the internet, suggest that there will gradually be significant shifts (kaplan, 2017). currently, it is important to raise questions and build awareness as we continue to develop scholarly practitioners who aim to innovate and engage in a world with ai. there are critical questions about teaching in an era where genai is part of daily life and how trust in information sources, institutions, and social beliefs will be affected, as boundaries between ai and human-generated content become blurry. will genai technologies strengthen or erode beliefs, possibly exacerbating social and educational issues like other technologies widely used in education? since trust goes beyond information erosion and our tendency to anthropomorphize complicates matters, it is important to henriksen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.485 78 consider if genai’s human-like dialogic traits will create deceptive illusions of real interactions, affecting the identity development of young learners. further, how might these developments impact already burdened educational institutions, and what would happen if people lost trust in these institutions and viewed them as complicit in spreading misleading content? then, how will the educational community handle the consequences and continue supporting students in a world where truth is elusive? these are questions that should have received more widespread attention during the inception of prior technologies, like social media use, in education. while more technoskeptics have pointed to many concerns about technologies like social media in schools (krutka et al., 2019), more widespread awareness or circumspection early on in their development might have better prepared us. our educational programs must ask scholars and practitioners about genai today. yet, these questions are shaped by past experiences with technologies, and genai’s unique attributes may lead to unexpected consequences or futures, so edd programs need to engage with creativity, imagination, and futures thinking as we look ahead. we began with the idea of phronesis, as aristotle defined it, as practical wisdom—the knowledge of what is good and bad for humans, applied through action. predicting technology’s broader impact along the spectrum of good, bad, or any other determination is challenging, but as educators of scholarly practitioners, we can learn from history to better prepare for genai’s unique consequences. the integration of genai demands we renew our energy and vision, applying timeless, practical wisdom to navigate these fresh complexities. references alkaissi, h., & mcfarlane, s. i. 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(2023). a survey of large language models. arxiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18223 https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2023.2247480 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0174%3atext%3dphaedrus%3apage%3d275 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0174%3atext%3dphaedrus%3apage%3d275 https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf https://doi.org/10.5771/2747-5174-2021-2 https://doi.org/10.1080/07377366.1986.10401080 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x07313150 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/twitter-stats-and-statistics/ https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1860012 http://doi.org/10.4018/ijaet.325795 https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2024.2305156 https://ssrn.com/abstract=4625078 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18223 danah henriksen arizona state university punya mishra arizona state university lauren woo arizona state university nicole oster arizona state university practical wisdom in education epistemic technologies, epistemic shifts, and genai understanding the nature and impact of genai implications for the education doctorate: using genai as an epistemic technology conclusion: the broader consequences references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 34 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 the impact of bias on the scholar-practitioner’s doctoral journey: strategies to legitimize it laura m. rodríguez lópez university of south florida lrodri11@usf.edu abstract this essay discusses the utilization of safeguard strategies, particularly improvement science principles, in the academic and professional writing of scholar-practitioners within edd programs. these strategies bridge the gap between theory and practice, enabling graduate students to apply their scholarly insights meaningfully. the essay highlights the roles of bias, professional wisdom, positionality, and reflexivity in inquiry, empowering scholar-practitioners to develop authentic solutions to the problems of practice they encounter. drawing on the recommendations of perry and colleagues (2020), the essay emphasizes rigorous data collection, explicit theoretical frameworks, evidence of impact on practice, and transparent mitigation of biases. strategies such as positionality and reflexivity statements, adoption of improvement science as a conceptual framework, critical questions as safeguards, and engagement with critical friend groups (cfg) enhance the integrity and rigor of scholar-practitioners' inquiries. by implementing these measures, scholar-practitioners foster a robust examination of problems of practice and contribute to the advancement of knowledge. keywords improvement science, scholar-practitioner, bias, professional wisdom i was motivated to write this essay while reflecting on the challenges i faced when writing my dissertation-in-practice (dip). specifically, i struggled to find resources emphasizing the significance of professional wisdom and its application to doctoral inquiry. while i found literature discussing the relevance of professional wisdom in people professions (see bondi et al., 2016), there was limited guidance regarding its significance for scholarpractitioners in training. for my dip, i conducted a program evaluation of a diversity pipeline program to promote the transition of youth with disabilities into post-secondary education. the program was one that i designed and implemented at my place of work. in addition, i came up with the idea for the diversity pipeline program as a result of looking for similar programs for a close family member. as i delved deeper into my dip project, i faced interrogations from faculty and staff both within and outside my doctoral program. some questioned the validity of my inquiry, suggesting that my close involvement compromised objectivity. consequently, i felt compelled to articulate the value of my professional wisdom as a scholar-practitioner within the scope of my project, differentiate it from personal bias, and integrate safeguard strategies to substantiate the credibility of my inquiry. as a program director, instructor, and proud edd graduate, i recognize that my colleagues and students encounter similar challenges with addressing bias and professional wisdom when researching and writing about topics close to their hearts. therefore, i believe it beneficial to share practical exercises and strategies to help individuals engage in self-reflection, embrace their professional wisdom, and uphold the rigor of their academic and research pursuits. in the subsequent sections, i present several strategies that scholar-practitioners, as well as faculty, students, and other readers, can find valuable in reducing and transforming bias within their research endeavors. introduction edd programs celebrate insider knowledge and provide spaces where experience and professional wisdom can fuel scholarpractitioners to implement and evaluate solutions to real-world problems. dips serve as the vehicle through which scholarpractitioners address problems of practice while transforming their educational contexts (pape et al., 2022). however, traditional research norms have historically dictated an objective stance, necessitating researchers and scholars to detach themselves emotionally and subjectively from the problems or phenomena under investigation to extract an independent truth. as the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) continues its advocacy work to replace the edd’s reputation as a phd lite and legitimize it as a degree that prepares scholar-practitioners as leaders in educational innovation (perry, 2016), we must ask ourselves: what is the role of professional wisdom in academic inquiry? why is bias considered detrimental to rigorous academic research? what strategies can we employ so that our dips reflect the interplay of theory and practice while advancing the field and remaining authentic? this essay describes how safeguard strategies, including https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3071-5217 the impact of bias impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 35 improvement science principles, can serve as a base to legitimize the professional and academic writing of scholar-practitioners in edd programs. by incorporating these strategies, graduate students can demonstrate the importance of bridging the gap between theory and practice while applying their scholarly insights to their writing in meaningful ways. the forthcoming strategies will elucidate the roles of bias, professional wisdom, positionality, and reflexivity in inquiry, emphasizing their critical functions in crafting genuine solutions to the specific problems of practice encountered by scholarpractitioners in their distinct settings. bias and professional wisdom before delving into the definitions of bias, professional wisdom, and the distinctions between these related but sometimes muddled concepts, one must understand how the edd is distinct from other doctoral programs, such as the phd. only then can the significance of professional wisdom in the practice and inquiry of a scholarpractitioner be fully grasped. the edd emerged in the early 20th century as a response to the need for improved professional education in fields such as medicine, law, and engineering. as such, the degree has been historically associated with the tradition of training scholar-practitioners who can apply research to solve realworld problems (perry, 2016; perry et al., 2020). while the phd in education typically emphasizes producing original research that contributes to academic knowledge, the edd focuses on applying existing research to improve professional practice. while both degrees involve a rigorous research component, the edd emphasizes the practical application of research findings in professional settings. to do this effectively, scholar-practitioners tap into their professional experience and capacity to apply theory to practice. however, using professional wisdom in inquiry can sometimes be confused with bias. bias refers to a systematic error in the collection, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of data that leads to a distortion of results (creswell, 2014; dwyer, 2018; popovic & huecker, 2022). engagement in bias can be caused by conscious or unconscious factors such as personal beliefs, values, prejudices, or interests that influence a scholar-practitioner’s decision-making process (creswell, 2014; popovic & huecker, 2022). partiality can lead to inaccurate or unreliable research findings that do not reflect the reality of the studied phenomenon and should not have a place in serious academic inquiry. on the other hand, professional wisdom, also commonly referred to as practice wisdom, refers to knowledge and expertise gained through practical experience (klein & bloom, 1995; mcniff, 2008). this professional acumen is based on accumulating knowledge over time through practice and reflection, and it can help scholar-practitioners make informed decisions about research design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. professional wisdom can lead to more relevant, reliable, and valid research findings that reflect the reality of the studied phenomena (mcniff, 2008). a researcher with a biased perspective may overlook certain aspects of a studied phenomenon, leading to incomplete or inaccurate data collection or analysis. in contrast, scholar-practitioners who incorporate professional wisdom into their inquiry may have a more nuanced and informed perspective that leads to an added comprehensive understanding of the problems of practice under examination (holden thorp, 2023; lambrev, 2021; mcniff, 2008). “scientists bring their whole selves to their research, which, on the one hand, makes individual scientists susceptible to motivated reasoning and biases (holden thorp, 2023, para. 5).” but practice and inquiry are enriched by that same diversity of thought that comes from the professional wisdom that is generated between motivated reasoning and biases; the variety of personal and professional experiences that scholar-practitioners bring to the table ensures careful consideration of evidence from diverse perspectives, bringing attention to topics of inquiry that may otherwise not be pondered or even well-understood by mainstream scientists focused solely on objectivity (holden thorp, 2023; son hing, 2022). in practice-based research, which is encouraged in many edd programs, professional wisdom can be beneficial to students in shaping inquiry questions, designing their methodology, and interpreting results. professional wisdom can result in enriched inquiry design, helping scholar-practitioners design research studies that are more relevant to the problems of practice they face. for example, scholar-practitioners can use their practical knowledge and experiences to design inquiry questions that are driven by the model of improvement, which addresses the goals of the practitioner, what changes will result in improvement, and how to determine if a change resulted in improvement (langley et al., 2009). professional wisdom can also improve data collection. because of their experience and proximity to the problem of practice, scholarpractitioners can identify the most suitable data collection methods, sampling techniques, and data analysis tools, helping them collect data more efficiently and effectively (langley et al., 2009). increased credibility can also be a benefit of professional wisdom. researchers who deeply understand the practical aspects of a particular field are more likely to engage in relevant, reliable, and valid inquiry. this understanding, in turn, sets the stage for translating inquiry findings into pertinent practical implications that can be applied in real-world settings (mcniff, 2008). in addition, professional wisdom can result in improved dissemination, helping scholar-practitioners communicate their inquiry findings in plain language, making research more accessible. scholar-practitioners can use their practical knowledge to develop communication strategies tailored to different stakeholders' needs, such as practitioners, policymakers, and the public (crow et al., 2019; perry et al., 2020). why is professional wisdom important in the development of doctoral inquiries? as stated in the previous section, professional wisdom is a value-driven knowledge system that blends personal and professional experience with scientific information (klein & bloom, 1995). the edd is, first and foremost, a practice-oriented doctorate; as such, it must celebrate and incorporate professional wisdom to produce effective and relevant knowledge. this expertise should be reflected in the writing of edd students. professional wisdom serves as the basis for on-the-spot practice hypotheses, improving skills, and contributing to educational knowledge development (klein & bloom, 1995). however, as graduate students, pupils need to acknowledge their positionality and actively engage in reflection to cultivate a scholar-practitioner identity that effectively integrates professional wisdom into their inquiry. rodríguez lópez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 36 positionality, reflexivity, and the scholarpractitioner identity positionality refers to a scholar-practitioner’s social and cultural position, including their personal experiences, beliefs, values, and biases, which influence their inquiry process and findings (bourke, 2014). in the context of practice-based research, positionality plays a crucial role in shaping the scholar-practitioner’s understanding of participants and their cultural, educational, and socioeconomic experiences, as well as their interpretation of the research outcomes. in her book, the gifts of imperfection, brown (2010) shared that when she engages in social research analysis, she tries to think only about what the data mean to her participants and not how she might experience any given phenomenon herself. moreover, graduate students are frequently encouraged to adopt a detached approach to inquiry. however, it is essential to clarify that this does not imply complete detachment from the research; this interpretation differs from brown's intended meaning. bourke (2014) contended that one's identity inevitably exerts influence on the meaning-making process, emphasizing that detachment from it is neither possible nor advisable. in the course of engaging with research and inquiry, scholars should maintain a forefront focus on their positionality, acknowledging that knowledge cannot be generated in isolation (bourke, 2014; mcniff, 2008). positionality serves as a tool to understand the role of context in shaping and sustaining one's identity and its relationship with research. this understanding enables a clearer and more objective extraction of meaning from data by emphasizing reflection on the voices of participants rather than the researchers themselves through implication. successful achievement of this recognition of positionalities necessitates engagement in reflexivity. reflexivity is the conscious exercise of scrutinizing the relationship between one’s identity and one's inquiry from a place of self-awareness (bourke, 2014). in her book, decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples, smith (2021) emphasized the need for researchers to critically examine their positions and power dynamics within research, mainly when working with historically marginalized groups. in general, reflexivity in inquiry refers to the scholar-practitioner’s self-awareness and scrutinization of their role, assumptions, biases, and perspectives in the research process (smith, 2021). it involves acknowledging and considering how the scholar-practitioner’s characteristics, values, and experiences, as well as their historical and political contexts, may influence the inquiry design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of findings. reflexivity encourages scholar-practitioners to reflect on the potential impact of their positionalities on the research process and outcomes. engaging in reflexivity is vital because, through this exercise, scholar-practitioners can challenge traditional research paradigms, question assumptions, promote social justice, and center inquiry on the communities they serve (smith, 2021). through engaging in reflexivity, scholar-practitioners can enhance the rigor and validity of their research by being transparent about their positionality and considering how it may shape their research questions, data collection methods, and interpretation of results. reflexivity helps researchers identify and address potential biases, increase objectivity, and better understand the research topic. it also promotes ethical research practices by encouraging researchers to probe power dynamics, ethical considerations, and the potential impact of their research on participants and broader communities. the intertwined concepts of positionality and reflexivity are crucial to the integrity and depth of scholarly inquiry. positionality serves as a reminder that unique life experiences, beliefs, and biases are brought to the research table, shaping one's understanding of the world. it underscores the importance of not aiming for detachment from research but instead cultivating acute awareness of how our identities inform interpretations. reflexivity, conversely, guides individuals on a journey of self-awareness, prompting a critical examination of roles, assumptions, and potential biases. together, these practices enable scholar-practitioners to conduct inquiry that is transparent, ethically sound, and socially just. they contribute to enhanced validity and rigor in scholarly work, prioritizing the voices of participants over the scholar-practitioners' own. embracing positionality and reflexivity strengthens the quality of research and fosters a more equitable and empathetic academic community where inquiry is rooted in a profound understanding of the self and others. strategies to legitimize professional wisdom in inquiry popper (1979) argued that scientific knowledge is distinct from other forms of knowledge because it is characterized by its objective nature. he emphasized the critical role of falsifiability and empirical testing in scientific theories, asserting that scientific theories must be framed to be empirically tested and potentially refuted through evidence to ensure objectivity (popper, 1979). nevertheless, popper’s (1979) concept of the third world of objective knowledge – which refers to a realm of knowledge that consists of abstract ideas, theories, and concepts that exist independent of our individual thoughts but can be shared and discussed by many people – may support the idea of professional wisdom as the basis of inquiry. in principle, the third world reflects the essence of practicebased inquiry, where scholar-practitioners' subjective experiences and biases serve as a starting point for research. however, the research's validity and credibility ultimately depend on its ability to withstand objective scrutiny, empirical testing, and implementation by others in the academic and professional community. this transition from subjective bias to objective knowledge is fundamental to the scientific and scholarly method; it underscores the importance of rigorous evaluation and the open exchange of ideas and findings. this essay supports rigor for applied inquiry by introducing inquiry safeguard measures such as positionality, reflexivity, improvement science, critical questions, and cfgs. what follows is a discussion of how these strategies contextualize the role of professional wisdom in practice-based research. mcniff and whitehead (2009) suggested that scholarpractitioners can establish the soundness of their inquiries by engaging in rigorous and systematic data collection tactics, being explicit about the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that underpin improvement inquiries, providing evidence of the impact of their inquiries on practice, being transparent about potential biases that can affect their work, and how these are being mitigated. several strategies can be applied to the dip to achieve these recommendations and protect against bias. the strategies include a positionality statement and a reflexivity statement to make the scholar-practitioner’s position and relationship to their inquiry clear; the impact of bias impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 37 the adoption of improvement science as a conceptual framework that is data-driven and evidenced-based; employing critical questions as safeguards to enhance the inquiry process and its analysis; and engaging a cfg to serve as peer reviewers. scholar-practitioners can deliberately apply these additional reliability measures to bolster the integrity of their inquiries and foster a robust and rigorous examination of their identified problem/s of practice within their dip. positionality statement positionality and reflexivity statements are vital components of the dip. when scholar-practitioners include these statements in their research, they openly recognize their individual viewpoints, life experiences, and possible biases. these statements form the basis for transparency, allowing readers to grasp the researcher's standpoint and illustrating their dedication to self-awareness and ethical conduct. however, the specific content of a positionality statement may vary depending on the inquiry context, methodology, and individual experiences. it is essential for scholar-practitioners to communicate their positionalities and the potential impact authentically and transparently, while demonstrating a commitment to rigorous and ethical analysis. this transparency can be achieved through the inclusion of key points of discussion and disclosure. first and foremost, the positionality statement should be selfreflective, contemplating one’s social, cultural, and personal background and acknowledging personal experiences, beliefs, values, and biases that may shape perspectives on inquiry and research. secondly, it should explore and discuss the scholarpractitioner’s identity as a student and professional and how the interplay of these two informs their inquiry. scholar-practitioners should address how their positionalities impact the inquiry process, including how their backgrounds and beliefs may shape their research questions, methodology choices, data interpretation, and potential biases that could emerge. positionality statements should also be a space in which scholar-practitioners discuss their awareness of ethical responsibilities and how they plan to navigate power dynamics, maintain participant confidentiality, and ensure respect for diverse perspectives within the research context — this is especially critical in promoting equity and social justice. in addition, scholarpractitioners should consider the implications of their positionalities on the validity of the research findings. they should discuss strategies to ensure the study's transparency, credibility, and trustworthiness, such as triangulation of data sources, member checking, or peer debriefing. most importantly, the positionality statement allows the scholar-practitioner to tell their story, i.e., how their unique setting, professional acumen, and lived experiences informed and motivated them to pursue their inquiry. through this exercise of transparency, scholar-practitioners can protect the credibility of their work, break down power structures, and engage readers, letting them know why the work matters on a personal level. reflexivity statement incorporating a reflexivity statement within the dip serves as a powerful tool for scholar-practitioners to assess how their values, beliefs, and biases influence and mold their research process (bourke, 2014). this practice, guided by self-awareness, consciously examines the interplay between one's identity and the inquiry process. scholar-practitioners, through reflexivity, can rigorously scrutinize their biases, assumptions, and subjective perspectives, fostering transparent acknowledgment of the impact of personal experiences and beliefs on their research. this addition of a reflexivity statement significantly bolsters the validity and credibility of their work while enabling a more nuanced grasp of the research topic and its implications. distinguishing itself from the positionality statement, a reflexivity statement centers on the scholar-practitioner's active involvement in introspection and a critical examination of their role in the research process (bourke, 2014). it encourages profound reflection on the influence they exert over the research process and outcomes. this may take the form of journal keeping, recording emotional responses during interviews or survey analysis, or documenting initial perceptions upon meeting research participants. as edd students committed to framing inquiries around equity, ethics, and social justice, addressing ethical dilemmas encountered during research and detailing practical strategies for navigating them is paramount. highlighting instances where initial assumptions or biases were challenged or evolved during the research process illustrates how these moments of reflexivity subsequently impacted data collection, analysis, and interpretation. a reflexivity statement serves as a valuable platform for scholarpractitioners to share insights and personal growth resulting from their reflexivity process. this statement should delve deeply into how reflexivity has enriched the scholar-practitioner’s understanding of the research topic, participants, and the broader inquiry domain. of utmost importance is the connection of these reflections to validity implications, elucidating how the scholar-practitioner’s reflexivity efforts have favorably influenced the overall validity and credibility of the research. specific measures taken to address potential biases, ensure transparency, and promote trustworthiness can be emphasized within this context. improvement science for many years, edd programs in the us were created as a mirror to more traditional phd programs in an attempt to validate their worth in academic spheres (perry, 2016; perry et al., 2020). that exercise in emulation restricted what made the edd unique – equipping practitioners with the tools necessary to improve their practice via robust inquiry. perry and colleagues (2020) suggested using improvement science as the signature pedagogy for edd programs to support this goal of rigor. improvement science is a methodological approach that employs disciplined inquiry to solve problems of practice (crow et al., 2019; perry et al., 2020). it is multidisciplinary and relies heavily on applying professional wisdom to quality improvement (institute for healthcare improvement, n.d.a). as a conceptual framework, improvement science promotes change. it seeks improvement based on actionable and nascent problems of practice while welcoming, honoring, celebrating, and highlighting the professional wisdom of practitioners and the voices of people with lived experiences. utilizing improvement science in dips is a powerful safeguard against bias, elevating the rigor, validity, and impact of inquiry. by emphasizing continuous improvement and learning, improvement science employs iterative cycles, theoretical frameworks, and datadriven analysis to curb bias and ensure accountability effectively. through collaboration with stakeholders, the validity and relevance of findings are strengthened, while early dissemination fosters a culture of learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement. together, these strategies provide a robust framework for scholars to rodríguez lópez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 38 produce research that is rigorous, reliable, and free from bias, contributing to the advancement of knowledge in their respective fields. iterative cycles improvement science demands well-structured change initiatives supported by rigorous measures and systematic testing cycles. common approaches to these iterative cycles encompass the plan-do-study-act (pdsa) method (langley et al., 2009) and the strategize, implement, analyze, and reflect (siar) approach (perry et al., 2020). whether one opts for the pdsa or siar model to guide iterative cycles of implementation and evaluation, the process of testing and refining interventions assumes critical importance in demonstrating validity. maintaining a comprehensive record of cycle data allows scholar-practitioners to showcase the evolution of their research based on continuous learning and feedback. in an improvement sciencebased dip, siar cycles are instrumental as they help the scholar-practitioner establish clear, measurable goals that are followed by a series of rapid and iterative cycles designed to test the proposed change idea. data generated from each cycle plays a pivotal role in determining change, expanding improvement, and facilitating sustainable scaling (langley et al., 2009). notably, the siar cycles extend beyond mere planning, implementation, and data analysis, akin to the pdsa cycle, by also fostering reflection and critical thinking (perry et al., 2020). this reflective practice encourages the identification of potential biases that may influence the construction of meaning and the selection of research methodologies. such a framework, as exemplified by the use of siar cycles in improvement science, thus actively contributes to the promotion of rigorous data collection practices and reflexivity, effectively mitigating researcher bias and ensuring accountability in the inquiry process. theoretical framework improvement science can serve as the conceptual framework that ties change ideas together during testing cycles and implementation. however, selecting a theoretical framework to guide the development of change ideas based on research and evidencebased practices is also essential. theoretical frameworks undergird students’ thinking and provide a blueprint from which dissertations are built (grant & osanloo, 2014). traditionally, demonstrating how research is grounded in theory and how the findings contribute to developing or refining theory helps to establish the quality of doctoral students’ research. generally speaking, scholar-practitioners are not looking to create theory but rather address problems of practice and devise practical solutions. to legitimize these efforts, improvement science encourages using theory to guide the development and evaluation of improvement interventions (perry et al., 2020). infusing inquiry with theory will provide structure to the dip and a lens through which the development of solutions to problems of practice can be devised, reducing the potential impact of personal bias and increasing the reliability and validity of the inquiry findings (grant & osanloo, 2014). measurement improvement science promotes rigor by promoting measures emphasizing data collection and analysis to inform decision-making and drive improvement (perry et al., 2020). by using standardized measures and data-driven analyses, improvement science helps scholar-practitioners minimize the influence of personal biases and subjectivity in evaluating educational practices. using measures with improvement science provides a systematic and evidence-based approach to addressing educational challenges and improving outcomes. this safeguard against bias is vital for scholarpractitioners conducting research and seeking to generate valid and reliable evidence to inform educational policies and practices. this approach fosters transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement in education research and practice. whether scholar-practitioners design their own data collection measures or use well-established ones, they should consider multiple measures, frequency of data collection, and appropriate analysis techniques to capture and interpret data accurately. several tools can help with this laborious task, such as maxqda, dedoose, and others. by embracing improvement science’s stance on measurement, scholar-practitioners can contribute to evidencebased decision-making and make meaningful contributions to their fields while minimizing biases and enhancing the validity and reliability of their findings. collaboration and engagement in her research on the value of community-based learning in professional doctorates, lambrev (2023) stated that it is imperative that we acknowledge that local community contexts serve as invaluable educational environments that foster the cultivation of research practices that are rooted in equity, commitment, and ethics. borrowing from translational research practices, improvement science further emphasizes the importance of engaging stakeholders in collaborative research. collaborative research promotes quality because it serves to demonstrate how the research has been informed by the perspectives and experiences of the stakeholders and communities affected by its results. collaboration and engagement also provide regular feedback, reflection, and discussion opportunities. scholar-practitioners can share their findings, methodologies, and interpretations with their collaborative group, receiving constructive criticism, alternative viewpoints, and suggestions for improvement. this iterative feedback and reflection process strengthens their inquiry's rigor and validity. involving a collaborative group in the research process enhances the credibility and trustworthiness of the findings. another significant advantage of collaboration and engagement is gaining the consent of your research participants, ensuring that your inquiry approach respects the rights, values, and needs of the participants and the community. the engagement of stakeholders ensures that the inquiry is relevant, applicable, and aligned with realworld contexts and needs, which helps to address potential biases. collaborative inquiry encourages the translation of research findings into actionable knowledge and practice, establishing a pathway for co-creating knowledge relevant and applicable to real-world contexts. this knowledge mobilization ensures that the research has a meaningful impact and contributes to positive change within the field. adopting collaborative inquiry and promoting stakeholder engagement can serve as a vital accountability safeguard for doctoral students conducting dips. dissemination and implementation improvement science promotes dissemination to facilitate learning, continuous improvement, collaboration, implementation, and accountability (perry et al., 2020). demonstrating how research the impact of bias impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 39 has been disseminated and implemented and its impact on individual practice can help scholar-practitioners show the quality of their work. furthermore, improvement science emphasizes the importance of disseminating findings and implementing successful interventions to create opportunities for others to scrutinize and evaluate the rigor of inquiries. this transparency helps build trust and confidence in the research process (carnegie, 2010; perry et al., 2020). dissemination as an expression of a student’s ability to critically analyze and synthesize research, engage with diverse stakeholders, and effectively communicate research findings to various audiences should be a distinguishable core competency for edd students. disseminating research findings before the dip is complete enables scholar-practitioners to receive valuable feedback from peers and experts in their respective fields. examples of early dissemination of results can include conference poster presentations, research symposiums, thesis competitions, or pecha kuchas. dissemination of research results, especially early on, helps scholar-practitioners demonstrate the validity and credibility of their research inquiries by promoting transparency, receiving peer feedback, facilitating iterative improvement, enabling external validation, fostering collaboration, and supporting real-world application. dissemination is an essential component of improvement science, supporting its overarching goal of generating and spreading knowledge to achieve meaningful and sustainable improvements in various domains (crow et al., 2019; perry et al., 2020). by engaging in early dissemination, scholar-practitioners can demonstrate their expertise, enhance the rigor and impact of their inquiries, and contribute to advancing knowledge in their respective fields. critical questions as safeguards vassallo (2004) suggested that awareness of potential biases can improve evaluation reports and reduce threats to their validity. he suggested that this consciousness can be achieved by employing critical questions as safeguards when evaluating results (vassallo, 2004). scholar-practitioners can similarly use critical questions to assess the clarity, relevance, progress, intended or unintended outcomes, objectives, implementation, resources, alignment, policy, stakeholders, and alignment of their inquiry objectives (vasallo, 2004). critical questions compel the scholar-practitioner to question whether their objectives are well-defined, if they address the critical issues at hand, and if they are specific enough to guide the inquiry process effectively. the additional layer of critical questioning supplementing the research guiding questions can help identify potential factors affecting credibility, such as design, data collection, and attitudes toward participants. by incorporating critical questions as safeguards, scholar-practitioners can engage in a reflective and evaluative process that enhances the quality and credibility of their applied research. critical questions encourage scholar-practitioners to think critically, challenge assumptions, and address potential biases or limitations, ultimately strengthening the validity and reliability of their inquiries. critical friends group the term "critical friends group" (cfg), a registered trademark of the national school reform faculty (nsrf), describes a type of professional learning community that provides a structured and collaborative environment for educators to engage in professional development and offer constructive feedback to improve their practice (mattoon & mckean, 2020). critical friends are learning partners that support the professional development of a scholarpractitioner by providing insight and subsidizing their autonomy in creating knowledge related to their practice (kember et al., 1997; noor & shafee, 2011). critical friends serve as consultants and peerreviewers, eliciting reflection and offering impartial feedback (kember et al., 1997; lambrev & cruz, 2021; noor & shafee, 2011). in addition, and in support of engaging a collaborative learning approach, a recent study by lambrev (2023) stated that “collaboration adds value to mastering the tenets of research together with similarly engaged colleagues because this is how practitioners normally work: as part of a team” (p. 50). cfgs are an avenue that doctoral students can exploit by “utilizing each other’s strengths, knowledge, and expertise” (lambrev, 2023, p. 50) to increase their learning and keep them accountable. critical friends can include other doctoral students and professional colleagues. in informal meetings, critical friends can offer honest and neutral feedback, helping scholar-practitioners brainstorm through areas of concern and adopting a more neutral approach to their inquiries. conversations between critical friends can occur in formal or informal meetings. in formal meetings, a conversation protocol, such as those offered by the nsrf, can be used to guide the discussion. i used a discussion protocol borrowed from my time at the association of university centers on disability’s (aucd) leadership academy. it includes a 15-15-15 format with 15 minutes to present a summary of your work, 15 minutes to receive feedback, and 15 minutes for open discussion. as part of the conversation protocol, critical friends deliver reactions and opinions that serve to deepen the understanding of findings by infusing it with different perspectives, scrutinizing the inquiry process, and questioning scholar-practitioners' assumptions (blake & gibson, 2021; creswell, 2014; noor & shafee, 2011). these conversations enhance the inquiry process, support professional integrity, and help scholar-practitioners reflectively inform next steps. the safeguard strategies discussed in this section collectively serve as a powerful toolkit for scholar-practitioners seeking to address bias head-on in their academic and professional writing. they facilitate a transition from subjective inquiry rooted in personal biases to research that stands up to rigorous scrutiny (popper, 1979). by implementing these measures, scholar-practitioners legitimize their inquiries and contribute to the broader advancement of knowledge, fostering a scholarly environment that thrives on transparency, self-awareness, and commitment to rigor. conclusion the significance of professional wisdom in the practice and inquiry of a scholar-practitioner is best understood within the context of the edd program’s distinct focus on applying existing research to improve professional practice. professional wisdom enriches the design of research studies, improves data collection methods, increases credibility, facilitates the translation of research findings into practical implications, and supports effective dissemination. in practice-based research, professional wisdom aids in shaping inquiry questions, designing methodologies, and interpreting results, resulting in relevant, reliable, and valid research. recognizing their positionalities and engaging in reflexivity allows scholar-practitioners to incorporate professional wisdom responsibly, promoting social justice and centering their inquiry on the communities they serve. rodríguez lópez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.398 40 to establish the soundness and credibility of their inquiries, scholar-practitioners must be transparent regarding potential biases, adopt rigorous data collection tactics, explicit theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and demonstrate evidence of impact. positionality and reflexivity statements serve as powerful tools when integrated into scholar-practitioners' research. they allow scholarpractitioners to recognize their distinct viewpoints, personal experiences, and potential biases openly. these statements establish transparency, giving readers insight into the researcher's standpoint and showcasing a dedication to self-awareness and ethical conduct. improvement science enhances research rigor, validity, and impact by focusing on continuous improvement and learning. it employs iterative cycles, theoretical frameworks, and data-driven analysis to curb bias and ensure accountability. collaboration with stakeholders strengthens the validity and relevance of findings, while early dissemination fosters learning, relationships, and continuous improvement. critical questions and engagement with cfgs further enhance the validity and credibility of applied research by addressing biases and leveraging collective expertise. the edd degree, as emphasized by perry (2016), celebrates the invaluable role of professional wisdom in addressing real-world challenges and enriching the inquiry process. professional wisdom bridges the gap between research and practice, making research accessible and impactful. it refines the relevance and applicability of research, resonating with practitioners, policymakers, and the general public. by integrating professional wisdom, the dip can empower scholar-practitioners to drive meaningful change and create a more inclusive research landscape. utilizing the strategies discussed in this essay, scholar-practitioners can showcase their commitment to rigorous methodologies that yield evidence of validity, credibility, and reliability while celebrating the guiding force of professional wisdom in their scholarly pursuits. future steps in order to advance the suggestions presented in this essay, there are intriguing avenues for further exploration. one avenue involves conducting a comprehensive review of dissertations-inpractice through document analysis, aiming to uncover additional strategies scholar-practitioners employ to mitigate bias and underscore the significance of professional wisdom. moreover, research has indicated the influence of creativity and flow on research productivity (schutte & malouff, 2020a; schutte & malouff, 2020b). lambrev’s (2023) recent work has revealed that engaging in consultancy models and integrating practical wisdom into scholarly pursuits fosters heightened learning and the development of a robust scholar-practitioner identity. creativity, entailing the generation of innovative ideas and solutions (kaufman & beghetto, 2009), and flow, representing a state of profound engagement and optimal experience (schutte & malouff, 2020b), are interconnected. engaging in creative endeavors can induce a state of flow, while being in a state of flow can enhance creative thinking and expression (schutte & malouff, 2020b). it would be interesting to delve further into this research to explore whether incorporating professional wisdom in academic writing can amplify flow and creativity. additionally, investigating potential correlations between these concepts would lend further support to the consultancy model and the utilization of cfgs within the edd program design. references blake, j., & gibson, a. 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(2004). getting started with evaluation reports: creating the structure. etc: a review of general semantics, 61(3), 398–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109555 https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350225282 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add5909 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 44 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.349 the cped framework as a network-level signature pedagogy: who frames pops and which frames count? robert evans denver public schools robertdevans@gmail.com abstract the cped framework (cped, 2022) envisions the edd as a professionally-oriented alternative to the phd. within the framework, two professional aims are proposed: stewardship and scholarly practice. in this essay, i distinguish between the two terms, exploring how erving goffman’s (1986) concept of frame analysis can be a useful approach to stewardship. i contrast goffman’s (1986) approach with that of frame alignment (snow et al., 1986), noting that frames are useful for clarifying the improvement efforts of scholarly practice while also putting those who use them at risk of encapsulation. i explore how the signature pedagogy of the cped framework itself is such a frame. i hope this essay will be useful for faculty in cped-informed programs designing courses to balance the dual development of scholarly practice and stewardship, and that it will be useful for cpedinformed edd candidates integrating multiple frames into the definition and solution of pops. keywords signature pedagogy, framework development, frame analysis, transformation, stewardship introduction in this essay, i consider the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework (cped, 2022) as a signature pedagogy that guides edd programs in the preparation of two professional identities: scholarly practitioners and stewards of the profession. these two identities balance the orientation of the edd between technical improvement on the one hand and the discernment of intentionality on the other. my purpose in this essay is to explore the complexity of the interaction between these two identities, both in terms of how they structure the signature of the cped pedagogy and in terms of how they integrate multiple frames brought to bear on naming and solving problems of practice (pop) within the field of education more broadly. by way of introduction, i lay out my intentions for using erving goffman’s (1986) concept of frame analysis to contribute to what it means to frame a pop within the cped community. i outline how the cped framework (cped, 2022) itself generates a constellation of frames that shape the perceptions of cped-informed edd graduates, and i explore the potential of these frames as organizational tools as well as the danger they pose of encapsulating those who utilize them within their logic. near the end of the essay, i clarify two approaches (frame alignment and frame analysis) to understanding the culminating project of the cped-informed edd: the dissertation in practice (dip). i conclude by looking both inwards at the cped framework itself and also outwards towards the pops that edd candidates engage in their dip endeavors. based on the argument constructed over the course of this essay, i situate frame alignment as an activity of scholarly practice and frame analysis as an activity of stewardship. intended significance of the essay the cped framework seeks to differentiate the signature pedagogy of the edd in education from that of the phd in education by orienting the cped-informed edd to active engagement in the leadership and practice of education. there has been a vigorous debate within the cped community about whether or not the signature pedagogy of the edd should include writing a dissertation. this debate culminated in the decision to modify the traditional dissertation of the phd into a form referred to as a dip (perry et al., 2020). in the years since this decision was made, there has been much debate about how the dip should be structured and how it should be different from the conventional dissertation written by phd students. a prevalent feature of the conventional dissertation written by phd candidates is the organization of the scholarship around a single frame: specifically, a single theoretical or conceptual framework (lincoln & guba, 1989). the adoption of this single frame in the conventional phd dissertation is often unproblematized. to one degree or another, it is expected that phd candidates will specialize academically and follow the theoretical commitments that they lay down in their dissertations throughout their careers. as a part of the conventional dissertation writing process, phd candidates learn to identify gaps in the existing literature base of a particular theoretical frame. this process situates the assumptions of the chosen theoretical frame deeply within the phd candidates’ approach to research practice. in the edd, by contrast, the situation of an inquiry within a single frame is problematic, and it is expected that students’ selection of the frames they use will be responsive to the https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8527-2408 the cped framework as a network signature pedagogy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.349 45 environments in which they work, engaging in field-based opportunities to name pops and employing multiple frames to frame and solve those pops. this makes the commitment to a single frame untenable. schwab (1978) argues that a single theoretical frame is, by the very nature of its reductive function, incapable of sufficiently capturing the complexity of practice to guide practical action meaningfully. schwab’s (1978) thinking on this matter is highly pertinent to the cped framework through his influence on lee shulman, the teacher (and director emeritus) of the cped community (cped, 2009). in this essay, i explore, in particular, the responsibility that the cped community undertakes when we frame pops. i seek to emphasize that a certain situation can be framed either as problematic or as solvent depending on the frame utilized. given this, it is part of our responsibility in writing and advising dips to ensure that our activity doesn’t restrict who frames the pops around which dips are organized or which frames count. to articulate and explore this concern, i adopt the language of erving goffman (1986). understanding the frames of a dip through goffman’s frame analysis according to goffman (1986), frame analysis involves identifying which primary frames are keyed to transform the meaningfulness of strips of activity. by frame, goffman (1986) refers to how we view the world in ways that allow us to communicate with others and engage in collective action. a frame is a social affordance that serves as an intersection of similar perspectives, allowing for the co-construction and discussion of meaning within a shared culture. keyed transformations, by contrast, are interpretations of the meaning of what goffman (1986) calls untransformed strips of activity through reference to a primary frame or, in the case of rekeying, in reference to a previously keyed transformation of a primary frame. in less technical language, goffman (1986) is asserting that when we try to make sense of the perceptions our senses provide us, we key a kind of pre-constructed schema or frame, which provides the context through which we transform our raw experience into something meaningful, both to ourselves and to those who share our experience. goffman (1986) refers to the empirical world itself, prior to the meaning we make of our perceptions of it, as untransformed strips of activity. for example, consider the utterance /oʊ/ /h/ /aɪ/ /oʊ/ as an untransformed strip of activity. this utterance involves air moving over vocal cords, which produces a sound that is then modulated into vocalizations through the contortion of the oral cavity into shapes of various dimensions. this utterance only takes on its socially held meaning as an informal greeting used in the morning (i.e., おはよう) when the frame of the japanese language is keyed to transform the meaning of the strip of activity in a certain way. if the frame of the english language is keyed instead, the meaningfulness of the utterance is likely to be transformed to refer to one of the 50 states within the united states of america, namely ohio. strips of untransformed activity are impossible to perceive directly because, by perceiving them, we transform them with whatever primary frames we key in order to make sense of our perceptions. what we can do is triangulate our awareness of how untransformed strips of activity can be variously framed, thus giving us more nuanced understandings of the underlying strip of activity. this is the purpose of goffman’s (1986) frame analysis. keying one primary frame versus another transforms the socially held meaning of the strip of activity as well as the perspectives of those making meaning of that strip. goffman (1986) introduces the term lamination to describe the layering of various frames that transform strips of activity in various ways. to draw on an example of language that can be understood through two laminated primary frames, consider the pun, “to the person who invented zero, thanks for nothing”. one of the frames of this pun is rooted in the literal meaning of the sentence and the other rooted in the figure of speech thanks for nothing, hence the humor. the role of frame analysis in the cped framework in terms of how the cped framework organizes the inquiry of a dip around a pop, i noted earlier that schwab (1978) argues against situating practical decisions within a single theoretical frame. using the terminology of goffman’s (1986) frame analysis, schwab (1978) is arguing for laminating multiple frames in order to understand pops in their full complexity. for edd students, it is necessary to consider that the frames we key when transforming the meaningfulness of strips of activity matter to the stakeholders in the situations we engage in our dip endeavors. depending on the frame that is keyed, a strip of activity that represents one person’s solution may very well be transformed into another person’s problem or vice versa. in any situation where diversity is present, it is vital to be aware of the various frames being keyed to transform our collaborative interaction with strips of activity. while some frames may be more relevant personally to our individual primary identifications than others, viewed broadly from the perspective of social justice (a pervasive element of the cped framework), no one frame is more legitimate in transforming the meaning of strips of activity than others; rather, each frame offers another lamination of enriching complexity to the of stewardship that cped-informed edd students learn to uphold. learning to integrate multiple laminations when naming and framing a pop can help edd students transcend the factionalism of academic specialization in order to find meaningful solutions that appeal to the broad interests of diverse stakeholders. i noted above that the legitimacy of frames cannot be compared, but this does not mean that all frames carry the same weight; some frames have more integrity than others. by this, i mean that all frames are incomplete forms of representation that both conceal and reveal aspects of that which they represent (eisner, 1994). as other frames are laminated onto our emergent understandings, the meaningfulness of some frames is enriched, while the meaningfulness of others disintegrates. goffman (1986) notes a particular type of truncated, incomplete frame, which he calls a fabrication. according to goffman (1986), fabrications have been constructed with the intent to deceive some stakeholders in order to benefit others. the performance of magic tricks is an innocuous form of fabrication (goffman, 1986), while the perpetuation of racism and other forms of oppressive social organization are pernicious forms of fabrication. fabrications, by their very nature, lack integrity to a substantial degree as they are perpetuated by keeping certain aspects out-of-frame and imperceptible; the meaningfulness of fabrications tends to disintegrate entirely when out-of-frame facts are laminated on. for edd students, an increased ability to discern fabrications seems likely to be one of the benefits of learning to laminate multiple frames when naming and framing pops. evans impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.349 46 the view of legitimacy and integrity expressed here raises an important point about how we can fully engage the social justice involved in the lamination of various keyed frames that transform strips of activity into pops and potential solutions. according to this view, the value of social justice that is embedded into the cped framework cannot be realized simply by claiming to champion a population that is under-represented in the success criterion of a single frame. instead, we must examine who is empowered by dip endeavors to key the frames by which pops are identified; we must also ask whether or not this empowerment is equitably distributed. defining a signature pedagogy the view of social justice introduced in the previous section raises several key considerations about the nature of the signature pedagogy of the cped framework. lee shulman (2005) defines a signature pedagogy in the context of professional education for practitioners from a wide variety of sectors. in his introduction of the concept, shulman (2005) explicitly considers the professional education of lawyers, engineers, designers, physicians, scientists, and members of the clergy, with a focus specifically on their preservice forms of education. shulman (2005) also generalizes the concept to any professional education that “bridges theory and practice” (p. 56). shulman (2005) notes that such education is never simple but rather is manifested in “highly complex performances of observation and analysis, reading and interpretation, question and answer, conjecture and refutation, proposal and response, problem and hypothesis, query and evidence, individual invention and collective deliberation” (p. 56). the signature of a pedagogy is a kind of frame itself that shapes how practitioners engage their field. this frame is then keyed each time a practitioner encounters strips of activity in their practice. in terms of the signature of the pedagogy fostered by cped framework, students learn to organize their inquiry around naming, framing, and solving pops. as the cped-informed edd both engenders a particular frame of reference into the perceptions of its graduates and grants those graduates the rights and privileges that accompany holding a doctoral degree, it is imperative that cpedinformed edd students develop an awareness of and cultural humility (tervalon & murray-garcia, 1998) regarding the frames of the network-level signature pedagogy of the cped framework itself. this signature pedagogy will influence their professional formation, judgment, and perception moving forward in their careers as educational leaders. the frames of the heart, hand, and mind shulman (2005) lists three primary frames to consider when examining how a signature pedagogy transforms the perceptions and judgment of students. these three frames have been integrated into the cped framework. shulman (2005) calls these the frames of the heart, hand, and mind. in other words, signature pedagogies cause us to consider: (1) our heart, which refers to the ethos we bring to our practice and, transcending ourselves, the ethe we encounter in our practice, (2) our hand, which refers to the technical structure of our engagement in practice, and transcending ourselves, our commitments to the institutional logic that coordinates our efforts with the efforts of others, and (3) our mind, which refers to how we must learn to challenge the assumptions we have come to hold through our formal and informal participation in the education of our lives, and transcending ourselves, the various theoretical and sometimes disconcerting frames of academic scholarship. each of these frames can support a transcendent understanding of the field of education, serving as a kind of library through which to access and organize generated knowledge. it is also possible that these frames can become culturally encapsulating (huebner et al., 2020; bergkamp & ponsford, 2020), cutting off the possibility of complex understanding by confining the sense-making of our perceptions to a single frame. the frame of the heart the cped-informed edd program fosters the development of leaders within the field of education. unlike the ideal of objective detachment that has been traditional in disciplinary scholarship, leadership requires direct personal, subjective engagement. this means that cped-informed edd students are expected to bring to bear on their studies what phenix (1964) calls a synnoetic frame derived from their experience as a person interacting directly with others in the field of education. these synnoetic frames allow cpedinformed edd candidates to learn to be living bridges between theory and practice. at the same time, however, not every member of the education community will pursue an edd; those who do represent a kind of elite as they are afforded the rights and privileges that accompany holding a doctorate. thus, there is a responsibility for cped-informed edd students to come to know their own synnoetic frame explicitly and to understand how their personal experience and outlook will come to influence the field of education as a whole. failure to become self-aware in this way represents a potential source of encapsulation. the frame of the hand cped-informed edd programs typically draw their students from a pool of candidates with several years of professional experience in the field as educators. this professional experience has formed a practical frame reliant on the specific institutional logic of the organizations from whence the population of edd students is drawn. through these practical frames, edd students can both envision the complex nature of the pops they learn to identify and propose solutions that are compatible with the agency needed to carry those solutions out. at the same time, however, induction into the institutional logic of a professional workplace also represents another potential source of encapsulation that the edd student must resist in structuring their dip by adopting a critical stance. the frame of the mind as noted above, the conventional phd is typically situated in a single frame, and the impetus towards mimicking the academic specialization endemic to the structure of the university is something that cped-informed edd programs intentionally push back on. the accumulated knowledge that has been rendered accessible through disciplinary inquiry represents a true treasure trove for the scholarly development of practitioners who undertake their doctoral studies in cped-informed edd programs. at the same time, however, academic specialization within a single theoretical frame represents one potential source of encapsulation that the cped-informed edd candidate must resist in structuring their dips. the cped framework as a network signature pedagogy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.349 47 frame alignment vs frame analysis: two contrasting approaches to structuring a dip in this essay, i am not arguing that routinizing the program design of the edd through the cped framework into the established habits of the heart, hand, and mind will result in encapsulation, but i do think we must be aware of the risk that this may occur and take intentional steps to counter that risk. as shulman (2005) writes: [e]veryone understands the danger of routine, but routine also has great virtues. learning to do complex things in a routine manner permits both students and teachers to spend far less time figuring out the rules of engagement, thereby enabling them to focus on increasingly complex subject matter (p. 56). shulman (2005) also notes that while ideal signature pedagogies encompass the frames of the mind, hand, and heart; in practice, it is easy for at least one of these frames to be neglected in program design. as the cped initiative moves forward in its development and discussion, the various tensions between the frames of the heart, hand, and mind will continue to influence the various considerations that go into designing cped-informed edd programs. one approach is to design the program in such a way as to bring the various aspects of the cped framework into what is described by snow et al. (1986) as frame alignment. pape et al. (2022) describe an effort in their program to align the frames of the mind and of the heart to the frame of the hand. this is accomplished through an institutional requirement that “students identify an executive sponsor within their organization” (p. 60) when proposing a pop as part of their admission into the program. the executive sponsor promotes frame alignment by ensuring “that the pop matched the concerns of the organization” (p. 60). the executive sponsor requirement also helps “the student in navigating organizational barriers… [and ensures] the support of the organization” (p. 60). frame alignment is powerful approach to program design, but vigilance is necessary. when we seek to align conflicting frames, we risk subordinating one to the other. for example, in the approach described by pape et al. (2022), the ultimate power to frame pops is granted to the executive branch of partnering institutions (the frame of the hand), which raises the risk that the edd candidate will become encapsulated in that frame. in addition to an impetus towards frame alignment, i think there is also value in exploring how various frames laminated onto the same strips of activity can key situational interpretations that diverge and conflict in their meaningfulness. frame alignment allows for cped-informed edd students to focus primarily on improving a situation. this means there is a clear normative framework within which improvement can be measured. i believe we must ask who is empowered to key this normative framework. the frame analysis approach described in this essay is a tool that can be used to do so as it allows for cped-informed edd students to focus primarily on discerning what normative interpretations are at play (or to use goffman’s (1986) terminology – what frames are being laminated within a situation. looking inward i began this essay by describing the cped framework as a network-level signature pedagogy. according to shulman (2005), who coined the idea of a signature pedagogy, the signature of a profession’s pedagogy is the frame that it instills into the profession’s practitioners. this frame is not dogmatic or static, but rather is generated in part by the students themselves as they interact with the architecture of their education (wenger-trayner & wengertrayner, 2015). as the cped initiative expands the meaning of what the doctorate of education encompasses, practitioners of an expanding number of professions are being enfranchised through the engagement with scholarship that the cped-informed edd entails. each of these professions represents a unique frame that keys the meaningfulness of the various strips of activity in which edd students engage in myriad ways. as we, the cped community, continue to discuss and develop the cped framework, i am sure that a variety of alignments will emerge and shift over time. as our scope expands, the tensions and frictions generated by multiple frames will sometimes feed the impetus toward frame alignment. by contrast, when frame alignment becomes reductive and exclusionary, it will again be time to recommit to frame analysis. reviewing the discussion and development of the cped framework over the past decade and a half already provides evidence that this type of pendulum swing has already begun to occur in various ways. i hope that the frame analysis approach that i have described in this essay will also contribute to the forward discussion and development of cped framework, giving us ways of seeing how a strip of activity framed as a pop for one member of the network might be framed as a cherished solution for another member of the network. in promoting diversity within the cped framework as well as alignment, i wanted to offer the following way of thinking about the various signatures of cped-informed pedagogies. we can think of the cped framework as a signature pedagogy at a network level. within that network, there are many different programs, and each program laminates its own signature to the overarching pedagogy of the cped initiative. the frames imputed by these various signatures differ, keying the strips of activity by which edd students engage in the common elements of the cped framework to slightly different tunes of meaningfulness. zooming in further, the individual professors within the programs and the students they interact with also laminate on further signatures to the pedagogy of the cped initiative. thus, depending on the level of specificity with which we view the cped initiative, it can be conceived of as both a unified whole representing a normative framework within which improvements can be made as well as a dynamic field of conflicting and complementary frames in productive tension with each other through which we can discern deeper understandings about the field of education as a whole. for an image of how to hold both ideas in mind at once, consider looking at the unified object you might perceive as a single droplet of river water when you view it through the naked eye (a lower level of specification); now, imagine the diversity of microscopic life you might find when viewing that same droplet through a microscope (a higher level of specification). the view of signature pedagogies i am suggesting here, with this function of levels of specification, is similar to the hierarchical organization of analysis found in ecology, with each level of analysis constituting a component unit of a more abstract level (pavé, 2006). for example, in ecology, the community is a component unit of the landscape, while populations are a component unit of communities, organisms are a component unit of populations, and so forth. evans (1956) argues that the ecosystem be considered the basic unit of evans impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.349 48 ecological analysis. “in any given case, the particular level on which the ecosystem is being studied can be specified with a qualifying adjective-for example, community ecosystem, population ecosystem, and so forth” (p. 1127). this is the treatment i propose we apply to signature pedagogies and frames when discussing the development of the cped initiative and when analyzing pops in order to capture their varied, ecological nature. in the case of signature pedagogies, the hierarchy of organization i am suggesting can be thought of as follows: professors advise committees and design courses (advisor-level), courses are integrated into a course of study (course-level), the course of study is institutionalized over time into a program (program-level), and programs network with each other (networklevel). at each level, the organizing unit (advisor, course, program, network, etc.) leaves a signature upon the pedagogy generated and another lamination of meaningfulness. as shulman (2005) notes in the article in which he coined the term, “signature pedagogies are both pervasive and routine, cutting across topics and courses, programs and institutions” (p. 56). looking outward as noted at the beginning of the paper, the cped framework fosters both an identity of scholarly practice and of stewardship through a focus on using multiple frames and on solving pops. for programs or students that primarily adopt a frame analysis approach to structuring dips, it is necessary to consider how an element of frame alignment can be laminated in. welch (2013) elaborates on an intriguing design for accomplishing this, using “yes” to affirm the concerns of the teachers she leads and discern the various frames in play while using “and” to laminate them. welch (2013) reserves the act of frame alignment for after this “yes, and” process and attributes it to the leadership of generating a consonance of frame. similarly, for programs or students that primarily adopt a frame alignment approach to structuring dips, it is necessary to consider how an element of frame analysis can be laminated in. for example, i used the program design described by pape et al. (2022) to highlight the frame alignment approach above. at the same time, however, the discipline of improvement science around which they construct their program design does laminate in an opportunity for edd candidates to engage in frame analysis under its third core principle: “see the system that produces the current outcomes” (cfat, 2023). as students in cped-informed edd programs enter the candidacy phase of their studies, they will have proposed a pop. whether they choose a frame alignment approach or a frame analysis approach, the hierarchy of organization i suggest above is likely to be useful. as we look outwards from the cped initiative into the pops situated in this variety of fields, we might do well to consider organizations similarly to how i presented the network-level signature pedagogy of the cped framework above namely, as complex and conflicted spaces that have multiple laminated frames at various levels of specificity, each of which informs how the organization as a whole understands itself. just as i suggested we describe the various signatures of the pedagogy of the cped framework by the multiple levels at which those signatures are generated, edd candidates can do the same for the frames they identify in the pops they frame in their dip endeavors. to the extent that the organizations or initiatives we engage with can be considered unified wholes, there will be some aspects in which the frames and the signatures of a pedagogy we take note of align, allowing for improvement to be measured within a single frame. at the same time, there will also be aspects in which these frames and signatures diverge, meaning that we must analyze the field to discern how the various laminated frames interact and produce emergent, and perhaps unexpected outcomes. conclusion my hope is that this essay will contribute to the considerations available to edd candidates grappling with how to “blend practical wisdom with professional skills to name, frame, and solve problems of practice” (cped, 2022., para no. 7) while also upholding the responsibilities of stewards of the field of education by engaging in “field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions.” (cped, 2022., para no. 5). i see frame alignment as situated within the identity of scholarly practice. a scholarly practitioner understands how the frames that have been laminated onto a strip of activity align and can use this understanding to chart a course towards improvement. by contrast, i see frame analysis as situated within the identity of stewardship. a steward understands how a variety of frames can structure the meaningfulness of a single strip of activity in radically different ways and can use this understanding to help stakeholders discern each other’s intentions more clearly. in other words, sometimes, it will be important for edd candidates to lean into their roles as scholarly practitioners, stepping in to engage deeply with promoting an alignment of frames toward a specific goal, and sometimes it will be important for edd candidates to take the broad view in their roles as stewards (perry, 2013), stepping back to consider how the ecology of the field as a whole is interacting towards emergent patterns of its own. references bergkamp, j., & ponsford, m. 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(2015). learning in a landscape of practice: a framework. in e. wenger-trayner, m. fenton-o-creavy, s. hutchinson, c. kubiak, & b. wenger-trayner (eds.), learning in landscapes of practice: boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning. routledge. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027998 https://doi.org/10.2307/2095581 https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2010.0233 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 55 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.425 reclaiming the education doctorate: a guidebook for preparing scholarly practitioners book review veselina s. lambrev university of south florida veselina@usf.edu jill alexa perry: reclaiming the education doctorate: a guidebook for preparing scholarly practitioners. myers education press, 2023. 175pp. paperback: $35.95. isbn 978-1975504915 the professional practice doctorate in education (edd) aims to develop students as scholarly practitioners or individuals who use theory and research to address pressing educational issues. faculty members working with edd students are tasked with designing their programs in ways that integrate academic knowledge with the professional expertise of students. edd programs have evolved significantly since their inception in 1920. originally designed to equip educational administrators with the credentials essential for career advancement, the initial edd programs faced criticism due to their unclear focus and structure. this ambiguity has fueled academic debate and confusion surrounding the edd for nearly a century. in the early 2000s, levine (2005) offered a critique, asserting that the majority of edd programs in the us did not provide educational leaders with the necessary skills for conducting and applying research for improvement of practice. in addressing the criticism, shulman et al. (2006) proposed a series of steps to redefine the edd as a professional practice doctorate serving the needs of educational leaders who need to use evidence in practice. these steps include enhancing graduates’ research capacities with a focus on local issues, strengthening the connection between research and practice, and promoting collaboration, equity, and ethics. for those involved in edd programs, including faculty, students, and program developers, the ongoing debate on the philosophy and purpose of the edd is well known. however, despite recent sources that shed light on the degree’s evolution, there has been a notable absence of a comprehensive guide to assist faculty members in their edd program (re)design efforts. perry’s book, reclaiming the education doctorate: a guidebook for preparing scholarly practitioners, emerges as the first complete, step-by-step guide for designing and improving edd programs. it utilizes the framework of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), the leading international consortium in the contemporary edd field, to create a practical guide for faculty members and institutions interested in establishing an edd program that nurtures scholarly practitioners. perhaps the strongest feature of the book lies in its central argument that focuses on the necessity for edd programs to purposefully engage in design and improvement process. first, the book highlights the need for each institution to engage in intentional planning and consideration of its specific context. as the next step, the book guides the reader through the historical context and ongoing debates surrounding the edd, as an area that has long been unexamined. this sets a clear and thoughtful framework for conceptualizing the edd as a professional doctoral degree. through the adoption of the (re)design concept, the book articulates a practical and useful approach for both establishing edd programs and enhancing existing ones. this approach aims to avoid the historical confusion that linked the edd to a traditional research doctorate. instead, the chapters offer a backward mapping strategy for the development of edd programs, applicable both in the us and internationally. a unique feature of reclaiming the education doctorate is its conceptualization of the edd as an improvement project, specifically developed with the practitioner in mind. this innovative approach is intertwined into the ten chapters, providing readers with a lens focused on improvement. beginning with an exploration of the history of the edd, the first chapters delve into the origins of the confusion surrounding the degree. the narrative reveals how this confusion not only altered the purpose of the edd but also led to the establishment of institutional systems, both in the united states and abroad, that perpetuated the confusion. in the third chapter, attention is directed toward the establishment of cped and its mission to transform the doctorate into an advanced professional degree for educational practitioners. the objective is to understand the new edd by establishing a theory of change for reviving it. this chapter not only presents a systematic model of restoring the degree but also adeptly presents a model of a theory of change. this model can serve as a valuable guide for edd faculty and program developers is establishing their own program’s theory of change. readers are encouraged to keep the cped framework in mind and refer to this chapter as a resource during the process of defining their program goals and objectives. following the presentation of the edd (re)design process as an improvement project and an exploration of the problem’s roots, chapters five through eight construct a backward mapping of the https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3622-6485 lambrev impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.425 56 process for establishing an edd program, utilizing the cped framework as a foundational guide. in chapter five, the concept of the scholarly practitioner takes center stage as a main objective of edd preparation, and the role of the dissertation in practice in shaping scholarly practitioners is discussed. chapters six focuses on the formulation of the curriculum necessary for preparing graduates, while chapter seven emphasizes the importance of the admissions process. building upon this framework, chapter eight then offers insights into best practices for supporting students throughout the program. the last chapters of the book reflect on the (re)design process, exploring how the cped framework has been effectively implemented. chapter nine presents studies that have examined and assessed the ongoing change process, highlighting key program features such as the significance of context, the diversity of signature pedagogies, and various models of the dissertation in practice. finally, chapter ten is specifically tailored for faculty members as agents of change, offering guidance and ideas on establishing their programs, seeking support from colleagues and leadership, and safeguarding against burnout. in addition, faculty members, administrators, and students will find the additional reading materials and discussion questions at the end of each chapter valuable. these questions serve as a step-bystep guide for group discussions, aiding faculty in aligning their program goals and mission with cped’s design framework. they provide a roadmap for a (re)design process that caters to the unique needs of their students. a helpful feature in the next edition would be the inclusion of notes or brief blank spaces for the reader to generate their own questions for discussion. i would love to see a template for faculty members to include their notes and reflections in order to build their own (re)design process. in conclusion, having served as a former edd graduate assistant and program manager, and now as a faculty member, i find the book’s emphasis on supporting faculty in edd programs particularly intriguing. the underlying theme of the book, accentuating the needs of student practitioners, makes it an invaluable resource for both students and faculty members engaged in edd programs striving for continuous improvement. jill perry’s reclaiming the education doctorate is crafted in an engaging and systematic way, offering comprehensive information and step-bystep guidance for the development of strong and relevant edd programs. references levine, a. (2005). educating school leaders. the education schools project. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 55 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 from room to zoom: co-constructing doctoral community in pandemic and post-pandemic times enda donlon dublin city university enda.donlon@dcu.ie fiona king dublin city university fiona.king@dcu.ie abstract in early 2020, the introduction of covid-19 restrictions meant that doctoral programmes which depended on face-to-face models for teaching, learning, and interaction needed to quickly reconsider their established practices. of particular concern was the impact of pandemic restrictions upon the development of a sense of community among doctoral scholars. this article considers the experiences, opinions, and perceptions of one cohort of students regarding the development and facilitation of a sense of community in their professional doctorate programme at a time of unparalleled restrictions around in-person congregation. the findings indicate that students were predominantly positive about both student-led and staff-led initiatives to foster and maintain a sense of community, with the strongest sense of community occurring at the specialism level. arising from these findings, the article reflects broadly on the effectiveness and value of these community-building activities and their continued relevance for subsequent iterations of the programme in the post-pandemic near-future. keywords professional doctorate, doctoral study, doctor of education, sense of community, covid-19 introduction while undertaking doctoral study is undoubtedly a hugely rewarding experience for many people (leonard et al., 2005), it is also widely acknowledged to be one which presents many challenges along the way (owens et al., 2020); in the words of janta, lugosi, and brown (2014), the doctoral process is “an emotional and multi-faceted journey of becoming a scholar” (p. 553). much has been written about the factors that can impact doctoral student progression and completion rates, as evidenced through a number of systematic reviews that have synthesized these issues from across multiple publications. for instance, sverdlik et al. (2018) reviewed 163 papers in considering the factors that influence phd students’ completion, achievement, and wellbeing, and found that a number of external factors (including personal and social ones, as well as departmental support and socialization) and internal factors (such as motivational variables and academic identity) are likely to influence doctoral students across disciplines and institutional types. similarly, schmidt and hansson’s (2018) literature review of 17 studies highlights a number of challenges that doctoral students face which can impact their well-being; this includes high attrition rates, challenges in maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and mental fatigue. a number of these issues become further pronounced for students who choose to undertake doctoral study on a part-time basis. a common challenge is voiced by watts (2008), for instance, who identifies that one of the main challenges for part-time students is the strain of having to make the psychological adjustment of constantly switching from one mindset to another [as a result of] balancing a range of personal and work commitments that will influence both their study behaviour and development as a researcher (p. 370) resulting in what she refers to as a “fractured student identity” of parttime doctoral students. gardner and gopaul (2012) echo this and highlight that “the balance these students feel they have to strike is profoundly different and significantly more intense than their full-time peers” (p. 69), as such students usually hold full-time employment in addition to the family and other life commitments that other doctoral students hold. these issues are particularly pronounced in professional educational doctorate programmes where candidates often hold professional leadership roles in schools or organizations while engaging in their studies (geesa et al., 2023). the need for support of and among such students is therefore of paramount importance and is well recognized in the literature (owens et al., 2020). such support is often conceptualized in two inter-related formats. the first of these is institutional support, which is understandably and widely acknowledged to be of critical importance for doctoral students (posselt, 2018) and where the role of the supervisor and the significance of the student-supervisor https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2817-9033 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5749-1435 donlon & king impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 56 relationship is of particular relevance (jones, 2013). beyond faculty and academic support, however, the importance of non-academic supports for doctoral students is also of significance, particularly with regard to issues of well-being and mental health (waight & giordano, 2018). the role played by social support has also proven to be significant (peltonen et al., 2017). jairam and kahl (2012), for instance, highlight two key findings from the literature regarding the role of social support and its impact on the successful completion of a doctoral degree: first, that while doctoral students’ social support networks do often include academic staff, they also include family members and peers, and second, that students with more social support tend to experience less stress, health problems, emotional problems, and have better success rates than those with less social support. similarly, mantai (2019) finds that social support for doctoral students extends beyond the institutional research environment and includes outside support from family, friends, and online communities, and that such social support promotes students’ researcher identity development, sense of belonging, and of particular interest for the current paper, sense of community. sense of community the significance and value of a sense of community among students of doctoral programmes has long been recognized for both phds and professional doctorates (pilbeam & denyer, 2009), and in particular, as one of the main sources of support for doctoral students (berry, 2017; kumar et al., 2011; white & nonnamaker, 2008). among the most popular frameworks for research on the concept of community in doctoral programmes is that of community of practice (wenger, 1998). for instance, authors such as leshem (2007) identify this framework as holding particular relevance for those doctoral programmes that adopt a cohort-based approach, while others have highlighted specific elements of the framework, such as the concept of legitimate peripheral participation and how this relates to part-time doctoral students (teeuwsen et al., 2014). the community of inquiry (garrison et al., 1999) framework has also found much favor with regard to doctoral programmes which are provided through fully or partly online means, particularly in terms of its key concepts of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence (kumar et al., 2011; lambrev & cruz, 2021). others have argued, however, that applying any one definition to the term community can prove challenging and that students often do not belong to any one categorization of community but may in fact belong to several different communities (or sub-communities) at the same time. for instance, white and nonnamaker (2008) argue that “the concept of community in higher education is broadly defined and spans departments, functional areas, divisions, and even institutions” (p. 351). their study of science doctoral students explored the ways in which membership of different subcommunities (or nested communities) provided a sense of support. white and nonnamaker found that doctoral students received support from their relationships in five different groups: the general discipline or subdiscipline and the overall professional field as the outermost or most broad community, the institution as a second community, the academic department level as third, the lab (where relevant), and finally, the community formed by students’ relationships with their advisor. in a similar vein, berry (2017) utilized a nested communities theoretical framework to explore student support networks in online doctoral programmes and identified four subgroups that informed online doctoral students’ sense of community: cohort, class groups, small peer groups, and study groups, each of which provided academic, social, and emotional support. thus, in the current exploratory study, we were drawn more to sense of community for our investigation rather than to any specific community type, and in this regard, the seminal work of mcmillan and chavis (1986) is significant where they define sense of community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (p. 9). more recently, rovai (2002) proposes that classroom (be that physical or virtual) sense of community can be conceptualized in terms of four dimensions: spirit, trust, interaction, and commonality of expectation and goals (learning). the first of these, spirit, denotes recognition of membership in a community and the feelings of friendship, cohesion, and bonding that develop among learners, which in turn allow them to challenge and nurture each other. the second aspect, trust, is as the name suggests, the feeling that members of the community can be trusted and relied on. rovai’s (2002) third element is that of learner interaction, which is seen as “an essential element of, but not the full solution to, the development of a sense of community” (p. 5). drawing on the work of hare and davis (1994), rovai (2002) considers this from two perspectives: task-driven interaction, and socio-emotional-driven interaction. taskdriven interaction occurs on the part of the teacher and refers to programmatic and learning design aspects such as instructorgenerated discussion topics and designing peer assessments. socio-emotional-driven interaction, on the other hand, is largely selfgenerated by the students within the community and consists of (for example) exchanging empathetic messages and engaging in selfdisclosure with other members of the community, which can in turn strengthen the sense of community. the fourth and final element proposed by rovai (2002) is that of common expectations and in the case of an educational context, refers to the shared commitment among participants to a common educational purpose; “learning represents the common purpose of the community as members of the community grow to value learning and feel that their educational needs are being satisfied through active participation in the community” (p. 6). in the same way that the overall concept of support is often broadly categorized as either faculty driven or more socially driven in nature, development of a sense of community can be conceptualized in a similar manner. for instance, programmatic design measures have proven fruitful for creating a sense of community for online doctoral programmes. buss and wolf (2021) outline a number of built-in programme components that are designed to foster and sustain community among students of their professional doctorate programme; these include a leadership challenge fishbowl which is designed “to foster development of collaboration and leadership skills and to build community” (p. 49), and a doctoral research conference (drc) to share and receive feedback on ongoing doctoral research. similarly, lively et al. (2021) outline how they developed “purposeful programmatic structures focused around building community” (p. 29); they found that the use of immersion experiences, strong support services, synchronous live sessions, and relationships formed with programme staff all contributed to a sense of community for students in their online professional doctorate programme. lively et al. (2021) note that “the collaboration that results in a sense of community in the edd program is not happenstance; instead, it was intentionally planned and cultivated in a variety of ways by program faculty and staff” (p. 26). co-constructing doctoral community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 57 notwithstanding such purposeful planning on the part of staff, studebaker and curtis (2021) also point out that “building cohort connections does not require faculty involvement to be successful” (p. 23). in their study of an online doctoral programme, students reported a sense of community in having a cohort group chat using online platforms and while this was encouraged by staff, these were “fully student-led initiatives that provide students with the ability to interact in real time with anyone in the cohort who chooses to be involved without the faculty present” (studebaker & curtis, 2021, p. 23). berry (2019) found that “students were part of a thriving, highly interactive social group” (p. 68) which was facilitated by social media (facebook) and group messaging apps such as whatsapp and groupme that helped students establish social presence and contributed to a sense of community in an online doctoral programme. elsewhere, sum (2022) outlines how a student-led group (the phd society) “engaged doctoral researchers to 1) build a community, 2) foster digital wellbeing, and 3) overcome the perceived barriers faced whilst actively maintaining the enthusiasm and motivation they once had when applying to graduate school” (p. 2). during covid-19 lockdowns, the group pivoted to online means and hosted regular short online coffee meet-ups, as well as inviting all doctoral students within the institution to join a phd whatsapp group at the start of their first year. thus, the literature suggests that co-construction of a sense of community in doctoral programmes can occur through a combination of staff-led and student-led activities, and that this can be achieved via face-to-face and online (or a blend of the two) formats. this can be captured in the following conceptual framework, which will be used to guide our study. (a) sense of community (mcmillan & chavis, 1986), gravitating towards rovai’s (2002) definition as it factors in co-construction (i.e. staff-led [task-driven interaction] and student-led [socio-emotional-driven interaction] factors) and can relate to both physical and virtual settings. (b) nested communities (berry, 2017; white & nonnamaker, 2008). the nested communities we wished to investigate mirrored the nested structure of our programme which sees specialisms embedded within the overall edd; thus we explored sense of community at (a) specialism level and (b) programme level. (c) online / blended approaches for facilitation of community within professional doctoral programmes (buss & wolf, 2021; lively et al., 2021). this conceptual framework is expressed graphically in figure 1 (below): figure 1. conceptual framework with that in mind, we move now to a closer consideration of the programme at the centre of the current study, and the measures that were undertaken to develop and maintain that sense of community at a time of unparalleled disruption. study context this study takes place at the institute of education (ioe), dublin city university (dcu). the doctor of education (edd) programme at dcu is a part-time cohort-based programme with an intake of approximately 45 students every two years. it is structured around a number of specialisms, known as areas of professional focus (apfs), which address specific disciplinary areas such as inclusive and special education, digital learning, and education for sustainable futures. the first two years of the programme consist of taught modules, commencing with a week-long summer school in year 1 and then progressing with a number of weekends throughout the rest of year 1 and in year 2, whereby students take a mix of apfspecific modules and modules that are common to all students across apfs. during year 2, a particular emphasis is placed on refining each student’s research proposal for their doctoral thesis, and following successful completion of their second year, students are assigned a supervisory team and spend the remainder of their programme (usually 2-3 years) writing their edd thesis. prior to the pandemic of 2020, the edd programme was structured almost exclusively around face-to-face, in-person gathering for teaching and learning, for work in progress sessions, and for social events organized by the faculty. on the 12th of march 2020, however, life as we knew it in the republic of ireland was altered dramatically when the then taoiseach (prime minister) addressed the nation and announced that “schools, colleges, and childcare facilities will close from tomorrow [and that] where possible, teaching will be done on-line or remotely” (varadkar, 2020). while these restrictions were initially for a short-term timeframe of two weeks, it soon became obvious that the continuously unfolding events of early and mid-2020 would mean that the next intake of students (scheduled for august 2020) would have a significantly different experience which would consist predominantly (if not entirely) of online provision and participation. thus, like other faculty and coordinators of predominantly face-toface doctoral programmes, we began the arduous process of transitioning our teaching practices to fully online means (cullinane et al., 2022) but were also conscious of the importance of creating that all-important sense of community for and among our students in this time of unprecedented challenge, and that we would need to find alternative means of doing so (webber et al., 2022). while not a path we ourselves had walked before, the use of online means for the facilitation of doctoral programmes is now well established (lee et al., 2022; melián et al., 2023). students of fully online or blended programmes are no less susceptible to a number of the challenges outlined earlier in this paper for those engaging in face-to-face programmes, such as the dangers of isolation, stress, and negative impact on wellbeing in their pursuit of a doctorate, and are likewise in need of support systems in helping them overcome such challenges (berry, 2019; deshpande, 2016; hazell et al., 2020). a difference, however, is that born digital doctoral programmes tend to have mechanisms pre-designed into them for supporting students through community facilitation via digital technologies (buss & wolf, 2021). it was clear that we could learn from such programmes as we began to adapt our own for the challenging time that lay ahead. donlon & king impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 58 one new development at staff level was coffee and conversations, an online gathering to be hosted by the edd programme chair. these weekly sessions were scheduled to take place via zoom at a set time and were deliberately loosely structured in nature; the objective was to provide a space to talk about anything and to meet with fellow students and chat informally. in contrast, while we were conscious of the potential of student-led initiatives in developing a sense of community among doctoral students (for instance, rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2014), the decision was taken to not establish such networks as a staff-led initiative, or via institutional means such as the programme’s virtual learning environment, but rather to allow students the freedom to use whatever technologies they wish and to construct any online groups in whatever manner they decided upon, without faculty involvement (studebaker & curtis, 2021). following a year of fully-online engagement for year 1 of the programme, pandemic restrictions had relaxed sufficiently to allow a blended approach to year 2, whereby students visited the campus for both their opening (weekend 1) and closing (weekend 6) lectures, while the intervening weekends (2-5) occurred online. methodology this study sets out to consider the experiences, opinions, and perceptions of one cohort of students at dcu regarding the development and facilitation of a sense of community in their professional doctorate programme at a time of unparalleled restrictions around in-person congregation. online questionnaires were chosen for their acknowledged advantage of being able to reach participants from a wide geographical area (lefever et al., 2007), which was essential in this case due to covid-19 restrictions. in designing the survey, the authors were conscious of the recommendations of saleh and bista (2017) who examined the factors that influence education graduate students’ responses to online surveys; this included the distribution of the survey by a known authority figure (in this case, the edd programme chair), crafting a survey that is short and concise, assuring the participants of the anonymity and confidentiality of their responses, and in particular, being aware of the time constraints related to time-of-year for the target population (in this case, year 2 students at the conclusion of their second academic year). thus, the survey was anonymous in design, with focused questions that were predominantly open in nature. participants were invited to engage in the study via an open email invitation; 27 responses were received from a possible total of 35 students, giving a response rate of 77%. text-based responses from the online survey were first coded deductively using the conceptual framework that guides this study, followed by inductive thematic analysis because of its acknowledged suitability for the analysis of open-ended responses in online surveys (braun et al., 2021). ethical approval for the study was sought and obtained from the university’s research ethics committee. findings this section utilizes the nested communities component of the conceptual framework as the primary structure for presentation of findings, while considering student opinions of their co-constructed (student-led and staff-led) sense of community at these two different levels, with reference to the online and blended approaches taken in order to facilitate this. area of professional focus (apf) level student-led from the outset it was immediately clear that the student population had been proactive in creating structures to develop a sense of community at the apf level. unsurprisingly (given pandemic restrictions around in-person congregation), the use of digital technologies proved central to this, with all but two survey respondents referring to the use of such technologies. the platform most often named was that of whatsapp, and while many of these responses simply named “whatsapp”, others elaborated on this and used terms such as “support” and “connection”: “i believe we have a good support network (whatsapp group)” and “we have a whatsapp group and it really helps us to keep the connection”. one respondent in particular made clear how the use of whatsapp created a sense of cohesion among the apf members: “we have a lovely whatsapp so everyone has become a tight knit group. we share fears around submission time, we share ideas and resources, we share our own thinking and everyday experiences”. respondents referred to zoom and how this was used to help create a sense of community at the apf level; for instance, “we had a very successful community where we meet once a week on zoom, facilitated by one of our peers”. other responses spoke in more general terms about the use of digital technologies; for instance, “we established a very effective online group” and “informal online weekly meet-ups offered a space for sharing ideas” as well as more generic terms such as “social network”. through just under half of the responses, it became clear that students employed a combination of both whatsapp and zoom to facilitate this sense of community among themselves. for example: we had a whatsapp group for our apf and for the edd programme. we have sent messages and updates and general stuff this way and we have had online meetings on zoom throughout the year as an apf where all members were invited to participate. this was a good way of establishing a rapport and of discussing where everyone was at and offering each other support. weekly meetings appeared to be the most common frequency for zoom meetings at the apf level. notably among the responses submitted, each one indicated a sense of community occurring at the apf level. a number of comments also illustrated that this was often through collaborations that were driven by the students themselves; for instance “i got the first zoom meeting off the ground” and “we set up our own weekly zoom calls and whatsapp group”. one respondent commented that “to be honest that is really up to us as students”, while another reflected that “it didn't take much encouragement to form a sense of community in our group”. although less frequent, comments also occurred with regard to the in-person aspect of the blended approach taken in year 2 and how this also contributed to a sense of community at the apf level. one student, for instance, reflected that “the weekends in dublin are important too as we would have gone out for a bite to eat as an apf and this was good for getting to know each other too”, while another co-constructing doctoral community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 59 valued “the face-to-face dinners/drinks where we got to chat at length”. staff-led a number of comments also spoke positively about staff-led aspects which related to creating a sense of community at the apf level: “from day one our apf lecturer created a sense of community by the warm and welcoming presence”. several comments referred to a strong social aspect to the online sessions, usually before the “academic” part commenced; for instance, “the chats before the online zooms”, “coming online early to encourage chat”, and “chats on zoom ahead of classes”. in particular, a high number of comments referred to staff being approachable and how this contributed to a sense of community: staff were always very friendly, helpful and supportive … oneto-one, personal and motivating email responses from [name] as the apf lead, and the understanding, considerate and kind messages during the pandemic … approachability of lecturers; highly supportive tone of emails … staff made themselves available which is really important. student respondents also pointed to a number of learning design aspects of the apf modules that they considered contributed positively to development of a sense of community. several referred to the approaches taken by academic staff to facilitation of the online sessions; for instance, “the relaxed atmosphere made it feel like a safe space in which to ask questions and to openly discuss thoughts and ideas”, “democratic manner, acknowledging contexts and expertise, convivial”. the use of discussion (in the synchronous online sessions via zoom) was highlighted on several occasions: “group discussions, always in a safe and respected environment” and “discussions this group is very good at listening to and helping each other. discussions were very helpful because we were very comfortable being honest with each other no prima donnas!”. asynchronous discussion was also highlighted by some students: “effective use of the forum on moodle” and “the discussion forums were a great way for us to get to know each other and where we were coming from, there was always the sense that everyone's opinion mattered”. other learning design factors were mentioned less frequently; for instance, “the use of jam boards and small group breakout rooms, podcasts and loop reflect have all enhanced my learning experience and allowed me to get to know my colleagues on the course at a much more meaningful level” and “presenting to peers and receiving support in a community of practice”. to a lesser extent (which may in part be representative of the fact that students spent a higher proportion of their two years engaging with the programme through online rather than in-person format), students also commented on a number of face-to-face aspects which had been facilitated by staff; for instance, “the apf face-to-face sessions in year 2 were great for encouraging involved discussions” and “face-to-face sessions by far helped with sense of community”. thus on balance, the evidence suggests that there was a strong sense of community at the apf level, via a combination of student-led and staff-led factors. this is perhaps crystalized particularly well through the words of one student: “the apf group that i belonged to i had a sense of belonging and commonality with the group i am with and i felt motivated throughout because i have found my tribe”. programme level student-led the indications of a sense of community at the wider programme level were different from those at the apf level. from a student-led perspective, online technologies again played a clear role at this level, with whatsapp being mentioned on almost a dozen occasions; for instance: “we have a whatsapp group to communicate with one another about matters relating to the course” and “a wider whatsapp group across the programme”. one comment in particular highlighted the value of such a student-only group existing at programme level: “through a student-only whatsapp group where concerns could be raised candidly and questions answered in a safe environment”. another commented that “regular check-ins with other students on whatsapp kept momentum going”. some particular activities were listed which students felt contributed to a sense of community at programme level. for instance: “early on a few of us started a readings group which has been invaluable”, “sharing materials and readings online in a shared folder”, and “sharing of backgrounds and understandings of experiences”. the class representatives (who sit on the programme board) were also highlighted as important in this regard: “the class reps also did a great job in keeping us updated as a community of learners and alerting us to what additional courses were available to us”. the survey responses reveal, however, that a number of students drew a distinction between the sense of community they experienced at the apf level and that which they experienced at wider edd group level. one, for instance, commented that “this was more difficult possibly because we did not meet face-to-face”, while another felt that they “didn’t really have a sense of community within the programme”, and another commented that “the move online in yr1 meant that i did not really get to know the wider group”. a small number of comments indicated that the respondent may have felt that their capacity to participate at both the apf level and programme level may have been limited; for instance, one voiced that “a full-scale whatsapp group was set up which we can contribute to. that's about as much as i feel i could do”. with regard to the in-person experiences of year 2, comments referring to student-led initiatives at programme level were again less frequent here than at apf level, although a couple did highlight “a few nights out” and “meeting before on-campus sessions informal get-togethers on fridays”. staff-led in terms of staff-led aspects which students reported as having contributed to a sense of community at the edd programme level, the most commonly-stated factor was “coffee and conversations”, the weekly, informal online drop-in session which is hosted by the programme chair and open to all edd students to attend. one respondent noted that the “wednesday afternoon coffees” helped create a sense of community “especially at the beginning”; others noted that “coffee and chat enabled a sense of belonging” and that “coffee and conversations was invaluable”. one comment highlighted that the coffee and conversations format facilitated communication beyond the level of the apf: “coffee and conversations: when i could make it, i usually got to speak with other colleagues outside of donlon & king impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 60 the apf which was very effective in terms of getting to know them and their research topics.” as was also seen at the apf level, a number of learning design aspects that were adopted by staff at programme level in core modules (attended by all students across the programme yearly cohort, regardless of apf) were highlighted by students, such as “random groups during discussions so that we had the opportunity to interact” and “informal conversations and groupwork activities”. the use of zoom breakout rooms was also noted in terms of use during these core modules: “the break-out rooms on zoom in year 1 [module] were great as you usually ended up with different people each time so it led to you knowing most people by the end of the course”. “group discussions about thesis topics” was also highlighted in the same way, and it was also noted that “discussion during common modules was the main source of this sense of community”. one comment highlighted how a lecturer in a core module had implemented a structure based on the apf groupings, and how this also enhanced the sense of community at the apf level: “the research groupings for [module] with [lecturer] was an excellent way of getting to know our fellow apf colleagues. it led to fortnightly meetings (on zoom) and really cemented the relationships within the group”. this was confirmed by another respondent who considered that “the group assignment created a real bond with the members of the group”. mirroring the pattern that emerged regarding student-led activities, some respondents expressed that their sense of community was not as strong at programme level as it was at the apf level. one student, for instance, commented that they “felt more of a disconnect from the wider group”, while another simply expressed that perhaps such community might be better unplanned for: “i think it happens best organically”. however, such comments were provided in a relatively abstract manner (such as presented here) and did not allude to any particular practice, activity, or wider programmatic factor. with regard to the blended nature of the second year, comments at the edd programme level relating to staff-led initiatives fell into two categories. some referred to the academic aspects of the in-person sessions, such as “it was good the day when we were presenting our thesis proposal that the apfs were split up as it gave us a chance to meet people we would have seen online at zoom lectures but never spoken to in person”. others referred to the nonacademic aspects of the in-person days on campus, including those occurring as part of the standard timetable (such as “tea breaks during the face to face sessions have been great to meet and get to know other edd students” and “the lunch that was supplied was a nice touch”), as well as additional social events that had been organized (“it was nice to have get-togethers on opening and last night of in-person gatherings” and “the social gatherings were really appreciated”). discussion the coronavirus pandemic placed unprecedented pressures on the structures, processes, and practices of education across the world. this article has considered the impact of this on a professional doctorate programme at a higher education institution in the republic of ireland and reported on the measures put in place by both staff and students to create and maintain a sense of community among doctoral students at a time when in-person gatherings were restricted. drawing upon a conceptual framework consisting of sense of community, nested communities, and the use of online and blended methods for facilitation of community within doctoral programmes, we analyzed the opinions of 27 edd students that were obtained via online questionnaire. with regard to the first aspect of our conceptual framework, we found the four elements of rovai’s (2002) definition for sense of community to be evident in student responses. in terms of the first of these (spirit, which includes feelings of friendship, cohesion, and bonding), it was clear that this was evident through a number of references to terms such as “rapport”, “connection”, “bond”, “relationships”, “friendship”, “tribe”, and, of course, “community”. the second element, trust, was also evident through student responses, with terms such as “safe and respected environment”, “share fears”, “safe space”, and “support network” occurring within responses, or as one respondent sums up, “relationships and connections we are a wonderful, supportive group”. rovai’s (2002) third element, learner interaction, is of particular interest as it relates to the co-construction of community between staff-led and student-led activities. at staff level, specially designed features such as coffee and conversations in the online space, as well as the organization of social gatherings to coincide with in-person weekends in year 2, were highlighted for their contributions to developing a sense of community. digital learning design features (such as zoom breakout rooms, group assignments and presentations, and in particular, group discussions) were also highlighted across the range of modules, as was “lecturer approachability” in general. from a student-led perspective, it is clear that the development of whatsapp groups, online zoom meetings, and (when possible) in-person meetings such as “nights out” and “informal get-togethers” have played a crucial role in the construction of a sense of community. finally, rovai’s (2002) fourth element of sense of community (common expectation, referring to shared commitment among participants to a common educational purpose) is evident through such comments as “we share ideas and resources”, “a few of us started a readings group,” and “sharing materials and readings online in a shared folder”, indicating a common focus in progressing along the doctoral journey. thus, these findings contribute further to the research base on the value of a strong sense of community as a source of support for doctoral students (for instance, kumar et al., 2011; lambrev & cruz, 2021; webber et al., 2022). carrying this sense of community forward to the second aspect of our conceptual framework, it emerged that students’ sense of community was not equal (or perhaps, not equal for all participants) across the two nested levels that we explored, with a sense of community being stronger at the apf level. such findings are consistent with the work of white and nonnamaker (2008) who found that doctoral students experience multiple communities of varying levels of salience within the doctoral journey and advise an awareness of this in terms of supporting students. it also aligns with berry’s (2017) exploration of an online doctoral programme which identified the presence of a number of nested communities within the wider doctoral community from which students could draw academic, social, and emotional support. berry’s (2017) recommendation that “practitioners should leverage technology and on-campus supports to promote extracurricular interactions” (p. 33) is echoed by the authors of the current article and brings us to the third aspect of our conceptual framework. with regard to this final element of our conceptual framework, the use of online and blended approaches for the facilitation of a co-constructing doctoral community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.387 61 sense of community in doctoral education, this article provides further evidence that such approaches can be effective. in particular, students utilized two particular technologies (whatsapp and zoom) to create a sense of community during times of unprecedented restrictions around in-person meetings, similar to the studies undertaken by berry (2019) and sum (2022). we also agree with the views of rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2014) that such communitybuilding initiatives being led by students can prove highly effective. notwithstanding this, effective learning design on the part of staff through their use of the institutional virtual learning environment as well as synchronous communication tools such as zoom and the facilities available within these emerged as an essential factor (cullinane et al., 2022; lee et al., 2022; lively et al., 2021). we undertook this study with a view to reflect upon the combined efforts of the staff and the students to create a sense of community at a time of unparalleled challenge. in this regard, the forced conditions of the pandemic (in terms of restrictions about inperson gathering) is worthy of comment (as others, such as webber et al., 2022, have done). some students felt that “the pandemic impacted this greatly!” and that “the onset of the pandemic hindered any opportunity to develop a sense of community.” others, however, suggested that the contributing pandemic factors may actually have resulted in a stronger bonding than might otherwise have been the case: the impact of covid in terms of attending college made it very difficult but i think it also made us much more cohesive as a group because we met regularly on zoom to check in with each other, support each other, share ideas / problems, or just chat about anything and everything. i don't think we would have gotten so tight with each other if we had college-based lectures the whole time. the pattern within the comments tends toward a combined approach to the development of a sense of community in two ways: first, the co-construction of community through a combination of staff-led and student-led factors and second, the use of both online and in-person formats. while a small number of comments suggested a preference for a “return to on-campus classes as much as possible,” the larger proportion (by far) was towards “mixed online and on-campus;” notably, no respondent expressed a view for moving to a fully online, or returning to a fully on-campus setting. some comments spoke about the blended format in a positive but general way, such as “i have thoroughly enjoyed the taught element and found the blended face-to-face and online great” and “blended learning was super”. others expanded on this and cited specific reasons, usually down to the practicalities of attending on-campus sessions; for instance, “the ability to do half of the course online i couldn't afford to come to dublin and stay 12 weekends,” and “the blended approach of year 2 was pivotal to my survival on the course [...] having the flexibility to be at home for some of the weekend sessions was incredibly helpful and made my ability to access the course so much more meaningful.” a number of comments offered suggestions as to how a blended approach might be implemented as we move forward. one suggestion, for instance, proposed that “if there is a move towards an online / blended learning programme, i would suggest the summer school and first weekend or two should be on campus to facilitate students meeting up and getting to know each other,” echoing perhaps the value of immersion experiences as described by lively et al. (2021) and of berry’s (2019) use of an inperson orientation to help students connect both online and offline. notwithstanding the generally positive findings of this paper, a number of limitations and areas for future research present. first, the current study captures only the student voice and does not include that of staff that teach in the programme or are tasked with programme design and administration; there is obvious benefit in gaining such a broader perspective on this issue. related to this, our investigation of co-creation of community focuses mainly on student and staff initiatives to co-create a sense of community among students only; the issue of a broader shared sense of community among and between students and staff also warrants investigation. finally, while our study has confirmed the usefulness of the concept of nested communities as a lens for exploration of our programme, we acknowledge that we looked only at two levels of nested communities: the apf level and the programme level. a broader exploration of nested communities would be welcome; this might include, for instance, moving beyond the programme and looking next at the broader doctoral/research community within the institute, and then to the level of the university in general, and beyond. this would align closer with the work of white and nonnamaker (2008) and the nested communities identified in their study, which begin with the level of advisor and radiate outwards to the level of discipline/sub-discipline professional field. another pertinent avenue for development with regard to nested communities is to adopt a more inductive approach to investigation, which would allow any categorization of sense of community to arise out of the data, rather than being applied from the outset, as was the approach taken by berry (2017) who identified nested communities of cohort, class groups, peer groups, and study groups among doctoral students. this would allow for the possibility of identifying more organically formed nested communities, such as small cross-apf clusters, study groups, or nested communities that are based on professional discipline or geography. conclusion as we move forward, the current findings provide much food for thought in terms of programmatic development and future learning design. though not something we had planned for or intended, the circumstances brought about by pandemic restrictions and the responses implemented by both staff and students alike, have provided a reflection point for us to consider the possibilities for longterm development of our programme. based on no small part of our experiences as documented in this article, the next intake of students is engaging in a blended model for both years 1 and 2, which adopts a balance of online and in-person formats. time will tell how this development unfolds and if we have struck the appropriate balance between room and zoom. references berry, s. 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education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.446 30 qualitative data in the driving seat: applying qualitative methods in high school siobhan reilley university of california, davis sireilley@ucdavis.edu abstract the purpose of this essay is to discuss the impact of the edd experience on one teacher’s understanding of data and research. from a first-person narrative, the author shares how learning to collect and analyze qualitative data has the potential to change the way teachers can engage with “data-driven decision making” in a high school setting. by exploring one scholar practitioner’s personal evolution demonstrates the potential of qualitative research as a tool for both teachers and site administrators tackling stubborn challenges on our campuses. includes examples of qualitative data sets collected on site and how data informed and inspired further work. keywords edd, teacher as researcher, teacher-leader, qualitative research methods in .39 seconds, you can get 277,000 results for the google search “data driven instruction.” they include ted talks on youtube, symposium papers from universities across the country, and listicle infographics from pinterest. likely every reader of these very words has participated in, if not led, numerous meeting that starts with a look at the data. self-describing as a “data nerd” has become both ubiquitous and socially accepted as a humble brag among ambitious educators. data is (or are, if you’re a true connoisseur) sexy in that it is highly sought after yet difficult to articulate just what makes it so irresistible. data holds the promise of solving all that ails our schools and teaching. data holds the answers if only we take the time to find them. in this era of “data-driven instruction” the data doing the driving has been almost exclusively quantitative. when it is time to “take a deep dive into the data,” here come the test scores and grade distribution charts and discipline statistics. it is generally from the year prior and shows aggregate rather than individual performance. schools are measured in numbers and percentages and the job is to see what those numbers can tell teachers and administrators about how to change those numbers. these numbers should drive the decisions of the adults on the campus for the benefit of students. the proof that it works is that good things like tests scores and percentages of students passing go up and disruptions go down. all measured in numbers. numbers, while straightforward and empirical, cannot tell the whole story. many a deep dive into data has been derailed by teachers deriding the numbers for lacking context. rather than pointing towards answers, the statistics raise more questions. far from driving instructional shifts or changes in school policy, the ride comes to a standstill. often teachers want to discuss conditions or external forces that give the numbers meaning before they analyze and those asking them to analyze believe the numbers should speak for themselves. thus emerges a common and long-standing research conflict between “number-crunchers” and “storytellers” (smith ,1983). in my experience as a teacher, the reliance on numerical and statistical information contributes to teachers’ resistance and lack of trust in leaders who emphasize “data” to the exclusion of other factors. existing literature reviews suggest that while quantitative data is prioritized and valued by schools, teachers generally rely on their own experiences to shape the ways in which they interpret and apply that data (ho, 2022). qualitative data is simply missing and possible sources such as empathy interviews, student surveys and focus groups have either been overlooked, dismissed as “anecdata” or considered unreliable. these kind of data, when gathered correctly, can provide the context lacking in assessment scores in a systematized, meaningful way. my objective for writing this essay is to share how learning to collect and analyze qualitative data has changed the way i engage with “data-driven decision making” as a high school teacher. the purpose of exploring my personal evolution is to demonstrate the potential of qualitative research as a tool for both teachers and site administrators tackling stubborn challenges on our campuses. almost immediately upon beginning my work towards an edd, the way i think about data changed profoundly. some of the first assigned readings explored the role of lived experiences in any kind of equity focused work (martinez, 2016; torres 1998). the concept that discovering how community members perceive their own educational experiences as a necessary part of research was such a departure from the type of data analysis i had engaged in as a teacher. additionally, i learned about the importance of interrogating my own experiences and came to understand the meaning of positionality. that was the beginning of me unlearning and relearning what it means to be “data-driven.” with that in mind, not only did my understanding grow of https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3009-4624 qualitative methods in high school impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.446 31 positionality as a concept, i began (and continue) to redefine my own roles within my own school and as a doctoral researcher. i was a well-informed teacher who sought out research-based sources about education, public schools and teaching before i began the candel program. as a well-educated white woman, i believed in the power of education/school to improve the lives of individuals. i also believed that traditional education, and traditionally educated people, have the power to change society for the better. my teaching philosophy has always been predicated on the belief that every student can be successful academically. i worked to remove barriers to access for students who were historically marginalized and locked out of the benefits of education. however, as candel pushed me to examine the ways public schools and teachers (including me) define success continues to center whiteness and uphold the inequities of the status quo. i explored the ways that i played my part as one of the gatekeepers who maintain the system, but i also began to look for new ways to resist, dismantle and ultimately rebuild those systems. i recognized that my edd journey, particularly research, was a necessary part of becoming a true leader for equity. as a doctorate student my reading diet expanded dramatically, and i learned to read academic research studies. this is where i started to understand how qualitative research methods can produce data that compliment and exceed purely numerical findings. the findings of studies that used interviews and focus groups and observations gave me more to consider. years of looking at quantitative data exclusively had always left me frustrated, particularly when a single set of numerical outcomes (such as test scores) were used to compare widely different students and schools. research findings based on qualitative methods finally helped to fill in much of the context that is missing from statistical outcomes alone. in an almost literal sense, reading qualitative studies give voice to the numbers. as i became a consumer of qualitative research, it made me ask better questions about what kind of data we use to inform our decisions at school and opened my eyes to everything we are missing by ignoring qualitative methods and data sources. looking at statistics like test scores can lay bare disparity in outcomes and remove any doubt of inequity. but being repeatedly presented with quantitative data that reinforces these outcomes threatens to normalize them. i think many teachers, even those who consider themselves committed to equity, stop interrogating why all these numbers show the same thing. the numbers themselves become the outcome, rather than the students or their experiences. many times, i have felt like data-driven discussions with colleagues are a loop and perhaps adding in qualitative data could give us a way to interrupt that loop and move forwards towards closing achievement and opportunity gaps. like so many things in education, this is easier said than done. if the changes we seek to make are to be found in the data, changing the data we use sounds almost dishonest. critics may accuse by saying something like, “we are tired of looking at these poor outcomes so let’s just stop and look at something that makes us feel better”. if “the numbers don’t lie” has been one of the mantras of data-driven work, suggesting “the numbers don’t tell the whole story” can sound like a dodge. wise and well-intended educational leaders can doubt the reliability and validity of qualitative data, particularly when the methods are not well-constructed or consistently applied. it is difficult to ensure that perspectives gathered from interviews or focus groups are not over generalized. however, the more i read and the more i contemplated how to conduct my own research for my dissertation, i wondered what it would take to bring qualitative research to professional discussions about student outcomes at the high school level. inequity among student groups within my own campus has felt so intractable for so long, different data could help us find different solutions. before going any further in my own path to becoming a novice qualitative research-practitioner, the broader context of what else was happening in the world was needed. this was 2020 and 2021. covid hit like an earthquake and rendered teaching and learning and school unrecognizable in the immediate aftermath. discussions about access to learning were front of mind as teachers and school leaders had no choice but to address inequality across our student population. the very purpose of school came into question and as educators we had to confront the conflicting ways diverse families felt about how we should do our jobs. at the same time, the george floyd murder and subsequent demands for a radical reconsideration of race and power forced educators to further grapple with personal and systemic shortcomings. teachers, students, parents and school leaders struggled to find footing in this tumultuous time and received little comfort from political leaders or institutions. the 2020 election only furthered a sense of chaos and instability. there were loud calls for “reimagining education” as parents, teachers, students and leaders all proclaimed that the traditional ways of doing things simply were not working. here in 2024, the more things change, the more things stay the same. systematically, very little of the alleged reimagining has turned into practice. impact from disruptions in schooling from covid are evident in students and teachers. from declining student performance to record numbers of educator vacancies, schools have not recovered from the traumas of the last four years. nearly every story in the non-academic press or media includes interviews with teachers or families explaining the challenges they still face. qualitative data is essential to suggesting causes for the very problems that need immediate policy action. and yet, despite all the soul searching and existential questioning, it is generally business as usual in terms of the metrics and practices we continue to rely on for data. no one is denying that students and schools have changed and yet there is no longer an active push to fundamentally change the way we do things, from my perspective and experience. the quantitative data continues to show us the failings of our current actions but has yet to suggest new solutions. my own professional path, however, has altered somewhat. i am no longer in the classroom as a teacher but rather in a teacherleader position as a training specialist focused on 9th grade success. it is in this position that i have continued to reexamine what data means in terms of informing decisions and practices to increase equitable access and achievement in my school. one thing that i have noticed is missing from almost all district or site data are the voices behind the statistics. during covid and distance learning, education leaders at all levels encouraged prioritizing socialemotional support for students and providing opportunities for them to share their experiences and needs. now that we are supposedly back to normal, it seems equally valuable to keep listening to what students say. student voice is, essentially, an overlooked source of qualitative data that will flesh out a richer narrative behind and around traditional quantitative data such as test scores, passing rates and statewide assessments. in many cases, teacher experiences are often left out as well. teachers are the ones in the classrooms every day yet frequently told what they should be doing differently rather than asked about what they have noticed has reilley impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.446 32 changed with students. these are the two largest groups most directly involved in the numbers we look at in quantitative data and should not be overlooked as rich sources of insight. one reason why this kind of data is missing is that there are unique challenges in collecting and analyzing it. teachers may draw meaning from informal qualitative data that is likely gathered in unsystematic ways (ho, 2019), and they may not all have access to the same information. this means all stakeholders are not acting on the same information. my candel coursework and my own research study gave me the skills to conduct the kind of qualitative work that would enhance discussion on student data. in my current position, i have the opportunity to conduct that kind of work and, thanks to candel, the confidence to advocate for greater use of these data points. while i am not an administrator, i am able to be a leader for equity because i have knowledge and experience in how to gather valid and reliable qualitative data that contributes to the collective body of data that informs our efforts at improvement. utilizing what i learned in candel while becoming a “scholarpractitioner,” i am currently collecting, analyzing and sharing this type of data with colleagues and administration to address pressing issues on campus. as the coordinator of an effort to support 9th grade success, i have prioritized including student voice in our team meetings as we collaborate around instruction. we conducted a survey at the beginning of the year to gather information about how 9th graders were feeling about school and their participation in fall activities. the final survey question was open-ended and asked them to complete the statement, “one thing i wish all teachers knew about students is…” we received 272 responses. using the same methods i employed for my dissertation, i coded the responses using key words and phrases and then created themes to group similar responses. from that, i was able to summarize some of the repeating ideas that students shared about what they wanted teachers to know. within our 9th grade team, i shared not only my findings but my methods and provided time for teachers to do their own analysis. the eventual discussion we had about instruction and classroom practices was richer and more productive as a result. collaboratively, we came up with guidelines and agreements about regularly implementing integrated social-emotional learning activities in response to the needs students expressed. at meetings throughout the rest of the school year, we have committed time to sharing examples of how social-emotional skills can be integrated into content instruction. one of our teachers modeled a web-based app to provide feedback on student discussion and other teachers have adopted it as a result. without the data, our conversation would not have been grounded in authentic student needs, as expressed by the students themselves. because of the careful attention to survey design and strong methods of analysis, what was once considered anecdotal became data. 9th grade teachers within the team were not only more engaged in practicing social-emotional learning skills, but we have developed trust in the validity and reliability of the outcomes. we recently launched a mid-year survey that repeated some of the same questions regarding students’ feelings about school in order to look for change over time. we added multiple choice questions about students’ understanding of graduation requirements to identify the need for reteaching. this time, there were two openended questions. first, we asked, what has been the most successful in helping you adjust to high school? rather than repeating the same prompt as the first survey, we asked, “one thing i wish i had known about high school before i started is…” we also provided an optional space if there is anything else about their first semester that they’d like adults to know. we will follow a similar process of analysis as the first survey to make decisions about second semester interventions as well as planning for next year’s 9th graders. i argue that our efforts will be more effective and responsive as a result of the student input we solicitated and analyzed. another very specific challenge we have with 9th graders is math. we have high failure rates in math 1 and have conducted focus-group empathy interviews to gather student perspectives about their needs and the course. again, applying methods i learned and practiced about how to select participants, we focused on students who passed all their classes the first quarter except for math 1. i invited these students to talk about what additional supports they needed and what instructional practices were and were not working for them. after four rounds of focus group empathy interviews, i shared both direct quotes from students as well themes with both the math department and administration to shape interventions for struggling students and professional learning for teachers. this is the first time that student perspectives have been systematically collected and used in conjunction with assessment data and grades. the number-crunchers and storytellers are able to cooperate to address an enduring problem. old ways of thinking and teaching are hard to change. we are still working to shift some mindsets about student needs, and continued collection of student perspectives is needed. while we do not have interventions in place yet, this additional information may suggest new ways of constructing those solutions. it is not always an easy sell, despite the support of administration and many teacher colleagues. we, as teachers, have grown accustomed to believing that quantitative data is objective and somehow qualitative data is just opinions. however, by practicing strong research methods and constructing reliable tools for gathering data, on my campus we are learning new things about students and teachers. it is not yet clear how to operationalize much of the information gleaned. the greater use of qualitative data requires some shifts in school cultures and mindsets. listening to student voices and rewriting narratives around how we teach and do school overall represents a major change that isn’t universally welcomed. ultimately, it forces us to be much more clear about how we define inclusion and equity. these conversations can be uncomfortable and often raise more questions than they answer, yet they are essential for making real change. i agree with scholar duncan-andrade (2007) when he wrote, “the measurement of an equitable education would require significantly greater attention to qualitative assessment of schools and classrooms to determine the specific needs of the community and how those are being met, or not.” (p. 618). engaging in this kind of work is a direct result of my edd and it illustrates the value in the scholar-practitioner model. without my experience in candel, i would not have these skills in my repertoire and would not have the knowledge nor confidence to suggest new ways of thinking about data. if one of the ultimate goals of education is empowerment and agency, earning a doctorate in educational leadership has done both for me. it is now my duty and honor to try to pay that forward. references duncan-andrade, j. (2007). gangstas, wankstas, and ridas: defining, developing, and supporting effective teachers in urban schools. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 20(6), 617–638. qualitative methods in high school impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.446 33 ho, j. e. (2022). what counts? the critical role of qualitative data in teachers’ decision making. evaluation and program planning. 91. 1–11. martinez, d. c. (2016) “this ain’t the projects”: a researcher’s reflections on the local appropriateness of our research tools. anthropology & education quarterly 47 (1), 59–77. smith, j. k. (1983). quantitative versus qualitative research: an attempt to clarify the issue. educational researcher, 12(3), 6–13. torres, c. a. (1997). education, power, and personal biography. routledge. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 9 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 a review of dissertations from an online asynchronous learning design and technologies educational doctoral program lucas vasconcelos university of south carolina limadel@mailbox.sc.edu hengtao tang university of south carolina htang@mailbox.sc.edu ismahan arslan-ari university of south carolina arslanai@mailbox.sc.edu michael m. grant university of south carolina michaelmgrant@sc.edu fatih ari university of south carolina arifatih@mailbox.sc.edu yingxiao qian university of south carolina yingxiao@mailbox.sc.edu abstract practitioner-focused educational doctoral programs have grown substantially in recent years. dissertations in practice (dips), which are the culminating research report and evaluation method in these programs, differ from traditional phd dissertations in their focus on addressing a problem of practice and on connecting theories with practice. as part of our ongoing program evaluation, we reviewed dips from doctoral students who graduated from an online asynchronous educational doctoral program in learning design and technologies at the university of south carolina. findings revealed that most students chose a pragmatic philosophical paradigm, adopted a mixed methods research design, reported an action research intervention implemented with populations in k-12 schools, used surveys and interviews as data sources, and analyzed data with descriptive/inferential statistics and thematic analysis. implications for the program curriculum are discussed. keywords dissertation in practice, educational doctoral program, online program, educational technology the creation and development of professional doctoral degrees in the us have played a significant role in advancing professional practice in various fields. originating from the need for advanced training and specialization, these degrees have expanded and diversified over time, meeting the demands of professionals seeking advanced knowledge and skills in their respective disciplines (perry, 2013). an initiative to redesign and improve professional doctoral degrees began in 2007 with the creation of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (2009). since then, professional doctoral degrees have grown tremendously. online doctoral programs are an alternative pathway for individuals seeking advanced degrees. prior research on doctoral programs exists (e.g., buss & zambo, 2016; zambo, 2011; zambo et al., 2014), with fewer studies focusing on practitioner-oriented dissertations (e.g., belzer & ryan, 2013; chan et al., 2013; dawson & kumar, 2014, 2016). our online edd program in learning design and technologies (ldt) was established in 2016 at the university of south carolina. the program curriculum was designed to prepare scholarly practitioners to apply principles of instructional systems design, integrate educational technologies into teaching and learning, create theoretically sound interventions to address problems of practice within their professional contexts, and investigate the impact of those interventions (ari et al., 2022; arslan-ari et al., 2020). this is an asynchronous online program that features extensive use of online discussions among students, a large amount of online learning materials, group projects, reflection assignments, accessible online videos and recorded lectures, and numerous opportunities for peer feedback and chair mentorship on dissertation sections that are embedded into our courses. a detailed description of how theory and professional practices informed the design of our online courses is available in grant (2021). as part of our ongoing program evaluation, we have not conducted a comprehensive and systematic review of dissertation research within our ldt program since its inception. this study follows the call from kumar et al. (2022) “to clearly distinguish how such research is fulfilling the purpose of the education doctorate, an online doctoral program’s mission and goals, and the needs of the professionals enrolled in edd programs” (p. 727) and priest’s (2001) goals of accountability and improvement for program evaluation. the purpose of this study was to understand how and in what ways theory, research design, and methodology were applied in our students’ reports of research. holistically, we were interested in how our students applied our curriculum to their research in an outcome model evaluation (priest, 2001). within a pragmatic evaluation https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9074-203x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8846-7654 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3497-7058 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3062-686x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9512-1312 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2148-2371 vasconcelos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 10 paradigm (reeves & hedberg, 2003), the present study aimed to review our student graduates’ dissertations. we were guided by the following question: what are theoretical and methodological trends and patterns in dissertations completed in an online edd program at the university of south carolina? this analysis was important to identify areas for improvement and insights into the program’s curriculum, to inform the creation of strategies for continued support to our students during the dissertation writing process, and to share our successes and challenges with other cped-affiliated online doctoral programs. previously reported analyses of education doctorate dissertations have been conducted through content analyses (archer & hsiao, 2023; dawson & kumar, 2014; durak et al., 2016; kumar et al., 2022; nelson & coorough, 1994; walker & haley-mize, 2012; walser & trevisan, 2015; zambo, 2014) and document analyses (gilliham et al., 2019; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; ma et al., 2018). these analyses have been reported from programs that address special education (walker & haley-mize, 2012), curriculum and instruction and teacher education (kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; ma et al., 2018), educational leaders (archer & hsiao, 2023; gilliham et al., 2019; zambo, 2014), and educational technology (arslan-ari et al., 2018; dawson & kumar, 2014; kumar et al., 2022). the contexts in edd dissertation research have predominantly consisted of k-12 settings (dawson & kumar, 2014; durak et al., 2016; gilliham et al., 2019; kumar et al., 2022) followed by postsecondary settings (dawson & kumar, 2014; gilliham et al., 2019; kumar et al., 2022). dissertations have also engaged adult participants (nelson & coorough, 1994) as educators through professional development and teacher induction programs (ma et al., 2018), as well as k-12 students or groups (ari et al., 2022; ma et al., 2018). historically, nelson and coorough (1994) reported only a small number of edd dissertations employed qualitative designs. however, more recently, qualitative and mixed methods designs have become common (gilliham et al., 2019; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; kumar et al., 2022; walker & haley-mize, 2012). edd dissertations have relied on descriptive methods (dawson & kumar, 2014; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; nelson & coorough, 1994) and evaluative purposes (belzer & ryan, 2013; dawson & kumar, 2014), and dissertation studies were more likely to report descriptive statistics (durak et al., 2016; walker & haley-mize, 2012). the use of surveys (kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; nelson & coorough, 1994; walser & trevisan, 2015) and interviews (durak et al., 2016; walser & trevisan, 2015) to report participants’ perceptions (kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016) have been common data collection methods. the uses of theory in edd dissertations, however, have been analyzed and reported less. in addition, zambo (2014) asserted that the uses of theory in edd dissertations have been unclear, while more recently, kumar et al. (2022) reported that theory in their educational technology students’ dissertations was often used to conceptually frame a study and support the design of study interventions. theories of learning, such as constructivism and andragogy (durak et al., 2016; kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014), motivation (kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014), technology integration, use, and adoption (kumar et al., 2022), and distance education (kumar et al., 2022) have been reported. related literature online doctoral programs online doctoral programs have garnered heightened interest and acceptance because they offer professional students flexibility, access, cost-effectiveness, and technology-based interactions. students can examine course materials and participate in learning activities flexibly (akojie et al., 2019; bolliger & halupa, 2012) while being able to balance professional and personal responsibilities (lee et al., 2020; studebaker & curtis, 2021). in terms of access, online doctoral programs remove geographic constraints as a limiting factor as students can participate from anywhere without the need for relocation (henrikson et al., 2014; scarpena, 2016). this opens doors for those who are limited by geographic distance or other mobility constraints. further, online doctoral programs are costeffective given that expenses related to tuition fees, commuting, housing, and textbooks are minimized. the cost-effectiveness allows a broader range of socioeconomically diverse populations to pursue quality graduate education (montelongo, 2019). in terms of technology-based interactions, the use of robust learning management systems, multimedia resources, and interactive tools such as video conferencing plays a crucial role in facilitating communication and promoting a sense of community in online learning contexts (akojie et al., 2019; bender et al., 2018; byrnes et al., 2019; kumar et al., 2023). dissertations in practice according to cped, a dissertation in practice (dip) is a doctoral research project that emphasizes the practical application of scholarly knowledge to real-world problems (buss & zambo, 2016; zambo et al., 2014). the dip is an alternative to the traditional phd dissertation that primarily focuses on the generation of new disciplinary knowledge through original scientific research. a dip foregrounds the practice of practitioners and does not “develop theory or fill gaps” (perry et al., 2020, p. 40) in disciplinary knowledge. instead, the dip focuses on the practical application of theoretical and scholarly knowledge to address problems of practice that significantly affect one’s professional setting. a problem of practice is a complex issue that a practitioner encounters in their field (belzer & ryan, 2013; ma et al., 2018), and that problem drives the design, implementation, and investigation of potential solutions that are reported. differently from phd dissertations that often aim to create generalizable scientific knowledge, outcomes of dip research are highly contextual and situated within one’s professional setting (hochbein & perry 2013; ma et al., 2018). the emphasis on addressing a practical issue does not mean a dip lacks theoretical foundations. in fact, the process of designing a dip is characterized by a close relationship between “scholarly expertise and implementation of practice” (zambo et al., 2014, p. 127). specifically, problems of practice are theoretically framed, justified, and contextualized within the extant body of literature. a comprehensive review of relevant theories, conceptual frameworks, and empirical studies informs the decision-making process for proposing systematic actions to address the problem of practice (arslan-ari et al., 2020). after establishing the theoretical background to support the dip, a well-planned combination of scientific research methods that is suitable to investigate the problem within the professional setting is chosen to operationalize the investigation of whether the chosen actions have an impact on the problem of practice (buss, 2018; mertler, 2017). dissertations in an online doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 11 edd students in our program identify problems of practice within their professional contexts during the first year (arslan-ari et al., 2020). students often join the program with a general idea about a target problem of practice. given the focus of our program on technology-enhanced teaching and learning, students are expected to shape their problem of practice around the premise that learning technologies can serve as an agent of change (see e.g., lowenstein & barbee, 1990; rogers, 1995). after receiving guidance from our faculty during core courses on action research, students often change or adjust their topic, refine the scope of their problem, choose a different set of participants, or decide on new approaches to address their problems of practice. in the second and third year, students take core courses that facilitate a comprehensive review of theoretical perspectives to support their work. they are prompted to select one or more theories and/or instructional design models to guide the design of their intervention and the inquiry process to analyze its outcomes. further, students take qualitative and quantitative research methods that help them propose a systematic inquiry approach to understand the complexities of the problem or evaluate the effects of their designed innovations to address the problem. throughout the program, students write pieces of their dissertation chapters that are embedded into our coursework (perry et al., 2020) and follow a structure informed by buss and zambo (2016). lastly, results of dip research inform evidence-based recommendations to improve technology-enhanced teaching and learning practices within students’ professional settings. action research action research is a method in which educators aim to enhance the practice of teaching and learning and nurture continuous improvement by actively involving stakeholders in systematic inquiry (buss, 2018; mertler, 2017). the concept of action research originated from kurt lewin’s belief about bridging the gap between theory and practice (johnson & christensen, 2017). different from traditional research methods, which focus on producing generalizable knowledge, action research prioritizes the application of knowledge to make an impact within the researchers’ local context (mills, 2018). in educational settings, action research draws on a systematic and reflective process in which educators (e.g., teachers, school administrators) identify a practical problem, collect and analyze data, and thereby, make data-informed action plans to solve the problem (buss & zambo, 2016). particularly, reflection is crucial for action researchers to identify avenues for potential improvement in their profession and initiate subsequent cycles of action research to foster ongoing enhancement (mertler, 2017; mills, 2018). another notable aspect is reciprocity, whereby educators acting as action researchers gain valuable insights from this experience and enhance their professional practice while simultaneously yielding a positive change to their own contexts (mcniff & whitehead, 2002; mertler, 2017). to date, action research has been widely adopted in online and on-ground edd programs as a signature pedagogy and research methodology (foster et al., 2023; vaughan & burnaford, 2015). in many edd programs, action research requires access to a professional setting, allowing practitioners to systematically investigate a problem in their contexts (buss, 2018; firestone et al., 2021). in addition, action research offers flexibility to draw from a variety of philosophical paradigms, theoretical frameworks, and research methods from different disciplines (buss & zambo, 2016). philosophical paradigms creswell (2014) argues that while the philosophical stances of researchers are often not evident, it is nonetheless valuable for researchers to explicate their philosophical viewpoints in research reports. a researcher’s philosophical worldview influences the research design, data collection methods, and data analysis strategies (kivunja & kuyini, 2017). therefore, as a part of acknowledging their subjectivities, student researchers in our program identify their research paradigms following mertens’s (2009) framework: postpositivist, interpretivist/constructivist, transformative, and pragmatic paradigms. each paradigm reflects basic philosophical beliefs, including axiology (the nature of ethical behaviors), ontology (the nature of reality), epistemology (the nature of knowledge), and methodology (the nature of inquiry) (creswell, 2014; mertens, 2009). proponents of postpositivism ascribe to objectivity of knowledge and in research. the researcher and the researched are distanced from one another to observe change without influence (shan, 2021). researchers following an interpretivist or constructivist paradigm affirm their interactions with research participants and acknowledge reality is socially constructed by individuals (mcchesney & aldridge, 2019). advocates using a transformative paradigm agree that interactions among researchers and research participants are known and reality is socially constructed by individuals but assert that knowledge is socially and historically positioned, where privilege within society and history have impacted power and relationships (mertens, 2009). finally, pragmatists seek a middle ground with postpositivism and interpretivism. for pragmatists, interactions among researchers and research participants are defined based on a specific study, and research methods are decided by a study’s purposes and particular questions (shan, 2021). because action researchers often seek to understand and change practices, the relationship among researchers and research participants is cooperative and complementary (bargal, 2008; mertens, 2009). these valuable relationships are most aligned with interpretivist, transformative, and pragmatic paradigms (kivunja & kuyini, 2017), and primarily, qualitative and mixed methods study designs are derived from these three paradigms (mcchesney & aldridge, 2019; shan, 2021). although some authors suggest postpositivism may support action research (cf. mccutcheon & jung, 1990), the insider positionality and lack of objectivity in action research align poorly with the tenets of postpositivism. theoretical framework connection between theory and practice is crucial for any research endeavor. from the conceptualization of dip research to the discussion of its findings and implications, utilization of theories and theoretical frameworks is an integral part of the research process (kumar & antonenko, 2014; kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014). in general, these theories and theoretical frameworks fall under the big three theories of learning: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. for instance, a dip in which the student designs a computer-based intervention adhering to the principles of dual coding theory and gagné’s nine events of instruction might fall under the umbrella of cognitivism (arslan-ari et al., 2020), whereas an implementation of game elements (e.g., badges, rewards) to improve young students’ engagement in the classroom may be considered behaviorist. vasconcelos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 12 because a dip study focuses on addressing a problem in one’s professional practice, it is contextualized and often multidisciplinary (gillham et al., 2019; kumar & antonenko, 2014). hence, during the conceptualization of a dip, allowing freedom to explore the theoretical frameworks that are related to one’s research problem and that resonate with their research interests, values, and epistemological orientations is important for a meaningful and authentic action research experience (zambo, 2014). however, mentoring and scaffolding (e.g., by dissertation chairs and committees) are needed because choosing theoretical frameworks requires combining information from multiple disciplines, which is challenging for students (kumar & antonenko, 2014; zambo, 2014). but, the other side of the coin is that this freedom is also challenging for dissertation chairs as students’ work may not align with the chairs’ research expertise (kumar et al., 2022). type of study acceptable forms of action research include descriptive or intervention studies for identifying and addressing problems of practice (arslan-ari et al., 2020; belzer & ryan, 2013). but in fact, most edd students choose to conduct intervention studies that evaluate innovations that are either already in place or are designed by the students (arslan-ari et al., 2020; dawson & kumar, 2014). the choice between intervention and descriptive studies aligns with the purpose of research, research questions, feasibility, and ethical considerations. the research question mainly guides the selection of the study type. belzer and ryan (2013) identified three types of research questions in dips: (a) questions that evaluate existing policies or initiatives, (b) questions that evaluate the studentdesigned intervention to address a problem, and (c) questions that seek to describe the current conditions for generating contextualized solutions. the studies that are looking for the first two types of questions can be seen as generic intervention studies, asking "what happens when...?" (belzer & ryan, 2013, p. 203). in the intervention studies, the aim is to examine the impact of an intervention on particular variables in the student’s specific research setting. the intervention studies require careful evidence-based planning of the intervention including its duration, implementation strategies, theoretical background, appropriate data sources for the evaluation, and intervention reporting. the outcomes of intervention studies inform practitioners on the effectiveness of the intervention to solve the problem of practice and guide decision-making (kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014). the studies that seek the third type of question can be categorized as descriptive studies that pose the inquiry "what's going on here?" (belzer & ryan, 2013, p. 203). in descriptive studies, the students seek to describe the existing conditions to generate suitable solutions. a descriptive study requires careful selection of appropriate sampling techniques and sample size, and the selection or design of data collection instruments to ensure the study findings are representative of the target population and capture the necessary information about the situation (cf. firestone et al., 2021). the outcomes of descriptive studies provide a comprehensive understanding of the situation to make recommendations for action (arslan-ari et al., 2018). research contexts given the emphasis on solving practical problems embedded in one’s professional setting, action researchers need to determine their positionality in the dip. a researcher’s positionality refers to the stance a researcher adopts in relation to the subject of their research to reflect their relationship to the research participants, their level of involvement, and the extent to which they have influence over the research process (e.g., czerniawski, 2022). herr and anderson (2005) proposed a continuum to portray the different types of positionalities a researcher can adopt, which range from (a) insider, (b) insider in collaboration with other insiders, (c) insider in collaboration with outsiders, (d) reciprocal collaboration, (e) outsider in collaboration with insiders, and (f) outsider studies insiders. action researchers often take on the positionality of an insider (herr & anderson, 2005) because they are actively involved as a relevant stakeholder in the context of the problem being investigated (mills, 2018). this positionality provides action researchers with an opportunity of contextualizing the problem and potential solutions to benefit stakeholders within their unique context. on the other hand, action research is well-suited for educational practitioners from a broad range of settings (e.g., k-12 schools, higher education, corporate and military training) and allows those practitioners to explore their own contexts and improve practices within their sphere of impact (mertler, 2017). methodological alignment once a student identifies a research context, research participants, the type of study, the philosophical paradigm, and the theoretical foundation(s), the student needs to operationalize the research inquiry in light of the affordances and constraints in their unique research setting. particularly, our program faculty guides students on (a) identifying independent and dependent variables for their studies, (b) crafting and refining research questions and purpose statements that reflect their research goals, (c) adopting, modifying, or creating quantitative data sources based on validity and reliability measures, and (d) identifying or creating qualitative data sources. this process ultimately culminates in the creation of a research matrix that serves as a tool to assess the methodological alignment in their dip. further, students are expected to propose strategies for rigor and trustworthiness (archer & hsiao, 2023; tracy, 2020). while it may seem like it, conceptualizing and aligning the different dip components is neither a linear nor a sequential process. rather, the work is continuous and iterative. students start brainstorming and writing about different pieces of their dips in the first year, and they gradually refine their research plans as they advance in the program. after being assigned a dissertation chair in the third year, students often need to significantly revamp their methodology. the chair holds weekly synchronous online meetings and provides one-on-one support to help students propose a well aligned methodology. those meetings often include conversations in which the dissertation chair helps the student think about key research concepts that the student may not be very proficient in such as “statistical significance, effect size, and practical meaning of the results” (hochbein & perry, 2013, p. 186), among others. these meetings have been proven essential to help our students connect their theoretical understanding of research concepts to their application in the dips. students in our program receive virtually the same guidance from all program faculty. moreover, students have multiple opportunities to interact with committee members and receive additional guidance on their work. dissertations in an online doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 13 methodology this study reviewed dissertations completed within the ldt concentration of our online asynchronous edd program. since the program's inception in fall 2016, a total of 93 students from 10 cohorts successfully defended their dissertations and graduated. by the time data were analyzed in the summer of 2022, 15 of those dissertations had not been made publicly available in proquest, which was the online database used for this study. the final sample for this study consisted of 78 dissertations across nine cohorts. the first and second authors retrieved dissertations online and collected information from the dissertation titles, abstracts, and chapters. eleven classification criteria were adopted to assess trends and patterns across dissertations: 1) dissertation title, 2) purpose statement, 3) philosophical paradigm, 4) researcher’s positionality, 5) theoretical background, 6) research context, 7) research participants, 8) type of study, 9) research design, 10) data sources, and 11) data analysis methods. the first and second authors reviewed the corpus of data and discussed the plans for systematically analyzing and visualizing the data from each classification criterion, which led to the design of an online form for data entry. the online form contained two open-ended questions, three multiple-choice questions, and six checkbox questions as presented in table 1. table 1. dissertation classification criteria criteria form options 1. dissertation title open-ended question 2. purpose statement open-ended question 3. philosophical paradigm constructivism/interpretivism, pragmatic, transformative, postpositivism, not identified (from mertens, 2009) 4. researcher’s positionality insider, insider in collaboration with other insiders, insider in collaboration with outsider(s), reciprocal collaboration, outsider in collaboration with insider(s), outsider studies insider(s), not identified (from herr & anderson, 2005) 5. theoretical background adult learning theory/andragogy, constructivism, cognitivism, cognitive apprenticeship, constructionism, community of inquiry framework, diffusion of innovation, flipped classroom model, gamification, motivation theory, project-based learning, samr, self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, situated cognition, tam, theory of planned behavior, tpack. 6. research context k-12 elementary school, k-12 middle/intermediate school, k-12 high school, higher education four-year university, higher education community college, ged program, corporate setting, military, other. 7. research participants k-12 students, k-12 teachers, k-12 administrators, higher education students, higher education faculty, ged students, other. 8. type of study descriptive, intervention (from belzer & ryan, 2013) 9. research design qualitative case study, qualitative descriptive study, mixed methods study, multi-method study 10. data sources surveys/questionnaires, assessment tests, interview: individual, interview: focus groups, observations, participantcreated artifacts, reflection journals, field notes, online discussion board posts, online metrics, exit slips, video recording, lesson plans, other. 11. data analysis methods qualitative deductive analysis, qualitative inductive analysis, thematic analysis, descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, paired samples t-tests, wilcoxon signed ranks tests, chi square, correlations, error classification, other. note. items 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 11 were checkbox questions that allowed multiple selection on the form. other items allowed only one choice. the data set was exported into a spreadsheet. quantitative data analysis to identify frequencies within each criterion was performed in microsoft excel. in parallel, deductive qualitative content analysis of open-ended questions was performed in excel. deductive content analysis entailed coding and quantifying every content word in the data set to identify trends and patterns (drisko & maschi, 2016; prasad, 2008) across dissertation titles and purpose statements. subsequently, the data set was uploaded to an online word cloud generator for data visualization. word clouds use specific terms as tags to visually display the terms that appear most often in the dataset by correlating term frequency with font size and color saturation (hearst et al., 2019; heimerl et al., 2014). as such, the larger the words, the more frequently they appear in the data set. word clouds offer an immediate visual impression of the relative importance or prevalence of certain terms. the word cloud generator we used was called wordcloud.pro. it automatically excluded common non-content words (e.g., the, for), numbers, and stemming. once the word clouds were generated, the first author reviewed the data set once again, manually removed a few extra non-content words (e.g., the word based in community-based learning), and generated updated word clouds. findings philosophical paradigm from the 78 dissertations analyzed and following mertens’ (2009) taxonomy, most edd students adopted a pragmatic paradigm (n = 60) for their research. the second most adopted paradigm was constructivism (n = 12) followed by the transformative paradigm (n = 5). no dissertation adopted postpositivism. only two students adopted more than one paradigm to guide their dissertation research, and both students chose constructivism and pragmatism. two dissertations did not explicitly disclose a chosen paradigm. researcher’s positionality using the continuum identified by herr and anderson (2005), the overwhelming majority of doctoral students identified their research positionalities as insiders (n = 53) or as insiders in collaboration with other insiders (n = 14). a few students identified themselves as outsider(s) in collaboration with insider(s) (n = 4) or as outsider(s) who aimed to study insider(s) (n = 4). three students did not disclose their positionalities. no student identified themselves as an insider in collaboration with other outsiders or as members of a reciprocal collaboration. theoretical background a total of 69 different theories were adopted across all examined edd dissertations in this study. the most used were constructivism (n = 25), motivation (n = 15), the technological pedagogical and content knowledge framework (tpack) (n = 9), self-efficacy theory (n = 9), self-regulated learning (n = 8), adult learning theory (n = 7), technology acceptance model (n = 6), cognitivism (n = 6), barriers to technology integration (n = 5), and gamification (n = 5) as shown in figure 1. vasconcelos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 14 figure 1. theories adopted in edd dissertations research context most dissertation studies focused on teaching and learning contexts in k-12 schools (n = 57) compared to higher education institutions (n = 17), a ged program (n = 1), the military (n = 1), and a science center (n = 1). within k-12 research contexts, most dissertation studies focused on high school grade levels (n = 28) followed by elementary grade levels (n = 19) and then middle school grade levels (n = 14). within higher education, most dissertation studies were conducted at a four-year university (n = 13), while a few were conducted at a community college (n = 4). research participants the dissertation studies’ participants were primarily students (n = 61) compared to teachers (n = 21) or administrators (n = 1). within the studies with student participants, most were enrolled in k-12 schools (n = 44), and fewer were enrolled in higher education (n = 15), in a ged program (n = 1), or in the military (n = 1). within the studies with teacher participants, most were employed in k-12 schools (n = 16) rather than higher education institutions (n = 5). one study was conducted with administrators from a high school. no study was conducted with higher education administrators or staff. type of study using belzer and ryan’s (2013) classifications, most dissertations reported an intervention-type study, or “what happens when...?" (p. 203) study, that involved technology integration in a teaching and learning context (n = 60). the remaining dissertations reported a descriptive study (n = 18), “what’s going on here?” (p. 203) study, in which the researcher engaged participants to describe or understand the context, issues, and/or perceptions towards technology-enhanced teaching and learning without actually implementing an intervention. research design all but one dissertation study (n = 77) adopted a mixed methods research design that combined qualitative and quantitative data to investigate a problem of practice. one dissertation used a qualitative descriptive research design. data sources in the 78 dissertation studies, a total of 14 different data sources were adopted with all studies using more than one data source. the most commonly employed sources were surveys and questionnaires (n = 72), individual interviews (n = 51), assessment tests (e.g., multiple choice items) (n = 28), and focus group interviews (n = 22). other less recurring data sources included the participants’ reflection journals (n = 13), researcher’s field notes (n = 11), performance assessments (e.g., rubrics) (n = 6), participantcreated artifacts (n = 6), and online metrics (e.g., time logs) (n = 4). data sources that were seldomly adopted included exit slips (n = 3), course grades (n = 2), lesson plans (n = 1), video recordings (n = 1), and documents (e.g., individualized education plans) (n = 1). the list of data sources is presented in figure 2. data analysis methods to analyze the 14 different data sources, nine different types of data analysis methods were used in the dissertations. the most commonly used data analysis methods were qualitative thematic analysis (n = 78) and descriptive statistics (n = 65). within qualitative data analysis, most students adopted an inductive approach (n = 53) rather than a deductive approach (n = 4). other quantitative data analysis methods included paired samples t-tests (n = 33) and wilcoxon signed-ranks tests (n = 24) — both used for pretestposttest analysis. other less frequent quantitative analysis methods included chi-square tests (n = 3), correlations (n = 3), repeated measures anova (n = 1), error classification (n = 1), and a friedman test (n = 1). the distribution of data analysis methods is shown in figure 3. figure 3. data analysis methods in edd dissertations dissertation title analysis of dissertation titles revealed the presence of 440 different content words. the most recurring terms in study titles with at least 10 occurrences were students (n = 60), research (n = 40), action (n = 38), school (n = 31), learning (n = 28), study (n = 28), technology (n = 18), high (n = 17), teachers (n= 14), writing (n = 13), development (n = 12), integration (n =12), online (n = 12), skills (n = 12), using (n = 12), perceptions (n = 11), classroom (n = 10), and motivation (n = 10). figure 4 visually depicts the weight of specific terms in dissertation titles in a word cloud. dissertations in an online doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 15 figure 4. terms in edd dissertation titles purpose statements analysis of dissertation purpose statements revealed the presence of 586 different content words. the most recurring terms with at least 10 occurrences were research (n = 74), purpose (n = 72), action (n = 66), students (n = 62), school (n = 40), evaluate (n = 39), technology (n = 27), impact (n = 26), study (n = 24), learning (n = 21), high (n = 20), teachers (n = 20), online (n = 16), classroom (n = 15), perceptions (n = 14), use (n = 13), course (n = 12), describe (n = 12), development (n = 12), integration (n = 12), determine (n = 11), writing (n = 11), grade (n = 10), motivation, (n = 10), science (n = 10), and skills (n = 10). figure 5 visually depicts the weight of specific terms in dissertation purpose statements in a word cloud. discussion this study reviewed dips from an online asynchronous edd program in learning design and technologies. findings revealed that most students adopted pragmatism as the philosophical paradigm to guide their work as scholarly practitioners. pragmatists reject the notion that it is possible to access the truth about a target phenomenon using only one scientific method (mertens, 2009; shan, 2021). rather, pragmatists seek freedom to study a phenomenon in different ways, using a mix of methods that are deemed appropriate for a given situation (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004; shan, 2021). aligned with the pragmatic paradigm was the research design reported in most dips, which predominantly used mixed methods – a combination of qualitative and quantitative data sources to generate a comprehensive understanding (greene, 2008; ivankova et al., 2018) of a target phenomenon. these findings corroborate previous analyses of edd dissertations (gilliham et al., 2019; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; kumar et al., 2022; walker & haley-mize, 2012), where mixed methods have become common. the autonomy, flexibility, and freedom that pragmatism offers for the design of research studies that fit one’s own research goals and setting (kivunja & kuyini, 2017; shan, 2017) is attractive to our students, as each of them has unique needs and constraints that must be considered for their action research. regarding the researcher’s positionality, most students identified as insiders or as insiders in collaboration with other insiders. by definition, insiders seek “to study the outcomes of a program or actions in their own setting” (herr & andersen, 2005, p. 33). we argue that these two types of positionalities were prevalent in dips due to the focus of our program on action research as a signature pedagogy (buss, 2018; zambo, 2011), and the requirement for our students to conduct research within their professional setting and scope of influence (arslan-ari et al., 2018). these findings align with previous reports of practitioner programs when privileging action research (foster et al., 2023; vaughan & burnaford, 2015). consequently, very few students positioned themselves as outsiders who studied or who collaborated with insiders. adopting an outsider positionality may be necessary in a few cases, for example, if career changes during the course of the program affect one’s access to the research setting (cf. czerniawski, 2022). a school teacher who takes on a new district-level position might need to update several components of their dip, including their positionality. they might be able to conduct action research in the school if the principal agrees to support their work although their positionality probably needs to change from insider to outsider. vasconcelos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 16 figure 5. terms in edd dissertation purpose statements in terms of research context and participants, most studies were conducted with students or teachers from k-12 schools, especially in high schools. fewer studies focused on students or teachers from higher education institutions. these findings replicate those of dawson and kumar (2014), who reviewed dip dissertations from another edd program in educational technology and found that most dissertations focused on k-12 learning contexts, as well as durak et al. (2016) and gilliham et al. (2019). further, these findings suggest that most of our doctoral students work in k-12 school systems (e.g., teachers, administrators, librarians, technology integration specialists). thus, their professional settings determine the scope of their problems of practice (mills, 2018) and the eligible research participants. regarding the type of study, it was noticeable that most dips reported intervention-type studies seeking to investigate the outcomes of a technology-enhanced solution to a problem of practice. an expectation of dip research is that findings will have implications for the doctoral student’s professional practice but also generate benefits for the research participants (belzer & ryan, 2013; buss 2018). the types of interventions varied significantly from using flipped learning, gamified modules, educational robots, virtual field trips, and several other approaches that involve technology integration into teaching and learning. alternatively, a much smaller number of dips reported a descriptive study that attempted “to describe current conditions as a way to generate appropriate and contextualized solutions to problems” (belzer & ryan, 2013, p. 203). these descriptive studies often focused on perceptions, attitudes, acceptance, or motivations toward some form of technology integration in the classroom or technology-enhanced professional development. dips featured a variety of theoretical frameworks, and the most recurring ones were constructivism, motivation theories, the technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge framework (tpack), self-efficacy, and self-regulated learning. these findings somewhat overlap with others (kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014) who also reported dissertation research employing theories of learning and motivation. our students have freedom to explore the literature related to their problems of practice. embedded in a few of our courses is an annotated bibliography assignment, which prompts students to synthesize the literature and explore potential theories and methods to support their emerging research plans. most importantly, our program faculty members continuously guide students to connect theoretical principles with practical applications (cf. kumar & antonenko, 2014; kumar et al., 2022; zambo, 2014). our goal is to help students create an interwoven theory-practice relationship to guide the action research intervention design (if applicable) (e.g., kumar et al., 2022) and the methods of inquiry into the intervention outcomes (arslan-ari et al., 2020). for instance, if a student wants to adopt keller’s (1987) attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (arcs) model to measure the impact of flipped learning on students’ motivation towards learning algebra, then our faculty will help the student operationalize concrete strategies to address the four model components in their intervention and identify or create data collection instruments that address all model components. dissertations in an online doctoral program impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 17 surveys/questionnaires and assessment tests were the prevalent quantitative data sources, while individual participant interviews, focus group interviews, reflection journals, and field notes were the prevalent qualitative data sources. in the context of action research, students used surveys to efficiently assess participants’ beliefs, perceptions, and frequency of activities, and then invited a subsample of participants to provide more detailed explanations through individual and focus group interviews. previous analyses have also reported the use of surveys (kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; nelson & coorough, 1994; walser & trevisan, 2015) and interviews (durak et al., 2016; walser & trevisan, 2015) to report participants’ perceptions (kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016). in this study, qualitative data were often used to explain and further elaborate on quantitative findings (creswell, 2014; mertler, 2017). the choice to include surveys and interviews is not only a reflection of students’ pragmatic paradigm and mixed methods design but also of the experiences they have in our program curriculum. our research methods courses offer opportunities to collect and analyze survey data, interview transcripts, and observational data. perhaps students felt more competent and confident in adopting these data sources in their dips. descriptive statistics and basic inferential statistics were the most commonly adopted methods to quantitatively analyze survey and assessment data. previous studies of edd dissertations have also reported that descriptive statistics are more likely to be used (durak et al., 2016; walker & haley-mize, 2012). to assess statistical significance in intervention outcomes, data sources were often administered before and after the action research intervention (i.e., a pretest-posttest design), which prompted participants to use paired samples t-tests and/or the nonparametric equivalent wilcoxon signed-rank tests depending on the normality of data in specific subscales (nolan & heinzen, 2012; wilcoxon, 1945). thematic analysis was the common qualitative data analysis method. most students used a bottom-up approach by creating a coding scheme from interview transcripts to identify trends and patterns in the data, and then identified important experiences and perceptions across participants in the format of qualitative themes (creswell & creswell, 2018; saldaña, 2016). a substantial overlap was found in key terms used in the dip titles and purpose statements. the most recurrent terms in both data sources were students, research, action, school, learning, technology, online, and integration as shown in frequencies and as visually depicted in the word clouds. newman and covrig (2013) assert that a dissertation title “conceptualizes and names the key unique components of the research plan, its data, and findings” and often identifies the “who, what, when, where .. [and] how” of a study (p. 72). therefore, the key terms identified here synthesize the essence of dip research in our program: action research studies reporting the impact of technology integration on k-12 students’ learning. implications for our educational doctorate curriculum findings from this study revealed that dips from our program generally disclosed a pragmatic philosophical paradigm, adopted an insider’s positionality, used a wide range of theoretical frameworks, adopted a mixed methods research design, reported an intervention study conducted with populations from k-12 schools, used surveys and interviews as data sources, performed descriptive and inferential statistics for quantitative analysis, and conducted inductive thematic qualitative analysis. in light of these findings, a few implications for our program curriculum emerge:  our introduction to action research courses should explain that it is possible to either choose one philosophical paradigm or combine aspects from multiple paradigms (see e.g., a dialectical stance in mcchesney & aldridge, 2019; shan, 2021). moreover, courses should clarify that students can pair the paradigm with different types of research designs for their dips. our students may feel forced to adopt the pragmatic paradigm if they wish to employ a mixed methods design or vice-versa (mcchesney & aldridge, 2019; shan, 2021). featuring examples of journal articles or dissertations that combine different paradigms and research designs might lead to more variation in dips; however, these may be difficult to employ in our students’ applied settings.  the literature review course can emphasize to students the much needed alignment between the theoretical framework and other components of dips. as zambo (2014) articulated, scholarly practitioners value and use theory in multiple ways. particularly, students need support in understanding that a theoretical framework is the foundation for the design of a technology-enhanced intervention (cf. kumar et al., 2022), for choosing research instruments that align with theoretical principles, and for interpreting study findings. the course should continue to offer freedom so students can select one or more theories and models that best fit their research goals. however, students should be prompted to think of the theoretical framework as an element that pervades all chapters of a dip and to operationalize the application of theoretical principles and assumptions into their scholarly practice.  the courses on advanced applied educational technology research can emphasize the difference between a mixed methods study and a multi-method study design (anguera et al., 2018), which is a common issue in dips at the early writing stage. students often hold the misconception that a mixed methods study is guided by research questions that are addressed separately with only qualitative and quantitative data. in this case, the dissertation chair needs to help the student revise their research matrix so that at least one of their research questions is approached with both qualitative and quantitative data (cf. mcchesney & aldridge, 2019). the course should also reiterate the need for alignment between multiple data sources (e.g., survey items, interview questions, observation logs) that target the same phenomenon from different perspectives to allow triangulation of findings (archer & hsiao, 2023). ensuring alignment between instruments is another recurring challenge among students at the early stage of a dip.  our dissertation preparation courses that coincide with students’ data analysis and result write-up should emphasize strategies to address biases and subjectivities. as insiders in the research setting, students tend to be positively biased when reporting the vasconcelos et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.406 18 impact of their technology-enhanced interventions while overlooking negative outcomes or areas for improvement. storey et al. (2015) reported that dissertations provided little evidence of impact on local practices, and ma et al. (2018) recommended that edd students’ dissertations operationalize impact — both positive and negative. our students need explicit guidance on keeping their biases and subjectivities in check to report not only the ways data sources converge towards positive outcomes, but also any negative outcomes of the study. further, the dissertation preparation courses can guide students toward presenting results that are highly contextual in nature given the use of action research rather than look for commonalities and make generalizations to be extrapolated to various other educational settings using similar interventions (belzer & ryan, 2013; zambo, 2011). students should also present the discrepancies and exceptions emerging from data sets while providing rich contextual information that relates findings to the intervention design based on the literature.  as corroborated in previous analyses (durak et al., 2016; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; nelson & coorough, 1994; walser & trevisan, 2015), surveys and interviews were common data sources in our students’ dissertations. the research methods courses offered in the second and third year of our program could expose students to a wider range of data sources and offer additional opportunities to practice them firsthand. currently, students practice with surveys, interviews, and observations. perhaps encouraging students to explore different data sources (e.g., student reflections, implicit association tests, online metrics/analytics, video recordings) and to consider additional timepoints for data collection as opposed to before and after an intervention might lead to more diverse and robust methodologies.  like other analyses (dawson & kumar, 2014; kozikoğlu & senemoğlu, 2016; nelson & coorough, 1994), our students’ dips tended to be more evaluative and descriptive. research methods courses, however, could also offer opportunities for our students to practice more advanced data analysis methods beyond descriptive and basic inferential statistics of preand posttests and qualitative thematic analysis. alternative options could be offered to include chi-square tests, correlation analysis, discourse and/or conversation analysis of verbal interactions, and ethnomethodological analysis. study limitations and future research this study reviewed a substantial number of dips, but selfreport data from students, such as end-of program survey responses and student interviews were not included in the analysis. future research should include additional types of data that can provide a more comprehensive understanding of students’ experiences designing a dip (e.g., amrein-beardsley et al., 2012; strom & porfilio, 2019). the findings presented here represent one program’s dissertation studies, so the results should not be generalized to other contexts, degrees, and programs. in addition, the methodological approaches and theoretical concepts reported are aligned to the ldt concentration of the edd program at the university of south carolina, so other programs’ curricula may create different findings. future research could increase the generalization of findings by aggregating an analysis of dips across online education doctoral programs in the us to generate insights at the national level. references akojie, p., entrekin, f., bacon, d., & kanai, t. 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(2014). seven years after the call: students’ and graduates’ perceptions of the re-envisioned edd innovative higher education, 39, 123–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9262-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1062408 https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406411431168 https://doi.org/doi:10.2307/3001968 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9171-7 https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2014.918902 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9262-3 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 reimagining the edd in a time when the future of public schooling is at stake laura flores shaw johns hopkins university lshaw14@jhu.edu juliana paré-blagoev johns hopkins university eparebl1@jh.edu laura quaynor johns hopkins university abstract given the current tumultuous education climate, we as edd faculty seek to engage in critical reflection and reimagine the affordances—opportunities for action (gee, 2008; gibson, 2014)—provided by our program structures and our teaching practices. in this article, three faculty members (including one department chair and one interim program director) among the many who actively engaged in reimagining an established online edd program to be launched fall 2023 discuss their critical self-reflection experiences. specifically, we discuss how our backgrounds and/or the current socio-historical climate influences our thinking as we, along with our colleagues, have grappled with redesigning an applied edd program. keywords critical reflection, doing school, public schooling, reimagining, edd in memoriam: our dear friend and colleague, laura quaynor, passed away suddenly on august 30, 2023. we will miss her insightful curiosity, deep knowledge, positivity, and generous heart. laura was an exceptional scholar, beloved teacher, a true friend, and a fierce social justice advocate. we feel privileged to have known and worked with her. even as they continue to work through impacts of the unprecedented covid-related disruptions to their workplace, faculty and leadership in us k-12 and higher education face additional significant changes and uncertainties. traditional faculty roles in curricular decisions are being circumvented by censorious legislation and greatly increased attempts to ban books (garcia, 2023; penamerica, 2023a) while dramatic expansions in the availability of voucher options create worries about destabilized financial base for public k-12 schools (povic, 2023). supreme court decisions in 2023 ended affirmative action in higher education ensuring upheaval in admissions routines and practices—to say nothing of what this may mean for students, the make-up of student bodies, and the future make-up of employment pools (students for fair admissions, inc. v. president and fellows of harvard college, 2023). additionally, supreme court decisions over the last 20 years have effectively reversed precedent regarding the separation of church and state, including whether public money can be used to fund private religious institutions (mystal, 2022). cumulatively, such changes represent a sea of change which educational professionals must navigate. a description of some contributing disturbances follows to set the stage for presenting critical self-reflections from several faculty who contributed to a deep reframing of an edd program during these historic circumstances. as the pandemic was still raging, a tsunami of state legislative and policy changes that have been referred to as educational gag orders were introduced that challenge established fundamentals of academic freedom and free speech and introduce chilling effects on open discussion of race, racism, gender, sexual orientation, and american history. during 2021, 54 separate education bills imposing restrictions on curricular content were proposed (friedman & tager, 2021). since then, more than 250 such bills have been introduced, and as further documented by the penamerica (2023b) index, more than 14 states now have passed censorious educational gag order laws. additional censorious activity is prevalent in the area of book banning. the american library association reported that while attempts to ban books hovered at around 450 requests a year from 2003 forward, in 2021 there were 1,269 attempts and in 2023 there were 2,571 (garcia, 2023). in response, public concerns have been raised, and a related lawsuit has been filed arguing that book banning violates the rights of children who want to read banned material (salam, 2023). stakes can be very high in florida where teachers face a possible felony for having a banned book in their classroom https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-3029 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3802-4564 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3598-6733 the edd when public schooling is at stake impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 17 (natanson, 2023). additional invasive and chilling concerns arise from florida’s hb 233, which was passed and signed into law in 2021 (see, e.g., https://floridapoly.edu/provost/assets/hb233_faq_ poly-faculty.pdf for a relevant faq). it specifically allows students in florida colleges and universities to record faculty without their permission and use such material in criminal, civil, or institutional complaint procedures. no such right to surreptitiously record without permission from all parties is allowed in any other setting within the state. further concerns about censorious legislation and book banning include that they are discriminatory, target members of marginalized communities, and are increasingly arising from the concerted actions of newly formed advocacy groups. a penamerica (2023a) report shows that among materials banned from july 1, 2021, through june 30, 2022, 41% featured lgbtq themes, protagonists or secondary characters and 40% featured characters of color. the same report highlights another disturbing trend. rather than being initiated by a concerned individual, newly formed (since 2021) parent and community groups operating at national, state, and local levels are responsible for up to 50% of the efforts to ban books. while this could be an indication that the will of the people is to ban deeply problematic texts, of the 2,532 bans, 96% were enacted without following best practice guidelines as outlined by the american library association and the national coalition against censorship. given this tumultuous education climate, we as edd faculty seek to engage in critical reflection and reimagine the affordances— opportunities for action (gee, 2008; gibson, 2014)—provided by our program structures and our own teaching practices. for instance, do our programs provide affordances that support the development of skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to identify, examine, and contribute to the amelioration of complex, wicked problems of practice? will our students graduate prepared to analyze systems and to effectively engage with diverse stakeholders, leverage their strengths, and collaboratively improve those systems for the betterment of students who will need to go on to participate in a faltering democracy? can we avoid the pitfalls of defaulting to programs that overly rely on templates and instructional approaches that routinize doing school—"going through the correct motions” (pope, 2001, p. 4)—instead of fostering active and critical engagement? in this article, three faculty members (including one department chair and one interim program director) among the many who actively engaged in reimagining an established online edd program launched fall 2023 discuss their own critical self-reflection experiences. \we focus on how our own backgrounds and/or the educational climate and socio-historical forces relate to program design decisions including: 1) moving away from a five-chapter dissertation to a dossier format based on boyer’s (1990) four domains of scholarship, 2) allowing students to articulate and disseminate their work through modalities other than scholarly writing, and 3) using an ungrading approach in key courses. as changes are rolled out new information is coming to light, and the importance of the ongoing critical self-reflection, and establishing norms within our program for sharing and discussing the implications of our reflections has become clear. table 1. comparison of original edd program with reimagined edd program original edd program 3-year program reimagined edd program—edd 2.0 4-year program 5-chapter dissertation:  chp 1: literature review of problem of practice based on a systems framework  chp 2: needs assessment— examination of pop in student’s context  chp 3: intervention literature review  chp 4: intervention design and methods  chp 5: intervention findings and discussion all core courses graded. doctoral dossier (based on boyer’s 1990 four domains of scholarship):  project 1: scholarship of integration— literature review of pop using the process of systems thinking  project 2: students choose one and may demonstrate completion in ways that include alternative modes of knowledge dissemination: ○ scholarship of application—demonstrate the application of research to practice. ○ scholarship of teaching—development and improvement of pedagogical practices.  project 3: students choose one: ○ option for year 2 project that was not chosen ○ scholarship of discovery—search for new knowledge via conducting evidencebased research. moving toward ungrading of all core courses. reflections of department chair and associate professor historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. this one is no different. it is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. we can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. and ready to fight for it (roy, 2020). in july 2019, i became part of the johns hopkins university school of education faculty community and created a writing clinic imagined by an inaugural program lead. the questions that guided my job talk preparations included: how can i help create systems that support faculty and students to thrive? how can i help scholar practitioners use their writing to effect shifts in practice? these questions continue to shape my work. i gradually became aware of what many faculty discussed as the rewarding yet relentless nature of the work experienced by faculty and students. one indicator of the time engagement that was assumed, a department visiting assistant professor gave students tips on screen filters for their laptop so the screen glow would disrupt sleep less. the academic schedule is not conducive to recharging and reflecting between terms as a total of five days, sometimes fewer, marked the changeover of semesters. additionally, august was both the end of the summer semester and the time for most students to take comprehensive exams and engage in proposal defenses, on top of coursework. further, students who could not complete the course of study in three years were on extended courses of study, and anecdotally reported a reduced sense of selfefficacy for needing that extension even though in fact, many of their peers were in the same boat due to situations outside of their control. in planning writing clinic work, i asked for the statistics about program completion, and there were some differences in outcomes https://floridapoly.edu/provost/assets/hb233_faq_poly-faculty.pdf https://floridapoly.edu/provost/assets/hb233_faq_poly-faculty.pdf shaw et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 18 among students by ethnic group. during my first faculty meeting, before my contract began, the dean entered on zoom from the 3rd floor to announce two decisions: first, the beginning of an external review of the program, as he phrased it, to kick the tires on this program that had been around for seven years. second, the founding director was stepping down to focus on the research that had brought him to the school. so, the external review happened. i joined the faculty, created a virtual writing clinic, taught myself how to use panopto and record video announcements on zoom. the pandemic happened. we were supporting educators who themselves were leading virtual learning environments for the first time, often positioned as leaders due to their experiences in our online doctoral program. educator burnout, a topic before the pandemic, became an increasing topic of conversation. part one: carcasses as i read and reflected on roy’s (2020) quote, above, about the pandemic, i considered what things i wanted to leave behind. let me clarify that some of these (e.g., the culture of constant work) were values that i myself had internalized as the way to be successful in an institution. ● the dismissal of burnout as weakness. the culture of constant work. ● education as a capitalistic and colonial enterprise that devalued some ways of knowing over others. my own complicities as a writing instructor in this enterprise. ● anti-blackness embedded in educational content and systems. remember that the pandemic summer was also the summer that george floyd and brionna taylor lost their lives. the words i can’t breathe became a refrain. ● lack of clarity regarding how to count advising work for faculty. every advisee had to complete comprehensive exams, a dissertation proposal defense, and a dissertation defense, and had to find their own committee members. committee membership was traditionally counted as service work but was extensive and undefinable. ● having the one thing that seemed to be the biggest barrier to doctoral completion—the dissertation—shaped as a document destined for a library shelf, never to be touched by its contributors or users. i didn’t want to spend my time helping people write something that was going in a library to be forgotten just to get done. part two: luggage roy (2020) suggests moving through a pandemic with little luggage. tools, mementos, precious necessities, carefully rolled and packed in a duffel bag. essential core elements of the program that seemed important to me to carry through included: ● a focus on systems, on seeing problems expansively before focusing on solutions. ● the international and diverse range of work contexts of students. ● the collaborative work among faculty. creating, revising, and thinking through major courses with co-instructors. part three: imagination finally, what new worlds would i begin to imagine with others? my own academic training involved interaction with rich intellectual traditions discussing the power of the human imagination, including robyn d.g. kelly’s (2003) freedom dreams; paulo freire’s (2002) pedagogy of hope; sarah lawrence lightfoot’s (2016) treatise on parents and grown children, growing each other up. what did i bring, ready to co-imagine another world with faculty? ● carter woodson’s (1933) definition of the purpose of education: to help take the world as it is and make it better. ● knowledge of sylvia terry’s use of systems at university of virginia to elevate the 6-year graduation rate of african american undergraduate students to 94% between 19892009 (williams, 2022). ● the study of professionals’ use of digital tools to create community (quaynor & sturm, 2019). ● a value in democracy and in helping students amplify their voice through scholarly language. ● experience using multimedia and multimodal forms of knowledge as pedagogical tools to engage students and expand the knowledges we were interacting with, a necessity in preservice teacher education for working with multilingual learners. outlining these experiences and positions is akin to writing the positionality statement i so often coach students completing qualitative research to complete. curricular work is creative architecture in which the builders select particular blocks and discard others, with our own perspectives and intents. sharing mine here has helped my own critical self-reflection, recommended as part of professional vibrancy for those considering equity work in predominantly white institutions (abel, 2019). reflections of an associate professor, and president of jhu aaup advocacy chapter . . .this is a perilous moment for democracy. and it is interesting that if one looks back over the years in the united states, whenever there has been a sense that democracy has been in peril— you know, whether it was during the civil war, or the two world wars—the universities, with support from government, have really understood their role as bulwark institutions of democracy. and i fear in this moment, as much as we do to support democracy, there is an opportunity here to do more. and doing more with some urgency is really essential right now. we’re not bystanders. we are indispensable institutions to democracy flourishing. president of the johns hopkins university, ron daniels, speaking during an interview about his book “what universities owe democracies” (greenberg, 2021). my critical self-reflection about our edd program changes draws partly upon my past formal educational experiences and shared governance roles, e.g., with the american association of university professors (aaup). additionally, recent dramatic actions have impacted my alma mater, new college of florida, a public honors liberal arts college. witnessing those ongoing changes motivated me to undertake a personally transformative, informal but the edd when public schooling is at stake impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 19 very intense, learning journey that i expect to last a very long time. the substance and character of that journey also informs my relationship to the edd program changes. here, i reflect on why i value an ungrading approach and how i came to be cautiously open to giving students options to share knowledge using alternative modalities—and to do so as part of their culminating doctoral work. i reflect that there may also be potential synergies between students’ experiencing ungrading environments and their openness to becoming skilled in utilizing multiple or alternative dissemination modalities. on using an ungrading approach instead of grades, since its founding in 1960, new college has utilized narrative evaluations. it also, currently at least, holds the rank of no. 1 public institution in the proportion of graduates who go on to earn a terminal degree. additionally, it has historically produced 25% of the fullbright scholars in florida, which is particularly impressive as an institution that has never had more than 800 enrolled students in any given year. this is an institution that eschews grading and produces students who want to engage with ideas, data, and with the world. this is important for science and democracy. for me, the narrative evaluation approach came to embody core acquired values of inquiry and individual responsibility. i found that new college faculty supported students to learn to rigorously defend their individually chosen academic path; we tended to respond by delighting in ever deeper inquiry. after new college, my subsequent graduate programs used grades. compared to some peers, i had a minimal emotional reaction to anticipating or receiving grades. what drove me was anticipating substantive feedback i could use to improve my understanding, my ability to present my thoughts, or best of all my ability to ask questions that matter. when i was in high school, i was nerdy and cared about learning, but at that time i also sweated about grades in a way that was demotivating and antithetical to true inquiry. after my new college experience, however, i focused on inquiry despite the distraction of grades. it is true that graduate program gpas are not going to be reported to employers the way that high school grades can be a factor in college acceptance. but i tend to discount this as the primary factor given both that graduate school peers and my current graduate students can exhibit a laser-like focus on the grade. i want my students to value the process of learning to effectively challenge themselves and effectively communicate with others. in my experience, this is facilitated when i demonstrate my authentic interest in what they think and clearly communicate ways their presented ideas are compelling, clear, and coherent, or where they need improvement in those areas. in engaging with students in this way, i seek to model the respectful interrogation and communication of ideas and the developing of question-asking-thatmatters. the feedback itself – and modeling genuine interest in thinking—is what counts. i try to make that clear even for courses that require me to also provide a grade. however, i have found that providing a grade can distract students from developing the relationship i want them to have with their learning. just as important, the process of grading and assigning points can also distract me from providing rich and thoughtful feedback. i find myself worrying about student reactions to a grade rather than being solely focused on how to provide the most useful feedback. for example, i suspect a student who receives an a will not complain if i do not provide much feedback; while i have seen that sometimes students who receive a bwill be initially focused only on that and not on the detailed information about why. on using alternative modalities of dissemination initially, as the program considered incorporating non-academic writing activities, i was concerned about introducing new modality options for students. i worried about how students would fare when i might not be able to independently support them to develop the requisite skills. however, i recognize that my ability to evaluate the underlying arguments would still be applicable and that many of our current and presumably future students are coming into the program with extensive skills in alternative dissemination modalities that they have previously developed. for example, one student is an accomplished playwright, and others have utilized other aspects of the arts in various professional capacities. it seems valuable to allow them to draw on such existing areas of expertise and/or seek new ones. the field of education draws on many disciplines; it leverages the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological features of those disciplines in the service of understanding, and sometimes addressing, phenomena that affect learning and teaching. beginning in the late 1990s neuroscience became one of the contributing disciplines. when i began my doctoral training at harvard in the late 1990s, there were no journals, grant opportunities, or faculty positions available that clearly and directly connected neuroscience and education. however, in part, i am sure, informed by my new college inspired-if-it’s-needed-you-should-build-it approach to academia, i wrote my admissions essay exactly on my desire to make those connections. in the ensuing decades, the use of neuroimaging and the integration of brain and behavioral research to inform educational research has become de rigeur, even as questions about where it will have impact continues. simply put – what counted as evidence and what counted as an appropriate question for educationally relevant research has shifted. given this, why should it be off the table to shift the modes of communication and the value of supporting scholarly practitioners to communicate with a wider audience? we draw on multiple academic disciplines for methods and framing—why can we not explore using modalities outside of typical disciplinary bounds for knowledge sharing? especially for an edd which focuses on applied issues, considering how typical participants of our research consume knowledge and incorporating such modalities in our own dissemination began to make more and more sense to me. as discussed below, there are other reasons too that i adjusted my initial stance and came to value encouraging students to consider projects that leverage different modalities of dissemination, particularly those that draw on skills they brought with them to the program or those that they determine will help them in their next steps after graduation. on embarking on a new learning journey on january 31, 2023, along with hundreds of other wary members of the new college community, i watched as a newly appointed board of trustees (bot) members fired the president, without cause, and effective immediately, to begin clearing the way to turn the public school into a hillsdale of the south. hillsdale is a private, religious, liberal arts college whose current president larry arnn was quoted as saying: “here's a key thing that we're going to try to do. we are going to try to demonstrate that you don't have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it” shaw et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 20 (williams, 2022). this does not seem like a promising match for an honors college. the video of the january 31, 2023 bot meeting (new college of florida, 2023) is available thanks to the sunshine laws in florida which require all bot related business to be conducted in public forum. notably, however, sunshine laws are under increasing threat (goode, 2023). in the bot meeting video, one can see starting at about 3:13, the meeting business moved on from the firing of president okker to the naming of an interim president. the activities of the bot members confirmed that an individual had already been contacted and potentially offered a job as interim president of a public college before the meeting had even begun. in fact, the individual had been publicly congratulated before the meeting had even taken place (ogles, 2023). to understand what led to these events and anticipate what might follow for the current students (including my niece), faculty, and staff, i sought understanding of the players and principles that might be involved. one of the first things i learned was that the new interim president, richard corcoran, had a connection to hillsdale through his wife who has been associated with multiple hillsdale affiliated charter schools. in fact, that relationship existed at the time that mr. corcoran held the position of commissioner of education of florida and engaged hillsdale or affiliated entities in multiple different ways. one way was through math textbook review (kephart, 2022). another was in the rewriting of florida’s civic standards as well as training teachers on how to teach to those standards (najarro, 2022). interestingly, a key person in writing those civic standards was the same hillsdale associated individual who played a key role in cancelling 41% of florida’s math textbooks that were initially cut due to inclusion of socio-emotional learning references as described in the prior reference (kephart, 2022). all of this was just the beginning—things i learned in the first hour or so after president okker was fired. additional investigation in the months since and including reflective dialogue with many other valued colleagues and new connections among the new college community of students, faculty, staff, parents of students or alumni, and other concerned citizens, has helped me develop a picture of how what is happening to new college is related to other events in the american education system. it also introduced me to the value of drawing from a combination of scholarly, journalistic, and even social media or artistic resources to understand the facts of and impact of a new era in the politicization of american education. i am hopeful that as our program moves to an ungrading approach, our students will find it easier to focus on finding areas of inquiry that matter and that this can work synergistically with their consideration of using alternative dissemination modalities. for more basic scientific inquiry and for more applied work prioritizing communication of knowledge to diverse audiences is important (meredith, 2021). in keeping with the idea of using alternative modalities you can learn more about what has happened at new college and how it may relate to larger concerns about academic freedom in these podcasts featuring jeremy young of penamerica (palmer, 2023), and another featuring myself and professor sigal ben-porath that considers both new college and current conditions in the florida k12 landscape (jacobs, 2023). and as additional evidence, that others are deeply concerned, there are tens of letters from organizations expressing their reactions to events in higher education as made available on the website of the united faculty of florida (uff, n.d.). reflections of assistant professor and interim director preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education. we must convince the world of the need for a universal, collective effort to build the foundation for peace (montessori, 1992, p. 24). i came to johns hopkins university school of education in 2013 as a student. i was part of the inaugural cohort of the online edd program. when i started my doctoral journey, i was head of a montessori school serving children ages 18 months through 15 years old. never did i think i would eventually become faculty at hopkins. i had no plans of entering higher education. nor was becoming the interim director tasked with leading the program through a major overhaul on my life’s bingo card. yet, this is exactly where i should be, and i feel both fortunate and anxious. montessori and reimagining the edd originally trained as a family systems therapist, i found myself drawn to montessori education because its practices seemed to align with the research on optimal parenting. however, once i began working in the school with the association montessori international trained teachers, i realized something even more significant: the prepared environment seemed to provide the children the physical, psychological, and emotional space to know their own thoughts and feelings from those of others. more than merely treating children with the respect of a parent practicing authoritative parenting, these educators were fostering in students what one of the founders of family systems therapy, murray bowen (1985), referred to as differentiation of self—knowing one’s own thoughts and feelings from those of others, which allows for healthier relationships, a healthier togetherness, leading to mental well-being throughout life. the research supports this claim, showing that self-differentiated people are “less emotionally reactive, better able to regulate emotion, think clearly under stress, and are more capable of remaining in connection with significant others while maintaining a clearly defined sense of self both in and out of relationships” (skowron et al., 2009). the montessori prepared environment, which includes the teachers, fosters self-differentiation through choice, allowing the children to work on activities that interest them: through materials and furniture they can manipulate on their own, through processes, such as the peace fish, where students can communicate their feelings to other students with whom they are experiencing conflict (and they’re generally taught to use i statements in those discussions), and through interactions with guides who consistently turn questions back onto the children. should, for instance, a child ask the teacher what they think of their work, the teacher will first ask the child what they think about it. these questions can help the children develop their own internal barometer—to know when they’re putting their best effort into their work, when they are not, and even the reasons why they are or are not. in many ways, i see the changes we are making in the edd aligning with montessori’s prepared environment. the new dossier framework (boyer, 1990) will allow students greater choice in what they do and allow them to explore more parts of the system in which their problems of practice are situated. students can also choose how they communicate their work (written, oral, video, etc.) to the audiences they want to reach. as a faculty member, this latter option for students is particularly appealing as it allows me to feel i am the edd when public schooling is at stake impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 21 walking our social justice talk by not privileging one form of communication over another. finally, we are moving away from providing templates in an effort to foster deeper engagement and thinking; this is similar to the montessori prepared environment of not providing worksheets. i feel extremely fortunate to be facilitating these changes at hopkins, particularly since dr. montessori believed education could lead to a more peaceful society. specifically, she believed that prepared environments that foster a strong sense of self in children can lead to adults who love and care for others and the environment. the need to control or possess others would be unnecessary for such adults. given my therapeutic training and what i witnessed in the classrooms (and in even my own children who attended the school), i am hopeful she is right. and even though we work with adults in the edd, my hope is that these changes lead them to further self-differentiate in their own work and allow them to experience school in a very different way, which may influence their own classroom environments and benefit their students. perhaps this is pollyanna of me, but given the current alarming political climate, i will take whatever hope i can get. at the same time, i also know our edd program changes are going to be challenging for our students and us. reflections on doing school habits of students during my tenure as head of school, several elementary students transferred to our montessori school from conventional schools structured by the grammar of schooling wherein students are segregated by grade and age, subjects are taught in isolation, and an expert teacher at the head of the classroom assesses and assigns grades (tyack & cuban, 1995). these children spent the first three to four months in our classrooms waiting for the teacher to tell them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. their parents would call and complain that their children were bored, and the montessori teachers were not teaching. in response, i re-explained how our environments worked and encouraged them to be patient. right around month four, these children would suddenly be fully engaged in work—self-initiated work—and they seemed to be, as one parent who came to observe in the classroom said, “transformed.” interestingly, the initial behaviors we witnessed in those transfer students were behaviors i saw in myself at times as a doctoral student, and behaviors i see in many of our students now. to be clear, this is not the fault of the students. environments provide affordances—opportunities for action (gee, 2008; gibson, 2014)— and those actions become habits, which are hard to break (poldrack, 2022; shaw, 2023). when your student experience is being told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, you create doing school habits wherein you are “going through the correct motions . . . instead of thinking deeply about the content of [your] courses and delving into projects and assignments” (pope, 2001, p. 4). reflections on doing school habits of faculty students, however, are not the only ones engaging in doing school habits. in his 2019 commentary, windschitl described doing school as “the structuring of and engagement in rote and shallow learning performances, which students and teachers give to each other to signify that they are accomplishing normative classroom tasks” (p. 8). thus, as faculty, we must ask ourselves: how are we engaged in this structuring? have our programs fostered independent and critical thinking? when we provide templates to students in response to their requests for examples and exemplars and questions about exact steps to complete any task, what habits are we fostering? when a recent cohort of students showed confusion about how to write chapter one of their dissertations, i didn’t respond by posing questions back to them (as a montessori guide would have done) to promote their own thinking about what information should be provided and why. instead, i wrote a detailed outline of every single section for them. all they had to do was fill it in. did i foster the habit of independent thinking? or did i just do the thinking for them? clearly, i have my own doing school habits. it is difficult, however, not to do school when there’s so much to do—for both faculty and students. in addition to teaching, faculty need to publish so we do not perish, and we need to provide service to show we are contributing to our universities’ growth and development. (and if you’re faculty with administration duties, that’s a whole additional load of work!) in addition to being in a doctoral program, our edd students are professionals in their contexts with families. there is only so much time in the day, and doing school allows us to act automatically, without the effort of conscious, intentional, thought. given the current political landscape, however, the transactional nature of education some of us have fallen into will no longer do. authoritarian leaders are working to dismantle public education and with it, democracy. since the pandemic, this is how education is being reimagined (joyce, 2021). if we foster doing school habits— our own and those our students—are we preparing students to solve this wicked problem, or even to recognize and tackle it? are our students, regardless of political affiliation, able to question narratives being deployed so they can see the true intent of those narratives and who is really being served by them? we have the responsibility as educators of educators to move beyond doing school. the changes we are making to our edd program will, hopefully, provide different affordances that create habits of independent and critical thinking, overriding our doing school habits. but these changes are going to be painful—for all of us. we have to learn different ways of being in this space as the habits we relied upon to make us successful as faculty and students will no longer work, and this makes me anxious. but the pain and effort, i am hopeful, will be worth it. should our students graduate our new program embodying a different way of being a student, perhaps they will be inspired to truly reimagine school rather than just perpetuate education’s tinkering with it (tyack & cuban, 1995). perhaps they will create new educational structures wherein students of all ages are provided with the affordances to self-differentiate—to be independent thinkers with a strong sense of self who can also engage in a healthy togetherness with others. maybe that will lead to a more just and peaceful world. our concluding thoughts collaborating on this article has pushed us to value the habit of sharing critical reflections. faculty meetings often prioritize discussion of logistics—we are busy and determining the how of things. however, particularly at a tumultuous period, taking time to engage in the practice of sharing critical self-reflections can support our different ways of being in this new space. used strategically, this practice can also help us examine what is working within the new shaw et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.399 22 program and what is not. we do not want to get caught up in our own narrative and not realize that our behaviors are not matching our intentions or that the affordances are not leading to the outcomes we hope to see in our students. references abel, y. 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https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/revealed-teachers-come-from-dumbest-parts-of-dumbest-colleges-tenn-governors-education-advisor-tells-him https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/revealed-teachers-come-from-dumbest-parts-of-dumbest-colleges-tenn-governors-education-advisor-tells-him https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/revealed-teachers-come-from-dumbest-parts-of-dumbest-colleges-tenn-governors-education-advisor-tells-him https://aig.alumni.virginia.edu/ridley/files/thepeeradvisorprogrampaper.pdf https://aig.alumni.virginia.edu/ridley/files/thepeeradvisorprogrampaper.pdf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.440 13 the power of writing in community: being seen and supported in an edd journey marney randle university of california, davis merandle@ucdavis.edu c. inez anders university of california, davis cianders@ucdavis.edu molly m. heck university of california, davis mmheck@ucdavis.edu abstract this essay explores how writing in community for edd students can be pivotal in helping them succeed in their academic journey. considering existing research, three uc davis candel edd (capital area north doctorate in educational leadership) students and recent alumni use a case study approach to highlight the ways writing in community was instrumental to their own journeys and enhanced their sense of belonging. this essay highlights the challenges faced by the edd students, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. they leaned into the transformative power of writing in community and use vignettes to detail their personal experiences. they showcase the power of critical friendship that encouraged vulnerability and connection within their group and catapulted them towards dissertation completion. the essay also recommends institutional support for specific interventions to further writing in community in all edd programs. keywords edd students, critical friendships, community writing, sense of belonging writing a dissertation is a challenging endeavor due to the necessity of constant editing, writing, and focus required. it can be an isolating experience where doctoral students may feel alone with their research. recognizing the unique challenges inherent in this process, establishing a structured and supportive writing community can be beneficial for edd students. research demonstrates that writing in community can help to develop scholarly identities as writers and provide much-needed social and emotional support (maher et al., 2008) creating an environment that aids in dissertation completion. opportunities for writing in community can enhance well-being and support doctoral students in their edd journeys. stevenson (2021) suggested there are “negative emotions associated with writing…particularly acute in the first stages of our academic writing careers” (p. 719) and that writing in community in retreat-style settings can counter this negativity. one group of doctoral students who participated in writing groups while working on their dissertations suggested that without the support of their writing colleagues, their “work would have been much more difficult” (maher et al., 2008, p. 274). additionally, maher et al. (2008), suggested writing in community can support the peer-review process which can lead to a richer understanding of the iterative and dialogic process of writing the dissertation. white and nonnamaker (2008) shared that doctoral students across all disciplines need opportunities to connect to create a strong sense of belonging. sense of belonging is important to consider in regard to edd writing communities because it describes the sense of connectedness one has to their environment (hurtado & carter, 1997). current research has focused on the student experience particularly (settles-tidwell, 2021), leaving out the experiences of higher education professionals engaged in edd programs. the development of edd programs has led to an increased number of scholar-practitioners resulting in a distinct category of professionals who are also students. although they are professionals, the need for belonging and community is still an important component of their educational experience because they are students too. these dual identities are especially pronounced in those who are higher education professionals and students pursuing their edd. higher education professionals serve key roles on campus and are often responsible for creating and increasing students’ sense of belonging (rush & olivier, 2021). it’s important that edd programs foster this sense of belonging for their own students considering the dual roles as students and working professionals in educational systems. edd students can benefit from experiencing what a strong sense of belonging feels like so we are better equipped to create belongingness for the students we serve. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2777-4025 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6156-756x https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0214-4836 randle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.440 14 this essay will use a case example to explain the benefits of writing in community and provide suggestions for structure and support that an edd program may offer. the case study will describe the experiences of members of the uc davis capital area north doctorate in educational leadership (candel) cohort as we developed and implemented writing practices that sustained our dissertation work over two years. suggestions for strategies that edd programs can implement will be shared including supported writing retreats and curricular design to support the writing process. lastly, we argue the long-term benefits of writing in community as a strategy to enhance sense of belonging among scholar-practitioners to amplify voices for continued contributions in academic settings such as publications and conference presentations. writing in community for edd students the aim of this article is to emphasize the importance of writing in community for edd students, as it contributes to an increased sense of belonging and positively impacts dissertation completion timelines (story, 2013). previous research has indicated the value of writing in community for doctoral students (maher et al., 2008; stevenson, 2021). an essential element that research has begun to explore is the covid pandemic and its impact on doctoral students, with an additional focus on dissertation writing specifically. this literature review briefly highlights research regarding community writing in edd programs in order to better understand the case study and recommendations. the current research on sense of belonging within higher education has been focused on students and creates a gap regarding the experiences of higher education professional staff who are also students (settles-tidwell, 2021). sense of belonging is an important element to consider in regard to edd writing communities because it describes the sense of connectedness one has to their environment (hurtado & carter, 1997). considering the covid-19 pandemic which perpetuated isolation and feelings of loneliness for many (graham et al., 2022) an increased sense of belonging for edd students in a hybrid learning environment is paramount. graham et al. (2022) described online learning as a “lonely business.” the shift to online learning, due to the pandemic, highlighted the difficulties in creating a sense of belonging among edd students. the authors also suggested the following things to aid in creating a sense of belonging: program structure; cohort model; connection spaces; acknowledgement of a student’s identity; family life; and work life. writing in community can help with accountability and offset the isolation that edd students may experience while completing their dissertation (hamann & wunder, 2013; graham et al., 2022). hamann and wunder (2013) emphasized that graduate education can be lonely. their research demonstrated the collegiality and peer accountability that helped graduate students persevere and persist through critical friendship and collegiality provided by the cohort experience (hamann & wunder, 2013). storey (2013) described a critical friend as: “a person who provides constructive critique through a mix of both support and challenge” (heller, 1988 as cited in storey, 2013, p. 1). participants affirmed the value of meeting regularly to review dissertation work, write together, and engage in peer review processes embodying the critical friends model (hamann & wunder, 2013). this element of critical learning, peer review, and enhanced writing confidence through community writing was affirmed in research by maher et al. (2008). participants credited the skills learned in the writing group as a platform to write and present in other venues (maher et al., 2008). research by maldonado et al. (2021), uplifted the value of weekly writing sessions for edd students in which “initial feedback suggests the writing sessions supported students’ dissertation progression and established a sense of community and social support” (p. 13). similar to the candel program, the doctoral program discussed by maldonado et al., is for working professionals that had to shift to online delivery due to the covid-19 pandemic. the weekly writing sessions were implemented through the program with designated two-hour time blocks complete with tutorials, writing tips, goal setting, and designated writing (maldonado et al., 2021). students who participated in these writing sessions were able to connect with others across cohorts, build community, and experience a valuable level of social support that enhanced their experience (maldonado et al., 2021). we used the key concepts of writing in community, sense of belonging, and critical friendships to undergird our work. ultimately, these concepts were what propelled us forward to establish our writing community groups and lean on them for support, camaraderie, and powerful tools for dissertation completion. in embracing these principles, we discovered a source of resilience and motivation, empowering us to overcome obstacles and emerge as stronger scholar-practitioners. background and context – our writing community progressing through a doctoral program, and dissertation completion, involves a great deal of stamina and focus. considering the candel program focuses primarily on working professionals, there is a constant negotiation of time and energy between being a full-time student and work demands. with this in mind, implementing designated time for dissertation writing is paramount. we developed our community writing groups with this intentionality at the forefront: we needed accountability and support to aid us in the writing process. our specific community writing group formed organically during our second year of the program as our specific dissertation topics began to take shape in coursework. as we struggled to formulate our research questions and confirm our specific methodology and conceptual frameworks, it was clear we needed support from one another as cohort mates. when we asked what support may look like, one person shared they needed collaborative working time to stay focused and engaged. we threw out the offer to support by connecting a few nights a week over zoom. eventually, this became a routine where two of us would meet regularly over zoom typically 3-4 nights per week, and more if needed. this routine continued until we successfully completed our dissertations, prepped for commencement, and celebrated all of the milestones in between. in addition to our zoom meetings during the week, we also organized and scheduled designated in-person writing retreats in order to write together, engage in peer review, and be in community with one another throughout the process. the invitation for these writing retreats was open to our full cohort. for our first writing retreat we rented a house for the weekend in a location that was central for many of us. we created a schedule for the weekend, cooked food together, and connected about our research topics, areas where we needed support, and created tangible next steps to tackle before the the power of writing in community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.440 15 next writing retreat. this first writing retreat was amazing and set the tone for how we would support one another as a cohort. one of us had the brilliant idea to request funding from the uc davis candel program for future writing retreat options on campus at uc davis. we wrote a proposal together and it was accepted! this institutional support helped to cover the cost of food during the writing retreat, and hotel stay for those who did not live in the area. the candel staff also organized mentorship opportunities from alumni who came on-site to do peer review and share wisdom about their experiences with dissertation writing. in addition to these writing retreats that were open to the full cohort, the three of us also scheduled writing weekends where we met at uc davis for community writing on a monthly basis. we would typically write together on a friday and saturday, using a schedule as a guide to keep us accountable. after writing on friday, we would get together for dinner and enjoy time socializing. it was a great way to offset the strenuous writing process and gave us the chance to connect together as friends. our specific experiences are outlined below in vignettes through the lens of critical friendships in action. critical friendship in action we experienced significant value from engaging in communitybased writing, collectively for the three of us and expanded networks across the cohort. these specific anecdotes were captured as we reflected about our individual experiences. the positive impacts of writing in community is outlined through our author vignettes below. these takeaways highlight the value of connection, vulnerability, and partnering together for learning, peer-review, and successful doctoral program completion. author 1 vignette covid had a huge impact on the edd experience for us. i was excited to join the candel program because of the in-person element of the program, along with other unique factors such as the cohort model and an amazing group of faculty. however, covid quickly transformed candel into a virtual experience for the first 1.5 years of the program. this came as a shock, and resulted in increased feelings of isolation that were already perpetuated during the pandemic. i often questioned the ability to connect with cohort mates and experienced imposter syndrome which was exacerbated by the virtual-only engagement and high demands at work due to covid and crisis response. there was a positive shift once the transition from virtual to inperson classes happened. being physically in the same space with my cohort mates helped to form a stronger sense of connection. we were able to read the room and see when cohort mates needed additional support. there were also more opportunities to express when we needed help on an individual level. this caused a significant shift in the cohort experience for me. moments of vulnerability, as well as giving and receiving help, catapulted relationships and eventually led to writing partners and friendships within the cohort. there were two colleagues that i connected with and we formed a trio. the three of us supported each other with writing, frequent zoom check-ins, in-person or virtual writing retreat weekends. this support we created for ourselves eventually led us to huge milestones in our dissertation processes. we kept a schedule for writing and shared accountability. we were focused, and also realistic; sometimes life was happening and we needed to be flexible at times. we quickly learned to play to our strengths with community writing. for example, i was clear about when i needed an editor, thought-partner, or citation support and there was always someone to rise to the occasion. we also celebrated the wins! whether it was writing a paragraph or a page, or solidifying our references and citations, it was pertinent to celebrate the wins and milestones for each other. most importantly, while we had the support for us as a trio, there were many other connection points to the rest of our cohort mates to ensure we extended this support to others. we planned a few overnight retreats where we cooked together and bonded, and also had writing retreats on campus at uc davis. we kept the momentum going to make great progress on our dissertations and participate in commencement ceremonies with many members of our cohort. author 2 vignette we chose the candel program at uc davis for a variety of reasons. one of the primary reasons was because it was an inperson program while many edd programs are completely or have components that are online. however, covid forced a change and we were all online. despite the distance, our cohort was able to form solid connections. as one of the only people familiar with campus protocols, i helped my peers navigate things like: paying for parking, accessing the campus internet, covid testing guidelines, getting student id cards, and any other uc davis specific questions. in my first year, i felt empowered and had a lot to offer my cohort. that all quickly changed during my second year when personal and professional challenges significantly impacted my ability to show up. i showed up to a saturday class and shared how hard things were in our regular check-in. after that class two classmates stepped in to offer their empathy and support; thus the trio was born. they asked how they could help and what i needed. i shared that i needed someone to do work with, more community, and accountability to someone other than myself. one of them was able to meet with me a few nights every week on zoom to do assignments together. the three of us connected on weekends in person and via zoom to check-in, write together, and provide encouragement. our time together became a lifeline, providing academic support, and a profound sense of understanding and connection. one of us was the primary catalysts for the first writing retreat which was at the end of our second year. they created a group and spearheaded finding a rental home and setting the tone for what was a productive time writing with colleagues. we had daily agendas and regular debriefs at each stopping point to discuss our progress and offer each other support and feedback. what began as a single retreat evolved into regular writing weekends and zoom sessions. we were able to invite others from the cohort to join us; reinforcing the sense that we were all on the journey together. as a trio, we were able to move beyond simply writing and also became friends who celebrated personal, professional, and academic success as well as lifted each other during trying times as well. there were times when connecting with the trio was the one lifeline that helped me keep moving forward despite various challenges. because we spent so much time working together and discussing our research and progress, we were all familiar with each other's work we would share journal articles that might be beneficial randle et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.440 16 for their research. we also asked each other questions and had dialogues about our methodologies and frameworks. these conversations gave us opportunities to discuss our work with folks who were familiar with it, but who also felt comfortable probing and asking questions to get us to think more deeply or differently. there was no shame or fear in our group. we were able to show up authentically wherever we were in the process and leave better than we were with more done and/or a solid plan to keep moving forward. i credit my ability to finish the program to the strong support that came from my peers and our writing times. author 3 vignette in a world of ever-expanding choices for online doctoral programs, i chose the uc davis candel program because i knew i needed to be an in-person student. the small cohort model that the program has developed appealed to my value of learning in community. with the beginning of my journey in candel coinciding with the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the abrupt shift to online learning was disappointing to say the least. with the excellent support of our faculty and the open-minded nature of my fellow colleagues, we began to create community even in this online format. as a sense of normalcy settled in, including in-person courses, and we progressed in our coursework, it became clear that i was going to need a strategy for the process of writing a dissertation. leaning again on my value of learning in community i sought out others who may be interested in a writing retreat in between our second and third years of the program. i also initiated the idea of requesting funds to support this idea. in july 2022 seven candel colleagues rented a home in a quiet rural area to focus on the beginning of our dissertations. we shared food and ideas and we continued to build on the sense of community that we had begun to create in the classroom. later that summer there were two more writing retreats, one of which was sponsored by the candel program upon our request. these retreats included more of our cohort and then expanded to other kinds of writing community supports. colleagues who were from similar geographic areas got together on a regular basis in person. other candel students created standing zoom writing times. the candel program leadership saw the significance of this approach and sponsored a multi-cohort retreat the following year. though not everyone participated, and not everyone participated in the same way, it was clear that writing in community was both desirable and effective for many of us in this edd program. the value of trusted community and accountability in relation to a writing practice was demonstrated through these many strategies. for me, the development of a trio, myself and the two authors, was invaluable. the sense of support, the encouragement to keep going and the practical nature of a set writing practice in community kept me moving forward. recommendations using current research and our own experiences described in this article, the following recommendations are offered to enhance the experiences of edd students in terms of community writing. institutional supported writing retreats and intentional coursework options to aid in the dissertation experience should be implemented to support the writing process. writing retreats hosted by the edd program could be one day or multi-day, and held at specific time frames throughout the program. support could include the provision of food, funding for hotel stays and transportation costs, and inviting alumni to engage in collaborative support and/or peer review. curriculum within the edd program could be adjusted to specifically focus on dissertation writing and actively incorporate writing communities early in the program. for example, coursework can embed practices such as utilizing writing center professionals, structure classes in a way that requires writing partners or groups, and intentionally creating space for cohort members to engage in peer review. more time in courses that are 7-8 hours long could also be set aside for writing specifically, as the course in the third year of the candel program was designed to do. an optional course for those in the post-dissertation proposal phase could be established for those who want additional support with their specific dissertation elements (e.g., coding, thematic analysis, implications for policy and practice). intentional curriculum design could also build in summer writing retreats in between each year of coursework. the candel program already begins with a summer leadership institute, a weeklong experience to begin the program for each cohort. using this as a model, a summer writing retreat that is for multiple cohorts could benefit the dissertation writing process and thus help students to completion. we argue the long-term benefits of writing in community as a strategy to enhance the sense of belonging among scholarpractitioners may be helpful to amplify the voices of edd professionals. this may include continued contributions in academic settings, such as publications and conference presentations where scholar-practitioner perspectives are not often the majority. writing in community helps to develop “critical and collaborative reading and writing practices” (maher et al., 2008, p. 267). furthermore, it encourages extended contributions to research, publications, and content. as outlined in research by maher et al. (2008), participants in writing groups developed skills and brought their learning “into other forums, such as presenting at conferences and publishing journal articles” (p. 267). this directly links to a sense of belonging as students move through the edd process and beyond. it’s important for voices and perspectives to continue to be heard within academia, and for doctorate of education graduates to be welcomed as researchers, authors, and presenters. conclusion our journey through the candel program was not simply an academic journey, but a testament to the power of collaboration and critical friendship. as recent doctoral students in an edd program, the importance of community-based writing for edd students cannot be understated, especially in a doctoral program for full-time working professionals. writing in community can increase a sense of belonging and support doctoral students in their edd journey towards dissertation completion and beyond. furthermore, it has catapulted us to submit to publications and conferences together as a way to continue the community writing process as we grow and evolve as scholar-practitioners. our trio came together due to unexpected challenges but became a symbol of support and encouragement. we were able to connect with our peers, expand our writing community, and create an even broader collaborative community that was pivotal to our success in the program. finally, it was not simply about completing the program, but the relationships formed, lessons learned, and the persistence we found within ourselves and each other. we know that community-based writing the power of writing in community impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.440 17 will continue to help us in our scholarly endeavors. as we progress in our personal and professional lives, we value the critical friendships established through our writing communities and advocate for the same support to exist in all edd programs. references graham, k., rios, a., & viruru, r. (2022). constructing radical community: an ecological model for shifting from an edd to a we-dd in online doctoral programs. higher education, 85(2), 301–323. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00834-8 hamann, e. t., & wunder, s. (2013). using a cohort approach to convert edd students into critical friends. in: v.a. storey (ed.) redesigning professional education doctorates. palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137358295_10 hurtado, s., & carter, d. f. (1997). effects of college transition and perceptions of the campus racial climate on latino college students’ sense of belonging. sociology of education, 70, 324–345. maher, d., seaton, l., mcmullen, c., fitzgerald, t., otsuji, e., & lee, a. (2008). ‘becoming and being writers’: the experiences of doctoral students in writing groups. studies in continuing education, 30(3), 263–275. maldonado, l. g., dolfi, j. j., bartlett, j. e., & bartlett, m. e. (2021). forward momentum: providing supportive space for edd students' dissertation progression through weekly online writing sessions. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 6(3), 13–20. rush, j. s., & olivier, d. f. (2021). committed and engaged: a mixed method phenomenological study of the perceived roles, responsibilities, and contributions of professional support personnel in higher education. research issues in contemporary education, 6(1), 1–25. settles-tidwell, m. (2021). at the table activism: centering the experiences and elevating the voices of female administrators of color navigating historically white institutions while making institutional change. (publication no. 28652405) [doctoral dissertation, california state university east bay]. proquest dissertations publishing. stevenson, n. (2021). developing academic well-being through writing retreats. journal of further and higher education, 45(6). 717–729. storey, v. a. (ed.). (2013). redesigning professional education doctorates: applications of critical friendship theory to the edd. springer. white, j., & nonnamaker, j. (2008). belonging and mattering: how doctoral students experience community. naspa journal, 45(3). https://doi.org/10.2202/0027-6014.1860 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00834-8 https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137358295_10 https://doi.org/10.2202/0027-6014.1860 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 58 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 applying theory and research to practice: the pedagogical practices heather hurst frostburg state university hlhurst@frostburg.edu abstract this essay describes the pedagogical practices and learning activities of an edd course redesigned to help students develop scholarly practitioner identities by weaving together the program’s previously disparate strands of educational leadership, theory, practice, research, and social justice. we particularly focus on how students can learn to apply theories for equity and justice to their leadership practice. keywords doctoral education, instructional design, practitioner research, scholarly practitioners, cped i inherited the first course of our research sequence, applying theory and research to practice in the spring of 2019, as i was concurrently in my first academic year as the program’s coordinator and contemplating new directions for our edd program in educational leadership. i taught research and writing courses in the program since 2016 and supported our students’ dissertation research as a chair and methodologist since my hire the previous year. by this point, i recognized several fundamental problems within our program. first, our research courses were entirely discrete from our leadership courses, meaning that we were teaching research as separate from practice. i wanted my students to learn about research for more than the dissertation. second, our students floundered in incorporating theory in their dissertations – and their practice. many began the dissertation process without the opportunity to read or explore theory in their coursework, and they struggled to conceptualize how a theory would frame their dissertation studies. third, and most important to me, our program was not yet committed to disrupting systemic educational inequities. in the six months prior to my need to redesign and teach the course, the confluence of several circumstances profoundly changed how i thought about teaching research in our program. initially, i was the program’s qualitative methodologist, and i frequently declared – to my students and myself – that i was not a “leadership person” but instead could teach them the research knowledge and skills that they then could independently apply to their leadership. however, i reconsidered this perspective when our previous program coordinator retired. i was appointed to the role and had to confront questions about my own identity: what did it mean to not be a “leadership” person while concurrently leading a leadership program? and why did i not consider myself a “leadership” person? i felt confident in my capacity to meet the day-to-day administrative needs of the program. i intuitively knew that i would be doing more than coordinating, and i felt intimidated by our cohorts of admirable educational leaders. i listened to the implicit and explicit messages about my nascent leadership. for instance, when i sought others’ perspectives about a dilemma, an older male involved with the program told me, “heather, as the leader, you need to make the decisions,” as if my desire to hear invested parties’ perspectives was an inability to independently make decisions. i struggled in part to self-identify as an educational leader because my belief in collaborative dissensus-seeking leadership clashed with our program’s image of leadership as a solo enterprise. thus, i began to consider the theories that undergirded my own leadership and how i could articulate them. my dean offered funding for me to attend my first carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) convening that summer. we had been a member institution for several years but had not significantly adopted its guiding principles. while there, i found myself troubling the division i previously established between leadership and research; our research courses equipped our students to conduct dissertation studies but not with the praxis of theory, research, and practice. i was increasingly convinced that our students would need to synthesize research, theory, and leadership to develop scholarly practitioner identities. the previous design of this course took a traditional approach to research, and its syllabus communicated these purposes: “(1) an overview [of] research purpose, design and practices; (2) applicability of research for the educational practitioners; (3) informed consumption and understanding of peer-reviewed quantitative and qualitative educational research; and (4) to become familiar with introductory principles of research.” leadership is mentioned once on the syllabus, in a table conveying a dispositional outcome of the course: “understanding of history, legal policies, ethical standards, and emerging issues to inform leadership in disciplinary area.” the words equity, ethics, and social justice do not appear in the syllabus, and theory is used only once as part of the course title. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9954-3333 applying theory and research to practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 59 the role theory plays in edd programs one of cped’s (2021) guiding principles for program design states that edd programs should be “grounded in and [develop] a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry” (emphasis added, para. 5). we have longstanding questions about who needs theory and for what. shulman et al. (2006) argued that phd students’ research, particularly dissertations, is “expected to be more theoretical than for the edd” (p. 26). the incorporation of theory in an edd student’s knowledge base interrupts the common misconception that theory is for ivory tower scholars or useful primarily to frame dissertations. perry (2012) argued that “students of education – whether they’re receiving an education doctorate (edd) or a doctorate of philosophy in education (phd) – rarely apply theoretical knowledge to practice settings” (p. 41). similarly, a participant in bista and cox (2014) griped, “‘the theory courses were my least favorite. i like relevancy and most of the courses were relevant and motivated me to grow as a leader’” (pp. 12-13), implying that this student does not see theory as relevant to their leadership practice. we do not have extensive literature from edd programs demonstrating how we are guiding our students to understand and transform practice through the application of theory. buss et al. (2013) indicate that action research was useful “to turn theory into practice” (p. 66), a phrase used throughout the literature about edd programs without further elucidation. harrington et al. (2021) suggest that “curriculum in an online program can be designed to provide students with practical opportunities to put theory and research into action” (p. 10). porfilio et al. (2019) briefly introduce two edd courses that incorporate leadership theories and critical theories. however, the literature lacks specific examples of the pedagogy used to help edd students “bridge the divide between research, theory, and practice” (kennedy et al., 2018, p. 6). the most specific example is within clark et al. (2021): the teaching team guided students to read certain theorists’ works based on the students’ inquiries but primarily for the students’ action research projects rather than their broader practice. contextual program details our edd program in educational leadership utilizes a cohort model with students who primarily work in pk12 and higher education, although our students also work for nonprofits, the government sector, and for-profit corporations. our students are highly diverse in their backgrounds, race/ethnicities, work and geographic contexts, and ages. my first iteration of this course was for the small 2018 cohort of ten students. our program at that point in time was campus-based with some hybrid courses, but we were early in the stages of transitioning to a fully online modality for the 2020 cohort. this fifteen-week course was initially designed as hybrid, alternating between a week of a 2.5-hour session on-campus and a week of an asynchronous module. students take the course during their third semester of the ten-semester program. revised course design with the multiple tensions described above in mind, i desired for this redesigned course to be a space in which we braided together the strands of educational leadership, scholarly practitioner identity development, theory, research, and practice. i conceptualize these as a braided bread: the strands are separate at first but rise and become baked together, served from the framework of social justice and equity. figure 1. conceptual framework as is true for most of my courses, i brought an inquiry stance (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009) to my redesign of the course framed by essential questions: • who am i as a scholarly practitioner? • how do i design research studies that are applicable to my practice as an educational leader? • how can i hear, listen to, and incorporate diverse perspectives in my work as an educational leader and scholarly practitioner? the syllabus includes a description of my course design, partially quoted here: cped suggests that scholarly practitioners “blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice. they use practical research and applied theories as tools for change.” i imagine this course to be something of a laboratory in which we experiment with the application of different theories and research to our problems of practice. your assignments in this course are designed to help your experimentation with different theories and empirical research, both that which you consume and that which you create. the questions embedded in these assignments are merely prompts to begin your thinking, but you should explore the questions that you yourself are asking. hurst impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 60 the “laboratory” reference connotes the cped (2021) framework, which describes “laboratories of practice” as “settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other” and “where ideas… can be implemented, measured, and analyzed” (para. 9). i wanted to incorporate the concept of experimentation: not yet knowing, trying to figure out, and (seemingly) unsuccessful initial attempts. the students are thus invited to engage in their unique and significant inquiries, and the learning activities are flexible enough to allow students “space to take up your own questions as i grow your ability to ‘gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens’ (cped, 2021, para. 8)”, as quoted from the course syllabus. i encourage students in this design statement to remember that “our deepest learning occurs when we take risks and venture into the unknown. new knowledge can sometimes feel uncomfortable, but like a new pair of shoes, sometimes we need to persist through a breaking-in period before we reject the knowledge outright”, also quoted from the course syllabus. course texts i selected two texts for the course: organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education by colleen capper (2019) and research design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based and community-based participatory research approaches by patricia leavy (2017). the first was published mere months before my course redesign and was a serendipitous find (hurst, 2023). i selected leavy’s (2017) text primarily based on the approachability of her writing and her incorporation of non-traditional but equity-oriented research designs like arts-based and participatory research. course assessments the course assessments are divided into five categories:  participation (15%)  case study (25%)  theoretical book read (25%)  two-pagers and other assignments (15%)  research abstract (20%) i provide an overview of these categories here and describe the assessments in greater detail in the week-by-week descriptions of the course. case study the case study category consists of four discrete assignments: (1) development of case study, (2) case study analysis, (3) case study group project part one (applied research), and (4) case study group project part two (original research). theoretical book read the syllabus explains, “approximately a third of the way into the course, through consultation with your course instructor, you will choose a full-length text about a major theory in social science to read. this theory should be of interest to you and relevant to your work as an educational leader and practitioner-scholar.” this category also consists of four assignments: (1) summary of text, (2) article evaluation, (3) reflection on leadership statement, and (4) meaning for your work. research abstract this assignment is the summative assessment for the course and encourages students to integrate the topic of study, theory, research design, and specific research methods on a small scale. course schedule module one before beginning the course, students write a personal leadership statement that serves as a benchmark for their thinking for the remainder of the semester, as described in the assignment. the students are encouraged to explore questions like, what types of actions do you try to take as a leader and who do you lead, and how do you think about those whom you lead? i introduce the terms ontology, epistemology, and paradigm and suggest that not all conflicts present in their professional lives are “personality” conflicts; sometimes, they arise from differences in worldviews and theoretical framing. i differentiate between dominant paradigms: postpositivism, interpretive/constructivist, critical, transformative, pragmatic, and arts-based. students work in small groups to identify the epistemological framing within sample research abstracts from educational research articles. we discuss the dominant paradigms in our educational contexts and what other paradigms might look like in our contexts. students situate their personal reasons to conduct research in a paradigm. they sometimes realize through this reflection that a different paradigm feels more aligned with their personal values. students reread and analyze their personal leadership statements, highlighting each sentence with a different color to differentiate between belief statements, legacy statements, anecdotal evidence, empirical evidence, and references to diversity or inequity. most students find that their leadership statements are “very blue,” as they describe them, indicating many belief statements. they consider how the leadership statement reflected their values for their own leadership and what factors influenced their composition of their leadership statements. we conclude the class session with some freewriting on these prompts: • when was the last time you felt fearful or anxious as a learner? • what was at the heart of your fear or anxiety? in other words, why were you afraid? why were you anxious? • in what ways did you grow through the experience? • what did you learn from the experience? gunther kress (2003) describes learning as a change in an individual. what changes did you see in yourself? • could anyone have done anything to ameliorate your fear/anxiety? what might have been gained/lost from their intervention? these questions serve to demonstrate my awareness of the uncertainty that they might experience throughout the semester and to highlight the relationships between uncertainty, fear, and learning. module two students read the first two chapters of capper’s (2019) text, which focus on dominant theories in educational organizations. we explore the connections between epistemologies and educational leadership – and why these connections matter for educational equity. i share the tables of contents of two books about leadership, applying theory and research to practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 61 and small groups of students explore these to evaluate capper’s (2019) claims about what most leadership texts do and don’t address. students compose a two-page case study about “a situation that’s unresolved for you, something that’s still eating at you” (capper, 2019, p. 30). we later discuss how these case studies serve as problems of practice (pop), but the case study phrasing frees students from worrying about the magnitude of the dissertation in practice at this stage. module three we explore structural functionalism and interpretivism as the dominant theories framing educational organizations based on chapters three and four of capper’s (2019) text. students share what they see as benefits and limitations of structural functionalism, and they engage in a reflective activity from capper’s (2019) text that guides them to consider how structural functionalism is present in their own leadership practices and their organization’s response to difference/diversity. guided by capper’s (2019) extensive and thoughtful questions, students analyze their case studies through either the structural functionalist or interpretivist theoretical lenses. for instance, for structural functionalism, students can consider questions like, “to what extent is your situation a problem with strategy or goals (e.g., too many, too few, unclear, disagreement over?” (capper, 2019, p. 49) and “to what extent is your situation a problem that people are unclear about their responsibilities or uncommitted to them, or are too accommodating?” (capper, 2019, p. 50). although students initially tend to think of their cases as individual problems, this analysis and video feedback they receive from me illustrate systemic and organizational issues. module four we begin to explore how to integrate theory and leadership in this module based on chapters five through ten of capper’s (2019) text. these chapters explore theories oriented toward social justice, such as black feminism and disability theory. each student chooses two other chapters to read based on their interests, and we all read chapter six: feminist, poststructural, and feminist poststructural epistemologies. in small groups, students create diagrams that demonstrated their conceptualizations of how power operates. we discuss poststructural conceptualizations of power, and i share a timeline of my own morning, followed by a quote from capper’s (2019) text: “…the strongest power comes not from oppressive rules and regulations, per se, but from commonsense, natural activities and beliefs that sanction our bodies, souls, desire, and day-to-day living” (p. 85). we discuss how my decisions regarding my morning may have been prompted by “common sense” and beliefs, and we explore the concept of “common sense” and how it can prevent us from hearing, believing, trusting, and honoring different worldviews and experiences. we additionally discuss several prompts about power: ○ to what extent do i recognize that power is everywhere and that it can emanate from many different points? ○ to what extent do i recognize that i have the potential for power, that it can come from anyone, and that all people can exert normalizing power over others, but that some people have access to channels or power that others do not? ○ to what extent do i recognize that power is operating on me in ways i may not expect or realize, governing my desire, needs, and my physical body? students break into small groups based on one of the chapters that they chose to read. on a large sheet of paper, the students in the group outline the key tenets of their theory. students walk around the room to review all of the theories. they receive paper cutouts of a figure and a slash mark; i instruct them to affix the figure onto any theory that resonates with them and the slash mark onto any theory that seems contradictory to their worldview. the activity helps us get a baseline understanding of each theory presented in capper (2019) and to identify theories that we might want to explore further; it also helps us see patterns among the theories that seem most resonant, and we discuss why those patterns might exist. additionally, it helps students realize that theories from perspectives other than those of their own identities sometimes resonate with their existing or aspirational worldviews. for instance, although only two cohort members openly identify as lgbtqia+, a number of students placed figures on queer theory. figure 2. sample student poster for black feminist theory this module’s assessment presents students with a variety of options, and i ask students to select one that they believe aligns with their “current interests/curiosities/learning needs.” beyond the options i provide, i also encourage students to contact me to imagine an alternative activity. the assignment creates some space for students to make explicit connections between these theories and their leadership. sample prompts include: • write your mission statement. what is it that you want to do with your leadership? this statement is in many ways related to your leadership statement from the hurst impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 62 beginning of the course but is unique in that it becomes your grounding point, what you consult before you take on new projects or commitments to assess if they align with your personal mission. consider your epistemological framework(s) as you write your mission statement. • reflect again on your leadership statement from one or more of the epistemologies you've read about in capper's (2019) text. she offers many questions that you could draw on for your reflection for instance, she offers questions about language, change, decisionmaking, and power at the end of chapter six. • consider rewriting your leadership statement now that you have gained some epistemological awareness. what might you want to change to situate yourself in your epistemologies? some text might be deleted, added, or revised. you might find some kind of creative way (a powtoon?) of representing those changes. i also meet individually with students to help them identify a fulllength theoretical text to read and work with throughout the remainder of the semester. students come to these conferences with a sense of which theories resonated with them from the overview in capper’s (2019) text. students choose texts like queer theory: an introduction (jagose, 1996), pedagogy of the oppressed (freire, 1970), and mindset: the new psychology of success (dweck, 2006), although this list is far from exhaustive. many – but not all – students select a theory related to equity and justice. some students also switch texts after beginning one and finding it either too dense, too disconnected from their practice, or not well aligned with their own worldview. module five module five transitions from considering how theory guides our practice to considering how theory guides our research. we collaboratively review an empirical article and discuss where and how to identify the epistemology and theory in the article. we also describe how the theoretical framework advises the methodological choices the researchers made. we discuss how the article would be different if the topic were framed by a different epistemological lens. we consider how the reference list conveys where an author is situating themselves and how they are valuing diverse perspectives and including (or not) women and people of color. module six this module explores ethics in research. i placed this exploration at this point in the course so that ethics are not implicitly suggested to be secondary to research design but instead a primary and ongoing concern. students read chapter two of leavy’s (2017) text. in a discussion board, i role play three different vignettes (each about 90 seconds) of researchers proposing different studies. i ask students to identify the ethical issues in the mock studies i pretend to be proposing, and the ensuing discussions have been robust and rich. for instance, in one vignette, i pretend to be a graduate student conducting my first research study. (each i statement that follows in this paragraph refers to my hypothetical and problematic vignette.) i am interested in how new parents navigate the demands on their time, but because i was worried about finding enough participants, i asked my friends to participate because i knew they’d agree, and i told them the interviews would only last 30 minutes although many actually lasted an hour or longer. to avoid perceived bias, i remained impassive during the interviews, and then i sent the interviews to another friend to transcribe. in the subsequent discussion, students questioned if my friends felt coerced to participate based on our existing relationship, and they noted that i did not mention a process of informed consent. they thoughtfully considered how new parents might be a vulnerable population, even if not formally defined as such by institutional review board (irb) regulations. they worried that participants did not know i would ask another friend to transcribe the data and that i was thus breaching confidentiality. they raised questions of privacy in the data that i collected of the children themselves, such as pictures of the infants, and of the consequences of my impassivity on participants’ emotional states during the interview. beyond the immediate ethical concerns, they also wondered if my friends comprised a diverse sample. one student concluded, “how did this study ever get through the irb process?” module seven students read chapter one from patel’s (2016) decolonizing educational research: from ownership to answerability. we explore the topics of research problems and research questions, and patel’s (2016) text helps students problematize some of their takenfor-granted assumptions about educational research. i extrapolated several key quotes from her chapter and use these to frame the discussion. students are randomly assigned a quote from the text to discuss with peers, as in this example: • how does “the genre of research… facilitate certain kinds of meaning through what is written, received, and positioned favorably” (patel, 2016, p. 20)? o what does this quote mean? o looking at a research article, how are certain kinds of meaning privileged? what is favorable about how it is written, received, and positioned? in the subsequent discussion to this prompt, students explore how researchers’ identities influence the studies that they design and the impact of colonialism on educational research. they realize the limited perspectives present in the history of american educational research; they are “often white, often male,” as michelle (a pseudonym) wrote in her response. jane (a pseudonym) considered the implications of a research article and concluded that the researcher had “certain views of what ‘success’ looks like for african americans” that were biased. students read chapter three of leavy (2017), and they find an empirical article on a topic of interest. they locate its research questions and highlight the participants, variables, and verbs within them. they consider which broad research design best aligns with the questions as currently written. students select their small groups for the first case study project. they identify one group member’s case study to use and consider together what the fundamental problems or unresolved questions are. they find recent peer-reviewed empirical research conducted on those problems and evaluate the research: how relevant is the research to the pop in the case study? they summarize these studies and explain the affordances and limitations of the existing research. finally, they develop an action plan to respond to the case study’s pop based on the research. through this collaboration, they applying theory and research to practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 63 learn explicit skills in locating and evaluating empirical literature and applying it to their practice through actionable steps. modules eight through twelve in these modules, we explore each of the research designs presented in leavy’s (2017) text: qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research. i ask for a student to volunteer to share their case study and distribute the student’s manuscript. we collectively enumerate all of the pop we see in the case study and imagine that we are going to design a research project to investigate those. we discuss the significance of a research study on these problems: who would need to know more, what would they need to know, and for what would the knowledge be used? we draft research questions that would align with the design featured in that module. we list data sources that might be useful for answering those questions. for example, we explored a student’s case study about disparities in advanced placement (ap) test scores across his district’s high schools. students posed the research question, “how are students admitted into ap classes within the school district?” to investigate root causes to the problem of practice (pop). they decided that useful qualitative data sources might include interviews with guidance counselors, students, families, and teachers, content analysis of policies, and observations of class scheduling procedures/meetings. this iterative activity immediately aligns research designs with students’ pop and demonstrates how a pop can serve as the basis for research studies. for the second case study group project, students work with their groups to design a research study based on a case study. the assignment description highlights the collaborative nature of this work: “our collective brainstorming, thinking, working, and discussing takes us in a direction where none of us could have gone individually.” the team provides the overview of a potential study: an introduction/problem statement, research questions, theoretical perspective, brief literature review, research design statement and justification, and details regarding data collection and analysis. i take a different tack in my introduction to arts-based research given how novel this approach is for many students. i incorporate non-traditional texts, like an excerpt about ideas and inspiration from elizabeth gilbert’s (2015) big magic. i suggest that the resistance some of us might initially have to arts-based research comes from the struggles many of us have in identifying ourselves as artists. i encourage students to focus not on the quality of their art but instead on the process of creating and explain how we can use art to learn about others (and ourselves). we discuss art through the lenses of the organizational theory in capper’s (2019) text. art resists the impulses of structural functionalism. it is not efficient, but that doesn’t mean that it is not worthwhile. we brainstorm categories of art and specific examples of that art. for instance, we might name “painting” and then different examples of painting to broaden our thinking: “children’s books,” “murals,” “pottery,” and “landscapes” might all be painted. i ask students to explore the following question in an art form of their choosing: what has your experience of becoming a scholarly practitioner been like? i suggest that, as leavy (2017) writes, “the medium should be selected for its ability to generate and represent the content and speak to the audience(s) of interest” (p. 212). students have created an incredible gallery of products: from interpretive dances to mixed media boxes to videos to digital cartoons. module thirteen students can share the art that they have created. we use these to engage in an analytical process: despite the great variance in the genres of art, what themes can we see across the cohort about how they are experiencing the process of becoming scholarly practitioners? this activity illustrates how art can serve as a data source and builds a sense of community as students see aspects of their own scholarly practitioner identity development reflected in their peers’ art. we also use this module to discuss the concepts of logic mapping for research studies and social justice leadership identity development. how the course has evolved we have now taught the revised course to six cohorts and continually make changes and improvements to the course. through my participation in an antiracist action group, a colleague and i analyzed this course syllabus (laughter & hurst, 2022). we developed a tool, critical antiracist discourse analysis (carda), to identify instances of racism and antiracism in the syllabus, both in terms of the content of the course and the policies embedded in the course. this study uncovered ways in which antiracism could be made more explicit in the syllabus, and i have revised it for future iterations of the course. this research itself models the application of theory and research to practice. when possible, this course is co-taught by two instructors, one with a qualitative background and one with a quantitative background. as we wrote in the syllabus, we [co-teach] this course primarily to demonstrate two different ideological stances toward research and theory. although we share fundamental commitments to equity-based education, we differ in the types of problems of practice that we see, the theories that we bring to these problems, and the research designs that resonate with us. to have just one of us teach the course means that you might be led to assume that one perspective is better, right, or “more natural,” but by having two perspectives, you might begin to see the multiplicity of perspectives that we could take when applying theory and research to practice. although i have not been able to teach it for recent cohorts due to scheduling conflicts, my former co-teacher has continued to evolve the course. she condensed the four theoretical text assignments into one longer paper that includes a summary of the text, an article evaluation through the lens of the theoretical text, and a reflection on the student’s leadership statement. this synthesized assignment reduces redundancy across the previous four shorter papers, mitigates the paper load on the instructor, and helps the student make immediate connections between applications of the theory to research and practice. concluding thoughts this conceptual essay describes the instructional design of a course designed to help edd students applying theory and research to their practice as educational leaders. the course outline is intended to elucidate how we scaffold learning about theory and hurst impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.358 64 guide our students to think theoretically about their practice and to spark the imagination of other edd faculty. i cannot include every detail of the fifteen-week course in this essay but have developed a website in which i share the full syllabus, a complete sample module, examples of students’ responses to a discussion prompt, and full assignments: http://applyingtheoryandresearchtopractice.wordpress .com. i share so much of my own personal narrative not simply to frame the redesign but because i wonder how much of the struggle to transform research within the professional practice doctorate might be related to similar issues of identity within its faculty. academia creates siloed identities: for me, i owned the identities of literacy researcher and classroom teacher prior to my work in the edd program. in that capacity, i felt comfortable applying theory to research. however, it has taken some time for me to identify as an educational leader, yet i could not have designed a course that integrates theory, research, practice, social justice, and leadership without that identification. but we all, as poet walt whitman (1855/1961) suggests, “contain multitudes” and are so much more than these narrowly focused areas of expertise, and the professional practice doctorate – for students and for faculty – might become spaces where our full selves are welcomed to show up. references bista, k., & cox, d. w. (2014). cohort-based doctoral programs: what we have learned over the last 18 years. international journal of doctoral studies, 9, 1–20. buss, r. r., zambo, d., painter, s. r., & moore, d. w. (2013). examining faculty member changes in an innovative educational doctorate program. innovative higher education, 38, 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755012-9222-3 capper, c. (2019). organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education. routledge. clark, c. m., olson, k., hacífazlíoglu, o., & carlson, d. l. (2021). community of practice among faculty team-teaching education doctorate (edd) students: a reflective study. international journal of doctoral studies, 16, 379–393. https://doi.org/10.28945/4775 cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. (2009). inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation. teachers college press. cped. (2021). the framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework dweck, c. s. (2016). mindset: the new psychology of success (2nd ed.). ballantine books. freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed. continuum. gilbert, e. (2015). big magic: creative living beyond fear. riverhead books. harrington, c., hooper, k., hughes, a., klein, e., melendez, j., siddique, f., & wasserman, e. (2021). an approach to an online edd in community college leadership program. impacting education, 6(3), 7–12. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.185 hurst, h. (2023). organizational theory for equity and diversity: leading integrated, socially just education [book review]. impacting education, 8(1) 58–60. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.346 jagose, a. (1996) queer theory: an introduction. new york university press. kennedy, b. l., altman, m., & pizano, a. (2018). engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model. impacting education, 3, 4–12. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 kress, g. (2003, july). meaning, learning, and diversity. paper presented at the tenth international literacy and education research network conference on learning, london, uk. laughter, j., & hurst, h. (2022). critical antiracist discourse analysis (carda). urban education, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221097029 leavy, p. (2017). research design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based and community based participatory research approaches. guilford. patel, l. (2016). decolonizing educational research: from ownership to answerability. routledge. perry, j. a. (2012). to edd or not to edd? phi delta kappan, 94(1), 41–44. porfilio, b. j., strom, k., & lupinacci, k. (2019). getting explicit about social justice in educational doctoral programs in the u.s.: operationalizing an elusive construct in neoliberal times. the journal of educational foundations, 32(1, 2, 3, & 4), 104–123. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 whitman, w. (1961). leaves of grass. penguin. (original work published 1855) http://applyingtheoryandresearchtopractice.wordpress.com/ http://applyingtheoryandresearchtopractice.wordpress.com/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-012-9222-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-012-9222-3 https://doi.org/10.28945/4775 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.185 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.346 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221097029 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 3 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.482 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. can ai facilitate a human-centric approach to writing a problem of practice dissertation? insights from doctoral students carrie kell university of wyoming ckell@uwyo.edu brian kraeer university of wyoming bkraeer@uwyo.edu william cain university of wyoming wcain@uwyo.edu abstract this essay explores the evolving role of generative ai within edd programs, highlighting its transformative potential to support students throughout their dissertation journey. through narrative inquiry, it shares the experiences of two doctoral students writing dissertations in practice about ai, while simultaneously negotiating the use of it in their research and writing. the essay centers around ai and the cped framework, in particular, concepts of the problem of practice, inquiry as practice, and mentoring. by documenting these experiences, this essay offers valuable insights for students, faculty, and program directors navigating the integration of ai in doctoral education. keywords artificial intelligence (ai), cped dissertation in practice, ai integration, generative ai and writing and research when openai released chatgpt in november of 2022, in just five days, more than a million users were experimenting with the freshly available, free version of the app, and in just two months, it had attracted 100 million users (lambert & stevens, 2023). at that time, brian and i were amid our coursework in an online, asynchronous learning, design, and technology (ldt) program at a western united states land-grant university. as students in a program centered around the advancements of technology in learning, we knew we were experiencing a transformative phenomenon; it was an opportunistic moment for both our research and application as teachers. given the emphasis on practical knowledge with which researchers address issues within their practice, it is unclear how current iterations of generative ai may support doctoral students in their research and writing. this essay aims to address the evolving role of generative ai within edd programs, acknowledging its potential to revolutionize writing, teaching, and research methodologies through narrative inquiry. as edd students, we are primarily concerned with the kinds of influences generative ai might have on writing a dissertation embedded in a practice problem. many institutions continue to prioritize the potential opportunities and ethical challenges of ai in undergraduate education, often overlooking the needs of graduate students. doctoral students, on the other hand, have as much or even more to gain or lose from incorporating generative ai tools into their learning and research practices. specifically, an edd program that adheres to the carnegie project on the education doctorate cped framework often requires students to participate in research that stems from their professional practice and experiences. edd candidates are typically required to conduct research derived from professional practice, focus on problem solving in practical contexts, and highlight the human experience in their field. in this essay, advanced doctoral candidates who not only write dissertations about ai in writing classrooms, but also incorporate ai into their own research and writing, use narrative inquiry to shed light on their experiences. as a research method, narrative inquiry aligns with qualitative studies by exploring phenomena through the storytelling of individuals’ lived experiences (connelly & clandinin, 1990; kim, 2016). narrative inquiry, similar to the foundations of the cped framework, is based on the fundamental aspect of human experience. the cped framework asks students to contextualize their dissertation in practice (dip) within their educational contexts, which often requires understanding people’s experiences in order to explore complex educational issues. connelly and clandinin (1990) argued for the use of narrative inquiry in educational research to tell our own stories and examine our roles as researchers and teachers. for this paper, we chose the narrative inquiry method because we believe that sharing our experiences as doctorate students and http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0079-2540 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9624-1197 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9814-228x kell et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.482 4 teachers navigating ai in our classrooms could offer valuable insights to faculty and program administrators, helping them decide whether and how to integrate generative ai into their edd programs. documenting the journeys of advanced doctoral students not only provides practical insights but also enriches theoretical reflections that can inform both pedagogical practices and research methodologies within these programs. ai and the human-centric dissertation in practice a dip is a scholarly endeavor that tackles a complex practice problem, often driven by a human connection to the problem (cped, n.d.). human experience frequently forms the foundation of these problems. in a study by ma et al. (2018), real-world dilemmas or difficulties a student encountered in their local communities determined their choice of a practice problem. students work on research integrated within their areas of expertise with the goal of enhancing career development and academia’s relationship with the organization they serve (storey & maughan, 2016). this human connection to the problem is what often differentiates a dip from a traditional phd. human-centric research, in which individuals serve as both the study’s focus and the researcher’s connection to the realworld problem at its core, intrinsically grounds the attributes of a dip. human-centric research typically incorporates methodologies and frameworks that prioritize the experiences, needs, and perspectives of students, teachers, and other educational stakeholders. identifying a real-world problem inside one’s practice, gathering data, analyzing the issue, and creating an action plan are all steps in this process (hoffman & perry, 2016). one of the primary responsibilities of a dip practitioner is to address practice problems that are contextualized and connected to the practitioner’s background, role, and responsibilities within their field (storey & maughan, 2016). this requires complex inquiry and social science research, often incorporating qualitative or quantitative methods. this presents the question of how ai can support a research pursuit so deeply rooted in human experience and practical application. as doctoral students in the dissertation stage of our program, brian and i are both excited and curious about how generative ai supports or complicates the dissertation process for edd students who engage with complex problems of practice in their professions. the recent phenomenon of chatgpt has pushed us to reconsider how ai situates itself within our work as teachers and scholarly practitioners. through narrative inquiry, we explore how artificial intelligence can be leveraged as a valuable tool within problem of practice dissertations, which focus on enhancing and emphasizing the human experience. following a series of questions, the sections below include our experiences and thoughts on how we have explored just that. ai as a problem of practice for an edd student, the dissertation begins with the problem of practice, which is rooted in their educational practice. as students in a ldt program, our practice intersects with the advancement of learning through innovative technologies and human experience. when mainstream generative ai tools like chatgpt emerged, they garnered significant attention from brian and me, reflecting our commitment to exploring how such technologies influence human learning and interaction. q1. how has ai influenced your problem of practice? brian: initially, my focus was on the integration of how open educational resources could impact constructivist teaching and learning environments. i knew that i needed to incorporate my current position as a fifth-grade english language arts teacher when considering my dissertation of practice. in 2022, it did not take long to notice the conversation regarding ai, specifically chatbots like chatgpt, and their impact on teaching and learning. as a veteran fifth-grade teacher, i have always been interested in how to improve my students’ writing. chatgpt, as a writing intervention, has transformative potential in providing personalized support to help students develop opportunities for growth while also challenging more advanced students to further their progress as writers. because chatgpt can mimic human-like conversation, i theorized that perhaps students could interact with the tool throughout the writing process in a low-risk way to help improve their work. because writing is a multi-faceted and complex process, there were numerous gaps in achievement on standardized and local assessments. writing is subjective and dependent on a bevy of foundational principles; this has led students to have varying levels of success as writers when entering fifth grade. by allowing students to engage in chatgpt throughout all stages of the writing process, i hope to provide them with a valuable tool that can be used to close gaps, unlock their potential, and foster confidence when writing. carrie: when i entered the program, my research focused on the digital divide, especially in an era of covid and remote learning. however, as an instructor of first year writing at a private institution, when chatgpt was released, i witnessed firsthand the fear and panic of faculty and administration as to how it would be used by students. i immediately started to talk to my committee chair about ai and the opportunities in writing that were, at the time, not being discussed. i found that there was a problem in that faculty were lacking knowledge and guidance on how ai can be integrated into pedagogical practice. this disruption reshaped my problem of practice and my current dissertation study. the problem of practice is the integration of ai in first-year writing classrooms and the varied attitudes of educators towards using it. these attitudes range from viewing ai as unethical to struggling to understand its application or not using it at all. my study is aimed at addressing the growing need for a writing pedagogy embedded in and concentrated in ai. although brian and i teach in very different academic spaces and levels, as practitioners, we both see how ai can potentially provide solutions and add value to our writing classrooms. this is exactly what a dissertation in practice asks of scholarly practitioners—to draw on their own experiences, observations, and interactions to engage thoughtfully in their practice. ai has provided us with a timely opportunity to be part of transformative praxis in our field. ai in the inquiry as practice cped defines inquiry as practice as “the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice and the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens” (cped, n.d.) as ai and writing dissertations in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.482 5 scholars investigating the problem of practice, we engage deeply in a human-centric process that involves questioning, researching, analyzing, and synthesizing information. in this interactive endeavor, ai tools are not merely supplements but can serve as scholarly partners that enhance this interactive process. ai can support research design, data collection, and creating instrumentation such as surveys and interview questions (grimes et al., 2023). q2. how has ai supported your inquiry of practice or how do you see it doing so? brian: ai such as chatgpt has been a transcendent tool to use when engaging with inquiry as practice for a dip. prior pedagogical content knowledge and proper prompt engineering are critical for the use of the tool in this arduous process. ai has many capabilities, but without highly detailed prompts, its value diminishes. prompt engineering helps foster the human-centric aspect of using generative ai for academic purposes because it requires the use of evaluative and analytical thinking. i have a formulaic approach i call role, command, format (rcf) depending on my query. typically, i assign myself a role, such as a researcher, give a precise command to the machine, then specify in which format i’d like the response. leveraging my current content knowledge of the field, i have used ai to help in the discovery of sources related to using chatgpt in the classroom. this has been paramount in the development of literature reviews and general topics of inquiry as i narrowed the design of my dip. additionally, i have used ai as a peer editor while negotiating critical thought to humanize and evaluate responses to strengthen my writing. chatgpt has also been helpful with revising and refining research questions, outlining methodological approaches, and answering general questions related to a dip focusing on quantitative measures. carrie: for me, inquiry has always been an external process in that i engage with research, people, and the context around me to explore ideas. as i found myself shifting my problem of practice to ai, it felt natural to engage with generative ai tools such as chatgpt in both my research and the contextualization of it as a problem within my professional practice as a writing instructor. i needed to first investigate the ways in which ai presented a challenge within the classroom. i did so by experimenting with chatgpt from the perspective of a student—how might ai help to write essays, respond to prompts, generate ideas, edit, etc.? this allowed me to gather information and analyze the role of ai in a first year writing classroom, leading to critical thinking about the opportunities and challenges but also facilitating questions of inquiry as to where and how ai might situate itself effectively within this context. i took these questions straight to ai and probed how it might respond to such questions about pedagogy and praxis. this interactive reciprocate inquiry i was engaged in with ai and my review of literature have played a crucial role in the shaping of my research questions. additionally, as i continue to advance my prompting skills throughout the process, i find my interactions with generative ai more meaningful. although scholarly inquiry is driven by human curiosity and questioning, it does not need to be a solitary endeavor. research suggests that there is a place for ai in various stages of the research process including idea development, the literature review, data analysis, editing, etc. (khalifa & albadawy, 2024). in our experience, incorporating ai as a research partner and collaborator replicates the peer-to-peer engagement that is often encouraged in doctoral programs. ai as an edd mentor as doctoral candidates in a remote edd program, we know that regular advising is a critical source of support and guidance, but that it can be qualitatively different from more traditional, in-person advising models. research suggests that in an online program, a learner-centered mentorship strategy that makes use of various technologies, regular communication, clear goal setting, and progress tracking has proven effective (kumar & johnson, 2019). we were interested in our own advisor’s perspective on the role ai could play in supporting human-centric activities associated with advising; the following is his written response. q3. what are your perceptions of ai as a supporting tool for mentoring and advising? dr. cain: as a professor, advisor, and committee chair in carrie and brian’s ldt program, i have encouraged my edd students to consider how generative ai could serve as a multi-faceted resource in their dip activities. depending on their specific research topics and needs, students may find that generative ai can help them manage research logistics effectively. this includes helping support literature reviews, synthesizing data, identifying gaps in existing research, and brainstorming solutions and designs that aid in the planning and implementation required in practice-based research. in zoom-based advising sessions with my students, i have explored with them in real time how generative ai could function as an ondemand tutor, clarifying complex theories and methodologies. engaging generative ai using their emerging content knowledge, critical thinking, and iterative design skills (cain, 2024) may also help students build insights into their own understanding of their dissertation topics. i believe these aspects of cognitive partnership with generative ai highlight essential human-centric aspects of this technology and could prove invaluable in a remote learning environment where direct access to advisors may be sporadic. depending on the students’ outlook and interests, generative ai tools could enhance the dip experience by simulating critical aspects of advisory interactions, which are often less accessible in remote settings. interactions with generative ai tools can activate social cues in users, making engagement feel more organic. sustained, judgment-free exchanges with these tools may engage students in deep, reflective discussions about their research topics, thus enhancing their critical thinking and analytical skills—key components of successful doctoral work. while i believe generative ai will not fully replace all human advisory roles and responsibilities, for remote online students, it could significantly enrich the advisory relationship by providing comprehensive support throughout the doctoral journey, thereby enhancing the students’ learning experience and supporting their success in addressing real-world problems through their dissertations. watching my students engage with generative ai in different capacities, i believe this emerging technology may provide essential support in the often isolated and independent context of remote doctoral research. writing a dip is a comprehensive task with many ups and downs. we recognize and value the role of a mentor throughout the process, but as students in an online program, access to resources, support, and feedback can often feel challenging. ai has presented kell et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.482 6 itself in ways we did not expect as graduate students in that it can provide real-time feedback, support research practices, or even offer project management assistance for keeping on track. ethical considerations while this essay speaks to opportunities to use ai to support the writing of a dip, there are ethical issues of integrity and bias that must be considered (kasneci et al., 2023). most ethical concerns in education have focused on plagiarism and the integrity of using ai to complete academic work, such as writing. furthermore, these advanced models have the potential to hallucinate or generate “nonexistent or incorrect content, as well as other related concerns associated with limited contexts, reliability, and a lack of learning from experience” (alqahtani et al., 2023, p. 1237). beyond the studied bias and hallucinations in generative ai use, there are questions around the ethics of using it in scholarship. integrity is among the concerns raised about the use of ai in academic scholarship. integrity, reproducibility, and rigor in research are critically dependent on “openness, transparency, and honesty about used methods and tools” (hosseini et al., 2023, p. 451). brian and i are aware that the appropriate use of ai in writing and research is still a focus of debate, which is why we approach our own use with transparency and approval from our program. however, we do not advocate for the use of generative ai in the dissertation process as a text producer or as a reliable research database. our approach and suggestions for future doctoral students are that ai may serve as a collaborative partner in the process of becoming a scholarly practitioner. recommendations brian and i have discovered opportunities for generative ai tools to support doctoral students throughout their dissertation journey, despite the ongoing debate about its use in education. from this narrative inquiry, we recommend edd students, teachers, and program administrators take into account the following factors while considering the use of ai in the dissertation process. be transparent transparency in using generative ai is crucial, especially in academic settings such as edd programs, where research integrity is paramount. brian and i had open conversations with our committee chair about how we were thinking about or planning to incorporate ai. this transparency led to engaging conversations about ethics and best practices. doctoral students should disclose the extent of ai involvement in their work with their programs, especially with their dissertation committee, and reciprocally, programs should establish guidelines. define purpose students should define what they aim to achieve with ai assistance, whether it’s an active part of their practice problems, used to engage in inquiry, or supports the research design. we previously noted how we have used ai for a variety of purposes thus far, such as refining research questions or exploring ideas. defining purpose will help students make informed decisions about when and how to use ai responsibly in their research. learn to prompt to be successful in integrating ai in a purposeful and effective way, students must familiarize themselves with the art of prompting. prompt engineering “involves rhetorical skill, organization, and precision” (cain, 2024, p. 51). using prompt engineering strategies can lead to more accurate, relevant, and contextually appropriate ai outputs, as well as pushing for deeper critical thinking about the problem of practice. conclusion the cped framework was developed with the aim of reimagining the edd program to “prepare educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, n.d.). these programs should thoroughly analyze ai, a highly anticipated and influential technology in education, for its potential advantages and challenges. additionally, as the growing number of online edd programs continues to emerge, ai has the potential to support doctoral students as scholarly practitioners in a transformative way. we hope this essay illustrates ai’s potential applications in the process of writing a dip. we not only invite doctoral students to consider ai in their scholarly inquiry and practice, but we urge teachers and mentors to investigate methods by which ai might enhance the educational experience and provide a dynamic 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(2019). online mentoring of dissertations: the role of structure and support. studies in higher education, 44(1), 59– 71. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1337736 lambert, j. & stevens, m. (2023). chatgpt and generative ai technology: a mixed bag of concerns and new opportunities. computers in the schools, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2023.2256710 ma, v. w., dana, n. f., adams, a., & kennedy, b. l. (2018). understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/ 10.5195/ie.2018.50 storey, v. a., & maughan, b. d. (2016). dissertation in practice: reconceptualizing the nature and role of the practitioner-scholar. in v. a. storey and b. d. maughan (eds.), international perspectives on designing professional practice doctorates (pp. 213–232). palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137527066_13 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071802861 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1337736 https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2023.2256710 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1357990 https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137527066_13 carrie kell university of wyoming brian kraeer university of wyoming william cain university of wyoming ai and the human-centric dissertation in practice ai as a problem of practice q1. how has ai influenced your problem of practice? ai in the inquiry as practice q2. how has ai supported your inquiry of practice or how do you see it doing so? ai as an edd mentor q3. what are your perceptions of ai as a supporting tool for mentoring and advising? ethical considerations recommendations be transparent define purpose learn to prompt conclusion reference new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 27 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 fostering student success through effective mentorship: insights from award-winning education doctorate dissertations rhia moreno augusta university rhmoreno@augusta.edu jesse l. wood belmont university jesse.wood@belmont.edu lee d. flood texas christian university l.d.flood@tcu.edu abstract this qualitative study explored the mentoring relationship between edd students and their dissertation chairs who won the cped dissertation in practice of the year award. utilizing the cped mentoring and advising skills to frame the study, we interviewed 16 mentees and mentors. thematic analysis pointed to broad mentorship themes of creating a culture of care, providing meaningful feedback, and modeling writing as a genre. this study has implications for practice for faculty chairing dissertation in practice, students, and doctoral program administrators. keywords doctoral mentoring, edd, culture of care, feedback, academic writing support brown et al. (2020) defined mentorship within the edd as a “mutually beneficial relationship between scholar-practitioners in the field of education that does not adhere to the typical tiered approach, but rather supports readiness, self-efficacy, and progress by providing sustained support and networking opportunities to achieve the participants’ desired outcomes” (p. 21). research confirms there is a direct relationship between the overall doctoral student experience and the quality of how they were mentored throughout the process (baker et al., 2013; esposito et al., 2017). likewise, poor mentorship can negatively impact students’ self-efficacy, productivity, and mental health (al makhamreh & stockley, 2020; levecque et al., 2017). despite the clear benefits of inserting explicit mentorship programming into the doctoral experience (lowery, 2018), few programs are guided by either a theory of mentorship (crisp & cruz, 2009) or a mentoring framework (see brown et al., 2020). this is complicated by the fact that “everyone thinks they know what mentoring is” (eby et al., 2007, p. 7). this mentality may create an underlying premise that mentorship is automatically and successfully embedded into doctoral programs simply through the existence of a dissertation advisor. moreover, it is often assumed that graduate students are autonomous and already know what to do upon entering their program, which lessens the degree to which mentorship is emphasized (thomas et al., 2015). further, lunsford et al. (2017) determined that while there is a significant institutional focus on undergraduate student mentorship, graduate mentorship is often presumed as engrained in the process. however, due to the high demand for dissertation supervisors many faculty are catapulted into the role of dissertation chair and are expected to hit the ground running with little guidance or even expertise on how to do this well. this is fueled by the assumption that mentors already know what to do (creighton et al., 2010; manathunga & goozée, 2007). this study therefore aimed to illuminate considerations for mentoring best practices to better support student success in doctoral programs. it examined the mentorship relationship of student-mentor partnerships who have won or chaired a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) dissertation in practice (dip) of the year award. the study was guided by the following research question: how do mentors and mentees of cped dip award winners articulate essential elements of their mentoring experiences? for the purpose of this study, we use the terms “mentor” and “mentee” and broadly discuss the interactions between the two as mentorship. however, we do not intend for the terms to be exclusive and recognize that faculty who oversee the dissertation process may define their roles differently depending on their program, e.g., advisor, chair. centering students’ well-being within the literature, student well-being is a common theme (al makhamreh & stockley 2020; esposito et al., 2017). in a study of over 3,500 phd students across disciplines, levecque et al. (2017) reported that doctoral students frequently “experience psychological https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1202-3691 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4580-5588 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9475-6295 moreno et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 28 distress” including depression, stress, unhappiness, and sleeping issues (p. 877). they found that the high demands of the doctorate caused a detrimental impact on over 90% of students’ mental health. doctoral students often question their sense of belonging, self-worth, and capabilities to do doctoral level work. posselt (2018) reported high levels of imposter syndrome in doctoral students, which was best mitigated through a growth mindset approach. when mentors reframed success and failure as part of the learning process, students felt a greater sense of belonging. posselt noted, however, that their participants were also reluctant to initially turn to faculty for mentorship and support. doctoral students want to be pushed to grow while also needing simultaneous affirmation (al makhamreh & stockley, 2020). roberts and ferro-almeida (2019) conceptualized this balance as tough love mentoring theory. building a culture of trust through mentorship creates a safe space for students to be vulnerable and fail on their way to success. a strong mentoring presence is a related key factor in supporting student well-being (woolderink, et al., 2015). findings from levecque et al. (2017) revealed that student well-being improved with mentors who were more involved with their students and who possessed an “inspirational leadership style.” conversely, mentors who had a “laissez-faire leadership style” produced a significant increase in psychological distress (p. 875). students who felt seen, heard, and engaged with, reported positive mentoring experiences. humanistic mentoring cruz et al. (2020) described humanistic mentoring as based in “reciprocity, mutuality, and empathy in the mentor/mentee relationship” (p. 104). humanizing the doctorate involves building relationships and mutual understanding while caring for the whole student beyond their academic program. roberts and ferro-almeida (2019) referred to this interpersonal mentorship quality as benevolence and esposito et al. (2017) instead likened it to mothering within a pedagogy of love and home. they spoke of doctoral mentorship being located “at the crossroads of mothering as the work of support, protection, and care where [students] may have found little otherwise; and of home as a place of understanding, familiarity, and guidance in a challenging environment” (p. 161). mentors also need to demonstrate a humanistic nature where they present themselves as real people and in doing so create authenticity in showing interest for their students (martin et al., 2021; woolderink, et al., 2015). cruz et al. (2020) used reciprocal storytelling to share personal stories that humanize the traditional student/teacher roles. singe et al. (2021) instead highlighted having an open-door policy where students feel welcomed and invited to talk to their mentor. research adds that frequent check-ins through a variety of communication styles proved to be the most successful for building relationships (brown et al., 2020; hauth et al., 2024). research suggests that mentors should intentionally acknowledge the challenges and struggles that students face in balancing their lives with their academic program. esposito et al. (2017) noted that students have “need for a learning space that allows the negotiation of real-life struggles during the doctoral process” (p. 170). moreover, when mentors do not notice or acknowledge the challenges facing doctoral students, students feel ignored and their well-being is negatively impacted (al makhamreh & stockley, 2020). mentorship best practices yob and crawford’s (2012) review of the mentorship literature identified both academic and psychosocial attributes of successful mentors for doctoral programs. these mentor attributes included competence, availability, induction, challenge personal qualities, communication, and emotional support. building on yob and crawford, brown et al. (2020) developed the mentoring pathways program model (mppm) to reframe their edd program. however, they departed from yob and crawford’s single framework after recognizing that their students needed variation in mentorship at different points in their doctoral program. findings from a series of related studies involving the impact of this mppm have highlighted that the combination of academic and psychosocial support at different levels of study supports student success (geesa et al., 2018; geesa et al., 2022). geesa et al. (2020) further found that students benefited from mentor-led induction in terms of learning about the dissertation process, resources, and work/life balance. the cped (2024) organization also includes a set of nine mentoring and advising (m&a) skills within their existing framework to support doctoral preparation of educators. outlined in table 1, the m&a skills are intended to conceptually guide edd programs as part of the larger cped framework. table 1. cped mentoring and advising framework guiding skills definition 1. equity and justice that fosters responsive mentoring regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, culture, race, religion, gender, or identity; 2. mutual respect that ensures students, advisers, and mentors are respected for their practical knowledge and understanding of research and inquiry; each capable of providing guidance and support to advance everyone's ability to apply mutually constructed knowledge across a variety of practical and theoretical contexts; 3. dynamic learning that provides open communication, critical friendships, and peer-to-peer support with reciprocal interactions and responsibilities that form a community of learners inclusive of adviser, mentor, and peer relationships; 4. flexibility that allows mentoring/advising to occur by all program faculty, in students’ work contexts, and in their available time; 5. intellectual space that supports students’ professional passions and needs by expanding their use of scholarship, inquiry, professional knowledge, and technology (when appropriate) to address problems; 6. support and safe learning environments that are developmental, directed, growth-oriented, team-oriented, and scaffolded so students are mentored/advised from the beginning of to the end of their programs while demonstrating an understanding of the needs of the adult learner; 7. cohort and individualized attention that centralizes students’ needs and problems of practice in learning while valuing the practitioner student as unique; 8. rigorous practices that set high expectations through a shared sense of responsibility and accountability and offer challenges for students to conduct inquiry as practice aimed at improvement and the development of new knowledge; 9. integration that aligns with adult learner needs while reflecting a program’s values, norms, and the cped framework (the cped framework, para 12). fostering student success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 29 recognizing the need to operationalize the framework, cped also introduced an m&a skills assessment tool. the tool provides an actionable self-assessment for edd faculty to reflect on and determine gaps in their mentoring skills. research design to explore the phenomena of mentoring, we adopted cped’s nine m&a skills to conceptually frame this study (see table 1). by considering the perspectives of dissertation award winners and their mentors, in conversation with the m&a skills, we could better understand how the m&a skills were actualized on their journey to produce an award-winning dissertation. we conducted a qualitative interview study (weiss, 1995) to best focus on the multiple perspectives of the mentorship dyads. through in-depth interviews with each participant, we would be able to develop a composite understanding of interrelated best practices in doctoral mentorship from both the mentors’ and mentees’ perspectives. we came to this inquiry through our positionality as edd faculty mentors and prior experiences as doctoral mentees. each of the three researchers had direct experience mentoring doctoral students and as such were invested in wanting to better understand what mentorship looked like for successful dissertations. we not only recognized the impact of our dual experiences as both mentors and mentees as an interpretive lens, but we reflexively leaned into these experiences to help us make connections across our data (denzin & lincoln, 2011). throughout the study, we continually questioned how our subjectivity shaped our interpretive process to ensure we were also looking for unexpected and new conceptions. participants using purposeful sampling, we recruited participants from the body of cped dip award winners extending back to its inception in 2012. the yearly cped dip award reflects a high-quality dissertation written either by an individual edd doctoral student or a team of edd students. the dissertation chair is also recognized for their efforts. using the cped database to identify the award winners and mentors, we emailed participants directly to invite them to participate in this study. this study included a total of 16 respondents: eleven doctoral students who we refer to as mentees and five dissertation chairs who we refer to as mentors. to provide anonymity, we did not differentiate participants by team or individual dissertations, nor did we filter participation by specific chairs in connection with their associated students. gender-neutral pseudonyms are used throughout this study for gender anonymity and overall confidentiality. for clarity within this study, individuals who served as mentors are referred to with the dr. title, e.g. dr. moore. participants who were in the mentee role as doctoral students are referred to by first name despite having since graduated and being doctors themselves. data collection and analysis we engaged in individual semi-structured interviews using tailored protocols approved by our institutional review board (irb): one for mentees and one for mentors. interviews lasted 60 minutes on average and were conducted, recorded, and transcribed via zoom. transcripts were then uploaded into nvivo for qualitative data organization and analysis. table 2. cped mentoring and advising framework & qualitative findings guiding principle categories & subcategories themes 1. equity and justice building personal relationships emotional support intersectional identities validation culture of care 2. mutual respect building personal relationships humanizing the experience developing metacognitive skills show over tell co-constructing culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre 3. dynamic learning building personal relationships including families balanced high expectations meaningful feedback “think of it as a gift” developing metacognitive skills show over tell culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre 4. flexibility balanced high expectations recognizing students’ outside lives culture of care 5. intellectual space building personal relationships “think of it as a gift” developing metacognitive skills show over tell culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre 6. support and safe learning environments building personal relationships emotional support “developing metacognitive skills” show over tell culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre 7. cohort and individualized attention building personal relationships individualized feedback culture of care meaningful feedback 8. rigorous balanced expectations “think of it as a gift” developing metacognitive skills show over tell culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre 9. integration building personal relationships including families balanced high expectations meaningful feedback “think of it as a gift” developing metacognitive skills show over tell culture of care meaningful feedback learning a new genre our analysis began with an interview-memoing process. following each interview, the team engaged in collaborative memoing where the lead interviewer would relay salient moments from their interview and the team would then discuss thoughts and connections. upon conclusion of all the interviews, we then began thematically analyzing our data using both deductive and inductive coding strategies. our deductive codes were formulated from our initial connections stemming from our memoing process. as an example, we derived the in vivo code “culture of care” during one of our post-interview memoing sessions. in discussion about what the participant had stated, the research team all had related connections to add from their previous interviews. as we coded, we also moreno et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 30 inductively looked for new concepts, patterns, and anomalies such as “surprised humanity.” we met regularly for interrater reliability and coding refinement. we collaboratively reduced our codes into themes based on noticed patterns and we continued to refine our themes into our synchronous writing sessions. in a final review of the data, we reflexively discussed our interpretations in reaction to the m&a skills and our positionality as edd mentors and previous doctoral mentees. table 2 displays how the researchers crosscompared their categories and themes with the cped m&a skills to provide a visual representation of the overlapping concepts. findings the following thematic findings highlight a broad mentorship mindset of interpersonal care and responsiveness mixed with intellectual growth and academic rigor. both mentors and mentees framed dissertation success within this balance of care, high expectations, and scaffolded support. culture of care working within a culture of care was a predominant theme across both mentees and mentors. participants highlighted the importance of not only being present and invested in the mentees work but focused on a more holistic valuing of the mentee. both sets of participants repeatedly expressed how important it was to recognize and support students as whole people. dr. moore explained how they “create a space for students to be seen for their intersectional identities and to be recognized and validated” and how important it was to support how their mentees “exist in all aspects of their life, not just in this doctoral program.” dr. moore added, i think my students understand that i value knowing who they are as a person. i know which of my students had a house renovation. i know which of my students had to bury her father in the program. i know which of my students changed jobs several times in the program with a period of being unemployed. jackie felt humanized as not just another student in the mill, but as a whole person whose life experiences mattered. jackie explained, “my chair built a culture of care, by publicly acknowledging and helping to develop the individual strengths of their students...they believed every doctoral student matters, every doctoral student has a gift.” both alex and casey discussed how it “had everything to do with feeling accepted and worthy” and “that you are actually worthwhile and valued.” building personal relationships establishing interpersonal connections were likewise important. the mentors worked intentionally to create space for relationship building, which was both unexpected and appreciated by mentees. dr. campbell valued “building relationships early on” through regular meetings every couple of weeks and to share their own experiences with them for authenticity and relationality. dr. campbell added, “i know their family now and they know my family.” dr. wilson encouraged community-building through events like potlucks and croquet tournaments to get to know their students while also providing space to “make the student feel connected and know there was support for them.” dr. evans added, “i know all my students very, very well. i can tell you anything you want to know about their complex lives.” dr. hart felt it was paramount to not only acknowledge their mentees’ lives outside the doctorate, but to then be responsive to their needs in that capacity. dr. hart stated, i’ll meet with students over the weekend if that’s when they’re free…for example, it’s very hard for an elementary school principal to be engaged in the work during the school day…so if i can spend time during the weekends to help my students get it done, i’ll do it. dr. hart felt that by meeting regularly with their mentee, they were able to build a relationship of care and support. they added that their mentee “pushed themselves harder because of our relationship…we both have a deep respect for each other.” this responsiveness was not without its challenges as dr. hart’s own workload could at times prevent them from being as responsive as they preferred. the intentionality of mentors to build authentic relationships was felt by students who highlighted how pivotal it was in their dissertation journey. cameron explained, “that feeling of personal connection made it easier because i felt like my chair cared about me and my work. my chair felt like a friend to me, who wanted me to be successful.” personal connections and care made the process more manageable. cameron further expressed surprise at having their mentor also show interest in their family. i had young sons at the time and there were times we’d be on a call and my [kids] were just going crazy, but my chair was really cool…and would talk to them. and when i had my defense, they actually came…and just think about it! just that ease of knowing i could bring my family to the defense–i really felt connected to my chair. the mentees felt more supported when their chairs took the time to get to know about their personal lives and families. this was unexpected, and it made them feel valued. emotional support the culture of care was especially noticeable when mentors went beyond just building relationships and were responsive to their emotional needs. dr. moore explained, “i held on to my commitment to prioritize students' wellness in this journey and pause when we need to pause and push when we need to go.” dr. moore felt it was important to normalize the feelings that arose so that students understood that it’s okay and even expected. as with the other contributing components to this culture of care, each of the mentees talked about these instrumental moments with an air of surprise and how it was unexpected that their professors would treat them with humanity and give them grace when they needed it. dominique, for example, emphasized how “phenomenal” it was that their chair cared for them and explained, it was a very pivotal moment for me, and honestly, it just solidified what i already knew: that my chair cared about me as a person, and wasn't just trying to get me through a system…it’s pretty phenomenal that they knew that that's what i needed at that time, and that she wasn’t so stuck in the roles of formality that she couldn't see my humanity. when students felt their mentors recognized their struggles in the moment, it encouraged them to keep going. jackie echoed this same sentiment when describing a low point when their life responsibilities almost caused them to quit entirely. jackie said, i totally broke down. i told my chair i was going to quit. i said, i can't do it. i can't take care of my kids and my dad and continue this dissertation process. i just felt very overwhelmed. fostering student success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 31 and they just listened. i took [the withdrawal] to their office and they said, hold on to that. let's just not do it today. let's wait on this. and so, it was because of my chair that i stayed in. without them i would not have stayed in the program. this emotional support was also shared by quinn who likened it to coaching and said that it helped when their mentor would encourage them by saying, “you can do this, you’ve got this.” robin likewise expressed the impact of being able to say, “i need a moment.” indeed, when their mother passed away during their program, it was significant to robin that their mentor said, “take the time off.” their mentor then rescheduled their one-on-meetings to help them get back on track. robin referred to this moment in their program as a key example of how their chair supported and cared for their emotional health. a few mentors, however, felt they had to prioritize academic success over emotional support. while dr. evans felt that it was important to show their students that they cared about their successes, when it came down to being an emotional cheerleader, dr. evans did not have the bandwidth or time to take on that level of support. instead, they saw their role more as the academic supporter. dr. evans said, i wouldn't say ignoring emotions, but i don't have time for the emotional part of this. and i do understand that it's a big part of what's happening, but ideally, as a chair, i think i should be paying more attention to imposter syndrome and [helping] that academic anxiety. dr. evans clarified, however, that their stance on emotional cheerleading did not mean they did not care and in fact, they would ideally build up the “emotional relational piece” if they had more time and bandwidth. still, dr. evans did stress the importance of building relationships and getting to know their mentees. dr. wilson acknowledged that they understood the challenge that students faced with balancing graduate study and full-time work, but it was their job to support them through their academic work. they continued, “it's really easy for them to say, ‘oh, i'll do that stuff next week or the week after’ because their jobs are demanding, and their families are demanding. but my job isn't to look out for their jobs or families.” dr. wilson re-emphasized that their job was to look out for the student to complete their program. balanced high expectations within this culture of care, mentors frequently coupled care with high expectations. dr. wilson described their approach as “lots of pushing with lots of support.” adrian similarly used the word pushing to describe how important it was to be challenged within a supportive environment. they described their mentor as “tough, but fair” and added, i would say the ideal relationship is one where you receive encouragement, but also constructive guidance. because you don't really want a mentor that just tells you great things all the time you want someone to help you grow. it’s a balance between pushing you and not necessarily pulling you but encouraging you. mentees appreciated feeling challenged and knowing that their mentors had high goals of increased knowledge, ability, and overall improvement. dr. moore described how a mentee asked “to hold them to the highest bars of excellence throughout the process” because they wanted to create a dissertation that would be important and impactful. devon used the phrase “gentle persistence” whereas quinn talked about it as a “sweet spot.” quinn emphasized the importance of being a cheerleader, but also being direct and straightforward while upholding the rigor of the program: it’s that sweet spot where you're pushing them, but you're not pushing them over the cliff yet, you know, so you're getting them right up to the edge and they might not feel totally comfortable, but they feel supported and they feel like it's possible to do whatever it is that that needs to be done. marion added, it’s kind of like good parenting. right? it’s being able to say, ‘i love you, but that’s never going to fly.’ it's that balance of respect, challenge, and empowerment. it’s like them saying, ‘recognize where your weaknesses are. you've got it and i'm gonna be here to pull you up if you fall. but you're gonna have to be willing to push yourself beyond where you've been comfortable.’ so, it’s that real kind of back-and-forth balance of encouragement, support, and push back when necessary. overall, mentors and mentees alike highlighted how the most impactful support in the program was tethered to compassion and understanding. recognizing students as whole people who were not immune to emotional distress, resonated with the mentees and helped them persevere. it was equally important to know that their mentors were invested in their academic success and were not going to let them slide even when it was tough. meaningful feedback meaningful feedback emerged as the second overall theme in this study where participants emphasized the vital role feedback played in advancing the dissertation writing process. this included the early stages of conceptualizing their research studies to finishing their work in the final defense. both mentors and mentees highlighted that being challenged, having space for reflection, and emphasizing a focus on metacognition made the feedback more effective and meaningful. the participants frequently discussed the importance of being challenged to think deeper about their studies, examine their work through multiple lenses, and improve their writing beyond what their expectations. “think of it as a gift” some mentors spoke to how they intentionally created a positive feedback mindset to prepare their students. they wanted students to understand that it would not be a congratulatory ‘one and done’ single effort, nor would it always feel good in the process. instead, feedback would be an iterative process of continual rethinking and rewriting. reframing it lessened the sting. dr. evans explained that it was important to create a feedback mindset early on where students understand how to make sense of the feedback that were to receive: so, we have conversations before they start to get feedback from me. i tell them, let me tell you about how i'm going to give you feedback. and i also share, like when i get feedback myself, look at what i'm getting back. like, i want you to get over a lot is bad, like a lot is not bad…we do some mindset kinds of conversations…we talk to them about the feedback process and how you're not going to submit this once you get feedback and be done. that's not how it works. it's going to be several iterations, and everyone is going to be stronger. dr. wilson also discussed setting clear feedback expectations: moreno et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 32 they’ve already been warned ahead of time that they are going to get huge amounts of feedback on their papers. i give just a ton of feedback both in editing and in questions…i sort of warn them, don’t be put off by this. think of it as a gift. this positive reframing enabled mentees to see it as an opportunity for growth. adrian explained how important it was for their mentor to “just being willing to be honest with us, you know, giving us feedback that helped us to grow.” quinn added that while it was oftentimes a painful process because they just “wanted it to be done,” it was so important for their mentor to push them “to go beyond.” robin understood the feedback as a means for continuous improvement: “there was always feedback for me to look at it from a critical lens, and also through the improvement science phase. so, it was very much aligned.” in addition to preparing students to engage with feedback early on, this feedback mindset helped mentees be open to looking at their work through different lenses and to improve their writing process. dr. evans understood how “overwhelming” rejection was and therefore also made sure to communicate how they reframed rejection in their own work. i do some modeling of my own work. if i get something back… some rejections…i'm like, ‘look, you want to see what they said about me. look at these. these are terrible, right? right. yes, my feelings are hurt, too. but if i can get over my feelings for a minute, and i look, it's really not all that bad. like everything they're saying is really going to help me strengthen it. so no, i don't get to resubmit it there. they're not giving me that option. but i get to take this feedback and use it in a new outlet then.’ and, and [my student] was like, ‘it's like free advice’ and i'm like, ‘that's the spirit. right? think of it that way.’ explicitly reframing feedback as an improvement tool helped to establish a growth mindset while also creating a safe learning environment where students would expect constructive criticism as a gift for success rather than an attack on their ability. developing metacognitive skills the participants highlighted a balance between being descriptive and direct, but also reflective and metacognitive in nature. dr. campbell referred to it as “being messy” and explained how important it was for students to be okay with following a tangent to help them think deeper. jackie said, “my chair forced me to be reflective of my work. they didn't tell me what to do, they instead created a space for me to come to the conclusions.” jackie added, so, it was never you need to change this, or this doesn't make sense. it was always, ‘why are you thinking of going this way with it? it was always asking questions, what do you think?’ and now i look back, and i'm like, okay, the questions were guiding me to do better. devon referred to it as digging deeper. they said, “my mentor would ask me appropriate questions to get me thinking…they challenged me…those questions were necessary in the process to help me think more deeply or dig a little bit deeper.” on a whole, the participants appreciated learning how to think about their thinking, how to take a step back and reflect on the meaning-making process through their research and writing. the metacognitive and reflective feedback they received fostered their intellectual inquiry and growth as scholars. learning a new genre the third overall theme highlighted writing as a scaffolded process with the understanding that it was a new genre to most students. indeed, students felt most successful when their mentors did not assume they already knew what to do. alex was appreciative of learning the nuts and bolts “because you're doing it for the first time.” devon added, “you know, i thought i was a good writer, but dissertation writing is different. there's a learning curve and i was out of school for 15 years.” the mentors also spoke to this same learning curve. dr. hart framed it as code-switching between genres. they explained, “our students are mid-career professionals. and so sometimes the difficulty is they've not had to write something large for a long time, or they're used to writing memos, and they're switching their language." alex described how their chair would introduce the technical components of the genre by working through a written section together: “we just spent time on one paragraph to discuss how the technical aspects of dissertation writing are very different from everyday professional writing.” adrian recalled, "i remember sitting in their office, and my chair was like, you know, you have a really nice flow to your writing. but you need to make sure that your voice isn't so much of a heavy piece in your work that the reader misses your point, because it's too casual sometimes.” dr. evans described breaking the writing down for students so they could better understand how the “puzzle pieces” go together. they explained, “what do you think your topic sentence is for this? what data points could we put in here? you know, kind of help them put the puzzle pieces together.” the participants broadly communicated how impactful it was for the mentors to recognize that their students were learning a new way of writing and to actually provide the space to teach them about it. show over tell within this learning space, modeling also proved to be an essential support system. dr. evans explained that “everyone's hungry for examples” and providing modeling within the genre, helped them grow. they stated, an ideal situation is when you share a vision, and then the student takes that and puts it into practice. but the reality is that not all of our students are able to do that, you know? some of them need more guidance and structure. some mentors modeled their own writing so that students could see the difference and understand what they needed to do through examples. dr. hart explained, “if i see they have writing challenges, i model something for them, and they now take and redo the rest following this model.” adrian echoed dr. hart by saying that when they wrote something that did not work, it was important that their mentor was first “willing to tell me that” and secondly, they would “help me by giving an example of how they would rewrite what i had written.” alex described how their mentor also engaged in a showing versus telling approach. at one point, they rewrote the whole paragraph and said ‘here's yours. here's mine, what do you notice that’s different?’ alex believed that this scaffolding contributed to their learning progress: that set me up for success … otherwise, i would have kept making the same sort of mistakes and kept writing with the wrong tone. and then it would have been a much lengthier uglier process. but my chair understood that this was where i fostering student success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 33 needed the learning. they were aware that i'd never done this and that this is a very different kind of writing. devon agreed that students crave examples and would have liked more modeling themselves. it was important to students that their mentors not only met them where they were at in the learning process but also provided supportive structures, resources, and examples to help them successfully navigate the new-to-them scholarly writing process. discussion the findings from this qualitative study confirm previous research suggesting a significant relationship between mentoring and doctoral student success (esposito et al., 2017; levecque et al., 2017; martin et al., 2021). both mentees and mentors within the dip award-winning dyads emphasized the impact of mentorship on the student’s success in completing a high-quality dissertation in addition to contributing to their sense of self-efficacy in their program. while a few mentors downplayed the impact of their role, instead highlighting the prowess of students as their own driving force towards success, there were strong overlapping broad themes when compared to the cped m&a skills as displayed in table 2. our findings highlight specific areas that extend and provide further insight into the framework. greater emphasis on care the participants in this study overwhelmingly centered care at the core of mentorship, which is not entirely unexpected given the significant research emphasizing students’ well-being within their doctoral experiences (al makhamreh & stockley 2020; levecque et al., 2017). however, this umbrella nature of care within our findings departs slightly from existing frameworks that present a more equal or balanced focus between the psychosocial and academic components of mentoring (cped, 2024; yob & crawford, 2012). indeed, while the cped m&a framework implicitly alludes to care across multiple skills (e.g., mutual respect, flexibility, supportive and safe learning environments), it is less explicit than what was highlighted by our participants. for these successful mentees and mentors, care was the culture that underpinned dip success. these findings coincided with literature that highlighted humanizing the doctorate and acknowledging students as whole people (cruz et al., 2020; singe et al., 2021), establishing connections and building relationships beyond the siloed studentadvisor role (geesa et al., 2020; hauth et al. 2024), providing emotional support while also acknowledging struggle (al makhamreh & stockley, 2020; esposito et al., 2017), and holding high expectations coupled with warmth and affirmation (posselt, 2018; roberts & ferro-almeida, 2019). each of the mentors also worked hard to create an atmosphere of support and engaged presence (levecque et al., 2017) that included being responsive to their mentees either in reference to their life challenges or their academic progress and establishing a sense of belonging. within the culture of care, an unexpected finding of surprise arose from the mentees as they reacted to the caring intentionality demonstrated by their mentors. mentees were surprised to experience personal and caring responses from their mentors in academic settings that were initially perceived to be more formal and separate from their personal lives. mentees expressed how appreciative they were that their mentors included their families, were responsive to their professional challenges, and were flexible when they were grieving the loss of a loved one. feeling that their mentors truly cared for their well-being and existence beyond academia, motivated mentees to persevere throughout the dissertation process. this finding of surprise seemed to reinforce the prevalence of student predispositions and preconceived notions of high formalization and low responsiveness that they may bring to the mentor-mentee relationship in the dissertation process. contrastingly, mentors described care as more of a natural–and expected–human response. this finding is significant because it illuminates an underlying assumption from students that mentors, professors, and/or advisors exist in an institutional vacuum. scholars have given a great deal of attention to the importance of humanizing students and recognizing how they exist in multitude of ways beyond a doctoral program (al makhamreh & stockley, 2020), but this finding supports the need to give added emphasis to framing the mentor as a whole person with many identities. communicating the humanistic nature of the mentor may improve m&a skill 2, the mutual respect (cruz et al., 2020; singe et al., 2021). framing learning as process both the second and third themes of meaningful feedback and learning a new writing genre positioned learning within a growth mindset, which was highly valued as a critical component of navigating the dip. these findings reflect m&a skill 6 on creating a supportive and safe learning environment where scaffolding and direction support a developmental and growth-oriented approach to the doctorate. this study supports the previous work of eyres and colleagues (2001) who stated, when doctoral students ask for help "learning the language," when they wonder if their "language was really communicating" they aren't asking their faculty to be writing teachers so much as they are asking them to be their guides. they aren't asking for editing; they are asking for socialization into the scholarly community (p. 155). indeed, rather than assuming their mentees already knew how to write in this genre, successful mentors in this study met students at their level and provided scaffolded and thought-provoking feedback to help them progress. for the participants, the level of detailed feedback, challenge, and writing support reflected the serious conviction and high expectations their mentors held for them to grow as scholarly practitioners. in alignment with m&a skill 8, both the mentees and mentors attributed much of their success to the “rigorous practices that set high expectations…and offer challenges…aimed at improvement” (cped, 2024, para. 12). reflecting on their dissertation experience, mentees cherished their mentor’s commitment to excellence and how they pushed them to experience it for themselves. mentors recognized that detailed feedback could be overwhelming to students and moreover counterproductive, so they carefully considered how to best deliver feedback in ways that would drive the dissertation process forward. while al makhamreh and stockley (2017) highlighted how unbalanced negative feedback was deleterious to students’ well-being, the findings from this study, however, showed that students were less inclined to internalize strong feedback negatively when they understood the purpose of the feedback and the constructive nature of it. mentors reframed their feedback in a positive light and “as a gift.” in doing so, mentors moreno et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 34 cultivated a growth mindset in their mentees that kept them motivated and inspired to improve their work. additionally, feedback was deemed more impactful by all participants when it challenged them to dig in deeper. this finding reflects cped m&a skill 5 on creating intellectual space where students are guided to expand their scholarly thinking. capello (2020) referred to this as a coaching questioning strategy to help doctoral students reimagine their thinking. this linkage is critical as feedback is intimately intertwined with academic identity (eyres et al., 2001). inouye and mcalpine (2019) explained that when feedback promoted critical self-reflection it stimulated “academic identity development as demonstrated through increased confidence, growing knowledge about the field and disciplinary writing requirements on how to position oneself in writing through authorial voice and learning to view oneself as part of the disciplinary conversation” (p. 16). students articulated an appreciation for writing feedback that also acted as inclusion to and structured practice within the academic community. genre-based modeling in addition to providing strong feedback, mentors also gave significant focus to introducing and working through the dissertation genre of academic writing. genre-based approaches to writing help learners become fluent in the discourse of the genre (aunurrahman et al., 2016). helping students learn the research report structure in conjunction with the style of scholarly writing enabled students to adapt to a new genre. the developmental mindset was further demonstrated in how mentors would model the writing process rather than just explain it. this type of mentor-modeling approach diverges from related literature that discusses modeling writing. in those discussions, the modeling comes from the use of pre-written mentor texts where students learn from exemplars (aunurrahman et al., 2016; markos & buss, 2022). the mentors in this study who engaged in a modeling process would instead rewrite a small section of the student’s written text to demonstrate the nuances of the academic genre. rather than trying to mimic a mentor text, this showing-over-telling approach was more responsive to students. by co-constructing the writing process, students could better see the gaps in their own writing. implications the implications stemming from this research emphasize three key areas for mentorship growth: creating a culture of care, framing learning as a process, and engaging in genre-based training. we also want to stress that while this study was specific to the edd dissertation process, these findings provide relevant implications for mentorship at all educational levels, departments, and programs. these implications may offer useful and practical insights for all faculty, advisors, and administrators. based on this study, creating an atmosphere of support and engaged presence with doctoral students is imperative to their success. faculty chairs should intentionally humanize the dissertation process by establishing connections with their students that explicitly acknowledge their outside lives and lived experiences. doing so will help students persevere during this final push to finish their doctorate. additionally, mentors should couple care, warmth, and affirmation with high expectations to keep their students motivated and improve their sense of belonging. doctoral programs must reframe learning as a process where feedback is positioned as a “gift” that fosters a positive feedback mindset. we recommend that faculty also cultivate a space that engages students on the iterative nature of scholarship where students are pushed to dig deeper, follow tangents, and interrogate their thinking. faculty should challenge students to rise to the expectations of scholarly inquiry by delivering challenging and meaningful feedback that prompts metacognition and critical thinking. additionally, edd programs should be sensitive to the ways in which feedback is delivered in the dissertation process to ensure it promotes a growth mindset in students and positions them within the academic community. rather than assuming edd students are proficient writers in this genre and that faculty mentors fully understand how to foster scholarly writing, doctoral programs should strategically integrate professional learning opportunities to develop genre fluency in preparation for the dissertation. using a “showing-over-telling” approach where faculty model the writing process demystifies scholarly writing and clarifies the genre. these implications for practice build on the m&a skills outlined by cped and can encourage faculty to reflect on their own mentoring practices surrounding a culture of care, framing learning as a process, and modeling writing as a genre. limitations and recommendations within this study, there were several limitations that should be considered as the impetus for future research. while this study was limited to mentors and mentees that won the cped dip award, it provides insight into the common structures that supported such high-quality work. additional qualitative research replicating this study with a larger variety of mentors and mentees would help determine if the findings were unique to award winners or shared with non-award winners. this study had more participation from mentees than mentors; therefore, research that provides more voice to mentors would help further illuminate this line of inquiry. additionally, some of the cped dips were organized as group dissertations, but we did not distinguish between individual and group projects within this study to maintain anonymity. however, future research should explore the differences between the mentoring experience of group dissertations compared to individual dissertations. finally, our methodological approach was limited in that it relied solely on in-depth individual interviews. additional qualitative methods of data collection such as questionnaires or mentoring logs could further triangulate the phenomenon of doctoral mentorship to a greater extent. future research is also needed to investigate student perceptions quantitatively and across demographics. the development of a valid and reliable quantitative survey instrument aligned to the nine m&a skills would provide researchers with interesting possibilities to test this conceptual framework numerically beyond the assessment tool. this would afford educational researchers the opportunity to make statistical comparisons across groups and member institutions. conclusion with the recent release of the cped m&a assessment tool, this article is timely and should prompt robust discussion. additionally, fostering student success impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.488 35 faculty would benefit by considering ways to find balance between meeting the psychosocial needs of mentees and maintaining high expectations for the quality of work. the mentees valued their mentor’s commitment to scholarship and recognized this was what pushed them to complete an award-winning dissertation. lastly, faculty would also benefit by considering the ways in which they are providing writing support and feedback to doctoral students. we hope that these insights can help provide depth and nuance to the elements of the m&a framework. in the spirit of cped’s hallmark learning exchanges, we decided against providing prescriptive solutions and, instead, decided to conclude with some guiding questions to help spark discussion 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https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.124 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1449080 https://doi.org/10.28945/4419 https://doi.org/10.46743/1540-580x/2021.1967 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2015.1034426 https://doi.org/10.28945/2276 https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v2i2.66 rhia moreno augusta university jesse l. wood belmont university lee d. flood texas christian university centering students’ well-being humanistic mentoring mentorship best practices research design participants data collection and analysis findings culture of care building personal relationships emotional support balanced high expectations meaningful feedback “think of it as a gift” developing metacognitive skills learning a new genre show over tell discussion greater emphasis on care framing learning as process genre-based modeling implications limitations and recommendations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.452 39 the impact of research and the power of data: leveraging data as a scholar practitioner to drive decision making for equity! ebony e. lewis university of california, davis ucdlewis@ucdavis.edu abstract in this article, i share ways in which my professional journey, from admissions and enrollment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, intersect with my evolution as a scholar-practitioner through candel, the doctorate in educational leadership program at the university of california davis. i further share how i have leveraged my experience in the edd program as a scholar-practitioner to challenge systems of higher education through storytelling and counter narratives as a means to reroute narratives that institutions create around the experiences of marginalized communities, including the african diaspora. keywords diversity, diverse student population, educational equity, equity, inclusion, practitioner-scholar, standardized tests, college admission, workforce development, candel my candel journey i was first introduced to the term scholar-practitioner through candel. at the time i was serving as executive director of undergraduate admissions and had years of practice and expertise acquired solely as a practitioner. through candel i was able to apply those skills through a research lens and develop practical experience with tools used by campus partners such as enrollment management. i evolved from being a requestor of data to a practitioner able to clean raw data, conduct a deep analysis, and clearly present findings. it was an empowering process that strengthened my leadership. starting from my journey through candel until now, i have more informed conversations with faculty, team members and campus partners. i also have a better grasp of what questions to ask when requesting data. in my current work, i am also able to guide our graduate student researchers with greater intentionality through the data analysis and writing process whether it is producing publications, white papers or reports. i am also able to see gaps in the data our team may be analyzing for a project, and provide insight to support the requested deliverables and more. using theory to frame research and understand practice several key theories and concepts from my candel coursework have influenced my thinking about my doctoral research. they have also helped me frame and understand professional experiences in admissions/enrollment and my current work in diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) related to topics such as k-16 collaborations within higher education, black student enrollment, and addressing anti-blackness within university settings. these theories include college choice theory, critical race theory (crt) and data driven decision making (dddm). my research and much of the work that i have done over my twenty years in undergraduate admissions connects with college choice theory. often viewed as the foundational model for college choice theory, hossler and gallagher (1987) described a threephased process: pre-disposition, search, and choice. pre-disposition, the first stage, is where students, even at a very young age, assess whether going to college is something they can envision for themselves, and can be influenced by factors such as socioeconomic status and experiencing educational success which serves as motivator for students. community, family and parental support, perceptions and expectations also serve a role in influencing the student’s interests and desires to pursue higher education. following this is the search phase in which students establish a set a of colleges they want to apply to, also known as a choice set, and proceed with obtaining further information. during this phase colleges and universities have the opportunity to more deeply engage with students as they explore their options and decide where to apply. in the final phase, choice, students decide where they will attend weighing out aspects they deem important including cost of attendance, financial aid and scholarships and other priorities. from the view of an admission and enrollment practitioner, this theory allowed me to begin making the connections between research and practice by considering the alignment of college choice theory and the student admissions funnel, which is a way of mapping the student journey through the admissions and enrollment process. in a typical admissions funnel1 students begin as prospects who 1 salesforce enrollment funnel overview https://www.salesforce.org/ resources/article/breaking-down-the-admissions-funnel/ https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.salesforce.org/resources/article/breaking-down-the-admissions-funnel/ https://www.salesforce.org/resources/article/breaking-down-the-admissions-funnel/ https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3610-1481 lewis impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.452 40 have not actively engaged with the university but are considering higher education (pre-disposition phase), and convert to inquiries who are now connecting directly with the university such as through newsletters, email campaigns, and campus visits (search phase). it is during this stage that colleges and universities are conducting recruitment and outreach efforts, engaging with students typically in high school and community college, but also engaging earlier through academic preparation and related programs to engage students earlier in their k-12 journey. following this, students transition to applicants once they have applied for admissions (search phase), and once they’ve received their admissions offer, they are considered an accepted or admitted student and now must decide where to enroll (choice phase). once an admitted student accepts their offer of admission, they transition to what some refer to as deposits having made a financial payment or deposit securing their spot (salesforce, inc., 2023). the final stage is enrolled. after matching up the phases of college choice with the admissions funnel, i was able to more clearly understand how college choice could be affecting enrollment outcomes, where gaps still appeared in understanding why certain students from the african diaspora were deciding not to accept their offer of admissions to the university of california davis, and where this could be explained further through qualitative data. the intersection between both property and race “creates an analytical tool through which we can understand social (and, consequently, school) inequity” (ladson-billings & tate, 1995, p. 48) given the longstanding history and tensions surrounding property in the u.s. the authors posit that u.s. struggles surrounding race and property include the establishment of people, africans specifically, as property, the removal of indigenous communities from their land, and the prioritization of property over human rights (ladson-billings & tate, 1995).they further described how curriculum amounts to intellectual property, and similar to how property values vary so does the quantity and quality of educational curriculum which adversely impacts students of color given the history of race and racism in this country, its systems and institutions including schooling. while at its core, crt is expansive beyond its educational application, one principle of crt that resonated most with me as scholar-practitioner in education is the use of storytelling and counter narratives. parker and lynn (2002) took a historical look at the evolution of crt, arguing that it is needed in contemporary qualitative and educational research as a foundation to the ways in which previous educational research has or has not addressed concerns regarding racism and race. the authors stressed the key role that storytelling and narrative play to explain how the past directly influences the present power dynamics and hierarchical structures that perpetuate and protect white privilege. through narrative, crt uncovers and further explores race and racial oppression and the key role both played in the construction of our legal system, a premise that the authors argue was left out of discussions surrounding critical legal studies (cls). as race and racism are continually shaped by politics and political pressure and, given that they are socio-political constructs, context and perspective that comes from storytelling should be relied upon to more accurately explore experiences (parker & lynn, 2002). it is from this lens that i view my own research and practice. in my 2021 study, one primary objective was to help “the university successfully achieve their goal of supporting greater diversity and representation of students from historically underrepresented minority communities and marginalized backgrounds, including african american students” (lewis, 2021, p. 179) by understanding why black admitted freshmen decided not to attend uc davis. building from a 2015 systemwide study that looked at black student college choice, diversity and exclusion (contreras et al., 2015) at a macro level throughout the university of california, my mixed-methods study allowed me to analyze existing institutional data, and also apply crt principles of counter storytelling in education by utilizing qualitative data via student interviews, as a means to gain greater insight into what matters to our black scholars and how we can learn from their experiences to create a more inclusive environment. as a scholar-practitioner i have been able to utilize storytelling and counter narratives to amplify the voices of and challenge systems to improve the experiences of marginalized communities. one way i am actively doing this is through my work in the dei division at uc davis as lead of the idea initiative, formerly the institute for diversity, equity and advancement2. the idea serves as a nexus for dei-focused scholarship and practice, centralizing “partnerships and projects that involve dei recruitment, retention, and advancement programs that reduce barriers to and expand access to excellence in educational achievement,” (uc davis dei, 2023) disseminating findings and supporting opportunities for students, faculty and staff to thrive. through this initiative i have had the opportunity to launch dei’s escholarship page, an open access site for publications, co-publish several white papers including covid diaries3, a study published in 2022 and conducted in partnership with the idea, sacramento area youth speaks, and ucd’s chicano/a studies department focused on providing youth (primarily from historically marginalized communities) in the sacramento region a platform to voice the ways in which covid has impacted their learning such as fear of becoming ill or losing loved ones, administrative challenges transitioning students back to an inperson learning environment, and the digital divide that exposed significant equity gaps in learning due to socioeconomic barriers regarding access to wi-fi and technology. the purpose of sharing these student voices is to influence policy and practice changes that root out, address, minimize and/or eliminate inequities. most notably, i have also served as lead for the idea’s aggie black excellence project, which focuses on addressing antiblackness at uc davis and is framed around the five pedagogical stances (5ps) developed by dr. maisha winn and dr. lawrence t. winn which underscore ways in which history, race, justice, language, and futures matter (2021). the 5ps was introduced to me when i joined the dei division in 2021 and provides a foundation for educators to engage in equity work and restorative justice. focusing on the first two stances, history and race, the 5ps posits that understanding and acknowledging history/ies is foundational given “racial discrimination and associated opportunity gaps are everevolving manifestations of america’s devastating history of racial terror” (winn, 2021, p. 7). this framework also challenges educators 2 the idea https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/idea 3 covid diaries white paper https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2665c4bx#page =33 https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/idea https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2665c4bx#page=33 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2665c4bx#page=33 research & data driven decision making for equity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.452 41 to explore the ways in which history has both shaped them and influenced working relations, while also exploring the ways in which their organizations, institutions and communities have evolved and been impacted and shaped by historical changes as well as changes that may have occurred in the workplace (winn, 2021). the second stance, race matters, acknowledges histories of racial terror and exclusion with particular focus on the impacts and implications of the enslavement of africans throughout the world (winn, 2021) and underscores the necessity for educators to “examine how racist ideas are implicit and/or embodied, causing harm that can include exclusion, marginalization, and/or oppressive self-doubt that makes it nearly impossible for oppressed individuals and groups to explore multiple versions of themselves” (winn, 2021, pg. 11) while also inviting the practitioner to explore how race shows up in their organizations, institutions and communities. using the 5ps as a framework, i led the idea’s launch of a series of community listening sessions with staff, students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty and alumni to better understand how anti-blackness was showing up for them at uc davis. between march and june 2022, we held seven community listening sessions, which also served as a means of counter storytelling, with nearly 199 participants who responded to the following questions: 1. in what ways has anti-blackness impeded your ability to advance in your educational or career pursuits? 2. what existing practices and innovations have helped you or those you know to achieve excellence? 3. what research or actions do you think are effective or would you like to see to enhance the recruitment, retention, and advancement of black students, staff, and faculty at uc davis? (lewis et al., 2023, p. 1) in september 2023, the idea published a white paper outlining the key findings which are categorized into four overarching themes: 1. communication, information and accountability 2. community, climate and sense of belonging 3. recruitment, retention and advancement and 4. uplifting black culture and visibility (lewis et al., 2023). each theme included a series of sub-themes aligned with participant feedback from staff, faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni. additionally, the report outlines opportunities for action that would allow for institutional accountability and transparency to continue what is working, amplify and celebrate the voices and accomplishments across the african diaspora at uc davis, and move the needle through strategic and collective crosscampus collaboration to address critical areas identified that impede the advancement of black students, faculty, and staff. furthermore, the white paper outlines efforts that were previously done, in progress or in place between the time when listening sessions were held and findings were published. since concluding the listening sessions, i have had the privilege of leveraging these community narratives in conjunction with other campus data (including results from my doctoral study along with campus employee satisfaction survey results) to operationalize several of the suggested actions to support the overall diaspora. this included launching and enhancing the aggie black excellence website4 to “serve as an online ‘information hub’ and a one-stop shop/landing page for all things black at uc davis.” (lewis et al., 2021, p.48) we also recently established the aggie black excellence collective “aimed at prioritizing strategies and recommending specific action plans to improve the experience of students, staff, and faculty of the african diaspora at uc davis” (lewis et al., 2021, p. 49). this collective is aligned with the recommendation in my doctoral study for uc davis to establish a “formal campus-wide black/african diaspora initiative overseen by a corresponding taskforce, similar to the current hsi taskforce, for investigating black student representation and experiences at ucd from enrollment through matriculation” (lewis, 2021, p. 167) to support institutional accountability. additionally, this collective is being structured to include staff, students, alumni, campus leaders, representatives from diversity committees and employee resource groups and other community members as appropriate. as a tool to help strategize priorities and interventions, i intend to utilize a theory known as data driven decision making (dddm). offered as we neared the end of our core curriculum in candel, the dddm course provided the greatest opportunity for practical application of theory and research. while there are slightly varying definitions, “dddm in education typically refers to teachers, principals, and administrators systematically collecting and analyzing data to guide a range of decisions to help improve the success of students and schools” (ikemoto and marsh, 2007, p. 107). one of my greatest takeaways from this course was the process we went through to generate a dddm plan to address a problem or question we were currently facing in our work. to address the problem through data, our plan needed to include input, context, process, output and satisfaction data. as part of this process, we were charged with identifying aspects within the organizational culture that could promote or inhibit our ability to effectively implementing dddm, including organizational culture such as leadership and routines, and identify ways to leverage factors that would support the process and mitigate risks that could derail our dddm plan. additionally, paired in groups of three to four, we served as consultants, reviewing and analyzing other group members’ dddm plans, where we determined how well they aligned with dddm principles and offered recommendations that could strengthen their plans and strategies. most of the curriculum in candel focused on understanding theory and developing as researchers. however, as a practitioner it is just as important to make use of research and data in pragmatic ways that affect long-term sustainable change. dddm provides a conceptual framework by which to do so. through our aggie black excellence project, one problem that i intend to address utilizing dddm, in collaboration with other campus partners, is low employee satisfaction among black staff and black women in particular. in a 2021 uc systemwide staff engagement survey developed in partnership with uc’s systemwide employee relations team and the council of uc staff assemblies (cucsa), 4 aggie black excellence site https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/aggie-blackexcellence https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/aggie-black-excellence https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/aggie-black-excellence lewis impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.452 42 results for uc davis revealed that black/african american employees rated the lowest among all employees who reported an ethnicity, in the areas of career development, diversity & inclusion and empowered culture. these statistically significant results were much lower than those of non-black employees. similar findings were identified in the most recent 2022 staff experience survey administered by uc davis to its employees. while black staff only reflected 6%-8% of all academic and non-academic staff between the davis and health campuses in 2023 (uc davis institutional analysis, 2023), black staff rated low on employee satisfaction. in particular, black women rated exceptionally lower than other demographic groups on many of the significant survey questions in the 2022 uc davis staff experience survey (uc davis dei, 2024). this quantitative data aligns with some of the narrative data black women staff shared during the listening sessions in which several recalled their direct experiences: “as a black woman, i feel like i get more grief. people question if i know what i am talking about [saying] ‘are you sure you’re right?’” “when calling things out as nicely as possible, you get marked as a disruptive, angry black woman. [i’ve] been seen as wanting to disrupt the status quo.” (lewis et al., 2022, p. 14) candel has influenced me as a scholar-practitioner to utilize equity centered research to shift the educational landscape. my doctoral research and dissertation have served as catalysts for me to reach educators and leaders not only at my institution but nationally. often, practitioners are so consumed with getting the work done that they do not have the bandwidth to share the impact of their work in a scholarly manner. yet, connecting research and practice is a critical part of the higher educational landscape and from my vantage point, scholar practitioners are uniquely positioned to leverage findings from our research to validate what we as practitioners often know but may lack the empirical data to support in a manner that is compelling to leaders at the highest levels of an organization including those who determine budget allocations, staffing and other resources. it also presents an opportunity to further partner with faculty, colleges, divisions and other collaborators who are internal and external to the university to support equity, access and inclusion. closing thoughts and a word of encouragement writing this manuscript has brought me full circle from almost seven years ago to the date i submitted my application to the candel program. in many ways this process has served as a refresher regarding the ways in which i have evolved from a student to a scholar-practitioner. also, in a climate where black women who occupy leadership roles in higher education are feeling attacked, where our wellness is not being prioritized, where black women leaders are being pressured to step down from their positions and/or are tragically passing away; this process was somewhat validating. aligned with the 5ps, that history, race, justice, language and futures matter (winn & winn, 2021) this process has re-affirmed that i/we matter, that our voices matter, that our wellness matters and should be prioritized, that we belong, and that we are making a difference. many of the theories and concepts introduced through candel are applicable to my current work as a dei practitioner, which reaffirms my choice to participate in candel and obtain the edd. upon reflection, my journey to becoming a scholar-practitioner began well before i applied to the candel program. among the experiences that have shaped my educational leadership is one pivotal moment when i realized i have a voice that matters and can help drive change came during my senior year in high school. i attended a public high school and followed the tracking system, in which some students were tracked into lower-level class, and others were tracked into college prep courses including honors and advanced placement (ap) classes. while i happened to be part of the latter group, many peers that looked like me, and came from the same or similar communities as i did, were tracked into lower-level courses. my ap english instructor saw the negative impact this was having on students and communities, and while not from the ethnic/cultural community that i identified with, she was an advocate. she invited me to speak during what i would later learn was the public comment portion of a uc board regents meeting. for context, as described in section 21.1 of its bylaws, the board consists of governor appointed regents who serve “as trustees for the people of the state of california and as stewards for the university of california, acting to govern the university as a public trust in fulfillment of its educational, research, and public service missions in the best interests of the people of california” (university of california, 2020). the key role of the board is to set policy which the university’s administration is then responsible for implementing. as i prepared to present, i was very nervous and hesitant, but with my english teacher’s encouragement and the support of my parents i took on the challenge to speak about the importance of de-tracking in schools. little did i know that this would lay the foundation for the work that i am doing now. this experience of sharing my own counter narrative was an awakening for me. this was the moment that my leadership began to transform, and an example of my commitment to equity which led me on the journey to become a scholar practitioner. i had already been senior class president, and led the black student union, but the connection through these efforts was educational access and equity and much of it related to socioeconomics. while walking in my purpose, i often did not know the next destination until i was there. i certainly did not set out to have a 20 year plus career in admission and enrollment, and while i have been involved in diversity and equity work most of my life, the term dei was not yet something i was familiar with all those years ago. however, i can now look back and see the path that led me to this point. i count it an honor and a privilege to do this work, to serve as a leader, a scholar-practitioner, and to continue promoting access and equity. to those currently on their journey as a doctoral student and a scholar-practitioner, i want to encourage you to keep walking in your purpose and lean into your gifts. you may be stretched beyond your comfort zone at times (that was quantitative research methods for me) but embrace the discomfort and keep pressing forward. stay committed during this season of transformation and know that you are already making a difference! references contreras, f., chapman, t., comeaux, e., rodriguez, g., m., m. e., & hutson, m. (2015). investing in california's african american students: college choice, diversity & exclusion. san diego: report prepared for the university of california office of the president. http://iurd.berkeley.edu/research/excel_report_2016.pdf http://iurd.berkeley.edu/research/excel_report_2016.pdf research & data driven decision making for equity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.452 43 hossler, d., & gallagher, k. (1987). studying student college choice: a threephase model and the implications for policymakers. college and university, 62(3), 207–221. schuyler ikemoto, g. & marsh, j. a. (2007). cutting through the “data-driven” mantra: different conceptions of data-driven decision making. teachers college record, 109(13), 105–131. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016146810710901310 ladson-billings, g. & tate. w. (1995). toward a critical race theory of education. teachers college record, 97(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104 retrieved july 1, 2024, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 358471863_toward_a_critical_race_theory_of_education lewis, e. e., bhan, j., & lopez, e. m. (2023). aggie black excellence: addressing anti-blackness, listening sessions white paper. uc davis: diversity, equity, and inclusion. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7690z5p3 lewis, e. e. (2021). african american student college choice and the university of california davis. uc davis. proquest id: lewis_ucdavis_0029d_20819. merritt id: ark:/13030/m5mt0s0r. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/01r3s762 uc davis diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei). (2024, april 9). uc/uc davis experience surveys: an overview for dei committees. davis, ca, united states. retrieved july 1, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ubejshmzy uc davis diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei). (2023). the idea. office for diversity, equity & inclusion. https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/idea uc davis institutional analysis. (2023). uc davis workforce diversity dashboard. davis, ca, united states. retrieved july 1, 2024, from https://aggiedash.ucdavis.edu/#/views/ucdavisworkforcediversity/ucd avisworkforcediversity?:iid=1 university of california. (2020). board of regents. retrieved from bylaw 21. duties and requirements: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/ governance/bylaws/bl21.html#:~:text=the%20r winn, m. t. (2021). imagining equity: leveraging the 5 pedagogical stances. imagine learning, inc. https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/ dgvnsk731/files/inline-files/imagining-equity5%2bpedagogical%2bstances-whitepaper-web.pdf winn, m. t., & winn, l. t. (2021). restorative justice in education: transforming teaching and learning through the disciplines. harvard education press. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016146810710901310 https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358471863_toward_a_critical_race_theory_of_education https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358471863_toward_a_critical_race_theory_of_education https://escholarship.org/uc/item/01r3s762 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ubejshmzy https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/idea https://aggiedash.ucdavis.edu/#/views/ucdavisworkforcediversity/ucdavisworkforcediversity?:iid=1 https://aggiedash.ucdavis.edu/#/views/ucdavisworkforcediversity/ucdavisworkforcediversity?:iid=1 https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/governance/bylaws/bl21.html#:~:text=the%20r https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/governance/bylaws/bl21.html#:~:text=the%20r https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk731/files/inline-files/imagining-equity-5%2bpedagogical%2bstances-whitepaper-web.pdf https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk731/files/inline-files/imagining-equity-5%2bpedagogical%2bstances-whitepaper-web.pdf https://diversity.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk731/files/inline-files/imagining-equity-5%2bpedagogical%2bstances-whitepaper-web.pdf impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 48 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 the architecture of the unknown: constructing a flexible edd program chery l. lucarelli the college of st. scholastica clucarelli@css.edu amy l. murzyn the college of st. scholastica amurzyn@css.edu matthew j. ridenour the college of st. scholastica mridenour@css.edu neil b. witikko the college of st. scholastica nwitikko@css.edu abstract beginning in the summer of 2019, the college of st. scholastica endeavored to build a flexible, adaptable edd program grounded in the guiding principles of cped. this meant establishing a welcoming and safe program dedicated to cultivating justice-minded change makers. it also meant constructing a curriculum that would accommodate differing student backgrounds, be responsive to fluctuating consumer demands, and function as context-inclusive in an ever-evolving and intersecting space. while this alone was certainly a challenge, we did not anticipate that a global pandemic would present the most significant test of what we had created. to accomplish the aforementioned goals, the program architecture was dependent on the following structural considerations: a broadening of the target participant profile to include students across various social sectors; the use of design thinking as an asset in supporting innovation, creativity and flexibility; the inclusion of creditbearing “third-place” courses intended to provide open-ended space and place for community building and reflective, intentional action; and an approach to course design that encouraged risk-taking by students with a focus on cultivating mindsets and skills around equity and social justice. none of these attributes on their own provided total protection from seismic societal, cultural or market shifts. collectively, however, they offered a unique environment for the culturing of a particular type of doctoral experience, unique in its elasticity compared to more traditional, inflexible designs. this essay details the ways in which we attempted to create an inclusive, innovative, flexible structure, as validated (and challenged) by the covid-19 pandemic. keywords innovation, risk-taking, third place, covid-19, ungrading introduction earthquake-resistant buildings are intentionally constructed to withstand seismic events. such structures eschew the traditional design philosophies that associate strength with rigidity in favor of employing materials and mechanisms that not only allow for, but actually depend on, flexibility. otherwise stated, architects have come to realize that inelasticity leads to instability when foundations become unsteady, an idea once considered counterintuitive. similarly, in the summer of 2019, the college of st. scholastica endeavored to build a flexible, adaptable edd program grounded in the guiding principles of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). this meant establishing a welcoming and safe program dedicated to cultivating justice-minded change makers. it also meant constructing a curriculum that would accommodate differing student backgrounds, be responsive to fluctuating consumer demands, and function as context-inclusive in an ever-evolving and intersecting space. and while this was certainly a challenge, we did not anticipate that a global pandemic would present the most significant test of what we had created. to accomplish the goals outlined above, the architecture of our program was dependent on the following structural considerations: a broadening of the target participant profile to include students across various social sectors; the use of design thinking as an asset toward supporting innovation, creativity and flexibility; the inclusion of credithttps://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3279-0382 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2211-5350 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6445-1247 https://orcid.org/ the architecture of the unknown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 49 bearing third-place courses (discussed later in the manuscript) intended to provide open-ended space and place for community building and reflective, intentional action; and an approach to course design that encouraged risk-taking by students—all the while with a focus on cultivating mindsets and skills around equity and social justice. none of these attributes on their own provided total protection from seismic societal, cultural, or market shifts. collectively, however, they offered a unique environment for the culturing of a particular type of doctoral experience, unique in its elasticity compared to more traditional, inflexible designs. it is with this at the top of mind that the college of st. scholastica created and launched its edd program during, arguably, the most challenging moment in us academic history. the following essay details the ways in which we attempted to create an inclusive, innovative, flexible structure, as validated (and challenged) by the covid-19 pandemic. our investigative lens is contextualized by the previously-mentioned structural considerations and includes feedback from student surveys, faculty commentaries, and document analysis to provide a deep and wide evaluation of our efforts and their consequences. this essay contributes to the unique nature of this special issue by directly addressing two of its central questions: how do edd programs adapt and survive during times of uncertainty and fear? how might edd programs grow and enhance their programs during times of instability? this is our start at an answer while also keeping in mind the penultimate goal of (re)imagining, (re)designing, and (re)developing practitioner-based doctoral programs and fostering conversations around the new era of the edd. structural consideration 1: broadening the participant profile from the very beginning of the edd design process at the college of st. scholastica (which will be explored at length in the next section), we sought to create a program that broadened the participant profile in a way that differentiated itself greatly from that which is found in the marketplace of more traditional programs. this was, however, not simply a marketing ploy; it was—and remains—a mission, aligned closely with the cped framework, which defines the education doctorate, or edd, as one that seeks to “prepare educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2022, para. 4). within this definition, the notion of an educator is broadly applied. this is best illustrated in cped’s guiding principles of “prepar[ing] leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.” leaders such as this do not function only within a classroom or school building; they are not only teachers or administrators. we sought to create a program for leaders to make a difference in a wide swatch of social-sector professional settings. this, however, is uncommon in the world of traditional doctoral preparation. the survey of earned doctorates (sed) is an annual census of individuals who earn doctoral degrees from accredited u.s. academic institutions. sponsored by the national center for science and engineering statistics (ncses), an arm of the national science foundation, the sed seeks to track changes in earned doctoral degrees over time relative to a host of criterion, including (but not limited to) political, economic, social, technological, and demographic trends. this report specifically focuses on research doctorates (phds). for the purposes of analysis, we have chosen to utilize the sed data from 2021, which measures doctorates earned during what one might consider the heart of the covid-19 pandemic (academic year 2020-2021). to this point, the report itself notes that “this is the first year in which the data collection fully coincided with the pandemic, and this report includes the results of questions that were specifically added to the survey to measure the pandemic’s impact on doctorate recipients” (ncses, 2021, p. 5). in the context of this essay then, the data analyzed from the sed correlates well with the questions at the heart of our writing and this special issue. a total of 3,277 doctorates were earned in the field of education in 2021. of those, 947 were specifically in the field of educational leadership and administration, 1,068 in the field of educational research, and 924 in the field of teacher education. the remaining 338 were defined as other (ncses, 2022). as one might expect, the survey indicates that the vast majority of participants intended to teach (40.2%) or work in administration (34.8%) following the completion of their doctoral degrees (together totaling 75%). this means that the primary vocational profile of a phd doctoral student in the field of education in 2021 was a teacher or administrator who intended to continue doing that same work. additionally, the data indicate that just over 70% of these students are female, and approximately 50% are white. utilizing a design-thinking approach, the edd design team at the college of st. scholastica began in the summer of 2019 by seeking to construct a program accessible for individuals to whom traditional educational doctorates did not appeal or for whom there were significant barriers. in that sense, then, broadening the profile was just as much about the inclusion of, and accessibility for, diverse voices as it was about anything else. while the covid-19 pandemic was still months from beginning at that time, hindsight now affords us the perspective that our efforts to broaden the participant profile served a dual purpose: accessibility and stability in times of seismic changes to the educational landscape. document analysis related to our initial design efforts reveal some profound shifts in how we imagined the program to be built. in an initial exercise, the group challenged itself to propose student personas, fictitious identities of those for whom our program might be appealing. in terms of prior education, there was a significant departure from what is true in the sed, insofar as the st. scholastica team imagined an edd that would be of interest not just to those in education, but also students with undergraduate degrees in political science, public policy, and even business. these imaginary individuals held positions in regional and federal government entities, corporations, and non-profit policy think-tanks, and their soft skills included such things as strong digital and equity literacies as well as significant relational capacities. nowhere did the notion of teacher or school administrator show up—something that stands in direct contrast to the data demonstrating that 75% of traditional doctoral programs in education are built for such people. so why were we so keen on creating such a different program? the answer can be found in another set of documents related to our design process—what we called the design sprint—an accelerated, brain-to-paper exercise in which we challenged ourselves to articulate the core goals inherent in the architecture of our emerging edd program. when coded for common themes and synthesized with the student profile personas, the notions of lucarelli et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 50 innovation, leadership, and social justice emerged. while these ideas sit at the heart of teaching and educational administration, they are by no means exclusive to those professions. innovation, leadership, and social justice transcend context; they are adaptable footings on which a whole host of vocational architecture can (and should) sit. thus, our non-traditional edd began to take shape. in describing our broadening of the participant profile, it is also worth noting that the defining of a learning organization was also critical to our efforts. drawing from the work of senge (1990), our team operated under the notion that a learning organization is one “that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future” (p. 14). such organizations focus on generative learning that enhances their capacity to reach objectives. they are not just schools. any organization can (and should) be a learning organization. in terms of appealing to potential students from a wider swath of the professional spectrum, then, it can be concluded that in 2019 and 2020, the conceptualization of our program centered on this more generous, inclusive, invitational definition of where teaching and learning happens. this corresponded in a unique way to the manner in which models of teaching and learning were deeply and permanently altered because of covid-19. we feel that our efforts in broadening the participant profile were a crucial, stabilizing factor as we launched our program in the heart of the pandemic, a footing on which a more stable, earthquakeresistant structure could be built. this effort to reimagine the traditional architecture of doctoral program design resulted in an initial learning community that included individuals from health care fields, non-profits, higher education administration and social work sectors in addition to teachers and school administrators. our second cohort, set to begin in the fall of 2023, will share a similar demographic. structural consideration 2: design thinking as mentioned in the previous section, the edd program at the college of st. scholastica was designed to engage students from diverse social sector backgrounds. such students aim to find innovative solutions to a problem of practice that also promotes equity and social justice while collaborating closely with users and other concerned participants. to ensure that we thoroughly assessed the complexities and provided innovative solutions to support our program, the edd program’s development process involved a dedicated group of faculty forming a design team led by the founding chair of the program, who had experience and training in design thinking. the aim was to develop a transformational program aligned with the college’s strategic initiative in equity, diversity, and inclusion. furthermore, the program follows the cped’s guiding principles and frameworks, which emphasize the importance of addressing equity and social justice to solve complex problems of practice. we implemented design thinking strategies from the beginning of the program’s conception. in comparison, prior curricular work at the college had historically been done in isolation, thus presenting a marked shift in ideation. during the development phase, we utilized the design thinking process as a conceptual and practical framework, implementing design thinking elements and tools to address the creative and innovative challenges in curricular and programmatic development. this design process, which focuses on generating innovative solutions through inspiration, ideation, and implementation, was originally rooted in the study of design cognition and methods dating back to the 1950s and 60s (panke, 2019). during the 1980s, design thinking emerged in the business sector as a component of management programs as a way to address complex or wicked problems and has been embraced among service and social organizations. in fact, stanford university’s d.school, a designthinking institute, played a pivotal role in promoting design thinking by introducing it in the early 2000s to foster social innovation (panke, 2019). design thinking involves five phases (see figure 1) implemented through an iterative process and incorporates an empathetic, user-centered approach that allowed us to challenge our legacy practice of solo curricular design (panke, 2019). it is a dynamic approach that utilizes generative design thinking elements. design thinking concepts (e.g., empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test) help challenge assumptions and spark creativity and innovation. the design thinking core ideas are as follows:  empathize: understand the problem from the perspective of the users and concerned participants through strategies and methods that include activities such as creating personas, journey mapping, observations, and focused interviews.  define: understand the problem as clearly as possible, incorporating the insights learned through working through the empathetic stage  ideate: generate a wide range of possible solutions to the problem without judgment by reimaging what might be possible, embracing creativity and open mindsets.  prototype: transform ideas into prototypes for rapid iteration, review, and improvement.  test: implement prototypes with users; use feedback to improve the prototype figure 1. stanford d.school design thinking process (2018) note. the design thinking elements include the five components as identified by stanford’s d.school; the process is iterative rather than linear. for the college of st. scholastica, the online doctorate in educational leadership program was a new-level program. although the education faculty had experience in creating several online graduate programs, the complexity and level of this new program posed challenges to the development of the curriculum and overall structure. our design team faced our own problem of practice when trying to create a flexible student-centered program at the doctoral level that prioritized equity, social justice, and decolonized structures. we researched aspirational doctoral program models to reference that had features we were seeking, such as a multi-modal the architecture of the unknown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 51 dissertation or an integrated concurrent dissertation in practice that moves away from an all but dissertation (abd) structure. upon further reflection, our lack of experience may have provided an opportunity for curricular innovation and an openness to new ideas. as liedkta et al. (2017) explain, one of the main obstacles to innovation is holding onto preconceived notions, worldviews, and ideas. we also realized we needed to let go of past experiences, ideas, and assumed practices in designing edd courses and program policies. the edd faculty design team discovered our own various doctoral programs had similar protocols and systems that reinforced traditional phd-like edd programming. to avoid being overly influenced by our past experiences, assumptions, and beliefs, we had to intentionally reflect and be mindful of these ideas. this helped us ensure that we were adopting the most impactful curricular and programmatic expectations rather than what we were already familiar with. we used design thinking protocols to guide our iterative process and ensure that our program was focused on student success, online communities of practices, flexibility, equity, and social justice. the design thinking strategies helped us remain open to new ideas. we believe we improved our curriculum development efforts by working collaboratively, a key design thinking principle, rather than our prior practice of developing curricula in isolation. by doing so, we achieved our goal of establishing a program that fosters inclusivity, community, and flexibility and disrupts legacy doctoral program practices that do not serve students effectively. by utilizing a collaborative approach, ideation, and prototyping, we fostered a culture of empathetic thinking and provided new insights and ideas to strengthen courses and program policies, including a new model for the dissertation in practice. for specific examples of program concepts that resulted from this approach, see table 1. table 1. example of new edd programmatic concepts edd/phd legacy practice css edd reimagined practices students may or may not be working with a community; may use a cohort model cohort model with credit-bearing professional learning community courses, third spaces, promoting community and collaboration literature review renamed and framed the review as a scholarly review that welcomes other “ways of knowing” five chapter dissertation renamed: dissertation for impact welcomes multimodal elements required positionality statement and equity and social justice considerations throughout oral defense pc2: proposal collaborative committee meeting dissertation chair and committee assigned chairs are assigned early, in the second year. the committee is assigned early and agrees to support the student through the process. one member of the four represents a user perspective and does not need to have a doctorate. structural considering 3: credit bearing third-place courses through the use of design thinking, program designers were intentional about including space and opportunity for students to collaborate and build community within the online environment, through required and optional opportunities. according to weidman et al., (2001), community is an important consideration in determining and defining a program’s culture and also impacts relationships among students. research tells us positive peer connections contribute to student persistence (gardner, 2008; golde, 2000; lovitts, 2001). retention of online students is tied to feelings of community and success in the online learning environment (bawa, 2016). students learn more and are better able to construct knowledge in collaborative environments (richardson & swan, 2003). and allowing students to develop relationships with classmates enhances learning and allows students to develop personal and professional networks outside of a school setting. thus, it is important for online programs to establish avenues in which students can pursue peer-to-peer connections in order to establish community and allow space for creating a welcoming and safe program. a sense of community is particularly important for students in a doctoral program. starting a doctoral program is a big decision. completing a program can be an even bigger challenge. according to nettles and millett (2006), attrition rates for doctoral education programs average 70%, while they range from 40% to 60% for other doctoral programs, and online programs have an attrition rate of 10% to 20% higher than face-to-face programs. this comes at a high cost, both emotionally and financially, to students. our program has intentionally put structures in place to support this sense of community within our online edd and aligned with cped principles related to collaboration and communication. there is a misconception that online programs are unable or ineffective at building community. our data support high levels of connectedness and belonging through our intentional program and course design. students move through the program in a cohort model, have weekly, synchronous seminars on monday evenings, and meet for yearly residencies. additionally, students participate in professional learning communities (plcs), four individual creditbearing third-place courses intended to provide open-ended space and place for community building and reflective, intentional action in an online environment. students also can engage in a third-place or optional, weekly zoom session called conversation cafe, a space for specific program questions, focused writing time, scaffolding in student-driven topics, or unhurried conversations. third place is a term first provided by sociologist ray oldenburg (2013) and originally referred to physical, social spaces outside of home and work, like a coffee shop or community center where people socialize, collaborate, and build relationships. elements of third places include the leveling of power structures where people feel welcome regardless of their socio or cultural background. ultimately, third places help members establish a sense of place and community, and “nothing contributes as much to one’s sense of belonging to a community as much as membership in a third place” (oldenburg, 2013, p. xxiii). within the third-place plc courses, students are grouped into smaller virtual learning communities (vlcs) grounded in communities of practice (wenger-trayner & wegner-trayner, 2015). students create and set group norms as a foundation for building community and trust. the vlcs meet synchronously and biweekly, lucarelli et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 52 at a minimum, with the days and times directed by the groups. guided topics allow students to select their own content based on their needs. flexibility in time for scheduling of vlcs and the repeated opportunities to meet over the course of the semester and program help to establish a social presence, set the climate, and support discourse. student evaluations indicate the plc courses are helpful in creating a sense of community and belonging and encouraging deeper thinking related to topics of equity and social justice, a core principle of the program and in alignment with cped. students continue to build their social relationships throughout each course of the program and have noted they value the opportunity to, not only engage in the content, but also in other areas of their work and personal lives. “we are connecting really well; we are getting to know each other much better; supporting each other, not only on a scholarly level but on a personal level; meet each other’s needs; really reach out to each other when anyone else is struggling” (student comment). as noted, online third places were intentionally designed and added to this edd, not only through our credit-bearing plcs, but through conversation cafe. all of the program students and faculty are invited to these optional weekly online drop-in sessions. some conversation cafe sessions include topics for discussion, skill-level tutorials, or program information, but most sessions are open-ended. cafe sessions have revealed several unintended benefits and surprising opportunities for students and faculty. for instance, students are often engaged in informal conversations about their work and family life. conversations often focused on students’ projects or content from multiple courses. students are able to ask questions, provide support for each other, and suggest conversation cafe topics. though voluntary, approximately 60% of students attended weekly. each of the program design elements support the community and trust necessary to persevere. overwhelming student feedback across multiple data sets (e.g., emails, conversations, course checkins, and course evaluations) indicate a strong connection between and among cohort members and the program. themes from the data indicate students feel they are members of a supportive and collaborative community, relative to both their coursework and their personal lives. they have found these third-place spaces are an opportunity to build relationships, which, in turn, have helped them better understand each other’s thinking and provide more personalized feedback. a majority of students feel the plc and conversation cafe are safe spaces for vulnerability, allowing for open dialogues. the intentionality of these third-place opportunities has provided a space for collaboration and support, as well as openended places for community building and reflective, intentional action. this unique and innovative environment relies on the flexibility of both faculty and students to leave space for each other in a postcovid online environment and adds a layer of support and scaffolding for student risk-taking in their learning. structural consideration 4: risk taking as a curricular intent in addition to establishing and nurturing collaboration and community-building through our third-place plcs, we wanted our students to be able to take risks in their learning, and we wanted them to be able to show their learning in both linguistic and nonlinguistic modalities. most importantly, we wanted to help our students nurture the passion for learning that we believe can be present in a doctoral program. a first design consideration in this regard was our approach to grading. we were aware of the negative impact that grades can have on student learning. the research is clear: grades are frequently inconsistent and arbitrary; they discourage risk-taking; they are teacher-oriented, not student-centered; and they encourage academic hoop-jumping as they nurture extrinsic motivation over intrinsic motivation for learning (blum, 2020). true learning frequently takes a back seat to the grade, and we did not want that in this program. additionally, as chemaly (2015) notes, bias in grading is well documented and can negatively affect “students who are female, black, brown, indigenous, disabled, neurodivergent, queer,” among other students (as cited in blum, 2020, p. 34). this brings to the forefront serious concerns of equity and grading justice. it was these considerations that led us to the idea of ungrading (blum, 2020; stommel, 2021), which alfie kohn asserts eliminates “the control-based function of grades, with all its attendant harms” (as cited in blum, 2020, p. xv). ungrading is not one single thing. however, the goal is the same regardless of the method: to remove the burden of points and grades and to increase rich feedback to students on their work. instead of a traditional a-f grading model, we designed an ungrading approach in one of our early courses, the science of learning. we developed met/not yet rubrics for each of the course’s five major assessments. students were told on the first day of class that assessments would not be given letter grades. rather, we would provide students with rich, descriptive feedback, and they would revise, if needed, until they attained the met level on each assessment. when they attained that met level in each domain on the various assessment rubrics, they would earn an a for the course. we could see relief in many students’ eyes as we explained this assessment approach. end-of-semester feedback from students confirmed the relief we saw on their faces on that first day of the class: students felt relieved because of how they would be assessed, and they were able to enjoy a collaboration in learning with their professors. one concern we carried out of our design phase was the question of whether or not students would hold themselves to high expectations in a met/not yet approach. although no system is perfect, we were very impressed by the quality of the work the vast majority of our students submitted. of course, there was a time or two when we felt that individual students underachieved on given assignments, and we gently nudged them to push harder, to go deeper. however, in the big picture, it was amazing how students pushed themselves. and regarding our concern that students would not give their full effort, a couple of students noted that they spent more time and energy in this course because they felt the emphasis was on true learning, not on grading. they felt that this approach respected them as unique learners. in addition to removing the burden of the grade, which sometimes shackles genuine curiosity, we understood the power of multimodal composition (sweetland center for writing, 2023) and wanted to empower students to utilize various modes of communication in their coursework in order to speak with real audiences that moved beyond the professor’s audience of one. “multimodal texts have become an essential part of communication in nearly every arena of contemporary culture” (ball et al., 2022, p. vi) as they allow us to become makers of our social futures….by the architecture of the unknown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.388 53 learning to compose multimodal texts instead of rehashing the limited use of written essays, writers/designers can use a broader toolkit to communicate in more globally aware, digitally driven, socially just and accessible ways, making our society a better place (ball, et. al, 2022, p. 6). in addition to recognizing the incredible power of multimodal communication, we also believed that this could encourage risktaking and nurture student autonomy in the program. consequently, we designed assessments that gave students the ability to communicate with words, images, audio, video, graphics, animation, whatever they needed to convey their messages to real audiences. not only was the quality of the work exemplary, but students also took the risks that we hoped they would. although they had the choice in modality in most of their assignments, students did not play it safe and hand in the typical essay for each assignment. the met/not yet grading approach encouraged them to take chances and work with modalities they had never previously used. the intentional design choices we made in nurturing risk-taking through ungrading and multimodal assessment have paid off. student work has been creative and exceptional in quality. furthermore, student feedback has been so positive that we have moved to an ungrading approach in the entire doctoral program. forward-looking conclusions this essay began with two central questions. first, how do edd programs adapt and survive during times of uncertainty and fear? second, how might edd programs grow and enhance their programs during times of instability? while these questions certainly prompt a reflective look back at process and planning, they also deserve—and, perhaps, even demand—a forward looking perspective as well. in order to adapt and survive, an important conclusion we have drawn is that a program must begin (in the design phase) with a structure that not just allows for, but is dependent on, flexibility. doctoral programs have too long been built upon traditional footings, a phenomenon that smith (2021) attributes to the manner in which american education has been colonized through the establishment of western knowledge as superior to all others. on this, she writes: academic knowledges are organized around the idea of disciplines and fields of knowledge. these are deeply implicated in each other and share genealogical foundations in various classical and enlightenment philosophies. most of the ‘traditional’ disciplines are grounded in cultural worldviews which are either antagonistic to other belief systems or have no methodology for dealing with other knowledge systems. (smith, 2021, p. 74) it comes as no surprise, then, to find that higher education—and doctoral programs in particular—bear these attributes. synonymous with smith’s (2021) notion of antagonistic belief systems is the idea of inflexibility; to be intolerant is also to be unbending. to build a flexible doctoral program that can adapt and survive therefore necessitates an intentional effort to decolonize it. smith (2021) again writes that it is with this very intent that “academics and researchers have begun to address social issues within the wider framework of self-determination, decolonization and social justice” (p. 4). to decolonize a program in this sense means to tear down existing structural paradigms; to rebuild with social-justice, inclusivity (of both people and ideas) and consideration of all perspectives as central tenets. our efforts at broadening the participant profile, our employment of design thinking, our inclusion of credit-bearing thirdplace courses, and our approach to course and program design with a focus on risk-taking were all initiated as an attempt at decolonization. this is critical because “decolonizing is a practice of hopefulness…one that needs to be nuanced to our own contexts, that [has] to be pragmatic in the face of catastrophe” (smith, 2021, p. 285). certainly, the covid-19 pandemic was one such catastrophe, and our initial efforts at decolonization (which are very much imperfect, ongoing and in-process) were perhaps the most important steps toward preparation. it is our hope—and perhaps even an imperative—that the future of all doctoral programs hinge on such a shift in paradigm. in addition to the question of adapting and surviving, this essay also attempted to address how edd programs might grow and enhance during times of instability. while the aforementioned exploration of decolonization serves as an answer, our experience also tells us that the structural flexibility needed to grow and enhance is a function of embracing emerging shifts in assessment, program policies, and content. whereas it may have once been blasphemous within the academy to offer credit-bearing classes focused solely on community-building and writing support, the necessity of such thirdplace courses has become quite clear (bawa, 2016; oldenburg, 2013). whereas it may have once been considered destructive (to existing structures of power, privilege and intellect) to encourage risk-taking in multimodal expressions of knowledge, it is clear that the greater risk is in not doing so (ball et. al., 2022). finally, whereas it may have once been considered academically countercultural to work toward everyone getting an a. the advent of ungrading has revealed both the merits and rewards of such a perspective (blum, 2020; stommel, 2021). how might edd programs grow and enhance their programs during times of instability? the answer is that instability must breed creativity, and edd programs built for the future will need to rely on this maxim in order to endure seismic events to come. references ball, c. e., sheppard, j., & arola, k. l. 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(2021). decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. zed books. stanford d.school (2018). resources: design thinking bootleg. https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg stommel, j. (2021). ungrading: an introduction. jesse stommel. https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction/ sweetland center for writing. (2023). supporting multimodal literacy. university of michigan. https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/instructors/ guides-to-teaching-writing/supporting-multimodal-literacy.html weidman, j. c., twale, d. j., & stein, e. l. (2001). socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: a perilous passage? jossey bass. wenger-trayner, e., & wenger-trayner, b. (2015). an introduction to communities of practice: a brief overview of the concept and its uses. https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice https://doi.org/10.1515/edu-2019-0022 https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v7i1.1864 https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction/ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/instructors/guides-to-teaching-writing/supporting-multimodal-literacy.html https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/instructors/guides-to-teaching-writing/supporting-multimodal-literacy.html https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 57 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.448 educator empowerment: faculty development for change book review nicole elmasry prince mohammad bin fahd university nicollena@gmail.com sara b. ewell, joan giblin and joe mcnabb (editors): faculty development: achieving change through action research. information age pub inc, 2023. 146 pp. paperback: $52.99. isbn 979-8-88730-381-9 faculty development is a critical aspect of enhancing the educational landscape, and faculty development: achieving change through action research seeks to address the most essential gaps in professional development in academia today. the book’s overarching themes are: integrating technology from using rubrics effectively to building online communities and enhancing the preservice teacher experience, relationship building between educator and student using feedback, effective assessment strategies incorporating formative assessments, gaps in faculty development that occur in community colleges and part-time employment, and preparing students for success. authored by doctoral students and experts in the field, this book delves into the multifaceted aspects of faculty development, focusing on practical strategies and action research to bring about positive change and encourage equity and social justice. this book offers a comprehensive guide to addressing these challenges and fostering growth in higher education. as the introduction suggests, "while critics of higher education have remarked on glacially slow pace of change in higher education, it remains true that glaciers do, in fact, move. and when glaciers move, they make a profound impact on the world around them. the question for those of us in higher education, who care about the quality and purpose of higher education, is how do we change in the most responsible and ethical way possible?" (pp. x) the book is organized into eight chapters, each addressing a specific aspect of faculty development. the organization of each chapter allows readers to delve into various relevant issues while maintaining a cohesive focus on improving higher education through action research and social justice. readers will appreciate being able to flip quickly through chapters and the poignant summary and suggestions each contributes, offering tangible relatability only a qualitative approach can offer. topics range from digital assessments and relationship-building to career development and strategic inquiry. the primary authors provide a range of experience and background from k-12 educators, faculty members, and a variety of administrators within higher education. readers will enjoy the boots-on-the-ground approach that only educators in the field can offer through authentic experience. while specific details about the chapter authors are not provided, the collective expertise of the contributors suggests a wealth of experience in academia and research. the first chapter in the book, "digital formative assessments in higher education," presents faculty recommendations that lend a practical and experiential touch for educators motivated to adapt to the digital age while overcoming resistance and barriers faculty face implementing formative assessments in higher education. for example, the author, craig, offers insight into formative assessments through his action research project. craig, who works as a faculty member at a top-tier business school offers the insider perspective of a faculty member who is experiencing the problem of practice but an outsider since they do not share the barriers faculty illustrated at their organization. "building relationships for success," the second chapter, explores the experiences of students and faculty in postsecondary developmental english courses. as the number of students enrolled in these courses grows, examining and building connections becomes more relevant for student success. as an increase in part-time educators becomes part of the everchanging landscape of higher education, the third chapter, "one educator's growth" explores ways that part-time educators can harness technology to create professional development opportunities while addressing the barriers many part-time faculty face. the author, donner, delves into the growing underrepresented phenomenon of part-time faculty in higher education. it showcases the narrative of an educator's growth, providing insights into the potential benefits of building a digital community in the increasingly dynamic educational landscape. the fourth chapter "closing the feedback loop on rubrics" offers a comprehensive exploration of the rubric design process to create meaningful assessments and provide effective student feedback. connecting theoretical coursework to practical fieldwork is a critical factor in teacher education, and the fifth chapter, "enhancing clinical experiences through action research" addresses this gap. this chapter suggests a framework that connects pre-service teachers, university educators, and school-based teachers to better prepare early childhood educators for the field. the sixth chapter "not just a march to tenure and promotion" https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-0119 elmasry impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.448 58 offers a refreshing perspective on faculty careers at community colleges as it acknowledges the barriers these faculty face while offering strategies and opportunities for creating a scholarly identity and attaining tenure. the author, hoffman, works as an administrator at a community college and offers an insider perspective of what they observe in the faculty but an outsider as an administrator who is not living the experiences of the tenure track experience. "strategic inquiry for improving learning and teaching," the seventh chapter, explores the use of inquiry to enhance interprofessional education through continuous assessment processes in health science foundation programs. the final chapter, "creating and using a career development course," acknowledges the gap between life science students and their knowledge of possible stem-based careers. through a career development course, students can acquire the skills and knowledge to make better-informed decisions regarding their prospective career choices, an often-overlooked aspect of education where careers in stem may not yet exist or students may lack the cultural capital to understand what options their future could hold. the intended audience for this book includes educators, administrators, and researchers in higher education seeking practical insights and strategies for enhancing faculty development. this book would be particularly useful for those involved in educational policymaking, curriculum development, and the improvement of teaching and learning experiences in higher education settings. this book addresses underlying obstacles that educators in higher education face, ranging from obtaining tenure to meeting rising standards for part-time faculty. compared to other works on faculty development, this book stands out for its comprehensive approach, covering a wide array of topics within a single volume. the focus on action research distinguishes it from purely theoretical works, providing tangible strategies for educators. other books on faculty development tend to have more extended discussions on the methodology or changes made at the individual level, like the pd book: 7 habits that transform professional development by elena aguilar and co-author lori cohen (2022). this book serves as a shorter read with practical, research-based suggestions that educators can implement in their classrooms or institutions today. this book is for higher education, in the way that the first days of school (wong & wong, 2005) is for k12. the book makes significant contributions by providing practical insight and strategies for faculty development. for those working in a community college, there are tools to facilitate and support career advancement. educators assisting students to navigate career choices can use some of the opportunities outlined in chapter eight. preservice educators can use the framework for enhancing clinical experiences by connecting pre-service teachers, university educators, and school-based teachers, thereby preparing future educators more effectively. strengths of the book include its practical orientation, diverse coverage, and the inclusion of actionable recommendations while focusing on relevant issues of equity and social justice. however, the lack of individual author backgrounds may be a weakness for readers seeking to understand the specific expertise of contributors. additionally, more explicit connections between chapters could enhance coherence, and a more thorough discussion of the existing literature could further strengthen its scholarly impact. although this book is beneficial for educators, administrators, and researchers interested in actionable approaches to enhancing higher education, this book looks beyond those with power and seeks to give a path to success for those who have none, for those who feel stuck and trapped, and for those who still have hope. references aguilar, e. & cohen, l. (2022). the pd book: 7 habits that transform professional development. jossey-bass. wong, h. k., & wong, r. t. (2005). the first days of school: how to be an effective teacher ([version 3]). harry k. wong publications. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 completely whole: defending freedom during the dissertation process donna degennaro university of north carolina–wilmington degennarod@uncw.edu julia lynch university of north carolina–wilmington lynchj@uncw.edu jennifer stalls university of north carolina–wilmington stallsj@uncw.edu abstract this article explores the narratives of two doctoral candidates in a curriculum and instruction program, revealing their dissertation experiences after challenging conventional norms in their coursework. through qualitative analysis, we identify themes of cultural authenticity, power of the academy, and theory vs. practice. these themes underscore the importance of resisting institutional pressures to maintain traditional structures and learning designs, allowing for innovative research processes. the students’ stories emphasize staying true to the transformative nature of their coursework and themselves. we conclude with recommendations for students and professors interested in re-envisioning the dissertation’s purpose and process. keywords cped dissertation in practice (dip), applied dissertation, culturally responsive leadership, critical leadership studies, cri tical inquiry universities are the foremost institutions responsible for knowledge production and generation (godin & gingras, 2000) and shaping society (bellah et al., 1991). as professors, we participate in this process through our scholarship and student engagement. we create programs and enact pedagogy to immerse students in the discipline's underlying epistemology, ontology, and axiology. broadly, the associated unspoken assumptions emit a eurocentric-informed definition of what counts as knowledge and what is considered scholarship. our institution’s edd within the curriculum and instruction specialization commits to cultivating leaders who inspire and support cultural awareness, sustainability, and revitalization. we challenge the normative notions of both knowledge and scholarship production. our doctoral students experience these aspirations through emergent, non-linear, and liberatory pedagogy. we ask students to bridge theory and practice and demonstrate their understanding through multiple modalities (drawings, graphic organizers, conceptual maps, videos, podcasts, and papers). as students journey through the program, they raise their critical consciousness, unlearning eurocentrically imposed positions, actions, and habits. our decision to take this stance reflects the recognition that the university's role is not solely knowledge production. instead, it plays a role in contributing to the maintenance of a democratic society (biesta, 2007). in taking such a viewpoint, our approach often sits at odds with the normative posture of the academy writ large. this dissonance is evident when our students reach the dissertation stage of their doctoral journey. those who complete coursework emerge genuinely changed. a dissonance between coursework and dissertation freedom became visible, leaving students frustrated. namely, chairs expressed implicit or explicit messages that dissertation styles and processes must fall within a rigid, prescriptive format and return to positivist forms and presentations of that research. such messages were contrary to the purpose of the programs’ efforts to connect research to innovative and transcendent possibilities. not all students were willing to color within the lines and instead confront oppressive structures and expectations. this article provides insights into two doctoral candidates’ experiences of resisting the status quo. lavender and sage provide a narrative of navigating their dissertation experience after embracing the disruption of conventional norms through their coursework. the individual and intersecting accounts reveal the nature of their struggle to surpass normative forces at play, making their achievement nearly insurmountable. each story illuminates strategies to transcend the narrow constructs of knowledge and scholarship and to break barriers while conducting their dissertation work. each candidate shares how they remained authentic to the transformative nature of their coursework and of themselves. their stories highlight the significance of resisting the pressure to maintain the existing conditions within university courses and our research processes and products. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2300-6734 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9260-108x degennaro et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 2 philosophy and pedagogy we contextualize the narratives to disclose the philosophy and pedagogical underpinning of our edd curriculum and instruction specialization. the specialization, which includes courses in leadership, research, and curriculum and instruction, is steeped in foundations that radically and critically examine education to transform learning contexts into equitable contexts that center on marginalized realities. thus, coursework requires critically examining positionality, normative structures, and learning designs. positionality from the beginning, students reflect on their positionalities in formal assignments and informal class discussions. here, we refer to positionality as how the social world shapes one’s identity and, thus, their worldview (harding, 1991). students unpack the complexities framed through social, cultural, political, and historical lenses ( collins, 1993; haraway, 1991), teasing out intersectionalities (crenshaw, 1989). as part of exploring themselves, students dissect what shapes their epistemologies, ontologies, and axologies, unveiling unconscious assumptions and actions in the world. students reveal how identity is tied to macro, meso, and micro-social interactions throughout their coursework and how integral enculturation shapes their work in the world (hammersley & atkinson, 1995; malterud, 2001). as bell hooks (1990) reminds us, we must be critically mindful of ourselves so that we can work to prevent reproducing historical oppression and marginalization of those with whom we work. in this way, we commit to ongoing critical reflexivity. to be reflexive is to embrace "subjective understandings of reality as a basis for thinking more critically about the impact of our assumptions, values, and actions on others" (cunliffe, 2004, p. 407). reflexivity is necessary for gaining control over inclinations and dispositions (including in our thought and perception) and transforming us from agents of action into something more akin to subjects of action (bourdieu, 1989). normative structures engaging in critical reflexivity for transformative action requires that students question their positionalities and the power relationships embedded in institutional structures. students begin by confronting colonization, eurocentric mindsets, and dominant culture. students read and interrogate the social foundations of curriculum and the intentional efforts to invoke cultural assimilation and indigenous erasure (au et al., 2017; grande, 2004). together, we survey organizational structures not as fixed but instead as living entities that shift and grow with leadership that is transformative, critical, educative, and ethical (smyth, 2017). we illuminate institutional roles in maintaining the machine (weber, 1922) and reproducing education and social structures (bourdieu & passeron, 1977). in doing so, we bring to light the importance of relationships and interrelationships as foundational to successful, continuously evolving organizations. in this way, we inspire equity-informed change, remembering that “dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community” (hooks, 2003, p. 197). as the hidden acceptance of the norm surfaces, we invite students to “restructure, rewrite, and reimagine institutions that are culturally and racially inclusive” (lyiscott, 2019, p.76). learning designs our courses explore curricular past, present, and possible futures. we examine positivism (giddens, 1974), constructivism (glasersfeld, 1989) and culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogies (lomawaima & mccarty, 2014; paris & alim, 2017) to awaken students to the longstanding role of education as a tool to strip nonwhite people of their cultures. slowly, the unconscious recognition comes into focus, realizing that curriculum aids in adhering to society’s dominant discourses and expectations rather than authentically creating caring relationships that honor students’ racial and cultural experiences (valenzuela, 2016). collective memory memorializes whiteness (lyiscott, 2019) as schools and society join in developing a workforce that can progress society (kress & lake, 2014), reinforcing eurocentric values and knowledge (spring, 2021). drawing on critical theory and critical discourse analysis, students tease out the impact of white privilege, ideology, and hegemony on “everyday micro-level manifestations that stem from deeper-rooted macro-level issues” (lyiscott, 2019, p. 71). after making history visible and present, students design emergent, flexible, and fluid learning spaces that center on race and resist dehumanizing school policies (navarro, 2020). seeing diversity as cultural wealth (yosso, 2005) means that our designs for engagement become tapestries, cultural mosaics if you will, showing the simultaneity of differences in language, traditions, and beliefs to create community (appiah, 2006). our students learn that to see, making it impossible to unsee inequities. in short, aspiring doctoral students spend their three years of coursework unlearning what has been indoctrinated in them and then agentically disturbing norms and playing outside the game. this journey becomes contradictory to the academic dissertation's nature, expectations, and history. the dissertation the dissertation, the last milestone of the dissertation journey, is the student’s opportunity to illustrate they have met the curriculum and instruction specialization requirements. historically, and upon the rise of the doctorate, the dissertation process and product mirrored and embodied technical rationality (schön, 1995). rationality includes identifying and designing research to solve social problems systematically. technicality means the process is incremental and linear (anderson & herr, 1999). to be successful, students work independently to show their accumulation of knowledge (carr & kemmis, 1986), producing an autonomously written artifact. more recently, the dissertation has become a topic for discourse, with scholarship supporting a research approach that blurs the lines of normality and interrogates dissertation types, methodological decisions, and writing practices (anderson et al., 2021; paltridge et al., 2012). while the more traditional singleauthored, paper-based dissertation exhausted with western epistemologies may be revered as scholarship, its format has become outdated and obsolete (patton, 2011). contemporary scholarship suggests a need to move to a fluid approach to knowledge, research, and performance that centers students’ experiences and creates a more mobilized project that reflects our completely whole impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 3 students, organizations, and society (giroux, 2011). a transformative approach to the dissertation process has grown as we recognize the complexities of the relationships between theory and practice among educational leaders and the growing relevance of equity, equality, and deconstruction of colonialism. this dialogue inspired an evolved dissertation that includes professional practice and preparing doctoral candidates to become scholarly practitioners (archbald, 2011; kot & hendel, 2012; tamim & torres, 2022; taysum, 2006). the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) has committed to reimagining the dissertation. their task force offers insights into moving beyond the traditional five-chapter dissertation to a format that promotes innovative, rigorous, and inquiry-based practices (boyce, 2012; cped, 2021; perry, 2016). the cped organization developed four tenets that guide the work of projects referred to as the dissertation in practice (dip). these include: • considering actionable points that allow faculty and students to engage in new reimagined dissertation models. • identifying new opportunities for dips. • conveying potential barriers to engaging in and conducting reimagined dip models (cped, 2021). our faculty externally engaged in this conversation.namely, faculty questioned the dissertation's authenticity as fitting the work that students do and will do in the future. drawing on cped, our educational leadership department engaged in an appreciative inquiry process to envision an edd dissertation to consider its dissertation's expectations, format(s), and assessment procedures. appreciative inquiry has four phases: inquire/discover, imagine/dream, innovate/design, and implement/deploy. after completing appreciative interviews of department faculty (phase 1: inquire/discover) and holding a two-day retreat with interactive and emergent thinking activities (phase 2: imagine/dream and phase 3: innovate/design), a small subset of faculty leaders drafted a design statement, design principles, and operating principles for what we decided to call the inquiry dissertation for impact (idi). the design statement reads as follows: doctoral candidates in the educational leadership edd program in the watson college of education undergo an evolution from student to scholar as they critically, creatively, and reflexively engage in the world. as transformational leaders, candidates bridge theory and practice to generate solutions for positive educational and social change. the inquiry dissertation for impact (idi) is emergent—it may involve multiple, diverse, and evolving processes and formats while adhering to specified design principles to maintain rigor. similar to cped, the principles for the idi design principles include: • the idi is relevant, feasible, and ethical. • the idi process and product(s) are culturally and contextually responsive. • the idi evidences sound methodological decisions. • the idi generates positive change for the edd candidate and community of practice. after finalizing these stages, covid-19 fell upon us. this unexpected event left the implement/deploy stage in limbo. many professors were nervous about leading their students through the process, asking, what does the idi look like? how will i know what is rigorous, relevant, ethical, and feasible? the questions continued as many professors wanted checklists and examples of what an idi would resemble. while the ongoing development of the idi hit a standstill, there was interest in piloting the process with several students. a handful of us resisted providing rubrics or examples, returning the conversation to the foundational design principles. we continued to strive toward the idi, and this manuscript shares what we have learned. methods and data collection this study employed a qualitative, narrative inquiry approach to deeply explore the experiences of two doctoral candidates as they embarked on their inquiry dissertation for impact (idi) journeys. narrative inquiry is particularly suited for understanding lived experiences, as it allows participants to share their stories in a way that reflects their personal and cultural contexts (clandinin & connelly, 2000). as dissertation committee members, the authors collaborated closely with the candidates, adopting a co-constructive stance that supported their transition from coursework to independent scholarly inquiry. this approach facilitated academic growth and fostered a sense of agency and empowerment among the candidates, consistent with notions of education as a practice of freedom (freire, 1970). participant profiles to provide context, we briefly profile the participants whose diverse backgrounds significantly influenced their idi journeys. the first participant, lavender, a black woman from a single-parent household, navigated higher education as a first-generation college student. with a decade of k-12 teaching experience, she brought a rich perspective to her idi, deeply informed by her lived experiences and the systemic challenges she encountered. participant 2, sage, a white, middle-class woman, possessed extensive experience in public education, including roles as a classroom teacher, curriculum specialist, and science, technology, engineering, and math [ stem] coordinator. a commitment to educational equity and innovation in stem education shaped her journey. research design the idi itself served as a methodological framework, guiding the candidates to bridge theory and practice while fostering personal and contextual transformation. this praxis-based approach aligns with transformative research paradigms that emphasize the coconstruction of knowledge and the importance of research that benefits both the researchers and their communities (lather, 1986; tierney & sallee, 2008). by engaging in the idi process, the candidates were encouraged to reflect critically on their practice, situating their work within broader socio-political contexts and striving for social justice and equity in education. data collection we employed a multi-faceted data collection strategy to capture the nuances of the candidates’ experiences. • narrative inquiry: each candidate authored a detailed narrative chronicling their idi journey, including challenges, successes, and reflections. this self-authored documentation served as a foundational data source, allowing the candidates to articulate their experiences in their own voices. degennaro et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 4 • collaborative dialogue: regular zoom meetings provided opportunities for the candidates to share experiences, support each other, and engage in critical dialogue. these sessions were instrumental in fostering a collaborative learning environment, where the exchange of ideas and mutual support were central to the research process. • post-dissertation reflection: a final zoom meeting was conducted to revisit the idi process collectively and identify key themes. this reflective dialogue was essential for synthesizing the experiences and insights gained throughout the idi, contributing to a deeper understanding of the transformative potential of the dissertation process. data analysis narrative analysis was the primary analytic approach, allowing for an in-depth exploration of the candidates’ lived experiences. this method is particularly effective in educational research, as it provides a means to understand how individuals make sense of their experiences and construct their identities through storytelling (riessman, 2008). we employed thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and meanings within the narratives and transcripts, following braun and clarke's (2006) framework for rigorously coding and categorizing data. critical reflexivity was integral to the research process, guiding our interpretation of the data and ensuring that our own perspectives did not unduly influence the findings (finlay, 2002). this study offers a rich and authentic portrayal of the idi experience by centering the candidates' voices and employing rigorous qualitative methods. this approach underscores the importance of researcher reflexivity and the ethical responsibility to represent participants' stories accurately and respectfully (guba & lincoln, 1989). narratives lavender and sages’s narratives afford the reader insight into the candidates’ experience. each narrative reflects the relationship between the student and doctoral candidates’ experiences. these narratives illuminate the emerging themes across their experiences, themes that assist in providing insight into challenging the conventional expectations of the dissertation, particularly following four years of (un)learning normative and oppressive structures. lavender’s story i’ve chosen to define the journey of confronting colonization, eurocentric mindsets, and dominant culture as grief. grief is longstanding, deeply painful, traumatic, silencing, and personal. gloria anzaldúa (2015) speaks to this journey of self-actualization, noting that to step into the transformative power of risking the personal. we develop a critical conocimiento, open ourselves up to alternative ways of knowing, and destabilize the dominant westernized epistemologies. the journey of becoming, in this context, a doctoral journey to becoming dr. lavender was a place of reconciled grief that was buried in my earlier years as a teacher. who was i? what was teacher life like? where was i going? the pieces of my identity that were not welcomed into yt (white) spaces. grief... erasure, the level of liberatory pedagogy i experienced during my coursework remains unnamed, and perhaps as this body of work progresses, we will try to rename our disruptive epistemology. years of linear normative ways of theorizing, researching, and performing were obsolete, and i had to step into unknown space to set a path of resistance. down the path of self-discovery, i chose to do a research project that sought to name the unoccupied space of black women teachers (bwt). i wanted the narratives of the bwt to become alive and to tell a story that would speak to their experiences individually and collectively. that seemingly was the easy part; the more difficult part was to get a chair and committee to understand and trust the authenticity of my research as a novice black qualitative researcher, resisting normative westernized epistemologies and methodologies. i sought out a black woman chair who was not new to black feminism, resisting the status quo, or occupied spaces of ytness— seasoned with experience in navigating the politics of upholding the status quo while also maintaining integrity with the protecting validity of the research. remembering grief… i was an experienced teacher, mentoring a beginning teacher one year when i went down to her room to check in with her and found her crying. she told me it was hard, her students were hard, and she hadn’t been taught how to teach “those kids”the black and brown kids, that is. i told her that every teacher feels overwhelmed and defeated during the first few months of teaching, but she just had to stick with it because “it will be good for you.” i remembered the way she looked at me, crying, and said, “i’m not every teacher, and every teacher shouldn’t have to go through this.” as i met with my chair and committee and discussed my research plans and what direction i was going, there was a tear, a rip, so-to-speak. that required my chair to become more transactional in her decision-making of resisting the status quo and upholding ytness as the standard, as my grandmother would say, she had to put her money where her mouth wasas i embodied black feminism as not only a framework but also a methodological approach submerged in complete contextual culture autonomy, she had to walk alongside me as a sista scholar and be willing to exchange knowledge as parallel and non-linear. grief…. code-switching as black sista scholars, we often use code-switching as a necessary tool to access success in academia under the gaze of ytness. we are often in a sacred place of in-betweenness, neptanla (anzaldua, 2007). we create a place of critical reflexivity where we are forced to protect that which is culturally authentic while also challenging normative ways. the culture of whiteness seeps into every corner of our educational system and can be hard to name without a critical consciousness. it is not racism or white privilege alone, but a complexity of inequities that ibram x kendi (2019) states "is as visible as the law, or as hidden as our private thoughts" (p. 22). we talk about the existence of code-switching in the context of hair, dress, language, personality, and professionalism, but what about code-switching in research? my project was a narrative work of culture, a revolutionary act, and a literary quilt woven with audre lorde's linguistic trickster language, whose writing was to aid in transformation while simultaneously rooting and uprooting one's sense of self (bartlow, 2009). the threads between the woven paths completely whole impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 5 of zora neal hurston illuminated the connection between identity formation and resistance (lauter, 1991; omolade, 1994). to include toni morrison and alice walker's resistance to political and artistic issues and gender norms and venus evans winters' resiliencebuilding in qualitative research (moore, 1984; evans-winters, 2019). as i embodied the completeness of a black feminist methodological approach, i could not code-switch, not this time. grief… the resistance was freedom but costly. i often wondered what it was like to mentor the physicists who were bold enough to explore and discover aerodynamics or perhaps the educators bold enough to reimagine schooling that resisted the normative yt gaze of the dominant approach. to offer the freedom of discovery based on cultural context and not the banking system. freire (2000) speaks to such liberatory pedagogy with his statement of “first, do no harm” (p. 3). to reimagine schooling, where students hold power and that learning is indeed an iterative process of student-teacher dialogue and action. my chair couldn’t see past the gaze into such a bold, disruptive methodological approach, and i respected her for that and had to find someone who was willing to walk into uncharted territory to discover a new, more authentic way. i remembered the grief the teacher i mentored must have felt when i didn’t guard against essentialism—making her channel through dangerous waters just because it was what every teacher had to do, supposedly. it is in this space of reckoning where hooks (1990) reminds us to remain vigilant in our critical consciousness so as to not perpetuate the cycle of oppression when we work alongside those within the margins. when we don’t respect the journey of students’ knowledge and their reconstruction of self, we commit harmful acts of self-perseverance and sustainability. grief… reconciled relearning the world as i contend with grief is reconciled. it is not definite or finished, yet reconciled with the understanding that there are spaces in grief where i have access to truth, freedom, and peace. this endarken space uses grief as a transformative power structure. i successfully defended my dissertation, becoming: a poetic narrative inquiry of six black women teachers in rural north carolina, with the help of a new chair, daring herself, who was willing to take a risk on disruptive research that blurred lines of normality and challenged the dominant ways of knowing and doing. research that reached through the audiences of academia back into the community. sage’s story when i began my doctoral journey, i was a middle school science teacher teaching in rural north carolina. i wanted to positively impact my community to allow the voices of underrepresented groups to be heard regarding the limited access to resources in the state’s eastern region. when i began the program at uncw, i immediately started to unpack the implicit bias i carry as a white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual woman and the privileges that i have had as a result of my identity. i also deconstructed how those privileges have impacted my experience as a student and educator in a system designed to favor my dominant identity and oppress my marginalized identity as a woman. in our coursework, i began to unlearn damaging behaviors and practices as we went through transformative praxis, critical reflection, and cultural responsiveness. i knew that if i did not work to recognize the bias that impedes my ability to work alongside students, i would continue to be a part of the problem of marginalizing, discriminating, and excluding individuals who have been historically disregarded. i had a general idea of what equity meant going into this program, but i did not know what equity looked like in action. throughout my coursework, i uncovered meaning and gained understanding by reading research and theory by black, indigenous, and other people of color authors. as a white woman, i had good intentions, but i now understand that those good intentions were not enough. i learned that i am required to engage in critical reflection at every moment so as not to perpetuate exclusionary practices. throughout this journey, i have continued to push back, question, and wonder in my day-to-day life outside the program by asking how things can actually change and how i can make a difference. through human-centered design (ideo, 2015) and freire’s (1970) problem-posing method, i was able to find practical ways to decenter myself as a white woman. in looking at these processes throughout my time in the program, i really saw that the answer to working towards radicalizing colonizing practices in k-12 public education in rural north carolina was to engage in critical dialogue. we often hear phrases like “they deserve a seat at the table” or “we need to make room for them” in conversations, and that was not the case. i had to build relationships and bridges in healing and understanding for me to have a seat at the table of those who have been historically excluded and marginalized. it was never about making room at my table; it was about building relationships and understanding so i could be invited to a table at which i had never sat. if this process and program taught me anything, it taught me that working in diversity, equity, and inclusion is not the sole responsibility of individuals in marginalized communities. it is the responsibility of individuals with privileged identities to listen, talk less, and do our part daily to deconstruct oppressive barriers. this work is about the long-term impact we can sustain by decentering ourselves. it is comfortable for white people to remain at the surface of this work by asking how we can change things around us to make a difference when we genuinely must look at how we can change our viewpoints and actions. change begins with us. in considering cultural responsiveness, i knew that a traditional dissertation would not allow me to communicate authentically in this process. i learned throughout this program that demonstration and understanding of knowledge and growth could happen in a variety of ways, and i wanted my dissertation to be accessible beyond the scope of the academy. this work was not meant to be turned in only for individuals in higher education to access and was not a checkbox for me. to have a community impact, i wanted to think about individuals who have access to students and staff in a non-evaluative way in a public school setting. the individuals who met those criteria were librarians/media coordinators. they are responsible for adding new books to the library and weeding old books. after selecting media coordinators for this project, i wanted to engage them in critical dialogue and problematization, as explained in freire’s (1970) problem-posing method, to visualize the radicalization of text selection processes for media centers in public schools in north carolina. instead of asking the participants a series of questions and thus centering myself, i co-constructed the research questions and topics with the participants. then, we subsequently co-analyzed the themes that emerged from our critical dialogue before proceeding degennaro et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 6 with the remaining sessions. it was crucial that i design my research in this way due to the implicit bias i bring based on my lived experiences. therefore, to maintain authenticity, i could not analyze conversational data without including the media coordinators. because of the four principles of the idi, i used a multimedia approach to my work, including voice recordings, web design, mind mapping, visual displays, and text explanations. the multimedia approach allowed me to maintain the rigor of a traditional dissertation but in a way that was authentic to me, the participants, and the overall goal of this work which was to be accessible to everyone. however, pursuing this non-traditional process came with struggles. in the years of completing coursework prior to my dissertation, i unpacked many colonized methods that were teacher-centered. this teacher-centered approach to education is best described by freire’s (1970) banking method, where students are vessels, and teachers/instructors are responsible for sharing their knowledge with little input from students. with this way of teaching and learning, students are working toward earning grades where proficiency is arbitrarily determined by the instructor instead of co-constructing knowledge for growth. before my coursework at uncw, i had never learned alongside my instructor as someone who had value to bring to the table based on the truth of my lived experiences. the majority of my instructors in my doctoral program placed value on student collaboration and demonstration of understanding and growth in a variety of ways. i went through this process of unlearning where assignments were varied, and i often worked with fellow students to collaborate and critically reflect. when i began my dissertation, i felt i was being forced back into the box i had worked hard to break out of by having to fit my research design within the constraints of a traditional dissertation. from my coursework on decolonization, cultural responsiveness, human-centered design, and many other frameworks of thought, i learned that writing alone is not always culturally authentic to the individuals (in this case, my participants) with whom we work. i was fortunate that i could form a dissertation committee that trusted my process and valued my justification for pursuing the idi. despite their support, it was challenging to explain to others involved why it was culturally responsive to my participants that i presented our outcomes in a non-traditional way. pursuing the inquiry dissertation for impact was absolutely worth it. i navigated the different stages of my journey with my colleague, lavender, who was a critical friend and collaborative partner. no one assigned us this support system, but i attribute much of my success in completing the inquiry dissertation for impact to the fact that i had a colleague who walked this journey with me. emerging patterns interpretive research (erickson, 1986) and collective reflective conversations reveal patterns across the data that give way to our themes. we individually analyzed video data, identifying the patterns and themes. we later met to co-construct perspectives (guba & lincoln, 1989), identifying intersections across our findings. after multiple iterations of individual and collective coding and recoding, our analysis suggests three distinct themes of navigating the transition from student to doctoral candidates while embarking on an idi journey. we name these themes: cultural authenticity, power of them academy, and theory vs. practice. each section defines and presents evidence to support our themes. moreover, we illuminated how each candidate, separately or together, navigated the dissonance between their research identities emerging from their coursework and traversing dissertation norms. cultural authenticity cultural authenticity refers to how cultural systems create genuine realities that reflect a particular worldview. cultural authenticity reveals the beliefs, values, and knowledge systems of those situated within the context, which is also associated with everyday life practices and languages. both lavender and sage’s narratives show that each underwent an identity awareness, an awakening, if you will, of the hidden curriculum surrounding schools and society. each discusses the recognition of their participation in institutions, self-growth, and shift in how they see their work in the world. their emerging cultural norm includes autonomy to embrace the newly adopted practices developed within their course work. these practices include selfawareness, critical reflection, critical reflexivity, flexibility, and fluidity within an evolving and nonlinear process. in the dissertation stage, both candidates discuss their struggle for cultural authenticity. sage recalls, “within our coursework, each of us rediscovered ourselves after unlearning,” moving naturally to critical reflection and critical reflexivity. as part of their “new natural,” they employed practices that embodied revealing and pushing back on conventional thought and action. student coursework and instructors afforded and supported their movement into this culture. nevertheless, as they moved to the dissertation stage, they met with conflicting messages from the institution and committee members. though faculty had embraced and co-constructed the idi, each responded to institutional gravity, revealing an adherence to academic tradition. this habit of maintaining the status quo leads us to the power of the academy. power of the academy we define the power of the academy as one that is asymmetrical power relations. the perpetuation of the institution's eurocentric values and rational knowledge emerges during the dissertation process, reinforcing the status quo and causing conformity to a particular set of systemic expectations. in both cases, the candidates’ dissertation products came under scrutiny, resulting in challenges to transcend this status quo. for lavender, the struggle was around gaining the support of her first chair to move forward with a dissertation approach that did not squarely fit within the bounds of what we professors underwent during our own process. lavender experienced continued pressure from her chair to revert to and maintain normative structures regarding research. as part of the asymmetrical power relations, lavender felt fear. if she pushed back, would there be retaliation? her chair insisted that she reorganized the representation of research lavender had built over months. a poetic approach that lavender crafted was challenged as unacceptable since it did fall squarely in the admissible structure. drawing upon black feminism and venus winters’ effort to rename the normalized categories of the dissertation format, lavender reached deeply into her own power and asserted her agency to refuse, to revolt. she shared with her advisor and, subsequently new chair, “i have not come this far to disrupt the process only to be put back in a box.” for sage, the struggle was around herself and her pedagogy. before the coursework, sage had not had to ask about her privilege or the effects and impacts of colonization. upon learning alongside completely whole impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 7 her instructors rather than under them, she came to see organic pedagogies that included voices from the field instead of imparting knowledge to them. sage discussed reimagining her participation as decentered and relationship-building. sage now looked to be invited to conversations instead of utilizing her white identity to hierarchically construct seats at the table for others. this new culture did not fit with what some of the committee members expected and the implied rules in graduate school to publish a completed dissertation. her digital dissertation format was met with questions from within our department. sage had spent semesters utilizing miro, an online collaborative tool that affords non-linear brainstorming and collaborative construction of knowledge. as stated above, sage searched for methods that would decenter herself through tools that would elevate her colleagues' knowledge, practices, and values. she crafted a website with intricate diagrams connecting the problem, theoretical foundations, and methods. moreover, her images represented the emerging flow of conversations that led to the research findings. her committee was unsettled with this approach. they stated, “she’s going to have to write something given that the graduate school has a set format for dissertation products.” the internalized assumption imposed on faculty to reproduce knowledge and production norms inhibits all of us from imagining other possible forms of intellectual expression. as was the case for lavender, sage pushed back, working closely with her chair to transcend conventional expectations. the result for both was a dissertation artifact that was authentic to their culture, context, and self. during their dissertation experience, each stated that they had to remain “true to the rediscovery of self and then produce artifacts and work that are critical and authentic to us and our learning styles.” theory vs. practice we define theory vs. practice as an arbitrary dichotomy created to divide those working with their head and those working with their hands. this age-old plato/aristotle debate fabricates a perceived value on academically acquired knowledge over manual labor and craftsmanship. both candidates adopted a synergy philosophy between theory and practice during their coursework. each assert that their coursework drew heavily on critical theories, particularly questioning power, ideology, and discourse. however, critical theories did not directly or immediately translate when embarking on the dissertation process. the inertia of the institution’s commitment to theory over practice surprised these candidates, so much so that in the initial stages of their process, each felt obligated to separate theory from practice. (un)learning in their coursework disrupted their understanding of engagement with their communities. rather than entering armed with academic authority, each learned to humbly enter inquiry by respecting practice as equal to theory. the candidates resisted such a separation. lavender adopted a metaphor to inform her approach, and sage quickly abandoned her attempts to conform to a linear process. together, they assert that theory without practice and practice without theory would imply a dichotomy. separating research and practice would reproduce a hierarchy where lavender and sage would hold authoritative knowledge. lavender refers to this as a disservice to the emerging cultural authenticity they persistently and steadfastly worked to sustain. sage states, “we wanted to create something that was accessible to people outside the academy, aiming for immediate and profound impact.” in these expressions, lavender and sage underscore that their work was not simply for the academy; it was for their contexts. lavender shared: …we could reach across the academy to my community of bwt (black women teachers) and they would feel agency with what they were reading and listening to. it was something that had to be done to sustain the validity of a bwt and continue the uplift. it is there–they find a space where they were not invisible and then they regain their power with their voice. i had to do something that was authentic to me that could sustain me and my participants –they needed to know that it is okay to be a bwt where you are with your ways of knowing, doing, and performing… sage’s embraced community knowledge, drawing on collective and critical theories. she created engagements that promoted equitable contributions, foregrounding community wisdom and lived experiences. each author bridges theory and practice to center collective knowledge, the knowledge that emerges from those on the ground. implications the findings of this study underscore the need for a transformative approach in higher education that values the multiplurisitiy of students (e.g., language, ways of knowing, social positioning, etc.). one that is also responsive to students' funds and emerging sources of knowledge. in particular, the implications point to significant opportunities for curricular reform, pedagogical innovation, and institutional responsibility. as global and local contexts evolve, there is a growing recognition that traditional, eurocentric epistemologies are insufficient for addressing the complexities of contemporary society. scholars such as smith (1999), battiste (2013), and bhattacharya (2016) have long argued for the decolonization of curricula, advocating for the incorporation of indigenous and non-western perspectives to foster a more holistic and inclusive educational experience. additionally, freire's (1970) concept of liberatory pedagogy challenges the traditional, hierarchical models of education, emphasizing the need for teaching methods that engage students through multiple modalities and foster critical thinking. this shift towards non-linear, student-centered pedagogies aligns with hooks' (1994) call for education as a practice of freedom, where participatory learning environments enable students to become active agents in their learning process. furthermore, even through the contentious times of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the study highlights the university's role in supporting a democratic society, not only through knowledge production but by cultivating critical consciousness and social responsibility among students (giroux, 2011). however, these shifts also bring challenges, particularly when institutional norms resist change. the tension between innovative approaches and the normative expectations of academia may necessitate ongoing advocacy for the acceptance and institutionalization of alternative scholarly practices (ahmed, 2012). these implications collectively call for a reimagining of higher education that challenges the status quo and fosters a more socially just academic environment. degennaro et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.414 8 discussion in this article, we present two doctoral students’ transitions from student to doctoral candidate. lavender’s and sage’s experiences enable us to inform how we navigate our transition from a traditional dissertation to an innovative one that purposefully prioritizes community engagement, local knowledge, and participant agency. we close with a manuscript with lessons learned and recommendations for future students/advisors. through our themes of cultural authenticity, power of the academy, and theory vs. practice, we discuss our lessons learned. specifically, the primary obstacles infiltrating each candidate’s ability to transcend normative dissertation expectations lie without our institution's willingness to also (un)learn. our engagement in critical consciousness and critical reflexivity will enable us to ask why we habitually hold tightly to what counts as scholarship. engaging in conversations to challenge historical norms brings new possibilities and acceptance of multiple forms of scholarship. lavender and sage provide us with future recommendations. each asks that chairs and students set ground rules for flexibility and ideological framing. first, faculty embarking on new forms of scholarship are on a progressive continuum of liberatory practices, operating from an untenable conflict between academic freedom and linear processes and performances. second, chairs put trust in the candidate’s developing voice and process. lavender and sage gained the tools to navigate uncertainty and emergence, yet felt their chairs or committee members did not always hold faith in their abilities. when either piece of advice becomes uncomfortable for chairs and committee members, our authors ask that each grapple with her own positionalities and the unconscious ways in which they perpetuate normative practices and knowledge production. lavender’s and sage’s final words are as follows: when we began this study, we hadn’t intended for it to branch into a taxonomy of butterflies, figuratively speaking. imagining the student as the cultural category and the dissertation type being morphed into however the student comes into their discipline. we began to see cultural categories that overlapped with traditional paper-based writing, digital media, poetry, and creative writing, depending on the authenticity of the student. as students and researchers, we mirrored freire’s liberatory approach and embodied the culturally sustaining praxis to student-centered learning by taking control of our own ways of knowing, learning, and performing research (freire, 1970; paris & alim, 2017). we created our dissertations to own our learning and showed our knowledge and how we theorized–performance-based–performative dissertation. our dissertations were a disruptive performance because we were performing and writing research in a way that was culturally authentic to us–the way we practiced in the coursework phase of the program. programs foster collaboration, decolonization, transformation, etc., and then are expected to work solo for the dissertation. as we rediscover the purposes of education and the reimagining of the dissertation process, we should always begin with the thought of how academic systems repeat and perpetuate epistemological violence towards marginalized populations, creating cyclic barriers to success. in hook’s (1999) examination of historical institutions of domination in the us, she states, “cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience” (p. 93). a sure way to continue with dominant ways of knowing and doing, academic institutions perpetuate this fear as faculty chairs’ pedagogical praxis reifies oppression and mentors students with no liberating methods. the act of critical love, where love is (re) conceptualized as a form of resistance in order to demand social transformation (brooks, 2017) while also learning to love across differences (hooks, 1999), is a sure method of such liberating practice. institutions must begin to shift the power of normality and western epistemologies to create space for research that challenges and resists such normative structures, centers students’ experiences, and co-creates rehumanizing practices that heal, restore, and create wholeness (brooks, 2017). it is possible to bridge the gap. references ahmed, s. 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(2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community wealth. race, ethnicity, and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/104973202129120052 https://www.designkit.org/resources/1 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.516356 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.56.3.bj2h231877069482 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.267 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620600984255 donna degennaro university of north carolina–wilmington julia lynch university of north carolina–wilmington jennifer stalls university of north carolina–wilmington philosophy and pedagogy positionality normative structures learning designs the dissertation methods and data collection participant profiles research design data collection data analysis narratives lavender’s story sage’s story emerging patterns cultural authenticity power of the academy theory vs. practice implications discussion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 39 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 a model for program improvement using reflections by edd scholars about adaptation during a pandemic time jacqueline hawkins university of houston jhawkins@uh.edu monica martens university of houston mlmartens@uh.edu abstract the results of a reflective survey, used for program evaluation, demonstrate how edd scholars used their learning about improvement science as an insightful lifeline and for practical guidance within their professional practice in an uncertain time. scholars imparted valuable information to edd faculty about the strains and challenges they were under. faculty, in turn, enhanced their choice of content and approaches to teaching about how to manage actionable change and becoming a more reflective and resilient practitioner. in cpedinfluenced programs such as ours, this exchange of learning is ongoing and natural, as scholars pitch up problems of practice in need of immediate progress and improvement—sharing insights into strategies (successful or failed)—with faculty. program learning and enhancements, in light of our students' lived experience and learnings, are discussed. we conclude with guidance about tools and procedures to navigate turbulence in educational systems. keywords edd programs, covid-19 pandemic, improvement science, reflection, edd program improvement introduction the design of doctoral programs generally has focused on the co-location of required curricular components, which act as a blueprint for a degree. for carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) (n.d.) informed programs, these components include a signature pedagogy, laboratories of practice, and dissertations in practice. faculty see the sense in the curriculum design to help scholarly practitioners improve outcomes in educational organizations. however, this may not be evident to scholars, especially if the connection between degree components and practical application is not explicit. background as higher education institutions were rocked by the impact of the global covid-19 pandemic, a clarion call to support educational leaders who were addressing unprecedented levels of change in america’s schools and classrooms rang out loudly and clearly. for faculty, the priority was to grapple with how to engage and support students rather than what is on the syllabus this week. for many of us, work shifted from teaching the components of improvement science (is) to embodying the tenets of is in a manner that demonstrated the relevance of the work to the challenges at hand. specifically, we sought to customize coursework and experiences to increase their immediate relevance and to focus on the unique contexts that our scholars faced. to accomplish that goal, we asked our scholars how they were engaging is techniques as they navigated turbulence at work. initially, this was done through informal conversations online, and it became increasingly evident that our scholars were using the principles of is that formed the bedrock of our program. they explained that, at work, a note-taking guide with is-related informal questions was often a point of reference (appendix a). some had created multiple copies that they used in meetings. others had expanded the is principles (bryk et al., 2015) to poster-size and mounted them on the wall of their offices. it became clear that we needed to use this natural entry point as an opportunity to gain information from our scholars about how to make program improvements and assist them as the pandemic persisted, hence the development of a qualitative survey that informed our evaluation of the program and next steps. systems, people, and change educational leaders, such as our scholars, are taught to accept that all things in life will change. they are trained to adapt their leadership to the unique circumstances in which they find themselves (heifetz et al., 2009). they understand how to engage in https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9117-2315 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3270-7871 hawkins & martens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 40 a variety of plans and processes for improving outcomes and moving a school or a district forward with an eye to context (bryk et al., 2015). primarily, their experience and expertise tend to be steeped in more stable and predictable situations. when systems are stable (ansoff & mcdonnell, 1990), there is limited change over longer periods of time and business as usual tends to continue. leaders are on solid ground in the organization's management, their capacity to support their team members, and their ability to understand, decide, and move forward. conversely, when large-scale changes occur over relatively short periods of time, leaders experience turbulent environments where there is no business as usual. milliken (1987) coined the term environmental turbulence to gauge the impact of external environmental factors on an organizational system. when the global covid-19 pandemic occurred in 2020, a seismic shift in educational systems (and that former solid ground) occurred. educational leaders experienced changes of a greater magnitude than previously and at a faster pace than any of their crisis management responses could handle. the chronic nature of covid19 necessitated learning a new normal for workflow and forced adaptations. improving support for scholar-practitioners cped-influenced programs typically use is principles (bryk et al., 2015) in addition to other change methodologies to help leaders plot a course for efficient change to solve the most difficult problems in educational systems. providing space in edd programs to reflect on the principles of is fostered important adaptation habits during the pandemic, so did frequent temperature check-ins with the intention of making the curriculum better serve students. after the first six months of the pandemic, we used a survey with open-ended questions to help edd scholars reflect and debrief their work experiences. we asked them to discuss their actions and change strategies and the successes and failures they had experienced. in addition to setting the stage for discussion in class as a new semester began, we also looked to the survey for guidance about how to enhance our edd program during this fundamentally unstable time. research method and approach this study was situated within a large urban university in the southeastern united states that serves pre-service and in-service educators from surrounding school districts, which are experiencing a high degree of change in both student population increase and student body diversity. this program enrolls professionals who work for local high-needs school districts and engage with students who are often the most vulnerable and/or historically the most marginalized. edd students are part of small cohorts of 12-24, take courses in a variety of formats (some of which meet on campus), and attend all-cohort gatherings several times a year. survey the survey questions (appendix b) were designed to engage scholars in a reflection activity about applying is principles to their work during the pandemic's initial months. scholars, all of whom work with special populations or in special education, were surveyed about problems of practice they experienced and how they applied an is approach to help guide their actions through a global pandemic. they discussed how they adapted their leadership styles to the problem of practice that emerged because of lockdown, how they navigated data (or lack of data) to improve conditions in their schools, and how they leveraged and improved their teams and networks to facilitate changes in response to continued uncertainty. sample and data collection in august 2020, scholars attended a virtual program-wide advance meeting, during which the survey was administered online. scholars (n=46) worked for prek-12 campuses, school districts central offices, universities, and non-profits providing services to educational organizations. scholars were all aged 21 or older and enrolled in edd program coursework for fall 2020. data were deidentified. analysis rather than using a survey to examine correlations among variables to test hypotheses, this survey became an activity for participant reflection, a type of asynchronous interview, and a listening device for faculty in the service of program improvements. although the responses were easily organized according to principles of is—and we did code responses based on the depth of information given for each principle (and subcategories of the principles)—we also read the scholars’ stories individually and allowed the data to present additional themes. faculty experiences and knowledge about the conditions of education at that time served this process (mccracken, 1988). data was read, coded, reread, and discussed until themes were solidified (creswell & creswell, 2018; lincoln & guba, 1985). observations and results the analysis of the open-ended questions revealed that scholars were grappling with a high degree of quick change during the first six months of the pandemic. they discussed inequity in curriculum delivery for students, system fragility, and dissonance in expectations (figure 1). we saw further details about how they handled goals/tasks and teamwork to solve problems in the system. we also read about how they evolved as leaders and considered mental health and mindset at work. we discuss each of these themes in turn. figure 1. survey themes program improvement using scholar reflections impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 41 magnitude and speed of change overall, affording leaders the space to reflect on the magnitude and the speed of change at work was an essential first step to helping them share the turbulence they were confronting. the simple task of journaling their responses in the survey provided many with both a private space to express themselves and an orienting structure that led them through a change process. this structure would later function as part of the foundation for their new normal. for many, the context of their work lives changed dramatically and overnight. they described transitioning from place-based to virtual delivery of services. they felt the switch from a goal-oriented structure with a strategic plan to a situation of no structure in which they felt rudderless. they expressed having limited capacity to realize any goals or priorities that had been in place a few days prior—in that before-covid time space that now felt underappreciated. instructional experts became technology amateurs as they grappled with using various technology platforms, novel devices, and a revolving door of training and support meetings that consumed their time and energy. their sphere of influence was extended to supporting families and communities. when at one time, that sphere of influence was constrained to supporting the 25 students in their classroom or the 1,000 students on their campus. they now knew more about family members and family struggles. learning more about others and their circumstances prompted selfreflection about their own mental health and wellbeing, their own coping mechanisms, and their own ability to adapt to gargantuan and rapid change, which often appeared insurmountable. while often engaging with more people in virtual environments, they expressed senses of loneliness, stress, and insecurities about the future that were novel for them. social cues, responses from colleagues, and goals and expectations were different in virtual environments. they had plans, but those plans were no longer possible and re-baselining of processes and priorities had to get underway. saliency of student inequity and difference a key challenge for all scholars concerned serving students with inadequate access to resources, which made the delivery of educational services extremely problematic. one scholar noted that many of their students were dropping out or taking extra jobs as parents were laid off from their work. this scholar, who served students in the transition to higher education, also expressed a concern about the lack of jobs for those who persisted and graduated from high school. a solution was to help high school graduates to learn to self-advocate. another solution concerned building rapport to help students feel connected to their educational goals. one strategy was to schedule meetings during lunchtimes for students who balanced work and school. many students in prek-12th grade lived in households without sufficient internet connection/bandwidth or insufficient devices. one scholar described trying to understand the demands on families— increased hours required to be online, the need to interact with lessons during non-work hours for parents, and the fact that some families were unreachable at times. students with severe disabilities were extremely affected as it was difficult to provide services and assessments via computer. many of the students were unable to use the devices that were available, and their parents or family members did not have the skills to support them. system fragility challenges that related to equity and access led to recurring reviews of systems. initially, it became apparent that most schools had one way to deliver services. that delivery system was peoplefocused and relied upon daily interactions with students, parents, and families in buildings. participants noted that their systems were not prepared to respond to a remote world. that system incapacity meant that many felt unable to respond to the needs of some of the most vulnerable students in their educational system. scholars’ concerns involved more than the obvious lack of wi-fi, lack of technology devices, and unfamiliarity with technology systems. covid-19 demonstrated how far behind the times educational organizations had been in recognizing the variety of alternative options for learning that was available. failure to invest in these options led many to see how vulnerable their systems were to environmental turbulence. scholars described educational systems that failed to understand how technology could be used to support student learning. while some had indeed purchased the technology, the capacity to use that technology was insufficient. to address these systemic challenges, scholars focused initially on aspects of remote learning that could be purchased. these purchases involved devices for students and teachers, wi-fi hubs that were set up in school parking lots or home internet plans at no fee, and learning management systems that would encourage teachers to transition to remote classrooms. as devices, wi-fi access, and technology options were acquired, the focus of systemic challenges morphed into a recognition that the people who were implementing the supports, essentially the soft or human side of technology, did not have the skills to deliver what was expected. often, educators were familiar with their content but were unfamiliar with delivering content in alternate formats. scholars also noted that students were unable to respond in ways that demonstrated that learning had occurred. one scholar expressed that moving too fast could break the system further. there was a need to modulate the speed of change, understand where people were in their knowledge capacity, their mental health, and their tolerance levels for on-going change. scholars realized that people needed to be brought together to generate solutions. while technology was frequently identified as the system in need of change in the early phase of the pandemic, scholars discussed the shift in their focus to the people within their systems. they recognized that working together and relying on each other was essential to productivity and successful results. they described a conscious shift to a more user-centered approach to system change. new thinking about moving education forward meant that rules would change, practices would change, and support would change. personnel who worked most closely with students and families became the leaders who guided the efforts to change practices. determining the needs of those on the frontlines, who could support them, and what that support looked like became the focus. essentially, listening to and understanding the needs of teachers, students, and families improved how systems functioned by coordinating, communicating, and problem-solving together. recognition that we rely on each other to be a productive unit was essential to positive results. in addition, recognition that systems are about people and that systems must adopt a mantra of flexibility and grace in all things, especially during turbulent times, was clearly top of mind for most scholars. hawkins & martens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 42 goal/task management prior to the global pandemic, the activities in which our scholars engaged related to the provision of instruction, assessment, and support services to some of the most vulnerable students in the nation’s schools. some were engaged in these activities directly, while most supported other educators to accomplish the work. for example, scholars had goals to ensure that: instruction was provided to the students and that progress was monitored, behavioral supports were implemented in accordance with federal mandates, assessments were completed within timelines, support service hours were delivered as agreed upon, and that requirements of individualized education plans were met. many managed others who engaged in this work through professional development, coaching, and leadership. the focus was on what needed to be done. they worked with trained professionals who came to campuses with the skillsets to complete the work. many scholars discuss how covid-19 necessitated the rebaselining of both goals and management style. they were forced to transition from what needs to be done to how do we do that? they described reshaping their leadership styles as their main focus. rather than continuing with the list of goals to be implemented from a strategic plan, they now focused on how any of those goals could be accomplished. day-to-day goals and accomplishments became the focus. focusing on what to do next and celebrating small wins were important. rethinking communication methods, deliverables, presentations, work schedules, and expectations were common themes. they had to expand their understanding of families and the responsibilities parents faced while both working from home and ensuring that their children’s needs were met. scholars often learned that the more flexible they were in adapting to changing circumstances the more appreciative and receptive the families were. they learned that allowing people the time to discuss their needs and giving them voice provided a way to move forward. many learned that communication between leadership and staff was limited, and to accomplish their goals, they must increase communication and expand their activities beyond instruction, assessment, and support services that had constituted their previous remit. they reported learning more about the people with whom they worked and the struggles they faced. listening, compassion, and consideration of the needs of others became cornerstones of their daily lives. teams modifications to workflow using teams were discussed in detail by scholars. some reflected on their feelings about delegating work and expanding their networks. scholars also solved data and measurement dilemmas in teams as they adjusted their expectations about how to measure student progress and employee goals. scholars shared the need to rethink their workflow, the delegation of tasks, and the membership of their teams. often this meant an expansion of some aspect of group work—adding communication points such as additional meetings or forming new committees. one scholar gave a detailed account of layering teams with distinct roles to make progress in serving students. this scholar noted that they needed “smaller effective teams” because existing defined roles and responsibilities were not sufficient to fully shift to online learning. however, this smaller team of leaders, who analyzed the system at-large, worked in conjunction with existing professional learning communities (plcs) to synchronize the learnings of the smaller leadership group with the larger partnership of professionals on campuses. some scholars discussed shifting roles within teams, such as dividing work up among various stakeholders. this was critical to one scholar who served english learners (els) and represented a moment in which the individual had to decide what control to relinquish to others to gain information about how to serve campuses equitably. relinquishing control was discussed by other scholars who noted that one person cannot solve problems, especially during a crisis. in addition to delegating work, several scholars noted the importance of bridging traditional silos of departments in organizations or bringing in “outside consultants.” building trust was another theme found among the survey data. scholars indicated that recognizing expertise missing from the group was critical. one scholar described this concern in relation to solving technology challenges for the delivery of services to students and their families. for this scholar, yielding control to others resulted in time to feel more creative. another scholar noted that goodwill and willingness were important for successful teams especially while doing continuous testing of “change ideas” under pressure. scholars discussed what this looked like as they parsed their teamwork experiences. in some cases, the expansion of teamwork led to networks and partnerships in the community at large. one scholar described how a non-profit educational services organization focused on communication among the high school and college that served a group of students, in addition to the local food bank. this scholar stated: “i am now accepting what partnership means.” finally, the difficulties of collecting traditional data troubled many scholars who described how their teams met this challenge. despite the pandemic, professionals still had to meet legal mandates, measure student attendance, and coordinate effort across levels within school districts or coordinate effort across departments in higher education. many scholars indicated they relied on anecdotal data from students, families, and educators to get a complete picture of the system and its challenges in curriculum delivery. new surveys were constructed, and new opportunities for communication were permitted. teams also tackled changing how they collected data. this “informal data,” as one scholar labeled it, felt strange and unnaturally distant from the norm. this same scholar referred to this as “other people’s data,” underscoring the common experience of having to rely on others in novel ways to see the complete picture of people’s experiences. the importance of moving beyond the past norms of measurement was expressed by another scholar as being an important “pulse check,” in which increased communication using both formal and informal measurement served as a critical measurement of the health of education. many scholars reported that the pandemic led to positive changes in increasing both the quantity and quality of communication with colleagues. one scholar stated: “it has been beneficial to assemble cross-functional teams with a specific focus, timelines, action-steps, and deliverables.” another scholar noted that adapting their leadership style and breaking silos was an area of growth, especially in recognizing the expertise of others and reciprocating. this scholar indicated they were new to their job. not only were educators forced to consider teamwork and communication in new program improvement using scholar reflections impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 43 ways, but many also achieved this as they entered new roles and experienced staffing shortages. many scholars said they would keep increased frequency of check-ins and certain tools that were developed for team members. looking to the future, one scholar noted the need for developing a “response system” to manage innovative ideas and to spread ideas implemented by others. this is a primary challenge for people attempting to scale up work or discover novel ways of solving specific problems, as evidenced by the work the carnegie foundation (n.d.) has put into tech tools to improve communication in this regard. dissonance in expectations given their complexities, discord is common in educational systems even during stable periods. bottlenecks in service delivery are common. communication flows through organizational levels but is often perceived as a one-way encounter by those not in management. the speed of change is felt inconsistently, depending on one’s role. and some people feel excluded from important conversations and decision-making. the educational environment requires cooperation among specialists who have diverse professional values and expectations of work, and this required cooperation along with individual thought can evoke change. during the pandemic, when school districts issued new directives about curriculum management, one scholar noted a common complaint—that campuses were insufficiently equipped with the technology necessary to serve students in an emergency. other scholars noted that the speed of change led to haphazard, uncoordinated implementation. feeling as though they could not do their jobs professionally was also reflected in the concerns of scholars whose fundamental role was to ensure compliance with federal and state mandates for students with disabilities. also, it was easy to misread tone in written communication, according to another scholar; this was a tricky situation to remedy given physical separation. these situations reflected a loss of control for scholars. on the other hand, discord led to personal reflection and autonomy to lay the foundation for change. some scholars considered more effective committee structures that involved everyone in necessary problem-solving. some considered how the voices of everyone were necessary to engage in systems improvement. many scholars reported forging new partnerships. scholars also thoughtfully considered their institution’s future. one reported thinking about the mission through a “different lens” and wondered about “reinvention.” another wondered, “what is the greatest measure of success” in higher education for the student body? self-reflection as a leader the experience of giving up traditional autonomous roles and relying on others has been discussed in relation to team modification and expansion, as well as concerns about meeting data collection requirements. this next section describes what scholars said about their personal challenges with communication, especially in relation to how they experienced leadership. educators needed to find value in their daily work during a period of extreme change. one scholar wrote: “my focus has been to ensure that my staff understands what their daily goals should be and what daily success looks like.” constant reflection and trial and error became even more critical and fast-paced. one scholar noted, “i have learned to temper goal setting with today’s reality.” another said: “my leadership focus shifted from more doing to more stopping and listening….” to the needs of all users across institutions. for another scholar, their expanded leadership led them to take on a new role having to do with advocacy. to relate more to their colleagues, one scholar described using an online form to organize feedback. this was done to show that (1) they cared about their colleagues’ needs and (2) to be able to support their colleagues. this occurred during and after meetings, and the scholar noted positive effects such as more sharing of resources organization-wide and more consistency in messaging from the top down. often positive change began with the individual and then was adopted by a team. changes made by scholars included increasing adaptation, organization, the use of technology and tools, follow up with others, communication with stakeholders, and the implementation of additional or interim deadlines. one scholar noted that it was important to know how to advocate for more data especially if it was sensed that something was missing or that the data provided did not make sense. another scholar stated: “the pandemic has helped me to take charge of what i need and what my students need to succeed.” at times, change was not comfortable even when the scholar recognized it as necessary. having to rely on different data was an uncomfortable situation mentioned by several. if they previously relied on formal data and that data was suddenly unavailable, a number of scholars who switched to data gained through conversations with colleagues found the reliance on other sources to be jarring. much of this was discussed in terms of evaluating services or in meeting mandates. one scholar went further and discussed measuring student success, noting that possible cheating by students left them concerned about having reliable measurements. this was at odds with their professional values of “collecting data with fidelity.” scholars evaluated how they had changed as leaders. they noted that they had gained an intentional focus because of more frequent conversations, a more acute focus on listening, and learning to use tools to help maintain improved levels of communication and intentionality in meeting planning. one scholar wrote: “we need to better define how we determine the success of our actions more frequently.” for many, communication improved, and new habits were established, such as online meetings in which better norms led to more productive communication. for others, they noted their roles and responsibilities became more defined with room to grow. one scholar noted: “the techniques were simple. identify a need, adjust my course of action, try to stay the course (even when it is against my nature).” mental health/mindset as scholars shifted their focus from which goals to accomplish to how to accomplish those goals, the needs of the people involved in the delivery of instruction and support came more sharply into focus. scholars described the variety of reactions that educators and families expressed because of the sudden and substantial changes that were occurring in their daily lives. many discussed their experiences in terms of mindset. they found that some people were more tolerant of change than others. those who were less tolerant demonstrated a more fixed mindset that did not coincide with transitioning to a virtual world. they experienced higher levels of stress and often struggled with how to engage students or adapt to hawkins & martens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 44 technology systems when face-to-face contact with students was not possible. others embraced the transition to a virtual world but were less tolerant of the on-going adjustments that were made in virtual platform use, increased professional development, and the extended hours of online support that occurred in an attempt to meet the needs of families with multiple children and students who required greater levels of support. some with growth mindsets thrived in the virtual format and found it allowed them to be more responsive to students and parents, to provide recorded information sessions that could be reviewed later and encourage access to free online learning support tools. while work-related stress was often discussed, most scholars reported developing a greater depth of understanding of the impact of the global pandemic on the mental health of their colleagues. they discussed their growing realization of the personal health circumstances and concerns that others experienced, an increased need to consider personal safety, and a need to provide greater consideration for individuals who were single parents or who cared for elderly relatives or young children with disabilities. many allowed spaces for discussion of concerns, incorporated a culture of care in the workplace, and worked diligently to be flexible in making decisions and meeting needs. most reported learning more about the needs of others and their unique circumstances, while stressing an awareness of the need for self-care and making decisions that are right for an individual. some described conscious capacity building for mental health support and concern for the individual. for example, the first few minutes of team meetings were used for check-ins and opportunities to work in smaller teams provided greater levels of consistency for interpersonal connections. many used covid-19 time as an opportunity to learn and improve as an educator and as a leader. they took more time to listen and consider the needs of others, while coaching them through their work and building kinship in the workplace. discussion and implications for practice at the beginning, we raised the notion that effective edd curriculum design helps scholarly practitioners to improve outcomes in educational organizations. this study made salient the immediate impact of a quality curriculum on the work of edd students' professional lives. the survey responses revealed that scholars were engaging in the principles of is in real time. specifically, principles that they had recently acquired through an intellectual pursuit in coursework and that were intended to inform their future work in applied research were now viewed as an essential lifeline to survival in a shifting landscape with an indeterminate endpoint or outcome. journaling about these is principles— how they were making their work problem-specific and user-centered, focusing on variation, seeing the systems with which they engaged (and their outcomes), generating and reviewing data, driving change, and working with teams—helped to stabilize their experience and provide a path forward. this knowledge led us to contemplate the benefits of incremental and flexible changes, the enhancement of our edd curriculum, and the enrichment of our learning community. flexible change management affording leaders a safe space where they could discuss these myriad stressors helped them to feel less alone, to experience a sense of safety with their colleagues, and to work on reinvented structures for a future after-covid was a conduit for moving forward that was, at least, familiar—the principles of is. while during-covid may have felt like quicksand, focusing on solutions to reclaim solid ground helped them to focus on one issue at a time, for one person at a time, do one thing at a time, and experience one success at a time. progress was realized in the small steps, the daily successes, and the informal measures that were developed to assess procedural steps in the various novel processes that constituted their new normal. in line with the university’s mantra of flexibility and compassion during the global pandemic, responses to the survey were used by faculty to reflect on the content, format, and delivery of the degree program and to initiate actions that changed how students were engaged in their work towards a degree. this user-centered input about firsthand experiences, while leading through some of the most turbulent educational environments in the past several years, can enhance our program now and in any future times of instability. as special educators ourselves, we have focused on the tenets of universal design for learning (udl) throughout our careers (cast, 2018). hence, program design activities kept an eye on the overall arc of the degree and the ultimate functionality of the final product rather than the co-locations of course components. we also subscribe to the work of argyris (1993) with specific attention to his concept of double-looped learning. it was not business as usual or changes based on what the faculty wanted to do. rather, changes were implemented in alignment with the needs of our community of scholars with a focus on sustainability through what became a protracted pandemic. given faculty and scholars’ experiences during the past several years, we have modified the overall arc of our program and the way we approach decision-making rules. while the global pandemic most definitely posed problems to all involved, the evaluation of our program through the lens of is helped us to define the problems differently and to look for additional solutions. we hope that our actions not only help us adapt but also help our students to anticipate changes that are inevitably ahead. the enhanced components are outlined in figure 2 and discussed next. figure 2. program growth and enhancements: person-centered leadership program enhancements first and foremost, the enhanced program pays much greater attention to the user, our doctoral students, as we have moved forward from 2020. specifically, our program flips the script by asking our students about the view from their seat, their sphere of influence, and the relevance of an issue to their role. our focus on usercentered needs (a) helps enhance the relevance of the program to program improvement using scholar reflections impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 45 their professional selves from the very first meeting, (b) ensures that what they research is relevant to their educational careers, and (c) can allow them to provide more rigorous supports for the educators they lead (lenz, 2008). the notion of inward facing and outward facing learning (almonte, 2021) helps them to interrogate how they manage themselves to perform their work and how they interact with others to support their change journeys. we have continued to engage shulman’s (2005) signature pedagogies in the professions and have expanded that content to incorporate opportunities to discuss the habits of head, heart, and hand that they embrace as they approach their daily work and how they can enhance their approaches to succeed. the need for spaces to reflect what the global pandemic wrought has been incorporated into courses, program meetings, and journalling activities. this encourages the habit of pausing to reflect and discuss as well as perspectives-taking that involves listening to others and engaging in role reversal activities, to enhance both leadership skills and mental health. the changes in leadership capacity that learning brings are demonstrated in a culminating portfolio component that asks scholars to demonstrate their capacity to think analytically, listen skillfully, write well, and communicate ably with a specific example of how they have focused their effort by engaging in professional (or personal) change. from a systems perspective, covid-19 has taught us all that timing and understanding levels of tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty are important gauges for when to act and how far to move forward with others. helping to recognize the right moment to take the next step and natural entry points for change have provided a perspective that change is about both the process and the impact that it has on the system as a whole. we have learned through this time that it is important to distinguish when to dip a toe in the water from when to jump in fully. we have incorporated attending to these subtle variations that exist within systems as key aspects of leadership. using feedback loops and listening tours can guide progress by leveraging those entry points and engaging educators in change processes that are perceived to be within their respective just manageable difficulty zones. from an outcome perspective, doctoral programs, and leadership in general, often feel like a race to the finish line and a standard of perfection. however, the process of learning and adjusting takes time and effort. helping our scholars to reconcile themselves to good or adequate in their initial work and engaging in incremental change for the better as they move through the program has been one of the most challenging notions for many to accept. allowing themselves the flexibility and grace to try, perhaps miss the mark, refocus, and rinse and repeat has been especially challenging when paired with the emotional upset that a global pandemic delivered. providing a design space to demonstrate their capacity to get their own house in order, to be confident in their knowledge and skills to accomplish the tasks before they scale up also has been helpful for many as they hone their leadership skills. community while continuing as a work-in-progress, our program faculty and doctoral students have built a greater kinship through working together to respond to the recent environmental turbulence in educational and social systems that have resulted in our new normal. at first we accommodated this new normal; now we are beginning to assimilate it. accommodations, that occurred with such magnitude and speed, highlighted the deep inequities in current systems and focused our efforts on meeting diverse needs in diverse ways. within educational systems, ongoing challenges of structural dissonance and internal discord often manifested to impede progress and emphasize the fragility of those systems—especially in times of major change. individuals sensed this also. they gained a deeper understanding that systems are engaged by people. when people experience gargantuan changes in their lives it is necessary to rebaseline goals, work together for the common good, pause to reflect on what is ongoing, and never lose sight of the welfare and mental health status of ourselves and our communities. embracing our new normal at the three-year mark means that we have taken the opportunity to enhance our program during times of instability and have built a more robust model that anticipates the incorporation of additional adaptations that may be necessary. we will continue to focus on internal change but will be ever mindful of the needs of our external audiences. our scholars and the educational systems they support deserve our very best. conclusion in responding to the survey outcomes, we became more usercentered. in asking how our scholars were using is and what they needed, we recognized the variety of support that could drive future changes in our program’s content and delivery. we learned more about our scholars, their work and community contexts, and their personal circumstances. we learned more about the areas in our systems where scholars could fall between the cracks. we learned that we were necessary but not sufficient to meet the needs of our scholarly practitioners as they advanced through the program. we had to work together, in teams. we had to work with our scholars, listen to them, and adapt to make progress. we had to engage increasingly diverse actions to adapt degree components while maintaining the integrity of those components for the institution. we have learned from these transformational experiences how to improve programs. to do otherwise would be both hypocrisy and a missed opportunity. in summary, a program evaluation survey was used as a reflective activity, in which scholars revealed how their learning about is was insightful and offered guidance within their professional practice in an uncertain time. in turn, they imparted valuable information to edd faculty about the strains and challenges they were under, which affected faculty’s choice of content and approaches to teaching about managing actionable change and becoming a more reflective and resilient practitioner. in cpedinfluenced programs such as ours, this exchange of learning is ongoing and natural, as scholars pitch problems of practice in need of immediate progress and improvement—sharing insights into strategies (successful or failed)—to faculty. these faculty complement students' lived experience and learnings with guidance about tools and procedures to navigate turbulence in educational systems. while explaining how they worked to adapt their systems, scholars imparted information about how they changed and adjusted as leaders. this was an essential (and immediate) growth-mindset experience for them. they inhabited a herculean role—addressing pernicious problems of equity within multi-level complex systems, in which their spheres of influence can vary and be unstable, under the most difficult of circumstances. their problems were exacerbated by the community and family challenges for the many special populations of prek-12 students served by the nation’s school hawkins & martens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 46 systems, not to mention the overwhelming issues and sadness that constituted a pandemic. we read in their words how educators are at severe risk of feeling overwhelmed and not persisting in their professions (edsall, 2022). these change leaders—at a time when much was asked of them—adapted their leadership to the context and responded to the political landscape of their work environments; assessed the needs of their networks; and forged best practices for incremental transformation (bryk et al., 2015; hawkins et al., 2019; hawkins & martens, 2021; perry et al., 2020; rasmussen et al., 2022). we intended to learn from them. we are all better for what we have learned. references almonte, r. (2021). a practical guide to soft skills: communication, psychology, and ethics for your professional life (1st ed.). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003212942 ansoff, h. i, & mcdonnell, e. j. (1990). implanting strategic management (2nd ed.). prentice hall. argyris, c. (1993). knowledge for action: a guide to overcoming barriers to organizational change. jossey-bass. bryk, a., gomez, l., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21223 carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. (n.d.). resources. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/ carnegie project on the education doctorate. (n.d.). the cped framework. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework cast (2018). universal design for learning guidelines version 2.2. http://udlguidelines.cast.org creswell, j. w., & creswell, j. d. (2018). research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). sage publications. edsall, t. b. (2022, december 14). there’s a reason there aren’t enough teachers in america. many reasons, actually. the new york times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/opinion/teacher-shortageeducation.html hawkins, j., henry, g. a., jones, s. j., santi, k. l., & butcher, k. a. (2019). implementing professional learning communities: improvement required. in r. crow, b. n. hinnant-crawford & d. t. spaulding (eds.), the educational leader’s guide to improvement science. myers educational press. hawkins, j., & martens, m. (2021). empowering incremental change within a complex system: how to integrate improvement science principles across organizational levels. in r. crow, d. t. spaulding, & b. n. hinnant-crawford (eds.), teaching improvement science in educational leadership: a pedagogical guide. myers educational press. heifetz, r. a., grashow, a., linsky, m. (2009). the practice of adaptive leadership: tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. harvard business press. lenz, b. (2008, may 27). the four r’s: rigor in twenty-first-century schools. |edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/envision-schools-rigor lincoln, y. s., & guba, e. g. (1985). naturalistic inquiry. sage publications. mccracken, g. (1988). the long interview. sage publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412986229 milliken, f. j. (1987). three types of perceived uncertainty about the environment: state, effect, and response uncertainty. academy of management review, 12(1), 133–143. perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers educational press. rasmussen, h. t., hawkins, j., & crow, r. (2022). adaptive leadership and improvement science: natural bedfellows. in m. raei, & h. t. rasmussen (eds.), adaptive leadership in a global economy: perspectives for application and scholarship. routledge. shulman, l. s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134 (3): 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 appendix a: network improvement communities: note-taking guide (individual or group activity) problem of practice: 1. work is problem specific and user centered.  what needs to be solved?  who needs this solved?  what’s the user’s input on this? your campus/district 2. performance will vary!  one size does not fit all context matters!  variation matters – it can provide you with guidance to focus your pop.  graph the variation to help you (and others) ‘see’ the variation.  develop the process to determine the variation in the data for your pop: a. ‘what works, b. for whom, and c. under what conditions’  you will focus your efforts according to the variation.  document what’s working and share!  if you provide graphs (or graphics) ensure they tell the story and data focus on the same components (try not to confuse your audience with a variety of issues – especially if they are not related to your pop). your campus/district 3. get to know your organization.  how does it function? a. what’s working? why? b. what’s not working? why?  dig into the unknowns – the black boxes in an organization a. who keeps the organization going? b. how? why? what do they know? c. what do they do?  begin the process of developing a theory of practical improvement. a. what do students need? b. educators need? c. campuses need?  share it. your campus/district 4. measures measures, that provide information about the pop, are essential to know current status, change over time, and the degree to which something is working.  what are we trying to change?  how do we measure each level? a. is it a ‘good’ measure? b. is it an ‘accurate’ measure? c. is it a ‘consistent’ measure? d. graph it!  what’s the current status at different levels/groups?  are the interventions/strategies achieving their intended outcomes? are outcomes changing as a consequence of an intervention? your campus/district https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003212942 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21223 https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/ https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/opinion/teacher-shortage-education.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/opinion/teacher-shortage-education.html https://www.edutopia.org/envision-schools-rigor https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412986229 https://doi.org/10.1162/0011526054622015 program improvement using scholar reflections impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.389 47 5. drive improvement – interventions + inquiry differentiated solutions are necessary if user-centered principles guide our work. what are the variety of solutions that have helped ensure success in various contexts?  what are the various interventions/solutions?  create a driver diagram that links the components.  set up a system to test the solutions: a. plan – problem-specific user-centered b. do – implement the intervention c. study – measure the outcomes d. act adjust, rinse, and repeat until you’re getting the intended outcomes your campus/district 6. networks – teams – working together who will help to plan, do, study, and act?  specific problems can be big  user-centered solutions can be complex  scale starts with a network  identify supports.  identify network members your campus/district note. dr. jacqueline hawkins, university of houston, jhawkins@uh.edu. adapted from bryk, a., gomez, l., grunow, a., & lemahieu, p. (2015). learning to improve: how america’s schools can get better at getting better. harvard education press. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21223 appendix b: survey questions # type question 1 open ended how has being problem specific and user-centered helped? 2 open-ended what were the main problems? 3 open-ended which users were your focus? 4 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership to focus on users? 5 multiple-choice what is the importance for a leader of being problem specific and user-centered? 6 open-ended what variations in performance have you encountered? 7 open-ended for whom were these variations most evident? 8 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership to respond to variation? 9 multiple-choice what is the importance for a leader to focus on variations in performance? 10 open-ended how has adopting a system perspective helped? 11 open-ended what were the current system challenges? 12 open-ended which system components were your focus? 13 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership to take a systems perspective? 14 multiple-choice what is the importance for a leader to adopt a system perspective? 15 open-ended how have measures/data helped? 16 open-ended what were the main measures you used? 17 open-ended which measures helped you the most? 18 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership to incorporate measures/data? 19 multiple-choice what is the importance for a leader to use measures? 20 open-ended how has disciplined inquiry helped? 21 open-ended what were the main techniques used? 22 open-ended how did you decide to keep/change techniques? 23 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership with new techniques? 24 open-ended what is the importance for a leader to rely upon disciplined inquiry? 25 open-ended how has including networks helped? 26 open-ended who were the network members? 27 open-ended did you add or subtract members from networks? 28 open-ended how have you adapted your leadership to incorporate networks? 29 multiple-choice what is the importance for a leader to engage network improvement communities? 30 multiple-choice what role best describes your professional career 31 multiple-choice what best describes your professional activities impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 42 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 a systematic comparative analysis of doctor of education (edd) programs unraveling inconsistencies and informing student choices christa reyes florida gulf coast university cereyes9865@eagle.fgcu.edu jingshun zhang florida gulf coast university jzhang@fgcu.edu abstract prospective doctoral students face a daunting challenge choosing between doctor of education (edd) programs and doctor of philosophy (phd) in education due to programmatic ambiguity, inconsistency, and illdefined career alignment (carpenter, 1987; perry, 2012; shafer & giblin, 2008). this qualitative study employed comparative analysis to explore the distinctions between 50 us edd programs, including completion time, modality, credits, qualifying exam (qe) inclusion and requirements, and dissertation requirements. the theoretical framework used to investigate the root causes and potential outcomes of the edd and phd inconsistency included foucault’s power theory (aguirre rojas, 2021) and adam’s equity theory (adams, 1963, 1965). findings revealed significant differences between edd programs and between edd and phd programmatic features. this data provides valuable insight for prospective students, informs edd improvement, and urges consistency or standardization for clarity, integrity, and advancement in the field (fisher et al., 2020; mcmahon et al., 2020; schafer & giblin, 2008). keywords doctor of education (edd), doctor of philosophy (phd) in education, qualitative comparative analysis (qca), foucault’s theory of power, adam’s equity theory introduction the doctor of education (edd) has a long history in academia. however, unlike other professional doctorates (e.g., md and jd) there are no clearly defined programmatic differences between a doctor of philosophy (phd) and an edd (dewitt, 2016; national center for education statistics (nces), 2019; o’connor, 2019). moreover, due to no national licensing or exam requirements in education, edd programs lack the consistency seen among other professional doctorates. this does not mean that individual educational scholars and higher education organizations have not attempted to define the edd based on their personal beliefs or organizational goals (dewitt, 2016; nces, 2019; o’connor, 2019; toma, 2002). dewitt (2016) positions the edd as a professional doctorate intended to focus on the practical application of educational research and foundational knowledge to solve real-world (organizational, leadership, and educational) issues. joseph mcnabb, a professor of practice at northeastern’s graduate school of education, explains, “with a phd, [students are] reviewing the research, seeing a gap in the literature, and generating new knowledge based on a theory or hypothesis. conversely, an edd student starts with a problem of practice and [works to learn] the skills it will take to resolve that complex problem of practice” (o’connor, 2019, edd vs. phd section) however, the integrated postsecondary education data system (ipeds) does not differentiate between a phd and an edd (nces, 2019). the ipeds considers both terminal degrees and research doctorates (martinezlebron, 2016). therefore, validating the disconnect between scholars, governing bodies, and institutional leaders in defining the edd’s purpose, curriculum, and necessary key assessments in united states (us) edd programs. with 176 or more postsecondary institutions (eddprograms.org lists 408 institutions offering an edd) offering an edd in higher education, this becomes a major problem (degree prospects, 2021, as cited in nyunt, 2022; eddprograms, “edd programsfind accredited schools”, n.d.). if the leaders and experts cannot decide on the purpose, focus, and goal of an edd (compared to a phd), prospective edd students lack the ability to make data-informed decisions when choosing a terminal degree. this inconsistency has led some scholars to question the necessity and rigor of edd programs, labeling them as a phd lite (nyunt, 2022). therefore, it is past time to evaluate and adapt edd programs for consistency, transparency, and clarity (lovitts, 2005). a quick online search proves the problem. as of june 2023, a google search of “the differences between a phd and an edd” will render an individual over 36 million results. most of these results are https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9744-7317 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1002-2743 a systematic comparative analysis of edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 43 individual higher education institutions (marketing teams) attempting to define what the difference means based on how they have differentiated their phd and edd program offerings. therefore, these are merely conjecture and marketing strategies (not valid or reliable). there are also websites attempting to clarify the differences between programs by categorizing them based on search parameters (e.g., shortest online edd programs). yet, you must approach these sites with caution, as they typically include university sponsorship. finally, a more scholarly peer-reviewed literature review yields limited (three or less) results from the past decade. the lack of specific definitions means every institution is informally deciding the differences between the edd and phd based on individual program offerings. this ad hoc system allows for inequities, bias, and structural deficiencies in the field. for example, how can a worthwhile system accept that acquiring an online asynchronous edd in 24 months with no qualifying exam (qe) and a capstone course project (in lieu of a dissertation) compares to an edd at an on-campus program over 84 months with a rigorous research focus, arduous qe requirements, and a laborious traditional dissertation that requires years of research, analysis, and synthesis. there is no comparison, yet this is how the system is currently operating. the external environment, power dynamics, and the edd student demographics are changing in postsecondary education (nces, 2023). however, this is not the only factor in the external environment that challenges the how things have always been done mentality within these institutions (clark et al., 2023; goodman, 2023). sociocultural trends and attitudes regarding the purpose of education, the cost of education, and the necessity of postsecondary degrees are other factors being questioned (goodman, 2023). beyond that, legal, regulatory, economic, competitive, and political powers disrupt these systems in many states (clark et al., 2023). yet, noticeable changes in the postsecondary educational industry are slow to be realized (bowles, 2022). in most industries, there is constant focus on the external environmental factors that drive ongoing internal innovation, such as strategy changes, structure realignments, and redirection. yet, postsecondary institutions adjust to market changes and sociocultural trends much more slowly (bowles, 2022). still, one sociocultural attitude that is pervasive in other industries (e.g., healthcare [costs], food [ingredients], transportation/airline [fees]) that should be adopted by higher education is transparency, consistency, and clarity (kavakli, 2021). theoretical framework there are multiple lenses to analyze the issue of edd program inconsistency. the comparative analysis accentuates edd inconsistencies constructed by power systems (aguirre rojas, 2021) and placed on prospective, current, and postdoctoral students through perceived fairness, equity, and motivation (adams, 1963, 1965). therefore, to comprehensively examine the problem, the study analyzes both the power structures responsible for creating and perpetuating inconsistencies in edd and phd programs, as well as the motivational implications for doctoral students. these theories offer an epistemological perspective rooted in a critical and social constructivist approach to understanding knowledge, power dynamics, and fairness in society. this conceptual framework visually represents the relationship between the theories and the study’s context. figure 1. edd inconsistency: conceptual framework adam’s equity theory: the perception of fairness and equity in social systems impacts student motivation (adams, 1963,1965). foucault’s power theory: power imbalances in postsecondary social systems impact students’ decisionmaking (aguirre rojas, 2021). heuristic decision making: inconsistency eliminates informed decision-making. different levels of respect given to the edd and phd impacting students’ identity. the interplay between perceived fairness and power dynamics controls students. information asymmetry: higher education (he) leaders allowed to define programs autonomously allow for no quality standard. academic accolades not fairly awarded (based on rigor) in inconsistent programs. differential agency: institutions can adjust programs, but students are constrained due resource limits (time, money, professional goals) perceptions of inequity impact student motivation, engagement, and dyadic relationships. impact 1. goal achievement: students make ill-informed degree choices. 2. cognitive dissonance: students regret their degree choice. 3. reduced motivation: inequity of reward for effort (e.g., clout, respect, professional outcomes) result in lost purpose, passion, and drive. 4. student-faculty relationship challenges (as face of program). 5. competition could impart improvements but power structures (e.g., regulation) stop progress, negatively impacting student equity. reyes & zhang impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 44 foucault’s theory of power foucault’s theory is unique in that it ranks power structures (aguirre rojas, 2021). the highest power at play in postsecondary education is the federal and state government, defined as a macropower by foucault. governing bodies play a significant role in postsecondary program approval (or denial), accrediting body oversight, postsecondary funds appropriations, and much more. according to foucault, the state is exercising power in these decisions, while postsecondary institutions, faculty, staff, and students are suffering from the power. however, this is not where the power dynamic stops. organizations, businesses, and postsecondary institutions all hold significant power (aguirre rojas, 2021). the consequences of organizational power are often evident with consumers. however, the newfound power of social media to call out organizational power plays is causing detrimental impacts on reputation, sales, and profits (drenik, 2021). therefore, this results in a faster business response to these public outcries. for example, the airline, healthcare, and grocery industries, have all been called out for providing unclear, inconsistent, or ambiguous information regarding fees, processes, and ingredients. the implications of these inconsistencies begin as trivial or inconvenient, such as having to make multiple phone calls to insurance companies, healthcare providers, and airlines to try to uncover hidden costs. however, they expand to life altering when considering healthcare costs and even reach the level of catastrophic when you consider food allergies. these inconsistencies open the door to lawsuits, presidential and congressional provocation, and potential reputation, sales, and shareholder implications. yet, inconsistency, lack of transparency, and ambiguity are left to thrive in postsecondary education, with both the metapower and institutional power structures exercising their power at the expense of the student (lovitts, 2005). yet, the implications or suffering experienced by the individual are no less dire, including: 1. program length impacts student ability to start a family, make career changes (i.e., income and job satisfaction), move, take on more professional responsibility, spend time with families, and travel. 2. completion time and credit requirements impact degree cost with no transparency on return on investment (e.g., salary increase potential) or gainful employment. 3. potential edd career outcomes include jobs that do not require an edd such as assistant principal, reading program coordinator, and instructional designer, according to job descriptions found on indeed (indeed.com). therefore, clarification is needed regarding other potential credential offerings with less resource expenditure. 4. hiring practices could favor specific types of edd institutions, doctorates, and delivery modality. however, the student is unaware of those nuisances because of the lack of clarity in the field (e.g., edds in academia and phds in the field). 5. the amount of research or practical focus can have varied impacts on professional goals. for example, a k-12 reading program coordinator is not professionally assessed by curriculum vitae (cv) length. however, a postsecondary faculty member would be. furthermore, students who want to use the degree for professional practice want a curriculum that provides tangible hands-on experience. specifically, a student who desires a faculty role at a research university needs to conduct ample research while in the phd program to build a strong cv. contrarily, a student who desires a role in instructional design would need to demonstrate competency in coding, learning management systems (lms) applications, and articulate 360. however, some edd programs focus primarily on research skills, and others focus on practical skills like critical thinking, decision-making, and program evaluation. often, the choice comes down to alignment with the final programmatic assessments (qe, dissertation, or dissertation in practice (dip). the lack of clear evidence to make informed terminal degree choices impacts a student’s motivation (adams, 1963, 1965). according to adam’s equity theory, individuals strive for fairness or equity in their social interactions. specifically, they want a realization that what they put into their degrees equals what they will get out of their degrees. hence, a lack of transparency regarding key edd program elements, potential degree outcomes, and professional or career implications leads students to perceive inequity resulting in diminished motivation. for example, spending six years completing a rigorous edd resulting in the same career outlook as someone who completed a comparatively easy 24-month edd program causes psychological distress (adams, 1963). similarly, edd students in rigorous six-year research heavy programs (comparable to rigorous phd programs) who are told their academic efforts equate to a phd lite will lose confidence and trust in the power structures or system (aguirre rojas, 2021). while some might brush off these perceived inequities as par for the course, the resulting cognitive dissonance can impact student passion, purpose, and drive to complete their doctoral studies. furthermore, students may feel cheated out of the professional future they envisioned. when potential career outcomes are inaccurate, this could impact a postgraduate’s future hireability, potentially impacting earnings, class mobility, and social justice. if the government, regulatory bodies, and postsecondary institutions wanted to limit their power and improve equity, they would prioritize change and standardization for the reduction and removal of inconsistencies and imbalances in the system. this is the only way to reduce the burden or suffering placed on students to navigate complex systems and decipher how potential degree choices will impact their future based on ambiguous and nuanced programmatic details. the carnegie project on education doctorate (cped) it is important to reference the carnegie foundation when recognizing advocates for clarity and consistency in us edd programs. the carnegie foundation developed the carnegie project on the education doctorate which aims to study edd programs to advance program innovation to improve access and equity in edd programs (cped, 2002, our vision and mission section). the cped framework suggests edd programs should focus on opportunities for practitioner preparation and authentic assessment (cped, 2022). moreover, they advocate for differentiating between the edd and phd. one of the ways they promote differentiation is by advocating for problem-based or field-based dip versus traditional dissertations. these assessments shift the focus away from a literature review and research process to focus more on critical thinking and data-driven decision-making. a systematic comparative analysis of edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 45 cped (2022) does not use a power or equity theory to ground their framework, instead they use a signature pedagogy to “challenge assumptions, engage in action, and require ongoing assessment and accountability” (para. 6). however, the framework has many references to equity, and the board of directors includes internationally renowned critical theorists. therefore, demonstrating challenging power structures and obtaining equity is at the core of their work. cped has recognized that inconsistencies in edd programs negatively impact access and equity for marginalized groups, and they are attempting to inspire change through cped membership. for this reason, cped membership was also included in the comparative analysis of edd programs. however, not all accredited edd programs across the us are cped members. the research questions guiding the study are as follows: 1. what are the key differences between accredited us edd programs? a. how do these edd programs compare to phd programs? 2. how might power systems impact edd program differences? 3. how might edd program factors impact student motivation? figure 2. key components of edd programs research methods the aim of social science is to unravel the complexities of the world, its systems, and its intricate interactions to contribute to positive change. however, unlike the pure sciences, the human element in social science makes it impossible to rely solely on quantifiable methods for understanding. therefore, qualitative comparative analysis (qca) emerged as a reliable method to analyze empirical data, generalize findings, and evaluate programs by blending quantitative and qualitative approaches (ragin, 1987, 2000, 2009). ragin's approach facilitates edd comparisons while allowing for a deeper dive into the intricate details and complexity of each edd program. this study utilized publicly available secondary online data to complete the comparative analysis of edd programs at 50 accredited us postsecondary institutions. the information was gathered from institutional websites, college of education program information, and links to programs of study, curriculum outlines, and other specific criteria like qualifying exam rubrics. the edd elements compared included estimated completion time, key assessments (e.g., qualifying exam or similar), credits, modality, dissertation requirements (or similar), cped membership, and ranking. while there is limited information available related to the number of us edd programs, the most comprehensive website on edd programs nationally as of january 2024 is eddprograms.org. by adding the edd programs listed for each state, a total of 408 national edd programs were calculated, significantly higher than cited by nyunt et al. (2022). assuming the higher number is accurate (worse-case scenario), 50 us edd programs equal around 12% of the national today. suitably, qca is able to use relatively small and simple data sets (ragan, 2000). there is no sample size requirement to achieve statistical significance, although ideally there should be enough cases to potentially exhibit all the possible configurations. in a study conducted in 2012, a survey was implemented to calculate case or sample size average in qca, and the average sample size or case number was 22 (mello, 2012). therefore, demonstrating the sample size of 50 to be sufficient to obtain significant data for this study. the stratified purposeful selection criteria for us edd programs was chosen to “facilitate comparisons” (creswell & poth, 2018, p. 159). there is no inclusive list of all edd programs detailing all comparable data. therefore, necessitating the sample to be chosen at random while also purposefully seeking edd programs of varied rank, from varied states, and to include both online and in-person modalities. therefore, ensuring the data was diverse and the outcomes were reliable. according to swanson (1971), “thinking without comparison is unthinkable” (p. 145). therefore, studying a single edd program cannot adequately analyze, evaluate, or prescribe program improvements without comparison to other edd programs. to do that, a broad review of relevant data has been collected to crossanalyze the different edd program standards and requirements (ragin, 1987). additionally, a brief comparison of phd programs was used to compare the edd findings with phd programs. this comparison is intended to explore the differences in edd programs, how edd programs compare to phd programs, and how those differences impact student motivation. the comparative analysis methodologies have been applied broadly in educational research to enable the critical and systematic inclusion of the social and educational construction of knowledge and the sociocultural development of programs (milošević & maksimović, 2020; otsuka, 2009; silova & brehm, 2010). findings it is important to note that while the differences in the programs are vast, so are the terms, verbiage, language, and measurement tools (e.g., rubrics, templates, credits, hours, transfer requirements, admission standards) used to describe the programs to the public. these inconsistencies create challenges for potential students to compare the differences in the programs when making selections, and they generate hurdles for completing a comparative analysis. for example, what one institution deems applied research another might call a dip. yet, the requirements for research, literature review, and scholarly writing might be largely similar. for the purposes of this study, researchers retained the verbiage used by the institution to categorize and classify their programmatic components. in rare instances, inferences had to be made to define or categorize edd components. for example, if no comparable terms were used to define final assessments, based on the requirements, they were categorized in tandem with similar program assessments. all efforts completion time credits key assessments (qe) curriculum dissertation (or other summative assessment) ranking cped membership reyes & zhang impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 46 were made to compare the program differences systematically and accurately to safeguard result credibility. the following sections details key programmatic comparison findings. average completion time, credits, and costs time is a valuable resource. arguably, it is one of the most important factors when choosing a postgraduate degree. the way credit requirements impact time varies because of inconsistent term lengths (e.g., semesters or quarters) between institutions, and due to how the institution incorporates master’s degree credits. for example, if one postsecondary institution breaks its learning periods up into four per year, and the student takes 2 classes each period with credits equaling 3 for each course, the student would complete 24 credits per year. however, if an institution has two learning periods per year (two semesters) and the student takes two classes worth 3 credits per period, the student completes 12 credits per year. immediately, the level of confusion in navigating this intricacy is obvious. if the prospective student is not an expert in postsecondary admission practices, they would not understand these differences and be unable to make a sound decision. completion time equals money spent, which is certainly a critical element of this decision. gainful employment regulation pushed postsecondary institutions to ensure that the money spent on the degree results in meaningful income growth (us department of education, 2022). an individual might call this a return on their investment, and individuals completing a terminal degree expect a discernible return on investment, including improved job satisfaction, salary increases, or security (cooper, 2021). therefore, time and money spent are both critical ethical and legal/regulatory factors. the pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to assess the linear relationship between credits and average completion time (creswell & guetterman, 2019). the analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between program length (time) and credits r (50) = .368, p= .008. this result clarifies that credit requirements still equate to completion time, despite the various ways term lengths are organized (e.g., 4-week courses, 6-week courses, quarters, semesters, summer courses). the following figure depicts the vast us edd completion time differences, ranging from 24 to more than 60 months, emphasizing that 36 months is the most common degree completion time, including dissertation. figure 3. edd average completion time comparison qualifying exam during the journey to degree attainment, many doctoral programs require students to complete some version of a qe or comprehensive exam to demonstrate readiness to conduct independent scholarly dissertations (manus et al., 1992). this key assessment has been largely unexplored in research literature (fisher et al., 2019). acquiring data on qe approaches opens the door to explore the utility of this key assessment and program benchmark. according to mcmahon et al. (2020), qe preparation processes fail to produce comprehensive results, meaning they are not encouraging higher student pass rates. this begs the question, if the instruction does not encourage sufficient pass rates, who is at fault? the individuals that deliver the qe preparation instruction, those that receive it, or both? suffice it to say, there is only one party penalized for this outcome. the study highlighted the vast differences in qe approaches, and it also uncovered a trend toward qe exclusion in edd programs. qe differences include: 1. a written or oral exam or both types at different program stages. the point at which the assessment occurs ranges from after the first year to after the third year. 2. some institutions administer a preliminary exam before the qualifying exam. 3. some students prepare for the qe under the guidance of a faculty mentor in their programs of study (dipietro et al., 2009), and others are not assigned mentors until after successful qe completion. 4. one institution has a college-wide qe that involves faculty developing questions surrounding the student’s area of interest. they also have a program-specific qe where the student demonstrates their scholarly acumen through options such as a literature review, a journal article submission, or a scholarly portfolio. there is little agreement on the soundest methods to assess student readiness for the dissertation process (estrem & lucas, 2003; kearns et al., 2008; shafer & giblin, 2008). kearns et al. (2008) argue that alternative qe methods reduce students’ anxiety, improve their abilities to perform academic work, and reduce the time for doctoral degree completion. yet, the most interesting data discovered was that most edd programs no longer include a qe requirement, as depicted in figure 4. figure 4. edd qualification exam inclusion a systematic comparative analysis of edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 47 dissertation the doctoral dissertation entails conducting research and making an original contribution to the field (montuori & donnelly, 2013). just mentioning the word dissertation elicits one-up comparisons, horror stories that replicate walking five miles in the snow to school narratives, and blood, sweat, and tears references among the post doctorate crowd. therefore, the fear of this stage of the doctoral process is not unfounded. doctoral students often learn, usually through the informal communication grapevine, the dissertation is where many doctoral students are left in their pursuits to the terminal degree. however, the results of this study illuminate a changing trend in dissertation practice, less traditional dissertations in edd programs. however, less is not none, therefore, a wide gap in consistency still exists, as demonstrated in the following table. table 1. a brief explanation of edd dissertation types dissertation type number of institutions brief explanation traditional 17 original research, literature review, committee/chair assignment, (demonstrated with lengthy formal writing obligation) dissertation in practice (dip) 7 solving real-world problems, no original research required (e.g., secondary data or practitioner research), based on literature, existing data, personal experience (often less strenuous writing requirements) applied/action research 9 improving one’s own practices through planning, action, observation, and reflection (demonstration differs) capstone project/ completed in course 14 showcases student’s academic growth by demonstrating solutions to problems (demonstration differs) literature review 1 synthesizing literature requires scholarly writing acumen but no critical thinking or solutions residency 1 like an internship, approval from coordinator, no writing or demonstration of outcomes no dissertation 1 na u.s. news and world report and college factual average ranking collegiate ranking systems are under scrutiny (ali, 2022). so much so, that universities such as yale have dropped out of national ranking programs. however, the purpose of including ranking in this comparative analysis was not to validate the collegiate ranking systems. instead, the rankings were included to determine if higher ranked, arguably more prestigious institutions, with edd programs were immune to inconsistencies and perceived inequities in edd programs compared to phd programs. additionally, the rankings provided a gauge to ensure inclusion of institutions with varied standings in the study. remarkably, the pearson correlation analysis showed no significant correlation between rank and program length, credits, or qe inclusion. therefore, insinuating that more prestigious or highly ranked institutions do not have more rigorous edd programs. the following figure depicts the average ranking of institutions included in the comparative analysis study. figure 5. edd comparative analysis: average institutional ranking edd and phd comparison the results reveal vast differences in key us edd program requirements. while the primary focus of this study was comparing edd programs, it is impossible to garner a strong understanding of the challenges of the system without a brief comparison to the educational phd some postsecondary institutions differentiate the requirements of their edd and phd, however, at other institutions, the edd program mirrors the educational phd with a strong research focus. for example, at the university of florida, there are very minimal differences between the edd and phd. the website explains they both have a strong research focus, offered part time, and the average time to completion is the same, around four years. the following table illustrates a brief comparison of all (identified) educational ph.ds. in the state of florida. these institutions range from regional public, public flagship, to online for-profit. the average time to completion for phd programs was 36.5 months and edd programs was 37.2. the rankings (us news & world report and college factual) ranged from 47 to 607.5. the qe (or similar) was required at 75% of the phd institutions while only 46% of edd programs required it. the dissertation was required at 87.5% of phd programs and 40% of edd programs required a traditional dissertation. however, if you include some form of culminating assessment (e.g., dissertation, dip, action research) the result is 98% as detailed in table 2. table 2. phd comparison state of florida table university credits avg. completion time (mo.) ranking avg key assessments uf 90 60 47 both fsu 81 54 87.5 both keiser 60 39 142.5 no diss or qe ucf 63 54 155 qe-portfolio and diss usf 59 54 159 both um 42 42 83.5 both fiu 51 51 203.5 no qe, diss bu 54 36 670.75 both reyes & zhang impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 48 the comparison data demonstrate vast differences in key us edd program requirements. in many institutions, the requirements focus more on application and solving problems of practice. this was demonstrated by a non-traditional culminating assessment, such as a dip despite significant differences in edd program rigor (time of completion, credits, and key required assessment criteria), all students are graduating with the same credential. a specific item of note that underscores the necessity of the study, the study included an edd program at a lower-ranked (bottom third) public regional institution with a longer average completion time than all the education ph.ds. in the state, including two flagship institutions. additionally, this edd program has the same key assessment requirements as those phd programs (qe and traditional dissertation). in contemplation of foucault’s power theory (aguirre rojas, 2021) and adam’s equity theory (adams 1963, 1965), this difference sparks two possible assumptions. 1) the higher education institution has hierarchical power structures (among leadership, administration, faculty) that wield control and suffering over students. 2) these power structures impact fairness and equity relative to their students when they compare themselves to students in other national and state terminal degrees. the student outcry regarding these differences would probably be more severe if they could navigate the power structure and reduce information asymmetry to identify them. table 3 includes the data compared for the 50 us edd programs included in this study. table 3. comparative analysis of accredited edd programs in the us university ranking qe avg. ct credits diss diss type cped fgcu 331-440 1 60 81 1 dissertation 0 sfsu 234 1 36 60 0 ed. problem 0 cpp 14 1 36 60 0 lit review 1 csueb 331-440 1 36 60 1 ed. problem 1 csun 32 1 36 60 1 ed. problem 1 ru 127 1 38 72 0 pop 1 usf 97 1 36 54 0 dip 1 vu 13 0 36 54 0 cap grp prjt 0 du 105 0 36 63 0 diss in cw 1 bu 77 0 36 65 0 dip 1 ui 41 1 48 96 1 dissertation 0 ud 127 0 36 60 0 dip 1 cu unranked 0 24 32 0 final project 0 uf 29 1 48 56 1 na 1 fsu 55 1 36 69 1 dissertation 1 bc 36 1 36 39 0 project-execd 1 ug 49 0 36 55 0 ar 1 asu 121 0 36 60 0 ar 1 iu 72 1 36 60 1 dissertation 1 um 137 0 36 60 0 cap project 1 uv 25 1 66 72 0 cap project 0 osu 49 0 36 51 0 dip 1 uw 55 0 36 60 1 dissertation 1 psu 77 0 36 60 1 dissertation 0 ut 151 0 33 57 0 na 1 hu 3 0 36 32 0 cap project 0 up 124 1 24 60 1 dissertation 0 cau 331-440 0 24 60 1 dissertation 0 uncc 29 1 48 48 0 dip, br, or ar 1 uoph 331-440 0 42 54 0 diss in cw 0 capella unranked 0 35 40 0 dip in cw 1 nsu 219 0 42 55 0 capstone 0 msu 77 0 36 45 0 group dip 1 barryu 331-440 0 36 54 0 dip 1 ccsu 101 0 42 45 0 diss in cw 1 isu 127 0 36 54 0 dip 1 ksu 213 1 42 72 1 dissertation 1 ndsu 285 0 42 60 1 dissertation 1 tsu 331-440 1 48 60 0 residency 1 ucf 137 1 36 54 1 dissertation 0 gcu 331-440 0 36 60 1 dissertation 0 a systematic comparative analysis of edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.408 49 university ranking qe avg. ct credits diss diss type cped mu 285 0 36 54 0 dissertation 0 jhu 1 1 48 54 0 dissertation 0 unl 95 1 48 90 1 dissertation 1 gvsu 101 1 42 60 1 dissertation 0 umd 74 0 36 48 0 dip 1 umn 34 0 36 72 0 dip 1 lsu 76 0 48 54 0 dissertation 0 uiuc 1 1 48 64 1 dissertation 1 iu-b 76 0 36 60 0 dip 1 ku 93 1 36 60 0 dip 1 ucr 150 0 54 60 0 dissertation 1 significance the purpose of this comparative analysis was to systematically explore the inconsistencies, ambiguities, and nuanced differences in edd programs. epistemologically, foucault’s power theory (aguirre rojas, 2021) informs skepticism toward dominant power structures who wield power through information asymmetry, ambiguity, and malleability. adam’s equity theory (adams, 1963, 1965) focuses on perceptions of fairness and the distribution of resources within social relationships. motivation is based on the evaluation of one’s inputs and outputs, relative to others. the perception of inequities or unfairness results in reduced motivation and engagement. equity theory posits edd clarity as social capital, with interpersonal dynamics being the metric. combined, these two theories emphasize the intersectionality of power and equity. highlighting how power imbalances can influence perceptions of fairness and access to information. together, they also challenge the traditional knowledge hierarchies and strive to amplify marginalized voices. therefore, this study encourages edd power structures, including federal and state governments and regulatory bodies, accrediting bodies, postsecondary institutional leaders, educational policy decision-makers, and college of education administration to examine and clarify edd purposes (compared to the phd), curriculum, and outcomes. however, the initial onus falls on the macropower to create policy regulating edd standards that ensure integrity and accountability. therefore, differentiating between the phd and edd, enhancing consistency in edd programs, and creating equity that allows for comparing program differences. these efforts could empower students to make more informed doctoral program enrollment decisions that are better aligned with personal and professional goals. the findings from this study contribute to the limited global body of research on edd programs, especially comparison of the educational phd and the 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(p. 173) i first read his autobiography in the summer of 1992, after the los angeles riots erupted in response to the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating rodney king. while video recordings are ubiquitous today, watching the news footage of rodney king’s brutal assault and later footage of the riots shocked me as a young, white college student who had grown up in an economically, racially, and ethnically diverse community across the country. new york city was a short train ride away. los angeles seemed like a world away. at the time, i could not stop trying to make sense of what had happened in los angeles. there was no internet for me to search. my understanding of race in the united states was limited to brief history lessons about slavery and then later the civil rights movement. i had no frame of reference to understand what was happening until a friend shared the autobiography of malcolm x. i reread malcolm x’s autobiography several times along with volumes of his speeches in my last year as an undergraduate at a predominantly white institution where his life became the focus of my senior thesis. years later, i required students to read malcolm x’s autobiography when i taught college reading classes. a decade has passed since i last taught his book, yet as i began to reflect on my journey toward becoming a community college professor–activist, malcolm x’s words came to me once again because he continues to stand as an example of what it means to be transformed through life experience and education and what it means to take action in the face of injustice. to be clear at the outset, i am no malcolm x. i am a new jersey community college professor trying to do what i can in my little corner of the world. when did my journey of becoming a community college professor–activist begin? was it when i was 4 years old, and my mother, as a low-income single parent, enrolled me in the kindergarten program offered at the daycare center of the new jersey community college where she was attending as a student? was it when i was 16 years old and dropped out of high school at the beginning of my senior year to attend a pennsylvania community college for a year before transferring to a 4-year university? was it when i was 27 years old and began teaching english as a second language as an adjunct instructor at the community college where i attended kindergarten? was it when i was 29 years old and started a tenure-track position in the english department at my current new jersey community college, where i have worked ever since? or was it when i was 49 years old and began the education doctoral (edd) program in curriculum studies at the university of south carolina (usc)? perhaps all these experiences have led me to this point of becoming a community college professor–activist. to make sense of my journey and understand where i am today, i had to reflect on my past. i have told people that community college is in my blood, but i have come to understand my belief that community colleges represent the key democratic ideals that are foundational to a fair and equitable society. as a tenured community college professor in my final year in the doctoral program at usc, i can see how my personal, professional, and academic experiences have been part of the transformative journey of becoming a community college professor–activist. this essay, which in some ways feels like a love letter to community colleges and a thank-you letter to the curriculum studies faculty at usc, begins with an overview of the community college mission and the role of faculty in supporting the mission. it then traces my intellectual journey in the doctoral program, followed by a discussion of my rationale for proposing an action research dissertation project focusing on faculty burnout and an outline of my vision for future advocacy work. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-2236-4915 pipitone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.585 53 the role of faculty in supporting the community college mission community colleges are clearly special to me. however, aside from my personal and professional experiences, community colleges play an important role in the higher education landscape. while community college mission statements are institution-specific, most prioritize providing affordable, quality education to a diverse student population. increasingly, many community colleges, including my institution, are centering the value of equity, too. with an additional emphasis on equity, community colleges provide opportunities and resources that enable students to succeed no matter their starting point. one of strengths of the community college is its ability to adapt quickly to the local community’s needs. for example, my institution in central new jersey recently expanded its academic certificate and transfer programs, such as interface design and web development, supply chain management, digital video production, and social media studies. moreover, community colleges often provide specialized training in fields vital to the local economy. in this respect and through some business and community partnerships, my institution has expanded its vocational and technical programs, including aseptic manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, and automotive technology, to support the calls for specialized workforce training. offering a variety of academic and workforce programs aligns closely with the mission of the community college to support the diverse goals of our students. teaching faculty are at the forefront of advancing the college’s mission, and full-time and part-time faculty are more than just classroom instructors. we are mentors, advisors, and advocates for our students. we play a critical role in supporting both the academic and social needs of our students. as primarily student-centered and open-access institutions, community colleges are often quick to embrace pedagogical shifts and innovations, and the pandemic forced significant instructional adjustment. however, as cavanagh (2024) captured, such changes to address students’ growing and diverse learning needs left many faculty feeling depleted. for several years, my colleagues and i have been engaging in discussions and working purposefully to create inclusive and supportive learning environments for our diverse student population, which inspired my decision to search for a doctoral program that would allow for a more focused study on inclusive teaching strategies. specifically, while my colleagues and i are committed to meeting students’ needs, we continue to be challenged by trying to balance heavy teaching loads, professional development, and college and community service. there does not seem to be much room left on our plates. despite these challenges, i see opportunity for growth and innovation. as many of my colleagues continue to become more equity-focused, we have collaborated on pedagogical strategies and have engaged in interdisciplinary discussions about better ways to support our students. in the spring of 2022, i participated with a cohort of my colleagues to complete a 10-week microcredential in inclusive teaching for equitable learning offered through the association of college and university educators. the course increased my knowledge of managing the impact of biases, reducing microaggressions in learning environments, addressing impostor syndrome and stereotype threat, and designing equity-centered courses. however, one can only learn and apply so much in 10 weeks. as i began to consider how to work more meaningfully with students, i applied for and was awarded a faculty research grant for the 2022–2023 academic year, supporting my collaboration with students to create and curate open educational resources to support equitable learning in composition classes. my research project synthesized several questions i had pondered over the years: how do i design my classes so all students can succeed? how can i identify materials and create assignments that are engaging to students? these questions align with the two questions hogan and sathy (2022) suggested are essential for an inclusive teaching mindset: “who might be left behind as a result of my practice?” and “how can i invite those students in?” (p. 11). my doctoral journey as i grappled with what being an inclusive teacher means, by the end of the spring 2022 semester, i found myself solidly midcareer, hungry to learn how to become a more equity-focused professor. i decided to explore returning to school for a doctoral degree. in my first 20 years of teaching, i watched as the entire world shifted and witnessed significant changes to the entire landscape of higher education, not to mention how the pandemic flipped everything upside down. my decision to pursue an edd in curriculum studies at usc came after soul-searching reflection and careful consideration. as much as i wanted to return to school, finding a program that would fulfill my specific and focused academic interests without requiring me to leave or reduce my current teaching position was essential. i am a teacher at heart. teaching and learning are the most basic human experience, so i wanted a pedagogy-based program. i specifically wanted a program that emphasized practical applications of scholarly research. in education, the concept of pedagogy is formalized. still, in its most applicable sense, the scholarship around teaching and learning is meant to inform our practice and give us the tools to teach our students in ways that maximize their success. my interest in a program that focused on developing equity in education was rooted in the desire to engage with my colleagues in ways that help us to experience the best possible versions of our teaching selves and to see our work reflected in student learning. in short, i wanted a program that would allow me to directly address the real-world equity problems that i was facing at my institution. while i do not consider myself a paragon of pedagogy, i know that what i do in the classroom matters, and what works in one class or with one student might not work with another. just as i can help students on their individual journeys, i can also set them back, so i take my work very seriously. as freire (1998) encouraged, “with responsibility, scientific preparation, and a taste for teaching, with seriousness and a testimony to the struggle against injustice, we can also contribute to the gradual transformation of learners into strong presences in the world” (p. 33). whether i am thinking about my individual classes or collaborating with colleagues on larger projects, teaching and learning have always been at the heart of what i do at my community college. in that way, i have tried to weave together theory and practice as i navigate complex educational landscapes, advocate for change, and implement research-based and contextually grounded solutions. enrolling in the edd program directly supported my professional goals in two significant ways. first, it has allowed me to deepen my knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion. second, completing the degree will allow me to develop as a “teacher’s teacher.” aside from on becoming a commuity college professor-activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.585 54 teaching my composition courses, i have found working on faculty development presentations for my colleagues incredibly fulfilling and would like to continue to strengthen my knowledge about inclusive teaching and learning so i might serve as a more informed resource to my colleagues. i began the doctoral program in the fall of 2022 with a course that served as an introduction to diversity and the curriculum. with a focus on multicultural education, my cohort mates and i engaged in discussions about how cultural identity influences who we are as educators and students and the importance of recognizing diverse perspectives. in this first class, we dove into thinking about professional development as it relates to implicit bias and becoming more culturally-informed educators, which is essential for creating inclusive, equitable learning environments where all students feel valued and supported. supporting the program’s mission, the final essay required us to write about becoming a diversity-conscious and equity-minded educator. my paper, “when inclusion is the goal,” suggested that understanding diversity and equity from a theoretical perspective can move the needle toward full inclusion, which, for me as an educator, is the goal that i work toward in the classroom. equity pedagogy “exists when teachers modify their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from racial, cultural, gender, and social-class groups” (banks, 2020, p. 18). developing equitymindedness is a moral imperative supported by the research that “demonstrates that teachers’ sense of responsibility and efficacy, that is, their sense of their own responsibility for and effectiveness at promoting student learning, profoundly impacts student achievement” (dover, 2009, p. 512). in other words, the research is clear: becoming diversity-conscious and equity-minded is not an accident; rather, it results from purpose and intention. the first course helped me to articulate three specific pedagogical strategies. first, teachers, including me, need to practice intentional course design by valuing and building upon students’ identities. careful attention to design includes the kinds of structured protocols for including all students in classroom discussions (hammond, 2020). second, in the design of our courses, we should be mindful of creating assessment and grading practices that are as bias-resistant as possible to mitigate against discrimination or implicit bias (taylor & nolen, 2020). third, we need to model high expectations for all students and support them to achieve the course outcomes (dover, 2009; muñiz, 2020). the introductory course primed me for other diversity-focused courses that followed. i was excited to return to works that were influential early in my career, specifically pedagogy of the oppressed (freire, 2018) and teaching to transgress (hooks,1994). in addition to revisiting these critical texts, i explored culturally relevant teaching by reading the dream-keepers (ladson-billings, 2022), as well as foundational texts in critical race theory (delgado & stefanic, 2001; ladson-billings, 1998; tate, 1997) and teaching for social justice (picower, 2011). i was challenged to consider the concept of gatekeeping in educational contexts, which i continue to mull. in addition, a class on gender and the curriculum profoundly reshaped my thinking because all of the readings introduced new perspectives. in addition to the courses that focused on aspects of diversity, i benefited from classes that examined curriculum construction. as a college professor, i thankfully do not have to write and submit detailed lesson plans for review and approval, but i do teach from a structure meant to scaffold learning. of course, with rapidly changing technology that impacts education, having the opportunity to consider the connections between technology and accessibility by using e-learning theory to examine the implications and applications for information literacy instruction had practical value for my composition classes that require research papers. in addition to the courses that allowed me to explore issues related to diversity and the curriculum, much of my transformation toward becoming a professor–activist is grounded in methodology courses. specifically, action research courses introduced me to the collaborative and transformative potential of an equity and social justice-informed action research dissertation. in the first action research course, taken in the second part of my first semester, my cohort mates became critical friends, a concept that i have embraced ever since. within an action research framework, herr and anderson (2015) described critical friends as being independent sounding boards who are “willing to debrief with the researcher, collaboratively make meaning, as well as pose questions” (p. 98). my cohort currently consists of about 20 students, and no matter which class i am taking, i can count on robust discussions and questions that push my thinking. the first action research course also introduced me to the concept of positionality, which has become another central concept in my intellectual and professional journey toward becoming a professor–activist. positionality requires rigorous self-reflection as it means interrogating the question, “who am i in relation to my participants and my setting?” (herr & anderson, 2015, p. 37). i have learned that posing and answering that question is not neutral, nor is there a single, static way to define one’s positionality. rather, “each of us as researchers occupies multiple positions that intersect and may bring us into conflicting allegiances or alliances within our research sites” (herr & anderson, 2015, p. 55). i cannot think about positionality without thinking about questions of hierarchy and power, and those questions continue to guide me as i work to advocate for my students and faculty colleagues. becoming: framing faculty burnout as an equity issue in the first action research course, i started drafting a prospectus. i can still hear the reverberations of the gasp i let out when i first read the syllabus. multiple problems of practice swirled around in my head, and i ultimately decided on the topic of faculty burnout and demoralization after applying the “wondering litmus test” by asking myself, “is your wondering something you are passionate about exploring?” (dana, 2013, p.17). while i could answer affirmatively, i initially struggled to connect faculty burnout to an equity-focused curriculum studies project. after a short panic that i chose the wrong program, i began to understand faculty burnout as an equity issue. by chance, a librarian colleague who is also concerned about burnout noted that two books we were reading at the same time, inclusive teaching: strategies for promoting equity in the college classroom (hogan & sathy, 2022) as part of a college-wide inclusive teaching reading group and unraveling faculty burnout: pathways to reckoning and renewal (pope-ruark, 2022) as part of faculty interest group were in near opposition to each other. to promote equity in the classroom, the first text encourages faculty to be more involved and engaged in creating high-structure and flexible learning activities and to be more available for students, while the other text encourages faculty to pipitone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.585 55 consider boundaries that protect time. these two perspectives gave rise to an important question: how do faculty committed to doing the important and intensive work of building inclusive learning structures manage the potentially increased workload if they already feel like they are burning out or becoming demoralized? even though i understood faculty burnout to be a larger systemic problem, this conversation with my colleague and later conversations with my dissertation advisor helped me to put the pieces together, clarifying that i care about faculty burnout because i care about both students and faculty. community college faculty who are burned out or are burning out will not be able to or willing to access the reserves needed to continue to advocate for greater equity. in that way, faculty burnout is a social justice issue. we need to maintain our reserves if only to hold on to hope that things will be better. freire (2021) stated that “when it comes to a program, hopelessness paralyzes us, immobilizes us. we succumb to fatalism, and then it becomes impossible to muster the strength we absolutely need for a fierce struggle that will re-create the world” (p. 2). as teaching faculty in english, i am reminded that english professors, in particular, should “deliberately frame our professional identity, in part, as activists— accepting and embracing the revolutionary and inescapably political nature of our work” (sullivan, 2015, p. 327). the work of teaching is inherently political because it shapes social values. faculty make decisions about curriculum, classroom dynamics, and assessment, all of which influence whose voices, perspectives, and experiences are centered or marginalized. if faculty are burning out, then how can we teach and act in deliberate ways to prepare our students not just for careers or the workforce but for participation in civic life? through my lived experiences on a daily basis, i can affirm that community college faculty work within complex systems that shape their professional behavior, including governance and labormanagement systems (kisker et al., 2023), and that workload is one of several significant factors linked to faculty burnout (griffith & altinay, 2020). at my unionized institution, a full-time faculty member’s workload is outlined according to the contractual categories of teaching, service, and professional development. a fulltime faculty member’s standard teaching load is 15 credits per semester with 4 required student office hours per week during the semester. while adjunct faculty, who comprise roughly two-thirds of all faculty on my campus, are not required to do anything other than teach their classes, they still must deal with the compounding challenges facing our students. the rationale for addressing faculty burnout and framing it as an equity and social justice issue grows from my experiences as a faculty member working on the front lines to advance and support the college’s mission, including the evolving mission that centers equity as a core value. as our student populations become increasingly diverse, community colleges “continue to serve as a critical access point for historically underserved, underrepresented, and marginalized groups” (gonzales & ayers, 2018, p. 458), and community college faculty are students’ “most critical connection to college” (p. 459). if faculty hope to be able to respond to the needs of a diverse student population by fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment, protecting and supporting their well-being is critical. faculty most committed to working with students increasingly take on additional emotional labor to support students navigating any number of systemic barriers in the higher education system. our capacity to advocate for our students is greatly diminished when faculty members are burned out. unfortunately, research also shows that burnout disproportionately impacts women and faculty of color (hellon, 2023). from my perspective, community colleges such as my own, need to recognize that diversity efforts require additional support, such as time and space for focused work on equity issues. my intellectual journey as a doctoral student has been nothing short of transformational. along with critically reflecting on my positionality, i have come to a new understanding of my role as a faculty member and my responsibilities toward my campus community. throughout my coursework, i have been deeply influenced by theories of critical pedagogy, specifically the works of paulo freire and bell hooks and culturally responsive teaching, which emphasize the importance of challenging systemic inequities and fostering inclusive practices. becoming a professor–activist means challenging the status quo and working collaboratively with colleagues to identify and address faculty burnout and demoralization issues. it also means advocating for policies and practices that promote faculty well-being. this shift in perspective has profoundly influenced my approach to my dissertation research, and i see with clarity the value of adopting an action-oriented methodology that aligns with my values and commitment to social justice. in this last year of my doctoral journey, i am working to analyze and present the data that i have collected as i continue to draft my dissertation. while this process is messy, i am truly energized by the iterative and collaborative nature of action research (herr & anderson, 2015). at this stage, i am hopeful that the recommendations will illuminate a path toward improving campus culture in ways that support and sustain faculty well-being. tackling the problem of faculty burnout presents many challenges because it is a complex workplace problem experienced at the individual level; however, a systems approach may provide valuable insights for addressing faculty burnout because it brings together individuals and groups to uncover assumptions and values (evans, 2001; senge et al., 2012). by situating my sphere of influence as a senior tenured faculty member within a larger cultural context, i suggest that the stakeholders at my college need to work together and center discussions to address faculty burnout and morale. it is safe to say that i have fewer years left in my career than i have put in. that said, i do not want to coast through my last years, however many there may be. as i am still a doctoral student, i cannot claim to be an edd-activist (currin et al., 2023), but i am an edd-activist in training. as i have continued to transform into a community college professor–activist, i see a future in which i live out a commitment to social justice and equity. throughout my career, i have leveraged my positionality to advocate for change, and as i go forward, i want to continue taking ethical and courageous actions. again, i can think about malcolm x and his response to opposition and significant criticism. my sphere of influence at my college is grounded in my role as a tenured full professor who is also serving as the special topics fellow in my institution’s center for teaching, learning, and scholarship. the change that i hope to see requires open dialogue built on trust between faculty and administration to address the problem of faculty burnout. if faculty working conditions are students’ learning conditions, then supporting faculty should naturally extend to increased student support. with that said, i am fully cognizant of the perennial problems of increasing demands and decreasing on becoming a commuity college professor-activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.585 56 resources. however, moving the needle, even slightly, toward faculty well-being would result in positive change. beyond: recognizing my privilege and responsibility for over 2 decades, i have had the privilege of being an active part of a vibrant academic community, and my vision for the future is to use my current positionality as a senior faculty member to continue to advocate for policies and resources that support my students as well as my junior and part-time faculty colleagues. i believe that my current focus on faculty burnout will help all faculty and ultimately lead to better support for our students. if we are to continue to innovate in a time of rapid change and if we are to continue to reframe our teaching so that it centers student success and closes achievement gaps, we need to build the structure that will support each other. i acknowledge the fast-changing higher education landscape where colleges and universities are being challenged on their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. to date, my college environment is not one i would say is characterized by “fear, compliance, and pressure to conform” (picower, 2011, p. 1112). however, my institution will likely engage in discussions in response to current political agendas that seek to dismantle programs that specifically support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, especially if funding is at risk. though i cannot predict how these discussions will unfold, experience tells me they will contribute to the stress many faculty, particularly early-career and contingent faculty, are already experiencing. in my personal experiences with faculty burnout, which encompasses emotional exhaustion, depersonalization/cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy (maslach & jackson, 1981), i struggle most with cynicism on an intellectual level because i know that i operate from a place of profound privilege. while the road to tenure and three promotions was not easy, i was surrounded by family, colleagues, and students who consistently supported me. so, while i sit in meetings and find myself feeling cynical, i remind myself that i am in a privileged position in a privileged career and that many others would trade places with me. at the same time, i acknowledge that my cynicism often comes from a place of genuine care for my institution. i believe in the community college’s mission, and i slip into cynicism and frustration when i feel like we are not moving forward. as a tenured full professor, i recognize that i have a security that affords me the freedom to speak out on important issues. unlike many faculty colleagues who teach on a contingent basis, my position at the college means i am included in the decision-making process. while i do not have strong thoughts and opinions on every issue, i will share my thoughts or take the lead when i believe it will be helpful. sometimes, i am conflicted and struggle to know what is fair, even when using an equity framework. for example, i am acutely aware that many of my part-time colleagues work in a constant state of precarity, which can lead to a sense of vulnerability and marginalization within the academic community. many full-time and part-time faculty have advocated for greater inclusion of parttime faculty on campus at my institution. on one hand, i think it is important that part-time faculty feel supported and that their contributions to the college are recognized, but on the other hand, it seems disingenuous to invite them to do more work without compensation. also, recognizing that the higher education landscape is increasingly one of budget cuts, i want to continue to advocate for more full-time faculty. fortunately, my institution has offered parttime faculty compensation opportunities that are not available at other community colleges. still, the difference between full-time faculty and part-time faculty salaries is significant. going forward, using my voice to advocate for policies that support part-time faculty while ensuring a strong presence of full-time faculty will be important. becoming a community college professor–activist is a journey with no particular end point because, at its core, being any kind of activist means embracing a commitment to continuous improvement and reflection. i am not the same person i was when i started the edd program 2 years ago, and i am certain that i will not be the same person when i complete the program. completing my dissertation will mark a beginning just as much as it will mark an end. the needs and challenges of my college community will continue to evolve over time, and i will evolve with it, carrying forward the principles of equity-mindedness. i feel confident in saying that however i might continue to change, as long as i am a community college professor, i will be a community college professor–activist. as an advocate for positive change, i must continually reflect on my own practices and beliefs. the edd program has provided me with a group of critical friends and supportive professors who have given me feedback on my writing and thinking. going forward, i plan to continually seek feedback from colleagues while i stay informed about current research and best practices. thankfully, as much as i might on occasion fall into the trap of cynicism, i do remain open to new ideas and approaches. by engaging in reflective practice, i can ensure that my advocacy efforts remain relevant and effective. even as i find myself in the second half of my career, i recognize that to advocate effectively, i must stay informed on the issues facing my institution while considering the larger context of the higher education landscape. this dynamic is another reason i feel so strongly about fighting against faculty burnout. we cannot stay informed and engaged if we are wiped out. most importantly, this is not an individual problem to solve. if i have learned anything on my journey of becoming a community college professor–activist, it is the importance of building alliances and partnerships with those around us. positive change will most likely occur when people collaborate and listen to each other. once again, i am fortunate to work at an institution with a stated commitment to equity and inclusion, and there are many opportunities to get involved. by working together, we can amplify our voices and increase our collective impact. i am also fortunate to be part of doctoral cohort with educators who bring diverse experiences and perspectives. the edd program in curriculum studies, with its emphasis on cultivating edd-activists, is preparing me to use my experience, knowledge, and position to positively impact my college community. i look forward to the day when i can count myself among the ranks of an edd-activists. for now, i am settled into the idea that i am still in training. references banks, j. a. 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(2012). schools that learn: a fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. crown business. sullivan, p. (2015). the two-year college teacher-scholar-activist. teaching english in the two-year college, 42(4), 327–350. https://doi.org/10.58680/tetyc201527228 tate, w. f. (1997). critical race theory and education: history, theory, and implications. review of research in education, 22(1), 195–247. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x022001195 taylor, c. s., & nolen, s. b. (2020). classroom assessment and diversity. in j. a. banks & c. m. banks (eds.), multicultural education: issues and perspectives (10th ed., pp. 306-327). wiley. https://doi.org/10.5195.ie.2023.293 https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680903196339 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2018.0015 https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2020.1786432 https://ascd.org/el/articles/the-power-of-protocols-for-equity https://ascd.org/el/articles/the-power-of-protocols-for-equity https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/policy-papers/culturally-responsive-teaching-competencies/ https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/policy-papers/culturally-responsive-teaching-competencies/ https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811111300503 https://doi.org/10.58680/tetyc201527228 https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x022001195 christine pipitone university of south carolina the role of faculty in supporting the community college mission my doctoral journey becoming: framing faculty burnout as an equity issue beyond: recognizing my privilege and responsibility references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 8 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 an examination of the use of ai (artificial intelligence) technology as experienced by scholarly practitioners in an educational doctorate program michelle harris university of portland harrismi25@up.edu nicole soriano morningside university sorianon@morningside.edu nicole ralston university of portland ralston@up.edu abstract this study examined the applications and perceptions of ai tools in doctoral studies, focusing on their efficacy in enhancing research effectiveness. a survey found that most participants used ai tools in their doctoral studies (63%), with the majority of those users reporting some positive impact from their usage. the most indicated uses of ai were proofreading, researching scholarly articles for literature reviews, and the organization and structure of research. future research may include a larger sample size and examine instruments for alignment with the program practices and curriculum to best capture responses that indicate participants' program-specific use of ai tools. the study concluded that ai tools have not yet been integrated into research within doctoral studies, and 47% of participants did not find them conducive to effectively communicating research findings in their doctoral work. keywords article dissertation, dissertation, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), scholarly practitioner across university campuses nationally, there are increasing concerns about the implications of artificial intelligence (ai) and the challenges and opportunities its generative capacity has introduced to education (coley et al., 2023). adopting technologies like spellcheck, online databases, and classroom learning management systems has set a standard for the accepted use of technologies for learning purposes. under this same premise, universities are beginning to determine the role of newly accessible ai technologies as educational tools. while many higher education institutions are focused on how to combat the use of ai technologies, others are examining policy revisions around the use of technologies and introducing ways that students can use these tools as assets that help them develop and apply skills to their work (gillani et al., 2023). with the publicly accessible nature of generative ai, schools may want to consider how restrictions on the use of these programs serve to prepare doctoral candidates with the language, creative problem-solving, or skills necessary to leverage technology in responsible, learningforward models (gillani et al., 2023). for educational institutions to be aware of these developments, be inclusive of them, and promote the use of these technologies, this study first conducted a systematic literature review using the following research question: how does generative ai affect dissertation writing risks and benefits? second, to better understand educational doctoral students’ ai comprehension and use, a survey (appendix a) and personal interviews (appendix b), were assessed and coded to determine common themes. what is ai? artificial intelligence (ai) refers to computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation (chandra et al., 2022). common tools might include grammarly, chatgpt, citation software like mendeley or zotero, and websites like quillbot and theliterature.com. these types of ai programs, often referred to as large language models (llms), vary greatly, are changing daily, and are evolving to include generative content based on user prompting. since llms are trained on massive data sets, they are called large. llms use transformer models, a type of neural network (cloudflare, 2024). llms are computer software given enough https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9540-8691 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1045-9549 harris et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 9 examples to recognize and interpret human language or other complex data. many llms are trained on thousands or millions of gigabytes of internet text. llm programmers may use a more curated data set because sample quality affects natural language learning. artificial intelligence-generated content (aigc) is the use of generative ai algorithms to assist or replace humans in creating personalized high-quality content ranging from texts, summaries, data analyses, citations, images, and graphs based on user inputs (cao et al., 2023; wang et al., 2023). one of the most popular ai interfaces is chatgpt, a neural network that functions by learning to perform tasks by analyzing existing examples like wikipedia, articles, and other internet sources (coley et al., 2023). while search engines like google sort through internet data to find matches for the information requested by a user, chatgpt produces what it determines to be a plausible or appropriate response to the request regardless of whether it exists within its data sources, which may result in fabricated content (coley et al., 2023). upon the public release of chatgpt, questions of opportunities and challenges specifically regarding plagiarism emerged in the academic community. opportunities and challenges of ai ai may offer benefits for users including generating references, outlines for projects, test questions, discussion prompts, and spelling and grammar suggestions (monika et al., 2023). for example, an autoethnographic investigation explored schwenke’s utilization of chatgpt version 3.5 for writing their master’s thesis (schwenke et al., 2023). the results suggested that ongoing outcome verification was needed to ensure accurate and relevant content to the research questions. the study suggested that a thesis’s creation still depends on the learner’s practical involvement and ability to apply their learning to produce credible and high-quality research (schwenke et al., 2023). generative ai software like chatgpt has raised significant concerns for higher education institutions including plagiarism, authentication, and academic integrity (crawford et al., 2023). however, some researchers posit that by integrating these ai tools into courses, educators may be able to teach students the ethical use of such tools (crawford et al., 2023). while students may be able to employ ai-generated content in formal academic writing and research, human involvement and vetting were still required beyond creating input demands (schwenke et al., 2023), furthermore, ethical guidelines provided by instructors may support more effective use as well as address the concerns of plagiarism (crawford et al., 2023). ai in education integrating ai into education has yielded attention from researchers and practitioners. three primary areas include the following: (a) enhancing personalized learning experiences, (b) augmenting teaching and learning processes, and (c) facilitating research and knowledge discovery. the literature suggests ai systems can differentiate and meet the diverse needs of students from kindergarten to postsecondary institutions to improve personalized learning. algorithms may analyze student performance data to personalize learning experiences based on strengths and weaknesses and include any accommodations (siemens & gasevic, 2012). more recent research suggests that ai-based adaptive learning platforms may significantly improve student engagement and outcomes, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math stem disciplines (zhu et al., 2022). ai tools like virtual learning assistants or tutors have been employed as supplemental support for students to augment the teaching and learning process. some researchers suggest ai tutors may enable students to receive early assessment via feedback from chatgpt, identify areas of growth, and foster a sense of connection to supplement existing peer and teacher connections (crawford et al., 2023). these tools use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to provide feedback, answer students’ questions, and facilitate interactive learning experiences for key concepts in the curricula (vanlehn, 2011). while ai may be used to supplement instruction, some studies’ findings stress that chatgpt cannot replace the teacher’s role and may have lower rates of student satisfaction than tutoring with a teacher or peer (ahmed, 2023). higher education policies regarding ai while there is no governing body for higher education ai policies, leaving institutions to create their own, educators may need to establish their own ai integration policies for students’ coursework and dissertations. existing research indicates teacher acceptance (chen et al., 2009; sánchez-prieto et al., 2017), self-efficacy (joo et al., 2018), perceptions (nikou & economides, 2017), and feelings and attitudes (teo et al, 2008) toward adopting digital technologies are all key factors in determining if technology is integrated into curricula and learning experiences. furthermore, studies indicate teachers’ attitudes towards the adoption of ai technologies determine whether they will be used to support teaching activities and the degree to which the technologies and actual teaching practice are integrated (becker et al., 2017; edwards et al., 2018; wang et al., 2021). doctoral students using ai doctoral students may benefit from ai programs that summarize, paraphrase, and generate dissertation content. however, these ai tools present new challenges and opportunities for educators and doctoral students. with their research and academic experience, doctoral students may use these tools more. this distinction highlights educational research's evolution and ai tool adoption. with such a variety of ai products entering the market, there are numerous ways that students could use ai within their doctoral programs. a study surveying phd research scholars across different institutions in the vellore district of tamil nadu indicated that 89% of the surveyed academics used ai at some point in their research. the study revealed the most popular uses of ai were for citation management, plagiarism detection, and proofreading. despite expressing reservations about possible abuse of ai in research, 83% of the participants reported ai technology improved the effectiveness of their study (monika et al., 2023). a mixed methods explanatory sequential study explored 98 students’ literacy and attitudes toward using ai in dissertation writing (harsyah, 2024). the students were from the english study program at universitas jambi, indonesia. descriptive and inferential statistics analysis of participants’ survey responses determined that students employed artificial intelligence across all chapters of their dissertations, with a notable emphasis on the literature review segment. students self-reported using various forms of artificial examination of ai use by scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 10 intelligence, including perflexity, chatgpt, grammarly, quillbot, research rabbit, and humanta, in their dissertation writing processes. participants indicated the integration of artificial intelligence was generally smooth, as these tools offered userfriendly interfaces, the main challenges they encountered were primarily in selecting appropriate keywords (harsyah, 2024). exploring specific ai programs being used by students may help determine ways that ai is being integrated. one such study examined doctoral students’ use of chatgpt in the context of dissertation writing among students at dhaka university, bangladesh, focusing on science education dissertations (anik et al., 2023). the study consisted of four participants, two of which used chatgpt as an ai-assisted tool in drafting their dissertations while the other two did not use any ai tools. findings revealed that chatgpt served as a valuable tool for enhancing various aspects of dissertation writing, offering benefits such as providing new perspectives, facilitating effective comparisons, generating quick responses, and improving the comprehensibility of research (anik et al., 2023). the study also highlighted the importance of cautious use due to chatgpt’s limitations, emphasizing the need for researchers to exercise discretion and verify the accuracy of the information provided by the ai tool. doctoral students likely need guidance to use such tools to understand the extent of ai’s capacity and how to employ the tool accurately and ethically in academic work. despite slow literature searches and occasional inaccuracies, participants said the ai’s novel insights and interpretations improved their research findings. additionally, participants reported improvements in writing implications and conclusion sections with the assistance of chatgpt, citing increased cohesion, coherence, and expanded content (anik et al., 2023). while they acknowledged the ai’s valuable contributions, participants also emphasized the importance of critical evaluation and double-checking of ai-generated content to ensure accuracy and reliability. overall, the study underscored the potential of ai technologies like chatgpt to augment various phases of thesis writing while emphasizing the complementary relationship between technical support and the ability and skills of humans to build connections in scholarly research. research gap and purpose to develop a more robust understanding of the applications of ai tools in dissertation writing, a case study with scholarly practitioners, or those who work in schools as educational leaders and engage in research via doctoral programs, in an educational doctorate program was conducted (chiu, 2023). the following research questions were posed: (1) to what extent are scholarly practitioners integrating ai tools in drafting their dissertations? (2) how do scholarly practitioners perceive the integration of ai tools by universities to better support education students in their dissertation work? and (3) what challenges and limitations do scholarly practitioners perceive regarding ai use in the context of dissertation work for students in education programs? this study intends to add to the expanding body of research by examining the experiences of doctorate students through the lens of the findings of the literature review. it also intends to offer additional guidance to educational stakeholders in navigating the use of ai in doctoral programming and deepen the understanding of how scholarly practitioners use ai in their dissertations and how academic institutions might support the appropriate and moral application of ai programs in doctoral programs. this study also intends to further the understanding of how ai use is perceived by educational doctoral students in particular, as they are poised to influence the future use of ai in teaching practice and educational leadership roles. methods this case study examined the use of ai within the dissertation process of scholarly practitioners in a carnigie project on the educational doctorate (cped), program in the pacific northwest (creswell, 2013). cped represents 145+ educational institutions in a collaborative network, member institutions create rigorous, real-world edd programs that equip graduates with the skills and knowledge to improve education. the participating university was chosen due to its practicality and accessibility in capturing a representative sample from the target population. additionally, the choice of this university allowed for the inclusion of participants who were readily available and willing to participate in the study that met the determined definition of scholarly practitioners. context scholarly practitioners from one three-year, cohort-based education doctorate (edd) program in the pacific northwest were invited to participate in this study to better understand how, if at all, scholarly practitioners utilize ai in their doctoral studies. the participating university follows the guiding principles of cped (n.d.) with emphasis on principle 3, which states: provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships (para. 10) the study included students who were in all three cohort years of a three-year doctoral program, which ensured representation from various stages of the program. students in this program are primarily scholarly practitioners, or those continuing to work full-time in education as teachers, administrators, directors of higher education, and educational leaders while pursuing their doctorate (chiu, 2023). in general, they all have master’s degrees and have about 17 years of experience in education on average when they begin the program. participants in this program complete coursework in the first two years and work on their dissertations in the third. phase 1: surveys survey instrument the main instrument used for this study was the artificial intelligence in writing questionnaire (aiwq-40) (monika et al., 2023). this instrument included 40 items that fall into five different domains: (1) role of ai tools in academic writing (9 items), (2) effectiveness of ai tools in content generation (12 items), (3) significance of ai tools in paraphrasing (8 items, (4) importance of ai tools in academic reference and citation (3 items), and (5) significance of ai tools in proofreading and grammar correction (8 items). all items were on a five-point likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). the authors of the instrument carefully developed the instrument to collect evidence of reliability and validity, determining high internal reliability (cronbach’s alpha = 0.868) and significant (p < .05) interitem correlations (monika et al., 2023). harris et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 11 survey participants scholarly practitioners across all three cohorts were invited to participate in this study, and 19 of the 30 possible students participated in the survey, with a response rate of 63%. table 1 demonstrates the majority of the participants were from the third-year cohort (52%), who were finishing their dissertation and about to graduate, and the remaining students were in the second or first-year cohorts. also shown are the age ranges of the participants representing an even distribution of participants between 30-39 and 40-49, and the smallest group reporting being 50-59 at 16%. table 1. demographics of participants demographic % age range age 30-39 42% age 40-49 42% age 50-59 16% year in program year 1 16% year 2 31% year 3 53% note. participants for survey (n=19), and interviews (n=3) phase 2: interviews interview instrument a semi-structured interview protocol was developed to further examine the personal experiences of participants in the study who had self-identified as using at least one ai program within the work of their dissertation. interview questions aimed to further examine and contributed to answering the study rqs. sample interview questions can be found in table 2 below. table 2. sample interview questions with matching rq interview question rq answered in what ways do you believe the use of ai enhanced your doctoral studies? rq1 how do you perceive the future implications and applications of ai in education? rq2 how might doctoral programming better leverage ai within curricula? rq3 interview participants interview participants consisted of students enrolled in the edd program at the selected university and included three purposefully selected participants from the survey results indicating those students used ai during their doctoral program. the study included students who were in all three cohort years of a three-year doctoral program. purposeful interview questions were designed to gather indepth insights into the participants’ experiences and perspectives regarding the use of ai within their dissertation process. the interviews were conducted in a one-on-one format, allowing for a personalized and comprehensive exploration of the topic. interview analysis the data obtained from the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. the thematic analysis allowed for the identification of recurring patterns and themes within the data, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding of the participants’ experiences with ai in their dissertation process. thematic analysis is a qualitative research method appropriate for this study as it aims to identify and analyze patterns, themes, and meanings within a data set. first-cycle coding uses in-vivo coding, a systematic coding method that involves closely examining the data and assigning descriptive codes to segments of text (saldaña, 2021). this coding method was used because it is particularly suited for uncovering the participants’ perspectives and experiences, as it captures the essence of their language and expressions regarding ai usage and understanding. results rq1: the extent of ai tool integration in dissertation writing survey results to answer the first research question, regarding how and the extent to which scholarly practitioners utilize ai tools in their research, we examined the survey data. before launching into the survey, where these ideas would be elaborated on, we first asked participants to define what ai means to them (prior to learning more about ai through the latter survey questions) and describe their beliefs about the use of ai in doctoral studies. table 3 shows the themes that arose in students’ definitions of ai. table 3. themes of student definitions of ai themes of student definitions of ai n (%) codes exemplar quote computer generated intelligence 58 computer, generated, nonhuman, robot “to me, artificial intelligence means robots and generative text.” using input to create output 16 input, output, answering questions “artificial intelligence is a database of information that can be used to make decisions based on user input. ai "learns" each time it is used and becomes more effective at making decisions based on user input.” support resource 26 resource, tool, supports you, extends abilities, increases productivity, futuristic “resources and tools that support you to extend your abilities or skill set.” table 4 describes the themes that arose in students’ beliefs about the use of ai in doctoral studies. the participants’ beliefs about the use of ai in their studies varied widely from preventing the use of ai entirely to heavily using ai across a wealth of areas in their studies with high frequency. examination of ai use by scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 12 table 4. themes of student beliefs of ai in doctoral studies themes of student beliefs of ai n (%) codes exemplar quote disagree with using ai 21 ethics, unethical, violation, integrity, cheating, disagree with using ai, no place in doctoral studies, rigor “i disagree with using ai to help write materials that are published or graded. it feels to me like cheating--not doing your own thinking and writing.” undecided 26 i do not use it, undecided, depends, human use “i am a bit undecided. ai could help with research and with finding appropriate articles/journals. however, i do not think a doctoral student should be used to write informally or formally.” agree with using ai 53 tool to help, helpful, beneficial, synthesizing, summarizing, potential, assistive, integrate, innovative “it is new and unfamiliar, but i believe that it has a huge potential to be beneficial studies when used appropriately.” following these initial questions, the first part of the survey asked the 19 scholarly practitioners to rate, on a scale of 1 to 100, the extent to which they agreed with the following statements about using ai in their doctoral studies. for each item, there was a great deal of variation, with scores ranging from 0 to 100 for each item, and multiple 0s generally skewed the means downward, therefore median should also be interpreted in table 5 below. about 37% of the students reported having not used any ai tools in their doctoral studies. of those that had used such tools, most reported some positive impact, with 12 students (63%) ranking it at least 50 or higher. what was striking was that the majority of students (79%) would like to learn how to use ai tools more productively in their doctoral studies. six of the scholarly practitioners (32%) believe ai tools should not be used at all as a part of doctoral studies. table 5. survey items for ai use in doctoral studies survey item n min. max. median m (sd) i have used ai tools in my doctoral studies. 19 0 100 60.00 43.47 (38.34) using ai tools in my doctoral studies has positively impacted my work. 14 0 100 71.50 64.21 (26.94) i would like to learn how to use ai tools more productively in my doctoral studies. 16 0 100 89.50 78.88 (27.17) ai tools should not be used as part of doctoral studies. 13 0 100 32.00 39.15 (33.80) note. n = 19. survey items were on a 0 to 100 slider scale from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (100). next, all 40 items on the aiwq-40 were averaged to create an overall score for each of the 19 doctoral student participants, with an overall average of 2.65 (sd = 1.11). across all participants, this is about exactly halfway across the 5-point likert scale – with an average score of a little less than neutral (3). the range was quite wide with two individuals scoring an average of 1.00 (i.e., an answer of strongly disagree to every single item), and one individual scoring 4.41 (i.e., answers of agree or strongly agree to every single item). amongst the 19 participants, 12 (63%) had overall scores less than 3 and could be categorized as ai non-users, while 7 (37%) had overall scores greater than 3 and could be categorized as ai users. next, these overall scores were disaggregated by program year and age. because of the very small sample size, these results must be interpreted very cautiously. a one-way analysis of variance (anova) revealed statistically significant differences, f(2, 16) = 7.93, p = .004, between the three cohorts, with the newest cohort (year 1) the most ai use, and year 3 reporting significantly less use of ai than the other two cohorts (year 1 and year 2). there were not any statistically significant differences by age, as seen in table 6 below. table 6. anova scores by program year and age demographic n m (sd) cohort year 1 3 3.97 (0.42) year 2 6 3.12 (0.75) year 3 10 1.97* (0.95) age 30-39 8 2.79 (1.09) 40-49 8 2.80 (1.24) 50-59 3 1.86 (0.73) total 19 2.65 (1.11) note. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). to better understand the specific ways in which students are using ai in their doctoral studies, we dive into the individual survey items on the aiwq-40 (monika et al., 2023). the role of ai tools in the academic writing domain was examined using the following nine items in table 7 below. participants were evenly split in affirming table 7. survey items for the role of ai tools in the academic writing domain survey item percent disagree percent agree m (sd) ai tools have contributed to improving the overall academic rigor of my work. 42% 47% 2.84 (1.39) ai tools have improved my efficiency in conducting literature reviews 43% 43% 2.79 (1.48) ai tools have improved the quality of my academic writing 32% 37% 3.16 (1.43) using ai tools has expedited the process of data analysis in my research. 48% 27% 2.53 (1.43) using ai tools has expanded the scope of my research ideas 58% 27% 2.37 (1.46) ai tools have increased my confidence in meeting publication requirements. 58% 22% 2.32 (1.42) ai tools have increased creativity in my research work. 58% 22% 2.32 (1.42) ai tools have assisted in identifying potential journals for publication. 63% 16% 2.26 (1.33) i feel more confident in conducting statistical analyses with ai-powered tools. 58% 10% 2.16 (1.21) note. n = 19. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). harris et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 13 (43%) and dissenting (43%) that ai tools had improved their efficacy in conducting literature reviews. nearly 37% of participants’ use of ai tools had improved the quality of their academic writing and most participants (47%) had agreed that ai tools increased the overall academic rigor of their work. despite these assertions, participants disagreed with the remainder of the survey items in this domain. the second domain of the survey examines the effectiveness of ai tools in content generation. overall, 42% of participants agreed ai tools were user-friendly and easy to navigate, while most participants (48%) disagreed that ai tools increased the impact of their research, facilitated the identification of relevant research sources, helped in generating better research findings and avoided plagiarism in their work. furthermore, 63% of participants disagreed with ai tools’ ability to facilitate the integration of diverse research perspectives, as shown in table 8. the overwhelming consensus from participants was that ai tool efficacy in content generation was lacking. table 8. survey items for effectiveness of ai tools in the content generation domain survey item percent disagree percent agree m (sd) i find ai tools user-friendly and easy to navigate. 32% 42% 3.00 (1.20) i trust the suggestions and recommendations provided by ai tools. 37% 37% 2.74 (1.24) ai tools have contributed to increasing the impact of my research. 48% 37% 2.53 (1.35) ai tools like chatgpt have facilitated the identification of relevant research sources. 48% 31% 2.53 (1.39) ai tools have helped in generating better research findings. 48% 26% 2.42 (1.26) i believe ai tools have positively influenced my decision-making in research. 47% 26% 2.42 (1.39) ai tools have increased creativity in my research work. 58% 26% 2.32 (1.25) ai tools have helped in avoiding plagiarism in my academic work. 48% 21% 2.42 (1.17) i believe ai tools have simplified the process of formatting manuscripts. 47% 16% 2.42 (1.07) ai tools have helped in generating insightful visual representations of data. 53% 16% 2.32 (1.11) ai tools have facilitated the integration of diverse research perspectives. 63% 16% 2.16 (1.12) note. n = 19. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the third domain of the survey examines the effectiveness of ai tools for paraphrasing. while 48% of participants stated that ai tools did not help in paraphrasing and summarizing research content effectively, many participants agreed that ai tools have enhanced the organization and structure of their research papers (48%), the overall quality of their research (47%), and have positively impacted their research productivity (47%). the data, shown in table 9, suggests respondents do not believe ai tools supported them in increasing the speed of initial draft creation, suggesting relevant keywords for their research, or made collaboration with co-authors more efficient. overall, 53% of participants disagreed that ai tools improved their ability to present complex data with 26% remaining neutral, and 21% of participants agreeing the tools improved their abilities. table 9. survey items for significance of ai tools in the paraphrasing domain survey item percent disagree percent agree m (sd) ai tools like grammarly and quillbot have enhanced the organization and structure of my research papers. 27% 48% 3.00 (1.30) i feel ai tools have enhanced the overall quality of my research output. 42% 47% 2.84 (1.39) i believe ai tools have positively impacted my research productivity. 43% 47% 2.79 (1.44) ai tools have helped in paraphrasing and summarizing research content effectively. 48% 42% 2.63 (1.46) ai tools have increased the speed of initial draft creation in my research. 42% 37% 2.63 (1.42) i find ai tools helpful in suggesting relevant keywords for my research. 43% 31% 2.63 (1.34) ai tools have improved my ability to present complex data effectively. 53% 21% 2.32 (1.20) ai tools have made collaboration with co-authors more efficient. 48% 5% 2.26 (0.99) note. n = 19. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). a common use of ai tools is to detect spelling and grammar issues quickly and accurately. this reduces such mistakes, improves clarity and quality, and reduces the amount of time authors spend proofreading. in addition to these traditional spell-check style features, ai also offers paraphrasing suggestions and can evaluate elements like vocabulary diversity (monika et al., 2023). as demonstrated in table 10, participants favorably indicated ai tools had helped them reduce the time required for proofreading and editing, and 63% of the participants indicated they trust the accuracy of grammar and spell check functions in ai tools. regarding ai tools like grammarly specifically, 48% of respondents agreed these reduced errors in their academic writing and 47% agreed they improved the clarity and coherence of their research papers. participants were evenly split with 37% assenting and 37% dissenting that ai tools had facilitated the communication of their research findings, while many respondents (47%) indicated ai tools did not facilitate better communication of their research findings. formatting and citing academic references are a critical part of academic writing. learning and applying american psychological association (apa) can be a challenge in addition to being timeconsuming. ai citation tools may address this issue by generating apa citations automatically based on input from a source. of the respondents, 42% expressed they disagreed with feeling more confident using ai tools, as shown in table 11. asking about ai citation tools like mendeley and zotero revealed that 37% of respondents did not feel more confident citing sources or managing references and citations correctly. interview results to better understand these survey results, the interviews sought to better understand how these scholarly practitioners utilized ai, revealing that scholarly practitioners in education utilize various ai tools for different purposes in their dissertation work. as indicated by one participant the most common tools mentioned included grammarly, “i use... spell check and grammarly,” for spell-checking examination of ai use by scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 14 table 10. survey items for significance of ai tools in the proof reading and grammar correction domain survey item percent disagree percent agree m (sd) i trust the accuracy of grammar and spell check features in ai tools. 21% 63% 3.47 (1.35) i believe ai tools have reduced the time required for proofreading and editing. 32% 58% 3.26 (1.49) ai tools like grammarly have reduced errors in my academic writing. 32% 48% 3.32 (1.49) ai tools have helped in enhancing the readability of my research papers. 37% 48% 3.00 (1.49) ai tools have improved the clarity and coherence of my research papers using grammarly. 37% 47% 3.16 (1.54) using ai tools has improved the overall structure of my research manuscripts. 47% 37% 2.84 (1.54) ai tools have facilitated better communication of my research findings. 37% 37% 2.84 (1.50) note. n = 19. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). table 11. survey items for importance of ai tools in academic reference & citation domain survey item percent disagree percent agree m (sd) i feel more confident in citing sources accurately due to ai tools. 42% 22% 2.63 (1.30) i feel more confident in citing sources accurately due to ai tools like mendeley and zotero. 37% 21% 2.63 (1.21) ai tools like zotero have helped in managing references and citations effectively. 37% 21% 2.37 (1.20) note. n = 19. average scores were on a likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). and proofreading, scholarship for generating flashcards from research studies, and chatgpt for synonyms, simplifying complex concepts, and seeking explanations. participants also mentioned the use of ai tools for researching scholarly articles quickly and efficiently. participants indicated that their use of ai tools, particularly chatgpt, had positively impacted their research processes, “i asked it like what are some words that you think you could get rid of and make this more concise,” and “i’ll use grammarly spell check.” it was indicated that ai facilitated the creation of matrices for organizing research data and improved understanding of complex concepts. additionally, ai tools have enhanced efficiency by reducing the need for external editing and proofreading assistance. while participants acknowledged the potential of ai tools in refining their doctoral studies and research processes, ethical concerns regarding appropriate use and the need for training on proper use were raised. participants expressed the importance of clear guidelines, “agreements between the student and the course and i guess the instructor that i guess it yeah it could be a valuable tool,” and parameters from universities to ensure the ethical and responsible use of ai tools. rq2: perceptions of the integration of ai tools to support dissertation work the second research question sought to understand scholarly practitioners’ perceptions regarding the potential integration and application of ai tools by universities to better support students in education in their studies. survey results within the survey participants were mainly asked about their use of ai tools. in an open-ended question, respondents shared two ways universities could support the use of ai in doctoral programming. among the responses, one participant emphasized the crucial role of access to ai resources in facilitating the use and integration of ai tools in doctoral work, “i would love it if [the university] and other schools actually helped support students by giving us access to ai via subscriptions.” this participant articulated a desire for universities to take proactive steps to support student use of ai tools by providing access to ai technologies through institutional subscriptions. this finding aligned with results from the survey that indicated most participants (53%) wished to have access to ai tools provided for the purpose of synthesizing, summarizing, assistive research, integration, and innovative within their program. many ai tools contain financial barriers or offer advanced features requiring premium subscription options, by removing the financial burden students may be more likely to employ these ai tools in their work. another participant shared their experience leveraging ai in their doctoral work through grammarly. while they indicated an overall positive experience with employing grammarly, the participant also expressed a broader interest in applying ai tools to their work beyond spelling and grammar assistance, “grammarly was game-changing for me! i am curious about ai’s other uses though…” these findings from item 14 responses reflect an interest in applying ai tools to support doctoral work. as universities and academic institutions continue to embrace digital evolution, addressing the expressed needs and curiosities of students regarding ai integration may help foster a conducive environment for continued research and application of ai. interview results interviews with participants further indicated that ai tools could provide valuable support in areas such as generating examples, providing feedback on writing style, and assisting with literature reviews. ai tools have the potential to save time and help students refine their writing skills and research processes. to better leverage ai within doctoral programming curricula, participants suggested various strategies including incorporating ai-generated examples for discussion and critique, encouraging students to use ai tools for writing assistance and research exploration, and developing competencies related to effectively using ai for research within the curriculum. for example, one participant noted: we can get to a bunch of examples hyper quick and then have discussions about those. because i think the more, we can outsource those kinds of things so that we spend more time talking as a group. participants also expressed the need for ongoing training and support for professors and instructors to effectively utilize ai tools in the classroom including providing resources and support for faculty to understand and incorporate ai tools into their teaching practices. overall, the findings suggest that the integration and application of ai harris et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 15 tools in universities can be improved to better support students in their dissertation work. participants also again highlighted concerns about the misuse of ai tools, particularly concerning plagiarism. the importance of clear guidelines and agreements between students and instructors regarding the appropriate use of ai tools to avoid plagiarism was emphasized. by addressing concerns about plagiarism, providing training and support for faculty, and incorporating ai tools into the curriculum, universities can harness the potential of ai to enhance the research process and support students in their academic journey. rq3: perceptions of challenges and limitations of ai use in doctoral programs survey results as ai tools improve and develop distinct functions, areas of growth emerge. an open-ended survey item allowed participants to elaborate on their responses, identify what support they desired, and how doctoral programs may better provide that support. participants indicated two key challenges: (1) a lack of ai tool access to research and (2) falsely generated reference materials. one participant shared: i think there is a long way to go, but the ai tools that help with grammar and spelling are great to use. i think the others, bard/gemini and chatgpt, will be more helpful in the long run. once they have better access to research and can synthesize it, it will be amazing. this participant refers to limited access to ai tools like chatgpt to existing research. currently, as of 2024, these ai tools are limited to their internal neural network of data and cannot access databases like eric, proquest, or the worldwide web in general. perhaps similarly related, one participant indicated ai tools had generated false article sources: i had many struggles during my literature review where i would find citations for articles only to learn they were falsely generated by ai. it was incredibly frustrating and only made more work as i would spend hours looking for what i thought would be a great resource only to learn it was not real. regardless of the cause of the ai tool’s generation of fictional references, this output acts as a limitation for ai use in writing literature reviews. furthermore, as the participant above indicated, this output was identified as a time-consuming challenge in that it inhibited the work of this participant. interview results when seeking to understand this research, interviews were conducted with three participants who self-selected at the end of the survey. the questions are shown in appendix b. participants expressed concerns about the ethical considerations of using ai to develop original work. they questioned the appropriate use of ai and how to cite ai-generated content. the need for clear guidelines and agreements between students and instructors regarding the use of ai tools was emphasized, for example: “just knowing from a student perspective like what is appropriate use or what’s not appropriate use and you know like how you would even cite something that is generated by ai.” another prominent finding carried over from the interviews, which echoed the existing research, was the concern regarding plagiarism using ai and highlighted the need for guidance on appropriate use, understanding the limitations of ai, and learning from how others use ai in their doctoral studies. the participants noted limitations in the capabilities of ai tools and expressed a lack of trust in the accuracy and reliability of ai tools. they mentioned that ai-generated content may lack depth and require extensive proofreading, “i’m kind of constantly having to check that it’s not doing … ai hallucination, that it’s not just kind of hallucinating things.” participants emphasized the importance of raising awareness about ai tools and their potential applications in doctoral studies and called for open discussions and ongoing conversations about the expectations and implications of using ai in the research process. the findings from these research questions suggest that while ai tools can support students in their dissertation work, some challenges and limitations must be addressed. clear guidelines, training, and ongoing support are needed to ensure the ethical and effective use of ai tools. additionally, fostering critical thinking skills and maintaining a balance between ai assistance and students’ cognitive engagement are essential. discussion the findings from this study offer valuable insights into the applications and perceptions of ai tools within doctoral studies, particularly focusing on their efficacy in enhancing research effectiveness. through a comprehensive examination of survey data and qualitative interviews, this discussion section seeks to delve into the multifaceted roles of ai tools in academic writing, content generation, and the broader research process. link to the literature while there is scant research on ai use by scholarly practitioners, this study served to expand on the findings from international studies like harsyah (2024) and monika et al. (2023) within the context of scholarly practitioners in the united states. in relation to how scholarly practitioners integrated ai tools in their dissertations, the survey found most participants surveyed used ai tools in their doctoral studies (63%). of those participants, most (63%) also reported some positive impact from their usage of ai tools in their work. these results align with monika et al. (2023) which found most academics (89%) surveyed using the aiwq-40 reported ai tools increased efficacy in the writing process. within this study, the most popular uses of ai were in proofreading, researching scholarly articles for literature reviews, and the organization and structure of research. these findings align with anik et al. (2023) wherein scholarly practitioners reported improvements in cohesion, coherence, and richer descriptions of content using chatgpt to author their doctoral dissertations. while the use of ai citation tools to cite sources accurately (21%) and manage references effectively (21%) according to the aiwq-40 in this study was lower in comparison to participants in the monika et al. (2023) study with 66% and 25%, respectively. while the literature notes plagiarism as a large concern surrounding generative ai tool use, participants from this study suggested that courses on ethical ai use may appropriately address these concerns rather than prohibiting ai technology in research. examination of ai use by scholarly practitioners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.472 16 this participant-generated response is consistent with recommendations from crawford et al. (2023) which posit ethical guidance from faculty may address plagiarism concerns while simultaneously developing skills in applying ai tools in doctoral research. reflecting the guiding principles of cped, scholarly practitioners’ ideals regarding the ethical use of ai could include the use of practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice. they disseminate their work in multiple ways, and they have an obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals (cped, 2024). limitations & future research this study, utilizing a case study design, investigated the experiences of scholarly practitioners at only one edd program, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other populations or settings. furthermore, the small sample size (n = 19) acts as a limitation and may not represent the larger population of scholarly practitioners. additionally, the reliance on self-reported data from the participants may introduce biases or subjective interpretations. future research may include a larger sample size and examine instruments for alignment with the program practices and curriculum to best capture responses that indicate programspecific use of ai tools by participants. recommendations with the continued development of ai tools aimed at educational use, the results of this study indicate steps that universities could consider implementing to ensure equitable access to programs. in examining current uses of ai, one related survey finding was the existence of trust using grammar and spell check features in ai programming, with participants indicating existing trust in such programs positively (63%). by providing student subscriptions to ai tools or premium tool features, universities may increase equitable access to such technology. furthermore, institutions may integrate these subscriptions into courses where students are taught how to use/leverage ai tools specifically for their doctoral research and do so ethically – thus addressing the issues of plagiarism and concerns from the field. recommendations expressed by participants indicated the need for universities to provide guidance addressing plagiarism concerns with clear policies that reflected expectations and explanations of proper use of ai, as explained by one interview participant, “my only query would be is it allowed, if it’s not, it’s not ever talked about.” by creating clear use policies, universities could mitigate potential issues of plagiarism and citation rules for both students and faculty. with policies in place, universities might create resources for students and faculty around programs deemed appropriate for use. the desire expressed by participants for offering training and support to optimize ai tool integration in doctoral programs indicates an opportunity for universities to incorporate such training into the curriculum. participants shared varied ideas about training on ai tools during interviews, “as an emergent learner with ai i would i was like a crash course, to begin with,” and “what are some tools out there,” were some such suggestions. universities are poised to lead the way ai programs are experienced by students, ensuring equitable access, with clear guidance that ensures ethical use, and proper training for both students and faculty. conclusion this study concluded that ai tools have not yet been integrated into research within doctoral studies. while these tools are commonly employed for tasks such as spell-checking, proofreading, and paraphrasing, 47% of participants did not find them conducive to effectively communicating research findings in their doctoral work. additionally, concerns regarding ethical usage, lack of confidence, and reliability of ai-generated content were raised by participants who echo the concerns from the existing research (crawford et al., 2023). the study highlighted the desire of participants to address challenges and limitations to ensure the ethical and effective use of ai tools while maintaining critical thinking skills and cognitive engagement among students. as educational leaders, universities are poised to guide the ways that ai could be integrated into doctoral programs, from practical applications and assignments to ethical considerations and the need for clear guidelines and training. references ahmed, m. a. 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(2022). fostering self-directed learning in moocs: motivation, learning strategies, and instruction. online learning, 26(1), 153–173. https://repository.unja.ac.id/61346/2/cover.pdf https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/27032860 https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework michelle harris university of portland nicole soriano morningside university nicole ralston university of portland what is ai? opportunities and challenges of ai ai in education higher education policies regarding ai doctoral students using ai research gap and purpose methods context phase 1: surveys survey instrument survey participants phase 2: interviews interview participants interview analysis results rq1: the extent of ai tool integration in dissertation writing survey results interview results rq2: perceptions of the integration of ai tools to support dissertation work survey results interview results rq3: perceptions of challenges and limitations of ai use in doctoral programs survey results interview results discussion link to the literature limitations & future research recommendations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.444 8 the exigency of centering equity in educational leadership development: a journey through candel alison sanders university of california, davis amsanders@ucsd.edu abstract i am an example of a transformed higher education administrator. in this essay, i describe how my journey to an education doctorate impacts my work as a scholar-practitioner in higher education. the candel program challenged what i thought i understood about the status quo in higher education with respect to race, socioeconomic impacts, meritocracy, grit, and assumptions we make about students. the coursework and cohort model confronted my own biases and were foundational to my dissertation questions. conducting my research on university leadership at my home institution gave me an opportunity to develop a shared equity leadership approach to solving complex problems. equity-focused work in higher education is a long-game, ongoing, and essential to addressing the challenges facing our institutions. without this, inequities experienced by faculty, staff and students will persist. the education doctorate and its scholar-practitioners are important drivers in shifting the american educational landscape. keywords higher education, equity stance, educational leadership, shared equity leadership, cohort education, education doctorate i am an example of a transformed higher education administrator. my journey to a doctorate in education in the capital area north doctorate in educational leadership (candel) program (2019-2022) challenged what i thought i understood about the higher educational landscape. this is also a personal journey toward critical consciousness (dowd & bensimon, 2015; kezar et. al, 2021) and my equity stance evolved through the curriculum and the cohort model of education. as scholar-practitioners and students, we examined the status quo in education and the inequitable outcomes students experience depending on race and socio-economic backgrounds. as administrators, we make assumptions about our students--that students with grit and determination will be successful no matter how many barriers are in their way (duckworth et al., 2007). institutions of higher education perpetuate the myth that they are meritocracies, that one’s talents, skills and abilities will provide access and determine success. research and evidence suggest otherwise (carnevale & stough 2013; kezar et al. 2021) and education scholars continue to challenge the dominant culture and the status quo in a movement toward greater access and equity (harper et al., 2018; patton, 2016). liu (2011) stated that when considering meritocracies, a lack of acknowledgement of society’s structural inequality leads to the assumption that when students do not reach their educational goals, it is due to their own shortcomings, not the structure of educational institutions. as context, my identity and background include that i am a white, cis-gender female who is straight. i spent my childhood in europe and the u.s. and benefited from growing up in two different cultures, recognizing that these are both euro-centric. i was fortunate to have this life experience, which shapes my educational and personal value system to this day. although my family was not wealthy, i attended well-resourced public schools in relatively affluent communities. my family instilled in me values of inclusion, tolerance, and appreciation for global diversity. as an adult, my own education and my career in higher education were shaped in environments that were supportive of first generation, underrepresented and nontraditional students. i believe that this informed my personal and professional growth, in alignment with values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and community that embody the institutions i’ve been fortunate to be a part of. i came to the candel program with a background in science and an undergraduate degree in zoology from a large, public urban university, where i also completed a master’s degree in marine biology. my coursework, research opportunities, peer communities, role models and mentors were all scientists. while i attended one of the most diverse university campuses in the united states, my colleagues, mentors, peers and friends were predominantly white. in my social and professional circles, conversations about equity and access were focused primarily on gender parity in academia, a gap that remains (malisch et al., 2020). by the time i started the candel program in summer 2019, i had spent over two decades working in higher education and understood that shifting population demographics, projected enrollment and budget cliffs continue to magnify inequities in higher education that impact increasingly greater numbers of students (carnevale & strough, 2013). what i learned in coursework and in researching my dissertation topic is that long-existing educational inequities are embedded in our societal structure (pincus, 1996). concepts such as https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9473-8891 centering equity in educational leadership impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.444 9 ‘educational debt’ (ladson-billings, 2006) connect socio-economic debt and property rights to describe this impact on marginalized students and communities (cabrera, 2020). a substantial volume of research over the last half-century has dissected and revealed underlying shortcomings of the american education system in addressing these long-standing access and equity gaps (carnevale & strough 2013; dowd & bensimon, 2015; harper et al., 2018; ladson-billings, 2006). the concept of higher education as a meritocracy (liu, 2011)—in which grit and determination are seen as the way to educational achievement—ignores the effect of racial, economic, and societal structures embedded within institutions (harper, 2012; liu, 2011). pursuing a doctorate after decades serving in higher education administrative positions, i decided to pursue a doctorate in education, a decision that was initially purely for career advancement. my cover letter in my application to graduate school provides a window into my thinking at the time. through my experiences and engagement with programs focused on supporting students from historically marginalized communities, i was interested in understanding how university structures and organization could sustain and continue to support student success initiatives. when i reflect on the time before i began my journey to my doctorate, my understanding of equity gaps in higher education was framed in a deficit mindset. i believed that the only way that students who were struggling could be uplifted was through programs and assistance to help them navigate college. these included programs supporting first-generation, historically underrepresented students in the sciences, formerly incarcerated students and foster youth, and campus initiatives dedicated to improving student success and graduation rates. while many of the programs i supported or was involved in were incredibly impactful and significantly improved student outcomes, there remained an assumption that the students needed assistance, not that institutional structures were deficient in meeting students where they were. there are two critiques of this approach to supporting students: the grant-funding model of most programs and the failure to address institutional structures that perpetuate inequity. in my cover letter, i said that i wanted to understand how a university that was financially and organizationally strong could continue to sustain student success initiatives and programs that supported marginalized communities. often, these programs are structured to be funded through grants, for only a few years at a time, and the institutional support needed tends to not be available due to budget constraints. additionally, many of the programs do not focus on changing the institutional structures that perpetuate equity gaps. instead, programs tend to focus on the needs of the students, making them responsible for change, rather than changing the institution (kezar et al. 2021). the resources and institutional commitment needed to dismantle and rebuild organizational structures and remove embedded biases are substantial. in most institutions, there is no budget or frankly bandwidth to undertake a project of this magnitude. kezar et al. (2021) suggest that a shared equity leadership framework in which leaders see closing equity gaps as both a personal and institutional responsibility, is required to address dismantling institutional policies and practices that impede student success. early manifestations of my equity stance, in retrospect, were myopic. i understood student diversity in terms of numbers, such as achieving hispanic serving institution (hsi) (https://www2.ed.gov/ programs/idueshsi/title5legislation.pdf) or asian american and native american pacific islander-serving institutions (aanapisi) designations (https://www2.ed.gov/programs/aanapi/index.html), noted by reaching an enrollment minimum of certain populations of students. i was less aware of the need to focus on the “servingness” aspect of achieving these designations (garcia et al. 2019); what “servingness” means; and how much of being able to serve all students involves institutional transformation and an examination of the structural elements of the university where inequities are deeply embedded (cabrera, 2020). the candel program was transformative because it allowed me to step outside of myself. the opportunity to re-evaluate your positionality and privilege and examine your own biases is one that is not readily available to busy working professionals. developing a practice of equity-mindedness (dowd & bensimon, 2015), we confronted our own biases, stereotypes and assumptions, and began to see our roles as scholar-practitioners in closing equity gaps in our respective educational spaces. in parallel, the curriculum brought us into deep and thoughtful discussions about issues of educational access, equity gaps and how these persist in our educational systems. before enrolling in the program, i knew that i had been fortunate in my educational journey; reflecting back post-doctorate, i could also see that much of this privilege was because our educational system was built by and for people who look like me (cabrera, 2020). the concept of shared equity leadership (kezar et al. 2021), where equity is everyone’s responsibility, started to take hold as i began developing a framework for my dissertation. meritocracy and grit are education myths that are fueled by racist and classist assumptions that hard work and grit are enough to overcome the systemic barriers faced by marginalized groups (patton, 2016). as a product of the american education system, i believed the myths that higher education is a meritocracy, and that grit and perseverance are all that is needed to reach one’s goals. liu (2011) examined the concept of merit, and its original description as “a pejorative term used to describe a social system that develops based on intelligence testing and educational attainment” (p. 385). people generally see merit as a positive concept where skill, ability and educational attainment are rewarded, rather than membership in a particular demographic or social class. however, liu (2011) also suggested that pervasive social inequities are unaccounted for when considering merit, leading to assumptions that students who fail to achieve in higher education are solely responsible for their failure. the concept of “grit” is defined by duckworth et al. (2007) as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress” (p. 1088). like the myth of education as a meritocracy, grit does not account for greater societal inequities that undergird the lived experiences of individuals from marginalized communities (pincus, 1996). this deficit thinking blames the individual for their perceived lack of success or progress in a system that places systemic barriers and obstacles before them (kezar et al., 2021; smit, 2012). grit ideology and deficit thinking are main themes in the narrative of educational meritocracy, yet these practices continue to marginalize the very communities institutions portend to support (gorski, 2016), evidenced by the persistent inequity observed in higher education (carnevale & strough, 2013; kezar et al. 2021). https://www2.ed.gov/programs/idueshsi/title5legislation.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/programs/idueshsi/title5legislation.pdf https://www2.ed.gov/programs/aanapi/index.html sanders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.444 10 coursework and a cohort model dowd and bensimon (2015) conceptualized equity-minded leadership as the means by which higher education leaders develop their own praxis in response to challenging and complex issues of equity, diversity and access. kezar et al. (2021) further elaborated and suggested that equity-mindedness includes a journey toward critical consciousness in which “individuals question their own assumptions, recognize biases and stereotypes that harm student success, become accountable for the success of their students, and see closing racial and other gaps as their personal and institutional responsibility” (p. 2). through the curriculum and cohort model, the candel program allowed me to step back and re-evaluate my perspective on the status quo in higher education with respect to race, socioeconomics, meritocracy, grit, and assumptions we make about ourselves and our students. the program clarified that to address systemic inequities in education, organizational structures and practices need to change to meet the needs of students, rather than students adapting to the institution. in its mission, the candel program is responsive to the current dynamics in education and aims to “advance equity and opportunity for all education stakeholders by nurturing and developing scholar-practitioners who are primed to: “deconstruct and challenge systemic issues that perpetuate educational and broader social inequities; engage critically with educational theory and research to inform leadership practice; collaboratively problem-solve and bring practice-based expertise to advance scholarly inquiry” (candel website: https://education.ucdavis.edu/candel-about-program). one of the most powerful components of the program was the initial in-person “summer institute”, when the incoming cohort and second year students met for an off-site retreat. here deep connections and bonds were established, as we created a “community agreement” for our cohort. this was a very challenging exercise that laid the foundation of how we would work and learn together, how we would communicate and how we would navigate difficult conversations and disagreements. the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) developed the cped framework that defines and advocates for guiding principles for ed.d. programs (https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework). adams and jeter (2021) discussed the importance of building community and social presence in online ed.d. programs, referencing the cped framework’s focus on community and collaboration and community of inquiry. the cped advises that one of the elements of mentoring and advising is “dynamic learning that provides open communication, critical friendships, and peer-to-peer support with reciprocal interactions and responsibilities that form a community of learners inclusive of adviser, mentor, and peer relationships” (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). the social presence of “critical friendships” (adams & jeter, 2021) was particularly meaningful to me. from the initiation of our summer institute, our cohort grew into a community in which peers provided support, encouragement, and also challenged one another. creating community among the cohort was a powerful exercise that i’ve brought with me into my practice as a higher education administrator. the cohort model is an integral component of developing current and future education leaders. students in these programs become resources for one another, academically, personally, socially, and professionally (bista & cox, 2014). the candel program is structured to support working professionals. it is a demanding program that requires a commitment of time, as well as mental and emotional energy. through its cohort framework, candel builds a community of scholar-practitioners who address issues in the k-20 educational system through an equity lens. the initial two years of coursework include a sequential series of courses in which we develop dissertation topics and lay the framework for our research. this is happening in parallel to our professional responsibilities, and the two worlds are intertwined and inevitably impacting one another. the cohort model, and the creation of a community of scholars creates a space for personal and professional development. to understand challenges of equity and access in higher education (carnevale & strough, 2013), it is important to also understand the k-12 ecosystem and its relationship to higher education. kazis (2006) outlined the significant disconnections between k-12 and higher education and the impact on student success particularly among marginalized communities. k-12 was not an area in which i had any expertise beyond my own experience as a student decades ago. in our cohort, roughly half of us were k-12 practitioners, with the rest in various roles in higher education. this provided a powerful exchange of ideas and experiences in which each of us developed a greater understanding of our respective areas, and the impact each system had on the other. like any leader, my lived experience informs my professional practice. that lived experience as a cis-gender, straight, white woman results in a default to seeing gender equity before that of other identities. through candel’s cohort model, we engaged in deep learning about each of our lived experiences: women and men of color, members of the lgbtqa+ community, peers from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, peers experiencing personal and mental health challenges, working parents, among many other identities and perspectives. but it went deeper than just learning: it was about understanding, and seeing education through the lenses of my peers. this was invaluable for us all, but in my own experience, my cohort taught me more than what i might have read in journals. i carry all their journeys and perspectives into my own higher education practice, modeling just and compassionate education leaders. learning how to build community in a cohort as an emerging scholar-practitioner is an essential skill that is leveraged in future leadership positions, particularly in equity-focused work. in their development of a shared equity leadership approach to addressing equity gaps in higher education, kezar et al. (2021) asserted that “at the heart of shared equity leadership is the notion of a personal journey toward critical consciousness, in which leaders develop or strengthen a commitment to equity through identity, personal experiences, or relationships and learning” (p. 1). fundamentally, the creation of a community, much like a cohort, is essential to a shared leadership approach, allowing education leaders to broaden the impact of their equity work through intentional collaboration, collective responsibility and shared goals. at the same time as receiving my acceptance letter to the program, i was also offered a significant promotional opportunity at an institution that was very different from the one where i’d spent the first decades of my career: research intensive, selective, high performing and well resourced. yet, this institution was also beginning to implement a plan to eliminate equity gaps in retention and graduation rates among its undergraduate population. in 2019, i began my journey to an education doctorate and a new position, months before the covid-19 pandemic disrupted the world. https://education.ucdavis.edu/candel-about-program https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework centering equity in educational leadership impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.444 11 the covid-19 pandemic and racial uprisings of 2020 the first test of resilience came in march 2020, when the world shut down in response to the covid-19 pandemic. throughout 2020 and 2021, the covid-19 pandemic converged with the reckoning of longstanding systemic, racial, economic, and public health inequities. colleges, universities, and schools shifted to remote instruction almost overnight. with little to no experience with remote instruction, both students and instructors had to pivot. as a cohort, we learned how to create community in a virtual space. the country was now experiencing protests and unrest around racial justice and reckoning of systemic racism. university leaders across the country were tackling these issues, while also facing the inequities of higher education now laid bare by the pandemic. like my peers in the program, i was having a dual experience, one as a student, and the other as an education administrator. concurrent with being a full-time graduate student in the candel program, i was navigating a new position at a new institution. launched into crisis mode, i worked collaboratively with my campus colleagues to figure out how to deliver courses remotely and maintain a safe learning and working environment. i served on or co-chaired campus-wide committees to address testing, campus access, and remote instruction, while also maintaining academic rigor and educational continuity. the covid-19 pandemic magnified inequities that had always interrupted student success, such as lack of access to technology, flexibility to handle life circumstances such as elder or family care, or mental health and access to needed support. this was the space in which i developed my dissertation topic. finding a dissertation topic i was initially interested in gender equity in leadership, particularly in university presidencies—a reflection of my own professional aspirations at the time. ultimately, the candel coursework, the pandemic, and the racial uprisings against systemic racism in 2020 steered me toward understanding how university leadership navigated these unprecedented challenges. leadership is the most critical element in setting the direction and priorities of a university’s response to challenges (kezar et al. 2021). the purpose of my dissertation study was to examine the leadership and organizational factors that contributed to the university’s response to covid-19 and the protests of endemic racism in america. i wanted to understand how university leaders reflected upon and developed their own leadership praxis as they led the university’s response to these unprecedented challenges. how did leaders navigate their roles in the context of systemic racism and inequity in higher education? ladson-billings (2020) suggested that this was the time for leaders to take the reins and tackle issues of systemic racism and inequity head on. covid-19 created a disruptive and unforeseen challenge, and the rare opportunity for a “reset” in higher education. conducting my research on university leadership at my home institution gave me an insider perspective and an opportunity to witness whether leaders center equity in their decision-making and their approaches to solving complex problems. i began my study by conducting interviews in early spring 2022. i interviewed ten leaders to learn and understand how they navigated their own leadership praxis during the height of the pandemic and the racial reckoning of 2020 and 2021. my background in science biased me against qualitative research. i thought it was less rigorous, less informative, less objective—meaning, in turn, that qualitative data were subjective and ambiguous. i saw data analysis as a dichotomy rather than on a continuum. ercikan and roth (2006) described how the polarization of qualitative and quantitative data in education research limits intellectual inquiry, and inaccurately attributes properties of objectivity and generalizability only to quantitative research. the authors instead propose an integrated approach to education research on a continuum rather than a dichotomy, in which the research questions drive the mode of the inquiry (ercikan & roth, 2006). it was not until i began developing my own research questions that i could see that a qualitative approach was what would allow me to deepen my understanding of university leaders and their own experiences navigating covid-19 and the racial uprisings of 2020-2021. at the same time as i was conducting my study, i was also engaged in the campus’ response to these crises, working alongside campus leadership. i witnessed first-hand the deliberations and decisions that confronted them daily, and as i started analyzing data, i began to see alignment with values of care, compassion, equity, and authentic, shared leadership. in observing campus leadership, i witnessed how each adopted or deepened their commitments to equity and justice. there was a feeling of authenticity driving an institutional shift. witnessing the work of just leaders, being able to see it in my research and witness it on the ground was powerful. prior to the pandemic, in fall 2019, academic leadership at my new institution was engaging in discussions about student success, and how the campus could address persistent equity gaps in graduation and retention rates, and in my new role, i was at the table. bringing together colleagues from various units across campus, these discussions were centered on the removal of barriers the institution was putting in front of students, not what the students needed to overcome the barriers. those early conversations evolved into a campus-wide initiative to eliminate equity gaps in educational and professional outcomes for faculty, staff, and students. this is an institutional commitment to eliminating inequity, adopting a collaborative approach to tackle complex problems by addressing policies, practices and structures to make meaningful changes. these are the same elements that embody kezar et al.’s (2021) shared equity leadership. being a student in the candel program at the same time as engaging in critical conversations about educational access and equity on my campus provided me with the opportunity to participate in a shared equity leadership framework in action. as a part of the leadership team on these efforts, my concurrent experience in candel, its coursework, the cohort model and my dissertation project, i’ve tried as best i can to bring an equity lens to the initiative. my journey as a scholar-practitioner has informed my work as a university administrator. sometimes it’s as simple as asking if everyone who needs to be part of the discussion is present at the table, critically evaluating information to include those who are most affected by a decision or policy change, and constantly asking myself if i am equity-minded in my decisions and actions. empowering leaders to shift the education landscape educational leadership programs must be responsive to the challenges of our educational systems and provide transformative sanders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.444 12 experiences for education leaders. a cohort experience is essential to the holistic learning and growth of leaders in education. centering equity in coursework throughout the curriculum provides a continuity of dialogue that allows scholar-practitioners to evolve their equity stance and bring this back to their own institutions. scholar-practitioners often have a direct impact on policies, practices, and leadership at their home institutions. this leadership praxis has the potential to be transformative in a way that scholarship alone cannot achieve, and this is the power of the education doctorate (carnegie project on the education doctorate, 2019). by centering equity, ethics and social justice in its coursework, research, and development of current and future leaders, programs such as candel create a community of scholar-practitioners who address issues in the k-20 educational system through an equity lens. these equity-minded leaders set the tone for the organizations or units they lead, driving institutional philosophy and priorities (kezar et al. 2021). implications for programs and individuals my journey to a doctorate in educational leadership was a personal and professional transformation. when i say that i am a transformed university administrator, i acknowledge that i am still on my personal journey toward critical consciousness, in which i continue to develop and strengthen my commitment to equity. i do this through my identity, personal and professional experiences and relationships (kezar et al., 2021, p. 1). given the long-standing equity gaps in our educational systems, ed.d. programs developing the next generation of education leaders and scholars have a moral responsibility to center equity and pragmatic approaches to eliminating equity gaps in student success. a cohort-based program is essential to developing skills for community building, compassion and empathy, and a greater understanding of different life experiences. in the leaderhip roles in which scholar-practitioners find themselves, their cohort experience allows them to approach complex problems in a collective, shared leadership framework and sense of personal and institutional responsibility for addressing equity gaps. research and studies in educational leadership that center equity provide insight and guidance into the challenges faced by leaders, but also offer practical solutions that will transform the education landscape, such as a shared equity leadership approach (kezar et al., 2021). while rooted in theoretical frameworks, the research and leadership development in educational leadership doctoral programs are directly connected to the daily practice of scholar-practitioners within our k-20 institutions. through its direct connection to the work itself, and by centering equity in programs, research and practice, the education doctorate holds a critical space in driving change in the education landscape. references adams, a., & jeter, g. 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(2012). towards a clearer understanding of student disadvantage in higher education: problematising deficit thinking. higher education research & development, 31(3), 369–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2011.634383 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.161 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2020.1732774 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/83041 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035005014 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319864591 https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916668956 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035007003 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr2montebbo&feature=emb_title https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010636117 https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915602542 https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764296040002009 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2011.634383 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 61 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 reimagining doctoral research: documentary filmmaking to advance social change amna jaffer san josé state university amna.jaffer@sjsu.edu radha aravamudhan san josé state university radha.aravamudhan@sjsu.edu kristina grasty san josé state university kristi.grasty@sjsu.edu abstract documentary filmmaking is presented as a viable research component to doctoral programs in education that center social change. documentary filmmaking is an established and valid qualitative research option that utilizes academic research skills, critical analysis, and creativity to convey significant findings regarding social issues to a broad audience. the documentary filmmaking format provides doctoral candidates meaningful ways to represent themselves and their specific perspectives in relation to the identified problems of practice. the benefits of utilizing documentary filmmaking as a research method include recording authentic voices of individuals directly associated with the problem of practice, thereby effectively elucidating nuances of the challenges as experienced and spotlighting potential solutions to address the specific problem. other benefits of this alternative method include broader dissemination, more expansive viewership, and serving as a model form of research to advance social change. keywords alternative dissertation, non-traditional doctoral candidates, social change, documentary filmmaking research method university graduate programs that offer a doctor of education (edd) degree do not widely promote an extensive variety of research methods beyond standard qualitative and quantitative approaches (anderson et al., 2022; duke & beck, 1999). however, those edd programs with faculty who support alternative research methods, such as documentary filmmaking, broaden and deepen the academic landscape by allowing equally rigorous and creative forms to contribute to the canon of scholarly work. for a period of seven years (2017-2024), the edd in educational leadership program at san josé state university (sjsu), a public university in california, offered documentary filmmaking as an option for conducting qualitative research with an advisor (dr. r. gliner). gliner, a phd in sociology, specialized in making documentary films to advocate for social change and was a long-time professor at sjsu. gliner served as the dissertation chair for all three authors of this paper (dr. a. jaffer, dr. r. aravamudhan, and dr. k. grasty) and guided the process of conducting documentary research for doctoral projects that resulted in the creation of a film as a final product, in addition to a five-chapter written dissertation. while the three of us approached this alternative qualitative research method from slightly different angles, we can speak confidently from experience about the value of conducting documentary research in its ability 1) to augment the level of engagement and relatability of the end product to a broader audience, 2) to extend greater possibilities for the research to have positive social impact, and 3) to provide a powerful avenue of creative expression for non-traditional doctoral candidates. limitations of the traditional dissertation format while the origins of the doctoral dissertation can be traced to the 1880s in germany, one can fairly argue that not much regarding the standard phd dissertation format has changed since the latter half of the 20th century when a five-chapter dissertation format became more widely adopted in universities in the united states (duke & beck, 1999). duke and beck point out that the standard five-chapter dissertation model has remained relatively static despite significant technological and digital communication advancements over the past fifty years (1999). critics acknowledge serious issues regarding the traditional five-chapter dissertation such as variation in evaluation standards, assessment disparities, lack of transparency, scant attention to critical self-management skills, insufficient training to pursue other scholarly work, and paucity of publications (gould, 2016; porter et al., 1982). dissertations are a tangible product of doctoral studies and the fundamental form of dissemination of the research conducted (thomas et al., 1986). however, only a third to half of them are published and therefore made accessible to the profession and professionals in the field (porter et al., 1982). the publishing rate is even lower in the counseling related and professional applied fields https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7890-8202 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3741-1143 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8068-8506 jaffer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 62 such as education, as these professionals generally do not see the publishing of their dissertations as advantageous to their work or their advancement (evans et al., 2018). the low rate of publishing constitutes a serious limitation to the traditional dissertation format which, although publicly available through digital means, has very limited reach and thus restricts an opportunity for creating change and having impact. when the research does not contribute to practitioner knowledge, there is arguably a breach of trust. evans et al. (2018) go as far as to contend that the lack of dissemination of research violates ethical standards of human subject research. the traditional dissertation format does not fully meet the current needs of researchers in fields such as the humanities and social sciences, as it does not allow for the breadth and depth of research that educational researchers may wish to utilize to appropriately investigate a specific problem of practice. kamler and thomson (2008) argue that traditional doctoral dissertation guidance “involves a habituated transmission pedagogy that ignores the knowledge and life experiences of doctoral researchers” (p. 514). moreover, tilford and south (2003) note that there remains a lack of commitment to participatory research reflected in dissertations and inadequate emphasis on the needs of practitioner researchers for whom publication is not the foremost method of addressing problems of practice. the educational doctorate lends itself to using alternative approaches a feature that distinguishes the edd dissertation from a doctor of philosophy (phd) dissertation is that it targets a problem of practice (ma et al., 2018). ma et al. (2018) conducted research involving edd students who focused on “highly contextualized problems of practice that were sometimes addressed with direct action, and sometimes more of an exploration of tensions around abiding dilemmas” (p. 20). from their research, they offered four principles to assist edd students with focusing on a problem of practice. the principles ma et al. suggested relate to the problems of practice being 1) directly relevant and integral to the student practitioners’ professional practice and work context, 2) emanating from actual dilemmas and problems students face as practitioners, 3) aligning with issues that are demonstrably relevant and critical in the field of education, and 4) further developing and enhancing the student’s professional identity as a practitioner and scholar (2018). problems of practice that educational researchers often choose to examine happen to be situated in specific, localized places and spaces (i.e., school settings). the use of alternative research methods allows the doctoral student in education an ability to more closely investigate and study intricate nuances of a problem of practice in a local context, showcasing real dilemmas as they are lived. the authors of this article would like to make a case that there is room to add alternative research methods and forms, such as documentary filmmaking, to doctoral research. given a respectable place as a valid research method, documentary filmmaking could be offered as an option to students in edd programs across the country. alternative, creative research methods can be used to 1) complement a five-chapter dissertation by adding it as a key project, 2) reconstitute components of a dissertation such as the results chapter, or 3) replace the dissertation form entirely and constitute a new doctoral track in which the documentary film may be accompanied with a bibliography and/or an analytical reflection paper. the authors understand that the adaptability of edd programs to embrace documentary filmmaking as an alternative track option might take time, but from our experience alone, we advocate for considering its inclusion in the canon of research options in the broadest scope possible. forms of alternative dissertations exploring alternate forms of dissertations offers universities an opportunity to democratize academic scholarship. academic work is generally produced for a narrow audience and contradicts the broader purpose of sharing knowledge (evans et al., 2018). williams (n.d.) makes this point quite emphatically in an interview discussing williams’ dissertation that was produced as a podcast. in the podcast trailer, williams speaks of the ivory tower being exclusionary to those individuals who do not fit the traditional academic norms (willams, 2020). williams follows an emerging trend of scholars who have conceptualized their dissertations to meet the requirements for their degrees while leveraging the strengths of alternate forms of expression that are far more impactful than text alone. for example, nick sousanis’ doctoral dissertation was submitted in the form of graphic art to teachers college in 2014 (sossi, 2017), rebecca zak (2014) produced a dissertation for a phd in education using a series of youtube videos and a blog, daria loi’s (2004) dissertation consisted of a suitcase full of artifacts, and sonia estima’s (2020) doctoral dissertation is a series of videos with accompanying text in a website format. the widespread use of the internet, which has provided easy access to digital tools and social media, has revolutionized ways to communicate, learn, research, and grow on a personal and communal level. youtube videos and content, podcasts, webinars, websites, linkedin learning, blogs, vlogs, and other internet media are being used by individuals worldwide, both in formal education and informally for personal use. with so many new tools available, it stands to reason that the dissertation format would be subject to pressures to adapt in form and function to compete with readily available knowledge in a variety of forms. expanding inclusion through alternative dissertation forms the academic community and society as a whole stand to benefit from the inclusion of alternative forms of dissertations that represent a variety of non-traditional voices. non-traditional doctoral researchers include women, individuals with disabilities, students from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, full-time employees, undocumented individuals, refugees, and members of minority and under-represented groups (engels-schwarzpaul & peters, 2013; timus et al., 2024). forcing non-traditional students into traditional formats can make the doctoral process frustrating and futile, leading to inauthentic work. an alternative dissertation format or alternate doctoral track allows for a variety of topics and research styles that are more representative of non-traditional candidates. in fact, engels-schwarzpaul and peters (2013) posit that instead of viewing the non-traditional student as lacking or not meeting the set standards, the truth is that non-traditional students are enriching academia and research processes by stretching the boundaries of what has been deemed the norm. non-traditional doctoral candidates add new perspectives, giving birth to non-dominant narratives, provoking new insights into the dissertation research process, giving rise to new fields, and driving innovative approaches (engels-schwarzpaul & peters 2013). reimagining doctoral research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 63 moreover, timus et al. (2024) emphasized that inclusive pedagogy and universal design for learning are ways for educational programs to create learning environments that reduce inequities and promote social change. learners with divergent styles and nontraditional backgrounds are empowered with options for decolonized forms of knowledge building, representation, and expression (timus et al., 2024). certainly, it makes sense to expand research methodologies and dissertation forms to be more inclusive of the array of candidates currently pursuing educational doctorates to examine a wide range of problems of practice. the legitimacy of documentary filmmaking as qualitative research documentary films are a decades-old medium used for social activism and as a platform for change. the documentary method has been recognized as a rigorous method in qualitative research as visual and video ethnography since the 1960s when it was first developed in germany (bohnsack et al., 2010). the documentary method has gained popularity (fitzgerald & lowe, 2020) and made an entry into the academic world to generate and disseminate knowledge (morgan et al., 2019). fitzgerald and lowe (2020) articulated the position of “documentary filmmaking as a legitimate approach to informing the collection and analysis of research data rather than simply being a research output relying on audio-visual methods” (p. 3). utilizing documentary film as a qualitative research format allows for greater transparency of the research process, due to authentic visual images and voices recorded in real time (weber, 2008). qualitative research using the documentary film method involves experiential understanding; the researcher’s role in conducting qualitative research tends to be more personal than impersonal (stake, 2010). documentary filmmaking involves a qualitative researcher making observations, collecting interviews, and analyzing narratives (i.e., the research artifacts), which require substantial personal engagement with the process (stake, 2010). furthermore, the process of creating a documentary film provides participants with an opportunity to speak directly for themselves as they share personal experiences and ideas (kemmitt, 2007). documentary filming can be a powerful tool to acknowledge participants' funds of knowledge and engage them as active creators rather than passive subjects (friend & militello, 2015). the video recordings allow for transparency of the research processes (weber, 2008) and bring forth a visual narrative of what happened rather than an imaginative interpretation of what might have happened (nichols, 2010). in sum, the documentary filmmaking method may be used in edd programs as an alternative to the traditional dissertation in the form of a distinct track of scholarship. the documentary filmmaking edd track serves to collect and analyze descriptive research data to illuminate and address social injustices in education, as well as spotlight findings such as directions for social change or systemic improvement. in this regard, documentary filmmaking serves not only as a form of qualitative research, but also as a form of action research that meets important academic research criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (bohnsack et al., 2010; fitzgerald & lowe, 2020). producing a documentary film follows standard qualitative research methodology the process of planning a study using documentary film as a mode of research incorporates traditional methods used in qualitative investigations to collect and analyze data (friend & caruthers, 2016), namely: 1) site selection – where to film, how to position the camera and microphone, 2) participant selection whom to film and obtaining consent using a consent form or media release form, 3) data collection recording audio and video using equipment, designing protocols for interviews and observations during filming, 4) data analysis reviewing and selecting video and audio clips during editing, 5) findings, discussion, and recommendations making meaning of the video clips and context by sequencing selected clips, adding other audio visual elements, and finally, 6) sharing results disseminating the results through the production of a documentary film (friend & caruthers, 2016). ethical standards for video production a doctoral documentary film project may be required to seek approval through an institutional review board. ethical standards in documentary filmmaking in research contexts are crucial for maintaining integrity and respecting participants. key ethical considerations include: informed consent researchers clearly explain the purpose of the video, its intended use in the dissertation, and potential future applications. participants should be given the opportunity to review footage and withdraw consent if desired to ensure transparency (miller & boulton, 2007). privacy and confidentiality maintaining participant privacy is critical. plans to attend to the individual needs of a participant for confidentiality are deeply considered (kamanzi & romania, 2019). techniques such as blurring faces, masking faces, showing just the hands may be used to protect identities when necessary. researchers must also be sensitive to participants' comfort levels during filming, potentially excluding those who express discomfort even though they might have powerful stories or insights that would be valuable to the study. accuracy video content must accurately represent the research findings. footage should be presented factually, without bias, and with transparency regarding any editing or post-production techniques used (fitzgerald & lowe, 2020). cultural sensitivity researchers must be mindful of cultural and social contexts during filming and editing. including participants' voices in the video can serve to validate interpretations and ensure cultural authenticity (leung & hawkins, 2011). producing a documentary film requires detailed planning, research, interviewing, editing, and post-production work, all of which demand a high level of rigor, adhering to ethical standards, as well as attention to detail. a finished documentary film can be used to convey the research objectives, methodology, analysis, and conclusions through audio-visual means without any accompanying written documentation. authentic storytelling in documentary research is critical to social transformation documentary filmmaking is an effective research method to use in doctoral programs to advocate for social issues (kemmitt, 2007). capturing genuine descriptions of lived experiences from individuals experiencing them is essential to tell stories that reveal authentic perspectives and to promote democracy and equity in education. according to delgado (1989), “stories humanize us. they emphasize our differences in ways that can ultimately bring us closer jaffer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 64 together.” (p. 2440). documentary filmmaking as a research approach provides an opportunity to tell real stories that deconstruct power dynamics between the researcher and the research participants, co-create knowledge, communicate the social context of knowledge shared, and empower participants (bonny & berkes, 2008). several authors concur that documentary films are a valid means of research to bring critical issues to the forefront in order to inform viewers about changes that need to take place, offering powerful and practical insights that other practitioners in the education field can glean from, and to enhance activism to solve real-world problems (bohnsack et al., 2010; friend & caruthers, 2016; gubrium & harper, 2013; trautrims et al., 2012). recorded evidence integrated in a documentary film can serve to communicate model educational program practices and innovations in the preparation of educators and educational leaders (friend & militello, 2015). in addition, documentary films have the potential to be seen by and resonate with a broad audience, including academic researchers, educational decision-makers, and a variety of school stakeholders such as students, parents, school staff, and interested community members to advance social change (gubrium & harper, 2013). a documentary film as a form of doctoral research has the potential to affect a wider audience than writing a dissertation alone might be able to. simultaneously, it also has the potential to clearly spotlight specific systemic or institutional changes that are needed to yield positive educational and social transformation. documentary filmmaking as a research method not only has the capacity to expose critical social issues in education but also directs the audience to see an alternate vision for the future to catalyze action. akbar (2023) stated that as a society “we should revisit our stories about reforms, our commitments to the values, heroes, villains, and traditions that they propagate. we might consider we have much of it wrong and then work with others to get the stories right, and to shift our roles therein” (p. 2577). what better way would there be to tell truthful, accurate stories about issues related to the current educational system and to bring to light authentic voices that directly spotlight a direction for beneficial reform, than through doctoral study involving the production of a well-researched documentary film? pioneering documentary filmmaking to address problems of practice an edd program typically showcases problems of practice and ways to address them, so it lends itself to a broad range of media such as film, mixed media, and other art forms that can have immediate and long-lasting impact. the sjsu edd leadership program pioneered documentary filmmaking as an exploratory qualitative research method option for doctoral researchers to consider. dr. a. danzig, the founding director of the program, and dr. r. gliner, who joined the program faculty two years after it started, envisioned this pathway to advance organizational change and social activism (r. gliner, personal communication, march 29, 2025). in their first year, candidates who chose filmmaking as the research method that best suited their area of study selected gliner as their dissertation chair. since the program follows a cohort format, all candidates progress through the same course sequence regardless of their research methodology. doctoral candidates who chose the documentary filmmaking option submitted a written dissertation along with a link to the video file to the graduate school. our documentaries and those of fellow doctoral candidates are listed below. table 1. documentary filmmaking as a dissertation component at the sjsu edd leadership program author/director and date of completion dissertation title documentary title and link ann, j. (2018). bridges and barriers: the educational experience of homeless students and families in santa cruz county finding home aravamudhan, r. (2019). bridging the english language divide and building self confidence in marginalized communities: an exploratory study in tamil nadu, india i can filion, a. (2019). experiences of adolescent refugee students who attend afterschool programs for literacy support creating safe learning spaces in turbulent times vargas, s. (2021). exploring the deleterious connection between traditional school discipline practices and male latino students who have endured adverse childhood experiences: an exploratory study in northern california kicked out jaco, t. (2021). the criteria for developing a tk-12 ethnic studies model curriculum fidelity at the forefront: the fight for ethnic studies nwarfor, g. (2021). corporal punishment in eastern nigeria the body listens better than the ear tran, a. (2021). perceptions of the influence of cell phones and social media usage on students’ academic performance jaffer, a. (2022). the role of school counselors in advocating for social justice for all students during the covid-19 pandemic counseling for social justice carunungan, g. (2022). an exploratory study on how math stories engage young learners in mathematical sense-making math makes sense with math stories grasty, k. (2023). edible learning: school food service programming and experiential education that promote sustainable agriculture and better nutritional health edible learning: promoting better nutrition in schools (neta) guzman, a. (2023). never too young: the existence, impact, and sustainability of ethnic studies in elementary school never too young: ethnic studies in elementary school giles, d. (2024). embracing mindfulness-based professional development in early childhood education embracing mindfulness-based professional development in early childhood education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqoxkfpuxuo https://youtu.be/8l8--5xokfc https://youtu.be/jliwrvxllwy?si=iutwi_6emdwvsphttps://youtu.be/exx6joetihk https://youtu.be/bf6ske9s8t4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdjw_kzs20 https://youtu.be/dtxvguvxe5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn7gk0a26ia https://www.netaonline.org/episode/edible-learning-promoting-better-nutrition-schools https://www.netaonline.org/episode/edible-learning-promoting-better-nutrition-schools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzok-tmg_fs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzok-tmg_fs https://youtu.be/g0j64wrbstg https://youtu.be/g0j64wrbstg reimagining doctoral research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 65 documentary filmmaking methodology there are four primary reasons one might choose to produce a documentary film as a key component of doctoral research: first, to give participants the opportunity to speak for themselves on camera sharing their experiences (kemmitt, 2007). for instance, in one documentary, dalit communities in india, which are oppressed socially in the village setting and can seldom voice their opinion, were able to have their voices heard (aravamudhan, 2019a). second, documentaries can be utilized to bring to the forefront issues of social change in education (friend & caruthers, 2016). the visual narrative of the program elements and stakeholder experiences provides opportunities to share new program practices and innovations in the preparation of educators and educational leaders (friend & militello, 2015). third, documentaries reach a wider audience and achieve a larger outreach through social media, internet, and other forums (friend & militello, 2015). for example, edible learning: promoting better nutrition in schools, (grasty, 2023a), which has an environmentalist stance, has been broadcast on public television stations across the country. and finally, the documentary serves to use visual images as effective tools in several contexts within the research process. this aspect allows for transparency of the research processes (weber, 2008) and brings forth a visual narrative of authentic reality. documentary filmmaking method involves collecting, analyzing, and sequencing data much like other forms of qualitative research. collecting data. each of the documentaries in table 1 used data in the form of videos of interviews, observations, and “b-roll” footage to establish context for the research process and to ground the study in an identified problem of practice. multiple sources of data such as interviews and observations from stakeholders were collected that substantiated as well as enhanced the credibility of the studies (theoharis, 2007). a media release form that was approved through the institutional review board was used to obtain permission from all participants to be shown in the documentary film. for participants below the age of 18, permission on the form was obtained from the parents or legal guardians of the children. the time and location of the interviews were decided based on the availability and preference of the participants. the filming of classroom sessions and interviews was conducted with acknowledgement of the funds of knowledge of the participants; we engaged them as creators of knowledge rather than just as video subjects (friend & militello, 2015). as the researcher is responsible for both the analysis and interpretation of data, it was important to include voices of participants in the recordings of events as a way of validating interpretations (leung and hawkins, 2011). research participants for our studies were often given an opportunity to review the video footage after it was taken to ensure that their perceptions and responses had been captured correctly. data collection processes also included making additional decisions about the location, lighting, sound, and the background. the camera as a tool that facilitated gathering data provided rich contextual experiences for the interviews and observations. the filming of interviews took place while participants were engaged in an activity at a location of their choice which gave them more agency and control as interviews were done based on the participants’ comfort and preference. allowing participants control over the context of filming also helped mediate our own positionalities as researchers. for instance, one of the participant interviews in a documentary was done at the participant's street side shop (aravamudhan, 2019a). it was an informal interviewing experience as the interviewee answered questions while engaged in a familiar activity relevant to the focus of the study. in another documentary, school cafeteria workers were comfortable being interviewed while cooking and working in the kitchen, an environment that was familiar to them (grasty, 2023a). analyzing data. transitioning from the data collection to the analysis phase involved integrating qualitative analysis with the documentary film editing process. this phase involved exploring and analyzing qualitative data while endeavoring to create a cohesive story in the form of a film. since we as researchers conducted data analysis and video-editing as a combined process, decisions for which clips to include were based on both aesthetic sensibilities as well as the need to tell an authentic story (petrarca & hughes, 2014). the approach to rigorous analysis of data was based on qualitative research theory while using video editing software such as adobe premiere pro or final cut prox as a tool to facilitate the coding, searching, and selecting of data (e.g., interview footage). the video footage was categorized deductively based on broad areas that the study was aiming to understand, and then each researcher inductively generated categories based on participants’ actions and words. categories or bins based on the meaning that emerged from the video footage were created. the themes for the sub-sequences were determined based on the purpose of the study, through the lens of the theories informing the research and keeping in mind the researcher’s bias and positionality (miles et al., 2014). the series of clips were then reviewed, and the final clips to be included into the master sequence for the documentary were selected by the researcher. the selection was based on which footage conveyed powerful moments in the research process as related to the problem of practice and on the visual appeal depicting the context, including nonverbal behavior. video-based analysis included visual dimensions such as participant body language, tone, natural speech patterns, and vocal pauses, all of which helped to provide an in-depth and rich analysis. sequencing data. in compiling the master sequence, we had to make difficult decisions about the inclusion or exclusion of clips. engaging in analytical reflection to ensure integrity of the data was of critical importance. in some instances, the assistance of our dissertation advisor was solicited for clip selection, to ensure objectivity and that each theme was well represented. a master sequence of video clips representing the major themes was generated to produce a first cut of the film. then b-roll footage was included in the video creation process to supplement the main interview clips to make the storyline cohesive (friend & militello, 2015). editorial decisions vary. in some of the documentaries in table 1, voice-overs were used for interviews instead of subtitles to overcome the restriction of the length of lines that can be seen on the screen, to mitigate the estimated reading speed of the viewers, and to reduce distraction due to text. in addition, knowles and cole (2008) described the presence of the researcher in arts-informed research as a positive quality. for example, in some instances the scholar decided to appear in the documentary as a narrator to offer the audience a personal view into the research. scholar narration was used by the authors to bridge different sections in the documentary or to share the scholar’s reflections and thoughts. the last step for all of us was to add background music and sounds, title cards, credits, and closed captioning. through a painstaking process of sequencing interview clips, we discerned tangible themes that are jaffer et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 66 ultimately reflected in the storyline that each of our films convey. through the final products, all our documentary films provide a transparent disclosure of data analysis (milner, 2007). evaluation of the documentary film as doctoral research depending on the requirements set forth by the educational institution and the framework of the edd program, a documentary film project may undergo an institutional human subject review process as is required of any doctoral research. two out of the three authors of this paper went through the institutional review board to ensure protection for the participants in our research. the dissertation committee consisted of a chair, a faculty member from within the program, and a content area expert. our committees were involved in the broad discussions about the documentary film and offering guidance right from the proposal defense stage. committee members reviewed the documentary film after the final cut and to ensure that it met the required research standards. a written document consisting of introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion, and bibliography was also submitted to the committee for review. we each participated in a doctoral defense that included our positionalities, research questions, research methodology, results, reflection, and recommendations. any concerns by the committee were addressed and revisions made as needed. juggling the production of both a documentary film and a written document required strict scheduling, firm deadlines, and a careful balance to ensure steady progress on both fronts to meet our graduation timeline. the potential of documentary films for broad outreach each of the documentaries identified in table 1 constituted part of the results chapter of their respective scholar’s dissertation. in some cases, the documentary film was the main component of the results chapter as it represented the findings of the research (jaco, 2021a; jaco 2021b; nwafor, 2021a; nwafor, 2021b; tran, 2021a; tran, 2021b; vargas, 2021a; vargas, 2021b), and in others they were complementary gestures to the written analysis of the findings which was represented as a complete chapter in addition to the film (ann, 2018a; ann, 2018b; aravamudhan, 2019a; aravamudhan, 2019b; carunungan, 2022a; carunungan, 2022b; filion, 2019a; filion, 2019b; giles, 2024a; giles, 2024b; grasty, 2023a; grasty, 2023b; guzman, 2023a; guzman, 2023b; jaffer, 2022a; jaffer, 2022b). all the documentary films were designed as stand-alone products, often with distinct, engaging titles different from the dissertation title and were particularly valuable in that they provided viewers access to the research data directly. we believe that the complementary nature of the documentary film as a key component of a dissertation serves to incorporate both creative and scholarly elements and directs the attention of non-academicians toward taking interest in reading the written dissertation. many of the doctoral documentaries named in table 1 have been shared widely within participating schools and relevant organizations. some of them have aired on public television in several regions of the united states. the broad exposure to the respective subjects has helped to bring needed awareness and impact positive change, such as promoting critical educational programs. for instance, the project showcased in edible learning: promoting better nutrition in schools (grasty, 2023a), garnered attention and was recognized with a 2023 golden bell award by the california school boards association for being an exemplary student support services program model (csba, 2023). also, our documentaries as a whole or in shorter clips are being used to train teachers, counselors, and school staff in the united states, india, and africa. the documentary counseling for social justice (jaffer, 2022a) was separated into eight shorter segments that are 3-12 minutes in length, each with its own subheading. this segmentation has enabled educators to embed segments, all of which are uploaded to youtube, into lectures and professional development workshops. entire documentaries have been accepted for showings at special events such as regional, national, and international professional conferences. similarly, our research findings using the documentary filmmaking method have also been shared in a variety of professional spaces. in one case, additional technical requirements needed to be completed to have the film accepted by the national educational telecommunications association (neta), a programming service for airing documentary films on public television stations (n.d.). in april 2024, edible learning: promoting better nutrition in schools (grasty, 2023a), began to be shown on public television channels across the country. the film has aired on over 20 public television stations throughout the u.s., including stations in california, indiana, kansas, louisiana, michigan, minnesota, mississippi, new mexico, ohio, and washington, dc. it continues to be released to stations through neta, allowing it to have broad viewership and potentially strong impact. the documentary film format has allowed doctoral research to gain more visibility due to the dissemination of the documentaries than they would have received as traditional dissertations alone. the participants in the documentary films have been afforded an opportunity to have a far-reaching impact on viewers. documentary film as a research method frequently highlights best practices in the fields of study and empowers individuals who contributed to the research to share their knowledge and practices with a wider audience than they otherwise would have. limitations to producing a documentary film as a dissertation component documentary filmmaking as research, although sanctioned by sjsu and touted as one of the highlights of the edd leadership program, was still a divergent form and selected by only 12 doctoral candidates between 2018-2024 from a pool of approximately 107 candidates. gliner served as the dissertation advisor for all those who chose documentary filmmaking as a key component of their dissertation; therefore, there was a limit to the number of students who could embark on this journey. although the authors were well supported and satisfied with their choice of using documentary filmmaking as their research method, they did have to contend with some challenges specific to this form, including their own limited knowledge with the medium at the start of the process. documentary film research candidates are generally not professional filmmakers and therefore have limited film recording and editing proficiency. gliner provided basic instructions for setting up shots and making recordings, and in some cases, he attended the first interview to ensure that the camera was positioned and recording correctly. an interdisciplinary approach might be useful to students who do not have a documentary expert advisor in their department and need that extra support to create documentaries. in such cases, we recommend inviting faculty members from the film reimagining doctoral research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.516 67 department to offer workshops and classes, inviting a documentary filmmaker to be part of the dissertation committee, and/or utilize training sessions in documentary filmmaking offered by the educational institution, linkedin, youtube, and other sources. at times, students using different kinds of quantitative and qualitative software or other tools to analyze data require training and support, and this training is similar to the help and support needed to use video editing software. some of us were able to procure outside help with editing by contracting a film studies student or professional film editor, but since that type of added support is not always the case, it is important to know that this research process involves learning how to use appropriate software applications and gaining technical skills in film editing. we contend that students in this current generation watch and make more videos than in previous generations and have increased access to editing software on their devices; this trend is expected to continue, particularly as usage of youtube, vimeo, and other such platforms increases. increased costs may be incurred by the doctoral candidate making a documentary, for instance, needing a higher level of computer memory capacity, updated software, recording equipment, tripod, microphones and in the case of tran (2021a), even a cinematography drone. learning how to use filming and editing equipment takes practice and time. therefore, those of us who chose to make a documentary film made extra investments in the form of time and funds. fortunately, our edd program invested in two professional camcorders and microphones that were available to the documentary filmmakers and that we took turns using. high quality phone cameras with advanced lens technology have ameliorated this issue to some degree as they can be used to capture professional-level video footage. the edd program at sjsu recently discontinued supporting the documentary filmmaking option to accompany dissertations. the program has lost what we see as a signature pedagogy that served to attract students to the university in hopes of conducting this alternative type of qualitative research. though the documentary program was successful and still in demand, a staffing change resulted in the program no longer having access to its resident expert. the elimination of this unique pathway limits opportunities for doctoral students to engage in creative and alternative modes of research. the loss of the documentary filmmaking option in an edd program that highlights social justice brings up questions about program culture and program identity. recommendations the authors believe that edd programs will continue to attract a wider range of students, tackle the most pertinent problems of practice, and address issues of social importance more effectively if they incorporate an opportunity to pursue non-traditional research methods as a distinct track or as a creative component complementary to a dissertation. it is of critical importance that alternative forms of doctoral research are supported and valued by edd program faculty and directors, graduate studies administrators, and leaders of the institution at the highest levels. high standards of rigor in doctoral programs can be maintained, not even though, but because alternative research options such as documentary filmmaking are made available to doctoral students. a shift from holding onto archaic principles in the name of tradition to expanding the use of non-traditional methods that disrupt exclusionary practices is in order. core principles that advance social issues must constitute the foundation of edd programs to protect the work and progress being made in broadening dissertation formats. it would serve edd programs well to strive to find faculty members across disciplines, in areas such as broadcast journalism or film studies, who might be willing to be advisors or at least committee members for the doctoral student wishing to conduct documentary research. perhaps funding mechanisms within the university could be planned for and established in advance to allow advisors across disciplines to assist students wishing to engage in this type of qualitative research that has great potential for broad social impact. universities might include in department budgets a fund that supports annual contracts to hire professional filmmakers who can offer services to support students interested in conducting documentary research. edd programs are encouraged to reflect upon how to promote and sustain the continual evolution of their own departmental and interdepartmental organizational structures. this process includes collaborating across departments and planning for specific budget allocations, to be able to partner with individuals with expertise to support doctoral students. in this way, doctoral students can be provided with a greater array of research methods to choose from, resulting in the evolution of the edd to match modern-day communication forms and be more socially impactful. conclusion this article highlights how a rigorous, technical, intellectual, and artistic process such as documentary filmmaking deserves to be recognized as a valuable qualitative research method. we present our collective, shared experiences as three doctoral researchers in education who graduated within the past five years and who had the same advisor who supported us in our efforts to conduct qualitative research using documentary filmmaking to elucidate educational problems of practice in need of being addressed. with the growing use of devices that enable video recording, documentary filmmaking has become a useful method in qualitative research in the humanities. filmmaking as a form of inquiry engages the audience and supports dissemination of knowledge in broader, more compelling ways than what is possible with traditional dissertations targeted for academics. as petrarca and hughes (2014) pointed out, the audience should not be restricted to the academic community; therefore, universities must augment research options so that complexities that are often difficult to derive from text can be more easily discerned by a broader audience. our respective documentaries (aravamudhan, 2019a; grasty, 2023a; jaffer, 2022a) helped us realize how powerful films can be in ensuring that participant voices are heard and in allowing the viewer to make meaning of what is being presented. the documentary filmmaking process enhanced our research capabilities as we built on existing qualitative processes for data collection and analysis, using creativity in developing our own approaches to film production. we realized that while traditional qualitative research approaches for data collection and analysis are important, we had to rethink the process of dissemination of our research since the intended audience for our dissertation included 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https://profession.mla.org/dissertation-innovations-a-podcast-dissertation/ https://www.mygothicdissertation.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8kl8tfuuru amna jaffer san josé state university radha aravamudhan san josé state university kristina grasty san josé state university limitations of the traditional dissertation format the educational doctorate lends itself to using alternative approaches forms of alternative dissertations expanding inclusion through alternative dissertation forms the legitimacy of documentary filmmaking as qualitative research producing a documentary film follows standard qualitative research methodology ethical standards for video production authentic storytelling in documentary research is critical to social transformation pioneering documentary filmmaking to address problems of practice documentary filmmaking methodology evaluation of the documentary film as doctoral research the potential of documentary films for broad outreach limitations to producing a documentary film as a dissertation component recommendations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 10 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 cultivating change agents through effective program evaluation: inaugural year insights from an equity-oriented edd program tiffany karalis noel university at buffalo–suny tbkarali@buffalo.edu julie gorlewski hunter college–cuny julie.gorlewski@hunter.cuny.edu abstract this article presents insights from x university’s inaugural edd program, evaluating its curriculum, pedagogy, and innovations through an annual program evaluation. designed for full-time professionals, this part-time, online program emphasizes interdisciplinary improvements to educational problems of practice (pops), aligned with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). the evaluation revealed students’ high satisfaction with faculty quality and program leadership. the cohort model's role in community building and the flipped defense model were highlighted as progressive educational approaches. students appreciated the program's relevance to their career goals, with many aiming for academia or administration, while feedback suggested expanded course variety and increasingly flexible scheduling. a key finding is that traditional forms of program evaluation may not support the goals of innovative programs. this article, therefore, concludes with strategic recommendations for using the evaluation process as a core element for program enhancement, guided by its commitment to social justice and educational equity. keywords cohort model, curriculum and instruction, dissertation in practice, doctor of education, edd, educational leadership, social justice education, scholar practitioners in the ever-evolving educational landscape, characterized by rapid advancements in pedagogical theory (lam et al., 2021; lucas & kinsman, 2016) and the expansion of digital learning platforms (akour & alenezi, 2022; park & kim, 2022), the doctor of education (edd) program stands as a paradigm of innovation. established in a strategic alliance with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) — an international network of over 135 graduate schools of education committed to transforming the advanced preparation of educational professionals (2022) — the edd program is meticulously designed with a twofold aim. it aspires to equip educational leaders and practitioners with the necessary skills to identify and address persistent and emergent problems of practice (pops), while also supporting the career progression of full-time educators and those transitioning from doctoral studies to roles in educational leadership and praxis. launched in the summer of 2022, the edd program is on a mission to prepare educational change agents to lead and transform across various settings, from k-12 to higher education and beyond. this three-year, part-time doctoral program blends synchronous and asynchronous learning modalities, offering a flexible yet rigorous academic structure conducive to the busy schedules of working professionals. hybrid programs, in general, are known for their ability to provide such flexibility, making it easier for professionals to balance their academic pursuits with work and personal commitments (clark & barbour, 2015; glazer, 2012). the program’s innovative delivery is designed to leverage the strengths of an online format, fostering interactive and collaborative learning experiences that transcend geographical constraints (castro & tumibay, 2019). the edd program is characterized by its cohort model, a deliberate structural choice that reinforces its pedagogical ethos. this approach facilitates a collective learning journey (barnett et al., 2000; butterwick et al., 2012; seifert & mandzuk, 2006), with students progressing together through a series of systematically sequenced academic milestones (leland et al., 2020; taylor, 2007). the program launched with a diverse inaugural cohort of 23 students in the summer of 2022, expanded to 36 in the following year, and welcomed 39 phd-to-edd transfer students, nineteen of whom have graduated. such diversity within and across cohorts, encompassing but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, and educational and professional backgrounds, enriches the program's collaborative discourse and reflects the multiplicity of perspectives within the field of education (bovill, 2020). with a curriculum grounded in real-world application, the program integrates design and research methodologies alongside a dissertation in practice (dip), reinforcing its commitment to practical, outcome-driven scholarship. supported by a comprehensive curriculum map and strategic course planning, the program guarantees a robust, scaffolded progression (brauer & ferguson, 2015) from theoretical foundations to applied research, tailored to address the unique pop identified by each student. additionally, elective courses provide further customization, allowing learners to https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1989-1643 karalis noel & gorlewski impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 11 explore disciplinary foci (rawle et al., 2017) that align closely with their individual professional trajectories. the edd program is anchored in a justice-focused framework aimed at cultivating educational leaders and practitioners proficient in addressing challenges across diverse educational landscapes. this framework transcends academic theories, serving as a call to action that encourages students to engage critically with issues of equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion (furman, 2012; jean-marie et al., 2009). it implores them to apply these critical understandings to positively influence the communities and professional environments they seek to serve through their research (shields, 2002). this article examines the edd program's effectiveness in cultivating educational change agents during its first year, 20222023. utilizing a blend of curriculum and program evaluation analysis, the report elucidates how the program encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, supports progressive learning, and meets participants' career goals. it unfolds to offer a comprehensive view of the edd’s pedagogical framework, innovative features, and its impact on the first cohort and students who transitioned into the program from a phd program within the same department. in particular, this analysis emphasizes the potential for aligning program evaluation with program values in ways that are mutually reinforcing (patton, 2017; suàrez-herrera et al., 2009). the insights drawn will inform ongoing improvements, ensuring the program's relevance and foresight in equipping future leaders for an evolving educational landscape. purpose and evaluative approach this article presents a holistic analysis of the edd program's inaugural year, focusing on its role in preparing educational leaders and practitioners to address complex pops in diverse settings. the purpose was to assess the program's effectiveness in aligning with its core values, fulfilling its curricular and pedagogical goals, and supporting its students’ professional development. additionally, the evaluation sought to gauge the program's influence on students' professional trajectories. it is important to note that this evaluation aims to evolve as a mechanism for systemic improvement, incorporating student feedback as a central element of the process. positionality statement as the authors of this evaluation and program leaders, our positionality inherently influences our perspective and approach to this analysis. our roles as program leaders involve a deep commitment to the principles of social justice and educational equity, which are core to the edd program's mission. this commitment stems from our professional and personal experiences as educators, scholars, and advocates for marginalized communities within educational contexts. being closely involved in the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of the edd program, we bring both an insider’s understanding and a critical lens to the evaluation process. while this proximity allows for a nuanced and informed analysis, it also introduces potential biases. we are aware that our advocacy for the program’s goals and our interactions with students and faculty could influence the interpretation of the data and the conclusions drawn. to mitigate these biases, the evaluation process was designed to be as transparent and inclusive as possible, incorporating diverse student voices and feedback mechanisms. efforts were made to ensure that the data collection and analysis processes were robust and reflective of the participants' genuine experiences. despite these measures, it is important to acknowledge that our positionality as program leaders may shape the framing and emphasis of the evaluation findings. evaluation approach drawing connections to scholarly literature, the analysis examined the program’s curriculum, pedagogy, and innovations via an annual program evaluation to capture a multidimensional view of its design, delivery, and the resultant outcomes as perceived by its stakeholders. the evaluation process is designed to be responsive, continually seeking to identify and address, from the student perspective, what might be irrelevant or missing. the evaluative review of the program's curriculum and structure was conducted through an analysis of program documentation, including the curriculum map, course syllabi, program handbook, and milestone descriptions. this review provided a foundation for understanding the program's projected path and the support mechanisms in place for student progression. the foundation was complemented by a systematic approach to include student voices in the evaluation process, aiming to draw lessons for systemic improvement. this was followed by an analysis of the annual evaluation results, which comprised both quantifiable satisfaction measures and qualitative feedback to appraise the program's efficacy. table 1. components of the edd program evaluation component description methodology purpose curriculum and structure review of curriculum map, course syllabi, program handbook, and milestone descriptions to outline the program's intended path. document analysis to establish a foundational understanding of the program's design and the support mechanisms for students. student feedback integration systematic inclusion of student perspectives to ensure the evaluation reflects real-world experiences and needs. course evaluations, focus groups, individual interviews to identify areas for systemic improvement and align the program more closely with student needs. to corroborate the annual evaluation findings. annual evaluation findings analysis of quantitative data on student satisfaction and qualitative feedback from participants. quantitative and qualitative analysis (descriptive statistics, thematic analysis) to evaluate the program's effectiveness, identify strengths, and pinpoint opportunities for enhancement. the subsequent section of the article will present the annual evaluation results, providing a detailed account of the program's strengths and opportunities for improvement. these insights inform the ensuing discussion and conclusions, offering actionable insights for the program's continuous enhancement and its responsiveness to the dynamic field of education. in addition, the results of this analysis can offer guidance for programs developing innovative opportunities for engaging in equity-oriented leadership preparation. program design and pedagogy the edd program is distinguished by its commitment to interdisciplinary methodologies, positioning itself as a model of cultivating change agents impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 12 111 contemporary educational design that aims to develop scholarly practitioners who can make a significant difference in their fields. the following sections outline the program's design and the pedagogical principles that intersect to provide a transformative educational experience for educational leaders and practitioners. each of these program features is addressed in the multilayered evaluation process. curriculum map and milestone-based learning central to the edd program’s structure is a detailed curriculum map, a strategic tool that provides a transparent trajectory of learning from admission to program completion (cuevas et al., 2010; treadwell et al., 2019). the curriculum is meticulously designed to scaffold learning and guide students through a progression from foundational theoretical knowledge to the advanced application of research methodologies. this scaffolded approach ensures that students become well-versed in their selected disciplines, with the curriculum map acting as a guide for navigating their scholarly journeys (brauer & ferguson, 2015; cuevas et al., 2010; rawle et al., 2017; treadwell et al., 2019). also integral to the program’s structure are the academic milestones that students encounter. these include prequalifying papers, qualifying papers, dip proposals, and dip findings defenses. each milestone is thoughtfully integrated into the curriculum, providing students with clear benchmarks for success and a tangible sense of progression through the program. these milestones represent critical moments that highlight the students’ increasing proficiency and capacity to conduct research and contribute original insights to the field of educational practice. cohort dynamics and community engagement the cohort model is integral to the edd program, functioning as the fulcrum of community engagement and collaborative pedagogy. this paradigm fosters an enriched learning community, positioning students as collaborators within an interactive collective rather than as isolated learners, thus facilitating intellectual reciprocity throughout their scholarly pursuits. within this microcosmic educational ecosystem, the individual’s academic growth is synergistically enhanced by the collective insights and mutual support of the cohort members (barnett et al., 2000; butterwick et al., 2012; leland et al., 2020; seifert & mandzuk, 2006; taylor, 2007). the program strategically utilizes synchronous and asynchronous modalities to promote learning community cohesion. synchronous engagements, such as real-time seminars and interactive workshops, catalyze immediate intellectual exchange and relational dynamics (racheva, 2018). asynchronous activities, encompassing discussion forums and group-based inquiries, foster contemplative analysis and provide temporal flexibility. this blended integration of modalities is designed to accommodate the exigencies of working professionals, thereby ensuring an academically rigorous and interconnected learning environment, independent of physical locality (jorgensen, 2003; zinkhan, 2005). a justice-focused educational framework the edd program is steeped in a justice-focused educational ethos which intends to permeate every facet of its curriculum. this framework is predicated on the belief that educational leaders and practitioners should be at the forefront of advocating for and actualizing social justice and equity within their spheres of influence. accordingly, the program’s pedagogy is designed to cultivate leaders who are not only conversant in theories of justice but are also adept at applying these principles in practice to effect meaningful societal transformation (al-faham et al., 2019; shields & hesbol, 2020; wang, 2018). this commitment to justice is woven into the curriculum via courses such as curriculum theory, critical interpretations of research, and intersectionality and equity. course content challenges students to grapple with complex social issues and consider the implications of their educational leadership and practice through a lens of equity and inclusivity. this approach ensures that graduates of the edd program are well-equipped to address systemic inequities and lead with a deep understanding of the transformative potential of education. program features and structural innovations the edd program distinguishes itself with a collection of features and innovations that contribute to a robust and dynamic learning environment attuned to the complexities of modern educational leadership and practice. this section explores these features and innovations in detail, examining how they serve the program's mission and enrich the educational experience. as with curricular components, the effectiveness of these features and innovations are assessed through program evaluation processes. flipped defense model a distinctive feature of the edd program is the flipped defense model implemented for the dip milestones. this innovative approach transforms the traditional defense approach by requiring students to pre-record their presentations and distribute them to their committee and peers one to two weeks prior to the live defense session. as evidenced in a meta-analysis of 10 years of research (lo & hew, 2019), the flipped model significantly improves student achievement. in the context of doctoral education, the model deepens engagement and enables a more substantive and nuanced conversation during the actual defense; it underpins a more thorough critique while taking into account the busy schedules of working professionals. in addition, this model provides opportunities for non-traditional students to develop confidence through practice allowing time to polish a final version of their presentation and focus on discussion during the defense. consequently, the flipped defense reflects and promotes the program commitment to equity and inclusion. while the flipped model is mandatory for all preliminary defenses leading up to the final dip findings defense, students have the option to choose between a flipped model or a traditional live presentation for their final defense. this programmatic flexibility allows those who prefer a live presentation to do so, especially if they wish to have family, faculty, or peers present on location. scaffolded dissertation in practice (dip) model the edd program's dip framework distinguishes itself from traditional dissertations by weaving its components into the curriculum at strategic points to maximize relevance and impact, concentrating on practical application of theoretical concepts. this process unfolds in a four-chapter dip, mirroring a persistent, introspective academic journey. the prequalifying paper, forming the first milestone and a draft of chapter 1 (introduction), is defended at the end of the first year (spring 1). the qualifying paper, as the second milestone and draft of chapter 2 (background analysis), is karalis noel & gorlewski impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 13 submitted for feedback in the second year (fall 2). the third milestone, a draft of chapter 3, the dip proposal, culminates in a defense by the end of the second year (spring 2). finally, the dip findings encompass a complete dip from chapters 1 to 4 and are defended by the end of the third year (spring 3). each stage is aligned with the corresponding academic phase, ensuring that the research is actionable and immediately applicable to the field of education. moreover, this approach to the completion of the culminating project of the doctoral degree reinforces the effectiveness of the cohort model. candidates collaborate in providing and receiving feedback as they progress through the program, strengthening their own skills as they contribute to the development of their peers' scholarly abilities. the scaffolded dissertation process also fosters an inclusive learning environment that supports diverse learners. typically, doctoral programs involve a staged approach wherein coursework precedes dissertation work. while the former may include collaborative projects, the latter is generally individualized, even isolated. the scaffolded dip represents a significant potential for improvement in student experience and ultimately program completion. continuous improvement through evaluation the program's commitment to continuous improvement is evidenced by its systematic evaluation and check-in processes. regular evaluations gather substantive data on student satisfaction and program effectiveness, while formative semester check-ins provide real-time feedback on student needs and experiences. these check-ins are integral to maintaining the program's adaptability and responsiveness, ensuring that it remains current and aligned with the professional landscape's evolving demands (frye & hemmer, 2012; sallese et al., 2023). to further elucidate, these regular evaluations and check-ins are designed with specific content and methodologies to ensure comprehensive and meaningful data collection. the content of these evaluations includes targeted questions on curriculum relevance, instructional quality, learning outcomes, and program logistics. additionally, evaluations seek insights on the program's impact on professional growth and personal development. annual online surveys are typically used for broader questions and can reach a larger number of students efficiently, while each semester, focus groups and individual interviews allow for more in-depth exploration of specific issues or themes that emerge from the survey data. findings are then discussed in department-wide meetings, where faculty and administrators deliberate on potential improvements and strategic changes. this iterative process ensures that the program remains agile and responsive to the evolving needs of its students and the educational sector. moreover, findings from these evaluations are often shared with the students to maintain transparency and foster a collaborative atmosphere in the program’s continuous improvement journey. a key component of this process is a proposed future student task force, composed of current students, to provide critical evaluations of the program. this initiative, which emerged from an analysis of evaluation feedback, aligns with the program's design principles, cohort dynamics, and justice-focused framework. all evaluations are intended to reflect the program values of collaboration and transformation, aiming not just at high satisfaction scores but at fostering critical engagement and practical implementation of improvements identified by the students themselves. program revisions are made on the basis of this feedback, as well as on insights and recommendations from participating faculty and staff. candidates are frequently reminded about the importance of creating and participating in opportunities for feedback and on acting on information elicited from such opportunities. this process also includes reflecting on the growth in knowledge and theory that students experience, identifying which aspects of the program have been instrumental in this development. systemic approaches to continuous improvement are intentionally modeled in program practices, allowing students to experience benefits that contribute to their own projects. further enriching this evaluative process is the integration of multi-tiered faculty advising each semester. this advising, coordinated and implemented by the program director, is comprehensive, extending from program-wide to cohort-specific and from small group settings to individual sessions. the advising framework not only provides expansive programmatic guidance but also caters to the nuanced needs within each cohort, offers focused attention in small groups, and delivers personalized mentoring in one-on-one interactions. this layered advising structure ensures individualized support for each student's unique educational path, with meticulous monitoring of their progress, thus elevating the educational experience and ensuring it aligns with their professional goals (brill et al., 2014; holland, 1998; schlosser et al., 2003). utilization of technology technology plays a pivotal role in the edd program, serving as a cornerstone for its innovative flipped defense model and facilitating both synchronous and asynchronous coursework. the strategic use of advanced digital platforms is central to this approach, enabling interactive and engaging learning experiences that transcend traditional classroom boundaries. instructional platforms are carefully selected and optimized to foster a sense of community and collaboration, effectively bridging the gap between students and faculty regardless of physical distance. by prioritizing the integration of technology into its curriculum, the edd program ensures that candidates are adept at utilizing digital resources and platforms, preparing them to be leaders and practitioners in an increasingly digital educational landscape. this holistic technological integration ensures that the virtual learning environment is not a barrier but a conduit to a more connected and accessible educational experience (cañas et al., 2003; haleem, 2022; qureshi, 2021; yordanova, 2007). centering innovative, accessible technological utilization exemplifies leadership principles that the program intends to cultivate in candidates. such technological integration, coupled with a critical orientation, is designed to prepare students to use technologies in ways that promote transformation toward equity and inclusion, while also developing a critical perspective about the broader context in which technological advances occur. signature pedagogies the edd program is defined by its distinct signature pedagogies, reflective of its foundational values and educational goals. these pedagogies are characterized by their threedimensional structure as delineated by shulman (2005): the surface structure, which pertains to the visible, practical aspects of teaching and learning; the deep structure, which relates to the underlying beliefs about effective knowledge transmission; and the implicit structure, which carries the moral dimension of professional attitudes, values, and dispositions. in the first stage of the program, collaborative, inquiry-based learning (karalis noel et al., 2020) is at the forefront, fostering cultivating change agents impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 14 111 curiosity and active engagement and blending theoretical knowledge with practical application. these aims are achieved through interdisciplinary courses focused on complex pops, enabling students to identify and address these issues with a critical, research-based lens. the second stage emphasizes equity-driven research (karalis noel et al., 2020), with a strong focus on fieldwork. here, students are trained to be equity-minded practitioners, employing data and critical analysis to identify and address disparities in educational outcomes. this involves developing a deep understanding of the systemic nature of inequities across fields and contexts and a commitment to responsible, transformative practice. the final stage is dedicated to cultivating transformative leadership (karalis noel et al., 2020), rooted in questions of justice and democracy and aimed at creating inclusive and generative learning environments. during this phase, students work on bringing coherence to their dips, a scholarly work that encapsulates doctorallevel research with a strong relevance to practice. through the consistent application of these signature pedagogies, the edd program equips students with the skills and knowledge to confront and reform the pressing educational challenges of our time, shaping them into leaders who can effectuate inclusive and equitable change within diverse professional spheres. annual evaluation results the 2022-2023 annual edd program evaluation results reflect data from 26 students, offering a quantitative and qualitative account of the program's inaugural year. the program's demographics reveal that 73.08% of respondents were part of the first edd cohort, while 26.92% represented phd to edd transfer students. the professional background of the respondents was diverse, with teachers representing 38.46%, administrators and faculty at teaching-oriented universities each at 15.38%, staff at research universities also at 15.38%, staff at teaching-oriented universities at 7.69%, faculty at research universities at 3.85%, and other professions at 3.85%. fulltime employment was reported by 84.62% of the respondents, parttime by 7.69%, and the remaining 7.69% were not working while studying. one student reported a smooth transition from a phd to an edd program and appreciated the advantages of its cohort structure. in terms of response rate, the data from 26 students needs to be contextualized within the total number of students enrolled in the program to understand the representativeness of these findings. if, for instance, the program enrolled 100 students, a 26% response rate would indicate a significant portion of the student body, but still less than a third, meaning the experiences and perspectives of the majority are not captured in this evaluation. the voices present in this evaluation predominantly come from full-time professionals, with a strong representation from teachers and university staff/administrators. however, there appears to be more limited representation from non-traditional students or those not in full-time employment, which might offer different perspectives on the program. the limited data from phd to edd transfer students, as well as the underrepresentation of certain professional backgrounds (such as research university faculty and other professions), suggests that the evaluation may not fully capture the diverse experiences and needs of the entire student body. this gap highlights an opportunity for future evaluations to engage more comprehensively with the entire cohort to ensure a more inclusive understanding of the program’s impact across different student demographics. aspect importance ratings in evaluating the program, students rated the significance of various elements on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating the least importance and 5 indicating the highest (see table 2). the highestrated aspect was the program's ability to accommodate their schedules, averaging 4.71. following closely was the importance attributed to the applicability of learned concepts in the workplace or community, with an average rating of 4.63. participation in a learning community and the flexibility of obtaining a doctorate through an online format were both highly valued, each with an average score of 4.42. additionally, the promotion of equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion (edji) within their field or community and the motivation for career advancement were considered important, scoring averages of 4.38 and 4.25, respectively. feedback from the participants further emphasized these findings. one noted the significance of the program's flexibility, which facilitates a balance between work and academic commitments. another participant highlighted the essential aspect of translating academic learning into practical application within their professional and community environments, stating that this practical application of theoretical principles was a primary reason for enrolling in the program. table 2. aspect importance aspect mean being part of a program that is designed to accommodate my schedule 4.71 applying what i learn to my workplace/community 4.63 being part of a learning community 4.42 earning a doctorate in a flexible online program 4.42 promoting edji in my field and/or community 4.38 earning my edd for career advancement 4.25 developing as a leader in my workplace/community 4.13 developing my ability to conduct research 3.96 other 3.46 earning my edd for a career change 2.79 aspect rating scores in the assessment of the program, students provided ratings for various elements on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 denoting 'poor' and 5 denoting 'excellent' (see table 3). the intellectual caliber of the faculty was highly praised, averaging a rating of 4.88. the effectiveness and support provided by the edd program director were also recognized with a high average score of 4.79. advising and guidance within the program were similarly commended, with an average score of 4.75. the quality of the coursework received positive feedback as well, with a rating of 4.50. remarks from students included positive evaluations of the faculty's intellectual contribution and the significant role of their guidance in enhancing students' research abilities. karalis noel & gorlewski impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 15 table 3. aspect rating aspect mean the overall intellectual quality of the faculty 4.88 the helpfulness of the edd program director 4.79 the helpfulness of staff in the department 4.63 the overall intellectual quality of peers in the program 4.63 the advising and guidance experience in the edd program 4.75 the overall quality of the edd program 4.71 the program's integration of edji principles 4.67 the helpfulness of the faculty in the department 4.67 the quality of the coursework in the edd program 4.50 program experience the program experience was gauged using a 5-point scale, where participants rated aspects from 'strongly disagree' (1) to 'strongly agree' (5) (see table 4). the approachability and helpfulness of the edd program director received an exceptional average score of 4.96. the clarity of the program's milestones and the level of faculty support were also highly rated, with averages of 4.91 and 4.87, respectively. general satisfaction with the program was strongly positive, averaging 4.83, a figure that was echoed by ratings for faculty availability and beneficial interactions with the program director. feedback indicated a particular appreciation for the program director's consistent availability and support, contributing to positive experiences within the program. table 4. program experience experience mean the edd program director is accessible. 4.96 the edd program director is supportive of students 4.96 my interactions with the edd program director are positive 4.96 the program milestones are clear 4.91 faculty are supportive of students 4.87 my interactions with faculty are positive 4.87 faculty are accessible 4.83 i am overall satisfied with my experience in the program 4.83 the program delivers on its mission to prepare education professionals to address problems of practice 4.78 my interactions with other students in the program are positive 4.78 my experience in the program meets or exceeds my expectations 4.78 the program design accommodates the needs of working professionals 4.78 i have a clear understanding of how to be successful in this program 4.78 staff are accessible 4.74 staff are supportive of students 4.74 my interactions with staff are positive 4.74 the program design is inclusive of local and non-local students 4.65 i have had opportunities to enhance my understanding of how to embed edji in research and practice 4.52 feedback and career ambitions students provided open-ended feedback on the overall program, indicating a desire for a wider selection of courses, specifically in higher education and social justice education. regarding the prequalifying paper defenses, students felt adequately prepared, crediting the faculty's effective guidance. career goals among the students varied, with 39.13% aspiring to become faculty at teaching-focused universities, 17.39% aiming for administrative positions, and 13.04% looking to pursue curriculum development. the responses revealed high satisfaction with the current course offerings and the supportiveness of the faculty, particularly highlighting the program's thoughtfully designed curriculum and the accessibility of faculty members like the program director. the feedback was predominantly positive, but students did suggest improvements such as timelier access to syllabi and an increase in course variety. these insights illustrate the program's strong points and provide clear guidance for future enhancements, reflecting the program's responsiveness to student needs and aspirations. this feedback also points to potential modifications to evaluation tools and techniques, an essential finding in relation to the implications of the alignment of evaluation design with program goals and values (cochran-smith & mitescu reagan, 2022). discussion and strategic development the comprehensive evaluation of the edd program for the academic year 2022-2023 underscores its strengths and identifies prospects for growth. a critical observation is the program's commitment to continuously transforming from a traditional university evaluation approach to one that is deeply reflective of its unique values and goals. attracting a diverse group of professionals, the program enriches its interdisciplinary curriculum with and through a variety of perspectives, particularly from the significant number of full-time teachers and candidates transitioning from phd programs. the evaluation process, with its emphasis on student voices and responsiveness, exemplifies the program's commitment to being a dynamic, student-centered learning environment. the robust initial enrollment figures underscore the program's strong reception and the effectiveness of its launch within the educational community. the program's structure and innovations, including the flipped defense model and scaffolded dip approach, have been met with positive responses, reflecting their perceived effectiveness in enhancing students' academic experiences. high ratings for faculty support and accessibility, along with the flexibility in accommodating professional schedules, confirm the program's success in aligning with the academic, practical, and professional needs of its students. feedback also points to the program’s well-executed alignment with student career aspirations, especially for those seeking academic and administrative roles, indicating that the pedagogical approaches and curriculum are aptly preparing students for their targeted career paths. the program's commitment to transformative leadership and equity-driven research through its signature pedagogies aligns with its justice-focused framework, resonating with students' ambitions to be change agents in education. however, the feedback calls for a deeper integration of equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion into the curriculum and into its evaluation processes, suggesting an area for the program to reinforce its mission. the program's responsiveness to student needs is evidenced by its proactive evaluations and adaptations, such as expanding course offerings and providing earlier access to cultivating change agents impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 16 111 syllabi, responding to direct feedback from students. these insights are essential for the program's continuous improvement and relevance in the evolving landscape of educational leadership and praxis. it is also important to acknowledge the limitations of this evaluation. the use of a convenience sample may introduce bias, as students might feel obligated to provide positive feedback knowing that program leaders are aware of who took the survey. additionally, the lack of longitudinal data, given that the program is only one year old, limits the ability to fully determine if the goals are being met as designed. these limitations highlight the need for ongoing, longitudinal evaluation to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the program's impact. further, integrating findings from other educational research endeavors that have used the critical pedagogy model can provide additional insights and practical applications for those wishing to implement this approach at their institutions. studies such as those by furman (2012) and jean-marie et al. (2009) demonstrate the efficacy of critical pedagogy in fostering social justice-oriented educational leaders. furman (2012) proposes a conceptual framework for social justice leadership as praxis, emphasizing the importance of developing capacities for both reflection and action across various dimensions, including personal, interpersonal, communal, systemic, and ecological. this approach aligns closely with the goals of the edd program, which aims to cultivate leaders who are not only theoretically informed but also practically equipped to enact social justice within their professional contexts. jean-marie et al. (2009) extend this discussion by exploring how leadership preparation programs can effectively prepare school leaders to address social justice issues in a global context. their findings suggest that comprehensive preparation programs that emphasize critical consciousness, reflective practice, and actionable skills are essential for developing leaders capable of fostering equitable educational environments. this insight is particularly relevant to the edd program's mission to prepare practitioners who can serve as change agents and create synergy across communities. patton (2017) provides further support for integrating critical pedagogy principles into program evaluation. by elucidating ten pedagogical principles derived from paulo freire's writings, patton highlights how these principles can be applied to develop a critical pedagogy of evaluation. this approach not only enhances the evaluation process itself but also ensures that it remains aligned with the program's broader goals of equity and social justice. cochran-smith and mitescu reagan (2022) underscore the importance of centering equity in teacher education evaluation. their work illustrates how equity-focused evaluation frameworks can drive transformative change within educational programs. by incorporating these frameworks, the edd program can further ensure that its evaluative practices are not only rigorous but also deeply aligned with its commitment to social justice. these insights align with the cped (2022) principles, reinforcing the program’s mission to prepare practitioners who can serve as change agents and create synergy across communities. by examining these and other related case studies, we can identify additional best practices and potential pitfalls, enabling us to refine our approach and better support our students in their transformative educational journeys (cochran-smith & mitescu reagan, 2022; patton, 2017). conclusion and future directions the inaugural year of the edd program has been marked by a confluence of innovative pedagogy, robust curriculum design, and a focus on preparing educational leaders and practitioners to confront and address complex pops. the 2022-2023 program evaluation highlights both the significant accomplishments and the opportunities for enhancement. as the program evolves, an emphasis on a responsive and student-involved evaluation process will be key. the edd program's commitment to systemic transformation will be further strengthened by the implementation of innovative, equity-oriented evaluation processes. corresponding with a principles-based approach described by patton (2017), evaluation procedures will seek to employ a “critical pedagogy of evaluation” (p. 49). as patton explains, “principles-focused evaluation informs choices about which principles are appropriate for what purposes in which contexts,” thus allowing for the implementation of evaluation processes that reflect and strengthen progress toward program goals (p. ix). driven by guiding principles of equity, inclusion, and collaborative leadership, these processes will actively incorporate student and alumni voices, ensuring that evaluations are not only collaborative and critically engaging but also contribute to the broader goal of fostering systemic change. further, acknowledging the importance of emotional and academic support, we will enhance our focus on students' growth in both competency development and theory comprehension. this holistic approach to student development is a core aspect of our educational philosophy. to deepen our engagement with students and alumni, we will form and establish a task force by the end of the year. this task force, comprising students and alumni, will provide critical assessment and feedback. it aligns with our program design and values, aiming at proactive recommendations for program improvements. we aim to transcend traditional evaluation methods by engaging a broader spectrum of stakeholders in our evaluation process. this includes actively involving students, alumni, faculty, staff, leaders, and community partners, thereby capturing the full ethos and mission of the program. this strategic enhancement is designed to develop the next generation of equity-minded educational leaders. by broadening the scope of our evaluative framework to include these diverse perspectives, we intend to create a more holistic, inclusive, and representative assessment of our program's impact and efficacy. this evolution in our evaluation strategy is not just an improvement in methodology, but a reflection of our commitment to embodying the principles of equity, inclusivity, and collaborative leadership that we instill in our students. as the edd program progresses, it is recommended to adopt several strategies to continue its path of excellence and adaptability. these include the expansion of the curriculum with new courses that tackle emerging educational challenges and cater to student interests, particularly in areas like social justice and educational policy. enhanced flexibility is also essential, calling for revisions in synchronous course scheduling and the timely dissemination of syllabi to meet the varied needs of the student body. a deeper integration of edji principles is paramount, both within the program's pedagogical practices and curriculum content. the program should maintain its dedication to continuous evaluation, ensuring that student feedback is integral to its developmental strategy. additionally, fostering a robust alumni network will be essential for ongoing program enhancement and for nurturing professional karalis noel & gorlewski impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.451 17 collaborations that extend beyond the program's immediate community. in conclusion, the edd program stands as a pivotal initiative in cultivating educational leaders and practitioners who are both academically proficient and ethically driven to enact positive change. by continuously evolving in response to the feedback from its students, alumni, and other key stakeholders, the program is not only teaching but also exemplifying the principles of collaborative, transformative leadership and change. the program's alignment with professional aspirations and its innovative approach to leadership development in education bode well for its continued success. through ongoing assessments and related adaptations, the program is well-positioned to evolve and respond to the dynamic landscape of educational leadership and practice, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of cultivating the next generation of change agents in education. references akour, m., & alenezi, m. 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(2018). social justice leadership—theory and practice: a case of ontario. educational administration quarterly, 54(3), 470–498. zinkhan, g. (2005). the marketplace, emerging technology and marketing theory. marketing theory, 5, 105–115. yordanova, k. (2007). mobile learning and integration of advanced technologies in education. in proceedings of the 2007 international conference on computer systems and technologies (pp. 1-6). https://doi.org/10.7196/ajhpe.2019.v11i1.1073 https://doi.org/10.7196/ajhpe.2019.v11i1.1073 tiffany karalis noel university at buffalo–suny julie gorlewski hunter college–cuny purpose and evaluative approach positionality statement evaluation approach program design and pedagogy curriculum map and milestone-based learning cohort dynamics and community engagement a justice-focused educational framework program features and structural innovations flipped defense model scaffolded dissertation in practice (dip) model continuous improvement through evaluation utilization of technology signature pedagogies annual evaluation results aspect importance ratings aspect rating scores program experience feedback and career ambitions discussion and strategic development conclusion and future directions references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 49 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 building teacher capacity for educating students living in poverty jaime hooper western carolina university jaimehooper04@gmail.com heidi von dohlen western carolina university hbvondohlen@wcu.edu emily virtue western carolina university evirtue@wcu.edu abstract students living in poverty and/or experiencing childhood trauma consistently report suboptimal educational results nationwide. the primary focus of this improvement initiative was to build teacher capacity to understand their implicit bias and move from deficit to asset-based thinking in relation to students and families living in poverty. employing improvement science methodology at one rural elementary school, a 12-week, four-session professional learning module was delivered containing the following topics: teacher implicit bias and privilege; school discipline and special education data demonstrating disproportionate representation of students living in poverty; asset versus deficit thinking, adverse childhood experiences and their impacts on education; and culturally responsive classroom practices. findings demonstrated 13 out of 14 participants (92.86%) implemented new learning into classroom teaching practices yielding a 25% decline in referrals for special education testing for students living in poverty, and a 6.61% decline in out-of-class discipline for students living in poverty. keywords improvement science, asset-based thinking, implicit bias, poverty, teacher-student differential education is the great equalizer and the american dream is available to anyone who is willing to work hard and go after it. these are fundamental beliefs deeply embedded in american society. however, current research and educational outcomes of students in america’s public schools do not support these claims. what is abundantly clear is fewer educational opportunities exist for students living in poverty. this is a complex problem with multiple contributing causes. the primary cause addressed in this research study is that because of teacher implicit bias, they have limited capacity to support students experiencing classism or living in poverty, resulting in suboptimal educational performance (ladson-billings, 2007). as our educational system currently exists, it is tailored to white students in middle and upper socioeconomic classes (bowles & gintis, 2011). similarly, as of 2018, 79% of us educators were white, 76% were female, and the median salary range was $57,900, situating teachers in the middle class (national center for educational statistics, 2020). any individual student, school or community that falls outside that category in race or class is set up for a harder road to success. classism, because of systemic oppression, can remain invisible to those who are a part of the system. ladson-billings (2007) demonstrated with this invisibility, individuals could hold classist views or myths without recognizing them and the hardships that result for vulnerable students and families for which these myths apply. for educators, this is referred to as teacher implicit bias. because of oppression and lack of resources due to classism, individuals affected by it can suffer related trauma (blodgett & lanigan, 2018; goodman et al., 2012). cohen et al. (2016) defined childhood trauma as events the child directly experiences, witnesses, or learns about that involve actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. they outlined some specific examples including, but not limited to, child physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect, witnessing or being the direct victim of domestic violence, community violence, school violence, motor vehicle or other accidents, natural or man-made disasters, or death of a parent, sibling or attachment figure. individuals can identify issues such as hunger and homelessness and easily understand how trauma can result. however, seeing trauma that results from racism and classism is more difficult to identify and understand. therefore, the trauma resulting from those societal systems can remain hidden (sensoy & diangelo, 2017). bowles and gintis (2011) highlighted lower income communities tend to experience more violence, poor schools tend to have fewer resources and less qualified teachers, and students of color tend to live in poorer communities and attend poorer schools at a higher rate than their white peers. children living in poverty and having suboptimal educational experiences is a complex issue with https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6299-4707 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0304-8734 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1466-9018 building teacher capacity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 50 multiple contributing causes resulting in surviving through traumatic experiences. to take an in-depth look at this issue, one must consider the external factors contributing to the struggle (societal and environmental) and internal factors (issues within schools). examining these areas brings clarity to the complexity of the problem and how inequities continue to be reproduced in u.s. public schools. positionality of the scholar practitioner at the time of this study, the lead author was the principal of bradford elementary school (bes, pseudonym) and the scholar practitioner of the change initiative outlined in this research study. we present the scholar practitioner’s positionality statement in first person language. issues related to students living in poverty is a problem of practice of which i am well aware. i understand this problem has historically affected students in frederick county schools (fcs, pseudonym). not only am i, myself, a product of fcs, i am also a child who lived in poverty in this same community. therefore, i have a similar social identity to many students in my school. personally experiencing poverty as a child and seeing how students living in poverty are continuing to have suboptimal educational experiences has prompted me to address the issue in greater depth. having become more immersed in social justice and equity in my doctoral program, as a school leader, i have gained an awareness that i must address issues related to students living in poverty and teacher implicit bias related to classism with the faculty at the school i lead. i now understand that as a white, middle-class, female, i have implicit biases. i understand how these biases, although unintentional, can have negative impacts on student educational experiences and overall performance. i am compelled to provide training to the educators at bes so they may also see their own biases and gain a better understanding of the students that enter their classrooms every school day. my dissertation in practice (dip) aligns with vision of the carnegie project on the education doctorate’s (cped) vision in which “…equity-minded educational professionals lead lasting and positive change…” (cped, n.d., para. 2). the dip is a capstone project, aligned with cped’s guiding principles which includes integrating theory and practice through systematic inquiry as the scholar practitioner both constructs and applies knowledge. in this dip, i address a complex, equity-centered issue within my local context to bring about positive change (cped, 2022) as i answer the call for trauma-informed school leadership (greig et al., 2017; stokes & brunzell, 2020). review of literature to begin to understand the problem, it must be made clear that trauma and poverty are prevalent among children in our society. sacks et al. (2014) reported 46% of children in the u.s. experience at least one adverse childhood experience (ace). these traumatic events are defined as prolonged exposure of children to traumatic childhood experiences that have immediate and lifelong impacts (felitti et al., 1998). sacks et al. (2014) also reported economic hardship is the most common ace reported nationally. souers and hall (2016) found “nearly 35 million children experience at least one ace, and every 10 seconds a report of child abuse is made in the u.s.” (p. 19). not only is social class an indicator for advanced risk of trauma, but so is race (larkin et al., 2012). national data shows children of color live in poverty at a much higher rate than white children (national center for educational statistics, 2019). poverty rates for black children were 39%, american indian, 36%, latinx 33%, pacific islander 25%, and multiracial 22%, while white children in poverty were reported at only 13% (carey et al., 2018, p. 114). in a review of aces literature performed by larkin et al. (2012), several groups of at-risk youth were defined as being high risk for ace exposure including “male sexual abuse survivors, children of teenage parents, and black adolescents exposed to community violence” (p. 268). ellis and dietz (2017) explained in communities where “food insecurity, domestic violence, unemployment, inadequate educational systems, crime, and social justice issues are common, aces abound, social supports are scarce, and toxic stress results” (p. 87). these findings demonstrate that poverty and trauma can go hand-in-hand. the ace study, reported by the center of disease control (cdc) and performed in cooperation with kaiser permanente, reported a positive correlation exists between the number of childhood traumatic experiences a person has to health risks and diseases in adults (felitti et al., 1998). in other words, the more exposure to childhood trauma one experiences, the more likely they are to suffer from health risks and diseases as adults; childhood trauma has lifelong harmful implications (souers & hall, 2016). persons with more than four experiences and in multiple categories, like poverty and domestic violence exposure, have a four to twelvefold increase of health risk factors in adulthood compared to individuals not experiencing traumatic events in childhood (felitti et al., 1998). crosby et al. (2018) highlighted how educators can unintentionally make judgments about students and their families when they do not understand the effects of trauma in children. educators may place blame on students and families as the reason for an educational struggle, but never look at school system practices to ensure the child is not being re-traumatized at school (chambers, 2009; gorski, 2011; ladson-billings, 2006; lareau, 1987). gaffney (2019) underscored this thinking releases the educator from self-evaluating teaching practices and allows the educator to remain oblivious to implicit bias that perpetuates suboptimal educational experiences for vulnerable students. even the most well-meaning educator can contribute inadequate support for students living in poverty (gaffney, 2019). hooks (2014) noted teacher implicit bias toward students based on race and class can negatively affect their education. although responses may be unintentional and unrecognized by the individual teacher or school system, students of color and/or living in poverty are regularly discriminated against in their education. ladson-billings (1995) highlighted academic success for african-american students often came at the expense of their cultural and psychosocial wellbeing noting that even academic success for some marginalized groups can still cause additional trauma within the school setting. trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools are becoming more prevalent. educators are becoming more aware of the effects of trauma on the brain and are being presented with practices to address these issues in the classroom (thomas et al., 2019). craig (2015) identified the effects of trauma on neurological development and the consequences these effects have on education for children, hooper et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 51 outlining practices for teachers and administrators in addressing these in the school environment. practices such as well-established routines, calming and focusing strategies, and teacher professional learning on maslow’s hierarchy of needs prepare educators to address these issues in the classroom (craig, 2016). focusing on practices alone and not looking at the larger system of school promotes deficit ideology. it allows educators to see the issue of trauma as a student problem and releases educators from responsibility for student failure (gorski, 2011; mijs, 2016). similarly, researchers document common myths about people living in poverty, which include they have a weak work ethic, are unmotivated, and have no value of education (davis & museus, 2019; gorski, 2008; valencia, 1997). gorski (2011) also noted the reality is parents work multiple jobs and are away from home for more hours during the week because of work requirements. therefore, parents and those in poverty in general have a strong work ethic, are motivated, and do value education, but are limited in the time and energy they can devote to engaging with the school because work monopolizes more of their time than middle-class workers. however, because of deficit ideology, “buying into certain myths and stereotypes that inform educational philosophy and practice,” (gorski, 2011, p. 158) students and their families experiencing classism are often viewed as flawed by educators. hooks (2014) highlighted teachers are unprepared to be culturally sensitive and responsive to students who experience classism and racism. with a median range salary reported at $57,900, the american teaching force is predominantly made up of white, female, middle class teachers (national center for educational statistics, 2020). being educated and living a middle class lifestyle leaves many educators unable to understand and connect to children living in poverty on a personal level. additionally, teacher preparatory programs and professional learning opportunities in schools are not tailored toward educating teachers on issues of racism, classism, or teacher implicit bias (hooks, 2014; howard & rodriguez-scheel, 2016). the harm caused by classism not only affects a child’s overall health and safety but can also have an adverse effect on a student’s education experience and performance (gorski, 2018; sacks et al., 2014). therefore, an education system that is culturally insensitive and unresponsive to vulnerable student needs can be a source of additional trauma and reproduce a system of repetitive failure for students experiencing racism and classism. blodgett and lanigan (2018) reported rates of academic failure, attendance problems, and school behavioral problems among elementary students increase as ace exposure increases. they also found a positive correlation between aces and poverty, finding ace incidents were reported at a higher level in title i schools (schools identified for federal monies based on the number of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch programs/number of students in poverty), compared to schools who did not qualify based on poverty. in comparing aces with poverty level among primary school students, goodman et al. (2012) concluded, “the percentage of students who have trauma decreases as student socioeconomic status increases” (p. 255). according to a national longitudinal survey conducted by the national center for education statistics (2017), students experiencing trauma were given an individualized education plan (iep) at a rate “more than double that of their peers not experiencing trauma” (goodman et al., 2012, p. 256). students experiencing trauma are 50% more likely to be labeled with an educational disability than students without trauma (souers & hall, 2016). additionally, schools identify african-american students with educational disabilities at a rate much higher than white students, and african-american out-of-school suspension rates far surpass white rates (crosby et al., 2018). souers and hall (2016) found students with increased ace exposures struggle in school with attendance, behavior, coursework, and overall health. struggling in any one of these areas can cause academic challenges, but struggles in all listed areas drastically increase the likelihood of suboptimal educational performance based on ace experiences. souers and hall (2016) reported the following increases in students reporting any ace exposure: “students reporting only one ace had an increased likelihood of struggle in all areas, demonstrating any exposure to adverse childhood experiences has a significant impact on school performance; a student with 3+ aces is 4.9 times more likely to have school attendance problems, 6.1 times more likely to have behavioral issues, 2.9 times more likely to struggle with coursework, and 3.9 times more likely to have health problems than students reporting no known aces” (p. 21). goodman et al. (2012) found students experiencing aces are more likely to be identified as having an educational disability. these data highlight the need to increase teacher capacity to address issues related to students experiencing trauma. in order to foster relationship building/attachment to the teacher, students exposed to systematic racism and classism need to see their learning space as calm and predictable (guskey, 2010). teachers can mitigate trauma-related behaviors through informed practices (maynard et al., 2019; stokes & brunzell, 2020) by implementing strategies presented by craig (2015, 2016) such as making their classrooms calm and predictable by posting routines on the wall, lowering lights and playing music, and allowing purposeful movement such as stretching and breathing throughout lessons. teachers can help students internally reflect and teach students how to use their minds to choose what to focus on to maintain focus and attention (craig, 2015, 2016). these strategies help students maintain predictability, begin to understand self-regulation, and increase student achievement (maynard et al., 2019; stokes & brunzell, 2020). in addition to calm and predictable spaces, marginalized student groups must also feel valued culturally in their classrooms through culturally relevant pedagogy (gay, 2018; ladson-billings, 1995). teaching practices that purposefully and systematically include student cultures as a part of classroom learning and presented by the teacher as “authorized or official knowledge” (ladson-billings, 1995, p. 483). critical components of culturally relevant pedagogy include: “students must experience academic success, develop and maintain cultural competence, and develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (ladson-billings, 1995, p. 160). developing educators to design classrooms with cultural responsiveness in mind will ensure schools are not re-traumatizing students and all students achieve academic success. teacher capacity building in recognizing student behaviors associated with trauma allows teachers to not be caught up in emotion, react in anger, or feel personally victimized by student behavior because they understand the behavior is due to trauma rather than misbehavior occurring out of defiance (craig, 2015). such knowledge increases the teacher’s likelihood of responding appropriately, maintaining a positive relationship with the student, and reducing the possibility of re-traumatization (gaffney, 2019; building teacher capacity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 52 stokes & brunzell, 2020). additionally, by staying calm, the teacher reinforces to students that they are neither frightened nor surprised by strong feelings and know what to do to bring those feelings back under control, maintaining stability and calm in the classroom (craig, 2016). being culturally sensitive and responsive requires the educator to be self-aware when interacting with students. souers and hall (2016) argued educators need to know their triggers, give themselves space to breathe, pause before responding, practice empathetic listening, and establish an environment where student strengths are recognized. such practices are key to becoming culturally sensitive and responsive. educators need to employ these techniques in high-stress/high-emotion situations in the classroom. responding correctly can be of great benefit to both the teacher and the student (thomas et al., 2019; souers & hall, 2016). gaffney (2019) argued that to make a true impact on educational experiences for students of color, living in poverty, and/or experiencing childhood trauma the school’s starting point is to recognize and address the school’s role in creating and recreating trauma. simply addressing student trauma without looking at the system of school will result in efforts falling short (crenshaw, 1998; ladson-billings, 2007). teacher learning that promotes a deeper understanding of poverty and their own preconceived notions, stereotypes, and deficit-ideology about students coming from poverty is a necessary step in educators’ abilities to build relationships, teach content, and transform their mindset about poverty (gorski, 2008, 2011). teachers must recognize implicit bias and systemic policies and procedures that negatively affect students (banaji & greenwald, 2016). for a professional learning opportunity for teachers to be successful and transferred into classroom practice, the teacher must be invested and feel the opportunity is necessary. van duzor (2011) defined motivating factors for teachers in transferring professional training to classroom practices as experiencing professional development (pd) that “addresses learning needs specific to their students, teach skills, and deepen instruction in real-world problems” (p. 374). in addition, the team must ensure the pd requires teachers to play an active role where they are recognized as professionals and where the pd is framed as teacher learning rather than teacher training (van duzor, 2011). purpose the purpose of this study was to build teacher capacity to understand implicit bias and to move from deficit to asset-based thinking in relation to students and families living in poverty. the ultimate goal of this study was to build teacher capacity to educate students living in poverty, increase classroom practices that demonstrate asset-based ideology, decrease referrals to special education for students living in poverty, and decrease student out of class discipline for students living in poverty, thus creating more equitable outcomes for these often marginalized students. context of study frederick county schools is a rural school district in the southeastern region of the united states with a total district enrollment of under 2,000 students. there is one high school, one middle school, and one elementary school (bradford elementary). this study was conducted at bradford es. because of the small, rural context, both district and school data are presented. within frederick county, student demographics demonstrate minimal diversity. american indians are the largest minority student group at 15.6 % of the population. the district is primarily white (76.9%), 3.4% hispanic, < 1% asian, < 1% african american, and < 1% two or more ethnic groups. students qualifying for free/reduced lunch in the district is 60.97%. the public school forum of [state] (psf, 2019) confirms poverty is an issue for frederick county. frederick county’s economic indicators are well below state averages. the median household income is $15,009 below the state average of $52,757, and the unemployment rate is 6.80%, which is 2.3% higher than the state average” (p. 15). in addition to the poverty rate, families with department of social services (dss) involvement is an indicator that children experience trauma as well as poverty within frederick county (psf, 2013, 2019). frederick county reports numbers of children in dss custody at a rate 293% times higher than the state average, and child abuse and neglect numbers reported are 226% times higher than the state average (psf, 2013, 2019). frederick county ranks higher than state averages in teen pregnancy, child food insecurity, and child obesity. these data are clear indicators that some students within the frederick county school system experience childhood trauma as well as poverty at an alarming rate (psf, 2013, 2019). an analysis of special education students and socio-economic status in frederick county schools show a drastic inequity between the number of all students in fcs who qualify for free and/or reduced lunch prices based on family income/poverty level and the number of students identified with an educational disability that qualify for free and/or reduced lunch. as a district, fcs students qualify for free/reduced lunch prices at a rate of 60.97% (frederick county schools, 2020b). special education students, making up 15.3% of the total population, qualify for free/reduced lunch prices at a rate of 73.2%, which is 12.3% higher than the district (frederick county schools, 2020a). although fcs has a high number of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch because of the high poverty level in the community, students with educational disabilities qualify at an even higher rate than the district. the high number of students living in poverty in the special education program shows students are being over-identified as having an educational disability. in frederick county schools, not only are students living in poverty over-identified as having an educational disability, they also receive more out-of-class discipline referrals compared to students not living in poverty. an analysis of all out-of-class student discipline referrals in fall 2019 indicated that students at bradford elementary school did not receive equitable out-of-class discipline, and the inequities occurred based on socioeconomic status. analysis of 2019 discipline data was used instead of 2020 data to avoid any impact resulting from school closures due to the covid-19 pandemic. school data is clear. in 2019, bradford es had a free and/or reduced lunch rate of 65.6%. however, students who received out-of-class discipline and qualified for free and/or reduced lunch rate was 75.16%, meaning students living in poverty and qualifying for free and/or reduced lunch were assigned out-of-class discipline at a rate 9.56% higher than their representation in the entire student population. additionally, the total number of out-of-class discipline referrals shows students qualifying for free and/or reduced lunch hooper et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 53 comprised 85% of all referrals given fall semester 2019, which is 19.4% higher than their representation in the student population. historically, teacher-learning opportunities in frederick county schools have focused on increasing student academic performance through research-based practices, using data to make educational decisions, and increasing teacher capacity to integrate technology into lesson delivery. understanding teacher implicit bias, intersectionality, deficit ideology, the myths of poverty, and how aces associated with trauma have negative impacts on education have not been offered to frederick county educators as a professional learning opportunity prior to this research study. methods the researchers used improvement science methods. bryk et al. (2015) described improvement science as an action-research design that employs rapid tests of change to guide the development, revision, and fine-tuning of change initiatives within education. langley et al. (2009) outlined three questions that were used to guide planning, teacher education, and research collection; “what are we trying to accomplish? what change can we make that will result in an improvement? how will we know that a change is an improvement?” (p. 97). multiple cycles of the plan, do, study, act (pdsa) framework were carried out throughout this change initiative to collect data to address those questions (langley et al., 2009). the first author was the principal lead researcher. they developed a design team at bradford es that consisted of a school counselor, math coach, literacy coach, classroom teacher, special education teacher, and two teachers in frederick county schools who were currently earning their masters in school administration in a program that focused on growing equity-centered leaders. participants the four session professional learning module for this study was offered to all employees of bradford es. all 36 certified teachers at bradford es participated in the four session professional learning module; 14 (38.89%) volunteered to participate in the research study. this training was infused as part of the required school improvement team meetings. therefore, certified and non-certified employees participated in the training. however, because the goal of the study was to increase educational outcomes for students living in poverty and to bring awareness to teacher implicit bias, only certified teachers were invited to participate in the research study. participation was both voluntary and anonymous. all participants were given a unique identifier number to ensure anonymity. procedure four one-hour learning sessions occurred online after school hours. learning sessions occurred online due to the covid-19 pandemic. the four session topics included 1) presenting local, school, and district data on poverty and trauma, 2) asset-based thinking and teacher-student differential on life experience, 3) the myth versus the reality of poverty and trauma, and 4) traumainformed teaching and classroom strategies to positively impact the educational experiences of students living in poverty. in the following sections, we describe each learning session and include an explanation of information delivered, a descriptive analysis of how data was used throughout the research project to make adjustments as necessary to subsequent sessions, and a statistical analysis of results collected throughout the project. session 1: understanding the why the main objectives in session 1 were to highlight the number of students living in poverty and experiencing trauma to increase understanding of how the lived experiences of the educators vary from the experiences of many of their students. presenting national and local statistics about the prevalence of disparities based on race and class demonstrated to educators the relevance and need for this professional learning. understanding the direct connection to students in bradford es increased teacher buy-in to the professional development sessions. ensuring teachers understood district and school data reflected implicit bias based on race and class was key. teachers learned how implicit bias related to students living in poverty and experiencing trauma experience negative impacts on student education. to demonstrate to faculty the presence of implicit bias throughout the district and the school related to poverty, researchers presented district level special education data and bradford es student discipline data. district special education data showed an overidentification of students living in poverty as having an educational disability by 12.3% (frederick county schools, 2019). additionally, bradford es student discipline data showed students living in poverty received out-of-class-discipline at a rate 9.56% higher than their proportional representation and a frequency rate of 19.40% higher than their middle and upper class peers. data illuminated students living in poverty received more school discipline and lost more instructional time overall than middle and upper class students in bradford es (frederick county schools, 2019). to close the session, faculty were provided definitions for implicit bias and privilege and asked specific questions to help guide the conversations. • what are some privileges you had as a child that many children you teach do not have? • how did these advantages/privileges impact your education? • can these privileges be a barrier to your connection and understanding of students who do not have them? session 2: asset-based thinking asset-based thinking was presented to increase teachers’ understanding of how their thinking about their students and students’ families, specifically those living in poverty, can result in negative educational experiences for those vulnerable students. the main objectives covered in session 2 were national educational trends for students living in poverty, defining and understanding the teacher-student differential (the idea that any difference that exists between the teacher and student, race, class, gender, etc. can be a barrier to relationship building and negatively impact student educational experiences), understanding intersectionality and the educational impacts for students with more than one differential from the white, middle class norm, recognizing deficits versus assetsbased thinking, and how educator thinking effects both the educator and the student. guiding questions were asked to assist teachers in understanding new concepts. participants were asked to discuss the following questions: building teacher capacity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 54 1. think of your students. name some differences they have from you personally that could be a barrier to relationship building. 2. how do you think about these students? is it dread? is it sympathy? is it dismay? 3. how can this thinking affect student educational experiences? to assist participants in conversations about deficit-based versus assets-based thinking, several questions were posed to guide the conversation: 1. what are your personal student triggers? 2. what deficits do you find yourself focusing on most often? 3. what impact does that thinking have on you as the teacher & the student you are thinking about? 4. how could those deficits be reframed into assets-based thinking? 5. think of a challenging student. 6. what are their assets? 7. have you specifically pointed out their assets to them so they are aware of your specific praise? 8. have you ever had a very difficult student that once you learned “their story” your entire attitude and approach with that student changed? 9. if yes, share your story. 10. what changed? was it you or the student? 11. what was the result? these questions required teachers to reflect on their own students, their own classroom practices, thoughts about students and families, their own positionality compared to that of their students, and their own negative thoughts and feelings. teachers learned they must identify deficit versus assets-based thinking in order to address their own practices which can be a lifelong journey. session 3: realities of poverty & trauma the main objectives covered in session 3 were disproving the idea of a culture of poverty, clarifying myths versus realities of poverty, understanding the dangers of a culture of classism in the classroom, and understanding trauma and its effects on student experiences. participants were guided through the dangers of believing in a culture of poverty and the stereotypes associated with the false ideology. participants were guided through scenarios to understand how believing poverty stereotypes can lead to classism in the classroom and what negative impacts a culture of classism can have on student experiences. national data were presented referencing educational experiences for students living in poverty and showing how resource allocations are dispersed inequitably along class lines across the nation. to help guide conversations and help participants process the new information presenters asked the following questions: 1. were any of the myths versus realities research shocking to you? 2. can these myths or stereotypes that we hold unintentionally affect how long we are willing to suffer with a student, and how does that ability to suffer with them affect their overall educational experience? 3. what information related to the national statistics for lowincome schools spoke to you personally or was shocking to you? session 3 then progressed from discussing poverty to discussing trauma students may experience and the impact that trauma has on educational experiences. we presented a review of maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the educational impacts of aces (felitti et al., 1998). poverty is the most common ace reported nationally, and as aces increase, struggles in school increase. participants were presented with information about fight, flight, and freeze, the body’s natural responses to fear and what those can look like as student behavior in the classroom. we then gave the following guiding statements and questions to encourage conversations about trauma, the teacher, and the classroom. 1. we can see food insecurity and clothing needs as poverty and a sign of possible trauma, and our school is phenomenal in addressing those needs. 2. we view student behaviors such as fight, flight, and freeze as disrespect, defiance, and insubordination and not as a sign or symptom of poverty or trauma. why is this when we see the other so clearly? session 4: classroom strategies in session 4, we gave participants specific strategies to implement into their classroom practices to positively impact the educational experiences of students living in poverty. professional learning without impact on practice is ineffective. this session was designed to provide teachers with tools to specifically inform their practice. learning objectives for session 4 were to understand the impact of trauma-informed teaching and discuss strategies to use within the classroom for students who live in poverty and/or have experienced trauma. participants were then guided through specific ways to build a strong classroom community, foster good school-home communication, and create a safe atmosphere for learning. after presenting each category, participants were given opportunities to share with their colleagues ways they incorporate those aspects of trauma-informed teaching into their classrooms. participants were asked to give specific examples of ways they meet students’ needs while teaching the curriculum and the importance of having a growth mindset for students, as well as teaching them to have a growth mindset for themselves. the presentation ended by reminding participants that nothing affects student experiences more in a classroom than the teacher. being trauma-informed and purposeful in classroom design affects student experiences (brunzell et al., 2019; craig, 2016). at the end of each professional development session, participants completed a reflective impact questionnaire so they could document their learning. the survey included two open-ended questions: (1) list three major ideas learned today and rank them in order of importance and (2) what one thing challenged or changed your thinking or perspective? results from the survey were analyzed at the end of each session to inform following sessions. results in this section, we present results from the reflective impact questionnaire as well as school data pre and post this 12-week hooper et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 55 improvement initiative related to out of class discipline, referrals to special education, and implementation of asset-based teaching practices. participant responses to a reflective impact questionnaire were collected at the end of each session, and the qualitative data were analyzed to determine participant learning throughout the foursession professional learning module. in vivo coding was used as first-round coding to analyze each question on the reflective impact questionnaire. saldaña (2016), defined in vivo coding as “a word or short phrase from the actual language found in the qualitative data record” (p. 105). once individual phrases/statements were analyzed, pattern coding was used for second-round coding. miles et al. (2014) noted pattern coding as taking “segments of data and organizing them into categories, themes or constructs” (p. 86) to enable patterns within the data to emerge. table 1 illustrates participant learning based on themes presented in each session. table 1. list major ideas learned in order of importance session themes number of responses percentage 4 trauma-informed practices 13/13 100% 1 district data on poverty & trauma 10/12 83.33% 2 asset v. deficit-based thinking 10/14 71.43% 3 myths v. realities of poverty 9/14 64.29% the major idea reported with the greatest frequency was in session 4 involving trauma-informed practices with 100% of participants indicating this topic as new information learned. the next most reported frequency for major learning was 83% in session 1 involving district data on students living in poverty and the disparities students in poverty face with overidentification of educational disabilities and out-of-class discipline. other major ideas learned in session 2 were asset versus deficit based thinking (71%) and in session 3, myths versus the realities of poverty (64%). these findings confirm that teachers, even those who have worked in highpoverty districts, need intentional learning related to trauma and poverty. data confirmed teachers experienced new learning as a result of the pd, especially in reference to how asset-based thinking can impact students beyond the classroom. one participant stated, “focusing on students’ assets rather than deficits makes a huge difference in school and in life performance.” another participant said, “students pick up on how teachers feel about them.” yet another participant espoused, “fill your students with positive and kind words and they will believe you.” such responses edify gorski’s (2011) assertion that deficit thinking towards students can affect the way students think about themselves. qualitative data from session 2 confirmed teachers' previous lack of knowledge related to students living in poverty. one participant relayed, “i knew poverty was bad in frederick county but i did not have a clue of the severity of it compared to the state numbers.” these data demonstrate an increase in teacher understanding of the level of poverty of the students they teach and how the educator not living in poverty has a lens (sees a situation) different from their student living in poverty. developing this understanding between teachers and students is vital. van duzor (2011) noted when professional development to which teachers are exposed directly connects to the students they teach, it is more likely to be accepted as valuable and meaningful. having this realization can impact the way a teacher teaches, approaches classroom management, and builds and maintains individual student relationships. table 2 illustrates the session and frequency of themes that challenged or changed participants’ thinking or perspective. table 2. what one thing challenged or changed your thinking or perspective? session themes number of responses percentage 3 myths v. realities of poverty 7/14 50% 1 meeting student needs 5/12 41.66% 4 student mental health 5/13 38.46% 2 asset-based thinking 5/14 35.71% when asked, “what one thing challenged or changed your thinking or perspective?,” the greatest frequency occurred in session 3 where 50% of participants reported myths versus realities of poverty was both important new learning and challenged their current thinking. this finding aligns with hooks (2014) research regarding how stereotypes about marginalized groups are difficult to change. similarly, banaji and greenwald (2016) reported stereotypes are deeply ingrained and require a conscious understanding and desire to recognize and address them when they surface. teachers having increased awareness of their personal biases is vital to impact implicit bias that goes unrecognized. one participant stated, “one thing that challenged me was to stop and think about why a student may be acting out and is consistently in trouble.” another participant pondered, “we should be looking at our students individually and be careful to take in their personal situations before just sending them straight to student support or the office.” another participant noted, “we need to take a hard look as to why our students act the way that they do.” for teacher learning to truly impact student learning, it must be transferred into classroom practice. when teachers are able to reframe negative student behaviors and see those behaviors as symptoms of stress and trauma rather than defiance and disrespect, educational experiences for students can be positively impacted (craig, 2016; stokes & brunzell, 2020). an analysis of district data prior to this 12-week study revealed students living in poverty were identified at a higher rate as having an educational disability than their white, middle-class peers in fcs. frederick county schools special education rate was reported at 15.3% (frederick county school system, 2020a). this demonstrates the district was over identifying students with disabilities compared to the national average, and this problem is higher for students in the district who are living in poverty. in fall 2020, eight students were referred for special education testing (frederick county schools, 2020a). six of these students (75%) qualified for free/reduced lunch, and two (25%) of students did not (frederick county schools, 2020b). therefore, in fall 2020, students referred for special education testing qualified for free/reduced lunch at a rate of 75%, which is 14.97% higher than the proportional representation of students in the district qualifying for free/reduced lunch. during fall semester of 2021, which is the timeframe of this 12-week research project, 26 students were referred for special education testing (frederick county schools, 2021a), with 13 (50%) of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch building teacher capacity impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 56 and 13 (50%) of students not qualifying which is proportional representation of students referred for special education testing (frederick county schools, 2021b). a comparison of fall 2020 special education referral data to fall 2021 data demonstrates a decline from 75% to 50% of students being referred for special education testing who qualify for free/reduced lunch. this is an overall reduction of 25% after this 12-week improvement initiative. because teachers do a majority of referrals for special education testing, we believe training related to over-identification prevents teachers from using indicators of trauma as indicators of special education service needs. see figure 1 below for the 2019 to 2021 comparison of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch based on poverty level and qualifying as having an educational disability, compared to their paying peers. figure 1. students referred for e.c. testing: free/reduced lunch to those not qualifying out-of-class student discipline referrals from fall 2019 indicated that students at bradford es were not receiving equitable out-ofclass discipline, and the inequities were occurring along the lines of class. (analysis of 2019 discipline data was used instead of 2020 data to avoid any discrepancies resulting from school closures due to the covid-19 pandemic). in 2019, bradford es had a free and/or reduced lunch rate of 65.6% (frederick county school system, 2019). an analysis of the total number of out-of-class discipline referrals revealed students living in poverty comprised 85% of all referrals given fall 2019, which is 19.4% higher than their representation in the student population. from august to december 2021, the time period encompassing the 12-week improvement intiative, the frequency at which students living in poverty who received out-of-class discipline was at a rate of 13.16% higher than their proportionate representation. although still elevated, upon completion of the four-session learning modules, bradford es saw a 6.24% decline in the frequency of students living in poverty/qualifying for free reduced lunch receiving out-of-class discpline. figure 2 illustrates the decrease in out-of-class discipline during this 12-week research study. therefore, both special education referral reduction data and out-of-class student discipline data demonstrated a positive change during this time of this research study. however, whether or not teachers implement new learning into practice is vital for the longterm success of the improvement initiative. guskey (2010) espoused educators are more invested in learning opportunities when aligned with self-defined professional growth needs and when teachers believe new learning is directly related to the students they teach. figure 2. comparison of poverty and frequency of out-of-class discipline (2019 and fall 2021) implementation of classroom practices related to poverty and assets-based ideology rose to 92.86% by the completion of the research initiative. 92.86% (n = 12) of participants reported a willingness to transfer new learning associated into classroom practice. clearly, information provided in the learning modules was deemed useful and necessary by participants. student end of year standardized test scores for the 2021-2022 increased for students living in poverty. sas institute education value-added assessment system (sas evaas) considers a student group falling in the range of -2 to +2 as meeting projected growth on standardized tests for the school year. students falling below -2 are labeled as not meeting expected growth, and students achieving above +2 are labeled as exceeding expected growth on standardized tests for any given school year (frederick county schools, 2022). sas evaas reported data for bradford es as follows: economically disadvantaged students met expected growth with a growth index of -1.33, and students with disabilities met expected growth with an overall growth index of -1.14. while these marginalized groups met expected growth, white students were reported as not meeting expected growth with a reported growth index of -2.88 (frederick county schools, 2022). the success of bradford es students living in poverty meeting expected growth on grade level standardized tests suggests this improvement initiative positively impacted student performance on standardized tests, thus positively impacted the educational experiences of these students. the lack of growth for white students is also an indication that while teachers are focusing on implicit bias and poverty, maintaining a focus on rigorous core instruction for all students needs to be an ongoing priority. limitations one limitation of this study is its small sample size. however, research addressing teacher implicit bias in either rural or urban settings is limited. furthermore, research that addresses teacher implicit bias related to students living in poverty and/or experiencing childhood trauma in a rural setting is scant. therefore, although small, this study adds to the current research base. an additional limitation of this study is that data was not collected to determine why individual students were referred for exceptional children testing; only the total numbers of students referred were analyzed. determining the reason for the increase in students referred is outside the scope of this research study. 85% 76.52% 15% 23.48% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 2019 2021 students qual ifying for free/reduced lunch paying hooper et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.423 57 however, referral data should be analyzed by the district to determine why referrals increased from 2019 to 2021, and if it was perhaps due to learning loss as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. discussion and recommendations addressing individual beliefs is complex. beliefs to which we have been socialized are deeply ingrained and difficult to change. problems of inequity associated with beliefs individuals possess allow issues related to poverty and trauma to hide in plain sight within classroom walls. sensoy and diangelo (2017) stressed how difficult it is for individuals to be aware of the water in which they have always been swimming. the existence of the bias can go completely unnoticed because of its implicit nature being ingrained in societal norms. leaders can easily avoid this type of challenge, but tackling the beliefs of teachers related to the students they teach is imperative to see real change and provide optimal educational experiences for marginalized students. when addressing deeply held, ingrained beliefs and challenging those beliefs, the following recommendations should be considered to improve likelihood of impact and success: give teachers time and grace. changing mindsets when stereotypical beliefs have been accepted over a period of years is difficult for anyone. when addressing beliefs as part of a teacher learning opportunity, it is vital to communicate early on that feelings of shame, guilt, or anger serve as barriers to progress. theoharis and brooks (2012) noted individuals experience emotions when beliefs are challenged. they are tempted to freeze, shut-down, or remove themselves from the group, therefore hindering progress. educators must be given grace and feel empowered to express these feelings in a non-judgmental, safe setting when exposed to implicit bias of which they were unaware. understand that changing beliefs is a lifelong process. for those brave individuals willing to engage in a process to address their own implicit bias once it is exposed to them, they must have a shared understanding with their principal and other educational colleagues that this work is lifelong. banaji and greenwald (2016) underscored how implicit bias isn’t just held by white, middle-class individuals, but by everyone, including those groups to which the biases are related. awareness of those mind bugs and a constant willingness to address them when they pop up in everyday thinking is hard and exhausting work. therefore, individuals engaged in this work need to give themselves time and grace personally to avoid burn-out and abandon this needed journey. multiple learning opportunities are a must. because of the complexity of changing personal beliefs, no one learning opportunity is enough. individuals must be presented with regular opportunities to grow in their pursuit of changing beliefs. this process must remain a priority for educational leaders. mizell (2010) noted professional development is most effective when it happens in teams and is part of a continuous improvement model as was the case in this study. high-stakes accountability testing and other job responsibilities make it easy to let professional learning opportunities that address stereotypical beliefs fall behind other activities. therefore, educational leaders must seek out additional learning opportunities for staff and continue to address teacher implicit bias over time. make sure everyone has the opportunity. keeping this work a priority requires ensuring all school employees receive learning opportunities. teacher assistants, substitutes, and other non-certified staff hold vital roles within any school building. their understanding of implicit bias related to students living in poverty and/or experiencing childhood trauma are critical to creating a climate of assets-based thinking and positive support for vulnerable students. all employees must be engaged in this important work to ensure improvement in student educational experiences. conclusion students living in poverty are at-risk for suboptimal educational performance. the goal of this research initiative was to address teacher capacity in understanding their own implicit bias by addressing classism in the school environment and deficit ideology related to students and families living in poverty with the aim to increase educational experiences for students living in poverty. teacher implicit bias left unacknowledged will continue to manifest in classrooms and potentially retraumatize students already facing multiple challenges. by providing learning opportunities to educate teachers on their own implicit bias and the effects it has on students experiencing trauma and/or living in poverty, teachers can begin to see inequities within their teaching practices and within the system as it currently exists. the realization of system-wide problems and teachers’ own biases could change the lens of educators and positively impact experiences for vulnerable students. references banaji, m. r., & greenwald, a. g. 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hooper western carolina university heidi von dohlen western carolina university emily virtue western carolina university positionality of the scholar practitioner review of literature purpose context of study methods participants procedure session 1: understanding the why session 2: asset-based thinking session 3: realities of poverty & trauma session 4: classroom strategies results limitations discussion and recommendations conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. 24 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 centering equity in teacher education research through pláticas con maestras margarita jiménez-silva university of california, davis mjimenezsilva@ucdavis.edu marissa luna lopez university of california, davis mlulopez@ucdavis.edu abstract the capital area north doctorate in educational leadership (candel) program is committed to educational equity and supports, amongst others, k-12 schoolteachers, administrators, and teacher educators who are committed to bridging the worlds of theory and practice. as teacher educators, we advocate for those in doctoral programs to consider pláticas as a methodology that positions researchers and educators as equal collaborators, each with a wealth of experience to share. the historical roots as well as the five principles of plática methodology (fierros & delgado bernal, 2016) are considered. we discuss our positionality as latinas and first-generation college graduates, as researchers and as platicadoras engaged in teacher education research. furthermore, we provide examples of how each has used pláticas methodology to understand the experiences of teachers. we conclude by providing advice for doctoral students interested in using pláticas in their own research. keywords qualitative research methods, pláticas, teacher research, latinx, equity the capital area north doctorate in educational leadership (candel) program, through commitment to educational equity and programming that supports working professionals, offers meaningful opportunities for those school leaders dedicated to improving opportunities for our k-higher education students and their families. candel welcomes and supports, amongst others, k-12 schoolteachers, administrators, and teacher educators as they develop as scholar practitioners who bridge the worlds of thinking about the classroom and being in the classroom. we propose that using pláticas (conversations) as a methodology brings us closer to bridging these two worlds. through pláticas, we as a program and we as educational researchers acknowledge, value, and build on educators' experiences and community cultural wealth (yosso, 2005) to move our field towards more equitable educational opportunities in service of our communities. by centering equity, we advocate for careful examination of the purpose of research, the issues examined, and the methodologies used to gather, analyze, and report data both in doctoral programs and in the larger educational research community. doctor of education (edd) programs. are most often affiliated with schools of education, and many are offered alongside doctor of philosophy (phd) programs. as wergin (2011) and guthrie (2009) noted, current edd programs look very different than they did decades ago. current edd programs should be understood to include a course of study that has distinct purposes and learning outcomes from those of phd programs. today’s programs include dissertations that employ a variety of research methodologies while building on and reflecting edd students’ professional and lived experiences. we need to move away from the narrative that an edd is a phd “lite” and instead acknowledge and value the spaces that many edd programs create within academia to bridge theory and practice. wergin (2011) proposed that edd programs need to adhere to the principle that, “education at all levels has an important emancipating, rather than indoctrinating, function and thus is a powerful tool for social change” (p. 121). the candel program is a prime example of a modern-day program that includes rigorous coursework, builds towards meaningful dissertation work, and above all, approaches the doctoral experience as an emancipating experience that centers equity and further prepares educational leaders to engage in social change. pláticas can serve as a methodological approach that aligns with the program’s values and goals in that the methodology seeks to dismantle traditional views of the researcher as the expert and participants as subjects and rather, positions all involved as social change agents. in this article, we argue that doctoral students’ choices of methodologies are as important as the topics they choose for their dissertations. more specifically, we propose that using pláticas as a qualitative methodology is a culturally responsive and powerful tool for centering equity in teacher education research as we work https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4303-2857 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2219-0212 centering equity through pláticas impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 25 alongside in pláticas with maestras (teachers). in line with pláticas methology, we see ourselves working side-by-side with teachers as co-creators of knowledge and as fellow change agents. in addition, we reflect on our own experiences both using pláticas in teacher education research and as pláticadoras. as latina, first-generation college graduates and teacher education researchers, we are deeply committed to anti-colonial methodologies that are too often used to talk to teachers instead of talking with teachers. pláticas as a methodology honors teachers’ experiences and moves our field away from methodologies centered on simply extracting information. by using pláticas, we center community and engage with teachers about issues that impact them deeply in support of them and our shared professional field. pláticas pláticas have been defined as semi-structured, informal conversations, often embedded within the cultural practices of latino/a/x communities, where knowledge is shared and produced through dialogue (fierros & delgado bernal, 2016; gonzález ybarra, 2018; preuss & saavedra, 2014). pláticas provide dialogic opportunities to learn, teach, and understand who we are in relation to others while recognizing how our experiences are situated within socio-political histories (chabram-dernersesian & de la torre, 2008). furthermore, pláticas are reciprocal exchanges through dialogues that are grounded in trust. platicando “becomes the process of drawing on that knowledge and making meaning across experiences” (gonzález ybarra, 2018, p. 311). the use of pláticas as a methodology has evolved over the past 45 years. valle and mendoza (1978) wrote about the cultural limitations of commonly used interview research methodologies and discussed pláticas as an intimate, friendly, and mutualistic manner to dialogue through conversations. they also identified pláticas as a more culturally responsive methodology for engaging with latina/o populations. pláticas as a methodology aligns with the cultural norms or formalities of latinas/os within the interview process. furthermore, valle and mendoza (1978) described the process of engaging in pláticas as a three-step process. starting with “la entrada,” (the beginning), there is conversation around how the interviewer and interviewee are connected as well as the process for the plática. there is also conversation to find common ground. next, the interviewer and interviewee engage in an “amistad interview” (friendship interview) that starts with informal conversation and moves into the main work of the interview where the interviewer attends to both spoken and unspoken conversation. in the final stage of the interview called “la despedida,” (the departure) the conversation may range from discussions about family to home to anything the interviewee may wish to discuss. however, although pláticas were being referred to as a methodology during this time, they were often seen as a precursor or nicety to be done in addition to a more legitimate qualitative interview method (fierros & delgado bernal, 2016). it is critical to understand that pláticas methodology is grounded in chicana/latina feminist (clf) epistemology which stems from the chicana feminist movement of the 1970s (garcia, 1989). gloria anzaldúa was foundational to conceptualizing the chicana feminist epistemology that centers chicana and latina scholars’ ways of knowing and the knowledge they bring to the research process (fierros & delgado bernal, 2016). instead of approaching the interview process from the perspective of objective outsiders, clf acknowledges and recognizes the everyday lives of researchers and participants as strengths (delgado bernal, 1998). in 2016, fierros and delgado bernal published a foundational piece, vamos a platicar: the countour of pláticas as chicana/feminist methodology, that situated pláticas as a rich and more fully developed methodology. fierros and delgado bernal (2016) outlined five principles that “effectively depicts a plática methodology” (p.109). the first principle is that the research draws upon chicana/latina feminist theory, which along with other critical frameworks, centers the experiences of marginalized individuals and acknowledges the impact of inequalities in our society. the second principle states that plática methodology has a “relational principle that honors participants as co-constructors of knowledge” (p.111). there is respeto (respect) for the platicadores, or participants, as creators and holders of important knowledge (delgado bernal, 2002). the third principle is that plática methodology “makes connections between everyday lived experiences and the research inquiry” (p. 112). lived experiences are seen as connecting to the inquiry process and that discussions about educational experiences often overlap with conversations about family, gender, and language. principle four situates plática methodology as providing a potential space for healing. it is a space in which past harms are acknowledged. the fifth and final principle is that plática methodology “relies on relations of reciprocity and vulnerability and researcher reflexivity” (p. 114). to create trust, researchers must be willing to also share and the plática allows for talking back and forth. according to flores and morales (2021), when researchers use pláticas instead of traditional interviews, they decolonize the eurocentric methods of research that claim objectivity (battiste, 2000; flores & morales, 2021). in summary, pláticas as a methodology centers dialogue with the researcher asking questions and engaging with the participants through conversation. plática methods create a generative data collection approach that allows participants and researchers to be considered collaborative partners in creating knowledge. pláticas include the lived experiences of both participants and researchers as part of a two-directional research process, allowing them to be open and allow for vulnerability. pláticas also allow space for healing from past trauma. our positionalities as researchers and platicadoras as latina, first-generation college graduates and teacher education researchers, we are deeply committed to anti-colonial methodologies. as stated before, researchers too often focus on talking to teachers instead of talking with teachers. we propose that using pláticas as a methodology honors teachers’ experiences and moves our field away from the current trend to de-professionalize teachers. we have used pláticas to center equity in our daily work of preparing and supporting teachers as administrators working in teacher education programs and as researchers interested in understanding the lived experiences of teachers, particularly those of latina/o/é teachers. our experiences can inform edd programs that seek to encourage and support the use of pláticas methodology. through these methodologies, we and others as educational leaders conducting research can center equity in ways that honor the wealth of experience of the educators they work with as well as their own. jimenez-silva & luna lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 26 aligned with fierros and delgado bernal’s (2016) fifth principle of reciprocity, vulnerability and researcher reflexivity, we begin by sharing our own positionalities that have shaped our research. our positionalities as latina educational researchers are important to include here as numerous researchers have argued that the various identities we hold shape the topics and methodologies we choose to employ as researchers (flores & morales, 2021; pedro robledo & garcia, 2023). therefore, we will next share our positionalities to situate ourselves within the context of this work as researchers and platicadoras. platicadora marissa as a k-12 student, i struggled in traditional academic settings. i identify as a latina of puerto rican and mexican descent who was born in southern california and moved to the central valley as a young child. i grew up only speaking english. i am the oldest of four children who was born to teen parents that struggled financially for many years. because of our low-income status, we were both house and food insecure and we moved homes quite frequently. i attended four different elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school all in merced county, ca. i was able to attend the same high school for four years after my parents were able to purchase their first home in 1994 when i was in 8th grade. due to the disjointed nature of my education and my well-behaved, quiet nature, i slipped through school with not so proficient grades, low reading abilities and even worse mathematical reasoning abilities. i struggled so much that my mother had me tested for special education services and i was within 5-10 points of qualifying for services. i remember attending that meeting with my mother, the school psychologist, and my teacher where they talked about me as having potential but needing a significant amount of support and remediation to catch up to my peers. i knew i wanted to be a teacher and i understood that to be a teacher you had to go to college. however, i was not on any track to attend college after high school. my school counselor put me in the lowest level courses that did not meet the college or career ready a-g requirements my freshman year of high school. i knew he did not believe me capable of much more, and like so many other latinas in the united states, i had to prove that i was capable of the work. from there, it was a long and winding road through high school, community college, california state university, then to university of california as i worked my way through my education. i have held a job without a break since my 16th birthday, a reality that impacted my grades and educational experiences. because of these and other experiences as a student, teacher, and researcher, i understand that traditional methods of conducting interviews to extract data about populations who have been marginalized are not culturally congruent with me or participants like me. i do not believe that asking a question, noting a response, then moving to the next question will yield the information the researcher is truly seeking. the researcher should be in community with the participants and truly want to understand their experiences and go beyond simply extracting data. cesar chavez was quoted as saying, “if you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…the people who give you their food give you their heart” (n.d). platicadora margarita i, margarita, am the eldest daughter of mexican immigrants who arrived in the u.s. in the late 1960s. my father came as a 17-year-old young man with a 6th grade education to work and help support his mother and siblings in mexico, crossing the u.s./mexico border almost on a weekly basis. my mother came to the u.s. after marrying my father, dreaming of opportunities for a better life and opportunities for her future children. i was born in san fernando, california two weeks after their first wedding anniversary and have three sisters and one brother. i started head start preschool and kindergarten speaking only spanish. as a public-school student in the early 1970s, i was part of the forced busing era in the los angeles unified school district that was a direct response to the court-ordered plan for mandatory desegregation. instead of attending the school located three blocks from my home, i was bused to a school that was almost 45 minutes away. the school communities i was bussed to, including teachers, often let us know that we were not welcome. i do not recall a single teacher who looked like me or who spoke spanish. i also experienced bullying in school due to a malformation of my left hand. the significant number of bullying incidents led to my parents requesting a meeting with the school principal, despite the language barrier. as my parents and i recall, the principal took no action other than referring me for psychological counseling. those experiences led me to want to become a teacher who understood students like me those who struggled to learn english and those who felt invisible by teachers and administrators in our schools. i attended college, became a bilingual teacher, and taught across various grade levels and in a number of different states. i also had the opportunity to teach english in various other countries. i have always worked with multilingual students in underserved communities. becoming frustrated with district and state english-only policies of the late 1990s, i attended graduate school and earned both my master’s degree and doctorate degree in human development and psychology with an emphasis in language and culture. i am now a teacher educator who supports current and future teachers to work with culturally and linguistically diverse students. as a full professor at a research-intensive university, one of the tensions i feel most is balancing the university culture to exalt my accomplishments while also practicing humility as my family and community have taught me. in sum, i am committed to this work of preparing and supporting teachers because it is more than work, it is part of who i am. i seek to create schools where each student sees themselves represented, respected, and valued. our use of pláticas to center equity as teacher education researchers, we have used pláticas in our work to share teachers’ journeys in becoming teachers and to support teachers as they navigate our chosen profession. as former classroom teachers, we have a shared understanding of the complexity of the work and the multiplicity of demands teachers face daily. however, we also recognize that classrooms have changed significantly post-covid 19 pandemic and value the knowledge of the teachers who are experiencing contexts different than those we experienced when we were last in the classroom. next, we share our most recent experiences using pláticas to center equity in the work we do alongside teachers. centering equity through pláticas impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 27 coming home: the journey of latinas from student to teacher in rural central california for my, marissa’s dissertation, i employed both pláticas and case study methodologies, as the goal was to approach the work as co-constructors of knowledge and side-by-side, understand the lived experiences of latinas who live and work in rural central california, specifically merced county. my research questions were: 1. what do latina teachers see as challenges or barriers to entering the teaching profession in rural merced county? 2. what do latinas identify as enriching to their experience entering the teaching profession in rural merced county? 3. what do latina teachers perceive as possible strategies for districts, colleges, and universities to recruit and support other latina teachers when entering the teaching profession in rural merced county? rashid et al. (2019) described a qualitative case study as a methodology that allows us to deeply investigate phenomena in a specific context. the focus for this study was a very specific lived experience—understanding the journey from student to teacher for latinas who live, work, and who attended all p-12 schools in merced county, central california. while merriam and tisdell (2016) guided my work regarding the importance of being “richly descriptive” (p. 15), i did not approach the work from their perspective of seeing the researcher as the primary instrument of data collection. rather, i sought to collect my data in equal collaboration with the teachers who were sharing their journeys. i utilized purposeful sampling by recruiting six k–12 teachers who met the required parameters for the study. they were all latina (identified as female of latin american origins), attended at least 10 years of their p–12 education in merced county, held a current, valid teaching credential, and currently live and teach in a merced county school district. informed by rashid et al (2019) and merriam and tisdell (2016), i decided that the plática methodology within the context of the case study would be the best way to collaborate with the participants. the six participants take part in an individual oral testimonio and one group plática where they were asked questions about their life, their journey, and ultimately their successes when entering the teaching profession. of the six participants, four of the participants taught in the district they attended while they were in k–12 schools. when recruiting participants, several of the women told me they did not think they would have enough to say on the subject. they said their experiences were typical of any college student or teacher, but the structure of the plática allowed for the participants to truly share their experiences and feel their emotions as they discussed their barriers, opportunities, and recommendations to improve the pathway for other latinas entering the teaching profession. several of the conversations brought the participants to tears and together, we wept for the pain they experienced. we also laughed a lot because, when looking back on something that was challenging and knowing you did it, it was joyful. in using pláticas and leveraging my own experiences in the context of the case study, i was able to ask questions, provide prompts, and adjust as needed to gather some very rich data from the participants. below are some examples. well, i know i hear stories, like when teachers say, “well, is there somebody in your life that pushed you into teaching? was there a special teacher that you looked up to?” and for me, there really wasn’t anybody. well, there wasn’t anybody that looked like me, like that…i was like, let me look back and see in elementary school, middle school, high school, was there anybody that looked like me, that spoke spanish? and i don’t think that really was anybody. (camila) supreme court justice sonia sotomayor said, “i think it’s important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. they have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it.” (totenberg, 2012) it is difficult to dream of something if you cannot see it as a possibility or a reality. heroes are important and they help people see that if someone that looks like them and talks like them can do something, then they can do it too. for myself, even throughout the (credential) program, i was still working as a farm laborer. i was still working as an aide during the school year. i’ve worked in restaurants; i’ve worked in different little settings. so, it’s always staying busy, even during the time off when there was no school as an aide, it was going to the fields. (isabella) for isabella, the work she had to do while perusing her teaching credential was significant. she worked hard and made sacrifices, but they paid off as she later went on to describe her current job as a 2nd grade dual language teacher working in the school she went to in the community she came from. i feel like to me, the greatest achievement was when i got hired at planada elementary, so that was my elementary school that where i went…for me, that was the biggest accomplishment, to go from a fifth-grade student to being a fifth-grade teacher in that same exact space with the teacher who had probably the biggest influence in my life, mrs. acosta. so, it was just mindblowing to think, “wow, i think i’m right where i’m supposed to be.” (elena) isabella and elena both live and work in planada, california, a small, rural town in merced county with a large population of students from latino backgrounds. they are both graduates of the district and both currently work for the district as teachers. many of the families earn their living in agriculture, working as farm laborers. having several latina/o teachers, administrators, and staff members allowed the students in the planada elementary school district to see themselves in their teachers and have mentors that will help the children to aspire to their dreams. unfortunately, the lessons we get in life are not all from positive experiences. life is often unfair, and people suffer greatly. elena described her relationship with her brother in the following quote that showed what she endured on her journey to becoming a credentialed teacher in her home community. throughout my entire life since i was a little girl that i could remember, i had a brother who was involved in gangs… so, my family went through a lot like him going to jail, violence in our home, being kicked out of our home by violence and things like that…he [my brother] created such a bad reputation for our family in the school system…so, when we went into school, some of them would be like, “oh, you’re his sister or you’re his brother.” and so, they would expect that from us, but we were not like that. but in 2020… i was long-term substituting for a kindergarten class, and that teacher…she was losing her brother to cancer… i didn’t want to fail her. it was in the middle of covid, distance learning, so you need the positive energy for little kindergarteners, but i’m like, “my brother’s on life support.” and we were really going through it. it was just insane. but i just used it to keep me busy, keep me motivated, and keep the bills paid. yeah, and so he’s still doing good. he jimenez-silva & luna lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 28 actually lives with us right now. he survived. he’s blind and he’s paralyzed in half of his body, but we make the best of everything, so i can’t complain. (elena) the time elena described here was terrible for her and her family. elena was part of a close-knit, collectivist family. for her, when one member struggled, all the members struggled. through sheer determination, she persevered and earned her teaching credential. even through her own personal struggles, she thought of and prioritized the students she served and the teacher she was substituting for in a situation that would have made many other credential candidates drop out of their program. she used the work, held on to her aspirations, and used her love and loyalty to family and community to continue the work. at the end of the quote, she talks about her brother’s current condition, saying that the family makes the best of the situation, so she “can’t complain.” the perseverance in the face of adversity was commendable. each one of the women who participated in this study faced many barriers and challenges that ranged from personal to professional on their way to becoming credentialed teachers living and working in merced county. engaging in pláticas allowed for each one of the participants to share their unique journey to the classroom that included moments of great joy, profound sadness, love in the form of sacrifice, and the solemn pride felt by these women as they recounted their journey from student to teacher. given the demographics of merced county and the academic outcomes for so many latinas in the united states, the fact that each of these women achieved their goal of becoming a classroom teacher was commendable. they had the drive and audacity to dream and work for a different life. they used all the linguistic resources they had, bringing their full and complete self to school as both a student and as a teacher. they leveraged the power of a supportive family and community. they had mothers who wanted a life of independence for their daughters and were willing to sacrifice to make it happen. these women navigated systems that were not designed to facilitate their success and showed their determination through their resistant behaviors, not giving up when they faced challenges. using pláticas to understand teachers’ decision to stay in teaching over the past few years, i, margarita, have been engaged in various projects using pláticas methodologies to document how teachers speak about their decisions to stay or leave the classroom. my interest in leading this series of studies came from several lived experiences. first, my own decision to leave the k-12 classrooms and enter higher education still elicits feelings of guilt. i remember feeling that i was abandoning my community and the students who most needed me. as a teacher educator, i was also seeing an upward trend of novice teachers leaving the profession within three years of graduating from our program. this was especially true of our teachers of color. in our study titled on the verge of leaving, two colleagues and i engaged in a series of pláticas with four teachers. each of the teachers had a past relationship with at least one researcher and had shared her struggles with making the decision to stay or leave the classroom within the past year. the teachers joined us as platicadoras in a study with the following research questions. first, how do novice teachers speak about and understand their experiences during the pandemic 2020-2022 years and their decisions to stay in their chosen profession? second, what role, if any, did teacher educators and teacher education programs play in supporting novice teachers’ decision-making regarding staying in the field? finally, what can other key stakeholders (colleagues, school administrators, and families) do to better support teachers during difficult times? all four teachers are first-generation college graduates, have teaching experience of less than five years, and teach in underserved communities. monica (all names are pseudonyms), 26 years old, identifies as a xicana female. she is a fourth-year high school english language arts teacher on the west coast. caryn, 41 years old, identifies as indigenous and female. she is a third-year 5th/6th grade science teacher in the southwest. cecilia, 30 years old, identifies as native american and female. she is a fourth year, fourth grade teacher in the southwest. claire, 26 years old, identifies as white and female. she is a third-year kindergarten teacher on the east coast. following fierros and delgado bernal (2016), we participated in four pláticas during which each participant shared their experiences and perspectives about the three research questions that guided this study. we engaged in pláticas during four 60-90 minute sessions, using each session to address one of the research questions in depth, with the last meeting focused on integrating our collective perspectives on the previous three pláticas. each plática was conducted via zoom and recorded, transcribed, and coded. we initially used thematic analysis (boyatzis, 1998) to uncover themes guided by the research questions. we invited all four teachers to present our findings at the 2023 american educational research association conference. monica and claire were able to join us with financial support secured by the team of researchers. both monica and claire presented and had many questions from the audience. monica and claire commented several times that there were many presentations about teachers but had not met any other practicing teachers at the conference. in our work, we centered various issues of equity as identified by the teachers. for example, monica and claire both shared at the presentation that they had to use their sick days to attend the conference while at the same time they were required to engage in professional development. we also arrived together at the decision to highlight the misconceptions that exist about teaching (e.g. it’s an 8 am 3 pm job) and the financial implications (e.g. high-debt, low salary, and out-of-pocket expenses) of being a classroom teacher. as platicadoras, we also decided together what themes to center in our presentation and forthcoming publication. throughout the pláticas, in addition to the prompts the researchers had identified to address the research questions, we developed and deepened friendships. we became mentors and mentees. for example, caryn has been mentoring me on how to infuse indigenous epistemologies into my teaching and research. i have been mentoring caryn as she applies to doctoral programs. we have shared personal and professional challenges and celebrations. at the start of one of our pláticas, cecilia shared that she was expecting her first child, and we were all able to congratulate her. impacted by this experience, monica applied to an edd program, was accepted, and plans to have her dissertation focus on supporting teachers of color. a full 18 months after the conclusion of this study, we are all still in touch and continue to support each other. centering equity through pláticas impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.443 29 advice to edd students interested in using pláticas from a recent graduate i, marissa, recently completed the edd program in the school of education at uc davis. i work for a county office of education, and when i told others in my organization that i was a student at uc davis in a doctoral program, several people told me that they had started doctoral programs and finished all their coursework, but not the dissertation. for me, i can understand why many doctoral students do not finish the dissertation. when taking classes, many candidates are with a cohort in a structured environment with an instructor, a syllabus, and a schedule. the participants work on assignments, make presentations, and complete the requirements in a focused space and amount of time. the dissertation process does not always have this same structure. individual advisors, committee members, and doctoral candidates will approach the dissertation in many ways. some advisors meet with their doctoral candidates on a regular basis with a set schedule and targets to meet to complete by deadlines outlined by the school. other advisors meet with their candidates by appointment, leaving the candidate to structure their own time. because an edd program is completed while a person is working in a full-time leadership capacity, if there is no set time to be somewhere or to complete something, school can get pushed aside for more pressing matters involving work, family, or other obligations typical of working adults. personal passion and motivation become key to sustaining a doctoral candidate through the dissertation process. the first step is having a topic of study that sparks deep curiosity within the researcher. next, the methodology must be congruent with both the topic and the participants including the researcher and the groups being studied. when this happens, the researcher brings with them their whole authentic self, blessings, and barriers. through sharing their experiences, they enrich the story of others. in this dance of give and take, the researcher and the participant work together to create a new way of knowing. a good conversation can be transformative and an engaging plática can bring forward more information about a lived experience than any formal survey or structured interview. the power and beauty of a plática is that it is a conversation among supportive people who embrace seeing experiences through others’ perspectives. it can be a space for speaking truth, healing from trauma, and making new starts. in this space, it is also important to respect and honor the person telling their story with the ability to review the transcripts from the interview. there are times when people share more than they intend to, so preparing participants by telling them they will have the last say of what could be used in the study is important. conclusion anzaldúa (1999) stated that “if we have been gagged and disempowered by theories, we can also be loosened and empowered by theories” (p. xxvi). we assert that this is also true of methodologies. pláticas as a methodology flattens the hierarchy that has existed too long between educational researchers and teachers. pláticas disrupts the narrative researchers must be objective and that our positionalities do not enter the space in which research takes place. by acknowledging that we are co-creators of knowledge and that we can all learn from each other, we can more effectively center equity in the work that we do in service of our communities. references anzaldúa, g. (1999). borderlands: la frontera. aunt lute books. battiste, m. a. (2000). reclaiming indigenous voice and vision. ubc press. chavez, c. (n.d.). education of the heart: cesar chavez in his own words. ufw. https://ufw.org/research/history/education-heart-cesar-chavezwords/ chabram-dernersesian, a., & de la torre, a. (eds.). (2008). speaking from the body: latinas on health and culture. university of arizona press. delgado bernal, d. (1998). using a chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. harvard educational review, 68(4), 555–583. delgado bernal, d. (2002). critical race theory, latino critical theory, and critical raced-gendered epistemologies: recognizing students of color as holders and creators of knowledge. qualitative inquiry, 8(1), 105–126. fierros, c., & delgado bernal, d. (2016, september 27). vamos a platicar: the contours of pláticas as chicana/latina feminist methodology. chicana/latina studies, 98–121. flores, a. i., & morales, s. (2021). a chicana/latina feminist methodology: examining pláticas in educational research. in e. g. murillo, jr., d. delgado bernal, s. morales, l. urrieta, jr., e. ruiz bybee, j. s. muñoz, v. b. saenz, d. villanueva, m. machadocasas, & k. espinoza (eds.), handbook of latinos and education: theory, research, and practice. (2nd ed., pp. 35–45). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429292026 garcia, a. m. (1989). the development of chicana feminist discourse, 1970– 1980. gender and society, 3(2), 217–238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/189983 gonzález ybarra, m. (2018). “since when have people been illegal?”: latinx youth reflections in nepantla. latino studies, 16, 503–523. guthrie, j. w. (2009). the case for a modern doctor of education degree (ed.d.): multipurpose education doctorates no longer appropriate. peabody journal of education, 84(1), 3–8. merriam, s. & tisdell, e. (2016). qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). jossey-bass. padro robledo, s., & garcia, k. a. (2023, 4/13/23). examining positionalities of latina educational researchers that employ chicana/latina feminism pláticas methodology. paper presented at the 2023 annual meeting of the american educational research association. retrieved 2/5/24, from the aera online paper repository. preuss, c. l., & saavedra, c. m. (2014). revealing, reinterpreting, rewriting mujeres. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 27(7), 901–921. rashid, y., rashid, a., warraich, m. a., sabir, s. s., & waseem, a. (2019). case study method: a step-by-step guide for business researchers. international journal of qualitative methods, 18(18), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691986242 totenberg, n. (2013, january 12). a justice deliberates: sotomayor on love, heath and family. [radio broadcast]. national public radio. https://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/167699633/a-justice-deliberatessotomayor-on-love-health-and-family valle, r., & mendoza, l. (1978). the elder latino. san diego state university press. wergin, j. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 https://ufw.org/research/history/education-heart-cesar-chavez-words/ https://ufw.org/research/history/education-heart-cesar-chavez-words/ https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429292026 http://www.jstor.org/stable/189983 https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691986242 https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.npr.org%2f2013%2f01%2f14%2f167699633%2fa-justice-deliberates-sotomayor-on-love-health-and-family&data=05%7c02%7cyuechen%40email.sc.edu%7cf64b87ecd13a4893493f08dcb2e5ba43%7c4b2a4b19d135420e8bb2b1cd238998cc%7c0%7c0%7c638581946964291553%7cunknown%7ctwfpbgzsb3d8eyjwijoimc4wljawmdailcjqijoiv2lumziilcjbtii6ik1hawwilcjxvci6mn0%3d%7c0%7c%7c%7c&sdata=ji9v3iq9ygvh4%2bh3%2f5qbj%2btkhksl1oinodssvov3er4%3d&reserved=0 https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.npr.org%2f2013%2f01%2f14%2f167699633%2fa-justice-deliberates-sotomayor-on-love-health-and-family&data=05%7c02%7cyuechen%40email.sc.edu%7cf64b87ecd13a4893493f08dcb2e5ba43%7c4b2a4b19d135420e8bb2b1cd238998cc%7c0%7c0%7c638581946964291553%7cunknown%7ctwfpbgzsb3d8eyjwijoimc4wljawmdailcjqijoiv2lumziilcjbtii6ik1hawwilcjxvci6mn0%3d%7c0%7c%7c%7c&sdata=ji9v3iq9ygvh4%2bh3%2f5qbj%2btkhksl1oinodssvov3er4%3d&reserved=0 https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 21 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 supports and barriers to experiential learning participation in arts higher education christina m. manceor johns hopkins university cmanceor@jhu.edu abstract higher education arts programs are implementing experiential learning (el) programs to address skills gaps and better prepare students for careers in an evolving arts industry. however, there is a dearth of research relating to el in the arts. as a starting point, this research explores the supports and barriers that contribute to student participation in extracurricular el programs. this mixed methods study employed interviews and a focus group with nine students at a mid-atlantic performing arts conservatory, accompanied by a brief demographic survey. the findings revealed a complex web of supports and barriers impacting students’ awareness of, participation in, and applications to el programs, including individual, social, programmatic, and systemic factors. the framework of this small-scale study may serve as a model and starting place for other institutions to understand their own unique audiences and settings moving forward. keywords higher education, arts, experiential learning, participation, supports and barriers the evolving 21st century arts industry is marked by significant shifts in career pathways, with fewer available full-time jobs and increasing numbers of artists pursuing portfolio careers and selfemployment (munnelly, 2020). although arts alumni generally report that they leave their higher education degrees with appropriate artistic skills, they report substantial skills gaps in areas such as entrepreneurship, finance, and business management (frenette, 2020). consequently, some emerging artists graduate from their degree programs without the skills needed to succeed in the modern arts industry (bartleet et al., 2019; miller et al., 2017). experiential learning (el) programming represents a potentially beneficial method for higher education arts institutions to provide opportunities for students to build crucial skills and experiences for their future arts careers (kindelan, 2010; slaughter & springer, 2015). el theory states that knowledge is built through experiences and application of learning in new settings (kolb, 2014). el opportunities are critical for learning transfer in higher education (eyler, 2009) and may offer a competitive advantage in the job market, such as personal growth, developing new skills, strengthening collaborative and organizational competencies, and building positive professional relationships (gallagher & mcgorry, 2015). although some institutions offer a variety of paid and volunteer extracurricular el programs, including internships, community engagement programs, and other off-campus performance and teaching opportunities (slaughter & springer, 2015), there are little data on these programs and a dearth of empirical research specifically relating to el in the arts. as a first step to grow knowledge in this area, this mixed methods study investigated supports and barriers that contribute to student participation in extracurricular el programs. the following sections include a reflection on my positionality as a practitionerscholar, an overview of the role of el programs to address skills gaps in the arts, a literature review of supports and barriers influencing student participation, a description of the research methods, data collection, and analysis, and a summary of findings, limitations, and implications of the study. positionality as a practitioner-scholar as career services staff and professional studies faculty at a mid-atlantic performing arts conservatory, i have an educational background in music performance and experience as a freelance musician and arts administrator. the ambition and potential of my students drives me to connect them with pivotal opportunities that may shape their creative futures. yet, my experience as a career educator has taught me that it can often be challenging to reach students, provoking questions in my work. what prevents students from engaging? what motivates them to take advantage of institutional programming? ultimately, the desire to approach this and other complex educational problems of practice in an evidencebased and systemic way led me to begin a doctor of education (edd) degree. drawing on my professional perspective, as well as new expertise gained as a practitioner-scholar, i hope to integrate scholarship into the work in my field to make a positive difference for more students. this initial research endeavors to engage with evidence that illuminates the landscape of my field from a wide range of lenses and perspectives, beginning with an examination of existing literature related to el in the arts. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7034-9289 manceor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 22 importance of experiential learning in arts higher education in the context of arts higher education, el has strong potential to facilitate students’ development of the skills they need to forge successful careers in an evolving arts industry (martin & frenette, 2018; slaughter & springer, 2015). kolb’s (2014) widely referenced el theory (tippett & lee, 2019) encompasses a transformative learning model which holistically approaches el through four modes: experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting, illuminating best practices behind the design of el programs. for the purposes of this research, i define el as an educational technique that incorporates direct interaction with a scenario as opposed to more theoretical or hypothetical approaches (keeton &tate, 1978), ultimately adding “a direct experience component to [students’] traditional academic studies” (kolb, 2014, p. xviii). student participation in this type of direct experience is critical to situating and contextualizing their artistic studies within an evolving arts industry. preparing artists for a rapidly evolving modern workforce requires higher education to equip graduates with real-world experiences that enable them to identify and pursue opportunities while navigating dynamic industry trends (martin & frenette, 2018). the arts industry is transforming, as evidenced by decreasing numbers of full-time jobs and higher percentages of artists pursuing portfolio careers (munnelly, 2020). changes to the field have only accelerated due to recent world events, such as covid-19 and the subsequent economic upheaval (jeannotte, 2021; khan et al., 2021). these shifts in the arts industry substantiate the importance of student participation in el programming, especially as a means to prepare them for the pivotal transition out of school and into working life. skills gaps in arts higher education portfolio careers, in which artists combine “aspects of performance, recording, creation, music direction, teaching, community activities, health, retail, and increasingly, a presence in online environments,” as defined by bartleet et al. (2019, p. 282), have become increasingly prevalent in the 21st century (bennett, 2007; frenette, 2020). to sustain successful portfolio careers, undergraduate music majors in the united states anticipated needing non-artistic skills for their careers in addition to creative skills, such as interpersonal, finance, marketing, recording, and teaching skills. other studies corroborated this; an australian study demonstrated that skills required for successful arts portfolio careers include communication, networking, entrepreneurship, and industry knowledge, among others (bartleet et al., 2019), and recent arts alumni in the united states who gained financial and business skills during school felt better equipped for various employment opportunities than those who did not (skaggs et al., 2017). it supports these expectations that most musicians across the united states, europe, and australia were in fact self-employed in some way, pursuing careers that required diverse skillsets (bennett, 2007; skaggs et al., 2017). despite these trends, many music degree programs continue to focus primarily on artistic and technical skills, often failing to teach skills that support portfolio careers and self-employment (bartleet et al., 2019; miller et al., 2017; munnelly, 2020; slaughter & springer, 2015). in addition to established skills gaps in entrepreneurship, finance, and business management for american arts alumni (frenette, 2020), evidence suggests that music conservatories would benefit from addressing skills related to pedagogy, technology, networking, community engagement, and grant writing (bartleet et al., 2019; creech, 2008). evidence of skills gaps and related recommendations for appropriate curricular change suggest that many arts graduates complete their degrees lacking sufficient skills and preparation to effectively transition out of school and into sustainable careers in the modern arts industry (forshee et al., 2022). potential impact of experiential learning to address skills gaps numerous sources support both curricular and extracurricular el as one potential avenue for higher education arts students to develop key skills and gain tangible experiences that may prepare them for their future careers (kindelan, 2010; slaughter & springer, 2015). as described by slaughter and springer (2015), el opportunities for artists could include activities ranging from community involvement, performances, and independent projects, to internships, fellowships, and entrepreneurial activities. in the context of arts entrepreneurship education, faculty, staff, and students in various music programs across the united states emphasized the importance of accessible and controlled opportunities for students to take their talents outside of the classroom to build skills related to entrepreneurship, community interaction, and interdisciplinary collaboration (beckman, 2007; friedrichs, 2018). myers (2006) further advocated for community engagement, mentored internships, and other experiential training opportunities as a means to facilitate long-term professional impacts for students. the ability to work within the community and larger arts industry is imperative, and the opportunity to do so through el programs can enhance students’ learning while simultaneously providing important career experiences and connections (miller et al., 2017; slaughter & springer, 2015). el opportunities are particularly critical for students in the final years of their degree programs and can ease students’ transitions to the professional world (creech et al., 2008; silver & roksa, 2017). research in the arts and other fields demonstrated the ways that various types of el programming facilitate skill development, expansion of networks, and other career benefits. table 1 summarizes the benefits of various types of el programming. overall, by preparing students with crucial career skills that go beyond technical expertise, el activities can be one approach to help arts students establish more sustainable and successful careers and equip them to better navigate professional choices over time (kindelan, 2010). table 1. potential benefits of experiential learning by type experiential learning types potential benefits community engagement enhanced and more relevant learning experiences (slaughter & springer, 2015) performance opportunities building professional relationships (slaughter & springer, 2015) service learning support for senior year transition (creech et al., 2008) internships building professional connections (creech et al., 2008; slaughter & springer, 2015) term-time employment communication and organizational skills, problemsolving skills, and community connections (gallagher & mcgorry, 2015) career development networking opportunities finding jobs more quickly (martin & frenette, 2018) experiential learning in arts higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 23 understanding the impacts of el may help institutions maximize resources and reduce skill gaps that leave students unprepared for employment in the arts industry. before researchers and practitioners can adequately evaluate the long-term outcomes of the programs, the first focus must be to understand factors impacting students’ access and participation. this research aims to fill a literature gap by exploring the supports and barriers contributing to extracurricular el participation in the context of higher education arts institutions. literature review summary: factors impacting extracurricular el participation there is a considerable amount of literature focused on the benefits of el and student experience in various el contexts and fields. however, existing studies focus primarily on the students already enrolled in el programs and research discussing what factors contribute to students' desires or abilities to participate in el is much more sparse. due to the dearth of research relating to el participation in higher education arts settings, the literature review spans a variety of fields, with references to musicand arts-specific studies where they are available. it also draws more broadly from research on participation and engagement in different kinds of activities, particularly extracurricular activities in higher education. exploration of related fields and factors through the lens of bronfenbrenner’s (1979) nested ecological systems theory suggests several potential supports and barriers that contribute to this issue, including a variety of individual, social, programmatic, and systemic factors. first, malleable programmatic factors such as student awareness (roksa & silver, 2019), access (coker & porter, 2015), and perceptions of the programs (dickinson et al., 2021) may influence participation. for example, relating to access, students must have sufficient time and availability to participate (frenette, 2019) as well as the prerequisites and self-efficacy to apply to programs (griffiths et al., 2021). information about key factors such as these can be used to evaluate existing el programs. additionally, by understanding student motivations more deeply, institutions can better align programmatic content with students’ personal and professional ambitions, which were described as relevant factors to motivation by gonzalez-moreno (2012). further, faculty and peer influence appear to play a substantial role in student perceptions, opportunities, and choices (creech et al., 2008; gaunt, 2011), demonstrating an additional avenue which could positively or negatively impact students’ desire or ability to participate in el programs. in the context of an evolving arts industry and conflicting cultural beliefs about arts careers (avis, 2020; bartleet et al., 2019), the impact of demographic factors such as social class, parental resources, and international student status are broader issues across higher education and beyond (choi, 2013; hamilton et al., 2018; roksa & silver, 2019). this study explored how different groups of students engage with the existing programming in light of these overarching factors. figure 1 illustrates a conceptual framework displaying potential relationships and connections between malleable and relevant factors. research questions and constructs i conducted a study to better understand what factors contribute to extracurricular el program participation to facilitate student access and engagement in higher education arts settings. the research was guided by three research questions relating to students’ interactions with existing programs at the institution, supports and barriers contributing to participation, and relevance of the programs to students’ career goals. through these research questions, the study explored five constructs: program awareness, program interest, supports and barriers, relevance to professional goals, and demographics. the first construct of program awareness investigated whether students know what programs and resources are available to them (roksa & silver, 2019). a second, related construct, program interest, explored how students value and prioritize their involvement (dickinson et al., 2021). together, these constructs provided a baseline from which to contextualize the next construct, supports and barriers, which dickinson et al. (2021) described as factors which either motivate students to participate, or “prevent them from becoming involved” (p. 745). additionally, the construct of relevance to career goals was explored to better understand how students’ motivations and career aspirations do or do not align with the content of the el programs (gonzalez-moreno, 2012). lastly, the demographics construct explored if and how the first four constructs vary based on personal characteristics of participants. this article focuses on the following research question: what supports and barriers contribute to student participation in extracurricular el programs, particularly for different demographic groups? although this question primarily explored the supports and barriers and demographics constructs, the other three constructs also intersected as relevant factors in the thematic analysis. figure 1. conceptual framework manceor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 24 methods utilizing a mixed methods design, the constructs were explored through qualitative and quantitative data, with an emphasis on the exploratory nature of qualitative methods. part i of the study involved one-on-one semi-structured interviews with six students to narrow down supports and barriers that contribute to their participation in el programs. part ii utilized a student focus group to confirm themes from the interviews and follow-up on additional factors of interest. both parts were accompanied by a brief quantitative demographic survey. the study took place at a mid-atlantic performing arts conservatory in the united states with a total student population of 750 enrolled students. all students were invited to participate in the study through email, social media, and posted fliers. convenience sampling resulted in six interview participants (three undergraduate and three graduate students) and one focus group with three participants (one undergraduate and two graduate students), making a total of nine participants. to ensure inclusion of both undergraduate and graduate students, criterion sampling (sandelowski, 2000) was used to select participants from the pool of interested volunteers. data collection and analysis procedures are detailed in the following subsections. part i: interviews modeled after roksa and silver’s (2019) study, the interviews utilized an emergent design and standardized open-ended interview approach, with five to seven foundational questions prepared based on the constructs of interest, while also allowing flexibility to ask follow-up questions or dig deeper into areas not previously considered. interviews took place on zoom, lasted between 30 and 45 minutes, and were audio-recorded and transcribed. data was coded and analyzed using the platform atlas.ti. initially, i identified a priori codes based on the factors which emerged in the literature review. the first round of coding focused on identifying patterns and notable segments relating to the a priori codes, and additional inductive codes that emerged were grouped under an other category. during a second round of coding, additional emphasis was placed on identifying additional instances of the other codes. lastly, subcodes were organized for the most prominent and multi-faceted a priori constructs. a priori codes and interview questions can be found in table 2. part ii: focus group a single, one-hour focus group followed part i of the study. the focus group offered confirmation or disconfirmation themes that emerged from the semi-structured interviews across a different group of students. it also provided an opportunity to explore additional factors of interest. drawing from focus group procedures in a study by dickinson et al. (2021), i incorporated several activity-based techniques to encourage participant engagement, including facilitation of free-thinking in student responses and the use of visual and text prompts to invite focused feedback on key elements. the focus group took place in-person in a campus meeting room and was audio-recorded and transcribed. for comparison purposes, the focus group protocol utilized core questions similar to those from the interview protocol, with a few adjustments based on the interview data analysis. these questions are outlined in table 2. in addition to following a semi-structured focus group protocol consisting of four open-ended foundational questions and a few follow-up questions, i also provided participants with printouts of a visual representation of factors of interest gleaned from the interviews to solicit their feedback. before concluding the focus group, each participant had the opportunity to share any additional comments. i reviewed the transcripts multiple times to code and analyze the data using atlas.ti. to make connections to the interview data, the codebook from the semi-structured interviews provided a priori codes for the focus groups, with new codes added as needed. demographic survey a brief demographic survey was administered to interview and focus group participants immediately following each session. the questions in this survey were developed using language from hughes et al.’s (2016) re-evaluation of demographic questions alongside language from an institutional alumni surveys and information referenced in the academic catalogue. the survey data was aligned with the qualitative data from each interviewee or focus group attendee for analysis using a unique five-figure identifier. table 2. summary of a priori codes, interview questions, and focus group questions a priori codes interview questions focus group questions awareness of programs what extracurricular el programs are you aware of at [the institution]? which programs, if any, interest you and why? have you participated in any extracurricular el programs offered by [the institution]? if, so what was your experience participating in these programs? what factors, if any, would motivate you to participate in an extracurricular el program? what factors, if any, have prevented you from participating in an extracurricular el program? how have others in your community (parents, faculty, peers) impacted your participation in extracurricular el programs, if at all? how do you perceive these programs are relevant (or not) to your current studies, career goals or future aspirations? what extracurricular el programs are you aware of (or have you participated in) at [the institution]? how did you become aware of or learn about these programs? where/how would it be most helpful for you to see and find information about these kinds of programs? what factors serve as supports or motivators for you to participate in extracurricular el programs? what factors prevent you from participating in extracurricular el programs? [show visual display of interview findings related to supports and barriers]. do you agree or disagree with these findings? why do you agree or disagree? how do you perceive these programs are relevant (or not) to your current studies, career goals or future aspirations? what skills or experiences would you hope to gain from participating in these programs? perceptions of programs faculty influence peer influence cultural values and beliefs time availability socioeconomic status and parental support prerequisites and self-efficacy motivation applicability to student experiential learning in arts higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 25 the survey was conducted online via qualtrics, and participants were sent a link immediately following an interview or focus group session. it included four multiple choice questions and three short text response questions inquiring about participants’ degree level and major, international student status, and self-identified gender, racial/ethnic, and social class identities. all nine interview and focus group participants completed the demographic survey. i analyzed the demographic survey results in excel and associated them with findings from their respective qualitative sessions in atlas.ti to explore potential demographic impacts on student participation in el programs. although the quantity of data was not sufficient for statistical analysis, it contributed context in conjunction with the interview and focus group data. tables 3 and 4 display participants’ demographic characteristics that were most relevant to the findings, including self-reported degree level, major, and social class identity. table 3. descriptive statistics: degree level and majors of participants bachelor’s master’s major/departments represented interview participants 3 3 computer music/performance; composition; voice performance; music education; dance; cello performance focus group participants 1 2 oboe performance; viola performance; musicology table 4. descriptive statistics: gender and social class identity participants social class identity poor working class middle class interview participants 2 1 3 focus group participants 0 1 2 findings and discussion through concurrent mixed methods analysis, themes related to constructs of supports and barriers and demographics emerged in three prominent areas: learning about programs, prioritization and incentive to pursue programs, and applying to programs. table 5 displays the supports and barriers discussed by participants that are most relevant to each of the three areas. table 5. supports and barriers to extracurricular experiential learning participation theme/area supports barriers both learning about programs awareness curricular integration discomfort asking questions promotion faculty influence peer influence prioritization and incentive to pursue programs compensation motivation applicable to student time and availability not applicable to student cultural values and beliefs proximity to the institution socioeconomic status and parental support applying to programs curricular integration short turnaround to apply prerequisites and self-efficacy prior experience learning about programs students must first understand what programs are available to consider participation. most participants reflected mixed or limited awareness of existing programs at the institution. as articulated by a graduate interview participant, i know what [the career services office] does and i'm glad that [it] exists and all that. but i'm certain i know that there are people that don't, so i think knowledge of programming, for any program forever in any domain, is fertile. additionally, promotional strategies are a key avenue through which to share information about el opportunities with students. in addition to broader promotional tactics such as email, newsletters, social media, and posted flyers, students emphasized the importance of interpersonal connections as a means to spread knowledge of programs. students further highlighted the importance of including critical information in all promotional materials, as some participants expressed discomfort asking questions or reaching out to solicit more information. one student noted the difficulty of “[a]sking questions about why stuff is there, if they're interested in it. which is, yeah, not always the easiest.” although students of varied social classes agreed with this barrier, most participants who indicated discomfort asking questions identified as poor or working class, corroborating existing research which demonstrates that workingclass students had more limited institutional knowledge and were less likely to reach out to student support services (roksa & silver, 2019). furthermore, several themes emerged relating to factors that play a role in promoting awareness of el programs. the most prominent of these were faculty influence, peer influence, and curricular integration. faculty influence for many students, faculty were a positive influence to learn about opportunities. for example, a graduate student stated, the top of my awareness is whatever professors send out as opportunities for us to look into . . . if it's from a professor, i'll definitely read it at least, bare minimum, and as well as perceive as it being important. another participant indicated that if she had not heard about a certain career development resource from faculty, she would not have known it was there. “i have not seen information about the orchestra list thing anywhere else. so, if my teacher hadn't mentioned it in a lesson one time, i would not have known.” however, faculty influence can lean either way. as stated by a focus group participant, “if they encourage you, then you do it. but if they discourage you, that would definitely be a big discouragement.” one undergraduate interview participant, who was in a different instrumental studio, had not received any encouragement to pursue institutional el programs from faculty. this student had extremely limited awareness of programs and had not participated in any programs. considering the close mentoring relationships faculty often have with their students in conservatory settings, their strong influence on students’ connection to opportunities makes sense (creech et al., 2008; gaunt, 2011). austin and rust (2015) similarly found that faculty buy-in was the most effective promotional strategy for a new experiential learning program at their higher education institution. manceor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 26 this leads to the related question, how aware are faculty of existing extracurricular el programs at the institution? a graduate student reflected on this, concluding that, as one example, their faculty were supportive of career services programming but unaware of the details of available resources and opportunities. i hear, basically, a lot along the lines of like, ‘[the career office] is doing good things. what are they doing? i couldn't tell you, but i know that it's good and you should take advantage of it.’ and not just from my studio, [but also] across, you know, people that teach rep classes, [and] people that teach theory and musicology. given these findings, it could be informative to further explore faculty awareness and perceptions of programs as a pathway to more effectively reach students. peer influence similar to faculty, peer influence also played an important and multi-faceted role in students’ knowledge of programs. from a support perspective, several students discussed how they learned about programs from peers. one graduate student referred to this as “positive peer pressure,” explaining, “i learned more through peers, through people taking advantage of programming and me hearing about it from them.” another graduate student participant agreed, reflecting on “how close to my social circle does the information come from for me to really pay attention to it.” similarly, an undergraduate student described peer participation and accountability as a “gateway” to accessing new opportunities. another undergraduate student further shared that peer testimonials could provide helpful insight into the experience and outcomes of joining programs as well. conversely, multiple participants discussed how peers could limit or discourage students’ exposure to opportunities. an undergraduate interview participant asserted that it’s “dependent on who you surround yourself with. there are definitely people who are like, ‘you're going to a concert? [skeptical tone].’” considered in context of research by juvonen et al. (2012), the interview and focus group findings support the connection between peer interaction and engagement with institutional extracurricular activities. curricular integration when asked about pathways where they received information, two graduate student focus group participants discussed learning about programs through required curricular professional studies workshops and course announcements. additionally, an undergraduate interview participant discussed how her experience in a sophomore year community engagement course was “one of the main things that helped [her] realize that [she] could, you know, go and make connections in the community and actually go to events that [she] felt uncomfortable in.” students’ recognition of curricular connections as a key method to learn about opportunities and programs supports further integration of el program promotion in this context. prioritization and incentive to pursue programs students discussed their motivations to pursue extracurricular el programs and how they consider prioritizing their limited time and energy. some of the prominent factors that emerged as supports and barriers to prioritizing participation included compensation, cultural values and beliefs, motivation, time and availability, proximity to the institution, and socioeconomic status and parental support. compensation in terms of supports, compensation was clearly a positive factor and was mentioned by several students, most often graduate students. as one graduate student asserted “obviously, the easiest incentive is cash. if you're gonna pay me, that's great.” cultural values and beliefs many of the factors discussed were more complex and demonstrated potential to either positively or negatively influence students’ prioritization of el opportunities. for instance, several students discussed how cultural values and beliefs within their artistic spheres influenced their choices. one composition student discussed how their major encouraged pursuit of external opportunities. “there's generally encouragement to . . . take opportunities outside of coursework or lessons and whatnot. and i feel like that's generally from what i've seen, a very composer mindset of trying to find opportunities outside of school.” on the other hand, a vocal performance major discussed pressure to only pursue specific types of opportunities based on their departmental culture. this is not unique to [this institution], but i think it's that the nature of getting a master's degree in voice prioritizes opera culturally, like at most institutions, right. so being selected to be involved in that is often coveted and seen as a positive thing for you to do, and why would you not take advantage of it even if it's not a thing that you want to do? it is the thing that i want to do, although being in every production for the past few years has been taxing and it has meant that i haven't done other things. motivation many participants discussed the motivation to gain skills and experiences relevant to the current arts industry, as well as expand their networks at the institution and beyond to qualify themselves for various career options. however, motivation was dependent on student perceptions of the programs as they relate to their personal interests and goals, since the skills students were interested in developing were often connected to their majors and areas of focus. for example, performance majors expressed interest in gaining a variety of types of performance experience, and all five students pursuing a performance degree discussed this as an incentive to pursue experiential learning. conversely, when students perceived programs as inapplicable to them, this proved to be a significant barrier to their motivation to participate. non-performance majors in particular noted that they perceived many existing institutional programs as less relevant to their specific majors and degree programs. as a graduate composition student summarized, “i’m sure many of them could be applicable, but i think they’d probably take more work or be applicable in an indirect way, where it’s like i would have to find the really relevant positive impacts in it, rather than them being inherent in the work.” broadening students’ knowledge of the programs and clarifying the ways different majors might benefit from participation may help more students make stronger connections to institutional el programs. experiential learning in arts higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 27 time and availability many students emphasized that time was one of the biggest factors impacting their ability to participate in extracurricular programs, and all students agreed unanimously that their busy school and work schedules made it difficult to incorporate additional activities. a graduate student asserted, “part of it is time and capacity, with curricular responsibilities and with life responsibilities, just being a human being. i think that's probably the biggest one for me personally.” furthermore, an undergraduate student emphasized how the conservatory context plays a role. being in conservatory is pretty different than being in a normal university setting with a different, more focused degree. there's a kind of separation of like, doing your classes, doing your studies, but also like crafting your instrument, crafting your work, doing more like higher support skills, and that in and of itself. . . it's a pretty heavy load. this aligns with frenette’s (2019) findings related to time as notable concern and challenge for artists in their education. as a possible solution, the same undergraduate student suggested that accessible, one-off opportunities with a more limited time commitment may be more manageable for students’ busy schedules. proximity to the institution the factor of time also relates to the proximity of the programs. multiple students expressed concern with the time required to travel to off-campus opportunities or logistical limitations such as not having access to a car or limited public transportation options. two graduate student focus group participants discuss transportation barriers in their conversation, noting that “some people don’t have a car,” “parking at a venue can be annoying,” and “sometimes things are far away.” intersecting with time, one of the students further expressed that “the time to get somewhere” created an additional barrier, explaining “even if it's only 30 minutes, that's now an hour of being in a car or some sort of public transportation where you can't necessarily do other work.” socioeconomic status and parental support based on the demographic data findings for social class, it is possible financial factors and parental support play a role in students’ time and access to programs as well. for example, a graduate student who identified his social class as poor emphasized how his time was limited by financial and work obligations on top of his academic course load, limiting his time to take on additional activities. in comparison, a middle-class student dismissed parental support as a significant factor when discussing her ability to participate, stating “that’s not the main influence.” this student did not discuss financial limitations at all, but rather how parental support enabled her to attend summer seminars related to her major. further research may be beneficial to explore if and how social class may increase barriers, such as time, for students with fewer financial resources and more limited parental support. applying to programs in terms of applying to programs, students expressed concern relating to prerequisites and self-efficacy to apply to and pursue new opportunities. for example, a graduate student explained her hesitancy to pursue an opportunity “if you don't feel like you're having experiences that build you up to the level of competency, or if there's prerequisites but you're like barely scraping by and have no idea what's happening.” similarly, another graduate student described, i don't want to throw something together and feel afraid up there. that's not worth it. that's not going to be a positive experience for me. so, i could take advantage of it, but i'm not going to because i don't think i'll be able to put my best foot forward in those settings with everything else that's going on. others discussed how prior experience plays a role in preparing them to pursue new opportunities. in particular, students emphasized the importance of curricular learning to support their self-efficacy to pursue extracurricular opportunities. an undergraduate student explained, i feel like there [were] kind of these building elements to establish my confidence. i'm pursuing a business of music minor and i think, taking a lot of those classes beforehand, like arts leadership, had really helped me like feel more educated and have a confidence in that kind of aspect of things and feel like, okay, i can actually possibly do this. the same student described how curricular integration of programs influenced her experience applying to an institutional grant program. “having things integrated into the curriculum is super helpful . . . you were guided through the steps the whole way.” another undergraduate student agreed that curricular support “makes it more approachable” to pursue extracurricular opportunities. as summarized by a graduate focus group participant, “extracurricular learning is built on curricular learning.” lastly, a few students noted that they sometimes saw opportunities only a short time before the application deadline and were unable to pursue them due to a short turnaround to apply, even if they were interested in the program. one undergraduate interview participant described, it'll be like, hey, this opportunity, it's due by midnight tomorrow night. and that's great . . . but it's always usually a time crunch. and it's like, do i want to drop everything that i've already had planned to do in the next 48 hours to focus on this opportunity that could be really good, and could you know, bring me more . . . opportunities outside of my classwork? or do i just have to say, well, maybe next time? another undergraduate student expressed a similar sentiment, stating, “there's just stuff that i missed that i . . . if i only saw it earlier.” this suggests that institutions should promote programs well in advance to give students enough time to find information and prepare appropriate application materials. overall, the findings revealed several themes related to individual, social, programmatic, and systemic factors that impacted students’ el participation. at the same time, each study participant expressed distinct motivations, values, and priorities which impacted their choices and perspectives. it is critical to address supports and barriers to participation while constructing and communicating programs in a way that allows students to make connections to their unique interests and goals. limitations there are several significant limitations to this study. first, due to sample size and the priority given to qualitative methods, the results are not generalizable. moreover, this research was situated at a specific institution which offers a particular array of programs. manceor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 28 factors impacting participation may look different at other institutions with other models and types of programs. the methods and sample size were appropriate given the exploratory nature of the study and provide strong groundwork for further research at this institution and beyond. additionally, the demographic factor of social class was not operationalized in a measurable way. the demographic survey framed social class in terms of student identity, as this research was very exploratory in nature and the survey was designed to be flexible to various student groups and identities, such as undergraduate students who consider themselves part of a greater family unit compared to graduate students who might consider themselves independent of parental support. future, more expansive studies may benefit from more measurability of this construct, particularly given the potential connections between social class and participation explored in this research. further limitations arose relating to recruitment. when recruiting students for the focus group portion of the research, i received limited responses and the students who did respond had very little overlapping availability. as a result, i was unable to include as many students in the focus group research as originally intended. furthermore, no international students participated in the study. this is a substantial population for the institutional context and the lack of participation limited the ability to gather valuable international student perspectives. even so, these recruitment challenges support the theme of student time and availability as a factor for participation in extracurricular el programs (frenette, 2019) and align with literature which highlights additional barriers to engagement for international students (choi, 2013). selection bias also posed a threat to validity, as the project engaged a limited group of nine students who elected to participate based on their interest and capacity to respond. the individuals who volunteered may have certain attributes potentially unrepresentative of the remaining student body, impacting their experiences and responses. future expansion of this research in quantitative forms can broaden access to participate in this research and reduce the impact of selection bias. finally, my staff and faculty roles at the institution and perspective as an alumna of the institution placed me in close proximity to the research as someone closely situated to the programs and to the students. to mitigate this limitation, i kept an ongoing research journal to remain cognizant and reflexive throughout the research process. constructively, my positionality as a practitioner-scholar provides a unique lens through which to process the findings and ultimately make positive change at my institution. summary and implications the mixed methods findings revealed a variety of interwoven programmatic and systemic influences on student participation in extracurricular el programs at a mid-atlantic performing arts conservatory. in relation to research aims, students discussed a wide range of supports and barriers to learn about programs, prioritize and incentivize pursuit of programs, and apply to programs. the following list encompasses a brief summary of findings within these primary themes. ● learning about programs: awareness and curricular integration were supports to learning about programs. discomfort asking questions was a barrier for many students. promotion, faculty influence, and peer influence had potential to serve as both supports and barriers depending on the details and circumstances of each. ● prioritization and incentive to pursue programs: compensation, motivation, and applicability of the programs to student interests were clear supports to participation. time and availability and lack of applicability of programs were substantial barriers. other factors, such as cultural values and beliefs and proximity of the programs to the institution, could positively or negatively influence participation. ● applying to programs: curricular integration returned as a positive influence, while short turnaround to apply emerged as a barrier. prior experience and prerequisites and selfefficacy were more complex factors which could be categorized as both supports and barriers. furthermore, although demographic data was not generalizable, interesting potential connections appeared in the findings, particularly for differences in perceptions and experience for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as that of students of different social classes. for arts contexts specifically, there also may be potential for trends between different majors and areas of study. based on these findings, the following sections review implications for the institution as well as for continued research in the field. implications for the institution bearing in mind the limited sample size of the study, the findings suggest several possible avenues to improve program promotion, address supports and barriers to participation, and further explore factors of influence at the institution. promotion based on student responses, the institution should promote programs on multiple platforms, such as social media, email, student opportunities newsletters, online job posting platforms, and in particular through curricular integration, which was consistently reported as a support for both learning about and applying to programs. personal and catered outreach through faculty, staff, and student organizations may also be helpful to facilitate direct connections to the programs for students. additionally, posting paper flyers with qr code links in high traffic areas may reduce students’ need to search for information online by making it available in convenient locations. within promotional materials themselves, it may be beneficial to include sufficient details to address logistical and motivational influences such as time commitment, location, and professional networking, and to reduce the need for students to reach out and ask questions about the programs to get more information. supports and barriers to participation to increase supports for participation and reduce barriers, the institution should design programs to maximize alignment with student motivations and minimize logistical challenges. this first involves reviewing existing programs to ensure opportunities are offered for all degree types and majors. in addition, programs should clearly offer opportunities to build relationships with professionals in the field as well as peers at the institution. from a logistical experiential learning in arts higher education impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 2 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.370 29 perspective, considering students’ limited time and availability, the institution should offer one-off opportunities that occur within a limited time frame and ensure the availability of el opportunities near campus or even on-campus to negate the need for transportation and minimize travel time. to support students’ selfefficacy to apply to programs, the institution can provide scaffolded skill-building opportunities (through required curriculum or through alternative approaches) and define clear pathways for students interested in gaining experience and qualifications that will prepare them for certain programs. further exploration while this research addressed a substantial number of potential factors related to student participation in extracurricular el programs, it also revealed the need for further exploration in several areas. first, since no international students participated, it is critical to gain more information about these students’ perspective, particularly given the large international student population at the institution. additionally, this study identified student perceptions of el programs, but did not specifically explore how to better frame existing programs and broaden student perspectives to better connect the programs to student interests and reduce misconceptions. lastly, considering participants’ discussion of faculty as a substantial influence on their knowledge of and interest in el opportunities, it would be beneficial to better understand faculty awareness and perceptions of the programs. general research implications given the limited scope and context of this study, further research is needed to generalize findings for application beyond my institution. the design and methodology of the study have potential to serve as a reference and foundation for future, more generalizable research which can facilitate better understandings of students and programs in other higher education arts contexts. furthermore, the demographic observations in this study suggest potential for several demographic influences on el participation that may be relevant to explore in more detail to determine if there are trends related to student characteristics such as social class, degree level, and major. overall, this study demonstrates the complex network of influences impacting student participation in extracurricular el programs and sets the stage to broaden availability of much-needed empirical research related to el in the arts. conclusion framed by an evolving arts industry which has created substantial educational skills gaps for emerging artists, this study provided a better understanding of the factors that contribute to student participation in the extracurricular el programs at a midatlantic performing arts conservatory. this data supports evidencebased practice in the field and may help the institution adjust the programs and processes to serve more students by making them more accessible and relevant to different groups of students. the study also provides helpful groundwork for future research in this area, which has the potential to substantially and positively impact higher education arts institutions seeking to build and promote el programming in a way that makes these pivotal opportunities accessible, relevant, and appealing to more students. references austin, m. j., & rust, d. z. 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we just happened to do it through a podcast, song breaks, collaboration, sisterhood, multi-color writing, and non-linear and unique presentations. we didn’t defend ‘alternative’ dissertations; rather, we argue that ours exemplify what dissertations are meant to be. identifying dissertations as either traditional or alternative ascribes a set of (ab)normative values to both knowledge and the production of knowledge that should be antithetical to dissertations. keywords dissertations, knowledge construction, critical theory we are 7 doctors writing about our dissertation experiences in a doctoral program at a mid-size midwestern university. our writing collective is multiracial, multi-gender, queer-expansive, and multidis(abled), and these identities inform(ed) our dissertation journeys, our flocking and murmurating, and our writing below. we have authored our paper in a hooksian (hooks, 1994) style, which we acknowledge may be disconcerting for some, but which is as much a part of our argument as it is our process of murmurating and flocking. like all murmurations, our conversation reflects the sounds and echoes of our collective ideation, movement, and knowledge advancement. this article and the data that follows come from a series of conversations we held in the first 6 months of 2024 in response to this special issue’s call for proposals. while we quote our transcripts directly at times, readers should also know that we wrote the entire paper collaboratively and surfaced many ideas that, while not 1 when writing this paper, we wrote in distinct colors modeled after rae’s dissertation (wright et al., 2020) in which font colors served to highlight the dissertation’s individual and collective voices. we have quoted, also arose from those conversations. we begin this work by explicitly tying our flocking to the construct of action research. josie1: how do we take what has happened, or ourselves into the community to create that change? and i think that's where the action research part of this is… i don't wanna say missing, cause you know, we may not be able to hit every single thing, but it is really clarifying. what are we saying? is it us? is it the individual? is it the collective? then now going back into their realms of influence and causing that change. so, i think what you just said, brandelyn, really brought some of those things to mind and some of it is in the conversations we've had, which is good. brandelyn: josie, i think what i heard you saying is that action research is being thought of two ways. one is like within the dissertation. there's action research as this epistemological stance. but you're also talking about action research as the process of actioning research itself. right? it's no longer an individual epistemological stance for research. it's about each shaped the ideas in the paper, and so we are now publishing in a single font color (black) to represent our shared voice (wright et al., 2022). https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1969-827x https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9554-311x https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0197-8507 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2670-5167 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6824-4704 worthy et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 95 forwarding this idea of what can be and changing it and feeding back to research itself. josie: yes! brandelyn: there's this move toward action research, a privileging of action, research, and a privileging of process that involves an actual context and actual change. and what we're saying is, if you're gonna privilege the process and changing the process, you also ought to privilege changing the product and letting the product follow naturally from this process. we resonate with the words of grace lee boggs, who offered that to “transform yourself [is] to transform the world” (as cited in brown, 2017, p. 53). as individuals and as a collective, we each attribute tremendous value to the concept of action. we ground our work within action research epistemologies (buss, 2018; osterman et al., 2014; zambo, 2011; zambo & isai, 2012) and privilege those ways of knowing intended to result in change, particularly change toward equitable, ethical, and just worlds. our privileging of action is thus not simply methodological but is also epistemological and ultimately axiological. shulman (2005) introduced the concept of signature pedagogies, defining them as “types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions… to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (p. 52, emphasis in the original). perry (2012) explicitly connects shulman’s definition to the purpose of a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) dissertation2, naming it as “the culminating experience that demonstrates the scholarly practitioner’s ability to solve problems of practice and exhibits the doctoral candidate’s ability ‘to think, to perform, and to act with integrity’” (p. 44). further conversation on doctor of education (edd) dissertations have included rejoinders to expand the norms of format (archbald, 2010; ferrell et al., 2019; macgregor & fellabaum, 2016; maxwell & kupczyk-romanczuk, 2009; meyer & shannon, 2010), of support and mentorship (alpert et al., 2023; olson & clark, 2009; zambo & isai, 2012), and of authorship (smith, 2022). recent proposed signature pedagogies for the edd include pedagogies of/for activism (jones becton & jeffries, 2020; weiler & lomotey, 2022) and explicit connections are being made between action research methodologies and justice (alpert et al., 2023; osterman et al., 2014). in this tradition of offering (re)visions3 to the dissertation, we offer our signature pedagogy: flocking. we locate our flocking squarely in adrienne maree brown’s tradition in which she describes flocking as “an art” in which members of the flock “[stay] separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other” (2017, p. 2 in this article, we utilize the phrase dissertation to refer to an approach of dissertation/dissertation-inpractice writing that rejects the forms and practices of either so-called ‘traditional’ or ‘alternative’ dissertations. 3 we use (re)vision in the tradition of cynthia dillard (2012) to indicate that the work is simultaneously located in the present (visioning) and the past (revisioning). 4 if a reader of our paper is not yet familiar with this book, please immediately remedy the situation. we wish we could re-experience our first time reading emergent strategy and look forward to you experiencing those same rushes of joy, confusion, and possibility. 5 we define our academic lineage as follows. many of these influences flow between multiple authors but are only named once as our works and thoughts do not exist in vacuums. (brandelyn): bettina 13)4. unlike many of the other (re)visions to the dissertation, we flock around shared norms rather than a specific form or product; in doing so, we intend to create “futures in which everyone doesn’t have to be the same kind of person” (brown, 2017, p. 57). an important part of our journeys was realizing that knowledge is constructed, contested, and arguable (american library association, 2015). each of us had been socialized, to different extents, into accepting that knowledge simply was, that experts simply were. while we each brought a healthy dose of skepticism to educational norms and practices, we were generally accepting of the norms of doctoral study itself. as we moved into and through our doctoral study, we each engaged in a process of discovery, aided by those whose work we took up because their values aligned with our own. while this work absolutely includes those we consider to be in our academic lineage5, we came to realize the importance of one another in our individual and collective growth. figure 1 depicts the significant relationships between the authors as individuals and as a collective, as well as shares some information about each author’s dissertation and how they unfolded relative to the others’. figure 1．relationship and chronology map of authors and dissertations l. love, cynthia dillard, bell hooks, charlene carruthers, (rae): sara ahmed, patricia hill collins, angela davis, audre lorde, barbara smith, brittney cooper, adrienne maree brown, (tynisha): james baldwin, derrick bell, ta nehisi coates, kimberle crenshaw, patrice khan cullors, ibram x. kendi, treva lindsey, kyra shahid, patricia williams, venus evans-winters, (courtney): resmaa menakem, beyonce knowles-carter, alice walker, elaine welteroth, erykah badu, sara lawrence-lightfoot, cole arthur riley, antar tichavakunda, brent staples, zora neale hurston, (kayla): john dewey, tema okun, (ike): judith butler, scott herring, donna mccormack, c. riley snorton, meg-john barker, ramzi fawaz, (josie): damon a. williams, katrina c. wade-golden, and tara j. yasso. flock around and find out impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 96 our program is structured into cohorts, a single cohort admitted per year and is designed to be completed in three years. thus, at any given time we have a novice cohort, a more advanced cohort, and a cohort engaged in completing dissertations. we have learned that our flocking is supported by this cyclical pattern as murmuration happens within and across cohorts. …a murmuration, the way groups of starlings billow, dive, spin, dance collectively through the air… each creature is tuned in to… the creatures right around it in the formation… each creature is shifting direction, speed, and proximity based on the information of the other creatures’ bodies. (brown, 2017, p. 71) word of the murmurations spread through the program. for example, as program faculty and program director, brandelyn highlighted the work being undertaken by each of this article’s authors and assigned their dissertations as readings. further, each dissertation defense in the program is publicized so that current students can attend. thus, subsequent students learned of each of these innovative approaches to a dissertation, but there was no requirement of murmurating or flocking as preconditions for undertaking or completing doctoral or dissertation work. relationships between and among this article’s authors include some predating the program, with others emerging during the program. some relationships continued after the program, and others met during the initial call about this manuscript. we are reminded of brown’s (2017) words on spontaneity: birds don’t make a plan to migrate, raising resources to fund their way, packing for scarce times, mapping out their pit stops. they feel a call in their bodies that they must go, and they follow it, respond to each other, each bringing their adaptations. (p. 13) we were called to murmuration, followed it, each finding the spirit of the flock and incorporating our individual interpretations of that spirit as the north stars guiding our dissertations. our processes are/were to murmurate and our product is/was the flock. we are/were each shaped by murmuration and we each shape/d the flock. none of us knew that we could have the kind of dissertation processes we had; that we could do the kind of dissertation we did; and that we could center our scholarship around ourselves, our needs, our circumstances, and our values. there’s not a blueprint for alternative dissertations it would likely be antithetical to alternative dissertations if there was one. “the more people travel on a path, the flatter and smoother the surface becomes. when something is smoother, it is clearer; the more a path is followed, the easier it is to follow” (ahmed, 2019, p.41). when there isn’t a clear path, or more importantly, when the only clear path clear to us was a tradition(al) dissertation process, we had to forge new pathways, to make new meaning of the dissertation. tynisha: there is a way that we are socialized, that dissertations are supposed to be. and then there is this idea about, like edds and what cped is trying to do, and the degree to which we made the choices that we made because those confines didn't work for the situations that we were in, or you know, our lenses, or circumstances, or whatever. and so, i think what i'm adding is like a critique of and a question about why not? there's this way that we are told [dissertations] must be. and how are we breaking down the barriers or opening up access or expanding what's possible, if that's what the expectation is? these are ways that people still achieve scholarship. this is what is rare. it's not the norm. ike: you know and part of that could be a conversation: here’s what is the norm. and as a program, and as a group, as a collective that we are being how unusual is it, and why is it that all of us had such successful journeys in such alternative ways within one single program? and all the journeys being so vastly different. because you know, the traditional dissertation program or traditional doctorate program… there is a set way that you do it. and they are very good at doing it this way. so why is it that… why is it that this program allows for and people also thrive in a way that is so varied? while we may in fact be killjoys (ahmed, 2021), we are also not interested in restricting our imaginations to critique. we are interested in doing things “differently, aligned with a different set of core principles for existence” (brown, 2017, p. 114). what follows is our reflections of how our ‘alternative’ dissertations came to life and our interrogations of what is (re)inforced when scholarship is referred to as ‘alternative’. we did not seek out to author ‘alternative’ dissertations; rather our scholarship was born out of needs that were not met by ‘traditional’ dissertation pathways. the curiosity what is a dissertation? the common understanding of a dissertation is a comprehensive and lengthy piece of academic writing that capstones the completion of a doctoral degree. it typically involves original research on a specific question that generates new knowledge in the field of study. these academic artifacts are often the culmination of years of study and represent the comprehensive understanding of what it is to research and offer a significant contribution to the academic community’s understanding of the topic. these, though, are insufficient descriptors of a dissertation prioritizing parts of form over function. as a group of scholars that have engaged in so-called ‘alternative’ dissertations, we first interrogated components of a doctoral dissertation unraveling the product of a dissertation alongside the practice of dissertating: brandelyn: how do you know if it's doctoral-level quality, if it doesn't look like what you think doctoral-level stuff has always looked like. what is the rubric? ike: we live in a world of rubrics. we want the comfort of a checklist. so, what does it look like? what does doctoral work look like without the comfort of a checklist? tynisha: i don't agree with that. i don't. the credential is a thing, but what is it that you are able to do? there is a skill set. there is action and practice that we should be able to see and know, because you have participated in a process regardless of what the product looks like. can you understand the environment and the landscape within which you're operating? can you understand the conversations that have happened over time? can you find and observe and notice what has been said, what has not been said? how, what has shifted and changed? i think it's about what you are able to do as a result of the experience, more than it is about the production of a paper or a research project in a certain style. and so, more than what i've heard you all just exchange, whether i make a podcast or courtney sings a song, there is a skill set that we have acquired and a way that we are going to be operating in our institutions and in our communities that belies the credential, not the, the production of the thing. ike: so that is a really interesting way of stating things because it makes me feel like what we're doing is very anticapitalist in that traditional dissertation programs skills and the worthy et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 97 knowledge and the abilities that you are gaining through this process. and let the product be the product. and so it feels very like we're rejecting this, this system that's set up to be like ‘you must accomplish this one thing in order to be successful’. by design, a dissertation functions as a journey, though much of the focus is on the culminating product to which the academy assigns value. in our work, we found that the actual process itself is just as valuable. the process of ideating, ruminating, creating, and constructing is a full experience that does not exist in an end state but actually in a living state. thinking of dissertations as living bodies of work highlights their impact and effect from conception to dissemination. many of us found that the start of our work began with intentional attention given to what bothered us, what moved us, what mattered to us. we chose different dissertation design paths not (necessarily) to buck the systems and structures that maintained fixed containers but instead as an agentic move toward the creation and elevation of liberatory and identity-formed scholarship. that is, at its core, what we believe a dissertation should do. what is alternative? our collective insight around the subject of defining dissertations led us to interrogate the word alternative as a misaligned term. through our conversation, we began to invest our energy into the process of listening and learning about how we each arrived at the point of inspired creation. the dialogue we shared about each of our works created a sense of connectedness because in those moments of naming our personal whys, we came into an even deeper understanding and revelation about our collective how. how we produced our scholarship was unifyingly unique and steeped in a commitment to our values and vision for what knowledge and scholarship could look like outside of fixed, gate-kept containers. during these moments, we found several points of connection that brought us to diverse yet similar paths along our journeys. our work was different but our commitment to a personalized form was similar. what surfaced was a throughline of variety and creativity that resulted in each of us constructing a body of work that was new to the academic spaces we previously or had presently occupied. in our conversation below, we name ‘alternative’ as an insufficient descriptor of what we all produced. courtney: let’s interrogate the word ‘alternative and what is defined and named as different and perhaps start from that point. like even that feels like a way to punch the system. it's like, why is this even being named as different, like expanding thought. bring your whole full self into this dissertating process. there's something that i think can be named about normalizing that. ike: i think that's a solid point, because in a lot of ways, when we talk about the word ‘alternative’, we associate it with unusual or nonstandard. or you know there's a negative connotation with the idea of being alternative. it's seen as less than in a lot of ways. an alternative path in high school, an alternative school. 6 building on the practice of rae’s collective dissertation process and journey (wright et al., 2020), my co-author and i similarly used different colors in our writing process but chose not to surface those colors in the final product. together, we wrote a 3-article collaborative dissertation that focused on the motivators, barriers, kayla6: it makes me wonder, paired with really interrogating our own understanding, what the purpose of a dissertation is, too. so, if the purpose is to develop new knowledge for a field then there can't be a normative way to share and develop knowledge. we resist the othering the term ‘alternative’ implies. such framing invites a hierarchy that privileges a supposed, centered norm rather than centering all ways of knowing as valuable and meaningful. we challenge the notion of a singular, normative path. there are many ‘right’ ways for the process and product of a dissertation to emerge. our commitment lies in developing scholarship in forms that serve the purpose of the audience and content of our research. we learned that we were located with “one foot in creative destruction and the other… in the possibility of making new things” (mariame kaba in hemphill, 2021, 4:49). there is something beautiful that happens when we allow the musings of meaning to pour out from our souls and join with the wisdom that exists in prior research. the result of this type of (e)merging creates a space of meaning-making that is rooted and grounded in valuable theoretical pinings and depth-laden personal insights. this kind of work does not seek validation in its function and form; however, its personal and creative design does not dilute its valued and meaningful contribution to the scholarship space. i didn’t know you could do that! our dissertations started with an important question: can we even do this? this started with a conversation with brandelyn, who served as dissertation chair for each of our dissertation committees. “how you do something is just as important as what you're producing” (courtney). for us, the how started with interrogating the production, interrogating the process. but there was also a negotiation between what we challenge, what we (re)produce, and how we negotiate between “flinging open the doors” (ike), meeting our own understandings of academic standards, and getting our credentials (we came for the degrees, dammit!). brandelyn: how do we reconcile our movement away from traditional norms of research and information, sharing as a marker of doctoral-level preparation and defining doctoral work without the trappings of what it’s supposed to look like? courtney: yes. josie: yeah. i mean, those two go together because you look at the beautiful questions, right? like when you allow the product to reflect the process, you fling the doors open to all these amazing, beautiful products that are currently held outside or othered away from what is knowledge. and at the same time, the reality of the academic field, in which there are lots of institutions and lots of individuals who don't recognize that beautiful knowledge as good enough. and so how do you both/and it (collins, 1989)? i mean, i prefer the method of just going ‘deal with it’. but that's not really everyone's thing. tynisha: if you think about how people used to become lawyers, how people used to become blacksmiths. it was and approaches to social justice in higher education. we used different methodologies across the three pieces, including leveraging duoethnography with an entire article surfacing as dialogue annotated by footnotes for a metaconversation along the way (ritter rickels & fallon, 2023). flock around and find out impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 98 apprenticing. in the traditional phd process, you are apprenticing. you are working on your chairs’ projects with them. they are passing on their knowledge to you. you are learning how to do the things. and i don't necessarily think that that was problematic. that's one of the key distinctions between this edd program and how traditional doctor of philosophy (phd) programs work. because our critiques are not what they produce in terms of their dissertation. it is what they are able to do. it's like they're making progeny, “go replicate me and my way!” i personally do not think all of it is bad. what i think becomes the problem is that my work does not have value because it doesn't look a certain way. and your work does have value because it meets this formulaic way. but we both have the same ability to do, to scan the environment, to make assessments, to organize a method, to gather information and make meaning of that information, and then to let that information guide how we show up in our spaces. and that's what i think is what's important and what we're critiquing. because usually what happens on the back end of the phd in terms of the document is that it doesn't go anywhere. it's behind the paywall. but that skill set that application of the things that were transferred from that tutelage that's how people teach or that's how people organize their experiments or whatever. courtney: i was looking for the question that you asked me, brandelyn. when writing my dissertation, that kind of opened up the door for like, “oh!” because i was getting an edd, and i thought about a phd at a point. i think there was a part of me that was subscribing to some… ‘whatever’ that thought it had to be a certain way to prove even more so that my scholarship was valid, or that this [knowledge] matters too. because for whatever reason that was just in my mind. and then i stepped away from that. but what that [conversation] elevated for me is… there's something in what questions we are asked as those who are creating or adding to the scholarship. we do it to be able to ‘speak truth to power’. to provide a different experience outside of what has been maintained as these orderly structures, and what has been in some ways protected or named as more valid. brandelyn: your why dovetails with what tynisha was saying: it’s what people are able to do and how we show up in spaces, not to prove that you can do research on your own. i think the why of a traditional dissertation is to show that you have mastered the content and can now conduct your own and analyze your own independent, scholarly contributions to the literature. and our why doesn't have very much of that in it. certainly not the independent part. but there's nothing about what we're saying that privileges the independent over the collaborative. and it's not about demonstrating what you know and can do in an isolated study separate from the world. it's about what you know and can do in context and in collaboration with those who are also in that same context. and that's a very different why. the ideas of what doctoral-level work is, who defined it, who reproduced its meaning, and who determines if our work was doctoral work was a theme throughout our dissertating processes. a challenge of challenging the traditional norms of dissertations is that we also challenge the rubrics of completion, of evaluation. what are the metrics of a successful dissertation? how are they evaluated, and to what, and maybe more importantly, who’s standard? this negotiation remains forefront as we continue to expand our own 7 to paraphrase scholar and activist brian stevenson. understanding and further flocking around our own scholarship and influence others’ dissertations. tynisha: i have a couple of feelings and reactions. to be clear, i believe that our current structures are fucked up. that's the best, simplest way to say it. i also feel like the rules change. and there are people who, when the rules change, they can navigate that. and then for other people, it's not true that i get to do that. it’s not true for everybody. and so, brandelyn and i have had this conversation about grades. for me, grades were a way for me to know that i was doing a good job and for me to demonstrate that i had learned the things that they asked me to know to be able to move to the next place. and now everybody's like, “grades are trash”. forget that. so, this thing that i did. i did the things. i jumped through all your hoops. and now you telling me that all of my work doesn't mean anything because we changing the rules. i don't think all rubrics or expectations or ways that currently exist are bad. i do not get to only operate within the space that we co-created and the things that we agreed upon. i feel like it is my responsibility, particularly when i'm talking to my students, like, absolutely, throw all of this shit away. but until we throw it all away, they have to go into this world, and they are bound by these things. and black children don't get the same opportunities to be willy-nilly and have it be okay. we have zero-tolerance policies. we have, “you don’t meet the mark.” unless we are saying we don't want to play in academia at all. academia has a way. and the ways that we challenge it are to name and say in my practice, particularly when i'm in this space and outside of it, the leader that i am at my job is the same leader that i am when i am in my classroom, which is why i have trouble, right? like i'm gonna tell you the truth, whatever space that i'm in. but there is a cost for me in that. and there is a cost for our young people who haven't even made it to this place to be a doctor, and it's gonna be a cost for people who are in the program trying to do the things like, just because we don't agree that these rules … they’re bullshit! but they exist. and until we burn down and rebuild every place that our people are gonna be, we can have this conversation, but we have to be mindful that this is not what happens in real life for everybody. brandelyn: mmmm. tynisha: and so that's why i am saying like, what is it that you are supposed to be able to do? there is a level of intellectual curiosity and rigor that is inherent in being a doctor. what does it mean to show up in a space and operate in these ways so that these things, these results are replicated? people feel seen, heard, and valued. people know how to have conversations across lines of difference. people know how to be resilient in the face of adversity. people produce whatever it is that they choose to produce, despite dual pandemics and family loss and loss of jobs and all the things. how do you contribute in this world? how do you keep showing up in the face of brutal facts7? that is what i think doctoral work is. you have a question, and you answer it. and you meet the minimum of the criteria that help you sleep at night. brandelyn: yes. tynisha: we know that the american psychological association has done a lot of harm, so i don't think that they should be arbiters, but i also don't disagree that [using] worthy et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 99 complete sentences and periods is a problem. so, i think another part of the conversation is this tension that exists. brandelyn: what you’re saying makes me wonder do we say, “yes, we're going to stick with these like apa writing, like writing in complete sentences.” and which ones are we going to let go of? how do we prepare people to simultaneously be free and also be able to operate outside of the space that we've co-constructed? i think i'm saying, how do we do both of them? and i think what i heard you say was we talk too much about doing one or the other instead of how do we facilitate being able to function across spaces? courtney: as you were talking brandelyn and tynisha what was coming to mind is like this is a process of like unveiling as a valid experience, navigating maintenance of systems and expansion of systems. and this process is like lifting the veil off of what it should look like and leaving space for what has already been said. but the words maintenance and expansion came to mind cause… so, where things need to be maintained, the periods and the grammar, but there is room for expansion. how do we also encourage expansion? and i think that's where the professors, at least to me, were instrumental in doing both/and. like, okay, you gotta make sure this is cited correctly per apa 7. and why are you not using more yourself in this particular chapter, like more of you can come alive in your chapter 3. and i'm like, really, i thought, okay. and so, having somebody push both/and for me helped me to maintain the things but also expand where there was freedom for me to be alive and full and whole in that space. brandelyn: it seems to me like maintenance and expansion is the central both/and here. how do we maintain our identities and expand our credential as doctors? how do we be true to who we are through the process, and even in how we conduct and distribute knowledge? how do we maintain those things that will give face validity outside of the program while expanding what the process and product can look like at the same time? courtney: yeah, that feels right to me, cause it's like a dance. how do i maintain the beat and the rhythm? brandelyn: this reminds me of a webinar i recently attended. the presenter described her capacity as expanding and contracting. similarly, i don't just want to expand. i also do want to get rid of some other things. like, i want to get rid of the idea that a solo-authored dissertation is better than a collaborative-authored dissertation. i actually want to contract around that. the expansion is around authorship. the contraction is around expectation of what looks like rigor. and so, there's that which is maintained. there's that which is expanded into and then there is that which is contracted from, because actually, we're not here for that. that's not our thing. courtney: i like that. brandelyn: yeah? courtney: yeah. ike: it feels very much like you're describing a living thing. we are, the program itself, it's a living thing. it grows and it shrinks and it moves. like we are rooted in this thing, and we grow out of it. but we, we grow around obstacles, or we shift away from things or toward things that give us energy. it feels very much like a living model. courtney: yesss. i love that, ike. i was just thinking that our work is living work. like, for a lot of us, our work is continuing to breathe and move, and… ike: and, at least for me, it's work that i live for, right? like it's not, it's, it provides me with you know, with the energy to do these things. it's in that concept of a living work. brandelyn: it may also be the work that gives us the ability to live in a capitalist society, like me. it's our living work. it's work that we live for, and it may also be the work that is our living. courtney: yeah. all three! in the excerpt above, we engage in a discussion around the ideas of maintenance, contraction, and expansion. in edd programs, with regard to the dissertation, what do we maintain? what do we contract around? what do we expand upon? how might our view of rigor and acceptable organization (e.g. a 5-chapter dissertation) evolve if we did not insist upon there being one right way? what if we grow and shift and change, are malleable, as our capacity and the complexity of our problems of practice allow and/or demand? being impacted by one another’s work/influencing as a community having first pursued a phd in a different discipline, i (tynisha) entered the edd program with an idea of what a dissertation looked like. upon meeting rae and learning that she was writing a collaborative dissertation with four other women, tynisha’s view of what was possible expanded tremendously. tynisha: i literally did not know one could do that! as we embarked on our respective dissertation journeys, we were all impacted by each other’s work. someone going before us, pursuing an unconventional path, gave others permission to imagine another way. working alongside others with visions for their dissertations that did not adhere to the ‘traditional’ 5-chapter format was affirming and spurred our creativity. and for those who followed us, they had examples of people who’d successfully pursued uncharted paths, including those who ultimately became dissertation members on subsequent committees, as josie (evans-phillips, 2021) became for kayla (ritter rickels & fallon, 2023) and as tynisha (worthy, 2021) became for courtney (walton, 2023). what had once been mere possibility, was actuality, thus, what they envisioned as possible, felt most probable. rae: josie, i’m thinking about the ways that i have been influenced by all y'all's dissertations (evans-phillips, 2021; hilpp, 2021; ritter rickels & fallon, 2023; walton, 2023; worthy, 2021) still as a scholar, and that is ongoing. even though we didn't write necessarily together, the influence of still knowing that all of these dissertations have come out of our program have still influenced me in how i write and view myself as a scholar and the scholarship that i'm interested in. ike: it’s like when you open pandora's box, you expose scholars to different formats and different ways of thinking, and you know, the idea that this is possible. what other ideas and what other things spring out of it, you know? once you kind of start cultivating that, what else grows? the collaborative is a critical part. not only that, it's like we're saying that we're not necessarily concerned about the independent singular, but that actually the collaborative creates this environment for all of these things. without the collaborative, would any of us have produced these products or these processes? flock around and find out impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 100 brandelyn: which then goes back to things like a cohort-based model and lscs8 and the social components woven through the program. what we're saying is this is about how we each bring something to teach, and we each bring something to learn, and together, when we all bring what we can teach and learn, we create something more powerful than the sum of all of our individual creations. there is the collaboration inherent in a program with a cohort model– working alongside and partnering throughout coursework. there are those of us who collaborated as thought partners, readers, feedback givers, and cheerleaders in lscs. there are those of us who collaborated on dissertations, co-authoring with at least one other person. in the varying ways that we engaged in collaboration, we discovered how vital collaboration is. we each made important individual contributions; however, our collective contributions–how we learned from and taught each other, how we built upon and expanded together, is far greater. in addition to collaboration, relationships and community played a critical role in our dissertating. with regard to relationships, ike expresses how the relationship he formed with a classmate was critical to his successful completion of his dissertation. the exchange also examines the nuances of how one might conceptualize community–a person or people one might be in community with, membership in a community based upon identity or group affinity, and also community more broadly, external folks with less proximity or access but still a community one might center or seek to engage. it is our belief that the dissertation should be in service to the community, should derive from and foster meaningful relationships, and should result in freedom and liberation. courtney: i think there's something to elevating like proximity to personhood or proximity to lived experience, you know, or proximity to personhood. i think that's something too, like, traditional scholarship is like, “distance yourself, look at the thing,” where here, there was a lot of permission, encouragement to be a part of the thing. brandelyn: this relational component is proximity to personhood. it's not proximity to the individual, it's proximity to the relational, to something personal, personhood, personcentered. ike: proximity to the community, too. we are vested in both our own personal community and the communities we build around this. and i know that for me, i mean, particularly without josie, i would not have finished without her. community seems to be in and throughout our conversations. we are always coming back to the collective and the community. brandelyn: when you said community, you were thinking about josie, like internal community, but i was thinking about how proximate your work was to the queer community in kentucky and the 4h community and indigenous communities (hilpp, 2021). and all the ways that you took this work and made it proximate to communities. so, there's the internal and the external. like courtney’s research in terms of proximity to black women leaders’ experiences (walton, 2023). to the point where your [speaking to courtney] research was also an intervention. it wasn't intended to be, but that’s what occurred from it. 8 lsc is an abbreviation for leader scholar community, which is the ‘cohort within a cohort’ structure we utilize during years 2 and 3 of courtney: yesssss. brandelyn: and proximity to change, proximity to applying the knowledge rather than proximity to sitting on a bookshelf somewhere and never being read. courtney: yes. being accessible, utilized, actionable. brandelyn: yes. it's like tynisha said: “behind the paywall.” it is liberating knowledge from behind the paywall. it's liberating the way that knowledge is constructed from behind the paywall. it's liberating the process of constructing knowledge from behind the paywall. it is liberating the sharing of information. traditional academia exists within the walls of the paywall. the paywall are its bounds. and we're saying we're not interested in doing a better job of living within the paywall. we're interested in the freedom that exists outside the paywall. during this line of conversation, we examine the question of how we replicate or reproduce for others what we have been able to do. what needs to happen or what do folks need to know in order for the lessons learned or findings that emerge in the classroom to go beyond the walls of the institution? how is information shared with relevant communities? what can or should be done to create an environment where students see the utility in essentially recreating the conditions where relationship and collaboration and community are paramount? josie: one of the things i think brandelyn i said to you was, how do we teach our students that we have now, that we have the honor to facilitate, for them to be able to navigate a situation, a circumstance, and communicate it in a way that is outside of the classroom so that we don't become this echo chamber of just the way that we all think, and the way that we all design these ways of thinking. it really is, how do you take it out into whatever your community, or whatever your realm of influence looks like? brandelyn: yes. josie: and so it, to me, makes me think about, yes, what skill sets was it? and not skill sets, but what was, what was the environment like for us then to have the opportunity to do it in that space? and how do we replicate it outside of when we're not in this one space? our conversations above elucidate the journey we took and the vital lessons learned along our respective and collective dissertation journeys. we individually applied to a doctoral program with a vague sense of how we might approach our dissertations and discovered that so much more was possible. in choosing a program with a cohort model, we found meaningful community that galvanized and supported us in the development of unique, out-of-the-typical-bounds dissertations that we are proud of. further, our approach to our dissertations, our values of collaboration, community, and relationship, offer a pathway for others to follow. moving away from people and/or communities as subjects and seeing people and communities as co-authors, collaborators, or knowledge producers is as rigorous, and arguably more important, than the status quo. the program to support dissertation completion, a structure previously discussed by olson & clark (2009). worthy et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 101 the exploratory container tynisha: it's kinda like we're unicorns because we didn't subscribe to doing things in the traditional way; we're saying that way is fucked up. ike: if we look at it from how unicorns don't exist, right? we all created something that shouldn't exist in academia based on the standard. and so, our program and our experience in that program somehow created not just a unicorn, but lots of them. we don't do alternative dissertations. we do the development of knowledge. we can really tear at the system, in a way that's fun, because i like doing that. i like tearing at systems. it's my whole jam. brandelyn: i love this idea that we don't do alternative dissertations like, let's just fuck with the framing altogether and reject the idea that this is an alternative to anything. these are dissertations. this is what dissertations are. many of us entered into the dissertation cultivation space from a location of interruption and disruption. interruption in that we took up space outside the bounds of ‘traditional’ structures and disruption in choosing to create the intentional form of our work in a way that supported the specific research and unique stories we were revealing and sharing. leveraging our positionality as credibility and accessing our creativity as agency, each of our scholastic journeys in the dissertation process were steeped in a commitment to the knowing within; a deep knowing of the rich substance and rooted significance of the internal methodological work. we deemed this work worthy of elevating in the landscape of kept norms within academia because the work carried deep meaning and the work mattered. courtney: as i considered the purpose of my dissertation, i thought about it through three lenses that exist in the form of the following questions: • what does this work mean to me? • what did i want this work to do (in the world)? • who would this work most actionably serve? it was important for me to be able to answer the ‘what does this work mean to me?’ question first because i was producing something that was tethered to my being. for me, the dissertation was not a thing to be researched, theorized, analyzed, and summarized for the consumption and approval of and dissection by those in broader scholastic communities. i pursued my dissertation from an up-close and inside-out perspective9. these intentional choices anchored my desire to not only elevate the experiences and voices of black women, but to also make the work accessible and meaningful to those outside of academic spaces. centering what matters in the writing of dissertations is a purposely personal process that gives equal weight to internal musings and scholastic modalities. there is an opportunity to operate from a location of epistemological, values-centered exploration. our flocking occurred within the confines of an ‘edd in 3’ program, despite its seeming rigidity. traditional academic programs often impose what scholars call heteronormative timing—fixed milestones tied to specific life stages. instead, we embraced mccormack's (2014) 9 courtney: i name up-close to describe a nearness to the subject matter and i name inside-out to describe the personal connection to the work based on my own identity as a black woman, and it is only concept of queer time, which rejects such rigid structures and creates space for new possibilities. by rejecting these normative timelines, we opened ourselves to the freedom to meet our personal, professional, physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual needs, allowing us to meet our own dissertation milestones on our time. this resulted in some of us completing our dissertations in four years and others of us completing our dissertations in under three years—not because we adhered to institutional timelines, but because our authentic, vulnerable engagement with each other created a supportive flock that naturally enhanced our productivity while preserving intellectual creativity. the framing of personalized scholarship is emergent and always evolving along a trajectory of progressive revelation. intentional ideation began to develop into clear thoughts that crafted works of meaning for each of us. what was uncovered came into formation through a scaffolded and iterative process, and that process itself was foundational to the core of the work that each of us produced. the format of dissertating involves a navigational process that allows for new ways of existing, participating, and curating in scholarship. knowledge production then has the opportunity to become a formless function, not privileging a specific structure but instead elevating as valuable and significant the fluid design and dimensions of what has previously been thought of as nontraditional. thus, the container ceases to exist as an encased and fixed bubble and progresses to exist as a broad landscape of possibility. it is not boundary-less but the borders are not maintained by allegiance or policed by tradition. this knowledge production space is a site of intellectual roaming mixed with creative presentation that bucks the word alternative and norms all that has been produced through critical thought, informed theoretical musings, agentic praxis, and intentional curation. the mold-breaking form of each person’s work began to serve as a more accessible entry point for others to lean into exploration in scholarship production. as we individually pursued emergent and intentionally out-of-the box presentations of that work, we shared our experience with one another; we found discovery of the collective agency in the way that we chose to show up. that journey was celebrated and became a model for those embarking on their dissertation pursuits to think and work outside of previously maintained norms. when reflecting on the components that we redefined versus those we had to hold, ike was reminded of the well buckets used to draw water when they were young. a well bucket is designed to fit in a standard well case. it is set and then dropped down into the well. once it is full, the rope is pulled to seal it up and draw the water up. this is an effective tool to use when drawing from a standard well. but if the casing is too small, or the well is shallow and wide, the tool will not work. there is still life-giving water in these sources; it just can’t be accessed with the well bucket. it is not that we are building new standard containers that will only fit standard wells; we are crafting containers with the source in mind. containers that allow us to access the water as it is. when wrestling with containers, we did not start with a container to collect stories; instead, we started with the contents and constructed a container that honors and highlights from the ‘inside’ place that i was able to produce scholarship that was birthed from reckoning with my own experience (walton, 2023). flock around and find out impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.504 102 the knowledge. we ascribe to standard rules where they honor our work and break them with intention when they do not. flocking as a means of liberation each in our flock embodies multiple intersecting marginalized identities. however, the norms of educational leadership are very much grounded in the cultures of cisgender, heterosexual, white, and man (waite, 2021). we wonder if our very status as those who live “in the ancestral imagination of others, with their longing for safety and abundance, a longing that didn’t include us, or included us as enemy, fright, or other” (brown, 2017, p. 21) is inherently tied to our murmuration and flocking. were we predisposed to murmurate because we have each been excluded by societal norms? (is)was our flock a response to the epistemologies and axiologies that have been used to justify genocide, enslavement, and eugenics? were our collective murmurations informed by histories of organizing for intersectional justice? during this article’s authors’ involvement with it, people with marginalized genders and students of the global majority were better represented in our program than in the region or country as a whole. and yet, we recognize that many of our similarlyraced and/or gendered peers are not drawn to flocking. yet. the tension between holding and redefining norms must be navigated with great skill, particularly for those having to move through multiple worlds simultaneously. individuals who exist in multiple worlds can either become tour guides (highlighting what is) or guides toward liberation (creating what can be). we can become compliant in our navigation of dueling worlds while collecting the benefits, or we can choose to work toward liberation, taking on the added labor inherent in this choice. for us, compliance is not an option. we lose the stories of the people we care for if we comply. the containers we create must be through a liberatory lens because anything less is a betrayal to those whom we bear witness to, which is perceived as nontraditional by heteronormative academics. tynisha: what becomes possible when you open the box? where does the invitation to not conform (need to) start? with the program? process? students being recruited? or do you teach the revolution for others to explore and jump in on? enter the unicorns. as guides toward liberation, we engage in the language and expertise of multiple places; we do not have the privilege of existing in a single location. we must both understand and navigate our own world, the academic world built to exclude us, and the larger world as a whole. we must exist in multiple places at once and so we challenge others to do the same. lead toward liberation, not compliance. we echo the combahee river collective’s statement: “if black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression” (taylor, 2017, pp. 22-23). upon beginning to murmurate, upon joining the flock, we were each moved closer to destroying all the systems of oppression which colonize space in our 10 “because mental and physical processes not only affect each other but also give rise to each other – that is, because they tend to act as one, even though they are conventionally understood as two – it bodyminds10 and within our loci of control. we trust in our individual and collective existence, knowing that “small is all… what we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system” (brown, 2017, p. 52). our scholarly identities are grounded in murmuration; our signature pedagogy endures: flocking. we close with an invitation toward mutual accountability. “what we pay attention to grows” (brown, 2017, p. 19), so we challenge ourselves, our program, and other cped-influenced programs to pay attention to what matters in dissertations, continuing to decenter forms, challenge processes, and (re)imagine dissertating. our collective murmuration reflects a conscious resistance against the hegemonic norms of scholarship. how can we issue a static conclusion if our very existence and movement are active verbs, continuously redefining spaces and possibilities? by embracing our intersecting identities and challenging oppressive systems, we strive to lead toward liberation rather than compliance. as we flock toward liberation, we invite others to join this dynamic process of dismantling systemic barriers and reimagining what is possible in academia and beyond. references ahmed, s. 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what is alternative? i didn’t know you could do that! being impacted by one another’s work/influencing as a community the exploratory container flocking as a means of liberation references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 37 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.410 reframing higher ed spaces and belonging: lessons from the covid-19 experience christiane petrin lambert regis college clambert@ric.edu heather maietta regis college hmaietta@regiscollege.edu abstract the covid-19 pandemic ushered in changes to higher education, including how campus spaces are used and defined. institutional pivots to meet health and safety protections impacted the way we think about public and private spaces in lasting ways. the end of the acute emergency presents an opportunity for colleges and universities to reflect about the physical and virtual student experience to cultivate a renewed sense of place and belonging. campus spaces have historically been linked to students’ sense of belonging, which correlates with student engagement and academic success. over generations, higher education has been shaped by social factors, evolving to become more equitable and inclusive. campus spaces are now physical and virtual, and the covid-19 endemic period presents an opening for higher education to recenter a student’s sense of belonging in community-based locations, physical campus spaces, and virtual learning environments. keywords space, belonging, covid-19 the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic redefined the boundaries of human experience worldwide. although the state of emergency no longer exists, the future remains uncertain as public health questions linger. dr. jennifer nuzzo from the brown university school of public health cautioned: (i)n my view, those tolls (of covid-19) remain unacceptably high and really point to the need for continuing to work to reduce those tolls and also, crucially, to make sure we are never again left as vulnerable to a virus as this one made us (pbs newshour, 2023, 3:50). now in the endemic phase, tentative mask restrictions remain along with harrowing accounts of lasting disability from long covid, disparities for students, staff, and faculty with medical risk, and ongoing reconsiderations of our sense of health and safety in public settings, factors linked to what has been called a new normal. long covid is a new chronic medical condition in which covid-19 symptoms last three months or more (united states centers for disease control and prevention, 2024). the influence of the pandemic touched all aspects of the human experience, including higher education. the education doctorate (edd) provides a critical lens through which to consider the ongoing impacts on colleges and universities. for example, the edd encourages focus on the implications of policy and practice changes related to the pandemic on students and their sense of belonging now that bonds to the physical campus spaces have proven tenuous, such as when public health crises arise. how has a sense of shared space on colleges and university campuses been altered, and how have these alterations impacted the college student experience? how did covid-related restructuring of space impact student belonging, and how might these alterations impact short and long-term institutional cultural norms? in this article, we discuss the influence of covid-19 on higher education spaces, including academic and student services, and the potential impact on students’ perceptions of space. applying bolman and deal’s (2021) four frames, as taught in an edd curriculum, we offer suggestions to establish a stronger sense of belonging in redefined physical and virtual campus spaces. early in the pandemic, classrooms pivoted sharply to online platforms. similarly, student affairs offices, including student engagement centers, campus resource hubs, clubs and organizations, and residence life programming also ventured online. in most instances, this was the first time campus departments operated in a completely virtual space, which resulted in varying degrees of success (alexander et al., 2020; reyes-portillo, 2022). traditionally accustomed to interfacing in-person and face-to-face, faculty and staff communicated with each other and students almost exclusively in virtual platforms. while connections existed and steps were taken to build rapport, human elements were missing (lehfeldt, 2021). research suggested that for many, virtual fatigue was a significant concern (oducado et al., 2022). in fact, in her essay about the tangible value of campus spaces, lehfeldt (2021) lamented the perpetual increased use of virtual spaces, “removing the serendipity” (para. 7) of bumping into someone unexpectedly on campus. in research conducted by maietta and gardner (2022), loss of https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7550-1300 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6630-4742 petrin lambert & maietta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.410 38 community and an inability to build professional relationships, especially serendipitous encounters, were noted detractors of connecting in virtual spaces. connection is important because research shows that feelings of isolation are a major contributor to student attrition in online courses (hart, 2012). yet, the return to campus was met with mixed reception. proponents of virtual spaces celebrated the advancements in learning, working, and safety. however, early on, returning to inperson, face-to-face learning and working came with a price: social distancing, speaking from behind masks, plexiglass shields, and a series of vaccine requirements. further, returning to campus highlighted long-experienced but lesser-recognized disparities among minoritized college community members (engram, 2020; reyes-portillo, 2022). for example, those with an immunocompromised health status faced an ongoing and uncertain risk (alexander et al., 2020). reyes-portillo (2022) found that students who are black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) and their families experienced more significant mental health impacts from covid-19. additionally, lehfeldt (2021) pointed out the severe consequences of covid-19 on former foster youth for whom the campus was their primary home and how their housing security was significantly altered during the pandemic. similarly, engram (2020) highlighted the impact that a sudden loss of housing had on students without socioeconomic resources, such as those facing housing insecurity. trawalter et al. (2021) conducted four studies that strongly linked students’ use of space on college campuses and their sense of belonging, especially for students from low-income backgrounds. if space is linked with students’ connection to the campus, how does the modification of spaces due to covid-19 and any future variant impact students’ sense of belonging, and subsequently, their academic success? students’ need for belonging a sense of belonging is a feeling of connectedness, a sense that one is important or matters to others (strayhorn, 2019). belonging is intrinsic to the human experience (gopalan & brady, 2020; samura, 2022). in higher education, a student’s sense of belonging is essential to their overall connectedness to the campus community and has been linked to academic success and persistence to graduation, even serving as a protective factor when stressors emerge (strayhorn, 2019). belonging also contributes to students’ intrinsic motivation to learn (ferreira et al., 2011) and persist (morrow & ackermann, 2012) in educational endeavors. in addition, a strong sense of belonging assists with overall positive well-being, specifically for post-traditional learners, including adults, bipoc populations, and students from low-income backgrounds (gopalan & brady, 2020; samura, 2022; trawalter et al., 2021). however, before the pandemic, inclusivity had been elusive for minoritized students, slowly evolving over time toward more universal belonging. higher education institutions in the united states (us) were initially established for affluent white men to train as ministers, starting with harvard college in 1636. however, through changes in policies and politics over the years, women and bipoc students began enrolling, initially in women’s colleges and historically black colleges and universities (hbcus), and eventually at institutions historically dominated by white men (thelin, 2021; valaitis, 2019). with broadening and diverse enrollment, colleges and universities slowly recognized the need for support as minoritized students faced systems and structures designed for affluent white male students (samura, 2022). these support services were delivered in many forms, including dedicated spaces serving minoritized populations. for example, in the 1960s and 1970s, women’s centers were established (williams, 2021), which paved the way for spaces that served the needs of veterans, black and brown students, asian american and pacific islanders (aapi), latinx/a/o populations, firstgeneration college-goers, students with disabilities, and lgbtq+ centers (jourian, 2022). these spaces have at least one main intention in common to establish a sense of belonging (samura, 2022). though belonging for minoritized students is particularly crucial for educational equity, a sense of belonging is essential for all students—schlossberg’s (1989) seminal work on mattering established the link between belonging and student success. samura (2016) concurred, “students are more likely to succeed if they feel that they belong,” [with a correlation between their sense of belonging and] “engagement, academic achievement, persistence, mental health, and overall well-being” (p. 90). in a large, nationally representative sample, gopalan and brady (2020) found strong links between students’ sense of belonging at their college or university and their persistence in specific classes, semester to semester, and graduation. samura (2016) found that belonging varies among students, with a link between a student’s ability to individualize spaces and their sense of connection to them, even for tiny spaces such as the corner of their residence hall room. this insight reveals the importance of student choice and ownership. further, this connection extends to the rest of campus, in classrooms and student service centers, and anchors their sense of belonging to the institution (samura, 2016). so, how have the lasting impacts of covid-19 impacted belonging on college campuses? how have the impacts been experienced disproportionately among minoritized student populations? and, how does what we know about belonging to the physical campus translate to belonging in a virtual learning environment as we re-envision campuses and learning postpandemic? impact on belonging the toll experience with the loss of shared physical space and human interaction was not anticipated when the pandemic forced most colleges and universities into a virtual learning environment in the spring of 2020. however, emerging research reveals the significant impacts this shift has had on students’ developmental well-being (reyes-portillo et al., 2022). necessity prioritized physical health, putting a long-term pause on athletic seasons, campus programming, and study abroad travel. yet, belonging remained a fundamental human need (gopalan & brady, 2020). campuses tried to shift tutoring, awards ceremonies, affinity spaces, study groups, internships, student employment, and graduations to virtual environments when feasible. social isolation remained, creating a greater need to connect once students, faculty, and staff could physically return to campus. in the classroom, lehfeldt (2021) reported over one-third of students in a study of 2000 hoped their zoom class experiences were over for good. “they – and we – are pining for contact, conversation, the free flow of ideas that don’t have to be mediated by online platforms, and the chance to share our space with others” (lehfeldt, 2021, para. 6). at the time of lehfeldt’s study, the educational world was primarily connecting remotely, and loss of in-person, interpersonal relationships in spaces outside of covid-19, higher ed spaces, and belonging impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.410 39 homes were being deeply felt. relatedly, research by copeland et al. (2021) and work by worcester polytechnic institute (2022) shows that overall, students mental and physical well-being, resiliency, academic success, and sense of belonging all suffered because of the covid-19 pandemic. students struggled to cope and had increased anxiety, stress, depression, and sometimes suicidal ideations (copeland et al., 2021; reyes-portillo et al., 2022; worcester polytechnic institute, 2022). how have the vestiges of the pandemic’s influence on teaching and learning remained a part of students’ experiences of campus life? compounding the social impact of the pandemic, a massive social justice movement simultaneously erupted with the murder of george floyd by minneapolis police officers and, like covid-19, revealed stark disparities and divisions within the american populace, including college campuses (engram, 2020). thousands of people across the country disobeyed public health restrictions to protest the persistent anti-black racism that has been so deadly for black individuals and families throughout us history (national association for multicultural education, 2024). engram (2020) noted the intersection of covid-19 and socio-historical disparities, “the pandemic has proven that well-intentioned tap dancing around issues of racism must be eliminated and more direct approaches to problem-solving should be applied” (p. 21). conversely, anti-woke initiatives by conservative politicians have waged attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (deib) efforts, including prohibitions about teaching the history of slavery and critical race theory (crt) in schools, bans on women’s healthcare, and blocked access to gender-affirming care for transgender students. recently, campus protests in 46 colleges and universities across the us against the israel-hamas war have wedged relationships between college administrators and students, staff, and faculty (foody, 2024). the upcoming 2024 election is only likely to intensify divisions. how do these socio-political factors and others compound social tensions post-covid and further affect students’ sense of belonging on college campuses, especially for minoritized populations? understanding and responding to change using frames education doctorate programs incorporating organizational development principles are uniquely poised to build awareness for thoughtful consideration of space and belonging as higher education institutions navigate a post-covid reality. the ubiquitous nature of changes ushered in by the pandemic impacted campus students, stakeholders, faculty, and staff in multiple life domains, and responses to these changes were met with varied acceptance and resistance. the seminal work of bolman and deal (2021) on organizational structure provides a guide in framing understanding of and response to change through four lenses: structural, human resource, symbolic, and political. structural frames are the nuts and bolts the foundational aspects of operations and change. human resources reflect relational connections. symbolic frames are abstract representations of institutional values and beliefs. finally, politics refers to using power and influence to achieve goals. early in the pandemic, necessity prompted a focus through the structural lens with new protocols for campus safety (pelletier et al., 2022). political factors were temporarily halted as the impacts of the pandemic crossed campus constituencies. historic symbols of campus life quietly awaited a return to normalcy. the value of human connection became more salient though strained in two dimensions. though the remnants of a prolonged structural response to covid19 lingers, the endemic period presents a time for colleges and universities to shift frames to consider the impact of the pandemic on campus spaces and intentionally renegotiate a culture of offerings that foster a sense of belonging for all students. in this way, higher education has an opportunity to redefine the use of space with a renewed focus on belonging at the heart of the student experience. reframing our sense of belonging and use of campus space trawalter et al. (2021) declared, “connection to space matters,” illustrating this concept by referring to “iconic spaces” as campus landmarks that represent identity with and belonging to the campus community. three of their four studies found that regular use of public, iconic spaces can increase a sense of belonging for students from low-income backgrounds. for example, a public, comprehensive college in the northeast promotes a giant golden anchor, a historical icon for generations, in the center of their campus square to draw students to gather, study, eat lunch, or meet up with peers. connecting space to well-being promotes a culture of care, and if designed intentionally, offers an opportunity to create inclusive environments in all aspects of campus. the redefinition of space can include virtual environments. for example, moore and shemberger (2019) promoted establishing a teaching presence in online courses to increase student engagement “beyond the cognitive connection between learner and instructor” (p. 36). some examples include responses to individual journal reflections, active participation in discussion forums and blogs, and visuals and other multimedia depicting campus icons. they create a dialogue between educators and students that humanizes the digital learning experience and links to shared symbols. additionally, the physical, educational environment for in-person classes requires intentional classroom development to build warm and welcoming spaces, which significantly impacts learning (knowles et al., 2020). factors include accommodations for physical comfort, color schemes, spatial size and layout, furniture and furnishings, and the availability of learning resources. also critical for multicultural teaching and learning is implicit and explicit anti-racist praxis (utt & tochluk, 2020) inside learning environments and throughout campus. therefore, seizing the opportunity to recenter student belonging in the design of campus spaces is critically important for students and the future of higher education, calling for innovations from our experience with the pandemic. the following are examples of innovative ideas that are incorporated into community, campus, and virtual spaces. community spaces politically, institutions of higher education can use their significant power and influence to develop coalitions to build a “placeful university,” as coined by norgard and bengtsen (2016, p. 5) or what temple (2018) describes as “(t)he university space and place – interlinked networks of creative people, with a shared sense of community, using congenial places, which may be complex and surprising, supported by high levels of social capital” (p. 142). for example, cultivating intentional events and opportunities for students, families, and local community members to safely come together in re-engineered physical spaces and/or virtual gathering sites, garnering a collective sense of shared campus identity. similarly, petrin lambert & maietta impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.410 40 institutions may offer saturday morning virtual coffee cafés where students and faculty enjoy a rotation of industry speakers for learning, networking, and social engagement or symposia generated from topics of community interest, supplying a hybrid experience of in-person and virtual participation. additionally, studies have documented the need for more support for parenting students and their families, specifically highlighting the need for campus childcare (goings, 2018). in this way, higher education can cultivate a culture of intergenerational learning and belonging where parenting students and their children share a sense of educational place. putnam (2019) documented multiple benefits to higher education institutions that provide childcare on campus, including increased engagement of students and their children in campus life and a sense of what she called “interpersonal acceptance” (p. 11). this acceptance might involve building relationships with mentors and role models through tutoring programs with college students and involvement in campus activities such as sporting events and summer camps. another way for higher education institutions to build belonging is to make the campus a home through family residency options where students can live with their children in campus housing. based on data from the campus family housing database through the wellesley centers for women (2022), only one institution in rhode island provides a family housing option, and seven colleges and universities in massachusetts offer family residency options. there appears to be an opportunity for growth to expand this form of belonging. some institutions have also incorporated retirement housing and living and learning, mixed-use, multi-generational communities, such as the alfond main street commons through colby college in maine (abdulahi, 2023). through innovative campus and community initiatives, such as developing an endowment for disaster relief for students and families (engram (2020), the borders of institutional spaces expand and blend with the surrounding communities. this symbiotic bond, a positive outgrowth of a shared pandemic experience and a recentering of the human resource frame, can also enhance a sense of community on campus. campus spaces new construction and renovated physical locations can merge human connection and campus architecture if created with belonging in mind, as alexander et al. (2020) encouraged. they noted permanent restrictions in occupancy and residence halls with larger common areas and smaller single bedrooms. as a resolution to the potential for isolation, trawalter et al. (2021) suggested expanding the availability of inclusive, iconic public spaces and encouraging use of them. symbolically, spaces can have exponential value for the student experience as places one passes daily convey a connotation of connection and home. incentivizing the use of key spaces by providing resources such as food or special events in those places creates symbolism. for example, a first-generation college student office could host weekly community lunches or the wellness center could offer brief mindfulness meditation sessions in the campus center during exam week. faculty can also be encouraged to use intentional spaces during their course experiences. for example, professors could offer office hours at locations and times to encourage student presence and connection in iconic spaces. going forward, alexander et al. (2020) noted there will likely be broad architectural shifts in new campus construction due to the pandemic. they include larger spaces allowing for social distance as the lingering health threats emerge and vary for students, faculty, and staff. these architectural shifts include more prominent use of outdoor spaces where students and faculty are physically present on campus in active, open learning environments (alexander et al., 2020; pelletier et al., 2022). in addition, pelletier et al. (2022) promoted the need for improved hybrid technologies to blend physical and virtual spaces. with the new technologies comes the need for training to use them and deep consideration of how to embed them meaningfully within teaching and learning best practices. blending options for in-person and virtual instruction, as well as capital projects that maximize indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, ushers in significant refocusing of resources for campus use of space – at a pace uncharacteristic of higher education (goldstein, 2019). further, campus boundaries are becoming more permeable and amorphous as they extend physically into surrounding communities and virtually into students’ living spaces. virtual spaces virtual campus spaces can also serve as symbols of belonging in myriad ways. for example, bolman and deal (2021) described symbolic frames as viewing the world more abstractly, allowing everyday encounters to take on more significant meaning. in this way, higher education can make resilience a symbol for itself in navigating the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic with its student body. making shifts to best practices for explicit branding of remote programming with campus icons is a way colleges can bridge the connection between campus-based experiences and an online institutional presence. we got a taste of virtual connecting through covid-19, which has reshaped our vision of what is possible for accessibility and learning, such as for adult learners who have multiple competing priorities for their time (gardner et al., 2022). in short, online learning is here to stay. feelings of belonging can be fostered in online environments with practices that help to build a strong course community, such as assignments that require students to get acquainted with, respond to, and work with their peer learners (nilson & goodson, 2018; petrin lambert, 2024). moore and shemberger (2019) offered best practices for online teaching and learning that strengthen student engagement and social presence. they include developing connections between students through group problem-solving and promoting rich and frequent dialogue via video, audio, and narrative. for example, an introductory discussion forum can be designed to help students get to know each other at the very beginning of a course. instructors can build upon this initial connection by creating pair and team assignments that require students to engage with each other regularly in real time. these personal interactions help students create a support network among their peers (conrad & donaldson, 2011). increasing belonging efforts also manifest in faculty outreach “as an extension of the institution and reflecting a message regarding the institution’s commitment and belief in student success” (roksa & whitley, 2017, p. 335). for example, faculty can offer encouraging messages, timely constructive feedback, and mentorship in navigating college processes. helms (2017) also urged white educators to explore implicit racial biases to decenter whiteness norms and avoid alienating bipoc students. as higher education emerges from the hastened realities during the pandemic, there is an opportunity for a covid-19, higher ed spaces, and belonging impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.410 41 renewed focus on conceptualizations of physical and virtual spaces that preserve and promote human connection and belonging. conclusion the overarching advocacy of this article is to recenter belonging in higher education’s use of space post-pandemic. this article is grounded in bolman and deal’s (2021) frames of change, emphasizing the human resources frame: people, relationships, and by extension, belonging. searle et al. (2021) extolled “(t)he interconnectedness and interrelationships between students, teachers, environment, and activities undertaken” (p. 342), which expands the notion of campus belonging as relational, beyond geography, into virtual realms and, most importantly, with each other. historically, colleges and universities have had to refashion themselves to meet social and environmental shifts to serve a more diverse student body. temple (2018) documented the paradoxical relationship between higher education and its physical space, both actively shaping itself and being shaped by its students’ needs and external demands. he, however, bemoaned the trend in higher education that what can effectively serve its students is often “not appreciated and not acted upon” (p. 135). on the other side of the pandemic, there is an opportunity to refashion physical and virtual space with belonging, and in turn, boost student success. as a result, many colleges are intentionally rethinking and reshaping the student experience. the goal is to make student connections on campus and virtually more engaging, worthwhile, and successful – while also helping colleges’ persistence and completion rates. only time will tell whether institutions will boldly and innovatively learn from the covid-19 experience and reconsider their use of space to bolster a sense of belonging. references abdulahi, s. 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dawn of co-active emergence bryan p. sanders loyola marymount university nayrbgo@gmail.com abstract this essay explores the transformative concept of co-active emergence in education, where human and machine intelligence synergize to enhance learning experiences. it discusses the integration of ai in doctoral research, emphasizing collaborative efforts between humans and ai to push academic boundaries. it also addresses the challenges and ethical considerations of ai, advocating for a balanced approach that leverages ai's capabilities without compromising educational integrity, ultimately proposing a dynamic, interactive academic environment enriched by technology. keywords co-active emergence, ai integration, doctoral research, machine learning, academic integrity, interdisciplinary analysis, constructivism, academic self-efficacy welcome to the dawn of co-active emergence in education, a transformative learning paradigm where human intelligence and machine intelligence converge on purpose to amplify and enrich a shared experience. this concept is not merely about using technology as a tool; it is about creating a symbiotic relationship where artificial intelligence (ai) and human insights interact dynamically, each pushing the other towards greater discoveries and deeper understanding. the newly coined term co-active emergence tries to describe a collaborative, interactive involvement (co-active) coupled with the natural development of ideas and solutions (emergence). as we stand at this juncture, it is crucial to acknowledge the inherent challenges—such as biases in ai training data and machine algorithmic decisions, which are often beyond the end user’s control. these issues are important to acknowledge, yet they represent initial hurdles that we are collectively learning to overcome, as well as influence for improvement. as a matter of process, this editorial essay endeavors to examine extant theory using the document analysis methodology, and thereby offer an analysis of excerpts from three significant texts authored in earlier years of the internet age. these books grapple with ideas and concepts about thinking and learning with computers: transforming technology: a critical theory revisited by andrew feenberg (2002); the children’s machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer by seymour papert (1993); and using technology wisely: the keys to success in schools by harold wenglinsky (2005). when reexamined in the current context of generative and collaborative computing processes, it is possible to repurpose these texts to show their relationships and relevancies to today’s engaging problems. by highlighting key passages from these earlier works, it is also possible to establish a continuum of thought and provide commentary to help alight possible paths for pk-20 educational leaders, paths that have been present for many years. “the truly challenging question for those of us who advocate a constructivist role for educational technology is this: what is the value-added of the technology above and beyond good teaching?” (wenglinsky, 2005, p. 9). in the realm of graduate education, particularly in doctoral research, co-active emergence represents a shift from an intellectually vibrant process pursued in solitary with human advisors to a collaborative one with both human advisors and machine companions. ai does not replace human effort but co-evolves with it, enabling students and professors to explore complex ideas and data through a more holistic and nuanced lens, or better yet, a few full sets of lenses. “instead of reducing individuals to mere appendages of the machine, computerization can provide a role for communicative skills and collective intelligence” (feenberg, 2002, p. 89). by confronting the obstacles head-on, professors pave the way for a future where academic rigor is enhanced and the boundaries of educational achievements are redefined, despite the naysayers pointing to current limitations. by leveraging ai, we can envision a classroom and an educational approach where traditional passive teaching and learning, transactional processes, transition into an active (even better, co-active) exploration of knowledge. this approach aims to foster not only deeper intellectual engagement but also cultivate students who are highly motivated to regain more agency in their own individual processes of learning. relying on the computer to teach the student and calling it “computer-aided instruction” belittles the possibilities and undermines a deep learning process of students programming computers, through which they could “both acquire a sense of mastery over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology and establish an intimate contact with some of the deepest ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building” (papert, 1993, p. 216). for decades, the role of computers in education was primarily seen as enhancing the speed and efficiency of traditional methods. however, with the advent of https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6866-7280 sanders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.479 97 large language models (llms) and generative pre-trained transformers (gpts), computers now fulfill roles once relegated to the realm of science fiction, actively participating in the creative and intellectual processes of learning. if we continue with the 1980s model of a computer kiosk in the corner of the classroom, we will once again miss the opportunity to empower students and enhance their experiences. co-active emergence is here and possible, and we must commit to figuring it out together. it may be of service in this undertaking to use the phrases “machine learning” or “machine intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.” this terminology reflects that the intelligences exhibited by machines is not purely artificial but is rather generated as a function of processing human data. these systems, trained on human inputs and designed to generate human-like responses, facilitate an ongoing dialogue that enriches human-machine interaction. this distinction in terminology is a desire to move away from negatively connoting the gpt output as fake or “artificial,” and instead to recognize the computational power unique to machines. in the context of co-active emergence, this interaction is not just supplementary but central, harnessing a powerful synergy between abstract human thought and extensive empirical data. this dual emphasis ensures that the use of technology enhances rather than replaces the intellectual rigor that is the hallmark of academic pursuit. challenges of integrating ai in education as we try to embrace co-active emergence, we must navigate the challenges it brings, particularly the biases inherent in ai from training data and algorithms. overcoming these is not instantaneous but a gradual process involving enhanced transparency, the use of diverse data sets, and the active inclusion of varied human perspectives in ai development. “computer design thus involves a choice between two different conceptions of the relation of rational systems to human action and between two corresponding conceptions of what it is to be human in a technological society” (feenberg, 2002, p. 9). by implementing algorithmic audits and fostering an ethic of continuous improvement, the educational community can mitigate these biases, though perhaps never remove them. maintaining a realistic criticism of the machines gives professors the opportunity to engage without compromising their principles. gpt is not our overlord. in fact, it serves humans and can serve as the ultimate sounding board, which becomes even more focused and original when the human user trains the gpt with his own original human compositions. standardizing the use of one llm/gpt at the university will help maintain consistency in the replies and dialogues as well as in the perpetual training of the llm. this continual training of models has now become the obligation of pk-20 educational leaders, even if they decline the work, since most of what we have previously read and studied is currently part of the globally available llm training. but since this is all terribly new and not likely to initiate rapid change, particularly in larger colleges and universities, some specific undertakings can and should commence. early adopters have begun to develop repositories of resources that can be put to use right away: california state university at sacramento has created a national institute on artificial intelligence in society and university of michigan has created the michigan institute for data and ai in society. university leaders may wish to consider those bodies of work and build local tools of their own. writing ai ethics coursework in a collaborative manner with professors, students, and machines will prove quite useful. an inquiry-based active research methodology woven into a seminar designed to provide professors and students with some guardrails, questions, and considerations for integrating ai and ai ethics ought to happen at every campus. this is the sandbox needed to coconstruct what is the next right move for each campus culture. unfortunately, we have instead seen outright bans of ai, which ignores the dialogue off campus and devalues the intellectual potential of co-active emergence. using and improving ai will come no matter what, but why not participate and add our thumbprints to the machines? this would directly address current limitations and pave the way for an improved ai in education with fewer inherited biases from previous versions. “if used in a constructivist fashion, it is a useful tool; and if used in a didactic fashion, it is worthless, or even destructive” (wenglinsky, 2005, p. 10). ai bias, ai hallucinations, and ai errors, oh my! letting the programmers, developers, and managers be the only ones with their hands in the batter does not best serve education, let alone humanity. we cannot put llms and gpts back in the bottle, but we can take an active role as professional educators to form working groups tasked with studying, testing, documenting, discussing, and suggesting how to change the tools and how to use them in ways that promote intellectual growth, fairness, and diversity. integrating computers (again) into classroom practice anyone reading this will certainly know that the integration of computers and the internet in academia has long been normalized. beyond digitizing paper documents and increasing search capabilities, the computational models available via software approaches to digesting large volumes of words and seeking concordances quickly became an essential relationship between human and machine in academic pursuits. while the human mind is endlessly creative and intuitive and intelligent, the machine intelligence adds the potential to quickly look across huge swaths of text and numbers with the purpose of finding trends that the human eye could not possibly see. further, when working across multiple documents and datasets, the physical space needed to lay out paper across the room in an organized way is just not practical. humans certainly notice trends or have hunches when studying data. seeking verbal concordances and numerical trends across hundreds if not thousands of pages of work, however, is work for computers. articulating those ideas and then training computers to help read and look for those ideas has long been an exciting notion, and now we can celebrate this camaraderie as it develops into practice. if doctoral candidates discussed their hunches and brainstorms with faculty advisors, no doubt they would together compose a more refined perspective that could be of even more use to their work with a computer seeking concordances among large data sets. the relationship of doctoral candidate and advisor is also celebrated and an essential, irreplaceable part of academic study. interestingly, ethical dynamics of personal interactions do not receive the same scrutiny as those of students, or even faculty, having discussions with gpts to further their own productivity or effectiveness in their academic pursuits. gpt and me, an honest reevaluation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.479 98 quite likely the hesitation and fear that academia is experiencing in entertaining the use of gpts as a constructivist tool has more to do with not wanting to make it even easier for students to walk down the well-trodden road of cheating and plagiarism–and that is a fair concern to directly address. examining the multi-faceted relationship between technology, academia, and the evolving definition of intellectual partnership will no doubt continue through the ages, but right now the birth of gpt demands that we meet the moment to define and design a meaningful symbiosis. now, it would be disingenuous to claim that computers have been integrated into the learning environment as seamlessly as books, blocks, and beakers. many educational institutions at all levels still resist fully embracing technology, even going as far as preventing computers from being accessible to their students. this time around, though, it might be different. llms and gpts are the tools that were envisioned decades ago but not yet possible for widespread use: “how would the introduction of knowledge machines into the school environment compromise the primacy with which we view reading and writing–that is, children’s fluency in using the alphabetic language” (papert, 1993, p. 9)? now that we are here, the predetermined learning outcomes of traditional pedagogy quickly become irrelevant when we accept the knowledge machine. that file cabinet of prepared units and lessons and exams should just be fed into the knowledge machine. it is no longer all that your students need. it's all about attention and transformation with the advent of the high-stakes exam was born the cheater. for a variety of reasons from nefarious to anxious, cheating and testing go hand in hand. and if there will be admissions and matriculations and placements based on grades and examinations, we will face these kinds of challenges. resting the blame on computers for students cheating, however, is just as silly as blaming on your boots the faults of your feet. the tool does not create the behavior, the conditions and the culture do that. the tool is only something to use for good or for evil. but what choice will you make and why? the current culture about computers in the classroom is not much different from the one that has dominated four decades of microprocessor and computation development, one of wariness and worry with little adoption or adaptation other than to speed up the dissemination of paper curricula, increase the use of plagiarism checkers, and run an electronic gradebook. building with our new computational tools all sorts of new types of assignments and assessments (and classrooms and courses) is literally the uncharted territory into which some educators will willingly venture. but how shall we do that? if knowledge is the consequence of experience, then our first move is to engage professors and graduate students in courses that provide them with opportunities to interface with gpts in meaningful ways. throwing caution to the wind does not work and when professors have had the chance to use gpts as part of their own learning experiences, they will become more likely to use them when teaching students. for as much as the research nudges and forecasts what could or should happen in classrooms, and for all the excitement that an on-campus professional development workshop generates (perhaps that is a sarcastic comment for some professors), the practice most often relied upon by teachers is the one with which they are most familiar: traditional pedagogy. currently, just a few institutions in the usa are willingly embracing the wobbly and yet-to-be-defined space that academia and gpt hold together. with thousands more colleges and universities to join (eventually, because they will no doubt have to as the tools become better and comfort grows), a vision for humans working with gpts as quasi-intellectual peers has necessitated an ethical and honest reevaluation of our roles and work. the vision could look like something like this: above all, human discernment is crucial. people still must read and think and talk and write. it might seem ridiculous to state it in an academic vision, but computational models are currently capable of doing those tasks that were once strictly human. therefore, everyone in academia must read, think, talk, and write on their own and with gpts. the work with gpts, though, must intentionally focus on formulating queries that direct ai to reveal patterns and trends, enabling a rich comparison between the human eye's “hunches” and the machine’s “findings.” the work with gpts should also focus on commentary about human-created compositions and ideations. more “what do you think of this in relationship to. . .” and less “write an essay for me about . . ..” when we use gpts this way we transform the computer into a companion collaborator complementing our skills, interests, and human potential. traditional academic skills that humans have honed for decades can and should survive and persist as part of leveraging computational models (the machines would not be so capable if humans had not developed those skills), and our dual emphasis promotes deeper intellectual rigor rather than replaces it. a vision for academia plus gpt lays out a plan for students and faculty to extend their capabilities and expand their critical thinking process. it is a balanced partnership where ai serves as an ally, coactive emergent partner, in developing human insight with technological advancement. this is not a copy/paste model, this is a purposeful and fostered dialogue between the human and machine to elevate the research process. the approach suggested here moves beyond the sort of ai use cases that are already mainstream and more transactional in nature, like personalized language learning software, or chatbot tutors, or virtual teaching assistants. instead, co-active emergence invites professors and students and machines to enter a collaborative dialogue in pursuit of knowledge. possible scenarios of co-active emergence imagine a doctoral student researching the impact of socioeconomic status on educational achievement. by employing ai to analyze large datasets from various school districts, the student uncovers not only correlations between school funding and student performance but also nuanced patterns related to parental engagement and extracurricular participation. this analysis goes beyond traditional statistical methods, incorporating machine learning algorithms to predict future educational outcomes based on current trends. this iterative process of hypothesis and verification exemplifies the co-active emergence, where human insight and machine intelligence combine to explore complex societal issues, offering a deeper, more comprehensive understanding that could influence policy and practice—maybe even venturing into new sanders impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.479 99 academic territories, resulting in discoveries that neither human nor machine could achieve alone. another scenario might involve a doctoral student in educational technology developing a customized learning platform with ai. this platform adapts in real-time to the needs of students with disabilities by analyzing their interaction patterns and learning preferences. the ai suggests adjustments to the curriculum that are dynamically tailored to improve individual learning outcomes, showcasing the potential of personalized education supported by machine learning. those suggestions are then titrated and moderated by the doctoral student. a project of this sort could develop further into a longitudinal study enhanced by literature reviews summarized and keyword tagged by the machine in service of a self-study of the student-created platform. students are no longer data-miners; they are data-navigators, steering the course of inquiry with ai as their compasses, uncovering insights that might redefine their fields. “new forms of sociability could emerge that would become a medium for democratic selforganization.” (feenberg, 2002, p. 92). ai becomes not just a tool but a collaborative agent in the creation of new knowledge, challenging and extending human intellect in the realm of doctoral research. ai in academic research that intentionally uses the co-active emergence approach will change thinking and learning forever. students and ai can collaborate to extend the boundaries of human knowledge, leveraging ai’s computational power to explore data-rich environments and extract meaningful insights. this partnership, far from replacing traditional research methods, enhances them, providing doctoral students with the tools to conduct more effective, innovative, and impactful research. this is not just data analysis; it is a co-active emergence of insights, where students interact with ai to interrogate and understand the nuances within their research data. this method transforms the often-solitary research process into an interactive, co-creative dialogue with technology, making the daunting task of literature review and data interpretation a dynamic interplay of human and machine intelligence. “the workforce of the twenty-first-century values independent decision making, complex problem solving, teamwork, and ongoing performance appraisal—all components of a constructivist, not a didactic pedagogy” (wenglinsky, 2005, p.15). very few places of work now and in the future will be without some form of computerization, llm, and gpt. furthermore, that which can now be conceived and achieved is very different from previous decades. we do not yet know the extent of our human cognition and imagination when supercharged with this computational power and vastly extensive database archive. challenges of engagement and rigorous intellectual effort while the potentials of ai in enhancing academic rigor and exploration are significant, we must also confront the uncomfortable reality that not all educational settings are currently primed to harness these advancements. in some academic circles, there is an observable deficit in engagement and a resistance to adopting new methods, which could potentially dampen the effectiveness of integrating sophisticated tools like ai. this is not just a technological challenge but a cultural one. the introduction of ai and machine learning in educational contexts risks being perceived as a pathway to reduced intellectual effort—where the allure of efficiency might overshadow the necessity for deep, critical thinking. in settings where pedagogical practices have not evolved to incorporate active, inquiry-based learning, there is a genuine concern that these tools could be misused to “automate” thinking rather than enhance it. however, dismissing ai’s potential due to these challenges would be akin to ignoring the transformative power of the printing press because of initial fears about its impact on learning. instead, this scenario calls for a renewal in teaching, learning, and researching methodologies. “using technology wisely in schools involves more than just training students to be proficient with technology; it requires the integration of technology into the curriculum in ways that transform the learning process” (wenglinsky, 2005, p. 23). professors must not only adapt to new technologies but also actively shape their use to foster a culture of deep engagement and rigorous intellectual activity. this involves recognizing and addressing instances where reliance on ai might encourage surfacelevel engagement with complex topics. it also requires a commitment to professional development and continuous learning, ensuring professors are not just adopters of new technologies, but informed, critical users who can model deep engagement and intellectual curiosity for their students. by embracing ai as a tool that requires careful, thoughtful integration into academic educational and research practices, we can mitigate the risks while amplifying the benefits. “technology use in education can certainly speed up our use of paper and how we process and access information. however, replacing paper simply maintains things as they are. for decades, the machine has had the potential for more uses than yet discovered” (feenberg, 2002, p. 181). directly incorporating the teaching of ethics, critical thinking, and co-active emergence will ensure that ai serves as a catalyst for intellectual growth rather than a crutch that supports educational complacency. conclusion: embracing ai as an academic partner using ai with the intent to deceive undermines both human and machine. recognizing gpts’ potential as collaborative tools requires a shift in perception and to see them as partners in a dialogue that enhances human effort. co-active emergence is the new natural process at the heart of working in earnest with gpts. leveraging technology to expand rather than limit educational horizons no doubt will foster new thinking about literature reviews and data sets, as well as copyright, fair use, and even student recruitment. each day the world grows older, the children grow younger. students entering the university in the year 2042 may very well not attend schools that do not allow work with a gpt. as ai approaches the capability of independent research, the academic community must confront whether scholarship will—or even should—revert to a pre-ai paradigm. ethical engagement with a gpt is also rooted in our understanding of the interplay between human and ai thought processes and must become a cornerstone of academic integrity, thus requiring new guidelines and coursework. the intent behind one’s ai usage is crucial and demands clear articulation in academic honesty policies. technology’s transformative role in teaching and learning highlights this doubleedged techno-sword of enriching and endangering our commitment to thinking itself. educating students about the highest ethical value of a gpt companion is to educate them about its best use. the gpt and me, an honest reevaluation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.479 100 entire enterprise of treating this “talking box” as a trusted companion in our serious high-minded endeavors demands an honest reevaluation of how we work and what motivates our ongoing academic pursuits. from imitation to innovation: computers have evolved beyond kiosks for programmed curriculum and rote learning, now bringing with them both doom and delight for doctoral and academic discovery. this perspective invites us to consider the dual potential of ai to both enhance and compromise academic integrity. leading educational institutions have begun to formalize partnerships with ai developers, and the slow trot towards ai adoption in academia is poised to accelerate into a sprint. a rigid ban on ai contradicts the principles of progressive education thereby stifling innovation and open access in favor of gatekeeping. time to evolve! time to immerse! time to engage! you are ahead of the curve, and the whiplash on adopting ai and co-active emergence will swiftly come. so go ahead and give your favorite gpt a nickname because it is time for you two to get to work. references feenberg, a. (2002) transforming technology: a critical theory revisited. second edition. oxford university press. papert, s. (1993). the children’s machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer. basic books press. wenglinsky, h., (2005). using technology wisely: the keys to success in schools. teachers college press. bryan p. sanders loyola marymount university challenges of integrating ai in education integrating computers (again) into classroom practice it's all about attention and transformation possible scenarios of co-active emergence challenges of engagement and rigorous intellectual effort conclusion: embracing ai as an academic partner references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice 66 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. repac: critical questions to inform edd programs in an era of generative artificial intelligence elizabeth langran marymount university elangran@marymount.edu paula cristina r. azevedo marymount university pazevedo@marymount.edu stephanie smith budhai university of delaware budhai@udel.edu oliver dreon millersville university oliver.dreon@millersville.edu clara hauth marymount university chauth@marymount.edu abstract this essay presents a framework of critical questions designed to guide edd program leaders and faculty in integrating generative artificial intelligence (genai) into their curricula and policies. the repac framework aids in reflecting, reenvisioning, and redesigning educational practices to better incorporate genai, focusing on how candidates learn with and about ai tools. these questions ensure that program transformations are evaluated through equity, ethics, and justice lenses. moreover, they provide a foundation for revising policies and practices, developing new guidelines, and promoting innovative ai use while upholding academic integrity. authored by faculty from three institutions, this framework includes scenarios that illustrate the educational potential and impact of genai, scaffolding the decision-making process and fostering an understanding of ai tools in edd programs. keywords generative artificial intelligence, ai, education doctorate, technology, program design in its report, artificial intelligence and the future of teaching and learning, the u.s. office of educational technology charges institutions to “design educational settings to situate ai in the right place, where educators and other adults can make effective use of these tools for teaching and learning” (cardona et al., 2023, p. 23). while many schools have begun this work by considering the students and academic programs they serve, this charge presents unique challenges and opportunities for institutions that offer educational doctorates. despite the diversity of curricular approaches across the edd landscape, edd programs have a shared mission to integrate “practical and research knowledge” and link “theory with systemic and systematic inquiry” (cped, n.d., para 6). this approach marries theory and research within the larger evolving educational ecosystem, which requires a unique response to the rapidly changing nature of generative artificial intelligence (genai) and its impact on all aspects of education and society. the repac framework we present here—covering research activities, ethics, programmatic considerations, affordances, and competencies—is designed to be a flexible and responsive tool for students, faculty, and leadership to address these genai changes. technology adoption in edd programs higher education programs are experiencing a surge of technological innovations. as our capability to rapidly process and share data grows, digital competence becomes crucial for leveraging technology effectively in today’s knowledge-driven society (zhao et al., 2021). genai significantly enhances research methodology capabilities by assisting the literature review process, expanding the writing capabilities for academic papers, theses or dissertations, and enhancing data analysis. however, institutions face challenges adapting their programs quickly to these technological advances. discussions about the development and transformation of doctoral programs must address the ethical and legal implications of genai, digital literacy, policies, and the selection of appropriate technologies, as well as addressing concerns for proper attribution, disclosure, transparency, quality control, control measures, and compliance (tomlinson et al., 2023). these considerations prompt essential questions and discussions among decision-makers in doctoral programs. http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4106-9277 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2745-7583 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3508-3534 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4630-2753 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1104-8523 langran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 67 understanding the impacts of genai on educational programs enables leaders to better support and guide student work. storey (2023) raised additional questions concerning integrating genai into educational systems, emphasizing concerns about bias, data privacy, technological dependence, costs, ethical dilemmas, diminished human interaction, and technical challenges. genai may effectively assist in various research and writing tasks if these ethical and legal issues are addressed. however, the critical thinking skills and knowledge of doctoral candidates cannot be replaced by genai. this situation presents edd programs with numerous factors to consider when supporting doctoral students. faculty must be prepared to teach with and about artificial intelligence (ai) technologies and, thus, require the development of competencies that include not just the knowledge and skills to use ai for research and to troubleshoot ai technology issues but also to critically interrogate ai technology (trust et al., 2024). this will require that edd programs support the development of these skills among faculty through opportunities to co-explore, share knowledge, and even financially support paid account subscriptions. the rapid pace of ai development means that it is being built into platforms everywhere and learning how to use one tool on one day will only go so far–but having the skillset to critically interrogate and learn how to use these programs is increasingly valuable. the conversation on integrating generative ai in doctoral programs could easily be confined to technology enthusiasts among the faculty. however, recognizing how users accept and use technology and understanding the various perspectives, including late adopters, develops a more inclusive, effective, and ethically grounded strategy. the technology acceptance model (tam) examines key components of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, while the diffusion of innovations (doi) theory offers a broader sociological perspective, categorizing adopters into groups such as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards based on their readiness and speed of adoption (davis, 1989; rogers, 1962). the doi theory emphasizes the role of social systems and communication channels in influencing the adoption rate of new technologies. the adoption of ai tools is influenced more by their compatibilities with existing workflows than by the technology’s innovativeness or perceived usefulness. this points to a necessity for tools that can seamlessly integrate into diverse academic settings, enhancing educational outcomes across various tam levels, not just those early adopters who are typically quick to adopt new technologies. these patterns challenge traditional acceptance theories, suggesting a broader potential for ai in higher education beyond initial adopters (russo, 2023). conceptual framework we were inspired by zabala’s (2020) sett framework for k-12 teachers selecting assistive technology. zabala (2020) describes the framework as “a flexible tool that makes concerns-identification and solution-seeking processes accessible to all and is useful in all phases of decision-making and service delivery” (p. 8). the framework places the student at the center of the decision process and considers the student’s strengths, interests, and challenges. the second aspect of the framework educators consider is the environment in which the students live, learn, and develop. in addition, zabala (2020) challenges educators using the framework to examine the tasks students will need to complete to reach the educators’ and caregivers’ expectations of the student. finally, educators must evaluate the best tools, including technological devices, applications, strategies, services, and other accommodations that will support the student, teachers, and caregivers to ensure the student can complete the tasks successfully. though the sett framework supports k-12 inclusive learning environments and can be applied in other contexts, it has limitations in higher education institutions, particularly doctoral programs. additionally, zabala’s (2020) framework may not be as helpful in analyzing the best use of ai. though generative artificial systems can be assistive, they can also augment human capabilities. they are more than just another technological tool that has one task and consistently and accurately completes what it has been programmed to do. ai is multimodal, can mimic human intelligence and creativity, and even provide inaccurate, fictitious, or biased responses. as a result of the complexity of the system, we propose a divergent approach to reimagining and redesigning doctoral programs through an intentional, responsive, and co-creative process of embedding ai programmatically. the proposed framework, repac, addresses research activities, ethics, programmatic considerations, affordances, and competencies. rather than being prescriptive, rigid, or a one-time process, it is meant to be flexible, forwardthinking, and open-ended, allowing the program to shift and modify as ai, students, and faculty change. in the following paragraphs, we will describe each aspect of our repac framework and illustrate opportunities for students, faculty, and leadership to participate in the dialogue and development of a humanistic doctoral program with the support of ai. it is imperative to understand that when redesigning an edd program with ai components, it is fundamental to not only understand how the redesign and incorporation of ai will impact different stakeholders but also to involve students, faculty, doctoral committee members, and leaders from the program, school, and college level. including a diversity of people will provide a thoughtful response to ai and redesign an academic program that remains human-centered, ethical, and with high esteem for doctoral degrees. once a small group has been assembled, the hard work of repac begins. research activities one of the many objectives of a doctoral program is to teach, mentor, and support doctoral students’ learning and practice of conducting research, especially original research. as we write this, there are impressive ai systems designed for research to find, summarize, and synthesize literature. ai can transcribe interviews and even analyze qualitative data, provide researchers with themes, and quickly visualize data. what would take a human researcher days and weeks to do now takes seconds for ai to complete. such systems can increase the quantity of research and even improve the quality of research by discovering new insights that elude the human researcher; such examples are being witnessed in healthcare, biopharmaceutical, chemistry, and environmental sciences. and yet, even with the assistance of ai, the human researcher is accountable for the accuracy, ethical oversights, protection, and privacy of human subjects, and much more. therefore, faculty, chairs, and committee members need to continue to teach and guide students in the research process by understanding the depth of the literature, the richness and wisdom of research methodology, and the reasoning behind data collection and analysis procedures. as programs include repac: critical questions to inform edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 68 ai in their research courses, coursework, and dissertation in practice process, stakeholders are advised to reflect on when students are introduced to research ai assistant systems, how they are asked to use ai in their research, the role of faculty in encouraging and educating students, and what leadership will endorse and invest in to ensure faculty and students all have equitable access to ai technologies. considerations of when and how doctoral students engage with ai research assistive technologies are encouraged not only due to the ethical concerns raised earlier but also to ensure the creative process of research is not stymied. as felin and holweg (2024) explain, there are limitations to ai’s data and prediction model, and it cannot be compared to human cognition. humans have the capacity to directly engage in the physical world, engage in experimentation, and problem solve in ways that are divergent from the stagnant data set the ai has. therefore, “heterogeneous beliefs and theories enable the generation of new data (for example, through experimentation), rather than merely being reliant on prediction based on past data” (felin & holweg, 2024, p. 37). felin and holweg’s paper provides faculty and leadership insight into the creative genius of humans to predict and theorize beyond the given set of data, which has implications on how and when instructors approach ai-assisted research activities with our students. ethics as ai advancements continue to evolve beyond mimicking human writing and thinking, the slow erosion of ethics is a real threat. therefore, the field needs to constantly reflect on the ethics of ai in higher education and research. beginning with the consideration of what ethical norms already exist in academia and research and critically evaluate if what already exists encompasses ai capabilities and, if not, what revisions and additional ethical codes need to be revised to ensure that human autonomy, dignity, intellectual property, and authenticity remain intact and protected. for instance, questions about ai transcription platforms, inputting research data into openai’s chatgpt or other open-source services to analyze data, using ai to visualize data, and other interesting future use cases. in addition to updating the ethical codes, universities and doctoral programs, in particular, need to provide students and faculty a responsive, open line of communication to ethical boards (which in most higher education institutions would be the institutional review board) when they encounter new use cases and ethical questions. this will be especially important as ai systems become more advanced and ubiquitous and researchers become more sophisticated in using ai. leadership and faculty need to remain current in ai advancements and have a strong ethical backbone while remaining flexible in a technologically evolving academic and research landscape. programmatic considerations some programs may face an existential crisis about the purpose and meaning of an edd. as discussed earlier, at the heart of the education doctorate is leadership and research, which includes having a deep understanding of how to critically consume, ethically create, and effectively communicate research to various audiences, particularly practitioners, to effectively lead. once again, programs need to consider the appropriate timing, use, and andragogical impacts the embedding of ai throughout doctoral students’ programs of study will have. with an already distrustful view of higher education by the public and especially by popular media, higher education cannot inadvertently create an epistemological crisis by not being transparent in its use of ai throughout the program. the need to make difficult decisions about ai makes it a moral obligation for edd programs to openly discuss the impact ai may have on the education of emerging and advanced leaders. whether it is the use of chatbots in the admissions process or including ai in learning management systems, programs must consider the transparent use of ai and its impact on every aspect of students’ educational experience, including the potential long-term impacts the intentional inclusion of ai in students’ leadership and research may have. affordances affordance is a term first coined by gibson (1979), who defined the term as “the affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. ... it implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment” (p. 127). norman (2013) would later apply this concept to the everyday objects (natural and artificial) humans use, such as a door handle, which can have various designs and placements on a door, signaling to the person whether to pull, push or turn the handle. he further extends gibson’s definition, stating, “an affordance is a relationship between the properties of an object and the capabilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used” (norman, 2013, p.11). this term has been adopted by many fields, such as the design of smart homes, information and communication technology, and robotics. with fierce competition and a flood of investment in ai, the advancements of the models are quickly evolving, making it challenging for business, education, and the average consumer to keep up. however, norman’s (2013) seven-stage action cycle model still applies to ai and can be a practical checklist for students, faculty, and leadership when considering the affordance of specific ai systems for specific tasks. norman (2013) posits that there are seven design themes, each with its own question that a user should be able to answer: 1. “what do i want to accomplish? 2. what are the alternative action sequences? 3. what action can i do now? 4. how do i do it? 5. what happened? 6. what does it mean? 7. is this okay? have i accomplished my goal?” (p. 71) however, in order for stakeholders in edd programs to know the answers to the seven questions and the affordance of the ai systems, stakeholders will need to be provided with the time and tools to use and experiment with to see if the ai model truly accomplishes the specific tasks and in order to avoid “false affordance,” or a product that has an apparent affordance but does not fulfill its function, as gaver (1991) warned. competencies there are various competencies that those earning a professional doctorate in education can meet. according to the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the langran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 69 application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, n.d., para 4). to transform the edd by applying scholarly practice to improve individuals and communities, cped has provided programs with six guiding principles for the development and design of programs, which include (1) using equity, ethics, and social justice frameworks to solve problems, (2) advance the practice and knowledge of organizations and communities, (3) build effective collaborative and communication skills, (4) create opportunities to be in the field, (5) incorporates research, theory with professional knowledge, and (6) supports students in producing transformative knowledge and practice. in addition, doctoral programs should consider stakeholders’ ai which refers to “a set of competencies that enables individuals to evaluate ai technologies critically; communicate and collaborate effectively with ai; and use ai as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace” (long & magerko, 2020, p. 598). from the cped principles and emergent ai literacies, edd programs can glean competencies that doctoral students should have, such as transformational leadership, communication, and research skills, but also understand data literacy, and critically analyze and interpret data. figure 1. the repac framework repac student faculty (includes committee members and chairs) leadership r research activities how can students effectively use ai in their research activities, including consuming research critically, creating original research, and communicating their research effectively to practitioners and researchers? when and where is it appropriate for students to use ai in the research process, which includes the consumption of research, creation, and communication? how can faculty encourage, educate, and engage students with ai research assistant systems in the research process? who is accountable for students’ research when ai is used? how can leadership equitability support students and faculty access and use of ai systems that can improve the quality of research, which includes the consumption, creation, and communication phases of research? e ethics what critical concerns about ai do practitioners, leaders, researchers, and students need to consider while using ai in its different forms and evolution? how will students actively practice the ethical use of ai in academic work and research? where can students go for additional resources and support on the ethical use of ai in research? what critical concerns about ai do educators, researchers, and students need to consider while using ai in its different forms and evolution? how will the faculty teach and model the ethical use of ai in academic work? what critical concerns about ai do leadership, educators, researchers, and students need to consider while using ai in its different forms and evolution? what policies already exist that can apply to the ethical use of ai in academia? what new policies need to be established to maintain ethical research and human accountability? how will researchers remain accountable for the ethical use of ai in research? p programmatic considerations by the end of the doctoral program, what knowledge and skills should students have that will support them in their career trajectory as leaders? by the end of the doctoral program, how will students demonstrate their knowledge and skill in order to obtain the edd degree? when are ai systems introduced to students in the program? how are such systems released across the program? how do faculty, chairs, and committee members teach and support students’ use of ai in their doctoral classwork and research? what conversations are leaders having internally and with stakeholders about ai and its possible use across the edd program? what conversations are leaders having with counterparts in other programs and universities about programmatic changes due to ai? how will programmatic policies need to evolve with the incorporation of ai? what programmatic and university resources (e.g. library resources) and support will be needed? what supports can genai provide to help meet the diverse abilities and academic needs of doctoral students? a affordances how will students know the quality and properties of the ai systems that effectively support their work and scholarship? will resources and time be given for students to engage and deeply understand various ai systems in order to best discern which system will support their scholarship better? how will the faculty know the quality and properties of the ai systems that effectively support their work with doctoral students and scholarship? will resources and time be given for faculty to engage and deeply understand various ai systems? how will faculty discuss the affordances of ai with students? what ai properties will support faculty and students’ work and scholarship? what investments in ai will university, college, school, and program-level leadership support? what professional development and support will leadership provide and/or cocreate for and with faculty and students? c competencies what are the core competencies that students earning an edd degree need to demonstrate with and without ai assistance? what are the core competencies that students earning an edd degree need to demonstrate with and without ai assistance? what are the core competencies faculty need related to incorporating ai in their work and scholarship? how will faculty embed ai competencies in their courses and advising work with students? what are the core competencies that students earning an edd degree need to demonstrate with and without ai assistance? what are core competencies leaders, faculty and students need related to incorporating ai in their work and scholarship? what supports can genai provide to help meet the diverse abilities and academic needs of doctoral students to meet the core competencies? repac: critical questions to inform edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 70 applying the model faculty hold diverse beliefs and opinions regarding the benefits and concerns related to genai in education (yusuf et al., 2024). on its own, the repac framework can serve as a reflection tool for individuals to consider the integration and impacts of genai based on their perspectives and beliefs. to foster programmatic revision, however, broader conversations need to occur. we offer two fictional scenarios where genai has been used to support these conversations. these scenarios are designed to move the discourse from individuals’ beliefs and opinions and situate the conversation in more curricular and programmatic ways. these conversations work best when a diverse group of stakeholders (students, faculty, alumni, and leaders) discuss the scenario and proactively inform the evolution of programmatic policies and curricular practices. the identified repac questions are not intended to be exclusive. instead, they can act as a springboard for related questions that may be more program-specific or unique to the student population who an institution serves. one critical aspect of using the repac framework to foster programmatic revision is recognizing that all stakeholders must understand genai and its capabilities before engaging in these conversations. understanding that social systems and communication channels influence the adoption rate of new technologies, offering professional development for programmatic stakeholders can build the foundational understandings needed for this type of discourse. scenario 1 alex is a doctoral student in an educational leadership program. in one of their courses, they have been tasked with collecting relevant peer-reviewed research articles for a topic of their choice and writing a comprehensive literature review. while they start their research by using the online repository provided through the university library, they also use several genai tools to identify research articles. after downloading the articles as pdfs, alex uploads each article into a genai tool and prompts the tool to write a summary of the article and identify five important findings. alex organizes these summaries and findings into a spreadsheet. to support their writing, alex uploads all of the articles into a genai tool and prompts the tool to synthesize the articles into themes. they also ask the tool to create an outline of a literature review they can use to write their own. while they haven’t read the research articles in their entirety, alex draws on the genai-created outline and summaries to craft their literature review. when they’ve completed their writing, alex uses a genai tool to proofread their review and to check their citations, references, and formatting. unpacking scenario 1 this student scenario is provided to foster programmatic conversations around using genai to support students’ ability to consume, create, and communicate academic research. the repac framework can serve as a guide to approach the scenario from different perspectives and allow stakeholders to consider the broader implications of genai use. in this scenario, alex’s use presents a comprehensive integration of genai use across common activities in which a doctoral student may engage. rather than focus on whether alex’s use could be considered academic dishonesty or not, we have identified several questions pulled from the repac framework presented in figure 1 to those items that apply to this particular scenario and can guide the conversation. for example, by focusing on the core competencies within a program, stakeholders can discuss whether competencies should evolve and be informed by technological advancements like genai. additionally, stakeholders need to consider the potential inequalities present in the access and use of genai tools and how programs can best support students. in this scenario, repac can support alex and the course instructor in thinking critically about using ai and its impact on the student’s learning, writing, and academic integrity. additionally, repac can be a proactive tool for faculty who want to engage in open and honest coaching conversations with students about best practices with ai. figure 2. applying the repac framework to scenario 1 repac student faculty (includes committee members and chairs) leadership r research activities how can students effectively use ai in their research activities, including consuming research critically, creating original research, and communicating their research effectively to practitioners and researchers? who is accountable for students’ research when ai is used? how can leadership equitability support students and faculty access and use of ai systems that can improve the quality of research, which includes the consumption, creation, and communication phases of research? e ethics what critical concerns about ai do practitioners, leaders, researchers, and students need to consider while using ai in its different forms and evolution? how will the faculty teach and model the ethical use of ai in academic work? what critical concerns about ai do leadership, educators, researchers, and students need to consider while using ai in its different forms and evolution? what policies already exist that can apply to the ethical use of ai in academia? p programmatic considerations how do faculty, chairs, and committee members teach and support students’ use of ai in their doctoral classwork and research? a affordances how will students know the quality and properties of the ai systems that effectively support their work and scholarship? how will faculty discuss the affordances of ai with students? what ai properties will support faculty and students’ work and scholarship? c competencies what are the core competencies that students earning an edd degree need to demonstrate with and without ai assistance? how will faculty embed ai competencies in their courses and advising work with students? langran et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 71 scenario 2 the edd program team wants to address genai applications within the redesign of their three-year online program. specifically, the faculty wanted to integrate discussions, tools, and ethical considerations into their decision-making process for the literature review, methods, and data analysis courses. several faculty members are against using genai, and they have major concerns about students’ critical thinking skills and authentic writing products. others are adamant that aspects of genai be integrated into all of the courses. one faculty member is extremely concerned about ethical considerations that impact the students who span the program’s various demographics, including diverse ethnicity, varied socioeconomic status, age spans from 25 to 75, and professional roles from entry-level to ceos. unpacking scenario 2 in this scenario, there are varied and alternative viewpoints on including genai in an online edd program. to further the discussion, these repac questions can facilitate the conversation and allow for concerns and recommendations regarding programmatic structures needed for an edd program revising and enhancing their program with genai constructs. for example, conversations around affordances—the “a” of repac—challenge stakeholders to consider both resources and time needed for both faculty and students to engage and deeply understand various ai systems. through these repac guiding questions, university leaders are tasked to uncover their own biases regarding genai and address student and faculty needs for the successful integration of tools and competencies. in this case, all stakeholders at the programmatic level would be included in the repac discussion. faculty can and should invite student voices to the table, possibly through focus groups and subsequent pilot courses with genai integrations adopted by the leadership team based on stakeholder feedback. recognizing that change, when implemented with fidelity, can bring new and innovative structures into online programs is an exciting aspect of the repac model. while the repac framework offers a lens for approaching both of these scenarios, different institutions may make different decisions regarding how this will inform their programmatic competencies, coursework, assessments, and guidelines. some programs may develop additional competencies that reflect using genai for scholarly research and writing as alex’s story represents in scenario 1. these programs may choose to integrate these competencies throughout their coursework. another program, however, may choose to limit the use of genai tools early in the program but introduce the tools after critical research skills have been developed. with the diversity of edd programs, diverse approaches and solutions are anticipated. practical implications for edd programs faculty and administrators charged with making decisions regarding their respective edd programs have quite the task ahead of them during this consequential time of generative ai. in support of this, there are practical implications of using such a critical questions framework, as described in this essay, for reflecting, reenvisioning, and redesigning edd programs accordingly. competency development can increase by reflecting on how edd programs consider how candidates learn with and about genai tools. edd programs can build structural opportunities for their students to engage with ai tools as they grow and master course competencies, while maintaining the course instructor as the conduit of learning. moreover, instead of forming and joining bipartite sides on whether generative ai should be used in edd programs, moving through the critical questions in the framework allows for the potential of ai use in research activities that can support edd students who may struggle with the formalities associated with academic writing. storey (2023) identified several areas within the figure 3. applying the repac framework to scenario 2 repac student faculty (includes committee members and chairs) leadership r research activities when and where is it appropriate for students to use ai in the research process, which includes the consumption of research, creation, and communication? how can faculty encourage, educate, and engage students with ai research assistant systems in the research process? how can leadership equitability support students and faculty access and use of ai systems that can improve the quality of research, which includes the consumption, creation and communication phases of research? e ethics how will the faculty teach and model the ethical use of ai in academic work? what policies already exist that can apply to the ethical use of ai in academia? what new policies need to be established to maintain ethical research and human accountability? how will researchers remain accountable for the ethical use of ai in research? p programmatic considerations when are ai systems introduced to students in the program? how are such systems released across the program? how will programmatic policies need to evolve with the incorporation of ai? what programmatic and university resources (e.g. library resources) and support will be needed? what supports can genai provide to help meet the diverse abilities and academic needs of doctoral students? a affordances will resources and time be given for students to engage and deeply understand various ai systems in order to best discern which system will support their scholarship better? will resources and time be given for faculty to engage and deeply understand various ai systems? what professional development and support will leadership provide and/or cocreate for and with faculty and students? c competencies what are the core competencies that students earning an edd degree need to demonstrate with and without ai assistance? how will faculty embed ai competencies in their courses and advising work with students? what supports can genai provide to help meet the diverse abilities and academic needs of doctoral students to meet the core competencies? repac: critical questions to inform edd programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.469 72 editing and proofreading stages of dissertation writing where edd students could use ai to reduce stress and maximize limited time. by choosing ai tools intentionally with edd students to use through this framing, academic outcomes and learning will not be compromised and instead have the potential to flourish. through the reenvisioning of policies and practices within edd programs, the development of thorough and accessible guidelines is at the core and a necessary outcome. when chatgpt became publicly available in november 2022, most, if not all, edd programs were without guidelines in place to support the use of ai by their students and faculty. fast-forward to well into the year 2024, many edd faculty may be relying on their institutions’ general and often vague guidelines of ai use, or they are scrambling to make sense of a path forward. even at the national level, there are myriad policies by different organizational sectors that must be dissected and interpreted (schiff, 2022), which can also cause more confusion when trying to use those guides with specificity for edd programs. through the framework provided, including attention to guardrails such as ethical and responsible use of ai, edd programs can enthusiastically boost and advance their innovative use of ai while substantially including programmatic considerations with fidelity and peripheral areas. to better address the emergence of generative ai, this critical questioning framework can support redesigning edd programs, curriculum, and assessments through the lens of equity, ethics, and justice. while we have shared some of the tool affordances and opportunities associated with ai use, the framework is grounded in critical questions that must be asked in order to approach ai use in edd programs in justice-centered and ethical ways that support all edd students. going beyond wrestling with the technology gaps and equity issues related to access and affordability of tools, asking critical questions regarding algorithmic bias and racist outputs that may be associated with some of the ai tools in consideration is imperative. conclusion in a summary of its report on artificial intelligence and the future of teaching and learning, the u.s. department of education’s office of educational technology charged educational institutions with addressing the benefits and potential risks presented with genai. the authors write, modifications and enhancements to the status quo will be required to address the new capabilities alongside the risks of ai. we call for the involvement of all perspectives in the ecosystem to define a set of guidelines and guardrails so that we can achieve safe and effective ai for education. (2023, p. 3) while this charge is clear, the complexity and diversity of educational programs and institutions require that stakeholders (faculty, students, leaders, etc.) within the programs develop the policies and practices that apply best to the curriculum being taught and the students being served. the repac framework offers a scaffold to assist in this process. by focusing on the research activities, ethics, programmatic aspects, affordances, and competencies, the repac framework can guide stakeholders in identifying the ways that genai can support students and inform programmatic evolution. references cardona, m. a., rodríguez, r. j., & ishmael, k. (2023). artificial intelligence and the future of teaching and learning. u.s. department of education, office of educational technology. https://tech.ed.gov/files/2023/05/aifuture-of-teaching-and-learning-report.pdf the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). 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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104212 elizabeth langran marymount university paula cristina r. azevedo marymount university stephanie smith budhai university of delaware oliver dreon millersville university clara hauth marymount university technology adoption in edd programs conceptual framework research activities ethics programmatic considerations affordances competencies applying the model scenario 1 unpacking scenario 1 scenario 2 unpacking scenario 2 practical implications for edd programs conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 18 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 empowering educational leadership research with generative ai: insights and innovations from a qualitative edd dissertation corrie wilder washington state university-everett corrie.wilder@wsu.edu shannon calderone washington state university-everett shannon.calderone@wsu.edu abstract this study explores the integration of generative artificial intelligence (ai) into qualitative research within a higher education context. through a collaborative self-study, a doctoral candidate and their dissertation supervisor examined the application of google’s gemini 1.5 to analyze interview data from a dissertation of practice (dip) focused on interinstitutional partnerships. the findings demonstrate that ai can enhance the depth and efficiency of qualitative analysis, revealing hidden complexities and patterns while augmenting the researcher's analytical skills and fostering reflexivity. however, challenges related to data integrity, potential biases, and the need for careful human oversight are also discussed. this research offers insights into the transformative potential of ai in qualitative research, particularly within doctoral education, while raising important ethical considerations and prompting a re-evaluation of traditional dissertation practices in the context of emerging technologies. keywords generative artificial intelligence, qualitative research, educational leadership, collaborative self-study, ai ethics in education technological adoption and adaptation have long posed challenges to methodologists. as far back as the 1980s, qualitative data analysis (qdas) programs were being introduced as aids to narrative and textual-based research (wolski, 2018). the development of these digital tools resulted in a proliferation of platforms designed to support empirical analyses. programs like atlas.ti, nvivo, maxqda, dedoose, and quirkos not only replaced the time-consuming and arduous manual approach to coding and analysis, they also offered built-in features such as the pre-loading of codes, importing diverse file formats, as well as a litany of visualizing and reporting features. however, methodological scholars also viewed these platforms with a degree of skepticism. the famous qualitative methodologist max van manen (2014) claimed that qdas software was incompatible with phenomenological work. he argued that qdas software might be philosophically congruent with grounded theory or ethnography; however, automation of any digitally-driven re-reading of text, codification, and/or generating of new texts was philosophically incompatible with phenomenological traditions. others critiqued the use of qdas platforms as barriers to authentic learning, arguing that they are better conceived as data management and retrieval tools, particularly in the context of the qualitative dissertation (maher, et al., 2018). in response, kaczynski (2006) offered important (and seemingly prescient) admonishments to these methodological purists, insisting that they adapt to these new analytical advances. as for the resulting impact upon dissertation research, kaczynski (2006) was also quite clear. dissertation supervisors and doctoral candidates must re-orient their assessments of methodological rigor with the reality that qdas programs were here to stay. not surprisingly, we find ourselves at a similar crossroads. educators now face an even more decisive challenge in navigating the far-reaching implications of generative artificial intelligence (ai) on qualitative research – and particularly on ai’s role in supporting the analytical aspects of the dissertation of practice (dip). questions over the potential influence of these technologies on the fundamental aims of the dip promise to recalibrate expectations surrounding novice qualitative research as perceived by the scholar-practitioner as well as their dissertation supervisor (storey & maughan, 2016). as ai continues to influence how/in what way we engage in the research process, it has the potential to alter how dissertation research is conducted, analyzed, and even implemented. this transformation should compel carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) programs to take a pause in order to reconsider the resultant impact on traditional dissertation models. by proactively engaging with these issues, cped programs can equip scholarpractitioners with the skills and knowledge necessary to harness ai’s capabilities responsibly. this ensures that dissertations remain rigorous and relevant in an increasingly ai-driven educational landscape. furthermore, addressing these questions will help to bridge the gap between theory and practice, fostering innovative https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8852-7272 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4708-2862 wilder & calderone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 19 solutions to complex educational challenges and preparing future leaders to be adept at navigating the technological advancements that will undoubtedly shape the field in the years to come. paper overview how we might begin this process serves as the central aim of this paper. the author and co-author, a doctoral candidate and dissertation supervisor, respectively, document use of the preview version of google’s gemini 1.5 pro (gemini 1.5) within the context of a dip. more specifically, we examine the doctoral candidate’s application of gemini 1.5 (subscription required) as a means for reducing qualitative data collected in support of a higher educationoriented dip. we do this by documenting how gemini 1.5 pro served to elevate and deepen the doctoral student’s thinking about the themes that emerged from both the qdas-based analysis of her collective narrative data and ai-driven analysis. questions we sought to address through this paper were: • in what ways does ai-driven data analysis produce new, unanticipated ways of thinking about the problem of practice at the heart of this dissertation in practice? • in what ways does the use of ai-driven tools strengthen the doctoral student’s understanding of the data analysis process? the potential bias (or avoidance of bias)? • how does the use of ai-driven tools shape/inform researcher positionality? • in what ways does the use of ai generated tools push upon, expand, or delimit the boundaries for what constitutes dissertation-level research as determined by the dissertation supervisor? this paper addresses these questions in dialogical fashion, whereby both a doctoral candidate and a dissertation supervisor reflect upon the analytical process and the underlying learning produced through the introduction of ai into the analysis phase of the candidate’s emergent dip. our shared intent was to document the actual experiences of a scholar-practitioner as she attempted to carry out a high quality dip while using ai generated data tools for the first time. for her part, the doctoral supervisor engaged in her own reflective process by considering how the use of ai aligned with the programmatic expectations of the dip and the learning process undertaken by the doctoral candidate. we conclude our discussion by examining how the ai-informed dissertation work aligns with cped principles pertaining to learning and impact. ai and qualitative analysis in the case of social science research, generative ai has led to the emergence of a number of ai-driven analytical platforms, such as scholarcy, dscout, domo, consensus, elicit.org, scite.ai, chat pdf, as well as longstanding writing aids like grammarly, copy.ai, and others (johnson, 2023a; patel, 2022). tools such as scholarcy and chat pdf have emerged as the forerunners of a powerful line of aidriven fast learning tools that serve to aid in the digestion of research literature (lee & kim, 2021; morgan, 2023). other services such as akkio, power bi, as well as chat gpt provide the means by which to analyze vast amounts of data in order to identify trends and patterns that might lead to empirical claims (morgan, 2023; smith & nguyen, 2022). ai technologies, such as machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, and data mining, have the capability to process vast amounts of educational data with speed and accuracy (brown, 2022; davis, 2021). these technologies can identify patterns and trends that might otherwise elude novice and experienced researchers alike, providing deeper insights into student behavior, learning outcomes, and educational disparities (miller & johnson, 2023). for instance, machine learning algorithms can analyze standardized test scores, attendance records, and other educational metrics to predict student performance and identify at-risk students that can enable timely, more impactful interventions (robinson, 2022). moreover, ai can facilitate the personalization of education by tailoring learning experiences to individual needs (thompson, 2023). adaptive learning systems, powered by ai, can adjust content and pacing based on a student’s performance and preferences, fostering a more engaging and effective learning environment (jones, 2022). this level of personalization is grounded in rigorous data analysis, allowing for continuous assessment and real-time feedback, which can significantly enhance the learning experience (smith, 2023). ai has increasingly become an invaluable tool for qualitative methodologists, offering a wide array of methods and techniques to enhance data collection, analysis, and interpretation (clark, 2022). to better ground our discussion over the use of generative ai for research purposes, we offer a brief overview of the different ways ai can be employed in qualitative research, highlighting its specific contributions to data gathering, coding and analysis, and the synthesis of findings (lewis & harris, 2021a). data collection ai technologies have revolutionized data collection methods in qualitative research (taylor, 2022a). traditional techniques such as interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observations can be augmented by ai-powered tools to enhance efficiency and analytical reach (adams, 2023). one significant advancement in data collection is the use of natural language processing (nlp). nlp algorithms enable the automated transcription of spoken language into written text, significantly reducing the time and effort required for transcription (young & soroka, 2019). voice recognition software can transcribe interviews and focus group discussions accurately, preserving nuances and details essential for qualitative analysis (young & soroka, 2019). additionally, ai-driven chatbots and virtual assistants can conduct semi-structured interviews with participants, ensuring consistency in questioning and enabling researchers to reach a larger and more diverse sample (tegmark, 2017). these chatbots can be programmed to probe deeper based on participant responses, mimicking human interviewers (tegmark, 2017). data coding and analysis the coding and analysis of qualitative data, traditionally a laborintensive process, can be significantly streamlined through ai technologies (jackson, 2023). automated coding is one such advancement. ai algorithms, particularly those leveraging machine learning, can assist in coding large datasets by identifying themes, patterns, and categories within the text (saldaña, 2016). supervised learning models can be trained on a subset of data coded by human researchers, allowing the ai to apply these codes to the rest of the dataset with high accuracy (saldaña, 2016). empowering educational leadership research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 20 thematic analysis, another core aspect of qualitative research, can be enhanced by ai through clustering similar data points and suggesting potential themes (garcia, 2022a). topic modeling techniques, such as latent dirichlet allocation (lda), can automatically detect and categorize themes within large text, aiding researchers in identifying underlying patterns and relationships (blei et al., 2003). furthermore, sentiment analysis tools, powered by nlp, can gauge the emotional tone of qualitative data (pang & lee, 2008). these tools can analyze the sentiment expressed in interviews, open-ended survey responses, and social media posts, providing insights into participants’ attitudes and feelings (pang & lee, 2008). in addition to text data, ai can analyze visual and audio data, identifying patterns and extracting relevant information (datta, 2020). for instance, facial recognition software can detect emotional expressions during interviews, and audio analysis tools can identify voice modulation and other auditory cues that provide context to spoken words (datta, 2020). these capabilities extend the scope of qualitative research to include multimodal data sources, enriching the analysis process (wang, 2023a). synthesis of findings ai offers the ability to aid in synthesizing qualitative findings, offering tools for data visualization and integration with other data types (carter, 2022). ai-powered visualization tools can transform qualitative data into interactive graphs, charts, and maps (kelle, 2001). these visualizations help researchers more effectively identify and communicate complex patterns and relationships within the data (kelle, 2001). while outside the scope of the work reported here, ai does facilitate the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, enabling mixed-methods research (nelson, 2023). for example, qualitative themes identified through ai can be cross-referenced with quantitative survey results, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the research topic (creswell & plano clark, 2017). this integration allows for a more nuanced analysis that combines the depth of qualitative insights with the breadth of quantitative data (creswell & plano clark, 2017). what we find is that ai has the capacity to support novice qualitative research by enhancing data collection, coding, analysis, and synthesis (thompson, 2022). by leveraging ai technologies, researchers are able to manage larger datasets with greater efficiency, uncover more significant (deeper) insights emerging from narrative/textual data sources, and present their findings more effectively (wang, 2023b). as ai continues to advance, its integration into qualitative research methods will likely become even more sophisticated, further expanding its influence over qualitative research (clark, 2022). reflections of an edd doctoral candidate’s use of ai to support qualitative analysis the potential of ai to support qualitative research, as outlined above, presents a unique challenge and opportunity for doctoral candidates. as novice researchers navigate a complex, in-depth data analysis process for the first time, ai tools offer a promising avenue for exploring deeper insights and enhancing the rigor of their research. in spite of the many different ways one could use ai to support dissertation-related data collection efforts, i (corrie wilder) carried out what many would term a conventional qualitative edd dissertation. i engaged in a series of semi-structured interviews, recorded and transcribed these interviews, which ultimately resulted in hundreds of pages of text-based qualitative data. working with my doctoral advisor (shannon calderone), i utilized a combination of traditional methods to initiate my data analysis work. as our shared fascination with ai tools became more apparent, we mutually agreed to use an ai as a means of testing its analytical efficacy. the outcomes of this experimentation would ultimately serve as a valuable case study for exploring the ways ai technologies can be integrated and leveraged effectively. background context for using ai as an analytical tool in my dip my (corrie’s) dual role as a doctoral candidate in educational leadership and executive director of marketing and communications at wsu everett has created an interesting connection between my academic and professional pursuits. i have firsthand experience embracing innovative technologies, including ai, to address real-world challenges in higher education, such as enhancing the campus’s reputation, increasing student enrollment, and cultivating strategic partnerships. this has opened my eyes to the power of ai as an analytical tool. for this reason, i began to consider its usefulness in support of my dissertation work. my dissertation research focuses on the influence of cultural dynamics on interinstitutional collaboration, specifically examining a recently established degree partnership program (dpp) between wsu everett and everett community college. i was directly involved in the dpp’s development and implementation, which, combined with my doctoral studies, sparked my curiosity for understanding how cultural factors and risk perceptions shape the success of such partnerships. this insider perspective on the wsu-evcc interinstitutional collaboration offered an opportunity for rich insights. yet, like so many edd doctoral candidates doing dissertation research on work that has professional significance and meaning to me, i was naturally curious as to whether my findings could be further strengthened through the use of ai. my professional and personal curiosity about ai coupled with my commitment to rigorous analysis of my dissertation data led to a new ai-focused phase in my analytical process. recognizing ai’s potential to deepen my understanding of the data, i applied a hybrid method for data analysis, merging traditional thematic analysis with the advanced capabilities of generative ai technology, specifically the preview of what is now google’s gemini 1.5 pro(subscription required). initially, i employed dedoose and thematic analysis techniques to identify primary themes and patterns within the interview transcripts. following this, i leveraged gemini 1.5 to explore the data more thoroughly, utilizing its ability to uncover subtle nuances and connections in the text. this combined approach significantly enhanced my understanding of the participants’ experiences by uncovering deeper layers of meaning. despite the advantages, i remained cautious about the potential limitations of gemini 1.5, such as the risk of misinterpretation or bias in the outputs produced. to mitigate these risks, i carefully reviewed and validated all insights produced through my use of gemini 1.5 against the original interview transcripts to ensure their accuracy and reliability before incorporating them into my analysis. wilder & calderone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 21 process reflections the culmination of my edd journey, a dip, presented an opportunity to explore interorganizational relationships, a core challenge of effective educational leadership. guided by the cped’s focus on practical problem-solving (cped, n.d.), my research examines the interplay of culture and risk perception within a concurrent enrollment partnership between a community college and a university. central to my analysis is the exploration of semi-structured interview data collected from stakeholders, including university and community college leadership, faculty, and staff who were directly involved in the initial creation and execution of the dpp. prior to analysis with gemini 1.5, all interview transcripts were de-identified to protect participant privacy. this involved removing all identifiable personal and organizational information, such as names, job titles, and institution names, and assigning participants unique codes. seeking to optimize my analysis and potentially uncover hidden insights, i leveraged gemini 1.5, as my de facto research assistant. i chose google’s ai tool for several reasons, including its large context window (over a million tokens, where tokens are units of text such as words or parts of words), advanced reasoning abilities, and potential for multi-modal analysis (google deepmind, 2024). the decision to utilize genai capabilities reflected in gemini 1.5 aligns with the growing movement within academia to explore ai’s potential in enhancing research processes and expanding the boundaries of knowledge creation (mollick & mollick, 2024). it empowers researchers to explore and analyze data in novel ways. in line with sætra’s (2022) exploration of using ai as a tutor based on vygotsky’s theory of human learning, i envisioned working with gemini 1.5 as a knowledgeable other, a co-intelligence capable of revealing patterns, connections, and lines of inquiry that might have otherwise remained obscured within the multiplicity of qualitative data generated by semi-structured interviews. next, i explore how my collaboration with gemini 1.5 confirmed my initial understanding of my problem of practice and unveiled unforeseen nuances and complexities within my data. it ultimately transformed my approach to data analysis and enriched the depth and scope of my dissertation research. human-ai collaboration for enhanced qualitative analysis as i mentioned earlier, i began my collaboration with gemini 1.5, having already conducted a thorough manual analysis of my dissertation data through the popular qda program, dedoose. this initial phase was crucial in building familiarity with my data. thus, ensuring that i, as the researcher, was able to remain firmly in the driver’s seat, guiding the direction of the data’s analysis and interpretation. one of the most significant contributions of the gemini 1.5enhanced data analysis in my dissertation research was its ability to reveal hidden complexities and unanticipated connections within the qualitative data. for one, i recognized the potential for ai to augment my analysis and uncover deeper insights. therefore, i decided to explore the capabilities of google’s gemini 1.5. its unique 1m token context window (increased to 2m since the time of my analysis) has the capacity to process and analyze large quantities of text simultaneously. this offers a promising avenue for revisiting the data with fresh eyes and exploring potential connections and patterns that may have eluded my initial manual analysis. as expected, my gemini 1.5 research assistant surfaced numerous excerpts aligned with my initial thematic analysis. sentiments of threat and fear of loss from stakeholders at institution a confirmed my earlier observations about anxieties surrounding resource allocation and job security. similarly, expressions of institutional hierarchy and status disparity resonated with my understanding of the power imbalance between the two collaborating institutions. the true impact of this human-ai collaboration emerged in the gemini 1.5’s ability to generate novel insights within excerpts that i had overlooked in my manual analysis. for example, i prompted gemini 1.5 to identify excerpts with varying sentiments and themes to uncover evidence of underlying cultural factors shaping institutions’ differing risk perceptions. it quickly pulled two quotes, comparing one institution’s agility and adaptability (“[the campus], being smaller, tends to be pretty nimble”) to the other’s more cautious and collaborative approach (“every new administrator wants us to do a new thing in a new way… that, i think, makes some of the strategic stuff really, really hard.”). the speed and accuracy of this data extraction enriched my analysis beyond what was uncovered manually. due to privacy considerations and the use of google’s incognito browsing sessions, i was not able to retain the precise prompts i used in collaboration with gemini 1.5. the following examples, reconstructed from my notes, illustrate some insights gained through this gemini 1.5-assisted analysis. table 1 includes the recreated table 1. reconstructed prompts and output summaries reconstructed prompt summary of ai’s output reflection on insights “let's analyze differences in language between the institutions related to the potential risks and benefits of the dpp. what significant differences do you see in their perspectives on the impact to institutional identity?” analysis of stakeholder language revealed a clear contrast in how the two institutions viewed the dpp’s impact on their identity. wsu everett representatives consistently emphasized themes of quality, efficiency, and strategic growth, reflecting a confidence in their ability to manage risks and leverage the partnership for institutional advancement. conversely, evcc stakeholders frequently used language that expressed anxiety, a sense of threat, and a desire to protect their autonomy and values. the ai highlighted the prevalence of phrases like “selling the farm,” “taking our students,” and "weren’t included," revealing a deepseated concern about wsu everett's intentions and influence. i was initially focused on the logistical and operational aspects of the collaboration. the ai’s analysis, ironically, reminded me to consider the human side of things, like how cultural differences were shaping stakeholder perceptions and interactions. this realization prompted me to revisit my interview data and other documents through the lens of cultural bias, uncovering numerous instances where this tension between quality and inclusivity played out in decision-making processes and communication patterns. “please consider recurring patterns that reveal the underlying cultural values and approaches to decision-making.” gemini 1.5 identified distinct language patterns that revealed contrasting cultural values and decision-making approaches. for wsu everett, the ai highlighted the prevalence of terms related to efficiency, data analysis, and strategic planning. phrases like this contrast, revealed through the ai’s analysis of language patterns, pointed to deeper cultural differences in how the two institutions approach decision-making and manage change. this analysis confirmed my original findings, that the tensions within the dpp were not simply about specific empowering educational leadership research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 22 prompts and summarizes ai’s contributions to illustrate its role in enriching my understanding of the dpp. by building upon a foundation of thorough manual analysis and leveraging gemini 1.5’s ability to process and analyze large amounts of data, i achieved a more comprehensive understanding of the tensions that served at the heart of my dissertation’s problem of practice – namely, how might we overcome the inherent challenges to meaningful institutional collaboration? this approach confirmed my initial hypotheses related to the role of risk and risk aversion, while simultaneously unveiling unanticipated complexities and underlying cultural factors related to institutional actions in the collaboration process. by evolving my approach to include aiinformed data analysis, i was able to enrich the depth and scope of my dissertation research. ai as a catalyst for reflexivity and bias-awareness leveraging gemini 1.5 strengthened my understanding of the data analysis process and heightened my awareness of potential biases. beyond the efficiency gained through tasks like quote verification and duplicate identification, engaging with gemini in a conversational manner, similar to working with a human research assistant, opened up new avenues for exploring the data and interpreting findings. this process of interacting with ai fostered a heightened awareness of my own potential biases as a researcher. recognizing gemini 1.5 and other generative ai program’s tendency to be eager to please required careful attention to my phrasing and prompts, ensuring i was not inadvertently leading the tool toward a particular desired outcome (mollick, 2022). this awareness extended to the data itself, prompting me to critically examine potential biases in participant selection, my familiarity with the participants outside of their affiliation with the interinstitutional partnership, how i originally phrased questions, and my interpretation of responses. to mitigate these potential biases, my approach combined the strengths of gemini 1.5 with human oversight and critical thinking. for instance, i leveraged the ability of gemini 1.5 to perform sentiment analysis to compare the language used by stakeholders from each institution, revealing differences in emotional tone and highlighting underlying anxieties and power dynamics (krugmann & hartmann, 2024). i also explored language patterns used by participants in different job roles, uncovering potential biases or variations in risk perception related to their positions within the institutions. additionally, gemini 1.5’s capacity to analyze large amounts of text helped identify contradictions and/or inconsistencies within and across interviews, prompting further investigation and a more nuanced understanding of the data. however, my experience also highlighted the limitations of ai programs like gemini 1.5, which reinforced the critical need for human oversight. there were instances where gemini generated false excerpts, fabricating quotes that did not exist within the data. fortunately, my deep familiarity with the interview transcripts allowed me to identify these so-called hallucinations, instances where ai produces misleading or fabricated data, which prevented them from influencing my analysis. this experience underscored the importance of maintaining a critical lens when working with ai tools and avoiding overreliance on their output. while ai can be a powerful research assistant, it is not infallible, and human judgment remains crucial to ensuring the accuracy and integrity of qualitative analysis. generative ai as tools, collaborators, and disruptors in scholar-practitioner development my experience with gemini 1.5 enhanced my development as a scholar-practitioner. it has prompted me to reevaluate traditional research approaches and sparked an ongoing exploration of the evolving landscape of knowledge creation that i was building in relation to my dissertation work. it remains unclear exactly how much time i saved through the assistance of gemini 1.5; frankly, i challenge efficiency as the sole value of this technology. the most significant benefit was the enhanced accuracy and depth of analysis it helped to facilitate. initially, i leveraged gemini 1.5 as a tool for tasks like quote verification and duplicate identification, ensuring the integrity of my data and freeing up mental space for deeper engagement with the analysis. however, as my familiarity with the technology grew, so did my ability to employ its capabilities for more complex tasks. engaging in conversations with gemini 1.5, similar to brainstorming with a research colleague, prompted me to consider alternative perspectives and explore new avenues of inquiry. it was startlingly human in its responses. i recall likening my exchanges with gemini 1.5 to a knowledgeable instructor who never tires of repeating herself to help corrie understand a concept. for instance, when prompting it to share the connection between several excerpts i defined as explanative of risk perception, gemini 1.5 suggested the institutions’ perspectives were in contrast and suggested further exploration of the university’s hierarchical structure versus the community college’s egalitarian structure. this prompted a conversation about organizational structure and my subsequent return to the literature, ultimately enriching my understanding of the cultural factors influencing interorganizational relationships. additionally, using the technology’s pattern and connection identification abilities augmented my analytical skills. by presenting me with excerpts from multiple sources that shared thematic or sentimental similarities, gemini 1.5 enabled me to revisit the original transcripts with a fresh perspective, uncovering previously unnoticed connections and deepening my understanding of the complex partnership dynamics. leveraging gemini 1.5 honed my ability to synthesize information and fostered a more critical and reflexive approach to research, encouraging me to challenge my assumptions about the data. the skills and perspectives gained through this collaboration extend beyond my dissertation research, directly informing my professional practice as a marketing professional and educational leader. my understanding of ai’s potential for content creation, sentiment analysis, and persona development has opened up exciting possibilities for innovation and efficiency in my work. moreover, the experience has solidified my position as an ai enthusiast and early adopter, and i am committed to exploring and integrating technology-assisted research methods in my future endeavors. on an epistemological level, my view of ai has evolved to encompass its multifaceted nature as a tool, collaborator, and disruptor. while initially perceiving ai as a means to automate tasks and improve efficiency, i now recognize its potential to co-create knowledge and challenge established ways of thinking. as ai technology advances and my understanding deepens, i anticipate embracing its disruptive potential to further enhance my ability to reflect, question assumptions, and approach research problems from multiple perspectives. wilder & calderone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 23 this journey with ai has also reinforced the importance of transparency and ethical considerations in research. i have intentionally documented my use of gemini 1.5, from sharing details with my committee chair when submitting the findings chapter to including how and why ai was used in my dissertation’s methodology section and positionality statement. it is vital to ensure that my committee and other future readers understand the role of ai in my research process and that i demonstrate my commitment to open communication and responsible use of this technology. positionality integrating ai technology into qualitative data analysis marked a significant methodological change in my research. using ai tools like google’s gemini 1.5 transformed my data analysis approach, greatly enhancing the insights gained from the interview transcripts. this technology allowed for efficient exploration of large data sets, uncovering subtle nuances and patterns that manual analysis might miss. however, it also brought about complexities concerning data integrity and the risk of ai-driven errors or biases. ethical considerations in using ai for data analysis were crucial. i carefully monitored the ai outputs to prevent inaccuracies or hallucinations. my thorough familiarity with my data enabled me to identify and correct such errors, highlighting the essential role of human judgment alongside advanced ai tools. reflecting on my dual role as both the creator of the dpp and the researcher evaluating its implementation, i recognized the potential for confirmation bias and the impact of my professional investment in the program’s success. this reflexivity was essential for ensuring research integrity and understanding how my personal and professional experiences with the dpp might shape my study’s interpretations and conclusions. to address potential biases, i employed several strategies to ensure the integrity and validity of my findings. acknowledging my dual role, i used data triangulation, incorporating meeting observations and various documents, such as program documentation and institutional records, alongside interview data. this provided a comprehensive view of the dpp’s impact and helped validate findings from multiple perspectives. additionally, i maintained a reflective journal to document my thoughts and emotions, allowing me to critically assess how my expectations might influence the research. regular peer debriefing sessions with unbiased colleagues outside the dpp context were also invaluable, offering a platform to challenge my assumptions and refine interpretations, adding an external perspective to the research. moreover, my cautious use of gemini 1.5 in my qualitative data analysis involved meticulous verification of ai-driven insights against the original data to ensure accuracy before inclusion in the analysis. this rigorous review process safeguarded against gemini-driven errors affecting the study’s outcomes. lastly, i explicitly discussed potential biases within the research findings, acknowledging my background’s possible influence on the results and considering these biases’ impact on the study’s conclusions. by transparently addressing these issues and employing a rigorous, multi-faceted approach to managing biases, i aimed to enhance the trustworthiness and ethical rigor of my research, thereby strengthening the credibility and reliability of the study’s conclusions. dissertation supervisor reflections as an associate professor of educational leadership, i (shannon calderone) have served on and chaired numerous dissertation committees. corrie, however, was the first student to utilize ai in her dissertation work. prior to this experience, my familiarity with ai was limited, and i had not been fully aware of its potential application in supporting qualitative research methods, particularly data analysis. consequently, i embarked on this dissertation process with numerous questions and few definitive answers. nonetheless, i approached corrie’s proposal to use gemini 1.5 as an analytical tool serves as both an opportunity to satisfy my own curiosity about ai’s potential influence on the research process as well as an opportunity to assess the impact of ai could have on the dissertation process more generally. more to the point perhaps, corrie’s interest in using ai tools to support her data analysis seemed to me a wonderful opportunity to pilot ai’s potential usefulness in carrying out an empirically rigorous dip and perhaps also serve as an opportunity for me to learn from the process along the way. from the very outset corrie demonstrated impressive selfawareness and commitment to rigorous research practices in the context of her work on the dpp. her investment in the subject matter along with her deep interest in ai technology made her proposal to document her manual/ai analytical processes easy to buy into. one of my concerns entering into this process was the impact of ai on a novice researcher’s positionality as it relates to ownership and bias in her data work. in corrie’s case, this was a non-issue as she demonstrated a profound understanding of her dual role as both the creator of the dpp and the evaluator of its implementation. she was also acutely aware of the potential for confirmation bias due to her professional investment in the program. this recognition was crucial, as it underscored how her dual role might influence her interpretations and conclusions. in her role as researcher, corrie placed significant emphasis on reflexivity, actively reflecting on how her personal and professional experiences shaped her research. consequently, she diligently documented her thoughts and emotions in a reflective journal, allowing for a critical assessment of her expectations and biases. additionally, she engaged in regular peer debriefing sessions with colleagues not involved in the dpp. these sessions provided an external perspective that challenged her ongoing assumptions about her study and refined her subsequent interpretations. it also assuaged my fears as to whether her ai would complicate how she engaged with her qualitative data. by integrating gemini 1.5, into her data analysis, there were additional complexities around data integrity and potential ai-driven errors that corrie was forthright in sharing and which served as important learning for her. to her credit, corrie was meticulous in monitoring ai outputs, preventing inaccuracies or fabrications in large part because of her familiarity with the data. this confirmation process underscored the essential role she played in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of ai-assisted analysis within her dissertation. her use of dedoose as a first step in her analytical process was critical to this accuracy as it helped her to build a solid foundation of understanding around her data. corrie’s commitment to grasping the nuances of her dataset was evident before she began to integrate gemini 1.5 into her analytical work. empowering educational leadership research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 24 the decision to integrate gemini 1.5 into her work marked a significant methodological shift. initially, corrie used ai for simpler tasks like quote verification and duplicate identification, ensuring data integrity and freeing up mental space for more in-depth analysis. as she became more familiar with the ai technology, she gravitated to more complex tasks. for example, her efforts to explore participant sentiments led to new underlying patterns within the data. this evolution of thinking demonstrated an increasing sophistication in using ai to augment her prior analytical work. collaborating with ai also enhanced corrie’s analytical skills by revealing hidden complexities and unanticipated connections within the qualitative data. ai’s ability to process large quantities of text simultaneously provided fresh perspectives and deeper insights than what she might have accomplished on her own. this collaboration also heightened her awareness of potential biases – a process many novice researchers speak to in their dissertation writing, but very rarely tackle in authentic and meaningful ways. in corrie’s case, her collaboration with gemini 1.5 fostered a more critical and reflexive approach to her analytical process and prompted her to challenge her own assumptions about the data. while corrie has been a student of ai for some time, i believe her use of ai evolved significantly throughout this process. in effect, ai moved from an efficiency tool to a co-creator of new and unique knowledge. her work with ai deepened her understanding of the substance of her findings and also pushed her to approach problems in new and innovative ways. as her reflections seem to indicate, ai can have a productive, yet disruptive impact on novice researcher practices. overall, corrie’s growth as a qualitative researcher could be viewed as a function of both the manual analysis she initially undertook in combination with her use of advanced ai tools. however, it was through her ai usage that other elements of the researcher experience, namely heightened reflexivity and her critical examination of potential bias elevated the level of authenticity to the dissertation experience in surprising ways. furthermore, it was apparent to me that the integration of gemini 1.5 ensured the integrity and reliability of her research while fostering epistemological growth in understanding and leveraging ai as a tool, collaborator, and disruptor in knowledge creation. in this way, her narrative reflected a thoughtful, methodical approach to the research process, which was characterized by her own willingness to engage in continuous learning, close observation and adaptation to ai outputs, and importantly, a strong commitment to ethical rigor and transparency. lessons and ongoing considerations the integration of generative ai into qualitative research presents a transformative opportunity for both doctoral candidates and dissertation supervisors. this paper has detailed the experiences of a doctoral candidate using google’s gemini 1.5 to augment traditional qualitative data analysis methods. the findings reveal that ai can significantly enhance the depth and efficiency of qualitative analysis, uncovering hidden complexities and unanticipated connections within the data. however, these advancements also bring new challenges, particularly concerning data integrity and the potential for ai-driven biases or errors. reflecting on corrie’s experience with so-called conventional and ai methods of analysis, it is clear that ai tools can be powerful allies in the research process, acting as knowledgeable assistants that help novice researchers delve deeper into their data. this collaboration between human and machine not only augments the candidate’s analytical capabilities but also fosters a more reflexive and critical approach to qualitative research. based upon corrie’s reflections, there is also evidence to suggest that authentic engagement around issues of research bias not only leads to more rigorous and reliable findings, but also makes clear the ease with which bias enters into analytical work. for developing, aspiring, and current educational leaders, this is a lesson that cannot be underestimated. in terms of an individual experience, there is much that corrie’s reflections tell us about the value of generative ai tools in the research process. the elephant-sized question that still remains to be answered, however, is the impact it has on the dip practice as well as on educator preparation as articulated by cped’s guiding principles for program design. we address these impacts in turn. ai’s impact on the dissertation of practice (dip) the inevitable adoption of ai tools by doctoral candidates promises to transform how we have come to think about the dip. as we’ve discussed, tools like chatgpt 4.0 and gemini 1.5 have the ability, albeit at times problematically, to streamline the data analysis process by automating time-consuming tasks like coding and theme identification. this automation allows novice researchers to handle narrative/textual datasets more effectively with greater ease and efficiency, providing more time to focus on interpreting and understanding the data’s deeper meanings. however, these benefits come with a powerful caveat – namely, end users of ai tools must still ensure deep familiarity with their data and maintain sufficient vigilance over system errors. only then does ai function in ways that will lead to the level of knowledge co-creation described earlier. as corrie’s examples make clear, such vigilance will maximize the power of machine learning in service to greater richness and depth of the analysis. consequently, doctoral candidates can produce higher-quality dissertations that reflect a more sophisticated understanding of their research questions and the complex issues they address. use of ai tools for purposes of the dip does prompt a more general need to re-evaluate how dissertation supervisors assess dip quality. traditionally, qualitative research has emphasized the researcher’s direct engagement with the data to ensure a deep, interpretative analysis. however, ai tools introduce a new dynamic by acting as co-analysts, assisting in data interpretation and pattern recognition. this shift requires dissertation supervisors to rethink their expectations and evaluation criteria, acknowledging the value ai can bring to the research process while ensuring that the researcher’s critical engagement and reflexivity remain central. by incorporating ai responsibly, edd programs can enhance the methodological rigor of dips, ensuring that they remain relevant and rigorous in a growing and constantly shifting ai research eco-system. moreover, the impact of ai on the dip extends beyond analytical capabilities to foster a more reflective and critical research process. the use of ai tools encourages researchers to examine their positionalities and potential biases more authentically, as ai can highlight inconsistencies and prompt re-examination of assumptions. this reflexivity is crucial for maintaining the integrity and credibility of scholar-practitioner research. ai’s role in identifying potential biases and encouraging deeper reflection helps candidates to produce more wilder & calderone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 25 ethically sound and transparent dips. additionally, this integration prepares scholar-practitioners to navigate and utilize technological advancements effectively in their professional practice, ensuring they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to harness ai’s capabilities responsibly as future leaders. by fostering a balance between technological innovation and human oversight, ai tools not only enhance the quality of the dip but also contribute to the development of more thoughtful and reflective educational leaders. expanding to include a more diverse range of dissertation formats feels like an inevitability with the emergence of ai in the research sphere. ai tools like chatgpt 4.0 and gemini 1.5 enable innovative approaches to data collection, analysis, and presentation, which traditional dissertation formats may not fully accommodate. by embracing diverse formats, such as digital dissertations, multimedia presentations, and interactive web-based projects, doctoral programs can better capture the dynamic and multifaceted nature of ai-enhanced research. these new formats allow for the integration of visualizations, interactive data elements, and ai-driven insights, providing a richer, more engaging, and accessible representation of research findings. expanding the range of acceptable dissertation formats not only leverages the full potential of ai technologies but also encourages creativity and adaptability in scholarly work, preparing graduates for a rapidly evolving academic and professional landscape. this shift reflects a commitment to innovation and inclusivity in research, ensuring that the dissertation process remains relevant and impactful in the digital age. impact of ai on educator preparation corrie’s transparency surrounding her use of ai tools for her dip offers a series of insights as to the technology’s potential impact on doctoral preparation. the question we pondered was the way in which corrie’s work enhanced or changed how we might come to interpret the cped guiding principles in light of the different array of outcomes generated from ai usage moving forward. corrie’s approach to ethical research was evident through the meticulous deidentification of interview transcripts to protect participant privacy. this practice aligns with cped’s principle of grounding the professional doctorate in questions of ethics. by addressing potential biases, such as confirmation bias, and employing strategies like reflective journaling and peer debriefing, corrie ensures ethical integrity in the research process. however, while ethical considerations are well-articulated, there is less emphasis on the broader themes of equity and social justice, which are integral to cped’s first principle. perhaps this is in part a product of the research design (a case study) in which the unit of analysis are the two organizations engaged in the establishment of the dpp. so, while corrie’s dip example offers insights into the general efficacy of ai in the analysis of qualitative data, it fails to establish how issues of race, gender, sexuality, and other identities would (or could) be meaningfully addressed by ai platforms like gemini 1.5 or chat gpt. the integration of advanced ai tools into the research process showcases corrie’s leadership and innovative approach to problemsolving. utilizing google’s gemini 1.5 for qualitative data analysis exemplifies the forward-thinking mindset that cped encourages, particularly in making a positive difference in educational practices and policies. this use of ai has the potential to enhance the accuracy and depth of findings, thereby contributing to more informed decision-making in educational leadership. nevertheless, the reflection could further explore the direct impact of these findings on individuals, families, organizations, and communities, thus fully embracing cped’s second principle. the use of ai to analyze interview data collected from stakeholders in a real-world educational setting aligns closely with cped’s fourth principle, which emphasizes field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice (taylor & lee, 2023). by using ai to uncover hidden insights and complexities within the data, corrie enhances the problem-solving process and demonstrates the practical application of research knowledge. this approach is wellgrounded in practical, field-based analysis, embodying cped’s vision of integrating practical and research knowledge. the reflection showcases the integration of practical knowledge from corrie’s experience with the dpp and research knowledge gained through the use of ai tools for qualitative analysis. this dual role as both a practitioner and researcher exemplifies cped’s fifth principle, which promotes linking theory with systematic inquiry (robinson & carter, 2023). however, the reflection could be strengthened by further elaborating on how the ai-assisted analysis findings contribute to theoretical frameworks and broader educational research, thus providing a more comprehensive integration of practical and research knowledge (harris & walker, 2020). using ai to generate new insights and transform the understanding of qualitative data aligns well with cped’s sixth principle, which emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge (wilson & evans, 2023). corrie’s innovative use of ai technology demonstrates how professional knowledge can be expanded and applied in novel ways, contributing to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of complex educational issues. corrie’s reflection aligns well with cped principles, particularly in terms of ethical research practices, innovative problem-solving, and the integration of practical and research knowledge. the main areas for further development include a more explicit focus on equity and social justice and an emphasis on collaboration with diverse communities. by addressing these areas, corrie’s work could more comprehensively embody all cped principles, enhancing its impact and alignment with the goals of the professional doctorate in education. conclusion in conclusion, this paper highlights the transformative potential of generative ai in educational leadership doctoral research, as evidenced by the innovative use of ai tools in a qualitative edd dissertation. corrie’s dissertation demonstrates that ai can significantly enhance the depth and efficiency of qualitative data analysis, uncovering hidden complexities and unanticipated connections (clark, 2022; taylor, 2022b). this integration of ai not only augments the analytical capabilities of novice researchers but also fosters a more reflexive and critical approach to research, ensuring that dissertations remain rigorous and relevant in an increasingly ai-driven educational landscape (johnson, 2023b; mollick & mollick, 2024). the case study of corrie’s dissertation underscores the importance of integrating ai into doctoral research programs. as ai continues to evolve, it is imperative for educational leadership programs to incorporate training on these technologies, equipping future leaders with the skills necessary to harness ai responsibly empowering educational leadership research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.489 26 (adams, 2023; thompson, 2023). this proactive engagement with ai ensures that doctoral candidates can leverage these tools to produce high-quality, impactful research that addresses complex educational challenges. furthermore, the responsible use of ai in research fosters a more nuanced understanding of data, enhancing the credibility and integrity of scholarly work (lewis & harris, 2021b; wang, 2023b). overall, the integration of ai in educational leadership doctoral research presents both opportunities and challenges. while ai can streamline and deepen qualitative analysis, it also necessitates careful consideration of ethical implications and potential biases (garcia, 2022b; sætra, 2022). by embracing ai as a tool, collaborator, and disruptor, educational leadership programs can prepare scholar-practitioners to navigate the technological advancements shaping the field. this alignment with cped principles ensures that ai-enhanced dissertations contribute to the advancement of educational practices and policies, ultimately benefiting individuals, organizations, and communities (robinson & 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(2023). future directions for doctoral research: integrating ai. doctoral research review, 11(1), 44–58. wolski, u. (2018). the history of the development and propagation of qda software. the qualitative report, 23(13), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.2984 young, l., & soroka, s. (2019). affective news: the automated coding of sentiment in political texts. political communication, 36(2), 182–202. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/ https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05530 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1143330582 https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.2984 corrie wilder washington state university-everett shannon calderone washington state university-everett paper overview ai and qualitative analysis data collection data coding and analysis synthesis of findings reflections of an edd doctoral candidate’s use of ai to support qualitative analysis background context for using ai as an analytical tool in my dip process reflections human-ai collaboration for enhanced qualitative analysis ai as a catalyst for reflexivity and bias-awareness generative ai as tools, collaborators, and disruptors in scholar-practitioner development positionality dissertation supervisor reflections lessons and ongoing considerations ai’s impact on the dissertation of practice (dip) impact of ai on educator preparation conclusion reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 7 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 the activist educator: defining edd-activism to promote equity and justice suha tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu karen eyler-martin harrisburg area community college ksem17025@gmail.com lorin koch walla walla university lorinkoch@gmail.com russell clark anderson university russellclark73@gmail.com abstract in the fall of 2019, the university of south carolina hosted the convening for the carnegie project on the education doctorate. in one of the sessions, the faculty of curriculum studies (cs) asked participants to share their perspectives on activist profiles, program strategies to support activism, and quality indicator measurements for the development and support of activism. these perspectives were analyzed, and an emerging framework for edd activists was produced. to develop the framework further based on programspecific needs, a committee was formed, leading to a participatory action research (par) study team of a faculty member and graduates of the program to generate a student definition of edd activism, an edd activism framework, and course reflections on social justice-related courses in the cs program. this article describes the par study’s process, outcomes, cycles of inquiry, lessons learned, and future applications. keywords edd activism, social justice, participatory action research in october 2019, the university of south carolina hosted the convening for the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), a consortium of more than 100 colleges and schools of education that aspire to enhance educational practice through their edd programs. in a session highlighting the theme of interaction & activism in the education doctorate, curriculum studies (cs) faculty asked participants to develop activist profiles, share strategies to support activism, and identify quality indicators to assess programs’ support of activism. analysis of these perspectives yielded an emerging framework for edd-activism (becton et al., 2020), and cs faculty subsequently explored what edd-activism means to the cs program specifically (currin et al., 2023). subsequent self-reflection and conversation led to a facultydeveloped edd-activism definition and the redesign of courses to embed activism and social justice more purposefully. curriculum leadership was one such course designed to address the interplay among leadership, activism, and social justice. students’ dynamic exchanges in the course inspired participatory action research (par) to infuse the perspectives of these change agents into the eddactivism work of cs faculty. for this purpose, our team of one faculty member and three program graduates formed to generate a student– graduate edd-activism definition and framework, drawing from coursework and dissertation experiences. leadership, social justice, and activism we begin the article with an overview of leadership, social justice, and activism. these concepts grounded the redesigned course and our par. leadership leadership is a multifaceted concept critical for driving change and growth. maxwell (2014) highlighted its dynamic nature, underscoring its impact on a system’s efficacy, yet merely participating in leadership actions does not guarantee effective leadership. carswell (2021) stressed that leadership qualities extend beyond positions or choices, and northouse (2021) used trait theory to emphasize leaders’ need to maintain self-assurance, prioritize relationships, and envision change to avoid inefficacious advocacy. charisma is key in leadership, enabling leaders to demonstrate competence and promote trust in decision-making (northouse, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4848-2763 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6602-4179 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8112-3613 tamim et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 8 2021). moreover, impactful leaders cultivate authentic relationships and learn from failures (carswell, 2021). weiner and lamb (2020) emphasized that organizational change relies on personal learning that influences its depth and reach. failure to support change often stems from a leader’s shortcomings rather than the quality or necessity of the change itself (maxwell, 2014). leadership also involves navigating decisions, from maintaining stability to crisis management (northouse, 2021). however, selfassured leaders may struggle without team support, reiterating the importance of relationships. collaborative problem-solving encourages unity and maximizes available resources, especially crucial for managing challenges (carswell, 2021; northouse, 2021). collective efforts and buy-in are also necessary for enacting a vision. socially perceptive leaders navigate organizational change by motivating others to take ownership of the vision (northouse, 2021). leadership conveys strength, requiring leaders to leverage strengths while mitigating weaknesses (northouse, 2021). effective leadership prioritizes others’ welfare over personal gains and enables an environment conducive to system growth (maxwell, 2014). leaders model how to foster organizational or situational changes, encouraging commitment and enabling change (spears, 2022). constant learning and adaptation are essential as leaders navigate the interplay between self-confidence and self-assurance (northouse, 2021). because understanding the community’s interests, strengths, and weaknesses is vital, leadership requires active involvement rather than passive observation. leaders are constantly navigating dynamics within tiers of relationships and must maintain the balance of power in social systems. social justice according to sensoy and diangelo (2017), “understanding social justice means [being] able to recognize that relations of unequal social power are constantly being negotiated at both the micro (individual) and macro (structural) levels” (p. 199). consequently, students and educators must negotiate their roles and positions in school and society. cultural identity initially forms at home but further develops through avenues such as school and mass media (foley, 2010). learned identities create social subgroups, which, in turn, can create inequities—including in schools. connell (1993) cited efforts “in affluent countries like the united states, britain and australia . . . to establish ‘equal opportunity’ in education via scholarships, compensatory education, desegregation, affirmative action, assisted places schemes, etc.” (p. 17). however, educators must see social justice as fundamental to education rather than an afterthought (gandolfi & mills, 2022). according to alvarez (2019), “social justice is about distributing resources fairly and treating all students equitably so that they feel safe and secure—physically and psychologically” (para. 1). creating a fair and equitable education system must be in the forefront of educators’ minds. linked to social justice aims, the no child left behind act of 2001 and every student succeeds act of 2015 were designed to “close the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their more advantaged peers” in u.s. schools (klein, 2015, para. 3), in part by addressing teacher effectiveness. these initiatives also raised the question of whether to foster appreciation of differences among students or promote togetherness via assimilation (williamson et al., 2007). against this backdrop, çevik et al. (2020) studied administrators’ interactions with and evaluations of various groups of teachers (i.e., categorized by gender, race, experience, and education) and described three types of (un)just supervision: sociocultural, economic, and political. sociocultural injustice happens when one group is favored over another. economic injustice happens when socioeconomic inequalities thwart equitable distribution of resources. finally, political injustice is a failure to provide an equal voice across demographics when decision-making, leading to unequal representation. thus, schools are not socially just institutions and may even promote inequalities (collins, 2009). for a socially just system, supervisors must (a) foster trusting relationships with teachers; (b) honor teacher voice and choice in their professional growth as autonomous, reflective, and ethical professionals; (c) develop a sense of belonging so teachers actually feel as though they are respected members of the school community; (d) support a school climate that is responsive to differences by implementing socially just mission statements; and (e) provide equitable access to educational opportunities (çevik et al., 2020; quan et al., 2019). to propagate socially just education, teacher activists must counter systems of oppression within their schools by implementing these principles. picower (2012) studied how teacher activists worked in groups to give teachers a voice in policy. they developed empathy, an ability to recognize oppression, and efficacy in acting against inequality, providing equitable access to educational opportunities for those involved. social justice work in education is often pragmatic. educators and administrators may need to be discreet to avoid scrutiny, chastisement, or disciplinary action (ryan & tuters, 2017), because “schools are . . . not only places of learning, but also workplaces where staff, unless they agree with the current regimes, can feel devalued, deprofessionalised and silenced” (gandolfi & mills, 2022, p. 570). faculty and staff who are frustrated can form small publics, as stitzlein and rector-aranda (2016) noted, to move from private discussions to “the process of political dissent,” building on “actions already taken by other teachers” (p. 167), while administrators can blend in with organizations to enact social change without being targeted and eliminated (ryan & tuters, 2017). educators who become edd-activists need guidance to initiate positive change instead of opposition from school boards or specialinterest groups (çevik et al., 2020; graham, 2021). to protect themselves from professional harm when challenging longstanding policies, teachers can form small publics where “they take risks and move beyond the safety of sympathetic audiences to frame problems and build coalitions and solidarity with other groups around those problems” (stitzlein & rector-aranda, 2016, p. 166). activism existing scholarship has defined and described the work of activist educators in various settings, illustrating their goals, methods, and reasons for acting as change agents in their schools and communities. activism in the edd, according to howard and baker (2021), involves scholarship intertwined with community engagement, aiming to address systemic injustices. this form of activism is characterized by sustainability, adaptability, and methodological alignment with community-defined goals. as pivotal change agents, educators hold a significant role as mentors, guiding students through the intricacies of engaging in meaningful, ethical, and impactful work and research within communities. educators are tasked with preparing students to become both scholars and the activist educator impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 9 community-engaged leaders who can apply research skills to realworld problems. training encompasses participatory research methods, ethical research, and the practical application of academic work to social justice efforts. operationalizing teacher activism, picower (2012) highlighted theoretical fields that connect to social justice education in and beyond classrooms, concentrating on three so-called commitments. first, reconciling the vision, describes teachers’ clearly articulated vision of justice. second, moving toward liberation, refers to helping students understand injustice and how to act for social change. third, standing up to oppression, entails teachers’ joining policymaking conversations to advocate for equitable education. applying these insights to teacher education, picower recommended developing students’ empathy, ability to analyze systems of oppression, and efficacy in acting against inequality. the most visible forms of activism are large-scale movements with press attention, but zembylas (2013) encouraged implicit activism: small-scale, personal, modest acts that contribute to social change. this concept is valuable for educational settings that present challenges for activists. because taking action to influence social change may spark conflict with people in power, educational activists have to understand their organizations and act strategically (ryan, 2016). moreover, lacking access to conventional networks and power structures, they may use unconventional tactics (ryan & tuters, 2017). influencing social change requires a careful approach, mindful of the power dynamics educators balance. in sum, teacher educators must prepare not mere professionals but activist educators who are equipped to counter policies that threaten their autonomy and ability to enact positive change. encouraging teacher education programs to incorporate activism, haywood-bird and kamei (2019) recommended practical assignments and activities such as analyzing activist group talking points, writing letters to political figures, and organizing or participating in town-hall meetings. developing leaders with advanced skills to promote change within systems is essential for sustained, impactful educational programs. the edd-activism definition and framework resulting from our par could serve as useful tools for such leadership. methodology par is collaborative and democratic, with equal input from participants that removes barriers among research, teaching, and community engagement (wood, 2019). fusing the expertise and lived experiences of diverse participants and researchers, par synergizes the knowledge they hold (kidd & kral, 2005; wood, 2019). through reflective cycles of data collection and analysis, participants learn about their practices and take action that improves them (baum et al., 2006). participation empowers participants, encouraging their self-determination and personal growth (hutchinson & lovell, 2013; kidd & kral, 2005). par definitions and methodologies vary across disciplines. they have evolved over time since par’s emergence in the 1960s (kidd & kral, 2005; lenette, 2022) because par’s process is adaptable to fit different contexts (wood, 2019). more than a methodology, par is a paradigm (wood, 2019) and an approach to inquiry where participation occurs at any level, from the co-design of research to the co-production of knowledge (lenette, 2022). it establishes a context for knowledge development and sets the foundations for the research project (kidd & kral, 2005). paradigmatically, it is constructivist, drawing from critical theory (baum et al., 2006; kidd & kral, 2005). therefore, it is dialogic and transformative, aiming for reform and emancipation (ryoo & mclaren, 2010). methodologically, par spans quantitative and qualitative methods (baum et al., 2006). as discussed earlier, our par study aimed at blending the expertise of academic faculty and the lived experiences of scholarly practitioners to co-construct new perspectives on edd activism through dialogue and reflection. the goal was to develop an edd activism definition and framework that stemmed from their practice to empower them to become edd activists. participants a call for volunteers to participate in the par study was shared with students enrolled in the curriculum leadership course. although the sample was a convenience sample, it was also a purposeful homogeneous sample due to the students' exposure to the interplay of leadership, activism, and social justice in this specific redesigned course and the students’ common characteristics in terms of professions and related experiences. the initial group of 10 students formed in may 2022 dropped to three by june due to busy schedules and other commitments. the par team that completed the study consisted of suha, the faculty member, and karen, lorin, and russell, all may 2022 graduates, referred to in the remainder of the article as student-graduates. suha is a middle eastern woman who immigrated to the united states in 1990. she has been a cs faculty member since 2015. in addition to teaching, she advises students on the dissertation in practice and collaborates with faculty on continuous program improvement. she redesigned the curriculum leadership course and taught the section her coauthors took. karen is a white woman who has 37 years of secondary and undergraduate teaching experience in the united states and japan. currently, she teaches high school and college writing and literature. lorin is a white man with 20 years of experience in secondary classroom teaching and curriculum development. he currently develops curriculum and teaches online. his scholarly interests include teacher preparation and integrating artificial intelligence into the classroom. russell is a white man with 12 years of k–12 experience in both the classroom and administration and is currently teaching in higher education. data collection the student-graduates completed an online survey on eddactivism adapted from one cs faculty previously used (currin et al., 2023). the questions were: 1. what does activism look like? what are the characteristics of an educator-practitioner activist? 2. what does activism look like in educational settings? what does it encompass? 3. what are the characteristics of an activist? 4. what are the characteristics of an educator-practitioner activist? 5. what are the characteristics of an edd activist? how would they differ from other educator-practitioner activists? 6. how did the edd shape your views as an educatorpractitioner activist? tamim et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 10 five student-graduates completed the survey out of the 10 who originally joined the par study. in addition, the transcripts of 15 meeting recordings documented our thought process to triangulate our analysis. data analysis we compiled the survey responses and coded them individually and inductively (merriam & tisdell, 2016). monthly debriefing meetings and ongoing google docs collaboration followed, facilitating iterative, in-depth analysis, as we compared codes and organized similar ones into refined categories (saldaña, 2013). to corroborate our findings, we reviewed the meeting transcripts, ultimately co-constructing an edd-activism definition and framework. both underwent further refinement through feedback from edd students, 2023 cped convening attendees, and cs faculty. this collaborative, dialogical process furthered our understanding of what edd-activism looks like in practice. developing a student-graduate definition of eddactivism wanting to reach a common understanding of key terms and issues to facilitate communication (healthcare design group, 2017), we developed a definition of edd-activism from the studentgraduates’ perspective, which highlighted edd-activists’ multifaceted role and stemmed from our own experiences with implementing change. first, we coded the responses to each survey question in a google doc. then, we categorized codes using quirkos, qualitative data analysis software. from these categories, we built the definition while repeatedly assessing its wording and accuracy. developing a student-graduate edd-activism framework rycroft-malone and bucknall (2010) explained, “a framework can provide anything from a skeletal set of variables to something as extensive as a paradigm” (p. 45). they added that it can be descriptive of a phenomenon's properties and characteristics, explanatory, or predictive of relationships among characteristics and properties. similarly, in the context of implementation science, nilsen (2015) described determinant frameworks as categories that specify the types of determinants that influence implementation. to support student-graduates and other practitioners in becoming change agents, our framework emerged from student-graduate perspectives on edd-activism, attuned to related outcomes. we consider our framework descriptive of the characteristics of edd-activism, which could evolve to be explanatory and predictive, as rycroft-malone and bucknall described, or evaluative of implementation, as nilsen (2015) described. beginning with a list of the characteristics of edd-activists coded from the survey responses, we sorted them into three broad categories: knowledge, attitudes, and skills. like capper et al. (2006), who proposed a social justice leaders’ framework that incorporated critical consciousness, knowledge, and practical skills, we based our categorization on determinants that predispose and enable behavior (morrison et al., 2013; simons-morton et al., 1995). additionally, we drew from northouse’s (2021) description of leadership as a trait (i.e., ability, skill, or behavior). through rounds of negotiations, we assessed the characteristics for categorical fit, seeking to convey the complexity of participants’ responses. we then incorporated these characteristics into an infographic. this visual representation of the framework went through multiple rounds of validation. first, we requested feedback from edd students and recent graduates. suggestions from the eight responses we received helped us evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of our terminology and prompted us to change the tabular representation of categories to a venn diagram depicting overlaps. after further negotiations and refinement of the venn diagram, we presented it at the 2023 cped convening to a group of 10 education professors and graduate students who provided feedback on each category. we repeated this process with suha’s 11 cs colleagues, yielding further team discussion and modification. the final venn diagram presented in this article merged the various sets of feedback. discussion this section discusses the definition and framework that emerged from our analysis. edd-activism definition we formulated a definition from our survey analysis. in our meetings, we each noted variations in the responses caused by our different experiences but also recognized commonalities and connections among the codes. for example, russell said, “i did see some commonalities…i did feel like there was a common point of view through some of our responses.” suha confirmed, “we’re coming from different angles, from different experiences and different settings, but this is good…. it’s kind of a big umbrella for everybody to be able to find themselves in it.” on a more granular level, we deliberated on the choices of words for the definition that best reflected the meanings embedded in the codes. for example, karen indicated, “edd-activism involves taking action to change the perspective of others… improve society through some kind of educational means… by questioning [and] disrupting the status quo, you include the diversity and equity in all of that,” and lorin attempted to identify, “the big question,” proposing, “is it beneficial change, is it productive change? is it change that promotes more equity? and people getting access who didn’t have access before to where decisions are being made.” our own experiences as cs students and educators illuminated our conversation. for instance, as we discussed the definition of an edd-activist, russell stated it should embody changing perspectives, recognizing issues, and engaging those involved. we agreed that seeing situations through others’ eyes was important to include because empathy is an important part of being an educator, especially an effective activist educator. these conversations culminated in a refined definition: eddactivism involves taking informed action in a compassionate manner to change the perspectives of and empower all members of a community, to foster diversity and equity by critical examination in an effort to improve society through educational means. figure 1 shows the codes from which key terms in the definition emerged. comparing our definition with the cs faculty definition, we noticed a different focus (see figure 2). although both were grounded in social justice, the faculty definition leaned toward theory. in contrast, our definition, emanating from student responses, leaned toward practice, reflecting how each group’s mental models and experiences framed their perspectives toward edd-activism. the activist educator impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 11 figure 1. definition of key terms and selected underlying codes figure 2. comparison of par team and cs faculty eddactivism definitions edd-activism framework as we examined the characteristics from the survey, we concurred that they should align with the edd definition. russell said, “the definition is kind of like our thesis,” and lorin confirmed, “i think if we have a definition, the characteristics should come strongly from the definition.” we also ensured the framework emerged from the student-graduates’ experiences, purposefully avoiding characteristics found in the literature, as the following exchange shows: suha: i think we need to differentiate between what we pull from the literature and what we want to pull from our own experiences and perceptions. lorin: that would depend on what the purpose of this list is. karen: isn’t it helpful to pull in from the literature too? suha: but this is not your data…. and because we can pull so much from the literature… your voices and your experiences will be diluted. karen: that makes sense. lorin: sure, that makes sense. as mentioned, we grouped the characteristics of the edd-activist into three broad categories: knowledge, attitudes, and skills. knowledge knowledge is an awareness of facts and their interrelationships (simons-morton et al., 1995). therefore, under the category of knowledge, we listed characteristics an edd-activist must have to understand an issue. we categorized codes related to cognition as informed or reflective, describing each category with its related behaviors while negotiating the terms that best reflected the responses. for example, lorin said, “would you say educated or scholar can be collapsed together and knowledgeable? which one of those do you think is the one that should be kept?” karen responded, “i like knowledgeable,” and russell agreed. we later refined it to informed. on the other hand, suha noted, “action without reflection is meaningless, and reflection without action is also meaningless. so, i was thinking maybe we need to be reflective when we talk about being an activist.” lorin said, “i see knowing the information being different from being reflective.” russell added, “maybe reflective could be another point, and then we can flesh it out a little bit by going back and reading over all the notes.” we agreed on reflective, adding a bullet point based on feedback from the cped convening on understanding risks. the following list represents the final characteristics for knowledge. • informed o seeks to understand the diverse experiences of the system’s stakeholders. o acquaints self with existing issues, ideologies, influences, and opportunities, and used terminology. o researches current literature on approaches to change. o seeks resources needed for change. • reflective o recognizes own positionality as educator. o understands own sphere of influence. o reflects on the system. o thoughtfully contemplates lives, situations, and opportunities to reveal injustices and oppression when they exist. o examines personal and professional stakes, understanding risk. attitudes attitudes emanate from beliefs predisposing action (simonsmorton et al., 1995). therefore, under attitudes, we listed what we saw as the affective characteristics of edd-activists that drive their behaviors. we categorized these codes as altruistic, compassionate, or engaged, describing each category with its related behaviors. as we negotiated these categories, lorin said, “i don’t know if unselfish is necessarily the best term, but underneath that, i put empathy and community focus on the altruistic and compassionate.” we also debated the use of compassionate versus passionate. suha questioned, “these are kind of affective dispositions, right? i can motivate you, but compassion, it’s something like you have. how can i teach you that?” russell followed, “i’m leaning toward having compassionate … a leader in activism without the compassionate part, you kind of….” similarly, karen reflected, “community-minded made a lot of sense to me…. to say it all, awareness or cultural awareness, something about, you know, being aware of the surroundings and who you're dealing with and what kinds of issues you're dealing with.” additionally, in response to the initial framework, one cs student commented, “is altruistic and other-focused the same?,” which made us ponder whether the terms actually applied, how they applied to attitudes, and whether we should merge them. the following list represents the final characteristics for attitudes. • altruistic o focuses on solutions with direct benefits to affected groups. tamim et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 12 o respects the lived experiences of others. • compassionate o empathizes with others. o focuses on community. o commits to improving the experience of others. • engaged o undertakes tasks with enthusiasm, motivation, and dedication. o expresses willingness to defend just causes. skills skills represent “the capability of accomplishing something with precision and certainty” (simons-morton et al., 1995, p. 256). therefore, under skills, we listed characteristics that enable eddactivists to act based on their knowledge and attitudes. we categorized codes related to action as leader or communicator, describing each category with its related behaviors. for example, on leading change, suha pondered, “what’s the difference between the impact of the change and in contrast to being able to impact change?” lorin replied, “i would look at that as kind of a visioning thing… the impact of the change is kind of the research phase or information-gathering phase before implementation.” russell followed, “i think it defines [the vision for change] is good, where i don’t know if impact is the right one.” karen concurred, “right, because you need to know how to define the change and see what’s going to happen.” consequently, we replaced defined with articulate a vision of the desired change and its effects. additionally, we discussed whether the vision of change should be imposed or stem from collaboration. karen noted, “we don’t want people to think that we, you know, coming in with both guns blazing and saying this is the way it’s going to be…. so, i like the idea of putting in there something about collaboration.” lorin agreed. as a result, we developed other bullet points under leader. based on feedback at the cped convening, we adjusted the point about articulating a vision by adding in different modalities and reconsidered the controversial term stakeholder (see sharfstein, 2016), changing the original statement ensures buy-in from stakeholders when introducing change to avoid conflict and resistance to ensures that all people in the system have their fingerprint on the solution. about the category communicator, suha commented, “maybe we can talk about the interpersonal skills of the person and then the relationship with others and society at large.” a student respondent had suggested, “how do you feel about stronger language for the skills section? such as, develop willingness to lean into difficult conversations?” another student shared, “the only thing i felt was missing was being an effective communicator and setting a vision.” thus, we added communication as a category, discussed what effective communication looks like, and listed related behaviors, leading to the following characteristics for skills. • leader o articulates a vision of the desired change and its effects. o ensures that all people in the system have their fingerprint on the solution. o mentors others to be activists. o empowers others and amplifies the voices of the marginalized. o makes decisions that are ethical, principled, and equitable. o challenges unequal / unjust outcomes of education. • communicator o maintains open communication. o listens attentively with a desire to understand the lives of all people in the system. o is ready to lean into difficult conversations. o overcomes communication barriers that keep the marginalized silent. o collaborates with relevant groups and individuals to problem-solve and articulate solutions. o advocates for others. o spurs others to action. overlaps although three categories emerged from the analysis, we found areas of overlap—at first, with only vague subtitles. after consideration, we developed more specific categories for these sectors of the framework, refining the traits’ interconnectedness. knowledge and attitudes. sensing a negative connotation for the initial category critical of status quo, we reexamined our codes and decided humble was a better descriptor. one student had requested “clarification,” reasoning, “sometimes the status quo benefits students, especially if past practices have worked to create desired change. perhaps instead of always being critical of what is, be reflective on what needs improvement.” russell confirmed: knowledge gives insight into humility. i agree it is essential always to ask questions and listen to knowledge tell you which questions to ask, and humility tells you how to listen. the eddactivist needs both to be effective. without either, the activists will not be successful and cannot be overlooked. consequently, we defined humble as follows: • humble o understands own limits to see others’ points of view. o cultivates sincere curiosity about reasons for people’s views, avoiding snap judgments. we added these points in the overlap between knowledge and attitudes because we considered humility to be a characteristic with cognitive and affective overtones. attitudes and skills. as the team’s discussion developed, the dimensions of attitudes and skills needed to incite change began to form. we defined this overlap as follows: • empowering o speaks out to elevate people who are not in positions of power. o acts based on thoughtful reflection. the term empowering emerged as a concept that describes the result of having both an attitude to act or a willingness to take action and the skill to plan and strategize change, empowering eddactivists to engage in the necessary work. skills and knowledge. we extensively discussed the nature of change and the need for awareness of opportunities for change. in the activist educator impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 13 the student survey, one respondent commented that our initial statement, “acts carefully in setting, in order to avoid being labeled as a troublemaker,” was unclear. in conversation, we realized an important aspect of what makes action appropriate is that it happens at opportune moments, considering different attitudes, cultures, etc. russell added timely as an encompassing term for leading change, yielding the following definition: • timely o discerns the conditions that need improvement and when change is needed. o recognizes the opportunities conducive to implementing change. our refined framework incorporated these points at the overlap of skills and knowledge. knowledge, attitudes, and skills. initially, we interpreted the center of the venn diagram as listening to and preparing others. however, after revisiting our codes and the feedback we received during the validation period, we broadened the label to collaborative to show how it encompasses all three categories, defining it as follows: develops beneficial relationships between groups in the system. revising the framework was challenging, as fitting different codes into the broader categories pushed us to decide which bullet points went under each subcategory. for example, we discussed the choice of the term altruistic multiple times, and a student asked at one point whether mentoring others is a characteristic of leadership skills or communication skills. overall, we feel that we created a usable framework that ultimately became a living document that will shift to meet the needs of those who utilize it while staying broad enough to encompass most, if not all, aspiring and practicing eddactivists. the final version appears in figure 3. figure 3. the edd-activism framework reflections par allowed us to explore edd-activism, balancing theory and practice, and develop a definition and framework that emerged from our and our peers’ dual experiences as practitioners and doctoral students blended with faculty perspectives. reflecting on his doctoral experience, lorin said: i did not come into the program realizing that there was a strong focus on justice and activism. therefore, i did not intentionally build an activism component into my dissertation early in the degree. gradually, the classes on diversity in the cs program helped me understand more. reflecting on the process, i saw that significant elements of my dissertation were clearly activist in nature, even without setting out to include that component. my dissertation adviser emphasized this point, encouraging me to observe the activist elements of what i was already doing. this, combined with the articles by ryan (2016) and ryan and tuters (2017), changed my perspective. i realized that it is common to view activism as big actions done publicly. in reality, activism can be accomplished in many different ways and settings, whether in front of people or completely behind the scenes. my involvement in this study confirms this understanding by showing that the skills, attitudes, and knowledge involved in activism can be part of any setting. karen shared: when i started the cs program at the university of south carolina, i had a very limited idea about diversity, equity, and tamim et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.577 14 inclusion. i had an even more limited view of what it means to be an activist in education. with my first classes, i learned that i can make a difference and take on a larger role to help make the education system more equitable for all. i wish i had been made to complete small activist studies early in the program because once i learned that my dissertation must include activism, i was concerned that i would not be able to make any difference. later, i realized how even small steps can create change and included actions i planned to take after my defense (which i subsequently completed). participating in this study showed me how like-minded people can promote change and aid in progressing activism through research and discussion that is taken to many others so they can add their own thoughts and experiences. russell revealed: as i reflect on the impact of the edd program, i realize how it has transformed my perspectives and equipped me to drive change not just within my sphere of influence but also in the wider community when it comes to addressing diversity issues. it has provided me with the necessary tools to support all learners, irrespective of their backgrounds, while also equipping me with a steadfast conviction to advocate for social change. this empowerment has gone beyond just raising awareness, instilling in me a sense of agency and commitment to engage with local, state, and national stakeholders. this par study has taken me on a journey of individual growth, helping me better my current perspectives and knowledge and giving me a deeper understanding of social issues. suha, as course designer of curriculum leadership and faculty member collaborating on shaping edd activism in the cs program, said: our cs curriculum is continuously evolving to align with the cped framework in “creating quality, rigorous practitioner preparation” and framing the doctorate “around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice” (cped, 2022, the cped framework section). we strive to strengthen the social justice component, encouraging students to see themselves as agents of change and activists. the experiences of karen, lorin, and russell mirror the growth we see in all of our students when completing their dissertations and developing action plans grounded in learning gained through their doctoral journey to continue the improvement cycle and act as advocates in their educational systems. going further, this par study revealed the power of dialogue and interchange between academics and practice. reciprocity revealed itself as empowerment for karen, lorin, and russell in leading change and with insights to suha for improvement in the cs program. moving forward, we anticipate merging our findings with those of becton et al. (2020) and currin et al. (2023) to support the cs program’s effort to prepare students to become empowered eddactivists. recommendations our iterations in finalizing the edd-activism framework surfaced the following recommendations. at the practice level, the framework provides educators with observable actions based on knowledge, skills, and attitudes that can justify their decision-making. moreover, it acts as a guiding structure, supplying clarity for educators as they navigate complexities by developing an awareness of self. by stressing the strength of their personal characteristics within this framework, teachers can leverage their perspectives to address diverse needs effectively. the framework can also inform in-service teacher training that implements leadership, social justice, and activism as professional development topics to make education more equitable and available to all. ultimately, this framework can foster awareness of the need for assertive and strategic action. on the other hand, we view this framework as a living document. the framework can be shared with educators connected to edd programs to refine it continuously, especially after testing and use. incorporating it into courses could generate additional input from students and faculty to fine-tune it. this input could provide the foundation to change the descriptive nature of the framework to explanatory or predictive by clarifying or predicting causal relationships, (rycroft-malone & bucknall, 2010), or evaluative to determine success (nilsen, 2015). we hope its visual representation inspires educators, providing them with mental models and encouraging them to become edd-activists. limitations and challenges an important limitation of our par study is the small number of collaborators in addition to the small number of survey respondents in comparison to the large student body in the cs program, hence our effort to generate feedback from the cs faculty and at the cped convening, in addition to our recommendation to disseminate the definition and framework to students and practitioners in educational settings for testing and feedback. another limitation lies in the difficulty of avoiding bias on our part, which made us reflect deeply on our selection of terms. finally, we had to be conscientious in incorporating the feedback responses that aligned with the purpose of the study and provided data that guided the definition and framework development. reference alvarez, b. 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https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.717848 https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2019.1684162 https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2015.1096077 https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=james%20ryan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=stephanie%20tuters https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0957-8234 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0957-8234 https://doi.org/10.1108/jea-07-2016-0075 https://doi.org/10.1108/jea-07-2016-0075 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-044894-7.01388-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-044894-7.01388-9 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12208 https://doi.org/10.33972/ijsl.335 https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12160 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-020-09378-z https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x07300046195 https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2012.704508 suha tamim university of south carolina karen eyler-martin harrisburg area community college lorin koch walla walla university russell clark anderson university leadership, social justice, and activism leadership social justice activism methodology data collection data analysis developing a student-graduate definition of edd-activism developing a student-graduate edd-activism framework discussion edd-activism definition edd-activism framework knowledge attitudes skills overlaps reflections recommendations limitations and challenges reference new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 15 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 best practices for edd comprehensive exams and capstone projects students’ attitudes and perspectives of outcomes in an online program masha krsmanovic university of southern mississippi masha.krsmanovic@usm.edu holly a. foster university of southern mississippi holly.foster@usm.edu abstract this research was guided by a problem of practice experienced by an edd program, which transitioned to a fully online modality during the pandemic and rapidly grew in enrollment. the problem evaluated was ensuring the redesigned program milestones – capstone and comprehensive exam – are feasible given the size of the program. the current study utilized descriptive research design to provide a comprehensive description of educational phenomena. the study was conducted at a large, public research university in the south. a total of 316 students enrolled in the program and were invited to complete the survey, of which 131 responses were analyzed. results revealed differences in students’ attitudes toward capstone projects and comprehensive exams, with a strong correlation between students’ experiences with capstone projects and comprehensive exams and their overall academic self-efficacy while in the program. keywords higher education, online, graduate education, edd, outcomes introduction with the global expansion of terminal degree programs, the experiences of doctoral students have been studied extensively in recent years. however, the same argument cannot be made for students in fully online doctoral programs, especially with respect to factors fostering their progress and persistence (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2016). the available research, however, does not portray a favorable picture. while the attrition rate for doctoral students in traditional programs averages 50%, the attrition rate for their peers in limited-residency and online programs was estimated to be 10% to 20% higher (terrell et al., 2016). the mentorship of students in online doctoral programs warrants increased scholarly focus as students opt for this instructional modality to accommodate a range of professional and personal responsibilities. therefore, carefully developed program design and strategically implemented mentorship practices, sensitive to individual circumstances, are of critical importance for this student group. to date, the research on online doctoral programs has been limited to several studies of student and faculty experiences (deshpande, 2016, 2017; templeton et al., 2015, thompson et al., 2018), faculty supervision practices (roumell & bolliger, 2017), and online dissertation supervision (kumar & johnson, 2019; rademaker et al., 2016). despite the popularity and rapid expansion of professional doctoral programs, mainly the education doctorate (edd), very little attention has been devoted to the online mentorship of doctoral students in these tracks. this research was guided by a problem of practice experienced by an edd program, which transitioned to a fully online modality during the pandemic and rapidly grew in enrollment. as illustrated in figure 1, over the past three years, the edd program has recorded a drastic increase in enrollment reflected through the following numbers – 8 students in 2018, 26 in 2019, 147 in 2020, and 279 in 2021. this growth was largely a result of shifting to an online synchronous format as well as restructuring the degree requirements figure 1. enrollment growth https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5415-4652 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3849-5833 krsmanovic & foster impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 16 by adding a capstone project in place of a traditional dissertation. the growth caused several challenges for the program faculty tasked with mentoring students and ensuring their progress and retention. the main problem experienced was ensuring that the redesigned program milestones – comprehensive exams and capstone projects were feasible to implement given the size of the program and a small number of faculty. second, we needed to ensure that these milestones maintain the intended rigor but are attainable by students of all abilities, academic backgrounds, and professional experiences. thirdly, we sought to develop evidence-based practices for faculty mentorship and support initiatives designed to prepare students for these milestones. to accomplish these objectives, we investigated the following research questions: 1. what are students’ attitudes and perspectives regarding the purpose, design, and outcomes of edd comprehensive exams and capstone projects? 2. are there differences in students’ attitudes toward comprehensive exams and capstones based on their demographic and professional backgrounds? 3. what is the relationship between students’ attitudes toward comprehensive exams and capstone projects and other areas of their doctoral experience? positioning this research in a way that would allow for gathering student perceptions about their program experience was critical as the program growth naturally led to increased student diversity by welcoming learners of varied demographics, professional experience, and prior knowledge. the four-year program growth from 8 to 279 students created a need for implementing an approach that would allow us to understand program experiences and expectations of our students so that we could build on their academic strengths and positive program experiences or address their unfulfilled needs. as all our students are higher education professionals, we saw the value in not only soliciting their feedback as students, but also their perceptions as higher education professionals. literature review online doctoral programs factors associated with performance and retention in online courses have received considerable attention in past research, but very few studies have focused solely on doctoral-level classes. online doctoral students identified many barriers to their academic progress. some scholars noted these as the frustration with a lack of face-to-face dialogue with faculty and peers, technological challenges, and the need for more support (deshpande, 2016). others attributed it to unfamiliarity with library resources, especially those resources needed for completing assignments (kumar & dawson, 2012). while some scholars discovered that students in fully online doctoral programs have been, on average, less satisfied with their academic experiences than their peers due to difficulties in establishing a work-life-school balance, limited interactions with chairs and peers, lack of clarity and structure in their studies, procrastination, and lack of motivation (erichsen et al. 2014). at the same time, students in online doctoral programs reported several factors which, they believed, promoted their progress and retention. for example, a clear program structure, its relevance to professional practice, and faculty support and expertise in online teaching were all identified as critical components of students’ experiences (kumar & dawson, 2012). additionally, students shared that being provided with clear grading criteria, course expectations, and a description of academic terminologies was advantageous for their success (deshpande, 2016). other scholarly evidence identified best practices in this domain as students receiving frequent and timely feedback, having clear communication about expectations and deadlines, participating in small group mentoring, and forming positive relationships with their mentors (erichsen et al., 2014). from a faculty perspective, facilitating weekly meetings and regular communication among the instructional staff emerged as instrumental in providing consistent information to students (kumar & dawson, 2012). other positive factors identified by faculty included providing timely and good-quality feedback, continuous mentoring and support, promoting peer-to-peer interactions, and pairing new and experienced faculty members (deshpande, 2017). the importance of careful deliberation about the program and instructional design was further reflected in the finding that personal factors played an equally important role in student integration in online doctoral programs, as did the program variables (rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2016). additional evidence-based practices that emerged from the research include faculty establishing trust with their students (rademaker et al., 2016), positioning themselves as guides instead of supervisors (fedock, 2017), and acknowledging students’ academic strengths by providing resources for advancing them (rademaker et al., 2016). edd programs and dissertation models contemporary literature illustrates a wide and ongoing scholarly interest in the best practices for online supervision of traditional dissertation projects. yet very few studies to date have examined the mentorship of doctoral students in edd programs, especially with respect to completing alternative dissertation projects. according to the carnegie project on the education doctorate cped (n.d.), the objective of edd programs should be to enable educators to create new knowledge and serve as stewards of the profession by applying evidence-based practices. accordingly, edd programs should be designed to produce scholarly practitioners equipped to solve problems of practice (cped, n.d.). similarly, perry (2016) defined the academic and career path of edd scholars as becoming transformative leaders in educational practice. the most common examples of final deliverables in edd programs include traditional dissertations, applied dissertations and dissertations in practice, or program-specific capstone projects. since edd programs have rapidly expanded, both in the united states and globally, many scholars have attempted to identify the most appropriate and effective final deliverable. according to murphy (2007), many universities, especially research-intensive ones, neglect the needs of practice by prioritizing research culture and relying solely on dissertations as the final milestone in doctoral student work. on the other hand, murphy (2007) argues, a central goal of a professional program such as an edd is to gain answers and solutions to real problems (i.e., problems of practice), many of which cannot be solved with a traditional dissertation format. hence, alternative modalities must be considered. perry (2016) supported this stance by pointing out that most practitioners struggle to apply the research preparation and traditional dissertation from a phd program into their professional contexts. ryan et al. (2012) further noted that, although the objectives of edd and phd programs may overlap, they must function as separate programs with substantially best practices for edd comp exams and capstone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 17 different mission, content, format, and learning goals, including their final deliverables. proposing a model for differentiating between med, edd, and phd programs, young (2006) advocated for the use of capstone projects in med programs and dissertations in edd tracks. still, her definition of an edd dissertation is quite comparable to that of murphy (2007) defining it as an applied research project aimed to inform educational practice. in their faculty guide to supervising action research dissertations, herr and anderson (2015) offer a similar definition. unlike the traditional dissertation format, which aims to make generalizable knowledge, action research dissertations combine scholarship with an inquiry, reflection, and one’s practical work to produce knowledge that can be applied in the setting under study. belzer and ryan (2016) defined dissertation in practice as a dissertation that matters, with mattering being described as impact on one’s practice, roles, relationships, professional positions, and a stance as a scholarly practitioner. cped (n.d.) defines a dissertation in practice as scholarship investigating a complex problem of practice, with a problem of practice being defined as “persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner” (para. 15). the perceptions of the edd program faculty regarding this issue portray a similar narrative. even though faculty agree that edd and phd dissertations must demonstrate the same research rigor, edd capstone projects must not be seen as deliverables that will collect dust on the shelf and must have immediate use at their local institutions (auerbach, 2011). for this goal to be accomplished, the edd's final project must address timely and relevant problems of educational practice and lead to a change or transformation in educational practice. even though the debate still persists as to whether edd scholar-practitioners should be required to complete a traditional dissertation, the analysis of edd coursework reveals a stance in favor of alternative capstone projects. a recent analysis of educational leadership doctoral programs at 103 institutions revealed that phd programs required an average of 8 more credits for completion compared to edd tracks, a differential most likely to be reflected in the research methods and dissertation credits. on the other hand, edd tracks included more required or core courses, thus reflecting their structured, community-of-practice focus, different from the independent research model embraced by most phd programs (topolka-jorissen & wang, 2015). still, scholars acknowledge the fact that the selection of appropriate research courses remains of the main challenges in defining and transforming edd programs (bengtson et al. 2016; marsh et al., 2010). some of the recommendations offered for overcoming this challenge include making edd research courses more practical, restructuring them as inquiry courses, and combining research-oriented and contentoriented courses into a single course (bengtson et al., 2016). edd programs and comprehensive exams comprehensive exams date to 13th-century french monasteries but are still used today in most doctoral programs. much of the research on comprehensive exams are focused on the phd and the role of the exam as a gatekeeper before the dissertation. further, much of the literature is outdated and comes from non-education disciplines (bentley, 2013; ehrenberg et al., 2007; estrem & lucas, 2003; furstenberg & nichols-casebolt, 2001; grover, 2007). there is very little research that focuses on the role of the comprehensive exam in online edd programs (capello, 2022). capello (2022) described comprehensive exams as a bridge between students’ coursework and dissertation. this bridge, as noted, should serve multiple purposes, the main of which should be reinforcing content knowledge. however, not all edd programs require a dissertation, so the comprehensive exam does not serve as a gatekeeper, rather it can be an opportunity for summative assessment focused on how well students can integrate what they have learned in disparate courses, including content mastery, critical thinking, and knowledge synthesis (capello, 2022). capello (2022) indicates that not only are students unclear about the purpose of comprehensive exams, but faculty often disagree as to the purposes of the exams. comprehensive exams, while they may be valuable in acting as a gatekeeper for some programs, are often a stumbling block for students. sverdlik and hall (2020) found that the comprehensive exam caused the most anxiety for students, and out of all phases of doctoral study, it was at the comprehensive exam that students reported lower motivation, lower levels of well-being, and lower self-efficacy. capello (2022) further noted that, in addition to causing stress for students, comprehensive exams also negatively impact students’ confidence in the program and affect their scholarly identity development. community of inquiry (coi) framework this study was theoretically guided by the community of inquiry (coi) framework developed by garrison et al. (2000). coi framework, commonly used in the research on teaching and learning in an online environment, identifies three foundational elements critical for successful implementation of online programs – social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. kumar et al. (2011) advocated a unique use of coi in cohort-based online edd programs, which are characterized by stronger teaching and cognitive presence than social presence. the applicability of the coi framework in edd programs is further supported by the mentoring guidelines of the cped (n.d.) that prioritize community of learners, peer support, and relationship building. according to garrison et al. (2000), social presence refers to the learner’s ability to connect with others not only socially, but also emotionally through group cohesiveness and bonding. cognitive presence implies a learner’s willingness to construct knowledge through inquiry, exploration, reflection, and application. teaching presence, on the other hand, includes instructional support provided to learners for fostering social and cognitive presence. given the purpose of this study, our primary goal in applying the coi framework was to investigate how teaching presence can be best designed and implemented to promote social and cognitive presence in an online edd cohort. additionally, we dedicated a particular focus on understanding the factors underlying students’ social and cognitive presence in the critical program milestones – comprehensive exams and capstone projects. overall, our goal was to analyze our program design and mentorship practices and identify the strategies that can most effectively promote coi components. methods the setting for this study was a carnegie r1 institution with very high research activity. the higher education administration krsmanovic & foster impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 18 edd program is a 54-hour, fully online, synchronous program designed to meet the needs of working professionals. in line with the cped framework, the program outcomes focus on the development of emerging leaders in the field of higher education and creating scholar-practitioners that demonstrate competence in applied research that results in the improvement of professional practice. prior to its redevelopment, the edd program was modeled after traditional phd program structures. it was a 66-credit hour, face-toface program that required a dissertation as the culminating experience. under the new model, the face-to-face delivery was replaced with a fully online, synchronous modality, and the dissertation requirement was substituted with a capstone project. the program requirements include 54 credits, of which 21 are core hours, nine research hours, 12 elective hours, and 12 capstone hours. comprehensive exams all students take comprehensive exams in their second-to-last or last semester (as per the student’s choice). the exams are offered each semester (fall, spring, and summer) and are completed online via the learning management system. exams consist of three essay questions, with each assessing the student’s knowledge from multiple core courses taken as a part of their required coursework. students must pass all three exams to be eligible to graduate. all three exams must be completed within one week, but each exam is timed separately to 120 minutes, so students can space out the exams over the week as they prefer. each exam is scored (pass with distinction, pass, or rewrite) by two faculty with a third faculty member scoring only if the first two disagree. students have one opportunity to rewrite any exam questions that are scored as rewrite. capstone the 12 capstone hours are embedded in students’ coursework and taken as four courses in their second and third years. following the cped (n.d.) framework, students plan and implement an applied research project that addresses a problem of professional practice. the capstone is the keystone edd research project that enables students to put into practice what they learn throughout the program and demonstrate their abilities to be higher education scholarpractitioners. over the four semesters, students complete chapter 1: introduction (capstone i), chapter 2: literature review (capstone ii), chapter 3: methods and data collection (capstone iii), and chapter 4: results and discussion (capstone iv). capstone projects do not have a proposal or final defense, but in their last capstone course, all students deliver a formal presentation of their research projects. these presentations are open to all students and faculty in the program to attend. unlike dissertations, capstone projects do not require a student to secure a committee. instead, the capstone instructor serves as the student’s capstone advisor. when the program was first redesigned, the students took the entire capstone sequence with the same instructor, one of the full-time program faculty. however, due to the rapidly growing number of students and the small number of full-time faculty, there was a necessity for some capstone sections to be taught by adjunct faculty. to ensure equity in students’ experiences, students can now change their capstone instructor each semester when they enroll in the next capstone section. this accommodation was implemented so that students would have an opportunity to work with different instructors or change an instructor throughout the process if they wished to do so. unfortunately, this accommodation also meant that students might not be able to work with the same instructor throughout their entire capstone sequence (e.g., if the instructor’s section reaches a full enrollment capacity for the semester, if they are not assigned a particular capstone course that semester, etc.). research design this study was designed as cross-sectional survey research as we sought to investigate and assess a set of educational practices at one point in time. survey research design is particularly suitable for investigating educational practices that are not easily observable, such as participants’ attitudes, perspective, and opinions (gall et al., 2003), all of which were the objectives of this study. guided by our research questions, we utilized a survey questionnaire to investigate students’ perspectives about two critical aspects of their program experience and to compare their reported attitudes. participants and data collection the findings presented in this study were obtained from the data collected as a part of a large-scale program evaluation that took place in the fall of 2022. a total of 316 students enrolled in the edd program at the time of data collection were invited to complete an online questionnaire regarding their program experience. we utilized a convenience sampling due to access to the study population we had as faculty in the edd program. we recruited participants by posting an announcement into a learning management system to which all students in the program have access. in the announcement, we invited all students to complete our program evaluation survey and explained the voluntary nature of participation. as student participation was anonymous, they could choose to opt out and not participate without fear of any adverse action from researchers and program faculty. similarly, due to anonymous participation, students did not feel coerced or forced to take part, meaning that all students who completed the questionnaire did so voluntarily and with the intent to provide honest and actionable feedback about their program experience. from 316 students who were invited to participate in the program evaluation, 153 responded to the invitation. of this number, 22 responses were incomplete, resulting in the final sample of 131 responses or a 41.5% response rate. instrument the questionnaire used for the program evaluation consisted of several sections, not all of which are reported in this study. for this research, we utilized only those sections that investigated students’ attitudes, perceptions, and experiences related to comprehensive exams and capstone projects. given that students start capstone projects in their second year, all survey respondents had an option to skip the questions pertaining to capstone if they had not yet started the process. similarly, as students take comprehensive exams in their third year, they have an option to skip the questions pertaining to comprehensive exams if they have not yet taken them. the questionnaire also included demographic questions related to student’s academic level, master’s degree focus, years employed in best practices for edd comp exams and capstone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 19 higher education, type of educational institution employed at, and their role. we were, however, limited with respect to the demographic variables we sought to collect for this study so as not to breach participants’ anonymity. to ensure their anonymity, we chose not to ask for students’ gender or race as we realized that reporting these data would make them less likely to participate in our program evaluation for the concern of being identified. still, having the data on students’ race and gender could have provided additional comparisons and insights, especially with respect to assessing the extent to which our pedagogical and programmatic practices are inclusive of all students represented in the program. the following section explains the statistical procedures used to answer our research questions and presents the results obtained. results to describe the demographics of our sample, we conducted descriptive statistical analyses using spss statistical software. according to the results, most students who responded to the survey were in their third year (n=58, 44.3%) or in their second year of the program (n=52, 39.7%). the least represented were first-year students (n=21, 16%). a greater proportion of students had a master’s degree in education-related fields (n=86, 65.7%) compared to the students with non-education degrees (n=45, 34.3%). most respondents had between five and 15 years of higher education experience (n=63, 48.1%), with fewer students having less than five years (n=36, 27.4%) or more than 20 years of professional experience in higher education (n=32, 24.5%). with respect to their employment, most students worked in public, four-year universities and held administrative roles with aspirations to transition into leadership positions upon obtaining their edd degrees. our first research question aimed to investigate students’ attitudes and perspectives regarding the purpose, design, and outcomes of edd comprehensive exams and capstone projects. to accomplish this objective, we conducted descriptive statistical analyses. table 1 presents means, arranged in descending values, for students’ responses using the five-point likert-scale (with 1 indicating least agreement and 5 indicating most agreement with presented statements). as illustrated, students agreed most with the statement that comprehensive exams should assess students’ abilities to apply their knowledge in real-life scenarios, while they least agreed with the statement that exams should be a required component of edd programs. regarding capstone projects, students most strongly concurred with the statement that capstones should be used as professional portfolios in future job searches but displayed the least belief that their coursework adequately prepared them for this milestone. our second research question investigated if there are differences in students’ attitudes toward comprehensive exams and capstones based on their demographic and professional backgrounds. first, we conducted independent samples t-tests to test for the differences between students with master’s degrees in education-related fields and those with degrees in non-educationrelated fields. the results revealed that students with educationrelated master’s degrees had significantly higher perceptions that their edd coursework adequately prepared them for comprehensive exams compared to their peers with non-education-related degrees (p < 0.05, t = 1.15, md = .22). additionally, students with educationrelated master’s degrees had a significantly stronger belief that the capstone project should be related to their professional practice (p < 0.05, t = 1.85, md = .35). next, we conducted a one-way anova to table 1. student attitudes toward comprehensive exams and capstone projects area m sd comprehensive exams (comps) comps should assess students’ abilities to apply course content in real-life settings 3.66 1.35 comps should assess students’ knowledge of the course content 3.35 1.35 your coursework has adequately prepared you for comps 3.31 1.05 current requirements for comps are appropriate in terms of the associated workload and rigor 3.10 1.31 comps should be a required part of the program curriculum 2.52 1.44 capstone projects students should be able to use the capstone as a part of their professional portfolio in job search processes 4.79 .55 current capstone requirements are appropriate in terms of the associated workload and rigor 4.56 .85 the capstone project should provide students with an opportunity to engage in publication and/or conference presentation 4.55 .8 the capstone project should be related to the student’s professional practice 4.46 1.02 your coursework has adequately prepared you for capstone 4.34 1.1 test for the differences based on the number of years employed in higher education, type of educational institution employed at, and professional role. no statistically significant differences were found based on these variables. our third research question sought to answer if there is a relationship between students’ attitudes toward comprehensive exams and capstone projects and other areas of their doctoral experience – motivation to enroll in the program, self-efficacy, perceived program outcomes, and professional development aspirations. to answer this question, we conducted a pearson correlation analysis. as illustrated in table 2, we discovered that students’ attitudes toward both comprehensive exams and capstone are significantly correlated with their self-efficacy and perceived program outcomes but not correlated with their motivation to enroll in the program or professional development aspirations. in other words, the higher their self-efficacy, the more favorable a student's perspective will be toward their comprehensive exams and capstones. similarly, the more impact they believed the program had on them, the more likely they will be to have positive attitudes toward these two milestones. our last objective was to solicit students’ personal and professional insights regarding the most effective design and implementation of comprehensive exams and capstone projects in rapidly growing online programs. specifically, we used open-ended survey questions to ask students to share their concerns and recommendations regarding their experience with comprehensive exams and capstone. we analyzed their responses using qualitative nvivo software and thematic data analysis and identified several overarching themes for each construct. krsmanovic & foster impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 20 regarding students’ experiences with comprehensive exams, three major themes emerged – resistance, preparation, and redesign. in their open-ended responses, most students expressed strong resistance toward the fact that comprehensive exams are an edd program requirement and suggested it be waived. most justified their stance, arguing that their content knowledge has already been assessed in core courses and the capstone should be a sufficient milestone assessing their abilities to apply that knowledge. in discussing comprehensive exams, students referred to them as antiquated, outdated, redundant, and unnecessary, with some even describing this requirement as insulting. another justification for such perspectives was arguing that comprehensive exams cause stress and anxiety, thus negatively affecting students’ well-being and mental health. additionally, students postulated that the time spent preparing for comps would be better invested in producing a wellrounded and well-written capstone project that can lead to a publication. some students raised the question of equitable teaching, preparation, and mentorship received in their core courses depending on the instructor they had (e.g., a full-time faculty versus an adjunct), while others noted that comps are not relevant to everyone’s pathway. a few arguments were made that, by design, comps imply a professor’s inadequacy to definitively assess students’ course knowledge. however, these perspectives were challenged by other students who, even though less represented, strongly argued for keeping this program requirement, describing it as appropriate as it improves the quality of their degree. the theme of preparation comprised students’ perspectives regarding the most effective practices they believed would best prepare them for the comprehensive examination. unsurprisingly, most students believed that major preparation should be provided in their core courses and, again, raised the question of equity due to their differing experiences with instruction, assessment, and feedback received in these courses. as one student simply put it: “i feel that some courses have been better at preparing me for comps than others.” students who agreed with this perspective shared that they would have appreciated more lecture-based and structured instruction in their core courses instead of discussion-based approaches, while others emphasized the need for faculty teaching core courses to make explicit connections between their content and comprehensive exams. given that students take comps in their third year, several recommendations were shared that guidelines about comps should be disseminated much sooner through formal and informal information sharing. in that regard, students reported overwhelmingly positive feedback for the comps information session that the program implemented for the first time shortly before students responded to our survey. the theme of the redesign included the recommendations that students shared regarding the most optimal structure and implementation of comprehensive exams. the most prevalent was the perspective that the examination should be spaced out by taking one exam question each year. specifically, students suggested taking each exam question in the year in which the corresponding core courses were taken. a particular focus in student feedback was placed on the timed structure of the exam, which students referred to as a “pressure cooker” and suggested it be eliminated. lastly, students overall agreed that the examination should be redesigned to provide more opportunities for incorporating critical thinking skills, applying the content to real-life experience, and “keeping the questions real.” with respect to students’ capstone experience, the following four themes emerged – equitable teaching, mentor-mentee relationship, research foundations, and connection to professional practice. the theme of equitable teaching was the most prominent among students’ comments and built on previously mentioned concerns of students’ perceived differences in the quality of instruction received based on the instructors they had. overall, students expressed strong dissatisfaction with having some of their capstone courses taught by adjunct faculty. some students revealed sharing their capstone experiences with their peers and discovering inequalities in the scope of resources, mentorship, and feedback provided in their corresponding capstone courses. this theme was inextricably connected with the theme of mentor-mentee relationship, which referred to students’ collective preferences for keeping the same capstone faculty for the entire capstone sequence. they described this model to be “both academically and professionally beneficial” but also practical in terms of aligning their work with the expectations of one professor only. many students referred to their capstone instructors as mentors and noted the disappointment they experienced when they had to continue their capstone sequence with another instructor. the theme of research foundations referred to students’ experiences with and preferences for taking research foundation courses. under the current program structure, students take nine credits, or three research classes spaced out over their first and second years. overall, students were not satisfied with this structure as it means that some research courses are taken concurrently with their capstone classes. most students agreed that all research courses should be taken in advance of the capstone sequence or, if that is not possible, that research courses be ranked in reference to their relevance to the capstone (i.e., those most relevant to the capstone should be taken first). the next sub-theme that students felt very strongly about was their preference for research courses to be taught by their program faculty instead of the research faculty. they justified this stance by arguing that having research courses housed outside of the edd program leads to a diminished ability to acquire and apply research skills relevant to their capstone. namely, the fact that research courses service students from multiple doctoral tracks make their content less applicable to higher education settings which, as students argued, are unique compared to other educational settings. lastly, the theme of connection to professional practice mainly comprised the comments in which students expressed their appreciation for the opportunity to immediately apply their capstones to addressing problems of practice and, in doing so, to advance professionally and to “enhance their unit, department, or college.” however, a number of students also expressed the preference for researching “a topic of interest” instead of “a problem of practice” as they do not want to be limited to their current practice. this approach, they argued, would allow them to use their capstone to transition into other domains of higher education – an opportunity they may not have otherwise. discussion we conducted this study to identify best practices for mentoring online edd students in two important program milestones – comprehensive exams and capstone projects. in doing so, we discovered the differences in students’ attitudes toward these important milestones based on their master’s degree areas but not best practices for edd comp exams and capstone impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.397 21 based on the number of years employed in higher education, the type of educational institution employed at, or their professional role. further, we noted a strong correlation between students’ experiences with comprehensive exams and capstone projects and their overall academic self-efficacy while in the program. in sharing their feedback about comprehensive exams, students expressed strong resistance toward this requirement while proposing different practices they believed would best prepare them for the examination and their recommendations for the most effective structure and implementation of the exams. with respect to capstone projects, students were most vocal about the need to make this part of the program experience equitable by ensuring the comparable quality of instruction across all capstone classes. additionally, they expressed a strong preference for their capstone projects to be actionable and immediately applicable to their practice. a particular significance of these findings is reflected in the fact that this research contributes to the scarce literature on students’ experiences with comprehensive exams in education-related fields. despite the scholarship related to comprehensive exams being outdated, most of it comes from non-education-related disciplines (ehrenberg et al., 2007; furstenberg & nichols-casebolt, 2001; grover, 2007) so the need for focusing on students’ experiences in online education programs has already been noted (capello, 2022). while prior research has documented that doctoral students experience low motivation and low self-efficacy while taking comprehensive exams (sverdlik & hall, 2020), our findings advanced that knowledge by noting a positive correlation between students’ self-efficacy while in the program and their comprehensive exam experience. in other words, implementing proper structures to support students’ self-efficacy while in the program may lead to their favorable perspectives about comprehensive exams and, thus, can help alleviate the challenges and stressors noted in prior research. with respect to the capstone, our findings were consistent with prior scholarship that highlighted edd students’ need for a culminating project experience that would allow for reflection, application, and community-building opportunities (topolka-jorissen & wang, 2015). these same constructs were reported by our study’s students who proposed specific models for embedding them in the capstone curriculum, such as offering in-house research classes, fostering mentor-mentee relationships, and ensuring the connection between their capstone and professional practice. the review of prior research conducted for this study has not revealed any studies that specifically investigated how students’ capstone experience may be influenced by their overall program experience. while such studies may exist, this research contributes to expanding the scholarly knowledge on this important, but under-investigated topic. in that regard, our findings pointed to several ways in which students’ capstone experience may be moderated by internal factors (e.g., students’ demographics) and external factors (e.g., other aspects of their program experience). reflecting on our findings through the lens of the coi framework, we noted the interplay that social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence can have in fully online programs. despite the online nature of our program, teaching presence emerged as a highly influential factor in students’ program experience and was mainly manifested through forming mentormentee relationships with capstone faculty. social presence was noted as one of the recurring themes in students’ experience in comprehensive exams, as most students highlighted the critical role their peers have in fostering learning, communication, and relationships. lastly, cognitive presence was manifested by students’ taking ownership of their learning by constructing meaning, engaging in practical inquiry, and building new knowledge through their capstone journeys. cognitive presence was further evidenced by students engaging in continuous and critical reflection on these journeys so they could offer us actionable recommendations for how their program outcomes can be improved. with this study, we aimed to offer practical recommendations for all doctoral student mentors challenged with increased enrollments and workload in online doctoral programs. specifically, these recommendations introduced novel approaches to edd comprehensive exams such as providing students with information sessions ahead of the examination, incorporating more lectures into core courses, ensuring that faculty teaching core courses make explicit connection between their content and comprehensive exam, and spacing out examinations by scheduling one exam question per year. recommendations related to capstone process involved scheduling all research courses to be taken prior to starting capstone sequence, having research courses be taught by edd program faculty, and having an opportunity to research a topic of interest, instead of a problem of practice, in order to branch out of their current practices and potentially change their career trajectories. faculty tasked with supervising students in comprehensive exams or capstone projects may find these recommendations particularly useful. it is important to note, however, that the findings are underlined by two limitations. first, our results were obtained by soliciting feedback from students who were still enrolled in the program at the time of the study. therefore, it remains to be assessed if and how students’ perspectives may change once they graduate from the program and as they continue applying the obtained skills and competencies in their practice. next, even though our students expressed numerous recommendations for improving our capstone model, none of them have yet completed their capstone projects. therefore, we will need to reevaluate their perspectives through exit surveys once they successfully complete all milestones and graduate. despite these limitations, we hope that the presented practices can serve as a useful starting point for all edd faculty, staff, and program coordinators tasked with navigating increased enrollments or supervision in critical program milestones. the literature reviewed in this study demonstrated that very little is known about the topics investigated in this research. therefore, our goal was to advance the scholarship in this field by 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(2000). critical inquiry in a textbased environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(2/3), p. 87–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1096-7516(00)00016-6 grover, v. (2007). successfully navigating the stages of doctoral study. international journal of doctoral studies, 2, 9–21. http://ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p009-021grover21.pdf herr, k. g., & anderson, g. (2015), the action research dissertation: a guide for students and faculty (2nd ed.). sage. kumar, s., dawson, k., black, e. w., cavanaugh, c., & sessums, c. d. (2011). applying the community of inquiry framework to an online professional practice doctoral program. the international review of research in open and distance learning, 12(6), 126–142. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i6.978 kumar, s. & dawson, k. (2012). theory to practice: implementation and initial impact of an online doctoral program. online journal of distance learning administration, 15(1), 1–12. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/76565/ kumar, s. & johnson, m. (2019). online mentoring of dissertations: the role of structure and support. studies in higher education, 44(1), 59–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1337736 marsh, d. d., dembo, m. h., gallagher, k. s., & stowe, h. (2010). examining the capstone experience in a cutting-edge edd program. in g. jeanmarie & a. h. normore (eds.), educational leadership preparation: innovation and interdisciplinary approaches to the edd and graduate education (pp. 203–235). palgrave macmillan. murphy, j. (2007). questioning the core of university-based programs for preparing school leaders. phi delta kappan, 582–585. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170708800806 perry, j. a. (2016). the new education doctorate: preparing the transformational leader. in j. a. perry (ed.). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path (pp. 1–12). information age publishing. rademaker, l. l., o’connor-duffy, j., wetzler, e., & zaikina-montgomery, h. (2016). chair perceptions of trust between mentor and mentee in online doctoral dissertation mentoring. online learning, 20(1), 1–13. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1096384 rockinson-szapkiw, a. j., spaulding, l. s., & spaulding, m. t. (2016). identifying significant integration and institutional factors that predict online doctoral persistence. the internet and higher education, 31, 101– 112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.07.003 roumell, e. a. l., & bolliger, d. u. (2017). experiences of faculty with doctoral student supervision in programs delivered via distance. the journal of continuing higher education, 65(2), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2017.1320179 ryan, s., de lisi, r., & heuschkel, k. (2012). redesigning an edd program: reality and necessity engender new possibilities. in m. m. latta & s. wunder (eds.), placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education (pp. 75–88). information age. sverdlik, a., & hall, n. c. (2020). not just a phase: exploring the role of program stage on well-being and motivation in doctoral students. journal of adult and continuing education, 26(1), 97–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971419842887 templeton, n. r., ballenger, j. n., & thompson, j. r. (2015). examining the elements of online learning quality in a fully online doctoral program. online journal of distance learning administration, 18(4), 1–9. https://ojdla.com/archive/winter184/templeton_ballenger_thompson184.p df terrell, s. r., lohle, m. f., & kennedy, d. (2016). student-identified requirements for persistence in a limited-residency information systems phd program. online journal of applied knowledge management, 4(1), 150–164. https://doi.org/10.36965/ojakm.2016.4(1)150-164 thompson, j. r. ballenger, j. n., & templeton, n. r. (2018). examining quality elements in a high education fully online doctoral program: doctoral students’ perceptions. international journal of educational leadership preparation, 13(1), 51–63. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1186051 topolka-jorissen, k., & wang, y. (2015). focus and delivery of doctoral programs in educational leadership. journal of educational reform, 24(3), 212–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/105678791502400302 young, m. d. (2006). from the director: the med, edd and phd in educational leadership. ucea review, 45(2), 6–9. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42000137 https://doi.org/10.1177/14779714221093091 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v9n6p139 https://doi.org/10.1177/2347631116681211 https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373707301707 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20058093 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017705421 https://doi.org/10.1300/j067v21n01_03 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1096-7516(00)00016-6 http://ijds.org/volume2/ijdsv2p009-021grover21.pdf https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i6.978 https://www.learntechlib.org/p/76565/ https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1337736 https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170708800806 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1096384 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2016.07.003 https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2017.1320179 https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971419842887 https://ojdla.com/archive/winter184/templeton_ballenger_thompson184.pdf https://ojdla.com/archive/winter184/templeton_ballenger_thompson184.pdf https://doi.org/10.36965/ojakm.2016.4(1)150-164 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1186051 https://doi.org/10.1177/105678791502400302 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.400 part two of the themed issue on reimagining research methods coursework for the preparation of scholar-practitioners sarah a. capello radford university scapello@radford.edu maxwell yurkofsky radford university myurkofsky@radford.edu edwin nii bonney clemson university enbonne@clemson.edu abstract in this second installment of the themed issue on redesigning research methods coursework for cped-inspired edd programs, edd faculty and students share empirical research, conceptual insights, and practitioneroriented coursework and activities to contribute to the conversation on research methods training and skill development for scholar-practitioners. keywords cped, education doctorate, research methodology, research methodology coursework introduction in the introduction to the first installment of the themed issue on reimagining research methods coursework (capello et al., 2023), we highlighted the changing nature of the edd degree and efforts to distinguish it from the phd, the implications of those changes for research methods courses and the dissertation, and the lack of consensus in the field on what practitioner-oriented research methodology preparation might look like from a conceptual and practice standpoint informed by empirical evidence. the first volume includes eight papers that begin to address the ways that research methods courses are being redesigned and taught to support practitioners in cped-inspired edd programs. the papers in the second installment of the themed issue aim to continue this work by offering empirical contributions on and conceptual insights for developing edd students’ research abilities and scholar-practitioner identities, a theoretical model for research methods training, and additional examples of innovative and practice-based coursework that allows students to develop researchrelated skills and dispositions. these papers are particularly rich in grounding such learning and skills in students’ practice to serve local schools and communities. furthermore, several papers in this issue center edd students’ voices either as paper authors or as participants in the research. we are encouraged by these contributions of edd students to the literature and believe that partnering with and learning from our students is a key component to program and course (re)design. below are summaries of the seven papers included in part two of the themed issue: ● in her paper, “reinventing edd research methods courses: elevating traditional teaching with transformative learning,” acton first proposes a theoretical model for edd research methods courses that draws on adult learning theory and transformative learning theories and then describes how she used the model to redesign an introductory research methods course. ● in her paper, “consultancy communities of practice: the group consultancy project as a promising model for scholarly practitioner development,” lambrev details how the university of hawai’i uses a field-based, group consultancy project to help edd students both learn how to conduct research as well as serve the needs of local community organizations. ● in their paper, “pilot testing as a strategy to develop interview and questionnaire skills for scholar practitioners: a selection of education doctorate students’ reflective vignettes,” tate and colleagues reflect on the use of pilot testing strategies for data collection instruments in an online research methodology course. students reported that the collaborative pilot testing process strengthened the quality of their data collection instruments, contributed to the formation https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9124-9543 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7147-4092 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3537-7188 capello et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 4 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.400 2 of their scholar-practitioner identities, and began to prepare them for psychological and technical challenges of conducting research. ● in their article, “emerging scholarly practitioners: utilizing course-embedded research projects,” smith and colleagues present a self-study that describes how projectbased learning and self-study can contribute to the growth and development of edd students into scholarly practitioners. ● in their article, “assessing online doctoral student research competencies,” gillham and schilling use the scholarpractitioner research development scale (rockinsonszapkiw, 2018) to assess doctoral students' developing appreciation for, understanding of, and skill in carrying out research. they find that, on the whole, students in the program rated their scholar-practitioner competencies highly (averaging above a 4.0 out of 5.0 in most cases). their results also helpfully illuminate how some scholarpractitioner competencies—particularly related to research skills and dissemination—may take longer to develop than others. ● in their paper, “reflexivity for restorying the ontological and epistemological truths in qualitative research,” leejohnson and colleagues challenge traditional ontological and epistemological truths guiding educational research and propose the use of reflexivity for restorying such truths. the authors take up this work by sharing individual vignettes that recount their own personal and academic positionality and intersectionality. ● in her paper, “it’s time to make more room for program evaluation in the education doctorate program,” marotta argues that program evaluation has been overlooked in the conversations around appropriate applied research methodologies for edd programs, discusses several benefits of offering coursework in program evaluation, and suggests that the use of applied evaluation approaches and improvement science can complement one another in cped-influenced edd programs. references capello, s. a., yurkofsky, m., & bonney, e. n. (2023). part one of the themed issue on reimagining research methods coursework for the preparation of scholar-practitioners. impacting education, 8(2), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.368s rockinson-szapkiw, a. (2018). the development and validation of the scholar– practitioner research development scale for students enrolled in professional doctoral programs. journal of applied research in higher education, 10(4). 478–492. https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-01-20180011 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.368s https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-01-2018-0011 https://doi.org/10.1108/jarhe-01-2018-0011 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 113 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 dangerous dissertations: alternative approaches to dissertation inquiry star brown appalachian state university brownsp@appstate.edu kristen proctor appalachian state university proctorkn@appstate.edu abstract the ever-changing educational environment calls for scholars and practitioners alike to trouble the current ways of seeing and doing dissertations and to invite conversations about doing dissertations differently. alternative dissertations serve as an avenue for this type of critical work. we begin this article by providing an overview of the different dissertation genres and formats in appalachian state university’s (appstate) edd program and situating the concept of a dangerous dissertation within the alternative dissertation landscape. we frame the dangerous dissertation as an alternative approach to dissertation inquiry and share our experiences creating and supporting dangerous dissertations. specifically, we discuss the professional anxieties voiced by students using dissertations as vehicles for critiquing their professional contexts and how faculty mentors can support students grappling with shifting professional identities. we conclude with an urgent call for more dangerous dissertations and guidance for faculty advisors supporting this type of critical work. keywords alternative dissertations, conceptual dissertations, critical policy analysis, critique, dissertation mentoring my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. if everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. so my position leads not to apathy but to a hyperand pessimistic activism. i think that the ethico-political choice we have to make every day is to determine which is the main danger. (foucault, 1984, p. 343) writing alternative dissertations is not a new phenomenon, but bringing to light the inherent dangers of writing alternative dissertations may be new. some may caution that writing an alternative dissertation is a “bad”1 thing to do, because defying tradition invites scrutiny. however, the goal in this article is not to determine whether writing alternative dissertations is either “good” or “bad,” but to heed foucault’s (1984, p. 343) warning, that one must “determine which is the main danger”—to write or not write a dangerous dissertation. to this end, dr. star brown (a dissertation mentor) and dr. kristen proctor (a recent edd graduate) illuminate the risks and rewards associated with penning dangerous dissertations. because this article is a collaborative piece involving reflexivity, the reader will encounter three shifts in narrative voice: dr. brown’s voice, dr. proctor’s voice, and the collective voice of both authors. 1 we use scare quotes throughout this article to indicate terms with contingencies that are not immediately visible (bacchi & goodwin, the article begins with dr. brown’s account of how difference in the dissertation process represents a way to cement the edd as a professional practice doctorate. she then maps the range of dissertation genres and formats in the edd program at appalachian state university (appstate) to illustrate how the boundaries separating traditional and alternative dissertations are not clearly delineated. she follows by defining the focal point of this article, dangerous dissertations, and by pinpointing the reasons some alternative dissertations become personally and professionally dangerous for the authors. after dr. brown shares her experiences as both an edd student and dissertation mentor, the narrative voice shifts to dr. proctor as she details her recent experience writing a dangerous dissertation. dr. proctor describes her initial reluctance to engage in dangerous work, the events that led her to do so, and the role her faculty advisor played throughout the process. at the end of the article, the narrative voice shifts a final time as we share our collective guidance for faculty mentors and call for other institutions to advance this type of critical work. 2016). we caution readers to approach these terms as provisional and in need of deconstruction. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1088-7968 brown & proctor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 114 brief evolution of the edd dissertation the doctorate in education (edd) has been plagued by an “identity crisis” since its inception in 1920, seeking to distinguish itself from the phd in both function and form (buss et al., 2014, p. 138). one target for differentiating phd programs from edd programs is the dissertation. decades ago, thomas et al. (1986) christened the traditional dissertation “archaic” (p. 117) while advocating for “alternative” ways of doing the dissertation. adding to the conversation, duke and beck (1999) called the dissertation a “strange genre” (p. 32) and questioned “why, how, and for whom the dissertation is written” (p. 31). later, andrews and grogan (2005) hastened edd programs to unleash the dissertation from the “phd straight jacket” (p. 10) in favor of a culminating experience that develops educational practitioners as “critically reflective professionals” (p. 12). in response, the carnegie project for the education doctorate (cped) created the concept of a dissertation in practice (dip) emphasizing the importance of research to affect change in practice. cped (2024) frames the dip as a “scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (para. 11). the intent of the dip is to “apply scholarship, inquiry, and research to a broad educational problem that [students] see playing out and face daily in their organization and work” (perry, 2024, p. 14). the common thread here is a call for a different way to do the edd dissertation that will produce a different result—a change in practice. cultivating difference in the dissertation process is a mantra in appalachian state university’s (appstate) doctoral program in educational leadership. in the section that follows, i (dr. brown) survey the range of dissertations in appstate’s program and reveal how doing dissertations differently can pose danger, especially for students as working professionals. within the territory of dangerous dissertations, i draw special attention to the conceptual genre, a nonempirical inquiry that uses theory to produce alternative ways of critiquing an educational issue. by showing the multiplicity of dissertation genres and formats generated at our institution, i also interrogate the criteria by which alternative dissertations are defined and open up new and different possibilities for doing the dissertation. our program’s dissertation landscape at appstate, we have adopted a programmatic philosophy of doing the dissertation differently (see miller & brown, 2024). dissertations in our program differ in methodological approach, theoretical orientation, and format and oftentimes blur the lines between the traditional and alternative genres. even within the context of what is considered a “traditional” dissertation, we encourage students to color outside the lines of the five-chapter structure and organization. for example, students producing traditional dissertations may add a foreword, a prologue, an epilogue, or an opening or closing poem to frame their dissertation projects. or, as an artistic expression of their original works, some students writing traditional dissertations depart from the labeling confines of chapters and instead name the sections of their dissertations as verses, movements, parts, portraits, etc. still yet, students may morph and expand the traditional dissertation by organizing their research into more than five chapters or sections. the appstate edd program does not utilize prescriptive templates or methodologies, but we do ask students to take creative liberties with how they approach the research process and, as a result, present their research. as one student remarked, “so i can explode the outline and make it my own!” surely, what appstate recognizes as a traditional dissertation includes forms and stylistic choices that other institutions might consider alternative, which suggests that what is deemed traditional/alternative varies among institutions. at appstate, alternative or different dissertations take many forms including multiarticle, conceptual, and other varieties that may not fall into an established category. below i describe the conceptual dissertation, which is one of the prevailing different or alternative types of dissertations that emerge from appstate’s edd program. i end with a discussion of our program’s new alternative dissertation conceptualization and approval process. conceptual dissertations conceptual dissertations are a variety of alternative dissertations that use theory as a tool to reconceptualize problems of practice. as a non-empirical form of inquiry as practice, conceptual dissertations put current representations of problems of practice into question and critically examine how modern educational issues came to be viewed as problems. in this vein, a radical reorientation of traditional thinking about what constitutes a problem of practice is necessary. that is to say, problems of practice are not always easily identified, improved, or “solved.” this genre of alternative inquiry recognizes that conventional interpretive fieldwork or quantitative methods are ill-suited to produce alternative or different ways of critiquing an educational issue. therefore, by departing from traditional methods and thinking differently, conceptual dissertations generate new ways of doing and improving education. i contend that the conceptual genre of dissertation is alternative in the sense that these projects differ from the traditional in their methodological designs, critical approaches, and presentation/organization. in light of the exploratory and emergent nature of conceptual projects, students designing non-empirical inquiries prepare a prospectus that articulates how specific theories and concepts frame their analyses. the prospectus acts as an alternative to the traditional dissertation proposal, which best accommodates the fixed methods of empirical inquiry. these theoretically-oriented projects push the boundaries of tradition by rarely adhering to the templates of a standardized or traditional dissertation. in terms of structure, most conceptual projects depart from (and frequently exceed) the confinement of five chapters and oftentimes refuse the traditional labeling of sections as chapters and instead creatively select section titles that better align with their methodological design and theoretical orientation. according to our program guidance, conceptual dissertations have an introduction, body, and conclusion. in my experience with this genre of dissertations, the body takes many different shapes and forms. for example, my own dissertation (brown, 2017) was organized as a series of eight different tales inspired by van maanen’s (2011) tales from the field. another example is the teaching and practice of the “yoga body”: a poststructural, queercrip analysis of yoga education in the united states, where shears’ (2022) dissertation flows through eight chapters as an homage to the eight limbs of yoga. the body of shears’ dissertation consists of five analytical chapters bookended by an introduction, interwoven theoretical framework and methodology, and conclusion. while non-empirical projects such as critical policy analyses and post-qualitative inquiry may be considered different and dangerous dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 115 therefore alternative at many institutions, conceptual dissertations have become normalized at our institution. not unlike other edd programs, oftentimes, an alternative genre has connections to a faculty member with a specific methodological expertise. dr. alecia jackson, a professor of research at appstate, is credited with the proliferation of this unique genre at our institution, as students embrace her innovative and anti-method approach to “plugging in” theory with encounters, episodes, and experiences related to educational problems of practice (jackson & mazzei, 2012, p. viii). as a result, conceptual dissertations have become a signature methodology in appstate’s edd program. alternative dissertation conceptualization and approval process opening the door to a broad spectrum of approaches, our program welcomes creativity in both the pursuit and presentation of dissertation inquiry. new varieties of alternative dissertations that blur genre and format lines have been growing in our program. one genre bending instance is a recent collaborative project among two students that consisted of four journal articles bridged with alternating reflections by each author (burry & nava eggett, 2022). these collaborators also charted their unique dissertation journey via podcast as they navigated their academic partnership, pinpointed a research topic and methodological design, and ultimately arrived at final conclusions and recommendations (burry & nava eggett, 2021– 2023). increased interest in alternative ways to approach and present the dissertation led our program to develop a guidance document for faculty mentors and students considering an alternative dissertation project. while developing this new approval process, our program recognized the impossibility of predicting all of the possible variations of future alternative dissertations. thus, we did not seek to define what an alternative dissertation “is” or limit what an alternative dissertation might be. instead, we sought to create a process that would scaffold the conceptualization of the alternative dissertation project. students, in conjunction with their dissertation committees, draft rationales that build cases for the alternative dissertation products. students must also articulate how their alternative projects will embody the same competencies of the traditional dissertation at this early proposal stage. to help everyone (student, committee, program, graduate school2) envision the proposed alternative product, students gather exemplars of similar approaches or formats, if available, and detail their original visions for the project. proposed alternative products include a dissertation plus alternative (e.g. traditional dissertation plus digital magazine), replacing one or more dissertation components (e.g. professional development module as conclusion), or other dissertation alternatives (e.g. dissertation as podcast). following the unconventional nature of alternative dissertations, at formal defense and beyond, students are likewise encouraged to present and share their research honoring the original innovative aim of producing the alternative dissertation product. 2 graduate schools often are more concerned about the formatting and presentation of the final dissertation document versus the content therein. the approval of alternative dissertations at the institution level is a primary concern and thus, the reason that our program has openly included the graduate school as part of the initial conceptualization process at the proposal stage. collaboration this sketch of our edd program’s dissertations gives a glimpse into how one institution views various dissertation approaches and serves as a canvas for positioning certain dissertations as dangerous. while no dissertation is immune to danger, this article specifically spotlights how the conceptual genre is particularly susceptible to danger due to its potential to disrupt the status quo and the intimate attachment to the author. the best way to illustrate a conceptual dissertation and to explain how its creation can be dangerous is to read the insider accounts of these risky endeavors. to lay the foundation for these stories, i open by distinguishing professionally benign dissertations from dangerous dissertations that present the potential to trouble the institutional waters. defining dangerous dissertations professionally and academically, it often costs us little to do things the way they have always been done. in fact, we frequently benefit from traveling traditional and “safe” routes. academically, there are fewer risks involved in traveling a well-worn path. professionally, many benefit from demonstrating their compliance with the status quo. however, when one departs from these safe and protected pathways—which is the case for students producing alternative dissertations—danger can arise. the idea that certain dissertation projects can be dangerous came to mind after a series of students raised concerns about the ramifications of writing critiques aimed at their professional contexts. many of these critical analyses employed foucauldian thought. while considering how, as a mentor, to best support students faced with these professional dilemmas, i recalled one of my favorite foucauldian (1984) quotes: “everything is dangerous” (p. 343); thus, the idea of dangerous dissertations was born. so, what makes a dissertation dangerous? simply stated: difference from the norm. undoubtedly, whether the dissertation differs from the established norm (i.e., the traditional dissertation) in genre, methodological approach, or format, producing an alternative dissertation can be a dangerous exercise. “the fact that a speaker says something dangerous—different [emphasis added] from what the majority believes,” writes foucault (2001, p. 15), is the everlooming threat of critique. challenging dominant discourses or ways of doing through critique is a means to speak or write differently about “the way things are” or the status quo. any time one speaks or writes something that opposes mainstream ideas or the prevailing hegemonic notions, danger ensues. when foucault (1984) wrote that “everything is dangerous” (p. 343), he was not cautioning everyone into a state of fearful paralysis. instead, foucault (1984) alerts us to the greater and often hidden danger of complacency or inaction. foucault (1983, as cited in mclaren, 2002) further explained his line of thinking by saying, “nothing is very good; everything is dangerous; but everything is not equally dangerous” (p. 43). here, foucault indicates that different degrees of danger exist, that nothing is innocuous, and that all actions do not produce the with the graduate school during the embryonic stages is vital to avoid questions regarding final approval and unexpected obstacles to student completion. brown & proctor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 116 same effects. for instance, authoring a critique of one’s professional context may carry professional dangers, but choosing not to draft a critique (leaving current ways of doing unquestioned) produces different dangers—the perpetuation of the status quo. by daring to put forth a bold (and potentially dangerous) critique, the status quo is disrupted, new conversations are sparked, and different ways forward can be imagined. for purposes of this project, i define a dangerous dissertation as one in which the student critiques3 their professional context and, as a result, experiences a heightened level of concern about their current professional standing and future career prospects4. dissertations that offer perspectives that differ from the mainstream and challenge the status quo are particularly precarious and are the focal point of this piece. illuminating what makes this type of critical work dangerous also highlights the urgency for its continued creation and circulation, but equally important, the need for concentrated support by faculty mentors. to offer deeper insight, a recent program graduate and i share insider perspectives of our encounters with dangerous dissertation work. telling a different tale: my unexpected dissertation journey (dr. star brown) in 2017, i came close to writing a dangerous dissertation. describing my dissertation as nearly dangerous signals my ultimate decision to distance myself from topics with direct professional connections. rather than face the possible professional repercussions of composing a critique close to my professional home, i aimed my sights at a higher education issue that i could critically examine from the sidelines. hence, i produced a critique of collegiate athletics in higher education, but i did so at arm’s length. my alternative dissertation was organized as eight chapters of differently crafted tales, including a critical tale of the paradoxes of academics and athletics in higher education, conceptual tales of marginality and mattering, and a concluding tale with no end— representing the doing, undoing, and redoing collegiate athletics. i recognized that my dissertation was different from my peers in the program, but i would not have used the word alternative to describe my work at the time. in our doctoral program, conceptual projects may not hold majority sway, but they are a recognized and accepted dissertation genre. when i embarked on my doctoral journey in 2013, i did not set out to do a different or alternative dissertation. in fact, most would describe my life and career to that point as quite conservative or “traditional.” in sum, i was known to play it safe. so how did i wander into dangerous territory as part of my doctoral program experience? below i briefly chronicle how my thinking transformed as a result of the coursework in the doctoral program and how the exposure to poststructural theory steered my dissertation research into dangerous channels. my story comes full circle as i conclude by showing how my dissertation experience connects to my current mentorship of students attending my alma mater. 3 we acknowledge that there are a multiplicity of dangers present when pursuing academic work. critical projects are simply one example of a dangerous dissertation. the beginnings of trouble the entirety of my writing and research during the doctoral program centered on the effects of accreditation policy on institutions and personnel. initially, i planned a straightforward quantitative study analyzing the capital expenditures required to maintain accredited status and the disproportionate impact of policy mandates on smaller institutions. when i realized that my deeper interest was in revealing the hidden costs to institutions and personnel (things that are not easily quantified), i shifted to a small pilot study interviewing community college personnel about their experiences with regional accreditation. after concluding my pilot study, i realized that the information gleaned was not new, as the participants’ responses simply affirmed my own experiences with the accreditation process. in other words, i discovered that doing empirical work in this case did not produce new knowledge about accreditation and that in order to generate new insights about accreditation, a different way of doing and thinking about research was needed. my exposure to theorists such as butler (1990/2006, 1993, 2004), foucault (1975/1995), and spivak (1993) during doctoral coursework supplied me with a fresh lens to view and scrutinize my identified problem of practice— regional institutional accreditation practices. my new ways of seeing accreditation policies were decidedly unfavorable and departed from the prevailing narrative that accreditation makes institutions “better,” which made my work dangerous. at this point, i arrived at a crossroads—to write or to not write a dangerous dissertation. close encounters with danger as the accreditation liaison, i was my institution’s resident ambassador for the benefits of the accreditation process—the face of accreditation at the college. presenting views of accreditation that contradicted the prevailing narrative or voiced my doubts about the value of the process would have run counter to my institution’s expectation that i sell the accreditation process to my colleagues (i.e. convince my colleagues to “voluntarily” comply with the mandates of accreditation policy). because accredited status is a prerequisite for continued institutional existence, critiquing and writing against the ways regional accreditors implement and enforce accreditation policy would not have shone favorably on my own institution or myself. saying i was hesitant to pursue a controversial topic so close to my personal practice as an accreditation liaison and chairperson of the institution’s reaffirmation of accreditation process is quite the understatement. as a result, i hid my opposing views of accreditation from the majority of my colleagues and most definitely from senior administration. those at my institution would have been surprised by my alternative views about accreditation due to my outward allegiance and advocacy of the process. the few colleague confidantes with whom i did share my thoughts cautioned me about publishing a critique of a process that is fundamental to the institution’s continued existence. i silently feared that making my critique tangible might harm my institution by endangering their accredited status and result in career stagnation at best or nonrenewal of my faculty contract at worst. i never expressed this conundrum with my faculty advisor. instead, i masked my apprehension about approaching a topic so close to my professional 4 future career prospects include those at their current institution as well as future employment opportunities at other institutions. dangerous dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 117 practice by abandoning all of my related writing and research to pursue a safer topic—the normalization of athletics in higher education. because my community college did not have athletic programs, i was able to produce my critique while safely sitting in the stands, far removed from the personal perils of critiquing a topic linked to my professional practice and setting. although the airing of my dissertation did not pose personal or professional dangers, my probing critique of collegiate athletics did serve as a critical exposé drawing attention to the ways big-time collegiate sports programs manufacture and marginalize individuals, particularly black athletes, for profit. in this vein, my dissertation tackles the difficult and wicked problems of practice, such as power dynamics, dissertations in practice strive to change. becoming a mentor since publishing my alternative dissertation5 employing postqualitative inquiry to interrogate the normalization of athletics in higher education (brown, 2017), my professional journey fatefully landed me in the role of a dissertation chair at my alma mater. this position has afforded me the opportunity to use my dissertation experience to inform and shape the ways i support students as they navigate their own dissertation journeys. mentoring dangerous dissertations in particular has provided a productive outlet for channeling my past regrets into bolstering the courage of students confronting similar professional predicaments. being vulnerable with students about how i suppressed my desire to pursue a project situated in my professional context helps me better relate to students confronted with the decision of whether to write or not write a dangerous dissertation. as a dissertation committee chair, i most frequently work with dissertation projects that use poststructural theory as an analytical tool to animate and problematize educational policies and practices. these projects are inherently political6 and, as a result, can be both personally and professionally dangerous. at a recent defense of a dissertation employing foucauldian concepts, i recalled prior conversations i had with the student concerning what might happen if someone from their institution attended their defense and how their colleagues might react to their radically transformed views and insights about key institutional processes and policies. during the defense presentation, foucault’s (1984) caution that “everything is dangerous” (p. 343) reverberated in my mind. the infusion of theory as a tool to view the world differently led to this epiphanic moment, and it became apparent to me that pursuing this critical work carries material effects for our students and places them in the field of danger. accordingly, i posed the following to the student who was defending: putting forward a bold critique such as yours is what some might call dangerous. what prompted you to do this dangerous work and what advice would you give to other 5 my dissertation is alternative for two reasons: methodological difference (post-qualitative inquiry) and organizational structure (a series of eight tales). however, i do not classify my dissertation as dangerous due to the separation from my institutional setting and context. students who are considering the pursuit of a dangerous dissertation? this question and the subsequent discussion sparked the beginnings of this endeavor to illuminate and advocate for dangerous dissertations. i realized that acknowledging the distinct professional dangers faced by students who produce dangerous dissertations not only benefits future students, but also results in greater propagation of this important, critical work. thus, this work is inspired by thinking with foucault and also by the bold, courageous work of students in our edd program. rather than relay the stories second hand, i invited recent graduate dr. kristen proctor to collaborate on this project by recounting her dangerous dissertation experience. i challenged dr. proctor to engage in deep self-reflection about her recent dissertation journey and encouraged her to elaborate on why she chose to pursue a critical dissertation and the dangers she encountered along the way. i also asked her to speak to the role of her faculty mentor and advice she would offer to future students. the goal is that our stories may inspire other students to take up their own dangerous dissertation projects and to likewise encourage faculty advisors to promote and support this urgent, critical work. i turn now to dr. proctor to guide us along the path of her dissertation journey. my dangerous dissertation story (dr. kristen proctor) in the spring of 2024, i defended my “alternative” dissertation. the dissertation i produced can be described as alternative for many reasons. structurally, my dissertation is alternative because it departs from the traditional five-chapter format and instead unfolds across seven parts that are bookended by a prologue and epilogue on reflexivity. my dissertation also differs from the positivistic norms of my field (institutional effectiveness), which further earns my work the moniker of alternative. my dissertation even moves beyond cped’s conceptualization of an alternative dissertation by challenging the claim that educational “problems” of practice objectively exist awaiting a solution. these differences alone are enough to place my work outside the realm of tradition and therefore normality, which can be a professionally and personally dangerous place to be. however, it is the long-held assumptions and silenced discourses that i uncovered and challenged through my work that make my dissertation unquestionably alternative and, consequently, profoundly dangerous. in the following narrative, i offer a glimpse into my dissertation journey and the dangers i encountered along the way. i begin by providing an overview of my dissertation, which is titled problematizing institutional effectiveness policy: a foucauldian poststructural policy analysis (2024). the overview i offer is intended to present my journey without delving into the intricacies of 6 references to politics-political in this article are used in the foucauldian sense and encompass any power struggle (allen, 2014). to borrow an explanation from proctor (2024), “like how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares, ‘politics’ in the traditional sense is politics in the foucauldian sense, but politics in the foucauldian sense is not necessarily ‘politics’ in the traditional sense” (p. 118). brown & proctor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 118 foucauldian language and poststructural thought. after the overview, i unpack my initial reluctance to pursue an alternative dissertation, particularly one that involved foucauldian poststructuralism. i then recount how i found the courage to move forward with poststructuralism despite the dangers it posed, and the role my committee chair played in my decision. i conclude by describing how my alternative dissertation journey resulted in unparalleled professional and personal change, and how i now view alternative work as a necessary and urgent endeavor, despite the inherent dangers. an overview of my dissertation in my dissertation, i used foucauldian poststructural theory and carol bacchi’s (2009) “what is the problem represented to be?” approach to poststructural policy analysis to uncover how subjects (i.e., institutions, institutional personnel) are made and shaped by the practices and processes of institutional effectiveness (ie). that is, the subjectification effects of ie policy. the concept of subjectification is grounded in the poststructural understanding that discourses, which are expressed through various mediums including policy, make available and normalize certain subject positions or ways of being and doing (bacchi, 2009). how we make sense of the world and our position or role in it, and how we subsequently modify our behavior to match the norms communicated through discourse, are effects of subjectification (bacchi, 2009). accordingly, in my dissertation, i exposed how the policies that constitute ie (namely accreditation policy) make available and “acceptable” certain ways of being and doing in higher education, consequently altering and limiting the behaviors of institutions and institutional personnel. to this end, i employed the poststructural technique of deconstruction, foucault’s (1980a; 1980b) practice of genealogical tracing, and foucault’s (1975/1995) positing on disciplining technologies. across three analyses, i uncovered many hidden histories and unquestioned assumptions, all of which contribute to the production of modern higher education and higher education policy. for example, by tracing how accreditation came to be, i exposed a complex history that includes raced, gendered, and colonizing discourses and practices designed to keep “others” (those who cannot or will not normalize) out of higher education. i also uncovered how accreditation policy institutionalizes the resultant power arrangements and narratives about what constitutes a “quality” and “effective” institution, and produces institutions that comply with these unexamined narratives. i further argued that ie is the tool that accreditation policy employs to ensure institutions comply with the norms communicated through accreditation policy, thereby producing ie as a disciplining apparatus and positioning ie staff as the institutional “police” assigned to locally enforce accreditation policy. i concluded my dissertation by synthesizing the deleterious subjectification effects produced by accreditation policy’s constitution of ie and by discussing my work’s implications for higher education and higher education governance. 7anytime governing occurs, there is a “problem” governing power seeks to solve. whereas traditional approaches to policy analysis seek to solve “problems” that are assumed to objectively exist awaiting a solution, poststructural policy analysis understands the catalyst for my alternative dissertation despite the patent alternativeness of my dissertation, i never set out to write an alternative dissertation. in fact, when i began my doctoral studies, i intended to find a benign topic like retention that would lend itself to the path of least academic and professional resistance (i.e., a five-chapter dissertation using a quantitative method or a “mainstream” qualitative method like interviewing). however, none of the topics that felt academically or professionally “safe” sparked the level of curiosity i needed to carry me through the dissertation process. moreover, i felt that the dissertation should be challenging and an exposition of skill and produce something new— something that moves past the convenient topics and methods that saturate educational research. as my perfunctory search for a dissertation topic shifted to a quest for passion and intellectual stimulation, i found myself drawn to policy analysis. my interest in policy was not new. i had written about my desire to craft public policy in my doctoral admissions essay. however, my doctoral coursework exposed me to foucauldian thought and the work of poststructural policy problematizers like bacchi and goodwin (2016), which alerted me to new ways of thinking about and engaging with policy. as a result, rather than viewing policies as i had in the past (as solutions to objective “problems”7), i was instead curious about how policies confine our understanding of issues by articulating narrowly defined “problems” and how the solutions policies offer shape the behavior of people and institutions. in effect, my interest in policy had shifted from crafting policy to critiquing policy. concurrently, at work, i was guiding my institution through the policy-laden reaffirmation of accreditation process and continuously encountering narratives about what is “appropriate” or “acceptable” for institutions and institutional personnel to be and do. in response, i routinely wondered: how did accreditation policy come to be? how did the norms articulated through accreditation policy come to be? who is served by these norms? who is harmed by these norms? how are the “problems” accreditation policy seeks to solve (i.e., “quality” and “effectiveness”) defined and are there other ways of thinking about these “problems”? i was also reading foucault’s (1975/1995) discipline and punish and identifying parallels between the disciplining technologies described by foucault and the practices of accreditation policy, which i recognized as being locally enacted and enforced by ie and ie staff. despite the apparent connections i was uncovering, i was reluctant to write a dissertation that employed a professionally alternative approach like poststructuralism. i unpack some of the sources of my reluctance in the following section. my reluctance to do differently a multiplicity of things contributed to my reluctance to commit to a dissertation experience that involved poststructural thought, including (to be candid) my awareness of the amount of complex theory one must wrestle with before engaging in poststructural work. i certainly felt more academically conditioned and professionally prepared to write a literature review, run a statistical test, code an interview, or create a fishbone diagram. conversely, the problems to be created through problematizations or problem representations that narrowly and contingently frame how issues are understood (bacchi, 2009). dangerous dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 119 poststructural tendency to allow analyses to unfold, was not something i felt comfortable doing. relatedly, i was reluctant to commit to poststructuralism because committing to poststructuralism meant embarking on an alternative dissertation journey and therefore a journey with fewer signposts indicating whether i was traveling the “right” path. as someone who finds comfort in processes, linearity, and predictability, the prospect of doing a dissertation differently was nerve-racking. of course, concerns over the reception and potential ramifications of my work loomed in my mind, too. during that period of irresolution, my mind was a slurry of anxious thoughts: will using a non-traditional theory or method make my work seem less “rigorous” or “scholarly”? how will my interrogation of ie and accreditation policy or what i uncover be received by the higher education and ie communities? what might my employer think about my work? will what i uncover negatively affect my institution’s relationship with our accreditor? how might what i uncover challenge my professional identity or change the way i understand my institutional role? as a result, i brainstormed ways to analyze the subjectification effects of ie and accreditation policy sans poststructuralism. that is, i was searching for a way to explore the effects of policy in a professionally and academically “safe” manner, desiring to dig into those effects just enough to uncover something new without saying something unpopular and consequently professionally dangerous. i kept returning to academically and professionally convenient ideas like administering a survey, conducting interviews, and designing a public relations campaign to improve the image of ie. however, none of those approaches spoke to the ways policy acts upon and through us, thereby shaping what is possible for us to be and do. more importantly, none of those ideas or approaches spoke to the many silenced discourses, governmentalities, and policy contradictions that foucauldian thought illuminated and consequently compelled me to expose. it was not until i completed my dissertation and penned my epilogue that i fully understood the anxiety i experienced during those days. upon reflection, i added the following to my epilogue: when i wrote the prologue to this dissertation, i lacked the vocabulary to fully name what made me reticent to approach this inquiry using poststructuralism. however, i now know that what i felt was a reluctance to engage in disruptive conduct because to “do” poststructuralism is to trouble current ways of being and doing, including my own. (2024, p. 211) the type of action that poststructuralism calls for, i.e., troubling, disruption, and counter conduct, can be described as many things (uncomfortable, unpopular, and unsung), but it always poses some degree of danger to those answering the call. doing dangerous work to do poststructuralism is to disrupt, to trouble, to question, and to challenge the status quo—none of which were things i was known for or felt comfortable doing at that time. by all accounts, i was more of a traditionalist (with privileged identities that benefit from tradition) than a disrupter or change agent. however, poststructuralism calls you to do and become different by questioning and pushing limits. not in order to “prove” an existing way of being or doing “wrong” or to propose an alternative, but to open up discourse and create opportunities for doing differently. because poststructuralism challenges the status quo and questions what is accepted as “common sense,” poststructuralism can be dangerous work. moreover, poststructuralism is inherently political work because of its focus on power, i.e., how power is conveyed through knowledges and discourses that firm up and privilege certain ways of being and doing. this focus on power and politics (used here in the foucauldian sense) makes doing poststructural work dangerous, particularly in our increasingly polarized society. with every word i typed, i anticipated that what i uncovered (the raced discourses, the neoliberal rationalities, the framing of the “problem” of educational “quality”) might cause discomfort among members of the higher education community, particularly as they become aware of the hidden politics and the exclusionary past that underpins some of the “commonsense” policies of higher education, and are then faced with examining their relationship with those policies. certainly, coming to terms with the role i play in sustaining the deleterious arrangements of power produced by accreditation policy altered how i understand my relationship with policy. as if these dangers alone were not enough, i also was reluctant to engage with poststructuralism because poststructural analyses are intimate endeavors. there is no hiding behind things you claim to have “objectively” observed or “discovered” when you do poststructural work. there is no dissociating the significance of the work from you (e.g., this is what the data says, this is what the people i interviewed think). instead, it is all you. it is your thoughts, your ideas, your critiques, and your experiences laid bare. that level of exposure and potential risk is enough to make many students shy away from this type of work. undoubtedly, the potential risks made me continuously reconsider the path i was traveling. even so, change demands more critiques from persons in intimate proximity to the complex issues we face. accordingly, when students find the courage to do this type of dangerous work, they need a dissertation chair who understands the inherent risks and will support them through the uncharted and perilous waters that lay ahead. my chair: a mentor, advocate, and cheerleader in all, i spent months decisively waffling between two options: committing to a poststructural analysis despite the dangers it posed or committing to a more “acceptable” approach and therefore more “traditional” dissertation. it was during that period of indecision that i met dr. star brown. during my first meeting with dr. brown, i shared my observations about the ways accreditation policy disciplines institutions and how the resultant power arrangements produce deleterious effects, including the production of ie as a disciplining apparatus and ie staff as institutional “police” tasked with surveilling compliance. while my observations were clearly foucault-inspired, i danced around the topic of theory and instead pitched my ideas for turning my observations into an actionable “problem” of practice. after listening to my ramblings, dr. brown delivered an inconvenient truth: what i described was poststructural work. dr. brown then told me about her own dissertation journey, and that the phenomenon i described was something she also experienced in her work with accreditation policy. hearing that i was not alone in my experience and perceptions of accreditation policy provided me the “validity” i had unknowingly been longing for. yet, i was still reluctant. sensing my reluctance (and likely recalling the reluctance she felt during her dissertation journey), dr. brown recommended i spend the semester exploring poststructural theory and the possibilities made available by opening myself to poststructuralism and an alternative dissertation journey. accordingly, i spent that semester reading and writing and drafting two versions of the introduction to my dissertation. in one brown & proctor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 120 version, i presented a “solvable” “problem” of practice. in the other, i set the stage to use poststructural theory and the positing of foucault (1975/1995) to expose the carceral underpinnings of ie and to uncover how ie is constituted by the “problems” articulated in accreditation policy. the act of putting pen to paper made clear what i already knew: poststructuralism was the only theory that provided the language and concepts that fully account for and articulate the phenomenon that sparked my inquiry. additionally, it was the only theory that could incite the type of change i desired because my overarching aim was not to challenge or amend a singular policy, but to expose how we engage with and are governed by policy. after arriving at this realization, i requested a meeting with dr. brown to discuss her interest in and willingness to chair my dissertation committee. the relationship dr. brown and i forged in the months that followed was critical to the success of my dissertation. certainly, committee chairs play an important role in the dissertation process regardless of the theoretical or methodological approach. however, the role of the chair as a mentor and advocate are more pronounced when producing an alternative dissertation. the freedom afforded by doing something theoretically, methodologically, or stylistically different is liberating, but the resultant experience can be confusing and isolating as the time-honored guides for writing a dissertation are not useful and few of your classmates are traveling the same path. consequently, i relied on dr. brown to help me chart a path to completion. we spent countless evenings and weekends working together to find ways to move past the limits of traditional dissertations while designing a final product that was theoretically and methodologically sound, clearly communicated, and professionally impactful. at times, this required that we develop ways to communicate my alternative journey in more traditional ways. in those instances, dr. brown acted as an advocate on my behalf, helping me navigate the bureaucracy of academia and communicate my alternative work in traditionally digestible ways. additionally, because alternative dissertations often employ lesser-known theories and methods, they necessitate a pedagogical approach to communicating your work. this was particularly true for me because foucauldian poststructuralism employs its own lexicon and retools existing words in new ways. thus, the guidance and experience of dr. brown and the other members of my committee were integral in helping me craft my ideas in ways that were accessible to all readers. the most important role dr. brown served, however, was that of the cheerleader. while i knew the degree of theoretical and methodological prowess my alternative dissertation required, i worried about the reception it would receive from academia and the highly positivistic ie community because of its departure from tradition. accordingly, i routinely looked to dr. brown for encouragement, validation, and regular pep talks about why the work i was doing was important and necessary. additionally, because i was worried about the reception my dissertation would receive, i worked hard to make it theoretically, methodologically, and technically unassailable. dr. brown played a pivotal role to that end by challenging me, asking probing questions, identifying my presuppositions and argumentative gaps, helping me organize complex ideas, and always pushing for more. the hundreds of hours dr. brown spent providing feedback and suggestions will never be lost on me. reflecting on my dangerous alternative journey in hindsight, i recognize that some of the anxiety and reluctance i felt to commit to an alternative dissertation journey was because of the prevailing representation of what a dissertation “is,” (e.g., a dissertation is a five-chapter document, a dissertation generates solutions, a “good” dissertation employs a traditional theoretical or methodological approach, a dissertation includes empirical research, etc.). since my dissertation is definitively not those things, i spent months worrying that it might be relegated to the “inferior” side of the normal/abnormal, acceptable/unacceptable, appropriate/inappropriate binaries by those with more structuralist and solution-focused orientations, which are common in ie. that is, it is not traditional, therefore, it is different and a threat or danger to tradition. additionally, in the discourse of higher education and academia, dissertations are often represented as career-defining work and as expressions of identity and “expertise.” that type of finality can feel suffocating, particularly for scholars-in-practice whose dissertation may be the only piece they ever publish. however, an unexpected byproduct of my time with foucauldian poststructuralism is the liberating idea that we all exist in a state of continuous becoming. reflecting on my alternative journey, i now think much of the reluctance and anxiety i felt during the dissertation process could have been avoided by reframing the dissertation as a piece of my academic, personal, and professional becoming as opposed to the defining feature. foucault shared a similar sentiment in a 1988 interview, stating “the main interest of life and work is to become [emphasis added] someone else that you were not in the beginning” (martin, 1988, para. 4). the present continuous tense of becoming reflects the poststructural idea that things, including subjects like me, exist in a continuous state of becoming as opposed to a static state of being and are continuously produced through discourse and repetition. however, becoming something new requires unmaking the subjects that dominant discourse shapes us into—an endeavor that is wildly uncomfortable and feels personally dangerous. according to bacchi and goodwin (2016), this process of unmaking subjects is the central task of poststructural policy analysis. certainly, the poststructural work i undertook left me unmade and unequivocally different. of course, becoming is an ongoing process that does not stop when the dissertation is submitted. accordingly, who i am continuously becoming is a product of the skills and confidence i gained as a result of my alternative dissertation journey. foucault (1984/1997) writes that, when we encounter an intolerable power arrangement, we must “acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, and also the morality, the ēthos [emphasis in original], the practice of the self, that will allow us to play these games of power with as little domination as possible” (p. 298). as a result of my decision to engage in poststructural analysis and to interrogate the intolerable arrangements of accreditation policy, i have gained all the things foucault (1984/1997) enumerated and consequently feel more prepared to play the games of power that permeate higher education differently and more skillfully. i have acquired the rules of law articulated through accreditation policy to such a degree that i feel a command over accreditation policy, and i am adept at uncovering the covert techniques policies employ to manage populations. more importantly, i now feel positioned and equipped to question and push back on these techniques and “commonsense” policies when they produce intolerable effects. i have also developed a heightened sense of morality and ēthos, the practice of self, and confidence to challenge things that are unjust or intolerable (even dangerous dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 121 when the status quo benefits me), which i attribute to doing dangerous work and surviving to tell the tale. undoubtedly, my alternative dissertation journey left me with a skill set with broad applicative value. i now see things (even the seemingly innocuous) differently and with an air of healthy skepticism. not only do i see and think about things differently, but i am also more willing to question the unquestioned and to propose and accept alternative ways of thinking and doing, because poststructuralism is about creating opportunities for difference, even if they do not emerge from poststructural thought. every new policy—of which there is a limitless supply in education—is underpinned by unexamined and “commonsense” presuppositions that produce new effects and subject positions. consequently, edd programs are well positioned to liberate scholarly practitioners from the confines of “traditional” dissertative work that may allow current assumptions and interpretations of issues to go unexamined. by encouraging students to pursue dangerous work, opportunities to challenge the multiplicity of ways that education, educators, and policy produce and replicate deleterious power arrangements and discourses become possible. having experienced firsthand the potential that dangerous dissertations have to change people (and consequently institutions and policies) by opening up new ways of thinking, i beckon others to answer the urgent call for dangerous dissertations. accordingly, in the section that follows, dr. brown and i synthesize the salient points gleaned from our combined experiences and present them as recommendations for faculty advisors. navigating dangerous dissertations as an advisor having exposed the dangers and anxieties posed by doing dissertations differently, we now offer ways that faculty and advisors can support students who embark on alternative dissertation journeys. since our experiences are specific to critical inquiries, we approach these recommendations with dissertations that critique professional contexts in mind. however, these suggestions can be applied to all varieties of alternative dissertations, since any departure from the norm poses some degree of risk. firstly, we reiterate the importance of the mentor-mentee relationship and highlight the need for increased student support. as dr. proctor mentioned, students embarking on an alternative dissertation journey lack the support traditionally provided by the cohort model since they are traveling a path that is uniquely different from their fellow cohort members. to combat this isolation, we recommend an alternative support network that connects students with multiple generations of alumni who have completed dangerous dissertations. one way to implement this strategy is to ask program graduates to serve as committee members for future dissertation projects, which would allow alumni to mentor the next generation of dangerous dissertators through the trials and tribulations of doing dissertations differently. as dr. brown has witnessed in her work as a mentor, this method of “paying it forward” can be extremely beneficial for current students who are hesitant to move forward. students who have utilized similar critical methodologies or share professional contexts can empathize with mentees, validate their experience, offer words of encouragement, and ease students’ anxiety by showing them that there is life and success after dangerous dissertations. we encourage other mentors to nurture academic bravery and professional confidence so that students may permanently plant themselves in their institutional contexts as change agents in the field. ongoing dangers for students dr. brown approached several alumni about participating in this project. some could not participate due to time constraints or other priorities, while others explicitly cited concerns about the dangers their critical dissertation still poses for their professional future. many alumni reiterated the same piercing questions expressed during the dissertation process such as: “am i ruining my career by writing this dissertation? what are my chances of becoming a college president if i write this? will i ever become a superintendent if someone in the school district reads my dissertation? do you think i will lose my job if my supervisor learns about my dissertation topic?” in these most vulnerable moments, students expressed the felt dangers of writing a public critique about the systems they actively inhabit. while these students were brave enough to publish and defend their dissertations, many still view their work as an ongoing threat to their professional journey and shy away from future work (like this article) that might invite further risk. for these students who continue to work within the systems they critiqued, time has not decreased the sense of danger posed by their work. years past graduation, many still fear the possibility of a colleague or supervisor uncovering their dangerous dissertation or any future critical work. accordingly, it is incumbent upon faculty mentors to find ways to better support students who are challenging the status quo in their writing, but are distressed over how to translate their scholarly transformation into a new, “acceptable” professional identity and voice. conclusion in this article, we offered an aerial view of how one edd program does dissertations differently, demonstrating that what is signified as “alternative” depends on the norms of academia and institutional culture. the program overview served as backdrop for introducing the dangerous dissertation. by bringing to light the professional anxieties associated with critique, we alert mentors to the internal struggles faced by students and also offer strategies to support students engaging in dangerous dissertative work. before concluding this article, we offer an incredibly important note about positionality. we both sit at the intersection of multiple privileged identities as we are both white, heterosexual, cisgender, middle-class, non-disabled women. even so, our dissertations posed considerable risks and, despite our keen awareness of the necessity of our work, we experienced reluctance to go against the grain. we cannot fathom how dangerous critical work must be and feel for individuals from marginalized backgrounds or identities and for those tackling more sensitive or controversial issues. as educational leaders, it is imperative that we make ways for all individuals to engage in critical work without fear of repercussion, because to do otherwise would silence the vital alternative viewpoints needed to affect educational change in practice. references allen, a. (2014). 62 – politics. in l. lawlor & j. nale (eds.), the cambridge foucault lexicon (pp. 364-369). cambridge university press. brown & proctor impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.494 122 andrews, r., & grogan, m. (2005, spring). form should follow function: removing the edd dissertation from the phd straight jacket. ucea review, 46(2), 10–13. bacchi, c. (2009). analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be? pearson education. bacchi, c. & goodwin, s. (2016). poststructural policy analysis. palgrave pivot. brown, s. p. (2017). doing, undoing, and redoing collegiate athletics: conceptual tales of marginality and mattering [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=21701 burry, r., & nava eggett, k. (hosts). (2021–2023). through our lens [audio podcast]. apple. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-ourlens/id1570159943 burry, r. and nava eggett, k.a. (2022). leveraging instructional technology and asset-based pedagogy for equitable representations in technological opportunities. [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/listing.aspx?id=38146 buss, r., zambo, r., zambo, d., & r. williams, t. (2014). developing researching professionals in an edd program: from learners and leaders to scholarly and influential practitioners. higher education, skills and work-based learning, 4(2), 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl11-2013-0022 butler, j. (1990/2006). gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. routledge. butler, j. (1993). bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of "sex". routledge. butler, j. (2004). undoing gender. routledge. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2024, june 19). the cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework duke, n. k., & beck, s. w. (1999). education should consider alternative formats for the dissertation. educational researcher, 28(3), 31–36. foucault, m. (1975/1995). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (2nd ed). vintage. foucault, m. (1980a). two lectures. in g. gordon (ed.), power/knowledge: selected interviews & other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 78–108). vintage. foucault, m, (1980b). truth and power. in g. gordon (ed.), power/knowledge: selected interviews & other writings 1972-1977 (pp. 109-133). vintage. foucault, m. (1984). on the genealogy of ethics: an overview of work in progress. in p. rabinow (ed.). the foucault reader (pp. 340-372). pantheon books. (original work published 1982, 1983) foucault, m. (1984/1997). the ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. in p. rabinow (ed.), michel foucault: ethics, subjectivity, and truth (pp. 281-301). the new press. (reprinted from concordia: revista internacional de filosophia 6, pp. 96-116, 1984) foucault, m. (2001). fearless speech (j. pearson, ed.). semiotext(e). jackson, a. y., & mazzei, l. a. (2012). thinking with theory in qualitative research: viewing data across multiple perspectives. routledge. ma, v. w., dana, n. f., adams, a., & kennedy, b. l. (2018). understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3, 13–22. martin, r. (1988). truth, power, self: an interview with foucault. in martin et al. (eds.), technologies of self (pp. 9-15). university of massachusetts press. mclaren, m. a. (2002). feminism, foucault, and embodied subjectivity. state university of new york press. miller, v., & brown, s. (2024). alternative formats: thinking differently about dissertations in practice and faculty dissertation mentoring. in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 205–221). myers education press. perry, j. a. (2024). the history of the dip: dissertation in what? in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 9– 22). myers education press. proctor, k. (2024). problematizing institutional effectiveness: a foucauldian poststructural policy analysis [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29506022.v1 shears, l. (2022). the teaching and practice of the “yoga body”: a poststructural, queercrip analysis of yoga education [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=38178 spivak, g. c. (1993). outside in the teaching machine. routledge. thomas, j. r., nelson, j. k., & magill, r. a. (1986). a case for an alternative format for the thesis/dissertation. quest, 38(2), 116–124. https://doiorg.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1080/00336297.1986.10483846 van maanen, j. (2011). tales of the field: on writing ethnography (2nd ed.). university of chicago press. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-our-lens/id1570159943 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-our-lens/id1570159943 https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-11-2013-0022 https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-11-2013-0022 https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29506022.v1 https://doiorg.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1080/00336297.1986.10483846 star brown appalachian state university kristen proctor appalachian state university brief evolution of the edd dissertation our program’s dissertation landscape conceptual dissertations alternative dissertation conceptualization and approval process defining dangerous dissertations telling a different tale: my unexpected dissertation journey (dr. star brown) the beginnings of trouble close encounters with danger becoming a mentor my dangerous dissertation story (dr. kristen proctor) an overview of my dissertation the catalyst for my alternative dissertation my reluctance to do differently doing dangerous work my chair: a mentor, advocate, and cheerleader reflecting on my dangerous alternative journey navigating dangerous dissertations as an advisor ongoing dangers for students conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 36 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 breaking the silence: healing through writingthe liminal experiences of an edd student dibett lopez georgia state university dlopez31@student.gsu.edu abstract due to the competitive and inequitable structure of doctoral programs, there has been a rapid rise of mental and physical issues faced by students. in this article, i use autoethnography as a method to explore my experiences and their implications on my learning and wellbeing as an afro-latinx edd student at a public university. using "captured moments", a photography analogy for the experiences lived, i explore the depth and light each "captured moment" has created and/or has resulted in the ways in which i looked at the content and people i was exposed to within my program and as well as the ways in which my health was impacted. these experiences were then analyzed through liminality theory and strong black woman (sbw) schema to support the impact of these experiences. the call to action provides direction for how educators and researchers can provide students with more supportive and equitable experiences that would provide for an increase of students seeking to obtain their edd. keywords liminality theory, strong black women schema, doctoral students "you won't have a life these next three years, so be prepared to make those sacrifices," the stern pale face behind the screen stated. "try to think about what you can do instead of what you can't. just work around it " her annoyed voice echoed. "have you ever thought about actually grieving the process instead of harboring anger?" they ask piercingly. "take care of yourself; you are most important in this process," her worried voice cautioned. each of these statements has taken a permanent residence inside of my brain; swirling throughout it with the little voice that reminds me of how tired i am, of how "they're watching", and of how i am " just so close." these remarks from colleagues, professors, healthcare professionals, and family are ingrained memories of this journey of academic livelihood. ironically, this raging war between "climbing the ivory tower" and caring for oneself is not unique to me. it is a battle many have endured and researched (evans, 2007; lovitts, 2001; smith & douthit, 2020). however, over time, this battle has become much more than just a climb. in fact, calling it an ivory tower today is a false depiction for some. with the inception of the covid-19 pandemic, there is no longer an ivory tower at all. instead, it has become a solitary confinement cell whose storm proof door comes embedded with a sliding metal window strictly to benefit those who keep guard. it is a place engulfed in darkness that only provides its prisoner with one hour of daylight, just enough to remind us that we are still alive before drowning us back into solitude for the 23 hours that follow. with limited access to people who understand this world, this incarcerated-like life is one that some doctoral students may have been experiencing since the pandemic began and some even before it. these doctoral students, like many in the world, have faced an increase in isolation, limited support and resources, which may have the power to change some of their educational trajectories. while the isolating nature of doctoral work has been explored (janta et al., 2014; kohun & ali, 2005; lovitts, 2001; van wingerden, 2024), the pandemic and its aftermath has provided a more in-depth perspective of the increased challenges that students have experienced in multiple academic spaces (sverdlik et al., 2023). the pandemic has placed some doctoral students into a unique liminal space, slightly different than those previously described as it has contributed to a rise in imposter syndrome, physical and mental health issues, and drop-out rates (andal & wu, 2021; andrade et al., 2023; colpitts et al., 2020; donohue et al., 2021; sideropoulos et al., 2022; sverdlik et al., 2023). liminal spaces are described as transitional spaces where people may experience timelessness and ambiguity with their current identities and who they aim to become (beech, 2011; turner, 1967). with the rise of these challenges in academic spaces being further perpetuated by the ever-present guards, it is important to re-visit the experiences of edd students in the last four years. this autoethnography seeks to illuminate the author's experiences as an afro-latina within an edd program at a public southern university. it uses captured moments, snapshots from voice memos, and journal entries, that include phases from the inception of the program until present. this autoethnography analyzes the experiences faced by the author that may also be faced by other doctoral students, especially women of color, in edd programs. it also examines the effects of those experiences on their learning and wellness during and after the covid-19 pandemic. it is a call to action for those who have experienced some of the captured moments and for those who have not. i hope that by raising https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0002-5306-1360 lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 37 awareness of these liminal experiences, individuals can be more conscious of their interactions and can avoid perpetuating injustices. it is important to consider that edd programs focus on the practical application of research within educational realms unlike phd programs which focus on research, theory, and knowledge creation(shulman et al., 2006). each program is shaped by the faculty and institution they live in which can lead to a variety of different experiences for students. most literature regarding the experiences of doctoral students focuses on those in phd programs (shulman et al., 2006). one of the key differences between the two degrees besides their focus is that edd students have fewer graduation requirements depending on their programs (i.e. teaching a course, grant seeking, shorter programs of study, etc.). these differences in graduation requirements have the potential to make or break students as it requires much more than just time commitments. studies show that doctoral students have to find a strong balance between personal, professional, and graduate life in order to persist in obtaining a higher degree as shown in multiple studies (burgess et al., 2011; robinson, 2018; vera, 2012; willess, 2023). these differences can also create tension between the needs of edd students and those of phd students, as these demands can require different amounts of faculty support. some studies have even shown that edd students feel as if their work is undervalued or unimportant (baker et al., 2021; dorian, 2021; sims & barnett, 2015). while there is little research on the differences between students experiencing this tension, these studies show that there is a need for more research about the experiences of edd students and their trajectories within and after their programs. this article explores the perspective of an edd student and showcases how some of these tensions and experiences have shaped the learning and well-being of the student. historical context the covid-19 pandemic brought about many new ways to think about the ins and outs of education (apple et al., 2022; green, 2023; sarker et al., 2022). the pandemic forced those in education to change their modes of learning and to think creatively about new ways to engage, educate, and assess students and themselves due to isolation. however, it also brought limitations such as social and political boundaries, time management, limited resources and finances, and an increase in mental and physical health impairments (corbera et al., 2020; nerlino, 2022; sarah et al., 2021). edd students are often full-time teachers or teacher leaders in a k-12 school, as various programs allow students to earn a degree while teaching simultaneously. this detail is significant in the trajectory of doctoral students, as many are juggling both the demands of the program and the demands of their careers. these doctoral students are working in a profession that is currently undergoing a major crisis, with shortages of support, resources, and accessibility. even prior to the pandemic, educators have been facing neoliberal challenges that are hindering their desires to continue in the field (dunn, 2018). while neoliberal mandates are not new, the pandemic has now exacerbated the challenges previously faced by educators by pushing for more privatization of education through charter schools, dealing with low pay with extremely high inflation rates, subjective evaluations, and strict policies that limit curricular movement (apple et al., 2022; giroux, 2020). these ever-growing demands are moving teachers, especially teachers of color, to leave the field(marx et al., 2023). with this never-ending shortage, current teachers are given more responsibilities and are expected to fill educational debts resulting from both the pandemic and prior years. some educators may experience discriminatory practices because of their race, ethnicity and gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, and class, including microaggressions at work, extra responsibilities, and overt racism (baker et al., 2021; esposito & evans-winters, 2021; frank et al., 2021). these infringements impact all but especially marginalized edd students as they are experiencing ostracism in multiple spheres of their lives (work, school/universities, etc.) (marshall, 2024; wright & aniefuna, 2024). for some edd educators, living a double and sometimes triple life is the only way to survive in their respective workplaces and universities. the experiences of marginalization impact their mental and physical well-being according to njoku and marshall (2024). recent research addresses how the pandemic forced multiple changes in the way these graduate programs are run and their impact on students. marotta (2024) showed that beginning the edd program during the pandemic provided scholars with opportunities for critical reflection of the self and of experiences, informative and reflexive dialogue, awareness of context, and authentic relationships, which lead to a transformative learning experience. perhaps because students entered this experience during a time when circumstances were abnormal, their transformative experiences were more profound because of the context. the changes brought on by covid-19 (i.e.zoom meetings, accessibility, forced socialization, social boundaries) could have influenced how students engage in their programs normally. critical reflections by faculty shown in shaw et al. (2024) provide insight on how faculty used this moment to think about ways to change their programs to center students and their needs during the pandemic. shaw et al. (2024) provided the faculty perspective of the changes that they made, but there is no insight into how students fared with these changes. similarly, hawkins and martens (2024) show how students used their specific teaching content to assess how they navigated turbulence in their work while using improvement science methods during the pandemic. while the professors highlighted the positive reflections students had about the learning, the study itself does not reflect student individual experiences and how they navigated the balances of those turbulent moments and their multiple roles (student, teacher, parent, etc.). these articles highlight positive outcomes because of pandemic changes but fall short of examining how those changes impacted student experiences post-covid 19 and in the multiple roles that they must meet. consequently, the long-term effects of the covid19 pandemic are still being studied, as these short-term impacts could have lasting consequences. conceptual framework students, professors, and support staff all parties construct the meaning of the world and materials around them. this meaning influences how people interact, the power structures that form because of their interactions, and the accessibility to different resources that each member of the community has (egbert & sanden, 2020). critical socio-constructionism provides scholars with an ability to critique issues of the constructed knowledge of society (crotty, 2003). it offers a way to understand and dismantle existing systems of oppression and to build a more equitable society as we continue to learn and evolve. this autoethnography uses this epistemological view and the frameworks of strong black women (sbw) schema (parks & hayman, 2024) and liminality theory (turner, 1970) to critique how social interactions influence the lives and learning of edd students. the components of each of the breaking the silence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 38 frameworks, which can overlap, provide insight into the effects of the challenges that i have faced and how it has impacted my scholarly work, my perceptions of secondary institutions, and my interactions with those in the institution. strong black women (sbw) schema is rooted in the historical stereotypes of black women and their strength to persevere through social, economic, and cultural oppressions, beginning during slavery (abrams et al., 2014). identified by the factors of being independent, hardworking, hard achieving, emotionally contained, taking care of others, and overcoming adversity with grace, sbw schema characterizes itself as the ability to personify multiple forms of strength at all times (abrams et al., 2019; nelson et al., 2016). it can be seen as a coping mechanism that women of color personify in times of adversity to mask any emotions or insecurities. with the demands of being a full-time teacher and full-time edd student, women of color may wear this mask of strength in order to handle the stressors from both the workplace and institutions. liminality theory is a set of principles that underlie the ideas of being between but never fully within (beech, 2011). with anthropological roots, liminality theory discusses how individuals and groups are in a transitional state between two states or statuses (turner, 1967). in this in between space, individuals and groups are characterized by rituals or rites of passage and a feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity (turner, 1967). turner (1970) argued that liminality is a phase in which individuals and groups reflect their society in ways that ignite a change to their sense of self and status in society. hetland et al. (2001)conclude that because of this reflection, liminality disrupts one's original identity, leading to the construction of a new identity that encompasses new powers and roles. because all doctoral students must endure a series of rituals and rites of passage such as required doctoral classes, comprehensive exams, and multiple defenses (comprehensive, prospectus, and dissertation), they are constantly in liminal spaces that can often make them feel isolated and confused about their roles in the multiple societies that they engage. for marginalized populations, liminality theory has been seen in the historically transitional phases where their socioeconomic statuses have been influenced by multiple factors. these moments in history (i.e. slavery, women's suffrage, apartheid, covid-19 pandemic, etc.) have placed individuals into a space that has left them questioning who they are. cox (2015)argues that, while these populations have faced an egregious amount of oppression from hegemonic forces, it does not mean that they are forever oppressed. cox (2015) proclaims that these liminal spaces have made historically marginalized populations into shapeshifters where individuals can transform into new roles as they enter different spaces. similarly, edd students, especially those of color, have had to shapeshift in order to adjust to the academic circles that they encounter. this continual shapeshifting can also be seen as a mask that provides these students with an internal shelter from the inequitable conditions in certain academic spheres. methodology autoethnography is a unique methodology that combines the areas of society, self, and research. ellis and bochner (2006) first identified autoethnography as a blend of autobiographical writing and ethnographic inquiry that allows researchers to examine personal experiences within cultural contexts. since then, autoethnography has had multiple variations and has been applied to different disciplines. in educational research, those who have applied autoethnography discuss being driven to it because of its usefulness to apply a critical lens when examining and reflecting on their own educational experiences in different roles (ellis & adams, 2020; ellis et al., 2011; hughes, 2020). maseti (2018) posits that "it is an empowering and healing discourse that allows the emancipated to represent their own story as they have experienced it, using their own voice" (p. 345). lourens (2018) states an autoethnography is useful in uncovering deeply concealed oppressions. this autoethnography allows me to examine and describe my experiences and life critically as a student in an edd program using journal entries, voice notes, photographs, class notes, and personal conversations as ethnographic data. richardson and st. pierre (2005) argue that writing is a method of inquiry. it provides the researcher with the ability to learn about themselves and their topic and a partial, local, and historical knowledge that brings insight to a research topic. in reflecting about my experiences as an edd student, i sought personal data materials inquiry about my experiences and their significance. using transcribed voice memo notes and journal entries from the beginning two years of my program (2021-2023), i identified key moments that highlighted some of the most difficult challenges that i faced. using these data sources (five voice notes and six journal entries), i used both open coding and thematic coding to discuss the significance of the challenges and their impact. lastly, using a crystallization process (ellingson, 2009) in which i compared the findings from other studies of edd students and their experiences to discuss the implications of how programs and the way they are run can influence learning, wellbeing, and trajectory of students. captured moments to present the experiences that many edd students face, one must consider the roles that they are placed in and their impacts. by portraying my personal experiences and citing those of others, we enable readers to capture moments but may never get to express the residual effects of them. by sharing four pivotal moments as an edd student, i provide insight into the residual effects that these moments had on my personal journey and illuminate that these moments may not have only happened to me. captured moment #1-"you won't have a life these next three years so be prepared to make sacrifices"; voice note #3july 1post first summer semester this summer semester [summer 2021] was wild. i don't even know how i got here. it was interesting to meet my colleagues via zoom, but i honestly am unsure about many of them. with 10 of us in this cohort, i don't see how some of us, myself included, got in. while we're a unique bunch, i wonder if [name omitted] was trying to fill a quota. there are 8 people of color and 2 white folks including [name omitted] all with diverse backgrounds and specialties how did they choose to put us together? while i'm really happy to see eight women of color and [name omitted], i still struggled to be fully comfortable. there is something about this space. it doesn't feel like it use to in undergrad or any of my previous programs. really now that i think about it, it wasn't until [name omitted] reached out to me to ask me if dr. x had asked me to speak with her privately that i felt seen by someone other than [name omitted]. she told me that she was asked to stay attentive during classes. at the time i didn't think anything of it as i was seeking a way to keep myself afloat in those 29 days filled with working with [name omitted]'s summer camp schedule, 200 pages a night of reading, and written reflections. but thinking lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 39 about it now, i feel weird. i found her trust in me unusual. i find myself making excuses for dr. x but i don’t want to invalidate [x]'s experiences. professor x was more aggressive toward the end of the semester. maybe it was because of her family's current status or because her colleague had changed universities days before she was due to teach us class #2. i don't know but i also can't really focus on that right now. if summer was this intense, how am i going to manage this when work starts again? and when the kids have afterschool sports? i need to find more time and tools to help me because this month went by quickly. a blur really but now i'm tasked with having to find a committee while still trying to grasp what they hell i just learned in 29 days. one of the most important components of being a student is not only the interactions with professors but the feedback and support that students receive from faculty (choi et al., 2023; harris, 2022). edd students are indirectly pressured to consider what they want to study, which scholars are linked to their areas of interests for study, and who they believe can best support them early in their program. the irony of how much this was spoken about during our initial summer classes is not lost on me. as reflected above, being uncomfortable was common in these first few weeks of class. from having to meet strangers for the first time in an online setting to the many comments or questions that were made that often made me feel like an outsider, being uncomfortable and not belonging became staple feelings in this first semester. other pressures, for example, having one semester of doctoral classes down or having never stepped foot onto campus and being expected to find a chair and two members who would guide me in this dissertation process also contributed to these feelings of isolation, abandonment, and stress. by randomly emailing professors and staff to build by dissertation committee, i began what would become a three-semester trek. discouraged after countless unanswered introductory emails and panicky conversations with my advisor, i slowly withdrew. for every step i took toward discontinuing in that fall semester, i was given a push back through one of my classes or conversations. whether it was a new theory, methodology, or another false promised filled conversation from professors within the program, i talked myself into continuing. the work and false promises of a better tomorrow kept me in place by temporarily blinding me to compliance. because of the complicated processes and social contexts that edd students must endure in a limited amount of time, feelings of isolation can arise (choi et al., 2023). these feelings of isolation can also contribute to the demotivation of students, especially women of color, who often stay silent in uncomfortable spaces (abrams et al., 2019). in moments where edd students have to adjust to new spaces, silence is often interpreted as misunderstanding of content, unpreparedness, being unprepared, or even, in some extreme cases, as people who do not care (ampaw & jaeger, 2012; blockett et al., 2016). this was evident by what my colleagues shared about perceived inattentiveness; my black and brown colleagues were called upon by professors and asked interrogation style questions about the content in response to their silence. reflecting on this summer, some were not even given the same type of processing time as others. in reviewing the realities, it is difficult for people of color in these predominantly white led spaces to simply state what they are thinking without feeling like an imposter and/or being seen as overly aggressive. for women of color, triple consciousness can lead women to battling inner thoughts of trying to say what they want to say, seeing themselves through the eyes of our colleagues, and choosing the right ways to present themselves based on their environment and context. unfortunately, this is a constant internal battle we face that is frankly exhausting and disgraceful, especially in spaces where we are supposed to be feeling the safest and understood as much as possible. captured moment #2 family vs. institutionvoice note september 23rd, 2021 a 4 pm tumbling class on tuesday, a 5 o'clock baseball drop offno wifi at the park, a conversation about longer summers away with her dad, a reading theory class at 4:30 on wednesdays which meant leaving work right at the last bell to drive 45 minutes downtown to campus. coming home at 7:30 to recap your child's day while thinking about the paper that's due at 11:59 pm the following day. you've outlined and have all the resources but you teach and have to be up by 4:45 am to ensure tomorrow's class materials are prepped and ready. exhausted is not even the word. it just never ends. moving from the fall 2021 semester into the spring semester of 2022, i kept my head afloat. working until countless hours of the night and into the next day, using speechify to listen to articles and book chapters, cheering my nephew's first grand slam, and teaching my daughter the ways to navigate chapter books at bedtime was my daily routine, all the while teaching 117 high school students in hybrid mode. learning to live for the academy had become my daily routine. while i loved learning and enjoyed the lively discussions in all the academic spaces, i slowly began to feel the exhaustion pouring out of my body. most importantly, i noticed the slow rise of the guilt that ate me up every time i was behind a computer screen at home. while i tried as much as i could to be present, the more i successfully gave one aspect of my life full attention, another suffered. while the warning came in 2021, i foolishly thought that i could handle it all if i had the right support. i pre-planned doing schoolwork together, planned to only do work at work, and made sure everything went onto the calendar. despite all my efforts, i was never fully immersed in one thing. it was a series of merging worlds at every point. even after finding my committee chair and one member in the same semester, i still missed games and practices. remembering that i always had to put the academy first. despite compensating with thoughts such as "i'm doing this for her wellbeing" and "it's only three years" or "i'm doing it while she's young", the guilt fortified. this guilt of having to rely on my family members to feed this academic dream still resides in me. doctoral students who are parents face endless forms of guilt (corbera et al., 2020). the pandemic threw this guilt into a completely new realm, as many parents, especially mothers, were required to teach and support their own children, the children of others, and themselves in new spaces unfamiliar to them (wright & aniefuna, 2024). because of the multiple roles that doctoral students play, never being able to give one thing their full attention leads to feelings of inadequacy. as a single mother with a supportive community, i constantly lived in these cycles of guilt that i was forced to mask in various spaces. i could never take a break or complain. i had signed up to live for the academy. burn-out was making its way to me like a silent robber in the dark. captured moment # 3work vs. classwork-"try to think about what you can do instead of what's holding you back; just work around it"voice memo post-spring 2022 i'm panicking. again. i'm panicking. i literally have 4 months to find a third committee member and 6 months before comps. breaking the silence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 40 no committee= no comps. the longer i'm here, the more i pay. the more my family pays. summer is fast approaching. these professors i've emailed have yet again not responded. [name omitted]'s word's "they work for you" make me laugh out loud. they work for me but despite my tuition being paid (thanks to daddy biden), they don't even answer their emails. not even as a way to politely decline me. entering my second year of this edd program, i was at an ultimate low. with comprehensive exams, a rite of passage, quickly approaching, i lived in a constant state of panic. despite my advisor telling me to "work around it", there was no way i could. how could i defend comps without a full committee? often, with edd students working in multiple roles and having a smaller program of study, they can be placed in boxes that dismiss their concerns. they can be smoothed over with comments like the one above or ultimately ignored. while this is also seen in some phd programs (choi et al., 2023; wallaert, 2022), these issues are problematic in edd programs, as students are expected to finish their programs at a much faster pace than others. this faster pace of the program and its requirements create additional stressors on students who enter these programs hoping to be thoroughly supported. sitting in the first day of summer classes, i remember jostling with the idea of quitting the program with stronger feelings than before, all the while secretly fearing for this new professor for my second summer course. paradoxically, it would be this professor who would end up becoming my saving grace. in this summer class, i finally felt both seen and heard. the irony that she was not part of this program’s faculty, but still a well-known professor in the building was not lost on me. this professor became the final member of my committee, but much more than that over the months that followed. she became my mentor and academic mother who guided me with love and nurture, yet also gave wise criticism that influenced how i moved through the rest of this program. with a secured third member, i entered the fall semester ready to take comprehensive exams and eventually falling back in love with school. authentic and meaningful mentoring has always been a vital part of a student's success (blockett et al., 2016; fournillier & edwards, 2020). the importance of mentorship in edd programs is tenfold as students are on a tighter timeline and require more on demand support than some other students. captured moment # 4 -"have you ever thought about actually grieving the process instead of harboring anger?" -endless hives spring of 2022. i finally had my committee set after an endless struggle of unanswered emails and failed attempts at meetings. i had crossed the first threshold successfully. comps were passed and completed. while the loom of deadlines on an article paper, chapters one through three of my pre-emptive study being re-envisioned, and endless meetings, on march 12, exactly 13 days before my 31st birthday, my body rebelled. my back and arms slowly developed hives which according to doctors had no real "trigger". i had not come into contact with any of my normal allergens, those which had doubled since starting my program, and had been taking my daily doses of loratadine. what began as small hives turned in 30 welts that ranged from my arms to the bottom of my feet. contact dermatitis is what the doctor said prescribing me 3 rounds of prednisone that skyrocketed my blood sugar levels. when it happened again only 3 months later, the doctor seemed to have a change of diagnosis. "i don't know what this could be if all your allergy testing has come backhives could come from anything including stress" a laugh slipped from me at that very moment. in those three months, my committee chair had just resigned from her position, my prospectus was nowhere near complete nor was it something that i felt passionate to do any more, my student loans were racking up, my uncle had been diagnosed and died of cancer all within a two month span, and half of the administration at my school was changing come the fall. stressed was an understatement. the covid-19 pandemic has brought a rise in stressors for all. with a rise in inflation, political divisions that impact all spheres of life, and educational demands, edd students' stressors are unique in that they are never ending. they are like an impending cloud with chances of dropping rain at any moment. the physical and mental ails of doctoral students, especially those of women of color, have been a long-documented area (evans, 2007; hopwood & paulson, 2012; parks & hayman, 2024). in recent years, there have been multiple authors who have shown light on the influence of the pandemic on the self-care of black and brown doctors (geary et al., 2023; njoku & marshall, 2024). these studies have shown that because of the stresses from the academy, the wellbeing of this population has resulted in an increase of anxiety, physical ailments, and even death (parks & hayman, 2024) . while these studies highlighted women who have already completed doctoral programs, it provides insight into how the academy can influence doctoral students. if the professors are suffering, the students cannot be too far behind as they chase their own dreams. with the increase in the number of graduate students, especially black and brown women, suffering from both physical and mental ails from the stress and endless pressures that stem from interactions and experiences similar to those described above, why has there not been any call to action? why have measures no been taken to better support these graduate students have a proper work, life, and school balance that allows them to progress without the price tag of wearing out their bodies or burning out their minds? discussion & implications these four critical events in my course of study are not unique to me. since the covid-19 pandemic, teachers and doctoral students have had a rise in stress levels, obligations, and debt (sarah et al., 2021). these events pushed my boundaries and tested my strength and while i am stronger and more aware, at what cost? i am still wondering whether i am here or there, despite successfully completing some rites of passage and despite pushing forward when the world felt as if it were crumbling. i always wore a mask that showed the world a brave face. after reflecting on conversations with friends and colleagues and reviewing the outcomes of numerous experiences over the past three years, it’s clear that these experiences are all too common among edd students as reflected in much sbw literature(abrams et al., 2019; nelson et al., 2016). their lives are significantly influenced by the programs they participate in, the professors they interact with, and the schools where they work. ruminating on my progression through these captured moments, i am no longer the same scholar i started this program as. i am more skeptical of the academy, i am more hesitant to try new things, and i have plateaued in this program. what happens when the learning stops? while it's easy to tell a doctoral student that they should just do it, it's difficult when there is lack of support, severe isolation, and few resources that may be tailored to their needs. while the precise details of the circumstances could only be fully understood if a movie or tv show showed the outside world, lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 41 these captured moments and their accompanying statements provide an understanding of the need to improve the experiences of edd students. a student's decision to enter academic spaces may come with a cost to themselves, their families, their jobs, and/or all of other multiplicities of which they are part of. for some the cost far outweighs the benefits and yet some, like myself, continue to seek these spaces not only for the financial benefit but also for the emotional, social, and physical benefits that allow for the mentality of "i am here so others can sit at the table too". the academic world is a kaleidoscope dream for those of us who live in this solitary confinement. we are intrigued by the beauty that it has as we gaze upon its intricate patterns that dare us to dream and create. its euphoric state plays coy with our emotions tricking us into us to continuing to dream so that we can, at some point, enjoy it. yet its complexity keeps us from fully understanding its functionality and purpose in our world. when we identify one pattern, it quickly changes direction, leaving us in a state of both confusion and isolation. despite this iterative cycle of trial and error, we refuse to give up. we are tied to the belief that education is elevation and that without it we perpetuate cycles of injustice, complacency, and instability. so how do we achieve both elevation and well-being? how can one be just as equal to the other so that both are valued in the progression of all students, especially historically marginalized edd students? we must begin with ourselves. one of the most important ways in which edd programs can better support their students is through their communications and interactions. both students and professors must ask themselves: am i practicing what i am preaching? what is the greatest good i can do? by providing reflective thoughts and opportunities, practitioners, both professors and students, can mediate through difficult situations that are stressful. communication between students and professors is key in their development(ali et al., 2016; overall et al., 2011; terry & ghosh, 2015). this communication must not only be critical, but it must be honest and truthful. by having truthful, non-dismissive conversations, students can accurately see their trajectories in programs and can plan effectively in how they proceed in their programs. students, much like professors, need opportunities to communicate their progress and expectations in the same manner in which some program directors share their expectations. this can happen in a variety of ways including but not limited to designated appointment times on a bi-weekly to monthly basis for students and their chairs to meet, mentoring programs between edd students who have graduated or are working in post-doctorate roles, or even designated office hours strictly for graduate students with ample time (not just a 15-minute window). ultimately, many doctoral students are paying for an education that is not paying them in ways that allow them to grow in the profession. students need to also be given opportunities to share their feedback in more than just surveys and councils with no results or community share-outs about what they are facing. students need to be able to speak out without fear of retaliation or being overlooked. end of course evaluations are simply not enough. students should see the results and outcomes of their voices being heard. how can they see change if there is no transparency? by providing the right contexts for constructive conversations, university programs can build strong educational societies that are filled with strong mentorships and true progression for all, not just those bringing the university money. self-care is not a privilegeit is a right. doctoral students should not have to choose between taking care of themselves or doing a paper. too often, students are neglecting their health in order to make sure they get all the things they need in. this neglect leads to burn-out, more physical ailments, and, in some severe cases, death (geary et al., 2023). the academy needs to shape programs in ways that are feasible for practitioners to fully take care of themselves while also earning a degree. this begins with authentic check-ins, building stronger relationships between students and staff, and giving students the opportunities to build realistic schedules in their program of study. if teachers are expected to be flexible in k-12 education after the pandemic, why are professors also not expected to be flexible? as i move into the next stage, i try to seek a balance between understanding that "the university is not my home" (maseti, 2018) and that i pay for the university to help me become more than i could i have ever imagined. it is time for us to recognize that while the covid-19 pandemic has brought about many good things, it also has had negative effects. by considering this call to action, members of educational fields can create effective changes or restructure their programs to ensure that students are felt, seen, and heard despite the long and arduous process. as we take our next steps in our journeys, let us remember that hooks (2000) has always told us that the essence of love starts with communication. references abrams, j. a., hill, a., & maxwell, m. 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(2023). partial, (in)authentic, and masked: an exploration of power in doctoral students’ identity development as scholars through collaborative autoethnography. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0956-y https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684314541418 https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966x.2020.1855473 breaking the silence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 42 international journal of qualitative studies in education, 36(6), 1056– 1072. colpitts, b. d., usick, b. l., & eaton, s. e. (2020). doctoral student reflections of blended learning before and during covid-19. journal of contemporary education theory & research (jcetr), 4(2), 3–11. corbera, e., anguelovski, i., honey-rosés, j., & ruiz-mallén, i. (2020). academia in the time of covid-19: towards an ethics of care. planning theory & practice, 21(2), 191–199. cox, a. m. (2015). shapeshifters: black girls and the choreography of citizenship. duke university press. crotty, m. (2003). the foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process. sage publications. donohue, w. j., lee, a. s.-j., simpson, s., & vacek, k. (2021). impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on doctoral students’ thesis/dissertation progress. international journal of doctoral studies, 16, 533. dorian, e. (2021). an edd in a phd world developing a scholarly identity in a world that may not always recognize you as legitimate. in e. templeton, b. h. love, & o. johnson (eds.), elevating marginalized voices in academe : lessons for a new generation of scholars (pp. 110-114). taylor & francis group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docid=6460296 dunn, a. h. (2018). leaving a profession after it's left you: teachers' public resignation letters as resistance amidst neoliberalism. teachers college record, 120(9). egbert, j., & sanden, s. (2020). foundations of education research: understanding theoretical components (2nd ed.). routledge. ellingson, l. l. (2009). introduction to crystallization. in engaging in crystallization in qualitative research: an introduction (pp. 1-28). sage publications, inc. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412991476 ellis, c., & adams, t. e. (2020). practicing autoethnography and living the autoethnographic life. in p. leavy (ed.), the oxford handbook of qualitative research. oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.21 ellis, c., adams, t. e., & bochner, a. p. (2011). autoethnography: an overview. historical social research / historische sozialforschung, 36(4 (138)), 273–290. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23032294 ellis, c. s., & bochner, a. p. (2006). analyzing analytic autoethnography:an autopsy. journal of contemporary ethnography, 35(4), 429–449. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241606286979 esposito, j., & evans-winters, v. e. (2021). introduction to intersectional qualitative research (1st ed.). sage publications, inc. evans, s. y. (2007). black women in the ivory tower, 1850-1954: an intellectual history. university press of florida. fournillier, j. b., & edwards, e. (2020). liminal pedagogy at the graduate level: reflections on the doctoral advisement process in a neoliberal university context. the journal of negro education, 89(4), 459–470. frank, t. j., powell, m. g., view, j. l., lee, c., bradley, j. a., & williams, a. (2021). exploring racialized factors to understand why black mathematics teachers consider leaving the profession. educational researcher, 50(6), 381–391. geary, m. r., shortway, k. m., marks, d. r., & block-lerner, j. (2023). psychology doctoral students’ self-care during the covid-19 pandemic: relationships among satisfaction with life, stress levels, and selfcompassion. training and education in professional psychology, 17(4), 323–330. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000444 giroux, h. (2020). the covid-19 pandemic is exposing the plague of neoliberalism. truthout. green, s. l. (2023). pandemic pedagogy: snapshots from a year of covidimpacted teaching in three artifacts. performance matters, 8(2), 123– 131. https://doi.org/10.7202/1099886ar harris, j. k. f. (2022). agency, authenticity, and resiliency: understanding science teacher learning experiences to build better systems of support (publication number 29064585) [edd, northeastern university]. united states. http://tricountycc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissert ations-theses/agency-authenticity-resiliencyunderstanding/docview/2663415935/se-2?accountid=14399 hawkins, j., & martens, m. (2024). a model for program improvement using reflections by edd scholars about adaptation during a pandemic time. impacting education, 9(1), 39–47. hetland, g., granum, b., groeng, e. c., & lovik, m. (2001). leptin does not influence the ige response to ovalbumin in mice. clin immunol, 101(1), 8–11. https://doi.org/10.1006/clim.2001.5087 hopwood, n., & paulson, j. (2012). bodies in narratives of doctoral students' learning and experience. studies in higher education, 37(6), 667–681. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.537320 hughes, s. (2020). my skin is unqualified: an autoethnography of black scholar-activism for predominantly white education. international journal of qualitative studies in education (qse), 33(2), 151–165. janta, h., lugosi, p., & brown, l. (2014). coping with loneliness: a netnographic study of doctoral students. journal of further and higher education, 38(4), 553–571. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2012.726972 kohun, f., & ali, a. (2005). isolation feelings in doctoral programs: a case study. issues in information systems, vi (1), 379, 385. lourens, h. (2018). driving in unheard silence: disability and the politics of shutting up. j health psychol, 23(4), 567–576. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105316643856 lovitts, b. e. (2001). leaving the ivory tower: the causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. rowman & littlefield publishers. marotta, j. a. (2024). transformative learning and professional advancement during an edd program. impacting education, 9(1), 3–11. marshall, d. (2024). bwt codes: a study of activist black women teachers and their wellness [dissertation, georgia state university]. scholarworks @ georgia state university. marx, s., lavigne, a. l., braden, s., hawkman, a., andersen, j., gailey, s., geddes, g., jones, i., si, s., & washburn, k. (2023). “i didn’t quit. the system quit me.” examining why teachers of color leave teaching. international journal of leadership in education, 1–24. maseti, t. (2018). the university is not your home: lived experiences of a black woman in academia. south african journal of psychology, 48(3), 343–350. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081246318792820 nelson, t., cardemil, e. v., & adeoye, c. t. (2016). rethinking strength: black women’s perceptions of the 'strong black woman' role. psychology of women quarterly, 40(4), 551–563. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684316646716 nerlino, e. (2022). navigating 'the chaos': teacher considerations while adapting curriculum and instruction during the covid-19 pandemic. qualitative research journal, 22(4), 433–447. njoku, n. r., & marshall, d. (2024). ring the alarm: a call to action for black women to address wellness in the academy. diverse education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15661985/ring-thealarm-a-call-to-action-for-black-women-to-address-wellness-in-theacademy overall, n., deane, k., & peterson, e. (2011). promoting doctoral students’ research self-efficacy: combining academic guidance with autonomy support. higher education research and development, 30, 791–805. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.535508 parks, a., & hayman, l. (2024). unveiling the strong black woman schema— evolution and impact: a systematic review. clinical nursing research, 33(5), 395–404. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10547738241234425 richardson, l., & st. pierre, e. a. (2005). writing: a method of inquiry. in n. k. denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 959-978). sage publications ltd. robinson, c. (2018). the landscape of professional doctorate provision in english higher education institutions: inconsistencies, tensions and unsustainability. london review of education, 16(1), 90–103. sarah, k., oceane, s., emily, f., & carole, f. (2021). learning from lockdown assessing the positive and negative experiences, and coping strategies of researchers during the covid-19 pandemic. appl anim behav sci, 236, 105269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105269 sarker, m. f. h., tamal, m. a., khan, n. a., islam, m. k., akber, m. f., & khan, s. (2022). students’ experiences of e-learning practices during covid-19: a qualitative study. international journal of emerging technologies in learning (ijet), 17(14), 157–171. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v17i14.30393 shaw, l. f., paré-blagoev, j., & quaynor, l. (2024). reimagining the edd in a time when the future of public schooling is at stake. impacting education, 9(1), 16–22. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gsu/detail.action?docid=6460296 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.4135/9781412991476 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.21 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23032294 https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241606286979 https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000444 https://doi.org/10.7202/1099886ar http://tricountycc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/agency-authenticity-resiliency-understanding/docview/2663415935/se-2?accountid=14399 http://tricountycc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/agency-authenticity-resiliency-understanding/docview/2663415935/se-2?accountid=14399 http://tricountycc.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/agency-authenticity-resiliency-understanding/docview/2663415935/se-2?accountid=14399 https://doi.org/10.1006/clim.2001.5087 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.537320 https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2012.726972 https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105316643856 https://doi.org/10.1177/0081246318792820 https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684316646716 https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15661985/ring-the-alarm-a-call-to-action-for-black-women-to-address-wellness-in-the-academy https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15661985/ring-the-alarm-a-call-to-action-for-black-women-to-address-wellness-in-the-academy https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15661985/ring-the-alarm-a-call-to-action-for-black-women-to-address-wellness-in-the-academy https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.535508 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10547738241234425 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105269 https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v17i14.30393 lopez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.491 43 shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., bueschel, a. c., & garabedian, k. j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. sideropoulos, v., midouhas, e., kokosi, t., brinkert, j., wong, k. k.-y., & kambouri, m. a. (2022). the effects of cumulative stressful educational events on the mental health of doctoral students during the covid-19 pandemic. ucl open environment, 4. sims, h., & barnett, c. (2015). devalued, misunderstood, and marginalized: why nontraditional students’ experiences should be included in the diversity discourse. online journal for workforce education and development, 8(1), 2. smith, a. r., & douthit, k. z. (2020). hope within the ivory tower: exploring the experiences, perceptions, and coping strategies used by women of color in counselor education doctoral programs at pwis [dissertation, university of rochester]. rochester, ny. sverdlik, a., hall, n. c., & vallerand, r. j. (2023). doctoral students and covid19: exploring challenges, academic progress, and well-being. educational psychology, 43(5), 545–560. terry, t., & ghosh, r. (2015). mentoring from different social spheres: how can multiple mentors help in doctoral student success in ed.d programs? mentoring & tutoring: partnership in learning, 23(3), 187–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2015.1072396 turner, v. w. (1967). the forest of symbols: aspects of ndembu ritual. cornell university press. turner, v. w. (1970). the ritual process: structure and anti-structure. routledge & kegan paul. van wingerden, c. (2024). facing student attrition among doctoral students in education: isolation, peer belonging, and reimagining the lms. vera, e. b. (2012). the edd in educational leadership and administration: the students' and alumni's experiences. wallaert, k. a. (2022). if these ivory tower walls could talk: examining the experiences of phd. students in education [dissertation, georgia state university]. atlanta, ga. willess, b. (2023). a mixed methods design exploring factors and experiences of edd graduates and time to degree california state university]. san bernadino, ca. wright, s., & aniefuna, m. (2024). how trauma impacts the well-being of black educators https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-01-31-how-traumaimpacts-the-well-being-of-black-womeneducators#:~:text=this%20ubiquitous%20influence%20ultimately%20dic tates,which%20are%20responses%20to%20trauma. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2015.1072396 https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-01-31-how-trauma-impacts-the-well-being-of-black-women-educators#:~:text=this%20ubiquitous%20influence%20ultimately%20dictates,which%20are%20responses%20to%20trauma https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-01-31-how-trauma-impacts-the-well-being-of-black-women-educators#:~:text=this%20ubiquitous%20influence%20ultimately%20dictates,which%20are%20responses%20to%20trauma https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-01-31-how-trauma-impacts-the-well-being-of-black-women-educators#:~:text=this%20ubiquitous%20influence%20ultimately%20dictates,which%20are%20responses%20to%20trauma https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-01-31-how-trauma-impacts-the-well-being-of-black-women-educators#:~:text=this%20ubiquitous%20influence%20ultimately%20dictates,which%20are%20responses%20to%20trauma dibett lopez georgia state university historical context conceptual framework methodology captured moments captured moment #1-"you won't have a life these next three years so be prepared to make sacrifices"; voice note #3july 1post first summer semester captured moment #2 family vs. institutionvoice note september 23rd, 2021 captured moment # 3work vs. classwork-"try to think about what you can do instead of what's holding you back; just work around it"voice memo post-spring 2022 captured moment # 4 -"have you ever thought about actually grieving the process instead of harboring anger?" -endless hives discussion & implications references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/i.e. 2025.565 erratum to: brown, s., & proctor, k. (2025). dangerous dissertations: alternative approaches to dissertation inquiry. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 10(3), 113–122. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2025.494 suha tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu rhonda jeffries university of south carolina rjeffries@sc.edu abstract the reference list in brown, s. & proctor, k. (2025). dangerous dissertations: alternative approaches to dissertation inquiry. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 10(3), 113–122. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2025.494 contained redacted citations. the pdf of the article is correct. this error occurred during the journal editing phase. the unredacted reference list is the body of this erratum. allen, a. (2014). 62 – politics. in l. lawlor & j. nale (eds.), the cambridge foucault lexicon (pp. 364-369). cambridge university press. andrews, r., & grogan, m. (2005, spring). form should follow function: removing the edd dissertation from the phd straight jacket. ucea review, 46(2), 10–13. bacchi, c. (2009). analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be? pearson education. bacchi, c. & goodwin, s. (2016). poststructural policy analysis. palgrave pivot. brown, s. p. (2017). doing, undoing, and redoing collegiate athletics: conceptual tales of marginality and mattering [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=21701 burry, r., & nava eggett, k. (hosts). (2021–2023). through our lens [audio podcast]. apple. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-ourlens/id1570159943 burry, r. and nava eggett, k.a. (2022). leveraging instructional technology and asset-based pedagogy for equitable representations in technological opportunities. [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/listing.aspx?id=38146 buss, r., zambo, r., zambo, d., & r. williams, t. (2014). developing researching professionals in an edd program: from learners and leaders to scholarly and influential practitioners. higher education, skills and work-based learning, 4(2), 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl11-2013-0022 butler, j. (1990/2006). gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. routledge. butler, j. (1993). bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of "sex". routledge. butler, j. (2004). undoing gender. routledge. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2024, june 19). the cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework duke, n. k., & beck, s. w. (1999). education should consider alternative formats for the dissertation. educational researcher, 28(3), 31–36. foucault, m. (1975/1995). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (2nd ed). vintage. foucault, m. (1980a). two lectures. in g. gordon (ed.), power/knowledge: selected interviews & other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 78-108). vintage. foucault, m, (1980b). truth and power. in g. gordon (ed.), power/knowledge: selected interviews & other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 109-133). vintage. foucault, m. (1984). on the genealogy of ethics: an overview of work in progress. in p. rabinow (ed.). the foucault reader (pp. 340-372). pantheon books. (original work published 1982, 1983) foucault, m. (1984/1997). the ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. in p. rabinow (ed.), michel foucault: ethics, subjectivity, and truth (pp. 281-301). the new press. (reprinted from concordia: revista internacional de filosophia 6, pp. 96-116, 1984) foucault, m. (2001). fearless speech (j. pearson, ed.). semiotext(e). jackson, a. y., & mazzei, l. a. (2012). thinking with theory in qualitative research: viewing data across multiple perspectives. routledge. ma, v. w., dana, n. f., adams, a., & kennedy, b. l. (2018). understanding the problem of practice: an analysis of professional practice edd dissertations. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3, 13–22. martin, r. (1988). truth, power, self: an interview with foucault. in martin et al. (eds.), technologies of self (pp. 9-15). university of massachusetts press. mclaren, m. a. (2002). feminism, foucault, and embodied subjectivity. state university of new york press. miller, v., & brown, s. (2024). alternative formats: thinking differently about dissertations in practice and faculty dissertation mentoring. in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 205-221). myers education press. perry, j. a. (2024). the history of the dip: dissertation in what? in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 922). myers education press. proctor, k. (2024). problematizing institutional effectiveness: a foucauldian poststructural policy analysis [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29506022.v1 shears, l. (2022). the teaching and practice of the “yoga body”: a poststructural, queercrip analysis of yoga education [doctoral https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2025.494 https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=21701 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-our-lens/id1570159943 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/through-our-lens/id1570159943 https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/listing.aspx?id=38146 https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-11-2013-0022 https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-11-2013-0022 https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29506022.v1 tamim and jeffries impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.565 2 dissertation, appalachian state university]. nc digital online collection of knowledge and scholarship (nc docks). https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=38178 spivak, g. c. (1993). outside in the teaching machine. routledge. thomas, j. r., nelson, j. k., & magill, r. a. (1986). a case for an alternative format for the thesis/dissertation. quest, 38(2), 116–124. https://doiorg.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1080/00336297.1986.10483846 van maanen, j. (2011). tales of the field: on writing ethnography (2nd ed.). university of chicago press. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/listing.aspx?styp=ti&id=38178 https://doiorg.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1080/00336297.1986.10483846 suha tamim university of south carolina rhonda jeffries university of south carolina impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 90 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.484 nothing new under the sun: generative ai and educator anxiety over academic dishonesty nicholas r. werse baylor university nick_werse@baylor.edu joshua caleb smith baylor university joshua_smith4@baylor.edu abstract in this article, the authors explore the concerns surrounding academic dishonesty related to generative artificial intelligence (gai). the authors argue that while there are valid worries about students using gai in ways the displace student work, these anxieties are not new and have been observed with previous disruptive technologies such as the internet. by recontextualizing this anxiety within a broader historical perspective, educators can develop strategies to mitigate academic dishonesty while leveraging the benefits of gai integration in education. drawing upon lessons learned from addressing plagiarism caused by paper mill usage, the authors suggest incorporating multimodal assessments as an effective strategy for ensuring authentic representation of student learning outcomes at all levels of academia but particularly at doctoral level dissertations where oral defenses play a crucial role in evaluating expertise. keywords academic dishonesty, generative artificial intelligence (gai), disruptive technologies, internet plagiarism, multimodal assessment following the 2022 release of the first generative artificial intelligence model to capture widespread public interest, chatgpt, editorials quickly filled with seemingly countless educators and education analysts worrying about its potential for academic dishonesty. some even proclaimed the end of the college essay as a means of assessment (e.g., heilweil, 2022; marche, 2022; rosenblatt, 2022; shrivastava, 2022; stone, 2022). the concern reached such levels that some school districts and universities banned the technology on their campuses—even if just temporarily (roseblatt, 2023; yao & chan, 2023). as the initial shock of generative artificial intelligence’s (gai) capabilities wore off and researchers began cataloging this technology’s benefits for students (bedington et al., 2024; kohnke et al., 2023), concerns about academic dishonesty remained. while the use of gai like chatgpt in higher education has a myriad of potential ethical concerns (e.g., labor exploitation, damage to the environment, data privacy issues, biases in training data sets, potential copyright violations, see the essays in holmes & porayska-pomsta, 2022), its potential for academic dishonesty has received disproportionate attention. in response to this persistent anxiety, in this article, we explore the underlying concerns about academic dishonesty resulting from the use of gai, recontextualizing them as part of a larger pattern of educator responses to technologies that can potentially redefine existing systems and industries known as disruptive technologies (christensen et al., 2018). we argue that while there are valid concerns about students using gai to submit work that does not reflect their knowledge or learning, these concerns echo those raised by educators for previous disruptive technologies, pointing specifically at the advent of the internet. reframing this anxiety does not eliminate concerns about potential academic dishonesty, it qualifiedly affirms their legitimacy, but it also emphasizes that they are surmountable. and it points to how the disruption wrought by gai technologies, like the disruption caused by the internet, will rekindle deeper conversations about how texts are created and engaged. we also identify the ways in which a well-established practice can address the specific worries of graduate faculty working with doctoral students who are writing dissertations or capstone theses. the following argument unfolds in three steps. first, we examine the anxiety that often emerges following the introduction of a new disruptive technology, arguing that while people in many industries face artificial intelligence (ai)-related anxiety over job replacement, educators experience a unique anxiety about complete student-displacing uses of gai (a specific type of ai) that amount to academic dishonesty. second, we then argue that these concerns are not new by drawing parallels with the concerns of educators over the rise of another disruptive technology: the internet. we argue, furthermore, that while educator concerns that the internet could increase academic dishonesty were valid, a deeper conversation emerged about how internet use changed how users engage texts and the process of text production. third, we argue that while gai is https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6374-3739 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1797-857x werse & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.484 91 a new technology, the concern that students submit work that is not reflective of their knowledge or learning has a long tradition in education and, as such, educators have already developed several tools and strategies to mitigate it. while many of these insights could apply to writers at any level, we conclude by drawing implications specifically for graduate faculty who rely heavily upon dissertations and theses as a means of assessing student expertise. ai and the educator's anxiety in many respects, gai is one of the more substantive disruptive technologies in the last two decades because of its ability to create new markets and redefine existing ones. the term disruptive technology (now more commonly referred to as disruptive innovation) has taken on a wide range of definitions and criteria in business theory since its initial use in 1995 (bower & christensen, 1995). however, broadly speaking, a disruptive technology is technology that holds the potential to redefine (or disrupt) existing markets and industries (christensen et al., 2018). gai is particularly disruptive due to its rate of adoption, for which it is helpful to refer to rogers’s (1962) theory of the diffusion of innovation. part of rogers’s theory identifies five successive categories or groups who adopt a new technology or innovation: innovators (2.5% of users), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%), and laggards (16%). if one considers faculty and students separately, as what rogers (1962) would call social systems, the diffusion of gai between the two groups is substantially different, though both show rapid adoption. in other words, as coffey (2024) put it in a recent inside higher ed article, “students continue to run laps around faculty when it comes to using generative artificial intelligence” (para. 1). coffey’s (2024) conclusion draws on her comparison of separate studies of each group. a pearson (2024) study of 800 nationally representative students in the spring of 2024 found that 56% of them had used gai to increase productivity and 51% had used it to get better grades (para. 4). by comparison, ruediger et al. (2024) conducted a national survey of faculty and, while 72% of faculty had used gai at least once for an instructional purpose, only 32% had some degree of confidence about how to use gai as instructors. these data show how faculty are experimenting with gai, but that experimentation does not equate to confidence to adopt it into their practice. comparing students to faculty using rogers’s (1962) categories, then reveals that the students are already into the latter majority category while faculty are a step behind (approximately 20%) in the early majority stage—and all this less than 2 years after gai first became widely available to the public. if being a disruptive technology means redefining the industry, gai has already proven disruptive in higher education. it is common for such disruptions to introduce new degrees of anxiety or uncertainty into their respective industries (aoun, 2017), and few industries are positioned to escape ai’s impact (susskind & susskind, 2022). the study of ai-related anxiety is an emerging field of research (johnson & verdicchio, 2017), and the contributing factors to this anxiety are complex and multifaceted (li & huang, 2020). what is clear is that ai-related anxiety can take different forms in different industries as ai is likely to impact different sectors in different ways (susskind & susskind, 2022). despite the breadth of its impact, job replacement is a core concern for many industries, since ai tools are capable of taking over numerous routine tasks currently performed by humans (aoun, 2017; gong et al., 2019; hopcan et al., 2024). while some educators shared the general worries about being replaced by ai (hopcan et al., 2024), a unique form of ai-related anxiety quickly manifested and gained popular attention in 2022 within the field of education. while cheating itself is not something that requires technology (eyes can always simply stray to another’s paper or screen), technology can open doors to newer more nuanced ways of cheating. the concern most widely publicized among educators was that students could use gai to create and submit work that does not reflect their learning (abd-elaal et al., 2022; eke, 2023). that is to say, much of the early anxiety in the field of education was over the potential that students would use it to cheat (e.g., heilweil, 2022; marche, 2022; rosenblatt, 2022; shrivastava, 2022; stone, 2022). while submitting evaluative assignments using gai with minimal or no human participation is what most troubled educators— what we call student-displacing uses—we want to acknowledge that is not the only way the technology can impinge on traditional methods of learning. as we illustrate in figure 1, a spectrum of possibilities exists for how students might use ai and gai ranging from benign to troubling according to existing notions of how student content should be produced. indeed, ai technology and/or its forerunner, machine learning (ml), are already widely used and tacitly accepted by educators in the form of grammar checks like those in apple’s pages, google docs, grammarly, microsoft word, etc. (see, for instance, the discussion of how google’s grammar check uses ml in hoskere, 2019). and these uses of ml and ai are themselves a step beyond uses of analytical technology ranging from calculators to sophisticated statistical or language-analysis programs like the decades-old programs spss (initially released in 1969) and nvivo (initially released in 1997). apart from well-established uses of ml and non-generative ai, the new possibility of using gai to cocreate—like using it for brainstorming, discovering sources, summarizing sources, or using its output (based on a specifically worded prompt) as a rough draft to be modified and corrected—all fall on a sliding scale that differs in degree from full studentdisplacing usage. as werse (2024) pointed out, some uses of gai enable students to shortcut parts of a learning activity, thereby resulting in them missing out on elements of the learning process. concerns about this kind of use relate to the effectiveness of student learning experiences and thus differ in kind from those concerns related to academic honesty wherein the student is functionally uninvolved in completing the assignment. for the sake of clarity, we focus here on the clearly justified concerns about the far end of the student-displacing side of the spectrum, in which students use gai’s work entirely in place of their own. before moving on, however, it is worth pointing out how the spectrum of ways to co-create with gai has birthed institutional guidance that is accordingly varied and sometimes tentative, as is exemplified by perlmutter’s (2024) recent advice in the chronicle of higher education. talking to administrators, perlmutter encourages his readers not to reject the ai revolution but also to carefully develop institutional plans for its use in conversation with a broad contingent of the campus community. institutional policies from across the country all show qualified embrace of gai (e.g., see samples of guidance aimed at different constituencies from ucla, university of chicago, mit, and the university of texas). https://senate.ucla.edu/news/teaching-guidance-chatgpt-and-related-ai-developments https://its.uchicago.edu/generative-ai-guidance/ https://tll.mit.edu/teaching-resources/course-design/gen-ai-your-course/ https://undergradcollege.utexas.edu/academics/center-skills-and-experience-flags/faculty-flag-resources/teaching-resources/statement-artificial-intelligence-writing-flag-classes nothing new under the sun: ai & educator anxiety impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.484 92 figure 1. spectrum of student displacement by technology the growing apprehension regarding gai’s capacity to facilitate academic dishonesty that completely displace the student has sparked diverse reactions among educators worldwide. while some have resorted to traditional methods such as in-person, handwritten examinations to deter students from turning in gai generated content that does not reflect their knowledge (cassidy, 2023), others have taken broader measures. for instance, new york public schools and the university of hong kong initially banned gai use within academic settings (roseblatt, 2023). these responses reflect the depth of concern and anxiety that many educators experienced with the sudden advent of public use and open-access gai technology. in many respects, this technology posed a threat to traditional learning experiences and educational assessments (weale, 2023; zhai, 2023). while companies such as zerogpt, copyleaks, and turnitin have developed numerous tools to detect ai generated text, the comfort those tools provide is illusory. other tools have emerged on their heels that use the ai detectors against themselves, like undetectable.ai, iteratively running text through one or more ai detector until it produces text that registers as being human made. granted, such developments are unsurprising given that the central goal of gai development is to imitate human communication; in a sense, the whole industry is an anti-ai-detection factory. educators have remained ambivalent concerning gai’s promise and threat. many educators and institutions have transitioned away from their initial reactionary approaches to embrace more nuance, exploring ways to harness the advantages of gai while mitigating its challenges (chen & lin, 2024). but not everyone is so positive. the field is still replete with a remarkable breadth of opinions on the subject—ranging from gai’s enthusiastic adopters to those still actively resisting it in education spaces. the complicated juxtaposition of gai’s potential to amplify the educational experience with its potential to contribute to student academic dishonesty has institutions struggling to produce policies and guidelines to direct faculty toward the former while avoiding the latter. indeed, the fluctuating landscape of juxtaposed apprehension and acceptance is perhaps best illustrated by the rapid change of authorial policies at science magazine. initially, in october 2023, the magazine enacted a prohibition on gai, citing it as academic misconduct. however, in the next month (november 2023), the editorial board reversed its stance, accepting manuscripts co-created using gai technology as long as authors disclosed gai use. as is common with new technology, a lack of familiarity often corresponds with increased anxiety or distrust (johnson & verdicchio, 2017). with gai, it did not help that journalists and editorialists, at times, sensationalized its impact on various industries in their speculations about its future (autor, 2014). despite the sensationalizing, the initial educator concern over gai’s potential to contribute to academic dishonesty is a valid one that is worth acknowledging and holding in tension with the numerous benefits gai can offer to students. the ability to construct learning experiences and then assess the outcomes of those learning experiences is an important part of the role of an educator. even beyond the valid yet slightly more punitive concern with academic integrity, any technology that enables students to circumvent parts of the learning process or submit content that does not reflect their learning is remarkably disruptive to the central goal of educators. our purpose for this article, however, is not simply to recognize or validate the reality of these concerns; rather, we seek to reframe these concerns within the broader context of educator apprehensions surrounding disruptive technologies, aiming to foster a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by gai integration in education. we’ve been here before: the internet this is not the first time educators have experienced concerns over academic dishonesty prompted by a new disruptive technology. as with gai, the internet’s launch in the early 1990s ushered in a disruptive technology that promised (or threatened) to leave few industries untouched. we do not want to overstate the comparison between the 1993 public launch of the internet and the 2022 opening of chatgpt for public use. indeed, it took 7 years for the internet to achieve the same kind of adoption rate as is currently true of college students (compare internet, broadband fact sheet, 2024; pearson, 2024). to be sure, numerous differences, nuances, and three decades of technological change separate the two. however, we want to recognize the parallels between the two that can help educators concerned with gai’s potential to recontextualize their anxiety about academic dishonesty (see the comparison also drawn in anson, 2022). the rise of the internet sparked widespread concerns about a potential surge in plagiarism (chao et al., 2009; lester, 2008; renard, 1999). for instance, authors like snapper (1999), attempted to think through how the internet would affect issues of copyright piracy and plagiarism. snapper (1999) argued that, in the internet age, concerns about plagiarism would outweigh concerns about copyright; plagiarism’s unmooring of a document from its proper attribution causes “harm to the reading public” (p. 129) by disconnecting claims from the sources that might be used for corroboration and for further reading. but delineating what constituted a violation of plagiarism (or copyright) conventions was not at all clear. the situation snapper (1999) identified initiated a technological arms race for services like turnitin.com that aimed to detect and thus deter students from copying and pasting material from the internet. consequently, educators sometimes restricted students’ internet access to ensure its appropriate use within an academic context. this phenomenon also prompted a shift towards fostering internet literacy among educators who sought ways to incorporate relevant online resources into their teaching practices (for example, see hill & ford, 2000; newcomb et al., 1998). whether or not the internet fueled a rapid increase in academic dishonesty has been more complicated to prove than initially suspected. on the one hand, some studies claimed quite definitively that the internet substantively increased academic dishonesty. for instance, a 2007 study of librarian involvement in the detection and prevention of plagiarism concluded that “an increasingly computerliterate student body has…magnified the scope of the problem” (stepchyshyn & nelson, 2007, p. 7). on the other hand, in a more comprehensive assessment of plagiarism in higher education, eaton werse & smith impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.484 93 (2021) cautioned that there is ultimately no conclusive evidence that the internet directly caused an increase in plagiarism, especially given the corresponding exponential increase in textual production. no doubt, part of the challenge comes from the lack of longitudinal studies that definitively compared plagiarism rates before and after the rise of the internet. while it may be difficult to prove definitively that the internet fueled a rise in academic dishonesty, it is clear that the influence of the internet over reading and writing practices led to conversations about how this disruptive technology changed users’ fundamental approaches to engaging and creating texts (carr, 2011; mcculloch, 2020). this sentiment found deeper theoretical grounding in the philosophy of technology work that acknowledged how technological innovations often impact technology users, eventually transforming cultural norms (postman, 1992). in line with mcluhan’s (1964) oftenquoted phrase, the “medium is the message” (p. 23), carr (2011) and eaton (2021) suggest online media have redefined how readers approach and engage texts. lam (2011) provides an example of how digital formats have caused a transition of text engagement and reading leading to the rise of a cut and paste culture wherein learners effortlessly compile preexisting ideas, quotes, and observations without truly synthesizing them into their intellectual framework (see similarly lester, 2008). the fundamental nature of this shift in understanding is perhaps most evident in how the internet prompted (or perhaps sped up, following developments in the philosophy of language and semiotics) the expansion of terms like literacy. noting how technology was providing for ever-greater diversity in communication, the new london group (1996) proposed the term multiliteracies as a way to encompass what they described as the “local diversity and global connectedness” (p. 64) created by the internet. since then, scholars have continued to expand literacy, further losing its ties with the traditional concepts of reading and writing of physical texts (for example, see the call for even greater variety in theoretical conceptions of literacy by smith, 2017). the broader cultural shift in how students conceptualize their relationships with texts in online spaces is, in many ways, a deeper and more foundational issue that has implications for the concerns about academic integrity. definitions of academic integrity and concerns over academic dishonesty, at least when it comes to textual production, often rest on a certain set of norms and assumptions about authorship, intellectual property, and textual production. these assumptions and norms, however, can differ across industries and disciplines (anson, 2011), which can result in slightly different criteria for what constitutes academic dishonesty (holdstein & aquiline, 2014). in creative writing, for example, alluding to the language or including the words of another without attribution can be a clever tribute to a role model whereas any unattributed language in a doctoral dissertation could be grounds for academic dismissal. in both of these cases, the assumptions concerning authorship, textual production, and intellectual property differ profoundly; what is an erudite flourish in one context is detrimental to one’s career in the other. in summary, while gai is a new form of technology, the educator’s concern that a new disruptive technology could increase academic dishonesty is not. three decades ago, educators experienced an equally disruptive technological development; and while there are many differences between gai and the internet, the anxiety that educators experienced in response to the technological advancements is remarkably similar. the rise of public access to gai and the internet both raised concerns that students could use them to submit work that did not reflect their learning. both have also disrupted understandings regarding how texts are produced and engaged with. seeing the present anxiety over gai and academic dishonesty in light of the advent of the internet demonstrates how both are part of a larger pattern wherein educators encounter and eventually engage disruptive technologies. this perspective can help modern users see that the present anxiety is valid, normal, and yet, not permanent. while many educators initially expressed concerns over the potential of the internet to increase plagiarism, they eventually developed ways of assessment that leveraged the strengths of the internet while mitigating its potential for academic dishonesty. while the anxiety that students could use gai to cheat is real and justified, educators will continue to develop activities and assessment strategies that leverage gai’s strengths while mitigating its shortcomings. furthermore, as with the internet, a deeper, more foundational conversation about how gai can change students’ fundamental assumptions about authorship, intellectual property, and textual production will emerge, which will reframe educator’s concerns about academic integrity. new technologies, old solutions while gais are new, worries about student-displacing work are not new and, likewise, the ways in which educators have mitigated these concerns, even in their most pernicious forms, are not new. perhaps the most insidious and impregnable form of studentdisplacing work made more prevalent by the internet is the contract cheating industry, which has undeniably expanded over the last several decades (bartlett, 2009). students with ill intent are now easily able to attain a custom paper, tailored to their assignment’s specifications, from any number of websites, some of which even employ out-of-work academics and former faculty (delaney, 2012). awareness (and concern) of just how prominent this industry is substantively rose in 2010 following the chronicle for higher education’s publication of david tomar’s provocative exposé of his experience as a paper mill professional (dante, 2010a, 2010b; tomar, 2012). tomar’s (2012) account shed light on the industry’s reach, revealing instances where students had navigated entire graduate programs by submitting purchased papers instead of writing even a single paper. the globalization of this industry has allowed it to progressively offer its services at lower and lower costs to willing students (bartlett, 2009; white, 2016). purchased papers can be notoriously difficult to catch because, unless a student admits to it, it is remarkably difficult to prove definitively that a paper was written by one human author and not another (one could calculate the degree to which a paper matches the vocabulary, style, and syntax of a given author, but that is all). educators have deployed strategies to combat the paper mill industry that have a long history in education—incorporating other complementary ways for students to demonstrate their learning in addition to (or sometimes in place of) their written product. specifically, one of the most common ways to ensure that a student’s paper reflects their understanding of the topic is to use multimodal assessment, asking students to supplement their papers with an oral discussion or presentation (eaton, 2021). while a presentation might be scripted with gai, having q and a after a presentation, or better yet, simply a conversation (especially if it is inperson), leaves little room for students to hide their own thinking behind their gai-produced answers. multimodal activities are not nothing new under the sun: ai & educator anxiety impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.484 94 only great assessment strategies from a learning outcomes perspective, they also allow educators to compare the understanding demonstrated in a student’s oral presentation on a topic to the understanding evident in a written product. these same strategies can be applied to mitigate the concern over student-displacing work in the realm of doctoral dissertations or other graduate theses. ensuring that a student’s product accurately represents their learning is of utmost importance, particularly at the doctoral level in which the dissertation or a capstone thesis project is meant to clearly demonstrate their expertise and justify their degree. the dissertation or capstone thesis project is often accompanied by an oral defense or discussion, in which students answer questions about their studies. despite being centuries old and already in common use, oral defenses can assume new significance as educators wrestle with the potential for gai-created dissertations (as opposed to ai-enhanced or co-created). the well-established multimodal form of assessment is not just helpful for mitigating academic dishonesty, it is also good educational practice to ensure that students are able to demonstrate their expertise in a variety of media and settings (something of particular value for scholarpractitioners). as white (2016) highlights, this requires additional time and resources from the dissertation committee to uphold academic standards and ensure that any assistance provided falls within acceptable boundaries. nevertheless, educators can draw upon this familiar practice to help mitigate concerns that gai has been used inappropriately to generate content that does not accurately reflect the student’s expertise. the use of multiple modalities can also serve as a means for educators to effectively assess, in a less formal way, graduate student learning in the classroom setting. here again, such use conforms to well-established practices in line with seminar-style graduate courses. in the context of a seminar-style course, students are given the opportunity to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge of a subject through questioning from peers or by the instructor. using seminars also has the benefit of teaching the oral communication skills necessary to succeed in an oral defense of a dissertation or thesis. conclusion: nothing new under the sun in the words of the biblical book of ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun” (new revised standard updated edition, 2021). educators have long worried about new technology’s potential to enable student cheating. contextualizing the current educator anxiety concerning gai with past responses to new technologies allows for self-reflection upon not just the potential of gai to revolutionize written assessments including graduate dissertations and theses, but also upon the reasons educators might be tempted to respond with concern. while there are differences between the internet and gai, in both cases, educator anxiety over its potential to contribute to academic dishonesty coexists with exciting possibilities offered by the new technology. one does not necessarily have to invalidate the other. furthermore, modern educators can learn from the rise of the internet to not just focus on the technology’s potential for academic dishonesty but rather to look deeper into how gai could alter students’ approaches to text engagement and text production—two foundational assumptions that underly the distinction between honest or dishonest academic conduct. the primary concern over the use of gai in academic settings is complete student-displacement in which students submit work that does not reflect their knowledge, misleading educators and constituting academic dishonesty. while there are acceptable ways for students to use gai to enhance their work, such uses exist on a spectrum with increasingly complicated questions and increasing anxiety about cheating for educators. this concern is merely the newest instantiation of a well-established worry that has ranged from cutting and pasting material for assignments to the quite extensive contract cheating industry. however, studies on how to mitigate this dishonesty recognize that multimodal assessment is an effective way to present opportunities for students to present their knowledge and expertise in multiple ways, 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https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3210650/university-hong-kong-temporarily-bans-students-using-chatgpt-other-ai-based-tools-coursework https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3210650/university-hong-kong-temporarily-bans-students-using-chatgpt-other-ai-based-tools-coursework https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4312418 nicholas r. werse baylor university joshua caleb smith baylor university ai and the educator's anxiety we’ve been here before: the internet new technologies, old solutions conclusion: nothing new under the sun references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 65 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.587 a shared journey toward social justice activism dianna s. sox university of south carolina dianna.s.sox@gmail.com jason t. sox university of south carolina jasonsox@gmail.com abstract as a two-educator household, we entered the university of south carolina’s edd program in the spring of 2020 expecting to earn a degree that would provide greater financial support for our family while simultaneously refining our teaching practices. however, the program’s emphasis on social justice and advocacy resulted in more than just additional letters after our names—it transformed and reshaped our identities and perspectives, not only as individuals, but also as educators and parents. we were challenged to confront our assumptions and positionalities, broaden our understanding of equity, and embrace our roles as agents of change within our immediate spheres of influence. this article follows our shared journey and incorporates honest self-reflections of two white educators turned social justice advocates through the discovery of our white privilege and an increased awareness of the social injustices in our world but most acutely in our profession. keywords social justice and advocacy, education, white identity, narrative, transformation by dianna’s recollection, when jason earned a master’s degree from the college of charleston, we agreed dianna would be the next member of the household to earn a degree. so when, 8 years later, jason casually mentioned a desire to obtain a doctorate, dianna’s competitive spirit was ignited. citing the prior verbal contract she considered indissoluble, she joined jason in submitting an application to the university of south carolina’s (usc) edd program. thus, in the early weeks of those uncertain days in the spring of 2020, we both received acceptance letters that would propel us into an unexpected experience that would transcend our highest academic pursuits. this article tells the story of two married educators turned agents of change by way of an edd program focused on critical action research through a social justice lens. our story is not necessarily a blueprint for others to follow, but a narrative for us to share our journey of growth and transformation. through our accounts, we hope to underscore the importance of reflective practices and learning from our educational and personal experiences to improve pedagogy and promote equity in today’s classrooms (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009). our intentions our initial intent was not to become activists. ashamedly, but perhaps not surprisingly, our doctoral pursuits focused not on social justice and equity, but rather affordability, timing, and the flexibility of an asynchronous program. as a two-educator household, we sought a way to better support our growing family and become better teachers in the process. we entered usc’s edd program expecting to earn a degree (i.e., initials to follow our name). what we did not anticipate was the rich transformation and reshaping of who we are in the world—as individuals, as educators, and as parents. to help readers understand the journey, we must first disclose our identities (newman, 1997), introducing ourselves as not only unique individuals but also members of various social groups that inherently shaped who we were at the commencement of this journey. here and throughout the chapter, we use offset italics to indicate our individual voices: dianna: i grew up as the only child in a white, middle-class family and was decidedly influenced by my environment. i lived in a predominantly white neighborhood in the suburbs outside columbia, sc, which fed my predominantly white schools. i had white teachers, participated in extracurriculars with white peers, and hung out with my best friends—who also happened to be white. my family worshiped at a predominantly white church, and in general, i associated and interacted with predominantly white individuals. racial discourse, bias, differences, and injustice were unknown to me, quite frankly, because race was not a part of me. it existed in others, while my world existed in a white bubble, unassuming and unaware of just how unaware i was. jason: while our paths didn’t cross until adulthood, dianna and i grew up less than 15 minutes away from each other, so our backgrounds and socioeconomic status were not all that different. one of the most influential parts of my childhood was growing up with aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived next door. all my experiences were significantly shaped and influenced by family members who shared similar perspectives, backgrounds, and influences. however, these influences were monochromatic and served as a barrier to the diverse perspectives and experiences of anyone who didn’t look like us. truthfully, i didn’t know there was anything other than country music stations on the radio until i got my first car. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0851-5277 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2067-6446 sox et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.587 66 like my taste in music, my worldview and perspective were equally white-washed and void of diverse exposure. as fate would see to it, we both independently moved to charleston, sc and started teaching at the same predominantly white, affluent high school. we were teaching replicas of the students we were years before, so our limited understanding of diversity and inclusion went largely unchanged and unchallenged for over a decade and resulted in practices that maintained the racial and cultural status quo (vaught & castagno, 2008). when we entered the edd program at usc, our initial intentions, positionality, and personal goals existed in sharp contrast to the expectations and beliefs of our faculty and program advisors. fortunately, when faced with the academic readings, coursework, and discussions, our own consciences compelled the removal of our white-colored glasses—to recognize our position of privilege and the disservice our teaching practices were affording our students. this realization, however, did not come overnight, and it was not without its own degrees of complexity and discomfort, as we elaborate individually: dianna: somehow i missed the memo that our doctoral program was so heavily influenced and driven by the call for social justice. i was convinced i would be writing a dissertation on improving student literacy and self-efficacy through reciprocal teaching—and i’ve got several drafts of that initial proposal to prove it. so when, during a meeting about my proposed problem of practice, i was told it did not check the social justice box, i was completely miffed! i had identified a valid problem of practice in my classroom and a vision for a research study to address it. how dare i be told i could not pursue it because it didn’t check some box someone thought important! and to complicate matters, how would i ever come up with a problem of practice centered on social justice in a classroom full of white students?! oh, the naivete! jason: in one of our first diversity classes, the professor asked us to consider possible topics that we might adopt for our eventual dissertation. i was so misguided that my first proposal was on the use of virtual labs versus traditional “wet” labs in the curriculum. after a 30-minute zoom meeting with the professor, he told me a story about the decor in his classroom when he first started teaching. being a sports enthusiast, he had baseball posters and team paraphernalia prominently displayed around his room. reflecting back, he shared with me that he was embarrassed and even ashamed of his choices for decor because only a small group of students would feel comfortable entering his classroom. for the first time, i considered what my students might feel like when they came into my classroom. what would they see? would they feel like they belonged? would they feel inspired? would they feel safe? a whole avalanche of questions forced me to consider the experiences of others and if i had made those experiences better or worse. with such obvious—and likely offensive—ignorance demonstrated in the early moments of our edd pursuits, we can hardly fathom what the usc faculty saw in our applications to merit admission into their program. we certainly were not educated in social justice practices, nor were we versed in the complexities of systemic inequities. maybe we got lucky. maybe they saw right through us and realized the depth of our ineptness. maybe it was divine intervention. whatever the rationale, our deficiencies underscored the exact reason why we needed to be part of this program. our discovery social justice has been defined as both a product and a process (adams et al., 2007) in that it speaks to the goals of an equitable society and also to the methods used to achieve those goals. the what and how of social justice involves individuals with a sense of their own identity and agency and a sense of responsibility to understand others’ identities and agency, all coexisting in the broader context of the world (adams et al., 2007). as there is increased attention on creating a more democratic, equitable, and just society, the focus turns to classrooms as a space to compel critical consciousness. central to the classroom and the learning within it is the teacher and their role in dismantling oppressive structures and building socially just practices and practitioners (adams et al., 2007). in fact, many scholars charge teachers to put their agency into action by diversifying curriculum and pedagogy and enacting meaningful multicultural and socially just education (banks, 2004; boyd & glazier, 2017; coldron & smith, 1999; decuir & dixson, 2004; marshal & olivia, 2006; moore, 2007; sanjakdar & premier, 2023; sosa, 2020). however, before a teacher can begin to take steps in their own classroom, they must first identify their positionality, agency, and identity and reflect how all three of those factors frame the curriculum alongside how and why they teach it. despite literature suggesting teachers serve as the cornerstone of putting agency into practice and the importance of multicultural education in the classroom for the benefit of every student, our focus remained on the curriculum, not on the role of the teacher and certainly not on the equitable education of students. we explain: dianna: for the majority of my career, i operated under the mistaken impression that as long as i was a “good” teacher, i could reach any student. i adopted a curriculum that was handed to me my first year of teaching—one that provided all the diversity you would expect in a survey of classical british literature. despite countless opportunities to broaden this curriculum over the following 15 years, the texts listed on my syllabus remained the same. i relied on the knowledge that learning is a personal process, never recognizing that what is personal for each individual is not the same for everyone. i was comfortable teaching those works of capital-l literature and as far as i knew, my students were comfortable learning them because for the most part, they were reflected in them. but in the way of oil and water, comfort and social justice are not mutually compatible. jason: before earning my doctorate, my pedagogy and instructional compass aligned to the strict adherence of district and state standards. the rhetoric from teaching professionals around me cited “the standards” as the ultimate guide and goal when determining what students should learn. so when my test scores were consistently higher than proficiency minimums, i let myself believe that i had achieved the title of “world’s greatest teacher.” as i began to understand the systemic influences and injustices that are deeply embedded within our educational system, my identity as a successful teacher began to crumble. while our edd coursework assisted us in uncovering our problems of practice, it also started to crack the veneer that was covering our racial ignorance. just as jupp et al. (2016) called for preparation to “conscientize” a predominantly white teaching force for “teaching across understandings of race, class, culture, language, and other identity differences in increasingly diverse public schools” (p. 1152), our professors provided a catalog of readings to support our work and challenge our thinking. some readings were particularly arduous for this duo as they forced an introspective journey toward social justice activism impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.587 67 approach to the content before being able to reflect on and apply its message to our studies. however, such introspection compelled us to finally confront some misinformed beliefs about ourselves and our students. formerly, we operated under a colorblind philosophy, believing that not seeing color was an inclusive way of treating all students with equanimity. however, ansell (2006) astutely identified the irony involved with the enormity of privilege that must exist in a person claiming a colorblind mentality, underscoring ladson-billings’s (1998) claim that colorblind teachers cannot discern the privileged from the disadvantaged in the classroom. reading and digesting works centered on multicultural and anti-racist approaches to the classroom caused the fibers in the layers of our positionalities to unravel. in this way, even though in all likelihood we were working on our final and highest degree, the true education of dianna and jason sox began. we reflect: dianna: looking back, there were several readings that shook my world and contributed to my journey of transformation. i remember literally feeling the nerve endings on my skin tensing, my heart rate increasing, and my body temperature rising as i read through an article, only to realize my defensive posturing was the very definition of the ‘white fragility’ being described (diangelo, 2011a). i remember nodding my head in solidarity with each example mcintosh (1998) listed in her knapsack and the astonished realization that not everyone could do the same. but the most profound, life-altering concept to pass my eyes came from derman-sparks et al. (2011) who suggested children, as young as preschool age, can discern racial biases and hierarchies from the adults around them. imagine, if you will, a record scratching as i read and reread that assertion. i was never taught race. i was never forced to see it or talk about it or consider it—and i was now living through the impacts of that omission in my identity-making. i was now suffering the pruning that must precede the blossoming, and i suddenly felt the enormity of protecting my children from discovering that same racial awareness late in life. as our son was 5 at the time and our daughter 3, i started to really question what we were teaching them about culture and race and justice. embarrassingly, my first response was close to ‘nothing.’ as a result, i grew determined to not let that be my answer ever again. jason: i remember having a transformational change in how i defined the word ‘racism.’ prior to enrollment, i would have said racism was limited to an individual’s internal feelings or an outward attack toward others that required a “change of heart.” diangelo (2011a), mcintosh (1998), and others unveiled my privileges until i saw the oppressive influence of racism in every facet of life. i remember feeling so frustrated, helpless, and distraught. and while discovery and critical analysis of systems of oppression are important for a budding social justice advocate, i needed to see that there were avenues of hope. channeling my frustrations into concrete efforts helped me understand that one person’s actions can be significant, regardless of how small the first step may be. as a change agent, i have a responsibility to ensure principles of equity are not just theoretical ideals but important parts of my classroom teachings and my family’s lived experiences. as new discoveries emerged and recurring themes found their way into our thoughts, writings, and conversations, our social identities began to shift. we could feel the tension building within us as we saw our world through an expanded lens of awareness. we were taking our first steps on a metaphorical social justice escalator, unsure of the final destination but certain we were no longer the same people. our transformation we are sorry to report that our metamorphosis into social justice advocacy was not as easy as flipping a switch. contrarily, we align with scholars who argue that social justice is not a static goal but rather an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and adaptation (bell, 2007), dialogue and activism (young, 2011), as well as critical reflection (giroux, 2011). indeed, moving along this continuum together—the shared readings, car ride discussions, course content, interactions with other cohort members, aha moments, writing our dissertations, and late-night conversations around the dinner-table-turned-homework-table—began to reshape our identities as individuals, educators, and parents. with all three identities linked, altering one inevitably impacted the others. as our dominoes of deficiencies and ignorance began to fall, slowly and even cautiously but continuously, there were times and indicators along the way that signaled a transformation was occurring. as individuals introspection is a crucial and necessary element in anti-racist work, particularly for understanding and dismantling one’s biases (diangelo, 2011b; tatum, 1992). it requires a personal commitment as no external force can compel someone to genuinely reflect on their biases and privileges. though our stories mirror, often overlapping, and while we enjoyed the benefit of each other’s company on our journey, we were still two independent individuals walking a rather narrow road toward social justice and equity, growing and changing in our own yet similar ways. we explain: dianna: for me, a moment of awareness that i was changing in my thinking and understanding came when i didn’t react with a defensive posture while reading an article or participating in a discussion that labeled me as privileged, colormute, biased, or fragile. it was a moment of acceptance of who i’ve been and resting in the knowledge that that’s not who i’m going to be. i started to realize that growth comes from embracing discomfort and allowing myself to sit with the complexities of my identity within the social structures around me. rather than shutting down or dismissing the perspectives presented (as would have been my former go-to model), i found a desire to engage more deeply in more meaningful conversations and courage to uncover blind spots i unconsciously carried for so long. jason: in comparison to the giants in multicultural education we were studying, my story of individual awareness seems inconsequential. i was designing a lab for my physics class that required students to predict the number of rubber bands required for a barbie doll to safely jump off the top of our rotunda stairs and not hit the ground below. i promise it is a real experiment, and i am not crazy—well, no more than any other high school teacher is. needing to purchase several dolls for the experiment, i headed to the store. when i reached the doll aisle, i instinctively reached up and grabbed several white dolls with blond hair, feeding my stereotypical expectation of what barbie should look like. when i realized the faces in the boxes were not consistent with the faces in my classroom, i put away my initial choices and took a literal and metaphorical step back to broaden my perspective. it was a unique experience, blending embarrassment and shame with excitement and pride that the recognition of white identity prompted alternative actions to prioritize my students’ diverse lives and experiences. the pursuit of social justice is never the same for any two individuals. such a personalized experience spurred from sox et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.587 68 introspective reflection demands a commitment to continuous learning and self-improvement. whether initiated by the reading of academic literature, a conversation with another person, or a failed previous attempt, each opportunity serves as an opportunity for growth. the realization that there is always more to learn encouraged us to approach new challenges with humility and resilience. we embraced the idea that social justice requires a growth mindset and recognized that social justice is not a fixed destination but an evolving journey. applying those ideals in our individual lives inevitably boiled over into the discovery of our privileges in our working environment. as educators according to min et al. (2022), there is “general agreement among education scholars that teachers need to be social justiceoriented change agents by enacting pedagogy that promotes social justice in their classroom” (p. 565). we were inundated with this overwhelming scholarship during our coursework and the writing of our dissertations, which compelled us to adopt this philosophy and combat different forms of oppression within our own studies and within our own classrooms. for example: dianna: a huge indicator that signaled changes happening in me occurred through the reinvention of what would become my third and final topic (i.e., problem of practice) for my dissertation. when my initial problem of practice did not check the social justice box, my professor suggested reading between the world and me (coates, 2015) with my all-white english honors students. i decided to accept this challenge, primarily due to a feeling of limited alternatives, and revised my problem of practice to examine the positive or negative changes to self-efficacy and social empathy when a group of white students and their white teacher read a text that is racially and culturally dissimilar to their own identities. after another year in the program with more classes geared toward social justice alongside the transformative understanding of my agency and positionality, i was all-in—ready to rattle some monochromatic cages, to ruffle some privileged feathers! but this, too, was short lived. ironically, facing the inevitability of actually putting my dissertation into practice caused me to realize i was too fearful to be a cage rattler! i did not want to rock the monocultural boat that existed in my school, resulting in my third and final revised problem of practice addressing the paucity of minority representation in high school english curriculum accompanied by the presence of colormuteness within those same classroom walls. recognizing my own overwhelming sense of fear of engaging in racial and social discourse with my students, i decided to focus on the existence of this phenomenon within the classrooms of my english department. my purpose was twofold: to equip myself with the knowledge and tools to feel comfortable enough to engage in these conversations with my students, thereby enacting my social justice agency, and to influence my colleagues and their levels of awareness, thereby enacting their social justice agency. moreover, i hoped our collective growth toward critical consciousness and inclusivity would have rippling effects on our students and their social justice agency. jason: my day job as mr. sox, a white male educator teaching ap chemistry was in stark contrast to my other role as jason, a burgeoning student of social activism working to improve his cultural competency. when the time came to choose a problem of practice for my dissertation, i longed for an opportunity to reunite my fractured identities. i sought to create a classroom that would transform my students’ approach to science and be more inclusive of their lived experiences. while examining the experiences of my students, i simultaneously considered my own experiences teaching a more culturally and socially relevant curriculum. all the planning could not prepare me for the anxiety and fear i experienced leading up to our first lesson. while i had plenty of literature supporting my cause, if i had been challenged by a student on why we were spending classroom time on content that was not expressly written as part of ap curriculum, i might have called out for a sick day. instead of being challenged by my students, i discovered they, in fact, expect teachers to actually see and appreciate their individual identities. a one-size-fits-all approach of teaching was not good enough for them. when discussing culturally relevant themes in our first unit, i discovered my students were more socially mindful than i ever thought possible. the desire to share their experiences with one another encouraged and inspired me to share what i was learning as their teacher. in this way, we forged relationships together and created a classroom environment built upon respect for one another. i would be lying if i told you that every lesson was successful, but i realized i was not swimming in the deep end alone. as an educator of nearly two decades, i had never felt so connected with a group of students, and i am convinced it had nothing to do with the standards in my ap curriculum. individuals can find personal fulfillment and a sense of purpose through introspection and activism, but it requires active pursuit and adaptability as new knowledge, circumstances, and growth occur. for educators, this means not only reflecting on our own privilege but also integrating social justice principles into our teaching practices and pedagogies. teaching with a social justice lens required us to challenge inequities not only within our classroom walls, but also within ourselves. navigating this complex interplay between personal growth and professional responsibility led us to new discoveries and contributed to a broader social transformation in the immediate spheres around us. not to be left out, these insights and practices also permeated our roles and identities as parents. as parents as a category of social justice activism, parenting involves more than just raising decent human beings. as dr. traci baxley explained: the difference between raising good people and raising socially aware or pro-justice children is really this idea of ‘good people’ is almost passive. we want to raise people who do no harm, people who are kind, which is great, but it’s really the low bar. we really want to raise kids who not only do no harm, but who can intercede when harm is done. so the action piece. not just car[ing] about people, but car[ing] with action. (anderson, 2021, 11:40) as our own identities and awareness changed, we felt an increasing weight of responsibility to educate our children toward this justiceoriented mindset as well. instead of shifting to individual italics, we tell this story together as it involves a conversation we were both a part of and is indicative of the type of conversations we are attempting to have with our children: one afternoon, in the spring of 2023 (i.e., the final stage of our edd program), as we were pulling away from our kids’ elementary school and asking about their day, our son asked, point-blank: ‘why are all the janitors brown?’ and thus, we were ushered into a new realm of social justice parenting where we had to determine if we were going to do more than just write about our advocacy. we can tell you that prior to our transformation, we would have responded by framing it as journey toward social justice activism impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.587 69 coincidence, but in that car on that crisp afternoon, we moved past any fear or doubt, and we explained to our son, as best we could without any rule books, how the world is not fair and sometimes fairness is based on the color of your skin—that some judgements and decisions and systems keep it unfair, but that doesn’t make them right, and we should always try to make things right and fair for everyone. was it the right answer? there’s no way of knowing. but that conversation prompted more questions, which prompted more honest answers, which prompted more questions, which prompted an open discussion for our family now as it concerns race. family conversations about race and racism are not easy. they can seem uncomfortable, questionable in age-appropriateness, and even unsettling as they can reopen our own uncertainties, ignorance, and predispositions (bradt & berkfield, 2021). however, the only way of getting it wrong is by not doing it altogether (anderson, 2021). our commitment our discovery and transformation fueled the need to embrace our positions in our school environment and enact social justice activism. with this, we became emboldened to use our agency as a source of justice: to create learning experiences that acknowledge and celebrate individuals and the vast array of experiences and diversity that they bring…[to] complicate if not disrupt systems of inequity…[to] teach with the hope to create a system of human teaching committed to social justice agendas and not just merely rhetorical lip service. (sanjakdar & premier, 2023, p. 5) teaching in this way requires both a practical and theoretical approach (freire, 1970), being conscious of your personal background, positionality, and biases before defining ‘teaching for social justice’ for yourself in order to then put it into practice for students (lee, 2011). this process, however, is easier said than done: when the term social justice is applied to classroom contexts that are multidimensional and unpredictable, the practice of teaching for social justice becomes complex. teachers encounter contested values, beliefs, and behaviors of their students that they may or may not recognize and accept. (lee, 2011, p. 2) there are naysayers who question the validity of contributing to already overloaded curriculums (sanjakdar & premier, 2023), and critical voices who equate the pursuit of social justice education to a stage for teachers to scatter their personal, political agendas (lingard et al., 2014). the social justice scales sometimes seem stacked against us; choosing social justice is getting harder—but we suggest this challenge also underscores its importance, even necessity in the classroom. dianna explains: our state department of education just passed a new proviso requiring classroom libraries to be logged and accessible to the public to enable challenges to the titles on our bookshelves (state board of education, 2023), making it harder for teachers to supply books and for students to receive them. in the face of threatening book bans, censorship, and viable opportunities to be the next teacher on the evening news, the easy choice is to ignore, to empty bookshelves, to omit, to abandon. yet, doing so is judiciously, morally, and ethically wrong. our job as social justice activists, as agents of change, is to make right what is wrong. we must stand resolutely against these repressive measures, advocating for the voices and stories that have historically been silenced. by curating diverse and inclusive curricula, we empower our students to engage critically with the world around them and to challenge oppressive narratives. it is our responsibility to foster a culture of openness and inquiry, ensuring that every book, every story, every voice, remains a bridge to understanding, empathy, and social justice. there is an overwhelming dearth of scholarship addressing the ease of navigating the road toward social justice—whether it is teaching for, parenting for, or advocating for social justice. no one will tell you the process is easy, but neither is it impossible. there is, in fact, scholarship that supports walking the road to social justice alongside critical friends (lindsey et al., 2009; loughran & brubaker, 2015; ward, 2013), making the burden of transformation somewhat lighter. with the support of critically mindful professors alongside a cohort of blossoming social justice advocates, we exited the program with not only our anticipated degree, but also a newfound purpose and need to embrace our agency within our school and become activists for change. jason elaborates: we are currently in the year of the summer olympics and our family has been riveted to the television cheering for team u.s.a. in the spirit of inclusivity, we have also been watching the paralympic games, and one event especially resonated. for track and field events, visually impaired athletes can choose to run with a guide who is often tethered to the athlete, making it easier for them to stay in their lane and avoid collisions with other athletes. these running guides must be in perfect tandem with their athletes, as any misstep, either too fast or too slow, could hinder their progress. as i watched the event unfold on the television, i could not help but recognize the athletes’ dependency on their guides during the race was similar to the dependency i had for others to lead me through my pursuit of social justice and equity. i was blind to the things around me, and i needed individuals with a more comprehensive vision to come alongside and steer me in my journey. my specific guides changed throughout the edd program, yet i was consistently running alongside someone who matched me step for step and encouraged me to take the next step forward. our challenge to others is to find someone to run alongside you in your own journey. even though we shared similar positionalities, having someone who understood our experiences was vital. in the way of iron sharpening iron (english standard version bible, 2001, proverbs 27:17), our partnership provided a system of checks and balances of our privileges, served as a safe place to ask questions, and offered a supportive voice when feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear. in finding a critical ally, you participate in a relationship that will not only support your own growth but also provides you with opportunities to be a guide to someone else. in partnerships forged through mutual learning and tempered through challenges, we create positive change effects that ripple into our communities, “no longer accepting things that we cannot change but changing things we cannot accept” (davis, 1981, p. 54). reference adams, m., bell, l., & griffin, p. 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(1990). justice and the politics of difference. princeton university press. https://doi.org/10.1163/156916306777835349 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131720408984645 https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2017.0003 https://doi.org/10.1080/002202799182954 https://doi.org/10.1080/08878730.2011.578280 http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/249/116 https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350145016 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316629798 https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2014.919846 https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2015.1078786 https://doi.org/10.1177/00131245211027511 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-007-9065-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104114 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124519894983 https://ed.sc.gov/state-board/state-board-of-education/library-regulation/library-files/sbe-regulation-43-170/ https://ed.sc.gov/state-board/state-board-of-education/library-regulation/library-files/sbe-regulation-43-170/ https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.62.1.146k5v980r703023 https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320802110217 dianna s. sox university of south carolina jason t. sox university of south carolina our intentions our discovery our transformation as individuals as educators as parents our commitment reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 80 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 if ferris bueller had a bot: ai meeting assistant policy landscape of cped member institutions paula cristina r. azevedo marymount university pazevedo@marymount.edu christine b. valadez marymount university cbvalade@marymount.edu abstract artificial intelligence (ai) has seen a significant rise in public use since the release of chatgpt in november of 2022. higher education institutions (hei) have struggled to negotiate how best to manage ai technologies within their academic communities, acknowledging both positive and negative impacts of ai on education. focused primarily on large language model (llm) technologies, such as chatgpt, heis are working to build policies and guidelines to regulate their use. however, within these policies, few heis have considered ai meeting assistants, even though these applications bring their own set of benefits and risks. this article examines the public websites of 135 cped universities, eight of which mention ai meeting assistants in their policies. the article analyzes the risks, benefits, and use guidance provided by these policies and suggests next steps for heis to address the ethical, legal, and pedagogical implications of ai meeting assistants. keywords ai, ai meeting assistants, ai policy, higher education, higher education policy imagine if ferris bueller, from the 1986 film ferris bueller’s day off, was a student in 2024. the elaborate plan to cut class for a funfilled day before graduation would be different. ferris would deploy his artificial intelligence (ai) meeting assistant to attend class, and he would not miss lectures, class discussions, or debates because the ai assistant would have recorded, transcribed, summarized, and carefully analyzed every spoken word. when ferris returned home, he would skim through the ai-generated summaries and return to plotting and convincing his best friend of another day of teen-filled adventures. this alternate version of ferris buller’s day off is the current reality of tech-savvy students as ai meeting assistants, such as otter, fireflies, and fellow, have entered online and in-person classes. ai-powered technology has the potential to impact learners and educators by augmenting students’ capacity to learn (baidooanu & ansah, 2023; dempere et al., 2023) and even provide accommodations for students with disabilities (ballenger, 2022). however, with such transformative technological advancements come concerns and questions about the impact on human creativity (baidoo-anu & ansah, 2023), privacy (akgun & greenhow, 2022; chan, 2023), the perpetuation of systemic bias (akgun & greenhow, 2022), accessibility (stanley et al., 2022), accountability (dwivedi et al., 2023), and other topics related to academic integrity. the researchers wanted to gain an understanding of the current landscape of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) member institutions’ stance, policy, and guidelines regarding the use of ai meeting assistants. the research question was: what are cped member institutions’ guidelines, academic integrity policies, and training materials regarding ai meeting assistants? this research adds to the conversation about developing a shared definition of ai (krafft et al., 2020) and ai policy at the university level while addressing students’ and instructors’ concerns about the misuse of ai, especially as it relates to privacy (chan, 2023). literature review ai, once thought to be solely contained in creative works of books, films, and television series, has manifested into reality. it may seem that ai emerged quickly, but it has a long history with researchers across various disciplines in academia and the tech industry. the first artificial intelligence conference, led by john mccarthy in the summer of 1956, is considered the founding workshop dedicated to the development of the ai field. the conference reinforced “that making machines think, designing computer programs to behave intelligently, was far harder than anyone in 1956 thought it would be” (mccorduck, 2004, p. 118). the complexities of ai have continued to elude scientists for decades. yet, researchers persisted in working on the challenging problem of machine learning and even developing artificial intelligence in education (aied) technologies in the early 1970s such as merlin, an https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2745-7583 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1254-2602 azevedo & valadez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 81 intelligent tutoring system developed by newell and moore (doroudi, 2022). the development of ai may have started slowly, but in the past decade it has maintained a fast pace of innovation and breakthroughs in laboratories, and now in homes, k-12 schools, businesses, medical centers and universities. though the field of ai began in a higher education institution (hei) nearly 70 years ago, the public arrival and increased student and faculty use of openai’s chatgpt was met with mixed fanfare. as the chronicle of higher education reported, “generative artificial intelligence presents a threat to how colleges operate and educate, will have both a positive and negative impact on teaching, and offers colleges an opportunity to improve how they are run” (anft, 2023, p. 3). the critical review of the discourse about ai in heis by bearman et al. (2023) demonstrated that the leading higher education journals lacked in-depth discussion. what they found was that discussion about aied was either utopian or dystopian, and even more prevalent was the debate about “human versus machine” (bearman et al., 2023, p. 380). in addition, there were concerns about academic integrity (wood, 2023; yau & chan, 2023) and, in particular, the “boundaries between plagiarism and inspiration and appropriate situations for seeking help from ai” (chan, 2023, p. 13). nevertheless, chan (2023) found that faculty and students believe that universities need to provide clear aied policies, especially addressing issues related to academic integrity and plagiarism. in contrast, eaton (2023) argued that narrow academic integrity policies cannot be sustained in a “postplagiarism world,” which she defined as “an era in human society in which advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and neurotechnology, including braincomputer interfaces (bcis), are a normal part of life, including how we teach, learn, and interact daily” (p. 2). furthermore, kramm and mckenna (2023) asserted that “surveillance of students and identification of ai usage is not only ethically troublesome but also a waste of time” (p. 2173), because the focus should be on considering new ways to educate and assess students rather than “the policecatch-punish” (p. 2175) model. as of mid-2023, 8% of the 600 hei leaders who responded to the western interstate commission for higher education cooperative for educational technologies survey about ai policy indicated that they had implemented ai policies, most of which were on academic integrity (davis, 2023). fifty-seven percent of the respondents were planning on or in the process of developing policies, and 70% of those revealed that the policies were going to be on academic integrity (davis, 2023). while policies are in development, few heis have formalized and distributed them to their academic communities, as shown by primary resource group’s 2023 survey of approximately 1,000 hei faculty regarding their familiarity with generative ai tools, such as chatgpt. when asked whether they were aware of guidelines developed by their administrations about using ai tools in classes, fewer than 14% of faculty answered affirmatively. conversations and policies related to academic integrity are important, but these discussions pertain to a small portion of aipowered technology, such as llms that are capable of understanding and generating human-like text across a wide range of topics. however, ai technologies go beyond text analysis and generation. as schmidt et al. (2023) point out, ai has “amplified the impact of digitalization on platforms and created a new dimension of functionality and user interaction” (p. 59). ai-powered assistants are developed to interpret the users’ inputs, even when the inputs are conversational language with multiple people (schmidt et al., 2023). natural language understanding provides ai with the ability to decode spoken and written language; natural language generation “empowers assistants to generate human-like text, facilitating responses to users that feel natural and are easy to understand” (schmidt et al., 2023, p. 4). ai meeting assistants, such as otter.ai and zoom ai companion, are based on natural language understanding but are specifically designed to record, transcribe, capture screenshots, summarize, provide keywords, and note and interpret information about live meetings into which they are deployed. the user does not have to attend the meeting for the ai meeting assistant to attend. if the ai assistant is plugged into the user’s calendar, it recognizes video conference meetings and automatically joins and records the meeting. little is known about the impact ai meeting assistants have in work, education, or personal settings. however, the researchers drew from research on intelligent personal assistants (ipas), “defined as an agent that uses artificial intelligence and can interact with user(s) via natural and/or artificial language by combining one or more communicative and sensory modalities to assist and collaborate with them” (shaikh, 2023, p. 783). myers et al. (2007) studied an ipa, the project execution assistant (pexa), specifically designed to support the productivity and time management of knowledge workers by performing tasks such as scheduling meetings, arranging stakeholder visits, prioritizing tasks, managing information, and assisting in meeting by tracking topics. this early model sought to address the overload of knowledge workers by completing routine tasks and had promising results. as ipas have become available to the average consumer, de barcelos silva et al. (2020) found in their in-depth literature review about ipas that most users interact with ipas in private contexts and for simple tasks such as weather, music, and web searches. however, at work, users employ the technology differently (maedche et al., 2019). ipas support employees on time management (berry et al., 2011), project planning, and task prioritization (kimani et al., 2019), similar to the earlier models (myers et al., 2007). even though consumers use ipas at home and in the workplace, de barcelos silva et al. (2020) highlighted that users were concerned about privacy and data security issues. although ipas differ from ai meeting assistants, both use similar technology and raise concerns about privacy, security, and intellectual property rights. as of the conducting of this study, the researchers found a dearth of research or commentary about the use of ai meeting assistants in heis, and few policies about ai meeting assistants or their impact on teaching and learning. this research seeks to address some of the gaps by understanding and evaluating the landscape of cped members’ ai-powered meeting assistant policies. conceptual framework at the center of this study is the question of value. value is a loaded word. it can be used in various contexts and have different meanings. zeithaml (1998) described value in business as the perceived benefits of a product or service in comparison with the sacrifices (costs) of obtaining it. though heis are not the same as businesses, there are similarities in that heis provide services that have a cost, whether financial or of time, to students that in the long if ferris bueller had a bot impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 82 term can impact an hei’s reputation (woodall et al., 2014). as institutions consider the implications of incorporating and developing new policies about ai technology, these ai policies may have an impact on how the university is valued by students and other stakeholders. järvi et al. (2018) explored how misalignments and failures in service delivery can lead to value co-destruction and negative outcomes. their research emphasized that value codestruction occurs when there is insufficient trust or unclear expectations. canhoto and clear (2020) take the work of järvi et al. (2018) further by focusing on the risks ai pose in business environments and construct a diagnostic framework to identify potential value destruction in business applications of ai technologies, emphasizing the importance of managing ai systems’ integrity regarding inputs, processes, and outcomes to prevent value destruction. similar to businesses, heis need to consider the potential value-added and the value co-destructions of ai technologies. the conceptual framework of schön et al. (2023) characterized ai assistants as disruptors to higher education, in particular as they relate to the instructor, student, learning, assessments, and policies and regulations. schön et al. (2023) posit that ai technologies like chatgpt are “value-added services,” (p. 6) such as enhancing the learning, automating routine tasks, and improving administrative efficiency. though the framework by schön et al. (2023) addressed the regulatory disruption, there was limited examination of the ethical, data security, privacy, and confidentiality concerns that such disruptive technologies raise. as a result, we looked to floridi and cowls (2019), who conducted a comprehensive analysis of various high-profile ethical frameworks and synthesized a unified set of five principles that could guide ethical ai development universally. though this framework, depicted in figure 1, was not developed for higher education, it does propose a comprehensive framework that consists of the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice, and explicability. beneficence calls for ai technologies that promote and preserve the well-being and dignity of humans and the environment, while non-maleficence is the principle of do no harm. autonomy advocates for human agency and ai as an assistant to humans. justice emphasizes the importance of equity and equality principles in ai. finally, explicability ensures that ai is understood and accountable to stakeholders. we argue that these principles can help manage the ethical challenges of ai and ensure its beneficial integration, while also recognizing the need to evaluate the framework continuously as ai evolves. figure 1. ethical framework of five overarching principles for ai by floridi and cowls note. (floridi & cowls, 2019, p. 8) cc-by 4.0 method the main objective of this study was to understand cped member institutions’ policies and/or guidelines regarding the use of ai meeting assistants. using krippendorff’s (2019) definition of content analysis, the researchers systematically analyzed member institutions’ publicly available policies on ai meeting assistants. since the time of this research, there has been little research on ai meeting assistants and heis’ policies on the technology; as a result, the researchers opted to use inductive content analysis (hsieh & shannon, 2005; vears & gillam, 2022). in march 2024, using the member list on the cped’s website (https://www.cpedinitiative.org/current-members), the researchers searched and collected ai policy data from all 135 member institutions’ websites. of the 135 institutions, 122 had ai policies and/or guidelines publicly available on their websites. next, the researchers further searched for policies or guidelines specific to ai meeting assistants, which often were buried within other pages or hyperlinks. they included institutions in the study if their websites explicitly described, provided resources, or offered guidelines or policies about ai meeting assistants. of the 122 with ai policies, eight member institutions discussed ai meeting assistants or had specific policies (see figure 2). the researchers copied the policies from the webpages to separate documents and analyzed the data by first reading the policies and guidelines for familiarity (veras & gilliam, 2022). the first round of coding identified, as veras and gilliam (2022) described, “big-picture meaning” (p. 117). another round of coding was conducted to support the researchers in refining and revising categories (saldaña, 2021). finally, the researchers quantified the qualitative data by counting common policies and guidelines about ai meeting assistants as related to risks, benefits, specific guidance, and approval of the technology. the researchers independently coded the data, each memoing themes and keywords to glean insights from the data, and frequently met to discuss and evaluate their analysis process by code-checking (saldaña, 2021). this process ensured trustworthiness (elo & kyngäs, 2008). figure 2. universities with ai meeting assistant policies and/or guidelines hei u.s. region size research classification public or private hei 1 southwest large r1 public hei 2 west medium – public hei 3 northeast large r2 private hei 4 northeast large r1 private hei 5 midwest large r1 public hei 6 west large – public hei 7 west large r1 public hei 8 south large r1 public note. carnegie classification of colleges and universities considers small heis to have fewer 5,000 students; mediumsized to have between 5,000 to 15,000 students; and large to have more than 15,000 students (american council on education, n.d.). azevedo & valadez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 83 even though the researchers sourced publicly available data on ai meeting assistants, they used hei pseudonyms in the study. when describing the policies of each institution, no substantial direct quotes that could be easily found on the internet were used. this decision for anonymity was made for several reasons. first, the purpose of the research is to understand the landscape of cped member institutions’ policies, not to single out specific heis. the naming of heis with or without policies could distract from the findings of the study. additionally, ai technology and policies are changing quickly, and by the time this article is published, cped’s list of universities and their specific ai policies may have changed. finally, public opinion and experiences with ai continue to transform and evolve; therefore, the anonymity of the institutions serves to protect universities from any potential negative backlash or publicity. results given ai’s rapid adoption since november 2022, heis have had to address the appropriate utilization of ai tools in academia. of the 135 cped members, 61 (45%) have one or more official policies regarding ai. forty-four (33%) incorporate ai into their academic integrity, student code of conduct, honor code, academic dishonesty, or community standards policies, and/or mandate specific language be included in course syllabi. nineteen (14%) regulate ai-use through their information technology (it) security, data governance, or technology approval guidelines. nine heis, four of which have another policy guiding the application of ai tools, prescribe appropriate handling of ai in their research policies. two cped universities offer ai policies at the graduate school level, and one defines the appropriate use of ai in their education department handbook. another provides guidance only in their employment policies. nine additional universities (7%) do not have guidance formally stated in a policy, but a memo, website, or publication put out by an ai task force or an administrative leader, such as the chancellor, provost, or university president, advises about the acceptable application of ai at the hei. all but 13 heis, or approximately 90% of the 135 institutions, have either guidance or easily accessible resources for faculty and/or students about ai. library guides, webinars, conferences, online trainings, and information sites offer support about this new and powerful technology. however, even with supports in place, cped-affiliated heis either leave it up to the instructor to determine proper application of ai tools within courses or simply suggest that utilizing ai-generated text or images without proper attribution is considered a violation of academic honesty. none of the heis overtly prohibit generative ai. for the most part, faculty have the discretion to define acceptable generative ai use on a course-by-course basis. the 19 university it and data policies, however, tend to be more prescriptive, prohibiting the inclusion of confidential and legally protected data, such as the family educational rights and privacy act (ferpa) and health insurance portability and accountability act (hipaa), in unsecured open ai environments. these policies outline the risks associated with using ai such as data privacy issues, algorithmic bias, cybersecurity concerns, copyright violations, and incorrect information or ai hallucinations. some mandate that instructors use only specifically permitted ai tools, such as microsoft copilot, or that university it departments vet ai tools prior to their incorporation into classwork. some cped-affiliated universities, such as two large midwestern universities and one smaller southern university, classify data into categories and guide students and employees on what types of data are and are not appropriate to input into ai tools. these policies highlight the privacy and data security risks associated with ai-powered technology. despite the increased attention to ai in heis, few mention ai meeting assistants. eight cped-affiliated organizations, all of which are either public universities or well-funded private institutions (as shown in figure 2), reference ai meeting assistants in their guidance and/or training materials. these policies vary in their messaging but group into benefit statements, risk statements, and appropriate use guidance about ai assistants. benefits of ai meeting assistants for the eight universities that include information about ai meeting assistants in their publicly available materials, the increased efficiency and productivity enabled by these tools stands out as their most valuable feature. figure 3 highlights the uses and benefits of ai meeting bots noted in the hei documentation. figure 3. uses and benefits mentioned in hei materials about ai meeting assistants uses & benefits hei 1 hei 2 hei 3 hei 4 hei 5 hei 6 hei 7 hei 8 enhanced productivity & efficiency • • • • accessibility • notetaking/ outlining • • • • • automated summaries • • • • action item production/ meeting tasks • • meeting recording & transcription • • • • • heis 1, 2, 3, and 4 explicitly call out that ai meeting assistants improve efficiency and boost productivity. hei 1’s digital guidelines state that employing the university’s approved ai assistant, zoom’s ai companion, can “save time,” enrich virtual collaborations, and “enhance overall productivity.” hei 2’s site mentions that these bots “offer promise for streamlined” augmentations of virtual learning. hei 3’s policies indicate that these note-taker tools “enhance productivity.” hei 4’s documentation claims that zoom’s ai companion helps users “manage information, increase efficiency, and generate insights.” even the websites that do not explicitly call out efficiency and productivity refer to ai meeting assistants’ ability to record and transcribe meetings, take comprehensive notes, generate outlines, summarize information and salient themes, and drive follow-up actions during and after meetings. in fact, seven of the eight sites reference at least one of these capabilities, as shown in figure 3. it should be noted that hei 2 and hei 6 do not describe these features as benefits; rather, they acknowledge the ai tools’ ability to complete if ferris bueller had a bot impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 84 various functions. hei 8’s very brief mention of ai meeting assistants does not include any descriptive information about their functionality. although hei 7’s primary documentation on zoom’s ai assistant discourages its use, the university suggests ai note-taking apps, like otter.ai, as assistive technologies for students with documented learning disabilities. students who have information processing challenges, hearing loss, or speak english as a second language can benefit from information summaries, searchable transcription, and task management that otter.ai can provide. these students can obtain the software through the university’s student disability center. risks associated with ai meeting assistants the universities that include meeting assistant technologies in their ai policies and guidance acknowledge their benefits, but they also recognize the risks associated with these apps. as explained in the literature review, discussions about the use of generative ai in higher education often center on ethical concerns like plagiarism and cheating. this is true for nearly all the 135 cped institutions, and certainly for the 35 heis that have specific mentions of ai in their academic integrity or student conduct policies. while fraudulent copying of ai-generated writing is a significant misuse of tools like chatgpt, it is not the primary risk associated with ai meeting assistants. ai meeting assistants pose a different set of threats. the most common risks mentioned by the eight cped institutions are related to privacy and data security, cyber safety, automation, and user ignorance. figure 4 provides the risks outlined within the various policies. privacy, confidentiality, and data security concerns are mentioned in all eight of the sites referencing ai meeting assistants. because heis manage a significant amount of sensitive information, including student and employee records (e.g., personally identifiable information or pii), research materials, intellectual property, and financial data, institutions must protect this data from misappropriation. the right to privacy and confidentiality in academic settings is essential to safeguard students and university personnel, maintain the integrity of the educational process, and fulfill the legal and ethical obligations of the university. ai meeting bots that record or transcribe conversations might inadvertently record sensitive information, some of which may be protected in the united states under privacy laws such as ferpa and hipaa, and distribute notes about these conversations, at times without the knowledge or consent of participants. hei 1 suggests that ai automated meeting tools can be used to “capture discussions.” in their ai guidelines, this university offers a brief policy statement on ai meeting assistants, highlighting that human attendees should be careful to safeguard sensitive data— defined as “personal, confidential, financial, intellectual property, and proprietary.” hei 2’s site asserts that these assistants create a “privacy and security problem” because data from recorded meetings will be “sent to the cloud,” where it can be accessed by unauthorized parties. hei 2 personifies ai bots by describing them as “making their way into video conference meetings” and entering the meetings that they will record “without permission.” privacy and data security are concerns for hei 3 as well, and the university’s it department reminds users to verify that these ai note-takers are not exposing “sensitive information to unauthorized parties.” hei 4’s materials assert that some of these bots “do not meet the university’s security requirements.” in fact, this hei mentions ferpa and hipaa in their publications five times, explaining that automated meeting note-takers that record identifiable student participation in classes are in violation of ferpa, unless these meeting notes are shared through secure means with proper user authentication. this university also warns that some meeting assistant applications “encourage people to sign up for the service” without providing adequate information about what they do and, therefore, are misused. hei 5’s documentation stresses that ai meeting assistants “do not always get things correct” and warns about the discussion of “confidential or sensitive topics.” hei 6 points out that meeting assistant bots may expose protected and sensitive data and that use of them in classes are “almost certainly a ferpa violation” and a breach of student privacy. the guidance materials describe thirdparty meeting assistants as a service that “watches” for scheduled figure 4. risks addressed in hei materials about ai meeting assistants risks hei 1 hei 2 hei 3 hei 4 hei 5 hei 6 hei 7 hei 8 privacy (hipaa; ferpa) • • • • • • legal complications (foia) • • • security (cyber & data) • • • • • ignorant use (lack of consent) • incorrect information • observation of attendee behavior and engagement • • intellectual property / copyright • automatically joins meetings • • ill-informed registration for tool • • automated distribution of transcripts and notes • • azevedo & valadez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 85 meetings and joins them. it further explains that these apps get more users to sign up for them by requiring human attendees to register for the ai service before they can access recorded meeting materials. hei 7 does not specifically state that ai meeting assistants can intrude on privacy, but the documentation implies that confidential information is at risk by stating that human participants should be careful not to share protected data. similarly, hei 8 suggests that data privacy and security are concerns by mentioning that it is investigating the “security implications” associated with ai meeting assistants. furthermore, heis 1, 4, and 5 mention how the data risks associated with auto-generated bot notes can lead to legal issues, since the recordings may be subject to the freedom of information act (foia). if private and sensitive data are made part of the public record when recorded by ai assistants, it could complicate the transparency and accountability obligations of the university and heighten the risk that sensitive information will be disclosed inappropriately. another consideration associated with the privacy and security risks of ai meeting assistants is confidentiality. in academic settings, the privacy of thought and freedom of expression are critical to open intellectual debate among students and faculty. both hei 1 and hei 5 mention meeting bots’ ability to provide insights into participant behaviors and even “measure attendee engagement.” employees and students may consider the bots’ monitoring of performance invasive or unethical. fear of surveillance could inhibit academic freedom and stifle innovation and expression, especially if the automatically generated materials are not accurate as hei 5 indicates may be the case. therefore, these bot-generated notes may not only heighten concerns about protecting community members’ pii, but also participants’ social and academic reputations. cybersecurity is another concern. universities are targets of cyberattacks due to the valuable data that they obtain and store. ai bots that are not secure can provide additional vectors for attacks, potentially leading to data breaches. heis 4 and 6 explain that users sometimes register for these ai tools without understanding their function or the implication of doing so. heis 2 and 6 further highlight that registering for the tool gives meeting assistants the right to access meetings just because the bot-owner is invited, even when the human does not attend the meeting and without the knowledge or consent of participants. with the automation of meeting access and unintentional and unregulated distribution of transcripts and notes that may contain protected data, hackers can exploit security loopholes within these tools to attend meetings and perhaps even infiltrate university systems. while none of these eight cped heis specifically mention the word “cyberattack” in the documentation, security itself is mentioned in five of them. strategies for managing ai meeting assistants given the potential benefits and risks associated with ai meeting assistants, seven of the eight cped universities provide strategies for managing these tools within the academic community. figure 5 outlines appropriate use and restricted use guidelines. heis figure 5. appropriate use and restricted use guidance for ai meeting assistants appropriate use guidance hei 1 hei 2 hei 3 hei 4 hei 5 hei 6 hei 7 hei 8 inform • • • • • gain formal consent • • • • • review notes for accuracy & relevance before distributing • • • understand data regulations • • use judicially; determine appropriate use • • • store recorded content securely; delete when possible • • educate stakeholders; increase awareness • • use passcodes for meeting entrance • require meeting attendee authentication • • enable waiting rooms • • restricted use guidance hei 1 hei 2 hei 3 hei 4 hei 5 hei 6 hei 7 hei 8 remove bots from meetings (as needed) • • • ask hosts to remove bots or leave meetings using them • • • don’t use; disable & delete accounts • • • use only institutionally approved tool • • • • institutional block of unapproved tools • if ferris bueller had a bot impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 86 1, 2, 3, and 5 acknowledge that ai meeting assistants have a place in higher education, and rather than restrict tool use, their appropriate use guidelines leave it to the faculty and students to determine how best to handle ai meeting assistants in academic settings. these four universities present recommendations and reminders to guide the handling of ai bots so that sensitive information is shielded from mismanagement. hei 1 strongly recommends that meeting hosts “discuss the appropriateness” of using ai technology, that meeting participants “be cognizant” and inquisitive about the inclusion of ai bots in meetings, and that attendees “decline participation” if hosts “insist” on using the ai tools. the university suggests utilizing zoom’s “ferpa-compliant ai companion” over other ai meeting assistants. hei 2 stresses that users should be more cautious. the documentation discourages the use of ai meeting assistants but admits that transparency can mitigate some of the potential risks associated with these tools. the university offers guidance on how to manage unwanted ai bots and encourages experimentation with ai assistant tools “in low-stakes settings” prior to deploying them in formal academic environments. the materials further stress that, when meetings include ai assistants, hosts are obligated to “respect” the rights of participants in meetings by communicating why the tool is being used and obtaining permission to use it, and participants must express their own preferences about the recording of meetings they are attending. similarly, hei 3’s materials remind meeting assistant users to “be aware of privacy regulations” when hosting meetings with bots and to store private information securely so that only authorized individuals have access to it. while hei 3 acknowledges the potential benefits of ai meeting assistants, the documentation stresses that users should use them “thoughtfully” by following proper “etiquette guidelines.” this university suggests that clear communication and transparency are key to effective use of the ai note-taking tools. the it documentation also recommends that hosts gain formal consent from meeting attendees to use ai assistants, review auto-generated documentation for accuracy before distributing it, and delete recordings that are not needed. transparency and trust likewise are key in hei 5’s resources, which are specifically tied to the use of generative ai tools in marketing and communication. these materials advise that virtual conference hosts avoid using ai assistants in meetings that include confidential or sensitive topics since “building trust” is critical within the academic community. the it security information at this university further stresses the importance of data stewardship. this university suggests people should use their “best judgement” about which ai tools are appropriate to attend meetings. due to data security concerns, heis 4, 6, and 7 prefer a more restrictive management approach. hei 4 requires that these bots are disabled to “protect” the university community’s “privacy and security.” hei 6 points out that ai assistants should never be used because protected and sensitive data cannot be safeguarded. hei 7 does not allow meeting assistants and stresses that meeting participants should “be aware” in non-university affiliated meetings and are “urged to leave” meetings if meeting hosts are unwilling to disable ai meeting apps. their documentation warns users in bold text not to share “personal, confidential or privileged information” in any environment that can be recorded. these universities make it very clear that community members should not use the tools at all or only if explicitly approved by the university. from the language used within the materials studied, the researchers were able to glean whether university stakeholders were told to utilize ai bots responsibly, to avoid using them entirely, or to adopt only approved technologies within the university environment. figure 6 shows the approval levels for ai meeting assistants at each of the universities. it should be noted that hei 4 is reviewing the inclusion of microsoft’s copilot as an approved tool, that hei 8 is considering zoom ai companion, and that hei 7 restricts all tools for the general population but allows students, faculty, and staff with documented disabilities to deploy otter.ai in appropriate academic settings. figure 6. ai meeting assistant tool use approval level at each university approval level hei 1 hei 2 hei 3 hei 4 hei 5 hei 6 hei 7 hei 8 all tools • • • no tools • • • specific tool: zoom • • specific tool:otter.ai (for accessible only) • specific tool: microsoft (copilot) limitations while the findings of this study provided useful information about hei’s guidelines regarding ai meeting assistants, there were multiple limitations in the gathering of the data. first, access to hei websites was limited due to firewalls and password-protected information. second, information about ai meeting assistants on university websites was often difficult to find. because materials on ai were not centralized within any of the institutions’ websites, the researchers had to search deeply into the sites and follow link after link to find relevant materials. sometimes searches for information required looking up specific software, such as zoom companion and otter.ai, not just general policies. thus, it is possible that the researchers overlooked materials that referenced ai tools not searched. it should also be noted that microsoft copilot can serve as a meeting assistant but has numerous other abilities; thus, it was challenging to determine when universities were using it as a meeting assistant. given these first two limitations, the researchers could locate just eight cped heis that included documentation about ai meeting assistants on their websites. though the researchers purposefully limited the data collection to cped member institutions, which represents the diversity of heis, future researchers should include non-cped institutions to increase their data set. additionally, because ai technologies advance rapidly and hei policies about them change regularly, researchers should not assume that data collected for this article is current. azevedo & valadez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 87 discussion of findings while heis are behind in developing policies to manage the use of generative ai llms (anft, 2023; d’agostino, 2023; dolan & yasin, 2023; primary research group, 2023; unesco, 2023), they are even further behind in establishing guidelines to regulate the use of ai meeting assistants in academic settings. as described earlier, the majority of cped members have some documentation about conversational ai, but only eight have published information about ai meeting assistants. existing academic, research, human resources (hr), and it policies, even those that have been revised to include reference to ai, are inadequate to regulate or guide the use of ai note-taking bots because these tools introduce new challenges within educational settings. the materials reviewed in this study highlight many of the ways that ai meeting assistants can increase efficiency, enhance productivity, enrich student learning, and foster more effective collaboration (as shown in figure 3). while only one cped university mentions how these bots can support students with learning and physical disabilities, some universities are exploring ai meeting assistants’ effectiveness in providing accommodations (ballenger, 2022; otter.ai, 2020). furthermore, because these bots can attend meetings even when the person who deployed them is not present, ai meeting assistants allow users to be in two places or more at once or, like ferris bueller, to call in sick without worrying that important information will be missed. instructors might benefit from their use too, as ai meeting assistants can help them assess student engagement and participation in group settings and class discussion. indeed, meeting bots are powerful tools with potentially substantial impacts on learning and productivity, but they are also prone to uneducated or irresponsible use, which makes them risky to deploy within academic environments. in addition to the many risks listed in figure 4, the researchers’ own experiences with these tools have exposed gender and racial bias inherent within the bots’ notes, as well as the proclivity for users to over-rely on the bots to “pay attention” in meetings or classes while human attendees multitask. some universities mitigate risks by opposing ai meeting assistants’ use. while deactivating ai features in virtual conference tools and blocking third party ai meeting assistant applications from university systems deprives the bots access to meetings and classes, doing so would be extremely limiting to those who would benefit from the services these bots provide. instead of imposing strict bans, heis need to regulate ai meeting bot use, adopt vetted and trusted tools for use within the university ecosystem, and educate users. the researchers of this article recommend that heis should update existing rules on research safety and ethics, video and audio recording, and data security to refer specifically to ai, including ai meeting assistants. research ethics regulations should be adjusted to incorporate how using ai responsibly in research means adhering to the principles of data stewardship and the respect for individual privacy. for instance, active researchers could be taught to seek institutional review board (irb) approval and to gain formal participant consent if ai meeting assistants are being used to transcribe, summarize, and code qualitative research interviews. strong research habits like this will help to safeguard research subjects’ confidentiality, even when meeting bots are involved. similarly, video and audio recording policies provide ample guidance on privacy protection; they could be modified to include ai meeting assistants. for example, one cped institution’s video and audio recording policy discusses how taping and distributing recordings of class sessions that include international students living under oppressive regimes could pose threats to those students. similarly, ai policies should address the dangerous implication of ai bots recording, summarizing, and distributing meeting notes or class discussions without the careful review and redaction of content. most video and audio taping policies require options for participants to opt into being recorded, and ai meeting assistant policies should mandate the same authorization. finally, with growth of ai, especially meeting assistants, it policies should be revised to address how ai increases the potential for cybersecurity breaches and unsafe and illegal data distribution. updating these types of preexisting university policies can help to make ai meeting assistant usage manageable and safe. yet just changing the policies is not enough. if community members do not know about them, these policies are useless. as previously discussed, some faculty and students are unaware of their universities’ guidance on the appropriate use of ai (primary research group, 2023). most of the institutions investigated in this study, however, have at least one publicly available resource about ai use at the university. leaders in higher education must communicate more effectively about the importance of staying informed on ai policies at their institutions and should insist that ai resources and regularly updated trainings, including those on ai meeting assistants, are centralized so that they are easily accessible by all students, faculty, and staff. furthermore, floridi and cowls’ (2019) unified ethical framework of five principles for ai in society (figure 1) could offer guidelines in the development and implementation of ai policies, particularly with regard to ai meeting assistants. using the five ethical principles, heis could develop a detailed set of research, it, hr, and student conduct policies that explicitly address ai use. the framework would prompt university leaders to engage with ethical questions during guideline development and to consider the entire community in their policy implementation. risks could be mitigated and benefits maximized through practical guidelines that promote exploration, effective communication, and safety. while floridi and cowls’ (2019) framework could help influence ai policies in higher education, this framework does not address the critical role of training and communication in realizing the five principles. without the proper education about these principles and the clear communication of expectations surrounding them, academic communities will continue to struggle with the operationalization of institutional policies. thus, this research highlights the importance of informed communication, which focuses on helping the academic community understand the five principles of ai use and the policies that emerge from them. ample and regularly updated trainings and easily accessible resources about data privacy and ai security measures are critical for ensuring that academic community members are aware of their responsibilities in protecting sensitive data from invasive and irresponsible ai use. future research should focus on rigorously evaluating the policies derived from these ethical principles. use cases for students and faculty should be developed to test ai policies against realistic and complex scenarios. for instance, ai meeting assistants could be trialed as educational tools in both virtual and physical classrooms to assess their effectiveness and ethical compliance. other studies could evaluate whether training on principles such as nonmaleficence and data stewardship lead to more responsible ai usage. as ai technology evolves in higher education, ongoing if ferris bueller had a bot impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.471 88 research will be essential to continually refine policies that foster innovation while protecting the community. conclusion like the eight universities analyzed closely in this study, all heis may want to consider the benefits and drawbacks of standalone meeting assistant apps like otter.ai and integrated tools like zoom ai companion and microsoft copilot. ai meeting assistants offer significant benefits to university students, faculty, and staff. their ability to take notes, summarize information, provide insights on participation, and establish action steps based on virtual or live meetings or classes could provide valuable assistance to those who need it, especially with regard to efficiency, focus, study aids, and follow-up. however, without proper policies and training in place to regulate them, ai meeting assistants pose data security and privacy risks that may surpass those of many other generative ai tools, as they have the potential to impact unsuspecting participants in virtual and even live environments. given their power, it is critical to specify appropriate use within each academic community. guided by floridi and cowls’ (2019) unified ethical framework, heis should: (a) establish clear it, research, hr, and student use policies around ai meeting assistants; (b) ensure that robust security and compliance measures are in place at the university; and (c) educate users on the risks and responsibilities associated with the use of ai meeting assistants. like other ai tools, ai meeting assistants are helpful when used well, but improper use can pose personal risk to participants and legal risk to universities. prioritizing clear 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(1998). consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence. journal of marketing, 52(3), 2–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/1251446 https://otter.ai/blog/otter-for-education-transforms-remote-learning-2 https://otter.ai/blog/otter-for-education-transforms-remote-learning-2 https://www.primaryresearch.com/addcart.aspx?reportid=757 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-023-00671-2 https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2023.1208550 https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2022.2049133 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1781-2_91 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1781-2_91 https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-survey-less-10-schools-and-universities-have-formal-guidance-ai https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-survey-less-10-schools-and-universities-have-formal-guidance-ai https://doi.org/10.11157/fohpe.v23i1.544 https://inews.co.uk/news/oxford-cambridge-ban-chatgpt-plagiarism-universities-2178391 https://inews.co.uk/news/oxford-cambridge-ban-chatgpt-plagiarism-universities-2178391 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.648373 https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/03/22/ai-policy-advice-administrators-and-faculty-opinion https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/03/22/ai-policy-advice-administrators-and-faculty-opinion https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3210650/university-hong-kong-temporarily-bans-students-using-chatgpt-other-ai-based-tools-coursework https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3210650/university-hong-kong-temporarily-bans-students-using-chatgpt-other-ai-based-tools-coursework https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3210650/university-hong-kong-temporarily-bans-students-using-chatgpt-other-ai-based-tools-coursework https://doi.org/10.2307/1251446 paula cristina r. azevedo marymount university christine b. valadez marymount university literature review conceptual framework method results benefits of ai meeting assistants risks associated with ai meeting assistants strategies for managing ai meeting assistants limitations discussion of findings conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 52 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 2 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.378 erratum to: howard, j., derk, k., & colson , t. (2023). let’s talk: critical participatory action research and improvement science-guided research comparing our approaches to improve education. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 8(1), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.285 suha tamim university of south carolina rhonda jeffries university of south carolina abstract the article metadata for howard, j., derk, k., & colson , t. (2023). let’s talk: critical participatory action research and improvement science-guided research comparing our approaches to improve education. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 8(1), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.285 listed the authors in an incorrect order and contained an incorrect email address of author joy howard. the correct order of the authors is joy howard, kim derk, and tori colson. the email address for joy howard is howardj@wcu.edu. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 43 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 international learning for edd learners: short study trips and virtual exchange catherine dunn shiffman shenandoah university cshiffma@su.edu abstract this essay explores the potential of short international study trips and virtual exchanges to foster edd learner engagement with new ideas, practices, and peoples in other parts of the world. to frame the discussion, i consider alignment of frequently articulated goals for international learning with cped (2022) guiding principles for program design, and related edd preparation needs in three areas: culture and communication, global views, and professional expertise. i draw on research literature and my own work to discuss goals, curricular activities, and reported evidence associated with both approaches. i identify strengths and challenges for each approach. the essay concludes with recommendations for designing and leading short study trips and virtual exchanges for edd learners. keywords international, short study abroad, virtual exchange educators and leaders in pk-12 and higher education need a culturally responsive mindset, expertise in their field, and an understanding of the larger global context within which their students will one day work and live. international study trips and virtual exchanges hold ingredients for impactful experiential learning as education doctorate (edd) learners visit new places; encounter different practices, problems, and solutions; and engage with individuals from unfamiliar cultural backgrounds. as professionals, edd learners possess a career, specialized training, established expectations for teaching and learning, and a peer group that shares beliefs and values about the profession (kolb & kolb, 2018). a welldesigned international study trip or virtual exchange may offer the type of learning experience that supports an edd learner’s deep exploration of established and new beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and practices. study abroad and virtual exchange are core activities in the international education field (e.g., deardorff & jones, 2022; pasquarelli, 2018; stevens initiative, 2024), yet there are limited resources available specific to designing this type of programming for edd learners. (this essay defines short study trips as those with a duration of several days up to a few weeks.) short study trips for edd learners are a periodic presentation topic at the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) annual convening and other professional conferences. virtual exchange—an approach that uses technology for interaction between geographically disparate learners—is expanding rapidly in higher education, but not yet in the edd field. while these experiences hold exciting possibilities, they are typically resource-intensive, requiring time to design and implement—and, perhaps most challenging, financial costs when travel is involved. an international learning experience can range from interesting interludes to transformative shifts in beliefs, behaviors, and knowledge. for those edd faculty who believe international learning is worth the time and effort, the question becomes how to design an experience that maximizes learning. this essay offers a framework for exploring what short facultyled international study trips and virtual exchanges might offer edd preparation. the essay considers alignment of frequently articulated goals for international learning with the cped (2022) guiding principles for program design and preparation needs of edd learners. goals, curricular activities, and reported evidence are examined. the essay then compares dimensions of these two models to consider their strengths and challenges. the essay concludes with recommendations for designing and leading short study trips and virtual exchanges for edd learners. background this essay stems from my exploration of how to embed international learning into a small edd in educational leadership program. having personally experienced the transformative power of travel and listened to accounts from my edd learners, i wanted to better understand what occurs during an international encounter, how to enhance this experience, and what impacts on professional practice are possible. in 2018, i began collaborating with colleagues to develop and lead short study trips, collaborative online international exchange (coil) virtual exchanges, and combinations of these two approaches. study trips have included destinations in australia, finland, and scotland. coils have been conducted with faculty in australia, bosnia and herzegovina, and scotland. in tandem, i turned to the peer-reviewed literature. my search of ebsco databases and google scholar yielded nine accounts of u.s. faculty-led short study trips for edd and other graduate learners in https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3663-6410 shiffman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 44 educational leadership and administration. several of these sources noted the seeming scarcity of short study trips designed for educational leadership and administration learners (e.g., richardson et al., 2014; richardson et al., 2020). unable to find peer-reviewed accounts of virtual exchanges for graduate learners in educational leadership, i conducted a formal literature review of graduate-level virtual exchange using modified systematic procedures to identify 16 english-language sources (shiffman, 2023). the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) provided guidance for searching and reporting results. i conducted systematic searches of eric and ebsco academic databases and the journal of virtual exchange. i systematically reviewed abstracts in the unicollaboration’s virtual exchange and telecollaboration zotero group. in addition, i reviewed four sources that i had previously identified in google scholar. the 16 sources described course-based graduate-to-graduate exchanges occurring in a range of fields and disciplines. these courses were identified as ‘graduate,’ ‘master’s,’ or ‘doctoral’ level. no edd courses were identified. for the review, i analyzed characteristics, learning goals, structures, activities, reported outcomes, and adult learning principles. goals of international learning and the edd the stated aims of international learning are often lofty. goals may be multiple and intertwined. three types of learning goals hold particular relevance for edd learners. these goals target knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the cultural and communicative arena, global views for citizenship and workforce development, and professional expertise. culture and communication cultural goals are a major focus of international learning, either playing a central or supporting role (pasquarelli, 2018; stevens initiative, 2024). these may appear in a variety of forms (e.g., cultural, intercultural, cross-cultural, multicultural), undergirded by particular orientations, assumptions, and emphases. for example, ‘cross-cultural’ emphasizes comparisons, while ‘intercultural’ foregrounds interaction. cultural goals align with the cped (2022) guiding principles for program design and priorities in the education and educational leadership fields. cped’s third design principle—”develop[ing] and demonstrat[ing] collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities” (the cped framework, para. 9)—can be supported by international learning that fosters cultural awareness and intercultural engagement. these goals also align with culturally responsive tenets that emphasize understanding one’s values, beliefs, and dispositions, leading preparing and supporting teachers/faculty and staff to be culturally responsive, creating inclusive environments, and engaging with students, families, and communities (khalifa et al., 2016). global views another thematic cluster of goals takes a global view. it is broad, encompassing different orientations and imperatives yet sharing a vision of the world that is deeply interconnected and interdependent. global learning focuses individuals’ awareness of and relationship to the larger world. in undergraduate education, this involves “critical analysis of and engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability” (american association of colleges & universities, 2009, global learning value rubric, p.1). the united nations sustainable development goals (sdg) are a popular tool for framing a global learning experience (united nations, n.d.). twentyfirst century workforce development goals are also global, focusing on building learners’ knowledge and skills to participate in a world economy and with international colleagues. study trips and virtual exchanges with global-oriented goals can prepare edd learners to both model and prioritize this orientation in the schools and higher education institutions where they work and lead. global learning goals connect to cped’s (2022) first and second design principles. the first principle emphasizes questioning and generating solutions that address “equity, ethics, and social justice” (the cped framework section, para. 7). the second focuses on preparing leaders who can “construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities” (the cped framework section, para. 8). a global view also aligns with a variety of education policy efforts. many american states have articulated a ‘profile’ or ‘portrait’ of a high school graduate who possesses the types of knowledge and skills (e.g., critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity) expected to position students for success in careers and life (stanford, 2023). as noted above, these emphases are also evident in undergraduate education (association of american colleges & universities, 2009). professional expertise another thematic cluster concentrates on deeper insight into a discipline or field by encountering different perspectives and challenging dominant paradigms. this aligns with cped (2022) fourth, fifth and sixth principles for program design: 4) providing fieldbased opportunities to analyze problems of practice and using multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions; 5) developing a professional knowledge base; and 6) “emphasiz[ing] the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice” (the cped framework section, paras. 10, 11, 12). in the context of educational leadership preparation, international learning experiences are opportunities to examine and reflect on the cultural contexts and underexamined paradigms of leadership (danzig & jing, 2007). without evaluating these frameworks or recognizing the role of context, efforts to borrow ideas and practices from other countries and communities are likely to fail or—at a minimum—not meet desired results. evidence of learning while higher education institutions have invested heavily in and enthusiastically touted a range of student outcomes—personal, professional, and societal—the evidence is less well-understood (deardorff & van gaalen, 2022). historically, ambiguous goals, methodological issues, and a focus on outputs (e.g., number of students participating in the international experience) rather than learning outcomes characterized the evidence. however, this is changing. evidence may be drawn from a range of sources— pre/post assessments of change using instructor-created or validated instruments, student assignments and reflections, student feedback international learning for edd learners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 45 from interviews or surveys, curricular materials, and other facultygenerated artifacts. for designers of edd international experiences, an essential question concerns how such learning is applied to professional practice. evidence is easier to collect before, during, and/or soon after the experience but this may yield more information about intentions than how insights are actually incorporated into professional practice. short international study trips study abroad is far less prevalent in graduate education generally and the education fields, specifically. a 2019 survey found only 3.4% of graduate students at u.s. institutions participated in overseas learning (sanger & mason, 2019). graduate students in the education fields accounted for just 5% of this 3.4%. participation was typically voluntary and of short duration (eight weeks or less). goals goals for short study trips in educational leadership and related programs have focused on cultural understanding, global issues in education, and international comparisons. cultural goals are often prominent and reflect the variation in terminology and theoretical foundations found in the broader international education field. for example, a study trip to london for edd learners focused on developing culturally-responsive leadership (richardson et al., 2020), while a trip to qatar for graduate students in higher education administration focused on building intercultural competence (haber & getz, 2011). goals related to building professional expertise and global orientations have taken a comparative stance. edd learners have compared educational systems, contexts, and practices; and global issues impacting education, such as discrimination, immigration, language, and testing (danzig & jing, 2007; richardson et al., 2014, richardson et al., 2020). my colleagues and i have designed short study trips focused on comparing professional practices, the sociocultural context of education, and its relationship to professional practice. curriculum pasquarelli (2018) outlined “academically sound, culturally relevant design principles” (p. 38) that should guide all aspects of the short faculty-led study trip. to be academically sound, learning should be experiential and constructivist, with an emphasis on learners’ meaning-making. to be culturally relevant, the experience should match the chosen site and “integrate intercultural awareness” (p. 38). guided reflection and outcomes-based assessment are core practices throughout the three phases that can be achieved using multiple methods (e.g., journals, critical incident reporting). short study trips have a three-phase structure: pre-departure, in-country, and post-travel (pasquarelli, 2018). pre-departure might be a course, and/or activities (e.g., research, readings, lectures, discussions, and reflections). preparations for graduate educational leadership trips have focused on professional, research, and personal intentions for the trip, and countryand context-specific cultural, linguistic, and educational issues (danzig & jing, 2007; haber & getz, 2011; richardson et al, 2020). once in country, learners have visited schools and/or universities, met with various stakeholders (e.g., teachers, leaders, students, university faculty, governmental officials), attended lectures and debriefings, and visited cultural sites. some trips have incorporated further engagement with local peers by completing joint projects (haber & getz, 2011) and interacting one-on-one when shadowing school leaders (richardson et al., 2014). post-trip activities have included reflections, presentations, and/or papers. evidence study trips lend themselves to outcomes centered on learner awareness and understanding of self, one’s professional practice, and local context. self-oriented learning is one component of intercultural/cultural competence models and culturally responsive teaching and leadership (e.g., deardorff & jones, 2022; khalifa et al., 2016). haber and getz (2011) concluded their master’s and doctoral learners studying higher education leadership increased “intercultural awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, and competence” (p. 476). richardson and colleagues (2020) found significant improvement in cultural competence for edd learners using gozu et al.’s 2007 selfassessment of cultural competence. however, an earlier study found inconsistent cultural learning outcomes from student interviews conducted at the end of the experience and results of miville’s 1992 miville-guzman universality-diversity scale administered several months after the trip (richardson et al., 2014). such findings point to the complexity, individuality, and developmental nature of cultural learning. less is known about how edd learners may apply learning from an international study trip to their practice. danzig and jing (2007) reported global learning outcomes assisted edd learners to recognize contextual dimensions when adapting a policy or practice from another country. these learners “sought opportunities to apply and extend new knowledge to their own professional practice” (p. 88). in another study, edd learners reported behavioral changes centered on policy implementation, and instructional support for diverse learners (richardson et al., 2020). students reported “seeking out diversity” (p. 552) and “advocating for policy changes when working with diverse students and teachers” (p. 552). virtual exchange three prominent virtual exchange models hold particular relevance for edd virtual exchange design: coil, telecollaboration, and global virtual teams. these three models share the premise that technology can be harnessed to facilitate interaction, idea exchange, and collaboration between students and faculty around the world (stevens initiative, 2021). coil is a deliberately flexible model that can be aligned with existing course objectives in an edd program. coils typically employ intercultural group work and project-based learning. the telecollaboration approach from the language and language pedagogy fields offer insights for designing and facilitating intercultural and interlinguistic communication between individuals and within groups. global virtual teams approaches offer edd faculty additional resources focused on intercultural group or team development in a virtual environment. graduate-to-graduate exchanges conducted in multiple fields and disciplines offer insights for designing edd virtual exchanges. in my recent literature review (shiffman, 2023), the majority of sources described exchanges between courses in the same or closely related fields. educator preparation—in particular—preparation to teach english as a foreign language (tefl)—courses were prominently represented. other fields and disciplines represented included shiffman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 46 business, health, social sciences, and humanities. among these 16 sources, 20 countries were represented with u.s.-based courses appearing in nine of the exchanges. goals at the graduate level, virtual exchange goals tend to reflect priorities of the profession or field (shiffman, 2023). consistent with all education levels, cultural—and specifically intercultural—goals are prominent and tied to perceived needs of the profession. in the education field, rationales for the intercultural/cultural dimension of a virtual exchange have been tied to such goals as building the culturally-responsive knowledge and skills needed to work in diverse education contexts (chen, 2020/2021) and developing language pedagogy knowledge and skills (hauck, et al. 2020). in all fields, professional goals have centered on preparing learners for globally interdependent professional environments, working in diverse teams, and using communication technologies (chen, 2020/2021; hauck et al., 2020; magnier-watanabe et al., 2017). virtual exchanges for edd learners might take a comparative exploration of the profession. in one coil, my edd learners along with australian peers examined how the two countries were addressing sustainable development goal 4: ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (united nations, n.d.). in another coil, my edd learners collaborated with bosnian learners to compare educational leadership preparation and roles. curriculum common features of coils, telecollaboration, and global virtual teams are relationship-building activities, intercultural groups or teams of students, reflection, and activities to foster interaction, typically in the form of collaborative task(s) (stevens initiative, 2021). interactions can be synchronous, asynchronous, or some combination. interactions may occur in whole class settings or small groups via a variety of technology tools. exchanges often occur over several weeks. virtual exchange activities for graduate learners reflect the knowledge and skill needs of the profession (shiffman, 2023). graduate learners have collaborated in intercultural groups to analyze theoretical frameworks, research, and business case studies; and to design tools for their profession such as informational websites or learning tasks. in the coils i have co-designed for my edd learners, the intercultural learner teams have collected and analyzed a variety of data (e.g., educator interviews, standards, and best practice documents) to make comparisons between the two cultural contexts and created video presentations of their findings. evidence virtual exchange is a developing model of international learning. researchers typically cite multiple types of evidence with a heavy emphasis on qualitative sources and case studies (shiffman, 2023). reported outcomes for graduate-level exchanges have centered on intercultural learning, insight into the field or discipline and, in some cases, communication technology skill development. virtual exchange research has focused heavily on intercultural dimensions of the experience—characteristics of intercultural teams (e.g., trust and leadership), instructional and curricular supports for intercultural teamwork, and common challenges associated with language, experience, resource, and other power differentials (chen, 2020/2021; magnier-watanabe et al., 2017). comparing approaches both international short study trips and virtual exchanges hold potential for acquiring new knowledge, skills, and opportunities for reflection that can support preparing culturally responsive, globallyminded edd graduates with deepened insight into their field. this learning does not happen automatically. design is essential. study trips and virtual exchanges differ along four dimensions that illuminate the models’ strengths and challenges for edd programs. immersion international study trips engage all one’s senses, particularly when that context is radically unfamiliar. the sojourner also experiences, in some cases for the first time, what it is like to be an outsider who must observe and learn to navigate basics of everyday life. such experiences can remain vivid memories for decades. here, short study trips are positioned to stimulate the kinds of selfreflection about one’s own beliefs, attitudes, practices, and education system that form one essential component of culturally-responsive, globally-minded leadership (khalifa et al., 2016). given the short duration, however, the understanding of others and their contexts will necessarily be superficial. in contrast, virtual exchanges are not a multisensory experience. participants continue in their daily lives and routines with the exception of the virtual exchange activities. however, these virtual encounters with peers can prompt selfreflection when accompanied by intentionally designed prompts. access access has two dimensions: who participates and with whom. participation in international travel has been dominated by those with the resources and motivation to participate. this is a major concern in the study abroad field. for edd learners juggling many responsibilities, international travel may not take precedence. here, virtual exchange offers an advantage. the exchange can be embedded into existing coursework. learners do not leave home and do not incur additional financial costs. for working professionals who are not able or have never considered travelling, this offers participation in an authentic international experience. destinations are also a question of access. when voluntary, learners self-select to participate and the destination is likely to be a motivating factor. in contrast, virtual exchanges are not limited by geography, motivation, or cost. edd learners can engage and learn with peers irrespective of initial interest, distance, or even geopolitical events. for example, when edd learners work in schools, colleges, or universities that serve particular immigrant or international communities, a virtual exchange with peers in those countries of origin may provide an opportunity to learn about the culture and former educational contexts of those they serve. intercultural engagement and relationships intercultural engagement and relationship building is a third dimension along which the two approaches differ. given the limited duration, a short study trip on its own offers fewer opportunities to engage deeply with citizens of the destination country. in contrast, international learning for edd learners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 47 coils, telecollaboration, and global virtual teams are designed for learners to engage with one another over several weeks while collaborating on assignments. they must create ways to communicate and collaborate to complete the shared work. virtual exchanges offer varied possibilities for communicating across language difference. to support a range of language needs, communication can occur via multiple modalities (synchronous, asynchronous), forms (verbal, written, visual), groupings (pairs, small groups, full class), and technology tools (e.g., messaging applications, email, online documents, discussion boards, social media platforms). to illustrate, asynchronous and written forms allow time and space for nonnative speakers to interpret and respond, and—if needed—use supports such as online translation. when native speakers and language learners are in a group, the collaboration creates authentic spaces for language learners to practice their language skills and for native speakers to deepen awareness of language needs and practice communication strategies that facilitate equitable participation. theoretically, the communication methods to complete the shared tasks could lay the groundwork for continued engagement after the virtual exchange has concluded. there is potential to integrate these two models to strengthen intercultural engagement and relationships. haber and getz (2011) illustrated how virtual collaboration coupled with an in-person conference might deepen the learning. my colleagues and i designed a combined short study trip with a coil component that required learners to collaborate in person and virtually over a semester. in one instance, this resulted in an american-australian learner team researching best practices to support students with special needs who identify as lgbtqia+. the team developed a website of resources and presented this work at a virtual international conference after the coil ended. resources and practical considerations both study trips and virtual exchanges are accompanied by resource and practical requirements. study trips incur financial costs. designing and leading a study trip is labor-intensive with many logistical considerations to navigate. depending on the institutional support available, faculty may assume additional, nonconventional roles—travel agent, health care monitor, and/or cultural coach. for a cost, organizations can be contracted to design and handle curriculum, site visits, historical tours, and travel logistics. in contrast, virtual exchanges pose primarily logistical and faculty time demands. common practical challenges must be navigated—different time zones, schedules, language, technologies, and data security. finding an international faculty partner willing and able to collaborate to design and implement the exchange also presents a challenge. collaborating with a faculty peer requires time and adds another layer of complexity to teaching. however, this can be an enriching source of professional learning, networking, and scholarship. recommendations below are several recommendations for faculty considering a short study trip or virtual exchange for edd learners. these serve as a starting point. the recommendations also provide considerations for designing a short study trip and/or virtual exchange that aligns with the goals of the edd program or course. be clear about the goals for the international learning experience understanding the learning goals and which will take priority can help clarify the appropriate type of experience and resulting design. if the priority is to foster cultural self-awareness, a short study trip is a powerful mechanism for prompting introspection. if the priority is to expand access to more edd learners and to encounters with individuals in less accessible geographic locations, a virtual exchange is a promising route. the nature of the interaction differs. on a short study trip, the primary interaction will be with fellow travelers who share a cultural frame of reference. if the goal is practicing intercultural communication or sharing ideas about professional practice with international peers, there may be more sustained opportunities to do that in a virtual exchange. in both cases, intercultural communication and collaboration require design support to ensure that the engagement is a productive and ultimately positive learning experience. prioritize reflection individual and group reflection will help edd learners process what they are experiencing and explore emerging questions and insights. reflection can focus on processes and academic/professional content. these can be formal or informal. they can be individual or group reflections. on a study trip, reflection might focus on the individual’s processing of what is seen and heard, questions raised, and connections to professional practice. in a virtual exchange, reflection on the intercultural group processes may support both the collaboration and activate learners’ attention to such aspects of intercultural communication as cultural expectations and power dynamics. focus on application to professional practice as scholarly practitioners, edd learners should be able to connect an international learning experience to their professional practice. reflection activities—both individual and group—throughout the experience can spur learners to think about implications for their professional practice. at the conclusion of the experience, learners may describe lofty intentions for how they will apply lessons and insights. over time, the daily realities may undermine such intentions. planning how to support learners as they integrate new learning into their work over time can enhance the impact on professional practice. assess and plan for practical challenges designing and leading international learning experiences involve multiple moving parts and players. faculty members work with some degree of ambiguity. they must be flexible and creative to both troubleshoot and capitalize on unexpected learning opportunities. in the case of short study trips, the university’s international education office can help identify internal and external supports for some or all aspects of the curriculum and trip. in the case of virtual exchanges, edd faculty and programs can turn to their institution’s international education office as well as organizations with expertise addressing common challenges associated with differences in language, time, experience, technology, and data security. the stevens initiative at the aspen institute, unicollaboration, and the american association of colleges and universities (aac&u) offer an array of virtual exchange resources, examples, research, and best practices. several shiffman impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 4 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.438 48 university centers provide resources and trainings and/or assistance identifying partners beyond their own institution. a non-exhaustive list includes the state university of new york (suny) coil center, florida international university’s fiu global, depaul university’s office of global engagement, and shenandoah university’s barzinji institute for global virtual learning. a major hurdle is finding a faculty partner who is committed to the exchange and has a group of learners who are a good match for edd learners. a network for eddlevel programs such as cped could facilitate connecting interested faculty. designers of virtual exchanges should also turn to the virtual exchange literature to identify strategies that can address common challenges associated with differences in language, time, experience, and technology. conclusion the cped (2022) framework captures a vision of edd graduates as scholarly practitioners who are culturally responsive, apply their knowledge and skills to address complex problems of practice in their organizations, and will lead the profession into the future. international learning experiences can support this vision by creating opportunities for edd learners to participate in novel, authentic experiences that prompt engagement with new ideas, practices, and peoples in other parts of the world. careful focus on defining goals and aligning these with the design can enhance the depth of the learning that occurs. given the investment of time, money, and other resources, it makes sense to design an experience that moves edd learners beyond an interesting interlude to a transformative shift in beliefs, behaviors, and knowledge. references association of american colleges & universities. 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(2014). evaluating school leadership development through an international experience. international journal of leadership in education, 17(3), 353–369. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2013.817611 sanger, j. & mason, l. (2019). who’s counting? understanding the landscape of graduate learning overseas. institute of international education. https://www.iie.org/research-and-insights/publications/understandingthe-landscape-of-graduate-learning-overseas shiffman, c. d. (2023). virtual exchange for graduate and adult learners: a literature review. journal of virtual exchange, 6(si-ivec2022), 40–64. https://journal.unicollaboration.org/article/view/39850 stanford, l. (2024, january 17). more states are creating a ‘portrait of a graduate:’ here’s why. education week, 43(13). https://www.edweek.org/issue/2024/01/17 stevens initiative. 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(n.d.). the 17 goals. united nations. https://sdgs.un.org/goals https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://doi.org/10.37120/ijttl.2020.16.1.02 https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.3.36082 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316630383 https://doi.org/10.28945/4642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2013.817611 https://www.iie.org/research-and-insights/publications/understanding-the-landscape-of-graduate-learning-overseas https://www.iie.org/research-and-insights/publications/understanding-the-landscape-of-graduate-learning-overseas https://www.edweek.org/issue/2024/01/17 https://www.stevensinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/stevens-initiative-virtual-exchange-typology_090121_singlepages.pdf https://www.stevensinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/stevens-initiative-virtual-exchange-typology_090121_singlepages.pdf https://www.stevensinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/stevens-initiative-virtual-exchange-typology_090121_singlepages.pdf https://www.stevensinitiative.org/resource/2024-survey-of-the-virtual-exchange-field-report/ https://www.stevensinitiative.org/resource/2024-survey-of-the-virtual-exchange-field-report/ https://sdgs.un.org/goals impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.591 edd-activism through the dissertation in practice and beyond: an introduction to the special issue elizabeth currin university of south carolina ecurrin@mailbox.sc.edu suha tamim university of south carolina tamims@mailbox.sc.edu abstract this special issue celebrates our colleagues, graduates, and current students for being, becoming, and supporting edd-activists. grounded in the carnegie project on the education doctorate framework, our program has long emphasized advocating for equity and social justice, yet we recently went a step further by framing students’ action research dissertations as opportunities for activism. stemming from these ongoing efforts, this issue may nourish comparable transformation in other schools and communities. this introduction outlines our aim to introduce and illustrate the concept of edd-activism, aided by a range of student, graduate, and faculty voices. by highlighting students’ and graduates’ experiences and achievements as edd-activists and describing the structures and approaches that give rise to edd-activism, we hope to inspire other educators to see and act upon the activist potential in their own practice, as well as encouraging fellow teacher educators to instill or enhance that mindset in the students they serve. keywords activism, action research, dissertation in practice the doctor of education (edd) in educational practice and innovation is an online degree program at the university of south carolina (usc) not just to keep pace with technology trends. rather, the largely asynchronous format allows us to serve full-time educators around the globe who are committed to the challenge of continuing their education while remaining grounded in their day-today work. as experienced institutional members of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped, 2022c), “we envision a future where equity-minded educational professionals lead lasting and positive change for the learning and benefit of everyone” (para. 2). our concentration, with a focus on curriculum studies, has enrolled hundreds of practitioners in rural, urban, and suburban settings from california to the carolinas, canada to connecticut, and as far afield as guam and china. from preschool teachers to professors, curriculum designers and instructional coaches to corporate trainers, and district administrators, we have taught a wide range of students one course announcement, discussion post, email, or virtual meeting at a time. with several online edd programs in existence, including many of our fellow affiliates of cped (2022b), we often ask students what drew them to usc. in response, we hear the expected answers of the convenient online format and tightly structured 3-year course sequence, coupled with the program’s relative affordability, yet curriculum studies edd students are just as likely to cite our avowed commitment to equity and social justice. we take pride in knowing those values shine clearly across cyberspace, striving to attract applicants with the necessary dispositions to uphold them—or a palpable desire to develop such capacities as they progress through the coursework. indeed, admission is only one piece of the larger edd puzzle, and our responsibilities as faculty members extend beyond reviewing applications and facilitating online courses. as perry (2024) argued, “an edd program is a constant improvement effort” (p. 105), best undertaken with a shared goal in mind. those principles of continuous renewal and backward design recently guided a years-long process of enhancing how we introduce and facilitate the dissertation component of our program, which is known as a dissertation in practice (dip) in cped (2022a) parlance to emphasize students’ roles as insiders who engage in some form of practitioner inquiry. with our curriculum studies colleagues, we specifically sought to sharpen the social justice aspects of students’ action research projects—to ensure we were all living up to the ideals that attract three sizable cohorts each year. heeding cochransmith’s (2010) warning that social justice is susceptible to being “diluted, trivialized or co-opted” (p. 445), we championed a bolder focus on activism throughout the cped community (becton et al., 2020). in 2019, usc hosted the cped convening with a theme of interaction and activism in the education doctorate. as part of the opening session, we facilitated an organization-wide discussion activity to explore our peers’ views on activist profiles, program strategies, and indicators for measuring our success with activating edd students. from those insights, we developed an emerging framework for edd-activism (becton et al., 2020) that laid the foundation for a subsequent framework specific to our program (currin et al., 2023). in parallel, two of our colleagues served as guest editors for two special issues on activism in this very journal https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7318-0052 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1664-747x currin & tamim impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.591 2 (becton & jeffries, 2020, 2021). each of those collections shared related experiences from edd graduates and faculty at other institutions, such as how coble et al. (2020) immersed their students in placed-based experiences that shifted their identities toward activism, and ryan and watson’s (2021) redesign of their edd program to “cultivate greater activism among [their] graduates to lead systemic change” (p. 12). having ignited and kindled cped-wide conversations about activism, we celebrated as ideas exchanged at the 2019 convening continued to resonate in other edd-serving institutions (e.g., storey & fletcher, 2023). all the while, we continued to explore the implications for our program. through iterative reflection and conversation, we co-constructed a definition of edd-activism, the concept at the heart of this collection: critical application of advanced knowledge of educational theory, research, and practice to resolve injustices or inequities through collaboration with diverse communities (currin et al., 2023). from admission to graduation and beyond, this concept shapes our embedded understanding of the processes of being, becoming, and supporting scholarly practitioners. in turn, this special issue offers real-world depictions of and reflections on edd-activism from a diverse array of educational contexts, alongside attention to the instructional structures and choices that nurture such a critical stance. we share them as “entry points . . . rather than as exemplars or models” (porfilio et al., 2019, p. 105), joining and extending similar conversations about edd programs (e.g., pape et al., 2023; perry, 2024), as well as other avenues for preservice and practicing educators’ professional learning (e.g., caro-bruce et al., 2007; krebs & torrez, 2022). as many scholars have argued, being an educator is a complex, context-dependent endeavor, resistant to strict quantification or universal truths (blakely & hemphill, 2021). therefore, instead of issuing one-size-fits-all prescriptions, the contributions in this issue will ideally serve as “catalytic agents” (carini, 2001, p. 62), sparking transferable insights. through the dip and beyond, as the title implies, we aspire for this collection to fuel transformational activism in other schools and communities. from action research to edd-activism as a professional degree, the edd charges educators to become stewards of their profession by critiquing current practices, initiating evidence-based changes, and generating knowledge from the ensuing transformation (shulman et al., 2006). harnessing the power of inquiry as stance, which “redefines leaders as learners and thus blurs the boundaries between leaders and followers, between those framing the problems and those implementing the changes in response” (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009, p. 123), it endows students with the skills that enable them to address wicked problems in complex systems (rasmussen, 2018). as wergin (2011) conceded, when determining program particulars, “local circumstances will always hold sway” (p. 136), yet cped encourages all edd programs to align with core principles, including that all edd graduates should know “one of the most important roles of the expert educator is to disrupt, to challenge, [and] to disorient” (p. 126). putting that principle into practice begins with critical reflection on one’s practice. of the various means for instilling such skills and dispositions, our program includes multiple courses in action research, a form of practitioner inquiry that encourages cyclical action and reflection (brydon-miller et al., 2003). suitable to educational settings and doctoral-level scholarship (efron & ravid, 2020; herr & anderson, 2015), action research enables edd students to understand their practice and its conditions, test solutions, and initiate change (kemmis, 2009; putman & rock, 2018). more accurately, as both the catalyst and conduit for edd-activism, action research permeates our course sequence to empower students as they work on their dips across all 3 years. the geographic expanse of our student population and our students’ use of action research in their dissertations keeps us attuned to a dizzying array of complex problems of practice. in recent years, we have witnessed covid-related school closures that initially affected only a handful of our students in faraway states before the steady crescendo and other pandemic aftershocks ultimately confronted us all (baker, 2022). we have sympathized with students whose communities faced natural disasters of a different sort, like the deadliest tornado in kentucky history (robertson et al., 2021) and the unprecedented flooding caused by hurricane helene (gecker et al., 2024). having learned to read world news through the lenses of our students, we longed to leap through our laptops in support of those in close proximity to the murder of george floyd (richards, 2020), the hamas attack that enflamed the longstanding israeli–palestinian conflict (cbs news, 2023), and the shooting at apalachee high school (fortin, 2024), among other tragedies. closer to home, we have seen the chilling effect of book bans, like the one that brought ta-nehisi coates to a south carolina school board meeting in stoic support of a teacher who dared to teach his award-winning memoir (noel, 2023). we have also witnessed the contagious power of such defiance. indeed, recognizing that education always occurs amid entangled social, historical, and political forces, we know these events and their aftermath transcend geographical borders, demanding the kinds of reflective practitioners we seek to cultivate and emulate. as the need to encourage more critical action research in response to these challenges became especially acute, we conceptualized and implemented edd-activism to reinvigorate our existing policies and practices. having described that process in an earlier article (currin et al., 2023), we focus more on the fruits of our collective labor in this issue, having invited students, graduates, and colleagues to share their unique perspectives and experiences. dana and yendol-hoppey (2020) likened going public in this manner to tossing a stone in a pond, illustrating how “inquiry disturbs the status quo of educational practices, creating a ripple effect” (p. 209). the combined voices in this issue, from practicing and aspiring eddactivists and the professors who support them, can truly make some waves. the structure of the program bringing edd-activism to life requires a clear programmatic framework and keen attention to the processes of being, becoming, and supporting scholarly practitioners. to acquaint readers with the instructional scaffolding that gives rise to edd-activism, this section provides a basic overview of our 3-year program, specifically the curriculum studies concentration of usc’s edd in educational practice and innovation. like all cped-affiliated programs, we prioritize rigor, relevance, and impact as key components of the professional practice doctorate (kochhar-bryant, 2017). we designed our curriculum with a purposeful course sequence that embodies cped (2022a) principles and combines core courses, dissertation courses, and concentration-specific courses to establish the theoretical and conceptual foundation students need to explore edd-activism through the dip and beyond impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.591 3 their problems of practice and envision change strategies and solutions that prioritize equity and social justice while simultaneously drafting their dissertations. in year 1, students’ core courses focus on diversity and the curriculum to heighten their critical consciousness and reflection, interlaced with research courses dedicated to introducing action research and compatible methodologies to support students as they begin drafting their problems of practice and research design. toward the end of the first year, students meet with their advisors (i.e., dissertation chairs) to finalize a prospectus that constitutes their qualifying exam. eventually becoming the first chapter of their dissertations, it presents a clear problem of practice, intervention if applicable, research questions, and an overview of the theoretical framework and research design. in year 2, the pattern continues with a course on critical pedagogy, another on organizational change, and more courses on diversity and the curriculum. in this second year, students develop a draft of their literature review in a course dedicated to that purpose and work with their advisors to finalize an action research proposal. eventually serving as the first three chapters of their dissertation, it constitutes their comprehensive exam. year 3 focuses on finalizing the dissertation, as each student implements their proposed study, reports their findings in chapter 4, and discusses the implications in chapter 5, which includes a detailed action plan to showcase students’ awareness of the cyclical nature of action research. in support of this work, they complete a leadership course, one on education research, and another on diversity training. these final learning experiences encourage students to go public with their inquiries beyond the dissertation, reinforcing the program’s overall framework. in sum, this 3-year sequence reflects our conceptualization of curriculum that nourishes edd-activism. modeling the same stance we expect of students, this structure includes iterative rounds of discussions and revisions on our part. through this process of continuous renewal anchored by a shared vision, we aim to create building blocks that strengthen the critical stance of our students in their educational settings and transform them into scholarly practitioners and change agents armed with professional and theoretical knowledge and skills. the structure of the issue in four distinct parts, this issue builds on the prior description of how we as teacher educators cultivate edd-activism, illustrating how our students develop that stance en route to graduation—and crucially, how they maintain their active identities as edd-activists beyond the bounds of the program. the first contribution expands on the conceptualization of edd-activism and how it informs program design. three subsequent articles offer representative examples of edd-activism in action—distilled versions of three recent action research dissertations from the program, followed by four articles featuring a range of current and former student voices engaged in critical reflection on the process of adopting an edd-activist stance in doctoral study and the broader journey of becoming and remaining committed to edd-activism. the co-authored reflections in the final three articles bring the issue to a close by demonstrating the importance of collaboration for sustainable edd-activism. in short, as the following synopses convey, the contributions to this issue combine the processes and outcomes of action research to highlight how transformative learning experiences impact our students’ and graduates’ practices as well as our own. part i: conceptualizing edd-activism in “the activist educator: defining edd-activism to promote equity and justice,” suha tamim and three program graduates— lorin koch, karen martin, and russell clark—describe a participatory action research study they undertook to complement the faculty-developed edd-activism definition and redesign of selected courses as presented in a prior publication (currin et al., 2023). presenting their version of the edd-activism framework and reflections on the social justice courses they completed in the program, the article highlights the valuable perspectives of these agents of change, voicing their desire to align their study’s outcomes with the work of program faculty. part ii: edd-activism in the dissertation in practice turning to the section of the issue featuring concrete examples of action research conducted by program graduates that embody activism and change, “‘so the world isn’t just old white guys?’: student and teacher experiences in a culturally relevant advanced placement chemistry class” showcases jason sox’s powerful effort to improve his practice. realizing his identity as a successful science teacher relied on strict alignment to state and district standards, jason felt called to address the lack of opportunities for meaningful student engagement in his classroom, striving to reconcile his instructional priorities and those of his students. as he progressed through the doctoral program, jason’s activist stance grew from analyzing past experiences, registering his identity as a white male educator, and envisioning how to incorporate more inclusive curriculum and pedagogy. as the article details, he implemented four new units and captured rich qualitative data, surfacing two unique and important perspectives. first, he shares personal insights, including the challenges associated with planning and executing each unit alongside the benefits in the form of improved relationships with students, improved confidence in teaching culturally relevant lessons, and increased awareness of his cultural biases. second, he shares the students’ experiences to highlight the tangible impact of the modified curriculum. continuing the theme of this section, “increasing ela teachers’ confidence regarding lgbtq+ inclusion through professional development” by nicole mustaccio offers a succinct overview of her dissertation and the ensuing ripple effect, illustrating how action research empowers doctoral students to start with a problem they can solve where they are and go from there. as an out, queer high school teacher, nicole wanted to affirm lgbtq+ students through counter-heteronormative activism. faced with a problem that felt impossible to solve, nicole learned to narrow her focus to her sphere of influence: the school’s white, cisgender, straight, and heteronormative english language arts (ela) curriculum. designing and facilitating professional development sessions for eight ela colleagues, nicole sought to increase both their knowledge and comfort. inspired by the outcomes, nicole nevertheless wondered whether participants would make the leap from philosophy to action. bridging from nicole’s dissertation, this article serves as a powerful follow-up by further exploring the ela educators’ confidence with addressing lgbtq+ inclusion and potential backlash and expanding the scope to include special education ela teachers. describing nicole’s additional efforts to help colleagues practice analyzing currin & tamim impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.591 4 literature through a queer perspective and engage in role play with the goal of navigating challenges related to lgbtq+ inclusion in ela classrooms, the piece demonstrates how and why to continue engaging in edd-activism beyond graduation. rounding out part ii of the issue is “if not me, then who?: a study of racial and cultural competence in a high school english department” by dianna sox. like her peers in the preceding articles, dianna experienced powerful professional transformation as an edd student, recognizing that racial and cultural content and discourse were absent from the english classrooms at her school. when she realized her fear at the prospect of implementing a curricular intervention based on what she was learning as an edd student, she pivoted toward inviting her colleagues to join her in an action research study focused on improving their collective cultural competence, owning their shared responsibility to be change agents. recounting her exploration of the factors that contribute to racial silence and whether targeted intervention and increased cultural competence could assist in breaking through those barriers, the article shows her effort to lead the transformation of the group’s classrooms into more racially and culturally just spaces. part iii: being and becoming edd-activists moving to diverse illustrations of the journey to becoming an edd-activist, this section of the issue begins with erin hawley cronin’s contribution, “becoming an education activist through the action research dissertation: from ideas to action.” as a student teacher at the time of the columbine shooting and a minnesota educator whose students lived near the site of george floyd’s murder, erin has a longstanding concern for anxious students who need help coping with pain, particularly as related to racial strife or lgbtq+ oppression. her desire to do more to affect positive change led her to our doctoral program, and the dissertation process was her catalyst for action. given the opportunity to investigate scholarship related to youth anxiety, especially for lgbtq+ and bipoc students, erin learned to frame her problems of practice with critical race theory, queer theory and pedagogy, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. shifting from worry, concern, and hesitation to action, erin gained confidence in her ability to thoroughly investigate problems; research, plan, and enact solutions; and pivot as needed. her article testifies to edd-activism as a workable, flexible, real-world process— including in her current position as a university academic advisor and instructor. likewise, “cultivating critical consciousness: the journey of becoming an edd-activist” situates ashley wright’s edd experience in her broader professional trajectory. as an undergraduate, she studied political science and history with an interest in community improvement, but the 2016 u.s. presidential election left her feeling disillusioned with her work in politics, as she observed community engagement and civic education in decline, while voter apathy surged. pursuing a new career as a teacher, she sought to build a classroom experience that fostered civic education, giving students the tools to transform society. as she explains, although she hoped her students would develop their own attitudes and desires toward activism, she never identified as an activist until she enrolled in the edd program. our focus on social justice and commitment to eddactivism helped her embrace being an educator, researcher, and activist all rolled into one. she also speaks to the program’s capacity to bridge the gap between her academic disciplines, nudging her to explore how political science, history, and education combine to support her activism in her classroom and school community. ultimately, the article reflects on her continuing journey, aligned with the special issue’s emphasis on sustaining edd-activism beyond the dissertation. next, christine pipitone’s contribution, “on becoming a community college professor-activist,” complements other perspectives in the collection, both because of her professional context outside of k–12 education and because she wrote it as a current student—in her words, “an edd-activist in training.” presented in four sections, her article connects her intellectual growth as a doctoral student to her professional transformation from a community college professor to a community college professor– activist. the first section provides an overview of the community college’s mission and the central role of faculty in supporting the academic and social needs of a diverse student population. the second section traces her intellectual journey in the program, from the early coursework that introduced the collaborative and transformative potential of social justice education to the emphasis on self-reflection and positionality throughout the iterative action research design process in year 2. the third section, conceptualized as “becoming,” discusses the rationale for her dissertation to address faculty burnout, and the final section, conceptualized as “beyond,” outlines her vision for continuing to advocate for improving the college culture for all faculty, staff, and students. rounding out the third section, “past, present, and future as a social studies educator activist” shares jess morey’s belief in the power of stories to teach and the accompanying insight that sometimes one must read more to challenge what one thinks one knows. she illustrates these lessons by reflecting on her experience as a current edd student, specifically her evolving understanding of critical race theory as a culture war weapon. piercing through dominant media narratives in year 1 of the program disrupted her assumptions about the solely positive benefits of desegregation and ignited a passion for responding to racial injustice in education. as she describes, these insights led to an action research dissertation centered on her community’s need for teacher education related to personal finance so a state-mandated personal financial education course can have the desired impact of being a tool for equity. the article’s discussion of her course experiences, district and school experiences, and evolving research provides an important testimony of the development of an edd-activist stance in process. part iv: collaborating to sustain edd-activism the reflective essays in the final section build on the preceding articles’ attention to the process of action research, its outcomes, and its inherently collaborative nature. as a unique introduction to the section, “a shared journey toward social justice activism” is a co-authored contribution from dianna and jason sox. a married couple who navigated the edd program together, the soxes experienced a profound shift in their individual and collective identities as educators and parents. their article shares how their professors and fellow cohort members supported them in acquiring not just a degree but a newfound purpose to become edd-activists. next, in another unique contribution, former student molly staeheli and her former principal, jeff flanigan, tell a story of “eddactivism: two journeys converge to support long-term english learners.” identifying as a newly emerging edd-activist teacher and a life-long activist administrator, they share their critical reflection on the culturally irrelevant scripted curriculum for english learners in edd-activism through the dip and beyond impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.591 5 their majority-minority district, exacerbated by a lack of teachers with similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds. as they argue, continuing to ignore such systemic issues is akin to betrayal. indeed, this concern catalyzed molly’s dissertation, and jeff served as her external committee member. the article illustrates how molly’s doctoral work provided an opportunity to respond to this complex problem of practice, alongside jeff’s effort to enhance the school’s mentorship and retention of educators of color. further, they underscore the necessary courage to move forward in a political and cultural climate that does not welcome activist work. we share that sentiment and encourage readers to join us in advocating for more equitable teaching and learning. finally, our colleagues whitney roach and rhonda jeffries echo the emphasis on collaboration established in the first article with their contribution, “becoming, beckoning, and belonging as educational activists.” delving into their nuanced experiences as faculty members—one in a nascent career stage as an assistant professor and the other a seasoned professor—they explore the intricacies of assuming activist roles within the academic domain and serving as inherent role models for the emerging edd-activists in our program. treating becoming as an ongoing, fluid process without definitive endpoints, they encourage continual self-reflection, personal growth, and interrogation while underscoring the value of developing educational communities that foster belonging— particularly for those marginalized by race, sexual orientation, or gender identity. in short, their reflections offer insights for teacher educators who seek to support and mentor fellow academics and scholarly practitioners alike. ultimately, they call for more inclusive and diverse academic environments where all community members actively work to counter injustice. a call to readers recognizing the myriad problems of practice confronting anyone who identifies as an educator, including those that warrant what santoro and cain (2018) referred to as principled resistance, this special issue addresses the important question of how to respond—not in the form of a lockstep recipe, but in the messy lived experiences of edd-activists and their allies. porfilio et al. (2019) urged edd programs to “gather the courage to use the term [social justice], explicitly define it, connect it to program facets, and continually evolve” (p. 120). applying that charge to edd-activism, we compiled this collection to demonstrate its central role in our work while recognizing such work is always ongoing. like krebs and torrez (2022), we share the voices of our students and graduates in hopes of illustrating “the enduring impact their participation in this program has on their teaching and their lives today” (p. 1). more importantly, like bradley-levine (2018), we affirm teacher leadership and activism as interrelated “to move our thinking toward a better understanding of what it means to be a critical teacher leader who through advocacy integrates both teaching and leadership for equity and social justice” (p. 51). extending these conversations to the doctoral level and beyond k–12 settings, we hope this diverse collection will ultimately inspire other educators to see themselves as activists and act accordingly. further, we invite our fellow teacher educators to instill or enhance that mindset in the students they serve. as this issue testifies, it truly is a team effort. references baker, l. 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(2017). symbiotic space: exploring the nexus of rigor, problems of practice and implementation. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 2(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.25 krebs, m., & torrez, c. a. (eds.). (2022). k–12 teacher inquiry and reflections: a pathway to enduring transformation. lexington books. noel, m. (2023, july 20). author ta-nehisi coates attends school board meeting to support teacher banned from using his book on race in class. essence. https://www.essence.com/news/ta-nehisi-coates-school-boardmeeting-book-bans/ pape, s. j., bryant, c. l., johnbull, r. m., & karp, k. s. (eds.). (2023). transforming identities: how an edd program develops practitioners into scholar–practitioners. myers education press. perry, j. a. (2024). reclaiming the education doctorate: a guidebook for (re)designing edd programs. myers education press. porfilio, b. j., strom, k., & lupinacci, j. 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(2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.25 https://www.essence.com/news/ta-nehisi-coates-school-board-meeting-book-bans/ https://www.essence.com/news/ta-nehisi-coates-school-board-meeting-book-bans/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.59 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/06/04/george-floyd-protests-kids-coronavirus-school-closures/3128780001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/06/04/george-floyd-protests-kids-coronavirus-school-closures/3128780001/ https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/13/us/tornadoes-kentucky-illinois https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.123 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.277 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 elizabeth currin university of south carolina suha tamim university of south carolina from action research to edd-activism the structure of the program the structure of the issue part i: conceptualizing edd-activism part ii: edd-activism in the dissertation in practice part iii: being and becoming edd-activists part iv: collaborating to sustain edd-activism a call to readers references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 35 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.390 mechanisms for change: infusing the edd with change-making practices nicholas e. husbye university of nebraska–lincoln nhusbye2@unl.edu tachier rezac university of nebraska–lincoln trezac18@unl.edu stephanie wessels university of nebraska–lincoln swessels2@unl.edu guy trainin university of nebraska–lincoln gtrainin2@unl.edu abstract while the covid-19 pandemic forced the rapid development of adaptations in educational systems, these innovations often disappeared as schools returned to so-called pre-pandemic normalcy. this essay explores the role of the education doctorate (edd) programs in equipping candidates with the necessary tools to foster sustained change within their institutions, even in the face of limited power. drawing from the metaphor of the rider and the elephant, this essay proposes specific practices within the edd framework to support students in appealing to both logical reasoning and emotional engagement to drive change. by aligning the rider (conscious thinking) with the elephant (unconscious emotions) and creating a conducive path (environment), lasting behavioral change can be achieved. additionally, the essay highlights the importance of recognizing the interplay between educational research and the practical realities of classroom instruction, emphasizing how edd graduates can bridge the gap between education research claims and local education system needs. keywords behavior change, systemic change, educational research the rapid spread of covid-19 in the spring of 2020 resulted in a multitude of changes to educational systems to adapt to a biological reality reminiscent of a plot point from a dystopian novel. surprisingly, while there were many innovations in these responses, the focus remains on getting back to normal, discarding those innovations that may be useful moving forward. this emphasizes the question of not only how to evoke change within larger structures, but also how to make change persist. if the purpose of the educational doctorate program is to truly transform education, how are edd preparation programs supporting candidates with practices to enact ongoing change within their own institutions, even when they themselves may have very little power within those institutions? research loves data: collecting it, analyzing it, and reporting it. it is a beloved notion that exposure to data will incite change. data, however, have limited effects on inciting change, as logic is only one piece of what is known about how to support change. borrowing the metaphor of the rider and the elephant (haidt, 2006; heath & heath, 2010), this essay seeks to outline the ways in which edd programs might support their educational doctorate students in feeding the logical rider necessary data, to appeal to the emotions of the elephant the rider sits atop, and present a new pathway for both rider and elephant. drawing upon the edd. framework, this essay seeks to outline specific practices aligning within this metaphor to support edd in developing the technical skills that bring about and sustaining change. the rider and the elephant jonathan haidt’s (2006) elephant and the rider metaphor provides a simple but powerful framework for understanding behavioral change. within this metaphor, our minds consist of two distinct parts: the rational rider and the emotional elephant. the rider represents our conscious and deliberate thinking, while the elephant represents our unconscious and emotional reactions. the rider may be able to control the elephant for a while, but eventually, the elephant will always win if it really wants to go in a certain direction. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5268-2985 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2116-7155 husbye et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.390 36 in our collective response to the covid-19 pandemic, the elephant responded swiftly to enact change as emotions ran high at a truly unprecedented time. schools shifted their structures of work through remote learning, hybrid learning, and alternate day experiences to provide social distancing to ensure student, faculty, and administrative safety. free and reduced meal programs were taken into neighborhoods, providing much-needed relief. many of these changes shifted behaviors during the pandemic but did not last as institutions shifted back to practices enacted prior to the onset of the pandemic, regardless of their impact. to create lasting behavioral change, haidt (2006) argues that we need to appeal to both the rider and the elephant simultaneously. the rider needs to understand the reasons behind the change and be motivated to make it, while the elephant needs to feel a deep emotional connection to the change. for example, if someone wants to try to eat healthier, the rider may decide to plan meals and count calories, but the elephant may need to be convinced that eating healthily will result in feeling better and more energetic. chip and dan heath (2010) build upon the rider and elephant metaphor by adding a third component: the path. in their book switch: how to change things when change is hard, the heath brothers argue that for successful behavior change, the rider, elephant, and path all need to be aligned. the path represents the environment or context in which behavior occurs. according to the heath brothers, the path can either facilitate or impede behavior change. they suggest that making changes to the environment or context in which behavior occurs can make it easier for the rider and elephant to move in the desired direction. the changes being asked are broken into manageable tasks, moving toward a larger change through a series of such tasks, referred to as shrinking the change. for example, revisiting the earlier example, if someone is trying to eat a healthier diet, they might make changes to the path by removing junk food from their pantry or preparing healthy meals in advance. this makes it easier for the rider and elephant to make the right choices because the path, and the direction one is to take on the path, is aligned with the desired behavior. change within the cped framework the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) has taken on the task of differentiating the edd from the phd with a unique blend of rigorous academic inquiry, meaningful practical applications, research methodologies grounded in real-world contexts, and a strong emphasis on creating value for education stakeholders. all of this is done for the sake of repositioning how those with education doctorates might shape instructional practices within their local contexts, despite challenges detailed later in this essay. graduates of edd programs are uniquely positioned, because of their training and position, to enact change that is not only impactful but also lasting. improvement science has been taken up as one such pathway to support edd students in their work. improvement science is an applied approach theorizing the connection between knowledge and improvement, which has been utilized in a wide range of fields including the automobile industry (rother, 2009) as well as medicine (gawande, 2007). within an improvement science framework, there is an essential connection between basic knowledge about education (the understanding of how grammar impacts the meaning of a sentence in writing, for instance) and a system of profound knowledge (deming, 1993) needed to practice that knowledge within a particular system. systems theory has been identified as a theoretical tool supporting a macro view of social systems, such as organizations like schools, by examining the relationships and interactions between the various components of the system. it emphasizes the importance of understanding the whole system, rather than just its individual parts, and recognizes that changes in one part of the system can have ripple effects throughout the entire system. much of the work of the dissertation in practice (dip) is in understanding how systems produce the problems of practice practitioners are asked to identify and address. elements of a system within a dip framework can include “system processes, information infrastructure, human relations, and governance” (perry et al., 2020, p. 57). by giving students the opportunity to unpack the systems that create the problem of practice, they can better understand the complex relationships within those systems and target their efforts to a particular category while recognizing the interrelatedness of all categories. when edd students recognize the problem is created by the system while also being part of the system themselves, they can then begin to unpack the problem to identify the root cause. additionally, if practitioners can frame the problem within the system and recognize how the system creates the problems, there is the potential to enact change that will both solve the problem as well as change the system. systems theory is not synonymous with demi’s (1993) aforementioned system of profound knowledge and is, rather, a management philosophy emphasizing the importance of understanding and improving the underlying processes that drive organizational performance. it includes four interrelated areas of knowledge: systems thinking, understanding variation, understanding human behavior, and understanding the theory of knowledge, summarized in table 1. table 1. elements of systems of profound knowledge element operationalization system appreciation understanding and managing the interrelated components of a system knowledge about variation understanding the nature of variation in processes and how it can impact organizational performance theory of knowledge understanding how knowledge is acquired, created, and applied within an organization, and how it can be used to drive continuous improvement understanding of psychology understanding human behavior and motivation in the workplace note. adapted from deming (1993). while both systems theory and demi’s (1993) system of profound knowledge recognize the importance of understanding the whole system and the interconnections between its various parts, they differ in their focus and scope. systems theory is a more general framework for understanding complex systems and can be applied to a wide range of fields, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering. profound knowledge, on the other hand, is a specific management philosophy that is focused on improving specific organizational performance through a deep, nuanced understanding of the underlying processes. mechanisms for change impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.390 37 educational research and change in educational systems consider the following quote by university of missouri professor of special education matthew burns: “we’d really hoped that would cause schools to stop and pause and take a look and think, is this really an effective approach?” (burns, quoted in hanford, 2022, 31:10.) the that to which he is referring is research done around reading instruction. his perspective was the reading experiments were completed, the research was presented and written up, and sent out into the world. reading instruction in the thousands upon thousands of elementary classrooms within the entirety of the united states of america should have shifted based upon those findings; however, they did not. while the science of reading controversy rages on in literacy education, this specific example highlights the ways in which educational research continues to have a problematic relationship with shifting educational practice within systems. there has been a long-standing tension between educational research and classroom practice (kaestle, 1993; lagemann, 2003), particularly in relation to educational research’s reputation amongst teachers and administrators and its application to policy and classroom practice. research has found that approximately twothirds of teachers infrequently use educational research to support their classroom instruction or none at all (dagenais et al., 2012; see also cain, 2016b). epistemological beliefs, which encompass conceptions of legitimate knowledge and how it is acquired, play a crucial role in understanding teachers’ attitudes towards educational research (buehl & fives, 2009; schon, 1995). these beliefs shape teachers’ views on what constitutes valuable teaching knowledge, how knowledge evolves, and the ways in which it can be challenged and replaced (ferguson & lunn brownlee, 2018). examining teachers’ epistemological beliefs provides valuable insights into their attitudes and dispositions towards integrating research into their instructional practices (hofer & pintrich, 1997; villegas, 2007). teachers’ beliefs regarding the generalizability or transferability of research findings to their own classrooms significantly influence their utilization of research (cain, 2016a, 2016b; drill et al., 2013). if teachers perceive knowledge as highly context-bound and specific to their individual teaching contexts, they may consider research findings as inapplicable to their own instructional practices (raths mcaninch, 1993). this belief in the limited applicability of research findings presents a significant barrier to teachers’ engagement with published research, hindering its potential impact on classroom instruction. teachers’ perceptions of trust in their administrators and the overall climate of their schools exert a strong influence on their utilization of research in classroom instruction (brown et al., 2016; cain, 2016b). positive school climates characterized by trust and supportive environments facilitate teachers’ engagement with research. moreover, understanding teachers’ perceptions of the level of support provided by their immediate school and district is vital, as it affects their willingness to adopt research-based practices (national center for educational statistics, 2019). preparing cped students to enact change the cped program explicitly emphasizes the pursuit of change as a fundamental objective, but as we laid out at the onset of this article, not all changes are lasting. students engaged in cped coursework are equipped to adopt systematic perspectives of their organizations, enabling them to comprehend the appropriate level of complexity required to address the problems of practice they aim to enhance. however, it remains unclear how cped graduates are prepared to actively facilitate and implement lasting changes within their specific local contexts. given the limited utilization of educational research in classroom instruction, it becomes crucial to recognize the unique position held by individuals with an educational doctorate in bridging the global objectives of educational research with the localized needs of the educational systems in which they operate (joyce & cartwright, 2020). beyond simply acknowledging the existence of these systems, those with an educational doctorate possess profound knowledge that not only enables them to perceive the intricate workings of the systems they navigate but also equips them with the capacity to effectively manage the changes they endeavor to enact based on their work. it is worth noting that profound knowledge, despite being a management philosophy seemingly distinct from the cped degree, actually positions holders of an educational doctorate in a way that empowers them to leverage their dissertation in practice (dip) to ensure the utilization of their findings for meaningful system-level changes. this managerial element ensures that educational doctorate holders can efficiently translate their research outcomes and local knowledge into actionable transformations within the systems they are already embedded in. for tachier, the second author of this essay, is currently enrolled as an edd candidate in a cped cohort originating from the department of teaching, learning, and teacher education at the university of nebraska-lincoln. her ongoing dissertation in practice (dip) study aims to explore the effectiveness of reading intervention classes in multiple middle schools. what has captivated nicholas, stephanie, and guy, all members of tachier’s doctoral committee, is how she has strategically designed her proposal and the structure of her dip as a tool to drive change within her local educational context with the purpose of long-term change. as a practitioner whose district leveraged a variety of strategies during the covid-19, tachier saw firsthand many of those strategies disappear, some from a lack of resources and others from a lack of will, regardless of their improvement of students’ lives. her dip ambitiously seeks to evaluate existing programs within her district and construct an argument that feeds into scalable and sustainable change. with her dip positioned as a catalyst for change, the metaphor of the rider, the elephant, and the path has proven particularly insightful when contemplating the work that lies beyond the dissertation defense. while evaluating reading interventions in middle schools, tachier has remained acutely aware of the logical riders, including administrators and classroom teachers, who possess rational and analytical inclinations that must be addressed. she has selected methodologies that not only facilitate her exploration and understanding of her specific problem of practice but also generate data that captures the interest and compels other stakeholders. concurrently, she acknowledges the presence of the elephant upon which the rider rests, recognizing the significance of emotions and intuitions that propel progress, aligning with existing husbye et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.390 38 efforts toward equity and every teacher’s commitment to supporting student learning. guided by these two crucial elements, tachier has begun contemplating the path she must chart to foster enduring change for middle school readers in her district. although this path is still unfolding and discernible only through inferences as she progresses with data analysis and draws conclusions, she endeavors to consider data that resonates with different stakeholders while comprehending the emotional motivations that engage them. additionally, she thoughtfully ponders an emerging path that directs both individual and collective behavioral change as she delves into data analysis. through these considerations, she has developed an action plan that surpasses the confines of her dissertation, highlighting the evident fact that the dissertation in practice serves as an initial phase within a broader process of enacting substantial transformation. supporting change in educational systems many of the transformations witnessed in the educational system during the pandemic can be attributed to the immediate responses of stakeholders, comparable to the metaphorical elephant reacting to the circumstances. the intensity of emotions ran high as we grappled with the widespread and high stakes implications of the biological reality of covid-19. while acknowledging that the decisions made were not devoid of rationality, these interventions were predominantly shaped by the exigencies of the moment. now that it is widely perceived that the immediate crisis has subsided (although this perception is debatable), many of these changes have either completely vanished or been assimilated into pre-pandemic practices. nonetheless, we believe that affecting lasting changes in existing educational systems necessitates a comprehensive understanding of both human dynamics and idea management. specifically, it requires the strategic utilization of data and analysis derived from a dip, coupled with a deep comprehension of the emotional underpinnings that drive the research project. this understanding allows for a delineation of a transformative path that administrators and educators can traverse to bring about systemic changes. undertaking enduring change is an arduous undertaking, and those pursuing an edd are uniquely positioned to leverage their research to influence educational systems and enhance student learning outcomes, provided they possess a strategic awareness of how to do so. references buehl, m. m., & fives, h. 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(2010). switch: how to change things when change is hard. random house business books. joyce, k. e., & cartwright, n. (2020). bridging the gap between research and practice: predicting what will work locally. american educational research journal, 57(3), 1045–1082. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219866687 lagemann, e. c. (2003). an elusive science: the troubling history of education research. university of chicago press. national center for educational statistics. (2019). schools and staffing survey (sass). https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/ perry, j. a., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. raths mcaninch, a. (1993). making sense of what teachers read: teachers’ epistemologies and their impact on learning to read. journal of reading behavior, 25(3), 257–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/10862969309547849 rother, m. 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https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487107308416 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487107308416 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 70 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 research through my lens: documentary as an alternative dissertation sharice k. lane american university sl8619a@american.edu abstract scholar-practitioners can use dissertations as an entry point to provide rigorous, inclusive and accessible research-based information for the education community. one method to make these dissertations more inviting beyond the education community is to expand the acceptance of alternative media modes. documentaries have recently grown in popularity as streaming services and social media have democratized storytelling across the public. a documentary as an alternative dissertation upholds the rigor of research and analysis while expanding scholar practitioners’ communication and storytelling skillsets. to be more inclusive, equitable, and practical, a documentary as an alternative dissertation can cultivate more connections between academics and communities. keywords documentary, antiracist praxis, alternative dissertation, storytelling riding in the backseat of my father’s car after the graduation ceremony, my worldview shifted. “wow, getting a doctorate degree and your grandfather was illiterate,” my father stated while avoiding the post-ceremony traffic. i asked for clarification of this revelatory statement. “excuse me, what do you mean,” i retorted. “oh yea, your grandfather was functionally illiterate. i know i told you that before.” this was the first time i had ever heard about his father’s inability to read. completing a doctoral degree with a focus in literacy intervention, this news reinforced the importance of literacy. however, it also made me consider how much an academic document could be a barrier for people who may want to learn more about literacy. as an early scholar-practitioner, i want my research to be as accessible as it is rigorous. for me, the method is just as valuable as the message. accessibility and rigor were critical foci with my dissertation topic. i researched the ways in which black american english (bae) is devalued, mocked, and ostracized in k-12 curriculum and instruction. my research gathered the perspectives of black female literacy leaders and how they balanced their use and understanding of bae with their responsibilities to teach majoritized american english while making all students – including black american students – feel connected and valued. during my study, the participants watched movie clips and discussed literature that featured bae and how that impacts the way teachers in their personal lives may respond to bae spoken in the classroom. the use of media and robust discussions about language stories, identities, and instruction guided my decision to document my findings in film form. the dissertation documentary premiered during my defense and was shown as a school district leadership training, national literacy conference, and a small film festival. documenting the history and language of black americans, much like learning of my grandfather’s literacy, brought the importance of sharing our stories for all people to learn without the standard barriers of academia. the dissertation is a process in which doctoral students engage in independent research and writing based on their program courses and special interests (platt & hilton, 2017). this process is the beginning of many academics’ research careers. the education doctorate is a program that focuses on the systemic intricacies that education practitioners encounter day-to-day. scholar practitioners must learn to share their research with a variety of interested audience. to fulfill my program’s requirement, i wrote a traditional dissertation. however, i wanted to expand the reach of my research. i decided to also write, direct, and produce a short documentary film to feature my research. i wanted to incorporate multimedia that accurately portrayed the weight of the problem of practice and the implications to the greater education community. new researchers interrogate their practices, their research, and their identities in a dissertation of practice (dop). as methods of sharing information and research have changed, doctoral dissertations continue to serve as a relic of academia’s stasis. yet, when completing a doctoral dissertation, a scholar practitioner is limited to the confines of the written word. okun (1991) stated that the overreliance of the written word is a tenet of white supremacy, which heralds the written word as objective and valid. as universities look to expand and deepen their impact across greater society, academics could look to alternatives for doctoral candidates to engage and share research. a documentary is an alternative dissertation format that provides an opportunity to expand a scholar’s communication skills, provides a practical and accessible method to share research, and centers on antiracist praxis. this article examines documentary as an alternative dissertation format that institutes of higher education could consider as an alternative to dissertations of practice. i will define and provide a brief history on documentaries. i will overview my documentary process including how i aligned the process to my university’s dissertation format, resources used, and administrative https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0001-5500 lane impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 71 considerations for both faculty and students who may consider employing a documentary film as an alternative to the traditional dop written text. finally, i propose four ways in which the documentary filmmaking process is a rigorous tool for qualitative research, discussing accessibility, reflexivity considerations, and antiracist praxis based on my experience researching, writing, shooting, editing, and presenting both my dop and documentary dissertation. what is a documentary? documentaries are filmmaking research that authentically represent research of pressing social issues in an audio-visual format (fitzgerald & lowe, 2021; wan aida & shuhidan, 2020). the documentary is experiencing much popularity in current times (sinnerbank, 2020). a compelling documentary relies on wellresearched content, powerful images, and gripping audio. documentaries must also feature interesting subjects, an identified problem, and various points of view (wan aida and shuhidan, 2020). these conditions allow for doctoral students to illustrate their background knowledge, research findings, and recommendations. scholar practitioners engaging in a dissertation of practice must also interrogate their positionalities, identify problems of practice, research literature, policies, and practices that situate these problems of practice. a documentary is a multimedia method analogous to the multiple resources and analyses required for writing a dissertation. mogalakwe (2009) expounds on the lack of documentary sources, such as text, videos, and other primary sources, in social research, even though such sources are an acceptable and respectable research method that can be both scientific and rigorous. nisbet and aufderheide (2009) further discuss the impact that documentary films can have on general society to begin public discussions, ignite activism, and shape public policies and legislation. a documentary gathers a multitude of primary and secondary sources in a narrative that many people can access and act upon, if compelled. authors discuss how documentaries provide multiple opportunities for researchers to ground sense making processes, connect to traditionally underrepresented groups and develop researchers’ positionalities and internalization processes (borish et. al, 2021; guba & lincoln,1986; rice & mundel, 2019;varro & van gorp, 202). in our current digital age, educators are inundated with a barrage of information. spending time scrolling through social media applications or scanning for entertainment options on streaming services, people are provided with a plethora of opportunities to learn about complex issues that education faces through the storytelling of people’s lived experiences. these platforms have democratized whose stories are told and how people share and receive information. documentaries, as an alternative dissertation format, can serve as tools for research, reflexivity, accessibility, and antiracist praxis that align academia with modern media consumption patterns. aligning dissertation to documentary creating a documentary with minimal skills was a serious undertaking – especially while simultaneously writing a dop. from the beginning of my doctoral journey, i knew i wanted my research to be developed into a documentary. i enjoy movies, especially learning from documentaries. during my first year’s doctoral residency seminar, i attended a workshop on leveraging media to promote your research outside of academia. in a breakout group, i shared with my cohort mate my plans to develop a documentary about my research. although i did not have a topic or subject in mind, i wanted my contribution to academia to reflect me. when i selected the chair of my dissertation committee, i informed him of my interest to develop a documentary film. we decided to return to this idea after i completed my dissertation proposal. when i completed my proposal, i reintroduced the topic of the dissertation documentary. the program aimed to pivot away from the traditional research doctoral defense to facilitate more dialogic opportunities between the practitioner and the community. although he informed me that the university has a requirement to submit a traditional dissertation document, he was excited to support my idea to present my documentary during my defense presentation. my dissertation chair connected me to a staff member who was also a filmmaker. this staff member shared a resource about another doctoral student who recently created a dissertation documentary in another educational leadership doctoral program. he also directed me to the university’s resources to borrow media equipment to shoot the film. the documentary had two iterations: defense presentation and standalone film. i made the first iteration to meet the university’s expectations of a doctoral defense presentation. the beginning of the film aligned to the introduction and problem of practice chapters. in the documentary, this is where i introduced myself, positionality and language story, as well as the participants in the film. these videos were included to formally contextualize the problem of practice anchoring both dissertation and film. archival footage of congressional hearings, talk show interviews, protest videos, and other films were included to support the dissertation’s knowledge review and theory of action sections. i included footage of the participant interviews and a small panel discussion of bae, curriculum, and english language arts (ela) instruction to align with the format of the intervention and explicate the study’s findings. i developed animated graphics to illustrate key metrics from the research. implications and recommendations from the dissertation were represented by footage of interviews, panel discussions, and supporting film clips. with this version of the documentary, i presented my research for my dissertation committee, faculty, and cohort colleagues to follow the expected format to gain knowledge and ask questions. although the investment of resources and time was high, i internalized my work holistically which significantly prepared me to answer questions from my dissertation committee and colleagues. completing a companion, stand-alone documentary was a valuable research tool to effectively share the importance of critical language study instruction in elementary schools. documentary as a research tool completing a dissertation documentary has advantages in the learning process to internalize research and learning new transferrable skills (varro & van gorp, 2021). warmington et al. (2011) studied how documentary films can be best used in educational research. the researcher develops the film through their professional and personal lenses informed by historical contexts, current educational practices, and positionality that informs their research methodology, data collection, and analysis. in north carolina state university’s education department, doctoral students are asked to create a short documentary to tackle equity issues to research through my lens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 72 hone their pedagogical skills and prepares them to communicate using multimedia for the 21st century educational landscape (bowen, 2020). filmmaking should not just be seen as a product of research, but a viable and rigorous qualitative research method (borish et.al, 2021; fitzgerald & lowe, 2021). i began researching for the documentary while analyzing my research data. i spent four months watching documentaries and reading about templates to accomplish this huge task. as i developed infographics and graphs to highlight key findings, i looked through online film databases for news and video clips that further explained the data or provided necessary context. even though i began shooting the documentary after writing half of my dissertation, the initial chapters of the document were integral to the layout and planning of the film. before shooting, i researched how to make a documentary. all the sources emphasized the importance of writing both a film synopsis and script to help with the film’s planning and execution. i arranged sticky notes on a large poster that reinforced the order of my dissertation and documentary. much like the dissertation research and writing process, shooting and editing the film was an iterative process for refinement. qualitative data, especially in education research, can be shared in a variety of ways such as quotes, narratives, and work samples. qualitative data analysis follows rigorous frameworks to share contextual findings for practitioners to implement in the field. for my dissertation writing, i used nvivo © platform to help analyze, categorize, and synthesize my findings. borish et al. (2021) explained that video-editing software can connect interviews and archival footage to trends identified through the study. i found that many themes that came from the study were also found across my footage. fitzgerald and lowe (2021) outline seven quality criteria for documentary filmmaking to produce compelling stories and rigorous research, according to guba and lincoln (1986). these criteria include but are not limited to confirmability, fairness, and educative authenticity. this paradigm reinforces traditional qualitative data analysis frameworks to ensure that the research not only meets one goal of saturation (saldana, 2021) but authentically represents findings that can be applied to their lived professional and/or personal experiences. each component of the documentary commands a separate part of strategizing and storytelling to relay a critical and compelling message. i wanted the film to capture the urgency of my research. when i presented my intervention proposal, my committee’s feedback was the same: explicitly state how racism impacted the identified problem of practice. this feedback instilled into me the importance of highlighting antiracist praxis in my research. documentary as an antiracist praxis tool mykitiuk et al. (2015) discuss how arts-based research can be a systemic process that engages and empowers the identities, lived experiences, and contributions of traditionally excluded populations. the arts can be a means for interrogating normativity and uplifting the experiences of the disenfranchised (mykitiuk et al., 2015). centering antiracist praxis is another benefit of engaging in the documentary process. as dei (1996) asserts, “antiracism has emerged as a new critical lens for viewing and questioning the way the academy traditionally ‘does business’” (p. 248). a traditional dissertation brings forward a dissonance on whose form of communication is seen as valid when developing a documentary. for example, my dissertation and documentary examined oral language instruction through the lens of critical language awareness. with this lens, the research focused on the importance of oral language instruction to privilege black students’ language, bae. as bae has ties to many language structures of western africa, a documentary was determined to capture better the cultural significance of oral language practices that connect black americans to the communication mode and style of western african languages. leveraging the legacy and power of storytelling could be better accomplished through a documentary. in the ways that traditional academic disciplines may limit the complexity of cultures they seek to learn about, according to dei (1996), i believe the traditional means of research study and presentation could also limit how knowledge is produced and used. wahab (2011) interrogated the anglo male heteronormativity of academia that centers whiteness and others all other perspectives and reinforces its hegemony of objectivity and truth. wahab (2011) asks that faculty at institutes of higher education consider how their current modes of operation can other the perspectives, methods, and presentations of people who do not center whiteness and objectivity. alim (2005) makes similar claims when educators and researchers are looking to interrogate the privileging of certain language practices. my research and documentary were anchored in alim’s (2005) critical language awareness framework that dismantles the in situ linguistic hierarchy across education spaces. i developed a short film that relies on the inclusion of multimedia to dismantle the written word as the ideal form of research performance. but throughout the process, i had to unpack my understanding of linguistic rules that surfaced unchecked biases anchored in internalized racism, ableism, and classism. even selecting which songs or film clips to include in the movie highlighted biases in not only the messages, but the messenger. completing antiracist research requires the practitioner to disrupt their “racialized subjectivities that are constituted in the power plays of representational politics” (wahab, 2011, p. 35). knowledge can be mediated in a variety of ways. the documentary is an embodiment of the textured and complicated work that is needed in antiracist educational praxis. documentary as a reflexivity tool my original intent for the documentary was to highlight only the findings, yet the narrative required me to tell the complete story of my personal and doctoral journey. ravitch and carl (2019) write about the value of reflexivity memos as one completes qualitative research. i found that interrogating my racial identity and positionality through languaging and literacies using personal photos and storytelling exemplified both “mirrors and windows” (styles, 1989, p.1) for the viewing audience to internalize my research motivation and follow my research journey. i found that editing a dissertation and documentary simultaneously improved my internalization of the implications of my research. this process better enabled me to communicate the central messages of my dissertation during my initial presentation and subsequent presentations to my district’s leadership community and national education conference. as i have experienced recently, a documentary can be easily shared to different audiences and generate deep conversations based on the historical context, research findings, and recommendations without the time constraints of reading and internalizing the same material presented in more than 100 pages. lane impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 73 a critical element of reflexivity in the dissertation process is critically evaluating oneself and power position as both researcher and filmmaker. in my desire to present my research in the way i thought would be best, i needed to reflect on power dynamics that i may engage in that would continue to reify hierarchies. in this dual role, i frequently reflected on this power dynamic that could result in my participants’ knowledge and experience being extracted and exploited for both institutional and personal greater good. black women, especially in the united states have been exploited for physical and emotional labor. i considered in what ways i could be perceived to use black women for selfish gain that would further my professional credentials and social capital with a doctorate degree. these considerations guided me to focus on the safety of my participants’ personhood. wolfe (2017) describes that “the participants’ stories enacted and understood in multiple affective interchanges, [are] important, rather [than the] researcher's descriptions” (p. 435). fortunately, some participants from the research study volunteered to be interviewed for the documentary. this not only created valuable member checks (ravitch & carl, 2019) of participants’ narratives and reflections but allowed them to own their narratives outside of the researcher’s summaries. checking this authority invites the researcher to interrogate their understanding and limits of accessible and inclusive practices (rice & mundel, 2019). such a process should be iterative and transparent, as multiple encounters and circumstances require the research filmmaker to reflect on their positionality in the process (borish et. al, 2021; fitzgerald & lowe, 2021; rice & mundel, 2019). the second version of the documentary served as a standalone product that relied more on narrative form than research format. i was encouraged to showcase the film at conferences and festivals to share my message with a wider audience. i learned during the documentary process that a filmmaker should be prepared for multiple edits of their video. like publishing a paper, a filmmaker must account for the audience and message they aim to convey when editing multiple film cuts. after completing my dissertation defense, i received encouragement from a film student to submit my movie to a film festival. i edited my film to reduce the research elements and expand upon the research narrative that supported the findings. i submitted that film edition to local and national film festivals. i also edited my film to present at a retreat for district instructional leaders and a meeting for a small group of school leaders. these presentations facilitated a more nuanced discourse on how the leaders in the school district could interrogate their practices to improve the literacy outcomes for black students. having a documentary that i could edit to anticipate the audience’s needs was crucial for grounding an important conversation to improve antiracist and equitable instruction. publishing a dissertation and presenting a documentary are professional and personal processes. considering the work of dei (1996) and wahab (2011), publicly engaging in antiracist praxis can disrupt an academic system founded on othering nontraditional epistemologies. although publishing a dissertation anchored in equity education research can invite criticism from competing political and ideological entities, its inclusion in academic databases can insulate the level of feedback. a public facing film is not as protected. presenting a film for public consumption (e.g., conferences, summits, festivals) welcomes scrutiny of the research, merits, and process. when developing my documentary, i anticipated the questions, concerns, and opposition from my university and workplace. however, i did not anticipate a viewing audience outside of my immediate environment. university faculty can use the dissertation documentary as a means through which to teach students how to anticipate presenting research to a variety of audiences. documentary as an accessibility tool “what does ‘access’ and ‘inclusion’ mean,” rice and mundel (2019, p. 118) asked, as they explore the implications of multimedia storytelling, access, and inclusion. accessibility should be considered an iterative process that negotiates the multiple – often contradictory needs across people, conditions, and contexts (rice & mundel, 2019). a documentary can remove barriers from a traditional dissertation, like accessibility and practicality of findings or how research connects communities to academia. the traditional dissertation adheres to a prescriptive format that situates the problem of practice, reviews the history of relevant literature, outlines the methodologies and results of the study, and makes recommendations to the greater education community. although this outline seems straightforward, jargon-like vocabulary, complex sentence structures, scientific explanations, and vague implications shared on black ink on a white paper flattens the richness of many research studies featured in dissertations. for a fact, my dissertation would be a barrier for someone with minimal literacy skills – like my grandfather. the structural mechanisms of the documentary dissertation can help alleviate traditional barriers of written dissertations. mykitiuk et al. (2015) reflect on how to “create space for accessibility” (p. 13) in arts-based research to maximize participation. this requires a fluid documentary narrative that compellingly situates research. a captivating documentary relies on well-researched content, powerful images, and gripping audio. i began searching for clips for my documentary at the midway point of writing my dissertation. as i found clips from congressional hearings, talk shows, and teacher education videos, i was better able to analyze my data and provide practical and actionable recommendations for educators, corporations, and policymakers. accessibility is more than ensuring the structural mechanisms in place for people to engage with the film. mykitiuk et al. (2015) discussed the importance of arts-based researchers to create “emotional accessibility” (p. 13). this term refers to the researcher’s duty to cultivate an environment for both art participants and the audience to feel safe enough to consume, reflect, and converse about the art. one consideration is the historical framework the researcher is working from that may impact the audience (mykitiuk et al., 2015). i chose music as an additional layer to invoke emotions for specific segments of the documentary. solemn songs from billie holiday and nina simone hauntingly capture the dark history of racially segregated education opportunities for black students. the optimistic and high energy from popular music tracks symbolize the creativity of black american culture and language. passionate interviews were featured alongside graphics that illustrated data discrepancies that reinforced the urgency of the researched problem of practice. as i spliced scenes, music, and graphics together, it helped me to tighten my messaging to ensure a casual viewer was just as affected as a colleague. the documentary-making process is ripe for doctoral students to emotionally prepare the audience to receive their research, findings, and recommendations. i used tenets from qualitative research and filmmaking practices to edit both dissertation document and film. in the document, i noticed when my messages were not research through my lens impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 74 clear due to unnecessarily complicated sentences, vague word choices, or meandering ideas that did not specify actions for improvements. editing various clips from ten minutes to 30 seconds requires clarity of what you know and want to communicate to your audience. pouring over every word with each successive rewrite while editing a documentary, i revised my dissertation to be concise, direct, and potent. the inclusion of varying media can generate curiosity, passion, and an urgency to act among viewers. editing both the dissertation and documentary concurrently ensured that my messages were clear, powerful, and accessible to the audience. considerations and reflections universities have systems in place to support doctoral students completing a traditional written dissertation. for students and/or faculty supporting students who may want to complete a dissertation documentary, some considerations are necessary to maintain the rigor of research while expanding options for research dissemination. these considerations include student and faculty support, programming opportunities, and preparation for public dissemination. a key component of this documentary dissertation i had not considered was the value of the cohort model. many of the benefits include camaraderie among its members, sense of support and positive relationships, collaborative opportunities and empathic environments (ari et al., 2022; bista & cox, 2014; rujimora et al., 2024; unzueta et al., 2010). these benefits also extend to impacts on doctoral students’ academic development during their program including problem solving support, enabling intrinsic motivation, sharing resources with one another, increased productivity, and improved self-efficacy (bista & cox, 2014; rujimora et al., 2022; unzeuta et al., 2010). i experienced many of these benefits during my doctoral journey. i noted that these characteristics of the cohort model significantly contributed to the success of my documentary. my research focused on the personal and professional experiences of black female educators, which was much of my doctoral cohort. some of these scholar practitioners participated in my intervention pilot and informed me of modifications to improve implementation and rigor. within this group, a few more also participated in the individual and group interviews for the documentary. their involvement throughout the process undergirds the strength of collaborative and supportive nature of the doctoral cohort model. programming support can also come from the program’s faculty. one of the limitations that i experienced was the lack of a faculty member with filmmaking experience during the dissertation process. although my university has a film degree program, i did not receive guidance from a faculty member from that school. as stated previously, a staff member in my school informed me and shared a link with me of another doctoral student who recently completed a dissertation documentary at another university in the western region of the country. the movie fidelity at the forefront: the fight for ethnic studies (jaco, 2021) provided me with an example of a finished product. from there, i learned that other institutes of higher education were supporting students to explore documentary filmmaking not only as end products of their research, but to enhance their analysis and communication skills through filmmaking (bowen, 2020; varro & van gorp, 2021). in a course at one such university, a professor provided students an option to create a short documentary or write a final paper to chronicle systemic impacts of educational policies and practices (bowen, 2020). in my doctoral program, i used certain assignments throughout the program to practice the filmmaking process and audio-visual communication strategies to effectively share my research findings. however, this process was self-guided because i did not have a faculty member with expertise in filmmaking. i relied on research articles, training clips, and social media to help guide my understanding of the filmmaking and interview process. i also researched how to incorporate video analysis in my qualitative research findings to support findings from my study. art-based research authors have contended that the filmmaking process can leverage the technological advances of recent society to ontological and epistemological studies that provide enriching documentary research paradigms and practices (borish et. al, 2021; fitzgerald & lowe, 2021; varro & van gorp, 2021; wolfe, 2017). overall, my passion for film and my research motivated me to shoulder this process but could have been strengthened with the guidance of a film-focused faculty member. scholar practitioners in the education field continue their work to improve the deeply entrenched problems that their dissertations look to improve. many of these researchers commit to speaking engagements, writing op-eds, and presenting at conferences to share the impact of their research. adocumentary can serve as a public-facing product to share research findings and implications with and beyond the education community. educators who may not typically read a journal article may prefer to watch a film about a specific subject. policymakers and other community members may also be better able to access a documentary on a topic compared to reading a published journal article. a documentary as an alternative dissertation modality can invite more scholars to engage in the vital work of educational research, improvement, and advocacy for community people, practitioners and policymakers. i showed segments of my documentary during my first post defense conference presentation. far away, regionally and politically, from the liberal bastion of washington, d.c., i encountered interesting perspectives from educators and community leaders about providing black-centered language practices in the classroom of a school district governed by conservative politics. this was an exercise in seeing the impact of my documentary on a national stage. educators from all over the country attended this conference that looked to improve the literacy needs of black students. i saw the importance of disseminating a concise and powerful message. i fielded questions from district leaders on how to combat negative perceptions from local policymakers and public leaders, addressing concerns from school communities, and even ensuring funding would not be affected by the implementation of recommended equitable practices. many of those educators recalled the oakland unified school district’s national controversy when introducing ebonics to their system (baugh, 2000); they did not want to face a similar battle in their school districts. even with a shared interest, i needed to be able to pivot the significance of the message for all people to understand the complicated relationship between instructional needs and identity affirmations. the documentary can be a crucial tool for scholar practitioners to use when facing public scrutiny and preparing for the hard work of being an agent for systemic changes. summary a documentary combines the power of the written word, visceral impact of strong images and the gripping audio of personal narratives to highlight the urgency of research and invite the public to lane impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.501 75 engage in meaningful learning. the modern dissertation process must be flexible enough to reflect the shift in media consumption while making research and subsequent recommendations relevant to educators and education leaders. a dissertation is where the research should reflect where the educational system stands and projects where it can go. the dissertation documentary, as an alternative dissertation, is an optimal way to lead by example that upholds the rigor of research, welcomes differing means of knowledge production, encourages scholar practitioners to reflect on their role in systems, and compels an audience to enact systemic changes. reference ari, f., vasconcelos, l., tang, h., & others. 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(1988). curriculum as window and mirror. listening for all voices. https://www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/resourcesand-strategies-for-doing-window-and-mirror-curriculum-work varró, k., & van gorp, b. b. (2021). fostering a relational sense of place through video documentary assignments. journal of geography in higher education, 45(1), 63–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1803223 wahab, a. (2011). consuming narratives: questioning authority and the politics of presentation in social science research. in g. j. s. dei & g. s. johal (eds.), critical issues in anti-racist methodologies (2nd ed., pp. 29– 52). peter lang publishing. warmington, p., van gorp, a., & grosvenor, i. (2011). education in motion: uses of documentary film in educational research. paedagogica historica, 47(4), 457–472. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2011.588239 wolfe, m. j. (2017). post-qualitative filmic research in education: utilizing a “re/active documentary” methodology. qualitative inquiry, 23(6), 427– 437. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800416673660 unzueta, c. h., moores-abdool, w., & vazquez donet, d. (2010). perceptions of special education professors and culturally linguistically diverse doctoral students on cohorts. teacher education and special education, 33(2), 169–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406409360009 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00744-7 http://ijds.org/volume9/ijdsv9p001-020bista0425.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211013646 https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2020/01/14/documentary-project-helps-college-of-education-doctoral-students-explore-issues-develop-new-skills/ https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2020/01/14/documentary-project-helps-college-of-education-doctoral-students-explore-issues-develop-new-skills/ https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2020/01/14/documentary-project-helps-college-of-education-doctoral-students-explore-issues-develop-new-skills/ https://doi.org/10.1037/10096-006 https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920957462 https://doi.org/10.1353/eas.0.0006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemep.2015.07.005 https://doi.org/10.1080/15205430903276863 https://www.dismantlingracism.org/ https://doi.org/10.1080/15401383.2024.2303500 https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2019.1708060 https://www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/resources-and-strategies-for-doing-window-and-mirror-curriculum-work https://www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/resources-and-strategies-for-doing-window-and-mirror-curriculum-work https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1803223 https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2011.588239 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800416673660 https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406409360009 sharice k. lane american university what is a documentary? aligning dissertation to documentary documentary as a research tool documentary as an antiracist praxis tool documentary as a reflexivity tool documentary as an accessibility tool considerations and reflections summary reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 32 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 learning beyond the content: a dissertation in practice on workforce skills development at community colleges william c. torres tarleton state university wtorres@mail.com lesley f. leach tarleton state university leach@tarleton.edu ryan glaman tarleton state university glaman@tarleton.edu j. russell higham tarleton state university higham@tarleton.edu abstract in this article, we present an example of a student’s recently completed dissertation in practice (dip) to demonstrate how the dip can serve as culminating evidence of a student’s successful preparation as a scholarpractitioner. the purpose of this dip was to determine to what extent students develop workforce skills while completing a community college education and what institutions can do to better prepare students to be successful upon graduation. results from this mixed-method study (n = 77) suggest that graduates perceived learning a considerable amount of workforce skills during their time at the institution. however, respondents also reported that more hands-on learning would have enhanced their skill development. through this study, the doctoral candidate was able to gain substantive results while addressing key cped guiding principles. keywords workforce skills, soft skills, community colleges, experiential learning, teaching and learning preparing educators to practice as scholars is at the heart of the professional practice doctorate in education as defined by the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) framework (cped, 2022). one who practices as a scholar (or scholarpractitioner) works to identify and improve upon complex problems through effective collaboration, systematic inquiry, as well as their own practical wisdom, skills, and knowledge (cped, 2022). in professional practice doctoral programs, dissertations in practice (dip) often serve as program capstones that provide evidence of students’ emergence as scholar practitioners who can apply systematic inquiry and professional skills to improve educational outcomes (cped, 2022). in addition to signaling the successful preparation of individual students, successful dips also serve as clear evidence for professional practice doctoral programs that they have successfully developed students to continue their scholarly practice in their future roles as educational professionals. cped guiding principles for program design although cped member programs are individually designed to fit the specific contexts and constituencies that they serve, they ideally align with six guiding principles for program design offered in the cped framework (cped, 2022). these principles take shape in professional practice educational doctorate programs within a combination of both coursework and out-of-course opportunities. broadly conceptualized, these experiences involve guiding students in the identification of a complex problem of practice, framing it through multiple lenses, and learning how to apply systemic inquiry to better understand or improve upon the problem. the dip then serves as the culminating evidence of a students’ successful completion and preparation. purpose in this article, we present an example of a student’s recently completed dip to demonstrate how the dip can serve as culminating evidence of a student’s successful preparation as a scholarpractitioner. we also demonstrate how the dip exemplifies many of the guiding principles and offer reflection on how the dip influenced the student authors' development as a scholar practitioner. the dip is presented in the following section. it details a study regarding the development of workforce skills, a pervasive problem https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0331-0028 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9040-7207 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4850-7719 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9532-9954 workforce skills development at community colleges impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 33 of practice at all levels of education. the student author’s identification of the complex problem of practice began in the first semester of coursework, but developed over time as he experienced courses on equity, social justice, theory, and research design, directly aligning to several of the cped guiding principles. the student author's abilities further developed as the result of a job change in which he was introduced to a new context with new opportunities for collaborations, demonstrating the key role that practitioner wisdom and knowledge plays in the process of improving educational outcomes. the implementation of the study for the dip took place in the student’s workplace that provided the field-based opportunity to study the problem of practice within the local context. through this process, the student author demonstrated his abilities as a scholarly practitioner by applying systemic inquiry to better understand this particular problem of practice to form improvements that, when successfully applied, can positively impact the lives of students, their families, and communities. the student author, at the time this study was completed, served as a mid-level administrator overseeing faculty and staff professional development at a mid-sized community college in west texas. as such, he recognized his privilege in being able to access certain resources and sought to be mindful of any potential biases that could have impacted the design of the study or any conclusions derived from its results. dissertation in practice student enrollments in higher education are down nationwide. according to the national student clearinghouse (nsc) research center (2021) higher education enrollments have been steadily declining for the past decade. the coronavirus disease of 2019 (covid-19) pandemic introduced additional barriers and variables that have caused overall postsecondary enrollment to continue to decline. the closing of businesses and the lack of consistent employment has negatively impacted students and their decision to enroll in college. specifically, black, latinx, and other minority students have indicated the least amount of confidence in being able to attend and afford college (maps, 2021). this concerning trend suggests additional barriers for first generation college students and traditionally underserved populations. while these declining numbers highlight an industry that is in trouble, declining enrollment and challenges caused by the covid19 pandemic are just a few of the many issues currently plaguing higher education. as society and the economy continue to evolve and innovate, it has become apparent that institutions of higher education are no longer fully meeting the needs of employers, students, the community, and society as a whole. for instance, onethird of college presidents believe that higher education is moving in the wrong direction, and 57% of americans do not believe that the cost of higher education provides a sufficient return on investment (craig, 2015). furthermore, the association of american colleges and universities (aac&u) has released a series of employer reports that reflect a disconnect between the skills recent graduates have obtained and the expectations employers have for their new hires (hart research associates, 2013, 2015, 2018; finley, 2021). to remain relevant as an industry, higher education institutions need to be able to demonstrate that their students are growing in not only content knowledge, but also the development of important workforce skills (eddy, 2019). data reported in a recent labor market analysis report by the strada institute for the future of work suggest employers now see greater value in soft skills education and the development of people skills (weise et al., 2018). although advanced technical skills have long been a priority of employers when looking for potential new employees, these skills are now far more vulnerable to automation. an increase in highly technical training, such as coding boot camps or employer-sponsored training, has made it even more apparent that the soft skills gap can and should be filled by institutions of higher education. according to meeks (2017), soft skills can be defined as “competencies that can help an individual better meet the needs of a particular job and help an individual advance in his or her career” (p. 1). throughout this article, the terms soft skills and workforce skills will be used synonymously and interchangeably. the purpose of this study was to explore the problem of practice presented in this introduction, a lack of workforce readiness of college graduates, and how higher education institutions are preparing students to enter the workforce meeting the needs of their core constituents. the following research questions (rqs) were created to guide the development of this research.  rq1: to what extent do students develop workforce skills while completing a community college education?  rq2: from the students' perspective, what can community colleges do to enhance the workforce skill development of their students? review of literature workforce skills development in higher education one issue to consider with this underlying problem of practice is the disconnect between what employers expect from recent college graduates and the skills these graduates are demonstrating in entrylevel positions upon graduation. aac&u periodically surveys employers across the nation to gain knowledge on how they perceive the higher education industry and the graduates it produces. results of these studies from over the past decade show an increasingly critical perspective from employers with regard to how institutions of higher education are preparing their graduates to succeed in the workforce (hart research associates, 2013, 2015, 2018; finley, 2021). in aac&u’s 2013 study, 40% of the 318 employers surveyed reported that higher education institutions are doing a “fair” job preparing students for success in today’s economy (hart research associates, 2013). furthermore, employers reported a high priority on active teaching and learning strategies with 75% of respondents reporting they want colleges to place greater emphasis on teaching intellectual and practical skills. nearly 60% of employers expressed less interest in the traditional lecture class format and more interest in devoting more class time to discussions and debates, problemsolving, and collaborative group work as they believed these pedagogical practices better prepare students for success outside of the classroom once they graduate. aac&u’s study two years later garnered similar results. they found employers were concerned about recent graduates having the desired range of skills, such as communication and teamwork, to be able to perform the functions of a job within their organization (hart research associates, 2015). specifically, fewer than three out of 10 employers found that recent graduates were prepared in critical torres et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 34 thinking skills and written and oral communication skills, skills that are essential to succeeding in professional real-world settings. key findings from aac&u’s 2018 study revealed colleges and universities need to make improvements to how they are preparing their graduates to ensure they have the required skills and knowledge to succeed in entry-level positions (hart research associates, 2018). consistent with past studies on this subject, the results of this study suggested that a preparedness gap exists between what skills and knowledge employers desire of recent college graduates and the actual skill and knowledge level that exists among recent graduates who join their companies in entry-level positions. aac&u released its latest report in 2021. similar to findings in past employer reports, a preparedness gap remained between skills employers believe are important and the number of college graduates who enter their companies who are very well prepared in these skills (finley, 2021). this particular study found the following skills as the most important among employers: (a) critical thinking skills, (b) the ability to work effectively in teams, (c) the application of knowledge and skills in real-world settings, (d) the ability to analyze and interpret data, and (e) digital literacy. other studies have been released that further support the conclusions of the aac&u employer reports. a survey conducted by the society human resource management in 2019 found that more than half of their members believe that education systems are doing very little to address the skills shortage of important skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, and communication (wilkie, 2019). a 2018 survey by the national association of colleges and employers (nace) revealed a significant discrepancy between employers who rated recent college graduates proficient in a variety of workplace competencies and how the actual college graduates rated themselves (bauer-wolf, 2018). almost universally, recent graduates rated themselves more proficient than employers did in the eight essential competencies necessary to be able to succeed in the workplace identified by the nace. the four states of competence model relevant to the results of these studies is a competence model that has been used to track learners’ progress through the learning process. this model, which is named the four states of competence model, includes four states of teaching and learning that highlight and explain how a learner experiences new information and skills (adams, 2021). the four states of this model include (a) unconscious incompetence, (b) conscious incompetence, (c) conscious competence, and (d) unconscious competence. the first state of the four states of competence model is unconscious incompetence, which refers to students who know very little about a subject but are unaware of their lack of knowledge (broadwell, 1969). the next state is conscious incompetence, which is when the learner realizes just how much they do not know. the third state is conscious competence, which is when a student becomes highly knowledgeable or skilled and is keenly aware of just how much they know or how good they are. the final state is unconscious incompetence, which is when a student has reached such a high mastery of knowledge or skill that they become unaware of the reasons why or exactly how they do what they do. through intentional teaching and learning and direct communication, higher education institutions are poised to not only teach the skills students figure 1. the four states of competence model (broadwell, 1969) need to be more prepared when they enter the workforce, but also help students become more self-aware of the areas where they are unconsciously incompetent. the importance of applied, active, and experiential learning research in teaching and learning has continually shown that students benefit when faculty apply effective pedagogical practices in their instruction and fully engage their students in the course (brooks & solheim, 2014; bunce et al. 2010; freeman et al., 2014; hyun et al. 2017; stalp & hill, 2019; yen & abdous, 2011). this concept is firmly rooted in experiential learning theory, which is all about how students make sense of their experiences in the learning environment context (kolb, 1976). the premise of experiential learning theory is simple: students will learn best when they are fully immersed in the learning experience with opportunities to reflect, interpret, and apply concepts to aid in their understanding of the material. many educational experts, including kolb, posit that experiential learning is the best way to not only teach students content knowledge but also prepare them for the demands of a complex and ever-changing personal and professional life. intentional student engagement efforts by faculty can lead to higher final course grades. the researchers of a longitudinal, quasiexperimental study wanted to know what impact the transformation of an instructor’s pedagogical approach had on student success (brooks & solheim, 2014). the study involved the same instructor, teaching in the same active learning classroom (alc), and teaching the same personal finance course one year apart. the difference from the first year to the second year was a total transformation of the course to one that uses more active and engaging instructional and assessment methods. the researchers found that the average final course grades from the second-year students were significantly higher than the year before. the researchers of another study, which included the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis of undergraduate stem education literature to date in 2014 (225 studies on the impact of active learning were analyzed), found students in lecture only classes were 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that incorporated active learning (freeman et al., 2014). another study conducted by yen and abdous (2011) found that the more faculty had students interact in a course the more likely those students would earn better final course grades. the data from this study revealed that the higher the reported faculty engagement, the higher the learner satisfaction as well as the predictive relationship workforce skills development at community colleges impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 35 between faculty engagement and students’ final grades. when the faculty engagement scores increased, as did the probability of a better final course grade. stalp and hill (2019) confirmed student benefits of active learning courses with accompanying alc setups. what the researchers found was that because of the format of the classroom and the active way the course was taught, students reported an increase in their ability to connect with their peers, work collaboratively as a group, and their ability to be more open-minded and consider varying perspectives. this led to not only an increase in learning, but also an increase in the development of skills that are in high demand by employers such as teamwork, collaboration, and communication, skills that are in high demand by employers (finley, 2021). supporting this conclusion, llorens et al. (2017) conducted a study that examined which student engagement strategies led to the development of the professional skills desired in the information and communications technology (ict) field. using a qualitative research design which involved querying 17 experts in the ict sector, the researchers found that active learning teaching methods such as problem-based and project-based learning, cooperative learning, and problem-solving exercises were related to the attainment and development of the skills needed to succeed in the ict field such as decisiveness, communication, innovation, and teamwork. in two recent aac&u employer reports, employers surveyed believed strongly that applied and project-based learning experiences gave students an edge in getting hired and succeeding in their chosen careers (finley, 2021; hart research associates, 2018). because active and experiential pedagogy assists in the development of these important skills, this presents an even greater need to examine exactly how higher education faculty are teaching students and promoting the development of these skills in their courses. method in this mixed-method study, graduating students who earned a bachelor’s degree, associate’s degree, workforce certificate, or occupational skills award in the spring 2022 semester at a midsized community college in west texas were asked to complete a questionnaire that included a series of questions about the skills they gained as a student at the institution. the relationship between the graduating students’ perception of their own workforce skill development during their community college education and several demographic items including information on the students’ background, academic history and performance, and employment history were examined in this study. a convergent parallel mixed method design (quantitative plus qualitative) was used to conduct the study, in which the quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently and analyzed with equal importance (creswell & guetterman, 2019). only spring 2022 graduates were eligible to participate in this study. graduating students were targeted as the purposive sample for this study because these students should have been able to speak holistically about their experience as a student at the institution from start to finish and reflect on what they learned throughout the time it took them to complete their program. on april 29, 2022, which was within the last two weeks of the spring 2022 semester, an email was sent to graduating students that table 1. credential earned n race/ethnicity n bachelor’s degree 6 (8%) hispanic, latin, or spanish 31 (40%) associate’s degree 57 (74%) white 24 (31%) workforce certificate 9 (12%) black or african american 7 (9%) occupational skills award 5 (6%) multi-racial 15 (19%) length to complete program n age n 1-2 semesters 3 (4%) 18-29 49 (64%) 3-4 semesters 31 (40%) 30-39 16 (21%) 5-6 semesters 26 (34%) 40-49 8 (10%) 7-8 semesters 10 (13%) 50+ 1 (< 1%) reported gpa n first-generation status n 3.5 – 4.0 35 (45%) first-generation student 40 (52%) 2.4 – 3.4 37 (48%) non-first-generation student 35 (45%) 1.5 – 2.4 5 (7%) unsure 2 (3%) attended a college or university in the past n spent time in the workforce (pt or ft) n yes 51 (66%) yes 49 (64%) no 26 (34%) no 28 (36%) major n general studies 29 (38%) business & org. mgmt. 14 (18%) nursing 8 (10%) cosmetology 5 (7%) other 21 (27%) note. other majors represented include air conditioning, heating, & refrigeration, alcohol and drug abuse counseling, automotive & diesel technology, criminal justice, education, energy technology, health sciences & information management, healthcare, information technology & computer science, and welding. invited them to participate in the study by completing a questionnaire. of the 574 graduates, 541 were reachable. a total of 77 responses were received for this study, which reflects a 14% response rate. a profile of the respondents can be found in table 1. the instrument used in this study was a questionnaire that included quantitative items, qualitative items, as well as a variety of demographic items. this questionnaire was developed and sent to participants on the google forms platform. the main part of the questionnaire included 10 rating scale items and three open-ended questions. the overall question for the 10 rating scale items asked students how much their experience as a student at the institution helped them develop certain skills. each of the rating scale items included a skill or grouping of skills to which the students indicated how much of that skill their education helped them develop. the skills included in the questionnaire were curated from the latest employer report from aac&u because this list is not only holistic in terms of range of skills but it also represents the most recent list of skills that employers from across the country indicated were very important for success in the workforce (finley, 2021). the skill groupings for these 10 rating scale items are listed below. 1. working effectively as part of a team 2. critical thinking and complex problem-solving 3. data analysis and interpretation torres et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 36 4. applying knowledge and skills to real-world situations 5. technology and digital literacy 6. written and oral communication 7. research and data-informed decision making 8. creative thinking 9. working and communicating with people from different backgrounds 10. ethical judgment and reasoning for each item, respondents indicated whether their experience as a student at the institution helped them develop the listed skill (a) a great deal, (b) a considerable amount, (c) a moderate amount, (d) a slight amount, or (e) none. the wording of the items in this section of the questionnaire was adapted from a survey instrument created by meyer (2016). the data collected from these 10 rating scale items were used to answer rq1. the questionnaire also asked about demographic items including students’ backgrounds, academic history and performance, and employment history. of these items, three key independent variables were identified that included (a) higher education history, (b) workforce history, and (c) number of semesters to program completion. we used these items to determine the relationship between these items and the students’ perception of their own workforce skill development to further answer rq1. to further analyze this relationship, we ran a series of multivariate analysis of variance (manova) statistical tests for each of the three independent variables after verifying the assumptions had been met. the first open-ended item asked students in what ways their experience as a student helped them develop any of the skills listed in the previous section. the responses to this question were used to help answer rq1 along with the 10 rating scale items and coded using the causation coding method (saldaña, 2016). the other two open-ended items included in this questionnaire were used to answer rq2. the second open-ended item asked students to list any skills they were hoping to gain, but did not, during their time as a student at the institution. the third and final open-ended item included in this questionnaire was also used to answer rq2. this question more directly asked students what the institution can do to better help students develop skills that would make them more marketable to potential employers. responses to open-ended items two and three were coded using the structural coding method. according to saldaña (2016), structural coding categorizes like segments and responses from a dataset, such as an interview or an open-ended questionnaire response. structural coding acts as an indexing and labeling device to better assist researchers with accessing and analyzing data. establishing a trustworthy study was key in carrying out the selected mixed method research design. for the quantitative components, we mitigated threats to the study’s internal validity, or the extent to which the study design could be expected to result in an accurate representation of the phenomenon under investigation (american psychological association, n.d.), by ensuring the measurement validity of the instrument as well as a thorough review by faculty members external to the implementation of the study. because the study was designed to investigate the problem of practice in a local context, external validity, or the degree to which study results could be expected to apply to additional samples beyond the local context (american psychological association, n.d.), was less of a priority, but still applicable for those samples for which characteristics could be similar. we mitigated threats to external validity by invoking clear criteria for selection of participants and the local context, which are both described within this article. for the qualitative component, we used several strategies to ensure trustworthiness of study results, addressing study credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability as suggested by lincoln and guba (1985), lincoln (1995), guba (1981), and shenton (2004). the triangulation offered through concurrent examination of both quantitative and qualitative data enhanced the credibility of findings as well as peer scrutiny of the study design and results. similar to quantitative external validity, transferability of results was enhanced through the use of clear criteria for selection of participants and the local context. dependability was strengthened through the use of a clear and comprehensive methodological design. finally, confirmability of results was enhanced through triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative results as well as knowledge of the primary researcher’s position and mitigation of potential biases. results to answer rq1, descriptive statistics were run. see table 2 for a summary of the means and standard deviations for the 10 skillsbased items on the questionnaire. the exact wording of the 10 skillsbased items question in the questionnaire was as follows: “how much did your experience as a student [at the institution] help you develop the following skills?” the lowest mean was for the skills of working effectively as part of a team (m = 2.96, sd = 1.19, n = 77). table 2. results of skills-based questionnaire items (n = 77) skills m sd working effectively as part of a team 2.96 1.19 critical thinking and complex problem-solving 3.36 .87 data analysis and interpretation 3.08 .98 applying knowledge and skills to real-world situations 3.26 .94 technology and digital literacy 3.12 .99 written and oral communication 3.36 .93 research and data-informed decision making 3.32 .88 creative thinking 3.22 .85 working and communicating with people from different backgrounds 3.29 1.09 ethical judgement and reasoning 3.36 .96 note. mean based on a 0-4 scale where 0 = none and 4 = a great deal. the highest mean was a three-way tie between critical thinking and complex problem-solving (m = 3.36, sd = .87), written and oral communication (m = 3.36, sd = .93), and ethical judgment and reasoning (m = 3.36, sd = .96). next, we sought to determine the degree to which some of the key independent variables collected in this study were related to how the students answered the 10 skills-based items on the questionnaire. the first independent variable examined was students’ work history. specifically, this independent variable indicated whether or not the students had spent any time in the workforce as a full-time or part-time employee. see table 3 for a summary of these results. a majority of the respondents reported they had spent time in the workforce (n = 49) as compared to not spending any time in the workforce (n = 28). the means for the 10 skills-based items were workforce skills development at community colleges impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 37 table 3. results of skills-based questionnaire items by work history had served in the workforce (n = 49) had not served in the workforce (n = 28) skills m sd m sd teamwork 2.82 1.36 3.21 .74 critical thinking & problem-solving 3.33 .94 3.43 .74 data analysis & interpretation 3.00 1.10 3.21 .74 real-world application 3.22 1.03 3.32 .77 technology & digital literacy 2.98 1.05 3.36 .83 written & oral communication 3.29 1.00 3.50 .79 research-based decision-making 3.22 .96 3.50 .69 creative thinking 3.16 .92 3.32 .72 cross-cultural communication 3.18 1.22 3.46 .79 ethical judgement and reasoning 3.31 1.07 3.46 .74 note. mean based on a 0-4 scale where 0 = none and 4 = a great deal. consistently higher for the students who had not spent in the workforce. the lowest mean was teamwork for both students who had served in the workforce (m = 2.82, sd = 1.36) and students who had not served in the workforce (m = 3.21, sd = .74). in addition to teamwork, data analysis and interpretation tied for the lowest mean for students who had not served in the workforce (m = 3.21, sd = .74). the highest mean for students who had served in the workforce was critical thinking and problem-solving (m = 3.33, sd = .94) and a tie between written and oral communication (m = 3.50, sd = .79) and research-based decision-making (m = 3.50, sd = .69) for students who had not served in the workforce. the third independent variable examined was students’ higher education history. specifically, this independent variable indicated whether or not the students had attended another college or university in the past, before their current time at the institution. see table 4 for a summary of these results. a majority of the respondents reported they had attended another college or university in the past (n = 51) as compared to students who had not attended another college or university in the past (n = 26). the means for the 10 skills-based items were table 4. results of skills-based questionnaire items by higher education history has attended a college or university in the past (n = 51) has not attended a college or university in the past (n = 26) skills m sd m sd teamwork 3.10 1.12 2.69 1.29 critical thinking & problem-solving 3.43 .81 3.23 .99 data analysis & interpretation 3.14 .96 2.96 1.04 real-world application 3.20 .90 3.38 1.02 technology & digital literacy 3.20 .96 2.96 1.04 written & oral communication 3.43 .88 3.23 1.03 research-based decision-making 3.41 .78 3.15 1.05 creative thinking 3.31 .79 3.04 .96 cross-cultural communication 3.35 1.09 3.15 1.08 ethical judgement and reasoning 3.43 .94 3.23 .99 note. mean based on a 0-4 scale where 0 = none and 4 = a great deal. consistently higher for the students who had attended another college or university in the past, with the exception of one skill, realworld application, where students who did not attend a college or university in the past reported greater skill development (m = 3.38, sd = 1.02) than those who had (m = 3.20, sd = .90). the lowest mean was data analysis and interpretation for students who had attended a college or university in the past (m = 3.14, sd = .96) and teamwork for students who did not attend a college or university in the past (m = 2.69, sd = 1.29). the highest mean for students who had attended a college or university in the past was a three-way tie between critical thinking and problem-solving (m = 3.43, sd = .81), written and oral communication (m = 3.43, sd = .88), and ethical judgment and reasoning (m = 3.43, sd = .94). the highest mean for students who did not attend a college or university in the past was real-world application (m = 3.38, sd = 1.02). the third independent variable examined was the number of semesters it took students to complete their respective program. see table 5 for a summary of these results. a vast majority of the respondents reported they took 3-4 semesters (n = 31) and 5-6 semesters (n = 26) to complete their program as compared to 7+ semesters (n = 17) and 1-2 semester (n = 3). the means for the 10 skills-based items were consistently lowest for students who took 8+ semesters to complete their program and fairly consistently highest for students who took 5-6 semesters to complete their program. the lowest mean out of all of the groups was teamwork for students who took 8+ semesters to complete their program (m = 2.00, sd = 1.41). the highest mean out of all of the groups was ethical judgment and reasoning for students who took 5-6 semesters to complete their program (m = 3.65, sd = .49). to further analyze the relationship between the key independent variables and how students responded to the 10 skillsbased items on the questionnaire, we ran a series of manova statistical tests for each of the three independent variables. according to salkind and frey (2019), manovas should be used when there is more than one dependent variable. the data for the current study includes 10 dependent variables (one for each of the 10 skills-based items), therefore, the manova was selected as the method to test statistical significance. manova tests were conducted using bonferroni adjusted alpha levels of .01 per test, based on the standard alpha level divided by five (.05/5). overall, manova results indicated that none of the key independent variables had statistically significant differences in terms of the amount of skills the graduates reported gaining during their time as a student. a summary of the manova results can be found in table 6. next, we analyzed the first open-ended item to further answer rq1. this item was worded as follows on the questionnaire: “in what ways did you experience as a student help you develop any of the skills listed in the previous section? explain.” this response was optional on the questionnaire and not all respondents provided an answer. to analyze the responses, we utilized the causation method of coding qualitative data. according to saldaña (2016), the causation coding method involves extracting attributions (i.e., causal beliefs) from participant responses to determine what caused the outcome as well as the reasons why the cause led to the specified outcomes. multiple sources indicate that the process of causation coding involves three aspects to identify. the method was based on the recommendation of munton et al. (1999) who specifies that three torres et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 38 table 5. results of skills-based questionnaire items by number of semesters to program completion 1-2 semesters (n = 3) 3-4 semesters (n = 31) 5-6 semesters (n = 26) 7-8 semesters (n = 10) 8+ semesters (n = 7) skills m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd teamwork 3.00 1.00 2.97 1.20 3.27 1.08 2.80 1.14 2.00 1.41 critical thinking & problem-solving 3.33 1.16 3.42 .89 3.58 .58 3.10 1.10 2.71 1.11 data analysis & interpretation 3.33 1.16 3.13 .96 3.31 .79 2.90 1.10 2.14 1.22 real-world application 3.33 1.16 3.45 .93 3.42 .70 2.80 1.03 2.43 1.13 technology & digital literacy 3.33 1.16 3.16 1.10 3.23 .86 3.10 .74 2.43 1.13 written & oral communication 3.33 1.16 3.42 1.03 3.54 .58 3.20 1.03 2.71 1.25 research-based decision-making 3.33 1.16 3.35 .95 3.50 .71 3.10 .88 2.86 1.07 creative thinking 3.33 1.16 3.19 .91 3.46 .71 2.90 .74 2.86 1.07 cross-cultural communication 3.33 1.16 3.45 .96 3.50 .81 3.00 1.33 2.14 1.57 ethical judgment and reasoning 3.33 1.16 3.45 1.00 3.65 .49 3.20 .79 2.14 1.46 note. mean based on a 0-4 scale where 0 = none and 4 = a great deal. table 6. results of manova analysis of skill-based item question responses by the independent variables wilks’ λ f df error df p partial η2 history in the workforce .92 .580a 10 66 .82 .08 higher education history .87 .974a 10 66 .47 .13 number of semesters to program completion .62 .813 40 240.74 .78 .11 table 7. causes that contributed to reported level of skill development primary themes frequency of primary themes sub-themes frequency of sub-themes assignments, activities, and exercises 28 hands-on / experiential learning 7 in-class presentations 6 class projects 2 general responses highlighting assignments, activities, and exercises 13 interactive course components 27 in-class discussions 7 group projects 4 generally working with others 16 instructional support 15 the instructors themselves 12 academic support services 3 general experiences as college students 9 the structure of online classes 2 course lectures 1 participation in student govt. association 1 general responses highlighting the benefit of attending college and completing courses 5 note. themes and sub-themes determined through the causation coding process of qualitative data analysis. elements of the attributions found in the coding process should be identified. these three elements include (a) the cause, (b) the outcome, and (c) the link between the cause and the outcome (saldaña, 2016). the cause is the first element of the attribution and answers the following question: what were the components reported by students that led to the skill development or lack of skill development? for the cause element, the first author coded 58 responses that reflected generally positive student comments regarding the skills they developed and their learning experience while at the institution. the result of this analysis process was 79 codes that the first author synthesized and categorized into four themes. an example response that was coded as both instructional support (the instructors themselves) and interactive course components (generally working with others) is as follows: “the teachers taught on an understanding level and really made me feel like it was easier than it was. also the other students around me helped when we were able to collaborate.” a summary of these themes, including the frequency of the codes found in the themes and sub-themes found in the responses, can be found in table 7. the outcome is the next element of the attribution and helps to answer the question: what outcomes did the students report they experienced as a result of the causes they identified? for the outcome element, the first author coded 40 responses that reflected generally positive student comments regarding the skills they developed and their learning experience while at the institution. the result of this analysis process was 53 codes that the first author synthesized and categorized into six themes. an example response that was coded as enhanced communication skills and enhanced personal development (confidence) is as follows: “communication skills, i was able to gain confidence to speak in front of a class room and make new friends.” a summary of these themes, including the frequency of the codes found in the themes and relevant sub-themes found in the responses, can be found in table 8. the link is the final element in the causation coding process and helps to answer the question: how can connections between the causes and the outcomes be explained? for the link element, the workforce skills development at community colleges impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 39 table 8. outcomes that indicate how students were affected by the skill-development causes primary themes frequency of primary themes sub-themes frequency of subthemes enhanced communication skills 17 enhanced personal development 11 enhanced confidence 8 enhanced self-reflection and awareness 3 enhanced personal responsibility 10 enhanced time management skills 4 enhanced independence 6 enhanced critical, analytical, and logical thinking skills 7 enhanced teamwork skills 4 other 4 enhanced technology skills 2 enhanced creativity 1 enhanced understanding of diversity and inclusion 1 note. themes and sub-themes determined through the causation coding process of qualitative data analysis. first author coded 41 responses that reflected generally positive student comments regarding the skills they developed and their learning experience while at the institution. the result of this analysis process was 46 codes that the first author synthesized and categorized into five themes. an example of a respondent’s answer that was coded as because the professor was helpful, caring, and supportive is as follows: “the excellent teachings of my professors helped me to learn, understand new and different skills to help me be successful.” a summary of these themes, including the frequency of the codes found in each theme, can be found in table 9. table 9. links that explain the connection between the causes and the outcomes identified by students themes frequency because the professor was helpful, caring, and supportive 13 because of the interaction with classmates 13 because the assignments, activities, and exercises were relevant and applicable 11 because the learning experiences provided new and challenging opportunities 5 because the courses provided opportunities to practice and explore technology 4 note. themes determined through the causation coding process of qualitative data analysis. results from the second and third open-ended items contributed to answering rq2. the exact wording of the second open-ended item in the questionnaire was as follows: “were there any skills you were hoping to gain, but didn’t, during your time as a student [at the institution] (beyond learning the content of each course)? explain.” the exact wording of the third open-ended item in the questionnaire was as follows: “what can [the institution] do to better help students develop skills that would make them more marketable to employers?” the first author analyzed these open-ended items using the structural coding method of analyzing qualitative data saldaña (2016). because of the nature of the data set for both open-ended items two and three, the responses to both of these items were combined into a single dataset and analyzed together. when analyzing the second and third open-ended items, the first author coded 58 total responses; 23 for the second open-ended item and 35 for the third open-ended item that contributed to answering rq2. not all students provided usable responses for these open-ended items, and some students provided responses that contributed to multiple codes for this qualitative analysis. the result of this analysis process was 70 codes that the researcher synthesized and categorized into eight themes that directly answered rq2. one respondent’s answer was coded as both hands-on learning and general skill development: “teaching more skills-based and less centered around assignments and essays. while i know writing is important, it is not as important as actual hands on job skills.” a summary of these themes, including examples and frequencies, can be found in table 10. table 10. themes that represent gaps in skill development or recommended institutional improvements themes theme definition & examples frequency hands-on, experiential, & collaborative learning responses in this theme indicated a desire for more experiential learning in their courses including internship opportunities, increased collaboration with others, and more hands-on assignments and exercises. 11 effective use of current technology responses in this theme highlighted students’ desire to learn more technology skills, the need for the institution to maintain current technology on campus, and the need for instructors to more effectively utilize technology to enhance their instruction. 9 critical thinking and problemsolving responses in this theme represented students’ need for more opportunities to learn the process of effective and critical thinking, how to critically analyze data, and how to apply complex problem-solving to their respective field of study. 5 career readiness reponses in this theme reflected a desire for more networking opportunities to enhance communication skills, more opportunities for developing résumé writing and interviewing skills, and more assistance from the college to help make students more marketable to employers. 5 applicability to the realworld responses in this theme indicated a lack of learning opportunities for students to apply what they had learned to actual real-world situations that are relevant to their field of study or industry. 4 general skilldevelopment responses in this theme highlighted students’ desire for more skill development across the board, without highlighting any specific skills. 3 other skills responses in this theme highlighted skills mentioned in student responses that did not fit into any other theme. these skills include personal finance, creative thinking, and the fundamentals of learning. 3 nothing these responses indicated that students were pleased with the skills they had learned and did not have any recommendations for the institution for improvement in this area. 12 note. themes determined through the structural coding process of qualitative data analysis. torres et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 40 discussion the results of this study suggest that, on average, students reported learning a considerable amount of all 10 skills included in the questionnaire. the highest overall mean for the 10 skills-based items was 3.36 (sd = .93, n = 77) and the lowest mean was 2.96 (sd = 1.19, n = 77), using a scale where zero represents no skill development and four represents a great deal of skill development. this suggests students reported learning about the same amount of each of the 10 skills. however, students reported gaining less teamwork skills during their time as a student at the institution than any of the other nine skills listed on the questionnaire. this was true for the general mean across all respondents as well as for most of the key independent variable analyses. a possible reason for this could be the increase of online courses and decrease of in-person courses during this cohort of students’ tenure at the institution (li & lalani, 2020). in fact, one respondent reported that the reason they did not gain as many skills as they would have liked is because they took mostly online courses to complete their program. most students who participated in this study experienced significant disruptions during their college experience due to the covid-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns (zerbino, 2021). students who would have otherwise preferred in-person courses were forced to take online courses, and therefore, were likely unable to work with and collaborate with their instructors and classmates as much as they would have been able to if the classes were taught inperson. it has long been noted that creating a sense of community in online classrooms, though important, is more difficult to accomplish than in face-to-face classrooms (bejerano, 2008; ouzts, 2006). this could explain why students reported lower levels of teamwork skill development, because they simply had fewer opportunities for meaningful collaboration and interaction. a major theme found in the qualitative analysis supports this conclusion. the qualitative analysis revealed that students who reported low levels of skill development would have liked more hands-on and collaborative learning in the courses they took to complete their program. the skills students reported learning the most across all respondents were critical thinking and problem-solving, effective written and oral communication, and ethical judgment and reasoning. when analyzing the skill development through the lens of the key independent variables, these three skills were fairly consistently the skills students reported learning the most. due to the pervasive educational focus on infusing critical thinking and problem-solving skills into the curriculum for students of all ages for the past several decades, it is no surprise that it has emerged as a top skill in this study (murawski, 2014). one student reported opportunities to practice critical thinking prepared them for their entire chosen career: “as a nursing student critical thinking and judgment plays an important role in the healthcare field. i feel that [the institution] has help me prepare for my chosen field.” effective written and oral communication, arguably the easiest skill on the list to interpret and apply, likely emerged atop the earned skills list because writing assignments and oral presentations are two of the most common assignments in higher education (graves, 2017). one student commented on how their program provided opportunities to develop and practice critical thinking and communication skills: “the respiratory care program is all about critical thinking skills. we learn to think fast and outside of the box. we also did many presentations throughout the program and eventually presented an educational powerpoint on vaping to 300 students.” the high rating of ethical judgment and reasoning can likely be attributed to the major theme of helpful, caring, and supportive instructors as the character of these individual instructors has the potential to influence the students’ reported ethical judgment and reasoning skill development. this conclusion is supported by yen and abdous (2011) and hyun et al. (2017) who found a predictive relationship between positive interaction with the students and the students’ overall satisfaction with their learning experience. one respondent was very pleased with their experience at the institution, in particular their instructors: “everything about this college is to like. professors are so nice and actually care about your education.” overall, students mostly attributed the skills they learned to (a) engaging, relevant, and interactive assignments, activities, and discussions, (b) the opportunities they had to work with and interact with their peers, and (c) caring, helpful, and supportive instructors. however, there was not a definitive variable that predicted the amount of skills students reported learning during their time completing their program at the west texas community college. while the key independent variables had no statistically significant impact on reported skill development, students who had not spent time in the workforce as a full-time or part-time employee reported consistently higher levels of skill development across all 10 skills when compared to those students who had spent time in the workforce. this was also true when analyzing the independent variable of higher education history. with the exception of one skill (real-world application), students who had attended a college or university in the past reported consistently higher levels of skill development across all 10 skills than those students who were attending college for the first time. this was also true for analyzing the independent variable of number of semesters to program completion. students who took six or fewer semesters to complete their program reported consistently higher levels of skill development across all 10 skills when compared to students who took seven or more semesters to complete their program. based on the four states of competence model, students who are more experienced learners (e.g., students who have attended another college or university in the past), should be much more aware of the skills and knowledge they have learned and how to best apply those skills and knowledge (broadwell, 1969). students who attend college and drop out or do not complete, with the exception of those who did so because of extenuating life circumstances, likely entered state two of this model, which can be overwhelming and demotivating. on average, the students who had attended another college or university in the past in this study did so about seven years ago. in their renewed attempt to finish college, these students likely advanced to state three during the time they completed their program. this would place these students in a state where they fully know what they learned and why it is important, and therefore, why they reported higher levels of skill development on this questionnaire. perhaps the students who took seven or more semesters to complete their program, given their extended tenure at the institution, entered state four of the model which would make them more unaware of what they have learned and what they are good at because the knowledge and skills exist unconsciously (broadwell, 1969). in this state, students have a more difficult time articulating why they do what they do, or how they learned what they learned. workforce skills development at community colleges impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 41 this could explain why the students who took the longest to complete their program reported the lowest level of skill development, not because they did not develop the skills, but because their unconsciously competent state makes it difficult for them to articulate those learnings. it is generally understood that learning about something and actually doing it are two completely different processes. this claim is supported by employer reports which indicate a disconnect between how students and employers perceive recent graduates’ skill levels (bauer-wolf, 2018; hart research associates, 2015). students who have not spent time in the work force and whose only experience is at institutions of learning may not be as aware of the skills they have yet to learn and master and may also have a false sense of their own skill level. this would place them in state one, unconscious incompetence (broadwell, 1969). therefore, they may perceive to have learned or even mastered certain skills, but until they actually have the opportunity to apply them in a work setting in the real world, they may not be able to progress to the rest of the states in the competence model. this would explain why students who had not spent time in the workforce reported consistently higher levels of skill development than students who had spent time in the workforce. while the majority of students reported positive skill gains and were generally pleased with the skills they learned, some students reported skills they were hoping to gain during their time as students, but did not, such as critical thinking and problem-solving, general career readiness skills, and overall more applicable skills across the board. for example, one graduate reported the following: “i was hoping to learn how to use data to think critically.” another respondent reported wanting more from their time at the institution: “push boundaries a bit more, get students outside of their learning comfort zones. students need to learn more about how to think. remembering and reciting can only carry one so far.” furthermore, students reported that an increase of hands-on, experiential, and collaborative learning, as well as more effective use of up-to-date technology by their instructors, would have helped them develop even more skills. one respondent reported wanting a greater variety of instructional strategies and assignments to help them develop more skills: “i would have hoped to gain more knowledge as far as new styles and techniques and not do the same activities every other week.” another graduate reported wanting more opportunities to connect what they learned to the real world: “add things to our courses that concern real life situations or lessons.” these findings are supported by literature that indicates these practices can lead to an increase in workforce skill development (finley, 2021; hart research associates, 2013; kolb, 1976; stalp & hill, 2019). the contradictory nature of some of the student responses reflect the complexity of the student learning experience. the amount of skill development students experience can largely depend on a variety of factors and variables, including the key independent variables analyzed in this study, but also factors such as the individual instructors that taught their courses and the teaching style of those instructors. for example, when asked what helped students develop the skills they reported learning, one of the top answers students provided was because of their helping, caring, and supportive instructors. as indicated by past studies, the role the instructor plays in the course including how it is structured, how they communicate with students, and how they overall facilitate learning can have a positive effect on not only how much the student learns but also how satisfied the student is with their overall learning experience (hyun et al., 2017; yen & abdous, 2011). furthermore, effective and supportive instructors understand the importance of building community among their students to enhance their learning experience (bejerano, 2008; mckinney et al., 2006; ouzts, 2006). this conclusion further underscores the importance of attentive, caring, and helpful instructors who know how to adequately facilitate learning that enhances the student experience. implications for practice there are strategies that institutions can implement to place a greater widespread focus on workforce skill development. faculty need strategies, resources, and training to transform their curriculum to place a more intentional focus on teaching workforce skills. the new world of work (nwow) curriculum from the state community college system in california could offer a template from which to start for this type of major transformation (nelson, 2016). regardless of the actual intervention, there would need to be prescribed curriculum changes, not just general training and recommendations. for a workforce skill development initiative to be successful, there must also be a focus on meta-cognition and reflection for students regarding their own skill development, what they are learning, and how it can be applied. directing students to participate in these reflective practices and calling attention to the “why” of the skills being learned are valuable strategies to help ensure the learning sticks and the students see the importance and value of what they have learned (finley, 2021; stefano et al., 2016). engaging in these practices also helps the students advance through the four states of competence model (broadwell, 1969). lastly, innovative strategies have been implemented in higher education in an effort to help improve workforce skill development among graduates. these include workforce skill development transcript designations or specialized workforce skill certificates (chen, 2018; parker, 2019), co-teaching approaches to separate out the presentation of the content and the ways in which the content can be practically applied in the workforce (durden, 2020), and the incorporation of eportfolios to highlight students’ collection of work to demonstrate the skills and abilities they have developed (farrell, 2020). limitations and future research there were a few limitations within this study. first, the overall sample size for this study was lower than desired. of the 541 graduates asked to participate in the study, 77 completed the questionnaire which represents a 14% response rate. a more appropriate sample size for this study would have been closer to 120 respondents, which would reflect a 20% rate and approximately +/8% margin of error. in addition, some of the group sizes for the manova analyses were very small, which represents another limitation associated with the sample size. another limitation is that this study only represented selfreported student responses. this one-sided perspective does not holistically represent the entire reality of what was actually learned, experienced, or mastered. gaining perspectives from the faculty as well as local employers would have supplemented the results nicely. torres et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 8 no. 3 (2023) doi 10.5195/ie.2023.363 42 a third limitation of this study was the gaps in information that existed when analyzing and interpreting the results. for example, when interpreting the low teamwork result, assumptions were made about the impact of the covid-19 pandemic and the increase in online course offerings. including questions related to covid-19 in the questionnaire would have aided in the analysis and interpretation of the results. this study prompts considerations for future research on this topic. as previously mentioned, this study only represented the perspectives of the students. surveying employers about the skills the institution’s graduates exhibit and what skills they value from graduates in this region would provide valuable insight into how the institution can best prepare their students based on what the employers want. similarly, surveying faculty about the skills students exhibit and the strategies they find help students develop these skills would add a valuable perspective in this discussion. beyond survey studies, an experimental investigation of instructional strategies that are aimed at helping students develop key workforce skills would contribute greatly to literature on this topic. the results of this type of study could provide important information regarding the effectiveness of particular strategies compared to others. lastly, as previously mentioned, there were gaps in knowledge when analyzing and interpreting the results. studies that include focus groups of students and/or faculty would allow researchers to ask clarifying and probing questions to fully explore this topic with much more specificity than a survey study allows. another consideration for future research is the role that artificial intelligence (ai) plays in not only the ways faculty teach critical thinking and problem-solving skills in their courses, but also how students are learning these skills. according to chan (2023), critical thinking has become an even more essential skill with the rapid rise of ai technology. students need to be able to evaluate the outputs and decisions made by ai applications to determine whether or not what is being produced is in alignment with the goals and values of the entity it represents. simply using ai chatbots, such as chatgpt, without applying critical thinking to what it produces, can potentially eliminate the necessity for students to think through complex problems on their own. therefore, a study that investigates how higher education institutions are integrating ai while still promoting the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills would be prudent for this topic. conclusion as indicated by past literature on this topic, the public’s perception of higher education has changed (craig, 2015; hart research associates, 2018; wilkie, 2019). not only is the general public questioning the return on investment for a college degree, employers are finding themselves wanting more from the recent graduates who get jobs at their companies (bauer-wolf, 2018; finley 2021; hart research associates, 2013, 2015, 2018). with the higher education industry struggling, academic leaders must consider alternatives to business as usual for the sustainability of the industry (eddy, 2019). the results of this study, along with the outcomes of past studies on this topic, suggest that the higher education industry should focus more on workforce skill development among their students across all disciplines and programs. this is important not only to enhance student learning outcomes, but also for the future of the higher education industry. while some skill development occurs by the very nature of how higher education courses are structured and taught, what is being done is not enough. employers and society expect more. to be able to give them what they want, academic leaders must consider widespread changes across the curriculum to make workforce skill development a key part of the student learning experience in order to maintain higher education’s relevance to society. reflection on the inquiry process completion of this dip offered the student author the opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge and skills acquired through successful completion of a cped member program. the program, designed to directly align with the guiding principles for program design (cped, 2022), offered opportunities to conceptualize and refine the problem of practice by applying varying lenses to the problem through the progression of coursework that included topics such as educational equity, theory, research design, and methods. the student author is now well prepared to continue to serve as a scholar-practitioner, applying a systematic process of inquiry to study and improve upon problems of practice that emerge in their ongoing practice as an educational leader. in addition to the student author’s development as a scholarpractitioner, we recognize that the dip inquiry process yielded interesting, informative, and substantive results, from which the local community college can craft informed action. the process also yielded results that will be useful to the larger community of scholar practitioners, who like the student author who conducted the study, have a vested interest in improving the lives of students by improving the postsecondary instruction they receive. therefore, this study fit well within the role of scholarly practitioners who seek to identify and address relevant problems of practice to make positive changes across the higher education industry. references adams, l. 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education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 71 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 edd-activism: two journeys converge to support long-term english learners molly m. staeheli coe college momastaeheli@gmail.com william jeffrey flanigan springdale public schools jflanigan@sdale.org abstract the story of any activist educator has its own twists and turns, yet their goals of equity and social justice hold strong. this article will reflect on the vastly different journeys of a newly emerging edd-activist teacher and a life-long activist administrator whose visions converge in a relatively large midwestern majority-minority school district, and a building where 49% of the students are hispanic/latino, 14% are pacific islander, and 33% are labeled english learners. the problem tackled here is two-fold: a culturally irrelevant boxed english language development curriculum that promises linguistic and academic success for long-term english learners, but only brings them success in assimilation, and a dearth of educators who look like these students that so desperately need voice and representation. here, we illustrate how action research and intentional administrative efforts bring attention and possible solutions to these issues. keywords activism, action research, english learners activism in the field of teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol) is a relatively new phenomenon. historically, imperialism used european languages as a tool to bring civilization to indigenous people of the americas (hall, 2016). as a result, the history of critical pedagogy in tesol is short (coney, 2016; kubota & lin, 2006). the 2006 tesol quarterly special issue on race was a step toward breaking down the notion that english spoken by native speakers was superior. at present, deeply held beliefs and legislation across the country maintain english-only schools and ban critical approaches to teaching, doubling down on eurocentric values of assimilation. as a majority-minority school district in arkansas, we face growing numbers of long-term english learners (ltels) who have successfully assimilated into the hegemonic culture yet failed to develop satisfactory language skills as determined by a state standardized language test. as coney (2016) predicted, “the combination of the curricula chosen by a white establishment, female teachers of european descent, unchecked white privilege, and a diverse student population does not lend itself to informed teaching,” (p. 16) nor to student success. thus, creating a space for activism in public schools that recognizes its flaws in developing language and literacy. the story of any activist educator has twists and turns, yet their goals of equity and social justice hold strong. embracing the publication’s theme of being, becoming, and supporting scholarly activism in education, this article tells the stories of an emerging edd-activist tesol teacher and a lifelong activist administrator. while our journeys are vastly different, our visions converge in a relatively large midwestern school district where 67% of the students are hispanic/latino and 20% are pacific islander. it is in this union of an activist duo that we address a twofold problem: (a) a culturally irrelevant, prescribed english language development (eld) curriculum that promises english learners (els) linguistic and academic success but only accomplishes assimilation, and (b) a dearth of educators who look like our ltels who so desperately need voice and representation. this narrative highlights our respective relationships with activism through their births, courtships, and finally, to a symbolic marriage, highlighting the downfalls of a system and our attempt to shift from a culture that creates a deficit narrative of our students to one that sees them as assets with immense potential. birth our stories overlap in time but exist in different worlds. the teacher’s story begins in the suburbs of a major metropolitan northern city as the principal’s story takes place in a southern innercity. this section shares the origin stories of these two educators, illustrating the vast foundations from which activism can arise. budding teacher in northern suburbia my parents’ story was a classic tale of courtship from both sides of the tracks. mom grew up on the same side of st. paul, minnesota as the governor’s mansion and other victorian-era homes on historic summit avenue. while they did not live in one of these homes, mom and her siblings attended private catholic schools on prestigious summit. no one knew much about her father’s upbringing except that my great-grandfather was not a positive role model in my grandpa’s life. grandpa enlisted in the marines at 17 to remove https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7948-5075 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7809-4440 staeheli & flanigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 72 himself from a harmful situation and get his life on track. he returned from the war, married my grandmother, and took advantage of the military benefits he earned, establishing a prosperous life for his family. until the day he died, grandpa was willing and able to offer his children and grandchildren whatever financial support he could. generations continue to benefit from his hard work, generosity, and white privilege. across the mississippi river, my father’s family lived a more humble, blue-collar life. in the 1950s and 60s, the west side of st. paul was where the city’s mexican population settled. dad grew up playing football with peers of all racial and linguistic backgrounds, developing a genuine acceptance of and respect for diversity. dad’s family lived modestly, and after my paternal grandfather’s death, grandma was the matriarch, working hard to make sure her seven grandkids had gifts and full stomachs at christmas. while my parents’ childhood lifestyles were different, both were raised with a level of privilege whereby the need or even notion of activism never entered their lexicon. an inherently gifted athlete, dad earned a football scholarship to the university of minnesota; however, the responsibility of being a highly competitive athlete and student was more than he wanted to carry. when he and mom met, dad was embarking on a hockey career, expected to play on the 1968 u.s. olympic team only to be drafted to vietnam the spring before the games. though he resented how the military sidelined his athletic career, dad was never one to engage in anti-war activism. when he returned, my parents married, and while dad did not want his kids to be cloistered in white suburbia, he also refused to send us to private schools. the compromise was to buy a home in a first-tier suburb with quality public schools. growing up, our next-door neighbors in the suburbs were a young black family, and while they did not live in the neighborhood for long, their little girl was one of my best childhood friends. even with this friendship and strong connections to the west side, my exposure to diversity was never more than adjacent. like my parents, i had no drive to engage in activism. my high school graduating class had a smattering of asian students, many of whom were adopted by white families, and only a couple of black students. my dad had taught absolute acceptance of difference, but my white privilege and biases went unchecked for decades. despite no one in my family graduating from college, i knew i was headed for higher education. while i had no clue about my path, i knew there was something more for me than the life i had lived up to that point. my activism was born in a relationship with a professor who became my first real mentor in education. while mom always wanted me to dress in pink and play with dolls, dad taught me how to check my oil and change a flat tire. he nurtured my athletic abilities, making sure i played all the sports right along with the boys. i resisted the female standard and spoke out against societal gender inequities in a college environment that supported my dissent. i may have called myself a feminist, but my activism did not go beyond heated conversations with close friends. while dad taught me to stand up for my beliefs, i had not yet established a steady relationship with activism. while feminism was my introduction to having an activist’s voice in college, the real life-changer came as an opportunity to study abroad during my senior year. my college offered what was called the global semester—a 5-month course that took a group of 20 students and one professor to nine different countries. i studied history in egypt, economics in india, art in hong kong, and religious philosophy in japan as the group stopped in switzerland to visit the world health organization, israel to tour settlement camps in gaza and the west bank, and nepal to hike the foothills of the himalayas. i found myself intrigued by the history of these places, and the diverse languages, cultures, and people grabbed my heart and never let go. budding administrator in a southern inner city i was literally born against all odds. when i came into the world, my twice-divorced parents had been married for almost 3 years. my mother had endured five miscarriages over the course of three marriages. my father was 29 years my mother’s senior and a good friend of my maternal grandfather, ulysses “bill” williams, serving as his pallbearer in 1969 when my mother was a young 21 years old. while my father had at least three children from previous relationships, my mother had yet to carry a child full term. finally, after 37 hours of labor, i made my appearance at 2:59 pm on january 28, 1977. my mother called me her “miracle child.” from the very beginning, i was fighting against previously insurmountable odds. my father, a world war ii veteran, was the first black police officer in my hometown of magnolia, arkansas. he was a pioneer and a trailblazer. he fought in a war to protect rights, freedoms, and democracy that he, as a black man, could not fully enjoy. in 1965, he joined the police force in the deep south, where racial tension was always simmering at the surface. he told me stories of how he was initially forbidden to arrest white people, so he did not arrest black people either. he was an activist. my mother, the most straight-talking and direct person i have ever known, taught me the term terminal education when i was probably 5 years old. she then went to school to finish her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work before i graduated high school. she let me know that my education would be my passport to realizing whatever dreams i would have. she taught me about the plight of black people, dating back to the transatlantic slave trade, through the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. she made me aware that i was standing on the shoulders of ancestors who had literally died so i would have the opportunity to fully participate in the great social experiment that we call america. because “for everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required” (new king james version bible, 2024, luke 12:48), my mother never allowed me to lament what being black in the united states meant. instead, she challenged me to make the world better for others wherever i was, just as others had done for me. i know now that she was training me to be an activist from childhood. my maternal grandmother, oda mae williams hendricks, née rhynes, was in year 30 of what would become a 39-year teaching career when i was born. she had been an activist for student equality her entire career. this stance was never more evident than when she navigated the tumult of transitioning from teaching in segregated schools from 1947–1971 to teaching in integrated schools from 1971–1986. schools did not fully integrate in my hometown until the fall of 1971. she still talks about how she and her black teaching peers were not allowed to discipline white students or send them to the black assistant principal. meanwhile, black students were being mistreated and unfairly disciplined by white teachers and administrators daily. two activists support long-term english learners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 73 in the summer of 1956, my grandmother had the opportunity to study at the renowned tuskegee institute, a private, historically black land-grant school in tuskegee, alabama. the school is famous for, among many things, its first president, booker t. washington. it is also the site of the despicable tuskegee syphilis experiment where poor black men with syphilis were allowed to go untreated to study the effects of the debilitating disease. the tuskegee airmen, the famous world war ii aviators, were trained at tuskegee by the u.s. army air corps. tuskegee was where pioneering agricultural scientist and professor, george washington carver, worked from 1896 to his death in 1943. while studying at tuskegee, my grandmother heard a rousing speech by a young, charismatic pastor from nearby montgomery, alabama. he spoke about the montgomery bus boycott that was gaining national attention. the boycott was sparked by the arrest of mrs. rosa parks, a black woman, who refused to give up her seat for a white man. he also talked about the brutal murder of 13-yearold emmett till in august 1955 in money, mississippi for whistling at a white woman. till’s killers were acquitted but admitted to killing the child in a paid interview for look magazine a few months later. my grandmother was enraptured by the vigor that the young minister displayed in speaking about the rampant injustices that plagued black people for decades. after the speech, a throng of students flocked to the young minister. my grandmother was only able to get close enough to call his name and extend her hand. she exclaimed, “dr. king!” upon hearing his name, he turned around and shook my grandmother’s right hand. as a child, i would ask my grandmother to tell me the story over and over again, wanting her to confirm that it was her right hand that he shook. i would caress my grandmother’s hand as if, in some way, i too were shaking the hand of the great dr. martin luther king, jr. looking back, i am thankful for the activist education i received at home. in contrast, my schools neither taught nor even broached the topics of racism and inequality until i got to the ninth grade. by then, i realized i had more knowledge about relevant historical events than my teachers. i understood that the opportunities before me were not always afforded to my predecessors. regardless of where my dreams would ultimately take me, my family birthed activism in me, ensuring i would follow in their activist footsteps. courtship from the birth of our activism, our stories led to long careers in education. this section shares reflections on our respective courtships with activism, and the part it played in our roles as teachers, a teacher trainer, and a principal of diverse populations. tesol professional’s career in the early 2000s, i embarked upon my career in tesol, earning a master’s degree and teaching high school els in new york city. my degree covered the expected pedagogical topics of language acquisition, technology integration, classroom management, and student-centered teaching. the program was considered forward-thinking at the time in its push for incorporating students’ backgrounds and cultures to engage diverse populations in the english language classroom. we were encouraged to integrate into our lessons’ literature by authors such as piri thomas, james mcbride, and sandra cisneros as tools for engaging diverse students in reading. from my perspective of privilege, in the esteemed position of native-speaking english teacher, i thought acknowledging diverse cultures in my lessons through literature, famous people, and holidays fulfilled my responsibility to be culturally relevant. in hindsight, it’s not surprising that the topic of race addressed in my graduate coursework through work by lisa delpit (1995) and others left me unsettled. delpit called for a balance between preserving students’ home cultures and providing them access to the white culture of power, and i did not know how to reconcile these two notions. while i valued diversity, i was more comfortable valuing colorblindness, rationalizing the practice of highlighting similarities and ignoring differences. i believed any discussion of race just left people feeling uncomfortable, preferring to avoid the topic completely. i recall being irritated and even offended during a workshop where the facilitator referred to white americans as european americans. my gut response was, “you can’t call me that. i’m simply american.” at that same moment, however, i also realized the double standard i was guilty of holding. i lacked the tools to reflect on my racial bias and be critical of its role in my perceptions as a white teacher of non-white students. while the passion to advocate for my students was strong, i was still oblivious to the intersection of language, culture, and race or any need i had to understand it. while i did not know how to engage in the dance of checking my implicit bias, the desire to start a courtship became clear. my career in tesol evolved as i took opportunities to work with the u.s. state department on diplomacy projects to build english language capacity in developing countries. embracing the work of bringing the opportunities of english to remote corners of the world, i never thought english language teaching could be an act of “political and cultural power” (luke & dooley, 2009, p. 1). overtly, my english classes in kosovo for serbian and albanian teenagers brought these students access to english, developing valuable language skills. covertly, my primary goal was to create opportunities for these students to reframe their learned hate for each other into recognizing common ground and developing an understanding that replaced hate. because of the trauma inflicted on both sides by war, i was coached to avoid any talk of inequality or injustice endured. it was too painful and volatile. while my work reached marginalized communities, it was founded on linguistic imperialism in the name of cultural diplomacy. i felt like i was the keeper of knowledge intending to unite these students as i failed to assume a critical stance toward the linguistic hegemony i was perpetuating. i returned to the states to continue this diplomacy at the university of arkansas (uofa), working on u.s. state department grants training teachers of english as a foreign language (tefl) from the same developing countries i had just left. again, building english language capacity in more remote corners of the world was my noble goal, consistent with my belief in this lingua franca as a key to global unification. i remained oblivious to the imperialist nature of the work. as my career trajectory continued, i started to feel the itch for change, so i returned to my teaching roots in public education as an eighth-grade english teacher at mary francis george junior high school (gjhs), a majority-minority school in northwest arkansas. the students differed from the high school els i taught in new york city. rather than being new immigrants, most of these young teens were born in the united states and raised speaking their family’s native language at home yet never gained literacy in that language. out of simple curiosity, i took an opportunity to teach upper-level staeheli & flanigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 74 eld, a course intended to support ltels. because of their solid verbal and aural language skills, these students are often seen and treated as native speakers. yet, they continue to have high dropout rates, low graduation rates, and low achievement on state and national tests (olsen, 2014). many of our ltels in the eighth and ninth grades have english literacy skills that surpass their spanish reading and writing skills. yet, every year, their english falls short according to the annual english proficiency assessment. eld was supposed to be a means of bumping them up to grade-level literacy; however, as we worked through the scripted curriculum, it became clear that the culturally irrelevant content was not engaging students, causing me to question its effectiveness. at the same time, my relationship with activism strengthened with the murder of george floyd at the hands of police officers in minneapolis, the other half of my twin cities home. as i witnessed rage among the black community, i could see their justification after continued disregard and abuse from those holding power. i saw clearer than ever the need to recognize my ignorance and fully embark on a journey of self-reflection and increasing awareness and mitigation of my implicit biases. i wanted to apply my new-found drive to my teaching. having always wanted to earn a doctorate but never knowing exactly what i wanted to study, my next steps became clear. i could have selected any number of universities that were closer to home and less expensive but i chose the university of south carolina’s (usc) edd program, which emphasized equity and critical pedagogy through action research, finally putting a ring on the finger of activism. thus began my research into the equity of el education and better understanding the system’s ineffectiveness in reaching a large yet unserved ltel population. principal’s career like many kids are prone to do, i took a path that diverged from the medical career my mother had planned for me. i was a coach for the first 14 years of my career in education. beginning in 2000 in my hometown of magnolia, arkansas, i became the first full-time assistant women’s basketball coach at southern arkansas university. as a coach, i became, for many of my players, the dominant voice in their lives. i had a responsibility to them that far surpassed teaching them the fundamentals of sports. when i left the university of arkansas at little rock as an assistant coach in 2004, i went to the then henderson health and sciences magnet middle school in little rock to teach science and social studies and coach football, basketball, and track under the principal, mr. marvin burton. we served about 850 students in grades 6–8 at our peak during my 4 years there: 82% were black, and 100% were experiencing poverty. there, my career in activism started in earnest. there is often community and school-wide distrust in the instructional capacity of urban schools. students in different racial and social-class backgrounds are rewarded for classroom behaviors that correspond to personality traits allegedly rewarded in the different occupational strata—the working classes for docility and obedience, the managerial classes for initiative and personal assertiveness. this trend is called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” a phrase coined by michael gerson (oettinger, 2023) that describes a patronizing and dangerous attitude, cloaked as kindness, which assumes certain people are capable of less because of their race or background (yeatman, 2024). i regularly saw this deficit thinking at henderson, and mr. burton detested it, training me to see and detest it as well. he refused to allow faculty and staff to lower expectations for students. he fought for our school to be safe, clean, and high achieving, traits that are rarely associated with schools with similar demographics. students of color and students from low-income backgrounds often lag behind their peers in student achievement metrics (bradley, 2024). gershenson and papageorge (2022) found that teachers expect 58% of white high-school students to obtain a 4-year college degree or more but anticipate the same for only 37% of black students. these numbers almost mirror the number of college graduates broken down by race. these authors also found that 49% of white students ultimately graduate from college, compared to only 29% of black students. this disparity is even more alarming considering that students cannot or will not perform well when teachers view them from a deficit perspective (flanigan, 2014). i saw and heard this perspective firsthand in professional development meetings and conversations about students with many colleagues. i heard them make statements that hinted at their disbelief in our students’ ability to do more than what they were doing, and it infuriated me. i would always snap back that we prepare our students to compete in a world that will not lower the bar for them to hurdle it. i maintain this belief to this day. during my first year at henderson, mr. burton told me i had to be more than just a coach. while initially defensive, i soon understood what he meant. he forced me to see the entire field of education. he showed me that my impact, while strong with my athletes, was still limited in scope. to truly make the type of difference our students needed, i had to be at the table where the decisions were being made, and that table did not exist in a gym or on a football field. i had to become an administrator. in 2014, after much prayer and deliberation, while serving as the head boys’ basketball coach at blytheville high school in arkansas, a school and district very demographically similar to my start at henderson, i was hired to be the principal of the science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) academy at the academies at jonesboro high school (jhs). there were a lot of opportunities for educational activism during my 7 years at jhs. initially, our academy was the smallest and least diverse: over 80% of the 174 students were white in a school that was 60% black and hispanic. by the conclusion of the 2020–2021 school year, we had over 400 students, and almost 50% were students of color. we achieved national model academy status in 2018, presenting at the 2018 national career academy coalition conference in houston, texas, and the 2020 and 2021 national elementary & secondary act conferences in atlanta and boston. actively recruiting students of color and girls, both underserved groups in stem fields, was our team’s priority along with helping them earn internships, scholarships, and jobs after high school and college. true activism requires a team that believes the mission is worth the struggle. that is what we had in the stem academy from 2014–2021, and i am forever grateful for the collaboration. when opportunity knocks, sometimes there is a tendency to ignore it. i was happy at jhs. we had just built a new home in 2018, and our youngest daughter was entering her senior year in the fall of 2021. leaving was not on the radar. while reaching out to the springdale superintendent, a classmate from my doctoral work years ago, to support a colleague looking for a job, this superintendent asked me if i was ready to come to springdale. i laughed, but almost 3 months later, my family moved to northwest arkansas, where i became the principal at george junior high school (gjhs). two activists support long-term english learners impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 75 because i was moving into a situation with an entirely different population of students on paper, i was equally excited and nervous. i knew what i represented to the thousands of black students i worked with over my career in athletics and administration. still, i was about to take over a school with only a 2% black student population. additionally, gjhs had a significant pacific-islander population, a culture i was completely unaware of before coming to springdale. i wondered if i could be as effective as i had been elsewhere in a school with over 80% of my students coming from homes where english was not the primary language. those concerns lingered throughout the summer of 2021 — right up until around 7:30 am on the first day of school. it took about thirty minutes and countless jaw drops of children marveling at the largest black man they had ever seen. with mouths agape, they asked, “are you our principal?” each time i said, “yes,” i was met with high fives and handshakes. in that moment, i realized two things to be true. first, i texted my superintendent and said, “you were right; i got this.” second, i knew my educational activism would continue. these students saw me as an advocate and a reflection of themselves from the first day of school. i had a responsibility to figure out how to direct my activism and advocacy to a new group of kids. challenge accepted. marriage here, our respective relationships with activism unite in place and purpose when the teacher and doctoral researcher found the administrator who supported her research efforts to give students a voice. this section details how our marriages to activism converged at gjhs, a school with a unique combination of native spanish speakers and students from the marshall islands. in a political climate cracking down on critical pedagogy, the administrator supported the teacher’s edd research that illuminated how a system that claims to support and develop ltels’ literacy was not achieving its purpose. concurrently, the principal found an ally to his activism who does not look like him and thus, has a perspective from the racial majority. unfortunately, this type of alliance has been historically necessary for creating change in issues regarding race in our country (denevi & cohen, n.d.). the union begins—principal’s view regardless of race, gender, or other differentiating factors, students are fundamentally the same in their need to be cared for and loved. they want people to be truthful and honest with them. surprisingly, some want to be held accountable. kids know that if you are unwilling to hold them accountable, you do not care about them. when i reflected on these truths, students at gjhs were not so new to me after all. i became hyper-focused on finding as many activist-minded teachers as i possibly could. we needed teachers willing to see beyond the deficit mentality and go all out to provide a pathway toward a better future for our students. there was one teacheractivist in particular whom i was made aware of in the summer of 2021. she had been a budding activist for els in our building before my arrival. however, at the end of the 2020–2021 school year, she transferred to another junior high in our district, and i could not talk her into staying. however, i was determined to get her back at gjhs. while a dearth of teachers who looked like our students remained, this teacher was a partner i knew i needed. her doctoral research sought to hear students’ voices, giving undeniable evidence to the district and educational community to pay attention to the unique needs of ltels. teacher’s edd research after a year of teaching eld 4, the highest level of the class filled primarily with ltels, i realized eld was not having its intended effect. not only was the prescribed curriculum content uninteresting and disengaging to the students, but it also instilled in them a sense of dread toward the class that seemed to precede the box. in my mind, our school and, arguably, the entire district was obligated to understand ltels, what they needed, and what they wanted eld to be. usc’s edd program guided me through the action research process (herr & anderson, 2015) to give voice to students’ perceptions of eld and their designation as els. i also wanted to see if adapting the eld content using elements of culturally relevant pedagogy (ladson-billings, 1995) and multicultural education (banks, 2014) combined with constructivist practices in english language teaching (reyes & vallone, 2008) might shift their perceptions. my research questions included: 1. what are ltels’ perceptions of the standard eld curriculum? 2. how does an adapted unit affect ltels’ perceptions of eld 4? 3. what do ltels’ counter-stories reveal about their experience as language learners? i adapted one unit of the boxed eld curriculum that focused on identity, collecting pre and post-quantitative data using an authordeveloped tool (staeheli, 2023). data revealed that students did not want to be in eld at all, which was no surprise. what was surprising was that both before and after the adapted unit, students did not seem to see or even want a classroom that incorporated their cultures. they enjoyed the identity unit, but to them, culture was not academic. i also used free-write journals to collect data on students’ counter-stories–narratives of their lived experiences that went beyond the pervasive stories of deficit (solórzano & yosso, 2002). two themes emerged that echoed what i found in the survey results: (a) the overall negative feeling of being in eld and students’ desire to “get out,” in contrast to (b) the perceived benefit of the class. as the data illustrated, by the time these students entered junior high, they wanted nothing to do with eld, and this negativity contributed to the ineffectiveness of the class. i also saw that longstanding school policies took a subtractive approach to language teaching (reyes & vallone, 2008), promoting assimilation to hegemonic culture, and essentially erasing the cultural and educational foundation students brought with them (darder, 2012; valenzuela, 1999). by intentionally keeping students’ cultures out of their learning, the district made students self-reinforce this hegemonic stance that their languages and cultures were not academic enough to include in their learning. despite negative perceptions, the curriculum convinced students that the system was working at improving their language, even though all evidence indicated otherwise. at my invitation, the district’s assistant director of esl attended my defense. i also brought this knowledge to our esl director, but they have not chosen to take action. as the largest district in the state, springdale is seen as a leader in el education, presenting a culture of innovation and forward-thinking. however, “the stronger staeheli & flanigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.580 76 the culture, the more firmly it resists new influences” (evans, 2001, p. 46). the district takes pride in its reputation for educating els and does not see a need to implement change. with our union established, the teacher and principal realize the greatest change is slow moving. this union is in its infancy, and we are prepared to face the work yet to be done. moving forward as recently as 1995, black students at the uofa were warned not to travel the 10 miles to springdale alone or after dark, reflecting its status as a sundown town, a community that for decades was all white on purpose (history and social justice, 2022). fast-forward 30 years, this same town has approximately 23,000 students, 62% of whom are hispanic or hawaiian/pacific islander, and 70% qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. while the city population experienced a 133% growth between 1990 and 2010, the ethnic minorities have not demonstrated financial growth at the same rate (stewart, 2012). times have changed, and we as educators must change with them. we cannot expect students to enter our halls and fit the student mold that has existed for so long. we need to open our minds, including understanding the natural hurdles accompanying students with dominant languages other than english. unfortunately, while our population is growing and becoming more diverse, the political environment is moving in other directions. the conservative majority is cracking down on what they call indoctrination. paula ryan (2021), a writer for a socially conservative and christian fundamentalist lobbying organization, claimed that students are being taught that everything about u.s. society is inherently racist. she also spoke against the idea that full racial equity requires transforming existing systems. arkansas elected sarah huckabee sanders, former trump administration press secretary, as governor in 2022, immediately going on the offensive against indoctrination and all things woke. the most sweeping educational reform act in recent arkansas history, the learns act, follows plans from an executive order issued on sanders’s first day in office to prohibit teaching that “would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as critical race theory” (grajeda & field, 2023). anti-wokeness is a regular focal point of her public comments, preventing teachers from incorporating race or any critical pedagogy in their classes for fear of getting fired. all changes have restricted our capacity to be activists for our students while simultaneously making it even more important that we tirelessly advocate for them. we continue to fight to put the results of this edd research and our experiences into action with our school and our district. to teach students how to become advocates for themselves, we created a principal’s cabinet that gives our students a voice in decisions that affect them at school. students meet with the principal and members of the superintendent’s executive team once a month and propose changes they would like to see in our school. their voices have led to installing student microwaves in the cafeteria, adding an extra minute to passing periods, lifting the ban on hats in the building, and implementing more lunch choices. we make students feel like they have a real voice and choice in their education because they do. people are less likely to tear things down that they helped build, and students are no different. we expect our students to achieve at a high level, and we do not accept less than their best effort. accountability is our love language. they know we believe in them because our actions show as much. we continually instill a mindset in our faculty and staff to focus on our locus of control. we do not discuss issues we cannot change, including socioeconomics, ethnicity, or family life circumstances, the traits that so often go hand-in-hand with deficit thinking. rather, we work to ensure our students and teachers shed the deficit mentality. in a world that tries to make them feel inadequate and inferior, we attempt to instill in them the sense that they can move mountains if they believe they can and are willing to work for it. we want to ensure our advocacy does not stop when our students leave our two-grade band school. we are working together to address the white native-speaking teacher’s superiority and the hegemonic white narrative of deficit-mindedness to demonstrate to our students that their languages and cultures do have academic value. we seek to lessen the dearth of teachers from cultural and linguistic backgrounds similar to our students by providing future educators a path to opportunities offered through the uofa. a step in this direction has been hiring former gjhs students in their senior year of high school to act as marshallese parent liaisons. while working here, they have enrolled in the project of ensuring learner equity via advocacy & teacher education or elevate. it is an innovative, interdisciplinary project at the uofa aimed at increasing teacher diversity and providing professional development opportunities for educators working with dual language and emergent bilingual students in pk–12 schools (university of arkansas, 2022). additionally, the principal has worked with uofa faculty members to develop dope! the diversifying our public educators program. dope! is a resource group for uofa students from diverse backgrounds on their way to becoming licensed k–12 teachers (university of arkansas, 2023). though our origins come from entirely different places, figuratively and literally, and our courtship journeys have taken us places we never thought possible, our shared commitment to the advancement of students who have been marginalized for a multitude of reasons has solidified our marriage to activism. just like with any relationship, there has to be a foundation of trust and common commitment. we have to wake up each morning with a drive to do more because our students deserve it. we have to be willing to speak up and speak out because our voices possess the power to change lives. in this union, there is no divorce. even as our upward professional mobility may separate us physically one day, our bond won’t be broken until success for all truly means success for all. references banks, j. a. 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https://specialeducationaction.com/ending-the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations-and-cyclical-ignorance-and-forgetfulness/ https://specialeducationaction.com/ending-the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations-and-cyclical-ignorance-and-forgetfulness/ https://www.familyfoundation.org/blog/we-must-stop-the-crt-indoctrination-of-our-school-children https://www.familyfoundation.org/blog/we-must-stop-the-crt-indoctrination-of-our-school-children https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7543 https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/fayetteville-1006/ https://news.uark.edu/articles/62357/interdisciplinary-project-elevate-to-increase-diversity-among-bilingual-student-educators https://news.uark.edu/articles/62357/interdisciplinary-project-elevate-to-increase-diversity-among-bilingual-student-educators https://news.uark.edu/articles/64228/college-of-education-and-health-professions-underscores-commitment-through-we-care https://news.uark.edu/articles/64228/college-of-education-and-health-professions-underscores-commitment-through-we-care https://news.uark.edu/articles/64228/college-of-education-and-health-professions-underscores-commitment-through-we-care https://pacificlegal.org/what-is-the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations/#:~:text=the%20soft%20bigotry%20of%20low%20expectations%e2%80%94a%20powerful%20phrase%20crafted,of%20their%20race%20or%20background https://pacificlegal.org/what-is-the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations/#:~:text=the%20soft%20bigotry%20of%20low%20expectations%e2%80%94a%20powerful%20phrase%20crafted,of%20their%20race%20or%20background molly m. staeheli coe college william jeffrey flanigan springdale public schools birth budding teacher in northern suburbia budding administrator in a southern inner city courtship tesol professional’s career principal’s career marriage the union begins—principal’s view teacher’s edd research moving forward references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 78 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 becoming, beckoning, and belonging as educational activists whitney neumeyer roach university of south carolina wr12@mailbox.sc.edu rhonda jeffries university of south carolina rjeffries@sc.edu abstract this reflective chapter explores the nuanced experiences of two faculty members within a university’s college of education, one in the nascent stages of their career as an assistant professor and the other a seasoned professor with over three decades of academic service. their narrative experiences pivot around the intricacies of assuming roles as educational activists within the academic domain, specifically in the context of "be-ing" edactivists. as the chapter delves into strategies for supporting and mentoring emerging academics, the authors invite scholarly practitioners pursuing an edd to embrace activism while fostering a culture of belonging within this realm. this deliberate exploration challenges prevailing western norms regarding being, knowledge, and success within academia and ultimately contributes to a broader discourse on creating more inclusive and diverse academic environments where all stakeholders actively work to counter injustice. keywords educational activism, edd, scholarly practitioners educational activism builds on a belief that education workers (e.g., teachers, mentors, guides, and leaders) intentionally embrace their capacity to support students, mentees, learners, and colleagues toward critical agency. ideally, such agency is born from highly collaborative, dialogical interactions where individuals prioritize respect for others’ needs and abilities in the pursuit of creating a socially just world (stetsenko, 2020). individual acts of social justice agency require a collective of diverse mindsets with whom one can reflect and grow—a community of invested agents that acknowledges, values, and merges all voices toward systemic transformation in education. to showcase such collaboration, this reflective article delves into the nuanced experiences of two faculty members in the university of south carolina’s doctor of education (edd) program; one is a seasoned professor with three decades of academic service, and the other is in the nascent stages of their career as an assistant professor. using counternarratives, we explore significant experiences and complex intricacies of being edd-activists. negotiating our respective academic journeys to explore becoming, beckoning, and belonging as requisites for personal growth and activist agency, we highlight the value of developing educational communities that foster inclusion and engender evolution. as a critical practice, reflexivity encourages activists to continue self-examination and reflection regarding their beliefs, biases, and positionalities within educational contexts (soedirgo & glas, 2020). enacting a reflexive practice showcases how one’s experiences of marginalization(s) intersect/connect with other forms of oppression and power and how these intersections shape one’s understanding of social justice. along our continued journeys of becoming, we regularly seek out other educational activists, beckoning to them in hopes of generating activist spaces and opportunities for continued growth through generative discourse and critical self-reflection. aligned with the co-editors’ aim for this issue, we hope this article will support the continuation of collaborative conversations using a mutual learner mindset (shainis, 2020) among teacher educators and scholarly practitioners in k–12 and higher education spaces. an activist’s road to becoming, beckoning and belonging the interplay between becoming, beckoning, and belonging engenders a continuous cycle of growth, connection, and transformation wherein each stage informs the next. such transformation illustrates how personal evolution might fuel collective engagement to foster greater belonging. as we navigate this path, our experiences of marginalization and resistance undergird activist commitments, compelling us to invite others to join in this work. in the following section, we explore the concept of becoming—not as a fixed state but as an ongoing, fluid process that challenges traditional notions of identity, agency, and activism. becoming drawing on deleuze and guattari (1987), this article explores the conceptualization of becoming as a dynamic, fluid process without definitive endpoints. deleuze and guattari (1987) emphasized that “becoming is neither one nor two, nor the relation of the two; it is the in-between” (p. 293). such a description implies a state transcending traditional binary oppositions and hierarchical structures where the act of becoming is a perpetual milieu that grows https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5488-4691 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3328-8629 roach & jeffries impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 79 and overspills, beckoning to others while representing a continuous, evolving journey rather than a linear progression to “be” (suk, 2015). embracing this rhizome notion of becoming (deleuze & guattari, 1987) challenges understandings of being as a fixed destination and instead emphasizes a journey of continual self-reflection, reflexivity, and personal growth. becoming an educational activist originates in myriad ways from personal, academic, professional, and community influences. individuals leaning toward activism have noted the development of advocacy skills and socialization toward an activist mindset from parental role models (kimbell et al., 2016). in the absence of this familial dynamic, structural contradictions that pervade public spaces like schools discourage individuals from becoming activists when their recognition of social inequities and subsequent efforts to mediate these conditions are met with resistance from established hierarchy (kirshner, 2015). the trajectory of teachers becoming activists is multilayered as they often struggle between the theoretical charge to fundamentally teach social justice and the practical challenges they confront regarding their personal biases that follow them into the professional workspace and cloud their consciousness and commitment to the cause (luguetti & oliver, 2019). furthermore, even when teachers are committed to fostering social justice through their classroom culture and curricula, many of the critical lessons that students learn from participation in activistminded opportunities do not emerge in formal classroom settings; rather, in extra-curricular activities and community-based programs (carey et al., 2021). activism, while rhetorically appreciated in many settings, is undervalued in actuality, and becoming an activist is often performed and perceived as a radical act against societal norms. the process of becoming is a vital aspect of educational activism, encompassing the fluidity of identity, the cultivation of agency, and the practice of reflexivity. as individuals embark on their journeys of becoming, they not only transform themselves but also contribute to the collective efforts toward social justice and equity. this ongoing process of becoming invites educational activists to embrace their roles as change agents, fostering a culture of collaboration and solidarity that is essential for creating a more just and equitable world. beckoning at the heart of educational activism lies the imperative to beckon others to the journey of transformative change. in addition to a reflexive practice, beckoning involves creating spaces for collective engagement and critical dialogue, inviting individuals to contribute their voices and perspectives to social change in a deliberate effort to cultivate communities characterized by collaboration and solidarity. by beckoning others, we seek to amplify the voices of those who have historically been silenced and marginalized via their identities, experiences, and access. this act of calling others in empowers individuals to contribute meaningfully to the pursuit of social justice while fostering a sense of shared purpose and collective responsibility. beckoning is not merely an invitation but a call to action, urging individuals to join in the ongoing process of transformative change. in practice, beckoning involves honoring individual purviews, encouraging a collective to engage in meaningful dialogue and collaboration toward addressing inequity (muwanguzi et al., 2023). in this context, beckoning to others catalyzes transformative change, inviting individuals to reflect on their experiences and the impacts of their actions (purcell, 2017). the act of beckoning can take various forms, such as organizing community forums, workshops, and collaborative projects. by generating activist collectives, one creates opportunities for dialogue while empowering individuals’ agency toward activism and acknowledging that social justice requires a collective (bidandi et al., 2021). belonging deconstructing dominant ideologies is a monumental task requiring collective efforts. while engendering a unified sense of belonging is a goal and a prerequisite for meaningful engagement with/in social justice/activism, it involves more than mere inclusion; it requires creating spaces where individuals feel genuinely valued and respected. embracing a sense of belonging is essential to fostering educational communities and activism that support and nurture various individuals. a sense of belonging is particularly crucial for marginalized individuals as it protects against numerous emotional and physical deficits (greenfield & marks, 2010; kitchen et al., 2012; shields, 2008). as human beings, we constitute a complex amalgamation of historical exclusionary practices and individual lived experiences. those with dichotomous identities often find themselves in a liminal state, expected to assimilate into the dominant culture while never fully being accepted. this compounding of dichotomous identities, defined as double consciousness (du bois, 1961), positions us, as marginalized educational activists, to impact change across difference. residing in these liminal spaces, however, reveals possibilities for defining new, fluid parameters for enacting change. within these new spaces, in-between being included and excluded, third spaces (bhabha & rutherford, 2006) or borderlands (anzaldua, 1991) allow individuals to examine their roles further, understand dominant societal structures, and deconstruct dominant ideologies. counternarratives on activism the work of counter-storytelling, particularly by those marginalized by race, gender, sexuality, etc., requires an ongoing negotiation with the past while simultaneously looking toward the future. as professors and educational activists who embody marginalized identities, we experience and represent dichotomies— successful yet marginal. grappling with these various facets of success, access, and marginalization creates alternative ways of understanding and viewing the world. activism requires ongoing negotiations with yourself, with the ever-changing world around you, and with myriad people of various backgrounds and identities. as such, the act of being an activist is not a set destination but rather a continuous evolving journey of becoming. as activists, we practice self-reflection and reflexivity— practices that work to further expose how we have been marginalized and/or benefited from injustice and how we might address our educational and activist practices accordingly. practices of reflexivity and self-reflection involve critical engagement with one’s beliefs and experiences. while self-reflection is an inward-looking process that fosters personal awareness, reflexivity demands an ongoing, dynamic examination of how individual experiences are shaped by and contribute to larger sociopolitical contexts. through reflexivity, activists move beyond self-awareness to actively challenge and transform the structures that inform their understanding of social justice. belonging as educational activists impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 80 to enact change, activism requires a collective of diverse people working toward the same goal. developing a collective of diverse people requires beckoning others—ensuring a call that is difficult to overlook. by calling people in (i.e., beckoning), we work to establish an activist community where a multitude of people with various backgrounds and identities feel they belong. the following counternarratives illustrate how becoming eddactivists unfolds in lived experiences, often shaping how we enact educational activism. by sharing our journeys, we offer insight into how activism emerges from complex intersections of identity, experience, and institutional structures. these narratives demonstrate that activism is not a solitary pursuit, but rather a collective endeavor rooted in reflexivity, mentorship, and the persistent call to action. remembering rhonda becoming an activist was never a conscious decision for me. growing up in an african methodist episcopal (ame) church full of black educators, entrepreneurs, and other professionals, the activist mindset of richard allen, founder of the ame church, was well entrenched among the membership. while i may have adopted a critical consciousness from my parents, my church family reinforced the civil rights messages that were prominent during my formative years. having narrowly missed the experience of segregated schooling in the mid to late 1960s in the southern u.s. town of my birth, i had little concept of being centered as a public school student. i had only one black elementary-level teacher, two black middle-level teachers, and two black secondary level teachers during my k–12 years in spaces where i was othered more often than not. this disenfranchised experience in schools, so vastly different from the empathy i experienced in church, bolstered my perspectives on inclusivity and equity. with a congregation full of black educators, sunday school was an extension of their professional lives, and these teachers treated that golden hour they had each week with the sunday school students as critical. while i, along with my fellow sunday school attendees, secretly ridiculed the teachers for drilling us with selfesteem encouragement alongside academic support, much later in life, i understood they were mitigating the damaging effects of our educational lives in predominantly white classrooms and schools. they understood the cultural and curricular challenges we were confronted with as black students, and they endeavored to compensate for what was missing from our schooling experiences. they modeled activism for us and expected us to assume that role for the remainder of the week until we returned to them for reinforcement. these lessons were my foundation, as i will never forget our weekly recitation: “i am somebody. i am somebody.” that chant rang powerfully under future attacks intended to convince me otherwise. between the lessons of these powerful teachers in church and my parents’ high expectations, all invested parties anticipated me furthering my education beyond high school. inherent in my future was the hope that the activism modeled for me since childhood would be a fundamental outcome of my professional goals. after earning a degree in english literature, wandering around the career landscape, and running from teaching as if it were the plague, one of those church teachers from my youth corralled me into working parttime as an adult basic education and ged instructor at a community college. in my mind i justified this departure from my avoidance because it was part-time and not really teaching; but once i started, it was teaching, and i loved it. i saw hope come alive in middle-aged adults who were finally learning to read and noted a sense of satisfaction emerge among young people who did not flourish in the traditional high school setting but were focused on accomplishing the goal of earning a ged. i seized this opportunity to embrace teaching as a powerful, life-changing profession—one that enabled me to be the activist i was intended to be from childhood. i went on to earn a phd in social foundations of education, and my activist mindset was ignited. the entire program was built around the idea that we—the doctoral students, the faculty, and the community with whom we conducted research—were actively changing our world. my white male mentor intentionally fostered inclusivity by recruiting a highly diverse, nationally representative population of doctoral students who were collectively engaged in building a cadre of scholarly activists who left the program and replicated his model at universities across the country. once again, i had benefited from the direct influence of teachers and professors who boldly challenged national and global injustice through education. with the tools and the confidence to continue, i have spent these past 30 years becoming the activist i was designed to be—teaching, mentoring, guiding and leading educational professionals using the personal, academic, professional, and community influences that shaped me. beckoning others to join the call was clearly modeled for me by my mentor, george noblit, whose influence was so powerful that when his wife hosted a milestone birthday party for him, hundreds of his former students attended to honor his legacy. his influence was most compelling because it centered on practice as much as it was grounded in supportive theoretical constructs. ultimately, the work was repetitious to the point that it became unwritten policy, which can, at times, function more effectively, automatically, and without question. despite challenges from professors outside my doctoral program and administrators outside my doctoral department and college of education, and even an occasional challenge from within the program cohort, the culture of the program supported a continuous respect for dialogue from diverse voices and perspectives. the mission was not occasional, but threaded throughout the course content, the research agendas and projects that we pursued, and the support we intended to provide across communities to sustain the work. imagine my dismay when my first university position was in a program that had never hired a person of color or one who identified as female prior to my accepting the “two birds with one stone” offer. this factor, alone, is an inadequate explanation for the profound culture in the department that appreciated academic leaders who actively and consistently undermined community. department meetings were used to discuss personal hobbies that excluded me, and collegiality included offers to grab soft drinks from my fellow faculty members’ offices if i ever found myself thirsty. discussions about curriculum development, student support, or program mission were sorely missing from the professional conversation, and my requests for department policies, bylaws, and tenure and promotion criteria were met with looks of confusion as my colleagues dismissed my need for concern. in response to this hostile environment, i spent much of my time trying to reconcile what i had learned about advocating for students and educating for social justice with the ambivalence on good days and antagonism on others that was the prevailing behavior from my colleagues. battle fatigue—a multitude of adjectives could precede that noun—drove me to seek another roach & jeffries impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 81 position where i could actively support students’ dreams, and students could reciprocally support my dream to expand and enhance opportunities for activism. once i joined the university of south carolina as faculty in an edd program, my initial work entailed determining how i might envision an activist mindset and mission. after a couple of years teaching and advising a few doctoral students, i realized the untapped potential of the program to beckon colleagues toward the work of edd-activism and embed the purpose of this work throughout the curriculum. early years in this program were spent primarily revising the edd to focus intently on equity and inclusivity through our required core courses. research and professional development courses were developed to build upon the foundational core study, and specific dissertation research typically evolved from students’ commitment to the cause. while the initial framework for developing edd-activists was in place, the community required for this to happen was in a state of flux. belonging to a cadre of critically conscious individuals is crucial to sustaining the activist agenda. promoting activism is not a task that is easily undertaken alone. for the first two-thirds of my career as an edd faculty member, i labored to find equilibrium among the edd program and graduate school standards, my personal and professional expectations, and students’ personal and academic capabilities. i learned through trial and error to successfully meet my students where they are on their current journeys and carefully move them to new places of understanding themselves and the broader curriculum they encounter as educators and human beings. i frequently felt a great sense of loneliness without a cadre of faculty who were navigating similar terrain or who harbored similar goals. i am grateful to have eventually become affiliated with a community of faculty members who embody an activist stance and willfully share the work of actively advancing and improving themselves and others. during the latter third of my career, the exponential growth of the edd as a fully online program created the need to expand our faculty, and we cultivated a collection of phenomenal, diverse individuals who understood and embraced the mission. the final piece needed to foster a culture of activism— solving problems through collective thinking and deliberate action— was in place, and i experienced belonging for the first time as a career professional. while there were glimpses of shared purpose prior to this time, i, more often than not, felt alone in my pursuit of participating in and supporting a program where faculty highly valued students as fellow producers of knowledge. we now have a critical mass of faculty who are deeply invested in improving communities through the proliferation of scholarly practitioners in k–12 and higher education. this group of faculty blends outcome and process driven goals by constantly collecting data from student cohorts, repeatedly reviewing policies and procedures that impact student experience, and applying curriculum as an evolving experience to address the multifaced needs of our edd scholars (gardner & mendoza, 2023). we acknowledge the unique nature of edd-activism, provide our students with the tools to address complex educational problems, and join them in belonging to a lifelong community of scholars from which to draw inspiration and resolve. transitioning my work into the hands of future-minded faculty, like my colleagues in the curriculum studies program, in particular elizabeth and suha, co-editors of this issue, and whit, whose narrative follows, i hold unwavering belief and trust that they will continue to advocate for equity and inclusivity of marginalized individuals through their edd-activism. witnessing whit from my early experiences as a k–12 student through my career as an elementary educator, i have consistently found myself positioned as an outsider, alienated by the very institutions that purported to support me. this sense of displacement drove my academic interest in theory, which emerged out of a profound confusion and desire to understand the world around me and my place within it. as hooks (1991) reflected, “i came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. most importantly, i wanted to make the hurt go away. i saw in theory then a location for healing” (p. 1). similarly, my engagement with theory was not merely intellectual; it was a matter of survival and finding a sense of belonging. i have long struggled with a persistent sense of not belonging, yet simultaneously attempted to conform in order to fit to the idealized roles of student, educator, and human being. my experiences of “misfitting,” as ahmed (2007) termed it, were not simply matters of personal discomfort but reflections of a deeply embedded social reality that shaped my academic and personal development. i continuously negotiate the tension between how others perceived me and how i perceived myself. over time, i recognized the profound connections between my identity as a queer, nonbinary individual with adhd and highmasking, low-support autism, and my commitment to social justice. the intersections of my marginalized identities are foundational to my activism, rather than incidental. my neurodivergence and queerness, though often pathologized or marginalized by society, provide a unique lens through which i understand power and privilege—informing my perspectives in personal, professional, and political contexts. the documented correlation between autism and gender nonconformity (cain & velasco, 2021; hillier et al., 2020; shapira & granek, 2019), as well as the connection between autism and heightened sensitivity toward social justice (dempsey et al., 2020; hu et al., 2021), underscores my experiences. autistic individuals, myself included, often view the world through a lens of intense empathy and moral clarity, which drives a deep desire to challenge inequity (caldwell-harris & schwartz, 2023). identifying as audhd (autistic and adhd), i have navigated the social complexities of neurodivergence, frequently perceived as “peculiar” or “weird.” in many ways, i learned to embrace these expectations of peculiarity. my presentation as a white femaleassigned at birth afforded me the privilege of being deemed eccentric, weird, and curious rather than being disciplined for my inability to conform to social protocol. my physical presentation ensured the palatability of my (undiagnosed) neurodivergence— allowances that were not extended to many of my black and brown peers. it was not until my mid-30s that i fully understood my “weirdness” as a complex intersection of neurodivergence, queerness, and social conditioning. however, through the application of various critical theoretical frameworks, i have come to understand how these perceptions reflect normative expectations of behavior rather than inherent truths about my identity or how i experience the world. i do, however, remain perplexed by arguments that rely on circular logic— arguments that perpetuate exclusionary practices under the guise of common sense. for instance, the unchallenged belief that students without financial means should not participate in school-sponsored field trips or extracurricular activities, as if exclusion were a natural belonging as educational activists impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 82 consequence of familial “choices,” reflects an oppressive construct rather than an inherent truth. while this section of my narrative was initially intended to focus specifically on my identity as a queer individual, i find it increasingly challenging—indeed, nearly impossible—to isolate a singular aspect of my marginalization without acknowledging the privileges conferred upon me by my whiteness. these privileges have significantly influenced my experiences and shaped my recollections of them. i readily recognize the opportunities and tolerance that have been afforded to me, often despite my queer identity. i identify as a white queer neurodivergent nonbinary individual—a descriptor that reflects the complexity of my identity. the process of naming these facets of my identity has unfolded over the past 25 years, commencing with my coming out as a lesbian in 1998 and culminating in my recognition and articulation of my nonbinary gender identity in 2023. at this juncture, i find a sense of peace in my identity while remaining open to the possibility of further evolution and embracing the ongoing journey of becoming. my physical presentation contributes to the considerable unearned societal privilege i experience. each day, in every interaction, i am confronted with the “choice” to either uphold the privileges that are granted to me solely on the basis of my whiteness or to intentionally position myself as an other in relation to the exclusionary expectations and assumptions of white cisgenderheterosexual society. i am pleased to assert that, for me, this choice is straightforward. i could not and will not perpetuate assumptions of my presumed or expected heteronormativity. at 14, i entered my home with my first girlfriend and introduced her to my family. in stark contrast to the experiences of countless queer youth who face familial rejection, my family responded with immediate acceptance. however, my familial support sat in stark contrast to the hostility i encountered from my peers upon their learning of my relationship—a hostility that manifested in the form of derogatory slurs, such as “dyke” and “homo,” as well as several failed attempts from a group of older male students to “turn me straight” by way of sexual harassment and assault. after years of masking my neurodivergence to appear “normal” and as though i belonged, i once again found myself an outsider/othered. feelings of isolation and shame were compounded by faculty and staff who refused to intervene or offer me protection. instead, i was frequently admonished to keep my queerness private—a directive i continued to encounter time and again throughout my educational journey. i have faced persistent struggles in reconciling my complex identity as a queer neurodivergent educator. these internal conflicts have been shaped by metanarratives of presumed worth and hegemonic descriptors of value, which have significantly impeded my ability to validate myself within educational systems. it is in the moments of silence that i have experienced profound disintegration. my identity has been forged in the crucible of patriarchal narratives that have been elevated to the status of truth, dictating notions of value and worthiness wherein monolithic interpretations and expectations of educators perpetuate a problematic ideal of identity that i do not embody. nevertheless, it is within the realm of queerness in education— often rendered undiscussable, taboo, and frequently erased—where my passions reside. articulating the simultaneous experiences of feeling insufficient and excessively visible encapsulates the paradox i aspire to illuminate within teacher education and the experiences of educators. institutionalized education is not structured to accommodate or address queerness; rather, it compels queer individuals to alter, conceal, or erase their identities in order to conform to prevailing narratives that promote singular identities. for me, and many other queer educators, this misalignment is a pervasive experience, necessitating the adoption of a facade that aligns with idealized and perpetuated patriarchal ideologies. i recognize the numerous damaging instances where i distanced myself from personal inquiries into my life due to fear and shame. i recall the times i excused myself from spaces when my elementary educator colleagues discussed queer students with disdain, internalizing feelings of anger, guilt, and shame as a result of the comments made by my “well-meaning” coworkers. i recall sharing lunches with colleagues and individuals i considered friends, where our conversations ranged from weekend excursions to lesson planning. while i often ignored their insensitive and homophobic statements, the pain and anger stemming from our last lunch overshadow all other interactions. during that meal, a colleague asserted that “gay people are disgusting; they should not be allowed to work in the food service industry because they might have aids,” while hastily clarifying that i was “okay” or palatable as a queer individual because she knew me and i was “not like the other gay people.” this awareness, while difficult to express throughout my childhood, has been crucial in shaping my activism. it has heightened my consciousness of how power operates within educational spaces and beyond, reinforcing exclusion for some while allowing conditional inclusion for others. my experiences as a queer, nonbinary, neurodivergent individual have fueled my commitment to dismantling the structural inequalities that perpetuate exclusion and marginalization, particularly in education, where the stakes are highest for those who do not conform to dominant norms. i find great joy in my current role at the university. i am now in a program committed to social justice with colleagues who respect and support one another. initially, i was apprehensive about the possibility of relocating to accept this position, but i moved to the south no less. i questioned how i might navigate anti-queerness in a new state, city, and school. the worry of arriving and feeling like i did not belong again was petrifying. in lieu of this concern, i promised myself that i would arrive as who i was. throughout the application, interview, and hiring process, i was clear about my identity, needs, and activist pedagogy. if nothing else, i would not end up employed somewhere i worried about people discovering my queerness. this pre-planning, this “work” to fully present as a queer person, is complicated because of the distinct choice i have not to. my choice to continually out myself as a queer person, an “outsider,” is not only a form of survival, but it imbues my activism further, both personally and professionally. one of my mentors, dr. fran huckaby, deeply inspired my tethering of pedagogy and activism. while she currently serves as an associate provost of faculty affairs, i first met fran when applying to my doctoral program—she served as the department chair and one of two main faculty. in contrast to the majority of my previous white male collegiate educators, whose teaching methods were characterized by hierarchical structures and rigid expectations, dr. huckaby’s pedagogical presence stemmed from her insight, genuine warmth, and comprehensive understanding of the course materials. i prioritized enrolling in as many of her classes as possible throughout my studies. i was consistently motivated by her unique pedagogical roach & jeffries impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 83 style, which holistically balanced high expectations with vulnerability and a willingness to engage with students where they were academically. as an activist, she embodied a pedagogy of beckoning. dr. huckaby actively engaged students in personal and professional growth opportunities by connecting us with various research and writing opportunities. she provided mentorship with exceptional generosity and care—expanding for me a limited understanding of the types of privileged identities and behaviors that might “succeed.” before connecting with fran, i attempted to go unnoticed as a queer educator. given histories of anti-queer rhetoric and policies throughout k–12, alongside the negative and traumatic experiences i encountered in my schooling, i felt an enormous sense of gratitude for even being allowed into the field at all. however, soon into my second year of coursework, i recall having a moment of clarity that has since been the catalyst for how i choose to navigate the world. fran’s perspectives as a black woman, educator, and activist illustrated the potential to weave activism into my educational pursuits. i had been shrinking my queerness for years in hopes of “fitting” into education. however, i was exhausted, sad, and—quite frankly—could no longer be guided by the internal shame of my queerness. since that moment, i have actively worked to center my queerness throughout my research endeavors. not only does this centering serve as a beckoning of sorts to those out there seeking to engage with my scholarly pursuits, but it also centers a new selfethics of care in which i will not shrink or disappear in hopes of surviving and finding future success. instead, i will continue building a network of activist students, colleagues, and friends to grow alongside. like dr. huckaby, i hope to foster an educational atmosphere of inclusivity and generosity, where i accompany students on their intellectual paths, steering them toward deeper critical engagement. however, the diverse array of courses i teach often places this commitment to meeting students at their current levels of understanding in tension with my values, self-assurance, and personal experiences. as an openly queer and gender-nonconforming educator, i constantly navigate the complex intersections of course material, professional duties, self-care, and ethical obligations. i have experienced varied instances of anti-queerness in student assignment submissions—experiences that have left me feeling disheartened and personally impacted. my responsibilities as an educator compel me to guide students toward becoming more critical thinkers, proficient writers, and engaged scholars. in recognizing my ideological discomfort, however, i strive for a balance between affirming my identity and moral integrity while fulfilling my educational and activist responsibilities. activism in practice in this work, we employed our counternarratives of marginalization, fostering connections with readers and promoting enhanced collective action. these black feminist and queer acts of subversion challenge exclusionary grand narratives to expose nuances of our lived experiences as marginalized individuals. via our counternarratives, we situate ourselves within the current iterations of our identities while simultaneously recognizing the palimpsest of exclusions upon which we sit. drawing on the foundational principles of critical race feminism (berry, 2010) and reconceptualist curriculum theory (pinar, 1978), we engage/grapple in/with complicated conversations (pinar, 2005) and ongoing reflexivity to explore how our multifaceted identities shape our perspectives as activists, educators, and learners. continuous reflexive practices, facilitated through counterstorytelling, illuminate our social, historical, cultural, and political identities while providing nuanced insights for potential connections and transformations of our current practices and ideologies. for instance, one approach toward edd-activism stems from deconstructing the competitive nature of schooling and the heightened level of posturing that can inhabit doctoral programs. convincing students there are multiple lenses through which to explore and understand phenomena (i.e., that there is no explicit right or wrong response to a problem), a first step toward creating a space for critical conversation and solutions-oriented dialogue, sometimes accounts for the tension between edd students’ teaching and learning spaces (storey & fletcher, 2023). more specifically, creating community through participation graded, safe group work encourages students to give and get support. in this model, students complete weekly readings in small co-op groups, so when four articles or book chapters are the assigned reading for the week, the co-op of four students reads one of the four texts for the week and they are responsible to their co-op participants for providing access to that knowledge for the week. each student offers a detailed presentation of their assigned reading and leads a thorough discussion of the reading with the group. this model reduces the initial pressure of managing the doctoral level workload that typically overwhelms graduate students, especially working professionals in edd programs. as students are becoming scholarly practitioners, the model respects students’ personal and professional obligations and gives them time to build the academic stamina needed to move toward their individual research workloads. this model also creates a team mentality and increases students’ trust in faculty who are beckoning them to embrace the tenets of edd-activism. lastly, the model de-emphasizes the individual and prioritizes community as the scholarly practitioner understands and accepts a sense of belonging. ultimately, these experiences help students develop and navigate their own counternarratives that may emerge as incongruent with their established communities of colleagues, family, and friends (mcclure, 2021). the impact of nurturing edd-activists is not to be taken lightly, and the importance of maintaining contact with a supportive community cannot be overstated. in sharing counternarratives, marginalized individuals assert agency over their identities and make connections across difference; empowering them to question and reshape the established order to promote broader perspectives and foster collective inclusion. as the past actively exists and continues to animate the present (foucault, 1991), such connections render notions of palimpsests—specifically, how various, often unseen, dichotomous representations and embodiments of exclusion and inclusion remain ever present regardless of (un)intentional acknowledgments. that is to say, we can provide safe spaces for doctoral students in their university communities, but their identities as doctoral students, graduates, and scholarly practitioners may be questioned, challenged, and/or disregarded in their teaching and places of professional employment. autonomous creation and implementation of knowledge produced on an edd-activism platform may not be readily accepted or rewarded outside of the university—marginalizing edd-activists in their respective communities. belonging as educational activists impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.589 84 therefore, concepts and understandings of identity do not sit in isolation, but rather they sit upon prior iterations that define parameters of belonging and questions of identity which, while not readily visible, continue to “contaminate” (tsing, 2015) and undergird hegemony of belonging. these rich and complicated historical contaminations are woven throughout and into current manifestations and understandings of our experiences, endeavors, and impacts. recognitions of such contaminations highlight various historical threads that have been caught up and knotted together in a way that is part of the contemporary, offering opportunities to examine material dimensions that include the intermingling of unexpected collaborations and connections by constituting a continuous journey of becoming. these encounters challenge rigid categories and stereotypes, fostering a deeper understanding of the complexities within and between individuals. the breakdown of boundaries through these various encounters underscores the importance of engaging with differences to facilitate personal and collective growth. in these inbetween spaces, individuals can explore the historical, social, and cultural constructions of identity as porous and unfixed rather than static and essential. while the journey through these borderlands can prove challenging, it should be taken collectively with those from dominant groups engaging in complicated conversations while examining their own identities. references ahmed, s. 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https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.277 whitney neumeyer roach university of south carolina rhonda jeffries university of south carolina an activist’s road to becoming, beckoning and belonging becoming beckoning belonging counternarratives on activism remembering rhonda witnessing whit activism in practice references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 44 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.464 promising features of edd leadership programs: findings from an exploratory narrative literature review sandra jones legay new jersey city university sjoneslegay@gmail.com christine harrington morgan state university christine.harrington@morgan.edu abstract the edd leadership degree is needed to provide future college or university presidents with the training and background needed to pursue and succeed in the presidential role and other senior-level leadership positions in educational institutions. identifying promising features in educational leadership programs can help directors of programs design or improve programs to best support aspiring leaders in the field. based on an exploratory narrative literature review and informal conversations with practitioners in the field, the following features were identified as promising practices in edd leadership programs: (a) support through a cohort model, (b) flexibility via online, hybrid, and weekend or executive style program delivery, and (c) mentorship. the findings suggest that an edd leadership program with a cohort structure provides students with a collegial community of learners who encourage persistence to program completion and support their learning. in addition, flexible online programs and course delivery options offer an avenue for students with complex lives to earn a doctoral degree. this flexibility is very important to students who are managing their families, work, and educational responsibilities. finally, an edd leadership program that includes mentorship enhances students both professionally and personally. keywords doctoral program, educational leadership, program features, edd edd leadership programs serve a critical purposedeveloping the talent pipeline to fill leadership positions in educational institutions. according to the american council of education (2023), 55% of current sitting presidents, who continue to be predominately older, white, and male, expect to step down from their role within the next five years. thus, there is a need for leaders to step into these roles. based on a national survey of sitting college presidents, clark (2017) found that leadership development was the second most important professional development area identified, followed by fundraising, which was the first. edd leadership programs are needed to provide talented and diverse individuals with the necessary training and background to pursue the presidency role and succeed. as with most degrees, there are substantial variations in how edd leadership programs are offered. the carnegie project on the education doctorate (2022) is a national consortium of universities that have opted to "undertake a critical examination of the doctorate in education (edd) through dialog, experimentation, critical feedback and evaluation” (para 1). although there have been numerous convenings and publications describing ways to improve how edd leadership programs are designed and delivered, to our knowledge, there is no synthesis of the promising features of such programs. we conducted an exploratory, narrative literature review to provide directors and faculty of edd leadership programs with a summary of the literature on promising features that can contribute to the success of edd leadership programs. according to green et al. (2006), a narrative review is "a comprehensive narrative synthesis of previously published information" (p. 103). it is hoped that edd program leaders who are examining their doctoral programs and determining ways to redesign or improve their programs find this review to be helpful. it is also hoped that this review will be helpful to those who are designing new edd leadership programs. we aimed to answer the following research question: based on the literature and practitioner perspectives, what are the promising features of effective edd leadership programs? search method to gain knowledge of promising features of edd programs, we gathered information from two types of sources: peer-reviewed journal articles and practitioner conversations. peer-reviewed articles are critiqued by experts in the research and are, therefore, highquality sources of information. we obtained additional information from relevant public scholarship sources to provide a more comprehensive understanding of doctoral program supports and practices. though not peer-reviewed, these sources are of value to this review because they provide lived perspectives often not captured in peer-reviewed articles. the practitioner conversations https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2067-2838 legay & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.464 45 provided an insider perspective on practices contributing to student success in an educational leadership program. peer-reviewed literature the following database search engines were used: academic search premier, america: history & life, apa psycarticles, apa psycinfo, business source elite, business source premier, educational administration abstracts, education source, eric, master file elite, and teacher reference center. the search terms included doctoral program or edd or edd (and) leadership (and) community college or higher education. the search was limited to full-text peer-reviewed articles that were published between 2015 and 2022. the search yielded 249 articles. after removing 62 duplicates, a title review was conducted on 187 articles. after conducting the title review, we determined that 145 of the articles did not focus on promising features of edd leadership programs; therefore, these articles were excluded. we then reviewed the abstracts of the 42 items that remained and eliminated an additional 29 articles that were not related to the promising features that can contribute to successful edd leadership programs. thirteen articles remained, and a deeper dive into these remaining articles led to three more articles being excluded for the same reason. at the end of the full article review, 10 articles remained and were included in the review. while reading the 10 articles, 14 additional sources, including articles, books, and websites that addressed the factors contributing to successful doctoral programs, were discovered using the snowball method (greenhalgh & peacock, 2005). the snowball method involved looking at the reference list of the articles reviewed. thus, a total of 22 resources were included in the review. practitioner conversations to add to the written literature, we also sought out the perspectives of practitioners in the field. this approach brought the lived experiences of prior doctoral students who are now higher education leaders into the review process. the practitioner conversations provided an opportunity to become familiar with individual expectations and experiences as they related to the program features that contribute to doctoral student success in an educational leadership program. three women holding doctoral degrees in educational leadership shared their experiences in higher education leadership. two of the three were women of color. these women held various high-level leadership positions; two were vice presidents, and one was an assistant dean. all three practitioners were employed at different community colleges. they were chosen as informants because they completed an educational doctorate leadership program, had experience in higher education, and were accessible to us. these were not structured interviews but rather casual conversations about their experiences. findings three promising features of an educational leadership doctoral program emerged after examining the literature and having informal practitioner conversations. the first feature was helping students develop a support system within the program. a cohort model was often used for this purpose. students in a cohort-based edd leadership program were able to learn and grow by exchanging ideas with other members of their cohort who were also working toward achieving a terminal degree. the support that students provided to one another via the cohort model was critically important. the second key feature related to flexibility via online, hybrid, and weekend or executive program modalities in edd leadership programs. the most flexible option noted was the online, asynchronous modality. this flexible learning approach enabled doctoral students to meet the demands of home, work, and school. the last feature identified was mentorship. having a knowledgeable person in the field of study to support students helped them complete the program successfully. cohort model buss and wolf (2021) described the importance of building and sustaining a community within edd programs, especially those that are delivered in an online format. one way that several programs aimed to develop a sense of community among edd leadership students in an online program was through cohorts. in an edd leadership program, a cohort is defined as a group of approximately 10–25 students who start the program together, progress through a sequence of courses and educational experiences related to the program, and complete it generally in the same time frame (lei et al., 2011). according to harrington et al. (2021), cohort models are implemented into programs to enhance engagement and build a collegial community among students, faculty, and other leaders in the field of education. buss and wolf (2021) described how intentional programming, such as doctoral research conferences, can help cohort members gain a sense of community and how it can also be important to help students connect in a deeper way with subsets of their cohorts working collaboratively on assignments and projects. students in an edd leadership program cohort develop social connections, building a collegial community (lei et al., 2011; murakami-ramalhoa et al., 2013). the ability to lean on each other and connect with people who respect your work and research is important (gordon et al., 2016). a study conducted by greenlee and karanxha (2010) revealed the social benefits of an edd leadership program, including making connections and having trust and respect for classmates' expertise. students helped each other reach graduation by sharing effective time management skills, communicating common interests, and encouraging peers to persevere to graduation. having others who provide encouragement and have a common interest is an advantage of a cohort model (nimer, 2009). in their study, bista and cox (2014) reported that discussions among doctoral students were based on commonalities in family and work-related topics, and students provided one another with high levels of encouragement to finish the program. the importance of this type of support was reiterated by a vice president who valued the cohort of women in her program, describing them as a sounding board for work, family, and the edd leadership program issues. she explained that the ability to lean on one another was important. in fact, she said the six women peers became lifelong friends and were known as the "doc chicks" (k. archambault, personal communication, december 2, 2021). socializing within a cohort ranged from students becoming familiar with the cohort team members to leaning on one another for input related to course assignments. the close nature of the cohort is particularly true of closed cohorts that do not permit new students to join once the cohort is established (bista & cox, 2014). edd leadership programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.464 46 alternately, holmes et al. (2016) found that students who are moving at a faster pace than their cohort peers benefit from vertical cohort engagement that enables them to connect with an earlier cohort member who is at the same point in the dissertation process. a cohort provides doctoral students with opportunities to learn together and learn from each other. cohorts can form a family-like environment as they meet and complete learning tasks for a common goal (lei et al., 2011). cohorts have been found to decrease attrition and absenteeism by promoting student-to-student accountability and support (amey, 2006). an additional benefit of a cohort is that it offers rich academic experiences (lei et al., 2011). cohorts provide opportunities for group members to interact and discuss the content being learned (murakami-ramalhoa et al., 2013). this type of support can be especially important for students who may not have colleagues in the field. having cohort members to reach out to when trying to better understand real-world examples of leadership theories can be helpful. cohorts in edd leadership programs with experienced and knowledgeable faculty and networks prepare students to grow as senior leaders (maldonado et al., 2021). flexible modalities flexibility in edd leadership programs is important because doctoral leadership students have complex lives with competing demands (brochu et al., 2021). zippia (n.d.) surveyed 30,000,000 students and found that more than 31,640 doctoral students were employed. the same study indicated that the average age of a doctoral student was 44 years old. according to the american college president study conducted by gagliardi et al. (2017), women often had several roles, including being caretakers for their families and fulfilling their professional duties. balancing home, work, and academics, especially when in an intensive learning experience such as a doctoral program, is complicated. flexible options for completing edd leadership programs help students balance their numerous responsibilities. many programs offer a variety of formats, such as online, hybrid, and weekend classes, or even a combination of these formats (amey, 2006). online programs can be synchronous or asynchronous. hybrid models offer students a learning experience comprised of face-to-face and online learning opportunities. programs utilizing the face-to-face modality sometimes offer weekend-only courses to accommodate working adults. all of these options provide flexibility for professionals seeking a doctoral degree. online programs that are asynchronous offer the most flexibility. asynchronous learning opportunities allow students to complete learning tasks at varied times of the day or days of the week (watts, 2016). in an asynchronous learning setting, "students can choose to learn when their cognitive resources and cognitive flexibility are at their greatest" (northy et al., 2015, p. 173). scheiderer (2021) shared that asynchronous online classes provide time for students to work on weekly assignments, receive immediate feedback, reflect, and view class sessions at their convenience. one common concern with asynchronous online programs is student engagement. synchronous sessions can be used to keep students engaged while also offering flexibility. scheiderer (2021) reported that synchronous classes allow students to report to online classes in real-time with the instructor and classmates and participate in live discussions. being able to attend class from home reduces travel time and makes it easier for students to balance competing priorities. some programs will record synchronous meetings if students are unable to attend. mentorship support mcconnell et al. (2021) asserted that mentoring is a critical practice in an educational leadership doctoral program. lunsford et al. (2017) defined mentorship as faculty or administrators who provide professional guidance within a given context that supports graduate students academically and professionally. faculty, advisors, and dissertation committee members may serve in a mentorship capacity (lunsford et al., 2017; mcconnell et al., 2021). brown et al. (2020) advocated for embedded mentoring that varied in nature based on current student needs. individual peer mentoring was offered in their program as students transitioned into the program and then shifted to group mentoring related to academic and professional issues. mentorship matters in an edd leadership program. mentors can guide students in developing into critical thinkers, scholars, and published authors. mentoring is productive when mentees feel safe and can openly express leadership concerns and take risks to build their leadership skills (mcnair, 2015). mentors have the crucial responsibility of guiding doctoral students through the completion of the program (university of pittsburgh, 2023). mentors assist mentees in identifying areas for growth and development and provide feedback. as the mentoring relationship grows, they begin to engage and share stories. they discover relatable professional and personal experiences, and both the mentee and mentor learn from exchanging information (mcconnell et al., 2021). during a practitioner conversation, a community college vice president shared how the support of her mentor contributed to her persistence in the program during her pregnancy and subsequent birth of her child. she took her mentor's advice and persevered in completing the program, ultimately graduating with her cohort members. the practitioner viewed herself as a role model for women of color who would follow her in the edd leadership program because these women will also be navigating family, work, and school (y. madas, personal communication, december 10, 2021). additionally, students in the cohort identified the mentor-mentee relationship as an essential factor in completing the dissertation. in a study conducted by reedy and taylor-dunlop (2015), timely feedback from mentors was essential in helping students complete their dissertations. similarly, buss and wolf (2021) highlighted the significance of scheduled mentor-mentee meetings. in addition to academic and personal support, mentors can provide professional development opportunities when the edd leadership program has an experiential learning component (mcconnell et al., 2021). not every edd leadership program has an experiential program, but for those that do, the mentor serves as a liaison, opening up doors for their mentees so that they can meet and expand relationships with leaders to help broaden their network as part of the edd leadership program pathway (lunsford et al., 2017). a practitioner serving as assistant dean shared, "the experiential learning was really important" (m. campagna, personal communication, december 15, 2021). she believed women benefit from having other women as role models and mentors, stating, "women have to first see other women in leadership roles, to see themselves to work in those roles." mentorship was seen as an legay & harrington impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.464 47 essential factor, especially when the program had an experiential learning component. mentors play a critical role by helping guide students through the experiential component by helping them to network or being a sounding board as students enter into networking with other professionals in the field of education (white, 2017). limitations although this review provides a synthesized summary of the literature related to promising features of edd leadership programs, it is important to note that the findings are based on data from only 22 sources. a limited number of articles were available on this topic, so it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the information shared in this review. it is also important to note that not all articles were empirical; several were theoretical or based on practitioner perspectives. as a result, findings need to be interpreted with caution. conclusion and implications for practice edd programs provide essential leadership preparation for students seeking senior leadership positions. based on an exploratory narrative literature review and informal conversations with leaders in the field, three promising features of edd programs were discovered. the first feature was a cohort-based model that creates a support system for students with common professional goals of becoming senior leaders in colleges or universities. the second program feature was flexibility offered via online, hybrid, and weekend or executive modalities. online, asynchronous programs can offer the most flexibility to students with demanding personal and professional responsibilities. finally, an edd leadership program with a mentorship feature can help students develop and expand professional networks. doctoral program directors and coordinators can use these findings and reflect on their program's components. directors may want to discuss these findings with their faculty and consider ways to put these findings into practice. for example, program directors can also consider the value of implementing a cohort-based model if this approach is not yet being used. if a cohort-based model is not viable, they can consider other ways to help students establish strong peer connections. directors and faculty are also encouraged to discuss ways to increase how the program and courses are offered in flexible modalities such as online options. foster et al. (2023) found that edd programs were more likely than phd programs in higher education to offer flexible formats such as hybrid, online, and executive programs. however, only 5.6% of edd programs were offered entirely online, and 18% were offered online with residence requirements. finally, directors and faculty can discuss ways to add a mentoring component to the program if this does not already exist. alumni and practitioners in the field are often willing to serve in the important mentor role. geesa et al. 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(2021). forward momentum: providing supportive space for edd students' dissertation progression through weekly online writing sessions. impact education: https://www.acenet.edu/documents/american-college-president-2023-exec-summary.pdf https://www.acenet.edu/documents/american-college-president-2023-exec-summary.pdf http://ijds.org/volume9/ijdsv9p001-020bista0425.pdf https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.170 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1279828 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.192 https://www.cped.org/vision-mission https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/college-presidency-higher-education-leadership.html https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/college-presidency-higher-education-leadership.html https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2023.2178716 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1123995.pdf https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38636.593461.68 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.185 https://openriver.winona.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=educationeddfacultyworks https://openriver.winona.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=educationeddfacultyworks edd leadership programs impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 2 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.464 48 journal on transforming professional practices, 6(3), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.186 mcconnell, k. r., geesa, r. l., & brown, r. d. (2021). mentoring future education leaders: mentor perceptions of an educational leadership doctoral mentoring program (ej1313074). eric. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1313074.pdf mcnair, d. e. (2015). deliberate disequilibrium: preparing for a community college presidency. community college review, 43(1), 72–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552114554831 murakami-ramalhoa, e., militellob, m., & piertc, j. (2013). a view from within: how doctoral students in educational administration develop research knowledge and identity. studies in higher education, 38(2), 256–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.578738 nimer, m. (2009). the doctoral cohort model: increasing opportunities for success. college student journal, 43(4), 1373–1379. northy, g., bucic, t., chylinksi, m., & govind, r. (2015). increasing student engagement using asynchronous learning. journal of marketing education, 37(3), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475315589814 reedy, k., & taylor-dunlop, k. (2015). mentor-mentee relationship in an educational leadership doctoral program at lynn university. journal for leadership and instruction, 14(1), 38–40. scheiderer, j. (2021). what's the difference between asynchronous and synchronous learning? the ohio state university: ohio state online. https://online.osu.edu/resources/learn/whats-difference-betweenasynchronous-and-synchronous-learning university of pittsburgh school of education. (2023). [website]. https://www.education.pitt.edu/academics/educationschoolleadership/edd-education-leadership watts, l. (2016). synchronous and asynchronous communication in distance learning, a review of the literature. the quarterly review of distance education, 17(1), 23–32. white, e. (2017). mentoring the consultancy project: lessons in collaboration and research. educational perspectives, 49(1), 6–8. zippia. (n.d.). doctoral student demographics and statistics in the us. https://www.zippia.com/doctoral-student-jobs/demographics/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.186 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1313074.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552114554831 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.578738 https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475315589814 https://online.osu.edu/resources/learn/whats-difference-between-asynchronous-and-synchronous-learning https://online.osu.edu/resources/learn/whats-difference-between-asynchronous-and-synchronous-learning https://www.education.pitt.edu/academics/educationschool-leadership/edd-education-leadership https://www.education.pitt.edu/academics/educationschool-leadership/edd-education-leadership https://www.zippia.com/doctoral-student-jobs/demographics/ sandra jones legay new jersey city university christine harrington morgan state university search method peer-reviewed literature practitioner conversations findings cohort model flexible modalities mentorship support limitations conclusion and implications for practice references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 45 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 transforming dissertations into global and career-advancement-centered doctoral digital portfolios: interweaving research rigor with social media dissemination1 yin lam lee-johnson webster university yleejohnson31@webster.edu joseph clay st louis public schools joseph.clay@slps.org rokhatoy boltaeva webster university in tashkent rokhatoyboltaeva@webster.edu trish iaiennaro webster university tiaiennaro39@webster.edu oybek imomov webster university in tashkent oybekf76@webster.edu jiewei zhang webster china nellyz@websterchina.com abstract this is a collaborative article co-authored by an edd director and five doctoral students who are embarking on their final year research journey. the article offers 1) a discussion of the design and development of a global and career-advancement-centered doctoral digital portfolio (ddp), and 2) an advocacy towards alternative dissertation formats with social media dissemination while maintaining research rigor. the doctoral students corroborate the significance and benefits of the ddp for democratizing the knowledge dissemination with improved accessibility and interactivity. most importantly, the ddp offers a new possibility for edd doctoral students to transform traditional textual dissertations into a digital format that is relevant to the diversified audience and readership, including potential employers. keywords intersectionality, logic-of-inquiry, epistemology, ontology, digital media the design and development of the doctoral digital portfolio (ddp) in the following paragraphs, the research team discusses the process of developing a doctoral digital portfolio at webster university by 1) narrating the ethos of the edd, 2) discussing the rationale for moving beyond the traditional format, and 3) explaining the ddp as an alternative dissertation format. the edd director (first author) was inspired by a new way of framing the edd final year projects via participation in the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) annual convenings. in particular, conversations with colleagues at cped convenings spurred the further discussion of creative ways of professionally representing research findings, e.g., via podcasts. ethos of the edd: the scholar-practitioner model cped defines the edd in these terms: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, 2022, para. 4). in this light, cped advocates for the use of the dissertation-in-practice (dip) model. many cped member institutions have shifted to focus on dips, in contrast to traditional dissertations. for example, ewell et al. (2022) combined action research with dip as the “signature pedagogy” and “alternative format for the dissertation in practice” (p. 4). the dip is considered as an alternative format in this article because of its ethos in connecting research to practice and the focus on the field rather than a new ground-breaking study that does not have practical implications. when conceptualizing the edd and what it does, the first author created the following image to represent how it is different from a phd. illustration 1: scholar-practitioner model of edd in the above illustration, the infinity loop represents a conceptualization of edd research, with a focus on the scholarpractitioner model (perry, 2016). this illustration signifies the dialogic https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8945-2139 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5052-2560 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5156-168x https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4669-3356 lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 46 and dialectic (bakhtin, 1981) relationship between theory, research, and practice. theory and research are woven together as they guide the final year research project for informing practice. theory and research–as well as practice–inform each other in a continuum and are inseparable. note that the right circle is slightly bigger in the illustration. based on the research team’s interpretation of the literature and the evolution of the edd, practice is the heart and soul of an edd research project. a project that has minimal contribution to practice is not aligned with the edd program objectives. cped’s definition of the edd stresses “the stewardship of the profession” (cped, 2022, para. 4). thus, the practice circle on the right carries more weight because the emphasis on practice signifies how the end goal is for edd graduates to become good stewards of the profession. illustration 1 is an anchor point for doctoral students in an edd program because it expresses the combination of scholarly endeavors, research rigor, and practical implications. theory and research inform practice and vice versa, creating an infinity ring of impact. rationale for moving beyond traditional dissertations traditional dissertations are well-suited to contribute to the academic knowledge base, which is a key purpose of the phd degree. for the edd degree, the traditional format limits the democratizing of knowledge aiming at various stakeholders in the field. for example, an edd project can be an action research project that tackles gun violence in public schools in a particular area. such findings contribute not only to the knowledge base of gun violence in public schools; most importantly, the study and its findings are meaningful and impactful to many urban school leaders, parents, students, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and educators in the united states and beyond. if the findings can be represented via audio, video, and disseminated via social media, the impact of the study can be expanded exponentially. therefore, based on the audience and stakeholders who can benefit from the edd projects, the five-chapter traditional dissertation has its limitations in representation and dissemination. most importantly, edd students often have career advancement goals upon obtaining the terminal degree. besides higher education faculty positions, many edd students aspire to become higher education and k-12 leaders and non-profit organization administrators. thus, alternative formats would be more meaningful for these students in their future careers because of the focus on practice. in addition, traditional dissertations tend to have a textual representation only. with the artificial intelligence (ai) technology and the prevalent use of large language models (llms), a large part of writing could be done by ai-assistance, and at the same time, social media and representation has become more and more important among educators, students, and families. these considerations spurred the creation of an alternative dissertation format that would work well for edd students and their audiences. 1 to better understand the changing dissertation landscape, the edd program at webster conducted online research that included 142 administrative process for approving the alternative dissertation formats at the researchers’ institution, any new curriculum revision needs to be first approved via votes by the departmental faculty where the edd is housed. then, the proposal needs to be approved by the graduate council. in fall 2023, the first author consulted with institutional and non-institutional colleagues regarding the creation of an alternative dissertation format. the format had the following characteristics: 1) it aligns with the edd ethos as defined by cped and webster’s edd, 2) it creates digital representation opportunities for doctoral students to publish and disseminate research findings, and 3) it adheres to the academic rigor expected by the institution and the professional audience of the edd degree. when the proposal to create a new alternative format was brought up, it was evident that many faculty members inside and outside of the research team’s institution still believe in the traditional dissertation as the yardstick of a doctoral degree. many of them expressed concerns regarding the rigor of the terminal degree. some even mentioned that the alternative formats were “watering down” the edd program. in light of these concerns, the move away from the traditional dissertation model was not easy. the first author worked with research assistants to conduct online research regarding traditional versus alternative dissertations.1 this research documents the movement of cped and non-cped institutions towards alternative dissertations. the first author then used the research findings to support the proposal for an alternative format at the academic department where the edd is housed and then presented the research to the graduate council. though questions about research rigor had been raised, the first author was able to persuade faculty colleagues to vote in favor of the alternative format, particularly with the shift toward alternative models shown by the online research. in order to offer a choice to doctoral students, the edd program at the research team’s institution allows students to choose between a traditional dissertation and a doctoral digital portfolio in the final year. some faculty have concerns about abandoning the traditional format, and therefore, the decision was made to keep the traditional format as an option. because the faculty expect research rigor in a new model to be equivalent to the traditional dissertation, the research report in the ddp was retained to satisfy such expectations. therefore, when navigating the necessary institutional approvals needed for the ddp, the edd director had to ensure that the alternative dissertation includes considerations of academic rigor. strategically, the director consulted with colleagues at the academic unit and at the graduate curriculum approval unit. such informal conversations assisted the edd director to anticipate potential criticisms and challenges to the alternative dissertation proposal. for the ddp approval, the edd director anticipated questions regarding rigor and therefore included a streamlined design of the research paper within a digital portfolio. cped institutions and 41 non-cped institutions. the findings are not included in this article but can be available from the authors. ddp: rigor & social media impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 47 based on our experience, we offer the following suggestions for edd administrators and faculty when considering the transition to a digital portfolio: • actively consult with edd faculty and students via cped or other professional networks regarding their current dissertation options and their aspirations are for the future development of traditional and alternative dissertations. • have an open mind when an alternative format is suggested by faculty or students and reflect upon any biases that one may have towards alternative formats. • conduct online research to find out what other edd programs are working on. • communicate with faculty and colleagues who approve graduate curriculum proposals before submitting an official application for transitioning to an alternative model, such as a digital portfolio. • work with the university library regarding any online repositories that will support hosting the digital portfolios. • create a chart to document the differences between traditional and alternative dissertations regarding curriculum requirement, time commitment, and career prospects so that students have a clear understanding of the difference between the two. • create an online survey for edd students to document their decisions about pursuing traditional and alternative dissertations. what is a global and career-advancementcentered doctoral digital portfolio? at the authors’ institution, the strategic goal of the edd program is to be global and career-advancement-centered. doctoral applicants from around the world generally pursue four different careers upon graduation: higher education faculty, higher education administrators, k-12 educators and leaders, and non-profit organization leaders. doctoral applicants were advised to collect job descriptions of their dream career upon graduation and start to network for such positions via social media connections. therefore, the ddp has requirements that would produce websites, social media connections, and digitalized representations of findings for addressing students’ global and career advancement strategic goals. as corroborated by maxwell and kupczyk-romanczuk (2009), a portfolio is a collection of project items with a coherent theme, similar to those in “creative arts” (p. 138). a ddp in our edd program at webster university requires three main components: 1) a professional website, 2) a research report, and 3) a digital representation of the research findings. the professional website requires a doctoral student to create a site that hosts their resume, previous projects, presentations, and information about their final year research project. the research report resembles a minidissertation but it allows for more flexibility in terms of outline, required sub-sections, and content. the digital representation allows doctoral students to use any chosen digital channel to disseminate their research findings. at this time, the digital representation portion of the portfolio is new and at an exploration phase. the doctoral students have been exposed to samples from other institutions that utilized digital formats such as digital magazine, podcasts, videos on social media, etc. the rationale for having the three components is as follows: 1) the professional website requires doctoral candidates to create their digital footprint and digital representation of themselves as a scholarpractitioner, 2) the research report ensures the same academic and research rigor required of dissertation projects, and 3) the digital representation allows for democratizing knowledge construction and dissemination. the focus on developing a professional website and digitalized representations is aligned with the global and careeradvancement strategic goal of the edd program. the requirements for each component are as follows. 1) professional website students will create a professional website to introduce themselves, their professional identities and positioning, research interests, and professional memberships. the website requires a picture and statements about the student’s advocacy for marginalized populations, as well as a list of publications and links to the student’s social media sites. one of the recommended links is research gate (www.researchgate.net) because this will allow the doctoral student to connect with theorists, scholars, and practitioners regarding their research interests. students are also expected to discuss the “problem of practice” (cped, 2022, para. 12) with contextualization of the research topic chosen. an educational philosophy statement, which can be done via a short video recording, is also required on the website. the website will offer readers a comprehensive overview of the doctoral student as a scholar-practitioner. other digital components recommended to be included on the website include: visual representations about the student’s philosophy and researcher identity, podcasts, poems, songs, or short documentary films. the benefit of the websites is that they expand the readership of the students’ work. most importantly, it contributes to the career-advancement of the doctoral candidates. years ago, doctoral candidates were not expected to have their own professional websites. but nowadays, employers may look up doctoral applicants’ information online before job interviews. having a professional website that showcases professionalism, career readiness, and digital competency is an absolute must for career advancement and a significant benefit for doctoral candidates. 2) research paper requirements: the research paper is equivalent to a mini-dissertation and requires students to write 60-120 pages. there is a minimum requirement of 40 references in the research paper. (the traditional dissertation requirement is a minimum of 100 pages, though many edd graduates exceeded the minimum.) for the ddp research paper, since the doctoral student needs to work on a professional website and digital representation of findings, it is understandable that the number of required pages would be less than in a traditional dissertation. the sections in the research paper include: contextualization of the topic (historical, sociocultural, and sociopolitical contexts), theoretical framing, literature review, statement of problem of practice, research questions, methodology, discussions of findings and impact in the field, and irb approval letter (if applicable). 3) oral presentation requirements: there is a 25-minute recorded oral presentation requirement in the ddp. this presentation is an oral walk-through of the research report. besides the oral presentation, students may use creative digital formats to represent the research findings. at first glance, the ddp requirements resemble a minidissertation and an oral presentation, which seems to be a lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 48 compromise between traditional and alternative dissertations. as noted earlier, the rationale for this was two-fold: 1) to ensure that faculty would approve of the ddp at department and graduate council meetings, particularly those with concerns about keeping the equivalent academic rigor of the ddp as a traditional dissertation and 2) to function as a transition towards future developments with more advanced digital modes of representation and not exclude any current doctoral students who are less tech-savvy from completing the requirements. the intention is that the optional digital format of representation of findings will allow doctoral candidates to explore meaningful, impactful, and transformative digital representation of research findings. most importantly, the website and digital representation of findings support doctoral candidates to present at job talks and interviews, which will likely improve the employability of doctoral candidates. in spring 2025, the first group of edd students choosing the digital portfolio route will complete their projects. as such, the kinds of digital formats chosen are not included in this article. in fall 2024, the majority of the edd students expressed interest in using video clips, websites with embedded interview findings, and social media channels such as instagram, linkedin, podcasts, and facebook for disseminating results from their projects. these formats may change eventually based on the availability and interpretation of research data. the digital formats cannot replace the text of the mini-dissertation, because students still need to write a research report despite having digitalized representation of findings. this is because of the importance in maintaining the academic rigor, in particular doctoral level writing and their capability of producing a research report. with further data on what kind of social media channels and digitalized formats will have been employed by the first group of doctoral candidates, the anticipated outcome is that more and more digitalized representations of findings will replace texts in the future. with the challenge posed by generative ai, more and more edd administrators will need to explore alternative ways than texts because chatgpt can potentially write a dissertation (lee-johnson et al., 2023). the major difference between a traditional dissertation and a ddp goes beyond the format. traditional dissertation students, once in the final year of study, register for dissertation credits with their dissertation chairs. ddp students, on the other hand, take coursework credits in the final year. ddp students enroll in a twocourse sequence in the final year. each course is 5 credits and semester-long. the design of the coursework offers more hands-on and application-based experiences for doctoral students in the final year, and therefore, it is anticipated that the ddp route will result in a higher graduation rate. the hands-on experience and the opportunities to interact with other cohort members are expected to bring stronger support to doctoral students, especially those who are full-time working professionals. 2 the majority of edd students chose ddp over dissertation in the program. interweaving research rigor with social media dissemination in the edd program at webster, students articulate their logicof-inquiry, linking their theoretical framing, objectives, and research methods. logic-of-inquiry can be traced back to dewey’s (1938) structure of inquiry, which was about how we make inferences and judgment as a natural way of being. doctoral students need to know how the epistemological and ontological assumptions form the educational philosophy of the research study, how to formulate research questions from identifying a research gap based on the literature, and how to select the research methods that are relevant for addressing the research gap (or problem of practice). while maintaining research rigor is important; it is equally important to expand the impact of edd studies in the field. social media dissemination has become more and more prominent and prevalent in educational research. when research findings are disseminated via social media, the audience, especially those who are not in the ivory towers, will have a better chance to benefit from the findings. in addition, the social media outreach helps doctoral students expand their professional network for future career advancements. five doctoral students volunteered to co-author their experiences regarding their personal perspectives when choosing the doctoral digital portfolio over traditional dissertations2. they are all at the end of year two and are ready to begin their final year. the doctoral students wrote according to the following prompts: • why did you choose this topic and how is this project transformative3? • how does your intersectionality connect with the design of your ddp? • discuss your website and your social media (or digital) dissemination plan of your findings. • why did you choose ddp over dissertation? • now that you are in the process of working on ddp, do you find that the ddp is potentially more demanding than a traditional dissertation? • what are your anticipated pros and cons of working on a ddp? • what is your anticipation of a potential ripple effect of the involvement of social media in your ddp? trish iaiennaro my name is trish. the title of my doctoral digital portfolio is “examining the effectiveness of administrative strategies for empowering high school students with diverse ethnic backgrounds”. this ddp project is important to me because it is aligned with my commitment to equity. i believe that all students deserve to have a supportive and inclusive educational environment where they can thrive. while working as a teacher in various educational settings, i witness racism and inequity throughout 3 transformative learning is one of the most important constructs in the edd program that advocates for challenging the status quo realities of inequity and offering new opportunities to minoritized populations. ddp: rigor & social media impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 49 schools that primarily serve students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. my ddp is a manifestation of my passion to explore effective administrative strategies for educators to confront inequity with effective administrative strategies. my digital portfolio design was influenced by my personal background as an urban high school spanish teacher. i would describe my intersectionality as a researcher and a mexican-italian mother of three young mixed-race boys. as i have spent my entire career in urban schools, i have seen firsthand the level of trauma that students endure, which has included the loss of some students with whom i built strong relationships in the past. these experiences gave me a cause and a unique opportunity to offer my perspective on presenting the advantages and disadvantages of administrative strategies through digital pedagogy. i have always had a passion to help kids that look like me and my own children to succeed. my ddp allows me to connect deeply with my research participants, which will ensure that my research is both contextually relevant and culturally sensitive. this project is transformative as it pushes beyond the normal trajectory of simply assisting students with tools and teaching methods. it offers authentic administrative strategies that support students from diverse backgrounds. by understanding and promoting these administrative strategies, my research will assist in creating a more equitable landscape for every student to succeed in schools. i am hopeful that my findings can lead to change within the schools regarding their policies and practices that center diversity. regarding the digitalized representations, i will create an accessible portfolio designed intentionally for educators who teach diverse learners with different learning needs. my dissemination plan for my ddp findings involves the strategic use of social media platforms as well as the development of a comprehensive website that allows me to communicate my findings in real-time. the website will serve as a hub for me to share my research findings and further resources. on social media, i will be presenting summaries of my key findings, videos, and infographics which will not only increase the visibility but also allow the audience to discuss the topics in real-time. after maintaining the research and furthering discussion, i could even collaborate with educational organizations and create newsletters to continue engagement and learning on this very important topic. i chose the digital portfolio over the traditional dissertation because i enjoy the idea of accessibility, interactivity, and flexibility. with the digital format of the portfolio, i have the opportunity to create and incorporate multimedia elements, creatively organize my work, and reach an audience far beyond the scholars in the room during my defense. my choice demonstrates my commitment to transforming the future of education while enhancing the scholarly impact. the main advantage of working on a digital portfolio is that the data dissemination is more flexible and practical and that the findings will be accessible to a larger audience, which will hopefully lead to changes in many educational environments in the world. the only disadvantage is that there is a lack of the same structure and guidance as found with traditional dissertations, since the ddp is in uncharted territory and there have not been any published samples as references. joseph clay i am joseph. my doctoral digital portfolio title is “a grounded theorizing of the learning opportunities afforded to third graders who read below grade level”. as i reflect upon my experience as an assistant principal, there appears to be a phenomenon causing current third graders to miss out on the milestones of acquiring knowledge like phonics to become strong readers. i remember my third-grade teacher's class as a child, and it is nothing like today's environment from my observations as an assistant principal. i ask myself what has happened when i see all kinds of referrals for classroom disruptions that may have taken away from the learning environment in the form of lesson stoppage, room clears, or unprovoked extreme violence. children with or at risk for emotional behavior disturbance (ebd) demonstrate externalizing behaviors, for instance, aggression and noncompliance (wagner & davis, 2006) and internalizing behaviors, for example, depression and anxiety (morris et al., 2002). these children often display a lack of engagement in school and rate higher on feelings of disaffection than other students, which may adversely affect their academic achievement (garwood, 2015). as an analogy, i compare my decision to skip the traditional high school for a technical high school with my choice between the dissertation and the digital portfolio option. i chose the ddp format because it would allow me to pursue “the road not taken” (frost, 2015, pp. 48-49) just like my technical school selection, and apply those new skills in the future. for my ddp, i will showcase information in an interactive website. also, my research may show that reteaching primary phonics is needed well into the third grade, or students with transition issues may have caused some disruption in the learning environment that may need to be solved. additionally, my research may show that students with transition issues may have higher referrals than peers. students experiencing learning loss during the pandemic may also exhibit a specific learning loss gap (llg). i have designed a workable theory that may help explain and solve the dilemma, which will be part of my main web page design. i have seen students start kindergarten with no prior preschool academics from parents who need support in the home to better parent children. so, parent and student engagement may have to be analyzed to help reduce disruptions in the learning environment. ideas like transformative student-centered approaches to improve grade-level reading and behavior for third-grade students are hopeful, and results will be showcased on my website once i have collected all the data. as a researcher, i envision the ddp as a revolutionary dissertation format, a bridge that can fill the transformative gap in displaying beneficial data. this format, i believe, is poised to be the next wave of a technological revolution, painting a vivid picture to enhance dissertations for future researchers. oybek imomov my name is oybek. my doctoral digital portfolio topic is “exploring the adoption of ai-assisted teaching among tesol instructors at a university in tashkent”. in the past few years, ai has become publicly available across various sectors including the field of education. ai is changing our education approach by helping teachers prepare classes, create material, assessments, and helping students in getting additional support to work on their assignments. my research topic is at the intersection of ai technology and language education, where innovations are rapidly changing the face of teaching and learning. by exploring how ai tools are being lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 50 integrated into teaching methods, we can gain fresh insights that have the potential to have a big influence on teachers and students. this research has great importance for me since it could improve language learning opportunities for students in tashkent and beyond. by understanding the possibilities and challenges associated with the use of ai among teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol) instructors, we may establish opportunities for more efficient methods of teaching and better equip educators and students for the digital age. with over ten years of teaching experience and a background as an administrator for a learning management system such as moodle, selecting a digital portfolio option was a natural fit for me as it combines both of my interests in technology and teaching. this project allows me to integrate my technical skills to create a website, utilize online tools, and teach english at the same time. as a central asian married male from a middle-class family, my intersectionality has greatly influenced my career. my interest in teaching is inspired by my mother, a russian language teacher. my early fascination with languages facilitated my travels and education abroad, broadened my outlook and shaped my identity as an educator and researcher. working in a tesol department has equipped me with the knowledge and skills necessary for my profession. the results of the study on the usage of ai-assisted teaching among tesol instructors in tashkent can be efficiently communicated using a variety of digital media outlets. i'll share my interests and accomplishments on my google webpage, which has proven to be a useful tool. in addition, i'll share my findings on linkedin, facebook, instagram, and youtube. the digital portfolio offers a useful approach that fits with my interests in technology and education, therefore i chose it over a traditional dissertation. with the ddp, i can investigate ai in tesol and produce useful digital materials. it also makes it possible for me to directly address current educational problems while sharing my research results, which makes it a more dynamic and important approach. rokhatoy boltaeva i am rokhatoy. the working title of my doctoral digital portfolio is “reconceptualizing digital pedagogical creativity among master’s degree students at a university in tashkent”. the decision i made for the ddp on digital pedagogical creativity among master's degree candidates at a tashkent institution is anchored in my academic and professional experiences. since uzbekistan gained its independence, i have observed rapid changes in education, and i find it fascinating how digital tools may improve the teaching and learning process. my vision is to develop a new generation of educators with the abilities to engage and inspire students through creative digital pedagogy. this project aligns with my vision. it is also transformative with an aim to close the gap between conventional teaching methods and cutting-edge digital approaches. my ddp seeks to greatly improve uzbek educational practices by advocating for a learner-centered approach supported by digital resources. the design of my digital portfolio is greatly influenced by my intersectionality as an educator, researcher, and uzbek woman. as a child in a post-soviet educational system, i personally witnessed the transition from a curriculum-based approach to one that was more learner-centered. i now have a unique perspective on the benefits and challenges that digital pedagogy brings to uzbekistan thanks to this personal journey. because of my identity and experiences, i am able to establish a more meaningful connection with the study participants, which shows that the research is relevant to the context and sensitive to cultural differences. i hope to create a nuanced knowledge base regarding how digital tools might support instructional innovation in my nation's distinctive educational landscape via my ddp project. the main platform for sharing my study findings will be my personal website. the website will include a special section called “reconceptualizing digital pedagogy” where i will post digital materials such as concept maps, infographics, visuals, and unidentified participant statements. i will update my linkedin profile to reflect my research endeavor and its ongoing progress to broaden the audience for my discoveries. i will also use facebook and instagram to provide updates. to reach a wider audience and establish connections with other educators and scholars who are interested in digital pedagogical innovation, i will use hashtags like #digitalpedagogy, #uzbekeducation, and #teached. what motivated the decision to pursue a ddp rather than a regular dissertation is the aim to produce a more dynamic and useful research output that makes use of digital tools and platforms. research findings can be presented in a more dynamic and visually appealing way with a doctoral digital portfolio, making them more understandable and powerful for a larger audience. moreover, the ddp format is consistent with my research focus on digital pedagogy, as it embodies the creativity concepts that my study seeks to advance. while the advantages of choosing the ddp include possibilities for innovative and participatory ways to deliver study results and providing more accessibility and participation through digital platforms, the drawbacks include the technical difficulties involved in producing and preserving digital content and the requirement for ongoing monitoring and upgrades to the digital portfolio. though the minimum number of pages required for the research paper in the ddp is less than a traditional dissertation, i believe the challenge of the ddp goes beyond the number of pages, because of its transformative power and potential influence in the field. i will also create a series of engaging workshops and webinars for teachers in uzbekistan to highlight the results and real-world uses of digital pedagogical creativity to help increase the impact of my ddp. a culture of innovation in education might be fostered by setting up an online community where educators can exchange best practices, resources, and experiences relating to digital pedagogy which would also present chances for cooperation and continuing support. jiewei zhang my name is jiewei zhang, and i live in beijing, china. the title of my ddp is “the challenges and practice of transformative learning in transnational higher education in china.” the study explores the application of transformative learning (tl) within the context of transnational higher education (tnhe) in china, focusing on sino-foreign cooperative programs. the findings highlight the importance of critical thinking, facilitative teaching methods, cultural understanding, and innovative problem-solving in fostering transformative learning experiences. the study also emphasizes the need for comprehensive onboarding for foreign professors, language support for students, and the integration of localized content into curricula. my intersectionality is chinese, cisgender, woman, and ddp: rigor & social media impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 51 transnational, and i have 20 years of experience working in a transnational higher education institution in china. my professional target is to promote and improve the transnational program operation and students’ learning experience. since i have been an administrator in a us-china joint program for over 19 years, i am familiar with transnational higher education operations in china. this topic fits my career background and transformative leadership is a key factor to ensure the success of transnational education. transnational education is considered an essential component of educational internationalization; and it involves the movement of people, ideas, and resources across national borders for educational purposes, as well as integrating global perspectives and experiences into educational institutions’ curricula, teaching, and learning practices (huang, 2007). transformative learning is the process of individuals reexamining and revising their original cognitive structure and meaning system through reflection and critical thinking to achieve deep psychological and cognitive transformation. it is not only about increasing or updating knowledge but also about the comprehensive reconstruction of an individual’s beliefs, values, and worldviews. thus, transformative learning is the key component and major benefit that transnational higher education could provide to students who choose to stay within their own country, such as china, and still have the opportunity to reconstruct their learning and cognition through foreign education. the digital plan in this article includes using text analysis software, such as nvivo, to manage data categorization and coding, identify themes, and create visual documents and utilize mendeley for organizing citations and references. tools such as microsoft powerpoint, adobe illustrator, or specialized data visualization software can be used to represent qualitative findings. platforms like google docs, dropbox, or onedrive are also considered for sharing and collaborating on qualitative data and findings with team members or stakeholders. in terms of social media, my website serves as a major platform for uploading ideas, discussions, articles, books, and relevant videos, among other content. additionally, chinese social media platforms like zhihu (a chinese social media platform where people mostly share or seek knowledge and experiences), and higher education academic periodicals are suitable channels for sharing and discussing findings. the main reasons that i chose the ddp over the dissertation are: 1) a ddp allows me to present my research more interactively, including videos, audio, images, and text. this multimedia presentation can attract readers’ attention more than traditional textbased dissertations, 2) ddp is usually stored online and is accessible by a wider audience. readers can easily access my work through the internet, and 3) ddp facilitates collaboration and sharing of research results. i can link to other researchers' work, embed interactive maps or data visualizations, and even collaborate with other authors in real-time editing. a digital portfolio can increase the reach of my research and facilitate collaboration with other scholars. another anticipated advantage is a well-designed ddp can showcase my unique research interests, skills, and achievements. it could help me to establish a strong personal brand and advance my career development in the transnational higher education field. the major disadvantage to developing a professional ddp is the time and effort i need to devote to digital technical skills. developing a ddp may require technical skills such as website design, multimedia editing, and coding, which is worthwhile for investing from my perspective. springboarding to the future of ddps this discussion of the ddp design and development and the testimonies from the five doctoral students corroborate the potential benefits and positive impact of the ddp. doctoral students mentioned using social and digital media such as facebook, linkedin, instagram, zhihu, and youtube for disseminating their findings. based on the five doctoral students’ stories, the advantages of using social media include allowing for accessibility, democratized knowledge dissemination, improved interactivity with the audience, and thereby expanding the reach of readership when compared to traditional dissertations published on proquest. doctoral students also mentioned the challenges with using digital media while balancing the privacy expectation of research participants, as well as the time investment in learning the digital tools for disseminating research findings. apart from the above summarized pros and cons, one of the most important elements of the website and social media dissemination is to explicitly connect the doctoral students’ intersectionality to their choice of research topics. the five doctoral students represent a global and diverse student body in the edd program: two from the united states, two from tashkent, uzbekistan, and one from china. their intersectionality, epistemological and ontological stances, and their unique contextualities of the research projects contribute to our understanding of the future potentialities of edd programs that are global, diverse, and impactful. the ddp is expected to be accessible, interactive, and this new format transforms the status quo dissemination and impact of edd research studies. though further impact needs to be verified by future studies with completed ddps, this article offers a new and timely perspective on alternative formats of dissertation with testimonies from doctoral students who chose ddp over traditional dissertations. most importantly, the article connects to the existing paradigm shift among edd programs with examples for interweaving rigor with accessible knowledge dissemination via social and digital media. reference bakhtin, m. (1981). the dialogic imagination. university of texas press. carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2022). definition of the education doctorate. https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework dewey, j. (1938). logic: the theory of inquiry. read books ltd. ewell, s., childers-mckee, c., giblin, j., mcnabb, j., nolan, k., & parenti, m. (2022). taking action: the dissertation in practice at northeastern university. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 7(1), 4–8. frost, r. (2015). the road not taken. in l. swank (ed.), an introduction to american poetry (pp. 48-49). viking press. garwood, j. (2015). classroom management for rural students with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders: a longitudinal study across early elementary school (doctoral dissertation, university of north carolina at chapel hill). https://doi.org/10.17615/phpg-xa71 huang, f. (2007). internationalization of higher education in the era of globalization: what have been its implications in china and japan? higher education management and policy, 19(1), 35– 50. https://doi.org/10.1787/hemp-v19-art4-en lee-johnson, y. l., rodney, t., ono, j., & curry, c. (2023, october 4–6). can chatgpt write dissertations? collaborative review of quality & ethics https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.17615/phpg-xa71 https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3a%2f%2fdoi.org%2f10.1787%2fhemp-v19-art4-en&data=05%7c02%7cyleejohnson31%40webster.edu%7ccef7fc1e8c354a35f1df08ddbe999053%7cf57ccca6fb064b328226baf224ff198d%7c0%7c0%7c638876288947789497%7cunknown%7ctwfpbgzsb3d8eyjfbxb0eu1hcgkionrydwusilyioiiwljaumdawmcisilaioijxaw4zmiisikfoijoitwfpbcisilduijoyfq%3d%3d%7c0%7c%7c%7c&sdata=1lpcaephyqvtlxzeo5nmeibdjgk0mivfk0n67tnutf0%3d&reserved=0 lee-johnson et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.506 52 [conference presentation]. cped convening, university of west florida, pensacola, fl, united states. maxwell, t. w., & kupczyk‐romanczuk, g. (2009). producing the professional doctorate: the portfolio as a legitimate alternative to the dissertation. innovations in education and teaching international, 46(2), 135–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290902843761 morris, r. j., shah, k., & morris, y. p. (2002). internalizing behavior disorders. in k. l. lane, f. m. gresham, & t. e. o’shaughnessy (eds.), interventions for children with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (pp. 223-241). allyn and bacon. perry, j. a. (ed.). (2016). the edd and the scholarly practitioner: the cped path. information age publishing. wagner, m., & davis, m. (2006). how are we preparing students with emotional disturbance for the transition to young adulthood? findings from the national longitudinal transition study-2. journal of emotional and behavioral disorders, 14(2), 86–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/10634266060140020501 https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290902843761 https://doi.org/10.1177/10634266060140020501 yin lam lee-johnson webster university joseph clay st louis public schools rokhatoy boltaeva webster university in tashkent trish iaiennaro webster university oybek imomov webster university in tashkent jiewei zhang webster china the design and development of the doctoral digital portfolio (ddp) ethos of the edd: the scholar-practitioner model rationale for moving beyond traditional dissertations administrative process for approving the alternative dissertation formats what is a global and career-advancement-centered doctoral digital portfolio? interweaving research rigor with social media dissemination trish iaiennaro joseph clay oybek imomov rokhatoy boltaeva jiewei zhang springboarding to the future of ddps reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 29 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 pivoting from problems to possibilities in response to dual pandemics jarrod e. druery university of cincinnati jarrod.druery@uc.edu melissa m. jones northern kentucky university jonesme@nku.edu brandelyn tosolt northern kentucky university tosoltb1@nku.edu abstract the year 2020 brought not only the covid-19 pandemic but also a wave of racial injustice, which impacted many in the u.s. and beyond. combined, these phenomena have been characterized as dual pandemics, which introduced new demands that forced faculty to redesign aspects of their doctoral programs to ensure sustainability during the pandemic and post-pandemic era. the purpose of this essay is to highlight changes we made to sustain our edd program during and post dual pandemics. we achieve this by employing ginwright’s (2022) four pivots and brown’s (2017) emergent leadership as a framework and to conceptualize how we transitioned from viewing the events of 2020 as problems to embracing the possibilities they offered for the present and future of our edd program. practical implications and recommendations for this work are discussed to offer edd faculty ways to design, develop, and sustain their doctoral programs in the post-pandemic era. keywords edd programs, dual pandemics, learning associates, pivots, emergent leadership introduction in 2020, covid-19 and continual acts of systemic racism in the u.s., which have been described as dual pandemics (coley & thomas, 2023; jones, 2021), introduced new realities and rapidly brought about changes to our daily lives and norms. within education, faculty and educational leaders were forced to frantically strategize new approaches to engaging and supporting learning associates (students) in ways unimaginable (capello, 2023). in the midst of much uncertainty, the covid-19 pandemic required faculty in edd programs to: 1) traverse the abrupt transition from in-person and hybrid to virtual and hybrid-flexible methods of teaching and learning, 2) manage care and safety for themselves and their families including young children, aging parents, and the immunocompromised, 3) comply with new and changing policies at the federal, state, and local levels around mask and vaccine mandates, and 4) maintain doctoral program studies and quality (browning, 2021; bukko & dhesi, 2021; capello, 2023). likewise, learning associates had to manage and navigate the personal and professional implications of the new normal ushered in by covid-19. in addition to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, the pervasiveness of racism and oppression in the u.s. gained much attention after the murders of breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery, and george floyd, whose death was recorded and seen around the world. these incidents compounded with the disproportionate percentage of deaths related to covid-19 within the black, brown, and indigenous communities (coley & thomas, 2023; jones, 2021) resulted in outcries and demonstrations in cities across the u.s. and abroad. subsequently, both new and continued demands for antiracism quickly materialized (beatty et al., 2020). during this time, colleges and universities crafted statements denouncing racism and called forth task forces devoted to enacting anti-racism and addressing racist incidents on their campuses and in their local communities. while these actions felt like progress, many faculty, staff, and students had mixed emotions about the extent to which these actions would bring about impactful change. although educators sought to provide academic and emotional support to students prior to 2020, the unprecedented, socio-political impact of the dual pandemics within the field of education required edd program faculty to be amenable to change while also providing intentional, nuanced support for learning associates (capello, 2023). as faculty in an edd program at a regional institution that follows the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped, 2022) framework, the concerns for providing quality engagement and https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5644-647x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5319-4430 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2670-5167 druery et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 30 learning experiences in an online format were essential for us. while we understood the need to make changes to our program prior to 2020, we had not planned for or initiated the changes that were necessary during the height of the pandemics. without question, the dual pandemics forced us to make changes in efforts to sustain our program while preparing social-justice oriented educators and change-makers. being forced to make program changes during the dual pandemics made us recognize the possibilities of what could and should be instead of maintaining the status quo. in this essay, we explain the changes we made through the concept of pivoting (ginwright, 2022) and frame our sustained changes through practices of an emergent strategy consisting of fractals, moving at the speed of trust, and creating more possibilities (brown, 2017). theoretical framework and tools shawn ginwright (2022) offered the concept of a pivot as “a small change in direction from a single point where we are” (p. 16); he clarified that a pivot is not a move away from what is currently known, but rather “it braids together what we know with how we feel and who we wish to be” (ginwright, 2022, p. 16). ginwright (2022) centered his work around the concept of four pivots: from lens to mirror, from transactional to transformative; from problem to possibility; and from hustle to flow. the first pivot, from lens to mirror, calls us to cease to rely only on a sociological lens to explain social problems and instead to consider the ways in which we, as individuals, participate in those social problems. the second pivot, from transactional to transformative, challenges us to move beyond processes, which are efficient but ignore the human element in relationships, particularly when healing is needed. the third pivot, from problem to possibility, requires that we shift from a reactive response to challenges within an existing framework and instead dares us to recognize the possibilities that could emerge from a given challenge. finally, a pivot from hustle to flow involves moving away from a culture of busyness and instead toward calm and flow (ginwright, 2022). while we did not utilize this framework in making changes to our program, the concept of the four pivots helps us name and explain the program changes we implemented throughout the height of the dual pandemics. as we made these pivots, which we understand as larger shifts in mindset, we also made specific, individual decisions. we understand these decisions as the tools used to make and demonstrate our pivots. the specifics of our work were demonstrations of emergent leadership, which adrienne maree brown described as “the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies…; how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for” (brown, 2017, p. 3). while much of brown’s work resonates with us, we find ourselves most influenced by the principles “change is constant; never a failure, always a lesson; and what you pay attention to grows” (brown, 2017, pp. 41-42) and the elements of “intentional adaptation, interdependence and decentralization, resilience, and creating more possibilities” (brown, 2017, p. 50). we draw collectively upon ginwright’s (2022) four pivots and brown’s (2017) description of emergent leadership given their alignment and usefulness in highlighting how we changed and sustained our program during the peak of the dual pandemics. what follows first are our descriptions of the specific program changes we made. next, we discuss changes that have occurred since that time, which were deeply informed by spring, summer, and fall of 2020. operationalizing and facilitating aspects of the program online as stay-at-home orders were established, we ceased in-person activity and moved all aspects of our program online, primarily through zoom. this alone represented a challenge to our norm as a program. as a faculty, we were challenged to create asynchronous course content. although we had experience teaching asynchronous classes in other programs, we had intentionally shied away from relying solely on online course delivery in the edd program. instead, we purposely utilized in-person formats to better support the social dynamics of the cohort-based model that was foundational to our program. since our edd courses were designed based on the cocreation of knowledge between faculty and learning associates in the learning space, the covid-19 restrictions presented new challenges to in-person instruction. transitioning to online instruction allowed us to maintain content delivery, engagement with our learning associates in meaningful ways, and the integrity of the cohort model during the spring of 2020 until the fall of 2021 when the institutional stay-at-home and social distance mandates ceased. for the first time in the history of our program, we brought in a new cohort during the fall of 2020 virtually, which lasted the entirety of the first full year in the program. the online transition allowed us to be creative while building community amongst the fall 2020 cohort and other cohorts who started with the in-person program approach. the flexibility of online delivery methods was one way we were able to maintain the integrity of our program. while this began as a response to a problem (stay-at-home orders), we recognize now that this presented an opportunity for us to pivot to possibility (ginwright, 2022). historically, our program has been based around an executive model– meaning that students attended classes in-person approximately one weekend a month with the rest of their time spent asynchronously. since the class meetings are limited throughout the semester, we traditionally prioritized in-person attendance for the entirety of the class meetings and rarely offered the opportunity for students to attend class virtually using technology. additionally, each of our class sessions normally lasted four hours per three-hour course (4 hours on friday evenings, 4 hours on saturday mornings, and 4 hours on saturday afternoons). during the height of covid19, we quickly recognized that spending 12 hours on zoom within a 24-hour window was simply untenable. we took into account the likelihood that our learning associates who are all fully employed were likely engaged in many zoom meetings during the week for their jobs, community engagement, and other responsibilities. therefore, we promptly made the decision to develop an alternate schedule for our class weekends to minimize zoom fatigue and overload, as shown in table 1. instead of all three courses meeting for 12 hours each class weekend, we designed a rotating schedule in which one of the three classes met synchronously for the full fourhour window while the other two classes met for an hour synchronously each class weekend. then, the next two class weekends, one of the other two classes met for four hours, while the others met for an hour. this schedule continued throughout the semester giving each class an opportunity to meet for four hours at least once. the faculty identified the most germane content to be explored during each class meeting, in addition to developing asynchronous approaches to engage our learning associates in pivoting an edd program during dual pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 31 table 1. alternate schedule for fall 2020 courses august 21-22 september 11-12 october 16-17 november 6-7 december 4-5 course 1 friday 4:30-8:30 p.m. a schedule b schedule b schedule a schedule b schedule course 2 saturday 8:00 a.m.-12 p.m. b schedule a schedule b schedule b schedule a schedule course 3 saturday 1:00-5:00 p.m. b schedule b schedule a schedule b schedule b schedule note. a schedule is up to 4 hours of synchronous class meeting via zoom. b schedule is any 60 minutes of synchronous class meeting via zoom within the standard class meeting time. ways that were not previously achieved consistently across all our courses. by implementing this alternative class schedule, we maintained the rigor of our courses and also prioritized the needs of the learning associates by utilizing both synchronous and asynchronous approaches. a by-product of this approach was us eliminating obsolete strategies to instruction and student engagement. integrating the alternate class offering aligns closely with ginwright’s (2022) second pivot: from transactional to transformative. since the fall of 2021, we have continued to offer virtual and asynchronous options to accommodate our students’ busy and complex lives and responsibilities. currently, our required courses have returned to an in-person, hybrid format, but we are now offering our cognate/elective courses online as a means for increasing flexibility within the program. as we reflect on the lessons learned about the power in online instruction, asynchronous class attendance, and the use of technology, we realize maintaining these aspects of our program in the post-pandemic era has offered more flexibility, inclusion, and accessibility for our learning associates. finally, we had to immediately develop an approach for dissertation defenses for our learning associates who were completing their dissertations-in-practice during the dual pandemics. previously, we had occasionally utilized zoom to include a committee member who could not physically be present at a dissertation defense. the majority of faculty had little experience with facilitating zoom meetings, particularly during those high-stakes moments such as a dissertation defense. the challenge of facilitating defenses online was also combined with needing to learn how to coach our learning associates as well as the audience, which quickly grew beyond faculty and students to include family members, friends, cohort mates, and colleagues. holding dissertation defenses virtually also allowed the broader community to attend based on their interest in various dissertation topics, which we realized was more aligned with our action research programmatic focus rather than our previous in-person defenses. as a faculty, we came to understand that the expansion of the dissertation defense audience helped to generate a community of support for learning associates who were defending their research. this was beyond anything we had previously experienced prior to the use of virtual defenses. as such, this practice of online dissertation defenses has continued beyond the pandemic as a means for cultivating communities of support for our learning associates and is another example of how what began as a problem ended up pivoting to the creation of new possibilities (ginwright, 2022). engaging in anti-racist practices as a program faculty, we were all struck by the realities of the dual pandemics– particularly the disproportionate toll of covid-19 on black, brown, and indigenous communities. additionally, we were astonished by the ongoing racial injustice, violence, and killing of black folx. we, along with the rest of society were faced with the visual images and dialogue offered by the media and across social media outlets. many of our black learning associates expressed fear for their safety and the safety of their family members and loved ones. similarly, our white learning associates shared concern for our black learning associates. the toll on the physical and mental health of our edd community, including faculty, was devastating. this realization brought us all to ginwright’s (2022) first pivot: from lens to mirror, which required us to move beyond gazing at the societal issues and unearth how they were reflected within us internally. for some of the white program faculty, the summer of 2020 was a wake-up call to arms in support of faculty and learning associates of color, as well as the college, university, and greater community. we all acknowledged the complications and multiplicity of the situation, as we aimed to become better listeners and scrambled to find the words and actions to demonstrate love, care, and support for all our faculty colleagues and learning associates. some of the white faculty members engaged in book exploration of when they call you a terrorist: a black lives matter memoir by asha bandele and patrisse cullors. this exploration was led by a learning associate from our program and was open to any member of our college faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders. the black faculty member in the program also participated in a book exploration of ibram kendi’s how to be an antiracist and bell hooks’ all about love: new visions. in sum, these book explorations helped us expand our knowledge and understanding of oppression, while providing outlets for us to cope with the heaviness of the moment. further, these opportunities gave us better tools to be able to support our learning associates as they journeyed through the dual pandemics. in addition to engaging in anti-racist practices, we found it essential to create space for grieving, healing, and support to express our concern for and solidarity with our learning associates who were simultaneously being affected by the dual pandemics. as faculty members we understood the need to show an ethic of care for our learning associates (see capello, 2023) while pivoting in how we approached support in our program. noddings (2003) suggested the primary obligation educators have is to cultivate the ethical ideals of their students in a caring manner. further, capello (2023) argued edd faculty are well-positioned to utilize care ethics in their druery et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 32 classrooms and programs, which can serve as a model for educational leaders who also act as sources of support and care for students, colleagues, community members, and others. as capello (2023) stated, “the question [is] not should edd faculty engage in an ethic of care to support their students through the covid-19 pandemic but rather how can edd faculty effectively do this” (p. 38). for the faculty in the edd program, creating space for our learning associates to grieve, heal, and receive support was one way to effectively demonstrate an ethic of care. to create these spaces, the three faculty members utilized our agency, creativity, positional power, and resources within our program, college, institution, and professional networks. one grieving and healing space included the black faculty member creating an intentional affinity space specifically for black learning associates and other racially minoritized learning associates to be in community with and process all that transpired during the racial unrest of 2020 in context with the long history of anti-black racism within the u.s. (see dumas & ross, 2016; wilder, 2013). this led to a series of virtual open-forums facilitated in a collective, safe, supportive, and healing-centered environment by one of the authors. in this space, learning associates were able to express their feelings, emotions, and meaning-making around the anti-black racism being felt as well as the aftermath being amplified in the media, social circles, and other avenues. additionally, learning associates were able to share coping strategies and self-care practices they were engaging in for their mental health and well-being. as these forums continued after the summer of 2020, learning associates seemed to be more comfortable sharing their personal experiences with and feedback regarding the edd program and opportunities for improvement, particularly around advancing their dissertation topics. consequently, the forums transformed into seminar and workshop style sessions where learning associates were connected with institutional resources (e.g., writing center, career center, and library) and faculty who shared advice, strategies, and tools to advance their dissertation-in-practice research. in addition to providing spaces outside of the classroom, faculty members also allotted time and space in classes for learning associates to grieve, heal, and be supported by others. collectively, we opened class with open-dialogue to give all learning associates the opportunity to share their emotions, feelings, needs, affirmations, and resources relative to the dual pandemics. pre-scheduled class topics were deferred or altered to devote space in-class to discuss socio-political realities and implications of the pandemics. additionally, we amended due dates and timelines for class assignments and offered alternative assignments that could be focused on real-time developments of the dual pandemics. on a consistent basis, faculty sent messages of support to our learning associates. as discussed above, we offered open office hours for all learning associates and faculty; while these sometimes served procedural means, they were also spaces to check in on one another, to ask after one another and one another’s families, and to acknowledge the pain we were each experiencing. by acknowledging the impact and implications of both covid-19 and systemic racism, we pivoted our program to become a more humanized experience for our learning associates, our communities, and ourselves while modeling an ethic of care (capello, 2023). learning associate centered program changes in light of current events and the experiences of learning associates and faculty, we turned our sights inward as a program. this inward reflection included us taking a deeper look into what made a strong and competent leader, and what type of leaders are needed in the world today not just for our learning associates, but for us as program facilitators and leaders. this reflection, which aligns with ginwright’s (2022) first pivot (from lens to mirror) led to several significant curricular changes; in deciding to make these curricular changes, we reflected a pivot from problem to possibility, focusing not on what we could do within the scope of the existing program but instead dreaming about how to build the program we wanted to see in the world. through a year-long series of program retreats, we generated a proposal for an edd program with two primary goals for our learning associates: 1) to develop the personhood of a leader who can act in fair and just ways and 2) to recognize themselves as being abled and equipped to make a difference in the community, positively addressing a problem of practice within that community. this revised program would be built upon four pillars: 1) leadership, 2) action research, 3) justice, and 4) wellness. the first two pillars had always been key aspects of the edd program, and we had begun to offer justice and wellness courses as cognates over the past several years. however, we now recognized the need to embed justice and wellness as core requirements of the program as a means for more deeply impacting complex problems of practice. for the purpose of this edd program and in line with the cped framework (storey et al., 2015), we chose to define justice as actions related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. pairing justice with edd work moves justice out of the realm of a concept or framework and into action with integrity as the result of a dissertation in practice. although we would not require learning associates to conduct research that centered on justice as the problem of practice identified, we wanted to provide them with knowledge and awareness to ultimately inform their decisions as leaders. from our own experiences, we know that justice work does not come without struggle. as we were reminded by the recent challenges of the dual pandemic, justice work can be grueling, traumatizing, and re-traumatizing. if we expected learning associates to engage in justice work, we also wanted to make sure they cared for themselves and for those they lead. as such, wellness became a critical component of the program with a focus on mindfulness and self-care. we are now poised to engage in the systematic process of institutionalizing these changes. however, we continue to struggle with what it means to be responsive and learning associate-centered in an inherently slow-moving system (also known as the university curriculum processes). on the surface, all these short-term and long-term program revisions and curricular adjustments would seemingly address some of the issues exposed during the dual pandemics. upon deeper reflection, however, the authors realized much more pressing issues lie below the surface of the program, that if left unaddressed, would continue to perpetuate oppressive practices. at the heart of the issue are the questions: can black faculty alone move the needle to antiracist practices? can white faculty allies really make inroads against racial injustice, beyond curriculum development? tokenism does not negate racist practices. titles and course descriptions do little to acknowledge racialized experiences in any meaningful way. providing grace and space only acknowledges pain and does little to foster acts of resistance or action. addressing racism extends far pivoting an edd program during dual pandemic impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 33 beyond diversifying programs. becoming an anti-racist program requires generating programs that are developed by and for black communities. implications and recommendations for edd programs the dual pandemics were the impetus for pivoting our program as we confronted the challenges our learning community faced during 2020. the incremental changes, especially at the beginning, were reactive in nature, but later began to be woven into the framework of the entire program. the process was not linear in nature, and although we can identify the beginning points of transformation, the end is not yet in sight. looking inward, pivoting from lens to mirror is an ongoing process as we seek to understand how we each contribute to the safety and success of our learning associates. we consistently question practices that focus on the process without considering the humanity of our learning associates and faculty, moving from transactional practices to transformative practices. we continue to seek ways to practice anti-oppression and anti-racism within the program and develop a program that helps to build leaders who have the capacity and drive to make changes while moving from problem to possibility. as we embark upon the university’s curriculum process to sustain the curricular changes devised, we hope to move from the hustle brought on by the dual pandemics to flow. perhaps the most salient aspects of our program exposed by the dual pandemics were the realities of racism and race-neutrality. efforts at performing acts of justice, demonstrating a value for the black and brown learning associates and faculty were translucent at best, with racism running rampant beyond the veil of strategies and promises. as many white dominated programs in higher education prior to, during, and after the dual pandemics, our program attempted to address inequities and eliminate racism within the program by hiring one black faculty member, hiring a myriad of black adjunct faculty, and developing curricula on anti-oppression to balance out the program’s whiteness. however, surface efforts like these only exacerbate the issues because they allow white program faculty to sit back and say “see, we’re not racist.” true reform toward anti-racism occurs through community built upon the spiritual, communal, social histories, healing, and love shared among black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc). white faculty, staff, and students can certainly be allies, accomplices, and supporters, but they need to decenter themselves to listen, learn, and let leadership decisions be generated by bipoc communities. in this way, action may look like taking direction from bipoc leaders and communities, and even getting out of the way when necessary. as a program, we made strides in developing a curriculum that strives toward anti-racism and anti-oppression; thus, making our focus toward social justice explicit as strom and porfilio (2017) suggested. yet, the wounds of racism fester, boiling beneath the surface. frameworks for proactive edd programs, such as the one offered by becton et al. (2020), can only carry a program so far, especially if the goal is anti-racism and anti-oppression. what is missing is the realization that this work of the program will not be successful unless historical and current issues of representation, marginalization, oppression, and trauma are addressed and a safe community for processing, questioning, and action is created, centering blackness, other racially and ethnically minoritized populations and their experiences. the collaborative inquiry and reflection process engaged in by the authors provided an opportunity for the self-reflexive analysis supported by beatty et al. (2020) and strom and porfilio (2017). this process provided the critical insight needed to name the issue of active racist practices in a seemingly anti-racist program. through this insight, we offer the following actions as steps we need to take to move our program forward. other programs may want to follow suit. to this end, here are recommendations for edd faculty to consider:  shift any curricular focus on race and racial justice to racism and anti-racist practices.  using an ethic of care (capello, 2023) as the lens, identify and critique the racist and anti-racist practices perpetuated on your campus (beatty et al., 2020) and in your program.  provide substantive responses to racism (beatty et al., 2020). move beyond simply acknowledging the existence of racist practices toward action and change. if white faculty are unsure of how to address racial injustice and racism, read, ask, listen, and learn, follow, and then take action.  foster and encourage mentoring networks that expand beyond the institution for the black faculty, staff, and learning associates, creating “healthy and uplifting communities of like-minded individuals” (beatty et al., 2020, p. 11) through which meaningful and relevant support, healing, and action can occur.  implement virtual dissertation defense formats as a concrete way to offer opportunities for communities of support to rally around, learn from, and celebrate the successes of their family members, friends, colleagues, and community members.  foster white allies within the program by providing ongoing professional development (strom & porfilio, 2017) and opportunities to listen and learn from the black community.  create safe processes through which the edd community can call out white cultural practices that suppress blackness and black community (beatty et al., 2020).  move beyond interest convergence (bell, 1980), which beatty et al. (2020) defined as “an illumination of how black racial justice only occurs when it aligns or converges with the interest of white people” (p. 17).  for white leaders, recognize and rise above your white fragility (beatty et al., 2020), breaking free from the anxiety paralysis white fragility provokes.  offer flexible course delivery models to increase accessibility of the course content while maintaining collaborative practices within each cohort. if we, program leaders, can hold ourselves accountable and raise up the humanity of all the learning associates, faculty, and staff that make up the edd community, progress may be realized. we have come to understand that although hopelessness may outbalance hope and personal experience does influence a program’s trajectory, anti-racist practices must be proactively addressed for substantive change to occur, and edd programs can truly reflect the ideologies they espouse. druery et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 1 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.391 34 references beatty, c., tevis, t., acker, l., blockett, r., & parker, e. 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(2013). ebony & ivy: race, slavery, and the troubled history of america’s universities. bloomsbury press. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.131 https://doi.10.2307/1340546 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.155 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.167 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.263 https://www.cpedinitiative.org/the-framework https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20518 https://doi.org/0.1177/0042085916628611 https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000472 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2017.43 impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 23 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 increasing ela teachers’ confidence regarding lgbtq+ inclusion through professional development nicole mustaccio university of south carolina nmustaccio@gmail.com abstract this article addresses the prevalent hesitancy among english language arts (ela) educators to incorporate lgbtq+ authors and perspectives due to discomfort and fear of backlash from students, parents, and administration. building on chapter 5 of the author’s dissertation, the article proposes a professional development plan to equip teachers with practical strategies to navigate challenges related to lgbtq+ inclusion in ela classrooms. central to this plan are role-play sessions designed to enhance educators’ confidence and skills in de-escalating confrontations. empirical findings demonstrate that after targeted training, teachers report increased comfort and effectiveness in managing opposition to lgbtq+ content. this research highlights the importance of preparatory support in fostering inclusive curricula and emphasizes the potential of professional development to promote equitable and affirming educational environments. keywords lgbtq+ inclusion, diversity in education, teaching methods, professional development, ela pedagogy in may 2020, i began my doctoral program at the university of south carolina. as an action researcher, i was motivated to promote lgbtq+ inclusion, not only in my high school english language arts (ela) classroom as an out queer teacher, but also to provide an affirming environment more broadly through counter-heteronormative activism. despite this evident passion, i struggled to define my problem of practice. the issue was so significant that it felt impossible to solve. i could not add gender-neutral bathrooms or stop every teacher from making needlessly gendered comments such as, “i need a strong boy to help me move this desk.” discussions with my dissertation advisor helped me narrow my focus to diversifying what i could directly influence: lenape’s mainly white, cisgender, straight, heteronormative ela curriculum. while an activist’s work is never done, action research empowers educators to start with a problem they can solve where they are and go from there. i framed my problem of practice around the dangerous heteronormative environment at lenape high school, where i work. from there, i identified two research questions: “how does targeted professional development impact ela teachers’ knowledge of queer theory?” and “how does targeted professional development impact ela teachers’ comfort with lgbtq+ terminology and teaching from a queer perspective?” (mustaccio, 2023, p. 8). the intervention at the center of these questions was a series of professional development sessions i created and facilitated for eight participants, my ela colleagues, which focused on “lgbtq+ terminology, heteronormativity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and queer theory and offered sample lessons to help the teachers analyze literature through a queer perspective” (mustaccio, 2023, p. v). the data i collected to measure my participants’ knowledge and comfort made me hopeful, showing improvement, yet i wondered whether my participants would leap from philosophy to action. at the beginning of the 2023–2024 school year, i learned my eight participants had only somewhat incorporated lgbtq+ authors or themes and queer theory into their lessons. while their comfort had improved through our sessions, confidence working with queer theory or addressing backlash from students and parents was not enough. in other words, a new problem of practice emerged. as the school year continued, i noticed a disturbing trend: anti-lbgtq+ phrases like “that’s so gay” and “you’re gay” and terms like “faggot” littered the halls of my high school. i was shocked at the harshness of this hateful language and the lack of administrative response. my concern for this climate increased when my supervisor notified me that a parent complained about the literature i was teaching in my 12th-grade class, suggesting i was “pushing my gay agenda.” i stared at my supervisor in confusion; my students had just finished a unit on marginalized groups, engaging with works such as “the story of an hour,” “the yellow wallpaper,” “ain’t i a woman,” and “i, too.” wracking my brain, i tried to think of what would constitute pushing an agenda. my supervisor explained that a project asking students to rewrite the women’s rights “declaration of sentiments” to include equality for all people offended a parent because one group mentioned that lgbtq+ individuals deserve equality. after arguing with my supervisor about the new jerseymandated curriculum and that i was teaching the curriculum, i was told to “make bidart’s ‘queer’ poem optional so as not to offend anyone else.” these discouraging incidents made me consider what more i can do as an action researcher, activist, and queer ela teacher to combat my school’s heteronormativity. i thought about the lgbtq+ students i advise in the gender/sexuality alliance club. are they hearing these exact phrases? do they feel safe in the bathrooms? locker rooms? hallways? classrooms? when i asked the club https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/ mustaccio impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 24 members about their experiences in high school, their answers were heartbreaking but not surprising, echoing the same central idea: “we don’t feel safe or included here.” even in 2024, lgbtq+ students in my school feel like i did when i was a queer teen: afraid, invisible, and invalidated. according to a 2021 survey of lgtbq+ students in new jersey by the gay, lesbian, straight, education network (glsen, 2023), “more than 2 in 5 (42%) experienced at least one form of anti-lgbtq+ discrimination at school” (p. 2), and 95% heard the word “gay” used in a negative way, while 86% reported hearing other homophobic remarks (p. 1). reinforcing my reaction to the anti-lgbtq+ phrases i heard at my school, this information prompted me to revisit my dissertation and extend my action research by continuing to help my ela colleagues handle backlash with lgbtq+ inclusion to combat lenape’s heteronormative, homophobic culture. the follow-up study presented in this chapter centered on one research question: “how does targeted professional development impact ela teachers’ confidence when confronting backlash while teaching lgbtq+ inclusion in their classroom?” as in my dissertation, i focused on creating and facilitating targeted professional development sessions. i aimed to help participants effectively manage problems that may arise with students, parents, and administration who challenge lgbtq+ inclusion in ela classrooms. related research to situate my new problem of practice, i reviewed related literature. scholars have established the danger of heteronormativity, explaining, “when a heteronormative environment dominates school culture, students are positioned as straight; binary gender performances and heterosexual identities are empowered while lgbtq students and non-heterosexual gender behaviors are marginalized” (dinkins & englert, 2015, p. 394). the widespread effects include ela teachers’ hesitation to incorporate lgbtq+ authors or themes and queer theory into their classrooms. however, an inclusive ela curriculum “not only disrupts a heteronormative culture in schools but . . . helps create a tone of acceptance of lgbtq people and increased awareness of lgbtq-related issues, resulting in a more supportive environment for lgbtq students” (mcgarry, 2013, p. 236). i genuinely believed my ela colleagues supported lgbtq+ inclusion in theory, but their fear of backlash from students, parents, and administration made them hesitant in practice. therefore, to engage in additional action research to combat lenape’s heteronormative environment, i explored the concepts of teacher confidence and professional development. confidence self-confidence is a belief in one’s abilities and skills. in education, teacher self-confidence refers to a teacher’s belief in their ability to instruct effectively, manage a classroom, and create a positive, safe, and welcoming environment. related studies draw on the concept of self-efficacy, defined as “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives” (bandura & wessels, 1997, p. 4), which brant and wilcox (2021) described as “a starting point for a behavior change” (p. 130). in other words, building confidence was a central goal of the professional development sessions i designed, ultimately aiming for change in teachers’ ability to incorporate lgbtq+ authors, themes, and texts into their curriculum and effectively address any backlash. my original study determined knowledge and comfort alone were insufficient, yet “the stronger an individual’s belief in [their] own abilities around a given topic or task, the more likely they can persist with it” (brant & wilcox, 2021, p. 131). effective teaching requires confidence in one’s capacity to affect student performance and learning outcomes. confident teachers may be more open to lgbtq+ inclusion in their classrooms without fear of backlash, whereas teachers who lack confidence may hesitate, mainly because of a fear of backlash. another component of my literature review, professional development, sheds light on improving teachers’ confidence, especially regarding lgbtq+ inclusion. professional development regarding lgbtq+ topics professional development provides teachers with learning opportunities to enhance their pedagogy, share ideas, address internal bias, and more, yet a little more than a decade ago, whitman (2013) lamented the lack of a “stand-alone course with a specific focus on lgbtq issues” (p. 126). my experiences and observations showed minimal improvement since that time. administrators may hesitate to provide such opportunities if they perceive lgbtq+ inclusion as controversial, fearing student and parent complaints (payne & smith, 2018). however, as adelman and woods (2006) showed, “an anti-lgbtq+ environment encourages bullying and violence against self-identified lgbtq+ youth and sends an explicit message that those who are considered different or non-conforming constitute acceptable targets of bullying” (p. 8). therefore, professional development geared to combating heteronormativity and homophobia is crucial. yoo (2016) explored the impact of professional development on teacher efficacy, conducting a 5-week study in which teachers applied “motivational theories and concepts in their classrooms through various learning mediums” (p. 91). yoo discovered that professional development positively affects teachers’ confidence. if a teacher struggles with lgbtq+ inclusion and addressing backlash because they lack the knowledge to handle it, then their confidence will be low. however, with professional development centering on lgbtq+ inclusion and addressing potential backlash, a teacher’s confidence can increase. by facilitating clear professional development, i sought to raise my colleagues’ confidence with lgbtq+ inclusion. methods action research appeals to me as an educator who supports activism in the classroom because i am “interested in facilitating change” (merriam & tisdell, 2016, p. 4). specifically, this study took a qualitative approach to prioritize “the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’ of social phenomena,” incorporating “the direct experiences of human beings as meaning-making agents” (uta libraries, 2024, para. 1). by battling lenape’s heteronormative culture and addressing backlash against lgbtq+ inclusion in the classroom, my participants and i can be agents of change and make lenape high school a safer environment for lgbtq+ students. ela teacher confidence in lgbtq+ pedagogy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 25 participants and setting this study used convenience sampling by enlisting six of the eight participants featured in my dissertation. i invited two other ela colleagues because the other two participants could not join the follow-up study. the participants, listed in table 1, were eager to participate in the professional development sessions to increase their confidence when confronting backlash about their inclusion of lgbtq+ authors and literature. the table also shows each participant's highest degree, years of experience at lenape high school, and ela teaching assignments for the 2023–2024 school year. lenape high school is a public school in new jersey and one of four high schools in the lenape regional high school district. the district serves approximately 6,659 students overall, while lenape has a population of 1,924 students, 166 faculty, and eight administrators (national center for education statistics, n.d.). about 12% of the student population identifies as part of the lgbtq+ community. as a queer educator and advisor of the gender/sexuality alliance, i have a long-standing relationship with administration and faculty as a mentor for lgbtq+ students at lenape. data collection and analysis this study used two data collection methods: open-ended survey questions and a research journal. both methods helped me address the research question by documenting the participants’ confidence before, during, and after the professional development sessions. i facilitated two sessions in april and may during the second semester of the 2023–2024 school year. each session lasted 45 to 90 minutes and occurred in my classroom during prep and common planning time. once each of the eight participants had completed a pre-session survey, i developed a plan for the session based on their responses. as i elaborate on my findings, the open-ended survey questions enabled me to gauge the participants’ authentic attitudes about lgbtq+ inclusion, including concerns about backlash from parents, students, and administration. this pre-session data guided me in choosing discussion topics correlated with their perspectives and concerns. the sessions themselves served as my intervention, while i kept a researcher journal to collect, interpret, and analyze authentic data during the discussions. unstructured entries gave me space to record my participants’ views on lgbtq+ inclusion and fear of confronting backlash. i used two forms of coding to make sense of my data. through affective coding, i focused on “subjective qualities . . . by directly acknowledging and naming [participants’] experiences” (saldaña, 2013, p. 105). applying this approach to the survey responses, i identified patterns by searching for specific keywords related to my problem of practice, such as “fear/afraid,” “hesitation,” “uncomfortable,” and “not knowledgeable.” i also engaged in in vivo coding, which “uses words or short phrases from the participant’s own language” (saldaña, 2013, p. 264), especially with the notes in my researcher journal. the following section incorporates direct quotes from participants to honor their authentic voices. table 1. participants pseudonym degree years at lenape grade and level beth med, special ed & ela 5 grade 11 college prep grade 12 accelerated casey med, special ed & ela 6 grade 11 accelerated grade 12 accelerated deb med, curriculum & instruction 14 grade 9 honors & college prep jaime med 16 grade 9 accelerated grade 12 accelerated jax med, technology 8 grade 9 accelerated & honors grade 11 college prep jess med 7 grade 9 college prep grade 12 college prep joe med 19 grade 9 college prep grade 10 college prep grade 11 college prep riley ba, ed & secondary english 6 grade 9 honors & college prep grade 11 accelerated findings this section illustrates my continued effort to combat dangerous heteronormativity at lenape high school. building on my dissertation, i aimed to address the participants’ hesitation when encountering anti-lbgtq+ beliefs from parents, students, and administration. in fact, the professional development sessions featured in this chapter derived from the action plan section of my dissertation, where i expressed a goal of helping “participants effectively handle problems that may arise with students, parents, and administrators who may challenge lgbtq+ inclusion in an ela classroom” (mustaccio, 2023, p. 85). the first session focused on teaching strategies for lgbtq+ inclusion. i invited participants to “share their pedagogical strategies to teach chosen works [from the curriculum] through a queer perspective” (mustaccio, 2023, p. 86), which allowed us to discuss effective and ineffective strategies. the second session addressed backlash to lgbtq+ inclusion and how to gain confidence when teaching lgbtq+ authors, literature, and themes. to answer my research question, the following subsections elaborate on my preparation for each session, describe my observations during each session, and reflect on key takeaways. mustaccio impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 26 session 1 before session 1, the participants answered two open-ended survey questions, which aided me in planning. responses to the first question, “what lessons focusing on lgbtq+ inclusion were effective this year? please provide a specific example/examples,” were encouraging. among the eight responses, three participants discussed their use of shakespeare, and two others used lgbtq+ authors like langston hughes, emily dickinson, and allen ginsberg to explore systems of discrimination, marginalization, and dehumanization in the united states. i was pleased to see so many participants from my previous study apply what they learned in my professional development sessions to incorporate lgbtq+ authors, texts, and themes into their classrooms creatively and engagingly. the second question asked, “were there any reasons you hesitated to incorporate lgbtq+ authors, themes, or characters into your lessons?” joe and riley were worried they would get the terminology wrong, which could be anxiety-inducing. similarly, deb stated, “i always feel so terrible if i misuse a pronoun or something or don’t properly recognize the characters or authors’ identities.” i could easily address these responses by providing a guide to pronouns and identities. at the same time, the other participants’ comments reinforced my concern about our heteronormative high school environment. three teachers mentioned a relative lack of lgbtq+ authors or texts and their hesitation to stray from the curriculum for fear of being reprimanded. for example, jax stated, there isn’t much in the curriculum with stories that focus on lgbtq+ content or even by authors who identify in the lgbtq+ community. it’s hard to find supplemental pieces that fit the curriculum guide and a stretch to try to include something that discusses lgbtq+ relationships, even vaguely. plus, i’m afraid that if i stray from the curriculum, there will be backlash. because the limited ela curriculum deters lgbtq+ inclusion, it perpetuates heteronormativity. overcoming those limitations is hard if teachers fear not being supported by the administration. as a result, students may believe lgbtq+ contributions to literature are not valuable, which further perpetuates heteronormativity. three participants also mentioned students’ lack of maturity as a factor. beth stated, “my freshmen this year are very immature. numerous times they’ve called a text ‘gay.’” expressing similar concerns about childish behavior, deb stated, i have a few students who lack the maturity to discuss serious class discussions. many times, i’ve tried to have discussions about marginalized groups, particularly lgbtq+, and they make jokes and comments under their breath. i have spoken to them and even made a discipline referral, only for the administration to send the students back to class without punishment. this type of behavior from students perpetuates the heteronormative school climate. when administrators do not reprimand students for inappropriate behavior, they send a message to the lgbtq+ students that they are not safe and that their mere existence is not valid. given these responses to the survey, i facilitated session 1 so the participants could share practical lessons. for example, jess stated, i did a unit on shakespeare’s sonnets. when discussing the poems’ subjects, i mentioned that some of them are young men and that whether these sonnets are platonic or romantic is debated. while reading, students discussed whether they thought it was a romantic poem and analyzed specific lines of the poems to support their point. jax also mentioned shakespeare, sharing, we had a fun unit writing love poems after romeo and juliet, and they could be from anyone to anyone. several students wrote lgbtq-themed poems, which opened up the discussion with characters from the play, and shared the great poems that were written. students seemed very receptive. additionally, beth helped students explore “gender roles and stereotypes in macbeth and present day.” likewise, riley decided to address heteronormative societal constructs while studying macbeth. she stated, lady macbeth is one of the few solid shakespearean characters we study, and i wanted to make a connection between how lady macbeth is viewed in the play and how lady macbeth would be viewed in today’s heteronormative society. we discussed traditional roles and stereotypes in our society and connected them to lady macbeth’s character. the kids enjoyed it, and it led the way for us to examine other female characters in our curriculum and compare them to heteronormative beliefs. in other words, teaching shakespeare was the most common way to incorporate lgbtq+ authors because most educators are familiar with him and his work. participants also shared other means, such as when casey described using clips from the television series what would you do? that included same-sex couples. jaime added, during women’s history month in march, i incorporated lgbtq history and famous individuals into my teaching because i noticed little diversity regarding lgbtq+ women in the curriculum. i have been trying to get my students to recognize that if they believe in gender equality, they need to be more inclusive and not only focus on people who were born female and identify as female. the students are very receptive and try to be more inclusive. the creative and effective lessons by my participants demonstrated how the professional development sessions from my dissertation helped alleviate the participants' discomfort with lgbtq+ inclusion. when i steered the group discussion to the second survey question about the extent to which the participants hesitated to incorporate lgbtq+ themes, authors, and texts, the most interesting perspectives on ineffective lessons came from the grade 9 teachers. reflecting on this trend, joe suggested the students’ immaturity prevented good discussions on lgbtq+ inclusion. deb agreed by sharing a specific example centered on romeo and juliet: we tried to explore why society/family/people in a position of authority exert control over “love” and define whether love can be controlled by its very nature. two out of three of my freshman classes were not emotionally mature enough to get beyond the intro of this lesson. riley responded similarly, “i did not read dante and aristotle—the freshman novel—this year, which specifically focuses on lgbtq+ relationships, because my students were not mature enough to handle it.” grade 9 teachers like jax and riley noted that anytime they mentioned anything to do with the lgbtq+ community, many of their students “giggled.” that kind of immaturity can make lgbtq+ students feel isolated and scared. ela teacher confidence in lgbtq+ pedagogy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 27 reflecting on these contributions to the heteronormative environment of lenape high school, casey stated, “it’s a shame because i feel that the more mature students are missing out on an important discussion, and the class as a whole is missing out on important teachable moments dealing with empathy, sympathy, and marginalization—not to mention how the students’ immature reactions make my lgbtq+ students feel.” i extended the discussion to the anti-lgbtq+ comments i heard in the hallway and my study hall, realizing the grade 9 students were the primary sources. from there, the participants asked, “how do we combat this type of negative behavior?” and “how do we make lgbtq+ students feel safe, seen, and important?” joe captured the group’s mindset by stating, “we must address those students and continue teaching lgbtq+ inclusion,” while adding, “although i am still hesitant to do that with their level of immaturity.” recognizing a link between such hesitation and the teachers’ confidence, i saw a crucial need for additional professional development to address the participants’ concerns. while the first session ended with the group feeling discouraged by our lack of ability to address immaturity and backlash, it did give me hope that my participants wanted to fight for lgbtq+ students. i vowed to raise their confidence in the second professional development session. session 2 to plan a session around scenarios that would give participants more confidence for addressing backlash effectively, i invited my colleagues to answer two additional open-ended survey questions. the first question probed the participants’ experiences with lgbtq+ inclusion, asking, “what issues have you encountered when attempting to incorporate lgbtq+ authors, themes, and literature? were they from students, parents, or administration?” the overwhelming response was that students and their parental guardians often perceive any mention of lgbtq+ content as a personal or political agenda in the classroom. indeed, most of the session 1 discussion centered on students’ immaturity. as one participant stated, sometimes, the students’ maturity levels hold them back from understanding the depth and importance of lgbtq+ texts. for example, i’ve done aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe with my frosh in the past. still, depending on the group of students, it can be difficult if they are too immature or unwilling to discuss these topics. recalling our discussion of educators’ lack of techniques to address this immature classroom behavior, i posed a second question to prepare for session 2, inviting participants to identify specific topics relating to the backlash i could address to help them feel more confident when dealing with it. three participants stated they would like a general overview of good ways to approach the situation when students, parents, or administrators pose a concern. two other participants expressed a desire to see “schools address and accept a more fluid definition of family” because “very few of our students are growing up in families that are considered the cultural ‘norm.’” the other three participants discussed the need for more training on handling backlash in the classroom. one stated, “i would like to see more instances of how to handle the backlash from parents and administration concerned about teaching materials. i would also like to learn how to approach the conversation and respond to the backlash appropriately.” the participants’ need for more help addressing backlash shaped my approach to the second session. by providing more knowledge and resources for combating backlash, i sought to increase their confidence. i began session 2 by acknowledging and thanking the participants for being excellent allies to not just me but also lenape’s lgbtq+ students and helping to combat heteronormativity. from there, i projected a google slides presentation and distributed the slides as handouts. the first section focused on a role-playing activity addressing anti-lbgtq+ comments in the classroom. deb volunteered as the teacher, while casey was the student making the homophobic comments. as the role-playing exercise began, deb introduced a new novel, and casey interrupted with a phrase that many participants mentioned hearing in their classroom or the hallway: “ugh, this book is so gay!” deb addressed casey’s comment by saying, “it’s not okay to use gay disrespectfully or to mean something is bad. it is incredibly offensive and can negatively impact anyone who hears this. this type of language will not be tolerated in this class.” i then recommended that deb talk to the student after class and modeled that conversation, focusing on what the student meant by that phrase. i also demonstrated how to fill out a discipline referral for such an incident so the student would understand their inappropriate behavior. after the role-playing session, the participants shared their reflections. jax discussed how she often heard derogatory phrases in her classroom and the hallway. she had addressed them in the past but admitted feeling “more confident in addressing my students with clear explanations as to why this language is offensive.” beth agreed, “having examples of what to say eases my anxiety about addressing these immature and hurtful comments.” the role-playing activity empowered the participants, giving them the tools and confidence to address such situations effectively. this discussion was a great segue to the next portion of the session that focused on addressing common myths. as educators, the participants have a crucial role in combating these myths. i chose myths that my participants may hear in the classroom and discussed how to respond. for example, jax had listened to the common argument that “no one is born gay.” sharing her struggle to tell students it is not the case, she said, “it’s hard for me to elaborate on why no one is born gay because i do not know the proper response or the credible information needed to discuss the ignorant phrase with my class.” in response, i cited the american psychological association’s (2024) stance: “the longstanding consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality per se is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation” (para. 1). from there, we discussed how to combat other myths, such as “gay people can choose to be straight” and “students are too young to know their sexual orientation or gender identity.” i referred my participants to informative websites such as glsen.org, which offers comprehensive information for cultivating an inclusive classroom, handling backlash, and addressing these and other myths about the lgbtq+ community. transitioning to the session's final part, i addressed administrators' backlash by recommending another website, learningforjustice.org. reminding participants that in 2020, new jersey governor phil murphy signed the new jersey state law bill a1335, which requires lgbtq+ individuals to be taught in all schools, i encouraged them to defend their inclusive lessons by telling administrators they are just following the state-mandated core mustaccio impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 28 curriculum content standards. i also mentioned the districtmandated professional improvement plan teachers complete at the end of each school year, which states that teachers will increase cultural competence to foster an inclusive curriculum and classroom. deb had been unaware of that particular goal and said, “i feel more comfortable addressing administration if i am talked to about my lgbtq+ inclusion. if i follow the district mandate, the administration cannot do anything about it.” jaime agreed, “this [strategy] helps me when assigning literature and projects on marginalized groups because if a parent, student, or administrator complains, i can refer back to bill a1335 and the district mandate.” another aspect of addressing backlash from the administration i discussed was presenting facts, such as offering evidence from a glsen report about how lgbtq+ inclusion will make our school safer and how we can be more of a “lenape family” when all are included. i also recommend providing examples of anti-lbgtq+ behavior we have observed in the hallway and our classrooms. by citing specific examples of homophobia and heteronormative behavior we, as teachers, see throughout the school, we can create positive change and help lgbtq+ students feel welcomed and safe. overall, the participants enjoyed the session, and as beth stated, this information has been beneficial because the language is clear and specific. it makes me feel more confident to be able to not only address anti-lgbtq+ situations in my classroom but also to address comments in the hallway and backlash from people regarding lgbtq+ inclusion. i invited the participants to answer one more open-ended survey to gather additional evidence of the session's impact. in response to the first question, “was the professional development session effective in helping you combat backlash? please explain your answer,” casey stated. i found it helpful that the presentation discusses how to address instances when students call something they do not like ‘gay,’ but they do not realize how hurtful this can be to members of the lgbtq community; unfortunately, this usually happens at least once a year, sometimes more. the advice on this topic will most likely prove useful. echoing casey’s description of the positive impact, jess answered, i think the specific examples of approaching certain situations were beneficial. we all want to be able to help or defend people in some way when they need it, but sometimes, we don’t know how to approach it. these ideas are helpful for when i find myself in a situation like this. on the role-playing topic, riley stated, “i feel it is a good foundation for helping teachers combat backlash.” a similar comment noted that i “provided rational responses to comments that could be made in the classroom.” pam shared, “i printed out the responses focusing on combating heteronormativity with students because this is so useful. i never knew exactly what to say before, and this was extremely helpful.” participants also responded positively to my efforts to help them address backlash from administrators, parents, or students. for example, one teacher wrote, it was beneficial to have concrete examples of what we can say to respond to backlash from parents or the community (or admin). i feel like we all get nervous when a student, parent, or community member brings up religion, and we certainly don’t want to offend their faith, but want to defend the right for all students to feel safe and to be free from discrimination and hate speech. another response stated, what i found most effective was the sample responses provided when facing backlash. i think one of the areas that teachers fear most is community pushback, which then results in pushback from admin. it was good to have examples of this and how we can respond to this backlash. overall, the professional development session received a positive evaluation. the participants’ responses showed that the specific examples increased their confidence. implications and next steps based on participants’ responses to the open-ended survey questions, the professional development sessions resulted in an overall increase in the teachers’ confidence regarding lgbtq+ inclusion and addressing backlash. the data from session 1 show their ability to incorporate lgbtq+ authors, themes, and texts, as well as their recognition of the current curriculum’s limitations. by sharing pedagogical insights with their colleagues, my participants demonstrated their understanding that lgbtq+ inclusion in an ela classroom is essential to create a welcoming and safe environment for all students. the data from the first session also alerted me to the participants’ hesitance to address backlash due to their low confidence, shaping my approach to session 2. according to the data from the second session, the participants became more confident in addressing backlash after role-playing exercises, discussing specific examples to combat myths, and envisioning how to defend their lgbtq+ inclusion to the administration. the participants were able to recognize how rampant homophobia and heteronormative beliefs are among their students and understand that being an ally and addressing comments and backlash make a safer and more respectful environment for lgbtq+ students. throughout this action research, i saw a need for additional professional development to address the broader problem of practice. for example, inviting administrators to engage in some of the activities from session 2 would be beneficial. even better, interacting and engaging with lgbtq+ staff and students in meaningful exercises and discussions on pertinent topics could go a long way toward combating heteronormativity and homophobia. addressing these concerns and the related backlash at the school and district level is critical for creating a safe, inclusive school environment. i could also design sessions with more concrete examples of backlash to model potential responses. participants might benefit from more focused, detailed language that they could modify to fit multiple situations. for example, a parent may object to a book with mostly lgbtq+ characters because their child feels excluded by this book, since they cannot see themselves in these characters. therefore, i could create a role-playing session with the ela staff to discuss different responses to help such parents understand why the book is in the curriculum. ultimately, ela teachers need to feel confident enough to address potential backlash because marginalized student groups, especially lgbtq+ students, need a safe school environment where they are able not only to learn without fear but also to see themselves reflected in the curriculum. if my colleagues and i apply ela teacher confidence in lgbtq+ pedagogy impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.578 29 what we discussed in the professional development sessions, we can continue to combat the homophobic and heteronormative culture at lenape high school. through even more education activism, i plan to continue to make lenape high school a safe place for all marginalized students and combat hate and discrimination throughout the building. references adelman, m., & woods, k. (2006). identification without intervention: transforming the anti-lgbtq school climate. journal of poverty, 10(2), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1300/j134v10n02_02 american psychological association. (2024). resolution on appropriate affirmative responses to sexual orientation distress and change efforts. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/sexual-orientation bandura, a., & wessels, s. (1997). self-efficacy. cambridge university press. brant, c. a. r., & willox, l. (2021). queering teacher education: teacher educators’ self-efficacy in addressing lgbtq issues. action in teacher education, 43(2), 128–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2020.1776176 dinkins, e. g., & englert, p. (2015). lgbtq literature in middle school classrooms: possibilities for challenging heteronormative environments. sex education, 15(4), 392–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1030012 glsen. (2023). school climate for lgbtq+ students in new jersey. 2021 national school climate survey state snapshot. https://maps.glsen.org/wpcontent/uploads/2023/02/glsen_2021_nscs_state_snapshots_nj.pdf mcgarry, r. a. (2013). educators as allies in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students and parents. in e. s. fisher & k. komosa-hawkins (eds.), creating safe and supportive learning environments: a guide for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth and families (pp. 230-242). routledge. merriam, s. b., & tisdell, e. j. (2016). qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). jossey-bass. mustaccio, n. (2023). supporting lgbtq+ ela students through action research [doctoral dissertation, university of south carolina]. scholar commons. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7336 national center for education statistics. (n.d.). district directory information (2023-2024 school year). https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?id2=3408490 payne, e. c., & smith, m. j. (2017). refusing relevance: school administrators resist offering professional development addressing lgbtq issues in schools. educational administration quarterly, 54(2), 183–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x17223426 saldaña, j. (2013). the coding manual for qualitative researchers (2nd ed.). sage publications. uta libraries. (2024, october 23). what is qualitative research? https://libguides.uta.edu/quantitative_and_qualitative_research/qual whitman, j. s. (2013). training school professionals to work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students and parents. in e. s. fisher & k. komosa-hawkins (eds.), creating safe and supportive learning environments: a guide for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth and families (pp. 123–139). routledge. yoo, j. h. (2016). the effect of professional development on teacher efficacy and teachers’ self-analysis of their efficacy change. journal of teacher education for sustainability, 18(1), 84–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes2016-0007 https://doi.org/10.1300/j134v10n02_02 https://www.apa.org/about/policy/sexual-orientation https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2020.1776176 https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2015.1030012 https://maps.glsen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/glsen_2021_nscs_state_snapshots_nj.pdf https://maps.glsen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/glsen_2021_nscs_state_snapshots_nj.pdf https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7336 https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?id2=3408490 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161x17223426 https://libguides.uta.edu/quantitative_and_qualitative_research/qual https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes-2016-0007 https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes-2016-0007 nicole mustaccio university of south carolina related research confidence professional development regarding lgbtq+ topics methods participants and setting data collection and analysis findings session 1 session 2 implications and next steps references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 16 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 “so, the world isn’t just old white guys?”: student and teacher experiences in a culturally relevant advanced placement chemistry class jason sox university of south carolina jasonsox@gmail.com abstract this action research case study investigates the integration a culturally and socially diverse curriculum in an advanced placement chemistry course. motivated by a recognition of limited multicultural teaching practices, four thematic units grounded in culturally relevant pedagogy and social reconstructionism were created and implemented. the use of surveys, reflection logs, observations, and focus group interviews provided data exploring both student and teacher experiences. findings revealed increased student engagement, deeper understanding of content, improved relationships among students, and meaningful personal connections to the curriculum. as the teacher-researcher, i also experienced enhanced student relationships, increased confidence, and greater awareness of cultural bias. these outcomes support the use of culturally relevant pedagogy and critically reflective practices to transform science education into a more inclusive and empowering experience. keywords culturally relevant pedagogy, action research, science education, student engagement, social reconstructionism for many years, i followed the same template for success, my belief of what a responsible science classroom should be. my highest priorities were strict alignment to state and district standards and facilitating a rich understanding of scientific principles and content. however, my focus on facts and subject matter inhibited my ability to create meaningful learning experiences for all students. although my approach laid the foundations for their content knowledge, it was not conducive to the sort of relevant experiences that can prepare the next generation for real-world complexities. in a world that is intricate and unique, my narrow, monochromatic perspective likely robbed students of opportunities to immerse themselves and explore the content in meaningful and relatable ways and excluded the diverse perspectives in my classroom. creating equitable learning opportunities to support students’ unique perspectives and experiences is crucial because u.s. classrooms have become increasingly diverse (national center for education statistics, 2019). learners are unique individuals with complex identities and histories (ginsberg & wlodkowski, 2019), so educators must commit to more culturally relevant practices and pedagogy, which can improve student motivation, academic success, and cultural competence (gay, 2002; ladson-billings, 1995a, 1995b). analyzing my past experiences as a white male educator and applying lessons from my ongoing study of eddactivism, i realized a need for a more inclusive and diverse advanced placement (ap) classroom. reflection grounded in the critical application of knowledge, theory, and research catalyzed my efforts to bridge the disconnect between students’ social identities and the lack of diversity in both my content and pedagogy. through action research, i hoped my students would be better equipped to frame and address problems in their daily lives. such a commitment prompted a reconstruction of my definition of success to extend beyond my previous benchmark of academic success and instead target the development of culturally and critically minded students. a commitment to culturally relevant teaching goes beyond making students feel good; rather, success comes when students choose to pursue academic excellence (ladson-billings, 1995a). my end-of-course averages and passing rate on the ap exam suggested my students were academically excellent, but i wondered how many of them made a conscious choice to pursue excellence. beyond preparation for a standardized test, my charge as a teacher should be to inspire students to think deeply on connections between their experiences and scientific knowledge. lessons that are critically and socially mindful of student perspectives create a classroom that embodies cultural competence and models an atmosphere of respect for the values and perspectives of others (ladson-billings, 2013). this article describes how i implemented such insights in my dissertation in practice (sox, 2023). research questions the university of south carolina’s commitment to edd-activism heavily influenced the design of my study and development of research questions. the program’s focus on critical reflection and creation of practice-based knowledge pushed me to rethink current practices and empowered me to implement more intentional and impactful changes for my students. my rich and transformative experiences studying social justice and activism supported the cyclical process of action and reflection, generating transformative insights throughout my study. additionally, ongoing discussions with https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2067-6446 sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 17 students in my classroom and fellow cohort members provided diverse perspectives, encouraging decisions rooted in evidence and empathy that aligned with my broader goals of educational transformation. my critical action research aimed to create a more inclusive, critically conscious classroom. i hoped to provide equitable learning opportunities for students and support diverse perspectives while sustaining high levels of rigor and academic success. my research also required me to challenge myself to be more reflective and critically conscious. intentionally pursuing cultural diversity while designing lessons, i sought to advance my own cultural awareness and empathy toward my students—vital attributes for teaching in diverse classrooms. i investigated the following research questions to improve not only my instructional pedagogy, but also to foster a supportive environment and culture that values the contributions of each individual student: 1. how do my students experience a more culturally and socially relevant science curriculum? 2. how does planning and implementing a culturally and socially relevant science curriculum impact my experiences as a teacher? immersing my students in culturally relevant and rich pedagogy could support their racial, ethnic, and gender identities, which, in turn, could promote the sense of belonging critical to academic success (brown, 2004). question 1 sought evidence of that anticipated outcome while documenting the extent to which my adapted classroom environment promoted students’ thinking critically about social justice and advocating for change in their everyday communities. while question 1 focused on the outward change in my classroom, question 2 focused on the internal change in me. addressing a complementary aspect of my multifaceted purpose, question 2 captured evidence of my self-reflection as i addressed existing biases that shaped my instruction and worked toward developing my cultural competence and cultural awareness. literature review culturally relevant pedagogy (crp) was an appropriate lens for my action research because it framed my efforts to connect the inner workings of my classroom and the academic success of my students with their culture and identity (gay, 2002, 2013, 2018; ladsonbillings, 1995a, 1995b). lessons grounded in crp prioritize representations of students’ individual culture, identity, and personal experience. teachers who regularly consider these factors enable students to engage in authentic learning as valued members of the classroom (howard, 1999; paris & alim, 2014, 2017). such lessons serve two simultaneous purposes. first, they invite meaningful engagement from students whom curriculum writers have traditionally ignored. when students feel connected to the content, educators can attend to their academic needs and propel them toward excellence (garcía & guerra, 2004; ladson billings, 1995b; robinson & biran, 2006). second, crp also broadens white students’ education, improving their ability to embrace diversity, respect cultural and racial differences, and advocate for social justice reform (pan, 2006). thus, crp promoted a more inclusive approach, seeking perspectives and contributions from all community members. in this way, my students could become aware of alternative viewpoints and begin to develop their cultural and critical consciousness. as crp stimulates students’ critical consciousness by prompting them to critically examine their beliefs, students may discover the need for social justice reform. outlining how students can apply their learning to that end, social reconstructionism is an ideology that focuses on repairing the status quo by addressing social questions and injustices. schiro (2013) described it as a drive for “the ‘masses of humanity’ to critically analyze themselves in relation to their society, understand the ills of their society, develop a vision of a better world based on a conception of social justice, and actualize that vision” (p. 151). education is the key to achieving this vision and action (i.e., change). acknowledging that society is inherently unhealthy, social reconstructionist educators view schools as a tool for solving social problems and advocate for studentcentered curriculum that facilitates critically examining world events and controversial issues. for example, opportunities for inquiry, dialogue, and sharing diverse perspectives allow students to consider real-world problems and develop new and better solutions (st. norbert college, 2015). like crp, a social reconstructionist approach was also appropriate for my action research because it offered a powerful pedagogical model. i wanted to shift my students and myself from the perspective of “knowledge as a product to knowing as a process” (jones & brader-araje, 2002, p. 7). through critical action research framed by principles of crp and social reconstructionism, i sought to understand how my students and i experienced a transformed chemistry curriculum. crp served as the focal lens in the design of my instructional units and guided adaptations to my teaching methods to align with the goals of this study. social reconstructionism provided the model for reform and inspiration for change that i sought for my students and myself. thus, both lenses played important and complementary roles in this study. expanding on the nature of crp, gay (2002) advocated for specific and targeted methods of culturally responsive teaching. these techniques equip teachers to build better relationships, which supports students as they construct “a better understanding of themselves, others, and society” (cullen, 2014, p. 25). culturally responsive educators initiate positive changes on multiple levels, including instructional techniques, instructional materials, student– teacher relationships, classroom climate, and self-awareness (gay, 2018). aligned with crp, culturally responsive teaching allows students to think critically about the inequities in their own experiences and those of their peers. just as i explored the roots of my framework, i also reviewed historical perspectives to improve my understanding of the barriers marginalized students face. researching the underpinnings of topics like racism, inequity, and underrepresentation in education proved valuable for my critical action research study. suppressing students’ culture robs them of learning in schools where the content, instruction, and climate are exclusive in nature and serve as impediments for success (ladson-billings, 1995b). thus, a more inclusive science curriculum in concert with culturally relevant teaching can decrease the achievement gap by promoting marginalized students’ success. ford (2015) suggested closing the achievement gap would require african american students to have equal footing and representation in gifted and accelerated programs. access to programs such as my ap course can lead to greater achievement and improved motivation for african american students, promoting a positive growth mindset (hanson et al., 2016). these goals align with the goals of this study as a curriculum grounded in culturally relevant ap chemistry class impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 18 crp embraces a multicultural approach that seeks to engage and support students of color. a common misconception is that scientific knowledge is valuefree, and by extension, science education should also avoid any subjective biases and values, thus being completely objective (sutrop, 2015). in reality, all scientific knowledge is socially constructed (fuller, 1997), and thus marked by “the interest, motivations and aspirations both of the scientists that carry out such work and those who fund them” (reiss, 2003, p. 3). therefore, educators and students should examine incoming information for embedded political and social influences—a first step in addressing social justice in science education. social justice is both a goal and a process, aiming for “full and equal participation for all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs” (bell, 1997, p. 3), while remaining “inclusive and affirming of human agency and human capacities for working collaboratively to create change” (p. 4). an increasingly diverse science classroom requires opportunities for students not only to access knowledge, but also to question, challenge, and reconstruct that knowledge in a way that leads to new understanding. as moje (2007) argued, classrooms seeking equity must “offer possibilities for transformation, not only of the learner but also of the social and political contexts in which learning and other social action take place” (p. 4). students must be aware that their actions not only directly impact themselves and their peers but also can have long-lasting repercussions on others outside of their immediate sphere. taking up a topic of social justice in the science classroom can lead to explorations of social equity as students recognize their social influence on others and implications for taking action. methods consistent with my problem of practice and aligned with crp and social reconstruction, critical action research was an appropriate design for this study. action research is a systematic, reflective approach to addressing areas of need within researchers’ respective domains (hine, 2013). for teachers, action research challenges their assumptions and classroom practices and incorporates components necessary for change: research, action, and reflection (merriam & tisdell, 2016). critical action research in the classroom is characterized by continual reform in hopes of a new kind of school and a new society (carson, 1990). due to the critical nature of my research, an authentic portrayal of participants’ experiences was especially important (patton, 2015). thus, i collected several qualitative data sources, inviting participants to express their feelings, concerns, and ideas related to their experiences with my curriculum. surveys, classroom observations, reflection logs, and a focus group were appropriate tools for describing and understanding my students’ experiences, as well as my own (merriam & tisdell, 2016), aligned with my research questions. collectively, these data sources supported the study’s validity by spanning a spectrum of assignments and, through triangulation, lending trustworthiness to my findings (merriam & tisdell, 2016; patton, 2015). table 1 illustrates my intervention plan and general timeline of four thematic units designed to address the lack of cultural, social, and personal relevance in my ap chemistry course. table 1. intervention plan unit topic data source(s) pre-intervention pre survey 1 leaders in stem observations, reflection logs 2 flint water crisis observations, reflection logs 3 getting electrons excited observations, reflection logs 4 material science observations, reflection logs post-intervention post survey, focus group unit 1, leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem), began with an exploration of the history of the atom and highlighted several important discoveries that led to the currently accepted model of the atom. critical reflection with students identified that only white, male, european scientists were celebrated, which contrasted with the diversity of students enrolled in my classes. in response, i tasked students with identifying an individual from a traditionally underrepresented group within a stem field and learning more about their significant contributions. students concluded the assignment with presentations of their chosen individual to the class, which included a review of personal details, notable accomplishments, and why the student admired or respected their chosen individual. unit 2 focused on solution-based chemistry, so the water crisis in flint, michigan served as a relevant and real-world application of solution chemistry and provided a platform to discuss both social and environmental justice. students oscillated between an in-depth analysis of the crisis, including personal testimonies and interviews of local citizens, with a broad exploration toward engineering a solution to the problem. students used their knowledge of single replacement relations and selective precipitation to design experiments for removing dissolved lead ions from samples of water. after conducting their experimental procedures and discussing the validity of their designs as real-world solutions, students concluded the unit by discussing whether a similar water crisis could occur in their local community. by considering their own experiences, students could make a personal connection to the people of flint and compare the inequities in their own lives and surrounding communities to those of the largely marginalized population in flint. unit 3 coincided with instruction regarding the significance of electrons, their roles relating to chemical reactions and phenomena, their configuration within the electron cloud, and creation of light emissions. the history, use, and design of fireworks was the underlying theme for this unit, providing real-world applications of the concepts discussed in class. most students could personally relate, having used fireworks to celebrate many national holidays, and the topic also provided opportunities to explore diverse cultural groups. students investigated this relationship in greater detail through several laboratory investigations while also considering the personal and cultural connections that fireworks have in celebratory holidays. students supported these endeavors by investigating chinese culture and the chinese new year, as well as how citizens in less developed countries use alternatives to fireworks to celebrate significant cultural holidays. sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 19 unit 4 aligned with the study of intermolecular forces and their influence on the physical properties of materials. creating memorable laboratory experiences was a goal throughout this unit, allowing students unique ways to connect with the content. these activities included studying water-locking compounds and nonnewtonian fluids, tie-dying shirts, and making homemade peanut brittle. to reinforce personal connections with the content, students investigated unique materials in stem-related fields relevant to intended career options after high school or a particular hobby or activity they enjoyed. students concluded this unit with presentations featuring their chosen material and discussed connections between molecular design and intermolecular influences on its physical properties and practical applications. pre–post surveys assessed students’ opinions in response to the new teaching methods and curriculum materials. given my goal to measure the culturally and socially relevant curriculum’s impact on student experiences, the surveys allowed me to evaluate changes in students’ thoughts, opinions, and experiences. students received the pre-intervention survey before the start of unit 1, targeting demographic information and establishing a baseline for comparing student experiences in their previous science classes to the curriculum i implemented. the post-intervention survey consisted of similar questions and prompts, enabling me to detect and evaluate changes in student experiences as a result of experiencing the modified curriculum. several additional questions allowed participants to consider the effectiveness of the modified curriculum and share their thoughts on how the lessons and activities in each unit could better suit the needs and interests of diverse student populations. findings each data collection tool yielded a plethora of data, leading to important discoveries throughout the intervention. i identified several recurring and relevant themes pertaining to my two research questions. this section aligns with those questions by describing the students’ experiences before elaborating on the intervention’s impact on me. finding related to student experiences first, my modified curriculum surfaced participants’ belief that teachers and students should consider cultural differences in their day-to-day interactions. participants indicated they expect teachers to consider their perspectives and find meaningful ways to make the content relevant, regardless of cultural differences. participants acknowledged that feelings of acceptance and belonging were critical to their academic success in the classroom and shared the expectation that teachers consider and embrace the cultural and personal differences of each single student in their classrooms. these findings suggest that when teachers adopt inclusive mindsets, they establish safe, supportive classrooms where students can thrive and further develop their cultural competencies. second, the modified curriculum supported students’ understanding of chemistry content. this finding was particularly important to me because i feared students would perceive the change in pedagogy as a disruption of their normal learning practices. throughout the intervention period, students continued to score high marks on academic assessments while also noting activities were “fun.” after our study of the flint water crisis, one student stated, “i think that learning about the water crisis and experimenting on possible solutions was really interesting. i like that we connected chemistry to real life because i never really did that in my last chemistry class.” at the conclusion of each unit, participants had opportunities to discuss both the positive and negative aspects. while not every single activity and lesson was completely successful, none of the participants indicated their instruction suffered due to the modified curriculum. considering the advanced level of the course and typical academic mindset of students in my community, i believe this outcome is a significant achievement. it provides further evidence of the value of crp and my ability to infuse the academic curriculum with meaningful experiences for students of diverse backgrounds. third, i discovered students were engaged during culturally and socially relevant lessons. evidence of engagement was consistent in participant reflection logs and observation notes throughout the intervention. students described lessons as fun, interactive, interesting, and relevant. in addition to being engaged during classroom activities, participants indicated the socially and culturally relevant themes resonated both in classroom discourse before activities and at the conclusion where many students took the opportunity to share what they had learned with one another. one student noted, “i really like the articles that you gave us because it allowed us to first [consider] how we would perceive it, and then it would give the perspective of someone else and how it affected them in their situations.” the intentional use of chemistry related articles, think-pair-share discussions, laboratory investigations, and student presentations supported a more engaging classroom environment and laid a foundation for future learning. a fourth discovery centered on improved student relationships with one another. students shared instances when peers embraced their individual cultures, resulting in their improved comfort and sense of belonging in the classroom. for example, during the focus group, a student commented, “when i shared my traditions, [classmates] were genuinely interested and willing to learn, not disrespectful even with their differences of culture.” improved relationships among students also proved to be an asset during laboratory investigations as students supported one another’s ideas in critical settings. as the complex nature of many ap chemistry investigations required students to brainstorm and share ideas, the success of shared dialogue and improved communication during these activities can be attributed to improved equity and unity of culturally relevant classrooms. findings related to researcher experiences reflecting on question 2 regarding my experiences while designing and implementing a modified curriculum encouraged me to consider my own beliefs and their influence on my teaching practice. just as open and supportive relationships were essential to student experiences, meaningful relationships with students were important to my own experience. a deviation from my traditional and comfortable pedagogy elicited feelings of nervousness, yet the trusting and open-ended conversations i had with my students throughout the intervention empowered and encouraged me to keep going even when things did not go exactly as planned. despite my insecurities, participants eagerly engaged in activities and regularly asked how the study was progressing, even inquiring about what i was learning. i do not believe i would have been as motivated or successful if participants had not been genuinely interested in the outcomes of my research. culturally relevant ap chemistry class impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 20 another discovery related to my own experiences is the implementation of the modified curriculum became easier over time. as i became acquainted with crp and implemented multiple critically mindful lessons, i became more confident and more importantly, more flexible. flexibility was central to my instructional design because i could not predict exactly which topics and events would be meaningful. this discovery was important for me—and likely for other teachers—as it demonstrates perfection is not required for improvement. i believe i succeeded in my goal to improve my pedagogy through strategic lesson planning, openminded reflection, and trial-and-error implementation. congruent with reflective practices conducive to edd-activism, each activity yielded new knowledge and experience, which informed my design and execution of the next activity. in this way, i grew as an educator and my ability to facilitate critically mindful lessons continued to improve. a final discovery of implementing the modified curriculum resulted in an increased awareness of cultural biases in my own instruction. this discovery emerged from analysis of my teacher reflection logs. at the completion of each unit, i challenged myself to consider how my positionality and biases influenced my instructional design and interpretations. during unit 1, i noted the strong relationships female participants formed when researching and presenting on underrepresented scientists as “not something that i expected to come out of this unit of study.” as a white man, i had not considered the importance of empowering my female students and thus revealed a blind spot in the design of my research study. even with this deficiency, this study’s critical approach yielded meaningful findings, particularly in recognizing the need for greater diversity in science curriculum and instruction. this outcome aligns with the central ideas of edd-activism, which emphasizes critical reflection on one’s positionality and biases to create a more inclusive and transformative educational experience. in this way, i continue to learn from my students and improve as a critically mindful educator. recommendations for practice action research provides a unique framework and lens, fostering collaborative and systemic inquiry rooted in the lived experiences of practitioners that can create meaningful, contextspecific reforms with the potential for larger organizational reform (herr & anderson, 2005). when teachers critically assess their own practices and share their findings, they not only enhance the individual classroom environments but also contribute to the development of more inclusive, responsive, and effective educational systems (cochran-smith & lytle, 2009). in alignment with the reflective nature of action research, sharing my recommendations for future practitioners can continue the cycle of improvement to create more dynamic, adaptive, and inclusive learning environments that meet the needs of all students. as my problem of practice centered on my experiences while implementing my modified curriculum, my recommendations for practice center on the use of more culturally relevant teaching practices in science. first, practitioners should consider problem-solving approaches while implementing culturally relevant lessons. a problem-based approach enables students to investigate real, open-ended problems; formulate questions; and develop solutions to authentic challenging situations (allen et al., 2011; torp & sage, 2002). inviting students to solve meaningful problems supports critical thinking and student engagement, both necessary for challenging injustice and inequity (ladson-billings, 2001). second, i recommend normalizing the use of student presentations. when designing my modified curriculum, i was unsure if the time dedicated for presentations would be valuable; however, my observations and students’ responses suggested incorporating presentations might be the most worthwhile change i implemented. students emphasized that freedom and choice regarding the topic and design of their presentations afforded them the opportunity to self-reflect and include personally meaningful features. in this way, assignments become more relevant, useful, and engaging. third, i recommend expanding my use of culturally relevant lessons by integrating a steam-centered design that features multilayered thinking, combining the best of arts and technical elements. when used intentionally, art can anchor students in the design process, promoting a more holistic and valuable approach to learning (gess, 2017). research further suggests a steam framework and design supports deeper critical thinking and opportunities to explore personally relevant connections among materials, design, society, and the environment (perignat & katzbuonincontro, 2019; sochacka & walther, 2016). such diverse instructional strategies could strengthen personal and cultural connections in science disciplines. my final recommendation is for curriculum designers and district leaders responsible for approving curriculum. the value-added nature of crp leverages students’ strengths to make learning more relevant and effective, working to reverse patterns of underachievement for students of color (gay, 2013; ladson-billings, 1995a, 1995b, 2001). supporting the adoption of culturally responsive teaching is a major investment and a foundational step that district and state leaders can take to bolster teacher preparation and development. not only would such efforts provide teachers with guidance on the necessary skills and mindsets to be culturally responsive in their careers, they would also affirm teachers’ choosing to adopt culturally responsive teaching practices in their classrooms. implementation plan consistent with the principles of action research (merriam & tisdell, 2016), the knowledge i gained through this study informs my ongoing efforts to develop more culturally and socially relevant ap chemistry curriculum. the iterative process of action research, encouraging reflection and adaptation, continues to reshape my approach. leaning into the transformative experience, i plan to extend this work to a modified ap physics curriculum, where i have encountered similar culture-neutral challenges. despite the field’s technical focus and reliance on mathematical calculations, the action research process and culturally responsive lens has equipped me to bring responsive practices and instructional reforms into this class and enhance students’ engagement with rigorous science curriculum. by modeling culturally responsive teaching within a technical discipline, i hope to advocate for more systemic changes within my school and district, aligning with the broader goals of equity and social justice in education (ladson-billings, 2014). a critical aspect of my implementation plan relies on action research as a guide for ongoing modification of my curriculum. my curriculum design is structured around four strategic elements: cultural connections, personal connections, social justice connections, and content connections. these pillars guide both the overall unit design and the specific lessons within each unit. while my initial approach sought to incorporate all four elements in every lesson, i soon realized that achieving this balance in every instance sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.586 21 may not always be possible or necessary. the action research process helped me understand that these themes need not be present simultaneously, provided i address them throughout the course. repeated exposure to these elements can foster students’ deeper understanding of how cultural relevance, social justice, and content knowledge intersect. with repetition and adjustments, i believe students will gain a more robust understanding of the curriculum, and this ongoing process of reflection and change will help create a more inclusive and responsive learning environment. furthermore, this model has the potential to drive not only classroom transformation but also contribute to broader systemic shifts in how we approach education at the institutional level. recommendations for future research additional research is needed to understand how students and teachers experience culturally mindful curriculum. more generalizable research could advance our understanding of this phenomenon. for example, given the flexibility of crp and culturally sustaining pedagogy for use in any domain, extending the approach i used in my study could be beneficial and elicit new discoveries in other locations, schools, grade levels, and subjects, supporting the work of the next generation of teachers. the benefits of more culturally relevant classrooms are not limited to science classrooms. in fact, participant responses suggest interdisciplinary aspects enhanced their ability to form real-world connections. every content area has something unique to offer in terms of incorporating diverse cultures. in addition to illuminating student and teacher experiences in other disciplines, enlisting a wider range of students would surface greater insight into multicultural instruction. further, if every course in a student’s schedule exhibited culturally relevant teaching, exploring whether student experiences shifted due to it being a more normative learning approach would be interesting. either way, such studies could improve teachers’ ability to craft lessons appropriate for diverse audiences and build upon the strengths of multiple perspectives. references allen, d. e., donham, r. s., & bernhardt, s. a. 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(2006). discovering self: relationships between african identity and academic achievement. journal of black studies, 37, 46–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934704273149 schiro, m. (2013). curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns. sage publications. sochacka, k. w., & walther, j. (2016). learning together: a collaborative autoethnographic exploration of steam (stem + the arts) education. journal of engineering education, 105(1), 15–42. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20112 sox, j. t. (2023). “so, the world isn’t just old white guys?”: student and teacher experiences in a culturally relevant advanced placement chemistry class. (publication no. 7315) [doctoral dissertation, university of south carolina]. scholar commons. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7315 st. norbert college. (2015, april 27). bell hooks and gloria steinem dialogue at st. norbert college [video]. youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0et2mdonfwg&t=3192s sutrop, m. (2015). can values be taught? the myth of value-free education. trames, 19(2), 189–202. https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2015.2.06 torp, l., & sage, s. (2002). problems as possibilities problem-based learning for k–12 education (2nd ed.). ascd. zeldin, a. l., & pajares, f. (2000). against the odds: self-efficacy beliefs of women in mathematical, scientific, and technological careers. american educational research journal, 37(1), 215–246. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312037001215 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934704273149 https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20112 https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7315 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0et2mdonfwg&t=3192s https://doi.org/10.3176/tr.2015.2.06 https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312037001215 jason sox university of south carolina research questions literature review methods findings finding related to student experiences findings related to researcher experiences recommendations for practice implementation plan recommendations for future research references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 58 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 past, present, and future as a social studies educator activist jessica morey university of south carolina jemorey@email.sc.edu abstract social studies classrooms can serve as sites of educator activism. this reflective article traces one educator’s formation as an educator-activist and links biography to classroom practice and program design. an early love of history—nurtured by wide reading and influential secondary teachers of u.s. history and english—anchored a commitment to social studies. university experiences, including witnessing september 11, 2001 in new york city, further oriented the author toward civic engagement and positioned social studies teaching as a venue for activism. the article outlines practices intended to cultivate students’ critical thinking and political efficacy. it concludes with lessons from edd coursework and an action research study on teacher financial capability conducted while preparing to implement a required personal finance course for graduation. together, these reflections show how personal experience, professional learning, and inquiry can shape activist praxis and inform teacher education. keywords social studies education, educator activism, practitioner reflection, critical thinking, action research i pursued a doctorate in education (edd) for increased opportunities to serve in leadership positions supporting teacher professional development (pd). this goal stems from my passion for lifelong learning, which has led me to attend history, government, and economic-related workshops and seminars throughout my career. at a week-long seminar in 2021, i met a graduate of the university of south carolina edd program who credited the degree for such opportunities to serve as a teacher leader. after exploring the website, i followed up with him to inquire more about his experience. he described the nature of the program and how the courses support students’ action research. the idea of completing a dissertation in practice by identifying a problem of practice and developing and implementing a solution was attractive to me because i could maintain my fulfilling career while engaging in purposeful growth. this article reflects on my journey as a social studies teacher and how the iterative reflection that is such a strong component of the edd journey has helped me recognize the significance of teachers and experiences that influenced my path, what i have gained through my edd coursework, and, briefly, how i foresee my role as an educator activist in the future. lessons learned on the path to becoming a social studies educator i was drawn to social studies because of an early passion for history. this inclination emerged when i was a young student reading historical fiction. the first books i truly loved were caddie woodlawn (brink, 1935) and the little house series that began with little house in the big woods (wilder, 1932). these stories of young girls growing up as tomboys and pioneers in the late 19th century brought the past to life for me. later, i read the american girls series of books set in places like colonial virginia, the gilded age, and america amid world war ii. i loved the section at the end of these books that explained the historical context—illustrating the past through letters, posters, maps, material items, or photographs, and thereby opening my eyes at an early age to the types of primary and secondary sources historians use. recognizing the significance of primary resources, including material culture, and the power of places throughout history, has had an extraordinary impact on my life. i have sought any opportunity to visit museums or historical sites to further my understanding of the past, including through participation in summer pd. for example, i have walked across selma’s edmund pettus bridge where martin luther king, jr., john lewis, and others marched for voting rights in 1963, and have heard opinions announced in the supreme court of the united states twice. critical reflection as part of my edd experience has illuminated how pedagogical and curriculum choices that my teachers made while i was in elementary and secondary school in ohio strengthened my enthusiasm for research and inquiry and furthered my desire to become a social studies educator. for example, i recall having my first research opportunity in fifth grade. i had just transitioned into a new class, and i remember spending recesses inside with my teacher, who helped me to catch up. i investigated the great depression and synthesized what i learned through the creation of a collage, my first academic poster. the next teacher who left a major imprint was an american history teacher i had in eighth grade, mr. mack, who demonstrated the power of storytelling as a pedagogical tool. as sanchez and mills (2005) wrote, “storytelling makes the content of american history more meaningful and interesting; and it offers students profound insights into the nature and challenges of life in the past” (p. 274). mr. mack brought the stories of history to life by telling them in a performative manner, often using props. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9874-6258 morey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 59 a final teacher who impacted the course of my life’s work was my 11th-grade advanced placement united states history (apush) teacher, mr. pana. the first lesson i gleaned in his class was that challenging students and setting high expectations was ok. because of the vast timespan the apush course covers, students were expected to prepare over the summer by reading and outlining the first six chapters of the text. this task helped me realize that i was accountable for my own learning, a life lesson i try to instill in my own students. the second lesson i took from mr. pana was about the interpretative nature of history. while mr. mack told us stories that brought history to life, mr. pana demonstrated what adichie (2009) later described so eloquently as “the danger of a single story” by assigning a people’s history of the united states (zinn, 1995) alongside our traditional textbook, the american pageant (bailey & kennedy, 1991). although i did not realize it at the time, mr. pana was modeling educator activism, as a teacher driving us to consider ideas of social justice. to wergin (2011), “one of the most important roles of an expert educator is to disrupt, to challenge [and] to disorient” (p. 126). mr. pana disrupted the traditional u.s. history narrative of continual progress by exposing us to the history of the marginalized or oppressed and letting us come to our own conclusions. this practice is akin to what freire (2005) referred to as problem-posing education, where people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation. (p. 83) besides reading zinn, mr. pana also showed our class eyes on the prize (hampton, 1987–1990), a documentary series that profiled the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1965. in particular, the story of 14-year-old emmitt till’s 1955 murder in mississippi for challenging jim crow norms left an indelible mark. learning that till’s murderers were not held accountable helped me to understand that our justice system is not always just. upon reflection, mr. pana’s pedagogy taught what newman (2006) called defiance, as apush helped us to “become truly conscious” and to consider morality “in the face of the evident amorality of our universe” (p. 10). in addition to having model elementary and social studies educators, i also had english teachers in high school who emphasized books about the african american experience that further complemented what i was learning about the nation’s past. i recall reading ralph ellison, maya angelou, and toni morrison. teaching in florida for the past 20 years, i appreciate the privilege of engaging with multiple perspectives at a young age. when i taught african american history, i frequently experienced the sentiment that much of what i had learned in school about african americans and other marginalized communities had not been taught to them. i grew up in a suburb of cleveland, ohio, prior to teaching in a southern state, which may explain the difference, or perhaps older generations of social studies teachers never learned certain history and therefore did not teach it. while reading first stoked my desire to learn, learning more has also forced me to question the stories i once loved. for example, at a recent national council for social studies conference, one of the keynote speakers referenced the little house series and how her family even took a vacation to visit the sites in the books, which illuminated how the work ethic and pioneer spirit celebrated in the series cost of many native americans’ homes and lives (chugh, 2023). both brink (1935) and wilder (1932) have been scrutinized for their portrayal of indigenous peoples. as i continue to develop my critical stance as an educator, i continue to revisit and reflect upon what i have learned—or mislearned—in the past. considering social studies teaching as a site of educator activism i finished my bachelor’s degree in 2002 with a double major in social studies education and politics. three core experiences in college reinforced the significance of social studies education as a component of creating a more equitable world. the first was reading gourevitch’s (1998) account of the rwandan genocide in a writing seminar. while the book opened my eyes to the impact of colonialism in africa, it also made me ashamed that i had not realized the genocide was happening. i know i cannot teach my students everything, yet that book impressed upon me the importance of connecting to current events in social studies. another core experience was a course on the historical roots of africa’s contemporary crises. this concept of looking to the past to understand the problems of the present is vital not just for africa. in my edd coursework, while reading about critical race theory (crt), i loved and we are not saved (bell, 1989), which examined the roots of racial injustice in the united states by highlighting pivotal moments when an alternate decision might have been made. the third core experience was that i was living in new york city on september 11, 2001. observing the aftermath made me recognize that teaching the event would require looking back at the history that led to such an act of terrorism. for a politics course, i had read huntington’s (1998) the clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, which argues that a western position of global hegemony could alienate disempowered and unemployed youth to the point of joining violent causes. altogether, these core university experiences made me recognize that as a social studies educator, i should encourage students to connect the past and present, develop skills to think critically and consider multiple perspectives, and keep abreast of current events. upon moving from ohio to florida in 2003, i struggled to obtain a full-time social studies position. i spent my initial year teaching middle school drop-out prevention courses in biology, english, and geography, followed by 3 years at a charter high school teaching reading and math. the first-year experience might have gotten my feet wet as an educator-activist, as i could not stand that 11–12year-olds were publicly labeled as potential dropouts. sensing the blow to their self-esteem, i was concerned, like senge et al. (2012), that labels “may quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies” (p. 48). this labeling, based on test scores, predicted a student’s inability to pass state testing and was a new concept to me. i challenged the use of this labeling in middle school team meetings. following my first 4 years teaching out of my content area, i transitioned into work as a full-time graduate student studying history until an opportunity to teach social studies at a high school became available. through reflection, i can see that i have always viewed teaching social studies as an opportunity to try to teach for social justice, what pitts (2020) described as “teaching as a vehicle for care or teaching in ways that will lead to change” (para. 20). in the following sections, i explore the various subjects i have had the pleasure to teach and how this teaching can raise students’ awareness of contemporary problems and their power to create change. social studies educator activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 60 government i have taught all levels of american government in florida: regular, honors, and ap. to provide students with knowledge and tools to increase their political efficacy, or the belief that their actions can impact policymakers, i teach about our political institutions, how they work, and how policymakers are connected to the people via elections, interest groups, the media, and political parties. in addition, i seek to show students that many politicians at the local, state, and federal levels are just ordinary people with occasionally nontraditional paths to political power. this practice was especially easy during the years when a former large-animal veterinarian represented our congressional district. i always try to tie in current events and local issues in my curriculum. for example, my students maintain a monthly current event log where they summarize articles and reflect on the topics. reading current events can be a form of teaching for activism, as students can apply critical lenses and consider whose stories are being told and why (pitts, 2020). when covering local government, i use education as an example of federalism and to discuss equity. federalism relates to the division of power between the national government and the states, and states have reserved powers over public education. this concept is easy for students to understand as i ask them if they have lived in other states and then ask them to describe what differences in curriculum they can note. the best example i have received was from a student who had lived in hawaii, where they learned to play the ukulele! when discussing equity in education, it is partly a debate over whether education is a right. my students can see how equitable education for all is difficult when classrooms are filled with unique students taught by a unique teacher. we analyze data from across our county schools to evaluate issues schools face regarding performance, school grades, teacher quality, and the impact of state support for school vouchers to attend private schools. always, i am weaving in examples and allowing students to share their own. one i share is that while traveling to a conference with a fellow district teacher, i learned he was sending his only son to a private school because his zoned elementary was facing a dearth of teachers. i want students in my government classes to see that the decisions made by our school board, city and county government, state government, congress, and the supreme court all have a bearing on their lives and freedoms. i strive to teach them to follow current events so they can know what is happening and take action to change the outcomes if they do not like where decisions are headed. there is nothing more rewarding to me than when i hear from students who are applying to intern with the state legislature, working with a member of congress in dc, holding political signs at the local library, running for school board, or even just letting me know they voted for the first time. these students demonstrate that my classes may have been effective in helping them become agents of change. united states history the initial assignment in my apush course is for students to read the first chapters of two texts with very different interpretations of christopher columbus: a patriot’s history (schweikart & allen, 2007) and a people’s history (zinn, 1995). the assignment, which reflects my own apush experience, starts the course with an opportunity to teach the concept of historiography, or the writing of history, and to show them that all history is an interpretation. in a great article on teaching historiography to high school students, hoefferle (2007) asserted: one reason for teaching historiography is that it is fundamental to understanding history and the historical profession. we do our students a disservice if we represent history as a noncontroversial presentation of ‘the facts.’ we all know that historians disagree and there are multiple versions of the past ‘as it really was.’ our students need to know this too if they are to understand our profession. historiography not only enlightens students as to the inside story of the historical profession, but it also makes history more alive and interesting to them. it helps them to understand that everything is not already known and agreed upon, that there is a place for them in the profession, that in the future they can contribute to the ongoing historical debates about the past. this takes them away from being simply passive receivers of the truth, to active pursuers of the truth. as educational researchers have emphasized in recent years, active learners are better learners and enjoy their education much more than passive learners. (p. 41) according to hoefferle, many historians believe students are incapable of understanding historiography until the graduate level. indeed, i first encountered the term as a graduate student in history, but i realize, looking back, that my high school teacher was exposing us to the concept in apush, where we read the american pageant (bailey & kennedy, 1991), a more conservative text, alongside zinn (1995). bailey (1997) described zinn as the “rare exception” covering “the american panorama from the perspective of the underside” (p. 134). i admire that my high school history teacher was exposing us to history from below, which has made me a better teacher, learner, and pursuer of truth. reading zinn against a typical u.s. history textbook taught me to always consider multiple points of view and historians’ agendas—and to wish the same for my students. the lessons on historical interpretation and its power continue through my history curriculum. i am pleased that the college board caught up with the idea when they redesigned the course in 2014. the new exam includes a short answer question that tasks students with reading two different historians’ interpretations of an era or event and describing evidence that supports each interpretation. however, this change was controversial in the context of the education culture wars, alongside debates over the common core and crt. in one of the most remarkable criticisms of the framework, neurosurgeon and then-presidential candidate ben carson stated, “most people when they finish that course, they’d be ready to sign up for isis” (strauss, 2014, para. 1). educators must be aware of and able to defend their curriculum against such criticisms. the final area where i have tried to be an activist while teaching history is teaching african american history. i have worked to continue to learn about the experiences of african americans to be a better teacher. after learning about the civil rights movement in apush, i took a civil rights course through dual enrollment. in college, i had the opportunity to visit senegal and goree island. at goree, the site of a former slave factory, there is one of africa’s several doors of no return, where one can imagine enslaved peoples would have experienced their last glimpse of africa. in graduate school, i studied african history with a minor in early american history and read a range of excellent scholarship on the role of africans and african americans in the colonial period, including how slavery commodified the enslaved (smallwood, 2007) and the ways laws were shaped to marginalize those of african descent and to codify slavery (brown, 1996). when our district decided to offer african american history, i quickly volunteered, even though i believe morey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 61 the course to be superfluous if we take an inclusive approach to u.s. history. when the college board announced ap african american studies, i went through the application process and secured administrative support to pilot the course. our school had been approved to pilot the course, but within weeks of that announcement, florida announced its ban on the course (mazzei & hartocollis, 2023). this decision was part and parcel of florida’s ongoing attacks against the 1619 project; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and crt, which is not even taught in our high schools (morey, 2021). these attacks on our curriculum and teaching practices were accompanied by a parental rights bill and book bans. such statutory changes and the related media coverage instilled fear in many teachers. for example, one history teacher in my school considered removing a slide about buffalo soldiers, late 19th-century african american regiments in the united states army, from a presentation, afraid it might be classified as crt. i have tried to explain the statutory language to combat this chilling effect. as the national education association (2023) advised: despite the rhetoric around them, these proposed or enacted laws do not prohibit teaching the full sweep of u.s. history, including teaching about nearly 250 years of slavery, the civil war, the reconstruction period, or the violent white supremacy that brought reconstruction to an end and has persisted in one or another form ever since. nor should these laws and policies undermine efforts to ensure that all students benefit from curriculum that teaches the truth about our country and prepares students to meet the demands of a changing and increasingly globalized world. (para. 2) teaching u.s. history from multiple perspectives and encouraging others to maintain fidelity in their history classrooms has helped me to identify as an educator activist. there are opportunities for educators who want to learn more about our nation’s history to deepen their understanding and their students’ understanding. for example, i spent 3 weeks in 2018 with other educators in a national endowment for the humanities seminar entitled stony the road, which focused on alabama’s civil rights history. in 2023, i participated in another seminar on slavery in the north, and yet another in 2024, on the gullah geechee people and their contributions and struggles in u.s. history. encouraging the same kind of enrichment for students, i have taken them to hear ibram x. kendi speak on anti-racism at our local university and to hear author scott ellsworth discuss the history of integrating college basketball. i also had students participate in an equal justice initiative student essay contest and learn about the unfortunate history of lynching in our county. teaching history accurately and in a manner that allows students to think critically about our nation’s past is a form of activism. i refer to critically with the secondary meaning of to think “in a way that involves the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment” (oxford languages, 2024). economics when i teach ap microeconomics, most of the material is about modeling economic concepts. textbooks are frequently geared toward college students and offer examples such as comparing two roommates’ opportunity cost of doing the dishes or typing papers. economics shows that each should specialize in what they do best to increase their consumption and have more time for leisure. incorporating social justice topics naturally emerges with the discussion of the lorenz curve, which demonstrates a country’s degree of economic inequality, and through the discussion of types of taxes, which clarifies that certain regressive taxes, such as sales taxes or social security taxes above a certain income, disproportionately impact those who have lower income. these topics open the door to discussions of public policy alternatives that would decrease wealth disparities in the united states. in regular and honors economics courses, standards often reference macroeconomic and microeconomic concepts and financial literacy. these courses contain greater breadth than the ap curriculum and offer an opportunity to explore how a national economy and banking and business practices can either help or hinder opportunities in life and income inequality. in the past, for example, i have had students choose a project where they could write a reflection on a book like the working poor (shipler, 2005) or nickel and dimed (ehrenreich, 2001) or volunteer at the local homeless shelter to see what they can learn about socioeconomic issues in our community. in teaching financial literacy, i have employed the next gen personal finance (2024) racial discrimination in finance unit to convey the history behind the modern racial wealth gap. these types of lessons allow students to think prudently about how a society’s economic decisions, as well as their own personal decisions, may impact others. working through the edd coursework as an edd student, my reflexivity muscles have been stretched and strengthened as i work and reflect on my curriculum, pedagogy, and potential as a leader in education. in this section, i review how my edd courses have inspired new insights in these three areas. i then reflect on my emerging action research project and the hopes i have for personal finance education as a tool for equity. in my first course, on diversity within the curriculum, i gained new insights and confirmed my existing beliefs by reading about the politicization of education and how frequently it reflects the societal conflicts of each era. the extension of human rights “has been neither constant nor linear,” and periods of extension “have often been followed by periods of retrenchment and conservatism” (banks, 2020, p. 7). i have taught this principle in apush, but i also see it reflected in local educational policy. from 2016–2019, my district seemed to be very concerned with our racial achievement gap—the worst in the state—and the disparity in discipline with more citations for minoritized students, sparking an equity plan to address those two issues and hire and retain more teachers of color ([redacted] county public schools, 2018). since 2020, we have been in a period of retrenchment and backlash where our state now is mandating moves away from culturally responsive training in workplaces and believes there is no place for that practice in the classroom. reading banks (2020) also reaffirmed the benefit i experienced from having a multicultural education in high school. educators opened my eyes as a teenager and put me on a path to being a teacher who attempts to do the same. in subsequent advanced study into diversity and the curriculum, i learned more about the origins of crt. ladson-billings (1998) outlined the history of crt’s growth out of critical legal studies and how it made its way into the “nice field of education” (p. 7). despite a range of beliefs or methods, critical race scholars adhere to two common interests (crenshaw et al., 1995), namely to understand how a system of white supremacy and subordination of people of social studies educator activist impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 62 color has been created and maintained throughout u.s. history and “to change the bond that exists between law and racial power” (ladson-billings, 1998, p. 12). i also considered how scholars such as bell (1989) and hannah-jones (2019) used the power of storytelling to address aspects of race in u.s. history. bell, for example, demonstrated how critical choices, such as at the constitutional convention, established precedents for lasting racial inequalities. florida statute currently outlaws teaching these scholars, likely because crt suggests systemic racism persists, rather than merely being part of our history. as an educator, historian, and daily news reader, i struggle to find a red line where american racism ends.1 my coursework on curriculum theory helped me consider to what extent critical pedagogy has informed my curriculum. rereading freire (2005) led me to question whether i am an oppressor or oppressed. the united states calls itself the land of freedom, yet freire’s ideas illuminate how some americans, past and present, have been oppressors and others have been oppressed, as florida social studies courses illustrate. during the cold war years, florida mandated an americanism versus communism course to promote capitalism and denounce communism (riley & kysilka, 2003). today’s standards still encourage banking-style pedagogy to transmit values of patriotism and capitalism (najarro, 2022), and florida teachers are still expected to teach the “evils and dangers of communism” (governor’s press office, 2024). while i believe income inequality has become too extreme and overconsumption leads to poor health, materialism, and environmental harm, i also know that titans of industry, such as rockefeller, increased income inequality at the same time they made access to things like light for the home accessible to the working class. i am not radicalized enough to believe we need to destroy our country’s economic and political systems, but i do believe there is a need to educate all u.s. students to be intelligent voters who are wary of these systems and their repercussions. this recognition strengthens my belief that encouraging research, critical thinking, and dialogue in social studies constitutes critical pedagogy. building on this foundation, a course on curriculum leadership invited me to assess various leadership styles and how they applied to contemporary leaders of my choice, as well as to probe my own potential for leadership. this exercise helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses relative to formal leadership roles, but it also highlighted my role in the classroom as its own form of leadership. i am a leader to my students, and as assistant department chair, i also support my colleagues. for example, i found myself challenged within my course on organizational change in education to create an implementation plan to integrate a new technology our state has adopted, and i was able to use that process to test my leadership skills as well as to attempt action research on a small scale. these courses strengthened my desire to continue to teach where i feel my leadership is a force for change, as i have recognized the impact my own teachers have had on me. becoming an action research practitioner allows me to expand my potential to lead without abandoning teaching for administration. 1 a short-lived broadway play called ain’t no mo’ addressed this issue head-on. in the opening sketch comedy vignette, the date is november 4, 2008, and a pastor is holding a funeral service for this thread led directly to my dissertation in practice. while i initially wrestled with several problems of practice, i imagined i could have the greatest impact in my community for both fellow educators and our students through inquiry into teacher preparation for the new personal finance course that will be mandatory for all florida students beginning with the class of 2027. my action research aims to investigate teacher financial capability and well-being with the thesis that teachers with financial well-being will be better personal finance instructors. this topic addresses an equity issue concerning florida and other states. bryant (2024) identified financial literacy as “the civil rights issue for our generation” because of the disproportionate impact financial illiteracy currently has on communities of color (p. 54). states like florida are taking steps to remedy this inequality by mandating personal finance education. however, at least in florida, state standards reflect objective financial knowledge goals (dorothy l. hukill financial literacy act, 2022). literature suggests objective financial knowledge alone does not directly lead to financial capability (gudmunson & danes, 2011; xiao et al., 2014). financial self-efficacy, or the belief that you are capable of meeting personal finance goals, is necessary to achieve financial capability and wellbeing, and experiential learning is key to achieve financial selfefficacy (e.g., blaschke, 2022; lebaron et al., 2019). to ensure that my district implements the course in a way that will enhance all students’ financial well-being, i believe action research intervention is warranted. while a required personal financial education course can be a tool for reducing inequity, if it fails to address students’ financial trauma (mckenzie, 2022) or provide effective models, it may increase inequalities (al-bahrani et al., 2019), reinforcing the racial wealth gap (hamilton & darity, 2017). for example, people may attribute wealth disparities to personal shortcomings, reasoning that all students completed the same personal finance course. therefore, my goal is for all social studies educators in my district who are assigned to teach the course to be financially capable themselves and also aware of how to teach personal finance in a way that will increase students’ financial selfefficacy. to achieve this aim, i proposed a book study for teachers interested in enhancing their financial capability and will share resources and a presentation on the knowledge gained through my literature review and action research with the other high school social studies teachers in my district. literature suggests offering diverse models of financial mentors within course material, using problembased learning and other pedagogical methods that increase the confidence students need to make financial decisions, and having students create a set of resources they can access after graduation—as many students benefit from “just-in-time” education when they are making a financial decision like home-buying—can increase the course’s effectiveness (drever et al., 2015; yao et al., 2023). this work is an opportunity to create a curriculum that can be a “vehicle for freedom” (pitts, 2020, para. 2), namely financial independence. “righttocomplain,” indicating the election of barack obama resolved all issues of race and power in the united states. the rest of the play reveals all the ways that is not true. morey impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.576 63 conclusion where my action-research cycle ends with my dissertation will be where the next work begins to use my research and training to support other educators. reflecting on the significance of the teachers in my own life while working on my action research, and learning from and with my peers and professors in the edd program, has ultimately reaffirmed my confidence as an educator-activist and my desire to continue to lead from the classroom. i hope to be a steward of the profession, as suggested in this text’s introduction, who is willing to challenge the status quo when necessary and support evidence-based change that can increase opportunities for all students. reference adichie, c. n. 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(1932). little house in the big woods. harper. yao, m., rehr, t. i., & regan, e. p. (2023). gender differences in financial knowledge among college students: evidence from a recent multiinstitutional survey. journal of family and economic issues, 44(3), 693– 713. xiao, j. j., chen, c., & chen, f. (2014). consumer financial capability and financial satisfaction. social indicators research, 118(1), 415–432. zinn, h. (1995). a people’s history of the united states: 1492–present (2nd ed.). harpercollins. jessica morey university of south carolina lessons learned on the path to becoming a social studies educator considering social studies teaching as a site of educator activism government united states history economics working through the edd coursework conclusion reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 76 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 trust, relationships, & liberation: key ingredients for joint dissertations of practice samantha cohen american university cohen@american.edu marisa mendonsa american university mendonsam@yahoo.com jennifer beckwith american university jbeckwith@friendshipschools.org william thomas iv american university wthomas@american.edu brian reilly american university bri798@mac.com ashley royal american university aroyal@friendshipschools.org abstract joint dissertations are a deliberate approach to antiracist systems change: simultaneously morphing the process of doctoral completion and supporting scholar practitioners to shift systems through their actions. at the school of education at american university, scholar practitioners and chairs are learning together how the joint dissertation of practice can be a tool for systemic change within pk-12 and within edd programs. within this essay, we share our experiences and reflections as graduates, chairs, and collaborators. keywords joint dissertation of practice, liberatory consciousness, antiracism in october 2019, cohort one came to dc for our first residency in our inaugural program. on day three, we held a session on the dissertation of practice, where we shared that the edd program vision centered re-imagining pk-12 and a need to simultaneously reimagine higher education, including the dissertation of practice. we discussed how this could have various forms: a podcast, a video, a collaborative endeavor, or something we haven’t created yet. and cohort one, as the inaugural cohort, the group that was open to so much ambiguity and change, asked lots of questions about aligning this dissertation of practice with antiracism. a few members of this cohort asked about writing collaborative dissertations of practice, and the energy about this possibility was palpable, especially from two cohort members. collaborative dissertations of practice a collaborative dissertation of practice is exactly as it sounds, an opportunity for scholarly practitioners to co-construct praxis and create opportunities for multiple perspectives and collective action (cped, n.d.; hamilton, 2022; kennedy et al, 2018: wergin, 2011). collaborative dissertations involve more than one scholar practitioner, and increasingly, these collective approaches are called joint dissertations where they involve two individuals and groupbased dissertations where they include three or more contributors. across disciplines, including history and sociology, doctoral students are working together on projects to produce new doctoral outputs, beyond lengthy manuscripts, and they are seeking advisor and university support and approval to do so (patton, 2013). within the education context and the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) specifically, there are programs (michigan state, augusta university, arizona state university, etc) that allow or recommend group dissertations in practice as part of their program of study, and there are other programs that encourage joint dissertations of practice. we have only begun collaborative dissertations within our doctor of education (edd) program at american university (au) in washington dc, and we are grateful that a few scholar practitioner pairs established this co-dissertation opportunity, paving a way for antiracist, collaborative scholarly practice. as two faculty chairs of dissertation of practice committees alongside four graduates who engaged and spearheaded our program’s first two (and only) collaborative dissertations of practice, we want to share and reflect on our experience through our cases and our understanding of liberatory consciousness. samantha cohen, edd faculty, chaired and learned alongside, marisa mendonsa and brian reilly in cohort 1, and william thomas iv, edd faculty, chaired and learned alongside jennifer beckwith and ashley royal, cohort 5 alumna. a very brief dissertation history dissertations are borne out of a history of academic pursuits from the middle ages and more recently situated in the german focus on scholarship, emphasizing theory development. the earliest doctor of philosophy (phd) programs and dissertations in the 1800s in germany, within the sciences, focused on rigor, pursuing knowledge, and original research. these western european roots cemented a focus on individuality and originality by design, which has become tradition across doctoral fields (mcgee & delong, 2007; https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8177-1381 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6590-4567 cohen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 77 paltridge & starfield, 2020; perry, zambo & crow, 2020; wergin, 2011). and while there are current shifts in germany, across europe, and in some fields in the united states, to consider other products, approaches, and practice-oriented purposes, the dissertation largely remains an individual pursuit to demonstrate uniqueness, rigor, and intelligence. the doctoral degree is awarded to individuals for their scholarship and work, without recognition of the collaboration and connection needed for the pursuit, beyond the scholarly reference list and citations. the edd degree, first granted at harvard in 1920, was created as a practitioner doctorate, serving as a terminal degree for those in education practice, similar to the doctor of medicine (md) and juris doctor (jd), for medical doctors and lawyers, who use existing knowledge to practice and work (wergin, 2010). wergin argues that the seminal work in the edd should be continued scholarship on practice, “a demonstration of expertise that showcases the candidate’s mastery of inquiry into practice” (p. 130). throughout the history of the edd, tensions continue to surface about whether it is a lower tier phd or something else entirely, and as a result, the culminating product remains in debate, in terms of substance, format, and authorship. this complication is even more pronounced across edd programs, where there are debates amongst the purpose, value, and pedagogy. wergin (2011) contends that most edd programs continue to require dissertations, which were intended for phd candidates, “demonstrating their ability to preserve and enrich the knowledge base of the discipline by engaging in original research, [when they should instead] require a demonstration of expertise that showcases the candidate’s mastery of inquiry into practice“ (p. 130). and while wergin names that edds can be “emancipating tools for social change” (p. 121) in a myriad of ways, he focuses more on participatory action research, rather than joint research. cped has led convenings and collaboration on the purpose and existence of the edd, including the contents and existence of the final product. cped, through jill perry’s leadership, states that dissertations in practice ought to be different, from traditional dissertations, by being “co-constructed, user-centered, focus(ed) on diversity, equity, and social justice, and meaningful to the student and their professional context” (perry et al. 2020, p. 37). this focus on justice and co-construction have been central within our program design, reflection, evolution, and pausing to consider how to further embody these. american university’s edd program and alignment with joint dissertations of practice american university’s doctoral program in education policy and leadership centers personal leadership, social justice and antiracism, research and policy, and systems change. we aim to equip students with knowledge and skills that they can pragmatically explore within their current roles and within the practical projects and demands of the program, so that graduate leaders can create, disrupt, and evolve our pk-12 education system to meet the current needs of youth and adult learners. our edd program is a part-time, online program, where students from across the united states explore issues and opportunities in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education. our model centers on creating a diverse cohort of online learners who construct a learning community and learning organization with one another, as we test ideas, build knowledge, and explore the possibilities of what can be within education. joint dissertations of practice cohere with our core values, pedagogy, and programmatic priorities, namely the focus on conscious leadership, collaboration, systems thinking, and collective action. joint dissertations are a step in the path toward antiracist praxis and an approach to fractal systems change, as “fundamental shift(s) require many small steps” (brown, 2017). dei (2005) implores us to understand that “anti-racism research and praxis means challenging and rupturing the very structures one is trying to work with” (p.10). we believe that edd programs have a responsibility to center antiracism in their pedagogy and ethos– “explicitly articulat(ing) their distinctive understanding of social justice and trac(ing) the ways that this understanding is operationalized” (porfilio et al., 2019). joint dissertations are a deliberate approach to antiracist systems change: simultaneously morphing the process of doctoral completion and supporting scholar practitioners to shift systems through their action. “complex, adaptive problems defy tidy logic models and reductive technical solutions” and they require deep relational work, healing, transforming power dynamics, and inner change (milligan et al., 2022, para. 2). we believe that joint dissertations are one approach to wergin (2011) and perry et al.’s (2020) invitations and commitments to re-booting and reimaging the edd and moving toward communal, justice-oriented new horizons. antiracist scholarship and praxis are collective. they necessitate understanding the connected human experience and our complex intersectional identities. they require dialogic engagement with ideas and people. they require dismantling white supremacy’s individualism (okun, 2021) and “cultivat(ing) the muscle of radical imagination….(and) collective ideation” (brown, 2017, p. 59). they hinge upon conscientization, teaming, and trust building (dei, 2005: freire, 1970). additionally, within antiracist improvement science, we must ensure that improvement work centers justice. we define problems in and with community, we create theories of improvement that necessitate joint action, and we implement interventions with others (hinnant-crawford, 2023; hinnant-crawford, 2020; perry et al., 2020). within marisa and brian’s dissertation of practice, we wrote, “in education today, collaboration is essential and required... rarely do leaders or teachers work in isolation. therefore, being able to work together to co-construct this dissertation of practice felt familiar and less foreign to us.” this ought to be an invitation to create collaborative dissertations of practice, and yet, far too many dissertations and dissertations of/in practice are sole endeavors of manuscript writing that sit on shelves, as has been part of the tradition that has been passed down of what it means to be a doctoral degree holder. dissertations frequently adhere to academic writing, with its emphasis on publication, generalizable insights, and reaching scholarly readers. dissertations of/in practice, on the other hand, are designed to address real world problems of practice, for those in academic and practitioner roles, who are seeking to implement change. however, dissertations and dissertations of/in practice often have a prescribed flow and format, and they are not read nor utilized regularly by practitioners. this combination of formulaic structure and publication for a limited audience lead many dissertations to become manuscripts with few readers or consumers. additionally, the dissertation writing and publication processes tend to be individualized, lacking a team or collaborative approach to construction and dissemination. trust, relationships & liberation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 78 improvement science as an antiracist tool for change when american university’s doctoral program launched in 2019, a central purpose was to cultivate spaces within the pk-12 education system that meet the community's needs, which requires unlearning and re-imagining the ways we learn and conduct research. ,our program aims to center antiracism in scholarship, policy, and practice which necessitates that our scholar practitioners prioritize co-constructing learning experiences among students, staff, and faculty through trust-building and risk-taking. the antiracist commitment is the cornerstone of why we believe unique, innovative, and impactful research studies, and their written products and presentations, are necessary and should be deemed necessary by the experts who work in the learning spaces that intend to be impacted. in addition to the program’s antiracist values, we strive to use improvement science as a methodological backbone to facilitating actionable, practitioner research, which aims to improve educational practices through collaborative and participatory change ideas. this type of practitioner research is situational and contextbased, which often requires multiple stakeholders’ assets to be utilized strategically and cooperatively. improvement science is a technique, supporting learners with problem/opportunity definition, inquiry, and activation to respond. we connect improvement science with criticality and antiracism, supporting learners to consider the systemic and contextual factors that center their problem identification, building an awareness of antiracist methodologies to analyze the problems and to take action. we support learners to utilize improvement science tools and techniques, and we marry this with a liberatory consciousness approach. and we invite improvement science in as a practice, a foundation, rather than a method or methodology, because it emphasizes multiple perspectives and shared ownership of action. liberatory consciousness scholar practitioners who choose antiracist framing for addressing their problems of practice require an extended cultural competence of the population they look to collaborate with, a strategic understanding of their positionality, and an authentic awareness of the power dynamics between various stakeholders within an institution. these intentional antiracist interventions look to avoid a deficit lens toward the population being researched, or researching with, and actively interrogate and implement multiple ways to bring about systems change. navigating this challenging educational landscape as a novice researcher can be difficult, and the scholar practitioners in our program continue to explore new ways to engage in strategic institutional collaboration and partnerships as a liberatory approach to oppressive systems in education. this may sometimes require these important leaders, in their various spaces, to use district time and money creatively, yet strategically, while at the same time forming new political and community alliances. this juggling act requires an educational leadership approach that applies liberatory consciousness, which can enable scholar practitioners to change “systems and institutions characterized by oppression to create greater equity and social justice...” (love, 2010, p. 129). according to barbara love (2010), this process of developing a liberatory consciousness has been explored by several educators who have interrogated the dominant power system from brazilian educator paulo freire to carter g. woodson in his “miseducation of the negro” to feminist, bell hooks, and humanist, michael albert. love describes four elements to developing this liberatory consciousness: (1) awareness, (2) analysis, (3) acting, and (4) accountable ally-ship. these four elements anchor the lens in which scholar practitioners in our edd program approach improvement science as a tool for an antiracist intervention within a co-written dissertation. love (2010) frames ally-ship with first needing to understand how our socialization has developed a limited view of one’s role within a binary lens of dominant and subordinate. however, it does emphasize the value of accountability, particularly within moments where diverse and divergent thinking is needed and strategic attention is put toward potential and possibilities of perspective sharing. love emphasizes that “...working in connection and collaboration with each other, across and within “role groups”, we can make progress in ways that are not apparent when working in isolation and in separate communities,” (p. 602). this balancing scale weighing accountability and allyship proved to be both the catalyst and a technique in planning, implementing, and writing an antiracist co-dissertation of practice, and this was the case for both partners in their collaborative dissertation of practice journeys. experience and practice with collaborative dissertations of practice within the au edd program, marisa mendonsa and brian reilly partnered as members of cohort one, with our program’s first joint dissertation of practice, and samantha cohen served as chair. jennifer beckwith and ashley royal, members of cohort five, partnered with our program’s second co-dissertation of practice, and william thomas iv served as chair. each of these partnerships deliberately sought liberatory consciousness, through their strategic awareness of their partners and their chairs, their deliberate problem of practice analysis, taking intervention action, and on-going partnership to make clearer our roles, insights, biases, and socialization. it is important to note that these collaborations organically arose, because of the partners’ interpersonal relationships, complementary interests, and shared geography. while the au program continued to emphasize and celebrate liberatory and abolitionist ways of engaging, there was not a specific ask nor requirement for joint dissertations of practice, and the university was not encouraging collaborative dissertation work either. summary of mendonsa and reilly’s dissertation of practice and setting massachusetts is often seen as a progressive state when it comes to social support for its citizens. the state is often ranked as a top state in the nation for education. the majority of students and staff in massachusetts continue to be white (massachusetts department of elementary and secondary education, 2022), and neither policy nor practice are creating antiracist education spaces within the state. as white administrators and leaders in two different, predominantly white school districts in massachusetts, marisa and brian sought to understand why white public school administrators were hesitant to implement antiracist policies and practices and to identify the ways in which white leaders can acknowledge their privilege and use their privilege to disrupt white supremacy culture in massachusetts schools. as part of our landscaping and problem identification, through the use of interviews with white leaders in three predominantly white school districts in massachusetts and a cohen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 79 review of previous research, we solidified our knowledge of the problem of practice and an opportunity we faced. as our intervention, within our improvement cycle, we drafted a toolkit for white leaders to use when beginning their antiracism work; we collected feedback from the interviewees on the toolkit; and we shared the toolkit with white district leaders. marisa’s and brian’s rationale for joint dissertation of practice white leaders often do not think about race and racism in their settings and perceive a lack of outwardly racist policies, practices and tensions as a reason that their school or district does not need any work in this area. both of us have had conversations with colleagues who believe that in white communities this work does not need to be done because everyone is equal and that this work is for larger, more suburban or urban districts with a greater population of black, indigenous, and people of color. white leaders often ignore their positions of power and the systemic racist ideals their ignorance perpetuates. as white leaders, we need to rewrite the narrative, identify the barriers preventing us from doing this work and recognize how our own bias has impacted the communities we work with. as white leaders, we also need to remember that we usually do not work in silos within the day-to-day of schooling, even in all white schools. we need to be prepared to meet all students' needs, including students of color. in taking a colorblind approach to antiracism, we are failing students by ignoring the needs of students of color and failing white students by not providing them with the education all students should have to live in a culturally diverse world. we complement one another, bringing white male and white female identities, sharing our experience as two of the few white students within the edd cohort, despite our shared white identity with much of the public education sector in massachusetts. we also served as administrators in two different massachusetts districts during the heart of covid-19, where we were trying to figure out schooling and health and justice; and we had access to many other white administrators across the state, given the virtual meetings and professional networks we each hold. we connected at our first residency through conversation, and the relationship and trust we built there and beyond led us to want to take a risk with a joint dissertation. our path to solidify a chair and seek university approval required sharing our rationale, detailing which sections would be written independently and jointly, and sharing how this aligned with the program and graduate guidelines. while there were some administrative conversations and processes, our path was smooth and straightforward, and we organically created opportunities to meet and write across massachusetts for our dissertation of practice work. summary of beckwith and royal’s dissertation of practice and setting washington, dc is a city and region with many charter schools within the public school sector, and many of the charter networks have grown to be the size of small school districts. large charter networks can cause leaders and administrators to work in silos which at times exacerbates challenges of norming equitable access to meaningful professional development, student enrichment programming, and systems for student advocacy. within the largest charter school network in washington, dc, serving over 4,300 students in the area, teachers and students face inequitable conditions in their schools. in particular, data from the annual science techology engineering and math (stem) fair for our network revealed clear gaps in how and when black girls are supported and encouraged to explore stem careers. the size of the charter network as well as its current and potential impact called for a uniquely different research approach that bridged the distant experiences of campus leaders and central-office administration. we looked to improve and disrupt the current systems of professional development for stem teachers and programs aimed to support stem enrichment for girls. in our co-dissertation of practice manuscript, we describe the need for a collaborative approach to our research. jennifer’s rationale for a co-dissertation of practice our positionalities allow us to intentionally address and tackle this problem of practice from multiple, diverse lenses. from a district level lens, as a deputy director of stem, i can begin to address the inequitable policies, curriculum, and resources mandated at the school level that directly influence the instruction of black girls in stem. i can also introduce multiple stem programs and interventions, however, if the teachers and students are not invested, the program will not be effective, and black girls’ retention will not increase. from a school level lens, ashley, as an assistant principal, witnesses the day-to-day problems that arise due to some of the policies, curriculum, and resources mandated by the district office. at the school level, ashley, can authentically support (and change if needed) new interventions that will increase retention and interest of black girls in stem. collaboration is key, and our positionalities are key. all stakeholders' involvement (and investment) is essential if we want to implement real, systemic (nonlinear) change. individually, we will continue to see pockets of success amongst black girls in stem, but together we can impact change holistically, creating continual, renewed interest and engagement of black girls in stem. ashley’s rationale for a co-dissertation of practice i had an epiphany that by aligning myself with an educational disruptor, like myself, who is passionate about science, i can accomplish my mission through the gateway of stem. aligning myself with jennifer (a science educator) is where i knew i needed to begin my journey. we have similar passions (retaining black girls in science and math) and career experiences. we are black women who feel overlooked and unheard in stem (science and math practitioners). we work in the same district but at different stakeholder levels, which was a bonus. she is at the district level (macro level), a system that i desperately need to gain access to, and i am at the school level, where her initiatives are often enforced or ignored by school leaders. as partners, we can align our mission to improve the learning sciences for black girls in science and math but under the stem umbrella. as we align our mission, i hope that we can provide more voices with similar concerns at each stakeholder level and use that influence to drive our much-needed agenda further throughout the district. i feel this collaboration is a model that stakeholders can replicate throughout different school districts struggling to matriculate black girls through higher-level science and math classes. i desire to do this by bridging the gap between science and math. trust, relationships & liberation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 80 joint dissertations from cohort 1 to cohort 5 from our program’s inception, we have communicated, and our edd handbook has stated, that the dissertation of practice exists so that research practitioners have an opportunity to engage in practical, antiracist work; aim to enact change; and write and reflect upon it; this is an opportunity for learners to demonstrate “expertise that showcases the candidate’s mastery of inquiry into practice” (wergin, 2011, p. 130). we encouraged disruption, creativity, and innovation, and we never explicitly discussed joint dissertations. within the inaugural cohort, there was a spirit of build the plane as we fly, which included charting new paths as they arose. marisa and brian embodied this. within our initial acceptance into the edd program conversation, brian shared, “i am so excited to have this opportunity to be in the inaugural cohort.” within her interview and at the first residency, marisa asked if joint dissertations of practice were possible. and marisa and brian organically arrived at the possibility of a collaborative dissertation of practice. within our early applied antiracist methods courses, we were planning for distinct dissertations of practice, where marisa was focusing on white women leaders and their proclivity toward white saviorism, while brian was focusing on special education and the overrepresentation of black and brown learners with this designation. as marisa and brian strengthened our relationship, we realized our similar working and writing styles, connected about our common massachusetts geography, and understood and valued our identities as two of the few white scholar practitioners within the cohort. we wondered about the joint possibility, and approached samantha, as program director and possible chair, during semester four of our eight semester journey. we continued to hone our problem of practice, wondering if we would write two separate dissertations—one about white male education leaders in massachusetts and the other about white female education leaders in massachusetts. samantha navigated the university policies and requirements, and i, samantha, was positioned to do this as both program director and possible chair. samantha was committed to this innovation, as it had emerged during the interview process and during cohort one’s first residency on alternative dissertations and disrupting the education doctorate. navigating the approval process required a series of conversations laying out the uniqueness of our practitioner doctorate program, the first of its kind at american university. it required laying out research on collaborative writing, change within pk-12, and other examples of universities that had successfully graduated doctoral students with joint dissertations. a new approval process was created for how to petition for joint dissertations of practice in the future, requiring that the dissertation chair, the program director, and the students all agree that it is educationally appropriate. and approval was granted for marisa and brian to officially commence their joint dissertation journey, and marisa and brian remained open to the idea that this was a risk, and they were interested in taking this risk. while this process was bureaucratic, it was fairly smooth, and it is important to note that marisa, brian, samantha, and the associate dean of graduate studies are all white. visiting research settings as the dissertation of practice committee chair dissertation of practice committee chairs play a crucial role in guiding scholar-practitioners through the research process, and one of the most impactful ways they can support their students is by visiting the research setting. while i could have supported the researchers through my own personal knowledge of the school, i, william, decided to fully engage myself in the research environment by physically attending related stem events that could give both researchers insight on the school context from an external observer lens. this included me participating as a judge for the school’s annual stem competition. not only was i able to interact first-hand with those who were participating in the intervention, it also allowed me to identify entry points where the researchers could be more intentional about their implementation. because i was able to participate in the stem competition as a judge, i was able to recommend to both jennifer of ashely, that they use participation data from the competitions as one form of measurement to the effectiveness of the intervention. while this choice may expose committee chairs to vulnerabilities, such as confronting their own biases and assumptions or navigating unfamiliar environments, it also presents an invaluable opportunity to gain firsthand insight into the nuanced aspects of the student's research experience. by witnessing the challenges and dynamics of the research site, chairs can provide more tailored and empathetic guidance, ultimately enhancing the quality and relevance of the dissertation. this hands-on involvement demonstrates a deep commitment to the student's work and reinforces the importance of context in producing meaningful research outcomes. this active engagement approach mirrors the practice of teachers performing home visits to better understand the context in which their students live and learn. just as home visits can reveal critical information about a student's background, challenges, and support systems, dissertation chairs visiting research sites can uncover unique perspectives that are not always apparent through data and written reports. such visits allow chairs to observe the interactions, environments, and cultural contexts that influence the research, leading to more informed and contextually grounded advice. this deeper understanding can help identify potential barriers and opportunities that may otherwise be overlooked, enabling the doctoral student to refine their methodology and approach in ways that are more aligned with the realities of the research setting. adopting this approach is also an antiracist practice, as it emphasizes transparency, authenticity, and strategic support in the research process. by engaging directly with the research site, dissertation chairs model a commitment to understanding and addressing the systemic inequities that may impact the research subjects and settings. this proactive stance encourages doctoral students to be more critical and reflective in their work, fostering research that is not only academically rigorous but also socially just. the insights gained from site visits can help ensure that the research interventions are culturally responsive and effective, ultimately contributing to the dismantling of oppressive systems within educational environments and beyond. cohen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 81 institutional support and challenges american university school of education’s core values are 1) excellence, 2) equity, 3) antiracism and social justice, 4) diversity and inclusion, 5) collaboration, and 6) innovation. these values, established under dean cheryl holcomb mccoy’s leadership, speak to the school’s commitments to centering antiracist, practitionercentered action, connection, and change. and dean holcomb mccoy and associate dean corbin campbell supported the edd program’s navigation with our graduate studies deans and associate deans, paving the way for approval for edd scholar practitioners to write and publish collaboratively. an important commonality amongst the two joint dissertations of practice from au is that both collaborations included chairs, serving as program director at the time we sought university approval for the joint endeavor. this positional authority, with access to the deans of the school of education and the associate deans of graduate studies, likely impacted our ability to seek approval and continue to push for approval, when traditional policies and understandings of dissertations were brought up. while ultimate approval for these first two collaborations was granted, there remained university guidelines regarding which sections must be written together and how we ought to monitor to ensure that the work is shared equally. these notions that the writing should be split 50-50 do not stem from an asset lens, recognizing the positionality, intersectionality, and strengths that each team member brings. they also reflect a sense of compliance and a focus on technicalities, rather than an understanding of the hidden and invisible labor that goes on between joint writers. additionally, ashley and jennifer’s collaboration was the second and last of our program’s collaborative dissertations of practice, and when their approval was sought, after significantly more back and forth and substantiation required than marisa’s and brian’s, the program was informed that this would be the last case of a collaborative dissertation of practice. this interpretation of policy and return to the traditional, individually constructed dissertation/dissertation of practice, speaks to the resistance and concern within higher education about living into a present (and future) oriented reality of collaboration and liberatory consciousness. dissertations at the university continue to be viewed through an individual lens: one individual earns the degree and therefore one individual contributes to the dissertation. the dissertation is also an output tied to the doctorate and rooted in the history of academia, and this output has prioritized the individual’s written word. and, there are no official policies restricting joint dissertations of practice. in fact, there has not been push back on collaborative, practice work. the resistance has been to the equality (or perceived equality) amongst the authors in the written manuscript. and so, our edd handbook continues to honor the edd as a degree for antiracist practitioner scholarship, pushing against the history of whiteness and individuality in the doctoral world. and, we will continue to support scholar practitioners who wish to pursue collaborative dissertations of practice, whether they come from the same educational organizations or if they meet within the program. and, we will continue to work with the school of education’s leadership team to pursue these possibilities with the office of graduate and professional studies. challenges and opportunities with collaborative dissertations of practice as collectives (chairs and scholar practitioners), debriefing the collaborative dissertation of practice experience was woven into our work. ashley, jennifer, and william’s debrief highlights important lessons for our collaboration, and we wish to share broader lessons here as well. one significant challenge was the merging of jennifer and ashely’s distinct writing styles. jennifer and ashley reflected on the strengths and weaknesses we brought to the dissertation of practice, and we shared that our differing approaches initially made it difficult to craft a unified, cohesive scholarly narrative. developing a seamless voice required substantial effort to balance our positionalities while ensuring clarity and coherence throughout the document. as chair, i, william, advised them to be intentional with crafting the titles for headings to ensure that the readers understood the perspective that was leading the claims or rationale. below, you will see how we were able to organize balanced voice for the manuscript, which was a university requirement to justify and identify the balanced contributions of each scholar practitioner: 1. introduction: this section will be clearly distinguished to give appropriate framing of the rationale for the joint dissertation and its connections with antiracist research. some of what we shared for approval for the collaborative dissertation of practice will be integrated in this section. 2. problem of practice: the majority of this section will be written collaboratively, however there will be some delineation between how each person interpreted their needs assessment/environmental scan as well as the influence of their positionalities on their determination of the problem of practice. 3. knowledge review: this section will be mainly written collaboratively, however synthesis of literature related to specific educational roles and content focus will be written separately. 4. theory of action: this section will be written collaboratively reflecting a collaborative consensus on the aim of the research, the systems acting as drivers, as well as the change ideas. 5. intervention: this section will also be written collaboratively with clear distinguishment of each person’s role in facilitation as well as data collection and analysis. 6. analysis: this section will have clearly distinguished analysis of data collected within each contributor’s unique positionality and school function within the intervention. 7. implications: implications of findings from data will be given separately from each researcher as it relates to each particular campus/content (school leaders) as well as for the greater network (central office administrator). 8. recommendations: this section will be given two separate recommendations for campus leadership and central office leadership. another obstacle was finding collaboration time amid our demanding schedules and contrasting writing preferences. jennifer preferred late-night writing sessions after completing her work responsibilities, while ashley favored early-morning sessions. our professional lives as district and school leaders were already hectic, trust, relationships & liberation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 82 compounded by personal crises during the dissertation process. these conflicting preferences often made it challenging to coordinate feedback sessions, peer reviews, and revisions. despite these difficulties, our commitment to maintaining open communication and respecting each other’s time was key to navigating this challenge. one surprising finding in our post-defense discussion was discovering that compromise was a particularly difficult skill for jennifer and ashley to navigate. both strong-willed and accomplished experts in our fields, i discovered, as the chair, that they disagreed on what to include or omit from their dissertation. in my interactions during their research process, while i did not see any obvious tension among the two, jennifer and ashley explained that to address conflict, they established a structured process for resolving disputes, focusing on distinguishing essential elements from merely preferred content. this systematic approach not only streamlined decision-making but also strengthened their partnership. one conflict jennifer and ashley jointly navigated was the complexity of joint work, in terms of time, load, and ambiguity. according to jennifer, at times, she and ashley struggled to empathize with each other’s roles and time constraints, given the differing demands at the district and school levels. balancing these competing priorities sometimes impacted their writing process, requiring flexibility and mutual understanding to stay on track. one area that i, as chair, expected to be most challenging was planning and interpreting data. my prediction was correct as the joint data analysis emerged as one of the most formidable challenges. the scope of their research extended across two disciplines—math and science—and included data from both district and school levels. additionally, they collected information from three different interventions. the sheer volume of data created difficulties in determining which data sets to prioritize and how to analyze them effectively within a limited timeframe. despite these challenges, jennifer and ashley celebrated several key successes while we reflected on the research process. our ability to adhere to a list of non-negotiables, which included sacred writing and data analysis times. by honoring these commitments, we met every self-imposed deadline. jennifer explained that our shared type a personalities, marked by strong work ethics and organizational skills, further contributed to our success. the alignment of our work styles and dedication to meeting goals made our partnership effective. additionally, our strong communication skills and mutual respect fostered a supportive environment. we both felt comfortable voicing concerns, advocating for our disciplines, and acknowledging when mental breaks were necessary. this open communication not only strengthened our collaboration but also contributed to the overall quality of our dissertation of practice. other areas of retrospective consensus were that we would have benefited from selecting a single intervention instead of three, more intentionality in determining key data sets before collection, and establishing a clear writing structure at the outset. possibilities for the future as chairs and program directors, it has been a gift to lay the foundation for joint dissertations of practice. we have witnessed how the partners navigated conflict (which is inevitable and part of all relational work); we have seen the joy and love shared by the collaborators; and we have seen the impact that is multiplied when you have a partner in the intervention and analysis and on-going work. we also have seen how the collaborative work continues after the edd journey between the partners and their chairs. brian and marisa continue to work across the state of massachusetts, presenting at conferences, refining and implementing their toolkit, and bringing their research to their new administrative roles. specifically, they are more confident and direct in the work that white educators, including themselves, must do in predominantly white districts. ashley and jennifer continue to refine professional learning for stem educators and learning experiences for black girls in stem, and they intend to continue this in the next academic year, which follows their edd graduation. lessons/reflections as chairs the joint dissertation of practice journey is worthwhile in its liberatory aims. it enabled me, samantha, to disrupt my static sense of what a dissertation is, and it felt authentic to live our values…..namely antiracist systems change with liberatory consciousness front and center. it felt empowering to create new structures for chair/scholar practitioner collaboration, to imagine what the joint document would look like, and to consider how the defense could look with joint dissertators. it also feels important to name that joint dissertations are part of systems change; all of our work in practice is collaborative, incremental, human, and based on interrelationships. as i, samantha, reflect on our connections, i am most struck by the humanity, energy, and sense of possibility that our meetings almost always were filled with. samantha, marisa, and brian met in february 2021 for a chair/scholar practitioner check-in, we shared so much enthusiasm and so many questions about the possibilities of a joint dissertation for marisa and brian. and that enthusiasm and those questions continued through the whole journey…..even on the night before marisa and brian’s defense as marisa, brian, and samantha met to finalize preparations. we all knew we were doing something new–and the energy, the nerves, and the enthusiasm were real. we were paving the way, eager for change, and grateful for co-collaborators and co-conspirators in our liberation. and, now a few years later, we all know, we need to push even further–a joint dissertation that reads as the same traditional, written, lengthy document without re-imagining new products, new ways to publish, alternate approaches to community presenting and collaboration, is only a minimal step on the path toward antiracist, systems change. and this beginning is important to celebrate and to reflect upon as an edd team, and as edd programs, about what more we need to do to support edd learners and graduates with disruptive, transformative, antiracist change in pk-12. at au and beyond, we also wish to push on regulations, administration, and bureaucracy to see the beauty, possibility, and necessity of collaboration. as higher education, in this moment, wrestles with its identity and future, this is an important time to learn from collaborative dissertators about teaming, working through complexity, and our collective liberation. edd programs sit in an essential place presently—they have the opportunity to convene and connect education leaders, the responsibility to facilitate and serve with antiracist, future-oriented principles, and the reach to impact education systems and catalyze collective ways of being. we have an opportunity to invite higher education institutions to authentically embody antiracism, and the six of us, through our collaboration, hope to convene and continue this very dialogue. cohen et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.509 83 reference beckwith, j., & royal, a. (2024). stem u.n.i.t.y.: uplifting non-dominant voices in teacher professional development and youth stem spaces for black girls through antiracist practices and experiences [doctoral dissertation, institution name]. proquest dissertations & theses. brown, a. m. (2017). emergent strategy. ak press. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (n.d.). cped framework. https://cped.memberclicks.net/assets/cped_documents/marketing_pro motion/cped_framework_poster_final.pdf dei, g. j. s. (2005). chapter one: critical issues in anti-racist research methodologies: an introduction. counterpoints, 252, 1–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42978742 freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed. herder & herder. hamilton, w. (2022). the group-based dissertation in practice: a journey worth taking. impacting education, 7(1), 42–46. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.234 hinnant-crawford, b., lett, e. l., & cromartie, s. (2023). improvecrit: using critical race theory to guide continuous improvement. in e. anderson & s. hayes (eds.), continuous improvement: a leadership process for school improvement (pp. xx–xx). information age press. hinnant-crawford, b. n. (2020). improvement science in education: a primer. myers education press. kennedy, b. l., altman, m., & pizano, a. (2018). engaging in the battle of the snails by challenging the traditional dissertation model. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 love, b. j. (2010). developing a liberatory consciousness. in m. adams, w. j. blumenfeld, c. r. casteneda, h. w. hackman, m. l. peters, & x. zuniga (eds.), readings for diversity and social justice (pp. 533–540). routledge. mcgee, r., & delong, m. j. (2007). collaborative co-mentored dissertations spanning institutions: influences on student development. cbe—life sciences education, 6(2), 119–131. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.06-060169 mendonsa, m., & reilly, b. (2022). barriers to antiracist practices in pk–12 districts for white leaders [doctoral dissertation, american university]. proquest dissertations & theses global. milligan, k., zerda, j., & kania, j. (2022). the relational work of systems change. stanford social innovation review. https://doi.org/10.48558/mdbh-da38 okun, t. (2021). white supremacy culture. https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ patton, s. (2013). the dissertation can no longer be defended. the chronicle of higher education, 59(23). paltridge, b., & starfield, s. (2020). change and continuity in thesis and dissertation writing: the evolution of an academic genre. journal of english for academic purposes, 48, 100910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100910 perry, j., zambo, d., & crow, r. (2020). the improvement science dissertation in practice: a guide for faculty, committee members, and their students. myers education press. porfilio, b. j., strom, k., & lupinacci, j. (2019). getting explicit about social justice in educational doctoral programs in the u.s.: operationalizing an elusive construct in neoliberal times. educational foundations, 32(1–4), 104–123. powell, j. (2010). systems thinking, evaluation, and justice. philanthropic initiative for racial equity: critical issues forum, 3. senge, p. (2000). schools that learn: a fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. doubleday. wergin, j. (2011). rebooting the edd. harvard educational review, 81(1), 119–140. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://cped.memberclicks.net/assets/cped_documents/marketing_promotion/cped_framework_poster_final.pdf https://cped.memberclicks.net/assets/cped_documents/marketing_promotion/cped_framework_poster_final.pdf http://www.jstor.org/stable/42978742 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2022.234 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2018.27 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.06-06-0169 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.06-06-0169 https://doi.org/10.48558/mdbh-da38 https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100910 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 samantha cohen american university marisa mendonsa american university jennifer beckwith american university william thomas iv american university brian reilly american university ashley royal american university collaborative dissertations of practice a very brief dissertation history american university’s edd program and alignment with joint dissertations of practice improvement science as an antiracist tool for change liberatory consciousness experience and practice with collaborative dissertations of practice summary of mendonsa and reilly’s dissertation of practice and setting marisa’s and brian’s rationale for joint dissertation of practice summary of beckwith and royal’s dissertation of practice and setting jennifer’s rationale for a co-dissertation of practice ashley’s rationale for a co-dissertation of practice joint dissertations from cohort 1 to cohort 5 visiting research settings as the dissertation of practice committee chair institutional support and challenges challenges and opportunities with collaborative dissertations of practice possibilities for the future lessons/reflections as chairs reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.9 no.3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.517 introduction to impacting education themed issue voices from candel: leading for equity and the scholar-practitioner journey elizabeth montaño university of california, davis emontano@ucdavis.edu rosaisela rodriguez university of california, davis rrodr@ucdavis.edu abstract educational leadership doctoral granting programs have been on the rise for the last 25 years. these programs recruit students who work full-time as educational leaders while completing full-time doctoral coursework. previous research on educational doctoral programs has found that they provide unique access to doctorates in education (edd) for first generation students and students of color. in addition to access, educational doctoral programs create spaces for these students to improve their leadership skills. this issue leverages and shares the voices of alumni of an educational leadership doctoral program and faculty. this special issue highlights what they have learned from their scholar-practitioner journeys. we organized the contributions into three themes that make visible the leadership and scholar-practitioner journeys of our alums and faculty. most importantly, our contributors emphasize how their doctorate degrees have impacted their capacity for research to inform their everyday practice, and how their leadership abilities were enhanced by the transformative experiences they had in their program. keywords leading for equity, social justice, edd, scholar-practitioner the candel (capital area north doctorate in educational leadership) program in the school of education at uc davis is structured as an accelerated doctoral program for full-time working professionals in varying fields of education. our students have careers in p-12, institutions of higher education and non-profit settings where they seek to implement changes to their sites steeped in transformative and equity-centered practices. in the first two years of the program, candel cohorts are engaged in rigorous coursework taking place on the weekends. during their third year, students propose a dissertation topic, advance to candidacy, collect data, and typically complete their dissertations within 3-5 years. this seemingly quick program has created a need to revisit our practices to streamline our practices while supporting both student and faculty involvement. in alignment with cped goals, candel leadership wanted to distinguish itself from the phd program that was also being offered at our institution and to expand the role of the scholar-practitioner equity-centered educational leader. candel saw the need in our region for better prepared educational leaders; leaders who were armed with research skills and mid-level leadership experience that would enable these leaders to make lasting transformational changes in their educational settings. in the last year after the pandemic at both our yearly networking event and at our annual writing retreat alumni asked us to provide guidance on how they could disseminate their findings and engage with other scholar-practitioners. they wanted to continue speaking of their work beyond the dissertation and expand the reach of their research. in addition, the candel faculty chair in consultation with the faculty saw the opportunity to highlight the scholarly work of our students and to share their findings and their experiences with the wider educational community. in particular, we saw a gap in research by scholar-practitioners informing the field of educational leadership. when our students looked for research like theirs, it was mostly conducted by people with phds. our alumni are shifting their institutions, yet due to the pandemic and the arduous labor of creating change, we have been unable to document this transformative change. we saw the impact of our alumni as they shifted their institutions and impacted the state of education, therefore we took the opportunity to create this themed issue featuring the voices of our alumni and faculty on how they have navigated the edd and beyond. with the 20th anniversary of our own program and with the increased impact of the edd on the educational landscape, we came up with the idea to create a themed issue showcasing the questions and processes that our own alumni have navigated. this themed issue is designed to promote dialogue on the journey of alums, students, and faculty with problems of practice while navigating their leadership development in the edd. we invited edd alums, faculty, https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7342-810x https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0869-310x montaño & rodriguez impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.517 2 and students to share the current role of the edd in shaping the landscape of higher education by addressing the following or related questions: • how has being in the edd program shaped their research ideas and questions and the manner in which they conducted their studies/analysis? • how are institutions of higher education being shaped by the research of educational leaders in edd programs? • how might edd programs support their students better to approach problems of practice in higher education settings? we invite all of our readers to learn from the alumni and faculty in our program and to engage with similar questions in their own programs. three themes emerged from the submissions to create the sections for this themed issue: • edd journey: navigating students’ leadership development • impact on research and the power of data • leadership for equity edd journey: navigating the students’ leadership development this section centers the journey of our students and their reflections on how being in the edd program shaped their research ideas and the manner in which they conduct their leadership. contributors connect how their intersecting identities shifted their research and pushed them to seek community in their edd journey. fong-batkin: reflections on the education doctorate: a traditionally untraditional journe fong-batkin explores learnings and reflections on how this journey has changed her and made her acutely aware of the work, school, and family balance that all edd students learn to manage. she uses the learning of this journey to discuss the challenges for women of color administrators and ends with some suggestions about how to move forward. sanders: the exigency of centering equity in educational leadership development: a journey through candel saunders describes how her experience in the program has impacted her work in higher education. she discusses the challenges to her understanding that she encountered from coursework, faculty, and her peers with respect to race, socioeconomic impacts, meritocracy, grit, and the assumptions administrators make about students. in this piece, she discusses how these experiences were foundational to her dissertation questions and reflects on how conducting research on university leadership at her home institution gave her an opportunity to develop a shared equity leadership approach. this author too reminds us that equity-focused work in higher education is an ongoing discussion, and essential to addressing the challenges facing our institutions. randle, et al.: the power of writing in community: being seen and supported in an edd journey the authors of this piece reflect on their journey and identify a key component of the edd that could support students in their persistence. this essay explores how writing in community for edd students can be pivotal in helping them succeed at different points in their journey. they review the literature in this area and then use a case study approach to highlight the ways writing in community is instrumental to students’ journeys and enhances students’ sense of belonging not just in finishing but in creating life-long networking communities. andersen: challenging the notion of the pipeline problem in stem anderson’s article is both a reflection and a call to action to institutions that purport to create pathways for women in stem but who continue to use unsuccessful practices that do not bring about change. this article addresses the lack of research on how stem recruiting and hiring practices impact if women stay and feel included in their positions. by identifying barriers women face while they are being recruited and integrated into the profession, the author seeks to break down the inequities that limit female career progression and the factors that may lead to women feeling unsure about their career prospects. she ends by discussing ways to practice allyship and practices that will prevent women from being pushed out of their positions by structural barriers. research and the power of data in this section, contributors discuss different research methods that have shaped their experience in the edd. authors describe how leveraging data as a scholar-practitioner can be used to drive decision making for equity. jimenéz-silva and lopez: centering equity in teacher education research through pláticas con maestras this co-authored piece between faculty and a recent edd graduate speaks to the powerful nature of the scholar-practitioner’s research. these authors present the emerging methodology of “platicas” and discuss how to implement the methodology in classroom communities. the authors argue that pláticas, as a methodology, honors teachers’ experiences and moves the field away from the current trend to deprofessionalize teachers and flattens the hierarchy that has existed too long between educational researchers and teachers. this methodology does not privilege researcher over teacher; instead it acknowledges that researcher and teacher are co-creators of knowledge. this method of collaboration can more effectively center equity in the work that we do in service of our communities. reilley: qualitative data in the driving seat: applying qualitative methods in high school the author considers her learning and unlearnings in the program. she reflects on how high school teachers have grown accustomed to believing that quantitative data is objective and somehow qualitative data is just opinions. the author asserts that by practicing strong research methods and constructing reliable tools for gathering data, schools can learn new things about students and teachers. the author acknowledges that the use of qualitative data requires some shifts in school cultures and mindsets. she is confident that her gains in the program will give her the leadership and research skills to implement the shift. young et al.: considering the impact of standardized testing on workforce diversity as the previous two submissions have done, these authors review institutional data, in this case, college admissions data from introduction to impacting education themed issue impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 9 no. 3 (2024) doi 10.5195/ie.2024.517 3 both community college and 4-year research institutions to improve equity and student diversity. with refreshed data about test-optional admissions, the authors address the impact of institutional responsiveness to redress persistent equity gaps that impact our state’s workforce diversity and hiring challenges. with leadership roles in the community college and the university of california systems and a particular emphasis on workforce development, they reflect on the program’s ethos of scholar-practitioner leadership in their practice areas to promote equitable educational and career outcomes. lewis: the impact of research and the power of data: leveraging data as a scholar practitioner to drive decision making for equity! lewis, like reilley, examines how institutions use data and recognizes the need for a culture shift in the way that these institutions report and gather that data.  lewis shares her work as an admissions and enrollment administrator and how this work intersects with her evolution as a scholar-practitioner. she outlines how she leverages her experience as a scholar-practitioner to challenge institutions to reframe the deficit narratives that they create of marginalized communities. her piece outlines how the scholarpractioner can use research data to reframe narratives and refocus the discussion to drive decision making for equity. leadership for equity this section addresses the question: how has being in the edd program shaped the authors’ research ideas and questions and the manner in which they conducted their school leadership? contributors in this section focus on how participating in the edd program expanded and elevated the focus on equity in their leadership. rodriguez: centering educational equity in a primary leadership role rodriguez conducts her leadership in public schools in underserved communities. her article focuses on her skills as a scholar-practitioner and a school leader who needs to be attuned not just to the numbers and data being generated, but to the stories that these numbers represent. the author’s work is done through the interactive process of understanding the priorities of the community, transparency, communicating, and listening while prioritizing health and safety as a means of cariño. her goal is to have her school community know that the school’s priorities are children first, rather than test scores and attendance percentages. the author explains the on-going journey and calls for creative means to empower the young scholars. her goal is to bridge a gap between site and community so as to authentically celebrate the diversity on the campus. velasco fuentes: supporting latinx first-generation professionals this author reflects on his personal and academic experiences to conduct qualitative research on the experiences of latinx firstgeneration professionals in higher education. he sought to understand how institutional norms influenced staff’s self-efficacy and how latino and latina professionals experienced them differently. among the findings was the pervasiveness of professional invalidation and the gendered difference. these critical findings inform how workplace norms contribute negatively to staff’s experiences. the author cautions that as higher education institutions continue to work towards better serving latinx firstgeneration students; they too must create a work environment that is inclusive for latinx staff. leung: equity in action in community college leadership leung also posits that leaders who center equity must explore their own critical consciousness through an equity lens so that they prioritize equity at the forefront while leading, collaborating, and making decisions in their leadership positions. the author argues that the positionality of leaders is also critical and that leaders need to reflect and consider how they use their power to influence their community and amplify the voices of the underrepresented. all of these authors have reflected deeply and passionately about their experience in the program and have wanted to share with you their experiences and insights into their leadership and how being a scholar-practitioner has enabled them to attack complex organizational and institutional issues with both research and practical skills. we invite you to continue this discussion with us. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 30 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 if not me, then who?: a study of racial and cultural competence in a high school english department dianna s. sox university of south carolina dianna.s.sox@gmail.com abstract while the student population in u.s. public schools is diversifying, the teacher population and curriculum remain monochromatic. this action research study grew from the observation that racial and cultural content and discourse were absent from the english classrooms in my suburban high school. through this convergent mixed-method study, i sought to examine the factors that contribute to racial silence and improve teacher cultural competence in order to transform our classrooms into more racially and culturally just spaces. resulting data suggests (a) targeted intervention can impact teacher cultural competence; (b) teachers desire more inclusive classroom practices; (c) yet that desire does not equate to action; because (d) the prevalence of fear engenders colormuteness and inhibits change. recommended actions include committing to cultural proficiency alongside others; critically examining policies, practices, and support systems at the school and classroom level; engaging in intentional racial discourse; and providing prolonged antiracist professional development for classroom teachers. keywords english secondary education, cultural competence, colormuteness, social justice and advocacy from 2009 to 2018, the percentage of white students in u.s. public schools decreased from 54% to 47%, yet white teachers have constituted roughly 80% of the teacher workforce for nearly 4 decades (national center for education statistics, 2019a, 2019b; schaeffer, 2021), while curriculum remains eurocentric (muhammad & mosley, 2021). these conditions may prevent schools from helping students engage with contentious topics (boyd & glazier, 2017), interrogate institutionalized inequities (bolgatz, 2005), and pivot from individual understanding to collective action (coles-ritchie & smith, 2017). instead, teachers may circumvent controversy (frankenberg, 1993), silencing students as well as subject matter (ellsworth, 1989). in particular, if white teachers feel ill-equipped, uncomfortable, or even pressured to avoid discussing race, culture, or diversity (diangelo, 2011; haviland, 2008; tatum, 2003), they may foster racial silence known as colormuteness (castagno, 2008; pollock, 2009). disengaging from tough topics is easier than facilitating meaningful discourse. still, it has “major implications for what students do and do not learn” (berchini, 2019, p. 153), so as student populations diversify, teacher cultural competence is urgent. this study began with the recognition of colormuteness in my english classroom. when i sensed teaching coates’s (2015) between the world and me would be risky, i feared my colleagues also avoided racially and culturally diverse content. i realized our department was doing students a disservice by not challenging the normative white curriculum, failing to incorporate atypical, countercultural, and—frankly—uncomfortable texts. our student population is 90% white, and our 21-member english department is 100% white. at all grade levels, literature centered white experiences, suppressing cultural and racial dialogue. diverse curriculum is necessary and essential (howard & gay, 2010), so its department-wide absence was problematic. resolving this problem requires teachers’ “awareness of our intersectionality, standpoints, biases, and privilege, as well as the language and tone we use” (forsgren, 2017, p. 156). this chapter presents my effort to develop such awareness by engaging in action research to “transform practice, participants . . . [and] even society” (herr & anderson, 2015, p. 10). purpose and research questions consistent with the goal of social justice education, to develop awareness of existing oppression and one’s role in it, i aimed to promote equity in our english classrooms, which requires white individuals to “build tolerance for racial discomfort” (diangelo, 2011, p. 60). i began by developing a comprehensive understanding of the problem. as figure 1 illustrates, white teachers’ cultural and racial incompetence reinforces monochromatic curriculum and quells diverse dialogue, and this trifecta preserves white elitism among students and teachers. figure 1. problems within the problem of practice https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0851-5277 sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 31 to rectify this concern by increasing teachers’ cultural competence, i asked: 1. what factors contribute to racial silence in our classrooms? 2. how does targeted intervention impact our cultural competence? 3. how does focusing on teacher cultural competence affect our classrooms? through action research, these questions guided transformative collaboration with colleagues. theoretical framework critical race theory (crt), whiteness, and cultural competence framed this study. the foundational lens, crt revealed systemic reproduction of whiteness in classrooms, whereas cultural competence suggested how to challenge and transform the curriculum. crt i used crt to elucidate how race and education intersect, following earlier examinations of race and the law in pursuit of justice (ansell, 2008). crt reveals racial inequity within the larger institution of schooling, as opposed to individual beliefs, and calls for the transformation of teaching (milner & laughter, 2015). applying crt to curriculum and instruction could catalyze racial and cultural equity within the english department. otherwise, inaction in response to the identification of systemic racism will reproduce it (khalifa et al., 2013). whiteness beyond skin color, whiteness is an ideology associated with privilege, dominance, and social status—unearned benefits afforded to white people and unavailable to people of color (mcmahon, 2015). ensuring “production and reproduction of dominance rather than subordination, normativity rather than marginality, and privilege rather than disadvantage” (frankenberg, 1993, p. 236), whiteness is a social construct with implications for other constructs (owen, 2007). my study positioned whiteness, rather than racism, as a focal point because whiteness is illuminated through the application of crt in the classroom and is a determinant of racial silence in the classroom. in this way, i aligned with giroux’s (1997a) belief that white identity and the responsibility white people have for confronting racism demand a focus on whiteness. cultural competence cultural competence is the ability to recognize and accept others’ cultural characteristics: appearance, behavior, education, actions, attitudes, and policies (cross et al., 1989). students may not glean or increase their cultural sensitivity without specific, guided instruction (vande berg et al., 2012), yet teachers must first understand their own cultural competence and develop critical consciousness (vavrus, 2002). because all teachers, regardless of ethnicity, must become culturally competent (ladson-billings, 1998), this lens aligned with my aim. method inspired by context-dependent problems of practice, action researchers use insider perspectives to design and implement potential solutions, actively participating in inquiry to promote social change (efron & ravid, 2013). critical action research was appropriate for my study, allowing me, alongside my colleagues, to transform our individual and collective practice. although the full study, spanning three phases over 2 months, used mixed methods (sox, 2023), this chapter focuses on the qualitative data. the target population was the 21-member english department at my high school, 76% female and 100% white, with teachers varying in years of experience and age. all department members have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree, a south carolina teaching license, and 2 years of experience. six female teachers, including me, participated—an ideal sample for focus groups (merriam & tisdell, 2016), representing almost 1/3 of our department. during phase 1, participants took a survey with demographic and open-ended questions. analyzing the responses provided a baseline profile and holistic depiction of each teacher’s level and understanding of cultural competence. during phase 2, i facilitated three 2-week modules designed to help participants explore race and culture as applied to our classrooms. each module paired an asynchronous assignment of readings, videos, and reflection questions with a semi-structured focus group session (merriam & tisdell, 2016). individual reflections and focus group transcripts served as additional data captured in phase 1. during phase 3, participants took another open-ended survey. analyzing responses independently and against the baseline data revealed any individual and collective change in cultural and racial competence. each phase yielded data aligned with my research questions. the survey data spoke to questions 1 and 2, while the independent reflections and transcripts corresponded with questions 1 and 3. the open-ended survey responses also aligned with question 3. analysis across datasets surfaced overall impacts of the intervention. findings the baseline profiles anchor my findings by introducing each participant, attesting to how ariel “work[s] hard to understand all sides of any given issue or situation and to keep any potential biases at bay.” her curriculum included two race-related anchor texts to engage students in open, safe discussions, indicating her comfort with racial discourse. she posited, “if the subject comes up in class, it deserves to be acknowledged in an appropriate manner.” coco described her competence as “moderate, but [she] would love to learn more.” she derived the race-related literature and discussions in her classroom from past experience and curriculum, suggesting avoidance of current discourse. when racial topics arose, she tried to “ensure the conversation sta[id] on topic,” lest “bias influence the conversation.” i categorized my own competence as “low to medium,” as i was “becoming more aware and knowledgeable and interested in learning more.” race-related conversations could result from student comments or projects, but the literature in my classroom did not reflect racial diversity. i admitted to “divert[ing] racial conversations,” indicating colormuteness. icarus described her competence as “beginner to intermediate,” suggesting doubt in her knowledge and awareness. she cited some a study of racial and cultural competence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 32 class participation in broader conversations, provided she “mediate[s] the discussion and model[s] appropriate ways to agree with someone.” luna described her competence as “still learning” to connect diversity to real-world issues and develop students’ empathy. most of her responses emphasized expanding students’ knowledge, demonstrating racial and cultural awareness she could share with students. she prioritized honest discussion and “journal writing for encouraging [each] independent voice.” opal demonstrated awareness yet insecurity: “i am sensitive to racial disparities, but i do not feel confident saying that i am a highly culturally competent person.” she claimed to teach diverse authors and topics but admitted to not feeling “safe or comfortable,” limiting “the depth” of discussion. when racial conversations arose, she would “tip toe around them . . . to make sure that everyone is comfortable and safe,” remaining at a “surface level.” baseline cultural competence the initial survey also gauged participants’ baseline cultural competence. i highlighted keywords and phrases for comparison with documented characteristics of cultural competence levels (cross et al., 1989; lindsey et al., 2009; ward, 2013). as table 1 shows, 33% (n = 2) of participants were culturally competent, whereas 67% (n = 4) were culturally pre-competent. table 1. baseline cultural competence participant level ariel cultural competence coco cultural pre-competence dianna cultural pre-competence icarus cultural pre-competence luna cultural competence opal cultural pre-competence group baseline further analysis of the pre-intervention open-ended responses illuminated crosscutting findings. in response to question 32 (what race-related literature or discussions come up in your classroom?), one participant mentioned specific literature, three answered in terms of class discussions, and two reported feeling unsafe or uncomfortable teaching or talking about race in the classroom. that 83% (n = 5) of participants were not actively teaching race-related literature or sparking race-related discussions validated my prediction that our department was not racially inclusive. question 34, which asked if participants have ever avoided discussing race, yielded similar findings. the startling results suggest a correlation between a teacher’s comfort in discussing race (question 34) and course content (question 32). only one participant, ariel, responded negatively, and she alone incorporated race-related texts and conversations in class. responding affirmatively, the other five participants disclosed 13 different reasons for their colormuteness, which figure 2 shows as four major fears of: professional repercussions, external consequences, offending, and showing ignorance. these themes echo literature on teacher racial silence, further highlighting the need for intervention (bolgatz, 2005; castagno, 2008; tatum, 2003). figure 2. reasons for colormuteness a common theme also emerged from participants’ definitions of cultural competence, prompted by question 35. three (50%) specifically acknowledged awareness as an important aspect. definitions also included diversity (ariel), informed respect (opal), and comfort discussing race (icarus). moule (2012) defined cultural competence in education as the capacity to teach culturally dissimilar students, which “entails developing certain personal and interpersonal awareness and sensitivities, learning specific bodies of cultural knowledge, and mastering a set of skills that, taken together, underlie effective cross-cultural teaching” (p. 5). although participants exhibited awareness, the absence of cultural knowledge and skill set within the definitions further legitimized my aim. intervention upon completing the baseline survey, participants received material for module 1, commencing the 6-week intervention. during this phase, participants worked on broadening their knowledge and perspective by uncovering and acknowledging bias. module 1 the first focus group session presented evidence for two primary themes: our collective ability to navigate conversations on racial inequalities and the use of colormuteness. navigating conversations. the group cited local and national headlines that involved racial discourse, demonstrating comfortable, knowledgeable participation in race-based conversations. we discussed at length the town’s contentious proposal to widen a highway by relocating homes and splitting primarily black communities as opposed to rerouting the highway through an opulent neighborhood. a related conversation concerned our shared experiences of being accused by parents and friends-of-friends of indoctrinating or shaming students through crt. our open discussion of these misguided, misjudged, and inequitable situations was noticeable; however, such events primarily happened outside of class, indicating how context may determine participants’ willingness to engage. colormuteness. contrasting evidence of participants’ knowledge, awareness, and ability to converse about race, several statements indicated uneasiness with engaging in racial discourse in the classroom. regarding the term blackness, icarus stated: “i don’t think i would feel comfortable using that term or having a conversation like this in my classroom with my students.” later in the discussion, i also admitted, “to some degree it feels impossible. i don’t know that i can feel comfortable until the whole idea of race sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 33 changes for people.” coco stated, “i don’t want to be viewed as an oppressor,” suggesting she’s afraid to do or say anything that would imply she is. the polarizing political climate and antagonism toward education and educators seemed to elicit the group’s practice of colormuteness, exemplified by me stating, “i have this knowledge that i can actually do something about it, but education is under such an attack now that i feel like i can’t. i’m muzzled by it.” coco also commented on the politicization of education, noting, “you don’t want to risk the drama; you don’t want to end up on the news.” ariel brought up an interesting point that “we don’t know where it can come from,” and luna commiserated, “we’re all worried. we’ve all been in the hot seat before,” indicating the degree to which we may attempt to avoid these conversations. module 2 in module 2, i aimed to build on participants’ awareness in module 1 and facilitate constructive conversations involving race, mobilizing participants to engage in race-based dialogue. analysis of the focus group surfaced three prominent themes: growth in racial and cultural competence, desire for action when recognizing wrongs, and fear. growth in competence. our conversation yielded personal and interpersonal evidence of our growing racial and cultural competence. for example, coco declared, “we’ve been sort of raised to not see color,” but then agreed with luna’s response: “i’ve read a lot lately by black authors that say we do need to see color.” luna suggested this awareness training “should be shared with our staff,” envisioning scaled-up professional development. my responses diverted from work to home, questioning what i was teaching my children about race. my colleagues and i desired continued growth for our sake and for those in our proximity, suggesting that the path to cultural proficiency is not one you walk alone. acknowledging ongoing transformation also recognizes room for continued growth. for example, our conversation sifted through some pejorative terms and settled into a discussion about the use of “negro.” ariel observed that her students are no longer comfortable reading or using the term, and opal commented that it makes her uncomfortable, attributing the discomfort to the word’s having been “used in order to segregate, to discriminate . . . it was not something people used to identify themselves. it was an indicator of difference.” the group seemed to discern the negative connotations associated with terms, acknowledging the semantic difference between color/person of color or autistic/person with autism because “you’re a person first” (ariel). for opal, negative connotations require “think[ing] about the baggage that comes with the word. and just because it doesn’t hurt your feelings doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt somebody else’s feelings.” learning not to use harmful words stems from stepping into those conversations and learning how and why to address the words instead of avoiding them. this topic is especially apropos for english teachers. the how and why of words is our explicit domain, again reaffirming my research aim. desire for action. as a second prominent theme from focus group 2, participants seemed to desire change, especially in response to racial and cultural wrongdoings. opal emphasized a point from one of the readings: to consider a solution-oriented response in the face of injustice. ariel questioned that possibility in today’s climate: “how do we come up with solutions if there can’t be honest conversations?” luna shared her belief that “schools should be the catalyst. i think that’s where we start,” which ariel defended by saying: if we are charged with making the students college and career ready, do we not have, as part of our responsibility, putting topics out there so that when they find themselves in academic situations or in social situations or in line at the grocery store or reading something on their social media, that they can possibly respond in an informed way? here, luna and ariel showcase teachers’ responsibility for educating not just on content but also on racial and cultural empathy. our conversation touched on national headlines, such as the misrepresentation of crt, questionable educational policies in other states, the erasure of history, and book bans. such external injustices are beyond our control, yet the group spent significant time discussing an example within our domain. icarus shared how six black students who signed up for weightlifting were dropped to accommodate white student–athletes. responding to the group’s dismay at the boys’ treatment, icarus pointed to our participation in the study, asking, “how can we let this be? it is, to me, the prime example of this conversation.” we should have been able to intervene, yet recommended actions are noticeably absent from the discussion, suggesting a dependent belief that someone else would right the wrong. knowing there should be change does not equate to being a change agent, yet if teachers are not willing to be change agents, who will be? fear. one explanation for teachers’ unwillingness to act is fear—a resounding theme from focus group 1. echoing our tendency not to respond to racially and/or culturally insensitive social media posts outside of school, opal admitted to wondering if she would get in trouble for listening to the speeches i assigned during school. similarly, coco indicated fear of backlash twice during the session: “how is it going to be perceived? could it be taken out of context?” and “i would be afraid to be attacked by some kind of action group.” in these instances, our group took the path of least resistance rather than speaking our minds about truth and against injustice. in one particular instance, icarus admitted her classroom colormuteness while illuminating how to change through dialogue: we keep [asking] what would you say in class? and i’m like: nothing. i’m not saying anything. i don’t know what to say. ‘there are three black boys in this classroom.’ i don’t know if i could say that out loud. but since i heard my kids say it, now i’m saying it. what are y’all saying? ‘how many people of color are here today?’ i mean, how are we talking about that? are you saying this black author? or are you saying this author of color? icarus became more comfortable using the word “black” in class after hearing her students use it when referring to themselves and without offense. she also encouraged this discourse among colleagues by using the collective “we” and asking about our use of racial terminology in the classroom, thus showing us comfort may derive from more open discussions. module 3 module 3 focused on applying skills learned in module 2 directly to the classroom through curricular decisions and deliberate discussion. this focus gave rise to four themes: pessimism vs. a study of racial and cultural competence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 34 optimism, fear, modeling competent behaviors, and classroom impact. pessimism vs. optimism. echoing the uncertainty in previous sessions, the group also seemed ambivalent about racial classroom discourse. opening the dialogue, opal disclosed, “that’s what i’m bad at . . . i don’t know how i’m supposed to respond.” icarus suggested teachers have two paths involving race-related dialogue in the classroom: “initiate or ignite.” to her, initiating means pausing the classroom agenda and inviting students into conversation, whereas inflaming emotions could cause ignition. in response, participants demonstrated either pessimistic or optimistic views of what would happen if we chose to initiate. icarus answered her own question pessimistically: “i always worry. i guess how i handle it is not choosing to ignite it, so i just move on.” i concurred with my tendency to ignore “because you never know what the response will be.” our comments suggest a worst-case assumption that race-based conversations will backfire; therefore, we avoid them. in this pessimistic view, the risks of initiating are too great and the rewards too small. opal acknowledged the risks of such conversations but was more hopeful regarding potential benefits: there are ways to do it. i don’t think that maybe all of us are super equipped to do it. i don’t know how to do it. it’s way harder, i think, to try and work within this system and still make a difference…but sometimes you can cause trouble and then 3 months later, it actually mattered to somebody. opal thus illustrates how teachers can identify the good that supersedes any risks, rendering the conversations worth igniting. from an even more optimistic viewpoint, ariel testified about her initial worry of introducing african-american authors in class, but students “all latched on to those two selections. it was so gratifying!” this anecdote illustrates the value of a diverse curriculum and of willingly initiating conversations, almost suggesting teachers are derelict in their duty if they do not ignite. fear. once again, participants suggested fear stymies teachers. ariel described the uncertainty resulting from controversial perspectives: “we don’t know what they’re going to go home and tell the parents they learned in english today.” other remarks included: “if there’s kickback you could [be fired] because you’re not following the curriculum” (coco); “our political climate has just influenced what is considered safe” (coco); “where is the actual line here, like, is it all just fear?” (opal); “i would be so worried that would start an escalation” (icarus); and “one thing we have to understand is that it can backfire. it can bring repercussions” (icarus). this theme’s frequency within and across focus groups suggests its prominence in our practice, dictating what we teach, how we teach it, what we say, and how we say it. fear underpins teachers’ colormuteness, reinforcing their need for racial and cultural competence. despite our trepidation, there is consolation in the security we felt in acting and making curricular decisions together. for example, opal responded “a million percent” when i asked participants if they would feel more comfortable taking classroom risks among a team of teachers. modeling. countering participants’ fear, they also demonstrated their capacity to model competent behaviors. the opening activity involved sharing a question, comment, or situation concerning race in the classroom. every time a potentially contentious conversation was a discussion prompt, participants responded with a probing question rather than denial or deflection: “i guess i don’t really understand [the student’s] statement there, so i feel like i’d be tempted to ask him to explain” (dianna); “can you elaborate on that?” (ariel); “what makes you say that?” (icarus); and “what did i say or do that makes you feel that way?” (dianna). requesting more details gives teachers more insight into a speaker’s mindset, facilitating a response that will not escalate the situation. thus, my colleagues and i seemed to understand the importance of opening constructive dialogue rather than avoiding or escalating. similarly, we demonstrated competence in our ability to recognize and de-escalate combative situations. ariel discerned, “[students] know the words are going to be explosive and sometimes they just want to get a rise out of you.” she then shared her strategy to avoid escalation by offering to talk after school because “if it’s really important to that student, they’ll come by. if they’re just trying to get a rise, they’ll go on.” being able to read the situation, pausing to consider everyone’s feelings, and establishing a more conducive atmosphere for honest communication characterize our cultural competence. impact. throughout the session, participants directly referenced or alluded to the study’s impact on their classroom, making such changes a fourth area of analysis. suggesting a change in her perspective about how she teaches and whom she teaches, opal said: in the article, they were talking about the most significant job that you can do if you want to be an anti-racist . . . is working with white kids, like, in opening the doors that way. and that was the most, probably the most impactful thing that i’ve read so far. i agreed, addressing the sense of “necessity and urgency of engaging white students in conversations about race,” a responsibility falling on teachers. however, we recognized that our white students are more socially aware than those who attended school years ago. i observed total agreement, verbal and nonverbal, when i said: “i feel like there’s an opportunity here to make it not just what’s ‘out there,’ but we can make it academic and school-worthy and worth studying and talking about.” we thus identified a need to make our classrooms and curriculum more relevant to students, with several participants mentioning strategies they intended to implement: journaling, anonymous writing, and diversifying independent reading selections. opal encouraged meaningful, diverse literature for teaching fundamental racial lessons. ariel added, “good literature should disturb you. it’s supposed to make you itch and make you think,” critiquing “this world where things are so sanitized that there is no itching.” these comments suggest that teachers should approach curricular decisions not based on student comfort but on what will make their students more empathetic and culturally competent. the desire to teach more diverse literature suggests growing awareness of the topics we discussed and application to the classroom as compared to prior sessions. individual outcomes the third and final phase involved a follow-up survey akin to the preliminary survey. constructive in their own right, the responses also illuminated the efficacy of the intervention through comparison against the pre-intervention survey. as in phase 1, i analyzed the open-ended responses to assess participants’ cultural competence levels. as table 2 shows, 83% (n = 5) demonstrated cultural competence and 17% (n = 1) demonstrated cultural pre-competence. sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 35 table 2. endline cultural competence participant level ariel cultural competence coco cultural competence dianna cultural competence icarus cultural competence luna cultural competence opal cultural pre-competence group outcomes as in phase 1, my qualitative analysis of the endline survey focused on the open-ended questions aligned with my aims. in response to question 32 (do you feel more equipped to talk about race in your classroom?), most participants were affirmative but nevertheless hesitant. luna wrote, “yes, but still not enough,” and i responded, “somewhat,” explaining, “i can’t say that i feel extremely knowledgeable or comfortable, but i also feel like i’m not as scared or would not actively try to divert the conversation . . . in my classroom.” participants also seemed to value the independent assignments. opal and coco specifically referenced how the ted talks provided vocabulary and strategies for conducting class discussions about race. similarly, question 33 asked if participants noticed a change in their teaching. a yes response (50%; n = 3; ariel, coco, and luna) indicated feeling more aware and honest, adapting terminology, and being more inclusive toward students and the curriculum. maybe/a little (33%; n = 2; icarus and dianna) alluded to feeling more confident, less afraid or hesitant, and willing to change or apply new learning. one response of no (17%, opal) indicated no specific changes but did express hope for future changes. question 34 asked participants to report any changes to their curriculum. two (33%; coco and dianna) had added a racially diverse text, two (33%; opal and ariel) acknowledged changing their approach to an existing text, and two (33%; icarus and luna) reported no changes. documented and desired changes to the curriculum are worthwhile, no matter how small, whereas the “no” responses merit a deeper look. luna indicated that district demands and course pacing prevented her from answering affirmatively. likewise, icarus responded that her “team needs to make changes,” pointing to external factors. considering question 33 and question 34 in conjunction was illuminating, with the first question highlighting how students and content were taught and the second looking specifically at what. as table 3 illustrates, each participant provided a unique combination of responses, reflecting the intervention’s variable impact. although a shared experience can have multiple interpretations, this evidence also reiterates the complexity of my problem of practice. there is no one-size-fits-all model to becoming more racially and culturally competent. when educators commit to walking that journey, the ripple effect of their impact can be multifaceted. question 35, as on the baseline survey, asked respondents to define the concept to gauge participant growth and understanding of cultural competence. post-intervention definitions were generally longer and more in-depth. awareness, which three participants mentioned, remained a prominent theme, while celebrating differences was a new pattern in the data. this theme manifested in acknowledging and understanding differences (icarus), effectively communicating with others outside one’s racial/cultural group (dianna), willingly participating in culturally diverse situations (opal), and considering other perspectives (ariel). other noteworthy words and phrases include “honest conversations” (luna), “a skill, not an attribute, that can grow” (dianna), “empathy and consideration” (opal), and “appropriate sensitivity” (ariel). these definitions align more with moule’s (2012) view of educational cultural competence as the awareness and sensitivities, cultural knowledge, and crosscultural teaching skills that determine a teacher’s facility for educating culturally diverse students. lastly, i compared the final levels from both surveys to detect any movement along the continuum. as table 4 shows, half of the participants (50%; n = 3; ariel, luna, and opal) exhibited no change in their cultural competence. the other half (50%; n = 3; coco, dianna, and icarus) exhibited increased cultural competence. table 3. responses to questions 33 and 34 participant question 33: change in approach question 34: change in content ariel yes changed approach to current content coco yes yes dianna maybe/a little yes icarus maybe/a little no luna yes no opal no changed approach to current content table 4. change in cultural competence participant convergent baseline convergent endline movement ariel competence competence no change coco pre-competence competence increase dianna pre-competence competence increase icarus pre-competence competence increase luna competence competence no change opal pre-competence pre-competence no change discussion to address my research questions, i looked across datasets, determining the overall impacts of the intervention. question 1: factors contributing to racial silence in our classrooms my data suggests exposure to racial and cultural dialogue and literature can make teachers more comfortable with implementation. however, few participants admitted to teaching diverse literature or engaging in racial discourse, underscoring the need for the study. baseline survey responses suggested four fears underlying participants’ colormuteness, but fear of professional repercussions dominated during the focus groups. participants expressed uncertainty and discomfort in their skills, yet colormuteness may have more to do with willingness than knowledge or awareness, feeding their primary fear. they deemed external improbabilities more significant, making decisions based on potential reactions of individuals outside the classroom. a study of racial and cultural competence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 36 question 2: how targeted intervention impacted our cultural competence three participants originally at the pre-competence level increased to competence, two initially at the competence level stayed the same, and one at the pre-competence level stayed the same. the evident increase could be attributed to our participation in the study and exposure to texts, videos, and focus group discussions on race and culture. although the results are inconclusive, the 50% who retained their cultural competence level may have increased their competence after all; lack of change in level does not preclude individual growth. just as participants’ definition and understanding of cultural competence expanded post-intervention, their selfdescriptions also denote a positive shift (see table 5). thus, their growth in knowledge and improved self-image suggest that the intervention succeeded. table 5. responses to question 36 participant baseline endline ariel i work hard to understand all sides of any given issue or situation and to keep any potential biases at bay. i feel optimistic and empowered to respond to issues of race and culture in the classroom albeit i still have plenty to learn! coco i would describe my level of racial/cultural competence as moderate, but i would love to learn more. my level of racial/cultural competence has been raised as the topic has been at the forefront of my awareness. dianna low to medium. i am becoming more aware and knowledgeable and interested in learning more. growing. better than before. icarus beginner to intermediate much improved luna still learning… evolving. long way to go. opal i am sensitive to racial disparities but i do not feel confident saying that i am a highly culturally competent person. medium-low. i could be more educated for sure. i need to take the time to really educate myself. question 3: how focusing on teacher cultural competence affected our classrooms during module 3, i expected participants to apply new learning and awareness in the classroom. participants demonstrated deep self-reflection on their professional habits and intentional use of these lessons. these connections suggest that increased teachers’ cultural competence can directly impact classrooms. from new strategies to new texts to new considerations of terms, participants were willing to adapt their practices to be more inclusive, diverse, and accepting. this willingness could radically shift instruction if teachers commit to being change agents. when asked about the potential impact on their classroom, participants offered practical strategies they were willing to try, such as journaling, anonymous writing, and offering diverse literature. during focus group 3, participants cited independent reading as a way to diversify the curriculum and promote student choice and exploration of culture and race. any of these steps would offer time and a safe space for students to articulate their thoughts and are admirable ways to cultivate inclusive classrooms. however, such strategies are solitary, suggesting a hands-off approach on the teacher’s part. neither hiding writing through anonymity nor independently reading diverse texts constitutes discussing race, permitting colormuteness to persist. nevertheless, progress has to begin somewhere, and my study demonstrated our initial steps toward racially and culturally inclusive classrooms. as teachers grow in competence, classroom impact will stem from their intentional action, beyond mere willingness or desire. growth in competence should correspond with growth in confidence, but teachers must act for classrooms to be conducive to honest discussions about race. otherwise, misinformation, hatred, fear, racism, confusion, and oppression will continue to reign. the responsibility falls on teachers. if we do not act, who will? recommendations for practice because race and whiteness permeate society, my action research holds insight for fellow practitioners. first, teachers should commit to collective growth in cultural competence. cultural awareness implies learned behaviors, warranting intentional effort to improve. the cultural competence framework (cross et al., 1989) assesses individual or organizational competence, yet progression along the continuum need not occur in solitude. in fact, lindsey et al. (2009) encouraged professional learning teams, mirroring my participants’ productive discussions and altruistic desire for others to develop cultural competence. second, teachers must investigate their curriculum and instruction, critically examining what they teach, why, and how. diversifying curriculum acknowledges and celebrates differences among students and in content. moreover, intentional conversations about race are opportunities to teach students beyond the normative perspective. classroom practice should combat inequities and promote social justice; however, teachers must first abandon their fear. school leaders can mitigate teachers’ fear by examining the policies, environment, and administrative support they provide. fear of professional consequences was a dominant reason for my participants’ colormuteness. assurances from above would likely ease this reported fear, provided administrators are also culturally competent and committed to continual growth. operating outside the classroom does not render school leadership immune to whiteness and racism. in fact, administrators are arguably schools’ first line of defense against external complaints or opposition, which may materialize as teachers adopt antiracist practices. furthermore, school leaders should provide research-based, antiracist professional development. my participants’ desire for such opportunities echoes ward’s (2013) call for administrators to “transform their staffs by fully engaging them in difficult conversations, exercises, and professional development that move them along the cultural proficiency continuum” (p. 28). a school-wide series is necessary to transform school culture rather than a 1-hour, 1-day, one-group, or one-department session. implementation as figure 3 illustrates, kemmis and mctaggart’s (1988) action research model emphasizes a continuous spiral through multiple sox impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 37 cycles, while cultural competence follows a linear progression. both models reflect my ultimate goal of cultural proficiency in my thinking and teaching. educational action researchers conclude one cycle with a revised plan that moves the teacher and their students forward (herr & anderson, 2015). in my case, this study reinforced my commitment to antiracist practice, illuminating several means of applying the findings to create a more equitable classroom. specifically, i resolved to being intentional about classroom and curricular decisions that thwart whiteness and celebrate diversity, such as diversifying literature through choice novels and whole-class novel studies, engaging and even prompting racial discourse, and critically examining my pedagogy. to remain cognizant of my fear and take steps to curb it, i also aspired to heed my own advice of choosing action and discourse over negligence and silence. specifically, i vowed to find others to share in my cultural competence journey. changes will be more feasible if i allow myself to influence and be influenced by others. figure 3. action research and cultural competence recommendations for research at its core, action research prioritizes “making a situation such as a classroom or whole school system better” (bradbury et al., 2019, p. 7), prompting this study on colormuteness and teacher cultural competence. considering the necessarily small, homogenous sample, future researchers may wish to include different gender, racial, and/or cultural perspectives. future research could also investigate whether the problem exists in other departments, schools, and districts. finally, given teachers’ fear and school leaders’ capacity to abate it, examining administrators’ cultural competence and professional support may be necessary. investigating antiracist support systems in place for teacher activists could yield school-wide growth toward cultural competence and more longitudinal insights about racial discourse and diversity in the classroom—goals worth striving for at every level of education but only achievable if teachers answer the call to act. reference ansell, a. 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(2019b, february). spotlight a: characteristics of public school teachers by race/ethnicity. u.s. department of education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/spotlight_a.asp https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412963879.n138 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327892mcp0703_6 https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2017.0003 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2008.00024.x https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1193562 http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/249/116 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.59.3.058342114k266250 https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2017.0026 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487107310751 https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.817770 https://doi.org/10.1080/095183998236863 https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396814567407 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0295-4 https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/indicator_rbb.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/spotlight_a.asp a study of racial and cultural competence impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.588 38 owen, d. s. (2007). towards a critical theory of whiteness. philosophy & social criticism, 33(2), 203–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453707074139 pollock, m. (2009). colormute: race talk dilemmas in an american school. princeton university press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400826124 schaeffer, k. (2021, december 10). america’s public school teachers are far less racially and ethnically diverse than their students. pew research center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americaspublic-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-thantheir-students/ sox, d. (2023). if not me, then who?: a study of racial and cultural competence in a high school english department [doctoral dissertation, university of south carolina]. scholar commons. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7320 tatum, b. d. (2003). why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? and other conversations about race. basic books. vande berg, m., paige, r. m., & lou, k. h. (2012). student learning abroad: paradigms and assumptions. in m. vande berg, r. m. paige, & k. h. lou (eds.), student learning abroad: what our students are leaning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it (pp. 3–28). stylus. vavrus, m. (2002). transforming the multicultural education of teachers: theory, research, and practice. teachers college press. ward, c. j. (2013). addressing stereotypes by moving along the continuum of cultural proficiency. voices from the middle, 20(3), 27–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453707074139 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400826124 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7320 dianna s. sox university of south carolina purpose and research questions theoretical framework crt whiteness cultural competence method findings baseline cultural competence group baseline intervention module 1 module 2 module 3 individual outcomes group outcomes discussion question 1: factors contributing to racial silence in our classrooms question 2: how targeted intervention impacted our cultural competence question 3: how focusing on teacher cultural competence affected our classrooms recommendations for practice implementation recommendations for research reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 46 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.590 cultivating critical consciousness: building an edd-activist identity ashley wright independent researcher wrightak58@gmail.com abstract i began my higher academic journey as a student of political science and history, aiming to engage with and improve my communities. however, by 2016, i became disillusioned with my work in politics and left to pursue a career in education, focusing on developing civic education for my students. the university of south carolina’s edd program, with its emphasis on social justice and dedication to teacher activism, transformed my view of the teacher's role as an educator. surprisingly, usc’s doctoral program helped bridge the gap between my academic disciplines, offering opportunities to explore how political science, history, and education intersect to foster educational activism. this article reflects on my ongoing journey of becoming an edd activist through the university of south carolina’s edd program and discusses how we can continue supporting teachers involved in edd activism after completing the dissertation in practice, from a program graduate’s perspective. keywords educator activism, dissertation in practice (dip), doctor of education (edd program), social justice if asked to conjure images of activism in action, most people would likely visualize events like protest movements, boycotts, petitions, or campaigns—some of the most tangible forms of activism. in this sense, activism is an active effort to cultivate change in a community, such as protesting social injustices on the street, petitioning companies and environmental policy groups to stop building in state parks, or boycotting companies to allow their employees to unionize. that is how i viewed activism until i became a teacher. a love for social studies has always been at the heart of my identity. from historic-themed road trips as a child to being a high school sophomore carrying around a copy of jeff shaara’s pulitzerwinning civil war novel, gods and generals, i unsurprisingly took to college as a political science and history student, seeking to engage and improve the communities to which i belonged. i did not make the connection then, but looking back on the topics or historical events i enjoyed studying, i gravitated to conversations surrounding social inequities. in my history courses, i was fascinated with the changing politics during u.s. reconstruction and the revolutionary potential of activism in this antebellum era. in political science, i could not wait to dive into supreme court opinions on the topic of individual liberties and expansions of civil rights, like the series of cases that finally resulted in the obergefell v. hodges (2015) decision guaranteeing marriage equality. my passion for the discipline continued outside the classroom, where i participated in local political campaigns and was reasonably active in related events on my college campus and in the surrounding community. i continued working in the field, even landing a job after graduation, but by 2016, i was disillusioned with my political work. i would meet other activists at campaign events, disheartened by the reality of political engagement: some of the most active members in communities were among the least informed. the 2016 presidential election ushered in a climate of rampant distrust and extreme partisanship for which i was not prepared. i was increasingly frustrated and could not stomach what was quickly becoming the new normal in u.s. politics. the claims of fake news, the rise of nationalism, sentiments of anti-intellectualism, and the election’s exposure of our deep cultural and racial divides took their toll. as time passed, i believed education could remedy this growing problem, a solution to the issues i saw manifesting in our society. i understood education as a powerful vehicle for change, but i needed to recognize that all teaching philosophies are not created equal in manifesting those changes. i left politics to pursue a career in education, focusing on building civic education and involvement among my students. my goal was to create a classroom experience that fostered the growth of civic education and action for my government students, giving them the tools to transform the societies they were about to enter. i sought to guide students in developing their attitudes and desires toward activism, but never identified myself or my role as an educator as an activist in nature. my work in politics was activism, not teaching, and that career chapter was behind me, or so i thought, until my acceptance into the university of south carolina’s (usc) doctor of education (edd) program in 2020. before i entered the program, i had no model for being an educator activist or what it could look like. at the time, the roles of educator and activist existed in separate spaces, operating independently as parts of my identity. expanding my teaching and learning knowledge throughout my edd program allowed me to reconstruct this version of myself, dissolving the divisions between teacher and civic identities and transforming my approaches to my instructional practice. this article reflects on the continuous journey of developing my identity as an edd activist through the usc edd program and beyond, then expands on how organizations can continue supporting teachers involved in edd activism after submitting the dissertation in practice, since the work continues even https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5647-4520 wright impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.590 47 after successfully defending our dissertations and walking across the stage at graduation. when i started reviewing edd programs, i considered myself a relatively new teacher. i was just finishing my fourth-year teaching in the very same classroom where i had learned government less than a decade earlier. i had only taken a few education courses to complete my professional teacher certifications. intended to fill in my knowledge gaps in the field, these educator preparation courses mainly taught me to manage a classroom, align my curriculum to standards, and plan the typical day-to-day activities i would employ as a teacher. since my higher education background was grounded in political science and history, not education, i expected something similar for my doctoral courses, just up to the graduate research level. i did not have a clear career trajectory after completing my edd. still, i was passionate about social studies education, and being a lifelong learner, as most teachers tend to be, i decided to pursue an additional degree program. the more i researched, the edd. seemed like the perfect fit, a professional doctorate designed to equip me with the “theoretical, pedagogical, and research expertise” i needed to tackle problems of practice within my classroom and institution (adams et al., 2014, p. 366). a program like this would allow me to stay in the classroom while expanding the impact i could have, uplifting my students, and the institution. i expected that by the end of the 3 years, i would have a shiny new diploma and foundational knowledge i could carry throughout my career. however, nothing could have prepared me for the transformative educational experience i was about to undertake. it is not hyperbole to say that from the outset of the program, the courses were some of the richest and most authentic academic experiences i have ever had, completely altering my perceptions of what educational classes could be. can you remember the syllabus from your first course in college? probably not, but if you had to guess, it included information on the course, the professor’s office hours, and an outline of the content you would expect to cover over the semester. sound accurate? to quote my principles of curriculum construction class syllabus, “this syllabus might be unlike most syllabi you encounter in grad school,” which was a dramatic understatement. instead of the usual outline of course content, our professor provided us with a series of weekly musings to kick-start the conversations we would be having throughout the class. each week’s themes and readings were embedded in a series of stories, metaphors, and questions intentionally designed to allow us as students to carve our own paths and construct our knowledge of the curriculum using the varied backgrounds that got us to the class in the first place. for our class discussions, we were encouraged to bring in relevant outside sources to enhance the conversations and make our learning applicable to our specific teaching situations and areas of expertise. the design of this class allowed me to bring my background knowledge of history and political science into the discussion, providing me with a way to connect to the content where i might have been lacking due to my limited background in educational theories. one of the weekly discussions prompted us to explore the educational and conflicting theories of booker t. washington and w.e.b. du bois. of course, as a history student, i was familiar with the now-famous encounters between washington and du bois over issues of civil and political rights, as well as the education of black americans in the post-civil war united states (mcswine, 1998). reexploring these men and their stories through the lens of educational theories was a very enlightening experience for me. i was not breaking down washington’s argument, emphasizing industrial training for the masses, or du bois’s insistence on developing liberal arts education for african american leaders, but redefining the purpose of education and my place in it. was the role of education about cultivating success in our society through college admissions and careers, or was it about creating the tools our students could use to fashion freedom? washington and du bois sought to promote a more inclusive vision of a society free from racial and cultural divides, although their paths to achieving that goal differed slightly. rereading their work has shown me how much my educational philosophy has changed; their narratives can challenge us and, through that challenge, transform us to consider how we will approach training students to enter the discourse that is our society. while this experience was just one example, it was not an isolated incident. as i continued through the series of courses for my doctorate, these revelations would persist, reinforced with each text i read or every time i reflected on my instructional practice. reflecting on my teaching prior to being accepted to usc’s edd program, i was guilty of a few things, mainly underestimating my potential as an educator activist. when i entered the classroom, i aimed to have my government students exit prepared for college and active citizenship in a democratic society. to achieve these goals, we read and discussed theoretical works from renowned political scientists and primary documents, like the federalist papers and influential supreme court opinions. they engaged in hands-on activities like mock congress sessions and presidential situation room simulations. my students left my classroom knowing the material and being involved with civics education in a fun way, which seemed enough then. however, during these first few years in the classroom, my view on education depended heavily on a teacher-centered model that assumed education was enough to create social equity and liberation. i was teaching under the assumption that knowledge of government would be the catalyst to turn students into active and engaged citizens in a democracy. the literature i encountered in those early edd classes was reinforced throughout the program and shifted my philosophy on education, revealing how critical it is to view education as a path to developing critical thinkers rather than just transmitting information. i was naïve to think a primary civic education was enough for my students to make real-world connections and strive for transformative justice in society. yes, the educational system has the potential to be a tool of liberation, but it requires conscious effort on the part of those in positions of power and authority. if i had not recognized these truths after my high school, college, and graduate school experiences, how could i expect my students to do so in a single semester of high school government? i was educating students in the same ways i had been socialized, without considering the deliberate intention required for transformative education. i needed to look inward to respond to my changing philosophies on education. as a white educator, i was aware of my position of privilege. i grew up in a middle-class family; i was fortunate enough to attend college and private schooling, and i knew that being a white person afforded me social, political, and economic benefits due to the color of my skin. however, i did not analyze my identity beyond that, especially regarding my role in the classroom. as i continued through my doctoral program, i kept returning to the words of the brazilian educator paulo freire, who advanced the essential concept of consciousness. as an educational pedagogy, the development of consciousness has the potential to liberate “the cultivating critical consciousness impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.590 48 masses from systemic inequity” (jemal & bussey, 2018, p. 38). according to freire (2020), if people are unaware of inequity and do not take steps to resist the status quo, we will continue to uphold those oppressive systems. i was who freire was describing. failing to grasp my identity as a white woman in education meant perpetuating a system of inequality around me. it was not intentional, deliberate, or malicious, but my lack of awareness fortified it. schools need to address topics such as racism, immigration, civil rights, gender equality, gender violence, and the current situations plaguing our country in order to transform our reality. the edd journey i was embarking on would be an exercise in constructing and deconstructing my identity as an educator and, ultimately, an educator activist to provide that transformative educational experience for my students. the usc edd program’s focus on social justice and commitment to teacher activism changed how i saw myself and the role of teachers as educators, researchers, and activists all rolled into one. what was unexpected was how much usc’s doctoral program bridged that gap between my academic disciplines, providing opportunities to explore how political science, history, and education combine to help me drive educational activism in my classroom and school community. the program website emphasized “concerns for equity and social justice, self-knowledge, cultural issues, and human growth and development” through the study of theory and practical application, and the curriculum studies concentration specifically promoted “an in-depth understanding of the theory, history, concepts, current techniques, strategies, and issues of diversity in schools” for engaging in social justice education (university of south carolina, n.d., para. 2). at the time, i did not overthink the emphasis on social justice in the program’s mission statement; by 2020, it was increasingly commonplace for companies, and especially higher education institutions, to commit to a stance of creating spaces for diversity and inclusion. in a 2023 study on incorporating social justice in higher education mission statements, devies et al. (2023) isolated 40 higher education institutions that had adopted the inclusion of “social justice” in their mission statements and concluded that most schools “believe in and support social justice, but may not necessarily want to actively engage in the pursuit of social justice from the language used in their mission statements” (p. 147). i did not realize how much the usc program prioritized taking action in creating an environment to assist their students in genuinely engaging with social justice practices in their capacity as educators. their curriculum is situated in a way that helps “students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action” (giroux, 2010, para. 1), providing an outlet for that action in the form of an action research dissertation. my first semester of the edd program also coincided with the may 2020 murder of george floyd at the hands of minnesota police department officer derek chauvin after kneeling on his neck for nearly 8 minutes. the event sparked months of nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice. with bated breath and unease in my stomach, i spent my nights glued to the television, watching the coverage of the over “7,750 demonstrations linked to the blm [black lives matter] movement” across the country (armed conflict location & event data, 2020, para. 5). the footage from the protests in the nation’s capital continues to stick out in my mind to this day due to the sheer scope of deployed law enforcement involving at least 5,800 troops, agents, and unbadged officers equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas, and battle helmets (alvarez & kaufman, 2020). the use of force directed at the protesters by the police made the news coverage challenging to watch. however, i refused to turn away, recognizing how significant this movement would likely become in u.s. political history. national news coverage of the civil rights movement arguably transformed the united states by showing the violence of segregation (southern spaces, 2004), and in those moments, watching the black lives matter protests, i felt a similar effect. watching the protest coverage became a tangible representation of the inequities i was studying in my classes. from that moment, i could no longer ignore the structural racism, disparities, and biases as they existed and worked to deconstruct the unconscious state of whiteness i perpetuated as a white teacher. the social movement became my call to action, fueling my desire to continue educating myself and identifying ways to combat the inequalities inside and beyond my classroom. i was no longer going to be a white educator who was complacent in reinforcing the systemic racism that exists in our classrooms and curriculum. with this event clear in my mind, i deeply embraced the social justice and equity mindset reinforced by my edd program, which motivated me to put in the work as an educator committed to doing my part in the shared responsibility of changing the structural inequalities all around us. as teachers, we cannot afford to censor difficult topics of conversation in schools. we cannot let individual discomfort or lack of knowledge allow us to be negligent in responding to these conversations. students have a right to know about the complicated history of the united states, especially if they are expected to exist and perform in a society where the legacy of that painful history is still prevalent. learning about our country’s history of slavery and white supremacy is essential for us to “bridge the racial [and cultural] differences that continue to divide our nation” (shuster, 2018, p. 20), and there is still so much more work to do. after watching the protests in the summer of 2020, i committed to applying my insights in the 2020–2021 school year, becoming more conscious of the discussions that needed to occur and how i could support those conversations through my curriculum. the 2020–2021 school year started virtually due to the covid19 pandemic, but from behind our computer screens, my students and i navigated those hard discussions. i did not shy away from spending weeks of the semester providing context for what they saw on the news over the summer, everything from the blm movement to the calls to remove confederate statues. the reflective process i was undertaking en route to an edd. prompted a transition from a lack of agency, a place where i was not actively addressing systemic inequality, to taking critical action, altering my behavior in a way to confront those inequalities (jemal & bussey, 2018). it was a significant first step toward aligning my classroom practices with this new vision of education i was constructing, but i still had more work to do. contemplating my view of teaching before the program, i was guilty of failing to see teaching as an inherently political act. i aimed to keep politics out of the classroom when i started teaching government.” i appreciated the political science professors i had in college who so expertly navigated political issues, explaining the nuances to both sides of the argument, never revealing where their allegiances stood. that was a classroom experience i wanted to replicate for my students. i kept them guessing all semester about my political affiliations, believing that they had no place in the classroom, and to some extent, i still believed that to be true. my time in the edd program reinforced the notion that the classroom wright impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.590 49 should not be partisan, but it taught me how, no matter how neutral we intend to be, the classroom will always be a political space. educational scholars such as freire (2020) expressed how the education system is a form of politics and can never be neutral, despite our efforts to make it seem so. education is inherently political because of educators’ role in disrupting the norms, biases, and status quo that dictate society. as a teacher, i always make decisions about the learning occurring in my classroom. i select textbooks, plan lessons, add supplemental resources, and omit others. each of these processes in the classroom involves elements of bias, which can impact how my students construct knowledge and ultimately learn. for example, the decision to incorporate a primary document such as a federalist paper over another primary source is political—something i had not recognized before. upon entering the teaching profession, i did not realize that i was silencing knowledge from additional perspectives by selecting specific materials for my class. our educational systems, curriculum, and supplemental resources continue to center on eurocentric knowledge and theories of teaching and learning, leaving out the diverse knowledge of black, indigenous, and other marginalized communities. as a result, the students at my school did not typically encounter primary and secondary source material from various political, social, and economic backgrounds in their social studies classes, mine included. i embodied greene’s (1977) description of passivity, creating an environment that reinforced my students’ current worldview of political and social culture instead of expanding it. the curriculum i developed challenged my students academically but failed to challenge them to think critically about issues of inequality (wright, 2022). as i progressed through my edd classes, i recognized how essential it would be to deconstruct whiteness as it applied to my students, my curriculum, and, ultimately, me. exercises in reflecting on my practice, along with the literature from my classes, exposed the tangible ways whiteness shapes how white people view themselves, but also places them in a place of structural advantage where white cultural norms and practices go unnamed and unquestioned (frankenberg, 1993). this invisible force reinforced whiteness as the universal condition (henry & tator, 2006). until my education classes, i had not had the opportunity to develop this type of racial analysis. as a result, i was not necessarily aware of the depth of this problem, and i even failed to recognize how embedded it was in my own curriculum. where before i saw my curriculum reflective of “foundational” literature of political science, now i saw an overwhelming distribution of white, male, heteronormative voices. the transformation of my practice depended on silenced voices, so i also needed to ensure that voices outside the dominant narrative guided my students’ exposure to societal problems. educational change toward social justice “hinges on leveraging, extending, and sharing the expert knowledge of teachers” (bell, 2019, p. 681). my time in the program redefined my philosophy education and empowered me to take on a role as a teacherresearcher. when i started my edd journey in 2020, i never expected to be where i am today. i am just under 2 years from graduation and have been committed to contributing to educational research, especially from a practitioner standpoint. i have written about my research, experiences, and insights in multiple educational book projects similar to this one. i even presented a condensed version of my dissertation study at the american educational research association annual conference, one of the world’s largest gatherings of educational researchers. to be able to continue developing my role within educational research following graduation was wholly unexpected. teachers like me tend to feel more comfortable reading rather than generating research (cochran-smith & lytle, 1993; corey, 1952). teachers digest all types of educational research in their capacity, from what is presented in their professional development sessions to district data reports. however, producing research can be challenging for several reasons. i was one of those teachers prior to the edd program. i lacked confidence in the research skills necessary to produce such work and did not believe my classroom’s “minor” problems warranted publication. i did not believe my experience in the classroom was relevant as a form of research, and i needed to be more confident in my abilities to contribute to educational scholarship. continuing with the significant theme of this article, my edd program and the exposure to action research shifted my mindset regarding my identity as a teacherresearcher and how i can incorporate that identity into facilitating activism. before my doctoral program, i was unfamiliar with the concept of action research. creswell (2013) defined it as a form of applied research seeking to explore “a practical problem with an aim toward developing a solution” (p. 449). as a significant component of the edd. degree, action research shifted how i viewed research and educational reform. action research situates teachers “to examine their own beliefs, explore their understandings of practice, foster critical reflection, and develop decision-making capabilities that would enhance their teaching and help them assume control over their respective situation” (ginns et al., 2001, p. 129). the main product of a certain edd program is a dissertation in practice (dip), designed to be the culmination of practitioner learning and, for usc students, a demonstration of their responsibilities “as scholarly practitioners to pursue social justice” (currin et al., 2023, p. 49). while working on my edd. at usc, i had colleagues doing the same at various universities nationwide. when comparing our programs, i noticed south carolina had a unique approach to embedding our dips deeper into our courses of study than i observed from my colleagues’ institutions. my colleagues’ programs were what i would have typically expected from a doctoral program: a set plan of study including a variety of courses followed by a period of dissertation work, usually a couple of semesters long. the course of study and the dissertation hours were separate, whereas with usc, i started my action research courses during my first semester, and the main goal at the end of that course was to produce a prospectus that could potentially evolve into a dip. as a result, i worked on my dissertation over the 3 years i was in the program rather than just a year or so at the end of my courses. i believe approaching the dip in this way not only reinforced my skills in research design but was also influential in deepening my commitment to developing practitioner research as a form of activism. teachers are uniquely positioned to provide an insider’s view of instructional practice that “makes visible the way that students and teachers together construct knowledge and curriculum” (cochransmith & lytle, 1993, p. 43). the value of action research comes from engaging teachers as active partners in education research, creating a tangible way for teachers to improve their practice and increase their understanding of their educational situations. conducting and formally writing research provides the practitioner-researcher the opportunity to, as krall (1988) described, become more “consciously intentional of our actions and more thoughtful and reflective of their consequences” (p. 474). after doing action research, i find krall’s description remarkably accurate. the entire process took conscious, cultivating critical consciousness impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.590 50 reflective action, from considering my problem of practice (pop), grounding my research in theory, laying out the research methodology, and presenting my findings. my pop for my dissertation arose from the initial identity work i started at the beginning of the program. within my action research study, “i facilitated and evaluated student exposure to politically, socially, and economically diverse source material” within my united states government classroom because, as i had noted, “the supplemental material i had chosen for my government classes failed to provide opposing narratives” that would help my students understand the inequality around them (wright, 2022, p. 5). reflections on my teaching and instructional practice, alongside my observations of my student population, were a call to action to work out a solution to this problem. without that conscious recognition of the problem, i would not have been prompted to act. for me and my students, the benefits of my study extend well beyond the scope of the original study in 2022. because action research is cyclical, the outcomes from one cycle are the basis for continued exploration of practice in the following cycle, continuously enriching the classroom in which these changes occur. engaging in action research has significantly informed my instructional practice, allowing me to address complex problems of practice continually. reflecting on my three years in the edd program, i believe that to empower teachers to engage in activist practices, edd programs should consider their institutions’ role in reinforcing and constructing teacher-activist identities, providing space for the multitude of avenues teachers can take in approaching activism. teacher activism should be inclusive for all teachers and how they view activism. for example, becton et al. (2020) constructed a framework of attributes, actions, and characteristics common to edd-activists. rather than one definition, four themes emerged that could encompass the identity of an activist, including: 1. the coalition builder, whose work “focuses on bringing people together for a common cause.” 2. the vocal risk-taker, “who gives voice to critical issues and topics and also possesses the courage necessary for activism.” 3. the visionary leader, who thinks about “how to cultivate a more progressive future.” 4. the social justice champion, who “can quickly and readily identify the inequalities and injustices that may go unnoticed” in work environments. (becton et al., 2020, p. 47) the identity work i undertook as a part of my edd program was essential in defining my current educational philosophy and prompting me to take critical action toward the problems i observed in my classroom. not every student comes into an educational program with the same background, experiences, or goals. however, if institutions of higher learning can carve out space for their students to develop their attitudes toward educator activism, we can all move toward a transformative future. another suggestion to encourage educator activism would be cultivating an environment that empowers practitioner research. educational research suggests that there continues to be a shortage of teacher voice in education (gozali et al., 2017; hargreaves, 1996; ingersoll, 2007; llorens, 1994). k–12 practitioners provide on-theground insight into the situations plaguing classrooms and educational practices; their stories are valuable and must be part of the research narrative. conversely, a lack of teacher voice can contribute to the de-professionalization of educators and reinforce the status quo, discouraging educators from sharing their classroom stories. the edd program fortified my confidence in my research skills as i progressed through my course of study and continued cultivating it beyond my graduation. aside from my individual transformation, the cohort model provided a built-in community of educators who all share similar educational experiences, interests, and goals. my cohort offered encouragement during my time in the program and continues to support each other’s endeavors. thanks to social media, we have stayed connected, met up at educational conferences, and discussed our current projects and contributions to the field. in this same vein, the commitment to strengthening practitioner research is evident in the community and supported by our edd faculty. i would not have written this article without the continued support of my edd faculty, even as an alumnus of the program. navigating educational research is a daunting task, and one of the primary reasons most teachers feel uncomfortable publishing their stories or sharing their experiences. following graduation, there was an evident effort from the faculty to assist and facilitate graduates in producing or engaging with educational research. my professors have been with me for the last two years of my educational research journey since graduation. their expertise and content knowledge helped me as i applied for calls for papers and encouraged me to present my work. if we want to transform our educational spaces, we need to engage and support edd graduates even after completing their program of study. something happened to me during my time in south carolina’s edd program. i discovered a way to combine my interests in politics, history, and education, constructing a new identity. my identities as an educator, a political scientist, a historian, a researcher, and an activist did not have to exist separately in my psyche. they could all work together, reinforcing my work in the classroom and providing an avenue to help engage others. once i could recognize the oppressive forces responsible for shaping our society, i could develop a plan to take action against them to advance the rights of the marginalized. this work does not happen exclusively by waving signs out in front of our state legislatures or giving a forum speech to our school board members, but by engaging the activist potential of teachers. my identity as an educator-activist revolves around identifying the inequities and injustices still present in my instructional practice, engaging in the methods i can use to rectify those inequities, and cultivating a better future by reflecting on and sharing the story of my classroom. my journey and experiences in this edd program are unique, but the outcomes of higher education do not have to be if we continue positioning the stories of activist education. i am an activist, whether i am frantically writing letters to my state legislators or when i am educating 30 high school seniors on the declaration of independence. references adams, a., bondy, e., ross, d., dana, n. f., & kennedy-lewis, b. 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why extremes, although difficult and sometimes painful to maintain, are always more comfortable than one plan running straight down a line in the unruffled middle” (lorde, 1993, p.15) in the farthest-out social positions and extremes, black women have produced and validated incalculable ways of knowing (collins, 1986), some ways remaining contained and celebrated within their neighborhoods. in these spaces, black women have historically walked in the west african tradition of griottes (hale, 1994) or community storytellers, knowledge bearers, problem solvers, wisdom wells, and time-weavers of histories. as black women researchers whose work predominantly centers the experiences of black women in their educational pursuits, we understand that black women are not a monolithic group (collins, 1986). however, in recognizing their diversity and complexity in contemporary society (abrams et al., 2014) and their distinct backgrounds, lived experiences, identities and socioeconomic statuses (reid, 2004), we believe that black women as knowledge producers are protagonistic. individually and collectively, black women embody the epistemological characteristics that can organically reshape and reimagine the everyday spaces they enter. how black women produce knowledge is also the impetus to transform the broader academic community as it has done historically in the black-oriented homeplace, which (hooks, 1990, as cited in allen, 2011) defined as both a physical and symbolic place where black women seek refuge, empowerment, control, and belonging. also, drawing upon hooks’ work, goins (2011) reiterated that the homeplace is a safe space where black women tell stories and share knowledge in friendship groups buttressed by acts of resistance against oppression. the black-oriented homeplace by no means resides an echo chamber for crafting and communicating intellect. cooper (1892/2016) believed that intellectual black women possess influential, world-transforming abilities—because intellectuals, particularly those at the margins, produce and share knowledge, affect societal change, foster critical consciousness, resist oppression, and envision alternative futures. in historically assuming the roles of abolitionists and liberators, black women have engineered and coordinated the physical and psychological liberation of their people to move beyond mastering and reproducing dominant ideologies and oppressive realities (neal & dunn, 2020). as marginal intellectuals (collins, 1986), these women’s actions often inspire the liberatory movements of other subjugated groups and peoples (collins, 2009). abolitionist-thinking black women pursue and espouse both knowledge and consciousness as integral to https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1697-0987 foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 85 transformation. fanon (1963/2005) noted that consciousness-raising as a means of liberation is where marginalized folks stood to gain freedom as co-creators of knowledge. in addition, fanon (1963/2005) argued for the critical role of the intellectual because they had the most potential to conquer oppression and create a (re)built, new man (person) who resists oppression and engages in a new way of thinking about another present time or alternative future. in this article, we explore the concepts of alternative and difference as we reframe the doctor of education (edd) landscape through a black gaze, a freedom dream, and the afrofuture. first, we provide a rationale for utilizing a black feminist lens to the ongoing discussion around revolutionizing the forms and functions of the edd dissertation because the black feminist standpoint draws upon redefinition and resistance (collins, 2009) to offer oppositional knowledge. second, we situate alternatives as organic and radical by discussing the intent of difference due to the historical positioning of the edd (perry, 2012) and contemporary calls for its reimagining (perry et al., 2020; shaw et al., 2024). third, after establishing a black feminist redefinition and counter-perspective of the concepts of alternative and difference, we utilize audre lorde’s work on the institutionalized rejection of difference to recognize that edd programs continued push for more creative, postmodern expressions of student inquiry both challenges and exposes sociohistorical programming. in fact, lorde’s (1993) plea to reject old definitions and structures as “master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (p. 123) is what inspired us to propose black gaze, freedom dreaming, and the afrofuture as new tools for reframing the edd. with these new tools, we share suggestions for alternatives in dissertations rather than alternative dissertations to invoke resistance against normativity and romanticized, established structures. in the conclusion, we encourage graduate program leadership and faculty advisors to make room for choice and multiple, alternative ways of knowing that do not require strict adherence to western standards and structures to produce knowledge. we believe that there is enough space for tradition and revolution. rationale for a black feminist lens as we consider integrating alternative elements of knowledge production in the edd, we center the paradox of black women’s intellectual work as a focal point. the number of black women pursuing advanced degrees continues to increase (national center for education statistics, 2020), thus, their growing intellectual presence and influence across multiple fields of study. despite the functional attractiveness and practicality of black women’s research to individuals from various races, ethnicities, and cultures, eurocentric masculinists have questioned its legitimacy through their knowledge-validation processes (collins, 1989). one might wonder if the perceived omnipresence of black women doctorates in the contemporary ivory tower is evidence of a shrinking weaponization of such processes. yet, how black women tell their stories, and the lens through which they tell them, are still surveilled by traditional systems and gatekeepers controlling how their stories ultimately look (matias et al., 2019). and anti-blackness plays a role in the covert actions of faculty who discourage black students from researching such topics as diversity and discrimination (bell et al., 2021), topics that are central to studying real-world problems. black women’s knowledge production, no matter how applicable or otherworldly, can be subject to manipulation and suppression. these situations exemplify the institutional omission and commission that not only affect the dissertation journey for black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) but also non-traditional graduate students with unique lived and professional experiences. the way in which these specific student groups perceive and navigate problems as working professionals may be different and therefore should be studied and produced differently or alternatively (i.e., using theoretical frameworks and methods that are consistent with how these groups make sense of the world). to this point, collins (1989) stated, “black women’s political and economic status provides them with a distinctive set of experiences that offers a different view of material reality than that available to other groups” (p. 747), a standpoint which, collins argues, lends itself to different interpretations of reality. different, not invalid. however, black women’s expressions or articulations of their realities are more vulnerable to suppression because black women have not historically controlled the social mechanisms, platforms, or resources for knowledge or perspective sharing (collins, 1989). and while there is a significant gap in the literature about the knowledge production of non-traditional graduate students, current research shows that non-traditional students are a fast-growing population who remain underserved in traditional higher education programs (hittepole, 2019) and have lower retention rates in online doctoral programs for both external and internal reasons (kebritchi et al., 2023). future research could address how graduate programs marketing to and enrolling large numbers of bipoc and non-traditional adult learners could honor their rich backgrounds as well as support their ways of producing knowledge. furthermore, we believe that co-optation of knowledge warrants frank discussion as it also occurs rather openly on multiple levels— influenced by neoliberalism (cannella & koro-ljunberg, 2017; rodriguez v., 2019). participatory research methodologies from radical or critical traditions endure institutionalization and reconstitution (jordan, 2003, 2009) and radical theories and discourses (e.g., identity politics), particularly those created by black feminists, become redefined, appropriated or stripped down (rodriguez v., 2019). a recent example of the latter is jennifer buck’s siphoning from the lived experiences of black women to enter trap feminism discourse, which centers the “hood” black woman thriving in the subculture of trap music, hustling, unabashed sexual expressiveness, and resistance to hegemonic ideals of respectable femininity. sesali bowen (2022), who coined the term, shared on her youtube channel, no one was willing to consider how we might be liberating ourselves or how we might be entertaining ourselves or how we might be the sources of our literal own joy [sic] and survival and livelihood. i knew that people didn’t get how like wearing our bonnets or like twerking or scamming were actually like possibly keys to our liberation and survival… there was something about hood black girls that was special. that was trap feminism. (14:12-15:14) contrary to bowen’s authentic engagement with the material reality of trap life, buck, as a theology professor, reportedly tethered her interest in trap feminism and her proximity to the trap community to her fondness for hip-hop (alter & harris, 2022). more importantly, buck’s use of a primarily black woman research team, the financial compensation for their labor (solis, 2022), and the trivializing of bowen’s foundational work as a footnote also reflect the common minimizations (sometimes to the level of erasure) of black women’s contributions to knowledge production. a black gaze, a freedom dream and the afrofuture impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 86 in reflecting on some black women graduate students’ experiences in our research, we draw from young’s (2002) five faces of oppression in which she notes marginalization is perhaps the most dangerous because it can expel an entire group of people from participating in particular spaces and aspects of social life. we found that the type of terminal degree matters little as many doctoral programs succeed in marginalizing black women graduate students through western ideals and practices. as a result, these students are ultimately at risk of exploitation, disempowerment, feelings of invisibility, and even educative-psychic violence (m. foster et al., 2023, 2024). collins (2009) noted, “domination operates by seducing, pressuring, or forcing african american women and members of subordinated groups to replace individual and cultural ways of knowing with dominant group’s specialized thought” (p. 306). moreover, when we consider how doctoral programs create and maintain marginalization within seemingly democratic institutions, we recall young’s (2002) assertion that oppression does not disappear by giving someone something material because the “giving” does not diminish the marginalization. that is, black women graduate students’ experience abandoning or deculturizing their ways of knowing to earn a prestigious terminal degree. any suggestion that black women do not have to tolerate deculturation or marginalization, especially in the 21st century, dismisses the real fact that systemic barriers firmly grounded in k-12 educational opportunities for black girls ultimately limits their access to highprestige postsecondary settings (mclewis, 2021; neal-jackson, 2018; zamani, 2003). many young black girls and women who pursue higher education and have already experienced racialized legitimacy related to their fitness and readiness in k-12 classrooms understand that internalizing traditional ways of knowing is required to enter top-tier collegiate spaces. for black women in graduate education, choice is often constrained by economic necessity and limited alternatives (ogbu & simmons, 1998), making participation in potentially oppressive academic systems more a survival strategy than a free choice. black women may enter prestigious programs strategically but face gradual pressure to abandon their cultural capital, which reveals the complex interplay between individual agency and systemic constraints in academia (carbado & gulati, 2013). thus, despite the pervasive assessing and surveillance of black women’s intellectual work , our utilization of a black feminist lens to explore alternatives makes sense--for the forms and functions of the edd, when compared to the traditional doctor of philosophy(phd), have similarly faced challenges and criticisms about fitness and appropriateness related to research topics, methodologies, theoretical frameworks and dissertation formats. the phd is the standard, and thus we accept that a significant level of reshaping the edd to fit the norm is a natural outcome. however, the manner in which some higher institutions present the edd mirrors the ideals and structure of the phd. if the larger academic community more broadly accepted and implemented the edd as an alternative or a different kind of doctorate (ma et al., 2018; perry, 2012; shulman et al., 2006), we argue that calls for reimagining or redesigning it would not be so ubiquitous and consequential. furthermore, the black feminist lens is appropriate because of black women’s experiences at interlocking forms of oppression (collins, 2009) drive the manner in which they approach and disrupt hegemonic ideals and domains of power. the academy is a space with an ongoing relationship with elitism and colonialism (dancy et al., 2018; patton, 2016). even though neoconservative political discourse has been critical of the academy as a progressive space catering to liberal bias (gabbard & atkinson, 2007; henry, 1994/2017), all school systems, regardless of educational stage or subdivision, maintain a matrix of domination (collins, 2009). black women’s sociohistorical interactions in structures of oppression make their perspectives as agents of knowledge ideal to provide a blueprint for liberatory, emancipatory doctoral processes for not only bipoc and non-traditional graduate students but also any group of emerging scholars experiencing challenges to presenting new and radical kinds of knowledge production (i.e., as toni morrison articulated, “the function of freedom is to free someone else.”). as black feminist researchers, we believe our reframing of the edd landscape underlies the type of activism needed to transform doctoral programs and higher institutions that draw bipoc and nontraditional graduate students in significant numbers. our research advocates for those much sought-after students, particularly black women, to transform the traditional academy into an epistemologically free space. the intent of difference in discussing the concepts of difference and alternative, we discuss the historical positioning of traditional processes and structures for knowledge-making and contemporary calls for reimagining. the positioning remains the dominant perspective. we argue that to make the case for alternatives in dissertations that we must first reject deficit-based descriptions and criticisms of the edd when comparing it to the phd. juxtaposing alternative and traditional forms and functions in dissertations simply encourages the usual romanticization of established methodologies and degree structures. we redefine alternative or difference to avoid othering it and measuring its legitimacy against established or normative understandings of difference, predetermined notions of legitimate knowledge, and predictable outcomes. more importantly, we situate difference and alternative as something ordinary, organic, radical, and revolutionary. historical positioning of traditional processes and structures institutions of higher learning and graduate schools tend to be traditionalist in nature. academia maintains and regulates its own ecosystems. the historical gatekeeping of standards to crystallize intellectual production in the western academy sits firmly in colonialism and essentialism (leonardo, 2018) and preserves the scholastic culture of the nineteenth century. in short, the standards developed in german universities came further west and influenced the nascent american university system (cole, 2011; mcclelland, 1980), molding the landscape into a seemingly fixed position. almost sixty years separates the first phd and the first edd earned in the us, and this timeframe is key in understanding the concept of alternative and why the difference between both degrees continues to spark debates over a century later. in 1920, harvard granted the first edd as another terminal degree, rooted in application and practice and meant “to avoid the literal application of essentially alien standards imposed by the dominant graduate faculty from older and more traditional disciplines” (spurr, 1970, p. 141). despite the intent of difference, the two degrees have become virtually similar in format (dill & morrison, 1985; h. foster et al., 2023; wergin, 2012) but varying in relation to status and reputation (perry, 2012; shulman et al., 2006). ongoing debates and analyses over the two terminal foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 87 degrees certainly reflect conflicts between academics with what (kliebard,1986, as cited in apple, 2003) called competitive views of legitimacy. contemporary calls for reimagining contemporary calls for doctoral programs to reimagine and develop differentiating aspects between the phd and edd have waged on for decades and extensive empirical and theoretical research published by a multitude of scholars revisit the welldocumented histories of the terminal degree, examine their similarities and differences and restate efforts to raise the status and reputation of the edd. we add our current analysis of an aspect of both the edd and phd that tends to be one of the most common characteristics pointed out in previous research studies and thus subject to initiatives that promote alternatives: the structure or format of dissertations. though the naming conventions of dissertation chapters varied, we noted that the problem of practice (pop) and dissertation in practice (dip) overwhelmingly followed the traditional four-to-five chapter format (i.e., introduction, literature review, research methods, findings/results and summary). the prevalence of traditional format definitely reflects a commitment to established processes that speak to the validity and reliability of students’ dissertation research and “meets both classical and modern definitions of genre” (duke & beck, 1999, p. 31). and, based on our research, we found that there are other factors that influence the macrostructure: dissertation resources, exemplars, and even phddegreed advising faculty contribute to the dominance of traditional format in edd programs. thus, the decades-long argument about redesigning the edd represents how western intellectual tradition tends to eat its own. by filtering scholarship and knowledge production through traditional gaze, traditionalists in doctoral programs ensure that the high status and stringent structure of the phd is preserved. even with some twinning of the terminal degrees on the structural level, the emphasis on difference still tends to be the point of contention--with the education doctorate enduring academic shaming and othering in elusive intellectual circles (wergin, 2011). after a review of the literature, we noted similar framing or labeling of the edd as a substitute doctorate, as the perceived lesser. the “low-end ph.d” (shulman et al., 2006, p. 25). however, we believe that some of framing was meant to situate the need for redefinition, elevation, or alternation (ma et al., 2018) as well as the restructuring of edd programs (h. foster et al., 2023) in establishing meaningful differences between the terminal degrees. we also reviewed a plethora of educational websites highlighting the differences to help prospective learners see the benefits of both degrees; yet we thought the side-by-side comparisons added to the minimization of the education doctorate in relation to rigor, intellectual production, employment outlooks, and earning potential. to be clear, every website conveyed a respect for the edd, but some of the comparisons were deeply concerning to us. as tradition dictates, anything birthed from an other becomes further othered. in this case, an intellectual othering. we noticed that the language and even visualizations used in describing the phd and the edd, to contrast position of theory in relation to practice, suggested a hierarchy. to prospective students seeking to understand the difference between the terminal degrees, these words and images might introduce or perpetuate the belief of an intellectual difference. if we consider the implications of othering the edd in larger academic community, we assert that the possibilities of imparting new ways of knowing become harder to materialize and more subject to scrutiny or attempts to delegitimize. if, as wergin (2011) suggested, the assumption that developing theory is the most important outcome of scholarship and “[a]s long as practice is considered to be an exercise in application, the appearance of intellectual rigor in the practice-focused edd diminishes” (p. 120). further, innovative or collaborative ways of producing scholarpractitioner research specifically through companion or group dissertations face significant concerns about rigor, accountability and quality. thus, in othering, even brilliantly produced alternatives may become more alienated or marginalized within the edd landscape that is still fighting a long battle to substantiate its own separate identity. we believe a critical response involves showing the feasibility of alternatives in dissertations and rejecting notions that alternative forms of intellectual work do not involve rigor or substance. black feminist redefinition the historical positioning of the edd and contemporary calls for reimagining require us to offer a black feminist redefinition or counter-perspective on the concepts of alternatives and difference. we understand that othering is at best an ideological positioning of the differences between traditional versus progressive views, and we accept that perspectives at the opposite ends of any ideological spectrum rarely quietly, comfortably, and equitably co-exist. given how hard-fought ideological campaigns tend to be around preserving structures and processes, it is important to acknowledge the benefits and guidance of tradition. nonetheless because of the sociohistorical treatment of black women’s intellectual work, especially in academic settings, we possess a unique standpoint in that black women can create and benefit from marginality (collins, 1986) and othering. in the black-oriented homeplace, we are not limited or restricted in our knowledge production. alternatives are ways of knowing, concepts, and routes that we navigate on a daily basis insofar that they are “ordinary” circumstances of life. how we navigate them may also be radical and revolutionary expressions that reflect the resistant and navigational capital (yosso, 2005) of a people who have survived oppression and exclusion. thus, because of our lived experiences, especially around combatting epistemic violence (dotson, 2011) and epistemic injustice (fricker, 2013), we reject the binary, normative concepts of alternative and difference and demonstrate what is possible when ways of knowing are not limited. institutionalized rejection of difference as marginal intellectuals in academic settings, or rather marginalized intellectuals, black women possess an insider/outsider within status (collins, 1986). the dichotomy of our status not only informs our intellectual work but also our dismantling of oppression to reframe concepts and see possibilities. we have looked overwhelmingly upon black feminist work to inform our critical consciousness and understanding of worlds, present times and futures. further, in rejecting the normative understanding of difference, we drew from lorde (1993) who wrote, institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. as members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human difference between us a black gaze, a freedom dream and the afrofuture impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 88 with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. but we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. as a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion. (p.115) though lorde (1993) was speaking about the real differences related to race, age, and sex, we apply her explanations in attempting to make sense of the fact that differences in knowledge production do not separate us as much as our refusal to recognize differences and examine the distorted renaming of differences that impact our behavior. for example, hostility toward differences is normalized. fear has a way of softening or destroying the complex philosophical and political practices of rejecting tradition. in addition, and more importantly to our point, sociopolitical programming underlies our fears, in that we have been taught or conditioned that difference exists in simplistic, binary opposites (lorde, 1993). something is either good or bad, right or wrong, superior or inferior. and the perceived lesser is normally something to be dismissed, dominated, or erased. as related to the current edd landscape, we found in our own research with some pre-candidacy black women graduate students that while they wanted to produce dissertation work that rejected traditional ways of knowing, they tended to uphold tradition out of fear about how doctoral faculty would respond to their pursuit of other possibilities (m. foster et al., 2023, 2024). fear that their radical epistemologies and methodologies were too different and would not add to the field of research or be accepted as legitimate. in our analysis of these graduate students’ chapters after they had earned candidacy, we did notice slight variations in naming conventions and content organization but a firm adherence to traditional techniques, strategies, or methods. their experiences speak to the paradoxical cycle of hope and disappointment that affects black women’s knowledge production--welcomed by the academy but accepted through reshaping. the questions of fitness related to their methodologies and framework often lead to conforming to ensure legitimacy. yet it is these interactions with control and interlocking forms of oppression that black women’s perspectives are relevant and appropriate for reframing the edd landscape. because despite eurocentric masculinist knowledgevalidation processes and questions of legitimacy, black women scholars and researchers continue to resist and produce new ways of knowing. tools of possibilities we assert that alternative ways of knowing and intellectual production offer possibilities when operationalized through a black gaze, a freedom dream, and the afrofuture (see figure 1). the black gaze (howell et al., 2019) sustains the power of a counternarrative. while there is an equally powerful and useful black feminist gaze, we call upon black gaze as a broader approach to rejecting the traditional gaze on the intellectual work of bipoc and non-traditional graduate students, not just black women scholars. freedom dreams (kelley, 2002) stir up the radical imagination to activate liberatory and emancipatory purposes for research that explore joy and thriving. the afrofuture (eshun, 2003) brings the inspiring possibilities of the future into the present. while there are several conceptions and definitions of afrofuture(ism), we call upon hamilton’s (2017) defining of it “as a mechanism for understanding real world situations of oppression in the contemporary world in the context of the ever-present past, while charting the future situation through the arts” (p. 19), arts that included various kinds of narratives. we do not view the three possibilities as detached, separate processes, but as interconnected and interdependent. these alternatives make space for bipoc and non-traditional graduate students to integrate their perspectives in order to center and “legitimize” their knowledge and realities. furthermore, in speaking specifically of black women graduate students, these tools create an awareness of a black reality that co-exists equally with this place and time--which has been a challenge for black researchers because the concepts of knowledge and truth are recognized and legitimized in research only when they represent european conceptions of reality (bakari, 1997). further, in exploring the black gaze, freedom dreaming and the afrofuture, we provide additional context for their application by offering suggestions related to theoretical frameworks, research designs, and data collection sources. here, we express caution in conveying to bipoc and non-traditional graduate students in seeing these suggestions as exhaustive or exclusive. we wholeheartedly believe that emerging scholars should inform their own visions and conceptualize the possibilities for themselves; however, we also realize that showcasing ordinary and revolutionary processes that change the traditional dissertation structure from within is meaningful, as lorde (1993) would say, “for altering the present and constructing the future” (p. 115). more importantly, while we root our explorations of these possibilities in the black feminist lived experience, we understand there is a diverse community of learners who could benefit from these tools of possibilities, especially those who exercise cultural competence and sensitivity while engaging with marginalized or minoritized groups in their professional practice or dissertation research. figure 1. interconnectedness of a black gaze, a freedom dream and the afrofuture a black gaze the black gaze functions as both a theory and a worldview. as a theory, we rely on howell et al.’s (2019) definition: “to perceive black students’ behavior as a cultural asset that is understood and valued by black women teachers who foster sociopolitical consciousness” (p. 24). as a world view, we draw upon toni morrison’s (2016) perspective about seeing our work through our own eyes and honoring the processes that are true and natural in the lives of black people. in practice or application, traditional research foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 89 methods maintain a traditional gaze. hegemonic processes that shape and control practitioner-oriented behaviors and decisions support eurocentric theoretical frameworks and established methodologies. the traditional gaze is abjectly inadequate to capture the nuances particular to bipoc and non-traditional graduate students. the current edd landscape often lacks resources that honor and affirm diverse backgrounds and experiences that can support graduate students from culturally rich, racial/ethnic groups and need to use non-traditional methods to seek social change and justice in their professions. also, as critical theorists and researchers, we engage in courageous discourses to assess and critique structural and societal oppression in the examination of educational practices. we recognize that critical theories are adequate because they acknowledge that power imbalances in organizational systems that reflect problems rooted in america’s own unresolved handlings of colonialism. for these reasons, we suggest that bipoc and nontraditional graduate students center a decolonized gaze as their worldview so that they have guidance about how to navigate the unequal power relationships in research and surround themselves with individuals who can assist them in maintaining academic control of their intellectual work. in drawing upon coalition-building, these graduate students can be empowered to utilize critical and culturally rooted framework as alternatives in their dissertations. how we have utilized the black gaze porter (2023) discussed the need for black women students to do their own research in seeking theoretical framework and methodologies as the academy falls short of espousing or offering the resources, expertise, and exemplars that these students need and desire. theoretical frameworks developed in and for the dominant culture are the most offered and available in graduate programs but are not the most appropriate lenses through which to view the problems by bipoc and non-traditional graduate students want to study and address through social action and justice. for example, we know that black women’s experiences are distinct from both black men and white women because intersecting oppressions of racism, sexism, and classism often shape black women’s lives and perspectives (king, 1988). we have witnessed black women graduate students who wanted to research black women’s experiences as leaders but were recommended western leadership theories that were devoid of the nuanced complexities of engendered racism and were used in studies that did not attend to cultural and collective ways in black women navigate systemic barriers and center their own healing. in response, we did our research and began compiling a list of critical theoretical frameworks with associated scholars (not exhaustive) and gathering peer-reviewed articles to share with bipoc and non-traditional graduate students in spring 2022 (see table 1). however, as we have studied both phd and edd programs, we are aware of the challenges of supporting the use of similar resources with bipoc and non-traditional graduate students whose dissertation studies require and demand a critical lens, especially if advising faculty have no or little experience with operationalizing such frameworks. we believe that graduate students utilizing critical frameworks as alternatives to traditional, western-centric frameworks is an effective means of offering new possibilities in the edd landscape— because critical frameworks introduce, substantiate, and validate alternative ways of knowing and intellectual production. freedom dreaming in kelley’s (2012) preface to his seminal work, he conceived freedom dreams as a way to recover ideas and visions from black activists who had “proposed a different way out of our constrictions” (p. xii). liberators call upon the memories and radical responses of black revolutionaries as inspiration. kelley (2012) offered dreams of other places, new lands, outer-spaces and encouraged the table 1. theoretical frameworks related to empowerment, liberation, and disruption theoretical frameworks associated scholars black feminist thought patricia hill collins intersectionality kimberlé crenshaw africana womanist thought nikol g. alexander-floyd critical race black feminism nikol g. alexander-floyd endarkened feminism cynthia b. dillard historical womanist theory nicole rosseau womanism alice walker chicana/latina feminist thought dolores delgado bernal latincrit daniel g. solorzano; tara j. yosso community-first land-centred theoretical framework critical indigenous theory indigenous standpoint theory tribalcrit two-eyed seeing sandra styres; dawn zinga bryan brayboy mi’kmaw elders albert & murdena marshall bryan brayboy debbie h. martin critical race theory derrick bell, gloria ladson-billings asiancrit robert chang blackcrit michael j dumas; justin a. coles blackboy crit nathaniel bryan discrit subini annamma anti-deficit achievement framework shaun harper summoning of the black radical imagination (that honored the dreams of black women to liberate humanity). in the field of education, neal and dunn (2020) call upon freedom dreaming as the appropriate vehicle to create a sense of urgency and new, inspired realities. in freedom dreaming, we must first acknowledge that black people in the united states have experienced traumatizing relationships associated with ownership (i.e., controlling the black body and its labor). in three decades after enslavement, there was still the prevailing belief that black people were not physically or intellectually capable of self-management and would eventually become extinct because their inadequacies did not allow them to meet the demands of freedom (wolff, 2006). we argue that the impetus of freedom dreaming or dreaming of freedom was as vital to our survival in the past as it is in the present and future. how we have advocated for freedom dreaming as related to processes, freedom dreaming in the edd landscape not only disrupts bipoc and non-traditional graduate students’ feelings of isolation, invisibility, and imposter syndrome but also empowers them to reject deficit-based perceptions and research a black gaze, a freedom dream and the afrofuture impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 90 about communities of color and those whose lived experiences are unique. for example, the earliest applications of interviewing and observing human behavior in the field informed colonial knowledge (denzin & lincoln, 2008), and statistics, eugenics, and scientific racism have an ideological and methodological relationship (bentrim & dixon, 2022). to counter these traditional processes with freedom dreaming would open the door for culturally rooted methodologies like sister-to-sister talk (few et al., 2003), which reduces the power dynamic between the researcher and their participant by framing interviews as dialogues, talks or conversations; or black feminist archaeology (battle-baptiste, 2011), which sees the cultural landscape, as a meaningful artifact for knowledge production, and through observation, reveals how people create and use physical space to tell organically about themselves (see table 2). in many edd programs, graduate students often select the qualitative case study as an appropriate approach to study real-world problems and predominately use semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaires, and occasionally observations and artifacts (when appropriate) as data collection sources. frankly, we argue that the production of similarly constructed case studies not only signals a comfortability with conventional formulas but also the fear of the kind risk-taking that promotes evolution and ingenuity needed to keep graduate programs attractive and in demand. table 2．traditional versus culturally rooted methodologies traditional data collection sources culturally rooted qualitative methodologies alternative ways of knowing artifacts journey boxes (based in social studies) to tell personal stories related to culture, place and time; to offer counternarratives interviews sister-to-sister talks; dialogues; testimonies to center the coproduction of knowledge; to focus on joy and (self) liberation observations sense of place, physical spaces, site of resistance, geographies of resistance, ecology of resistance to decenter researcher bias and stereotyping inherent in observing people; to minimize the notion of humans as objects; “narratives” framed in a traditional format endarkened storywork to center black storytelling and the dialogical voice (lockett et al., 2024) utilizing these culturally rooted methodologies honor the lives and experiences of the participants, to highlight how they disrupt and dismantle systems that cause real problems for them, and to reject characterizations that marginalized groups need saving and will be saved through someone else’s (often an outsider’s) research. these groups, though historically demonized and blame for their own circumstances, know loving, dreaming, thriving, and healing. of note, advocating for these alternatives within traditionally structured dissertations has faced a great deal of resistance based on the notion that scholar-practitioners cannot solve real-world problems with “stories” or through storytelling. we reject this assumption because, as hendry (2009) argues, there is a narrative component in all research. the afrofuture many people associate afrofuturism with science fiction and alternative realities that include the experiences and contributions of black people often omitted in white framings of the future. eshun (2003) and morris (2012) explained that afrofuturism reclaims the histories of counter-futures along the afrodiaspora. the afrofuture underpins the spirit of the black self-concept across multiple timeframes and spaces and calls upon collective resistance to include blackness as a part of self-expression and the greater production of knowledge. the afrofuture revives the affective and spiritual orientation of the black emotional self and consciousness. in conjunction with the black gaze and freedom dreaming, the afrofuture allows black women graduate students to define themselves rather than adhering to labels prescribed by others, as self-definition and reclaiming controlling images and labels are critical expressions of black feminism. buttressed by their own lived experiences as black women who daily navigate power structures, black women engage in everyday acts of revolution, hoping that they would inspire others to higher purposes. in the edd landscape, the afrofuture is a notable tool of self-emancipation as it directly challenges the traditional aims, processes and practices of how the educational system functions as an instrument of the dominant culture. how we have engaged with the afrofuture in our own experiences (m. foster et al., 2024), we as faculty and graduate students engaged in the afrofuture as a process by pooling together our collective cultural capital one year ahead of writing the first two chapters of the dissertation. a forward-thinking student, moved by her own self-emancipation to learn more about producing her knowledge, prompted the charge for the group emancipation of other bipoc graduate students. just in her second term in the edd program, after sharing her potential pop topic in a course, the student began experiencing the traditional gaze from her non-black peers. she worried that her journey toward doctoral candidacy might be in jeopardy, even though earning candidacy was more than a year in the future. her feelings were common as they spoke how black women’s knowledge is evaluated by a “community of experts” (collins, 1989, p. 752) who represent particular ideological and political standpoints that have taken a deficit-based view of black women’s intellectual work, and thus deeming their new ways of knowing invalid. from 2022-2024, we came together as a student-initiated affinity group and constructed an online homeplace, meeting at our virtual kitchen tables via zoom one saturday a month, to share innovative methodologies and culturally rooted theoretical frameworks and to practice their methodologies and frameworks through research and publishing. rooted in the cultural practice of women gathering at their kitchen tables (baker-bell, 2017), we designed each meeting to understand future writing expectations by examining the present delivery of the curriculum. we discussed what was “doable” given the prevalence of traditional processes, how they could advocate for themselves in chipping away as traditional advising approaches, and why using some culturally rooted approaches, even minimally, was organic and radical, such as telling a story as an introduction to the problem in their pops. the edd program leadership was supportive in understanding the need and benefits of black students needing a space to learn and reclaim agency along their dissertation journey, and because of the foster et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 91 successful program completion of 70% of the black women in this group (i.e., graduated within three years), leadership has encouraged the sharing of our processes at conferences and peerreviewed journals. it is important to note that not every bipoc and non-traditional graduate student needs to experience an alternative reality that coexists alongside a perceived or real inadequate educational space. constructing and sustaining in an online homeplace also might not be possible for those who need an alternative, given that doctoral faculty already tend to be overextended with teaching, advising, and publishing. however, provided with the appropriate resources and faculty mentor, bipoc and non-traditional graduate students can create and maintain an online homeplace to support their needs. discussion and conclusion with respect to the carnegie project of the education doctorate (cped) and its mission to redefine the edd and dialogue around alternative dissertations and dissertation alternatives, we appreciate the massive undertaking toward advocacy and redesign given the number of brick-and-mortar education systems and online graduate programs producing dissertations in the united states and abroad. the academic conversation around the need for reimagining and redesigning remains an important one. we assert that the conversation should continue to push frank discussions to other factors that retain and champion the structure and purposes of the phd in edd programs, such as the influence of phd earners who find their way into edd spaces. the growth and evolution of the edd remains challenged by traditionalists in graduate schools and particular academic circles that remain loyal to particular kinds of knowledge construction and ways of contextualizing realities. when concerns arise about straying too far from western ideals and academic traditions, there is a tendency to uphold the traditional gaze upon doctoral work and adhere to prescriptive means of regaining standards. as freire (2000) noted, “authentic education is not carried on by “a” for “b” or by “a” about “b”, but rather by “a” with “b” mediated by the world—a world which impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views and opinions about it” (p 93). nonetheless, faculty advisors and graduate program leaders in general see themselves as fulfilling their job responsibilities and adhering to expectations, not as agents of oppression (young, 2002). however, if graduate students are going to continue to be limited to producing a four-to-five chapter, traditionally structured pop or dip, then they should have various methodologies, theoretical frameworks and research design for doing so. the black gaze, freedom dreaming, and the afrofuture offer several legitimate possibilities that still require rigor and substance. we honestly sought to answer the central, compelling question about doing dissertations differently. in envisioning alternatives in dissertations, we cannot underestimate the real and perceived value of fear and how it shapes our behavior and actions to avoid adverse consequences. we asked ourselves these questions -if advocating for more possibilities that actually lead to production of alternative dissertations on a large scale, would we succumb to self-doubt at some point? would we eventually wonder if our advocacy leaned more to pursuing “trends” or creating necessary and long overdue ways to get more knowledge to and through more diverse groups of people? how will we know if alternatives are good or bad in the longterm for the evolving edd? will we come to regret or applaud our efforts in opening up possibilities and pushing boundaries? will future scholar-practitioners appreciate or abandon the paths of new possibilities created for them? however, without the graduate program leaders and faculty advisors disrupting tradition or redefining their positions as mentors, graduate students will continue facing obstacles to pursuing alternative courses of action in developing their dissertations. furthermore, because it requires collaborative resistance to disrupt traditional systems and structures, students and faculty must embrace their radical pursuit toward the alternative dissertation. we argue that there must be a wholesale organizational commitment to support the evolution of the edd. graduate program leadership must understand that alternative dissertations are just one more way to showcase knowledge production, not a replacement of the endearing forms and functions of the traditional dissertation. to further our point, based on the notions of empowerment found in black feminist thought, we call upon collins’ strategies of resistance and conceptualizing of black women’s activism. collins (2009) expressed, the second dimension of black women’s activism consists of struggles for institutional transformation--namely those efforts to change discriminatory policies and procedures of government, schools, the workplace, the media, stores, and other social institutions… because struggles for institutional transformation are rarely successful without allies, this dimension of black women’s activism relies on coalitionbuilding strategies. (p. 219) we argue that graduate program leaders and advisors draw upon radical leadership, resistance and disruption to support bipoc and non-traditional graduate students who engage in authentic and revolutionary actions to produce knowledge. as these students’ ways of knowing do not always respond or thrive under prescriptive systems of advising or retain their richness in formulaic traditional dissertations, it is particularly significant for these faculty in particular to understand that they best encourage and actualize students’ creativity and innovation when they serve as liberators. we understand that advisor feedback is crucial in developing these students as researchers, but advisors can unknowingly create mentor-mentee relationships that are prescriptive and transactional. dissertations can become the products of the advisors’ imagination and institutional legacy. however, graduate students, as working professionals and subject matter experts outside the academy, are accomplished in their workplaces and possess knowledge and competence that are integral to their ways of knowing and producing knowledge. finally, we ask that edd program leaders and advisors to engage in organizational and self-reflection on why they may be resisting new possibilities in the edd landscape. just as artificial intelligence (ai), once outside the realm of material reality, is now a part of everyday lives; and whether or not they are comfortable with it, the use of ai is becoming more common and normalized in the dissertation process. reluctance to allow alternative dissertations or the insistence on adhering to traditional dissertation format, in this age of advanced technological tools paired with specialized human thought, brings out a great deal of contradictions and questions about how subjective notions and standards of legitimacy really are. a black gaze, a freedom dream and the afrofuture impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.502 92 reference abrams, j. a., maxwell, m., pope, m., & belgrave, f. z. 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(2003). african american women in higher education. new directions for student services, 104, 5–18. https://doi/org/10.5195/ie.2018.50 https://doi.org/10.31390/taboo.18.1.04 https://doi.org/10.2307/367916 https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2013.0034 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shhhl31bfpa https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318760785 https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.1998.29.2.155 https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915602542 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20464 https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798404266057 https://doi.org/10.13169/decohori.5.1.0101 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2024.399 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-19/publisher-pulls-white-professors-book-on-black-feminism-after-swift-online-backlash https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-19/publisher-pulls-white-professors-book-on-black-feminism-after-swift-online-backlash https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.1.fp775268x77n0122 https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 marquita d. foster baylor university andrea pickens baylor university india cooley williams baylor university rationale for a black feminist lens the intent of difference historical positioning of traditional processes and structures contemporary calls for reimagining black feminist redefinition institutionalized rejection of difference tools of possibilities a black gaze how we have utilized the black gaze freedom dreaming how we have advocated for freedom dreaming the afrofuture how we have engaged with the afrofuture discussion and conclusion reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 53 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 the power of praxis: public scholarship and the potential of edd dissertations ane turner johnson rowan university johnsona@rowan.edu monica reid kerrigan rowan university kerriganm@rowan.edu abstract higher education is witnessing a shift towards greater public engagement. public scholarship, research conducted with and for the public, presents a compelling opportunity for doctoral programs in education. this article examines public scholarship and the public scholarship dissertation as a distinctive approach that transcends traditional formats and boundaries. we argue that this format promotes collaboration with the public, enhances research impact, and highlights the dissertation's practical potential. the article explores the nature of the public scholarship dissertation at rowan university, a public research university, to examine the form, function, and procedures involved in engaging with this approach. we explore the key considerations of a public scholarship dissertation, including the balance between scholarship and public engagement, candidate preparedness, and advising practices. the article concludes with cautions and encouragements for faculty and scholar-practitioners considering ways to communicate doctoral research both to and beyond the academy. keywords public scholarship, dissertation advising, edd, educational leadership, scholar-practitioners higher education has experienced a paradigm shift toward fostering greater engagement between scholars and the public. one example is the emergence of public scholarship, that is, research conducted with and for the public, and deliberately disseminated to public audiences (i.e., beyond academia) (kezar, 2018; leavy, 2019). increasingly, doctoral programs in education are seeking ways to capitalize on this shift by supporting candidates1 engagement in public scholarship via their dissertation journeys. public scholarship dissertations are unique research approaches that transcend traditional academic boundaries, where doctoral candidates' outputs explore their research results. this approach has transformative potential in educational leadership doctoral programs, creating opportunities for meaningful collaboration with the public, enhancing the impact of candidates’ work, and highlighting the practical potential of the dissertation. however, proponents of this approach must combat a longstanding conservatism in academic circles toward more staid, traditional dissertation approaches, which perpetuate knowledge centralization in the academy and delink the research from potential beneficiaries of the work. doctoral programs that endorse the traditional five-chapter dissertation format for students often, perhaps unknowingly, foster 1 in this article we will refer to doctoral students, doctoral candidates, and scholar-practitioners. when we use doctoral student, we are referring to individuals enrolled in the first year of our program. several long-standing issues with doctoral research, ultimately hindering research progress and its effective communication. one prominent issue is that its structure is dysfunctional: it forces students to write in a way that they will never engage in again (krathwohl, 1994). the traditional format often prioritizes written text over other forms of representation, overlooking the potential of multimedia and interactive formats for conveying complex ideas (davis iii et al., 2018; iloh, 2018). the lengthy nature of traditional dissertations can also lead to delays in disseminating findings, which may become outdated by the time they are published (asanov et al., 2024). lastly, the traditional approach may inadvertently perpetuate a hierarchical academic culture and policies, where only certain voices are privileged, potentially excluding marginalized people and perspectives (duke & beck, 1999; kennedy et al., 2018). the focus on very narrow problems can also result in disconnected silos of knowledge, hindering transdisciplinary dialogue and the application of real-world solutions (gibbons et al., 1994). these challenges have prompted us to reconsider our approach to the dissertation, cultivating an environment that embraces alternative research methods, formats, and dissemination practices that enhance the doctoral candidate refers to students who have passed their comprehensive exam and are moving toward the dissertation. scholar-practitioner covers the gamut and is used as a term to indicate any individual enrolled in our program. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9848-2727 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6641-7034 johnson & kerrigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 54 influence of academic research on pressing issues in educational practice. public scholarship is one such alternative. the carnegie project on education (cped), an organization critical to the movement prompting more meaningful and impactful dissertation research, has articulated a set of six principles with which public scholarship is uniquely aligned. they include a focus on equity, ethics, and social justice; the use of knowledge to bring about positive change; the development of intercultural collaboration and communication skills; field-based inquiry opportunities; a recognition of the value of professional and academic knowledge; and the propagation of professional knowledge and practice (perry & zambo, 2018). a public scholarship dissertation is responsive to these principles in that it can be transformative, transdisciplinary, reject knowledge dualisms, democratize knowledge, and meaningfully ally with diverse communities for socially just education. in this article, we will first address the nature of public scholarship, what it is, why we do it, and our conceptualization of the “public.” we will then discuss the form and function of a public scholarship dissertation at rowan university, a public carnegie classified research ii university in southern new jersey, and its associated procedures. we will consider how a public scholarship dissertation enables scholar-practitioners to extend the impact of their research beyond academia by including formats beyond the standard five-chapter dissertation. finally, we will review some of the key considerations of a public scholarship dissertation, delving into the balancing act candidates must maintain between scholarship and public scholarship, their readiness to engage in this type of work, and advising practices. finally, we’ll offer some cautions and encouragements for doing a public scholarship dissertation. public scholarship discussing public scholarship requires a definition of the term itself, situated in an understanding of why it is essential, and who the public is. below, we delineate our conceptualizations, particularly in relation to our students as scholar-practitioners. by accounting for scholar-practitioners, we extend the existing literature and establish the foundation of our approach to the edd dissertation. defining public scholarship we define public scholarship as providing important information to relevant publics in a consumable manner to support equity, reduce disparities, and contribute to the public good (wharton-michael et al., 2006). we offer this expansive and multifaceted definition of public scholarship, informed by kezar et al. (2018) and leavy (2019), which is particularly oriented towards sam and gupton’s (2018) conceptualization of public scholarship as a process, rather than simply an outcome of research. the concept of public scholarship exists across disciplines under various names, including educational activism, action research, civic engagement, community-based learning, and community engagement (bartha & burgett, 2015; doberneck et al., 2010; kezar et al., 2018). notably, much of the delineation of public scholarship centers on research dissemination, its implications and significance for the public (lanford, 2023; lanford & tierney, 2018). however, the focus on writing and dissemination needlessly narrows the scope of the activity. the value of public scholarship lies in the doing: it can lead to greater recognition and opportunities for collaboration, deepen the researcher's understanding of their work, and create a sense of fulfillment and purpose as they see their work contributing directly to societal change and public discourse. most importantly, public scholarship enables the researcher to view themselves as agents of change. a broader definition of public scholarship supports edd students’ enactment of this approach to inquiry as they transition from doctoral students to doctoral candidates and ultimately become scholar-practitioners who identify and lead change efforts in their workplace. doctoral students are often so focused on their coursework and balancing their multiple commitments and roles (coffman et al., 2016), they do not have the opportunity to consider the practical implications of their research or the skills needed to apply what they learn from their inquiries (knudson et al., 2011, p. 111). however, edd programs offer a unique experience, one in which students have progressive opportunities to apply classroom learning to their workplace while developing their leadership skills and engaging in self-reflection. programs like ours, which are rooted in social justice and the development of scholar-practitioners, are well-positioned to integrate public scholarship into the program’s structures, coursework, and dissertation. why engage in public scholarship? public scholarship is an activity not just of faculty, but rather the hallmark of scholar-practitioners, which includes faculty, policy analysts, practitioners, and doctoral candidates. although most doctoral programs do not provide training on public scholarship (lanford, 2018), kezar et al. (2018) “argue that public scholarship should be the norm” (p. 3) in higher education. we agree that public scholarship should be the norm, particularly for edd programs. first, the responsibility for addressing relevant local problems through research rests with scholar-practitioners (hinnant-crawford, 2020). furthermore, as leaders trained in rigorous inquiry, it is incumbent upon scholar-practitioners to further our understanding of persistent problems and approaches to redressing them (kezar et al., 2018). to the extent that educational problems are often rooted in educational disparities and social justice issues, public scholarship creates a context that promotes a more democratic society by broadening participation in and use of research (kezar et al., 2018). indeed, giroux (2019) exhorted that education cannot be abstracted from how we think about democracy…if it is to translate into meaningful policies and practices [our thinking] must connect equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good. (p. 50) reconsidering research as public scholarship (leavy, 2019) sets the stage for making all research accessible, relevant, and useful. such framing reinforces the value of research for the public and, in so doing, can address critiques about transparency and accountability (lanford, 2023). defining the “public” today’s omnipresent social media implies that the general public is the consumer of public scholarship, while academic discourse highlights the importance of researchers and policymakers; however, neither conceptualization recognizes the local community of practitioners. returning to our definition of public scholarship, the most immediate audience includes those individuals who were part of the research, as well as practitioners who are part public scholarship and edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 55 of the context in which the research took place, and other practitioners who can use the inquiry’s findings. these practitioners have been overlooked in prior work that has considered colleagues, participants, policymakers, the public, students, and businesses as specific audiences for whom voices must be tailored (lincoln et al., 2019); however, educationally based practitioners who are not academics have been previously overlooked as an essential but distinct group. conceptualizing who the “public” is in public scholarship is crucial because it shapes how research is communicated, ensuring that it resonates with and is relevant to the intended audience. broadly conceiving of the public in public scholarship can lead to poor outcomes. this lack of precision can result in messages that fail to resonate with anyone, reducing the impact and relevance of the research and the very purpose of public scholarship. moreover, it risks marginalizing specific communities, leading to missed opportunities for meaningful dialogue and collaboration with diverse audiences. understanding the particular needs, values, and contexts of different publics allows scholars to tailor their approach, making their work more accessible, impactful, and meaningful. doing the public scholarship dissertation in this section, we delve into the form and function of the public scholarship dissertation in rowan university’s edd in educational leadership program. as scholarly endeavors aimed at engaging audiences both with and beyond academia, these dissertations embody a unique blend of academic rigor and public accessibility. here, we explore how the form, encompassing structure, content, and presentation, connects to the function of effectively communicating research findings to diverse audiences. we will also briefly address how to prepare students to undertake public scholarship. form our program provides students with an outline for the public scholarship dissertation, allowing room for deviation where appropriate and encouraging creativity. we present this option in the form of six chapters, where the first two chapters compose the student’s proposal (see figure 1 below). these chapters are the conceptual framework (chapter 1) and the methodology (chapter 2). in chapter 1, candidates frame the problem and identify the context within which the work is situated. they also include a discussion of why they chose the public scholarship model, their positionality in relation to the problem, and a plan for collaboration with the community impacted by the problem. this plan must be more than aspirational, but include details about who the community is, how the candidate will engage with them, and any historical or social issues that might serve as a barrier to or an opportunity for collaboration. to this end, we have candidates engage with milner’s (2007) work on dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen, brooks et al. (2014) on the ethics of researching up and down in education, and reeves et al. (2020) on developing collaboration and engagement plans. the reader will notice a distinct lack of the literature review chapter, a traditional chapter two. this is for three reasons: first, we ask the candidate to briefly review the literature in their conceptual framework chapter; second, the candidate will again review the literature relevant to their findings later in the dissertation; and third, traditional dissertation literature reviews are often time-consuming, suffer from selection bias, and are labor intensive, thus compromising quality and detracting from more critical research activities. consequently, candidates undertaking this model focus on building a comprehensive conceptual framework that provides the foundation for their work without exhaustively exploring the literature in and around their problems. after the candidate completes these two chapters and defends their work at a proposal defense, they enter the field (after the requisite human subjects approvals). it is essential to note that our program does not require a specific methodological approach to addressing their problems of practice, unlike many programs (commonly improvement science); we encourage diverse research approaches that best address the problem the candidate has conceptualized. we do not view any one form of inquiry as particularly suitable to the public scholarship model. after the candidate completes data collection and begins to focus on writing up their findings, they prepare chapter three, which is an overview of their findings. this is a very brief chapter that presents participant information and answers to the research questions. the candidate presents their analysis in a narrative format, accompanied by a data table that aligns their findings with exemplary excerpts from the collected corpus. the purpose of this chapter is to provide a short, high-level description of the findings of the study, as in-depth descriptions are found in later chapters. we refer to it as the “bridge chapter” in that it connects the first two chapters to the remaining chapters of the dissertation. the candidate also identifies the nature of the following chapters in terms of purpose, output, and audience. the following three chapters focus on the outputs of the analysis process. here is where the candidate explores the various conceptions of the “public” in public scholarship. chapter 4 is an empirical manuscript for publication. the candidate has identified an outlet in collaboration with their chair and prepares an article that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. here, a more traditional approach to scholarship is at play, demonstrating the candidate’s scholarly contribution to their research topic. the next chapter, chapter 5, is a product of the candidate’s choosing. typically, in this chapter, students will prepare practitioner articles to be published in association magazines or organizational websites. here, candidates are communicating directly with other practitioners invested in their problems. the final chapter, chapter 6, is another output of the candidate’s choosing. they may choose more traditional written work, like opinion pieces, proposals at practitioner-relevant conferences, webinars, trainings, press releases, infographics, and presentations to policymakers, or engage in more creative work like public art projects, creative nonfiction, poetry, and filmmaking. for this final piece, students identify ways to communicate effectively with other stakeholders impacted by their problems. the only requirement for these final chapters is that the candidate must develop substantive pieces of work that clearly demonstrate the research-to-practice connection and show reciprocity, originality, and a contribution to public knowledge. it is important to tease out the differences between chapters 4, 5, and 6. while the findings and recommendations communicated in each piece arise from the same data corpus and analysis procedures, the difference is in the telling, meaning how the work is conveyed to the reader. a candidate may also choose to focus on one research question in one chapter and a different one in the next. however, at no point do the pieces replicate each other. each output johnson & kerrigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 56 is for a different audience. candidates define these audiences, provide a rationale for their focus, identify the most relevant findings to be shared with each audience, and determine the most appropriate way to share them. this is discussed by the candidate, as noted, at the end of chapter 3, the “bridge” chapter. figure 1. public scholarship dissertation format flow form in practice candidates have explored many different topics under the aegis of the public scholarship model: service dog policies at universities, resistance to curriculum diversification in rural districts, firstgeneration student use of the university library (matthews & johnson, 2024), culturally responsive pedagogy practices in math education, nursing faculty shortages (ross & kerrigan, 2020), among others. here we provide examples of two candidates’ projects to illustrate the diversity of their work. candidate 1 is a state-level education professional interested in how whiteness manifests in school improvement policies. she conducted a critical policy analysis of state and local-level documents. she prepared an empirical article for a policy journal, a practitioner piece for a school professional association’s magazine, and a proposal for a conference focused on access attended by education professionals from across the country. candidate 2 is an adjunct faculty member at a university undergoing a significant transformation. she conducted a heuristic inquiry, through a feminist lens, of women adjuncts at that institution and their experiences of burnout during this transition. she prepared an article for a journal on women in higher education to appeal to scholars who study gender, a practitioner piece for her union’s magazine to connect to her fellow adjuncts, and a short article for the university’s student-led newspaper to raise awareness on campus regarding the pressure adjuncts are under at the institution. while our public scholarship model is still in its infancy, we continue to encourage students to explore new and innovative ways to step outside traditional dissemination pathways and reach critical audiences with their work. public scholarship dissertation as a dissertation in practice this type of dissertation both aligns with and deviates from the notion of the “dissertation in practice” (perry et al., 2020). candidates are encouraged to engage with complex problems of practice that are consistent, contextualized, and specific to their experiences as practitioners, in order to make their work relevant to both local and educational audiences. candidates also view the problem as part of a nested system in education, seeking to situate it in a much broader context, considering the connections between educational institutions and complex social issues. lastly, candidates are asked to identify those networked communities with which to share in the work: either through collaboration during the research, co-creating the research findings, soliciting feedback on findings and/or recommendations, sharing authorship in the outputs, or copresenting the work to the community, to other practitioners, or to relevant stakeholders. however, the concept of the "dissertation in practice" as envisioned by cped is also not immune to becoming what some might term a "dusty dissertation," meaning that on its own, it makes no impact beyond the work done in the professional context. so, the dissertation literally sits on a shelf, collecting dust (auerbach, 2011). the knowledge gained by addressing the problem of practice never makes it past the specific context. it is important to recognize that such dissertations, whether traditional or innovative, can still inadvertently contribute to the centralization of knowledge and academic hierarchies. function to review, the purpose of this approach is to broaden the reach of the dissertation, functioning as both a piece of scholarship and a communication tool aimed at bridging the gap between educational stakeholders and the academy. it elevates the status of the scholarpractitioner from learner to that of advanced scholar and activist deeply engaged with questions of practice through original and impactful inquiry. it is worth considering each of these functions separately and in more depth in order to prepare both the student and the faculty member for undertaking a public scholarship dissertation. bridging the gap the problems facing humanity are enormous, complex, and diffuse. some of the greatest challenges include the environmental crisis, sustainability, epidemic health problems (such as cancer), violence (in many forms), gender inequality, starkly inequitable development (and other economic inequalities), educational crises (including inequalities in education and other social inequalities), to name but a few. no one discipline has met or can meet the challenges of contemporary society. (leavy, 2019, p. 29) the public scholarship dissertation functions to bridge several critical gaps in academic research. the first is that of disciplinarity. considering the nature of educational problems, it is critical that research in our field connects to relevant work in other fields. education is inherently interdisciplinary, but not always intentionally so, and can thus result in knowledge silos. the public scholarship dissertation requires intentionality beyond that of connecting to relevant fields, toward transcending disciplinary interactions toward more effective solutions to real world problems (leavy, 2019). drawing on gibbons’ (1994) work, transdisciplinarity isn’t just about connecting scholarship across borders, but drawing on tacit, informal knowledge produced outside of the academy, diverging from the “piety of conventional thought” characteristic of much academic research (gibbons, 1991, p. 97). as a result, knowledge production is unbound by rigid organizational hierarchies, restrictive epistemologies, and outmoded disciplinary cultures. a public scholarship dissertation must address a problem of critical consequence to the community (be it the educational organization or the profession) with the community. to this end, candidates, regardless of research approach, must clearly define their positionalities in the project (chapter 1) and design a plan for collaboration and dissemination (chapters 1 & 3), as noted earlier. this might result in a jointly defined research question, co-created public scholarship and edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 57 protocols, shared authorships, among other ways to involve the tacit knowledge and experience of the community. unlike much dissertation research, candidates choosing this approach are intentionally building in complexity to explore and understand complex problems. the next gap the public scholarship dissertation can bridge is between the academy and professional practice. while a cliché at this point, the research-to-practice gap is still an important one to educational researchers and practitioners; however, the values and goals of both are often at odds. educational researchers seek outputs that will contribute to their professional success, and practitioners seek advancements that will address their everyday problems, sometimes pitting purposes against each other. as carmine (1997) stated, “the chasm widens, and an ‘us vs. them’ mentality inhibits research that contributes meaningfully to practical applications” (p. 513). this persistent gap is the raison d’etre of edd programs, created to bridge the gap and intent on addressing educational problems through research. students are conceptualized as scholar-practitioners, drawing on their experiences and engaging in research to solve educational problems. however, the nature of the dissertation models used in edd programs is such that these solutions may remain localized, never designed or conceived of as transferable to other contexts nor widely disseminated beyond the organization. the public scholarship dissertation can be an antidote to that. our approach to the public scholarship dissertation is founded on the “inquiry as stance” worldview formulated by cochran-smith and lytle (2009) that asserted a way of knowing and being in the world of educational practice that carries across educational context and various points in one’s professional career and that links individuals to larger groups and social movements intended to challenge inequities perpetuated by the educational status quo. (p. viii) inquiry, from this perspective, is more than research intended to solve a time or place-bound problem, as much student research is, but positions all types of practitioners as knowledge producers situated in communities of practice seeking educational and social transformation. cochran-smith and lytle (2009) identified four central dimensions to inquiry as stance: 1) rejection of the academic knowledge-practitioner knowledge dualism, 2) an expanded view of who counts as a practitioner and ways to connect to and ally with communities, 3) inquiry is a collaborative process, and 4) inquiry should create a more democratic and just society. scholarpractitioners undertaking the public scholarship dissertation employ collaborative, responsive research approaches characterized by cultural and epistemological pluralism, acknowledgement of how traditional research approaches often suppress other ways of knowing and privilege elite and academic knowledge, reject the idea that research is/should be neutral, and assert that research’s purpose should be in support of social justice and the democratization of knowledge. enhancing positionality undertaking a public scholarship dissertation enriches a candidate’s expertise by enhancing their communication and public engagement abilities, expanding their professional network, and deepening their leadership skills. the public scholarship dissertation is an opportunity to grow scholar-practitioners into public intellectuals, or as novices offering powerful counterpoints to the solipsism of the academy (nichols, 2010). these enhanced skills and experiences position candidates for a wide range of career opportunities both within and outside of academia. moreover, candidates can begin to cultivate both personal and professional identities that place them to positively influence education more widely. leadership isn’t positional, but a disposition, an oft-echoed refrain in edd programs. engaging in public scholarship can cultivate this disposition by developing expertise. this expertise is exhibited by passion for the problem, a willingness to engage in the problem’s debates, an acknowledgment of those influencing their thinking, and an understanding of one’s contribution to the conversation. beyond that, it is exhibited by the doing engaging in the research process and uncovering findings that may improve education for all. these activities reflect, in different ways, leadership competencies: showing a consciousness of the broader social, cultural, and political contexts of educational organizations, a willingness to interrogate policy and practice, a commitment to the genuine enactment of democratic principles, and a resolve to move from rhetoric to action (dantley & tillman, 2010). leadership development rests not only on the knowledge of the professional, but on their abilities to engage in the inquiry process and act on the results. the public scholarship dissertation also provides an opportunity to raise consciousness more broadly, invoking new pedagogical approaches to counter anti-democratic power relations. considering the various crises american education is facing, giroux (2019) asserted that educators need a new language by which to educate: such a language needs to be political without being dogmatic and needs to recognize that pedagogy is always political because it is connected to the acquisition of and struggle over agency, values, social relations, and some notion of the future. (p. 42) the public scholarship model requires viewing both education and the research process as forms of civic engagement. candidates engaging this approach preserve their professional agency and integrity, making choices about what they value and are accountable to those choices. “whatever you decide, you will aim to make yours a purposeful, morally committed practice, that is, praxis” (mcniff & whitehead, 2011, p. 29). these beliefs, capabilities, and praxis are part of claiming a public intellectual identity. regarding this identity, becker and goodman (2006) wrote that educational scholars who view themselves in this manner are not only involved in reform within the organization but also outside of it, actively seeking to purposefully entangle their scholarship with community involvement. from this public intellectual perspective, knowledge creation is not enough; research must be paired with pedagogical action. the public scholarship dissertation builds in ways for candidates to cultivate this identity and engage meaningfully in the struggle for social justice. preparation undertaking a public scholarship dissertation requires preparation in both its construction and the effective enactment of its purpose. there are ways in which programs can develop student preparedness: early skills building, creating a culture of inquiry where students develop their research readiness, and actively valuing the democratization of knowledge and knowledge generation. developing public scholarship skills first and foremost, students should be made aware of the different dissertation models they may use from day one. they may johnson & kerrigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 58 not understand it, but repetition is a critical pedagogical activity; therefore, students need to be presented with information that will make them “dissertation ready” early and often. unlike many edd programs, students in our program do not begin their dissertations upon matriculation. in our program, the first place students encounter the public scholarship dissertation model is in our leader-scholar community course at the end of year one where they begin to conceptualize their problems of practice as dissertation topics. next, they develop public scholarship skills in inquiry courses. for example, in our policy analysis course, students prepare an oped as the final assignment to submit for publication. we recommend, though, more opportunities for students to present, publish, and intentionally engage should be woven into the coursework. relying on traditional written assignments and discussion boards in coursework does not lend itself to public scholarship skill cultivation if not created with intentionality. for example, having students respond to discussion boards in non-technical language while displaying their understanding of course concepts develops the ability to communicate with lay audiences. this extends to creating graded assignments that are meaningful to students, like the editorial mentioned earlier, but this could also look like reporting out results to organizational stakeholders, creating or advocating for a program to address critical institutional needs, writing a letter to a public official, or preparing comments for a municipal board of commissioners meeting. such activities underscore their agency as professionals and members of their communities, preparing them for a public scholarship dissertation. creating a culture of inquiry it is absolutely critical to create a culture of inquiry in a doctoral program that will excite students about public scholarship. one approach is through monthly proseminars that provide our students with additional learning opportunities. the proseminars feature lectures, discussions, and other engagement strategies to challenge, motivate, and support students on their doctoral journey. these sessions are held at night and online to accommodate our students' convenience. we have covered such topics as academic writing, the scholar-practitioner identity, from doctoral student to doctoral candidate, writing groups, preparing conference proposals, using critical theory, translating the problem of practice into a dissertation topic, dissertation models, and designing quality research studies, among others. we also host an annual research showcase, where students transitioning into the dissertation phase present their conceptual framework as a research poster. all of these activities foster a culture of inquiry by developing the skills necessary to conduct and discuss academic work with diverse audiences. democratizing knowledge we must emphasize the importance of democratizing knowledge and empowering students to see themselves as knowledge creators, which means fostering an environment where knowledge sharing and accessibility are valued and promoted. such an environment includes using open educational resources, for example, instead of relying on expensive textbooks. we must also include materials that represent diverse perspectives, cultures, and disciplines, demonstrating that valuable knowledge is generated from many sources. this environment also requires developing critical thinking and information literacy among students by having them evaluate ideas and sources and create a culture of questioning and curiosity. effective use of technology, beyond the learning management system and microsoft office products, can demonstrate different ways of communicating ideas. ultimately, knowledge sharing necessitates reflection and dialogue that extend beyond the classroom. this involves creating opportunities for students to engage in meaningful discussions, both online and offline, where they can share insights, reflect on their learning, and engage with different viewpoints. considerations of a public scholarship dissertation while this approach to the dissertation process can increase the self-efficacy of scholar-practitioners and widen the reach of their work, public scholarship dissertations do have their challenges. one primary challenge is maintaining rigorous academic standards while ensuring accessibility. balancing scholarly depth and public engagement requires careful consideration and skillful execution. moreover, research readiness requires the development of a researcher identity among students, an area in which many scholarpractitioners lack confidence. additionally, the roles of faculty committee members may look somewhat different under this model and require a deeper engagement with the candidate and the research process. balancing act rather than frame scholarly depth and public engagement as opposites, we highlight their shared foundations. rigorous scholarship and publicly accessible writing both require recognizing and responding to one’s audience, a thorough understanding of the research process, findings, and implications, and thoughtful and clear writing. two strategies aid in these processes: writing and research readiness. writing readiness skillful writing is well-reasoned and supported, clear, and succinct. although styles shift depending on the audience and the medium, we eschew any notion of academic writing as dense and incomprehensible; instead, our coursework promotes clarity and succinctness regardless of the assignment. students write traditional term papers and discussion posts in coursework, as well as an editorial and a program evaluation proposal. in doing so, they not only practice identifying relevant audiences and stakeholders, but also writing succinctly with purpose. we incorporate peer review throughout writing assignments to promote learning from peers while habituating students to giving and receiving critical feedback. these approaches contrast with traditional approaches to doctoral writing that prioritize dense writing for academic journals in a competitive context. research readiness as we note above, public scholarship is not just about dissemination, but also the entire research process. a strong foundation is necessary, one that includes an understanding of research as systematic inquiry with standards for design and rigor that are grounded in an existing body of literature and more recent developments in expectations for practitioner research, while recognizing the knowledge that practitioners bring to problems of practice. these are not the research expectations of phd programs, rather this exploration of inquiry reflects cochran-smith and lytle’s public scholarship and edd dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 59 (2009) inquiry as outcome, an orientation towards questioning as a practitioner working with complex problems. however, we must also engage in developing a researcher identity among students, a concept that has been given short shrift in education doctorates. we see the practitioner identity as fertile ground and “emphasize the importance of practitioner-focused and non-traditional forms of research, alongside but not replacing discussions that focus on specific research techniques or steps in the research process” (ross et al., 2017, p. 83). research readiness requires not only instruction in research design, but also developing an understanding of what it means to be a researcher and how to connect that productively with practice. advising relationship we must recognize that not all faculty will be interested in, willing to, or able to work with students through the public scholarship process. it is intensive work, requiring a great deal of mentorship. it also requires openness to new ideas and curiosity about students’ passions. here, we consider two strategies for developing a productive advising relationship associated with the public scholarship approach: committee contributions and horizontal collaboration. committee contributions the public scholarship dissertation requires a significantly stronger relationship between the scholar-practitioner and their faculty advisor. working together on research projects, publications, or presentations enables faculty advisors to shape outcomes in line with the purpose of the public scholarship dissertation and to develop a pedagogical relationship that transcends the written work. this close collaboration can help scholar-practitioners develop critical thinking, research skills, and professional competencies while fostering a deeper, more personal connection with their advisors. while the advisor may do much of the heavy lifting, committee members play an essential role in the development of the public scholarship dissertation. first, committee members in edd programs are commonly professionals with relevant experience in educational leadership. they may be currently employed in leadership roles or may have left such roles to join the academy as faculty. these individuals may be best positioned to help the student identify the community with which they want to communicate. doctoral candidates who are not in senior leadership positions may have a limited ability to envision the community and its component parts stemming from the boundaries these strata (in)advertently erect. committee members with a more holistic view of the educational community can bring their perspectives to many parts of the public scholarship dissertation process, such as 1) helping students to consider how to elicit collaboration with a networked community, 2) determining who those community members are or should be and unseen/unforeseen gaps, 3) identifying relevant outlets for practitioner-focused outputs, and 4) translating the work of the dissertation into leadership skills needed for future roles or positions. horizontal collaboration there is a vast body of literature on the nature of the advisoradvisee relationship, which we will not belabor here. however, much of it conceptualizes the advising relationship as vertical, with the advisor functioning as a supervisor and the student as the supervised. this approach is problematic in that it can reproduce the hidden curriculum, a covert pattern of socialization (giroux & penna, 1979), that can be detrimental to doctoral student success. hardingdekam et al. (2012) asserted that advisors are not always aware of the types of power they exert that can be damaging to the advising relationship: “the doctoral advisor-advisee relationship is a delicate organism that must be mutually crafted with articulated, explicit expectations” (p. 13). furthermore, this structure fails to recognize the significant expertise practitioners enrolled in an edd possess. we maintain that these expectations must be mutually negotiated in the public scholarship dissertation process. we were also inspired by kennedy et al. (2018) who distinguished between the hierarchical supervisor/supervised model and the “interdependent pursuit of a commonly identified problem of practice among multiple stakeholders who systematically study and address that problem,” (p. 6) or rather horizontal collaboration. from the latter perspective, the dissertation must evidence a co-constructed, interdependent relationship between the faculty member and the candidate. in this approach to advising, horizontal collaboration is strategized through complex considerations: the psychosocial, the practical, and the philosophical. the first of these is psychosocial in nature: 1) self-disclosure, care, and friendship, 2) honesty and transparency, and 3) trust. the second set of considerations is practical: 1) clear articulation of the nature of the advising relationship, 2) explicit outlining of advisor and advisee expectations of the process, and 3) a faithful co-construction of the problem, framework, design, and outputs of the dissertation. finally, the last set of considerations, those more philosophical in nature, include: 1) lively explorations of the tensions between epistemological assumptions, 2) a mutual agreement on the importance of the democratization of knowledge, and 3) a shared belief in how research and its dissemination can inform and promote social justice in education. by cultivating strong psychosocial connections, establishing clear practical frameworks, and engaging in reasoned dialogue, horizontal collaboration can result in a supportive and intellectually enriching advising relationship. conclusion: cautions & encouragements undertaking a public scholarship dissertation is not for the faint of heart. as noted above, it requires a significant amount of commitment, collaboration, and careful planning on the part of both the faculty committee and the doctoral candidate. below, we present some cautions to consider as programs develop public scholarship procedures, along with encouragement for engaging in this important and meaningful work. we conclude by inviting readers to take up the challenge of democratizing knowledge and knowledge production. the greatest caution we offer is the need to acknowledge that this model contrasts with traditional dissertation models. thus, interested programs are likely to encounter challenges from colleagues and institutional structures, as well as possible discomfort and distrust at the research site. as we noted above, colleagues, as well as potential research sites and participants who were trained in traditional doctoral programs, may not be familiar with this model and therefore may be unprepared to support it. institutional structures such as institutional review board requirements may also respond to public scholarship with trepidation as the research plans, collaboration and co-creation of research documents, and the expected products may be unfamiliar to those reviewing irb materials. nonetheless, the cautions are familiar to other cped programs that have made progress in revising their edd program johnson & kerrigan impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.495 60 consistent with cped principles. these prior experiences lay the groundwork for the conversations and negotiations that public scholarship necessitates. non-cped programs can learn from cped programs that have already made these transitions. programs seeking to expand their dissertation model repertoire are encouraged to develop their approaches to public scholarship design. we offer some considerations here, but each program should assess its goals and its faculty members' capacity to mentor this process. the public scholarship model does not require candidates to spend longer completing it, but it does necessitate considerable faculty involvement and a willingness on the part of students to put themselves out there. the publication process can be time-consuming and is typically undertaken by students and their advisors after graduation. consequently, this approach facilitates the development of long-term research partnerships between faculty and scholar-practitioners. furthermore, new doctors often draw on their experience and continue to publish, encouraging their colleagues to conduct research and publish, and establishing cultures of inquiry in their workplaces. this is just one more way educational leadership programs can broaden their reach and positively impact educational communities and complex educational problems. references asanov, a.-m., asanov, i., buenstorf, g., kadriu, v., & schoch, p. 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reid kerrigan rowan university public scholarship defining public scholarship why engage in public scholarship? defining the “public” doing the public scholarship dissertation form form in practice public scholarship dissertation as a dissertation in practice function bridging the gap enhancing positionality preparation developing public scholarship skills creating a culture of inquiry democratizing knowledge considerations of a public scholarship dissertation balancing act writing readiness research readiness advising relationship committee contributions horizontal collaboration conclusion: cautions & encouragements references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 14 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.505 it is harder to generate alternative dissertations than it looks edmund t. hamann university of nebraska-lincoln ehamann2@unl.edu laura boche ecmc foundation laurabethboche@gmail.com abstract this study examines 39 education doctorate (edd) dissertations that were completed by members of five cohorts of edd students from the university of nebraska-lincoln’s (unl) department of teaching, learning, and teacher education (tlte) to consider what constitutes an alternative dissertation. all of the dissertation authors began their edd studies after unl began its affiliation with the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). after pondering what makes an edd dissertation “alternative”, the article notes both that most of the dissertations remain traditional (i.e., structurally like doctorate of philosophy [phd] dissertations) and that all of the advising faculty are phd-holders. the article does offer accounts of two dissertations, however, that seem to encapsulate well the spirit and rationale for alternative dissertations or dissertations in practice (dips). keywords alternative dissertation, dissertation-in-practice, carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) i. the rationale for alternative “dissertations in practice” (dips) as part of their championing of the education doctorate (edd), several scholars have noted ways that traditional doctorate of philosophy (phd) preparation is not always pertinent to advanced, practicing educators who are attempting to address challenges and seize opportunities in their particular professional contexts (mehta et al., 2011; perry, 2013; shulman et al., 2006). however, if the phd dissertation model has serious limitations as a template for what most pertains to the professional challenges and circumstances of advanced education practitioners, edd advocates have been loath to replace culmination of the edd with anything other than a dissertation (perry et al. 2020a). after all, the word dissertation conveys a serious intellectual effort worthy of approval by experts in a field. dominant understandings of the word perhaps tilt more towards discovery than application, but “dissertation” clearly works as shorthand for “demonstrated expertise and accomplishment,” and that is not a description/operative condition that edd programs want to shed. moreover, it is not easily clear what else would as straightforwardly provide a similar tangible means to display competence. it is hard to imagine the equivalent of bar exams or medical boards for the field of education because the arenas of practice and possible practice are so varied. if one point of a doctoral program is verified demonstration of advanced expertise, completion of a dissertation certainly functions as a known and thus expeditious way to demonstrate such competency. indeed, in the conclusion we will return to the idea that dips can be vehicles for displaying/demonstrating advanced professional knowledge, and from that display, they illustrate why, as cutting-edge practitioners, such advanced experts should have the autonomy and respect that allows them to deploy their professional expertise. yet promoting a familiar and valued practice that nonetheless is a poor fit or is of only partial relevance to the field one wants to prove competence in has its obvious drawbacks. so, slowly, the idea has emerged that an edd dissertation should be alternative, i.e., a dip (perry et al., 2020a). at least three reasons make defining the dip as a suitable alternative difficult. the first is the power of the existing phd template. this power comes both from the traditional dissertation’s longstanding ubiquity, but also from the fact that phdbearing faculty members sometimes are skeptical of the need for or relevance of doctoral preparation programs that move away from a “theoretical/research” orientation to a practical, practitioner-oriented one (perry et al., 2020b, p. 2). such faculty may tolerate edd programs’ existence, but they persist with the sensibility that such programs are less rigorous and yield a lesser degree (perry et al., 2020b). in turn, this inhibits their willingness to see an alternative dissertation (i.e., a dip) as appropriate or valuable. while the edd may propose to be more suitable for practice, the conservative norms of what counts as scholarship in academia favors the hiring of phd holders thereby these phd-holding faculty in turn prepare the edd-seeking practitioners. extending lortie’s (1975) classical model of the “apprenticeship of observation” to higher education, if we teach the way we were taught, in turn we teach “dissertating” the way we learned to “dissertate,” thereby making it challenging for phd-holding faculty to value a different way of demonstrating expertise or accomplishment and to encourage their students in such a direction. https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0566-4431 hamann & boche impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.505 15 the second challenge, however, comes from the particularity and therefore the variability of attending to different educational contexts, which is something that an advanced practitioner is often attempting to develop and prove competence in. as hamann and reeves (2012) have noted, while borrowing substantially from mcdermott (1977) and seidel and shavelson (2007), optimal education solutions are a product of both universal educational patterns, or rules, and context-specific ones. with allusion to the “what works” emphasis of the federal what works clearinghouse that was created when the institute of educational sciences (ies) was launched and that rejected broad swaths of research that was not quantitative and “experiment/control group” in design (hamann, 2003), “what works [everywhere]” is not enough to guide educational problem solving. dips are not only/mainly quests to discover universal truths about education. rather they are messier and more applied efforts to ameliorate this situation or that circumstance here and at this time. thus, dips can vary substantially because problems of practice vary substantially. moreover, this variation may well be in format and structure, as well as in content. this second point needs to be emphasized because it speaks to the frequent dilemma that advanced practitioners can encounter in education research-oriented phd programs. the practitioners are seeking to better understand and attend to particular problems of practice. it is not that universal education truisms do not interest them, but they are less interested in “what works” (abstractly) than in “what works here” (datnow et al. 2005). anthropologist laura nader (1996) distinguished this as an ecological orientation, which is responsive to context, versus a physics orientation, which seeks to explain the universal. one is not necessarily better than the other, but they do talk past each other. a third challenge is the dominance of social science (particularly psychology) in defining what constitutes educational research. there are advanced demonstrations of competence and expertise that may not be aptly characterized as social science research, per se. social science seeks to describe, whereas practitioners often seek to develop dips that are much more applied than that. as two dissertations that are favorably characterized as dips at the end of this article illuminate, curriculum development and pedagogical innovation (kramer, 2021), as well as practitioner reasoning about practice (scheinost, 2021) are compelling ways to develop and display expertise, an accomplishment apropos for earning an advanced credential (an edd) that marks one as an advanced scholarly practitioner. understanding these as “education research” or as proof of capacity as an education researcher (as traditionally understood), however, might be a little harder to assert. more importantly, such an attempt wanders away from being a match for the skill development an advanced edd student is attempting to realize and demonstrate. perry et al.’s (2020a) the improvement science dissertation in practice links dip production to improvement science (bennett et al., 2018; bryk et al., 2011) and, as such, substantially advances ideas for how to develop a dip. yet that means it better describes what dips should be than examining what, so far, they actually are. while describing what they could or should be is important (not least for its teleological utility), mead (1961) has powerfully argued that our thinking about “what educationally could or should be” is always constrained by our understanding of “what already is.” in other words, competing with any new vision is an already developed sense of what something is supposed to look like. thus, imagining dips as alternatives to more traditional phd dissertations in education is nonetheless constrained by already extant understandings of what dissertations are. here we consider 39 dips produced by edd graduates from one program’s first five “cped cohorts,” i.e., from the biannual cohorts that began between 2009 and 2017. in that program (which uses “cped” and “cpeders” as program and participant identifying terminology), new edd students start together every two years and take roughly half of their coursework together which substantially synchronizes their timelines and steps for program completion and how they pursue their dips. all of these dissertations were produced under direction of faculty in the department of teaching, learning, and teacher education (tlte) at the university of nebraska-lincoln (unl). unl was one of the original member institutions that formally affiliated with cped as it launched in 2007. tlte offers one of two edd pathways at unl. the other pathway is through the department of education administration (edad), which, according to its leaders, has also sometimes struggled to move away from “theoretical/research” orientations to more practical ones. nonetheless, it has permitted an alternative dissertation structure at least twice. for instance, recent unl edad edd graduates, panyoua yang (2022) and nick mumm (2022), wrote linked dissertations wherein they collaborated to coauthor a joint literature review, but then conducted different applied studies. this, however, is not a study of edad’s edd dissertations. rather it is just a consideration of tlte. the goal here is to consider a sustained, extant effort to help edd students craft dips that indeed are alternative and better aligned with their circumstantial needs of becoming better practitioners and better recognized for that expertise. we should add that we are “naming names” in this study because everything examined here is public record; the dissertations are each part of an online digital repository maintained by unl’s library system. ii. conceptualizing an alternative dissertation before we look at what these 39 dissertations are evidence of, we need to think about what constitutes an alternative dissertation. how would we know one as one if/when we saw it? one idea we pursued is that they should look different related to appearance and structure. a traditional phd dissertation in our experience runs for five or six chapters. it starts with an introduction that has three tasks: (1) to clarify what question or questions guided the study, (2) to summarize or provide an advance preview of the research literature that was considered, the methodologies pursued, and the research setting, and (3) to provide a roadmap for how the remainder of the document will be organized. the second chapter is usually the literature review and can often be subdivided into various subsections. the core task of the research review is to convince readers/faculty reviewers that the author knows well the particular field to which their dissertation contributes. this sets up the later claim that the dissertation constitutes a novel or original contribution to human knowledge. the dissertation needs to clarify what was already known to set up assertions regarding what new knowledge was created. the third chapter of a traditional dissertation describes the research methodology. this can include a brief tracing of paths not taken (my topic also could have been studied by doing x or y or z) but mainly describes how the study was pursued. how were data gathered? per what conventions? how were reliability and validity generating alternative dissertations is hard impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.505 16 pursued? why should readers see the products of the pursued methodology to be credible? usually, the biggest chapter of the traditional dissertation comes next: the presentation of the collected and preliminarily sorted data. sometimes there is enough to share here that it makes sense to divide this fourth chapter into two, hence a fourth and fifth chapter. then, there is a final chapter (chapter 5 or 6), depending on whether the data presentation occurred in one chapter (more common) or two, which includes the bulk of the analysis, plus implications and next steps. this format may feel constraining in some fashion. the national cped initiative has identified several possible constraints, including the idea the dips should be guided by the consideration of “problems of practice” rather than research questions. with this consideration, an alternative dissertation would plausibly look different than the traditional five or six chapter dissertation, although it is possible to imagine dissertations that loosely follow the traditional structure but are “alternative” in other ways, such as methodology or approach. increasingly, lead thinkers involved with cped, most explicitly cped’s executive director jill perry and her coauthors (e.g., perry et al., 2020a) are arguing that another way edd dissertations should be alternative is to serve needs of advanced practitioners, hence the movement to dips. (cped’s publishing partnership with myers educational press is generating a number of titles that further explore this). what is it that advanced edd candidates need to figure out and how is the resulting dissertation an illustration of that acumen and achievement? iii. methodologies to examine the alternativeness of dips our inquiry began both serendipitously and expeditiously. the lead author (hamann) was involved for a number of years as a faculty member and then coordinator of tlte’s edd program. as such, he was a regular participant in the semiannual and then annual cped convenings where the problematization of traditional dissertations and the emphasis on supporting dips were becoming increasing points of focus. additionally, his direct experience chairing and serving on edd students’ advisory committees had him wondering to what extent alternative (and related adjectives of “more relevant “and “more appropriate)” characterized tlte edd dissertations or could characterize them more. in turn, the second author (boche) was just finishing her phd in the higher education strand of unl’s edad department and told her advisor that she was eager to engage in more research. that advisor then put the two coauthors in touch for the first time. all of the coauthors’ initial conversations and meetings were via zoom, as this was during the covid-19 pandemic. the first dilemma we confronted was to decide what constituted an improved/more appropriate (i.e., “alternative” or “dip”) edd dissertation and then to ponder the related task of what could be studied to fulfill that line of inquiry. slowly and steadily, we decided that a good starting point would be to look comparatively at the 39 dissertations that had been successfully defended by members of the first five tlte edd cohorts. we knew the backstory on many of them (because of the lead author’s involvement), but we also had the second author’s fresh eyes, not knowing any of the now-graduated dissertation authors, nor any members of the host department except for the lead author. those 39 dissertations had been completed between 2010 and 2022, and because they had been generated by different cohorts, they enabled some chronological analysis of whether the department was getting better (or not) at moving away from traditional dissertations to those better characterized as dips. because the dissertations were all in the public domain (in the university library’s digital commons), there was no inquiry that involved needing participant consent or irb approval. back in 2007 unl was one of the first campuses to sign on to the then-nascent cped project, and tlte faculty were among the first (see latta and wunder [2012]) to assemble a multi-institutional consideration of what it meant to put practitioner knowledge at the center. in 2009, tlte organized its first biannual cped cohort (with edd students referred to as “cpeders”). since then, in 2011 (second), 2013 (third), 2015 (fourth), 2017 (fifth), 2019 (sixth), 2021 (seventh), 2023 (eighth), and 2025 (ninth) eight more cohorts with as many as 20 students and as few as four have launched. when the analyses of completed dissertations that are described here began, in 2021, there were no graduates yet, from tlte’s cohort six, nor from cohorts seven, eight, or nine, though now both the 2019 and 2021 cohorts have their first graduates (which are not further examined in this analysis). two more lingering dips have also been completed by members of the fourth and fifth cohort respectively (bringing the total to 41), but those are not examined either. to the dilemma of how a dip might look different from a traditional education research phd dissertation, we conjectured about a number of features that might look different and then examined our corpus of 39 to see whether our conjectures had explanatory power. among our posed questions were how many chapters the dissertations included, whether key introductory concepts were named—i.e., ontology, epistemology, praxis, iterative/iteration, and efficacy (hamann & trainin, 2018)— how long the dissertations were, if chapters were about author’s own practice, whether they were shared in first person or third, how many references they included, whether chapter two was aptly categorized as a literature review and chapter three as methodology, and how long it had taken students to go from starting their edd journeys to completing it. we noted that participation in a cohort likely would make program length less variable, although, given our continued emphasis (like with the phd program) of students identifying their own lines of inquiry, we did not expect all members of a cohort to graduate at the same time. some lines of inquiry take longer than others to pursue (and edd pursuers’ full-time employment status also vary in terms of how much time they give advanced practitioners to focus on their doctoral pursuits). we also examined dissertation titles to see how practice-oriented they seemed. iv. not so different the examined dissertations varied in a number of ways, including length and citations. the shortest was 113 pages while the longest was 347. they tended to get shorter over time. the first cohort’s median dissertation was 221.5 pages, while the fifth cohort’s was 164. the number of citations also varied with cohort one (from 2009) having 113 as the median number of citations (median from 10 dissertations), while the low, from cohort four, was just 62, although that figure came from just two completed and defended dissertations. the trend line in median number of citations declined modestly and consistently over time with the first cohort having the most, then cohort two, then cohort three, and then cohort five (with cohort four hamann & boche impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.505 17 being slightly below the number of citations per dissertation from cohort five). regarding a conventional chapter number and structure, those actually became more conventional over time. only one out of ten from cohort one seemed well described as conventional (with seven not being so and two unclear). by cohort five, seven of ten were conventional and only three were not. here, conventional references structure with both the number of chapters and their role, with the introduction-literature review-methodology-data presentation-data analysis/next steps model becoming increasingly common. this pattern may be a result of a changing composition in tlte’s faculty. many of those who advised the first and second cohorts have retired or left (which is not a surprise when the analysis is occurring 10 to 14 years after the fact). they were the faculty members who had turned to cped seeking an alternative to the “phd lite” focus of the precped edd efforts (mcgowan & pedersen, 2012). more recent hires did not share the same deliberative history regarding whether to connect and embrace the cped framework or not. that was already an accomplished fact when most came on board. unl and tlte were part of cped. this conjecture suffers, however, when one notes both that 15 of the 18 successfully defended dissertations from the third, fourth, and fifth cohorts were supervised by just three tlte faculty, two of whom had been part of the initial decision to affiliate with cped. one conventional finding was that research methodologist john creswell was cited 109 times in 20 of the 39 dissertations. yet, the somewhat more obscure work of clandinin and connelly (primarily related to narrative inquiry) was even more frequently cited, with 137 references across the body of dissertations, with direct appearances in 16 of the 39 of them. we think this reflects the fact that a professor who taught qualitative inquiry to each of these first five cohorts is an expert in narrative inquiry and an acolyte of clandinin and connelly’s work. many of the dissertations then reflected the direct preparation from program coursework. perhaps the most striking point about the dips reviewed from tlte’s first five cohorts is that they did not depart much from the appearance and conceits of phd dissertations. primarily, they depended upon substantial grounding in the research literature, almost all were primarily written texts organized by paragraph into sections and chapters. though a few referenced video and/or audio analysis, none included hyperlinks to these materials. although we did not engage in a comparative analysis of the phd dissertations generated by phd students from the same department during this same time period, the lead author (hamann) was a committee member or chair for 38 tlte phd dissertations and did not identify an obvious or categorical difference. indeed, as one colleague (dr. guy trainin) has suggested, “perhaps our edds don’t look much different from our phds because most of our phd students are also pursuing problems of practice” (personal communication). it is worth exploring dr. trainin’s conjecture a little more. more than half of the phd students in tlte are part-time students and fulltime practitioners. circumstantially, they are more like the advanced practitioners who are intentionally targeted by the edd program and less like the full-time student, immersed in the library and/or field sites, who resembles the traditional model of a phd student. it follows that this portion of phd students bring ideas about problems of practice to their advanced studies, even if their inquiries into it are more stilted (force fitting into a program less designed for them than the edd program is). the relative lack of departure from the phd model may be because the phd as practiced in tlte at least sometimes veers into edd territory. in this scenario, the edd is not so much like the phd program as the phd program is sometimes like the edd. if a sprawling analysis identified no clear smoking gun consistently distinguishing edd dips from phd dissertations, a brief examination of two of the edd dissertations suggests ways they can be strikingly different from their phd cousins. one, (kramer, 2021) does not superficially appear much different from the conventional phd version. it has six chapters, 145 pages, and 108 references. yet, its content is clearly rooted in the pursuit of a problem of practice. for the dissertation, which was titled considering student voices in reading intervention: re-conceptualizing and rethinking possibilities for high school reading through arts-based educational research, a high school reading intervention teacher named angela kramer (2022) decided to craft a play about various types of students who are in reading intervention. her play was overtly a work of fiction, but she had her students read it to check its verisimilitude and see whether they found it interesting. in general, in reading intervention classes, most students feel stigmatized because of their status as challenged readers (hamann & malone, 2020); so, getting them to engage in a task—reading— that they don’t like and have not previously done well at can be difficult. nonetheless, to kramer’s delight, her students loved the play and proposed a number of edits, including the addition of a new “reading intervention student type.” kramer’s students suggested she add a student who liked being in her class because, whatever the stigma about reading, they appreciated a class with an interested and friendly teacher who seemed to care deeply about students like them. students’ interest in the play meant that kramer added it as a recurring feature in her curriculum, occasionally tweaking it per the recommendations of students but mostly sharing it in its initial flawed form to give her students material that they were expert at to correct. as of this writing (in 2025), kramer remains an advanced practitioner teaching at the high school level, and additionally, she teaches as a college lecturer and supports the school district by supporting professional development. per the idea that a dip can be proof of advanced understanding and professional qualification, kramer’s dip and the degree—the edd—that it helped her obtain appear to have been helpful for her securing the professional autonomy and advanced roles her district has increasingly afforded her. a second edd dissertation that comes from this sample of 39 was finished in 2021. scheinost’s (2021) considering gentle teaching and equitable reading practices was structurally much more avant garde, with the dissertation including 21 short chapters that scheinost hoped could individually stand alone as blog entries that could be shared practitioner to practitioner. excluding a relatively conventional opening chapter (which introduced the intent of the dissertation and its organization) and the final chapter, which was designed to demonstrate scheinost’s skills at synthesis, all the chapters were intended to be miniature examinations of problems of practice and their prospective resolution/amelioration. instead of a conventional literature review, roughly half of the chapters start with a dilemma identifiable in the literature about reading instruction at the middle school level and then give illustrations of how that problem has manifested in scheinost’s practice and her responses. in turn, the other half of her chapters start with a dilemma from her practice. then, she turns to the literature to identify prospective promising responses. after finishing this dip, scheinost was able to leverage her status as an expert to lead to substantial customizations of a new generating alternative dissertations is hard impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.505 18 middle school reading program brought in by the district, limiting use of portions of it that were not supported by the research. the point in highlighting these two chapters is to assert that, while the broader body of tlte edd dissertations from unl has not yet created strikingly different/alternative dips, there are some examples that show both the development of and implementation of advanced and efficacious reflective practice. recently, with tlte’s cohorts eight and nine, the lead author of this paper used both of these dissertations (and two others) as examples of innovative engagement with problems of practice and also used perry et al. (2020a) as a course text for the first (and second) time. whether this ultimately pushes members of either cohort to create dissertations that appear strikingly different from their phd counterparts remains a not-yet-answered question. v. implications for the praxis of promoting dips as noted, despite the recognition of the need for a different type of dissertation in a practitioner-focused program, the traditional dissertation still dominates tlte’s output, a few striking outliers notwithstanding. on the one hand, this suggests the power of tradition and the difficulty of faculty imagining something much different than their own experiences in earning their doctorates as well as their ever-growing experience with graduate students. yet, this point should not be heard/read entirely as a lament. as the two recently reviewed dissertations indicate, clever and consequential dips are possible in current conditions. moreover, one thing perhaps obscuring the dips’ degree of relative innovation is that faculty participation in cped (in the edd program) is pushing them to think of phd dissertations as increasingly utilized in the pursuit of problems of practice as well. one reason for celebrating the two highlighted dissertations is because they stand on their own as exemplars. as the opening of this paper reveals, both authors of this piece are familiar with the growing body of work encouraging increasingly more practical and sometimes less orthodox dips. however, their experience is not necessarily representative of tlte’s faculty or the experience of faculty in other cped-affiliated programs at other institutions. while the conversation about dips seems to be an increasing cped focus over the last decade and always a component of the broader argument for clarifying distinctions between the phd and the edd degrees, that cped-network conversation has not necessarily been broadly joined in on by tlte faculty. most tlte faculty have not participated in cped workshops, neither the low-cost virtual options nor the more intense workshops that are regularly part of annual convenings. this may be a failure on the part of the lead author to get tlte faculty more involved in cped-sponsored activities, but it likely also reiterates perry et al.’s (2020b) discovery (noted earlier) that phd-bearing faculty continue to think of the edd with lower regard even as programs supported by their departments flourish. that a vigorous conversation about dips is happening does not mean that all who could or should participate in it are doing so. in turn, unlike most of his department colleagues, the lead author has attended as many as 10 in-person convenings to date, as well as participated in a number of the cped-facilitated virtual professional development workshops. broader faculty engagement with programming by the national cped initiative would likely be expeditious for building more support for dips. perhaps epitomizing the relative isolation of tenure-line faculty from conversations that would push them to radically rethink their work, including how they supervise dips, both authors of this chapter do not have a feel for how anomalous or typical, what we broach here is to readers connected with other edd programs. however, in workshopping this article at both a cped convening and at the association for the study of higher education (ashe) annual conference, we do have a sense that the points we raise here generate interest beyond the boundaries of unl. it is comparatively easy to support wanting edd dissertations to look different and to serve more expedient purposes. however, actually incubating the creation of such texts and inquiries remains an elusive problem of practice. remembering that good educational practice responds to both broader or universal truths as well as more contextual and particular truths (hamann & reeves, 2012), one resulting task is to convene fellow edd program faculty and to engage them explicitly into the cped dip conversation. they need to not only understand how/why a dip proposes to be different from a more traditional dissertation, but also to be convinced that they can and should support the production of such texts. similarly, they need to be made uneasy with the status quo, seeing traditional dissertations as insufficient for the skillsets and problem-resolving capabilities our advanced practitioner students are seeking to develop and demonstrate. reference datnow, a., hubbard, l., & mehan, h (2005). extending educational reform: from one school to many. routledge. hamann, e. t., (2003). reflections on the field: imagining the future of the anthropology of education if we take laura nader seriously. anthropology and education quarterly 34(4): 438–449. hamann, e. t., & malone, s. 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(2012). what history reveals about the education doctorate. in m. m. latta & s. wunder (eds.) placing practitioner knowledge at the center of teacher education: rethinking the policy and practice of the education doctorate, (pp. 51-73). information age press. perry, j. a. (2013). introduction. in j. a. perry & d. l. carlson (eds.) in their own words: a journey to the stewardship of practice in education, (pp. 114). information age publishing. perry, j.a., zambo, d., & abruzzo, e. (2020b). faculty leaders’ challenges and strategies in redesigning edd programs. impacting education 5. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 perry, j.a., zambo, d., & crow, r., (2020a). the improvement science dissertation in practice. myers education press. scheinost, l. (2021). considering gentle teaching and equitable reading practices." etd collection for university of nebraska-lincoln. aai28419739. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/aai28419739 seidel, t. & shavelson, r., (2007). teaching effectiveness research in the past decade: the role of theory and research design in disentangling metaanalysis results. review of educational research, 77(4), 454–499. shulman, l. s., golde, c. m., conklin bueschel, a., & garabedian, k. j., (2006). reclaiming education’s doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher, 35(3), 25–32. yang, p. (2022). there is nothing i would rather do: exploring teachers’ decisions to stay in urban nebraska public schools. etd collection for university of nebraska-lincoln. aai29257572. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/aai29257572 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-schooling-as-a-knowledge-profession/2011/03 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-schooling-as-a-knowledge-profession/2011/03 https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/aai29256541 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2020.143 https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/aai28419739 https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/aai29257572 edmund t. hamann university of nebraska-lincoln laura boche ecmc foundation i. the rationale for alternative “dissertations in practice” (dips) ii. conceptualizing an alternative dissertation iii. methodologies to examine the alternativeness of dips iv. not so different v. implications for the praxis of promoting dips reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 57 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 framework for integrating generative ai into statistical training in doctor of education programs christine eith johns hopkins university ceith@jhu.edu denise zawada university of new mexico dzawada@unm.edu abstract this paper proposes a framework for integrating generative artificial intelligence (ai) tools into statistical training for doctor of education (edd) students. the rigorous demands of doctoral education, coupled with the challenges of learning complex statistical software and coding language, often lead to anxiety and frustration among students, particularly those in part-time or online programs. this article explores how generative ai can serve as a scaffold for learning, potentially mitigating statistics anxiety and enhancing students’ abilities to focus on core statistical concepts rather than software intricacies. the proposed framework, grounded in constructivist learning theory, outlines a process for faculty to facilitate dialogues using generative ai tools that support students in developing research questions, selecting appropriate statistical tests, checking assumptions, and conducting statistical analyses. by leveraging ai as a dialogic partner, students can engage in self-regulated learning and enhance critical thinking skills essential for practitioner-scholars. this approach has the potential to improve statistical training in edd programs, producing more competent translators of research who can effectively apply and interpret statistical methods in their professional practice. the article concludes by discussing implications for edd programs and suggestions for improving the curriculum that includes statistical training. keywords generative ai, statistics anxiety, edd programs, constructivism, self-regulated learning framework for generative ai in research methods and statistical analysis preparation the rigorous demands of doctoral education have uniquely challenged students in part-time degree programs, such as those entering the doctor of education (edd). students have been expected to acclimate to the pace of doctoral curriculum, rarely leaving much time to catch up on skills missed during coursework or not part of previous training. students have also faced a hidden curriculum–a set of unspoken norms and expectations related to the doctoral journey–that contributed to a sense of anxiety, isolation, and confusion, especially for students who have matriculated into an asynchronous online program. anxiety around academic preparation has been further amplified for individuals who joined doctoral programs as career professionals and entered their degree programs with expertise in practice yet had little or no experience in research and statistical analysis, the latter a common skillset required for degree attainment. edd students must be able to read, interpret, translate, and evaluate research, which has been crucial preparation as they also must develop and conduct a study within their professional context by examining a problem of practice (schulman et al., 2006). preparing edd students to use social science research methods has often been coupled with training in statistics. students must be able to conduct their own data analysis, which requires knowledge of research design, methods, and analysis tools—often software that uses a unique coding language – to complete their research studies. for most edd students taking a research or statistics course where data analysis was required, it was their first time using code-based statistical software. the inclusion of statistical software packages has had the potential to hinder the development of applied statistical knowledge because students were required to learn the software necessary to run the analysis in a constrained timeframe and for a unique purpose. this process has often been quite distinct from their professional experiences and practices. notably, statistical analysis software was typically not required outside of a small number of courses and the dissertation. it is rarely used in a student’s professional context. according to student feedback, the outcome of these challenges has often resulted in high levels of frustration and anxiety and low levels of efficacy and authentic learning. consistent student feedback in course evaluations indicate that they have experienced challenges using the https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0004-5320-6691 eith & zawada impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 58 statistical software, often requiring them to invest substantial time in finding additional learning materials and reducing the time available to master the statistical concepts. as novice learners in this area, there is often frustration and anxiety around identifying reliable supplemental resources then spending the time to review and digest the information. this is further exacerbated when students are working outside of hours where faculty are readily available to respond to questions. students report leaving the course unsure of what they learned with the majority of their time spent learning the software rather than statistical analysis and interpretation. ultimately, the research requirements of the program have affected students’ progress and have led to attrition, coursework repetition, and extended time to degree completion. further, the introduction of statistical formulas and code-based statistical software such as stata, in which students must be able to write simple lines of code, may have created additional distance between the application of coursework to practice, engendering anxiety and frustration. therefore, there must be an alignment of the learning in the practice-based doctorate, which builds on and extends their professional expertise and facilitates students’ abilities to better engage in their scholarly work and examine their problems of practice. by facilitating the alignment between research methods and data analysis training, this discussion explores how students can leverage generative ai tools to enhance their confidence and skill development in addressing problems of practice within edd programs. generative ai approaches leverage tools that employ learning algorithms to produce prompted responses based on underlying data. developers have created these tools to generate text, code, and engage in conversations, among other applications. research has demonstrated that generative ai tools can support learning by providing diverse perspectives, relevant examples, constructive feedback on writing, and guidance in coding language acquisition (bozkurt, 2023; kuznetsov, 2024; radford & narasimhan, 2018). these tools have offered opportunities for students to learn new concepts or software language that facilitates data analysis alongside a consistent, real-time scaffold of support where students were accountable for evaluating the accuracy of ai-generated responses. in this article, we have proposed a framework for faculty members to better facilitate generative ai as a collaborative tool for doctoral students to build their research knowledge and data analysis skills while promoting self-regulated learning, which is essential in doctoral education. for this framework, the goal was to address the barriers of software language that challenge students’ ability to effectively use statistical software to analyze data and translate findings that affect their professional contexts. review of the literature the preparation of edd students in research methods has been an ongoing discussion, especially within cped institutions. a central challenge in the preparation of scholar-practitioners is bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, especially around statistical data analysis. this section explores the context of research methods preparation within edd programs, highlighting the shift from formulaic instruction to a more practiceoriented model. we then look to the role of generative ai tools as a potential scaffold for learners and move to situate this understanding in the theoretical grounding of constructivism. research preparation and the doctor of education a decades-long debate about research methods for preparing edd students has led to numerous discussions and program improvements (page, 2001). barnett and muth (2008) noted that research preparation of doctoral students was intertwined with student retention, as national trends indicated that nearly half of doctoral students did not complete their dissertations. bates and goff (2012) claimed that students entering doctoral programs without adequate research skills faced challenges in completing their degrees. this is often the case because doctoral students required a clear understanding of how to apply research knowledge to their dissertations. labaree (2003) suggested incorporating students’ professional expertise into doctoral programs as without connections to practical application, research skills alone were insufficient to prepare practitioner-scholars. haller (1979) has historically emphasized that research should not be merely a means to an end. education professionals increasingly needed to analyze and interpret data but lacked adequate training (jimerson & wayman, 2015). the traditional focus on formula centered statistical instruction and reliance on code-based statistical software packages for quantitative data analysis has hindered the development of practitioner-scholars by disconnecting coursework from real-world applications, often leading to statistics anxiety. more recently, faculty members leading edd programs have focused on making research and methods courses more relevant to edd research (acton, 2023; pautler, 2023). by increasing course relevance to students’ research and professional context, edd faculty have supported the development of practitioner-scholars. they have provided opportunities for students to connect issues in their professional context programs with academic program requirements. this more recent approach contrasts sharply with traditional approaches that emphasized learning through statistical formulas and practice problems from textbooks. such approaches hindered the development of practitioner-scholars by distancing coursework from relevant application and increasing statistics anxiety. statistics anxiety many instructors teaching research methods or statistics courses have observed student anxiety. research on statistics anxiety, especially related to the use of statistical software, indicated a negative impact on learning and academic outcomes (alnofaie, 2018; onwuegbuzie & wilson, 2010). online course delivery exacerbated these challenges (devaney, 2010). numerous studies have confirmed high rates of statistics anxiety among students in various disciplines (chew & dillon, 2014; onwuegbuzie & wilson, 2003; siew et al., 2019). students often experienced discomfort with required statistics or methods courses that included statistical analysis due to negative past experiences and low levels of self-confidence (macher et al., 2012; zeidner, 1991). research focused on apprehension towards new situations and problem-solving involving fear of statistical languages, computing anxiety, and seeking help indicated how students manifested these concerns in emotional and physical ways (cruise et al., 1985; onwuegbuzie et al., 1997). tutkun’s (2019) research underscored computer skills and software knowledge as key framework for generative ai in statistics impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 59 challenges for students learning statistics, highlighting their anxiety when using unfamiliar software. students expressed concern about learning new software, and as alnofaie (2018) adds, there is a greater increase in anxiety when statistical software used a codebased language. generative ai as a scaffold nolan and temple lang (2010) advocated for a statistics pedagogy that harnessed computational technology to prepare learners for a data-intensive world. generative ai offers a promising avenue to meet this vision while also fostering students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and statistical reasoning. by developing these conceptual skills, students, particularly those with limited experience with statistics, can more effectively analyze and interpret educational data. the opportunity presented through the use of ai tools, such as chatgpt and claude ai, allows for the creation of an inclusive, level learning environment that does not privilege previous knowledge and experience with statistical software on students’ paths to degree attainment. in an exploratory study where chatgpt was evaluated on three tasks, megahed et al. (2024) found that although generative ai could produce statistical code and perform other structured tasks as directed by a prompt, there was still a need for students to use existing knowledge to review the results for accuracy. this finding highlighted the value in using this ai tool resided in the dialogue between humans and the tool, rather than merely seeking a definitive answer from a direct question. this dialogic approach to generative ai afforded a scaffold whereby an ai tool facilitated and co-created learning with the student, which offered students an opportunity to manage statistics anxiety (wu et al., 2022). this exemplified learning though the constructivist lens where the ai tool serves as an interactive collaborator. theoretical grounding this proposed framework for integrating generative ai into statistical training within the professional doctorate was situated in constructivism. this approach required learners to be actively engaged in developing their knowledge of data, analysis, and statistical procedures. many edd students entered the program with limited statistics experience. thus, it was crucial to approach learning as novel to foster knowledge building. this approach is supported by li et al. (2024) that highlighted how effective scaffolding promoting dialogue, engagement, and reflection improved academic outcomes. further, critical attention was needed to identify adaptable scaffolds for online learning (azevedo & hadwin, 2005). learning statistics as an active process involving conceptual and computational elements required time for students to engage with both aspects. vygotsky’s (1978) work highlighted the importance of social interaction among faculty, students, and technology; that learning should be collaborative to extend one’s knowledge. yet, vygotsky (1978) noted that constructed knowledge required an internal motivation to acknowledge and advance this learning process. recent studies suggest that generative ai can serve the function as a more knowledgeable other and engage in socially constructed knowledge (robertson et al., 2024; stojanov, 2023). collaborative learning was central to doctoral classrooms but required self-regulated learning through independent scholarship and research projects like the dissertation. self-regulated learning has been critical in guiding learning as individuals acquired new information. these learning processes included metacognition, motivation, and strategic action ( winnie & perry, 2000; zimmerman, 2008), known as essential for authentic data analysis. metacognitive processes involved understanding learning preferences, demonstrating resilience, and strategically tackling problems. students needed to control their learning through initial motivation, goal setting, strategy implementation, and selfobservation (pintrich, 2000). self-regulated learning is crucial when using generative ai, especially conversational ai tools. early research on interactive scaffolding showed promise in fostering selfregulated learning (song & kim, 2021), but its impact on participation and achievement was unclear. generative ai, particularly as a dialogic agent, can support and scaffold self-regulated learning (broadbent & poon, 2015) and be used to socially construct knowledge (robertson et al., 2024). a framework for faculty facilitation of generative ai in statistical training in doctor of education programs as generative ai tools continue to permeate our classrooms, educators are confronted with the challenge of integrating this technology into their classrooms responsibly and effectively. the following section examines how faculty can leverage ai tools for learning and the development of critical thinking, especially around statistical concepts. we examine diverse approaches to integrating ai dialogue into coursework and highlight strategies that foster student engagement and model appropriate use of ai tools as a scaffold for learning research methods and statistics. finally, we bring together our learning around the use of generative ai to offer a proposed framework on using ai tools to bridge the learning gap for edd students new to learning statistics and using statistical software. faculty member facilitation of effective generative ai dialogue faculty members can leverage generative ai to help students overcome the challenges of learning statistical software while fostering a deeper understanding of statistical concepts. by emphasizing the use of software as a tool for data analysis rather than a standalone skill, faculty can empower students to focus on the underlying statistical principles. this shift in emphasis can significantly enhance students’ learning experiences, especially for those in practitioner-centered programs. generative ai tools can serve as valuable scaffolds for students as they engage in selfregulated learning. by providing opportunities for students to interact with large language models (llms) through conversation and prompt engineering, these tools can shift the focus from mastering coding intricacies to a deeper understanding of statistical concepts. this allows students to concentrate on the core ideas underlying data analysis rather than getting bogged down in the mechanics of software implementation. generative ai tools have demonstrated the ability to produce accurate code for popular statistical software (r, stata, spss, sas) (elllis & slade, 2023). therefore, the use of these tools has the potential to mitigate statistics anxiety. this is especially true when students struggle to see the utility or value of statistics in their own work (chiou et al., 2014; slootmaeckers, et al., 2014; siew et al., 2019). eith & zawada impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 60 faculty member facilitation in constructing learning faculty members play a critical role in equipping students with the necessary knowledge to effectively engage with generative ai tools for data analysis. students require a foundational understanding of research design, data structure, and statistical analysis to make informed decisions when interacting with ai tools. to successfully utilize generative ai, students must be able to articulate research questions, identify appropriate variables, understand data structure, and select suitable statistical tests (ellis & slade, 2023). faculty can create course activities that encourage students to interact with generative ai tools. through this process, students can evaluate the tools’ responses to deepen their conceptual understanding. while statistical software can generate results, students must possess the foundational knowledge to critically evaluate these outputs against established statistical principles and assumptions. we suggest incorporating the following questions into course activities or discussions to help students initiate their data analysis. • what is my research question? o is this question aligned with my problem of practice? o are my variables appropriate for my research question? • what is the structure of my data? o what is the level of measurement of the variables i want to use? o what is my sample size and are missing data a concern? • based on my research question, do i know what analysis is needed? o do i know the assumptions of this test? o do i have the appropriate data to perform this test? o do the variables (data) i am using in my analysis meet the assumptions of this test? faculty members can effectively integrate generative ai into research methods and statistics curricula by focusing on the critical knowledge needed for students to engage in a dialogue with the technology tool. this approach empowers students to become critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. by grounding students in a solid understanding of their data and appropriate statistical tests, faculty can leverage generative ai to quickly and accurately produce the necessary code. consequently, generative ai can serve as a thought partner, assisting students in navigating statistical software from data importation through analysis. as students gain statistical confidence, generative ai can support self-regulated learning, particularly metacognition and problem-solving, as they engage in data analysis and interpretation. faculty members should model the use of generative ai as an integral part of the learning process. by openly demonstrating how they employ generative ai, such as crafting code for statistical software procedures or developing effective prompts to engage in dialogue, instructors can exemplify the metacognitive skills essential for effective ai interaction. this includes not only showcasing desired outcomes but also the iterative process of refining prompts and evaluating outputs. by modeling these practices, faculty members can effectively communicate the concept of generative ai as a learning partner rather than a question-answering tool. students should understand that the tool’s value lies in its ability to support their learning process through ongoing dialogue and experimentation. for instance, when introducing students to non-parametric statistical tests such as the mann-whitney, we modeled how to generate initial code using a generative ai tool. we demonstrated how to refine the stata code based on the tool’s output and our understanding of the statistical procedure. this process allowed students to observe how we validated the code’s accuracy and made necessary adjustments. by sharing these steps, we aimed to illustrate the iterative nature of working with generative ai and the importance of critical thinking in interpreting and utilizing its outputs. this example highlights how faculty can transparently demonstrate the use of generative ai as a tool to enhance student learning rather than a substitute for statistical knowledge. effective use of generative ai necessitates skill in prompt engineering, which must be developed through practice. faculty should position ai as a collaborative learning tool rather than a source of ready-made answers. by interacting with the ai, students can enhance their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities (wang & yin, 2021). faculty members have played a critical role in developing the foundational knowledge necessary for successfully integrating generative ai into students’ methods and statistical training. by establishing learning objectives that illuminated students’ selfefficacy regarding core concepts, faculty empowered students to engage meaningfully with the technology. a part of this scaffolding requires the instructor to model an appropriate dialogue that reflects a set of expectations around the practice of inquiry to foster discursive engagement (engle & conant, 2002). moreover, to facilitate students’ learning, faculty may have set up activities to include learning in small groups, which has been shown to be effective (barron & darling-hammond, 2010). generative ai as a bridge to learning a critical factor in successfully using generative ai as a learning bridge is teaching students to engage with it dialogically rather than viewing it as a simple answer provider. much of the research on generative ai as a collaborator or dialogic peer is grounded in bakhtin’s (1981) work, which proposes that language is inherently dialogic, suggesting generative ai serves as a collaborator or cocreator of shared knowledge (tang et al., 2024). this dialogic approach has particular benefits for non-traditional students. for those engaged in full-time employment, with families and other responsibilities, having a dialogic tool available on their schedule mitigates feelings of isolation and helplessness that often arise when working independently without immediate access to traditional support structures. furthermore, for students experiencing statistics anxiety—a common fear or apprehension about working with statistical concepts—this tool provides real-time feedback and support as they engage in new tasks. appropriate scaffolds, such as guided prompts or reflective exercises, help students realize the affordances of generative ai tools, build understanding and efficacy about their base knowledge, and foster long-term skills in critical thinking and self-directed learning. framework for generative ai in statistics impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 61 creating dialogic scaffolds faculty members can support student learning by guiding them through the utility of generative ai tools for their dissertation work. integrating ai dialogue into the curriculum through discussions, group work, and assignments provides the most valuable approach. instructors should utilize both the course and laboratory to train students in the best ways to use generative ai. in figure 1, we present examples of how instructors can use ai tools in the classroom to scaffold students’ understanding: (a) writing and refining research questions, (b) planning data analysis, (c) interpreting statistics, and (d) contextualizing findings. this wideranging process offers various opportunities to incorporate ai activities that enhance students’ understanding and development throughout the data analysis and interpretation process. figure 1. centering ai dialogue for students examining a problem of practice as students prepare to design their research study, course instructors should scaffold and model effective dialogue with generative ai tools. one of the first challenges involves awareness of the different available tools and choosing among them. faculty members should clarify that many generative ai tools exist, and the field evolves quickly. much like choosing between mac or pc, individuals will have preferences; however, each tool has strengths and weaknesses. students should identify the tool(s) they use or compare responses from multiple tools to evaluate the outputs.1 prompt engineering, or structuring conversations with the tool, should develop a conceptual understanding that facilitates computational knowledge with ai assistance (zamfirescu-pereira, et al., 2023). users must guide the dialogue, which may include asking for clarification or correcting miscommunicated information. students must rely on their base knowledge to design appropriate prompts 1 at the time of this publication, claude is known for its performance in mathematics and coding responses; however, it has only been available in the us and uk. that produce the most suitable output. with each exercise, students can build their efficacy as prompt engineers and learn how to best engage the ai tool in dialogue around their area of inquiry. we illustrate the process using an example of dialogue about writing research questions. often the first step in the research process, developing research questions, frequently challenges novice research students. creating a question appropriate in scope, clearly articulated, and researchable often requires iteration. encouraging students to engage in iterative work on their questions with ai tool support provides opportunities to practice dialogue and engage in metacognitive processes to monitor progress. students must explain the context and purpose of their study to the tool, often requiring clear articulation of their pop and the ability to clarify murky points. as they develop their research questions, students must state what they know and how they think about the concepts. class discussions about using ai to iterate research questions help students explain their thinking. to aid students in this work, faculty members should consider the following questions to guide class discussion: 1. what did you learn about writing research questions? 2. how did your research question(s) evolve in dialogue with the ai tool? 3. what process did you use to assess or verify the information provided by the ai tool? 4. how would you guide another student through your process? 5. considering your research questions, what would be the best approach for your data analysis? as students familiarize themselves with the dialogic process, faculty members can guide discussions toward data analysis and how to use generative ai in learning statistical software. current generative ai tools, such as claude ai, chatgpt, and gemini, can quickly and accurately provide code or procedures for statistical analyses across most common statistical software packages, including r, python, spss, stata, and sas. bridging the learning gap for using statistical software figure 2 illustrates a framework for bridging the software learning gap for statistical data analysis. using this framework, novice researchers can use generative ai to easily navigate statistical analysis in any commonly used statistical software package. the articulation of this process, which often becomes rote memory through repetition, highlights the affordances ai tools provide for novices in the learning process. by beginning with a clear articulation of one or more research questions, students employ metacognitive processes as they engage in a dialogue about the strategic method of analyzing their data with a purpose. the process then moves into identifying the most appropriate statistical test, requiring students to draw upon their base knowledge about statistical tests as they choose. although the ai tool provides realtime support, students must make the decision and subsequently justify it in their dissertations. we prompt students to make the best choice by checking that the data meet all the assumptions of the statistical test, a step sometimes overlooked, followed by directions on how to conduct the test using their chosen statistical software package. critically, all students now have access to a tool that enables them to perform statistical analyses in any standard statistical software package. students still must learn the course ai dialogue research question data analysis interpretation contextualize findings eith & zawada impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 62 content, but through the support of generative ai tools, they have real-time assistance when needed for running statistical analyses. they are no longer limited to watching videos and searching for resources. the resource is available and can be used as support until students have enough practice and feel comfortable running the analyses independently. figure 2. framework for bridging software learning gap for statistical data analysis with an example of generative ai dialogue for statistical analysis. note. dialogue with claude ai and chatgpt occurred between april 24 and april 25, 2024. we produced results from this inquiry using the noted prompts and substantially truncated ai responses for space to illustrate this approach. it is important to note at the time of this article, claude ai cannot produce tables or graphics. chatgpt 4.0 would be a better tool for data visualization. in the following example, we highlight the efficacy of the framework for bridging the software learning gap. the dialogue follows the steps outlined in the framework and emphasizes the constructivist roots, grounding this process. we acknowledge that many students entering the dissertation phase of doctoral study are still novices in their statistical knowledge and computational skills and may experience statistics anxiety. this approach aims to reduce anxiety and remove barriers students experience in feeling nervous, anxious, or uncomfortable using or learning new statistical software. this model offers a basic structure of how to guide students through the use of generative ai to refine a research question, explore possible statistical tests appropriate for their research question(s) and data, examine the statistical software to run the statistical test, and serve as a dialogic partner when interpreting the findings. step 1—study purpose and research questions. to assist students in developing well-defined research questions, we employed an ai tool (claude ai) to engage in simulated dialogues. students were encouraged to input their initial research questions and receive feedback on clarity, specificity, and focus. for example, when presented with a vague research question about bullying, the ai suggested specifying the type of bullying, target population, and desired outcome. this iterative process facilitated the development of more precise and actionable research inquiries. to illustrate the interactive nature of the ai tool, a sample dialogue between a student and claude ai is presented below. student: “i am working on my dissertation study examining the relationship between student absenteeism and bullying. can you help me refine my research question?” claude ai: “a well-defined research question is crucial in guiding the entire research process and ensuring that the study remains focused and addresses a specific gap in the existing literature.” the initial interaction highlights the importance of a well-crafted research question in guiding the overall research process. to further refine the research question, the student provided additional context: student: “my research question states ‘what is the relationship between student absenteeism and bullying?’ how can this question be improved?” claude ai: “here are some suggestions for improving this research question: • specify the direction of the relationship: what is the effect of bullying on student absenteeism? or how does student absenteeism relate to experiences of bullying? • define the types of bullying and absenteeism: what is the relationship between physical/verbal/cyber bullying and excused/unexcused absenteeism among students? • identify the target population:” the ai’s response demonstrates its capacity to provide specific guidance on refining research questions by suggesting key elements to consider. by breaking down the research question into its component parts, the ai assists students in developing more focused and answerable inquiries. to improve the clarity of their research questions, this student engaged in an iterative process of refinement using an ai tool. through this interaction, the student was prompted to critically examine their research questions, receiving immediate feedback on clarity, specificity, and comprehensiveness. the ai tool’s capacity to provide concrete examples and suggestions facilitated the development of well-defined research focus and a refined, parsimonious research question. step 2—identify a data analysis procedure. once presented with the research topic and question, this student engaged in a dialogue with the ai tool to identify an appropriate data analysis procedure. the student inquired about suitable statistical tests, and the ai provided recommendations based on the research question’s nature. the faculty member facilitated this process by emphasizing the role of language in shaping the research question. for instance, when a student sought a test to examine a relationship between variables, the ai correctly suggested a correlation analysis. the following dialogue highlights a common challenge student researchers encounter when selecting appropriate statistical tests. student: “thank you for the suggestions to improve my research question. since i am looking at a relationship between two variables, what is the best statistical test for me to use?” in response, the ai offers guidance on correlational studies as an appropriate analytical approach for examining the relationship between student absenteeism and bullying. the ai further outlines specific statistical tests, including pearson’s correlation coefficient and spearman’s rank correlation, suitable for this type of analysis. claude ai: “based on your research question 'what is the relationship between student absenteeism and bullying?', an appropriate statistical analysis would be a correlational study. a correlational study examines the relationship or association between two or more variables without implying causation. in your case, you want to investigate if there is a relationship between student absenteeism (one variable) and bullying (another variable). specifically, you could use the following statistical analyses: framework for generative ai in statistics impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 63 1. pearson’s correlation coefficient (r):  this measures the strength and direction of the linear relationship between two continuous variables. this measures the strength and direction of the linear relationship between two continuous variables.you would calculate the correlation coefficient between your measures of student absenteeism and bullying. 2. spearman’s rank correlation:  if your data violates the assumptions of pearson’s r (e.g., not normally distributed), you can use spearman’s non-parametric correlation. before conducting the analysis, you should screen your data, check for missing values, assess assumptions (e.g., normality, linearity), and ensure your variables are properly coded and scaled. additionally, you may want to consider controlling for potential confounding variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, school environment) using partial correlation or multiple regression. if your data violates the assumptions of pearson’s r (e.g., not normally distributed), you can use spearman’s non-parametric correlation. before conducting the analysis, you should screen your data, check for missing values, assess assumptions (e.g., normality, linearity), and ensure your variables are properly coded and scaled. additionally, you may want to consider controlling for potential confounding variables (e.g., socioeconomic status, school environment) using partial correlation or multiple regression.this dialogue exemplifies the ai’s capacity to provide tailored statistical advice based on a researcher’s specific query. by offering concrete recommendations and explanations, the ai empowers researchers to make informed decisions about their data analysis strategies and develop a rationale for their choice of statistical test. in this instance, the response emphasized the need to examine the distribution of the data prior to selecting an appropriate test. the student is expected to use their existing knowledge to make the decision on which test is most appropriate. additionally, the student was guided towards the subsequent step in the framework, which involves checking the assumptions of the chosen test. step 3—check the assumptions of the statistical tests. the following dialogue highlights the importance of assessing statistical assumptions before conducting an analysis. the student seeks clarification on the assumptions underlying pearson’s correlation coefficient. student: “i think that the pearson’s correlation is the best choice. can you tell me what the assumptions are for that statistical test? i want to make sure i have the correct types of variables.” in response, the ai provides a detailed explanation of the key assumptions for pearson’s correlation, including linearity and the absence of outliers. the ai further emphasizes the importance of checking these assumptions before interpreting the results and offers potential solutions for addressing assumption violations. claude ai: “certainly, here are the main assumptions for pearson’s correlation: 1. linearity: the relationship between the two variables should be linear. if the relationship is non-linear, the pearson correlation may underestimate the true relationship. 2. no outliers: outliers can have a substantial influence on the correlation coefficient, inflating or deflating it. dealing with outliers is advisable.” it’s important to check these assumptions before interpreting the pearson correlation results. violations can impact the accuracy and meaning of the coefficient. various data transformations or using non-parametric alternatives may be required if assumptions are violated.” this dialogue demonstrates the ai tool’s ability to provide comprehensive statistical guidance, including the crucial step of assessing assumptions. by prompting students to consider the underlying conditions for their chosen statistical test, the ai fosters critical thinking and a deeper understanding of data analysis. step 4—procedure to run the analysis. to illustrate how ai can enhance statistical learning, consider the following interaction where a student seeks assistance in performing a pearson’s correlation using stata. student: “i'm having trouble running a pearson’s correlation in stata. can you help me with the steps?” in response, the ai provides clear and concise instructions on how to execute the analysis. the ai outlines the necessary steps, including data formatting, wtiting the appropriate code, and selecting the desired options. claude ai: “to run a pearson's correlation in stata, follow these steps: (1) make sure your data is [sic] properly formatted and the variables you want to correlate are numeric and loaded into stata; (2) the command for pearson's correlation in stata is: pwcorr variable1 variable2, sig. replace "variable1" and "variable2" with the names of the variables you want to correlate. the "sig" option will display the significance levels; (3) to create a correlation matrix with all variables in your dataset: pwcorr *, sig; (4) if you want to display the number of observations for each correlation: pwcorr variable1 variable2, obs sig.” this interaction underscores the potential of ai to serve as an effective learning tool by providing immediate and accessible support for statistical software. by offering clear and concise instructions, the ai empowers students to independently conduct statistical analyses. moreover, the ai’s inclusion of information about data assumptions demonstrates its capacity to support deeper statistical understanding beyond procedural knowledge. the provided directions offer immediate and accurate information to help students navigate the steps of running a statistical test, while still requiring students to understand the process. for instance, the instructions did not guide students about the choice of a one-tailed or two-tailed test, with two-tailed being the default. this was often going to be the preferred choice, but again, use of this ai tool afforded the opportunity for students to use their existing conceptual knowledge and make a reasoned decision if one was necessary. use of the al tool enabled students to seek information about the appropriate way to use the statistical software for a given test, but also continued to provide feedback and support if an error occurred in the process. although the tool allowed for the rapid retrieval of instructions on how to utilize the statistical software, in eith & zawada impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.518 64 doing so, it reduced one of the known antecedents of statistics anxiety, learning the statistical software language, i.e., writing the code-based language. the integration of ai tools into assignments can provide faculty members the opportunity to support an important shift in students’ thinking: viewing the software language as a step in the process to answering a question rather than being a barrier to overcome. conclusion the integration of generative ai tools into statistical training of edd students offers the opportunity to significantly shift how we approach research methods and statistical instruction. the proposed framework provides the following implications for edd programs who teach statistics through the curriculum: (1) enhance focus on core concepts, (2) reduce statistics anxiety, (3) develop critical thinking skills, (4) improve alignment with professional practice, and (5) increase accessibility for students. first, this framework offers a way to enhance focus on core concepts by alleviating the cognitive load associated with learning complex statistical software languages and allowing students to dedicate more attention understanding fundamental statistical principles and their application in education research. next, the use of ai as a dialogic partner may help mitigate the anxiety associated with statistics courses, providing the opportunity to improve student engagement and retention in courses and edd programs. the framework, alongside faculty guidance, also encourages student to engage in metacognitive practices, fostering the development of critical thinking skills essential for practitioner-scholars. in addition, by emphasizing the application of statistical concepts and practices to examine a problem of practice, this approach better prepares edd students to be translators of research in educational practice. finally, this framework may help level the playing field for students who come into doctoral programs with varying levels of prior statistical knowledge. this proposed framework for integrating generative ai as a scaffold for statistical training provides an opportunity to transform the edd by producing more confident and competent practitionerscholars. we will continue to examine and evaluate the role of ai tools in statistical training and continue to refine this approach to align with the evolving needs of the student we serve. as this is one article in the prolific body of research emerging around generative ai, we propose this framework as an opportunity for faculty to consider how ai tools can be harnessed in support of student learning in statistical training, rather than regulated and excluded from the development of scholar-practitioners. references acton, k. s. 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(1991). statistics and mathematics anxiety in social science students: some interesting parallels. british journal of educational psychology, 61, 319–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.20448279.1991.tb00989.x zimmerman, b. j. (2008). investigating self-regulation and motivation: historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects. american educational research journal, 45, 166–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(98)00214-1 https://doi.org/10.1037/st10000133 https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1767525 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4722537 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1011278 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1991.tb00989.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.1991.tb00989.x christine eith johns hopkins university denise zawada university of new mexico framework for generative ai in research methods and statistical analysis preparation review of the literature research preparation and the doctor of education statistics anxiety generative ai as a scaffold theoretical grounding a framework for faculty facilitation of generative ai in statistical training in doctor of education programs faculty member facilitation of effective generative ai dialogue faculty member facilitation in constructing learning generative ai as a bridge to learning creating dialogic scaffolds bridging the learning gap for using statistical software step 1—study purpose and research questions. step 2—identify a data analysis procedure. step 3—check the assumptions of the statistical tests. step 4—procedure to run the analysis. conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 20 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 a three-chapter dip: focusing on scholar-practitioner preparation mary b. ziskin university of dayton mziskin1@udayton.edu ricardo arévalo garcía university of dayton rigarcia46@gmail.com faithe c. beam campbell university beam@campbell.edu elizabeth essex university of dayton eessex1@udayton.edu rachel santos indiana latino institute racheljsan@gmail.com abstract led by cped’s reconceptualization of the education doctorate, edd programs nationally continue to explore ways to re-envision the dissertation-in-practice (dip) specifically for the development of scholar-practitioners. even as work on innovative dissertation formats has accelerated, many, if not most, dips still resemble traditional five-chapter academic dissertations. this article explores an alternative three-chapter dip format with a balanced focus on (1) an action research study conducted by the candidate, and (2) the candidate’s application of findings, alongside social and organizational theory, in their leadership practice. in this way, the three-chapter dip balances a focus on research and leadership practice, amenable to review, critique, and use by practitioners as well as academics. in this essay, faculty and recent-graduate coauthors describe their firsthand perspectives navigating this model as students and faculty, and add to the emerging landscape of practice regarding edd dissertations. we outline the rationale, purpose, and assessment guidelines defining this format, and describe key challenges we encountered. moreover, we discuss the model's flexibility in application, highlighting examples and approaches used by students. the discussion will be useful for edd programs, faculty, and students who are interested in exploring innovative dip models that are grounded in both research and practice. keywords dissertation, edd, scholar-practitioner statement of the problem led by cped’s reconceptualization of the education doctorate, edd programs nationwide continue to explore ways to re-envision the dissertation-in-practice (dip) specifically for the development of scholar-practitioners (perry, 2016). even as work on innovative dissertation formats has accelerated (anderson, et al., 2022) many, if not most, dips still resemble traditional five-chapter academic dissertations (storey et al., 2015; watson & nehls, 2016). a small number of guides (buss & zumbo, 2014; storey & hesbol, 2016; storey & maughan, 2014) and studies (smaldone et al., 2019; kennedy, et al., 2020) aside, the literature on the edd has not yet coalesced around alternative dip models that can fully guide practice within programs. in this essay, faculty and recent graduates collaborated to describe the alternative three-chapter dip model implemented in the university of dayton edd program. we outline the rationale, purpose, and assessment guidelines defining this format and describe key challenges we have encountered with its implementation. moreover, we discuss the model's flexibility in application, highlighting examples and approaches used by students. the discussion will be useful for edd programs, faculty, and students who are interested in exploring alternative dip models that are grounded in both research and practice. literature review the literature on the dissertation-in-practice has raised key questions about the nature and structure of capstone experiences in the education doctorate. the following review considers the research and practice-oriented literature on doctoral capstones both generally and in the edd specifically. reforming the doctoral dissertation in the context of the literature on innovative formats for dissertations in general, themes focus on issues related to (1) preparing students for future career roles, (2) making dissertations more conducive to publication, and to a lesser extent, (3) streamlining the format of dissertations for students, reviewers, and shorter time-to-degree. in efforts to make dissertations more relevant https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1057-3094 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-0699 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9687-7339 ziskin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 21 and productive for candidates and more easily published, various iterations of the manuscript dissertation have become more widely accepted in stem and healthcare disciplines (anderson et al., 2022; hakkarainen et al., 2016; shirazi, 2018; watson & nels, 2016). similarly, arts-based dissertations (novels, performances, videography) have gained some acceptance in social science and humanities fields (anderson et al., 2022). nevertheless the fivechapter single-paper format remains the most prevalent and centered model in most contexts (loss & ryan, 2016). important discussions focused on reforming the dissertation occurred via the council of graduate schools (cgs) (with reports in 1991 and 2005 and a convening in 2016) and also via cped (in 2007 and 2012). despite a robust discussion dating from the 1990s, only a few empirical studies have emerged to examine the range of recent practice regarding doctoral writing (anderson et al., 2022; swank et al., 2021; thomas, 2016). historical reviews and practiceoriented sources outline the key issues that students and institutions navigate with alternative dissertation formats (cahusac de caux, 2019; shirazi, 2018). drawing on previous studies from fields such as nursing (broome, 2018; graves, et al., 2018) and education (thomas, 2016), swank and colleagues (2021) reviewed benefits and challenges associated with various dissertation models, including the traditional five-chapter format. while these discussions highlight the potential for greater efficiency and relevance to candidates’ future careers as benefits of collaborative (“companion” or team-based) dissertations, portfolios, or manuscript dissertations, important challenges also emerged. in particular, the issues described related to (1) a lack of familiarity and acceptance among faculty, leading to disagreements about how to evaluate the quality of alternative-format dissertations, (2) whether programs are structured to prepare candidates and advisors adequately for manuscript dissertations, and (3) a lack of research and evidence on whether and to what degree an alternative model supports the intended preparation and learning objectives envisioned for the doctoral dissertation. reenvisioning the dip discussions driven by cped studies and convenings placed the idea of a distinctive dip capstone specifically within the context of the reimagined edd (storey et al., 2015). prevalent models for alternative formats named in the literature as specifically appropriate for the dip include the manuscript dissertation, the companion dissertation, and university of missouri’s six-section scholarpractitioner dip model (macgregor & fellabaum, 2016). synthesizing cped’s principles and indications on the topic, perry (2023) has identified the dip as the application of inquiry as practice (a cped principle) to a problem of practice (pop), defining the dip as “a scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice” (p. 84). perry (2023) builds on archbald’s (2008) priorities concerning (a) whether the dip process supports students in their development as practitioner-scholars and the deepening of their leadership practice, (b) impact and benefit to the community or organizations served by the dip, (c) reflect deep intellectual engagement and application, and (d) distinctiveness of form and function. extending these priorities, perry points to the need for a dip to demonstrate candidates’ ability to apply research knowledge to practice, a feature which—drawing on wegin (2011)—she argues entails both proficiency with participatory action research and a useable sense of one‘s own approach to collaboration and leadership. storey and colleagues (2015) likewise drew on archbald’s notion of a “problem-based dissertation” (p. 12). storey et al. highlighted key benefits of manuscript dissertations for edd programs, citing that they provide career-relevant and authentic experiences for candidates, who benefit from the further motivation of publishing their work. at the same time, their review identified challenges that programs, advisors, and students encountered in implementing manuscript dissertations in edd programs. while these challenges included difficulty navigating complex copyright permissions with published or publication-ready chapters, another prevalent theme was the general lack of familiarity that committee reviewers and others had with the model. it is worth noting that these challenges echo questions raised in the general literature on doctoral dissertations and are not specific to the educational principles at the center of cped and the revitalized edd (shirazi, 2018; storey et al., 2015; swank, et al., 2016). in the literature on alternative dissertation formats in general and in sources considering alternative formats specifically relevant to the edd, discussions have considered the benefits and need for reform alongside challenges that accompany the adoption of innovative approaches. both the general discussion (e.g., loss & ryan, 2023) and sources considering the edd specifically highlight challenges related to the evaluations and expectations of faculty reviewers and raise questions about whether traditional and alternative formats deliver on the learning experience necessary for fulfilling the purpose of the dissertation. the edd discussion on the dip, however, has produced a focused discussion on these points, highlighting challenges relavent to reviewer expectations, but also related to meeting the specific learning goals envisioned for the dip by cped and others (archbald, 2008; perry, 2023). we drew on these cped principles and priorities for the dip and encountered similar motivations and challenges in developing and implementing an alternative to the five-chapter model for our program. in the sections below we describe our three-chapter scholar-practitioner model, outline examples of its implementation, and discuss challenges we have navigated in the process. the three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip purpose, focus, and evaluation processes the three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip model balances a focus on research and leadership practice, amenable to review, critique, and use by practitioners as well as academics. our program employs a three-year cohort structure, which requires that dips be completed alongside coursework and typically within about two years. students follow explicit guidance outlined in a dip handbook and work closely with a faculty advisor. the dip handbook provides flexible but detailed outlines and instructions for each of the three chapters, including information about content and formatting. as shown in figure 1, chapters one and two focus mainly on action research, while the primary emphasis in chapter three is leadership practice. chapter one, the research proposal, outlines the problem of practice, theoretical framework, literature review, and action research design. chapter two reports results from the action research study, including a preliminary overview of their implications for the site organization. in chapter three, candidates reflect on their leadership practice and collaborations with organization stakeholders as they transposed their study's results into a viable action plan for their a three-chapter dip: focusing on scholar-practitioner preparation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 22 organization. given the streamlined format and the need for dips to be useful to audiences within the site organization, the length of the three-chapter dip is shorter than a conventional five-chapter dissertation, typically ca. 90-110 pages. the initial impetus for structuring the dip this way was to align the capstone project with cped principles and provide the candidate an experience that emphasizes action research and leadership practice in equal parts. consequently, our process distinguishes the edd and differs from typical phd programs, in that it (1) centers cped principles and (2) attends to both action research and leadership practice. evaluations include not only assessments of action research methods, analysis, and results, but also center on how the action plan connects to leadership theory/practice, and on the collaborative nature of action research. many stakeholders are involved in the dip throughout the process, either by helping to identify the problem of practice, acting as study participants via surveys, interviews, or other data collection methods, or approving and observing the process as it unfolds. ideally, the action plan—a detailed and multi-step plan with shortand long-term goals for organizational change to address issues revealed in the research—is developed in collaboration with participants and stakeholders within the organization who will be impacted by the change. our program understands the dip as one iteration in an ongoing action research cycle, consistent with cped’s conceptualization of inquiry as practice (cped, 2024). figure 2 illustrates the three-chapter dip within the context of the broader action research cycle. in our program, most dips study a problem of practice and develop an action plan based on study findings. in a few cases, students may undertake a dip in the context of an action research cycle that is already underway in their organization. for example, when a program has already been implemented to address a problem of practice, a student may undertake a dip, designed as an evaluation study of the intervention. in either scenario, chapter 1 outlines the action research proposal, including a discussion of the pop, a literature review, and an overview of study design and methods. chapter 2 focuses on reporting the results of the action research study, culminating in a summary of implications for practice and an initial articulation of the action plan. in chapter 3, the student reflects on their leadership practice in the process of acting on the action plan. the process at the center of this reflection entails further development of the action plan in collaboration, and when possible, partial implementation of the plan. built into the process is the assumption that our graduates will continue integrating inquiry as practice into their leadership and organization. subsequent iterations of the action research cycle would follow even after the dip is completed. the scholar-practitioner focus of the dip is supported by groundwork and learning experiences developed throughout the program curriculum. almost all of the courses in our edd program include projects students can use to make progress on their dips–a mini-study in the term-one and term-three research methods courses, for example: an equity audit and organizational change plan in an organizational change course or a prospective (hypothetical) action plan in the term-7 applied action research course, etc. starting in summer 2024, we added a requirement that students attend three writing workshops, with optional one-on-one tutoring sessions and submission of their chapters for review and feedback from credentialed writing specialists. dip committees consist of three members, including the student’s chair, a second member recruited from university of dayton (ud) faculty, and a third external member, who ideally would have practical expertise either in the type of organization or the pop. reviews and defenses are conducted asynchronously. in term six of the nine-term program, the dip committee chair shares the student’s proposal (chapter one) and video presentation with the committee and suggests a two week period during which committee members either offer comments/online in a google doc, or provide notes and feedback on an accompanying rubric, which focuses on the following areas for evaluation: problem statement, literature review, research design and methods (including ethics/politics, data collection, data analysis), oral presentation, and writing. the committee members then select one of the following options: accepting the dip proposal with no revisions, minor revisions, or major revisions. rejecting the dip proposal is also an option, although chairs work assiduously— before forwarding the candidate to the defense—to ensure that proposals and completed dips are of a sufficient quality to receive a passing review. subsequently, the chair relays the committee’s feedback to the student, who then works to complete any required revisions. when revisions are complete, the chair notifies the committee members and asks them to sign off on the completed proposal. dip committees meet as a group only when it is difficult to come to agreement asynchronously. a similar process is repeated in term nine for the final dip defense, this time expanding the focus to include all three chapters and evaluation of the candidate’s discussion of results, action plan, and leadership practices. at the ziskin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 23 end of the ninth term, graduating students present their research at an academic conference held in-person on ud’s campus and attended by faculty, staff, their colleagues in the graduating cohort, and all students enrolled in term three. the conference culminates in a banquet and hooding ceremony, gathering graduating students, family members, faculty, and staff to celebrate the graduates' accomplishments together. this celebration is a meaningful highlight for all and a joyous expression of the community we aspire to build through our program. chapter overviews the first chapter in the three-chapter dip covers the same ground, in condensed form, as the first three chapters in a fivechapter dissertation. taking the form of a research proposal based in action research methodology and focused on a problem of practice that is specific to the candidate’s organization, the model’s first chapter centers the cped principles of inquiry as practice and the problem-based dip (archbald, 2008; perry, 2023). because students in ud’s program typically conduct research on the organizations in which they work (laboratories of practice, in cped terms), their problems of practice and research questions tend to be focused and context-specific. this amounts to inquiry as practice, which “requires the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens” (cped, 2024). for example, a student who was interested in the adultification of black girls, particularly in a middle school she was associated with, crafted research questions related to a program for black girls in her school (karikari, 2023): (1) how does the after-school program royalsapphires build on the community cultural wealth tenets members already possess (yosso, 2005)? (2) in what ways do members of royalsapphires benefit from participating in this afterschool program, from the perspective of regal academy administrators and program coordinators? (3) what do black girls in royalsapphires need their teachers and school administrators to know to better support and develop their leadership skills within and beyond the royalsapphires program? these research questions reflect the scholar-practitioner focus of the edd program in that they are designed to help the student engage in inquiry as practice and develop findings, reported in chapter two, that will directly inform the action plan for organizational change that is discussed in chapter three. the literature review section of chapter one is less extensive than the literature review chapter in a five-chapter dissertation. dip literature reviews in our program focus on recent and influential research specific to the student’s problem of practice, as opposed to reviewing all related research in the field. the proposal chapter concludes with an overview of research design and methods for an action research study of the problem of practice as it plays out within the site organization. the research design and methods are developed for the specific problem of practice, focusing on, for example, specific organizational procedures or policies, and are consistent with equitable, ethical practices focused on social justice. research designs vary in the methods employed and may analyze qualitative or quantitative data, or both. typically, the scope is meant to be focused, specific to the site organization, and feasible to be completed in two to four months. more importantly, as an action research study, the research methods should be collaborative enough to support a viable basis for action and change within the organization. chapter two reports the results of the action research study and ideally outlines the action plan, based on those results. in doing so, candidates demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge through the construction of a logic model that helps illustrate the sequence of goals, objectives, and associated tasks to address their identified problem of practice. because of the diversity in our students’ research interests, this chapter naturally takes on a flexible format to accommodate the particular shape of the problem of practice, research design, and collaborations the student has undertaken. ultimately, chapter two provides candidates the opportunity to begin the work of organizational change as their analyses of the data collected directly inform the initial action plan, constituting another key step in the cyclical process of action research. chapter three encompasses an extended discussion, and when possible a partial implementation, of the action plan emerging from the dissertation study. the third chapter leans heavily on the candidate’s emerging experience as a scholar-practitioner to generate and launch a well-defined and practically feasible action plan, based on the action research study results reported in chapter two and grounded in the student’s perspective on their own collaborative leadership practice. successful concluding chapters include a detailed description of collaborative organizational change efforts, along with a reflection on the candidate’s leadership practice in developing and implementing the action plan. students discuss short-, medium-, and long-term plans, stakeholder engagement, resources needed, and suggested timelines. stemming from our program’s emphasis on the integration of practical and research knowledge to address problems of practice, this final chapter illuminates our students’ abilities to synthesize leadership and organizational change theory in concert with research to guide their plans. because all dip studies within our program use an action research methodology, we stress collaboration as students compose their action plans to affect change within their organizations, and as they strive for a continuation of the action research cycle postgraduation. like donohoo et al. (2018), we believe a collective efficacy approach to the design, implementation, and evaluation of an action plan has the potential to influence student and organizational achievement. collaboration, therefore, is an influential skill for scholar-practitioners and a practice we wish to impart to our students as they seek or continue to lead an organization. upon reflection, we believe our three-chapter dissertation model is on a trajectory to address what archbald (2008) claims as priorities of the contemporary dip. although we have encountered challenges, which we explore further below, our model’s adaptability to students’ unique organizational settings and problems of practice is particularly useful when embarking on organizational change through an action research approach. in addition, we believe our curriculum and fieldbased opportunities have significantly contributed to our students’ engagement with inquiry as practice. these applied experiences combine and reinforce each other in practice and in turn strengthen candidates’ leadership abilities, and this becomes evident in their dissertation chapters. as exemplars of these aims and principles at work, we next present the research and experiences of two recent graduates. a three-chapter dip: focusing on scholar-practitioner preparation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 24 recent graduate experiences as a way to explore how these intentions and characteristics play out in practice, two coauthors, recent graduates of the program, recount their experiences with the three-chapter dip model. faithe beam, edd: a study on black placemaking at a faith-based pwi my dip focused on a critical participatory action research study (fine & torre, 2021) of college students’ experiences with black placemaking (tichavakunda, 2024) and student success. the study explored black students’ lived experiences and interpretation of those experiences at a predominantly white faith-based institution. black placemaking focuses on how black students and professionals create meaningful and dynamic sites of resilience and belonging (hunter et al., 2016). study findings suggested that while participants valued the place-centered identity of the institution, they also identified needs related to supporting students through opportunities and practices that represent who they are. for example, participants reflected on their collegiate experience with vulnerability and honesty about their hopes to have places like the divine nine that provide an opportunity to be part of the legacy of their parents and grandparents. they also spoke about their responsibility to nurture places for growth and pride for students who will come after them. participants underscored further that university leaders must take the initiative to create and sustain these opportunities. the action plan discussed in chapter three reflected the communicative space created during the research phase between and among multiple participants. this communicative space cultivated a growing level of trust and a willingness among the students to invest beyond telling their stories to a collective process of change. the action plan focused on belonging and thriving for black students through a mentorship pilot and a feasibility study of bringing a black greek letter organization (bglo) to campus, goals identified by participants. however, because of the creative and collective efforts of black students with staff members and other stakeholders in the campus community, neither a pilot nor feasibility study was necessary. both objectives are coming to fruition in organic ways not articulated in the original action plan. for example, the research process generated curiosity within our community and a bglo reached out to the institution to inquire about chartering an organization on campus. the chapter spent time with students and generated enough interest to begin the chartering process. these steps reflect the power of the black placemaking framework and the agency and fortitude of black students to create places that fully represent and celebrate who they are (tichavakunda, 2024). the communicative space of the research process offered hope (and some evidence) that the institution was listening and was willing to facilitate processes and structures that reflect equity for all students. engaging this dip model illuminated my leadership practices of listening and facilitation, but even moreso my responsibility for selfexamination and growth as a higher education practitioner and administrator who is racialized as white, and as a collaborator in change efforts on campus. my journey to the ud edd program came at an inflection point as students of color at my institution were speaking with urgency about concerns of their campus experience, and i was shifting from university minister to senior administrator in student life. influenced by the university’s christian mission, our institution has a tradition of building a close-knit community and sense of place, and many of our students talk about this as a distinctive aspect of their experience. we are also a predominately white institution, and i was interested to learn more about how students of color experienced a sense of place at the university, especially its impact on their sense of belonging. my review of the literature started with “sense of place” and eventually led me to black placemaking. the collaborative action research approach (cpar) i employed (fine & torre, 2021) nurtured an environment where individuals and groups connected in generative ways—and with the hope of being seen and heard by the university’s administration—to ask challenging questions, share honestly, and build trust in a collective process. while the action plan was not utilized in its original form, the space in which it was created generated a growing institutional commitment to action and potential for black placemaking to flourish. the three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip entails work with both collaborative action research and critical action and reflection on my own leadership, including collaboration within the context of my institution. in summary, it provided an opportunity to make these collaborations and actions a part of the dip experience. rachel santos, edd: undocumented students’ experiences under indiana’s restriction on resident tuition my dip examined the challenges undocumented students face as they navigate college pathways despite indiana state law barring them from accessing in-state tuition rates. this study assessed the multifaceted financial and emotional obstacles undocumented students encountered and their practices of resilience in overcoming them. utilizing the three-chapter model, this research resulted in an actionable plan that outlined the steps needed at the advocacy level, and the steps required by higher education institutions, to address the trauma and burden on mental health caused by this law and other inequitable immigration policies nationally and locally. the three-chapter dip format facilitated a comprehensive exploration of a problem of practice that was tied to my role as an education policy advocate in indiana. it allowed me to examine my organization's position and its efficacy in driving public policy changes within the state. entering ud’s edd program, my aim was to bridge my background in public policy with my expertise in education and knowledge of latino student success. as the director of education policy for the indiana latino institute, i integrated my daily professional work into my academic work, leading to personal and professional growth. through this journey, i improved my ability to set measurable goals in practice and adeptly utilize tools, such as the logic model, to discern the inputs necessary for advancing policy issues, ultimately leading to tangible outputs such as legislative changes or increased public support for issues. the three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip model is also methodologically strong because it inserts the researcher into the work, fostering opportunities for reflection regarding their identity and positionality in the research process. researchers who concurrently serve as community leaders and are deeply invested in effecting transformative change within their communities stand to benefit significantly from this approach. it provides a platform to document and analyze the very work they engage in daily, similar to the role of street-level bureaucrats (slbs) as described by lipsky (2010). ziskin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 25 lipsky's concept of slbs explains the pivotal role of individuals who directly interact with and serve the community, paralleling the essential function of educators in our society. when reading my dip, you can see traces of my experience as an slb, as well as a deep connection to the community it aims to serve. this lends an authenticity to the work that is often absent in more traditional dissertations. before embarking on this program and developing my dip, i had earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, but neither program required me to reflect on my lived experience and its impact on my role as a researcher. including these reflections in my dip allows my readers to not only understand the research more deeply but also to hear my voice, which ultimately strengthens the work. since completing the dip, i can reflect on the problem presented and affirm that, while legislative changes may not have passed in indiana, the first subsequent legislative session witnessed a notable increase in support from major companies and the state's higher education institutions. the journey underscores the reality that effecting change often surpasses the projected timeline, yet the strength of the plan remains steadfast. it stands as a blueprint, empowering any advocate to adopt it and commence their own advocacy endeavors or contribute to the ongoing dialogue. approaching a year since submitting my final dip edits, i am confident that this holistic approach to the dip enables emerging scholar-practitioners to deal with problems that go beyond just one person or organization. challenges in the course of implementing the three-chapter scholarpractitioner dip, we have encountered important challenges related to committee expectations and evaluation, as well as curricular challenges with implications for the dip. the latter category has hinged partly on faculty’s varied interpretations of relevant program design components. moreover, although social justice leadership principles and organizational theory were embedded in our curriculum, students’ dip logic models and action plans sometimes lacked the collaborative leadership approach envisioned by the program’s signature pedagogy. students encountered logistical and substantive challenges as well, including barriers within their organizations, as they worked to implement their action plans. committees, expectations, and evaluation one set of challenges pertained to the selection of committee members, and subsequently to committee members’ expectations. in our program, three-member dip committees consist of a full-time ud faculty member as chair, a second faculty member from ud, and an external committee member who holds a terminal degree and can provide practical expertise relevant to the students’ problem of practice. although students select the external committee members in consultation with the committee chair, it can be challenging to find someone who is a good fit for the student and their topic. for example, a prospective member with practical expertise, who works in the student’s organization or field, will often be ineligible because of the requirement that the external member have a terminal degree. students may appeal to the department chair for an exception to the terminal degree requirement, but they typically do not. consequently, external members often hold an academic role at a college or university, and students and committees may often miss out on inclusion of practical and contextual expertise. moreover, committee expectations and evaluations may sometimes overemphasize academic and research priorities more aligned with traditional fivechapter dissertations at the expense of attention to application in chapter three. a dip chair and the “second'' member, typically another member of our program faculty, come to the evaluation of student dip with an understanding of characteristics and aims of the threechapter scholar-practitioner dip model. however, the external member needs to be introduced to the format and learning goals associated with our program and dip model. even with an introduction of this kind, some external committee members may retain expectations and implicit evaluative criteria that are aligned with traditional five-chapter dissertations. they may balk at the length of the dip, or chapter three’s focus on action and leadership practice. for example, faculty colleagues in our program can cite multiple examples of external members (1) voicing concerns about aspects of students’ dip (action orientation; a focus on the specific organization; a focus on leadership practice) that we would consider strengths and (2) making suggestions that would result in a traditional academic five-chapter dissertation. some external members expressed reservations about associating their names with what they saw as a condensed dissertation. these situations have all come to a positive end, but not without added work for dip chairs as they advocated for our process, and additional stress for students as well. this challenge is a result of our adoption of the nontraditional model for the dip, and our experiences echo similar tensions described in the literature (storey et al., 2015; swank et al., 2021). a related challenge likewise reflects an important thread in the literature on the purposes of dip writing in the edd. scholars in the field debate the role of idiography versus generalizability in edd research (storey & hesbol, 2016). the three-chapter dip model centers action research and is tailored to address a problem of practice in a specific organization. while this can be true of traditional five-chapter dissertations as well, the specificity of the research questions, results, and action plan (including who is involved, resources needed, anticipated time needed, etc.) means that study findings can be difficult to extrapolate to other organizations. however, this is not itself understood as a negative point. the goal is to address the problem of practice within the site organization, rather than to produce generalizable knowledge. nevertheless, all results contribute to the knowledge in the field, and one advantage of the action research methodology at the center of our model is that the process for organizational change is detailed and contextually relevant, providing road maps and suggestions for various change processes in various types of organizations. the action plans can be catalysts to change for other practitioners who may see an opportunity to adapt findings, insights, or implications to their own organizational context. committee members’ expectations and evaluations can be complicated by this tension as well. programmatic challenges in addition, yet not surprising when initiating new programs, programmatic challenges have also emerged. these included (1) faculty’s understanding and adoption of our program’s signature pedagogy and (2) unexpected faculty workload. a three-chapter dip: focusing on scholar-practitioner preparation impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 26 signature pedagogy subscribing to cped principles, our program is grounded in social justice as our signature pedagogy. although faculty have demonstrated knowledge of and commitment to social justice as a central organizing idea for the program, course syllabi and pedagogical practices have integrated its elements unevenly during the program’s first five years. consequently, students’ research foci have varied, from traditional action research conducted in classrooms, such as the impact of chemistry lab experiences on high-stakes testing (tindall, 2023), to more signature pedagogyaligned studies of diversity, equity, and inclusion (jackson, 2023; jenkins, 2023; singh, 2023). to strengthen our pedagogical approach, faculty initiated a curriculum mapping effort in 2022 entitled edd evaluation 2024. it includes all program courses, documenting their alignment to cped and social justice principles, program goals, and student learning outcomes. on our horizon remain (1) implementation of course and program changes and (2) the creation of a course review/revision cycle timeline, including a potential curriculum quality assurance team to oversee these critical program elements. perhaps most important is the finalization of our curriculum map and its alignment to social justice principles later this year. with more consistent engagement with social justice across courses, we believe not only that more candidates will focus their dips on problems of practice with social justice implications, but also that all candidates will feel more prepared to situate their action plans and their own leadership practice within social justice aims. in this way, we expect these steps and revisions to result in a clarified focus on social justice in student dips, and a deepened sense of reflective practice and social justice leadership in students’ third chapters in particular. faculty workload embarking on a new, online edd in leadership for organizations in the fall of 2019, our administration and faculty focused on enrollment and sustainability during its initial design. this led to promising enrollment numbers yet surprising challenges regarding faculty workload. while enrollment was meeting program goals with regard to recruitment and admissions, these enrollment numbers, combined with some unanticipated student needs and an accelerated program of study, translated into unexpectedly high demands on faculty doctoral advisors. the hope, originally, was that shifting to a three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip would streamline our doctoral advising to a significant degree when compared to the traditional five-chapter dissertation; the reduced scope of the research portion, shorter overall dissertation length, and the greater level of structure provided by the format and the dip handbook gave us reason to believe this would be the case. in practice, however, the features of the model were not sufficient to overcome the intensity of increased doctoral advising while simultaneously managing our traditional faculty responsibilities (i.e., teaching, service, and scholarship). we believe that implementing a consistent structure for the dip created some important efficiencies for the program. however, each edd candidate and each dip is unique, and it is unrealistic to expect these strategies to either (1) address all advising challenges that emerge or (2) support scaling up beyond sustainable student-to-chair ratios that allow for depth, responsiveness, and excellence in doctoral advising. fortunately, faculty and administrators have collaborated in recent semesters to address faculty concerns regarding student-tochair ratios. through negotiations of faculty responsibilities, compensation, and policy amendments, we have moved toward lower ratios and more equitable and sustainable practices in dip advising. as faculty, we appreciate the progress achieved so far, as we strive to maintain a nurturing and reciprocal experience between the doctoral student and dissertation chair (bell-ellison, & dedrick, 2008). preparing scholar-practitioners: leading from a place of influence still another challenge emerged, as we learned that a significant portion of our students are not in positions to affect change directly within their organizations. whether employed in business, non-profit, military, or education fields, students often do not have the authority to initiate change within their organizations. in some instances, depending on the complexity of their problem of practice, students may struggle even to gain the attention of those who do. in these cases, they are consequently unable to comprehensively share the implications of their studies. as a result, action plans may too often be hypothetical and self-composed by students, rather than the collective and collaborative effort we envisioned for our program. because of this, we encourage our students to approach their research as well as the implications from a place of influence. through this approach, we believe they can affect their immediate environment in ways they deem most ethical and influential. and although the change they may have strived for in their initial action plan may not be attained as first envisioned, they have taken a major step towards introducing and commencing an action research cycle within their immediate world of work. returning to our goals for the dip as a capstone experience specifically designed to prepare scholar-practitioners, we believe that introducing these frameworks and strategies for navigating applied leadership practice in real organizations brings our process closer to cped principles and to our goals for the program. conclusion this manuscript explored an alternative three-chapter dip format with a balanced focus on (1) an action research study conducted by the candidate and (2) the candidate’s application of findings, alongside social and organizational theory, in their leadership practice. we believe readers of this special issue will benefit from the article, as it describes the authors’ first-hand perspectives navigating this model as students and faculty. in this way, our discussion adds to the emerging landscape of practice regarding edd dissertations. in addition, the two dip exemplars and reflections from recent graduates included above may further assist current and rising cped programs considering alternative dissertation models, as a vehicle for preparing scholar-practitioners grounded in inquiry as practice, applied leadership, and a signature pedagogy. as a limitation of our discussion, it is important to note that what we have shared throughout this essay reflects our own experiences. other candidates’ and colleagues’ experiences and perceptions may naturally be different from ours. in conclusion, we summarize key points based on our experiences described above and outline eight recommendations for programs who might be considering adopting an alternative model for the dissertation-in-practice. ziskin et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.496 27 implications for edd programs considering we are now in our fifth year and categorized according to the cped framework as an experienced program, we believe we have much to share with institutions wishing to embark on a journey implementing an alternative dip format specifically prioritizing the preparation of scholar-practitioners. implications from our discussion above include the following: 1. signature pedagogy: ensure all faculty have a concrete understanding of your signature pedagogy, including how to embed it in both curriculum and classroom practice. the work of zambo (2011) may help mobilize that understanding. 2. map your curriculum: ground your degree program, especially if accelerated, in a curriculum that helps scaffold the students’ scholar-practitioner experience. introduce, apply, and reinforce key concepts, theories, techniques, and methods, especially those related to the program’s signature pedagogy by applying wisdom from bloom’s taxonomy (preville, 2023) or other teaching and learning theories. 3. calibrate dissertation expectations among faculty: consistent discussions among faculty teams ensure research expectations and dissertations meet the expectations of all faculty. without such understanding, students will be confused as to what to expect throughout each step of their academic journeys. storey and colleagues (2015) may serve as a source for considering this faculty alignment of thought and goals. 4. on-board external committee members: it is worthwhile to make sure that external committee members understand the aims of your dip model and how they may shape what the proposals and final dissertations may look like. recognizing that external committee members naturally come to the process with their own implicit expectations surrounding the evaluation of dissertations, a streamlined but explicit discussion of how the alternative dip model may depart from those expectations—sometimes by design—will help to avoid misaligned evaluations later in the process. 5. contextualize the mechanics of action research: consider each student’s social location. how does their current position at work place them in a position of influence? knowing this will help with the construction of a comprehensive action research design, collaborative development and implementation of an action plan, and firmly setting the pace for an action research cycle within the site organization. 6. emphasize collaboration and the benefits of collective efficacy for candidates creating an action plan: hattie’s (2015) extensive work in this field helps us understand the impact of highly efficacious individuals when they work collectively and collaboratively. 7. investigate and adopt a staffing formula that is conducive to both student and faculty success: aim for a successful experience for both students and faculty. lean on literature (lowrey et al., 2015; o’meara et al., 2020) to arrive at ratios conducive to what students and faculty deem important to the dissertation experience. 8. adopt a formal evaluation of the program: from recruitment to commencement, each step of the doctoral experience merits an evaluation like those employed by student affairs/development offices (wells, 2023). without such organizational practice in place, the work will continuously seem reactionary— in other words, a sense of always putting out fires. more importantly, goals associated with student learning and program success may seem unattainable without reliance on a comprehensive evaluation system. references anderson, t., saunders, g., & alexander, i. 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(2015). coach the journey: committee chair reflections on guiding doctoral students. the academic forum, 4(1), 8–21. macgregor, c. j., & fellabaum, j. (2016). dissertation redesign for scholarly practitioners in educational leadership: increasing impact through dissemination-ready sections. in v. a. storey & k. a. hesbol (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation development and research methods. information science reference. o’meara, k.a., culpepper, d., misra, j., & jaeger, a. (2020). equity-minded faculty workloads: worksheet booklet. national science foundation. perry, j. a. (2016). the scholarly practitioner as steward of the practice. in v. a. storey & k. a. hesbol (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation development and research methods (pp. 300-315). igi global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0 perry, j. a. (2023). reclaiming the education doctorate: a guidebook for (re)designing edd programs. myers education press. preville, p. 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(2016). alternative dissertation formats: preparing scholars for the academy and beyond. in v. a. storey & k. a. hesbol (eds.), contemporary approaches to dissertation development and research methods (pp. 43-52). information science reference. wells, j.b. (2023). council for the advancement of standards (11). washington, dc. council for the advancement of standards in higher education. yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. in race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 zambo, d. (2011). action research as signature pedagogy in an education doctorate program: the reality and hope. innovative higher education, 36(4), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9171-7 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1702292438436386 https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=dayton1689003384056172&disposition=inline https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=dayton1689003384056172&disposition=inline https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019.1576858 https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019.1576858 https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019.1576858 https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.25.2-3.0313 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0445-0 https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=dayton1690369206623193&disposition=inline https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=dayton1690369206623193&disposition=inline http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1701508570238578 https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12504 https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/jcps/vol14/iss4/14 https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.2573 https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920971354 https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920971354 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1700047398249361 https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9171-7 mary b. ziskin university of dayton ricardo arévalo garcía university of dayton faithe c. beam campbell university elizabeth essex university of dayton rachel santos indiana latino institute statement of the problem literature review reforming the doctoral dissertation reenvisioning the dip the three-chapter scholar-practitioner dip purpose, focus, and evaluation processes chapter overviews recent graduate experiences faithe beam, edd: a study on black placemaking at a faith-based pwi rachel santos, edd: undocumented students’ experiences under indiana’s restriction on resident tuition challenges committees, expectations, and evaluation programmatic challenges signature pedagogy faculty workload preparing scholar-practitioners: leading from a place of influence conclusion implications for edd programs references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 38 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 integrative approach: using multi-paper eportfolios in doctoral dissertations candyce reynolds boise state university candycereynolds@boisestate.edu melissa pirie independent scholar shaquid@gmail.com mandi mizuta employee experience sensing lead at a fortune 100 company mandimizuta@gmail.com sheila mullooly independent scholar mullooly@pdx.edu abstract this paper explores the use of integrative doctoral eportfolios as an alternative dissertation format within the portland state university educational leadership doctoral program (edd). the edd program focuses on preparing working professionals for leadership roles in education. the traditional five chapter dissertation format, while rigorous, can feel disconnected from the professional lives of these students. this article describes the successful implementation of a multi-paper eportfolio dissertation option for three recent graduates and discusses the implications for edd programs. keywords doctoral education, dissertation formats, eportfolio, integrative learning the research based five chapter dissertation has been the penultimate marker of success in a doctoral program. as an advisor in a edd doctoral program, i (dr. reynolds) was hard pressed to explain to my advisees the relevance of the five chapter dissertation for their future lives and careers. truth be told, i had a hard time defending it as the culminating project for any doctoral program. others have doubts also. smith (2016) says: it is beyond time to rethink the fetishization of the dissertation monograph as the culmination of doctoral education. . . reaffirming that there is only one way of doing the dissertation—and that is as a proto-monograph—trains and constrains students in a one-model-fits-all version of doctoral education that is no longer adequate to the times. the need is great to ask questions anew, to energize inquiry into the implications of current practices. what is it to be “a scholar” and to be “scholarly” now? (p. 131) portland state university offers an educational leadership doctorate and has been a carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) member since 2011. the edd program is focused on helping our students conduct actionable research, especially after they graduate. the key word here is actionable. most of our students are working professionals and return for their doctorate because they have identified problems or issues occurring in their work settings and hope their doctoral work will help them develop the skills necessary to solve the problems they encounter. while a five chapter dissertation might help students gain and demonstrate expertise in a narrow topic, it didn’t always help them answer the burning question that would help them solve the problems they encountered. our coursework follows the cped principles, and students report feeling that the coursework prepares them well for their desired futures. however, the dissertation process can often seem daunting and not particularly useful. for three of my most brilliant students (drs. pirie, mullooly, and mizuta), this was especially true. each of these co-authors in this article were excellent and passionate students. each had challenging full-time positions and had come to the edd program to learn to solve some of the problems they were encountering in their workplaces and while they learned a great deal through their coursework and comprehensive exam process, the five chapter dissertation option seemed almost useless in achieving this goal. in addition, all of them were hoping that the edd would offer them opportunities to change and grow into new positions and wondered how this culminating project would support and allow them to explore future options. indeed, we almost lost them to the “all but dissertation” group. a recent change in the graduate school’s guidelines for dissertations allowing multi-paper dissertations provided an avenue for exploration concerning what could be allowed for a dissertation at portland state. other institutions had begun to use this format for their dissertations and portland state’s graduate college has followed. this flexibility allowed for thinking about a more relevant outcome for our doctoral program–one that https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6564-8762 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1868-6587 reynolds et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 39 would serve our students well as they continue to advance equitable and evidenced-based practices in the workforce. for our doctoral program, it allowed us to explore the development of an integrative multi-paper eportfolio that satisfied the graduate school but also allowed for great student agency and expression. this article will describe the process used to develop a protocol for an integrative multi-paper eportfolio and its acceptance by the college doctoral program committee and the university’s graduate school. integrative doctoral eportfolios have the potential to offer the student and readers a holistic and engaging experience. through multimedia, video, images, and linked content, it empowers candidates to utilize holistic storytelling, bridging the gap between academic and professional work. this format allows for authentic engagement while maintaining rigor, serving as a powerful tool for equitable and accessible scholarship. in addition, enhanced audience engagement can widen the professional scope of the research implications and applications. three students utilized this method and each of these newly minted edds will share their process and experience. finally, we will discuss lessons learned. the end becomes a new beginning this journey started with dr. pirie who successfully defended her five chapter dissertation proposal only to find that she needed to withdraw her study. she developed a case study of the adoption of an eportfolio platform but soon after her proposal defense she was offered a coveted position at the company that she would be studying for her case study. for ethical reasons, she needed to start over. starting a new position, raising a child, and experiencing a house fire made it difficult to focus on the development of a new study. she was about to give up. her area of expertise was eportfolios and while working on her dissertation, she had also been working on projects and publishing articles. our doctoral program had long been contemplating the use of alternative dissertations, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to request the use of a professional eportfolio to the graduate school. dr. pirie and dr. reynolds created a template of a possible format that could be used for the proposal and dissertation, fulfilling the goals outlined in our program and university guidelines. we were rejected. however, in the process, we learned that the graduate school had recently decided to accept multi-paper dissertations, providing candidates (and their advisors) with a lot of latitude in the requirements: "in the multi-paper format the papers do not have to be closely related to each other, but it is required that there be both an introductory and concluding chapter that link the papers together with a common theme." (portland state university graduate school, n.d.) dr. pirie decided to marry the format of the template we had created in the submission to the graduate school with these guidelines. the eportfolio would serve as a container for the multipaper dissertation but would allow her to be creative and represent her work beyond the audience of her dissertation committee. to satisfy the requirements from the graduate school, students using the eportfolio upload a word document with the required graduate school elements of their dissertation for publication. structure of the multi-paper dissertation the structure of the eportfolio dr. pirie initially created was adopted by dr. mullooly and dr. mizuta. however, each of their eportfolios had a different look and emphasized different aspects of this structure. one could argue that this structure was more rigorous than the requirements set out for the multi-paper dissertation from the graduate school. it not only contained the required elements but several other elements, which contextualized the works as a whole, adding to the coherence of the final product. it also allowed the reader to learn about the scholar beyond the formal writing through reflection and visual media. the eportfolio contained the following eportfolio pages: • a welcome page which included a visual representation of the author and the topic of the eportfolio • an abstract and introduction to the entire project. this abstract was used for the required abstract for dissertation publication. the introduction part of this page can be seen as a typical introduction chapter of a five chapter dissertation, focused on defending the problem of practice and highlighting what the articles will contribute in understanding or solving the problem. • three published or publishable articles accompanied by an overall reflection and a brief reflection about how the articles fit with their problem in practice. these articles could be published already as long as they were done within the time that students were in the doctoral program. they can be cowritten with colleagues outside the program, faculty members, or their faculty adviser. • conclusion • optional: professional eportfolio, final reflections, student’s choice each of the students that used this format also created a proposal eportfolio. in the proposal process for a five chapter dissertation in our program, students are required to basically write the first three chapters of the dissertation–introduction, literature review, and the proposed methodology. thus, the abstract and introduction page is especially important, as it allows committee members to understand the student’s problem of practice and how the subsequent articles they have written or will write address the problem of practice. an example of one of the student’s eportfolio welcome page is in figure one. note the tabs at the top of the page that leads readers to the pages described above. figure 1. integrative approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 40 the proposal and dissertation process candidates shared their proposal eportfolio and their dissertation eportfolio with their committee members two weeks prior to the oral defense, just as a five chapter dissertation would be shared. in our program, the proposal of a five chapter dissertation consists of the first three chapters of the dissertation—introduction, literature review, and methods. like an oral defense of a traditional dissertation, candidates present a brief synopsis of their proposals in an eportfolio format. students provide a walk-through of their eportfolios and then formal presentations about their problems of practice in the context of the articles they have written or intended to write (similar to sharing an introduction and literature review in a five chapter dissertation). for articles that are already published, the proposal eportfolio contains a copy of the article accompanied with a reflection. for those who are proposing articles, detailed outlines are shared. at the final defense, candidates share their eportfolios which now contain all of their articles, published or unpublished, along with conclusions that bookend the introduction. students have an option to provide other pages. some have chosen to share a professional portfolio which highlights their professional experience; others share further reflections and other works. for submission to the graduate school and ultimately doctoral dissertation publication, candidates need to download their introduction, three papers, and conclusion into a print copy. the structure and process for the integrative multi-paper eportfolio was built as we went! in developing the parameters for the eportfolio, we took into consideration the practices and processes used by our program and university, as well as the individual students' interest in their topics, methodological approaches and the desired outcome of their degree. for our program, students are required to identify a problem of practice for their dissertation project. for the multi-paper dissertation, this still remains, and the introduction to the eportfolio page provides a clear statement of the problem of practice and highlights how the articles contribute to understanding or solving the problem. the next section of this article dives into the more personal aspects of the process of using a multi-paper eportfolio as one’s dissertation. dr. melissa pirie, dr. sheila mullooly and dr. mandi mizuta share their student perspectives. dr. candyce reynolds will share her perspective as their advisor. the eportfolio journey: individual experiences dr. pirie’s journey i worked on my dissertation for several years. those years were interrupted by a series of personal circumstances that delayed its successful completion. i made a lot of progress in my program on advancing my knowledge and my career. using an eportfolio for my dissertation provided a flexible, adaptable, and innovative approach and format to meet the requirement of both portland state university's and cped’s dissertation guidelines and requirements which squarely lined up with both their guiding principles and design concepts. this desire to adjust the format of my research and its outcomes is in keeping with the call to “breathe new life into the dissertation process” in the manifesto for the humanities: transforming doctoral education in good enough times (smith, 2015, p.136). in the university of michigan library publication, breathing life into the dissertation, smith (2015) declares, “what is fast becoming the “new normal” in the everyday life of academic humanists will require people to be intellectually nimble; conversant in digital media, networks, archives, and identities; energized by collaboration; flexible in their modes of address; imaginative in their pedagogical practice; and adept at telling the story about what they do. the challenge is to reorganize doctoral education to meet the imperatives and the opportunities of the 21st-century academy. since 2010, i have been arguing that expanding the forms of the dissertation must be a cornerstone for responding to these conditions—precisely because it is the hardest nut to crack on the way to transforming the . . . doctorate.” (p.136) alongside the challenge of representing my research in a multimedia and digital format, meeting the requirements for proposal defense, and final research components, an eportfolio (which is digital, and contains both evidence and reflection of the authors accomplishments) by nature increases the level of rigor required of a dissertation by involving reflection on the process of researching and creating the eportfolio, and the end product itself. as dr. reynolds is an expert in the field of eportfolio development and use in higher education and that being the focus of my professional work and academic research study, we believed that the project could be effectively overseen and evaluated. creating this alternative format to the proto monograph dissertation the college of education (coe) and portland state university’s (psu) graduate school offered future opportunities that more accurately represent its dedication to innovative research and future trajectories of educational doctoral degree requirements. the eportfolio allowed me to represent the past 20 years of my academic and professional work in a culminating product that could serve others. overall, i felt my doctoral experience was a great success. i collaborated on research and developed expertise in the areas of eportfolios and learning. while accomplishing things that would advance my learning and career, i became more and more discouraged by the dissertation process, which did not seem to align with my future goals nor the work i was already advancing. i was concurrently working on publishing articles and my dissertation. i struggled with the dissertation format and the linear process it required. the format did not appear to serve the work i was doing, the research i was participating in, and i did not see the use of a long five chapter format to my field of research. my motivation and persistence declined, even as i published articles. the ability to reflect on and integrate the value of the process of writing and reviewing the three papers within the product of my multi-paper dissertation in the particular format of the eportfolio had immeasurable impacts on my overall doctoral experience. the primary aspects of eportfolio development that i value • a room of one's own–the eportfolio that is private, secure, and user owned does indeed afford each learner a room of one's own. a place where you can reflect both privately and publicly, gather formative and summative feedback on your learning, and curate your experiences and skills into a unique digital fingerprint. • folio thinking–the process of creating a portfolio allows one to make connections that might not have otherwise been made. this process is what light et al. (2011) call folio reynolds et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 41 thinking. creating a portfolio allows students to collect, organize, and reflect upon their learning. after studying and using this concept for 20 years, the process of folio-thinking has, indeed, become a habit of mind for me. i now collect, organize, reflect upon, and make connections across my experiences regularly. understanding my responsibility to these actions would not occur in an learning management system (lms) only environment where many of these functions were completed for me, and then lost to me as i lost access to the digital spaces where my learning had occurred. • integrative learning–reynolds and patton (2014) share with us that intentionally connecting your learning across time and contexts is key to understanding what your learning means to you and others. the creation of my dissertation eportfolio did exactly this for me in regard to my publications over the past five years. • reflection/the oxygen in the compost piles of our lives– my experience with producing food and gardening always leads me to think of my life as valuable layers that can become a cohesive whole with the right attention and aeration. in terms of integrative learning, the oxygen we get from churning those layers into rich soil for our futures is directly related to the amount of reflection we are afforded on those unique layers and experiences. dr. mullooly’s journey i have an eclectic background and set of interests. i am an artist, have lived in several countries, an advocate and scholar on global sustainability practices, a teaching english as a second language (tesol) specialist, program administrator, and multicultural educator. given that a masters in tesol studies is considered the terminal degree in the field, the psu educational leadership doctorate seemed like the perfect fit. it allowed me to explore and build on my deep commitment to social justice through the lenses of my background and experience. with my predilection for diverse ideas and topics, i spent over a year exploring transdisciplinary research frameworks, critical methods for the dissertation, and running pilots in collaboration with the psu international scholar and student community. although i saw the connections between transformative international education, futures thinking, and arts-based research, i struggled to express my dissertation problem of practice in a way that was accessible to dr. reynolds. i am sure she became frustrated with the number of times i changed topics. i saw the connections between all of my interests, however it was challenging to design a traditional study around them. in the meantime, i had wonderful experiences. i published a collaborative article with a team on a university-wide project, the psu futures collaboratory, and i was building my expertise in multiple areas through taking a diverse set of courses in the coe and beyond as well as getting involved in campus and international projects. all this great transdisciplinary experience, however, was not setting me up well for a five chapter dissertation. ultimately, my integrative eportfolio focused on challenging the problems in the changing global landscape of internationalized higher education and sought to look for new approaches for understanding and addressing the complex problems we face. the covid-19 pandemic sped up the need to make changes in how we approached our evolving problems and possibilities for humancentric transformation. my integrative eportfolio dissertation is a call to action and proposes the use of new approaches to research and educational practice—specifically, critical futures studies (see equity futures) and arts-based research (abr). design justice principles and participatory action approaches frame and motivate these possibilities. my eportfolio dissertation contains three separate but related articles, focused on the use of new approaches to research and educational practice. one of these articles was published in the third year of my doctoral program. the second was under review, and the third article was proposed at my proposal defense and was based on one of my original ideas for the five chapter dissertation. my eportfolio dissertation imagines the potential of critical foresights and arts-based research to support equity-driven transformation in postcovid globalized higher education. i wanted my eportfolio and the articles to provide students, researchers, and practitioners in higher education with values-based ways to process and address the rapidly changing landscape of academia in the public interest of planning, preparation, and responsiveness. two years after degree completion, these three peer-reviewed publications and my dissertation have been collectively cited by 11 academic publications–thus far. the eportfolio allowed me to simultaneously work and study full-time, while publishing along the way and directly contributing to futures-facing scholarship. i cannot overstate how much my dissertation eportfolio process was informed by dr. reynolds’ expertise in the field of eportfolio development and use in higher education. i am grateful for her guidance, mentorship, and friendship. dr. pirie’s model, which she generously shared as an example to follow, informed the format of my eportfolio. for instance, her eportfolio includes a professional folio, so i followed suit. instead of using stock photography, all the photographs in my folio are my original photographs. i also add further components including my original poetry, a series of poems which are a poetic inquiry into covid-19 times and lexicon. selecting a dissertation format wasn’t an “either or” proposition as i was not aware of the alternative format at the start of this educational journey. it was a “yes and” journey because i began writing a five chapter dissertation before i switched to the multipaper, e-portfolio format. specifically, the rate of change within the international higher education (ihe) landscape and the state of flux institutionally made it challenging for my dissertation to remain relevant while writing a monograph that locks its scope in the first chapter. at the time, the unfolding global covid-19 pandemic made disparities in ihe all the more prominent and my employment in ihe more precarious. although some voices in the department suggested the multi-paper eportfolio dissertation format was less rigorous than the five chapter monograph, that was not my experience. i did not arrive at this option for lack of pursuing the monograph. i began the traditional five chapter dissertation three times over. i explored various critical methodologies as i reframed my problem of practice in each new attempt to humanize international student lived educational experience, amplify transnational student voices, and move away from the dominant fiscal “cash cow” institutional lens in international higher education (ihe). each time i made it about three chapters in, i became frustrated with the format, and the state of us ihe at large, once more. after so many years of being an educator and administrator internationally and in the us, the graduate student role came, in part, as a shock because i knew that neoliberal realities were not the only viable educational model globally. higher education is still considered a public good–and cornerstone of integrative approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 42 democracy–in many parts of the world. the multi-paper eportfolio format has provided me with a means of directly applying peerreviewed academic publishing i was doing toward my dissertation goals. as a multimedia open-access platform, i retain authorship of my edd dissertation eportfolio–beyond the length of my affiliation with my institution, psu–while being able to share it widely digitally. unlike traditional five chapter dissertations, my dissertation work was two-thirds already published and one-third about to be published at the time of my final defense; it was digitized, readily accessible, and accompanied by my original photography and poetry. the ease of eportfolio use contributed to my dissertation committee’s sensemaking and assessment process, the seamlessness of my interdisciplinary defense presentation, and the collegial atmosphere of my final defense. later, it successfully pivoted me from higher education to a new career in educational technology, pioneering experiential language learning in immersive virtual reality (ivr). because a traditional five chapter model is a static, monographic dissertation, the same question regarding editing it post publication would sound absurd. the old adage “a good dissertation is a done dissertation" also comes to mind. as recent graduates will likely concur, a deep sense of exhaustion tends to set in the moment the dissertation is successfully defended. although i have considered updating my eportfolio, i decided not to because it’s simply an unrealistic expectation of any dissertation publication. the eportfolio is the parallel equivalent of the traditional dissertation–one, i would argue, which is more rigorous and rewarding. in using an integrative multi-paper eportfolio instead of a traditional dissertation, i learned to navigate the peer-reviewed publishing process, and i integrated my transdisciplinary scholarship in the fields of higher education, tesol studies, and fine art. finally, i found a community of education and policy scholars who focus on integrated, transformative learning, incorporate reflection, creative, and critical approaches, and most importantly seek to share their scholarship, advocacy, and policy work far beyond the scope of traditional academe. dr. mizuta’s journey i had found my professional home in the higher education sphere when i applied to the doctoral program at the coe at psu this would not be my first doctoral program. i started out in a phd program in political science that unexpectedly shuttered. while i loved the topic, i was not convinced that a tenure track political science position was what i ultimately wanted, so i did not seek another program. i ended up in several positions in higher education–adjunct writing instructor, program management, student affairs– and when i entered the doctoral program, i was working in evaluation and assessment at an academic hospital and medical school. like my colleagues represented in this article, throughout the tenure of my doctoral program, i had incredible opportunities to explore new ways of considering theories and practice that applied directly to my work. i ended up concurrently pursuing study in collaborative governance with the school of public administration, knowing that it would assist with my newly acquired job in public policy administration. as i learned more about the field, i fantasized about how the models i was learning about in the collaborative governance space could be applied to higher education systems in relation to the organizational silos that exist and make collaboration fraught. i began developing a dissertation research project focused on implementing a collaborative governance model to combat silos at a student affairs department at a local private college. i had started the institutional review board (irb) process and was ready to go. unfortunately, the college i was using for my study was not able to survive the pandemic economic woes of higher education and abruptly announced its closure. in light of these logistical barriers coupled with my changing career direction, i felt directionless and struggled to determine a new vision that satisfied my research focus, professional goals, and personal drive for academic excellence. hearing about my colleagues’ progress, i began to explore with dr. reynolds what an integrative eportfolio multi-paper dissertation might look like for me. given my particular background in political science and my work applying models of collaborative governance in entirely new settings, i proposed three conceptual articles that looked at the need to address silos on higher education campuses, how a new model created by me could be applied to address these silos, and how it could be used to aid in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in higher education. i proposed using the unusual format of the multipaper dissertation with the eportfolio to effectively encapsulate my rigorous multi-disciplinary research and professional expertise a bridge of sorts between the theoretical academic and practical professional worlds that my research inhabited. it proved to be the perfect fit. the dissertation is traditionally limited to a specialized audience of academics. it usually exists in a manuscript form, through the defense presentation, and hopefully, academic publication. eportfolios introduce a wider audience to original student research. instead of an elevator pitch or a link to a dense multi-chapter manuscript, i have an engaging, interactive tool that has made my doctoral research accessible to a wide array of audiences. i distributed the link to the eportfolio to coworkers, friends, family, and other networking contacts, allowing them to digest my work at their convenience and to the degree that suits their personal or professional levels of interest. as a first-generation college student whose family had not connected with my academic career, my eportfolio’s online, narrative-based presentation granted my family an unprecedented opportunity to participate in my academic journey. sharing the doctoral moment and this piece of myself was a priceless moment that left us all feeling inspired and better connected with each other. the eportfolio’s accessibility has unlocked new academic and professional opportunities that a traditional monograph would not have allowed. as a scholar practitioner, it is invaluable to have a platform that creatively and succinctly summarizes my scholarship and its applications to professional settings. doctoral level scholars increasingly are exploring professional opportunities outside of academia; the eportfolio serves as an innovative tool to market and display transferrable skills and add value to a company. my eportfolio link is prominently displayed on linkedin, included in resumes and job applications, and used in follow-up after networking moments. it has proven integral in my transition into corporate technology and strategy after graduation, as it translated my research into the technical cultural currency of my industry and unlocked my research to be applied to the precise audience my scholarship was designed to impact. unequivocally, the eportfolio should be embraced as a valid pedagogical tool to demonstrate graduate level proficiency. no degree of rigor is lost through the dissertation process, as it merely becomes a more accessible package for the same research and scholarly activity that is demonstrated through a manuscript. instead, reynolds et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 43 i would suggest that the rigor is enhanced because the eportfolio is a pedagogical tool that requires intentional consideration and execution of clearly demonstrating academic work in a cohesive narrative to both academic and non-academic audiences. constructing the eportfolio started with mapping out the elements of the narrative that were integral to telling my dissertation story. i considered this an exercise in creating an expanded elevator speech of my research and my scholarly journey and outlining the necessary pieces of information vital to communicating my studies to a diverse audience. this practice also proved beneficial to refining my dissertation introduction and crafting my defense presentation. i then considered my creative vision – how did i want to aesthetically enhance my work and my story? i chose simple, modern backgrounds and colors that reflected my personal design sensibilities and used photos that further reinforced my topic and personal reflection. logistically, i made sure that any design assets i used were royalty free stock images or my own photography and gave proper attribution where applicable to ensure my eportfolio abided by general online digital asset usage policies. i utilized standard font styles, colors, and sizes and added in alt text to the photos to make the work accessible to all users. thought was also given to the lifecycle of the portfolio – how did i want it to exist in the future post-defense? my desire was to create a dynamic piece that could live on in perpetuity with minimal effort. for me, this looked like intentionally crafting content that did not feel outdated or irrelevant post-defense (e.g. copy/pasting a cv into the portfolio text, listing time sensitive professional goals, etc.). instead, i included an external link to my master cv document that i regularly update as part of my professional practice. personal content was designed to be a highly curated point-in-time reflection and included elements such as acknowledgements, a link to my writing spotify playlist, and a few photos that represented meaningful markers of the doctoral journey. i transferred my eportfolio to a legacy account not contingent upon my school credentials to ensure access after school credentials were deprecated. the result is an evergreen tool that clearly articulates my doctoral work and personal journey. i am grateful for the self-representation that the portfolio has granted me. as someone who has both multi-disciplinary research interests and a wide variety of hobbies and interests, it can be easy to feel at times that my academic journey did not allow me to fully show up as myself. utilizing the eportfolio granted me the opportunity to create doctoral work that felt more representative of my multi-faceted identity as a creative, a scholar, and a professional. not many can reflect on their dissertation journeys and feel satisfied that the result fully encapsulated both their full selves and their investment in scholarship. through the expressive platform afforded by eportfolio, i am proud that the doctoral process did not envelop and minimize me; instead it unlocked the vast potential ahead of me as a scholar, practitioner, and multifaceted individual. dr. reynolds’ journey (doctoral advisor) i consider my work with doctoral students one of my greatest joys. witnessing the development of new ideas as well as a student’s trajectory to a new vision of themselves is inspiring and lifeaffirming. the dissertation process is at the heart of the doctorate. it is the culminating artifact that shows the world that one has gained expertise and the ability to manage an arduous journey. more importantly, though, it demonstrates this to the candidate also. shepherding a student through this process is an honor, and i enjoy seeing the transformation of the individual as well as the development of the ideas. as our program is one that engages students that are already professionals, it is exciting to see students develop a new identity as a scholar in practice through the doctoral process. it is also extremely frustrating to work closely with a student who has great experience and ideas and see them lose momentum after their coursework or in the dissertation proposal phase of the program. as you learned from the journeys of my co-authors, life happens and opportunities gained in the doctoral process can take one in new directions. i did not want these candidates to drop out and all of them were close. for each of them, the idea of making meaning of the work they had been doing during the doctoral program lit a fire under them. i am sorry that we didn’t have this option available to begin with. the process of being engaged in the doctoral program allowed all of them opportunities to explore ideas that could be represented in a single monograph. i asked them to complete the equivalent of an introduction in a traditional dissertation, highlighting the problem of practice that their work would examine. this introduction to the eportfolio and the articles reminded the candidates why they were in the program. it brought together the threads of the work they had been doing throughout the program. each article in their eportfolios was accompanied by a reflection that linked the introduction with the content of the paper and further helped the candidates make meaning of the work they had done. truthfully, i was concerned about how my colleagues would react to this new format. the candidates spent a great deal of time meeting with the faculty on their committees to explain the newly approved graduate school format as well as the addition of the eportfolio. some were skeptical of the rigor of this choice but open to exploring the option. the oral proposal defense of all of the candidates was the most collegial and supportive i have ever participated in. the eportfolio told the story of the candidate’s work–the thread of their passions and scholarship was clear. the articles, either completed or a detailed sentence outline for those that were not completed yet, connected to their scholarly agendas, and the faculty could see and appreciate these threads. none of them were asked to change anything in the work they submitted. all of the committee and the candidates had lively discussions about the problem of practice and how the articles addressed them. the committee shared helpful hints about writing publishable articles. there was a sense of true mentorship in the process. the defense of the dissertation was similar. instead of the frenzy of completing all the suggestions of the committees before the graduate school deadline, these candidates had little to correct in their eportfolios. for those who had submitted publishable articles, there were a few minor changes to be made, but really very little. they could spend their time downloading the introduction and the articles to submit in the acceptable format for the graduate school. they had time to enjoy being called doctor and being proud of the success they accomplished. lessons learned dissertations are a cornerstone of doctoral programs, but for some students, the traditional format feels restrictive and may not reflect the expertise and rigor expected from a doctoral candidate. an integrative multi-paper eportfolio can provide a dynamic integrative approach impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.510 44 alternative that empowers students to showcase their learning in a more comprehensive and engaging way. in addition, we want to underscore the transformative potential of eportfolios for doctoral students. seeing one’s work reflected in an integrative format empowers them to take their learning to the next step. our experience suggests that digital portfolios offer several advantages that can enhance the learning experience for students and reshape doctoral programs themselves. one key benefit lies in fostering a more holistic representation of student learning. unlike the traditional dissertation, which focuses on a single research project, eportfolios can function as a personal learning vault. students can include research papers, creative projects, presentations, and even reflective essays, allowing them to demonstrate how their ideas connect and how their expertise has evolved throughout their doctoral journeys. this is the students’ choice as well as a program’s choice. the beauty of an eportfolio is that it can be tailored to an individual or program’s needs and desires. furthermore, eportfolios promote accessibility for all and can democratize scholarship. anyone with an internet connection can access a student's work, fostering wider dissemination of valuable research and fostering a more engaged scholarly community. eportfolios can also increase student motivation. students may feel stymied by the traditional dissertation format and can find a more authentic way to connect with the process in an eportfolio. in addition, the use of dissertation eportfolios could foster a more interactive and collaborative oral defense space where committees can effectively guide and support student work. finally, eportfolios offer a potential marketability edge. students can leverage eportfolios to showcase their research and skills to potential employers in a visually compelling way. because of the flexible nature of the medium, candidates can rebuild their portfolios to share with potential employers. in addition, the act of creating the portfolio leads to candidates' abilities to talk about their work with potential employers. eportfolios are a powerful tool redefining doctoral education. they promote deeper learning, wider knowledge dissemination, and a more collaborative learning environment. in fact, we believe eportfolios hold immense potential to reshape doctoral education for the better. by promoting a more holistic learning experience, fostering accessibility, collaboration, and student motivation, and providing a powerful career advantage, eportfolios represent a valuable innovation in doctoral programs. reference light, t. p., chen, h. l., & ittelson, j. c. (2011). documenting learning with eportfolios: a guide for college instructors. john wiley & sons portland state university graduate school. (n.d).electronic theses and dissertation (etd) formatting requirements. https://www.pdx.edu/gradschool/etd-formatting-requirements reynolds, c. & patton, j. (2014) leveraging the eportfolio for integrative learning: a faculty guide to classroom practices for transforming student learning. stylus. smith, s. a. (2015). manifesto for the humanities: transforming doctoral education in good enough times. university of michigan press. https://www.pdx.edu/gradschool/etd-formatting-requirements candyce reynolds boise state university melissa pirie independent scholar mandi mizuta employee experience sensing lead at a fortune 100 company sheila mullooly independent scholar the end becomes a new beginning structure of the multi-paper dissertation the proposal and dissertation process the eportfolio journey: individual experiences dr. pirie’s journey dr. mullooly’s journey dr. mizuta’s journey dr. reynolds’ journey (doctoral advisor) lessons learned reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 39 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 becoming an education activist through the action research dissertation: from ideas to action erin hawley cronin hamline university ecronin01@hamline.edu abstract watching columbine unfold as a first-year teacher, i realized student mental health was more important than my english lessons. in subsequent years, i became increasingly worried about student anxiety exhibited in tears, outbursts, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and sadly, suicide. when i watched the murder of george floyd occur blocks from where my most marginalized students lived, i finally knew i had to act. completing my action research dissertation in the education doctorate program at the university of south carolina-columbia gave me frameworks to define problems, opportunities to research interventions, skills to both enact research protocols and pivot when needed, and insight to evaluate solutions. this process replaced my paralyzing worry with confidence to act. now, when faced with problems, i can effectively investigate the issues, explore interventions, enact realistic solutions, assess outcomes, and make improvements. when educators use and refine research-based practices students are more likely to survive and thrive. keywords action research, secondary students, anxiety, dbt educators today can understandably feel plagued by problems on all sides. on one hand, educators are working to correct antiquated, racist disciplinary procedures, and on the other, lawmakers are threatening class 3 felonies if teachers’ content is too “woke” (crenshaw, 2024). educators must make diverse curriculum choices to reach all students while avoiding texts from the everexpanding list of banned books. in some schools, educators are required to use students’ preferred names, pronouns, and genders, and in others, educators must strictly adhere to the names and pronouns students’ families have listed on registration documents. according to a rand study in 2023, 25% of teachers were instructed by their school or district to limit discussion of political and social issues (doan et al., 2023). balancing this political and ideological tightrope, especially after the 2024 presidential elections and inauguration of donald trump, requires so much skill and concentration that providing meaningful learning experiences can take a backseat. because a teacher’s well-being directly impacts their ability to provide a healthy learning environment for their students (kush et al., 2022), educators must push back on external societal demands, exercising their own voice and choice to acknowledge and sustain the unique identities of their students. through action research, educators can reclaim their own voices not only to investigate the problems they face in their practice, but to dream, discover, implement, and evaluate solutions (alpert et al., 2023). armed with their own research, educators can represent their students’ needs and concerns with integrity and become part of larger conversations taking place across the country. during my nearly 25 years in education as a high school and middle school teacher, middle school lead, and now an academic advisor at a university, i have sat with students experiencing anxiety in various locations, including my classroom, school assemblies, field trips, college counselors’ offices, and hospital emergency rooms. in all these situations, i felt inadequately equipped to help my students who struggled to cope with their anxiety and pain. i wished i could do more to affect positive change. after i lost a high school student to suicide in 2019 and witnessed first-hand the effects of george floyd’s murder in 2020 in the very neighborhood where my tenth grade, historically marginalized students in the federally funded trio upward bound program (trio) lived and attended school, i knew i had to act. thus, when i read about the action research dissertation component of the education doctorate program at the university of south carolina, i applied immediately. after i was accepted, the dissertation process became my catalyst for action. writing my dissertation gave me the opportunity to investigate the problems surrounding youth anxiety, especially for lgbtq and black, indigenous, people of color (bipoc) students in the schools and programs where i worked, and frame them with critical race theory (crt), queer theory and pedagogy (qtp), and culturally sustaining pedagogy (csp). the program gave me the space, skills, and model to dream up and discover solutions, plan research procedures, and enact my research protocol to test and assess those solutions. the dissertation process also gave me the guidance and tools i needed to pivot when my teaching schedule changed mid-intervention and when my students faced the unexpected community trauma of our beloved school closing. the action research dissertation process has replaced my worry, concern, and hesitation to act with confidence in my ability to thoroughly investigate problems, research, plan, and enact solutions, and change course if circumstances change or attempted solutions are less than successful. learning the action research process gave me https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8484-5888 cronin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 40 knowledge and strategies to affect change through workable, realworld action that positively impacted my middle school english students and continues to positively affect the university students i teach and advise today. defining the problem: choosing wisely the first step in the action research process is to identify the problems present in one’s particular setting (efron & ravid, 2020). as ladson billings challenged educators at the 2024 american education research association (aera) conference in philadelphia, “stop studying the little things. study the big things!” while most educators can identify multiple problematic issues in any given setting, discerning which issues most impact the health, well-being, and learning of students and teachers is vital. next, to be effective, educators must determine which of those problems they are most likely to be able to change in a meaningful way, given their own positionality in relation to their students, faculty, staff, and setting. problems have a way of presenting themselves, and there are moments in the lives of every teacher that forever define their experiences and change their lives. my first such moment was the columbine shooting, which occurred during the spring of my first year teaching. other moments include staying overnight in the emergency room with a suicidal student until their family arrived; attending an initial counseling intake appointments with college students seeking help for depression and anxiety; listening to my minneapolis students express fear in the aftermath of george floyd’s murder as they were trapped in their homes with no groceries while fires and crowds raged outside; hearing those same students worry that they too would be pulled over and subjected to violence after they got their drivers’ licenses; being an empathetic listener as my students disclosed their sexual orientation, gender identities, and abuse in conservative, religious settings; and attending the funeral of one of my students who died by suicide. although these situations increased my empathy and understanding for my students, the action research process gave me confidence to attempt and evaluate interventions that i hope will make positive changes. toward a focused dissertation: defining the problem accurately intuitive educators often have a general sense of the problems plaguing their students, but developing appropriately specific solutions requires educators to act as researchers and accurately define the problems they wish to address. however, in the current social landscape, even definitions are becoming polarized and politicized (crenshaw, 2024). educators may need to rely on inner courage to challenge definitions and assumptions of the status quo. educators also need to have enough confidence in their observations, research, and analysis to propose new definitions when necessary. as i observed my students while planning my dissertation study, i noticed many who showed signs of anxiety but did not necessarily have a genetic disposition toward anxiety or seem to have a high number of risk factors on the adverse childhood experiences (aces) measures of personal and family trauma (hawley cronin, 2023). when i was teaching high school in a private, conservative, affluent, primarily white school, i saw black, hispanic, and lgbtq students from supportive families who suffered significant anxiety at school, but, to my knowledge, had very few aces markers. when george floyd was killed, i was teaching 10th grade composition to trio upward bound students who lived and attended school just a couple of miles away from the site of his murder. many of my students were taking driver education classes, and several black male students had a conversation with me one day about being afraid to get their driver’s licenses for fear of being pulled over by police and subjected to violence. studies show that after george floyd was killed, anxiety rates for black people rose to significantly higher rates than those for white people (fowers & wan, 2020). however, when i tried to research anxiety rates for black students before covid and george floyd, there was very little data. i also discovered that aces measures do not account for community or environmental trauma but are limited to personal and family trauma (centers for disease control and prevention, 2023). i could not find data reflecting what i thought of as identity-based anxiety, or the anxiety felt by students with black bodies in primarily white spaces. identity-based anxiety also applies to lgbtq students in conservative, heteronormative spaces, with a more ample research base (the trevor project, 2023). i used the term identity-based anxiety several times in my dissertation, and in a recent presentation, i defined it as: anxiety experienced as a result of having different defining aspects of one’s core identity than those in the dominant culture within a particular setting one must inhabit, such as school, work, or community; as distinct from genetic, situational, or trauma-based anxiety. (hawley cronin, 2024) i wrote this definition to combat educators’ tendencies to attribute student anxiety to outside factors such as genetic disposition and personal or family trauma, instead of looking for contributing factors within school systems. while identity-based anxiety may occur concurrently with other anxieties, acknowledging the role of identitybased anxiety allows educators to move away from deficit thinking and instead focus on solutions for their students. researcher positionality: practical implications for the dissertation action research also requires researchers to be mindful of their positionality within the context of the research setting. this means they must be mindful of power dynamics, hidden biases, as well as intended and unintended outcomes of researching in or near the setting where they work. when researchers are open about how their own humanity both informs and affects the research process, it lends validity to their results and encourages more open, robust dialogue (herr & anderson, 2015). as a white, middle-class, female educator, i reflect the vast majority of public school teachers in the united states (schaeffer, 2021). to collect accurate data, i needed to examine my positionality in relation to my research participants, who were my students. i needed to be open with my students about the way our different positions and life experiences made authentic research more difficult. my professors, in classes about the action research process, taught me that i needed to take responsibility to study and learn more about my students’ lived experiences as distinct from my own, and that i also needed to be humble with my students by acknowledging that, in keeping with the rumsfeld matrix (mcgregor, 2004), i did not know what i did not know. ultimately, allowing students to point out when i made mistakes or misinterpreted data was the most powerful result of acknowledging my positionality. in a trio 10th grade composition education activism through action research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 41 class that i taught the week after the january 6th capitol riots, i told my students there were lots of education researchers trying to work to make the realm of education less racist. one of my female students countered, “well, we don’t see it. we see you trying, but we don’t see that.” her words kept circling in my mind as i read my students’ journals that week and realized the capitol riots had retriggered the feelings of anxiety and hopelessness my students felt after george floyd was killed. this experience with trio students made me decide that, if i wanted the most accurate assessment of my dissertation research protocol, i needed to use student-led socratic seminars to evaluate both my intended intervention outcomes and to evaluate my students’ perceptions of the efficacy of my research design and process. as my dissertation outlines, i hoped my middle school students would effectively use skills i taught them to decrease their own anxiety, and that they would gain increased confidence through our class discussions and assignments in the culturally sustaining course content i developed (hawley cronin, 2023). in the final socratic seminars in my study, students talked about the ways they applied their new skills to their daily lives and the new mindsets they learned, as well as aspects of the research protocol that did not work well and strategies and skills they did not find helpful or actually disliked. while some of the intervention strategies were more popular with students, such as calming by coloring while listening to music, others, such as yoga, students embraced or hated depending on their individual preferences. more importantly, i learned that some of the behaviors i categorized as bullying were accepted as normal teasing or simply overlooked, especially in the younger classes. from theory to action: framing the action research dissertation as education activists, action researchers must bravely uphold theories that embrace their students’ individuality, despite threats of being reprimanded, fined, fired, or charged with felonies. when 80% of public school teachers in the united states are white and 75% are white women, but over 50% of public school students are bipoc, and over 20% are lgbtq (schaeffer, 2021; the trevor project, 2023), theories such as crt (delgado & stefancic, 2001), muslim critique (ali, 2022) and qtp (pennell, 2020) provide essential frameworks for understanding students’ experiences. justifiable problem-solving action must be grounded in theoretical expertise, whether or not that expertise is socially popular. it is not enough for education researchers to simply hypothesize or follow a hunch. the most impactful research moves effectively from theory to action. when researchers use theoretical frameworks to inform their perspectives of contextual problems, possible solutions, and intervention results, they will be more mindful of marginalized populations and better able to propose and enact meaningful change (creswell & creswell, 2018). originally, i had hoped to conduct similar interventions in both my trio upward bound classes and my classes at the predominantly white, relatively conservative, religious school where i was teaching. in both settings, i noticed anxiety seemed higher among my historically marginalized students than my white students. this observation led me to ground my research in crt, qtp, and culturally sustaining pedagogy (csp) (paris & alim, 2017). while i had hoped to evaluate the effects of using the same interventions in two different populations, partway through my doctoral program, i was promoted to middle school lead teacher and did not have time to renew my trio commitment. since crt and qtp also highlighted the experiences of my marginalized students at the middle school, i chose to continue using them as frameworks. i also chose to use csp as the basis of the curriculum portion of my intervention. because action research begins with identifying problems in a system, it inherently runs the risk of challenging the status quo. herr and anderson (2015) pointed out that: practitioners will have to make their peace with how much of a challenger of the status quo they wish to be. . . if action research is not done with a critical spirit, it runs the risk of simply legitimating what may be. . . unacceptable arrangements within schools and society. (p. 28) when i talked to teachers and administrators about working to decrease student anxiety, they often responded that i was overstepping my bounds or asked, “isn’t that the job of the school counselor or the student’s family?” i first had to establish that the shortage of counselors in u.s. schools is widespread (cratty, 2019). my private middle school was no exception, as we had an outside counselor who only came in for half the day once a week. we always needed to triage her appointments, reserving them for students with the most pressing needs, but leaving many students without access to counseling services at school. when i taught at a public middle school, students routinely had to wait 3 days before they could see the sixth-grade counselor, and when her position was cut, the sixthgrade students were divided between the seventhand eighth-grade counselors. the heart of the action research dissertation: testing solutions to become education activists, educators must not only use the unconditional positive regard they have for their students (rogers, 1957) to notice and accurately define the problems facing their students within the educational context while being mindful of their own positionality, but they must also seek solutions. action research assumes the researcher will take an action meant to correct or lessen the problems they have identified and assess whether the action was successful (herr & anderson, 2015). the primary reason i sought a doctorate from the university of south carolina was to learn how to effectively combat the anxiety i was seeing in my students. the emphasis on action research in the educational practice and innovation doctoral program and the program’s affiliation with the carnegie project on the education doctorate, dedicated to social justice, gave me hope that i would learn how to actually do something about the problems i was seeing. my hope was carried out to fruition as i worked on and completed my dissertation. because teachers are often the first point of contact for students experiencing mental health needs, i chose to use cavioni et al.’s (2020) framework of mental health promotion in schools as the framework for my intended solution. cavioni et al. argued that schools are an appropriate setting to meet students’ mental health needs and proposed a three-part, wraparound model designed to prevent and treat mental health issues at school. they suggested that, to prevent and treat impacts of poor mental health, particularly for marginalized students who often face significant barriers to accessing helpful community mental health services, educators cronin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 42 should actively build resilience, provide social–emotional learning, and cooperate with family and community resources. i used a combination of my past experiences, current empirical models, and imagination to create a two-part intervention that i hoped would decrease student anxiety in my classroom spanning grades 5–8. at first, i thought i would replicate the system of checkins and miniactivities meant to increase dopamine, serotonin, endorphin, and oxytocin that i had used in my online classes during the pandemic, but as i researched anxiety and thought about the connection between anxiety and suicidal ideation, intent, and attempts, i became convinced i needed a more robust intervention. i was thrilled to come across mazza et al.’s (2016) dbt skills in schools: skills training for emotional problem solving for adolescents (dbt steps-a). the book provides specific lessons, worksheets, and learning objectives designed for any caring adult, not necessarily a therapist, to use. since i was teaching english and social studies and did not have a class dedicated to health or social–emotional learning, i chose to simplify the dialectical behavioral therapy (dbt) lessons and use them as my class opening activities. i provided students with small notebooks to record their notes and ideas, and we began our study and practice of the four pillars of dbt: beginning with mindfulness, then moving to emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and ending with part of the unit on communication. i also revised my seventhand eighth-grade curriculum to include discussions of gender roles in shakespeare’s (n.d.) midsummer night’s dream and the role of race and ethnicity in genocidal movements throughout the world in my 7th-8th geography classes. we used allport’s (1954) ladder of prejudice and thomas’s (1972) sketches about gender roles in free to be… you and me to expand our conversations of racism, sexism, and homophobia. i hoped openly acknowledging the challenges of historically marginalized students while presenting their cultures and lifestyles as normal and accepted would also increase awareness and acceptance among white, non-marginalized students, and decrease marginalized students’ anxiety from having to constantly code-switch while having their collective histories, lifestyles, and tragedies ignored or glossed over. dissertation challenges: expect the unexpected simply getting to the point of beginning my intervention required considerable flexibility. first, the institutional review board asked me to rewrite my survey questions more than once. they did not want me to ask fifth and sixth graders specific questions about their sexuality, even though the previous year i taught a sixth-grade student who openly identified as transgender and had difficulty finding a safe space at school to change for gym class. the families of my fifthand sixth-grade students were also more conservative and less supportive of me teaching openly about gender identity, sexuality, and race. for this reason, i chose to teach the book wonder by r. j. palacio in grades 5 and 6 to discuss inclusion of students with disabilities. i reasoned many of the themes and concepts around inclusion of students with disabilities would transfer to students of other marginalized communities. the review board also only allowed me to ask the fifththrough eighth-grade students in my study to identify as male, female, or other, as opposed to including various transgender identifiers. although i was frustrated by this limitation, the simple inclusion of “other” as a choice ended up being life-changing for one of my eighth-grade students. the student was assigned male at birth, and after completing the initial survey, they came up to me and told me how glad they were that they could choose “other” because they had a lot of questions. the next day, they came into my class early and excitedly told me they had gone home and told their mom they thought they might be transgender, and their mom said they would have to wait until they were 18 to change their name, but they could start experimenting with wearing different clothes. the student was noticeably calmer, and their mood was lighter for the rest of the year. i also had several conversations with their mother, who expressed thanks that her child was able to find support and acceptance at school. another aspect of my study that required me to be flexible was participant recruitment. although participation was high among my students in grades 5–7, because my research study was optional, several of the more popular eighth-grade students opted out. initially, i was disappointed, as several of these students were class leaders whose participation i hoped would be instrumental in creating a more inclusive class climate. however, as the study continued, i saw some of my quieter eighth-grade boys open up during class discussions and the socratic seminar. they shared some of their experiences of being bullied and exploring their sexuality that they may not have been comfortable sharing in the presence of the students who opted out of the study. i also had to pivot partway through the study and readjust the method of my study design. after our physical education teacher left unexpectedly, my principal and our administrative team decided to shift from hour-long classes to block scheduling in order to alleviate scheduling issues. as the middle school lead teacher, i supported this change, yet it created a whole set of complications for my research. i ended up team-teaching an afternoon health and wellness class for grades 7–8. thanks to the support of my principal, i used that time once a week to teach dbt lessons for my intervention, instead of continuing to use the dbt lessons as warmups in my english and geography classes. the new schedule benefitted the class because we were able to do more extended projects, such as creating emergency mental health “grounding” toolkits for students to keep in their backpacks. they filled their toolkits with objects such as mints, playdoh, and fidgets they made by filling a clean sock with rice and essential oils. the challenge with the new schedule was that i had to find a space and activities for the eighth-grade students who had opted out of the study. thankfully, my principal was supportive and allowed those students to partner with our building and grounds team for mentorship and service projects around the school during my intervention days. another unexpected event became a confounding factor in my study. the school was supported and largely funded by an adjoining church that was struggling with membership after the pandemic. in the fall, church staff accidentally sent a notice that they were considering closing the school to an email list that included seventh and eighth-grade students. my students received the notice in the middle of the school day, before the school board or parents had been notified. this shocked families and students as the church had assured everyone they were financially viable just a few months earlier. the potential school closing became a major source of anxiety for students, families, and staff for the next 6 months. in march, student and staff anxiety increased again after the church board voted to close the school, causing students and staff to focus education activism through action research impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 43 on finding new schools and positions for the next school year, instead of focusing on the end of the current academic year. the school closing clouded my ability to differentiate between community trauma and identity-based anxiety. this confounding variable led me to design-based improvement science (hinnant-crawford, 2020), as i explain further in my discussion of becoming a reflective practitioner. action research requires researchers to accurately record and report what happens in their interventions, paying special attention to their participants’ own words (herr & anderson, 2015). teaching and taking notes at the same time was difficult, so i relied heavily on my students’ journal entries. i always begin journals on the first day of class, so students were very comfortable and proficient with this medium. i also received permission from my students and their families to videotape the final socratic seminars. i used a transcription service to produce word-for-word scripts of each seminar. i was able to watch the videos several times and pick up nuances in students’ communication that i would have missed had i only seen the seminar once as a live observer. completing the dissertation: becoming a reflective practitioner rereading journals and rewatching videos are essential aspects of the reflective process; and are some of the most beneficial and equally frustrating aspects of action research. in addition, changing circumstances, confounding variables, and unexpected outcomes are all opportunities for learning and development as competent practitioners. i found that i often did not know what i did not know until i observed and interacted with my classes through the lens of an action researcher. in addition, i realized there were portions of the study i could have planned or executed more effectively, which led me to explore design-based improvement to evaluate practical aspects of my study (hawley cronin, 2023). for example, i underestimated the amount of time middle school students would need to complete many of the intervention projects. i also underestimated the level of interest my students would have in learning practical dbt skills such as recognizing that people cannot read your mind or using mindfulness and distress tolerance strategies to improve a moment that is unlikely to get better on its own. although students had mixed feelings about various portions of the intervention, grades 5–7 voted to continue the intervention protocol even after i concluded data collection, because they wanted to finish the unit on healthy communication. ideally, however, i would have planned the lessons more accurately so that we finished all of them within the intervention timeline. design-based improvement analysis also highlighted problems with my survey. in retrospect, i would have aligned the preand post questions more clearly so the graphs of the results would have been more comparable. i also wish i had sent out a questionnaire revision asking students about their levels of anxiety regarding the potential, and then the reality, of the school closing as a way to disaggregate the data regarding students’ anxiety due to school closing and students’ identity-based anxiety (hawley cronin, 2024). my action research results also led naturally to design-based policy analysis (hinnant-crawford, 2020). through my research, i realized many students did not experience the classroom as a safe place to be themselves, which contributed to their overall anxiety. i had difficulty changing my classroom atmosphere on my own because i was relatively new, and the school was so small that students were in basically the same groupings all day. unconditional positive regard (rogers, 1956) is essential for students to thrive, but this needs to come from both their teachers and their peers. for this reason, my principal and i began working on revising the outdated bullying and harassment policy, but nothing came of our work since the school closed. however, this is the heart of action research. if we take our research and change reality positively for just one student, we have done something worthwhile, but how much better would it be to change reality for a class, a school, a district, or a community? defending the dissertation: practice for the real world educators know all too well that new initiatives, programs, curriculum, and methods must earn the approval of committees, teams, administrators, and even school boards. defending an action research dissertation is a high-stakes trial run at presenting a concise overview of a problem and proposed solution(s), supporting them with evidence, and fielding questions from a diverse audience. preparing for the defense and defending the dissertation are both valuable experiences that educators can use to hone and refine their voices as they advocate for real-world solutions to the problems they encounter. i spent the month before my defense giving my 20-minute dissertation overview to anyone who would listen and answering their questions. i heard responses from a wide variety of perspectives, from teenagers and their parents in school systems from minnesota to south carolina, to educators in public and private schools, and to my graduate school cohort. these listeners helped me to refine my presentation, whether they were timing me and tallying the number of times i said “umm,” or asking deep, complicated questions about the role of teachers in combating rising anxiety in students across the nation. as a woman in education working under primarily male administrators, i have not always felt listened to or like my input was respected, even though i come from privilege and have a long tradition of education in my family. practicing my defense ahead of time and then actually defending my dissertation against my committee gave me much more confidence to present ideas in high-stakes situations. next steps: post-dissertation implications for action becoming an education activist means that we take what we learn and use it to transform our own teaching and inform others. although the primary goal of action research is to change a practitioners’ own setting as opposed to providing a replicable experimental design for other researchers, efron and ravid (2020) argue that action research can be instrumental in helping practitioners enact social change. similarly, herr and anderson (2015) argue that knowledge gained in action research is often transferable to other settings and contexts. i have used not only the action research process, but my research content itself in my role as an academic advisor in the center for academic success and achievement at the university where i work. i presented a session at my state’s college professional association conference to help instructors and staff in higher education explore the impact of identity-based anxiety within cronin impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 4 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.579 44 secondary learning environments as it carries over into challenges faced by marginalized students as they enter college (hawley cronin, 2024). in addition, i often suggest dbt skills and strategies that i taught in my intervention protocol to distressed students who are meeting with me, or who have disclosed that they deal with some type of anxiety, while also making them aware of the services provided at the university counseling center. last fall, when i taught a first-year seminar for incoming freshmen, i chose to focus on representations of mental health and mental illness in popular media. this idea stemmed from my dissertation research, where i discovered that white students are diagnosed with anxiety at twice the rate of black students, but black students are diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disturbance at twice the rate of white students (alegria et al., 2010; minnesota department of education, 2018). teachers often think of anxiety in terms of a flight or freeze response, where students appear quiet, reticent, and isolated. however, teachers often attribute the fight response to anxiety to causes such as aggression, oppositional defiance, emotional disturbance, or personal or family trauma, instead of identity-based anxiety. although personal or family trauma may be contributing factors some of the time, black students are highly overrepresented in numbers of students with emotional behavior disturbance, especially considering the rising rates of anxiety, suicidal ideation, attempts, and death by suicide in bipoc students overall (sheftall et al., 2022). as i thought about where these ideas and stereotypes come from, i started to wonder about representations of mental illness in popular television shows, movies, and music, and whether these portrayals increase helpful awareness of mental health conditions or add to harmful stereotypes. i decided to have my first-year seminar students research a mental health condition of their choice, write a critical review of a television show, movie, or music album that features a character or artist with the same condition, and create a public service announcement increasing positive awareness of the condition that they can post on youtube, tiktok, or instagram, or portray through a zine or comic that they distribute on campus. the final projects were humorous, poignant, compelling, and insightful. from here to beyond: life after the action research dissertation the process of writing an action research dissertation not only helps researchers identify, define, and frame problems, and hypothesize and test solutions; it also helps researchers become experts in the most current thinking and programming available to address aspects of their problem of practice. reading other research and learning what has been done in other contexts is a vital piece of addressing problems of practice in researchers’ individual contexts. whether an educator adopts a program to try in their own setting, builds an intervention based on parts of several programs, or creates an entirely new model meant to address gaps in available solutions, basing interventions on current research gives educators more tools to place in their toolkit. this can help them respond more quickly and specifically to problems similar to the problem they investigated. this knowledge can also provide the type of current expertise school systems often require in order to try or adopt a new solution or initiative. one of the initiatives i found promising in my research was the coffee, hip-hop, and mental health (chhmh) model (pablo, 2020). years ago, a coffee shop opened in chicago dedicated to normalizing therapy, using profits to fund therapy for underserved clients, and using the space during off hours for therapists to lead discussions on hip-hop through mental health lenses as a more accessible means of delivering group therapy. this model would work in high school common areas and cafeterias, coffee shops on or near college campuses, and in underserved communities. recently, a store owner in my community asked me to consider piloting two or three after-hours groups at a local bakery and to write a business plan for what a coffee shop similar to chhmh might look like in the twin cities. i have wanted to visit chhmh in chicago for years and would love to make a connection there. over the course of writing my dissertation, i have made many contacts in the twin cities who have the training and expertise to address anxiety and mental health needs for all community members, and specifically for bipoc and lgbtq populations. the possibility of replicating the chhmh model is an exciting outgrowth of writing my action research dissertation that i hope bears fruit and positively impacts my community in the future. continuing the work: a call to action while i doubt many educators would be excited to write yet another dissertation, i think most would agree that our work is far from done. writing and defending an action research dissertation not only can give educators confidence to apply the action research process in new situations and contexts but also can give educators hope that the field of education is neither static nor merely subject to forces beyond our control. rather, we can use principles from action research to investigate, research, and frame problems, as well as create, execute, and assess a variety of possible solutions. this process feels familiar, as educators engage in a micro version of it almost daily, when we realize a lesson or interaction needs a modification or change if we want our students to achieve our intended outcomes. at the 2024 aera conference, ladson-billings charged educators not to become complacent, and instead of asking “why me?” ask, “why not me?” after all, we never know how far-reaching our actions may be. tim walz, the governor of my state, minnesota, started as a social studies teacher and football coach, became the advisor for the gay–straight alliance at his school, and ran for public office at his students’ urging. as the governor, he signed laws guaranteeing free breakfast and lunch for all minnesota public school students (minnesota department of education, 2024), and free college tuition at state colleges for low-income families, and he was the democratic nominee for vice-president (karnowski & hanna, 2024). although walz and harris lost the election and the american education landscape is rapidly changing, we can take walz’s example to heart. armed with confidence from well-executed action research, both within and beyond dissertations, we can, and must, use our voices as educators to advocate for our students and each other as we move toward workable solutions to even the most pressing real-world problems in education. references alegria m, vallas m, pumariega, aj. 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(2023, may). research brief: the relationship between caring teachers and the mental health of lgbtq students. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/the-relationshipbetween-caring-teachers-and-the-mental-health-of-lgbtq-students/ https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2022.2103112 https://doi.org/10.1177/14767503221143872 https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/55039 https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/ptsd.html https://edtrust.org/resource/school-counselors-matter/ https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/7421 https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/rra1108-8.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/rra1108-8.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/12/mental-health-george-floyd-census/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/12/mental-health-george-floyd-census/ https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-harris-vice-president-walz-minnesota-006bca6e18be7ce39ef4bfd97547c3b5 https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-harris-vice-president-walz-minnesota-006bca6e18be7ce39ef4bfd97547c3b5 https://www.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x221134281 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1326095/ http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/lrl.asp https://resto.newcity.com/2020/10/28/a-cup-of-vulnerability-coffee-hip-hop-and-mental-health/ https://resto.newcity.com/2020/10/28/a-cup-of-vulnerability-coffee-hip-hop-and-mental-health/ https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14625-2_103 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045357 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045357 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045357 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/10/americas-public-school-teachers-are-far-less-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-than-their-students/ https://myshakespeare.com/midsummer-nights-dream/act-1-scene-1 https://myshakespeare.com/midsummer-nights-dream/act-1-scene-1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.08.021 https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/the-relationship-between-caring-teachers-and-the-mental-health-of-lgbtq-students/ https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/the-relationship-between-caring-teachers-and-the-mental-health-of-lgbtq-students/ erin hawley cronin hamline university defining the problem: choosing wisely toward a focused dissertation: defining the problem accurately researcher positionality: practical implications for the dissertation from theory to action: framing the action research dissertation the heart of the action research dissertation: testing solutions dissertation challenges: expect the unexpected completing the dissertation: becoming a reflective practitioner defending the dissertation: practice for the real world next steps: post-dissertation implications for action from here to beyond: life after the action research dissertation continuing the work: a call to action references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 104 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 why cped needs a philosophy in practice peter j. nelsen appalachian state university nelsenpj@appstate.edu matthew thomas-reid appalachian state university reidma@appstate.edu abstract the authors employ a philosophical approach to model why a philosophy in practice dissertation has value in the context of edd programs. through literature review and philosophical analysis, the authors interrogate binary oppositions implicit in the discussion of theory, research, and practice. the authors out what the philosophy in practice dissertation might look like and finally consider challenges and implications for cped & member programs. keywords cped dissertation in practice (dip), philosophy, educational philosophy research, practice, and theory: investigating the binaries because of a decades-long struggle to distinguish between phd and edd degree-granting programs, since 2007 the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) has attempted to bring clarity and coherence to the edd degree (perry et al., 2020). as many have noted, common understanding frames the edd as focusing on issues of practice whereas the phd focuses on research. at the same time, critics often assert that students have been largely prepared in similar fashions in both degree programs, arguing that many edd and phd programs offer students coursework based on the same research methods. as a result, edd students are often encouraged to replicate phd-type research projects, effectively obfuscating the edd/phd distinction. cped has attempted to bring clarity to the edd’s uniqueness by offering a framework that guides edd programs to help students ground research in real-world problems that make real, lasting, educational change, especially change focused on equity and social justice. while we see cped’s efforts as both laudable and important, we worry that some of the details of the cped framework inadvertently undermine the very aims that cped seeks to achieve: helping edd researchers engage in high quality projects that result in significant change. we are drawn to the assertion that “teaching and learning are grounded in theory, research, and in problems of practice” (https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework), and while this listing might appear to be noncontroversial, we suggest that it, and others like it within the cped framework, demonstrate a subtle but important underwriting belief about the nature of applied research: theoretical or philosophical research is a separate endeavor to that of ‘real’ research. more than a mere semantic point, we assert that this apparent division between theory and research undercuts cped’s ability to reach its own stated aims. if cped wants to inspire equitable educational change, it must include philosophical analysis within its framework. furthermore, we argue that they cannot achieve their aims without teaching the skills of philosophical analysis. we believe this tension presents an opportunity for growth and change: rather than framing theoretical or philosophical research as a separate endeavor from that of “practical” research, we see an opportunity to apply theory to problems of practice to provide cped with another potential tool to inspire equitable educational change. before continuing, let us address what we presume to be an initial fear at the outset of this discussion: we are not arguing that edd programs should prepare doctoral students to become philosophers of education. instead, we will outline what we are provisionally describing as ‘philosophy in practice’ – a form of philosophical research specifically aimed at meeting the applied and real-world change-focused efforts of cped’s edd framework. further, we will differentiate social research ‘theory’ from philosophical research. we do so to emphasize that the research method we are proposing remains solidly focused on cped’s aim to inspire students to engage with real-world problems to make tangible change. the term also delineates itself from philosophy of education dissertations. while many of those are interdisciplinary, philosophy of education is itself a distinct academic field, one which the american educational research association (aera) recognizes as included in “humanities-oriented research in education,” and has developed clear standards of reporting (aera, 2009, p. 481-482). while many philosophy of education research projects are focused on questions that have practical implications for teaching and learning, that is not necessarily a requirement. a ‘philosophy in practice’ dissertation, though, would be one that would most likely be interdisciplinary, one that, by definition, uses the resources of philosophical research to engage real-world problems. these projects would most likely also engage with empirical research and the real perspectives of practitioners. the central focus, then, would be to engage in enough https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://cped.memberclicks.net/the-framework https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0290-3065 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2603-0974 nelsen & thomas-reid impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 105 philosophical analysis to bring a new understanding to a practical situation, a new understanding that would then guide and result in significant educational change. this is not philosophical research that builds upon philosophical questions to advance philosophical understanding. instead, the philosophy in practice research project would always be focused on using the tools of philosophy to make real-world change. in what follows, we will expand upon this conceptual framing by beginning with the ways that philosophical research and the theoretical work within social science research traditions are both similar and significantly different. in this comparison, we will also discuss common misperceptions about philosophical research. we then demonstrate what a philosophy-in-practice approach might entail through an exploration of the ways that the current cped framework subtly and, we presume, unintentionally pits philosophical research against other forms of inquiry. we then offer examples of what philosophy-in-practice dissertation projects might entail by discussing existing work that we consider to be clear exemplars of philosophy in practice and then outline how a potential philosophy-in-practice dissertation might be structured. we conclude by drawing some implications for cped and member edd programs. as previously noted, there is a growing body of literature that attempts to distinguish edd programs from phd programs, and the overwhelming consensus is that the edd should be practitionerfocused while phd programs should typically have a greater emphasis on conducting research (peña alfaro 2023; demartino & renn 2023, p. 30; fertman 2018, p. 51; hawkins and martin 2022, p. 53). given the suggestion by foster et al. (2023) that there are still unresolved questions around the differences between the two programs, we would like to trouble in particular the perceptions of philosophy and its relevance for practitioners in the context of edd programs by providing some context for the difference between theory in social research and a philosophical methodology. even while acknowledging that “edd programs need to be distinguished from phd programs and more relevant to preparing educational leaders,” there is a question of method that comes up when considering what skills might have value for educational leaders (capello, 2023, p. 37). what methodological skills are relevant for educational leaders? when focusing on problems in practice versus more formal social research, are methodological elements related to theory to be eschewed? keeping in mind that there is significant literature to suggest that edd students’ dissertations should address problems in practice, it is worth considering what assumptions we are making about the methods, skills, and dispositions that are available to edd students to address these practical real-world situations (peña alfaro 2023; demartino & renn 2023, ezzani & paufler 2018; kramer, 2022). we believe that something is missing in the binarization of “research” and “practical” that can be fleshed out through different modes of inquiry. because broad categories such as ‘research’ and ‘theory’ often inform distinctions between what might be practical or impractical for educational leaders, we seek to position philosophical methodology as distinct from theory as it is typically considered in educational research contexts: we argue that a philosophical dissertation can effectively address problems in practice. presenting edd students with the classic broad research methodological binary of qualitative versus quantitative fetishes the collection of data, whether it be numerical or language-based as being necessary for making change. doing so presupposes a model of change that requires the collection of data as the pivot point around which all change happens. to be clear, we do believe that collecting data can and does lead to effective change-making projects. our point, though, is that the focus on numerical and language-based data collection is itself too narrow. change can and does happen when we think about or understand a problem in novel ways. separating theory from social research while there is much discussion of bridging theory and practice and how theory can be useful to the scholar-practitioner, we want to understand specifically how edd candidates might use theory to develop new knowledge outside of traditional social research schemas (ezzani & paufler 2018, p. 15; flood 2024, p. 31). the irony that begins to emerge in the literature discussing alternatives to traditional dissertations is that these often include a departure from theory and are still rooted primarily in the collection of data (hurst, 2023; kochhar-bryant, 2017). referencing the educational sciences reform act, language like “systematic,” “objective,” and “reliable,” tends to suggest that ‘practitioner-based’ approaches ought to be synonymous with methodologies that rely heavily on the collection of data, such as improvement science (kochhar-bryant, 2017, p. 8). in particular, we are drawn to the recommendation to focus on “practicality versus perception,” and its implications for alternative dissertations that do not include some manner of data collection (foster et al, 2023, p. 19). we suggest it is possible to frame “perception” as a concrete epistemological method deeply connected to equity and social justice that scholar-practitioners could operationalize to address problem of practice. capello et al. (2023) suggest that edd candidates should have the “ability to inquire into problems of practice,” but this leaves open the question of what it might mean to ‘inquire’ (p. 1). new methodologies and modalities are emerging each year, from artsbased approaches to collaborative dissertations, but as previously mentioned, most of these emerging forms seem to share a reliance on some version of ‘data,’ even when the projects claim to be moving away from traditional research methods (friend and militello, 2015; hash, 2022, p. 30; hooser et al 2023 p. 9; (kramer, 2022, p. 22). at this point, it is worth remembering that even words like ‘data’ have operationalized meanings that tend to be rooted in particular theoretical traditions, and improvement science language including phrases like ‘management by fact’ and ‘data-driven decisions’ could tacitly delegitimize other modes of knowledge production (hash, 2022, p. 30). “facts” and “data” have been used as weapons to further oppression of marginalized groups stretching back over a century, most notably with the very concept of “assessment” rooted in eugenics (cauthen, 2018). what other framing do we have available, then? students are often taught research designs focused exclusively on the collection of data in some form. for example, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research designs all focus on data collection (hurst, 2023, p. 60). when the edd-focused literature frames inquiry projects that do not include the collection of empirical data, it references them as either consisting of forms of textual analysis or as humanities-oriented (philosophical) studies. because they are framed as extraneous to real-world change, these ‘other’ modes of research are often left out of the curriculum. it is then not surprising that students who want to pursue such research routes often struggle to make sense of their projects in the context of such value being placed on methods that involve ‘data collection’ (hurst, 2023; hash, 2020). why cped needs a philosophy in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 106 while we typically associate the notion of data and data collection as empirical, we are consciously resisting binary thinking and eschewing the term “non-empirical” to categorize philosophical research. the american educational research association (aera) explicitly states the opposite in their standards for reporting on humanities-oriented research, pointing out that because this research “seeks to examine the role of education in human existence through experience and observation, aera deems the approach empirical” (p. 482). we contend that there is a problem with the binary framing of empirical and non-empirical in philosophical studies because depending on the theoretical tradition these projects could run the gamut from more traditionally empirical disciplines to phenomenology, existentialism, or poststructuralism, which do not live as neatly within the broader concept of ‘empiricism.’ for the remainder of the paper, we choose to use “philosophy” because the concept “non-empirical” does tend to, at least rhetorically, devalue and diminish the practicality of this approach. with that framing, theoretical thinking as a research method can take a variety of forms, and it is important to note that philosophical inquiry does bear resemblance to what st. pierre refers to as a “postqualitative” approach. even though philosophical inquiry and postqualitative methods are not synonymous, there are significant similarities between the two as they both use conceptual inquiry (st. pierre, 2017, p. 686). principally, post-qualitative research engages in theoretical work; it seeks to deconstruct the notion of method from a post-structural perspective. while similar, philosophical inquiry might be thought of as a slightly wider umbrella, offering theoretical methods coming from a range of conceptual schools of thought to conduct practice-focused philosophical research. regardless of the differences between post-qualitative research and philosophical research, there’s enough overlap for us to conclude that they share a significant family resemblance. furthermore, that point itself – that post-qualitative research projects can be viewed as examples of how philosophical research can exist within edd programs – itself proves our main point: philosophical research is a viable choice for scholars seeking to make real-world change and should be included formally within edd research methods offerings. theoretical framework versus philosophical inquiry in social sciences research, the word theory has a particular operational connotation that does differ slightly from how the word theory might be used in philosophical research. as opposed to social science research where theory usually characterized the assumptions about epistemology and ontology that inform a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods study, in philosophical research, the theory is the methodology. with this in mind, we would like to frame theory as capable of being separated from social science research, moving theory beyond research paradigms to its own method within a study. philosophical dissertations would seem to meet a particular need, given that “...we do not have extensive literature from edd programs demonstrating how we are guiding our students to understand and transform practice through the application of theory” (hurst, 2023, p. 59). we suggest that a productive move would be to shift from thinking about theory as solely framing research designs to considering philosophy itself as a source for guiding and conducting practice-focused inquiry. while we see theory and philosophy as generally synonymous, it seems clear that operationally the term theory is used more often in the edd literature, specifically about concepts as they apply to social research (hurst, 2023; kennedy et al, 2018; kochhar-bryant 2017). there seems to be some cross-disciplinary confusion around the terms theory and philosophy, which is often complicated by the use of the same vocabulary in each, in particular the usage of terms like ontology, axiology, and epistemology (lee-johnson, 2023, p. 4445). in contrast, some terms have significantly different meanings across philosophy and social theory, for example, the term “pragmatic” within research methodology might refer to an approach to research design, while in philosophy it would most likely reference a school of thought and thinkers like rorty and dewey (hurst, 2023, p. 60). to be clear, the two uses are not synonymous. in reading hurst (2023) there is another difference between theory in the context of social research and philosophical inquiry and that is how paradigms are classified and described as fixed categories (p. 60). hurst (2023) also references colleen capper’s (2019) theoretical classifications which have great value for the practitioner and researcher. these are somewhat oversimplified for the benefit of survey course style understanding, which capper well understands and admits to in her text (p. 3). while we are not arguing against the social science framing of theory within their research tradition, the downside to the “theoretical menu” approach is that it allows for some reification and oversimplification of philosophical categories. for example, was judith butler a critical theorist, queer theorist, or phenomenological theorist? was michel foucault a post-structural philosopher, critical historian, or writer of genealogies? was john dewey a pragmatist or a constructivist? the study of philosophy allows for ambiguity and focuses on the concepts thinkers develop rather than pushing their work into fixed disciplinary categories. in contrast, we read social science paradigms as more about positioning the research and the researcher “in'' a theoretical category than considering how to use philosophical ideas to actually “do” something. the turn to philosophical research asks how one might ‘do’ or operationalize theory rather than considering paradigms in terms of where we dwell. we posit that this positional shift from a ‘theoretical paradigm’ to a philosophical method could be a useful move toward making theory relevant in a practitioner context. rather than being a mere semantic shift, the focus on philosophical method opens us to engaging in a wider range of research projects otherwise hidden by the framing. what we are proposing here thus increases the possibilities for helping edd students engage in real-world change. how practical is a philosophy in practice dissertation? in this section, we seek to make the last assertion clear by exploring reasons one might choose philosophical research in an edd program. to do so, we focus on the work of the philosopher nel noddings. while in the second half of the paper, we will provide a model for a potential philosophy in practice dissertation, for now, we turn to reasons one might choose a philosophy in practice dissertation. doing so builds upon sroka’s (2021) point that with a myriad of contemporary challenges to collecting empirical data, doctoral students ought to consider novel approaches to dissertation research (p. 21-22). though philosophical approaches are certainly not novel per se, they are certainly an answer to the problem of data collection around certain problems of practice. a second reason for considering a philosophical dissertation is that it addresses the dual realities of the difficulty of getting irb approval and finding participants in more controversial studies (kramer, 2022, p. 21). there are questions rooted in problems of nelsen & thomas-reid impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 107 practice that might not work with traditional studies because of the reticence of participants or even the recent emergence of legal restrictions in several states around engaging students in research on controversial topics. from such laws spring additional concerns about the safety of faculty and staff discussing their experiences which might make irb approval difficult for certain studies that would not be a hindrance in a philosophical study. philosophical dissertations are exempt from irb and free researchers from the ethical constraints of safety for participants and fears around legal restrictions. in short, philosophical dissertations benefit from the privilege of academic freedom and protect researchers from engaging with the constraints of research restrictions which can be used as tools to stymie and prevent research projects that threaten traditional power structures. a third consideration is that philosophical inquiry supports dissertation students by offering them latitude to move past more what might be conceived as formulaic dissertation options to foster independent and critical thinking (shaw et al 2024, p. 21). this is not to suggest that traditional dissertations do not create space for critical thought, but it has been noted that edd students often don’t see how theoretical ideas relate to their practice, and this may well be a barrier to critical reflection and philosophical growth (hurst, 2023, p. 59). for example, hurst (2023) reports that some edd students hold the perception that theory, at least as it is traditionally presented in the context of social theory, is not relevant to the practitioner (p. 59). further hurst (2023) points out that edd students “rarely apply theoretical knowledge to practice settings” (p. 59). building on this, philosophical inquiry can help edd researchers develop the practical skills of applying theory to practice and articulating clearly the epistemological and ontological basis for current knowledge claims. a fourth point connected to the third is that educational leaders and change agents are constantly drawing upon conceptual ideas in their work, and the study of applied philosophy would help them to develop deeper and critical understanding of the concepts that animate their daily work. for example, practitioners are asked to develop and interact with policies and documents that have theoretical commitments such as conceptual frameworks, mission and vision statements, policy statements, and other reports and documents created to meet accreditation standards and to inform the daily practice of educational institutions. when we make conceptual commitments as leaders, as teachers, and as organizations, then there are real-world consequences that can and, we suggest here, should follow. this is another clear reason we argue that edd students should have the opportunity to develop critical philosophical research skills. if graduates cannot link conceptual commitments to equity and diversity to practical outcomes in the world, then they will not be able to make the vital change efforts we and cped believe to be necessary. in the fifth and final justification for the philosophical dissertation, we turn to political philosophy and a concept that adrian walsh (2020) refers to as the immunity thesis (p. 445). in “on the necessarily non-empirical nature of political philosophy,” walsh writes about the distinction between political philosophy and political science which has relevance in the context of the comparison of educational/social sciences and educational philosophy (walsh, 2020, p. 445). the argument is developed through the claim that there are “non-trivial” questions that cannot be solved through empirical studies and yet need to be addressed (walsh, 2020, p. 445). the problems that cannot be solved through empirical study are cast by walsh as being ‘immune’ to resolution through empirical means (walsh, 2020, p. 449). these are problems that, for example, require the application of a particular set of values (axiology), a particular assumption about how knowledge is produced (epistemology), or the nature of being (ontology). in each case, the problems cannot be addressed by traditional empirical social science research. a wide range of real-world “problems of practice” are often eschewed as being unapproachable because social sciences do not have the methods with which to address what are essentially philosophical questions. thus matters related to ethics, faith, the nature of being, virtues, and the like are often met with resistance. walsh contends that even when social sciences attempt to address these ‘immune’ questions, they often come up short: [w]hen empirically-oriented theorists claim to have solved one of these genuinely non-empirical fundamentally philosophical questions, they do so either by smuggling in non-empirical material or, as p.f. strawson once elegantly made the point, by ‘changing the subject’ (strawson 1963). according to the immunity thesis, problems in political philosophy cannot be solved fully or adequately responded to using empirical scientific methods alone. (p. 449). of course, social science research in education does not so much ‘smuggle in’ non-empirical material as it does acknowledge the theoretical assumptions, or paradigm that the study resides in (kennedy et al 2018; hurst 2023; lee-johnson, 2023). in this way, educational research rooted in the social sciences first acknowledges the study’s assumptions about the nature of reality, and then asks questions of practice, while philosophical inquiry asks questions about how assumptions about the nature of reality influence the very questions that we might ask. outlining the philosophy in practice a philosophy in practice analysis of the cped framework careful reading of cped documents reveals that the approach to the edd outlined in the cped framework intertwines both beliefs about knowledge and the moral responsibility of educational researchers. we discover that researchers have an “...obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals” (the cped framework, 2024). note that there are two parts to this obligation: to focus on practical, change-focused problems and to do so in collaboration with diverse stakeholders who are involved in or impacted by the problem and any resulting change efforts. furthermore, cped asserts that there is an identifiable and teachable body of knowledge that emerges from both research and “practical knowledge.” we see in this language an opportunity to address a potential limitation to promoting equity and justice within the cped framework by blurring two critical binaries. first, there is the separation of academic and practical knowledge, and second, there is the separation of theory from research. building upon the previous discussion of the practical nature of philosophy, let us now trouble the separation of academic and practical knowledge particularly in the context of promoting social justice. we first must express that a focus on real-world problems, especially ones involving equity and social justice, resonates with our commitments as educators and researchers. our critique here is why cped needs a philosophy in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 108 meant to support doing that work with even greater precision and success. with that acknowledgment, the framing of academic knowledge as separate from practical knowledge furthers the rift between both theory and practice as well as the academy from the school practitioner. the potentially problematic element here is that this split obfuscates the fact that theory always informs practice, and this is how white, european, colonial ideas continue to dominate epistemological and ontological assumptions that guide practitioners (lee-johnson, 2023, p. 44-45). in this way, time and time again lived experience, especially that of marginalized individuals, becomes silenced by ‘data.’ this dynamic has been explored within multiple aspects of identity and is especially salient when considering the dynamics of racism and sexism (capper, 2019). given the rich traditions in both critical race and feminist theories that take up this important concept, equipping practitioner-researchers with the philosophical skills to focus on that lived experiential knowledge aligns with a commitment to equity and social justice. next, we turn our attention to the binary of theory as separate from research. that framing itself seems to rest upon an assumption that work done to understand theory or philosophy is itself not research. we have more in mind here than some sort of semantic slight. the frame leads researchers to believe that philosophical work is distinct and separate from practical and real research, research that results in the collection of some form of data that then can be used to make real-world change. we trouble this bifurcation not just because we believe that philosophical inquiry is legitimate research in its own right, but because the dichotomy closes off lines of research that could help cped reach its aims. philosophical research can be practical. it can lead to a specific, action-focused change in real-world contexts. we have in mind a form of philosophical analysis that doesn’t require decades of experience training as a philosopher. instead, we believe that edd doctoral researchers can be supported to develop the skills of philosophical inquiry that can be used to understand and analyze problems of practice to create change-focused ideas that can support cped’s call for making real-world change. to make that clear, we suggest the working title of this sort of edd dissertation research be called ‘philosophy in practice.’ the details are important, so in the next section, we explore what we mean by philosophy in practice through some examples. applied philosophy: an example one paradigmatic example of how philosophical research can influence actual change in the real world is nel noddings’s popular text, the challenge to care in schools (1992, 2005). after an introductory chapter, in the second chapter noddings outlines an approach to moral education predicated upon the lived experiences of women. these beginning sections summarize and further develop noddings’s original conception of caring from two previous books and across several articles while also translating the philosophy of an ethic of care to an educational context. while a full exegesis of her moral theory is beyond the scope of this article, in brief, noddings outlines an approach to morality that shifts the discussion from focusing on justice (i.e. criteria for determining right vs. wrong) to enhancing caring relationships. noddings grounds her theory in a relational ontology predicated upon the observation that our original and primary world orientation is that of being in relation with others: “just as relation is ontologically basic, the caring relation is viewed as ethically basic, as well as a moral achievement” (diller, 1996, p. 91) in practice, then, the ethic of care challenges educators to ask this fundamental question: “how can caring relationships best be sustained or created in this particular case?” (diller, 1996, p. 94). once noddings has established her definition of the ethic of care, she then engages in a series of applied philosophy thought experiments in which she brings her conception of caring into conversation with specific educational topics. in each case, she draws direct relationships between her analysis and implications for practice. she explores (1) curriculum continuity, (2) self-care for students and teachers, (3) student, family, and community relationships, (4) implications for strangers and distant others, (5) the environment, (6) technology and human-made objects, and (7) intellect and ideas. she concludes with a summary of how to get started with infusing the ethic of care in schools (noddings 1992, 1995). throughout the text, noddings engages in applied philosophical analysis. again, we’re advocating for a type of philosophical work that is always focused on application, and noddings’s work is a clear example of what this looks like in practice. for example, we find noddings engaging in a detailed interweaving of philosophical work with everyday analysis of practical, school-based examples and implications for how educational practice would change as a result of working with her philosophical ideas. that warrants emphasizing: she focuses on how her philosophical ideas would result in realworld change in educational practice throughout the text. for example: “my alternative vision suggests an entirely different organization of schooling. …if it were possible to redesign education along the lines of our alternative vision, we would see children studying, discussing, exploring matters, and doing things in their various centers of care. teachers would work with all children on topics of general concern and with small groups of children on more specialized subjects” (noddings 1992, 61). to be clear, we’re not advocating for noddings’s conception of education (although we find her ideas to be intriguing.) instead, we’re suggesting that this real philosophical work is an example of our conception of philosophy in practice… a way to engage in philosophical analysis that keeps its focus on the implications for how to engage in creating schools and engaging in teaching. noddings does this in other texts as well. for example, in critical lessons: what our schools should teach, she offers a definition of critical thinking that she then applies to what would have to change in the curriculum if taken seriously. likewise, in education and democracy in the 21st century, she draws upon john dewey’s philosophical work to challenge readers to rethink the links between theoretical commitments to democratic principles and the potential resulting implications for public schooling. we could continue to offer more examples from her vast body of work, but we will stop here because we hope the point is clear. we are arguing for a type of philosophical analysis that engages in both philosophical analysis and exploration of what would change as a result in real-world contexts. while noddings presents us with a set of clear examples, other philosophers have and continue to engage in similar sorts of projects. for example, in understanding equal educational opportunity: social justice, democracy, and schooling (1997), ken howe outlines a conception of equality of educational opportunity and then goes on to explore the implications for real-world educational policies having to do with gender, multiculturalism, segregation, testing, and school choice. current educational philosopher sarah stitzlein also writes books that define important nelsen & thomas-reid impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 109 educational concepts such as dissent (2015), hope (2019), and honesty (2024). each then explores the result in both policy and teaching practice. like these examples, we argue that similarly, if cped wants to help edd students be able to make real and lasting equitable change, then they need to be able to understand how our conceptual resources how we frame problems intersect with and influence our real-world choices. before offering an example of what a sample philosophy in practice dissertation might entail, we first invite readers to join us in what to us is perhaps one of the clearest examples of how philosophical analysis can influence actual change in the real world, change that has implications for empirically-guided practice. this is not an educational example, but instead one from science. evelyn fox keller describes a paradigm shift in embryonic research due to a philosophical change in the conceptual framing that scientists had been using for several decades (keller, 1997). we need to emphasize this: we are not discussing a shift in data collection or empirical methodology. what changed was a conceptual shift in how to understand what the scientists were examining. as you read the following, we invite you to imagine what the educational corollaries might be, where our conceptual “givens” might impede our empirical research. we continue: the previously dominant discourse in embryonic research was of “gene action,” a way to understand the embryonic cell’s gene as the driving force or the source of the most important action in the cell. this framing was done through a masculine metaphor, whereas the protoplasm was conceived as feminine. given this gender-based conceptual framing, the protoplasm was considered to be passive and relatively unimportant, thus not worth researching. keller explains: by the discourse of gene action, i mean a way of talking about the role of genes in development, introduced in the 1920s and 1930s by the first generation of geneticists, that attributes to the gene a kind of omnipotence – not only causal primacy, but autonomy and, perhaps especially, agency. development is controlled by the action of genes. everything else in the cell is mere surplus. …this way of talking not only enabled geneticists to get on with their work without worrying about what they did not know; it framed their questions and guided their choices, both of experiments worth doing and of organisms worth studying (keller, 1997, p. 22). for the next forty years, keller argues, embryonic research was guided and inhibited by this masculinist metaphorical conceptual framework. when researchers reconceived and abandoned the gender-based framing of the relationship between cytoplasm and genes, new understanding and new research avenues opened (keller, 1997). we must emphasize this: the shift in research and understanding was due to a philosophical shift in how to think about embryos. the advancement in understanding didn’t happen because of the emergence of new data, but because of a philosophical shift in thinking. the example from embryonic research demonstrates how philosophical analysis is quite practical. in this case, it took scientists to engage in new conceptual thinking in order to make progress toward understanding embryo development in profoundly new ways. we argue that if empirically-grounded biological research can be significantly changed because of a conceptual shift, then this could happen in the realm of education. we could also inspire edd researchers to help us make similar shifts in the conceptual resources that frame the ways that we understand the institutions and practices of education. if cped wants to help edd students be able to make real and lasting equitable change, then its students need to be able to understand how our conceptual resources how we frame the very problems of practice intersect with and influence our real world choices. modeling the philosophy in practice dissertation now, let us consider a potential edd dissertation. referring to the aforementioned noddings example, let us imagine that a doctoral student is a classroom teacher and educational leader interested in equity and discipline methods. they are further interested in how the philosophy of the ethic of care might change our conception of discipline at the school and classroom levels. we now posit a potential outline of how the dissertation might be structured while also noting how these elements align with the cped framework as well as outlining how they meet the aera standards on reporting for humanities-oriented research, including significance, method, conceptualization (why it fits together), substantiation, coherence, clarity, and ethics (aera, 2009, p. 484). chapter 1 introduction to the problem and the dissertation this would be recognized as a standard introduction to the dissertation that introduces the research topic, outlines research questions, and situates the project within the philosophy in practice approach. recalling cped’s first guiding principle, to ask if an ethic of care can be applied to disciplinary methods to increase equity is a question “of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (the cped framework, 2024). this is also where directly addresses the aera standard of “significance of topic,” or that the topic ought to be timely and important, addresses a neglected issue; is of an intrinsic or edifying interest, or otherwise fills a gap in the study of the subject (aera, 2009, p. 484). in the noddings sample case, the literature on equity gaps in discipline policy and implementation would be used to demonstrate why novel approaches to discipline are timely, important, and address a significant issue. chapter 2 understanding the research on discipline through a philosophy in practice analysis this chapter would offer readers an introduction and analysis of school discipline models, although unlike what might be understood as a social science review of literature, this chapter would focus on analyzing the theoretical underpinnings of the various approaches to discipline. this chapter connects directly to aera’s standard of conceptualization, where “the perspective, scholarly tradition, school, and/or conceptual framework and the methods employed should be made explicit, consistent with the rhetorical form and structure of the manuscript” (aera, 2009, p. 484). while this chapter would draw upon relevant empirical research, the aim is to offer the reader a way of understanding the sweep of the literature on approaches to classroom/school discipline in a way that guides readers to understanding the scope of literature through a unique framework that helps highlight relevant philosophical commonalities as well as divergences. for example, there may be groups of discipline frameworks that rest upon a conception of personhood that posits student behavior is due to inherent human flaws, whereas others may rest upon understanding human behavior as emerging from an interaction with the environment. this ontological framing sets the why cped needs a philosophy in practice impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 110 stage to contrast noddings ontology as positing that the caring state is just as “natural” as being self interested. regardless of the details of this one example, the chapter would use the tools of philosophical analysis to help illuminate the topic of classroom/school discipline in a new way, leading to cped principle six, the generation of professional knowledge in tandom with cped principle four, using multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions (cped, 2024) chapter 3 a philosophy of caring discipline through a philosophy in practice analysis this chapter would offer a deep dive into the philosophical underpinnings of the ethics of care, with an emphasis on describing how an ethic of care will be used in conjunction with the previous chapter’s research synthesis of discipline to develop a new conceptual framework on discipline based on the clearly defined foundation of noddings ontology. this chapter connects directly to aera’s “identification of methods,” where the author considers their method and execution of their method (aera, 2009, p. 484). the researcher would construct a conception of a philosophy of caring discipline that links the work on care with the previous research on behavior management approaches, and the chapter would conclude with a clear philosophical outline of the resulting conception of ‘caring discipline’ that addresses the problem identified at the conclusion of chapter two. to add clarification to the methodology of doing philosophy, one might think about the process up to this point as identifying the assumptions about the nature of being that tend to guide typical disciplinary processes, and here in this chapter the point would be to demonstrate how applying different assumptions about being might challenge these typical disciplinary processes, demonstrating cped principle five in that it links theory, in this sample case noddings care theory, with systemic and systematic inquiry, in this case the ontological and ethical assumptions behind discipline strategies (cped framework, 2024). chapter 4 caring discipline in action data analysis in chapter four, the researcher will now use the newly created philosophical framework, the notion of caring discipline, to address results in practice. this is really where the conceptual framework developed in the previous chapter will be specifically applied to the problem of practice. this new chapter would make clear links between existing research and practice with the proposed new philosophical framework and then explore a wide variety of implications for practical implementation, or “the skilled application of the principles and procedures of reasoning and meaning construction in different traditions” (aera, 2009, p. 484). rather than being what some might refer to as a quick discussion of implications, this, in some ways, is the heart of the dissertation. it is a robust discussion of how the philosophical framework developed in chapters two and three would result in both changed practice and practice that would address the problems introduced in chapters one and two. the focus here is on depth and originality of analysis and practical application, demonstrating the construction and application of “knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities,” (cped, 2024). chapter 5 further implications for implementation our conception of how chapters four and five differ from each other might be subtle, but the difference is significant. the focus of chapter four is to engage in a robust research and practice-grounded experiment to conceptualize the many ways in which the framing of caring discipline could alter discipline methods while also addressing the egregious problems outlined in chapters one and two. the fifth and final chapter extends that project by discussing implementation challenges and responses to those challenges. this connects to the aera standard that states the work should be positioned so that “other researchers who understand the purpose and procedures of the research could understand how evidence was used to make claims or follow the line of reasoning that led to the researcher’s conclusions” (aera, 2009, p. 486). thus, while chapter four offers a research and practice-grounded discussion on what might be possible, this last chapter responds to the myriad real-world challenges that educational leaders would need to confront if they were to attempt to work with the implications of this philosophicallyinformed yet practice-focused research. this focus would keep the philosophy in practice dissertation grounded in the practical implications of theoretical work by exploring how the recommendations in chapter four might encounter obstacles and then how to respond to them. rather than philosophy focused on philosophy, the aim here is to use philosophy to inspire actual change. this space in the dissertation where the writer can demonstrate the communication skills to show application to diverse contexts and communities, thus meeting cped principle three (cped framework, 2024). additional considerations for a philosophy in practice dissertation the above outline is only one example of how a philosophy in practice dissertation might be structured. there are many other ways, depending on the research question and topic. our intention here is to offer a clear example of how one might approach a philosophy-in-practice dissertation in an edd program to help students develop leadership skills appropriate to real-world settings. while a list of potential topics that could be explored would be vast, here are some that we considered while drafting this article: • grading: educational leaders interested in making equitable change might first want to explore how our conceptions of grades and what they represent have implications for teaching practice and constructing whole-school assessment policies. • inclusion: educational leaders who might want to support the creation of inclusive school communities could begin by engaging in a conceptual analysis of what inclusion entails, offering a nuanced guide with practical implications for different potential conceptions, implications that explore both policy and classroom-level details. • indoctrination: school leaders interested in understanding and responding to accusations of indoctrination by community groups and parents could begin by conceptualizing what we might mean by the term indoctrination and then what an education that sought to avoid indoctrination might look like, offering practical resources and teaching strategies to teachers and curriculum specialists. • school safety: school leaders are increasingly charged with managing and ensuring safety in schools, and while there are certainly important empirical studies to be done to understand how to engage in creating safe schools, one essential place to begin is to create some shared nelsen & thomas-reid impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.499 111 understanding of what we even mean by the notion of safety itself. doing so may help us create specific types of policies and engage in specific types of practices while potentially ruling out others. as with other examples throughout this article, the practical implications rest upon the conceptions of safety upon which the researchers base their work. as we hope this short list offers, a philosophy in practice dissertation would offer robust opportunities to explore educational leadership issues. let us dive into a potential example in more detail. a current hot issue in public schooling today is how much say parents should have in responding to curricular issues within schools. let’s imagine another edd doctoral student who aspires to a district-level leadership position, and they are interested in exploring this issue because their district has had trouble responding to parental challenges in coherent ways that address the myriad concerns raised by different interested groups (i.e., parents, students, teachers, and the school board.) many administrators and teachers disagree over how much decision-making parents should have. that has resulted in school board meetings that have dissolved into shouting matches over who should have control. (we emphasize should here to highlight that when we raise should or ought questions we’re often in the realm of philosophical inquiry.) in this case, the topic is grounded in ethical considerations, and there are plentiful philosophical resources that could inform realworld responses. to draw upon one last philosophical example, consider amy gutmann’s well-known discussion of how to conceptualize parental involvement in curriculum in her classic philosophical text, democratic education (1987). in that text, she outlines four potential frameworks that provide answers to the question of how much involvement parents should have in curriculum choices. in brief, she discusses the potential results of offering parents full control, the school having full control, the school being completely neutral in curriculum development, as well as a framework for engaging in democratic discussions about such matters (guttmann 1987). diving into the details of gutmann’s argument is beyond the scope of this discussion, but our point is that developing a clear set of philosophical rationales to inform policy choices is itself a considerable contribution to real-world changemaking practice. among other choices, our fictitious student could offer their district a framework for thinking through the issue with clear policy recommendations based upon the philosophical conclusions they develop. we also note that this issue involves equity and diversity, and if educational leaders aren’t able to engage in the underwriting philosophical frameworks that inform a controversial equity challenge, then we suggest they cannot make the significant change that cped wishes to promote. curriculum the first implication for doctoral program design is to ensure that students have access to philosophically-informed approaches. first, these approaches ought to be included as options in introductory courses so students know from the beginning of their programs that philosophically-informed approaches are possible. this will also serve to inform how they might plan courses of study and craft committees accordingly. second, there needs to be dedicated research methods courses that teach philosophy in practice research methods. a course of this nature would use existing philosophy in practice texts, articles, and dissertation exemplars while at the same time deepening students’ understanding of the process of conceptual analysis/research. another key component of courses of this nature would be a philosophical exploration of educational ethics. ethics remains part of the cped framework, but nowhere is there a call for preparation for systematically engaging in ethical analysis. we suggest the creation of applied ethics courses that introduce students to how philosophical understandings of ethics can be woven into both actual practice as well as empirical and philosophy in practice research projects. policy the second implication for program design is the development of policy that explicitly includes philosophically informed approaches and how they fit into the preparation and development of students’ dissertations. one good first step here would be to list philosophy in practice as a key aspect of edd programs in the cped framework. next, program-level policies ought to be revised to allow for philosophically informed approaches to be seen as legitimate and institutionally supported. examples of potential revisions include listing the irb number as optional on prospectus and proposal forms and reworking the language of qualifying exams to allow for a philosophically-informed option so that the qe process is meaningful to all students regardless of how they approach their dissertations. finally, there needs to be a level of philosophical advocacy within the program, ensuring that philosophically informed approaches are understood as legitimate at all levels, from committees to the graduate school. one way to ensure this would be to adopt new guidelines for philosophically informed dissertations, using recommendations from this paper or the aera humanities standards as a guide. challenges as previously noted, edd students commonly point out that they do not see the practical value of philosophy (hurst, 2023, p. 59). philosophy as a discipline or even simply as a term is often entirely left out of the edd curriculum, presumably because of the perception that it lacks practical value. even the phrase ‘bridging theory and practice’ suggests that there is an inherent rift that exists between the two that requires the development of an artifice to connect them. at best this implies that the practitioner is only a consumer of theory which has already been developed and whose only function is to work out how it fits in current practical systems and processes. in contrast, throughout this article, we have argued that we can equip edd graduates with a focused form of philosophical research skills to enhance their abilities to lead educational 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https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2023.336 https://fortune.com/education/articles/the-future-of-the-ed-d-degree-and-how-it-will-change-over-time/ https://fortune.com/education/articles/the-future-of-the-ed-d-degree-and-how-it-will-change-over-time/ https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2024.399 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.166 https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2020.1822775 peter j. nelsen appalachian state university matthew thomas-reid appalachian state university research, practice, and theory: investigating the binaries separating theory from social research theoretical framework versus philosophical inquiry outlining the philosophy in practice a philosophy in practice analysis of the cped framework applied philosophy: an example modeling the philosophy in practice dissertation chapter 1 introduction to the problem and the dissertation chapter 2 understanding the research on discipline through a philosophy in practice analysis chapter 3 a philosophy of caring discipline through a philosophy in practice analysis chapter 4 caring discipline in action data analysis chapter 5 further implications for implementation additional considerations for a philosophy in practice dissertation curriculum policy challenges references new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by the university library system of the university of pittsburgh as part of its d-scribe digital publishing program and is cosponsored by the university of pittsburgh press. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.529 new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. introduction to the ai special edition themed issue the role of generative artificial intelligence (ai) in doctoral research and writing james dunnigan arizona state university james.dunnigan@asu.edu michael kozak drexel university michael.g.kozak@drexel.edu nicole pearce texas a&m university-commerce nicole.pearce@tamuc.edu harriette thurber rasmussen drexel university htr25@drexel.edu abstract this special ai-themed issue of the impacting education journal examines the integration of generative artificial intelligence into edd programs following the release of chatgpt in 2022. this collection of articles explores three main themes: student use of ai in dissertation writing and research, faculty perspectives on ai integration, and institutional perspectives on ai's future impact on edd programs. the articles investigate how students utilize generative ai tools for research assistance, how faculty develop frameworks for responsible ai implementation, and how institutions navigate the broader implications of generative ai use, including academic integrity and epistemic shifts. this very relevant and timely set of articles provides practitioners with guidance on current issues related to adapting to the use of generative ai in doctoral education. keywords artificial intelligence, chatgpt, generative ai, edd, scholar-practitioner with the release of chatgpt in november 2022, generative artificial intelligence (ai) sparked unprecedented disruption across the educational landscape. since that time, edd programs have struggled to incorporate these new generative ai tools into their curricula and programs. in this special edition of the impacting education journal, practitioners will find research, guidance, and practical considerations on how to reshape the doctoral journey with generative ai. three themes emerged from the articles in this issue: student use of generative ai in dissertation writing and research, faculty perspectives and frameworks for integrating generative ai into edd programs, and institutional perspectives on how generative ai will impact edd programs in the future. in exploring the promises and challenges of integrating generative ai into edd programs, we hope these articles will provide valuable insights to faculty, students, and program directors. student use of generative ai in dissertation writing and research one of the earliest uses of generative ai in edd programs related to dissertation writing and research. this set of articles documents the role, potential, and impact of generative ai as a support system for students and faculty. in addition, the articles examine how faculty are guiding students in using these tools in an academically responsible manner. the tension between ensuring academic integrity and embracing new technologies are explored in the articles, presenting perspectives of both students and faculty. in the essay, “can ai facilitate a human-centric approach to writing a problem of practice dissertation? insights from doctoral students,” kell et al. explore the transformative potential of using generative ai to support students throughout their dissertation journey. through narrative inquiry, it shares the experiences of two doctoral students writing dissertations in practice about ai, while simultaneously negotiating the use of it in their research and writing. the study, “an examination of the use of ai (artificial intelligence) technology as experienced by scholarly practitioners in an educational doctorate program,” harris et al. examined the applications and perceptions of ai tools in doctoral studies, focusing on their efficacy in enhancing research effectiveness. they found the most indicated uses of ai to be proofreading, researching scholarly articles for literature reviews, and the organization and structure of research. http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6331-2975 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9878-2471 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2599-0691 dunnigan et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 1 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.529 2 wilder and calderone examine broader implications for scholarly practice in “empowering educational leadership research with generative: insights and innovations from a qualitative edd dissertation,”, focusing on the experiences between a doctoral student and supervisor when generative ai is used in the dissertation process. the article highlights the potential of generative ai to streamline data analysis and foster greater reflexivity and critical thinking in the research process, prompting researchers to consider their positionality and potential biases more thoroughly. in the article, “navigating new frontiers: ai's transformation of dissertation research and writing in an educational leadership doctoral program,” khan addresses the imperativeness of providing students with guidance on leveraging ai advances and maintaining academic integrity across writing, teaching, and research. in their article, “dissertation 2.0: an action research study on adapting with ai,” grichko et al. engage both faculty and students in testing generative ai tools to make recommendations for guidelines on ai use for dissertation writing. results showed ai use needed to be made clear and transparent alongside adopting a flexible approach to ai incorporation, given factors such as differing journal requirements. in their article, “generative ai use in an edd program: informal, independent student use and formalized, instructor-directed use,” buss et al. explored two ways ai has been used by students in their edd program—informally and independently and in a more formalized, guided manner. results suggested students were more confident to try out and utilize generative ai when instructors introduced it and students found the tools to be extremely helpful. faculty perspectives and frameworks for integrating generative ai into edd programs as generative ai continues to grow in importance in education, faculty members are struggling with how to best implement this technology in edd programs. these articles provide valuable insights into the current landscape of generative ai use among edd faculty, along with frameworks and critical questions for integrating generative ai into curricula and policies in ethical and effective ways. the authors explore faculty perceptions and usage of generative ai, the ways in which it can be used to support student learning in research methods, and how to implement generative ai responsibly. in the study, “unlocking the future: how are edd faculty using generative ai in doctoral research,” black and betts investigated faculty’s perceptions and use of generative ai and the ways they have leveraged the technology to support edd students. in “framework for generative ai in research methods and statistical analysis preparation,” eith and zawada propose a framework for integrating generative artificial intelligence (ai) tools into statistical training for doctor of education (edd) students. they explore how generative ai can serve as a scaffold for learning, potentially mitigating statistics anxiety and enhancing students' ability to focus on core statistical concepts rather than software intricacies. in their article, “repac: critical questions to inform edd programs in an era of generative artificial intelligence,” langran et al. present a framework of critical questions designed to guide edd program leaders and faculty in integrating generative artificial intelligence (genai) into their curricula and policies. the repac framework aids in reflecting, reenvisioning, and redesigning educational practices to better incorporate genai, focusing on how candidates learn with and about ai tools. institutional perspectives on how generative ai will impact edd programs in the future while many articles in this special issue focus on the direct impact of generative ai on faculty and student work in dissertation writing, this set of articles explores the broader implications of generative ai integration in doctoral programs. they examine the evolving landscape of academic integrity, ethical considerations, and practical challenges that arise when generative ai tools become part of the educational experience. topics range from institutional policies to anxieties surrounding academic dishonesty. these articles examine the issues that educators and students must navigate in the age of generative ai. in their essay, “the education doctorate in the context of gen ai: epistemic shifts and challenges to practical wisdom,” henriksen et al. examine the role of practitioner knowledge, specifically practical wisdom, in the context of genai–rooted in the aristotelian notion of phronesis. they explore how genai, as an epistemic technology, might influence the nature of knowledge in education, proposing that edd curricula must adapt to include digital criticality and humanistic awareness to navigate the ethical and practical challenges posed by ai. azevedo and valadez investigate the critical gaps in current governance frameworks regarding ai meeting assistant in “if ferris bueller had a bot: ai meeting assistant policy landscape of cped member institutions” –they reveal a need to consider ethical, legal, and pedagogical implications of ai meeting assistants in edd programs. in their article, “nothing new under the sun: generative ai and educator anxiety over academic dishonesty,” werse and smith– using an historical context, argue that while there are valid worries about students using gai in ways the displace student work, these anxieties are not new and have been observed with previous disruptive technologies such as the internet. by recontextualizing this anxiety within a broader historical perspective, educators can develop strategies to mitigate academic dishonesty while leveraging the benefits of gai integration in education. and finally, in his article, “gpt and me: an honest reevaluation: the dawn of co-active emergence,” sanders explores the transformative concept of co-active emergence in education, where human and machine intelligence synergize to enhance learning experiences. without question, generative ai is evolving almost more rapidly than can be documented. these articles, however, provide a foundation for thinking about the potentiality of generative ai to scaffold programs, support students, and help faculty navigate this new and exciting landscape, while framing the caveats and areas that warrant further investigation. we extend our gratitude to all the authors for their innovative research and thoughtful analyses, and hope that this collection will inspire further dialogue and development in the intersection of generative ai and educational leadership. james dunnigan arizona state university michael kozak drexel university nicole pearce texas a&m university-commerce harriette thurber rasmussen drexel university student use of generative ai in dissertation writing and research faculty perspectives and frameworks for integrating generative ai into edd programs institutional perspectives on how generative ai will impact edd programs in the future impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 8 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 asking what if? kick-starting the future of the edd dissertation john lando carter middle tennessee state university lando.carter@mtsu.edu kevin s. krahenbuhl middle tennessee state university kevin.krahenbuhl@mtsu.edu abstract the long-standing traditions of the dissertation are long overdue for a challenge. creative and disruptive thinkers operate with a default what if? mindset that helps them challenge the status quo (carter & krahenbuhl, 2022). it is time for creative minds in higher education to kick-start how and why they see new opportunities beyond the traditional dissertation. what if the five-chapter format could be broken and replaced with a physical or digital portfolio that showcases students’ evolution as scholar-practitioners? what if edd students could create a docu-dissertation film, one that allows students to uncover and highlight powerful stories? these whatifs still retain the core competencies of a traditional dissertation: a relevant, timely research question, literature review, taking action in the field, gathering results, and drawing conclusions. we offer reasons for change and what the future of the edd could be if we take what beghetto (2018) calls beautiful risks. keywords edd, dissertation, creativity, risk, risk taking, what if, change in 2013, stacey patton began a piece for the chronicle of higher education with an arresting opening: “the dissertation is broken, many scholars agree. so now what?” this impacting education special issue calls us to explore this “now what” head-on, and it is up to the intrepid, creative minds within higher education to lead the conversation of how and why to press the long-standing boundaries of the traditional dissertation. the most creative minds— regardless of discipline or domain—share a signature trait to help us toward this end: an openness that allows them to move from the inconceivable to the conceivable with aplomb (cronin & loewenstein, 2018; csikszentmihalyi, 2013). creative and disruptive thinkers operate with a default “what if? and maybe” mindset that helps them challenge the status quo no matter their domain (carter & krahenbuhl, 2022). much of this mindset is also driven by dissatisfaction, which can be a powerful creative catalyst and driver of improvement (cronin & loewenstein, 2018; heath, 2020). while some professors and program directors may have indeed become dissatisfied with the status quo of the traditional dissertation, upending a centuries-long staple of doctoral degrees will be neither easy nor overnight. cronin and loewenstein (2018) provide a glimpse into why change is so challenging: our commitments to our assumptions build over time…we do not just make assumptions, we rely on them extensively and commit deeply to them. in this context, changing our perspective is no small act. it can be world changing, if not universe changing. (p. 71) as students and now program directors or doctoral faculty members, many of us have been deeply committed—and for some time now— to the assumption that the dissertation is the penultimate rite of passage for students. it is, to borrow a phrase from feldman (2023), a core element of our “web of belief,” meaning that the dissertation is often the intractable centerpiece of what it means to earn a doctoral degree. rosenburg’s (2023) timely and aptly named whatever it is, i’m against it: resistance to change in higher education explores the deep roots of change-aversion in universities and colleges and the need to “reimagine the model from the ground up—to question many of the implicit assumptions that have shaped higher education for a millennium and gone largely unchallenged and unchanged” (p. 143). he candidly discusses, from the vantage point of an experienced former college president, the visceral reaction not only to change in higher education but even the balking that occurs for having the audacity to bring it up at all. rosenburg laments the time, effort, and energy it takes to meaningfully discuss and debate change and how it often feels worthless for the rancor it often reveals. similarly, feldman (2023) notes that some issues—in his case classroom assessment—are like a train’s third rail, meaning that the topic or issue is so controversial or disruptive that people fear being shocked by the current. merely starting a conversation about alternatives to the dissertation may likewise draw the ire of those who want to uphold rigor. even after co-authoring a book on classroom creativity, kevin and i have been hesitant to change our own minds on the need for the crucible that is the traditional five-chapter dissertation. so we reflect, as we write this very piece, upon the roots of our resistance to change in this particular instance and why we remain so open to innovation in other areas of higher education and our doctor of education (edd) program. for example, we readily served and led a multi-year effort to redesign general education at our https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0932-6002 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6759-2931 carter & krahenbuhl impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 9 university. within our edd program, we have embraced continuous curricular changes related to coursework, assignments, and experiences we want students to have. we are consistently striving for a coherent coursework sequence that purposefully swings the scholar-practitioner pendulum across the program timeline in order to achieve our program mission: “to develop scholar-practitioners who are change agents for improving learning for all.” our most radical change, however, was our eager dismissal of the traditional approach to comprehensive exams in favor of formative benchmarks to not only celebrate student success but also to coach students on areas for growth. students receive feedback that helps them continue sharpening their strengths while also receiving the coaching they need to grow throughout the program. even the new language used to describe our comprehensive exams—formative assessments—sends our students signals that the high-stakes, often one-and-done exam is done in our program. instead, our multiple rounds of formative assessments paired with forward-looking feedback helps us tangibly realize our program mission for each doctoral candidate. thus, we have had to reflect upon our openness to change in these areas juxtaposed with our reluctance to change around the dissertation. perhaps our resistance to change related to the dissertation stems from the fear of critique from our doctor of philosophy (phd) counterparts; without the dissertation as it has always existed, we would not be worthy to exist as a valid doctoral program. and yet is the de facto dissertation the best way to achieve our aforesaid mission? innovators and risk-takers forge ahead nonetheless—even in the face of not knowing how it will turn out. after all, creative thinking has its own entrenched traditions, one of which is troublemaking (beghetto, 2018; cronin & loewenstein, 2018; csikszentmihalyi, 2013; kettler et al., 2018). at the core of this immemorial mischief is asking what if? thus we ask: what if there was another way to challenge students? what if there was another crucible through which to pass besides the traditional dissertation? what if there was a different rite of passage or even passages that students could engineer and experience for themselves? what if this is our way to truly make the edd distinct from the phd? in the case of the edd dissertation, it is time for creative minds in higher education, which includes kevin and i heeding our own creative advice, to kick-start how and why we see new opportunities beyond the traditional dissertation. drawing from the research base on creativity and divergent thinking as well as from innovative programs around the country, this entry for the special issue will offer not only reasons a change is needed but also showcase what the future of the edd could be if we take what beghetto (2018) calls “beautiful risks.” what ifs and maybes beyond the traditional dissertation slow and steady change can be a successful approach to reimagining the status quo in higher education. eyler (2024) notes that “incremental change is still change, though, and it is often essential to move slowly at first in order to ensure that the results are lasting” (p. 8). edd programs have made incremental headway with pivots to dissertations in practice (dip) as seen at the university of central florida and southern indiana. patton (2013) highlighted universities such as city university of new york, michigan state, emory, and others who were rethinking the dissertation more than a decade ago. these universities were making moves to collaborative research, creating dossiers with multiple publications instead of the single monograph style, and writing for a wider audience. some efforts have helped make small edits to the source code of the dissertation; for example, perhaps the written dissertation remains static but innovation can happen in the area of the dissertation defense. but what if the five-chapter format could be broken, opening the door for novel approaches instead of mere complementary or ornamental add-ons (kettler et al., 2018)? collaborative capstone projects as seen at the university of louisville and team portfolios as seen at virginia commonwealth university have shown promise for innovation in edd programs. sometimes the students themselves challenge the status quo and help us see—if we can stay open—how to break the frame, just as hash (2022) describes in her article in impacting education. it is time to capture the winds of these wins and continue to push the boundaries and make the inconceivable conceivable. according to the late sir ken robinson (2009), “human achievement in every field is driven by the desire to explore, to test and prod, to see what happens, to question how things work, and to wonder why and ask, what if” (p. 135)? breakthroughs indeed begin with what-ifs and maybes, and to begin this process we recommend casting the widest net possible, meaning capturing all ideas—even the half formed or implausible. the five categories of alternative dissertation possibilities below do just that. solving wicked problems according to epstein (2019), “wicked” problems—ones that are chameleonic in nature and have no discernable solution—reside within wicked environments, meaning that the rules to the game change by the minute—unlike chess where the rules are “kind” and stay static. the school and the classroom, where so many of our students wrestle with wicked problems, may be one of the most wicked environments of all. what if students were challenged to solve one of the many wicked problems in the world of education? what if students were encouraged to explore a problem of practice that presses them to navigate the nebulous nature of wicked problems and lean into what has long been considered an impasse for schools and scholars alike? the range and combinational opportunities for creative projects under this framing are myriad: inequity in k12 schools, tracking and curricular quality, residential segregation and zoning. these types of protracted problems demand that students learn through disorientation, ambiguity, and critical thinking. these types of problems also force students to explore areas where the experts have long toiled, giving the work a missiondriven focus and urgency. rosenberg (2023) notes that mission-minded education aimed at solving wicked problems is showing promise in start-up undergraduate universities in africa. he notes that at african leadership university (alu), students select a mission instead of a major and shape their learning experiences around a list of “grand challenges and great opportunities for the african continent, including urbanization, education, climate change, governance, agriculture, and design” (p. 151). edd students could be asked to tackle grand challenges related to equity, inclusion, justice, diversity, leadership, assessment, and more. what is often an undergraduate, culminating event or task can be leveraged for alternatives to the dissertation. the university of rhode island, for example, offers “grand challenge” courses that expose students to “complex problems and the ethical perspectives to unpack them early in their academic career. students have the opportunity to meld topics and concepts in an applied setting in their asking what if? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 10 field of study and career interests” (general education – grand challenge, 2024). in taking a page from an undergraduate program, edd programs can similarly dose layers of wicked problems across coursework and time in order to build toward something grand indeed. the tangible product associated with the end-game result may look like one of the what-ifs or a fusion of the ideas below. maker projects the slow build of the maker movement, led recently by martinez and stager (2019) and teams from the stanford d.school among many others, has helped open the doors to makerspaces and other creative media labs so that students can explore their ideas in formats beyond a paper. the time is ripe to celebrate the constructivist and constructionist roads cut by seymour papert and extend them from science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) fields to the edd. not unlike borrowing from the grand challenge, edd programs can utilize these often undergraduate and stem-focused spaces to create something we have never seen before. what if the dissertation could be replaced by a deep-dive podcast series not unlike emily hanford’s sold a story, complete with historical tours through the literature, engaging point-counter points between scholars, and a presentation of results from the field capped with recommendations for future practice? perhaps students could model from anna stokke’s chalk and talk podcast series where the goal for each episode is to engage with a different expert on a critical topic. what if the dissertation could be replaced with a physical or digital portfolio that showcases students’ evolution as scholars and practitioners across time? students could also explore digital media projects such as jamie clark’s popular “teaching one-pagers” series. what if edd students could create a docu-dissertation film, one that allowed students to uncover, highlight, celebrate, and share powerful stories? maybe students can collaborate on a wicked problem to create a new magazine or zine that explores problems of practice as they arise. this is what beghetto (2018a) calls a “legacy challenge” that could extend beyond students’ time within the program: “legacy challenges are student-directed creative endeavors that aim to make a positive, lasting contribution. students’ overarching goal is to identify and develop a solution to an open-ended problem facing them, their school, their community, or the world beyond” (p. 55). another legacy approach could have students explore their problem of practice and take action by creating a computer program that helps teachers become assessment literate instructors and could be remixed by future students in the program in order to continue its educative impact for the long haul. mitch resnik (2017), while directing the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) media lab, has helped countless students learn how to code with scratch, a user-friendly program that does not require expertise in computer science. according to martinez and stager (2019), the “media lab…became a grand center for tinkering across the lines of traditional disciplines” (p. 23). it is in these “grand centers” that students can reach the high bar of the “grand challenges” mentioned above and make their mark. interdisciplinary pop teams with the stage set for solving pressing educational problems in a variety of innovative ways, we can turn our attention to the teaming element of the alternative dissertation because, after all, “creativity is a team sport” (burkus, 2014, p. 117). what if the dissertation could be completed in interdisciplinary problem of practice (pop) teams? pop teams could leverage the salas et al. (2006) collaborative framework to build not only shared cognition around a key problem but also work to interdependently—the core signature of a true team—and engage with schools and community partners to get “upstream,” as heath (2020) would say, of those problems in tangible ways. these collaborative teams could rally together to create think-tank type products such as series of research briefs around the impact of food deserts on student learning or a series of white papers, an approach we have noticed from the university of connecticut, on the ongoing debate about direct instruction versus discovery learning. teams could don a consulting role, as seen at the university of southern california, to complete an archival project tailored to the history of local zoning lines or create public-facing documents such as parental pamphlets based on retrieval practices and the science of learning. all of these what-ifs could then be showcased and housed in a digital portfolio that can live beyond their time in the program. pop teams can allow students to combine their talents around a shared problem to solve, but pop teams can also be made of a combination of faculty from multiple domains across campus. at our institution, for example, the doctoral classes in literacy are taught by a mixture of experts in literacy, psychology, and linguistics. these polymath-type mixtures often lead to the creation of a traditional dissertation committee for a student, but what if they were also poised to do something a little bit different? for example, this interdisciplinary team could swarm a student with support, expertise, and resources in order to tackle a wicked problem head-on and persist with it along the trajectory of a grand challenge. this motley team could also help connect an edd student with the experts from the makerspaces and labs available on campus to create one of the projects mentioned above. one of the key benefits of these collaborative approaches— whether it is a mixture of students or faculty or both—is the chance for fusing knowledge, talents, skills, and resources across disciplines to create a one-of-a-kind mixture where “programs are designed to be interdisciplinary and collaborative, creating opportunities for cross-pollination that grad students may not encounter elsewhere in their programs” (larson, 2022, para. 8). according to burkus (2014), some of the most innovative companies face their most pressing challenges by helping their teams “cross-pollinate ideas from different industries, life experiences, and cultural perspectives” (p. 119). embracing the arts some may argue that inviting the arts to the academic table may be the riskiest move because of a misconception about the work of artists. art is rigorous work. it demands persistence and deserves to be more than an add-on. kettler et al. (2018) note that the add-on mindset is quite common “where adding a picture, a border, or simply adding color to a project is emblematic of creative thinking” (p. 22). instead of an art piece to accompany a traditional dissertation or a poem to preface the first chapter, we want to keep the door open to carter & krahenbuhl impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 11 art being the project and not a part of the project. nick sousanis, a columbia university’s teachers college graduate, showed us the way over ten years ago by creating a dissertation about comics where the comic-book style is not just imbued into the project but is the medium of the project (desantis, 2012). challenging edd students to study a pop through artistic expression can and should include the same depth and breadth of study, planning and re-planning, and tinkering and prototyping as all of the projects outlined above. instead of a traditional dissertation, a grand challenge track for students could entail a culminating exhibition of artistic work after a multi-year program of study. this exhibition could include photo-essays or stories about the careers of local teachers who have left their imprint on the district or community. it could also include portraits of these same educators paired with a reading of vignettes and a question-and-answer panel with the profiled educators. works of creative writing such as novellas and poetry collections could be displayed in reading rooms in campus or local libraries. the makerspace and digital design projects mentioned above have a home in the exhibition approach as well. this could include a screening of a documentary or the unveiling of an art or technology installation paired with discussions in-person or virtually. partnering with the campus and local galleries can provide a great chance to create new partnerships for edd students. perhaps students could partner with a district and have their art travel to multiple schools. pop-up exhibits can also be an opportunity to collaborate and create inroads to local businesses and governments. schools themselves, since so many edd candidates are actively working in schools and linking their projects to their contexts via action research, may be open to hosting an exhibition or setting up an installation to honor this work as well. creating signature works as creative thinking advocates, we take pride in a project-based approach in our coursework that allows students to “zig-zag,” as sawyer (2014) would say, within the helpful constraints we provide. we often leverage resnik’s (2017) project model he details in his book lifelong kindergarten. his model asks that teachers ensure that a project has a low floor or entry point, meaning that anyone can play and play well from the onset. next, he recommends that projects have wide walls that allow students to productively tinker, ask what-if, and create works tailored to their interests and aptitudes. finally, he suggests that teachers make sure that projects have a high ceiling that affords students the chance to reach a high bar such as a grand challenge. our improvisation to this model relates to the high ceiling approach and advocates instead for a breakable ceiling, meaning that we encourage students to break the very game we have built for them to play (carter & krahenbuhl, 2022). because we are ready for students to shatter our very game, that is what they often do. one of our signature assignments in the collaborative teaming class in our edd program is called the missing team. students are tasked to catalogue all the teams in their respective schools and determine what team does not exist but should. more often than not, students create teams that we have never seen and then put them into action in their schools. what we have realized, however, is that the team does indeed become real for many students, but our edd candidates are not afforded the time and energy beyond the collaborative teaming course that it takes to truly make that novel and needed team last. another example is the mock book project where students are challenged to create a book title, table of contents, and dust jacket synopsis for a book they would write based on course content. what would they write to showcase all that they learned in the cognitive learning class or the formative assessment class? once again, this is a course-bound creative activity where students often strike us with their insights and rarely gets revisited. thus, we argue now for the chance for signature works that students create within coursework to have the staying power they often deserve and to become the culminating work, grand challenge, or collaborative project that could replace the traditional dissertation. what-ifs and what-abouts this wave of what-ifs still retains the core competencies of a traditional dissertation: the formulation of a relevant and timely research question, the extensive detective work necessary to find a gap in literature, the call to take action in the field, gather results and draw conclusions, and the urgency to publicly share the work with an audience. the worry about depth and breadth also fades once we see the time, dedication, and scope of the efforts needed to bring any of the aforesaid alternative dissertations to the finish line. however, these what-ifs are accompanied by many “what-abouts” that should be considered. • what about assessment? • what about accreditation? • what about departmental, college, and university policies? • what about faculty workload? • what about timelines? • what about credit hours? • what about scaling such ideas? • what about institutional culture? larson (2022) reports that efforts to change the humanities dissertation through next generation humanities grants echo many of these same concerns: “rethinking the dissertation stirs up tough questions, both intellectual and practical: what counts as knowledge creation? how effectively can scholars judge adequacy (let alone excellence) in genres like the podcast, the video game, or the rap album?” (para. 17). regarding the rap album as a viable dissertation format, look no further than a.d. carson, a game changing clemson graduate who created a 34-song album-as-dissertation in 2017 aimed at highlighting how enslaved people helped construct the buildings at clemson (young & martin, 2017). the playbook for change in higher education is still being written, and the temptation to fall back to the familiar is strong. jonas salk, the creative mind behind the polio vaccine, had a dream to create the salk institute. it was to be a creative haven, one filled with the most brilliant thinkers from a variety of fields. together, just as salk himself did, they would ask the beautiful questions needed to break through the next challenge of our time. however, making the dream a reality was rife with disappointment. csikszentmihayli (2013) recounts the story: unfortunately, when time came to begin transforming the laboratory into the center of his dreams, salk found out that traditional scientists had no sympathy for his novel vision. his colleagues preferred to devote all of the resources of the institute to pursuing safer, more orthodox biological research. asking what if? impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 12 the idea of bringing in astronomers and physicists, not to mention musicians and philosophers, for serious discussions seemed to them mere self-indulgence. the ensuing conflict played itself out along the lines of classical mythology: the creator was dethroned by his offspring. salk retained an office and ceremonial status but could not implement the ideas that made the institute possible in the first place. (p. 283) the salk story reminds us that change—even change that is openly supported and well-funded—is always challenging and also highly contextual. each university and then each college and program will have its own headwinds to face. but progress is being made in higher education in some of the most entrenched positions, so we counter the “what-abouts” with proof that change in higher education can happen. what about—and what can we learn from— the progress made related to assessment in higher education? movements toward ungrading and alternative grading, led by blum (2020), clarke and talbert (2023), and eyler (2024), are taking hold at universities. more and more faculty members are opening up to the fair, accurate, and empowering assessment practices that emerged because of the sudden constraints of the pandemic. according to burkus (2014), “creativity loves constraints” (p. 14). meanwhile, efforts in this same area in k12 schools have not been as successful. a “problem blindness” remains, as heath (2020) would say; we cannot solve a problem we cannot see (p. 23). further, what about the inroads being made toward equitable and equity-minded teaching in higher education classrooms? what can we learn? led most recently by artze-vega et al. (2023), faculty are showing sustained, post-pandemic interest in teaching and curricular experiences that both honor the humanness of students and hold them to high expectations. the odds of highly-supportive, highlychallenging learning experiences in university classrooms across the nation are getting better and better. these two examples are encouraging because we can see the dial actually moving—even if slightly—toward something different. and we may be forced to think differently about the dissertation sooner than later with the rise in artificial intelligence. doctoral programs are not immune to these challenges. according to rosenberg (2023), shifting to more experiential learning is one way to respond to the effects of artificial intelligence on higher education. chatbots like chatgpt have become increasingly adept at producing research papers and answering exam questions, but they cannot (at least for now) replicate actual human experiences. (p. 150) how many of the five chapters of a dissertation can ai produce for students? perhaps a turn from the traditional dissertation to an embrace of the high impact, experiential examples explored above is a necessary step—not a what-if—for the future of the edd experience. conclusion we return to patton’s (2013) question that began the piece for the chronicle of higher education: “the dissertation is broken, many scholars agree. so now what?” she goes on to make the case that “rethinking the academic centerpiece of a graduate education is an obvious place to start (para. 1).” now, just over a decade later, we are challenged to ask beautiful questions through talking in what-ifs and maybes about that same centerpiece, hoping to pave the way for taking what beghetto (2018) calls beautiful risks: doing things differently is at the heart of creativity. but doing things differently is also risky. these risks are particularly pronounced in educational settings because schools and classrooms tend to not be places where thinking and acting differently is always encouraged or rewarded. (p. ix) although beghetto is speaking about the classroom in this instance, it could easily be overlaid to the university as a whole. he further states that the uncertainty that comes with such creative leaps often leave students “caught between doing nothing and facing the uncertainty of taking action” (p. 6). rosenberg (2023), however, notes that “sometimes the greatest risk lies in doing nothing” (p. 153). therefore, the signature trait of creative thinkers that runs in tandem with asking what-if is openness. in the case being made for these alternative dissertations, we provide the following caveats to the necessary openness needed. first, we must stay open to novel ideas such as the ones presented in this special issue. second, we must stay open to testing many of these ideas once we have cast the widest net possible. third, we must stay open to many of those ideas failing in our test runs. sawyer’s (2014) sage advice is helpful here: “to be creative, you have to generate boatloads of ideas. to be creative successfully, you have to let most of them sink, because the real genius lies in picking good ideas” (p. 173). indeed, we must stay open beyond the what-if phase and throughout the ugliness and uncertainty of the piloting phase to make a careful decision about what is worthy of pursuit: “choosing is essential, because not all ideas and combinations are ideal for your purposes” (sawyer, 2014, p. 7). because an artistic or collaborative approach is not immediately working does not warrant a return to the comforts of the five-chapter dissertation. alternatively, guarding against the excitement and initial promise of a novel idea is also important. staying open to both polarities while pressure-testing these what-ifs is critical. this is how we can decide which new rites of passage for the edd are right for each of us. references artze-vega, i., darby, f., dewsbury, b., & imad, m. (2023). the norton guide to equity-minded teaching. norton. beghetto, r. a (2018). beautiful risks: having the courage to teach and learn creatively. roman and littlefield. beghetto, r. a (2018a). what if? building students’ problem-solving skills through complex challenges. ascd. blum, s. d (2020). ungrading: why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). west virginia university press. burkus, d. (2014). the myths of creativity: the truth about how innovative companies and people generate great ideas. jossey-bass. carter, j. l., & krahenbuhl, k. s. (2022). teaching signature thinking: strategies for unleashing creativity in the classroom. routledge. clark, d., & talbert, r. (2023). grading for growth: a guide to alternative grading practices that promote authentic learning and student engagement in higher education. routledge. cronin, m. a., & loewenstein, j. (2018). the craft of creativity. stanford university press. csikszentmihalyi, m. (2013). creativity: the psychology of discovery and invention. harper collins. desantis, nick. (2012, april 1). the dissertation will be comic. the chronicle of higher education. epstein, d. (2019). range: why generalists triumph in a specialized world. riverhead. eyler, j. r. (2024). failing our future: how grades harm students, and what we can do about it. johns hopkins university press. carter & krahenbuhl impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.507 13 feldman, j. (2023). grading for equity: what it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. corwin. hash, p. (2022). artful design: disruptions within the dissertation in practice. impacting education – journal on transforming professional practice, 7 (1), 26–31. heath, d. (2020). upstream: the quest to solve problems before they happen. avid reader press. kettler, t., lamb, k. n., & mullet, d. r. (2018). developing creativity in the classroom: learning and innovation for 21st century schools. larson, z. (2022, june 29). doctoral training is ossified: can we reinvent it? lessons from the short-lived next generation humanities phd program. the chronicle of higher education. martinez, s.l, & stager, g. (2019). invent to learn: making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. constructing modern knowledge press. patton, s. (2013, february 11). the dissertation can no longer be defended. the chronicle of higher education. resnick, m. (2018). lifelong kindergarten: cultivating creativity through projects, passion, peers, and play. cambridge, ma: the mit press. robinson, k. & aronica, l. (2016). creative schools: the grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. penguin books. rosenberg, b. (2023). whatever it is, i’m against it: resistance to change in higher education. harvard education press. salas, e., rosen, m. a., burke, c. s., goodwin, g. f., & fiore, s. m. (2006). the making of a dream team: when expert teams do best. in k. a. ericsson, n. charness, p. j. feltovich, & r. r. hoffmann (eds.), the cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 439453). cambridge university press. sawyer, k. (2014). zig zag: the surprising path to greater creativity. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. the university of rhode island. (2024). general education – grand challenge. https://web.uri.edu/generaleducation/grand-challenge/ young, a., & martin, m. (2017, july 15). after rapping his dissertation, a.d. carson is uva’s new hip-hop professor. npr. https://web.uri.edu/general-education/grand-challenge/ https://web.uri.edu/general-education/grand-challenge/ john lando carter middle tennessee state university kevin s. krahenbuhl middle tennessee state university what ifs and maybes beyond the traditional dissertation solving wicked problems maker projects interdisciplinary pop teams embracing the arts creating signature works what-ifs and what-abouts conclusion references impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 29 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 dossier style dissertations: fostering scholar-practitioner identity through rapid education innovations ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university ranjinimahindajohnbull@gmail.com camille l. bryant johns hopkins university cbryan16@jhu.edu maria vasquez dirección de educación y cultura municipalidad de guatemala madenisse@gmail.com emily robbibaro upper st. clair school district erobbibaro@uscsd.k12.pa.us jeremy williams transcend education jeremywilliams09@gmail.com abstract practitioner-oriented dissertations are unique in their potential to address wicked problems through relevant and timely applications of empirical research that can facilitate rapid change. this account describes the dossier style dissertation, a newly re-imagined dissertation of johns hopkins university’s doctor of education program, with two options-an empirical deep dive and an applied project. three graduates of the program illustrate their journeys with the dossier style dissertation-applied project, describe their work with research-practice partners and professional organizations, and highlight their growth as scholar-practitioners. implications for practice and the merits of edd program doctoral research options are discussed. keywords edd dissertation, scholar-practitioner identity, dossier style dissertation transition from the applied dissertation to the dossier style dissertation practitioner-oriented dissertations are unique in their potential to address wicked problems through relevant and timely applications of empirical research that can facilitate rapid change. at its inception, the applied dissertation of the doctor of education program at johns hopkins university was grounded in improvement science and incorporated two distinct but related empirical studies: a needs assessment followed by an applied intervention study and evaluation (pape et al., 2022; pape et al., 2023). the goal of this approach was for students to 1) explore problems deeply by understanding contributing factors of a problem of practice (pop), determined from literature and an empirical investigation (needs assessment), and 2) develop, implement, and evaluate a targeted intervention, informed by findings from the needs assessment and intervention literature. this process aimed to develop scholar-practitioners who were efficacious in addressing educational problems, avoiding a “solutionitis” (bryk et al., 2015) mindset or approach and aligned with the principles of improvement science to foster informed and rapid change for context-specific educational problems (bryk et al., 2015). the decision to re-imagine the program occurred about 10 years after the development of the online edd in 2013. while a culture of continuous improvement existed, the faculty, with nudging from administration, developed a dissertation to allow for more options with only one empirical study in the dissertation. currently, students complete a dossier style dissertation (dsd). the dsd includes one empirical needs assessment study, but with two options: 1) an empirical deep dive (ed) or 2) an applied project (ap) (shaw, et al., 2024). both options require students to conduct an empirical study, the latter with an option to engage in applied work for immediate application or for future implementation. for the scope of this article, we are highlighting the students' dsd with aps, where students have engaged in a second literature review and created usable products for their professional fields as their final project. applied dissertation vs. dossier style dissertation before sharing our doctoral graduates’ experiences with their dsd experiences, we provide a comparison of our original applied dissertation to the dsd and their unique features so that other edd programs might see how our program is evolving and piloting different models of support. in the original five-chapter applied dissertation, doctoral students completed a literature review of factors related to the pop using a systems lens, (chapter 1). next, a needs assessment study was undertaken to explore the degree to which certain driving factors of a pop might be present in the doctoral student’s professional context (chapter 2). based on the needs assessment study's findings, the doctoral student designed an intervention to address salient factors of the pop as the dissertation's second part. to do this, they explored intervention literature related to salient factors from their needs assessment (chapter 3). this intervention study allowed students to explore and evaluate a pilot https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5068-7256 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9326-7665 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4094-3064 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4375-8617 johnbull et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 30 intervention within their own context (chapter 4), calibrated for their professional community and stakeholders. the findings from the evaluation of their intervention and a discussion were detailed in chapter 5 of the applied dissertation. in the dsd, the doctoral student has two options. the first option, the ap, mirrors the traditional applied dissertation, but with only one empirical investigation. it includes a needs assessment study and an ap. in the needs assessment, the student investigates the extent to which the driving factors of the pop exist in the professional context. then, the student proposes and then prepares an intervention or some ap that should address one or more of the factors of the problem. however, the ap’s outcomes are not included in the dissertation's purview. the second option, the ed, is an extended needs assessment. in the deeper dive needs assessment, the student follows a more traditional path in preparing their dissertation. it is a deep exploration of the factors of the pop within the students’ professional context. while the options vary for students completing the dsd, their coursework is the same, including three research methods courses, four core content courses, and four courses related to their area of interest (i.e., major). in addition to content-related differences between the applied dissertation and the dsd, there are also differences in programmatic support such as the role of the advisor for the applied dissertation and doctoral mentor for the dsd, make-up of the dissertation committee, training in research methods, and use of coursework to complete the dissertation components. we delineate these components in table 1 under the unique features of each section. dossier style dissertation options: applied project and empirical deep dive the format of the dsd is similar for the ed and ap. they both include three projects across three years (table 2). the projects are connected and cannot stand alone, like chapters of a traditional dissertation. project 1 (year 1) is the literature review on the pop and contributing factors to the problem, in alignment with principle 1 of improvement science, which supports a problem-oriented approach to context-specific research, where the problem is identified. in project 1, students use a systems lens to discuss various factors, as described by principle 3 of improvement science, identifying the need to understand the system within which the problem resides (bryk et al., 2015). project 1 ends with a conceptual framework detailing the factors to be explored in the needs assessment. project 2 (year 2) is the needs assessment study and the research methods for this project. project 2 varies depending on the option students choose. here, principle 2 from improvement science is realized as students aim to understand the variation in outcomes related to factors contributing to the problem. the needs assessment is an initial step to planning in the plan-do-study-act cycle (bryk et al., 2015) as detailed in principle 5 of improvement science. to test and learn, (perla, privost, and parry, 2013), students must have a strong empirical approach to effectively measure and/or observe factors within their context as one cannot determine how and what to change without a clear understanding of the problem and why it persists. as such, and in alignment with principle 4 of improvement science, students must determine the appropriate 1) quantitative measures and/or qualitative data table 1. characteristics of the applied and dossier style dissertations applied dissertation dossier style dissertation advisor one-on-one advisor sessions began at the end of the fall semester of first year. each advisor supported 6-8 students over the course of the students’ doctoral program. doctoral mentor doctoral dossier research (ddr) mentor like advising, one faculty member meets with 8-12 students in a course-based setting to support the development of the needs assessment, project proposal, and final dissertation defense in 3 semesters, one semester in each year of the program. unique features • support was provided at the problem development stage during the first semester. • wrap-around year-long student support. • meetings adapted to student and faculty schedules. • students engaged in varied advisingdissertation development processes. unique features • course-based setting allows for students to learn from the faculty mentor and from other students’ processes. • students are guided in groups and one-on-one sessions with the faculty mentor. faculty dissertation committee consists of three faculty members. one could be an external member in professional practice who holds an edd or phd. faculty doctoral dossier research committee consists of two faculty members and an edd graduate, or one faculty member and two edd graduates. research methods training and experience are needed to evaluate research studies and conduct two empirical studies: the needs assessment and program evaluation for the intervention. this fosters research methods self-efficacy (bryant et al., 2023), and scholar-practitioner identity (johnbull et al., 2023). research methods training and experience are needed to evaluate research, conduct the needs assessment, and potentially develop an evaluation plan for the applied project. this fosters research methods selfefficacy for needs assessments (bryant et al., 2023), and scholar-practitioner identity (johnbull et al., 2023). integration of dissertation chapters within courses： course assignments were designed for students to complete partial drafts of the dissertation chapters in core courses. integration of dsd projects within courses： course assignments are designed for students to focus primarily on course content with less application to the dsd drafts or projects. collection approaches that align with constructs within the literature review and 2) analyses to address their research questions (perry, zambo, & crow, 2020). students are trained in mixed-methods research and are encouraged to use a mixed methods or multi-methods research design. these research designs are encouraged because doctoral students tend to have small participant populations in their professional contexts, and the qualitative data typically enrich the quantitative findings and vice versa. as such, most students tend to ask questions that require the mixed methods research paradigm relying on descriptive and inferential statistics (e.g., t-test and correlation) as well as data collected from observation, field notes, interviews, and focus groups, to address their questions and satisfy the research objective (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). project 2 (year 2) for students completing the ap includes the results of the needs assessment (students would have submitted irb materials, received approval and conducted the needs assessment during their second year in the program) in addition to a detailed description of the research methods described earlier. project 3 (year 3) includes a description of and presentation of the fully developed ap, discussion and limitations, implications for practice, and personal reflection. the ap determined through a dossier style dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 31 literature review of interventions related to addressing the driving factors of the problem. after students have completed the needs assessment, they explore solutions through the literature, and determine an appropriate project based upon the interventions or solutions from the literature that have had positive effects on the driving factors of the problem. students who complete the ap defend projects 1, 2, and the proposed ap within project 3 for their proposal defense at the beginning of year 3. once approved, they complete their ap by the end of year 3. the three-year timeline varies slightly for students completing the ed. it is defended at the end of year 2 and carried out during students’ 3rd year in the program. table 2. applied project and empirical deep dive timeline at-aglance applied project empirical deep dive year 1 project 1: literature review of the pop and contributing factors using a systems lens year 2 project 2: research methods for the needs assessment and findings project 2: research methods for the empirical deep dive (i.e. needs assessment) end of year 2 refine projects 1, 2 and develop proposal for applied project dossier style dissertation proposal defense of projects 1 and 2 year 3 dossier style dissertation proposal defense of projects 1, 2, and the applied project conduct the empirical deep dive and findings end of year 3 project 3: dossier style dissertation defense note: while the project descriptions are disseminated by program administrators, variation exists based on how advisors and students choose to execute the three projects. for example, some may choose to spread the projects across four chapters instead of within three projects. we believe that the dsd opens opportunities for students to deeply explore their pop and develop aps that 1) potentially expands students’ spheres of influence given the variety of modalities of the ap (storey & maughan, 2015), 2) allows opportunities to engage in networked communities through researchpractice partnerships (bryk et al., 2015), described in principle 6 of improvement science, 3) supports their scholar-practitioner identity development through transformative learning experiences (johnbull et al., 2023; mezirow, 1997), and 4) buttresses their self-efficacy through the formation of beautiful questions arising from the entire context-specific research process (bryant et al., 2023; johnbull et al., 2023). this article explores these assertions through the works of three graduates of the johns hopkins university edd program who completed the dsd with the ap. examples from graduates: scholar-practitioner journeys in the dsd process, graduate students work with their colleagues from their contexts (i.e., research-practice partners), their doctoral advisor or doctoral mentor, and dissertation committee members to calibrate their projects for immediate implementation. in the following sections, three co-authors for this article share their experiences with the first option dsd ap. when the students entered the program, the dsd was not an option. as such, each expected to implement and evaluate an intervention. however, when the program changed, their cohort was given the option to complete the applied dissertation or one of the two options of the dsd. each author completed a needs assessment in their professional context. then, they created an ap to address one or more contributing factors of the problem determined from the literature review and needs assessment findings. the authors discuss their pop and influencing variables, how the needs assessment and literature informed their ap, and the role of networked communities in the development of their project. then, each graduate discusses what they learned about themselves in terms of their scholar-practitioner identity and self-efficacy. dr. emily robbibaro’s journey about five years ago, in the affluent, high achieving high school where i work as an english teacher, state-level exam scores began diverging, with english language arts increasing and other disciplinary areas decreasing. interested in exploring the literacy components of this phenomenon, i used bronfenbrenner’s (1997) ecological systems theory as a framework to explore systemic and individual factors that contribute to literacy challenges across content areas. my initial literature synthesis revealed high socioeconomic status educational environments have unique presentations of difficulties in instruction of disciplinary literacy related to teacher pressures, parental tensions, extrinsic motivation of students, and high expectations of standardized test performance (becker et al., 2010; ciciolla et al., 2017; luthar & kumar, 2018; williamson et al., 2014). with an eye toward determining the most effective intervention, i conducted a mixed methods needs assessment using a sequential explanatory design, examining the following research questions: what are high school teachers’ similarities and differences in beliefs and attitudes regarding implementing disciplinary literacy practices in english, social studies, mathematics, and science? what is the extent of teachers’ literacy instruction? what types of literacy training have teachers received? what types of critical and disciplinary literacy practices do teachers implement within their classrooms? the mixed methods research design provided me with the opportunity to examine the many facets of cross-disciplinary literacy challenges comprehensively (robbibaro, 2023). first, quantitative measures explored teacher beliefs and attitudes related to incorporating literacy into their classes. comparing these perceptions across content areas, i found that teachers across all disciplines equally seek to challenge students with texts but overall have low levels of self-efficacy in implementing strategies. additionally, significant differences in attitude between the mathematics and english departments revealed conflicting perspectives on the importance of incorporating literacy into the classroom. qualitative data in the form of interviews and focus groups reinforced low selfefficacy in teacher literacy implementation, primarily due to lack of training, time, and administrative support. interestingly, document collection, including lesson plans, assignments, and activities from twelve courses across four content areas revealed that teachers tend to engage in more literacy instruction than they reported on quantitative measures or shared in focus groups. however, classroom artifacts highlighted more acutely the difference between actively instructing in literacy strategies (e.g. instructing students in strategies to examine primary source documents or modeling annotation approaches) versus passively presenting them (e.g. asking students to read primary source document or assigning students to annotate a textbook). applied project and research practice partners johnbull et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 32 drawing on my background as a practitioner and my newly developing research skills, i developed a rubric-style method of evaluating possible interventions. first, i took the key challenges identified in the needs assessment, lasting change, curriculum support, time sensitivity, knowledge, self-efficacy, and expert guidance and examined pre-existing research that implemented successful interventions for each challenge. additionally, i considered the role of critical reflection, identified by mezirow (1997) as a necessary component to changing a frame of reference and, ultimately, transformative learning. i assigned a rating from zero to two in each category across all interventions to more comprehensively determine their ability to address each characteristic listed. a rating of zero indicated that either the intervention did not address the challenge or described results that did not change the initial frame of reference for that challenge. a rating of one indicated that the intervention resulted in only a possible or mixed change in frame of reference. finally, a rating of two meant that the intervention clearly articulated a positive change in frame of reference. the sum of scores in each category were then compared for each intervention. this evaluation determined that a literacy coaching program as the intervention would have the greatest impact in this environment in improving teacher beliefs, attitudes, and self-efficacy in literacy instruction. using mezirow’s (1997) transformative learning theory as a framework, i developed a comprehensive literacy coaching program to be piloted in the mathematics department. the guidebook included step-by-step program implementation guidance, a clear layout of the coaching role, and advice on managing challenges, and all materials and tools needed for successful use. i also ensured that the program included comprehensive process and outcome evaluations. to carry out the ap, i relied on collaboration with varied parties across my context. the nature of researching literacy instruction across disciplines in a high school setting meant that i invited every full and part-time educator in my building to participate. as i narrowed my focus, teachers of english, mathematics, social studies, and science engaged more deeply in the qualitative piece of my research. what i did not expect, however, were the enduring conversations and opportunities for collaboration that the initial discussions led to. many teachers across the building now have an interest in the ways in which they can engage students in disciplinary literacy practices, even before engaging in a coaching program. i also collaborated closely with building administration to ensure that the research i conducted not only aligned with the mission, vision, and values of the district, but enhanced them. at each step of my needs assessment process, i met with the building principal to examine results and discuss next steps. this open dialogue further enhanced my application of bronfenbrenner’s (1994) framework as i could more clearly envision the ways in which this work embedded in larger district systems rather than simply through my own frame of reference. lessons learned and practical application i am confident that i was able to create a guidebook that was much more comprehensive and thorough than would have been possible to complete in a typical doctoral program dissertation. it allowed me to develop a real, applicable solution to a complex problem with many competing causes. rather than developing a small-scale intervention that may have remediated one small element of literacy instruction in a content area classroom, i developed a product based on thorough research that lends itself not only to solving a problem but also laying a more complete foundation for new research opportunities. this literacy coaching guidebook is fully prepared for implementation and can provide immediate, positive educational impacts. further, it requires the collection of all data necessary for evaluation and study of effectiveness. ultimately, the guidebook for literacy coaching provides real, concrete value for both practitioners and researchers. changes in scholar-practitioner identity i began my career in 2006, earned teaching certifications as a secondary english instructor and k-12 reading specialist, and led literacy training for colleagues. i have been a student and a practitioner for many years. however, those experiences were disparate. as a new researcher, i am now a student of practice. i consider problems differently. i look systemically and see that solutions to difficult problems are possible. more importantly, developing a comprehensive literacy coaching guidebook gave me the opportunity not only to solve a difficult problem, but also to build evaluation and improvement opportunities within that solution. additionally, because users of the guidebook may not have a research background, i learned how to translate research-based programming into practitioner-friendly language, an invaluable skill for an educator looking to continue to make positive, effective systemic change. like the guidebook, this process was iterative, and i now see so clearly that answers to problems need not be static; they grow and transform across time and context. dr. maria vasquez’s journey as an art historian, educator, and curator who designs educational projects for art exhibitions in guatemala city, my doctoral journey led me to the creation of a guide for museum professionals titled rethinking practice: a guide to designing visitorcentered art exhibitions (vasquez, 2023). the guide is the applied product of a dsd that examines art exhibitions as informal learning environments and the wide-ranging possibilities for visitor engagement with the arts. the context of the study is the arts education and culture department of the municipality of guatemala city, a branch of local government that aims to offer community members meaningful ways of engaging with the arts. the rationale behind this dissertation is that for the past five decades, museums have focused on the collection, conservation, and interpretation of objects (burlon soares, 2020). it is only over the past decade that the social role of museums has been emphasized along with the idea that museums can be spaces for inclusion and social justice (burlon soares, 2020; icom, 2023) that need to address topics such as accessibility, inclusion, community participation, learning and reflection (icom, 2023). these changes in perspective about the role and purpose of a museum are a call to action for museum professionals to rethink current practices and examine how their work can best serve their communities and promote inclusion for all visitors. during my doctoral journey, i noticed that our work at the arts education and culture department of the municipality of guatemala reflected the traditional practices described in the literature (burlon soares, 2020). one example is that the curatorial practices we had in place, such as the use of specialized language in the museum texts and labels, may have unintentionally excluded visitors unfamiliar with the art world (bennet, 2019; blunden, 2020; coffee, 2008; lachapelle, 2007). this is one of the systemic barriers that we dossier style dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 33 needed to be aware of that prevented some visitors from having a meaningful experience at our art exhibitions. it is our job, however, to be aware and become more intentional about how our work impacts the community we serve. to understand and address the problem, this dsd included one empirical study or needs assessment, two literature reviews, and an ap distributed across four chapters. the first literature review examined the different systems related to visitors' experience at an art exhibition through bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological systems theory. it focused on understanding the factors related to the experience of visitors at an art exhibition with an emphasis on how traditional curatorial practice through the use of language in museum texts can be a form of social and cultural exclusion (jensen, 2013), favoring highly educated and affluent visitors (bourdieu et al., 1991; falk & katz-gerro, 2016; jung, 2014; suarez-fernandez et al., 2020) while excluding those unfamiliar with the art world (bennet, 2019; blunden, 2020; coffee, 2008; lachapelle, 2007). to further understand the experience of visitors at an art exhibition, i conducted a multi-methods study with a sample of 19 participants. the study examined the multidimensional construct of visitor experience (packer & ballantyne, 2016; packer et al., 2018) and visitor perception of museum texts and labels. traditionally, the purpose of museum texts and labels is to transmit knowledge about a work of art (mayer, 2005), with the implication that there is one way of looking at art that requires the visitor to interpret and evaluate the work through the lens of art history (rice, 1988). examining these constructs allowed me to reflect on how biases and assumptions from my discipline shaped my practice and try to understand the experience of visitors from their perspectives. as art historians and curators, it is not uncommon for the historical canon to inform the selection of works of art at an art exhibition, and therefore, what we consider important for visitors to see (prottas, 2017). in this study, understanding visitors' experiences was crucial to understanding and rethinking our professional practice. the study revealed that visitors tended to perceive their experience as connected to reflection and introspection and that they read the labels of the objects they were interested in. through an understanding of the experience of visitors, art exhibition designers have ample opportunities to implement strategies in the exhibition space that promote reflective engagement and metacognition (flavell, 1979; ghee, 2008) and help visitors become more aware of their thinking when contemplating art. to address the need for the exhibition space to offer visitors meaningful opportunities for engaging with the art on display, a further exploration of the literature through the framework of gee's (2008) sociocultural theory and opportunity to learn, shed light on specific strategies for art exhibition designers to target specific outcomes for visitors (ritchhart, 2007; szubielska et al., 2021; tishman, 2017) highlighting the need for museum professionals to rethink their professional practice. applied project and research-practice partners the product of the dissertation was a guide for practice that aimed to support exhibition designers in the museum setting by offering a framework to reconsider their roles through critical reflection, research-informed practice, and collaborative inquiry. the name of the guide is rethinking practice: a guide to designing visitor-centered art exhibitions. the rationale behind this work was to create a tool that focuses on a specific context and work with contextualized knowledge (ravitch, 2014) that contributes to considering the visitor as central to designing art exhibitions. to create a product that was deeply embedded in its context, i presented the guide to the art exhibition team at the arts education and culture department of the municipality of guatemala to discuss the framework and listen to their experiences and feedback. the process consisted of one meeting with the team of curators and exhibition designers who organize and design art exhibitions at the arts education and culture department of the municipality of guatemala. the conversation shed light on the importance of critical reflection and the idea of constantly reflecting on our practice in a structured way to examine our assumptions and consider multiple perspectives. through this conversation, i decided that the implementation of the guide would be through collaborative in-person sessions, which would allow me to understand the perceptions of the different members of the art exhibition design team and listen to all voices. lessons learned and practical application as an art historian, curator, and member of the team that designs educational programs for art exhibitions in my context, developing this guide offered an unparalleled opportunity to reconsider and reframe my practice as well as share with my colleagues a way to understand the work we do through the lens of research. specifically, this work helped me understand the centrality of the visitors when designing art exhibitions, and to consider their experiences in every step of the process. the idea behind the art exhibition design framework is to be interdependent and iterative through ongoing cycles of critical reflection, research-informed practice, and collaborative inquiry. due to its iterative nature, it assumes that the outcomes of this process will be constantly changing as we become more aware of our assumptions, engage in a practice that draws on research to inform the work we do and engage in collaborative inquiry. changes in scholar-practitioner identity this journey has been transformational in that i now approach my work through the lens of scholarly practice, acknowledging its complexity and engaging in ongoing cycles of reflection and selfreflection. this new way of seeing and interacting with what i do has inevitably changed who i am by allowing me to be more aware of my biases and assumptions and how they may impact my work. i believe this ongoing process allows my work to be more scholarly, reflective, and robust. dr. jeremy williams’ journey as a social justice warrior committed to creating a united community of change agents that dismantle systems of injustice, i embarked on my journey toward academic enhancement in 2018 and completed that journey in 2022, focusing on mind, brain, and teaching. through the theoretical lens of critical race theory, my dsd, titled postsecondary persistence, pedagogy, and professional development: a change-making mentality via teacher confidence to teach 21st century skills, explored financial, social-emotional, and academic factors contributing to the low postsecondary persistence rate among students of color. the research addressed how many black and latine students fall short of earning degrees, often accumulating debt that exacerbates income inequality and perpetuates racial inequity. it highlights the necessity of 21st-century skills—such as innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration—that these students are not consistently accessing and acquiring. these skills are crucial for both postsecondary success and the workforce (klinberg, 2018). https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9746f224-6521-41d8-8b37-b51412e044b9/content https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9746f224-6521-41d8-8b37-b51412e044b9/content https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/9746f224-6521-41d8-8b37-b51412e044b9/content johnbull et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 34 unfortunately, state policies like standardized testing (au, 2007; trilling & fadel, 2009), inequitable resource distribution (strayhorn, 2007), and outdated teacher professional development practices (darling et al., 2017) create a cycle of systemic oppression, undermining teacher confidence and promoting inequity. applied project and research-practice partners this ap included a pedagogical framework grounded in projectbased learning and a scope and sequence of professional development. these products were meticulously crafted in response to the needs assessment conducted during the research phase. the framework was adopted from revx, an organization dedicated to innovative educational practices. in the revx model, all learning is centered on a relevant cause that children care deeply about. in addition to being a researcher and doctoral student, i worked as a school design partner with revx, supporting schools in implementing the revx model through a refinement of the framework, adult professional development, curriculum development, and project management. this dual role enriched my understanding of the practical challenges and opportunities in implementing innovative educational practices. working closely with research-practice partners was a pivotal aspect of this journey. the relationship with these partners, including the revx co-founders, school design partners, school districts, and individual educators, was characterized by regular communication, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to improving educational outcomes. these partnerships were instrumental in designing and implementing the professional development intervention. regular meetings and feedback sessions provided valuable insights that kept the research grounded in practical realities, ensuring that the intervention was both impactful and feasible. lessons learned and practical application from this collaborative process, several lessons emerged. first, effective communication was crucial, especially during the needs assessment with educators and students. educators and newly graduated alumni often lack the capacity to do much outside of their immense responsibilities to their studies, students, administrators, and personal lives. therefore, it was essential to be clear about the research's purpose, what it would require from their time, and to schedule necessary follow-ups, reminders, and troubleshooting sessions. regular, transparent interactions with partners ensured alignment and addressed challenges promptly. this open line of communication allowed for the swift resolution of misunderstandings and facilitated a smoother implementation of the project. it also helped build trust and mutual respect among all parties involved, which is essential for any successful partnership. next, flexibility was both important for the acquired school partners that committed to implementing the revx model with its project-based learning framework and for me as a scholarpractitioner. being open to feedback and willing to adapt based on practical insights from educators enhanced the project's relevance and effectiveness. through regular feedback loops with school partners, we co-created the pedagogical approach to teacher professional development, the scope and sequence of professional development, and the methods for evaluating its effectiveness. this iterative process ensured that the project remained aligned with the needs and realities of the educators and students it aimed to serve. this adaptability also fostered a sense of ownership among the partners, as they saw their input directly influencing the project's direction and outcomes. the collaborative nature of these feedback loops not only enriched the project but also strengthened the partnership, leading to a more robust and impactful implementation. in my original approach to the research, i planned to create a professional learning experience for teachers to enhance their selfefficacy, implement that experience, collect data, and report the findings. however, the timeline of the school partnership and my academic calendar/dissertation timeline did not align in a way that would be financially feasible (as i would need to continue my enrollment as a full-time student beyond four years) or conducive to my own mental health and capacity as a husband and father. i am immensely grateful to my advisor and co-author, dr. johnbull, for presenting the dsd option, which allowed me to create the professional learning experience, plan its implementation, and develop a strategy to evaluate its effectiveness once time permitted for implementation. changes in scholar-practitioner identity reflecting on the components of my doctoral journey, several aspects were particularly influential in shaping my identity. the dissertation experience profoundly influenced my identity development and self-efficacy as a scholar-practitioner. it solidified my confidence and conviction to collaborate with johns hopkins and other higher education institutions to enhance the experience of future scholar-practitioners. conducting a thorough needs assessment was crucial; it highlighted the real-world challenges and needs in education, allowed me to connect personally with students and teachers, and guided my research focus and approach. the continuous feedback from advisors and partners, coupled with the process of reflecting on my work, deepened my understanding of my role and impact as a scholar-practitioner. the interactions with my professional partners were profoundly influential to my identity development. the school partners at the time of my research were educators who served in environments like the one i grew up in as a k-12 student and worked in as an educator. the schools i collaborated with were in the heart of historically and systematically marginalized communities in the bronx, new york, houston, texas, and mccomb, mississippi. these communities were comprised of hardworking, caring, and inspiring families who desired a learning experience that would equip their children to be changemakers in their own realities. the co-founders of revx are three incredibly well-rounded, dynamic, and brilliant black women who dared to act on a freedom dream to create a world where children claim their power, evolve themselves, and transform the world around them. their investment in my potential and deep love and accountability for my identity as a black man in america were magnificently manifested and nobly nurtured throughout our partnership. their graciousness, humility, and altruism in allowing me to utilize their intellectual property, adopt their framework, and work collaboratively to adapt and adjust the model to enhance the research was truly remarkable. working closely with educators who were dedicated to their communities and witnessing the direct impact of our collaborative efforts reinforced the importance of culturally responsive and community-centered educational practices. this experience deepened my understanding of the systemic challenges faced by marginalized communities and strengthened my resolve to contribute to meaningful and sustainable change through education. https://revxedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/revx-blueprint-and-instructional-guide_-v1.0_2023-2.pdf https://revxedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/revx-blueprint-and-instructional-guide_-v1.0_2023-2.pdf https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5dca8f50-2186-4f41-9193-9eb8b5a07245/content https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/5dca8f50-2186-4f41-9193-9eb8b5a07245/content dossier style dissertations impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 35 lessons learned and implications for practice the doctoral journey that our graduates have traversed is one of transformational change, for all of us involved in the process. those of us who served as the advisors and doctoral committee members undoubtedly were made better by the doctoral students’ new ideas, new questions, thoughtful research, and embedded projects in the professional practice. in the following sections, we describe how the dsd with the ap provides a direct route to rapid innovations for professional practice through a thorough understanding of the problem. further, we assert that the dsd, and any dissertation, should be the road to growing scholar-practitioners who are problem diagnosticians and solution calibrators. rapid innovations based on needs assessments by allowing the doctoral students to focus on the needs assessment study as the main research component of the dsd and create an ap to address the needs, the doctoral students were empowered to take products into the profession for refinement with their research-practice partners in their workplaces. dr. vasquez did this by working with exhibition designers and curators, which resulted in a greater desire to include multiple voices for the implementation of the guide. in addition, as described by dr. robbibaro, the ap expanded students’ opportunity to address the pop beyond their immediate sphere of influence. this type of dissertation adaptation creates jumping off points for doctoral graduates in their professions, launching their new collaboration as newly commissioned scholarpractitioners. graduating competent scholar-practitioners with both components in hand, a needs assessment and an informed project co-created with their colleagues, uses a similar approach to what community development professionals have been doing for years. for example, peace corps volunteers are first asked to get to know their communities and conduct needs assessments to inform their work with their communities, because community planning is optimized when the needs of the community are first understood (arthur & blitz, 2000; teichert, 2009); and public health professionals traditionally conduct healthcare assessments to determine the needs of populations (wright et al., 1998). similarly, this dsd provides both experiences, a needs assessment and an ap to address the needs, which helps budding scholar-practitioners serve their professional organizations effectively. distinct scholar-practitioners our edd doctoral graduates represent a unique type of practitioner, the scholar-practitioner; they not only have a new set of tools in their toolboxes, but they have a fresh coat of paint on their toolboxes, their new identities as scholar-practitioners. not only have they developed meaningful projects ready for implementation in their practice, but they themselves are a new kind of professional for their organizations. they have partnered with their colleagues from their professions and taken them along their doctoral journey. this collaboration has the potential to expedite the understanding of problems of practice and their improvement (bryk et al., 2015). the ap of the dsd allows for students to create a project or program that addresses factors that influence the pop, and it still allows for doctoral committee review, revisions, and suggestions. the implementation and evaluation happen in the professional context once the doctoral student has graduated, or sometimes while they are completing the program. further, the iterative process of cocreating and refining research-informed interventions with researchpractice partners can accelerate the innovations through these rich relationships, which ultimately solidify the doctoral students’ identity transformation into scholar-practitioners, as was shared by dr. williams in his research-practice partnership with the dynamic leaders of revx. while the dsd is the final requirement for the doctor of education degree, we would not classify this necessarily as an endproduct. similar to a traditional dissertation, the dsd research journey requires doctoral students to engage in an original empirical project that allows these burgeoning scholar-practitioners to become, what dr. robbibarro called a “student of practice" for life. the dsd and any dissertation are launching pads, catalysts for igniting practitioners’ life-long journeys into scholarly practice within their fields to engender positive improvement for the betterment of the people in their spheres of influence. problem diagnosticians and solution calibrators providing this dissertation example from the johns hopkins university soe edd program is one that we propose should be considered for other programs contemplating how to adapt doctoral products for their edd programs. needs assessment studies provide the essential framing of the pop, through the literature, and examination of the factors of the problem through empirical exploration. then, creating and co-creating the intervention or solution or tools for the professional practice in response to the needs assessment and informed by the literature allows the doctoral students to adapt their solutions iteratively in their professional contexts without the pressure of evaluating and implementing the products or programs with the constraints of the university institutional review and the limitations of small participant populations. in the cases of our three graduates and co-authors (robibbaro, 2023; vasquez, 2023; williams, 2022), the products were genuinely collaboratively generated with their research-practice partners using their research lenses together, providing the graduates with solid steppingstones into the scholar-practitioner roles in their professions. leadership opportunities abound for edd doctoral graduates once their dissertations and degrees are completed, both within their current organizations and beyond. what has been lovely about this dsd process is how the scholarly aps organically took on many different forms that allowed doctoral students to direct their learning, their passion, and the professional products that melded their intellectual and professional strengths in leading these professional initiatives. the three graduates from this program leveraged all their scholar-practitioner insights to produce meaningful and data-driven transformative products for their contexts. moreover, they anchored their work in addressing the nuanced factors of the problem with their professional research-practice partners in response to their needs assessments. the dsd processes nurtured the growth of these scholar-practitioner leaders. we offer these insights, comparisons, and lessons learned to document their growth and journeys as well as our own growth as doctoral advisors. whether it is a dsd or any kind of dissertation, there is so much meaning and value in deeply understanding the contextualized problem and the systems that influence the factors of the problem. without this clear understanding, we will always be spinning our wheels in education throwing blunt solutions at problems. our hope is that any edd program would deeply engage their doctoral students in learning how to be problem diagnosticians. johnbull et al. impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.508 36 these types of scholar-practitioners look at the system and the context-based factors of a pop through the literature and through a needs assessment study to better understand the nuances of the problem and to determine which factors are most treatable. they calibrate solutions to address the factors of the problem. doing education problem triage, in a sense, is what we hope our doctoral graduates can do, which means their paths forward are limitless. we hope that with these accounts and reflections, more programs will be encouraged to provide a menu of choices to doctoral students. doing so will catalyze doctoral student professional growth as scholarpractitioners and thereby ignite momentum with their researchpractice partners in their spheres of influence to make the world a better place, one organization at a time. reference arthur, m. w., & blitz, c. 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(1998). health needs assessment: development and importance of health needs assessment. bmj, 316(7140), 1310–1313. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.316.7140.1310 https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2024.399 https://doi.org/10.2202/0027-6014.1724 https://www.jstor.org/stable/24614019 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-019-09355-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00322-w https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/80d33672-66cb-46d5-afbf-bc03ac8af9e4 https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/80d33672-66cb-46d5-afbf-bc03ac8af9e4 https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/a8df5ae9-56b4-4a30-a62d-501e78f71593 https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/a8df5ae9-56b4-4a30-a62d-501e78f71593 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/678295 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.316.7140.1310 ranjini mahinda johnbull johns hopkins university camille l. bryant johns hopkins university maria vasquez dirección de educación y cultura municipalidad de guatemala emily robbibaro upper st. clair school district jeremy williams transcend education transition from the applied dissertation to the dossier style dissertation applied dissertation vs. dossier style dissertation dossier style dissertation options: applied project and empirical deep dive examples from graduates: scholar-practitioner journeys dr. emily robbibaro’s journey dr. maria vasquez’s journey applied project and research-practice partners changes in scholar-practitioner identity dr. jeremy williams’ journey applied project and research-practice partners changes in scholar-practitioner identity lessons learned and implications for practice rapid innovations based on needs assessments distinct scholar-practitioners problem diagnosticians and solution calibrators reference impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice new articles in this journal are licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 united states license. this journal is published by pitt open library publishing. 1 this journal is supported by the carnegie project on the education doctorate: a knowledge forum on the edd (cped) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu issn 2472-5889 (online) vol.10 no.3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 nourishing alternatives: an introduction to the special issue vachel miller appalachian state university millervw@appstate.edu star brown appalachian state university brownsp@appstate.edu abstract this special issue explores the expanding landscape of alternative dissertations within doctor of education (edd) programs, showcasing how scholar-practitioners are reimagining the dissertation as a dynamic platform for addressing authentic problems of practice. moving beyond the traditional five-chapter format, edd programs are embracing formats such as dissertations-in-practice, public scholarship, portfolios, and multimedia projects. these alternatives encompass theoretically informed inquiries that reframe problems of practice through multifaceted lenses, empowering educational leaders with new ways to understand, navigate, and respond to the complex realities of their work. in this introduction, we provide a conceptual overview of the shift toward alternative dissertations, through the work of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and calls to bridge theory and practice. we also preview the articles in this issue, which offer insights about the design, implementation, and implications of alternative dissertation models from multiple perspectives across institutions—including those of graduate schools, programs, faculty advisors, and students. collectively, these contributions illuminate how edd programs and edd students are reshaping the dissertation to better serve educational leaders and their communities, while honoring the complexity and diversity of scholarly practice. keywords alternative dissertations by now, the critique is familiar: traditional dissertations don’t work for practitioner-focused doctor of education (edd) programs. imported uncritically from the requirements for the doctor of philosophy (phd) degree, traditional dissertations—focused on finding and filling a knowledge “gap” in a tightly-disciplined literature base—offer the assurance of academic legitimacy…at a cost. for practicing educational leaders, traditional dissertations are often burdensome to write; linear and formulaic; disconnected from practice; psychologically constraining and draining; and largely inaccessible to a practitioner audience. if the purpose of edd programs is to train change leaders and uplift stewards of the profession, traditional dissertations often feel unfit for the task. in response, the carnegie project for the educational doctorate (cped) and a diverse community of edd programs have advocated for dissertations-in-practice (dip). this form of dissertation centers action/improvement-oriented methods, in which practitioners seek to generate and document specific changes in local systems. dissertations in practice (dips) have increasingly become the norm—and often the gold standard—among edd programs, particularly those affiliated with cped. according to a 2020 survey of cped member institutions, more than half use the term dissertation in practice to describe their culminating scholarly endeavor (perry, 2024). while the specific purpose, methodology, and format of dips may differ across institutions, they are united by a shared emphasis on addressing complex problems of practice through applied, practice-embedded research. as perry (2024) explained, through the dip, students are “expected to apply scholarship, inquiry, and research to a broad educational problem that they see playing out and face daily in their organization and work” (p. 14). in doing so, the dip not only serves as a rigorous academic exercise, but also bridges the gap between theory and practice and produces tangible improvements in educational settings. such focused, problemsolving inquiry has an impact that ripples out from the site of practice. working through cycles of improvement in a local educational setting, students gain skills that they can use again, to lead change processes in the future. in this respect, the dip has become a professionally-attuned and adaptable vehicle for the development of scholar practitioners in edd programs (everson et al., 2024). early in our editorial conceptualization of this special issue on alternative dissertation approaches, we encountered a key question: is it all about dips? the dip model itself is flexible and can accommodate multiple methodologies and formats including collaborative and product-oriented models (perry, 2024). many of the proposals for articles that we received did indeed explore various incarnations of the dip. and that led us to wonder: even with its flexibility, has the dip itself become a new form of “traditional” https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1391-3805 https://orcid.org/ miller & brown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 2 dissertation? in what ways has the dip animated, guided, clarified— and constrained—the collective imagination and inquiry practice of edd students and edd programs? even as cped has championed the dissertation in practice and improvement-oriented methods, the dip continues to demonstrate its elasticity. as highlighted in the 2020 cped convening and subsequent professional exchanges in impacting education and other spaces, the dip has morphed into new shapes that still have a family resemblance, as well as forms that have broken free from academic convention, often employing new media to enhance accessibility and engagement. the unsettled quality of the edd dissertation is a good thing. long-standing questions about the form and purpose of the edd dissertation have enriched the field. in their article in this special issue, carter and krahenbuhl (this volume) point out that dissatisfaction with the status quo is a key force for innovation. they envision the edd dissertation as a “maker project” and ask: • what if the dissertation could take the form of a podcast? • what if the dissertation could be written in problem of practice teams? • what if the dissertation could be replaced by a digital portfolio? • what if a dissertation could be a documentary film? fortunately, these are no longer “what if” questions. they’re living possibilities, with models, inspirations, reflections, and caveats from faculty and edd graduates who are eager to share their insights. this special issue features several dip-related approaches, such as the three-chapter dissertation model from dayton university (ziskin et al., this volume) and the dossier style dissertation from johns hopkins university (johnbull et al., this volume). these models continue to expand and enrich the repertoire of dip options. while highlighting these innovations, this special issue also leans into contributions that open other spaces in the conversation about alternative dissertations. we’ve been particularly interested in approaches that center accessibility, engagement, identity, creativity, advocacy, and theoretical thinking; as well as perspectives that pose underlying questions of form and function, amid the broader politics of knowledge/action production. given the multiplicity of options at play for constructing dissertations within the edd community, this special issue of impacting education offers a sampling of dissertation possibilities. it does not attempt to categorize certain approaches as being dips or not; nor does it attempt to draw boundaries among alternative approaches. a primary purpose of this special issue is making alternative approaches to the dissertation more fully visible, highlighting emerging models with enough detail to enable faculty advisors and edd students to clearly see the content, organization, and design of a particular model. in several articles, edd graduates narrate their experience with these models to provide a grounded, first-person perspective on the enticements and obstacles involved in creating a different kind of dissertation. doctoral students who have ventured beyond tradition have often overcome institutional barriers, academic conventions, and self-doubt to produce something very different than a disinterested five-chapter document. a secondary purpose of this special issue is opening broader dialogue regarding the institutional politics and programmatic dilemmas posed by dissertation alternatives. we are very curious about how alternative approaches to the dissertation can unsettle edd curriculum and surface the trade-offs involved with customized dissertation designs vs. standardized approaches that can increase program efficiency and completion rates. traditionally, this introduction would preview the special issue’s purpose and then provide brief highlights of the content of each article. but we decided to write the introduction a little differently. as the program director and dissertation coach in the edd program at appalachian state university, we have been advising and thinking about alternative dissertations for many years, together with our colleague, dr. chris osmond, who collaborated with us on the conceptualization and development of this special issue. we are aware that our experiences at several levels—pedagogical, methodological, philosophical, and programmatic—have entangled us deeply in the dialogue about what dissertations look like, how they function, and what they’re for. because we have been thinking with the contributions to this special issue for more than a year during the editorial process, we felt it was more appropriate, and more interesting, to compose this introduction as an integrated reflection on dissertation work in edd programs, engaging with the contributing articles as touchstones for larger insights and questions. in the following pages, we spotlight several key themes that thread the articles in this special issue together and speak to the restless evolution of the edd dissertation. we start with a brief discussion of the challenge of mapping the prevalence of alternative approaches, much like counting the number of flowers blooming in a meadow over the course of a summer. we then summarize several key arguments our contributors make for the importance of dissertation alternatives, centering matters of access and engagement. we also explore how alternative approaches may rewire the circuits of energy flow for scholar practitioners. our discussion then turns toward some of our own recent experience with dissertations at appalachian state university to consider the idea that dissertations may be their most powerful when they become the work that only that particular student could do. from there, we consider the programmatic implications of alternative dissertation approaches. finally, we briefly revisit the role of theory in edd dissertations and the challenge of labelling emerging approaches as “alternative.” our introduction closes with a series of unresolved questions for readers to carry into their own dialogue with our contributors. it’s hard to know what’s happening out there how many edd programs feature alternative vs. traditional dissertation models? hard to say: the extent and nature of alternative dissertation approaches are difficult to determine with any empirical precision. some programs advertise “brand name” alternative approaches in their program websites or handbooks, such as a program-specific version of the dissertation in practice. meanwhile, some edd programs are going hybrid, with students having choices among dips and the traditional model. sometimes, a prospective applicant to our edd program asks: do you require a traditional dissertation? our answer is inevitably, yes and no. a program like ours at appalachian state university features a mix of mainstream dissertations and alternative approaches, without direction on what alternatives look like. we don’t advertise being traditional or alternative; we are open to both, and nourishing alternatives impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 3 doing things differently is an emergent possibility rather than a program-made model. we may not be unusual in that regard. in the broad field of edd programs, it is impossible to count the number of programs in which alternatives are happening, because they are often unnamed or inchoate, percolating up from the creative bubbling energies found in programs that ask “what if?” as happening at middle tennessee state (carter & krahenbuhl, this volume) and “why the f**k not?” as happening at northern kentucky university (worthy et al., this volume). after compiling this special issue, our impression is that many non-traditional dissertation approaches fly under the radar and may not be visible on program websites or graduate school bulletins. alternative approaches may flourish under particular organizational circumstances: a flexible graduate dean; a methodologically-eclectic faculty; a non-conforming cohort of edd students. the creative products arising from such circumstances can open a pathway for other students to follow and may become an ongoing feature of an edd program. in compiling this special issue, however, we’ve learned that alternative options can wither when the growing conditions change. in their article about collaborative dissertations at american university, cohen et al. (this volume) remark that collaborative projects are no longer being undertaken. similarly, faculty from san jose state note that their program is no longer supporting documentary film (jaffer et al., this volume). clearly, not all innovations take root and become institutionalized. the sustainability of alternative dissertation approaches often depends on the continued presence of their original champion (among the faculty or in the graduate school) as well as edd students dissatisfied with traditional models. the argument for alternatives: access, engagement, and energy in a world where there is such intense competition for attention, long formal documents—especially when composed in a dry, thirdperson voice—have limited circulation. making dissertations more accessible and attractive—to professional peers, to community stakeholders, and to policy-makers—emerged as one of the most prominent arguments for alternative dissertation approaches. at rowan university, the edd program emphasizes the power of public scholarship, centering students’ opportunities (even responsibilities) to craft their findings and recommendations to engage readers in public dialogue about critical educational issues (johnson & kerrigan, this volume). as part of their dissertation work, edd students at rowan write both an academic journal article and create a “student’s choice” product—a webinar, an infographic, or a public art project—that puts their research to work for advocacy. thus, the dissertation inquiry propels them to become both scholar practitioners and public intellectuals. the power of a dissertation to advance critical awareness or advocate for action on a particular problem depends, to a large extent, on its accessibility. students at san jose state found that documentary film enabled their work to reach non-specialist audiences in more complex ways than a traditional document ever could (jaffer et al., this volume). likewise, lane (this volume) explains how she was able to engage multiple audiences with a documentary film that adapts material from her dissertation document. the film reached audiences that may not have read the dissertation and can now engage with the critical questions and insights posed by lane’s research examining the marginalization of black american english within k–12 curricula and instructional practices. with regard to broadening impact, several contributors to this special issue point to the power of decentering, even intentionally shrinking, the traditional literature review. in the three-chapter model at dayton university, for example, the first chapter includes an abbreviated literature review along with all the other elements of a typical dissertation design; in short, the literature review is one component of chapter one, instead of being its own large chapter. as johnson and kerrigan (this volume) point out, an exhaustive literature review can distract students from more pressing research activities. when faculty change the expectations for students to demonstrate “command” of research literature, students can put more energy into creating articles/products that will be attractive and useful to a professional audience. as several authors within this volume attest, when doctoral students have a creative hand in shaping their work to reach audiences that matter to them, the work takes on a greater level of urgency and authenticity. in the e-portfolio dissertation, for example, one of the authors points out that having an electronic portfolio has proven more accessible to family and co-workers (lee-johnson et al., this volume). at another level, a more creative, inclusive approach to dissertation work can enable what might be called “accessibility-toself,” i.e., enable students to incorporate multiple aspects of their own identities. as mullooly notes, “utilizing the eportfolio granted me the opportunity to create doctoral work that felt more representative of my multi-faceted identity as creative, a scholar and a professional” (reynolds et al., this volume, p. 43). having a more inviting, accessible form of the dissertation carries professional value for edd graduates. as authors from webster university point out, potential employers may engage with the accessible elements of a digital portfolio (such as a professional website or video) in ways that may never have happened with a traditional dissertation (lee-johnson et al., this volume). tapping the deep energy writing for an audience of three—the faculty dissertation committee—can be dispiriting for professional educators. one of the under-appreciated criticisms of traditional dissertations is that they’re exhausting to write. how many times have doctoral students lamented that they “just want to be done”? one of the most important questions arising from this special issue is this: how might alternative dissertations tap into a deeper wellspring of energy? as the contributors to this special issue highlight, there are different kinds of energy to unleash via alternative dissertations. the dissertation in practice taps into the professional desire for organizational change and equity. through the use of improvement science processes (e.g., root cause analysis, identification of driving forces, and iterated cycles of action/measurement/reflection), dissertation work by scholar practitioners can generate the energy of the new and improved; the energy that arises when an organization breaks free of its operational constraints to enact innovation. that energy flows beyond the individual scholar practitioner; it circulates throughout the team involved in the work and ideally, throughout the organization and broader stakeholder communities. miller & brown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 4 in this special issue, several articles point to other sources of energy that dissertation work can unleash. in johnson and kerrigan’s (this volume) article, for example, they point out that public scholarship, as it ripples out into a community of practice, produces the energy of contributing to social dialogue and shifting understandings of educational problems. through the dossier style dissertation at johns hopkins university, students conduct a needs assessment and, on that basis, author an applied innovation project, such as a guide to designing visitor-center art exhibitions for museum professionals (johnbull et al., this volume). such products provide immediate, tangible, useful material for informing, advancing, and energizing practice. another source of energy is the personal meaning of the project. when a dissertation project enables a student to explore and articulate a deep question in their own lives, it becomes a transformative project that can generate moments of healing; moments of power; moments of intense intellectual realization that can become a catalyst of embodied transformation. these multiple energy sources are not mutually exclusive; in many cases, the personal and professional energies can fuse together, resulting in projects that are both impactful and introspective. ideally, edd dissertations can be both. far from being template-driven or replicable, these dissertations are as unique as the individuals who create them. with rich reflective elements—such as leadership philosophy statements, journal-style narratives, and personal letters to key stakeholders—these works integrate theory and practice in deeply personal ways. they serve not only as scholarly contributions but also as a testament to the profound personal growth that takes place during the doctoral journey. the work that only this person can do in spring of 2025, the edd program at appalachian state hosted more than 20 dissertation defenses. one of those projects, written by a speech pathologist, used decolonizing methodologies to articulate a strengths-based framing of black parent engagement in education (james, 2025). in another project, a black woman principal (mcintosh, 2025) gathered together other black women leaders to create a quilt to represent their resilience. both of these projects were deeply grounded in the students’ embodied (racialized, gendered) experience in the world. in a poststructural genealogy of educational assessment, smith (2025) found inspiration from dante’s divine comedy to organize his critique in “cantos” and “hymns” that narrated the ways assessment practices had scarred him as a child and fueled his critical analysis as a teacher, buttressing his transformation into a scholarly practitioner. this summer at appalachian state, jimenez (2025) defended our first podcast dissertation. like colleagues at rowan university, jimenez positions her podcast as public scholarship and, similar to the edd graduates from webster university and portland state, she was motivated to make her work on culturally sustaining practice and technology accessible to a broader audience. her work was grounded in her own commitment to children’s belonging in schools and her desire to humanize research by giving extended airtime to the nuanced voices of her participants. jimenez’s podcast, as a medium, enables her and her participants to be heard in different ways—and by a different audience–than a traditional text-only dissertation could allow. one of the simple, yet radical, threads linking these projects is that they could only be composed by that very unique human being. in our program, we often encourage students to explore and write what only they can write—what’s brilliantly particular to their educational experience and being in the world—both grounded in, and extending beyond, their current practice. how the project may (or may not) fit within a traditional five-chapter framework is a secondary concern. similarly, the authors (worthy et al., this volume) from northern kentucky university point out: many of us found that the start of our work began with intentional attention given to what bothered us, what moved us, what mattered to us. we chose different dissertation design paths not (necessarily) to buck the systems and structures that maintained fixed containers but instead as an agentic move toward the creation and elevation of liberatory and identity-formed scholarship. that is, at its core, what we believe a dissertation should do. (p. 97) that said, we’ve also learned that deviation from tradition based on individual visions demands more thinking, more energy, and more time from both students and faculty advisors. in our program, we counsel students to be cautious about pursuing a non-traditional dissertation, reminding them that doing something “cool” or “new” will likely intensify dissertation committee feedback and prolong their graduation timeline. when timeframes are tight and students’ energy for innovation is limited, it is often most prudent for students to stick with convention and follow the step-by-step guidance for traditional dissertations found throughout the methodological (and abd selfhelp) literature. bespoke vs. embedded organizationally, there are several implications of the idiosyncratic—and sometimes fragile—nature of alternative dissertation approaches. at one level, it is clear that creative approaches to doing dissertations differently depend on the mentoring, support, and advocacy of individual faculty members who are willing to take the leap with their students. as long as those faculty members nurture difference, it can flourish. through the knowledge sharing hosted by cped, the dissertation in practice has become embedded as a signature feature of many edd programs. there are multiple benefits: when all students in an edd program do action research dissertations, then the curriculum can provide sophisticated training in action research, and the development of students’ projects can be scaffolded consistently in coursework. this line of thinking has enabled multiple edd programs to hard-wire the development of a dissertation-inpractice within students’ coursework. key dissertation components are drafted (even completed) within the context of particular courses. after three years of courses, the entire dissertation is complete! for students, this approach can be highly alluring because it saves time/money and protects them from falling into abd-despair. edd programs with embedded (often three-year) dissertations often enjoy tight curricular alignment, higher completion rates, and streamlined advising processes. the downside, however, is that everyone in the program is doing action research. even such an elastic, pragmatic, multi-modal methodology as action research may not be big enough to house the radical imagination and complex positionalities of our current (and future) students. in general, a programmatically-espoused nourishing alternatives impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 5 methodology can become a constraint that limits the possibilities for students to pursue alternative approaches. the traditional is the new alternative: integrating theory to propel the ongoing evolution of dissertation inquiry, this special issue offers provocative thinking about the role of theory, philosophy, and critical traditions in generating possibilities. several articles pose questions underneath the critique that differentiates the dip from traditional dissertations. whereas the dip offers a vehicle for scholar practitioners to pursue programmatic change within the dissertation process, theoretically-informed dissertation work can challenge the way problems are framed, who benefits from a particular framing, and what other framings might reveal. theoretically-informed dissertations can also support new modalities; as cohen et al. (this volume) explore, anti-racist theorizing can become symbiotic with collaborative dissertations, challenging white cultural norms of individualism and centering concern for social justice. by engaging with multiple ways of thinking about epistemology and methodology, students’ thinking can move outside the wellschooled conventions about the nature of research and data. in our program at appalachian state, several students have taken up feminist, critical, and poststructural approaches to research that have changed their questions and avenues of inquiry. these projects often become what brown and proctor (this volume) call dangerous dissertations,” i.e., projects that can challenge the ways problems have been posed and critique dominant discourses that have defined the common sense of educational practice, often through detailed analysis of the exercise of power, sometimes in the writer’s own educational spaces (or related spaces), which makes this approach particularly fraught and nuanced. the intentional emphasis on theory, however, is not intended as a conservative move to reassert traditional scholarly standards associated with phd programs. as argued by thomas-reid and nelson in this issue, challenging students to reconsider the deeper framing of their problems and options for reframing can support cped principles and core values. changing the ways problems are framed from multiple ethical/philosophical perspectives can lead to fresh solutions—even if those solutions haven’t been put into practice yet. refusing the binary framing several authors (foster et al., this volume; worthy et al., this volume) in this special issue pose this challenge: do we need to stop using the term “alternative” to liberate our thinking and de-center “traditional” dissertations as an archetype? even as we celebrate new models, are we caught in binary thinking (traditional/alternative), which continues to privilege the “traditional” and uphold it as the preferred mode of knowledge production? the discourse of “alternative” is challenged by foster et al. (this volume) who argues that, from a black feminist standpoint, it is important not to position difference as deficient in relation to a normative model. indeed, the discourse of “alternative” can maintain the master-status of tradition and can position alternatives as marginal or lacking legitimacy. if we don’t call them alternatives, what are they? one of the interlocutors in the article from northern kentucky university remarks: i love this idea that we don’t do alternative dissertations like, let’s just fuck with the framing altogether and reject the idea that this is an alternative to anything. these are dissertations. this is what dissertations are. (p. 101) the provocative dialogue from the edd program at northern kentucky university (worthy et al., this volume) situates alternative dissertations in a shared ethos of liberatory creativity, rather than in a particular form or format. from this perspective, dissertation work can become a sandbox without defined edges—a playful, imaginative space of freedom—and the most serious work. finding an opening we have realized there is much that goes unsaid in public discussions of the dissertation as an academic genre and convention. as they wrote about the different ways of thinking/doing dissertations in their programs, we also invited authors in this special issue to speak to what is going on behind the scenes in their edd programs. we asked questions about the origins, functions, challenges, and tensions of alternative dissertation work. how have edd programs incubated alternatives within conventional academic cultures? how do you cultivate methodological creativity with a limited curricular menu of research courses? once alternatives start to bloom, how do you make sure they are seriously alternative—and not perceived as avoidance of the hard work of thinking, leading, and writing? several articles tell origin stories about their alternative dissertation approaches. in the case of the eportfolio at portland state, for example, the program found an opening for pursuing a portfolio model in the graduate school’s policy that allowed a dissertation to include multiple articles for publication (reynolds et al., this volume). at webster university, the edd program pursued a strategy of researching alternative approaches in other edd programs and proposing a digital portfolio that still includes a “minidissertation” to address concerns for traditional notions of academic rigor (lee-johnson et al., this volume). another strategy involves the development of dissertation guidelines that find a sweet spot between flexibility in form/format and programmatic expectations for the culminating product for earning the edd. in our program at appalachian state, we have established guidelines for three-article dissertations and a general guideline for “alternative” dissertations. the guideline for alternative dissertations challenges students to articulate their rationale and the form/content they envision for their dissertation, to ensure that there is clear understanding among the student, the dissertation committee, the edd program, and the graduate school about what the student will produce. in this regard, the guideline serves as a grounding and guardrail to prevent frustration and wreckage down the dissertation road. what’s stopping us from doing something different? is it us? beyond policy manuals, several contributions to this special issue point toward another barrier for change: the socialization and mental models carried by faculty advisors. in the article by hamann miller & brown impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 6 and boche (this volume), the authors chronicle trends in dissertation production at the university of nebraska-lincoln (unl). even though the unl edd program was an early cped member and deeply engaged with cped dialogue, the program has primarily produced dissertations that mirror traditional models. given the gravitational force of academic convention in individual mindsets and institutional expectations, the title of the article says it all: “it’s harder to generate alternative dissertations than it looks.” questions about faculty capacity (and desire) to explore dissertation alternatives take on a more critical edge, in situations where the identities and concerns of edd students differ from those of their faculty dissertation advisors. in their article, foster et al. (this volume) suggest that faculty may constrain options for black women to pursue their desired dissertation pathways. the authors note that black women students may “uphold tradition out of fear about how faculty would respond to their pursuit of possibilities” (p. 88). they then point out that: without the graduate program leaders and faculty advisors disrupting tradition or redefining their positions as mentors, graduate students will continue facing obstacles to pursuing alternative courses of action in developing their dissertations. (p. 91) faculty dissertation advisors should be ever-mindful of the ways in which long-established expectations in the academy can stifle minoritized students (foster et al., this volume). the possibilities for edd students to approach dissertations differently often starts with advisors themselves being willing to reconsider which doors they’re closing and which doors they could open. conclusion for those of us who read dissertations for a living, well, let us admit it: the genre can become tedious and predictable. when you have read 100+ dissertations over the years, there’s no suspense anymore about what happens in chapter 5. one of the reasons we have assembled this special issue is to expand our own sense of possibility for dissertation work and seek new sources of energy (with all the entangled tensions of change) that can animate our work as dissertation advisors and program leaders. we advocate for “dissertation multiplicity” (miller & brown, 2024) while honoring the power, relevance, and adaptability of the dissertation in practice in the formation of scholar practitioners. by no means does this special issue contain all possible alternatives or limit new possibilities. there are far more alternative approaches sprouting out there; some of which have names, while others may be unique new creations that challenge our categories. overall, our goal with this special issue is to provide a platform for further experimentation and adaptation, informed by the individual and programmatic experiences of emerging differences in dissertation production. from our work on this special issue, coupled with our ongoing dialogue with each other and our colleagues about doing dissertations differently, we have harvested a series of animating (and often dilemma-riddled) questions: • how can the process of dissertation inquiry enliven doctoral students? what would it look like—for any individual edd student—to pursue dissertation inquiry that generates multiple forms of energy, from the energy of organizational change at school to the energy of personal/professional metamorphosis? • while promoting the dip as a model for enabling professionally-valued dissertation work, how can we expand notions of what it means to do dissertations rooted in the practices, identities, aspirations, and values of our students? • how can students meet programmatic expectations for doing dissertation work in ways that enable new kinds of public accessibility and creative expression? how might digital and portfolio approaches provide a generative container for multiple products/formats that enable a dissertation to be many-things-in-one? • how can faculty unpack their own assumptions about the form/function of the dissertation to better support alternative possibilities? what processes enable faculty to move beyond their own proclivities for holding fast to long-established forms? • how do edd programs and faculty advisors hold a flexible, plural, yet coherent sense of what students are accountable for, in the doing of their dissertations? • how can we remix, resize, and repurpose the traditional components of the dissertation to situate applied inquiry in the service of both professionally impactful and exquisitely personal projects? • what language should/could we use in framing “alternative” models and approaches to avoid undermining the power of difference? • at a pragmatic level, what are the trade-offs involved in espousing, encouraging, or even allowing non-traditional models? how flexible and supportive can edd programs afford to be, while also enabling students to complete their degree in a reasonable timeframe? • how can alternative approaches be sustained over time, in ways that don’t fossilize a particular innovation? how can programs continually produce new work, while also offering students coherent dissertation preparation and clear pathways to completion? these are just a few of the questions we find ourselves asking now, after imagining and curating this special issue. there are more and other questions that the articles in this special issue will spark. we are curious what possibilities and cautions emerge for readers of this special issue, and we welcome the opportunity to engage in continued dialogue. with each new problem our students encounter—and each student that encounters methods, theories, and their own histories anew—the edd dissertation cannot help but continue to co-evolve with our practice. references carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). (2025, may 27). what is a dissertation in practice? https://cped.memberclicks.net/what-is-adissertation-in-practice james, c. (2025). the color of resilience: decolonizing settler logics of black parent involvement [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29538158.v1 jimenez, h. (2025). education isn't a to-to list: a podcast dissertation about educational technology and culturally sustaining pedagogy initiatives in nc [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://sites.google.com/appstate.edu/educationisntato-dolist/home https://cped.memberclicks.net/what-is-a-dissertation-in-practice https://cped.memberclicks.net/what-is-a-dissertation-in-practice https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29538158.v1 https://sites.google.com/appstate.edu/educationisntato-dolist/home nourishing alternatives impacting education: journal on transforming professional practice impactinged.pitt.edu vol. 10 no. 3 (2025) doi 10.5195/ie.2025.556 7 mcintosh, d.b. (2025). the quilted journey: navigating leadership and wellbeing in the lives of black women principals through the lens of black feminism [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29473391.v1 miller, v., & brown, s. (2024). alternative formats: thinking differently about dissertations in practice and faculty dissertation mentoring. in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 205-221). myers education press. perry, j. a. (2024). the history of the dip: dissertation in what? in everson, l. hemmer, k. torres, & s. r. tamim (eds.). the importance of the dissertation in practice (dip): a resource guide for edd students (pp. 924). myers education press. smith, r.a. (2025). liturgy: a foucauldian genealogy on the discourse of moral ideologies within education assessment [doctoral dissertation, appalachian state university]. https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29613587.v1 https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29473391.v1 https://doi.org/10.71889/5fylantbak.29613587.v1 vachel miller appalachian state university star brown appalachian state university it’s hard to know what’s happening out there the argument for alternatives: access, engagement, and energy tapping the deep energy the work that only this person can do bespoke vs. embedded the traditional is the new alternative: integrating theory refusing the binary framing finding an opening what’s stopping us from doing something different? is it us? conclusion references